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[mentis]

OUT OF CHARACTER
Player Name: Sarah
Are you 16 or older: Yes.
Contact: athosing or Sarah #9964 on discord.
Current Characters: N/A.
Tag: charles xavier

IN CHARACTER
Name: Charles Francis Xavier / Professor X.
Canon: X-MEN CINEMATIC.
Canon Point: Towards the end of X-Men: First Class just after Erik kills Sebastian Shaw.
Age: 27.

History: Wikipedia Plot outline.
Marvel Movies Wikia.

Personality: One of the main features of Charles' personality is his optimism and out and out hope. For an educated man he comes across as a little naive on occasion, he puts his faith in institutions who have every intention and sign of fearing his kind. But it's important to note that Charles seeing the goodness in someone predictably stems from his ability. It must be difficult being able to read the darkness in everyone he meets, in knowing everyone's skeletons and not being able to do a damn thing about it. There is a scene in the very beginning of the film where we see Charles as a young boy, surprised by the kindness in a shifted Raven's projection of his mother. As someone who was probably starved for affection, Charles must have made it an important aspect of his own personality to be as charming and as kind as possible.

Charles is essentially more advocate than he is activist. He thinks of himself as something of a champion for equality, a spokesperson for a unity that he believes humanity sorely requires. We see this in various stages throughout the film - his need to protect and offer up anything that he might when he meets someone who has suffered. It starts off from an early age "You're hungry and afraid" and continues up until the point where he decides his own family home must be used as a school for mutants who need help. It's one of his defining features, his protective urge coupled with his morality and almost youthful belief. He doesn't want to fight, he finds education a much more appropriate tool - for all his warnings about hiding who they are, his thesis is on mutation is particular and it's particularly obvious in his setting up of a school to assist younger mutants understand their power. It's easy to get the impression that Charles hides in plain sight, that he covers up what makes him different by being as outwardly charming and eccentric as possible. He comes across as a silly, flirtatious and drunk young rich boy rather than the keen and intelligent, wholly different man that he is. Even his pick-up lines seem to act as a barrier - it's a very groovy mutation - Charles is in essence the boy who cried wolf, someone who could easily laugh off any indication of the truth. It’s hard not to wonder why he argues for this equality, but in the movie he doesn’t really find it in himself to own it for himself. One suggestion might be that as he’s telepathic he feels outside of everything else, so much of his time must be spent in control, in outwardly projecting something safe and filing everything else away. His compassion is something that occupies him so that self-care seems like a byproduct of what he has to do, protect the people around him rather than selfishly take time to work on his own thoughts.

This will give an indication of how he would predictably act in the game, he acts aloof and overtly friendly until he finds a reason or common thread to get invested. We see him shift almost visibly when talking to Moira in the bar, the weight of responsibility sobering him up enough that he could easily be two people. It’s like he feels the weight of the mutant race on his shoulders even then - when seeing others outside of him and Raven must have come as a shock. He’s a very sacrificing character essentially, one who feels like he must take this stand because who else will? Charles has a dual personality. Underneath his outer appearance he is a caring man, "I felt your agony, I can help." He feels like his ability and his fortune must be used for something good. He uses his education to assist those kind of people who need them. He's very adept at taking people under his wing no matter what the circumstances or the personal impact it might have on his own self. We see this most of all with Erik. Imagine if you will suddenly feeling the shock of anger beamed straight into your brain - all that rage, all that pain and hurt and unhappiness is wrapped up in one violent person. And yet Charles is the first person to dive in after Erik, he feels everything that the man is and has to immediately help him. Erik is actually a good barometer of much of Charles personality, like above he would have had to have had immense faith in the man he rescued. Erik should be something Charles abhors - violent and unpredictable and arrogant - but instead there's a deep wealth of affection, as though when weighted by the pain he's been through, Charles has to bend his own morality and push it aside.

