Laurie Collins
From Canonwars
Contents |
Biography
Pre-Xavier's
Laurie Collins was born to Gail Collins, a human, and Sean Garrison, a mutant, though the two weren't together when Laurie came about. Sean manipulated Gail into falling in love with him with his mutant power, the ability to manipulate emotions with mutated pheremones. Gail became immune to these permanantly when she became pregnant with Laurie, and so she left Sean, to raise Laurie on her own.
Gail never found any one else, and never told Laurie who her father was. A single mom, she worked long hours, leaving Laurie to fend for herself most days. Laurie, sensing her mother's pain, never sought out relationships away from her mother, preferring her own company to that of anyone else. When Laurie was thirteen, Gail took her daughter on vacation to the beach. There, Laurie came into her powers, though she didn't know it at the time. Boys flocked to Laurie, adoring her and for the first time Laurie was popular. However, it wasn't meant to last. Gail noticed the reactions of the boys, and pulled her daughter aside that night, explaining the powers that Laurie had inherited. She also attempted to make sure her daughter knew that she was worthy of being popular without the use of her pheremones.
But Laurie knew she wouldn't be able to trust people's reactions towards her ever again. She became more secluded and withdrawn, but even that didn't keep her pheremones from causing problems at school. Her mother finally opted to take her to Xavier's School for the Gifted, where she knew Laurie would be able to get help. Gail even moved to Salem Center, to make sure that Laurie would always have someone around that she could trust, due to her immunity to Laurie's powers, though she insisted that Laurie make friends and live at the school.
Life at Xavier's
Laurie, however, still remained secluded and withdrawn. She was paired with multiple roommates, some immune to her powers, others not, all not able to deal with rooming with the shy, reclusive girl. Laurie was present during the riots, though she was not involved -- not directly, she feels. To this day, she has no idea if her feelings of fear were what caused the riot, even though she stayed hidden in her room for the duration.
Eventually, Laurie was paired with Sofia Mantega, who was able to help Laurie with her pheremone problem by blowing them away in the wind that Sofia could control. Sofia forced Laurie to be more social, and Laurie grew to make friends with Sofia, David and Kevin Ford. On a trip to visit Sofia's father in New York City, they group was attacked by the Reavers. Laurie, for the first time, was able to direct her pheremones towards her enemies, but Kevin was caught in the crossfire -- as a result, her fear pheremones caused him to be too afraid to act when Donald Pierce stabbed Laurie through the chest. Laurie was saved by one of the Reavers, Josh Foley, who had just come into his mutant healing powers. Despite her former crush on Kevin, Laurie was instantly smitten with Josh, though he only had eyes for Rahne Sinclair.
When Sofia crashed and burned (figuratively speaking) in her first Field Day as leader, Laurie found her crying in their room after some harsh criticism from Josh. Laurie offered to speak to Josh - saying that she could talk to Josh about Sofia, even if not to ask him on a date. Trying to pluck up the courage to talk to him, she came across him just after he'd been turned down by Rahne again, who felt a relationship with him was inappropriate now she was on the faculty, and he asked if she wanted to him, and after she'd mentioned the "Sofia thing", he suggested they get some dinner in town - on their own (making Kevin, who still had a crush on her even after she'd moved on, not happy).
Going to a video arcade, she confessed to Josh about what her father was like, and how she didn't want to be like him, and that that was why she'd "avoided everybody." Halfway through saying that she had her powers mostly under control and she should be dating, he finally clicked that she did want to date - him. As they were leaving the arcade to go somewhere else, Rahne interrupted to bring them back to the Institute: the FBI had caught up with Kevin about his accidental killing of his father.
After the school, buoyed by reassurances by Agent Pierce over the clearly accidental death, allowed Kevin to be taken away by the FBI, Laurie was one of the most upset, and went to skim stones on the Institute's lake. Icarus found her, having already gathered the rest of the New Mutants - barring Sofia - with the news that the rest of the Hellions had gone to break Kevin out, and that Sofia went with them. Laurie's reaction was "Good!", but the others talked her into helping them stop the Hellions: although she was even more annoyed after Josh tried to get Wolfsbane to help them.
She used her powers to keep Rockslide crying and out of the fight while the others fought around them, until the X-Men - alerted by Rahne - turned up and took them all back to the Institute. The charges against Kevin were dismissed, but, soured on the New Mutants, he swapped squads with Icarus (although he & Laurie remain friends - if strained by her crush on Josh) - while, unbeknownst to her, Josh and Rahne covertly resumed their relationship. Eventually Rahne, feeling it would be healthier for Josh to be with Laurie after she saw the two returning from a date, broke off her relationship with Josh for good - unbeknownst to either her or Josh, in front of Kevin. Eventually, Kevin used the information to break Josh and Laurie up, and Laurie was left embittered by the experience, going so far as to use her pheremones to manipulate Prodigy into kissing her at the dance in a successful attempt to make Josh jealous, which might have gone unnoticed but for Sofia realising what was happening, and the event added to the fast disintegration of the squad.
Thereafter, Sofia pushed all the New Mutants into a campout for one night on the Xavier Institute grounds. While the initial attempts by Sofia at forcing a resolution came to disaster when a fist-fight between Josh and David led Laurie to confess to Josh what had happened at the dance, later she - along with the other New Mutants - overheard him pouring his heart out to Icarus, leading her to forgive him enough to be friends and telling David she didn't know how to apologise to him for her behaviour at the dance, saying she just didn't want to be the weak one any more, and he forgave her.
After almost the entire mutant population lost their powers, Laurie was one of the lucky few who retained the mutant gene. Unfortunately Kevin Ford believed he had lost his powers and reached out to Laurie, withering away her arm. Shortly after this trauma, Laurie was shot and killed by a sniper working for the Reverend William Stryker. It is later revealed that Stryker had her killed because a vision from the future foretold she would be the one to defeat his army.
Purgatory
Laurie woke up in the Welcome Center, with the last thing she remembered talking to Josh that night, with no clue as to why her arm was perfectly alright, and why she had a migraine the size of Canada. Josh declined to tell her about her death, as did Noriko Ashida, and Laurie spent her first afternoon on Purgatory blissfully unaware of her fate in her home universe. Josh and Laurie, in an attempt to make Emma Frost and Scott Summers realize just how important they are to the students, moved themselves into Emma and Scott's apartment, with Noriko, Sofia and Julian Keller soon to follow. Insenstively on his part, Julian let it slip that Laurie had died in canon, and she ran out of the house in shock, unable to comprehend why her friends hadn't told her.
Emma went after her, explaining that her friends hadn't wanted her to know right away, as it's something rather hard to let sink in, especially after you find out you're not real. Laurie is currently residing in the X Mansion after being kicked out of the apartment by Emma, with Josh. It's unsure how long they two of them will be staying there.
Powers and abilities
Wallflower generates pheremones, which alters the chemical balance in the brains of those around her, effecting their hormones and giving her the ability to effect their emotions. Initially, she had no control over this effect at all, and she would cause everyone within range to match her moods. She later learned to control her power and was thus able to choose what effect she desired those in her proximity to experience.
OOC
Laurie's avatar is Evan Rachel Wood, and her journal is pheremoned. She is played by Lins.
