OOC: APPLICATION INFO

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:37:57 GMT

Character Name: Old Lace (OL for short)
Fandom: Runaways (Marvel Universe)

Age: Unknown, and difficult to estimate due to 1. her involvement in time travel and 2. the fact that she is a dinosaur and it is difficult to determine the age of a dinosaur just by looking. It's likely she's relatively young, though.
Species: Genetically engineered dromaeosaur. From the future.
Gender: Female
Sexual Orientation: ... n/a, mostly ... depending on how ~sexy~ the velociraptors are ;D

Physical Appearance: Although Old Lace was initially referred to as a velociraptor by the rest of her team, it was later pointed out to them that, thanks to her size, she most closely resembles a deinonychus. However, since she was genetically engineered centuries in the future, she is probably not technically a deinonychus either, and, since this game is set in the world of Jurassic Park, the film responsible for the widespread misconception that raptors are that big, the distinction probably isn't worth making. Let's just say she's a large dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur – she basically looks like a Jurassic Park raptor.

Like them, she's about six feet high; her scales are brown and she's built like they are, with pointy bits in all the same places – but she can be distinguished from the average park raptor by the purple diamond-patterned markings down her back, her large red eyes, with pupils slitted like a cat's, and ~~her bling~~ the thick metal nose ring through her nostrils. Also, the fact that she's not trying to eat you ... probably.

Personality and Traits: Although Old Lace is an animal with basic animal desires, she is smarter than the average bear. Or dinosaur. She's intelligent enough to do things like leave a urine trail for people to follow without prompting, for instance, and can understand English (mostly) despite being unable to speak it herself. She is very loyal to her human 'family', and although she is to an extent bound to follow the commands of whoever she is telepathically bonded to, she refuses to obey if instructed to harm one of the people she cares about. She is very physically affectionate with the people she's close to – she's an enthusiastic nuzzler and she likes to be petted.

She is both kind of excitable and a sort of reptilian mistress of unimpressed deadpan looks (she gets it from Gert). She is keen on donuts.

(With the mind link presumably removed thanks to the no-powers thing, Old Lace will no longer be directly affected by the thoughts and feelings of any Gert or Chase that might show up, but will still be sensitive to their body language and sympathetic to how she perceives them to be feeling, and will obey most spoken commands they might give her. She will also remain fiercely protective of either of them, and of any other member of the Runaways cast – she views them as her pack.)

Canon Background: Genetically engineered in the 87th century for Dale and Stacey Yorkes, a pair of time-travelling super-villains, Old Lace was created as a companion for their daughter Gertrude. As such, she was created to have a telepathic bond with Gert that meant Old Lace obeyed Gert's commands and was empathically affected by both Gert's emotions and her physical pain. Gert was intended to inherit Old Lace when her parents died – until then, the dinosaur was to be locked away in a secret chamber in the Yorkes' basement.

The Yorkes were two of the members of the Pride, an organisation of six married pairs of super-villains who kept Los Angeles in a vice grip – although, unlike most super-villains of their power and status, most ordinary people didn't know they existed, they were so feared in underground criminal circles – and so ruthlessly efficient in keeping control of Los Angeles – that no villain who knew what was good for him would try to muscle in on their territory. However, they weren't just a crime ring. They were originally brought together by the Gibborim, thee otherworldly beings who wanted their help to wipe out all life on Earth so the Gibborim could rule over it as a peaceful utopia. In return for their help, they would give the Pride twenty-five years of wealth and power, enabling their criminal control over all of Los Angeles, and allow their six children to live in their paradise after all other life had been eradicated. The help that they needed, however, was the yearly ritual sacrifice of an innocent victim, and when their children witnessed the sacrifice by accident, they ran away, only stopping to check their parents' homes for clues.

At the Yorkes' they found more than clues: they found a dinosaur. At first she attacked them, but when Gert yelled 'stop' she found that the dinosaur obeyed her – despite the rocky start they bonded quickly, and, although Gert left her behind while they went to check out the other children's houses, she followed them. Gert named her Old Lace to go with the codename she'd picked for herself – Arsenic. The team quickly gave up on codenames, but Old Lace stuck.

Framed by their parents as the murderes of the girl whose sacrifice they witnessed and faced with the reality that they couldn't just run and hide forever, the Runaways felt they had no choice but to try to take their parents down. They succeeded, but at the cost of one of their own number, who turned out to have been manipulating the rest of them from the outset, believing their parents' cause a noble one.

After they defeated the Pride, the Runaways were 'rescued' by the authorities and sent to foster homes – and Old Lace was locked away again in a secret holding facility. She was reunited with Gert, though, a few months later: the Runaways left their various foster homes and boarding schools to reform their group, and Gert freed Old Lace with the help of her boyfriend, Chase.

Old Lace and the rest of the Runaways took it upon themselves to fight the rash of super-crime that had sprung up in Los Angeles now that the Pride was no longer in charge. Gert later died saving one of her teammates from a ressurected Geoffrey Wilder, one of the original members of the Pride, and passed her telepathic link with Old Lace on to Chase. Although Old Lace obeys him for the most part, she seems somewhat less in tune with him than she was with Gert.

Strengths/Abilities: As mentioned previously, Old Lace shares a telepathic link with Chase Stein, passed on to him from Gert Yorkes. This bond means Old Lace is affected by Chase's thoughts and feelings and obeys mental or verbal commands from him (except when she doesn't), and that any physical pain inflicted on either of them is felt by both. Chase can tell how Old Lace is feeling, but she cannot command him.

Telepathy aside, Old Lace's strengths are basically the strengths one would expect from a large intelligent dromaeosaur: she's very smart (for an animal), she can run very fast, she can jump very high, and her teeth and claws are very, very pointy.

Weaknesses/Faults: Well, she's an animal. Sure, she can understand what you're saying (well, some of it), but that doesn't mean she can understand abstract concepts, and she can't exactly be reasoned with very easily. She's bright, but not as intelligent as a human.

She doesn't really have morals or any general idea of right or wrong: to Old Lace, wrong is hurting the people close to her and right is making them happy. Without her 'pack' around to define whether she considers someone a good or bad person, she could be won over fairly easily by the wrong sorts of people.

She's also going to be really, really lost without her psychic link to Chase, and it'll take a while for her to get used to not being able to feel him at all times. Also, if she runs into any raptors she's going to be hecka confused. She's never met another one of her before.

Items Brought With Them: Old Lace isn't a belongings kind of individual. The only thing on her that isn't a part of her body is her nose ring.

BLINGOPSISAURUS

OOC: APPLICATION INFO