PLAYER INFORMATION
NAME: Dave
CONTACT: dpolicar@gmail.com, or PM, or daveforum@aim
HOW YOU FOUND US: Google
OTHER CHARACTERS ON THE SITE Mitchell, Ororo, Fang (npc)
RULES CODE: Xavier
CREDIT WHERE IT'S DUE: http://marvel.com/universe/Beautiful_Dreamer_%28Morlock%29CHARACTER INFORMATION
Rosalind Russell
Note: In the Dreamwalk she actually does appear (by default) as a black-and-white Rosalind Russell in her role as Auntie Mame, that's not just an avatar.
BASIC INFORMATIONCANON OR ORIGINAL: Canon
AFFILIATION: Morlocks
FULL NAME: Laura Nelson, though she doesn't use it
CODENAME: Beautiful Dreamer
NICKNAMES: "BD", "Dreamer"
CURRENT AGE: 49
DATE OF BIRTH: May 17, 1962
MARITAL STATUS: Widowed.
SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Straight
BASE OF OPERATIONS: Morlock Tunnels
TIME AT INSTITUTE: N/A
REGISTERED WITH SHIELD? No. Laura Nelson is presumed deceased and not known to be a mutant.
HOMETOWN: Long Island, NY
KNOWN RELATIVES: Linda Nelson (mother, estranged) Andrew Nelson (father, estranged), Dana Nelson Silverman (sister, estranged), Doug LeBrun (husband, deceased), Nicky LeBrun (son, estranged); Hector "Daddy Longlegs" Defaz (unofficial husband, deceased).
PHYSICAL APPEARANCEHEIGHT: 5'3".
BUILD: Middle-aged, slightly overweight, doesn't exercise.
EYES: Blue.
HAIR: Blond with some grey.
DISTINGUISHING MARKS: Extremely pale skin. Deformed face, looks something like a melting wax figure (due to being "marked" by Masque), and heavily scarred along her scalp and spinal cord (from Apocalpse/War's nanites).
CLOTHING STYLE: Old-fashioned/"vintage": big hats, feather boas, long cigarette holder. The overall effect is somewhat ridiculous. Often wears a veil over her face.
UNIFORM: N/A
POWERSGENERAL DESCRIPTION: Memory manipulation, shared dreaming.
Beautiful Dreamer has a powerful but very narrow psionic ability that operates via a telepathic "plane" similar to (though distinct from) the astral plane. She calls this the Dreamwalk because its contents are drawn from the memories and imaginations of minds attuned to it, behaving like a shared dream.
She can attune others' minds to the Dreamwalk (but see "weaknesses" below). Also, other minds can spontaneously attune to it without her involvement. In particular, the Dreamwalk is close to the mental state of sleeping humans, and they (and their dream impressions) often "bleed over" into the Dreamwalk.
She has strong psychic defenses, especially while in the Dreamwalk.
Although any mind attuned to the Dreamwalk influences its appearance, BD has much more control over it than normal people. Not only can she summon, control, and dismiss constructs at will from her own mind, she can do the same from the minds of others attuned to the Dreamwalk... for example, searching through their memories for specific events or images, or orchestrating a shared hallucination.
Once a mind is attuned to the Dreamwalk (and
only then) BD can edit memories within that mind, both creating false memories and suppressing or modifying actual ones. Using this power does not require significant amounts of energy, but it requires concentration which she cannot maintain indefinitely; it's rather like paying close attention to a lecture.
In general her memory-edits are permanent. However, the original unedited memories are retained in the target's mind, so she can reverse the effect if she chooses, as can a sufficiently competent telepath. If her concentration lapses (for example, due to fatigue) the results are less stable or might not even work at all. Her edits can also be undone by sufficiently good therapy.
WEAKNESS:She has all the ordinary weaknesses of a 49-year-old woman who smokes heavily and does not exercise regularly.
She can only attune a mind to the Dreamwalk if the target is in a relaxed and cooperative brain-state, or is asleep. This makes her relatively useless in combat, for example.
Also, she can attune minds to the Dreamwalk only if she and the target(s) are touched by "dream smoke." There is nothing special about the smoke itself: it's just a psychological focus/crutch for her. (Consequently, targets need not
inhale the smoke, or even breathe at all. It also works if it touches clothing rather than skin.)
Sufficiently powerful or highly-trained minds, both mutant and human, can leave the Dreamwalk or affect its contents even against her will, and can resist her memory-extraction and/or memory-editing.
Although her ability is powerful, it is very narrow; she is
not a general telepath. For example, she cannot read or influence the current thoughts or actions of her targets. (She has the potential to develop minor telepathic abilities with training, which she might or might not ever receive.)
She has lung cancer, which is healed periodically by the Morlocks' Healer. After each session, the cancer goes into recession for about a year, at which point it returns. Left unhealed, it would leave her an invalid about six months afterwards, and kill her about six months after that.
PERSONALITYBeautiful Dreamer (she does not often think of herself as "Laura Nelson" anymore) often indulges in fantasy as a way of escaping difficult realities. Her power reinforces that tendency; she spends a lot of time in the Dreamwalk.
She likes to think of herself as mystical and intuitive and having deep insights into human nature, but she's not nearly as insightful as she likes to think, and she's often just plain wrong about people. (Usually thinking of them as nicer than they are.)