That's not to say Charles is a saint, far from it in fact. His pride often gets the better of him throughout the film. He seems to be under the constant impression that his intelligence and his responsibility makes him more and more right. He tells Raven that she should hide her mutation rather than ask her if she wants to, his intentions are good but he lacks the social grace to get his point across. The thought is that without his mutation he is spectacularly bad at reading cues. Perhaps he's so entwined in reading the thoughts of the person he's speaking to that he's never learned. Which is why we see the tension creep in between he and Raven. She's the only one who's really requested that he stay out of her thoughts and so he's often left fumbling in the dark for the right response, often talks without thinking. More evidence that backs this up is how immediately after Erik puts on Shaw's helmet, Charles loses the ability to communicate with him. He trips down the wrong path "They're just men following orders." because he cannot read the cues that are usually left to him.

And for all he sets his money on feeling and emotion, he is rather regimented in several ways. His treatment of Alex in the training monologue shows as much - perhaps he's unable to put himself in the young boys shoes or simply at this stage in his mutation he finds it hard to keep track on every single mutant under his care, selfishly some sacrifices have to be made to keep him toeing the line of control. He prioritises and it’s possible that Alex suffers for this because Charles doesn’t have the time or the reserves in his well to deal with it. As well as this we how he keeps on at Erik to be the better man. Charles would be nothing without that morality, without the idea that he has to keep his friends from straying into the dark. When you consider the power of his telepathy, this makes sense. Charles is a man who could legitimately bend the world to his liking and he doesn't - the level of control that must take is an impressive one. So he has set himself many touchstones to keep living off.

Charles’ control is not unshakeable, but he tries to make it so. We do see him attempt to strain against that like any young man would. Scenes like the ones in the bar become very important in this light, it’s perhaps his way of connecting with so many people at once while allowing it to half fade into the haze of alcohol. For someone so intent on keeping parts of himself locked up this is interesting. Alcohol would surely act as a way of loosening his control slightly but then perhaps this is Charles’ way of safeguarding himself. We hark back to the “It’s a groovy mutation”, surrounding himself in equally drunk and loose people almost papers up the cracks of his outside. It could be a way of testing himself essentially, but it could also be more that he cannot keep up with the level of tightness he has to keep himself in, much akin to the whole idea of the center cannot hold.

Another facet of his personality is the aspect that Charles seems old before his time. His sense of responsibility backs this up considerably. For a man who is 27 and still mid-education, who doesn’t really view the world with a wealth of experience, he certainly acts ancient. Raven seems to tease him about this and from his reaction it’s clearly not a new thing, “Yes, thank you for that.” It’s almost as though he feels weighed down by the world, that despite how young he is he has to act like this to be understood. He tries to almost cling to his youth (the celebration in the pub, the cheerful way he interacts with Erik, the comments about his hair) but it almost feels as though it’s inevitable. Charles does not have that many peers from what we can see (“I’m your only friend”) which suggests he has trouble connecting with his peers. This could both be due to his telepathy and simply because he seems to react to Raven as a much older brother or even a father. His protective instinct means he simply can’t mess around, people need to trust him and to do that he has to be this one thing.

While Charles scoffs at the idea of things like team / code names, he's still very much a man who believes in team work. He's the first person to suggest that the children can help them out in their efforts against Shaw, acting as a kind of champion for their abilities. He, not Erik, is the one to bring up the idea of using them. He's the main influence in training them. Charles becomes a mentor to each of them, shapes them into the young men he thinks they should be. He trains with Hank and furnishes him with a lab, attempts to help Alex gain control, and encourages Sean to do more and more with his power. But throughout all of this, he seems to be weaponising them more than Erik ever does. It is only at the end where Erik himself takes charge of the situation and lays the foundation for his brotherhood. It is arguable that Charles does that from the very beginning.

Here is someone not used to dealing with normal people. For the most part he's lived a very sheltered life. He has his big home and his wealth and his education. He doesn't necessarily connect on a base level with the children - he's not a young offender, or a person who has to sell their body to stay off the street, he isn't a coloured man, nor is he a young woman with a list of issues the length of his arm. He's one of those born with a silver spoon in his mouth types, and while his life isn't exactly perfect, it's a far cry from some of the things the others have endured.

