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The Ace of Spades Joined: 7 May 2006 Posts: 398 | Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 11:43 am Name: Carmen Elena Dominica Maribel Laurencia Castillo
Alias: Merlin Age 17 Occupation: Student at Xavier’s school Alliance: X-Men Powers: Carmen has the ability to teleport objects from one location to another. She does not have to be in physical contact to use her powers; all she has to do is visualize the object in its current location, and in the location she wants to put it in. However, this means that she has to have a clear mental picture of both locations, as well as the object itself—she cannot teleport something if she doesn’t know what it is, although a photograph or a detailed enough description is enough to overcome this. She is limited by size and distance; heavier objects and greater distances will tire her out more quickly. (She has yet to explore the limits of her ability, but with endurance training, she has the potential to be quite powerful.) Familiarity may make up for distance; for example, she can move an object that holds great sentimental value to her across huge distances. However, she still has to know where it is and where it’s going, so if it’s lost, there’s nothing she can do, no matter how familiar she is with the object. In addition, she cannot change an object’s momentum. If it’s moving when she teleports it, it will be moving afterward. She also cannot teleport herself or other people, although she has no problems teleporting other living things. Description: Carmen is a young woman of many words, few principles, and the emotional vulnerability of Fort Knox. She is a gifted actress and a talented liar; she is also exceptionally skilled at sleight of hand and showmanship. She can make the simplest performance into something unique and impressive just by presenting it well, and she takes notice of this ability in others—she appreciates fine presentation the way a connoisseur appreciates fine wine. She knows virtually every stage illusion ever performed, as well as a large number of small-scale illusions, although she tends to look down on these as “cheap parlor tricks.” Despite her lazy streak—which often causes her to do poorly in her studies, especially when they require memorization or any amount of practice—Carmen is actually quite intelligent. She enjoys literature, and is extremely well-read, but she has a tendency to gravitate toward Shakespeare and mythology, due mostly to their tragic, dramatic nature. She doesn’t like works that detail events too realistically; if she wanted real life, she argues, she wouldn’t be reading books. She finds joy in anything over-the-top and grand, such as Arthurian legends or stories like The Count of Monte Cristo. After certain recent events, Carmen has developed a rather strong combination of fear and hatred toward non-mutants. While she is able to recognize that not all non-mutants are the same, she feels that the differences between mutants and non-mutants are so vast that the two will never be able to reach any kind of understanding. While she is not angry to the point where she will intentionally harm non-mutants, she fears them enough to lash out at them if she feels she is in danger. While she appreciates Xavier’s sentiments on the subject, she disagrees rather strongly with his belief that mutants and non-mutants will eventually be able to live side-by-side. Carmen has dark hair and eyes, and stands at about 5’5” when barefoot, although she usually prefers to wear heels. Her stage wear, which she still keeps in a trunk in her room, borders on burlesque; her casual clothing, while less scandalous, is still somewhat on the flashy side. While her features are a little too strong to be called pretty, Carmen is beautiful in a lively sort of way, and she has a very strong presence. Although her emotions do range from exuberant to livid, it’s almost impossible to shake her underlying calmness—it’s almost as though she expresses the emotions that she feels to an extreme, but she still remains entirely in control. She possesses a charm that makes it easy for her to get along with others, and she rarely meets a person that she doesn’t like. She also has a tendency to flirt shamelessly with absolutely anyone, occasionally to the point of being entirely inappropriate, but that’s just how she interacts with people, and it’s usually clear that she doesn’t mean anything by it. Carmen’s earliest years were spent speaking only Spanish, but as she grew older she learned English as well, and her later travels took her into Italy, where she picked that language up as well. She speaks all three fluently, and will often interject bits of Italian accidentally into her English. However—despite it being the first language she learned—she will never speak Spanish unless she’s extraordinarily upset, which she rarely is. All three of her accents are perfect, which she is fully aware of, just as she’s aware that she’s pretty, smart, and a talented magician. As she puts it, “Modesty is for people who aren’t good at anything else.” History: Born to a well-known member of the Spanish Senate, Diego Sanchez, and his wife Maria, Carmen Elena Sanchez spent her early years living in relative comfort. Her father was rarely home, but when he was, he spent most of his time doting on Carmen; it was clear that, next to his job, she was the most important element of his life. Her mother was religious to the point of obsession, and Carmen grew up in various Catholic boarding schools, where she quickly discovered her talent for acting and showmanship; however, these schools placed more emphasis on studies and worship, neither of which she even remotely enjoyed. The nuns who taught her often rebuked her for her vanity, her laziness, and her blatant disregard for the dress code, and her mother had all but given up on her by the time she was ten. Carmen was not a stupid girl, but she had no interest in the things they taught, except for a rather avid attraction to literature (especially literature of the more dramatic variety.) She had no thoughts of her future—all she had ever known was a comfortable life, and she more or less assumed that the rest of her life would follow in that vein. When she was thirteen, however, her comfortable life was torn apart. It began when Carmen discovered that she could make things disappear and then reappear somewhere else; she thought this was incredibly cool, and even went so far as to charge her fellow students for a chance to see her perform this trick. Carmen’s mother Maria hadn’t been faring well back at home; her marriage was falling apart, her daughter was a disgrace, and she herself had been diagnosed with cancer. So when Carmen was sent home with an angry explanation of her recent attempts to exploit the other students, Maria cracked. She immediately believed the worst: that her daughter had been possessed by an unholy demon, and was poisoning the household with her evil spirit. Whether