Player nickname: ichi
Player DW: irrigo
Way to contact you:
Email: ezzigreenie@hotmail.com
AIM: kowareta ichi
Other: @UNSPEAKINGLY
Are you at least 15?: y!
Current Characters: minatsuki takami, john egbert, celty sturluson, river tam, shijima kurookano, sherlock holmes

Character: Raven Darkhölme (Mystique)
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Character Notes:
History:

XMFC is a weird reboot and thoroughly different from any other Marvel universe, especially 616, so instead of trying to awkwardly cram comicverse history into here somewhere to fill in the gaps, I'll just go with what the movie gives us.

Born with the mutant power of shape-shifting, but also the unfortunate curse of being blue and scaly, Raven was rejected and persecuted by those around her from an incredibly young age. She presumably lived on the streets for some number of years, stealing and doing whatever she could to survive. This changes around the age of ten, when she ends up in Westchester, New York, and she gets caught trying to steal food from the Xavier household by none other than the young mutant telepath Charles Xavier. He accepts her mutation, both the shifting and her true appearance, delighted to find someone who is unusual just as he is. He invites her to stay, and she becomes something of an adopted sister to him after that; by their powers combined, they most likely convince the Xavier family that she is an average girl who belongs with them.

Skip ahead twelve years to during the Cold War, and Raven has followed Charles to England; she takes a course in waitressing, while he goes to Oxford to pursue his genetics studies. Eventually, he becomes a Professor, and on that same day their whole peaceful secret life gets ruined. Moira MacTaggert, a CIA agent, comes to solicit the assistance of Charles in the area of mutations, and because Charles is a nice guy who refuses to let other people handle the whole thing, him and Raven end up accompanying Moira back to America, where Charles gets them both involved in the tracking down of Sebastian Shaw, a powerful mutant supremacist. Their first encounter does not go so well, because Shaw and all his minions escape, but they pick up Erik Lehnsherr, a mutant with control over magnetism on a revenge mission to brutally murder Shaw. He reluctantly joins their cause, and the happy little band of mutants goes to a special facility that the CIA deems is necessary to hold them.

And at this facility they adopt their next mutant family member! Charles accidentally outs Hank McCoy for having super intelligence and freaky ape feet, and Raven takes an immediate shine to him. They bond over having abnormal appearances, Hank decides he might be able to make a serum out of her blood that fixes their appearances, Raven tries to make out with him and Erik cockblocks her.

In an effort to further expand their mutant family, Charles uses a brainwave-amplifying machine that Hank built called Cerebro, and he tracks down other mutants with his super telepathy. They pick up Angel (dragonfly wings, spits fire), Darwin (adapts to anything), Sean (supersonic scream) and Alex (laser frisbee discs) who all become Raven's new friends and a now new bunch of kids that Charles and Erik have to take care of. They do stupid things like have destructive parties, show off their powers and make up codenames for themselves, leading to the first set of X-Men aliases.

Unfortunately, when Charles, Erik and Moira all fly off to look for Shaw in Russia, they only find Emma Frost; Shaw is back at the CIA facility, and he finds the mutant kids. He gives them a rousing speech and some vague threats, and the end result is not good - Angel joins him, and in their attempts to stop her and attack Shaw, Darwin gets killed. Charles decides that they have to bail after that disaster, and he takes everyone remaining to the old Xavier mansion where he and Raven used to live. By this point, they've uncovered Shaw's plans in all of this; to escalate the Cold War, using the Cuban Missile Crisis as his starting point, and plunge the world into World War III. It's up to Charles and his ragtag group of mutants (and Moira) to stop this from happening. Cue training montage.

Meanwhile, Raven has a lot of Issues. Erik makes some offhanded comments to her about not being ashamed of her true appearance, an insecurity she has been struggling with for a while, and so she rejects Hank's serum and tells him that he should stop being ashamed too. Hank is not exactly keeping up with this sudden 180°, and his persistent bitterness and a slightly tactless remark of his hurts Raven's feelings badly; while he takes the serum and turns into a giant furry blue monkey man, she runs off and awkwardly tries to seduce Erik. Erik finally convinces her to give up her blonde disguise, kisses her and then kicks her out because they have a missile crisis to stop the next morning. Raven has a big fight with Charles after that due to a lot of mutual misunderstandings, and everybody goes to bed angry.

