* Age
20
* Nicknames
Maddie/Maddy/Mads/Mad... things along that vein.
* Affiliation
Independent (for the time being. Pals around with Love the mutant)
* Physical appearance
-Height: 4'00
-Weight: 140 lbs soaking wet
-Eye color: Black sclera, yellow iris/pupils
-Hair: she has none
-Skin color: Varying shades of reddish brown/dark brown
Expressions:
https://2img.net/h/i63.photobucket.com/albums/h121/MusettePBCS/Doodles/Expressions_Maddie_lines_zps8351d9c3.png* Personality
Temperament-
Generally, Maddie is a quiet person who prefers to sit and observe. When involved in a conversation taking, she’d rather listen and only speak when she feels she has something relevant to say, preferring to keep her thoughts and observations to herself unless she feels there’s a good reason for her to share them. She can also tend to be rather pessimistic, maybe even a bit of a defeatist, generally assuming the worst in people and the worst outcomes as the most likely.
Her sense of humor tends to be wry, and she often internally compares herself to Eeyor. Sometimes she worries about her intended humorous observations come off as whiney, though, and usually keeps any amusing observations or quips to herself because of this.
((Read: This character has a lot of internal dialogue, probably more than spoken.))
She typically doesn’t like to think about the future because it depresses her. This isn’t to say she doesn’t have her moments, but they’re just that – moments. She feels happiness just as intensely as sadness, but she feels it the most strongly as its happening. Pleasant experiences don’t stick with her often, and don’t seem to offer much comfort to her once they’re gone.
For obvious reasons, Mads is wary of strangers and would prefer to avoid them if at all possible, at least, human strangers, assuming they will simply treat her as some kind of monster were they to see her. Generally, the ONLY time she might reveal herself to a human would be if she witnessed one in obviously mortal danger and in fear of losing their life for some reason; she could never live with herself if she believed someone might have died because she was too worried about being discovered. Non-human strangers really depend on how aggressive they appear, weather approaching her or as she is observing them.
Maddie typically tends to keep herself withdrawn, however she has the potential to be very clingy if she feels that she’s met someone she likes and can trust – not that she means to be. At least this can be kind of annoying depending on who she’s latched on to, and at worse this leaves her open to manipulation. Supposing she did meet someone she liked enough to want to befriend, she becomes very eager to please and may anxiously and repeatedly request to be given tasks to prove her usefulness and dedication in an attempt to remain in her new friend’s good graces.
She’s also a ‘feeder’, and expresses affection and caring generally by cooking for/offering food. Celebrating something? She’ll want to cook a special meal. Down about something? She’ll offer to brew some tea. Have a bad cold? Get ready for a steady supply of chicken soup. Just… don’t expect anything sweet unless you plan on giving her most of it.
Someday discovering the cause of her transformation, and returning to a human being. Before mutating, she had dreams of somehow becoming rich and famous, and living in luxury, but now after living in such forced solitude, she’d be happy simply living a quiet life raising a family and growing tomatoes in her back yard, having come to appreciate the little things much more. Failing that, she’d be content to find a nice quiet ally behind a cakery to live out the rest of her days.
Writes letters home to her mother so she doesn’t worry. She’s made up a story about meeting a man and running off to see the world; the truth of what’s happened to her is too painful, so she makes up stories about a happier life of love and adventure. Secretly she hopes one day she’ll have the nerve to return home and tell her mother the truth, but honestly doubts her ability to be so brave. Sometimes she does sneak back to her old home and watches her mother through the windows. She also sometimes still visits Matthew’s grave.
* Species
Mutant (Formerly human, ant specific)
* Strengths and weaknesses
Primary skill – Super strength.
Inherited because of the ant-mutation, Maddie has physical strength many times that of humans. She is able to easily lift, carry, throw, things between 500-800 pounds, and struggles but can sometimes manage things between 1-2500 pounds. (This also means she has a mean punch or kick.
Secondary skill – ‘Queen of the Hive’
Fly my pretties, FLY! – Mads has some rudimentary control over hive-type insects (think bees, termites, and yes, ants). As big as she is compared to most insects, she is capable of producing large amounts of the communication pheromones which influence insect behavior. This can, at times, seem to an outside observer as if she has psychic control of hive-minded insects for a short time. This can sometimes be useful, especially in the case of stinging type insects like ants or bees, but isn’t usually something that comes up often.