Charles' mutation is internal. He is not like Hank, or like Raven. In fact he encourages Hank's experimentation to find a 'cure' to the physical aspects of his mutation. He's buying in to the fact that outward appearance should be according to an ideal. He's allowing something that could ( and does ) harm them. Whether or not he realises it, he's following one of the many 'rules' that forced people like Erik into the concentration camps. While Charles is a mutant rights activist, he also undermines his own 'beliefs' by encouraging his own sister to hide from what she is.

Abilities/Skills: Charles is one of the highest level natural born telepaths in the Marvel universe. In X-Men: First Class that is either very much undiscovered or yet to be explored. He's able to stretch his power with the use of Cerebro more and more but he still struggles up against other telepaths such as Emma Frost. His power remains mostly untapped because of a fear of discovery but it slowly becomes greater throughout the film. With Cerebro helping him exceed his reach his potential he's able to find more and more of his kind.

He can also wipe out large chunks of memory from a person's mind and it stands within reason he'd be able to place them too. He can project a perception into someone else's mind, something that fights against their view of reality and keeps them believing him, as we see with the soldiers and the back of an unempty jeep. He can make people see what he wants them to see, can push pictures into their heads to aid his own needs. Charles can also speak directly into a person's mind when he wills it "Calm your mind" and hold conversations that would not easily be discovered.

Information is easily found with his telepathy ( when he plucks knowledge about the food in the commissary up until the point where he helps Erik access a memory of his mother ). He's also able to manipulate a person's mind ( "Get in the car." ) and use it to help control a situation. Charles is able to pause a person mid-action just by taking hold of their thoughts and turning them with his own. He's also able to detect other mutants nearby, he feels Emma Frost on the boat and knows Erik is in the water immediately, outs Hank by accident because he can feel it. He can sense the specific mental wave of other people like him, is able to pick it out from human when he gets close enough.

His power leads itself to picking up other untapped abilities as well. He can access the language centers of a person's brain and use it for himself as we see when he's in Russia. He uses his power in something of a comforting manner in that particular scene, hijacking knowledge to use it to provide peace to frightened people.

It's also known that due to his telepathy he'd presumably have an eidetic memory - the ability to recall things he's seen before without prompting. Charles is a genius in his own right too. He is a world-renowned geneticist, a leading expert in mutation and possesses considerable knowledge of various life sciences. At the point in time where X-Men: First Class takes place, he's only just starting on his journey but his education and intelligence are something that becomes a defining aspect of his personality.

Strengths/Weaknesses:
Strengths:

Optimism. Charles will always believe in people, even if they've given him every reason not to. He's the one to rally people in their time of need.

Reason. He acts as an emotional buffer to those with stronger emotions, often trying to rationalise in the face of fear and anger. This is also why he's quite a strategist.

Kindness. No matter where a person comes from, Charles will take them under his wing.

Intelligence.

Altruism.

Weaknesses:

Snobbish. With or without meaning to. He often puts his foot in it when he's talking to people less well off than himself.

Insincere. The good old loveable rogue act. It gets dropped when Charles becomes close to a person, but he definitely likes to hide a lot of himself behind an act.

Careless with people's issues - usually in those younger than himself. i.e. self-esteem and teenage woes.

Reliance on his telepathy.

Items: Just the hideous X-MEN uniform. TY, Hank.

SAMPLES
Network Sample: Good afternoon, my friends.

( The man on screen is smiling brightly, despite the seriousness in his eyes. He's finally managed to do away with the leather monstrosity that Hank created so he no longer looks like some puffed up Barbie doll. Hopefully it comes across as affable. )

I had something I wished to discuss. Coming here has opened my eyes to the reality of different worlds. In fact, it's made me rather curious. I won't bore you all with questions about biospheres and climates and habitats. ( A small laugh. ) No matter how much I'd love to. No, what I want to discuss is something more close to home Powers. I'm aware many of us have them, but there's bound to be a sort of, language barrier, if you will. In my world we call these specific powers a mutation. You might call them something different and that's all right, I'm not going to be pedantic.