Raven takes a serious back seat in the actual event of stopping Shaw's evil WWIII plans, although she helps out here and there; in short, Erik kills Shaw and then becomes him, a mutant supremacist hell-bent on wiping out the human race. He marches outside and announces this, and not everyone takes it particularly well. He attempts to destroy both the Russian and American naval fleets that fire on them, and Charles has a bit of a problem with this sudden mass murder, so they scuffle - and unfortunately, when Moira joins in, things take a turn for the worst, and Charles gets shot in the spine. There is a very emotional divorce scene, and then Erik leaves him on the beach and invites the kids to join him on the anti-human side of this burgeoning new mutant-human war. Unsurprisingly, out of all the good guys left, only Raven chooses to join him. She says goodbye to Charles, delivers her mutant and proud line, and runs off to be part of the Brotherhood of Mutants.

Personality:

Raven Darkhölme is a young woman, leaning definitely more towards the teenage side of things than the adult, and on a first-meeting surface level, her behaviour is entirely typical of this. She's playful, rebellious when she can get away with it, she's fun-loving and incredibly sassy when she wants to be. She likes to tease her friends and joke around. She's blunt, forward and upfront to a fault, with little patience for people who dance around issues. She thinks about boys and dumb teenage feelings and she's self-conscious about her appearance. However, Raven is also a big layered ball of issues; one of those issues it should be noted first, is the fact that's she's extremely contradictory and, at times, hypocritical.

The main focus of Raven's character in First Class is her insecurity regarding her true appearance, and the fact that she is forced to hide from the world for being unnatural. She's a strange mix of opposites here; bold and confident in her disguised form, and insecure and shy in her true appearance. Raven yearns for the chance to stop hiding, sometimes resenting Charles for insisting on her disguises, and she wants to be accepted by everyone. At the same time, however, she's utterly incapable of accepting herself; she hides behind her "normal" appearance constantly, even when she's alone. She expects people to accept her blue form even while she's standing in front of them as a pretty blonde. When Hank tells her that the world will never find either of their mutations beautiful and she gets offended, she goes off and tries to seduce Erik in her human form, contradicting the extreme hurt she displayed at Hank's words. After years of being hidden, her insecurities run deep.

Raven, being caught somewhere on the precipice between teenager and adult, is clearly irritated and offended when she's treated like a child, mostly by Charles. She wants to prove that she can be independent and take care of herself; this contradicts two other personality traits that she exhibits, the first being the fact that she can't handle being treated like an adult most of the time. When Charles does expect her to behave like a responsible and mature woman, she gets upset, possibly because she has a different idea of what an "adult" should be like, or possibly because she's spent so long as his coddled little sister that she isn't actually prepared when people do have expectations for her to be an adult.

The second trait is her co-dependence. Raven is never without a figure to guide her in her life; first Charles, and then later Erik. She can't accept herself without first being accepted by other people, she yearns for the acceptance of other people and is defined by their opinions of her, and even then once she has their approval she needs coaxing and reassurance. While it certainly isn't a crippling weakness - she's a fairly strong girl who could pull herself together and make it through, if she were left to fend for herself - it's present nonetheless. At this point in her life, she really does depend on others, and she's unused to being alone and without anyone at all to turn to since Charles found her in the mansion. She wants to be strong and fight, but she wants someone at her side while she does it.

Eventually, Raven does manage to somewhat overcome her insecurities (it's with Erik's help that she finally and wholly accepts herself), adopting the phrase mutant and proud; she finds herself more comfortable and at home with her abilities and appearance in light of her new group of fellow mutant teenage friends. She supports all mutants being open about their abilities, because within the small family that Charles manages to pull together, it feels natural to accept it. But she contradicts herself again, and this is where a large part of her hypocrisy crops up - she refuses to accept Charles' powers. Although she expects him to accept every last part of her mutation, from her shifting to her true form, Raven flat-out forbids him from turning his telepathy on her, essentially rejecting his mutation. She never mentions his abilities in a positive light, either; in fact, she almost gets angry at him for having an invisible mutation unlike hers.

