application; teddy altman; young avengers; ataraxion

[primary_concern]

PLAYER INFORMATION
Your Name: coffee
OOC Journal: brewmegently (never used)
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: over 18
Email + IM: froggy.mcgee @ gmail, brewmegently @ AIM
Characters Played at Ataraxion: none

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: Theodore "Teddy" Altman aka Hulkling and/or Dorrek VIII
Canon: Marvel's Young Avengers
Original or Alternate Universe: OU
Canon Point: Children's Crusade, Issue 7
Number: 048

Setting: Young Avengers @ Wikipedia | Hulkling @ Wikipedia | Skrull @ Wikipedia | Kree @ Wikipedia
History: I am going to write this in point form, as there's a lot to go through. Also, spoilers abound.

- Teddy's history starts before he was born, with his conception being something of a strange event. During the Kree-Skrull war, the Skrull Kl'rt, more widely known as the Super-Skrull, kidnapped Scarlet Witch, her brother Quicksilver, and Captain Marvel, a Kree warrior living on Earth, and presented them to the Skrull Emperor in an attempt to gain favor. The heroes eventually escaped, but not after Captain Marvel and the Skrull Princess Anelle had a tryst resulting in Teddy's conception. Being a hybrid, Teddy, or as he was named at the time, Dorrek VIII, was marked for death from birth, and the Princess was forced to smuggle him to Earth with a nanny for his own protection. Teddy was never told about his true nature, and his nanny, tasked with his protection and who genuinely came to love him, was known as Mrs. Altman - his mother.

- Teddy's early life isn't covered in great detail. He was raised on Earth by a single mother who he believed to be human, and was told that his father died of cancer before he was born. He went to an Episcopal school, and is familiar with the Bible because of that. He had an otherwise relatively normal childhood and early teenage years, being relatively popular in high school and on sports teams due to his shapeshifting ability. He believed his shapeshifting abilities were due to being a mutant.

- Teddy made friends with a boy at his school named Greg when he was younger, revealing his shapeshifting abilities to the other boy and abusing them by mimicking superheroes and other celebrities to get the luxuries associated with being them. When Greg tried to loot the destroyed Avengers mansion, Teddy finally put a stop to these shenanigans, arguing against it because it went against what he believed in and the whole situation was wrong. Greg turned against him, calling him a freak and insinuating that he was a Skrull, and the friendship ended with Teddy realizing he values his morals over the friendship or fitting in.

- Along with Eli Bradley (Patriot), and Billy Kaplan (Asgardian, later Wiccan), Teddy was recruited to a new group of Avengers by Iron Lad, a younger version of Kang the Conqueror (a notable Marvel villain) with a suit similar to Iron Man's using extremely advanced technology and the ruined Vision's "failsafe program" that identified upcoming heroes with abilities related to the original Avengers. The group started training together to hone their abilities in preparation for when they would have to face down Kang. They took on many lower-level bad guys at this time, and performed general crime stopping (leaving crooks tied up for the police) and rescuing people from fires etc. It is during this time, shortly after meeting each other, that Billy and Teddy first get into their relationship, though the details are unmentioned. The team is rounded out during a hostage situation when Kate Bishop (who takes the name Hawkeye), an archer and all-around athlete/fighter/gymnast (without powers) helps the boys (it is her sister's wedding that was taken hostage). They were also joined by Cassie Lang (who later takes the name Stature), daughter of Ant-Man, and who stole Pym Particles from her father allowing her to change her size much like he did, and who confronted them at the Avengers mansion.

- The newly-formed and mostly untested team faced Kang the Conqueror, defeating him. This is when the team discovers the dangers of time travel - as Kang is defeated and Nate, the younger version of Kang from the future, vows never to become that person, reality itself starts to warp. The world starts changing to how it would be without Kang, including the erasure of Billy and Teddy. Realizing that Nate has to go on to become Kang, he leaves the team, with the Vision's programming fusing with his suit to become a new Vision.

- After this incident, the team is forced by the original Avengers to stop being in the superhero business due to their age, with their gear (including the new Vision) being confiscated and the threat of being "outed" to their parents as superheroes being hung over their heads. The group tries to stop being superheroes and go back to "normal" life, but none of them are able to. It is Kate Bishop who re-forms the team, suggesting a new name to Billy (Asgardian, as she puts it, would lend itself to too many jokes after the press found out about his relationship with Teddy). She provides a headquarters with her father's money, and the group opts to start heroing again, with the exception of Patriot, who is a little harder to talk into it.

