Twyla Ashby

Individual

Character's full name: Twyla Blanch Ashby
Alias/ Nickname/ Code name: Wallflower
Gender: Female
Age: 20
Date of Birth: 12/23/1991
Nationality/ Ethnicity: U.S. Citizen—Caucasian (Mostly German and Norwegian heritage)
Birthplace/ Home/ Place of origin: Rural Wisconsin

Appearance

Hair color and style: Twyla’s got wavy hair down to her shoulders that is naturally brown but she dyes it a dirty blonde color. Usually she wears it down with her bangs pinned back in some way.
Eyes: Twyla’s eyes are round and a bright brown color.
Height: 5’6
Build: No one would ever peg Twyla’s body as anything beyond or below average. She’s a normal size for her age with curves that are proportional to her mid-sized frame. The signs of her childhood farm work have all but disappeared (at least in relation to her body mass) and though she is not unhealthy she no longer has the corded muscle of a dancer or a gymnast. The muscle that she’s acquired since leaving home is very lean and not immediately noticeable.
Visible mutation: Her mutation is only visible if she is using her powers.
Scars/ Tattoos/ Piercings: Twyla has her ears pierced in the lobe once on each ear and her left cartilage is pierced twice; she likes to wear tiny hoops in her cartilage piercings. She has no tattoos but her scars tell her stories just as effectively. Twyla has a large scar on her left knee from a farm accident when she was very young as well as smaller scars on her hands from working at home. A few months after she left New York she got burned by a fellow mutant on her right arm and that reddish brown scar remains a few inches above her wrist.
Other features: Twyla’s nose is slightly wide and slightly upturned. She has ears that don’t stick out, no freckles and medium sized lips with a fuller bottom than top. She has fair skin that takes a while to tan; usually she burns for the first half of summer and then gets brown. Her lips are almost always chapped because she’s got a knack for losing her lip balm.

Everyday clothing style: Twyla’s style is simple and clean. She doesn’t like cluttered outfits and rarely wears very much jewelry. She has grown a penchant for vintage pieces and she likes to mix them in with more basic clothing. She likes to wear sweaters and jeans quite a lot. Comfort is the most important thing to her when choosing footwear and she likes to wear sneakers and TOMS whenever possible. Dresses and skirts are a rarity in her wardrobe because she likes no-fuss clothing that is easily traveled and slept in.
Uniform: Currently she doesn’t have one.
Sleepwear: Anything can become pajamas but she prefers an oversized tee and a pair of short-shorts.
Miscellaneous clothing: Twyla doesn’t really own any odd articles of clothing although she has a very large collection of sports tee shirts representing several Wisconsin teams.

Character

Personality: Twyla Ashby used to be a very shy and unconfident girl. There are vestiges of that nervous girl still flitting around under the surface but she’s grown up a lot in the last few months. It is no longer easy to intimidate her and she no longer flees from conflict. While Twyla has not become confrontational she does not back down when challenged. A stubborn streak that she used to suppress has taken hold of her. Twyla never took crap before but now she’s more vocal about her opinions—her intense fear of social rejection has receded quite a lot. Sometimes her shyness escapes its box and she can be a bit socially awkward but those moments are few and far between.

Twyla lost track of herself for a while and she realized that sometimes spontaneity has a place. Not having a plan used to send her into a panic but now Twyla has a calmer attitude towards unexpected situations. This is not to say that she isn’t still goal-oriented; this young woman still knows what she wants and how she’s going to get it. She also still cares a lot about her family and while she is not as close with her family or friends from home and New York she still feels very loyal to them. Protecting those that she loves is a very important motivator for Twyla but that need to do good for others has expanded to people that she doesn’t know. She hopes to become an X-Men and a registered nurse specialized in mutant-related injuries.

Two of her main faults are her jealousy and her tendency to become defensive very easily. Her jealousy has disrupted relationships with her family as well with people that she met after she left New York and more often than not this trait results in some kind of negative confrontation. Her quickly defensive persona is the product of her experiences out of New York City and it is hard for her to turn off her attitude when among people she’s safe around. Her family has told her that she’s become a harder person and she doesn’t deny that she’s changed. Some of her innocence and all of her good nature are still inside of her; she just tends to hide those parts of herself behind walls.

