Laurie Collins
| Laurie Collins | |
|---|---|
| File:Laurie.jpg Portrayed by Emily VanCamp | |
| Codename: | Discharge |
| Affiliations: | X-Men, Xavier Institute - Graduate |
| Birthdate: | September 13, 1990 |
| Journal: | Where the wild roses grow |
| Player: | Seraph |
A college student attempting to get into pre-med and possibly the X-Men's longest serving trainee, Laurie has just returned from a world backpacking tour and is ready to pick up her life.
Contents
Details
Character Journal: x_wallflower_
Real Name: Lauren Olivia Collins
Codename: "Discharge" (trainee name)
Aliases: none
First Appearance: April 25, 2006
Date of Birth: September 13, 1990
Place of Birth: Salem Center, New York
Citizenship: American
Relatives: Gail Collins (mother), Zachariah "Zach" Garrison (father)
Education: Graduate of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.
Relationship Status: Single
Occupation: College Freshman (Pre-Med)
Team Affiliation: X-Men Trainee
Biography
Childhood
Laurie had an interesting childhood, mostly looked after by her grandparents during the day, and she and her mother would spend a lot of time together during the evenings. When Laurie was old enough to travel, Laurie's mother would take her on road trips to various locations around the US, and sometimes overseas to places Gail had a connection with from her modeling days. Laurie's grandparents died while she was still young, having had Gail late in life and passing peacefully in their sleep. Laurie and Gail still visit their gravestones in the local cemetery once a year.
Laurie manifested her mutant powers in her 15th year, during a summer camp where she suddenly became aware of people's changing attitude while in her presence. Upon confiding this weird occurrence to her mother, Gail cautioned Laurie to keep her new found powers under wraps considering the mood of the town.
Laurie continued with her life and schooling, only telling a few close friends of her powers until one of those friends betrayed her to the authorities after a riot at her high school. Laurie was put on trial for inciting the riot and defended by Nathan Dayspring, who eventually cleared her name. After she was released from jail, she decided to enroll at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters with the hope of controlling her powers and one day being able to lead a fairly normal life. The incident, however, left her with a deep distrust of the local police, and a certain hesitancy about police in general, which would later cause her issues with teammate, Garrison Kane.
Life as a 'Gifted Youngster'
Laurie quickly settled into life in the X-mansion, gaining new suite mates in the form of Jennifer Stavros, Crystal Amaquelin, Angelica Jones and Sooraya Qadir, and a roommate in the form of Yvette Petrovic. She was very much a mother hen type, chosen to be Yvette's roommate due to both the calming effect of her powers and her ability to take care of the bewildered younger girl.
After a first meeting with Forge, and some discussion on her powers issues, Forge made an 'air scrubber' for Laurie which allowed her to concentrate on controlling her powers without having to worry about inadvertently using them on anyone while she learned. This marked the beginning of a friendship between the two, one that changed for a time after a Christmas kiss under the mistletoe. Despite her attraction to Forge, Laurie eventually decided that their age difference, plus the uncertainty relating to her powers was just too much of a gap to cross and ended things before they really began. This created a rift between the two which was eventually solved during the events of This Savage Land.
Ambitious and hard-working, Laurie pushed herself academically, physically and with her powers training. She wasn't all work, however, indulging in rather odd bouts of pranking to relieve the stress. She discovered, however, that her powers caused a certain degree of discomfort in people, particularly the "control freaks". When she decided she wanted to try to go without the air scrubber in the suite, Jennie reacted negatively in light of her kidnapping and mindwiping. Over time this, coupled with various incidents regarding her powers (the kiss with Forge, an interaction between her powers and Manuel's at prom which ended badly, a date with Kyle where her powers effected his enhanced senses, stopping Haller's heart by accident during a rafting trip), led to Laurie becoming cautious, almost fearful, about the impact her powers could have on others. Fortunately, this was balanced by her work with Red X, where there were several instances (Living Pele, Red X Mission: Whiteout, Red X Mission: Rising Waters) where her powers were beneficial.