- During this time, Billy accidentally came out to his parents. He was, as agreed upon by the group, going to tell his family himself about his abilities and superheroism (they all intended to confess, to remove the threat of being outed before it could be used), but his parents took it as a confession about his sexuality before he had a chance of getting into it. Billy's parents were open and supportive, and accepted Teddy as a "son-in-law."

- As the team was getting back together, Teddy was abruptly attacked by Kl'rt, also known as the Super-Skrull, who claimed Teddy was a Skrull and that he intended to take him back to the Skrull Empire. After fighting him off, the Young Avengers went to Billy's home seeking safety, finding that Teddy's mother was there looking for him. The Super-Skrull then burst through the wall, holding Patriot hostage. While Teddy offered to go with the Super-Skrull if he let Eli go, the Super-Skrull shot a weapon at Teddy and his mother that would force him to revert to his original form. Teddy's mother was revealed to be a Skrull, and attacked the Super-Skrull in his defense. The Super-Skrull responded by setting her on fire, and though Billy did everything he could to stop it, she died in the flames. While the group was distracted with this tragic turn of events, Teddy was abducted by the Super-Skrull, who explained the incidents surrounding his birth (see first history point), though he wasn't sure who Teddy's father was.

- Unable to rescue Teddy with a team crippled by two lost members, the rest of the Young Avengers went to Captain America and the other original Avengers looking for help - though the Avengers were out dealing with something else, they did regain Vision's help, and using his failsafe program, located another young 'superhero,' Tommy, who was located in a rehabilitation center. After breaking him out, the group used his superspeed and explosive abilities to rescue Teddy. As soon as they emerged, however, they found themselves attacked by Kree warships, who engaged in a battle with the Skrull already present (summoned by the Super-Skrull upon him finding Teddy) and a midair battle began. The group tried to stop it, and eventually it fell to a stalemate when the Avengers intervened. The Kree confirmed that Teddy's father was Captain Marvel, a Kree warrior, and demanded to take him, while the Skrull also demanded him. Teddy, refusing to leave the planet to help settle peace, switched places with the Super-Skrull, who impersonated him and went to spy on the Kree. It was also during this time period that Tommy joined the Young Avengers as Speed, and the Super-Skrull suggested that Billy and Tommy's mother was Wanda Maximoff - the Scarlet Witch - and Teddy impersonated Billy for an afternoon and evening to allow him and Tommy to go looking for clues to her location.

- Some time after these incidents, Captain Marvel appeared on the planet again, having come back from the dead via time travel. Teddy, upon finding this out, insisted on meeting his father, and despite Billy and the rest of the team's suggestions, confessed that he was his son. Frustrated and angry when Captain Marvel rejected him, he lashed out during battles against villains, and fled to take some time alone. While he was brooding on a roof, Captain Marvel approached him and told him that he accepted him, but would have to return to his own time. Upset at the loss of a father figure yet again (as well as the loss of his last 'living' parent), Teddy asked him not to, and Captain Marvel insisted that he had to, to keep the timeline intact. After Captain Marvel left, Teddy never saw him again.

- After this, the Marvel universe broke into a Civil War, with Iron Man and Captain America on opposite sides of support for the Superhuman Registration Act, intended to keep young, hotheaded superheroes from repeating a tragic incident that had killed over 600 people. The Young Avengers sided with Captain America against the act and the ensuing Initiative, intended to be a "superhero bootcamp" supported by the government. During this time, Billy was captured along with othe opposing superheroes capable of teleportation locked in a prison that subdued abilities. Teddy aided the resistance against the Act by impersonating Hank Pym, a major player in the Initiative, and ended the 'war' by incapacitating Tony Stark's side from the inside.

- Shortly afterward, the fall of Asgard happened, and though the Young Avengers weren't majorly involved, Billy and Teddy helped with cleaning up and rescuing survivors. They stopped a group of villains from looting the throne room.

- During the Skrull Secret Invasion arc, the Young Avengers helped fight the Skrulls invading through the Initiative. Though Teddy was mistaken for an invader at first, he fought with the superheroes of Earth, particularly when it was revealed that the Skrulls were tasked with killing him, as his position as heir to the throne would take away from their authority.