Hobbies/ Interests: Reading is her favorite hobby—especially Enlightenment era philosophy and all kinds of fantasy anthologies (she also has a large Jane Austen collection). She used to be a gymnast and a dancer in high school and Twyla still enjoys being active. Nowadays she gets most of her dancing in while she’s out on the town. Running is another thing that she enjoys to do, especially in the early morning.
Job or part time job and description: Currently she is unemployed but she has worked as a waitress, dance coach at a summer camp, and is a registered CNA.
Fears/ phobias/ concerns: Twyla is terrified of the dark and being alone at night makes her nervous. She doesn’t have any phobias but finds herself wondering if she’ll ever make a real difference in the world.
Special talents: She is particularly good at bumming rides and opening jars of pickles.

Morality

Good/ bad/ neutral/ other: Twyla’s beliefs have become cemented now that she’s had time to grow and explore the world around her. She’s a good person and she wants to do some good in the world. If you have the ability to help someone you should and there is no excuse for inaction, in her opinion. Now that she’s seen many sides of the mutant argument it is simple to her what is right and wrong—cohabitation and equality with humans is good, hating either humans or mutants is bad and acting on that hate is evil. Genetics shouldn’t denote social class or political power as neither genetic group is superior to the other. When she first expressed interest in joining the X-Men Twyla wasn’t completely sure why she wanted to be part of such an organization but now she won’t hesitate to do whatever it takes to either become a full-fledged member or start on another path of good.

Mutations

Mutation description: Twyla can camouflage her body and anything in close contact with it (including other living things) by making it look like the surrounding area. (EX: If she was standing next to a wall with flowered wallpaper she could take on the flower pattern and match it pretty perfectly.) Note that her powers are connected with her sight--Twyla has to at least see a bit of her surroundings before she can match them. Once she has some idea of where she is her mind and powers fill in the rest.
Strengths:
--She can usually match the look of her background or another thing perfectly, especially if it is a flat, matte surface.

--She can also hold her camouflage for a very long time as long as she (and anyone else she is masking) and her background do not move and the lighting does not change suddenly. The finite amount of time is untested.

--The camouflage is auto-correcting and matches changes in her surroundings if given time. This usually takes anywhere from three to ten seconds, depending on the severity of the change.

Weaknesses:
--Her camouflage doesn’t mask her heartbeat or any other noises that she makes.

--It’s also not physical; if someone touched her while she was using her powers they could tell that she wasn’t the same as everything else.

--She doesn’t change her body shape, just the way that her outsides look.

--Also, if she can’t see the pattern or colors of the area she can’t match with it. This is cumbersome if Twyla is located in a dark room that she cannot see clearly and the lights come on.

--When masking others it is vitally important for Twyla to maintain focus, otherwise edges can blur.

--Movement also causes edges to blur for a moment or two (depending on how much moving around is done) before her auto-correcting kicks in.
--Sometimes her powers at of their own accord if she is scared and she has not found a way to control her body’s natural hiding instincts.



Faction Allegiance
X-men Trainee

Fighting Style

Explanation: She does not have a formal fighting style although Twyla has some knowledge of the basics of self-defense.
Pros for fighting style: In situations where no much force is needed Twyla is usually able to get out of simple holds and she knows how to properly throw a punch.
Cons for fighting style: She isn’t a very large or particularly strong person and barely has any training so her style is very improvised. Against an opponent with any sort of mild

History Of Your Character
Twyla Ashby grew up in the middle of nowhere on a farm that grew feed corn and had a small herd of dairy cows. As the sister to five siblings the house she grew up in was crowded but she didn’t mind. The farm wasn’t very large, so her family never had much money and she got most of her things from hand-me-downs. She’d always been treated like the baby because she was the youngest girl and her three sisters doted on her. Twyla had always been close with her older brother, Nate who was 2 years older than her and the closest sibling to her age. She spent her childhood believing that she was just a normal human being but this assumption changed in high school. Twyla discovered that she was a mutant at a party after a football game. The group had decided to play Truth or Dare in an abandoned farmhouse. Twyla had been dared to go into the house alone and her fear of the dark had made her very jumpy. After she went in a few boys from her class decided that they would try and scare her. When she heard them in the house her first instinct was to hide and she did so, better than she’d hoped. When the boys tromped through the room that she was in Twyla was surprised that they did not see her crouched behind an old end table. She looked down at her legs and realized that she was the same color and pattern as the dark wall behind her. Within the week Twyla had run away from home, leaving behind a high school career filled with sports and friends because she was terrified of telling her family and tiny community that she was a mutant.