Secondary skill – Natural Armor.
Because Maddie is a mutant, she doesn’t have a true ant exoskeleton (retaining her mammalian internal skeleton), however, her skin has become tougher rather like hide, and in some places is tough enough to deflect weapons or physical blows (depending on the weapon of course). Her armor isn’t perfect however. She can be stabbed or shot almost anywhere and be seriously injured if not killed, and her armor doesn’t cover her entire body, limited mostly to her upper forearms, shins, outer thighs, shoulders, upper back, top and back of her head/neck, and outer hips.
Secondary skill - Bite
On either side of Maddie's face she has toothy flaps, her Mandibles, which resemble an ants biting mouth parts. They don't do very much usually, though she can close them over her mouth to protect her lips/teeth (kind of like Optimus Prime's face shield?). She CAN bite with them, as well.
Disadvantages:
Super strength –
One might assume having super strength would be a huge advantage, but to be honest most of the time its not. For one thing, she isn’t all that aware of the true extent of her strength. To her, she feels only as strong as she did as a human, making it very difficult to judge exactly how much force she’s using, even for things as simple as a handshake. If she’s not careful, she can accidentally crush or damage objects (and people) around her without intending to.
As such, she finds her own strength more frightening than something to be bragged about and tends to be withdrawn because of that; leery of handling other people’s property or even touching others themselves for fear of hurting them. Because she has spent a lot of time alone since her mutation, avoiding people mostly in an effort not to hurt them, she hasn’t put herself in many situations in which she has had chance to learn how to read and moderate her own strength.
Generally she only displays it at its most impressive when backed into a corner and forced to defend herself.
Natural Armor –
While this too might seem something to be take pride in, it has its cons. Like her strength, her new skin surfaces feel normal to her. Because the armored portions of her body aren’t as sensitive as her human skin used to be, accidental damage to them, even minor damage, often goes unnoticed. For the most part this downside is cosmetic, but she has had one or two injuries that became infected and made her ill because they happened in places that were both thickly armored and in places that weren’t very visible (like her back for example), and did not get treated or kept clean enough simply because she didn’t realize they were there.
Poor Eyesight –
Before her mutation, Madison had 20/20 vision, but since, she’s become myopic, nearsighted. Things farther than 5 feet away or so start to degrade in the detail, mostly becoming fuzzy or ‘hazy’ shapes in color; anything more than 15 feet away, forget about it, she might as well be blind; as such, she kind of squints a lot. Bright lights also bother her a lot and tend to give her headaches.
Smell by touch –
While not –exactly- a disadvantage, it is something that makes Maddie feel very self-conscious. Mads doesn’t have a physical nose in the middle of her face anymore (though she does have a very stubby muzzle), but she CAN still smell with her sensitive antennae. While she CAN detect strong odors (and pheromones) in the air, she smells best when she physically touches or strokes things with the ends of her feelers which are actually remarkably dexterous and gentle.
However because this can often be alarming or disturbing when done in front of or to someone, she tends to refrain from ‘smelling’ things in public or without specific permission. So when she’s in the company of others, she tends to live in a very ‘grey’ world, odor-wise.
Insomnia –
It’s a problem she’s struggled with since before her mutation, but seems to have gotten worse after. Maddie has a lot of trouble falling or staying asleep, and can sometimes go for days without being able to get to sleep. This can, at times, lead to her becoming cranky, moody, and depressed.
* History
Pre-Mutation:
Maddie, shortly before she as mutated.Maddie had a relatively normal (and therefore boring) childhood. For the most part, she was happy, raised by her mother and father along with her twin brother Matthew (or Matty for short). Things weren’t perfect, nothing is, but in general things were pretty good. Her mother was devoted and attentive and patient, and while her father could be distant and moody because he worked a great deal in a field he didn’t particularly enjoy, he was a good provider and they always had a roof over their heads, warm clothes to wear, and food to eat.
Because their mother didn’t think too highly of the public school systems and they could not afford private school, she and her brother (to whom she was extremely close) were homeschooled through most of their grade school years. Madison and Matthew were very happy and bright, but a little socially awkward around other kids because of this. Even so, they were bright years that Maddie remembers with a bittersweet fondness.