She avoids conflict whenever possible; her usual response to it is to try to smooth it over and pretend it doesn't exist, or to run away from it. She can be very passive-aggressive under the right circumstances.
She has chosen to live among the Morlocks and thinks of their tunnels as home. The truth is, this is mostly because without the Healer's regular interventions, she would die; however, she tells herself and others that it's because Hector lived there, as a way of honoring his memory.
She was a teacher for a time and still thinks of herself as one; she genuinely enjoys helping people learn. Her preferred subject is English literature, but she'll try to help anyone with any subject, either by tutoring it herself or by finding someone who can.
She is historically subject to crippling depression, though (ironically) that hasn't been so much of a problem since the Apocalypse; she has significantly more purpose in her life than she used to.
She is a huge fan of musical theatre, and particularly fond of "Auntie Mame."
HISTORY: PRE -APOCALYPSE Laura Nelson was born in 1962 to a Jewish upper-class Long Island family. Her power to enter the Dreamwalk manifested in her teens but she didn't realize it; she thought she was just lucid dreaming.
She obtained her Masters in English Literature from Wellesley in June 1987 and began working as an English teacher for a Connecticut prep school. She married in January 1988 and had a son in December 1988. She also began work on her first novel.
By 1998 she'd given up teaching in favor of being a successful novelist, and was increasingly unhappy at home: her husband Doug was resentful of her success and they had become estranged.
In March of '98 she began having romantic/erotic dreams about a handsome young Hispanic man she'd never met named Hector. What Laura didn't know was that those dreams were shared by the real Hector, a mutant Morlock known as "Daddy Longlegs" whose dreams about her had, eventually, brought him into the Dreamwalk.
In April of 2000, Laura published her third novel, "Eloi," which included some details of Morlock life Hector had shared with her. Hector read the book and realized their dreams were "real", but stayed silent.
In May of 2002, Laura was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. By September she was given just a few months to live. Hector got Callisto to agree that the Healer could heal her, on the condition that she come live among the Morlocks.
Laura agreed. With the Morlocks help she faked her death, and lived with Hector until July of 2008, when the Morlock Tunnels were flooded, resulting in the death of many Morlocks, among them Hector. She was devestated and profoundly depressed, and ultimately edited her own memories, removing any memory of Hector.
DURING APOCALYPSE (April 2009) Beautiful Dreamer was caught up in War's horde and infected with nanites, then later trapped in a cave-in. The last thing she remembers is passing out there. She doesn't know how she survived: she just woke up days later in an emergency hospital, freed of the nanites' influence, but heavily injured. (Clearly
someone rescued her and got her to relative safety. She'd like to find out who it was.)
Her estranged husband Doug also died during Apocalypse (a building collapsed on him during an earthquake), though she doesn't know that.
POST-APOCALYPSE She has spent most of the last two years recovering from her significant Apocalypse-induced injuries. During this time her self-induced amnesia broke down, and she remembered her history. Somehow, having dragged herself back from the brink of death, it didn't seem so overwhelming anymore.
She is also more powerful now than she was before Apocalypse. Whether this is a purely psychological effect, or a side-effect of the nanites, or what, she doesn't know.
Her recovery is now more or less complete; she is now attempting to establish a role within the Morlock community. She is offering her services as a teacher (to children, to adults who want to continue their education, etc.) and starting a regular series of Dreamwalk sessions as entertainment for interested Morlocks, in addition to making her powers available to the leadership for more pragmatic purposes.
SAMPLE RP POST:Beautiful Dreamer arrived early to the Morlocks' makeshift classroom, wondering which of her occassional students would show up this time, if any. Continuing education wasn't necessarily anyone's highest priority, she realized, but it was important to her, and she intended to at least offer the option to others.
Meanwhile, though, she had at least a few minutes before her class was scheduled to start, and was in a relatively safe space. Plenty of time, she supposed, for a quick trip to the Dreamwalk.
She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing, bringing her attention into her core with each inhale, pausing, then back out with the exhale. In... out. In... out. In... out. Each breath took a little longer than the one before, and each exhale left her a little more relaxed, until all at once she left her flesh-and-blood body behind and appeared on the shore of a brightly lit beach.
She knew this particular beach well; she and Hector had spent many delightful hours there before his death. It was unlike any beach on Earth: the sand was purple like crushed amethyst, and irridescent crystal crabs scuttled along it casting rainbows when the sun hit them. She took a deep breath of the sweet salt air and stepped out onto the water.
Onto, not
into, which surprised her.
Am I Jesus, now? She laughed at the absurdity as she walked further out, enjoying the resilient bounce of each step, and the way the waves flowed up and down under her feet. She grinned widely, delighted that the Dreamwalk -- or, rather, her own subconscious -- could still surprise her after all these years, and jumped onto one of the waves, bouncing high like a trampoline.
"Wheee!" she yelled, her voice sliding up in pitch as her body adopted a childlike aspect better suited to the setting, jumping gleefully from wave to wave until...
"Miss Dreamer? Miss Dreamer, wake up!" One of her students was tugging her sleeve, and she sighed and reluctantly allowed herself to be brought back to the waking world.
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