The young girl eventually made her way to New York City where she happened across The Sanctuary before her grandmother finally located her and set her up at The Mansion. As she continued her disrupted high school education at the school for fellow mutants, Twyla began to make friends. Some pink hair dye increased her confidence and she dared to do things she never would have if still at home. She also began to question her motives and her morals concerning her mutation. What made her different, she wondered. Am I better than regular people, she’d ask herself. When she found out about a group called the X-Men she decided to start on a path to joining them. Also while at school she met and fell for her first real significant other. For a time she was happy but then the itch to run away began to poke at her once more. Starting college classes made her free time hard to come by and she began to become distanced with her friends. Eventually she burned herself out and in a fit of immature stress she left The Mansion and broke it off with her boyfriend/girlfriend.

Twyla left New York soon after that with a group of other young adult mutants who were headed to California. She went all the way to the West Coast with them before the group disbanded. The young woman spent the next few months getting over her social fears and becoming more independent. Ignoring any contact with her family or friends from New York, she traveled the United States and soon developed a pattern of volunteering at the places she visited. Twyla realized that living like she was wasn’t practical and that surviving on the charity of others and her ingenuity was no way to live. Eventually news of her older brother’s wedding made its way to her and she returned to Wisconsin to be his best (wo)man. Twyla stayed in Wisconsin for four months after that, living at home in the old farmhouse and rapidly going through the required courses for CNA licensure. It seemed like she had finally found a place to make a real life for herself when word of her mutation got to her employer at a local clinic that her mother also worked at as an RN. Twyla was fired for her status as mutant and the secret she’d been hiding so carefully from her community leaked out. It wasn’t comfortable to remain in her hometown anymore and the young woman decided that she would once again try and figure out if she had a real home somewhere else—the first place that she decided to look was New York.

Roleplay
Where did you learn about this site?: Google!
Do you have any other characters on MRO, if so who: Not anymore but I used to play Twyla and Van
Sample RP:
Twyla Ashby was pretty sure that she was going to throw up. Very few things could have mentally prepared her for returning to The Mansion and facing everyone there—but it had to be done. She was twenty years old now and facing her immaturity was part of the process of growing up, right? She was just checking off another box on her ‘Adult’ checklist. Being afraid of catching a cab to that school wasn’t very conducive to any sort of personal growth. Besides, she wasn’t the first person to leave and come back and she certainly wouldn’t be the last. It was silly, she told her reflection in the cracked airport mirror, to be worried. The bags under her brown eyes disagreed however, and there was a slight green tint to her pale skin.

I’m going to vomit. That’s all there is to it. She thought to herself as a hand came up to brush her bangs out of her face. The reflection of her hand reminded her to check herself for a mutation glitch. Focus. Normal hands, normal legs. Looking down it was obvious that her stress had caused her control on her mutation to slip. The young woman could barely tell the difference between her sneakered feet and the tile of the too-white bathroom. A few deep breaths managed to bring her feet back to a normal color range. She glanced quickly at the other women in the bathroom—none of them seemed to have noticed her little display. A sigh of relief escaped her chapped lips.

Out of habit she bit her bottom lip as she drummed her fingers on the edges of the sink. You’re going to be fine—you’ve been through enough in the last few weeks…this shouldn’t phase you. The logic she was trying to use on herself was sound. Being out-ed as a mutant at work had been traumatizing. No one in her town had talked to her after she’d lost her job. It was time for a change, no matter how nervous she was. There was nothing behind her that was worth getting back on the plane and crawling back into her bedroom.

Pushing the pesky bangs back again, she squared her shoulders and dropped her hands to her sides. Twyla picked up her backpack off the floor and slung it over her shoulders. A few moments later she was weaving her way through the familiar crush of people that flooded the streets of that barely alien city, trying to put some distance between herself and the airport before she hailed a cab. For the first time in a long time Twyla felt safely anonymous. That feeling comforted her. It felt like home.