(This is the part that gets slightly less boring.)
Bittersweet, because when she was 12, her brother was killed in a car accident when he was thrown from their vehicle. She and her mother survived, though both were injured, leaving Madison with permanent scaring – Not only in her skin but the loss of her brother. She fell into a depression and spent a lot of time alone trying to cope; she thinks this is when she first began struggling with insomnia. The loss of her son also devastated Madison’s mother, who was never quite the same after that. Less joyful, more fearful of the world than before. For a year, Maddie did not take lessons, and by Christmas her parents had filed for divorce. Although they never argued, and Maddie never heard him say so, she always suspected that her father blamed her mother for Matty’s death. The divorce was quiet and quick, and ended with Maddie of course remaining in her mother’s care.
After the holidays and the finalization of the divorce, Margret, her mother, needed to take a job to support the two of them so she was enrolled for the first time in public school. Even if it hadn’t been for the loss of her brother and closest friend, Middle school would have been culture shock after so many years taught at home. Although she did well as far as grades and school work, socially she floundered. Making friends was difficult, and she was often targeted by the school bullies. Over time, she discovered it seemed to be better for her to keep her head down and not attract attention to herself, and although she spent her days around more people than she ever had before, she often felt more alone in those classrooms jam packed full of kids than she ever had when it had just been herself, her mother, and her brother seated comfortably at their kitchen table.
By the time she’d graduated to high school, she was what she referred to as ‘mousy’, and as High School had its challenges, she was less a focus for bullying; her ‘weirdness’ not as much in the minds of her peers as it had been when she’d first joined their ranks. Although she wasn’t a stellar student, she wasn’t one of the worst either and by and large, her high school years were quiet, if just a touch wistful. She tended not to get involved in social activities like basketball games, clubs, or dances, and she didn’t date (though there were plenty of boys she admired quietly from afar). Although she did make one or two casual friends, mostly someone to sit with at lunch or in class and study with, she never grew particularly close with anyone and still felt something of an outsider, as if everyone else was somehow functioning on just one tiny frequency above her and she just couldn’t quite sync up.
Lonely those years might have been, but they weren’t all bad. She became quite self-sufficient, more so than she might have had her brother lived and they had remained in their happy little bubble with their mother. She learned how to keep house, get herself to and from places on time and without supervision, and also discovered a love of drawing and poetry (both reading and writing), as well as cooking. She worked a few summer jobs to help out around the house, and paid to take a cooking class at the local community center. By the time she was ready to graduate high school, while still quiet and a little lonesome, she was more confident than the girl she’d once been and cautiously optimistic about the future.
After graduating, Mads was almost pleasantly aimless trying to figure out her future. She was even considering travelling a bit, since she’d never really been out of the city and was beginning to feel a bit restless, as young people do. In and among trying to decide what to do with herself and get her goals in order, she happened to pick up the paper one day (dun dun dunnnn) and noticed an ad for a clinical trial of some new drug-or-other. Honestly she’s not certain why she became so interested in the cheerfully yet vaguely worded ad… in fact, her memory starts getting fuzzy concerning that whole day, though she suspects it might have implied it had something to do with sleeping disorders and might have hoped it would helped her with her insomnia.
What little she DOES remember is sparse. She has vague recollections of getting on a bus that afternoon in a fairly good mood, arriving at an office building and signing in at the front desk. Then something about a waiting room, being lead into some back area… from there, all she gets is a sense of terror, and a LOT of missing time.
She’s sure the memories are there, but she gets a stomach ache and breaks out in a sweat whenever she challenges the mental block. For now she’s content (as well as she can be) to let it stand.
Post-Mutation:
Her earliest clear memories after her mutation are of being in a cage in some sort of lab or hospital, she was never quite sure and the memories are hazy. She's fairly certain she was drugged, she suspects because of the strength she gained from her mutation in order to keep her from breaking free. She witnessed several other mutations, many which failed... gruesomely and horrifically. Sometimes she was taken out of her confines to have more tests performed on her, but for the most part she was kept imprisoned.
