absorptus | profile. post-x3 rogue (Reply)

basics »

name »	Anna-Marie D'Ancanto
codename »	Rogue
age »	between 18-21
birthday »	April 15th

personality »

Marie is a very secretive individual, and has not revealed much about her past to anyone other than Professor Xavier, Bobby Drake, and Logan. She goes by the code name Rogue. She has a tendency to be prickly and standoffish – and is more than a little rough around the edges; she's hardly flashy or showy -- but isn’t above acting like a playful flirt if it will get her what she wants.

Because of her powers, Rogue has spent a good portion of her time, since developing them, trying to alienate herself from everyone. This has caused her to be very defensive and to have a hard time trusting people, especially because of the experiences she's had in which people have tried to exploit her. Being a student at Xavier's gave her some semblance of a family. However, she is still uneasy about getting too close to most people (and the people she does get close to are far and few), and has a tendency to brood when left to her own devices. She's prone to running off when things get too rough for her to deal with. It's not one of her most admirable personality traits and is an extreme form of avoidance.

Deep down, Rogue is more comfortable when allowed to take care of herself without having to worry about the responsibilities and concerns that come with being part of a team. It's not that she's irresponsible; she's simply, though she doesn't admit it to much of anyone, a bit of a free spirit, more content to roam and travel than settle down, and a loner due to the nature of her powers.

Still, Rogue is extremely loyal to those she feels fully accept her despite her powers. She's able to adapt to different situations well and is a quick thinker, capable of reacting properly to stressful situations. Oddly enough, she's a crack shot with a gun, due to going to the shooting range with her father every Sunday as a child. The fact that she takes on the skills and knowledge of the people she absorbs means that using her powers adds to the skills she possesses. Training with the X-Men has made agreeable to following directions from her superiors unless she feels she has a valid reason not to. However, it also taught her a variety of leadership skills and she's capable of flipping between the two roles with ease, not bothered at all about the idea of being a superior one day and a subordinate the next.

Rogue is incapable of controlling her mutation. Therefore, she’s unable to make skin-to-skin contact with any other person without her powers automatically turning on. Obviously, this creates a variety of limitations in day-to-day life. This also means that, if she does make skin contact with another person, she absorbs a portion of their psyche, making her own mind somewhat unstable at times, depending on how much she’s absorbed. This makes Rogue highly vulnerable to being influenced by the minds she absorbs.

Absorbing too much, or, worse, too many people in too short a period of time, results in painful migraines that pretty much put her out of commission for days. Rogue generally deals with a day or two of headaches a month, this, of course, being affected by how much she’s used her powers at that time. Rogue is also plagued by flashbacks and nightmares of the extremely bad memories of her victims. During particularly bad periods, this can cause her to be extremely sleep deprived, which then makes it more difficult for her to hold off the bad memories and nightmares, compounding the problem.

She does, in fact, have a Southern accent that's gotten less noticeable with time, though it's still distinctly there. (note: I don't write out her accent in dialogue because it gives me a headache, but it's there, I promise.)

[ LIKES: ] Warm weather, southern cooking, English Literature (especially from the Victorian period), Jane Eyre, shopping, cigars (on her 'Logan Days'), pinochle (on her 'Eric Days'), chess (also on her 'Eric Days'), cigarettes (on her 'John Days'), movies (in particular old movies or movies about World War II)
[ DISLIKES / INTOLERANCES: ] Cold weather, crowds, loud noise (unless it's music). These are, of course, subject to change depending on who she's absorbed and how greatly that person's own likes, dislikes, habits and personality has affected her.
[ QUIRKS / HABITS: ] Tends to pick at the tips of her gloves. Also tends to play with the white streak in her hair when she's nervous.
[ MENTAL HEALTH: ] Rogue's mental health has a tendency to shift, depending on whether she's absorbed anyone recently and who that person was. At her 'baseline' personality, she can be a bit morose when allowed to dwell, but can usually pick herself up by going out with friends or sitting down with a good book. However, the nature of her mutation means that she's extremely susceptible to mood swings and changes in her personality.
[ PHOBIAS / FEARS: ] Accidentally hurting someone she considers worthwhile with her powers, the thought that she will never be able to control her powers.
[ GOALS / DREAMS: ] To control her mutation. To find someone who can accept her even with the limitations of her powers. She hasn't really thought about furthering her education, but if she does, she'll be drawn to social and legal work. Beyond working on her abilities, however, Rogue doesn't have a whole lot of foresight to the future.
[ FIRST IMPRESSION: ] Rogue can come across as shy and withdrawn. However, for people who know her, she's outspoken and brash, willing to speak her mind when the situation calls for it. However, she does use the fact that she comes across as a quaint southern belle to her advantage.