- Shortly thereafter, Norman Osborne, former Green Goblin, formed a group of "Dark Avengers" including a "dark" Young Avengers. The Young Avengers at first tried to see if the group was good enough to have the name, but ended up having to defeat them when they proved too dark-natured.

- After these events, the most recent story arc of Young Avengers - Children's Crusade - kicked off. When Teddy was threatened with a nuclear bomb by a group of religious fanatics, Billy freaked out and lost control of his reality-altering powers, knocking out an entire city block (including many superheroes) to prevent Teddy from being hurt. This kicked off a chain of events alerting the Avengers to the fact that Billy was the son of Scarlet Witch - a former Avenger who had, through her reality-altering powers and a mental breakdown, thrust most of the superhero world into an alternate universe where mutants ruled, and then subsequently depowered most of the world's mutants. Afraid that Billy might have this power, the Avengers tried to take him in and keep him for study. Teddy threatened Captain America, stating that if he intended to do anything to Billy, that Teddy should be his primary concern. He was instead invited along to stay with Billy, though the pair were rescued before anything could happen by Speed and the rest of the team.

- After bursting out of the Avengers mansion, the group discovered that Captain America had "outed" Billy to his parents. Fleeing, the group ran into Magneto, Billy's grandfather, who led them to Latveria, where they were joined by Quicksilver (Scarlet Witch's twin brother) in search of the her. Teddy and several other members of the team were very opposed to this, though Teddy supported his boyfriend without question. He remained incredibly patient while the group searched, despite thinking it was a bad idea, growing increasingly frustrated with Magneto's manipulation of Billy and Quicksilver's direct encouragement for Billy to go off rashly in search of his mother. After discovering that she was being held at Dr. Doom's castle, Billy left the bed he shared with Teddy in the middle of the night while Teddy was sleeping to go in alone after her. After Billy is "depowered" while getting the Scarlet Witch out of Dr. Doom's castle, the Young Avengers, Magneto, and Quicksilver are rejoined by Iron Lad, who had traveled back through the timestream to help the group, and taken back in time, repairing the Scarlet Witch's lost memory.

- Vowing to repair the wrong she had done, the Scarlet Witch was accompanied by Billy, Tommy, Teddy, the rest of the Young Avengers, and her father and brother to try to find a mutant that would be amenable to her trying to repower them. Settling on the mutant Rictor, Wanda was proven able to correct the wrong she had done. However, the group was then attacked by the X-Men and the Avengers. Fighting back alongside Magneto and Quicksilver after the X-Men refused to let Scarlet Witch live, Teddy helped protect his boyfriend's mother. Eventually, however, she tired of the immature actions of the mutants and the group retreated to Dr. Doom's castle, where Billy's powers were returned when Dr. Doom said that he couldn't depower him, but only use the power of suggestion to make him think he had. The group then prepared to use powerful chaos magic to try to set the world right with Dr. Doom and the Scarlet Witch's combined power.

- It is at this canon point, with Teddy's issues with Billy and the entire situation unresolved, and the uncertainty of the success of the procedure intended to set the world right that he would be brought into Ataraxion.

Personality: Teddy is not an overcomplicated individual. Defying the "team tank" stereotype, he is generally level-headed, easygoing, intelligent, and difficult to make angry. While he is generally responsible and dutiful, however, he can also be stubborn, selfish, overprotective, and can be incredibly impulsive when threatened.

The Young Avengers, as a team, tend to be relatively reckless and don't give a lot of thought to their actions. In a lot of ways, Teddy frequently acts as the rock of the team, and along with Kate, helps provide a voice of reason to team plans. Because of this innate level-headedness, which likely came from being raised as the child of a working single mother as much as his own nature, Teddy often becomes something of a center around which the more impulsive, fiery members of the team can gravitate. He offers support, protection, and backup to his team, and while he shows no interest in being a leader, he helps temper the others and keep track of their moral compass. Also, despite showing no interest in leadership, he has the cool confidence and intelligence to be a strong force on the team - he never has to be lead around by the nose, understands plans and helps out with them, and has a biting, intelligent wit that he frequently expresses both in and out of costume. Despite the fact that he might look like a typical big blond jock, he is in all actuality a complete nerd, particularly when it comes to other Marvel superheroes, who he generally idolizes.