Until the day that another woman, who's name she later learned was Love, was brought into he lab and strapped down. Unlike the others, she survived her mutation, and when she regained consciousness after the process had been completed, she amazed Maddie by attacking their captor and it seemed might actually escape.
Still half drugged, Maddie must have called out to the other mutant who seemed to take notice and taking pity apparently, freed Maddie from her cage. Frightened and disoriented, the only thing Maddie could think to do was to follow Love. At first she only meant to do so until they found their way out of that horrific building, but later she realized that she couldn't return home. Love was also a mutant, and had rescued the ant-girl, so half in gratitude and half out of loneliness she continued to follow Love, eventually becoming friends and for the time being living and surviving together.
* Occupation
Survivor (otherwise known as unemployed because when humans see her they scream AAAAAH!)
* Likes and Dislikes
Likes –
Top of the list: Sweets. Mads has a HUGE sweet tooth, anything from sugar water, to cake, anything sugary and sweet will definitely get Mads attention. While typically a fairly reserved, quiet sort, Mads becomes someone else around sugar and is fully capable of wheedling, begging, manipulating (or being manipulated with the promise of), or even downright threatening someone for a sugary treat.
Other favorites of hers include soft rock/filk music (Science fiction folk music), reading (especially HULK comics and fiction), sketching, romance novels, and cool and breezy overcast days.
Dislikes –
Maddie is pretty sensitive about her mutation, specifically her physical appearance, and has pretty low self-esteem. She really really takes it hard when she’s treated like a monster, being called a ‘freak’ is especially upsetting. Because of general human intolerance, (and worry about hurting people by accident) she tends to isolate herself. This is difficult for her because she’s really not a loner type and is happiest among small groups of friends.
Long periods of SILENCE, or at least, absent human voices, bothers her a great deal and can result in her feeling nervous and anxious.
She also doesn’t like being touched unexpectedly/touching others even for something as small as a handshake or pat on the shoulder (* see Disadvantages – Super strength)
Otherwise, she’s pretty mellow, with most of the usual dislikes. Though, since her mutation the subjects of justice, equality, and fair treatment are things she’s especially passionate about, more so than she was before being mutated.
Phobias:
Fear of rain/large bodies of water –
Not that long after finding herself mutated she had a really bad experience falling asleep in a ditch in an abandoned construction area. It rained, and she began to have a dream about drowning – when she awoke, she thought she actually was and it took her several minutes to struggle out of the ditch and realize she’s alright. Ever since, bad storms, and large/deep bodies of waters make her twitchy.
Fear of Doctors/Surgical equipment –
After being held in captivity as a guinea pig and experimented on, ultimately leading to her mutated state, she has an extreme fear of doctors, anything that resembles a doctor, doctor’s offices, and most surgical equipment and even some medical supplies and tools… especially the sharp pointy ones. Sight of scalpels, exact-o knives, and needles triggers a PTSD reaction which can sometimes be violent.
* RP sample post:
((taken from another forum I play Maddie on from a thread she was involved in. Bolted and centered text are direct quotes from preceding posts by the other members involved for reactionary purposes.))
--"A fall for one person is a fall for others," --
Maddie shot her unexpected, and nosy, companion a brief look though did not comment. Aloud, at any rate.
'Maybe that's true, but only if there are "others" around to fall. I'd be surprised if anything living had passed that way since I did after I moved on... or before that. That pit... Nothing lived there. Nothing except me. That was the whole problem.'True, there had been the other mutants... inhuman and human faces she had come to recognize and accept with calm as nothing unusual, as the new normal. But she had never been one of them. After the fear, after they'd taken their bloody freedom, after there was no more distraction and no more enemy to band them all together, one side versus the other... She had recognized that feeling of 'otherness' she had felt her entire life after her brother's death. It was like constantly waiting on the fringes of a conversation among friends, never quite sure how to insert herself, half doubting herself, sometimes getting a word in edgewise but only vaguely acknowledged.
She'd have been shocked, maybe even a little comforted, if she thought anybody even now knew she had gone missing to wish her deceased other half a happy stolen birthday.
