APPLICATION - FUTUROLOGY S2

APPLICANT INFO.
NAME: Glass
CONTACT: ohmygodbees

CHARACTER INFO.
NAME: Scott Summers | "Cyclops"
CANON: Marvel Comics
AGE: 18-19
APPEARANCE: Here
CANON POINT: X-Men Blue #15

BACKGROUND:
Scott Summers | Mutants | (Displaced) X-Men

PERSONALITY:
Scott Summers is, and will always be, the very first X-Man. Recruited as a teenager to be the leader of the X-Men, Scott developed a strong sense of duty regarding his role and Xavier's intentions to improve human-mutant relations. Charles Xavier fully believed in Scott's potential as a leader, in spite of the awesome destructive power that Scott possesses, and how he struggles to maintain control and be constantly aware of the danger. It's a role that plays well into his natural tendencies to obsessively strategize, problem-solve, and relentlessly develop repetitive skills. He thought he had a bright future. But early in his tenure as the leader of the X-Men, this Scott gets a rude awakening in the form of his time-traveling teammate, and is forced to confront all the darker aspects of himself: the ruthlessness, the depths of his potential failures as a man and as a student and the inheritor of a dream he'd held as sacred and absolute. This changes everything.

Ever since his mutant powers manifested, Scott's struggled with control and self-loathing. He can't turn his eye beams on and off, and displacing his glasses or his visor will leave him either causing untold destruction or blind. To a certain extent, this is part of why Charles Xavier selected him to be the leader— his own scrutiny and acknowledgment of his great weakness puts him in a better position to understand and scrutinize the weaknesses of his teammates. But Scott's afraid of his own power and feels that he doesn't possess any kind of control over it. It requires intense focus and self-awareness, and a lot of work-arounds, and it's hard to be a comfortable and easy-going person when you're always compensating for your ability to destroy everything around you. Though he only admitted it when his inhibitions were forcibly removed, he feels nothing but negativity about his own mutant abilities: it doesn't give him anything, only takes, and it's forced him to become rigid and repressed. He knows that people say he's cold and stiff and closed off, and he hates being that way. He doesn't understand why people like him or want to be his friend. He also feels that he can't make a single mistake, and can't ever let people down no matter what. Additionally, Scott canonically suffers from OCD. It fixates on anything that involves problem solving, strategy, and obsessive repetition of skill. The interplay between his control issues and his OCD made him a great leader, but it doesn't make him very happy.

Confronting his future self's perceived failure to live up to the responsibility they'd been presented, Scott is even more determined to see peace between mutants and humans. Scott's motivated by a desire to not be the Scott Summers who's considered a terrorist but also to understand how his older self went wrong (and right) and differentiate himself. And by God, if Scott Summers decides that a thing is going to be, then it is going to be, and the rules of time and space be damned. Scott is ruthless. He'll do whatever needs doing to achieve what he thinks is right. And he's self-righteous about it. His convictions haven't wavered; if anything, he's just become more unyielding now that he's been disillusioned and forced to suspect the intentions of trusted authority figures and close friends. He's lost some control over his own narrative and now has to deal with the weight of others' expectations for who Scott Summers is and should be— a situation he finds deeply unfair, and he isn't afraid to say so. But Scott's idealism helps him decide that he can do better so that he's not completely overcome with bitterness or despair over his situation. Even if he fears he can't avoid that fate, he still acts as though its within his control to change his "future". There's a pressure this time, but it's a pressure he places on himself to be his own Scott, and not allow how he's perceived to be controlled by unfair comparisons to the man he was "supposed" to become. To do things his way, and no one else's.

While he might be repressed, Scott is still empathetic. His struggles with his powers and confronting the darker parts of himself have done nothing to diminish Scott's attempts to help other people and connect with his fellow mutants, even if it doesn't come easily to him. Scott can admit to caring about people, and does honestly try to express his feelings when he feels he can safely do so or feels it would be helpful to do so. Being displaced in time allows him to explore his emotions and his impulses more openly than before and let go of some of his control issues.

Coming to the future freed him from Xavier's expectations. He can make his own decisions, even if he's aware of just how disastrous his decisions can become. He's been free to vacate the role of "leader" and go his own way for long periods of time, allowing Jean Grey to take responsibility for the team. He's also been able to make friends outside the X-Men, joining a team of other young superheroes called the Champions, where he outright refused to accept the invitation to lead the team. This allows him to spend time with people who don't expect him to take responsibility for everything, as a member of a team and group of friends, without the burden of expectations. Some of his future self's mistakes allow him to connect with people and explore more in a way that he couldn't do if he'd stayed in his own time period. Reconnecting with his father is one, as this allows Scott to talk to someone about his own reservations and his fears about his dark side and receive a kind of support that comes without the pressure to do anything but be.

Ultimately, Scott possesses a drive to do better than he's ever done before, and the freedom to try and figure out how to do it his own way. He has the support of a family he didn't know he had who love him and are happy to see him at his best. He's also freer than he's ever been in his life to make mistakes, and not only that, he has people willing to use the experience of his future to help him keep from making those mistakes. He's under a lot of pressure from having to deal with a world that hates him for things he didn't do. But he's also able to loosen up a little, get out in the world and experiment with making his own decisions and doing things beyond just being Charles Xavier's prize student. He doesn't have to be so damn repressed. He can start to embrace his own potential and his own power, and that's a good thing.