Teddy has a very strong moral compass, navigating complex situations and showing the courage to make decisions he feels are right in these difficult spots. This bravery allows him to survive through extremely traumatic experiences, such as watching his mother burn to death and being cut open and operated on without anaesthetic "for science" several times in a row. He manages to survive these situations, not always completely emotionally intact, but without being crippled by them.

While he wasn't always so confident in himself, starting out in school by seeking approval from classmates through shapeshifting himself to be more socially acceptable and using his abilities to impress a classmate, he has very much grown into himself by the time he joins the Young Avengers. He's effortlessly cool, having accepted who he is and what's important to him. He shows no shame in behaving in an openly homosexual way with his teammate Billy Kaplan, who he's dating, even in public places, or talking about his nerdy fanboy interests. Even as he learns things about himself and his life that he had never expected - for example, that his mother was a Skrull nanny, and that he himself is a unique alien hybrid, or that his boyfriend is the son of one of Marvel's most infamous heroines - he takes them in stride, learns what he can about the situation so he can deal with it, and accepts them as part of who he is and what his life is. He has a very, very grounded sense of what is important to him, and remains focused on protecting that - first comes Billy, then his team, and then his duty to help other people and the world.

This is actually where one of his greatest weaknesses lies. His strong pyramid of priorities can make him incredibly stubborn, a little rash, and even selfish. Billy is his top priority, and this has caused no end of moral dilemmas for the Young Avengers and Teddy personally. Because of the danger presented by Billy's reality-altering abilities, Teddy often finds himself having to protect his boyfriend at the cost of personal safety, and even the safety of the world. He is stubborn, dependable, and loyal, and this can be a problem when the people he is loyal to are making bad decisions, as Teddy will almost invariably back them up even when he thinks it's not a great idea, such as when Billy decided to go after the Scarlet Witch, who single-handedly wiped out most of the mutant abilities on the planet. His loyalty to Billy has also caused him to be incredibly impulsive, Teddy having directly threatened such Marvel powerhouses as Magneto, Wolverine, and Quicksilver (all of whom could crush him easily), and being directly at odds with not only the X-Men but the Avengers as well, when they threatened Billy in various ways. He has done a number of pretty stupid things because of his priority set, abandoning the responsibility placed on him to attempt to find peace for the generations-old war between the Skrull and Kree, and insisting on being a superhero despite being told to quit because he is too young. This just goes to show that, despite being pretty level-headed, he is only level-headed relative to the team he's on and the fact he's basically a stubborn and sort of rebellious 16 year old boy.

Teddy is also not emotionally invulnerable. He has a lot of internal issues surrounding his family. He has an incredible amount of pent-up frustration, hurt, and loneliness surrounding the fact that he has been literally orphaned by incidents in canon. His mother's death is still relatively recent, and he had a run in with his "real" father, Captain Marvel, that demonstrated how much he craves a relationship with a father figure, something he's never had. When he's feeling hurt or lonely, and when he's not focused on a bigger issue, he can become angry and resentful of his absent parents that he doesn't always express in the best way (he once completely destroyed a few police cars because of it), or swing into grief which is only natural for a boy orphaned while a teenager. This is probably one of his greatest vulnerabilities.

Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:

Teddy has a pretty big laundry list of abilities due to his Skrull/Kree hybrid nature. I'll list off what he can do with explanations of how I'd cap them, since his powerset renders him borderline unkillable/uninjurable and that's boring in a dangerous setting.

Shapeshifting: Due to his half-Skrull heritage, Teddy can shapeshift his body into any form he chooses. This includes shapeshifting into any living creature (including humans) and altering his form to include extra size, armor, wings, etc. that make him all-around bigger than his base humanoid form. How big he can get hasn't been shown, but he tends to stay within twice or three times his normal body size on a general basis. This ability includes an automatic body function that moves his internal organs to avoid fatal injury.
I would limit this by forcing him to stay within his own size category - ie. he couldn't add matter to himself with shapeshifting abilities and is stuck with the mass he has in his base human form - for example, if he wants wings, he has to sacrifice equivalent muscle mass, etc. I would also take away his moving organs so he had a better chance of being killed.