--Beyond the facts of if or when someone might recreate your accident, I believe you have been injured and you need to have some sort of medical care."--
Her swirling bitter thoughts, the creeping fog of loneliness intermixed with the haze of her fever, was snapped briefly into a moment of something resembling clarity and she blinked realizing that they had begun to walk; which wasn't a problem except for the fact that she didn't remember actually making the decision to walk anywhere. She cast another brief glance at her companion, worried that he might have said something more than what she'd caught just now only she'd been too far into her own head to hear it.
Besides which, his stubborn sounding proclamation that she needed medical care instantly made her nervous. Self consciousness returning dimly she tugged her face wrappings and hood in subtle gestures; pretending to scratch a brow, or dust an unseen hair off a cheek, pursue an innocent itch on her cheek while she adjusted her accouterments.
"Yeah well... I-I uh..." she paused to clear her throat uncomfortably. "I'm not big on doctors and medical expenses. I can't... can't just walk-"--"So tell me, young lady, do you remember your name now ... better than you did a few minutes ago?"--
She didn't realize she'd been mumbling, a bad habit she'd had as long as she could remember, until Splinter began to speak over her. The anxiety over the thought of being bullied to a hospital or to see a doctor had temporarily pushed aside the moodiness that had been growing in her ever since her visit to her brother's grave, and all the futility and unfairness and alone-ness she had been filling her thoughts with.
She'd been rude, she was starting to realize. Not that she didn't appreciate someone's concern. Hadn't that been something she'd been wishing for not long ago? Someone to honestly give a damn about someone even as ugly and broken as her? But she really couldn't stay long. Where was the way out of this? Damn this headache! If only she could think.
"I... Its..."--"Hello sensei. Who's your friend?"--
Maddie might not be a ninja, but over the previous months she had learned to be at least paranoid, if her getup was any indication. Usually she was more aware of the sounds of feet coming or going, was beginning to grow a sensitivity for deducing the direction of a passer by, their speed, even their weight. But this second stranger had taken her completely by surprise.
Gasping, she whirled, hesitated briefly in something almost like a double take as she noticed -did... did Splinter have a tail!? - and stared at who was coming up behind them from the same direction they'd just been. Her discovery of Splinter's tail (and what that implied) vanished from her mind as she gazed at the very last thing she would have expected to see down here.
A... a boy in a turtle costume? He sounded youthful, which was why she instantly felt herself classifying him as 'boy' rather than 'man', although he certainly looked manly enough. Although she was a mutant, although she had been sharing her life with a survivor's band of mutants deep underground, Maddie still felt more human than 'other' and still thought like a human. As ridiculous as it might seem, that this boy was also a mutant, an animal-man, was not the first, second, or even third stop her reasoning made in trying to figure him out.
But... if it was a costume, it was amazingly well done, especially the face detail. Too well done. Nobody with a costume that detailed, that time consuming, would just be wandering around in dirty sewer tunnels. And what had he called Splinter? Sen... Sensei? Like karate class or something?
--"In all truth, Donatello, I do not know who she is, but I found her needing help - she is quite ill - and have seen it being in everyone's best interests if we tend to her injuries."--
Donatello? Was that the boy in the costume? (Costumes was easier to process at the moment, even if she sensed somehow it wasn't a costume.)
They... knew each other. Two guys in costumes in the sewer, who knew each other, had found her.
--"If you could assist me, Donatello, I believe we could get her injuries treated and hasten her on the road to recovery," --
She only vaguely registered Splinter's voice, mind spinning with the unexpected arrival of someone new. Now Maddie really needed her brain to function properly, but all it felt like it was doing was grinding with painful noise and giving off smoke. Any minute now, it would come billowing from the almost invisible ear slots in the sides of her head and fogging out her hood as if she were an angry dragon, stinking of oil and brain-matter.
--"Please, before she succeeds in making me any shorter than I already am ..."--
Maddie blinked and stood up straighter, or tried to, realizing that she had let herself lean on the old... rat?... as they'd moved on and muttered a low
"s'ry". Turning half out of reflex to glance behind her where she'd seen Splinter motioned she realized there was indeed a door. Here? In the sewers?
She worried that it opened to a set of stairs which would lead her to the surface, still very against the idea of going to any hospital, but this was all strange enough, just enough, that she held her tongue and waited hoping that if she was quiet and watched long enough, sooner or later this would all start making sense.