( Blue eyes serious. ) I myself am a mutant. Some would call me a telepath. My mutation allows me to read the minds of those around me. ( A small, crooked smile. He's afraid that announcing this might put some people off him, but he has to. ) It took me a long time to find a way to manage this gift I was given. I wouldn't have done so well had I not had a dear friend by my side. ( Except he's fairly certain they're not currently on the best of terms. He'll fix it later. ) Which is why I want to extend an invitation. It doesn't matter who you are, where you've come from, what power you possess - if you are in need of a shoulder, an ear, or even a guiding hand, I'm here, and I'm available.

( He might as well be of some use. )

Prose/Action Sample: TEST DRIVE MEME.

Comments

[mentis]

PLAYER
» HANDLE: Sarah
» CONTACT: athosing
» AGE: 30
» CHARACTER(S) IN-GAME: Clary Fray ( creatio )

CHARACTER
» NAME: Charles Francis Xavier
» CANON: X-Men Cinematic Universe.
» CANON POINT: Just before returning to the Mansion post Erik shooting Raven.
» AGE: 40

» SETTING: X-MEN: FIRST CLASS x X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST.

» SHORT DESCRIPTION: Intelligent, kind, emotional, controlling, resentful.
» INFLUENTIAL EVENTS:

Early Years

We learn very little about Charles' past in the first films. However we do get a glimpse into the kind of boy he would have been. He's clearly used to being by himself - probably because his mutation would give him a "strangeness" that he wouldn't know how to hide yet. He doesn't seem to have many friends - a fact which gets brought up again in his adult years. When Raven breaks into his house, he's delighted to find someone like him - not just a mutant, but someone his age. His kindness is evident even then, he knows she's a runaway, that she doesn't have anywhere to go, and he takes her in. How he does this is never explored, but one would imagine he uses his powers to either hide her, or make everyone believe she had been there all along.

Charles is a Professor of Genetics, so he's very clever. His thesis is based on the possibility of mutation. He seems to have devoted his life to getting the idea into the public sphere. And yet, he's hiding, and he makes sure that Raven is too. Charles is afraid of discovery. He would rather it be just the two of them, safe and sound, where nobody can hurt them for being different. Still, he has an ego, and he uses his power for cheap tricks and flirtations. His groovy mutation line gets repeated often. Sadly, he doesn't see the hurt this causes Raven, and thus doesn't really notice the rupture between the two of them growing.

Erik & The X-Men:

With the introduction of Moira, and the threat of Shaw, we see Charles finally shake off the mask of charming drunk, and move more into the man he actually is. He goes with Moira easily, because he thinks he can help. Shaw wants to encourage nuclear war, and if he can aid the CIA in stopping that, then he will. It's possible he's also just fascinated by the fact that there are others beyond him and Raven.

And then he finds Erik Lehnsherr. Charles throws caution to the wind the minute he hears Erik's thoughts. He doesn't know this man, but he can feel his pain, and he wastes no time in diving off a boat to try and stop him dying. This is the true core of Charles, he's kind, and he cares, and he doesn't like to just watch suffering happen. Erik is aggressive, and angry, and yet Charles takes to him immediately. He saves him, and then reassures him that he isn't alone. Being a mutant is an isolating existence, especially at the time where so many are forced to hide, and it's clear he desperately wants to offer others the same relief and happiness he gets from knowing he's not the only one.

Erik doesn't leave, and he and Charles end up on a road trip. There's something silly and boyish about how Charles reacts to each of them. He likes showing off, but he also enjoys discovering the different powers. This is a side of his research he's never been able to truly explore. He definitely acts like he's the delightful rich man coming to save his band of merry mutants. This is one of his flaws. He treats most of them like children, Erik is the only one who gets a free pass. Even though Raven is closer to his age than the others, he still behaves as though she is a teenager. He knows best. This means he's often clumsy with other people's feelings - outing Hank as a mutant despite usually hiding his own powers, criticising Raven's self-esteem issues, generally behaving as though Sean and Alex are unruly children. He tries, because he wants to help, but he can be stubborn and full of himself at the best of times and he comes across as more chastising than genuine.