Healing Factor: Due to his half-Skrull heritage, Teddy has a healing factor. This basically allows him to heal at a much, much faster rate than a normal human. While it isn't on par with that of, say, Wolverine, he is shown to heal knife wounds in a few minutes, and was able to withstand and heal quickly from multiple consecutive vivisections. This renders him pretty much unkillable except with an injury causing immediate death. How it affects viruses like the common cold and diseases hasn't been touched in canon.
I would limit this by depowering his healing factor so his healing was about twice that of a normal human, making him more vulnerable.

Super Strength: Due to his half-Kree heritage, Teddy has super strength. It isn't ever directly quantified, but he is exceptionally strong for his size, even moreso than a normal Kree because of his Skrull heritage.
I would limit this by just making him twice as strong as a boy his size should be.

Immunity to Pheremones: Because of his alien heritage in general, Teddy is immune to any human-pheremone-based control or manipulation. Whether he's immune to other poisons or pheremones from his own heritage isn't shown, but he likely isn't.
I would limit this by removing it altogether, honestly.

Weaknesses: Teddy doesn't really have any physical weaknesses (oh Marvel...) - most of those are inherent in his personality. There is a type of weapon in the Marvel universe that can force a Skrull to take his or her default form, and while it didn't work on Teddy in canon, that was likely because the form he was in at the time was his default form. This type of weapon would probably work on him if he was shapeshifted.

Inventory: Teddy wasn't really carrying anything when he was taken, so his inventory would consist of his superhero uniform (unless it was taken away) and probably his cell phone from home.
Appearance: icon page with human and 'green' forms
Because it's relevant to how his shapeshifting will be limited, and he has no canon information (it's all listed as variable - stupid shapeshifters), I'm going to set an arbitrary height and weight for his base form at 6'1" and 240 lbs. He's quite the thick guy.
Age: 16

AU Clarification: n/a

SAMPLES
Log Sample:

There were moments, between one big fight and the next, one moment of turmoil and moral dissolution and the next that Teddy had just a moment or two too long to think. He hated those moments, mostly because he started to feel overwhelmed - really overwhelmed. It was just too much, chasing after a hero-turned-monster and finding out she wasn't bad. Finding out that she was likable, she was flighty and temperamental and extremely powerful. Finding out that his boyfriend was way too much like her, and how terrifying that could be when he was facing down the X-Men and the Avengers, fighting for a boy he was so, so angry at for leaving him in the middle of the night to do something so stupid, so irrational, so brave that it drove him crazy. It was like he was burning inside, and he couldn't lose Billy too, he couldn't, not after Captain Marvel - after his mother. But he had to do this. He had to follow this through. Not just to make things right, but because Billy deserved that kind of support from him, the kind of support Scarlet Witch hadn't gotten.

It hurt, he was scared, he was lonely, he felt powerless and over his head, like he was being swept along by a current he couldn't stop...but Billy needed him. Because he knew, instinctively, that it was pretty likely that the only thing that would stop Billy from taking his mother's path was that he had Teddy. And he was determined, right from the core of him, that he would be the anchor Billy needed to stay sane. Hard as it was, he had to be. It was his mission.

And all he needed to do was get past this night, and the next, and the fight after that. To survive, to flourish, even with the world against them.

'Survive long enough to shout Billy Kaplan into submission, Teddy, and you'll be set.' he grimly reminded himself, and forced his way through another hour.

Comms Sample:

[The video post engages showing Teddy wearing the ship's uniform. His face is grim, and he lifts a finger to tug lightly at the collar, as if it's a touch too tight, even though it fits perfectly. His brows are drawn into a tight furrow in the middle, and he's frowning deeply. He looks very tired, and very unhappy.]

I was kind of in the middle of something. In the middle of a lot of somethings, actually.

[He lifts a hand and pushes it back through his hair, huffing out breath through pursed lips.]

I'm kind of speechless here, and this is probably going to sound more than a little stupid but, here goes.

Are we actually in space?

It's not the weirdest thing I've come across, just putting that out there. But space is somewhere I pretty much decided I wasn't going. Especially not the whole 'whisked off into space against my will for the greater good' thing. In fact, getting whisked off for the greater whatever is starting to get really old.

So basically, can someone please tell me this is a really intricate, detailed, really bad dream?