When she found herself kidnapped along with the many of the students, again she was able to use her powers to help herself and her friends. The experience shook her up, however, and she returned to her mother's house until Jennie came to talk her into coming back. The apparent deaths of Crystal and Forge with the disappearance of Attilan hit Laurie hard - unable to do anything to help, she became uncharacteristically angry and moody, having several journal altercations, especially with the equally hot-tempered Kyle.
Floundering
An incident in a dream world led Laurie to start wondering about her absent father, a man she'd never met and who her mother rarely spoke of and never in a flattering way. When Laurie's mother fell ill during a morning taping, Laurie discovered that her mother was suffering from cancer brought on by a prolonged exposure to Zach Garrison's mutant power. After Laurie hunted him down, Zach eventually (and reluctantly) consented to help them find a cure for Gail, and he moved to New York so that he and Laurie could reconcile their familial relationship into something resembling that of a father and daughter bond. Gail was less than pleased with the situation, but couldn't deny Zach access, despite his less-than-rosy past.
Following Gail's cure, Laurie became an X-Man trainee, more determined than ever to fix the world. Her enthusiasm led to a rift opening between her and her roommate, as Yvette felt more and more treated like a child and a victim than like a friend and peer. All was not well on the team either, with Laurie's insecurity regarding her powers and her inability to trust others causing issues with her teammates. She acquitted herself well in Japan, engaging Noriko's help in resuscitating Julio after he stopped a major earthquake in Tokyo. It was a small break, however, as the chaos caused by the breaking of the astral plane drove Laurie to push herself into taking care of everyone around her, whether they wanted it or not. A threat to use her powers to force Jack to eat was taken extremely badly, but Laurie didn't seem to realise what she was doing until a talk with Jean, who she respected immensely and who had also trained with her father and seen the results of using pheramone powers recklessly, frightened her into physical flight. Trying to repress her fears, she engaged in a series of pranks that tended to annoy rather than amuse. Only Morgan Lennox, her new suitemate, seemed to appreciate her.
A series of 'failures' followed. Her training with the X-Men faltered, as she became obsessed with being a 'good' X-Man and compared herself to everyone around her. Her hand-to-hand classes with Garrison were curtailed when she used her powers on him without telling him. She failed to get into NYU's medical school and attempts at "helping" were more often interfering, such as her telling Jay about Kevin's powers addiction. Then a mission in Sri Lanka went terribly wrong as the Indian military conducted ethnic cleansing of Tamils trapped outside the Red Cross camp and the Xavier's people were forced to watch. Laurie, with her need to "do something to help", found the situation especially intolerable, at one point restrained by Crystal from taking on the Imperial Guard. The incident shook her up greatly and she returned to the school in even more turmoil than before.
Hitting the Bottom
The next two months were marked by the loss of two friendships, seemingly for good. Injured when trying to stop Yvette from attacking the man who had kidnapped her, Laurie felt betrayed that a friend would hurt her, even in the throes of emotion. And then in October 2008, following an attack by another mutant, Laurie accused Kyle of not being able to control himself due to his mutation on the open journals, causing an eruption of open hostility against her. Alienated by almost everyone she had once called 'friend', Laurie fled home once more, only to have her mother send her back to the school to take responsibility for her actions.
Apocalypse's attack on New York pushed Laurie to limits that terrified her. Fleeing with her father, she abandoned him when he 'stole' from the apartment they had sheltered in, only for him to come to her rescue against Post. When Post nearly killed Zach, Laurie saved his life, and later discovered she had the reserves to control entire crowds of people as she coordinated with Team Alpha against War. This discovery, plus the knowledge her stubborn moralism had nearly cost her father his life, pushed Laurie even further into not-coping. Eventually she wound up with penumonia from self-neglect, and wound up in the sick bay and then bedrest for a time.
Laurie Collins World Tour '09
Pushed beyond her limits, physical, mental and emotional, Laurie decided a change was in order, and hit on a plan to spend several months travelling the world. Starting in Ireland with Morgan, she met the former mercenary's team mate Eamon again, the two of them hitting it off. Then, joined by Crystal, she continued through Europe, meeting up with mansion residents along the way in Germany, Egypt and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The trip did Laurie much good, although there were the occasional lapses in her judgement - one or two further journal altercations with Forge and Kyle, a heated email exchange with Manuel about his wanting to keep Laurie (and her powers) away from his empathic sister Valentia. Meeting up with Eamon again in Venice, she incurred Morgan's wrath by losing her virginity to him. It wasn't a one-time thing, however, with both of them deciding to give a relationship a shot despite all the obstacles surrounding it, not the least of which being Eamon's continuing work as a mercenary.