history »

link: up to and including X3

powers & skills »

ORIGIN OF MUTANT ABILITY:

Rogue’s mutant ability emerged at the age of 14 during her first kiss with a boy named Cody Robbins. She was incapable of controlling the newly manifested ability and the event left Robbins in a coma for three weeks.

BASIC POWERS:

Rogue possesses the superhuman ability to absorb the life-force, memories, knowledge, talents, personality, and physical abilities (whether superhuman or not) of another human being through the physical contact of her skin with the skin of the other person. Sometimes, especially in the case of other mutants with physical mutations, she also duplicates the outward physical characteristics of the other person. The victim's abilities and memories are generally absorbed for a time sixty times longer than the amount of time Rogue was in physical contact with that person.

ADVANCED POWERS:

MEMORY/KNOWLEDGE/TALENT ABSORPTION: Rogue absorbs the memories of her victims. While this means that she’s in possession of all of the person’s memories, she’s not necessarily conscious of all of it. Certain things tend to stick out in her mind, depending on her own personal interest in them or whether she’s looking for something specific in the memories, but it would take entirely too long to go through each and every memory to be fully conscious of all of them. Rogue is also capable of absorbing the knowledge and talents of her victims. Examples of this are acquiring skills in speaking foreign languages, medical knowledge, artistic aptitude, etc. Like the memories she absorbs, she’s not always fully conscious of these things and needs to focus on the knowledge and talents she wants to access in order to fully incorporate them into her own mind.

SUPER-HUMAN POWERS ABSORPTION: When Rogue absorbs someone with super-human abilities, she takes on their powers as her own for approximately 60 times as long as she was in skin-to-skin contact with her victim.

PERMANENT ABSORPTION: Prolonged touch can cause Rogue to permanently absorb the victim’s mutant powers.

DEATH VIA COMPLETE ABSORPTION OF LIFE FORCE: By maintaining skin-to-skin contact with a victim for a long enough time, Rogue can drain enough of their life force to kill them.

LATENT POWERS:

PAST TEMPLATE ACTIVIATION: Without an outside source to amplify her powers, Rogue is presently incapable of activating the powers of people she’s absorbed once they’ve faded. However, a latent aspect of her x-gene would allow her to recall at will past templates she has absorbed to reactivate any power template she had taken on in the past. This would also allow her to "feel out" the minds of her former imprints, sensing whether they are alive or dead and re-experiencing events from their perspective.

SELECTIVE ABSORPTION: Though Rogue presently has no control over her absorption power, canon suggests that, at some point, given enough time and practice, she will be able to turn her mutation on and off. In addition, she will be able to pick and choose what she absorbs --- knowledge, talents, powers, life force, etc., or any combination of these.

INSTANTANEOUS DEATH VIA TOUCH: Further mastery of her powers would allow Rogue to cause instant death of her victim through skin-to-skin contact.

ABSORPTION WITHOUT TOUCH: Rogue's basic powers cause a bioelectric shock from contact with her skin. Her powers likely stem from a skin-tight mutagenic aura that drains the auras and mutagenic auras of other living beings. An extension of her own aura would allow her to absorb the life-force, memories, knowledge, talents, personality, physical abilities, and powers without skin-to-skin contact.