Still, despite all of this. Charles opens his home to them. He wants to offer them a place of respite, a sanctuary where they can hone their powers without fear. He wants to fill that empty mansion with people like him. All in all, he's still desperate for connection, for friendships that mean something without hiding. His relationship with Erik perfectly encapsulates this. Charles unlocks a memory inside of his friend's head in an attempt to give him more than rage to work with. He's very clearly affected by it, by the love in the memory, and it cements something between them.

Cuba:

The X-Men finally become a team. It’s maybe not quite so well-oiled as it could be, since Charles has ignored his sister’s complicated feelings, overlooked Hank’s desire to be normal, and had a small argument with Erik over a chess set, but they still come together and work as a unit. All in all, it seems that they might be able to traverse the complicated mindfield of a Hellfire Club influenced Cold War. And then it all goes terribly wrong. Disaster averted on the waves, the attention is turned towards the Mutants on the beach.

Here we see Charles once more getting clumsy in stressful situations. He’s just physically felt Shaw die, having held on to him to stop him from fighting back against Erik. He can’t reach his friend due to the helmet, and he’s in a sense, blind to what he’s feeling and thinking. Charles relies on his mutation to navigate personal relationships. He gets too far into his own head when he can’t. So when they’re in danger, he says the one thing that is the worst thing he could. He presses on old wounds of Erik’s, trying to convince him not to kill the humans. In the end, it mostly just encourages him. They fight, despite Charles’ aversion to violence, because the only way he can think to stop Erik is by removing the helmet. And in the middle of this, a stray bullet from Moira’s gun gets richoched into Charles’ spine.

Charles doesn’t stop Erik and Raven from leaving. He doesn’t tell them the severity of his injury, or that he can’t feel his legs, in fact, he just seems to give up. He can’t see a way to help Raven, nor can he reconcile what he believes with what Erik does. He can’t condone killing, even if it’s in retaliation. If Charles wanted to, he could just as easily decimate great groups of humans with his own power, and that means he has to have such tight control over what he believes to be right. It would be a very slippery slope for him, and above all he considers himself a good person.

The Vietnamese War

Another time skip means we have to infer what happened through character conversations. Once Charles is healed enough to go back to Westchester, he and Hank and the others begin to build what is now known as Charles’ Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters. It starts well, by all accounts, but then eventually when the Vietnam War begins, and the students start to be drafted, there’s a quick slide into desolation. Being able to hear everyone’s fear, and pain, and suffering throughout the course of this, and with the school slowly emptying out, Charles turns to abusive coping methods. Hank has diligently worked on a serum for his own mutation, but it also eases the pain of Charles’ paralysis. Yet, instead of using it safely and sparingly, Charles takes enough that his power is completely shut off, thus giving him the ability to walk but no longer hear thoughts.

Completely alone in his own head, and still grieving the loss of his friend and sister - brought back into light through other’s plight during wartime - he also turns to alcohol. When Logan turns up at the mansion, Hank tells him “there’s no professor here”, and that’s true, because Charles is no longer the person he was. He’s bitter, and angry, and hurt, and it makes him prickly and unkind. The house is in disarray, and the same can be said for Charles. Whatever feeling has resided inside of him since Cuba has started to poison him the same way as the alcohol.

Prison Break & Paris:

And yet, when it comes to Raven’s safety, Charles agrees to help Logan. He still loves his sister. He seems to have been holding out on her coming back home. And so when the only choice is to break Erik out of the Pentagon, Charles goes with them. Of course, he’s not happy, and he makes this known throughout. His feelings on Erik are no longer kind, calling him a monster, believing wholeheartedly that his old friend could be capable of presidential assassination.

They fight, once they’re out. It’s the kind of bitter, snarling fight that would have been beneath Charles before. He accuses Erik of abandoning him, and the fact that he uses the serum is a definite contentious issue. Charles admits that he couldn’t sleep, that he needed to shut off his power to be able to cope with what he was hearing, and what he was feeling. But to Erik, that’s a betrayal of who they are. So many of their friends have died since Charles shut himself away in the mansion. So many mutant lives have been lost, presumably that he could have done something to save. They’re both at war with each other. They both fail to see the other person’s side.