ABILITIES:
Scott is a mutant. That means he's a carrier of a specific trait called the X gene which spontaneously begins to express typically sometime during adolescence. Upon activation and expression of the gene, individuals will manifest unique mutations in any potential combination of physical changes and new abilities, some of which can be actively detrimental to the person in question. Scott's mutation manifests itself as a blasts of red concussive energy directed through his eyes, which at its demonstrated strongest, can blast through solid steel, or be subtle enough to outline the imprint of a thumb with sufficient energy (= heat) to activate a door. Given that his own body is resistent to the effect of this energy, without aid the width and trajectory of the beam is related to the same mechanisms of opening and focusing his eyes. With one minor drawback—Scott can't control his powers. Due to childhood trauma, Scott's unable to turn the blasts on and off at will, and has spent his adult life containing this energy through the aid of ruby-quartz glasses. These glasses, and his combat visor, block the energy emissions and allow him to interact in everyday life without blowing everything around him up just by having his eyes open. In addition, Scott's neuroses about his own powers and lack of control inhibit him from pushing the outer limits of his own abilities, precisely out of the fear of losing control and causing widespread destruction around him. Scott primarily relies on the abilities of his visor to maintain control and do precise work. (Good luck with that, Scott.)

He also possesses a secondary kind of mutation that nullifies some of his weaknesses with controlling his own eyes. It's best described as a kind of innate, uncanny understanding of geometry/trigonometry and the exact ways at which he could, say, send every ball into the corner pockets and win a game of pool on the very first move. Or how to bounce/ricochet his own blasts with sufficient force and the appropriate direction to cause them to rebound across multiple surfaces to hit a target.

General non-mutant abilities:
- basic sword-fighting abilities due to sparring with his father. Good enough not to get his head immediately chopped off or hold his own for awhile.
- Mechanical skills: good enough to repair his own visor or repair communications on a spaceship/build an ad-hoc transmitter from leftover wreckage.
- Hand-to-hand combat skills. Not anything fancy. Still building the skills.
- How to survive when stranded on an alien planet: start fires, find food and use your own father as bait to take down hostile species that might what to eat you.
- Crash course skills in navigation and communications systems on a variety of alien starcraft
- Basics of how to pilot fixed wing aircraft
- How to drive a motorcycle


INVENTORY:
- One blue and yellow costume/combat suit, depicted here
- One combat visor, made of high-impact plastic and lined with ruby-quartz crystal to prevent accidental discharge of his eye blasts. Typically used to allow him to direct his blasts precisely, consisting of two levering lenses to change the height of the exiting beam, powered by tiny electric motors. There are also finger controls located on each side to allow him to direct the beams as well.
- One set of ruby-quartz glasses, designed to fit against the face without gaps


HATHAWAY.
SUITABILITY:
Scott's been working in teams since Charles Xavier first plucked him out of obscurity and made him the leader of the X-Men. In his time leading, Scott proved himself to be quick on his feet, a fast thinker, and he always tries to find the plan that comes up with the least amount of casualties. He's the kind of person who inspires trust in his decisions, even when they're spur of the moment. He's a cunning strategizer, and his obsessive practice allows him to versatile and adaptive, if only because he's already thought through myriad possible outcomes. Even when he's not in charge, he's experienced in working in both small and large teams, and he's used to coordinating with other people and combo-ing abilities to achieve any given objective. Hathaway's asked him to help other people and to right wrongs, and that's what Scott's decided to dedicate his life to in the first place. He'll agree, and he would have even without the incentive. That said, Scott's experience getting dragged out of time and space for dubious reasons— reasons frequently not shared with him— will make him approach Hathaway with the possibility that they may have deliberately obscured motivations and may be manipulating him for ends they haven't shared with him. He'll be curious about unraveling any possible mysteries of who they are and what they want. Not distrustful— but not blindly trusting, either.

INCENTIVE:
Scott wants to know why he can't control his powers— if it's something innate about his mutation that he has to accept, if it's the result of head trauma in his childhood, if it's the result of manipulation by telepaths (because people like to be creeping on Scott Summers) and there's some kind of mental block he can work through or dismantle. Even if they can't give him true control, the knowledge of why this happened to him and if he can do something about it would be enough.

SPECIALIZATION:
1. Negotiator- Scott's a born leader. While he's not always the most emotive, he's good at making strategic decisions and convincing people that those decisions are the best choices available. His goals have always been to achieve peaceful relations between mutants and humans and he's became the (unwilling) face of mutantkind, a major social figure forced to reckon with the public even if he'd rather not.
2. Sentinel- Scott's dedicated to protecting and helping fellow mutants. He feels beholden to other people, compelled to take responsibility and never let anyone down, even though this puts him physically on the line and takes a great emotional toll on him. This dedication may leave him with a stick permanently stuck up his butt, but there's no doubt that he's sincere in his desire to help and protect others, even if he's not the warmest person around.

WRITING

SAMPLES.
NETWORK SAMPLE:
[ By now this getting dragged around through space and time is almost becoming mundane. That should be worrying, but he hasn't really got the energy to get worked up about it if he's not immediately being attacked, persecuted, or otherwise in danger of dying in the next ten seconds.

So he's just going to be practical about this part. ]

I have a couple of questions I'd like to put to everyone. You don't have to answer publicly if you're not comfortable doing this.

1) How many people have heard of mutants? Human mutants, or Homo superior, not the concept of mutation at large.
2) How many people have heard of the X-Men?
3) Has anyone heard of any of the following: the Avengers, Inhumans, or the Fantastic Four?
4) How many people have previous experience with accidentally or purposely traveling through time or to other dimensions?

For the record, not that I'm sure it means anything here: I'm Scott Summers. Sometimes people also call me Cyclops. I'm just trying to get some stuff straightened out for myself and out of the way before things start to get active.

[OOC: Bonus network from the TDM: here and here ]



ACTION SAMPLE:
Here!