it was a result of the brain tumor or simply a fit of desperation, the result was the same: she turned the thirteen-year-old Carmen out of the house. When Maria’s husband returned home and learned what had happened, he was furious at his wife and worried sick over his child, who had not yet returned. He sent search parties out after her, but to no avail. The press latched on to the story, but it was quickly hushed up, as Diego feared that his wife’s involvement in his daughter’s leaving would become public knowledge. The disappearance was implied to be just another instance of a runaway teenager. By this point, Maria had come to her senses and was torn with regret and grief over what she had done—her grief, however, was nothing compared to her husband’s. He insisted on a divorce after it became clear that they weren’t going to find Carmen, wanting nothing to do with the woman who'd literally thrown his prized daughter out, and Maria committed suicide soon after. Carmen was fine, despite her parents’ belief that she wouldn’t be able to get by alone. She had never dealt with life on the streets before, but she was a fast learner and good at manipulating people, and she managed to survive long enough to find someone else to look out for her: a talented young traveling magician named Eduard Donato. He was inventive, and he was a brilliant illusionist, but he was a lousy showman, and so he hadn’t managed to attract much attention. What he needed, Carmen informed him, after watching one of his shows, was an assistant. Preferably someone pretty, and talented, and good at getting peoples’ attention onstage—someone, in short, like her. She lied about her age to get him to take her in and returned with him to Italy. She didn’t tell him about her mutation; after seeing her mother’s violent reaction, she had learned to be more careful. The pair soon found that they worked incredibly well together, pulling off every trick without a hitch. Carmen’s natural stage presence and knack for the dramatic helped; she changed her name to something less plain, dressed up his act, and taught him to add flourish to his movements and speech. They mastered all of the usual illusions, and even invented a few of their own. They began to branch out into more difficult tricks, and Carmen soon became adept at escapology, building the strength and flexibility necessary to pull off some rather impressive escapes. Eduard preferred the more engineering-based tricks, and spent much of his time developing new methods of levitation, better-concealed trapdoors, and various other props and equipment. Billed as Il Grande Donato and assistant, the duo traveled throughout Italy and became wildly popular. After two years of this, Carmen convinced Donato that they should take their show to America, where they were met with the same success they’d found in Italy. After a few years, Carmen finally found the courage to tell Eduard about her mutation. Part of her was afraid that he would turn her out as her mother had, but she had grown to genuinely love the art of illusions, and it had become the most important thing to her, to the point that she was willing to risk all else in the pursuit of perfecting their craft. If they made use of her mutation, she reasoned, it could open up all sorts of options. To her surprise, Eduard agreed, appearing to have no problem with the fact that she was a mutant. They made use of Carmen’s powers to perform impossible feats, stunning audiences and fellow magicians alike. No one else could duplicate their act, and they became nationally famous in a matter of months. However, this widespread attention also drew the eye of a radical anti-mutant group, who had studied their act closely and concluded that the magician must be a mutant. There was no other way, they reasoned, for such incredible feats to be possible; even the best-known magicians were baffled. So one evening, immediately after a successful performance, they murdered Eduard backstage, thinking it their civic duty to rid the world of such a creature. Carmen fled in terror, not realizing that Eduard’s killers were satisfied, convinced that they’d exterminated the mutant. She assumed they were after her, and so she went into hiding, prompting news stories and controversy; everywhere, it seemed, people were talking about the murder of Il Grande Donato and the disappearance of his equally famous assistant, Carmen Castillo. Had she killed him? Had she been killed herself? If so, where was the body? Was this an act of revenge, or a crime of passion? Had a rival magician been involved? Didn't this Carmen Castillo bear a resemblance to another young Carmen who'd disappeared years ago in Europe? Was there a link? Who was this girl, and how was she related to Donato? Some believed her to be Donato's daughter; others, his lover (her age was unknown to most of the general population, though it probably wouldn't have made a difference.) Some insisted that the magician's assistant and the Spanish senator's daughter were one in the same; others denied this, claiming it to be a stretch. Even now that their act was over, Il Grande Donato and his assistant were the objects of attention and even obsession; the rumors spread like wildfire, and she was either the tragic heroine or the prime suspect, depending on who you asked. Although it made it difficult for her to keep a low profile, Carmen was thrilled to be a part of such a controversy. News of Donato’s tragic end reached Xavier, who had been monitoring the anti-mutant group responsible. He immediately suspected the truth and went to find Carmen. As soon as she realized that he was there to help her, she broke down and told him everything that had happened since she’d first discovered her powers, not skimping on the dramatic pauses and the grand gestures. Xavier assured her that she would be safe at his school, at least until she was ready to venture back into the outside world and deal with the questions and controversy that she was sure to have to face. |
Digithe Joined: 24 Aug 2003 Posts: 884 | Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 2:35 pm Wow. I think her history is appropriately grandiose for the character XD But seriously, I like her. Now I have to rewrite my own student character bio, because right now it's really lame >_< |
| The Ace of Spades Joined: 7 May 2006 Posts: 398 | Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 4:17 pm She wouldn't have it any other way. :)
You kind of have no excuse anymore. |
| Digithe Joined: 24 Aug 2003 Posts: 884 | Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 5:09 pm Well, see, it's "written," but I realized just how really lame it was and how out of practice I was when writing it after reading this. So I'm doing some revisions before I post it. So there. |
| The Ace of Spades Joined: 7 May 2006 Posts: 398 | Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 5:10 pm Haha. I was insanely out of practice too. Nobody cares. :P |
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