However, when they find Raven, Charles still seems to have secretly been clinging to the idea that things can go back to the way they were. He tells her that they’ve come for her, making a point to show that Erik is there with him. Because he can’t read minds, he can’t tell Erik’s true purpose, and therefore cannot stop him from shooting Raven. He also can’t follow when the two of them, plus Hank, take their fight to the streets. All he can do is try and help Logan. Charles will come into game with a heap of guilt for not being able to stop Erik, and for not protecting Raven. His bitterness will probably be sky high.

» FIT: Charles is a scientist. Therefore he will want to try and discover the secrets of Reverie Terminal. He’ll also be useful in talking to people, soothing worries, rallying the troops, helping out those who are feeling overwhelmed and lost. With the eventual return of his powers, he will also be able to try and utilise his telepathy in uncovering secrets - most notably if there’s screaming again, or people are seeing visions, he can help them escape those.

» POWERS:

Charles is one of the highest level natural born telepaths in the Marvel universe. At his canon point that is either very much undiscovered or yet to be explored. His power remains mostly untapped because of a fear of discovery, and then through the use of Hank's serum. However, with Cerebro helping him exceed his reach his potential he's able to find more and more of his kind.

He can also wipe out large chunks of memory from a person's mind and it stands within reason he'd be able to place them too. He can project images and visions, something that fights against their view of reality and keeps them believing him. He can make people see what he wants them to see, can push pictures into their heads to aid his own needs. Charles can also speak directly into a person's mind when he wills it and hold conversations that would not easily be discovered.

Information is easily found with his telepathy ( when he plucks knowledge about the food in the commissary up until the point where he helps Erik access a memory of his mother ). He's also able to manipulate a person's mind ( "Get in the car." ) and use it to help control a situation. Charles is able to pause a person mid-action just by taking hold of their thoughts and turning them with his own. He's also able to detect other mutants nearby, he feels Emma Frost on the boat and knows Erik is in the water immediately, outs Hank by accident because he can feel it. He can sense the specific mental wave of other people like him, is able to pick it out from human when he gets close enough.

His power leads itself to picking up other untapped abilities as well. He can access the language centers of a person's brain and use it for himself as we see when he's in Russia. He uses his power in something of a comforting manner in that particular scene, hijacking knowledge to use it to provide peace to frightened people.

It's also known that due to his telepathy he'd presumably have an eidetic memory - the ability to recall things he's seen before without prompting. Charles is a genius in his own right too. He is a world-renowned geneticist, a leading expert in mutation and possesses considerable knowledge of various life sciences.

» NOTES: At Charles' canon point, he does not have use of his powers. However, the serum would be wearing off, as it does so in the next scene. Without this, he'll lose the use of his legs but gain his telepathy back. As he's a new character, he wouldn't have bonus ac to trade for the serum, so I was wondering how we'd go around that. Would he find a chair, or is there any way for him to be provided with an initial dosage of the treatment? I do want to play out Charles asking for help and trying to gather supplies to make more / or slowly coming to terms with his paralysis, but I was aiming for that in the future to see where cr takes me.

» SAMPLES: REVERIE TEST DRIVE

un: greymalkin.
( The man on screen looks like he has definitely seen better days. His hair is lank, dark hollows under his eyes, and a mouth that’s been bitten rough. When he talks, there’s a thread of exhaustion in his voice, as though the very words he’s speaking are too heavy. )

My name is Charles Xavier. I’m aware I’m not the first person to be unwillingly brought here, nor will I be the last. I imagine we’re all in the same predicament. That’s not really what I want to talk about anyway. I need to know if there are any people aboard familiar with Earth medicine. Preferably someone who knows of the existence of the X-Gene, but I can fill you in on that if not.

( It would be easier if Hank where here. Charles can already feel panic clawing at his throat. He’s not going back into the chair. He’s not. He’ll find a way.

Then, with something more gentle in his eyes. )

And if anyone has seen an injured girl around, can you let me know? She’s about this high and has blonde ha --. ( Christ, he’s doing it again. ) Blue. She’s blue. And she’s hurt. And I need to know she’s okay.

( Rubbing a hand over his eyes, Charles seems to consider saying more, but then he’s reaching out with a shaking hand to turn off the feed. )