PAST POWER TEMPLATES: Every power that Rogue absorbs, once it’s faded, becomes a latent addition to her x-gene. At present, these include:
Cody Robbins ; X1
Logan [Wolverine] ; X1
Eric Lehnsherr [Magneto] ; X1
Logan [Wolverine] ; X1
Bobby Drake [Iceman] ; X2
John Allerdyce [Pyro] ; X2
Piotr Rasputin [Colossus] ; X3

tropes »

Touch of Death: Pretty self-explanatory, but Rogue can't control her absorption ability. Before being incarcerated, she hadn't killed anyone with it, but she'd put a person into a coma and she knew that it seriously hurt people. Once captured, scientists forced her to kill people with her abilities by holding on for too long, so she knows she capable of it. It's something she doesn't want to have to do again.

Skunk Stripe: Rogue's white stripes of hair are probably the most striking thing about her. She usually wears it so it falls on either side of her face. In her canon, the "hair thing" was the result of Magneto attempting to force her to use a machine to turn all humans into mutants. Rogue isn't clear if it's just a permanent semi-total absorption of Erik's white hair or if the experience came so close to killing her that it actually turned her hair white. She tries not to think about it too much. Granted, she could dye it, but it's an act of defiance and a statement that she's not going to let anyone else control her. Which is why she leaves it as is.

The Runaway: Rogue can be really bad about staying put. She ran away after nearly killing David. She ran away when she thought everyone at the school blamed her for absorbing Logan. She even ran away to take the Cure, though she ultimately decided not to. She settled down a bit after that, but she worries that people are either scared of her, hate her, or don't want to put up with her bullshit.

Power Copying: Being able to copy other mutant powers would be pretty cool if it didn't come with a death touch (see above). Rogue tends to think of this ability as a side effect and maybe doesn't acknowledge the benefits of it as much as she should. She even went so far as to seriously considering giving it up at one point. Now, after Trask Labs used it as a way to make their Sentinels even more dangerous, Rogue is even more skittish about this power-copying ability.

Only Known By Their Nickname: Rogue isn't big on talking about her past to anyone, though she's a bit more open to people who have earned her trust. People like Logan and the Professor know her real name, but she doesn't go around shouting it. She prefers to leave the past in the past, compartmentalizing it if you will, and thinks of the name "Marie" as someone she was, not who she is.

headcanons »

Not Taking The Cure: Technically, movie canon has Rogue taking the Cure, which was kind of ridiculous because, seriously, taking the Cure for a boyfriend is absurd. So I went with the alternate ending where she goes, seriously considers it, and then realizes that her mutation is a part of who she is, for better or for worse. It doesn't mean she's happy, or even totally okay, with not being able to touch anyone. In fact, that's a bit of a sore subject for her. But the idea of getting rid of her mutation bothers her. The fact that she takes on the psyches of people she absorbs means that she's already sacrificing little pieces of herself to co-exist. Rogue refuses to give up another piece of herself (her powers) just to make herself more comfortable.

Cult Family: Rogue was born in a cult commune in Meridian, Mississippi. Owen and Priscilla, her parents, were both extremely young and not necessarily prepared to take over the responsibilities associated with raising a child. For that reason, her Aunt Carrie, Priscilla's sister, took over for most of Marie's care in her early life. When Marie was 5, her mother disappeared. In reality, the commune was involved with sort of mysticism involving worship of mutants and attempting to ensure future children would be x-gene positive, and her mother's disagreement over some of their methods meant that they got rid of her. However, as far as Marie knows, her mother just 'took off'. Following this, Carrie was basically put in complete charge of Marie's care (ie: it's actually Rogue's Aunt Carrie that we see at the beginning of X1, not her mother). Carrie was extremely overbearing and heavy handed. Adding to this, Marie did not have a strong relationship with her father.

playlist »