While she's very good at connecting with people who have similar insecurities or fears to her, Raven is admittedly and unfortunately terrible when it comes to empathy outside of that. She either cannot understand or refuses to understand other views that do not coincide with hers; she doesn't even try to see from Charles' perspective, trying to keep himself and his sister safe from a world that is not ready for them, a world that will react with fear and hatred; she understands and sympathises with Angel's fear of being judged by others, and Hank's desires to just be normal - until she begins to accept herself, at which point she abruptly ceases to understand him at all, bewildered by the fact that his insecurities are still as strong as ever. She's incapable of understanding the feelings of others if they're not similar or related to her own feelings. She's even offended by Charles' reaction to her walking into the kitchen in her true form, completely naked with no warning or explanation, for the first time since they were kids just meeting each other; somehow, she just can't or won't wrap her head around the idea that he might not want to see his sister walking around the house naked no matter what skin she's wearing.

Raven is still a strong character despite her faults, though; she is reckless, thoughtless and very often she is headstrong, but she's fiercely loyal when she has someone to pledge loyalty to - at first Charles, I thought it was going to be you and me against the world, and then when she sees the world and the life he is promising, Erik - and while she's not fearless, she can be quite courageous at times. It does take a lot of guts to take Erik's hand on the beach, when what he is vowing to lead her into is an all-out war. She's can be clever, fast-thinking and sneaky, she's quick to defend anything or anyone she believes in, she's stubborn and she absolutely hates inaction of any kind, which contributes to her recklessness, but in the end makes her a force to be reckoned with.

First Person (entry type):

I'm pretty, aren't I?

[she sounds upset - quiet, hoarse. looks upset, too; she's staring at her hands with an odd frustration.]

You'd think I look pretty. I mean, one of you guys would date me, right? I am stunning. [she laughs.] God, I'm so stupid. No, you know what? He's stupid. Guys are stupid. Why shouldn't I care about how I look? That is a normal thing to care about! Charles is all, "ooh, you're being ridiculous," but I'm not. I'm allowed to want people to like the way I look. I just...

Everyone wants to be accepted, don't they?

[she goes back to looking at her hands.]

... Ugh, whatever. Never mind, I'm pretty sure this is a Charles thing, not some "all guys are dumb jerks" crisis. I shouldn't expect him to get it. He's a big nerd. He's always— no. I'm over it! I'm over it. [a coy smile, slow.] But hey, I think the question is still on the table. So... Would you date me?

Third Person:

Being a waitress was never Raven's childhood dream or anything. Actually, she's fairly sure all of her childhood dreams just involved having a home, and someone who would accept her the way she is. She'd never thought about what she was going to do once she'd gotten all of that; it was a wild and immature hope, and a life she'd accidentally stumbled across at the hands of Charles Xavier. Once she had that dream fulfilled, that was it. There was nothing else to do. No more dreams. She just kept the one she'd gotten.

So maybe she'd never had starry-eyed fantasies of being a waitress. Maybe it still wasn't the best job out there, and it wasn't taking her anywhere important; she wasn't going to turn out all perfect and Charles Xavier, Professor of Genetics, smiling down at a crowd applauding for her and her revolutionary efforts. Big deal. She was good at what she did. Waitressing was fine. People liked her, and she knew what people liked. You didn't have to be a telepath to figure out something that easy. When a guy was looking your way, you made your waist a little thinner, hips a little wider; when you talked to older people, you used a younger face. It all got you tips. A better reputation. People liked you more. You got acceptance.

But sometimes, when she was alone, she'd sit down in front of a mirror and watch her hair cycle from blonde to brown to bubblegum pink. And she'd realise that even if she knew what everyone else liked, she didn't know what she liked. They all wanted to see the normal girl, pretty and perfect and human. She wanted to see— she didn't know what she wanted to see.

Sometimes she would watch her reflection peel back and she'd be there, striking and blue and not human. And she would wonder what would happen if she walked out like that, right into the streets, out into a restaurant carrying her trays and dishes. She doesn't really have to wonder, because she knows (she knows well) - they'd scream. Disgust. Fear. Hatred. Rejection. People just don't accept her. Not the way she really is.

Oh.

Maybe she does still have some dreaming left to do.