In Egypt she found herelf, along with Crystal and Kurt, facing down a possessed Monet - Laurie used her powers to subdue the archeologist using Monet as a weapon. In Bosnia, at a Red X venture, she reunited with Dr. Pierre Marcel, the man who had stitched her up following the incident with Yvette in Kosovo. Marcel is a long-time member of Medicans sans Frontiers, and was able to give Laurie much advice and support, especially in regards to the genocide in Sri Lanka. The peace was shattered, however, when Yvette was injured by a land mine and evacuated to hospital in Kosovo. With doctors unable to treat her due to her mutation, Laurie attempted to use her powers as she had before, to make the younger girl relax, but found she was too far gone for Laurie's powers to work. It was difficult, accepting she wasn't able to do anything for her once-roommate, but Laurie managed far better than she had in the past, looking after others without being obnoxious or holier-than-thou about it.
Following the incident, Crystal and Laurie travelled to Dubai, where they were to meet Forge, Kyle and Doug for a vacation in a state of the art electronically-controlled hotel. After some initial confusion about Laurie's presence (and some rudeness on Forge and Kyle's parts), the group settled in nicely, until attacked by Milan and Quentin Quire, nerds with grudges against Forge and Doug. Laurie and Kyle were trapped in an elevator but managed to escape, Laurie using her powers to give Kyle the energy to climb multiple stories with her clinging to his back. She then joined Crystal in taking down Quire, although he managed to attack her psychicially for a moment before Crystal bounced him off the wall. Regrouping and relaxing in Attilan briefly, the group then returned to the school, where Laurie announced the end of the trip and her hopes to complete her X-Men training and get back on track with her attempt to get into pre-med. New suitemate Jean-Phillipe Colbert was in for a shock.
Physical Characteristics
Height: 5'5"
Weight: 115 lbs
Eyes: hazel
Hair: brownish-blonde
Other: When exerting herself with her powers, Laurie's hair, skin and nails all turn purple. This can take several hours or days to fade, depending on the depth of the power use.
Powers
Laurie's mutant power is that of pheromone control. She can affect the physical state of a person through the release of these pheromones. They do not effect a person's emotional state, although if someone did not know what was going on, they might develop an emotional reaction such as fear simply from the strangeness.
An example: when Laurie is in a state of stress, people around her will start to sweat, their heart rate will increase and they will have tightness in their abdomen but they will not have the corresponding emotion for this set of reactions. It would be very disorientating to someone who didn't know what was going on.
One of the side effects of her power makes her a clear communicator with animals, although she is not able to understand them at all. This has also been shown to be deterimental, as in the dinosaur incident, where she discovered reptiles and insects are drawn to her.
As of 2009, Laurie is now able to control whether her powers are "on" or "off", including when in contact with someone, although she needs to wash her skin to avoid residual contamination. Under great stress she is still known to "leak", and if she has been using her powers a lot, she turns purple.
Equipment
Formerly the air scrubber Forge made for her. Looks vaguely like an iPod and makes a small humming noise when turned on.
Trivia
Laurie used to be on the track team at her old school and still keeps up her training in the mornings, usually getting up quite early to do so.
The name of Laurie's journal is inspired by the song Where the wild roses grow sung by Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue
Plots
2006
Living Pele (as part of Red X)
2007
2008
Red X Mission: Shake Hands With The Devil
2009
2010
Meta
Player: Seraph
E-mail: 
AIM: LadySeraAngel
PB: Emily VanCamp
Grade change: Laurie spotaneously changed from Junior to Senior when the player realised she'd completely buggered up the U.S grading system from the start and needed to change things in order to reflect what she'd been writing in logs. Hopefully there shall be less confusion in the future. Although said player is somewhat dreading having to muck about with the college system - since she's got bugger all idea of how that works either. There shall be throwing of oneself on the mercy of knowledgable Americans when this stage is reached.
