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PLAYER

Name: Nutmeg
Journal Username: meginatree 
E-mail: meginatree@gmail.com
AIM/PLURK: aim: meginatree | plurk: meginatree
Current Characters at Luceti:  N/A


CHARACTER 

Name: Xavin
Canon: Runaways
Gender: Genderfluid, usually identified as female, previously male. (Shapeshifter)
Age: 17-18 it's never precisely stated
Wing Color: Dark purple, almost black until it catches the light

Canon Point: Volume 3, chapter 6, where Xavin leaves Earth with the Majesdanians whilst pretending to be Karolina to face trial in her place.
Canon Point Explanation: This is the most recent point for the character, as she ceases to appear in Runaways/Runaways appearances in crossovers from now on.
History: Xavin is from the main continuity of Marvel, Earth-616. Well technically she's from Tarnax VII, a Skrull colony and the 7th in the system. But the point is, Xavin comes from Marvel's main continuity, meaning she lives in a world of mutants, magic, aliens, robots and all together super powered beings. However, most of the dramas that happen in Earth-616 happen in New York, and Xavin lives in Los Angeles and thus isn't fully aware of the conflicts unless they relate to aliens.

This doesn't mean LA doesn't face its own share of villains, though these are usually petty crimes and B-list villains. This is generally because up until recently before Xavin's first arrival on Earth, LA was controlled by a group known as the Pride, who made sure no one else played onto their turf. They were the main super villains of LA, and they ruled with iron fists.

They also happen to be the parents of the Runaways. Six couples, the Wilders, the Steins, the Yorkes, the Deans, the Minorus and the Hayes, gathered by biblical giants known as the Gibborim they had complete control and power over LA for 25 years in return for one small annual task. The Rite of Blood. Stealing the soul of an innocent (usually a female) and giving it to the Gibborim to aid in freeing them. And then after those 25 years six of them would go to an eternal paradise while the rest burned and fell with the rest of humanity. After the Steins accidentally fell pregnant it was then decided that each couple would have a child and forfeit their places to their children.

It was upon discovering their past that the Runaways became the Runaways, the children witnessing the Rite of Blood and being disgusted and horrified by their parents actions. Through a lot of hunting the Runaways discovered both who their parents were as well as who they were. Nico Minoru discovered her parents were witches, and that she had the capacity to be, after her body absorbed her mother's Staff of One, allowing her to cast spells once. The Steins were mad scientists, and Chase claimed some of their weapons as his own while the Yorkes were time travelers and had left their daughter Gert a genetically created dinosaur to protect her when they were gone. Molly Hayes was a mutant like her parents, possessing super strength, while the Wilders was normal, having previously been thieves. The kids took off and the Pride pursued using all the resources of LA to get their kids back, and in the end to kids attacked, causing the destruction of their parents and it the death of Alex who was revealed to still be on his parents side and had only shown the others what their parents were doing so that he could get rid of the Hayes and Deans who wanted to take the six places in paradise for themselves and their children. 

But more importantly was Karolina's discovery. She and her parents were aliens, Majesdanians to be exactly, a race of beings that gained their powers from solar energy and took on a rainbow light appearance. The Deans had been exiled from their home planet for criminal activities and had moved to Earth, taking the last name Dean after the actor James Dean and becoming Hollywood actors. And then a few years later Xavin's father, Prince De'zean came to lead an attack on Earth. The Deans having grown attached to their adopted home gave him a much better target in return for leaving Earth alone. The location of the Majesdanian home planet, a location Skrulls had been wanting for years. And so De'zean left, but not without one final condition; His son and the Dean's daughter were to marry one day. The Deans assuming that De'zean and his son would die in the conflict between the Skrulls and Majesdanians agreed.

And then it was years later, after the Runaways had defeated the Pride and other small super villains, and picked up a new member Victor, the cyborg son of Ultron that Xavin came to Earth to find Karolina. The years of conflict had killed both her parents and whilst Xavin was now in charge she couldn't call an end on the Skrulls side as the Majesdanians would simply destroy them. The only way Xavin could see an end to the war was to join the two races, and the marriage between her and Karolina would do that. Whilst the other Runaways were reluctant to let Karolina go, Nico extremely so, Karolina herself was unsure, especially when Xavin promised she would not force Karolina into marriage but wanted to try and form a relationship, and in the meantime this would give Karolina a chance to see where she came from and learn more about herself. It was almost perfect, but one thing was holding Karolina back. She was a lesbian, and Xavin had presented herself as a male, which was assumingly the gender she was raised in and also the gender she would have thought more acceptable to a human female, Xavin having studied basic human customs. However Xavin reminds Karolina that she is a Skrull, a race of shape shifters and that to them changing gender is like changing hair colours and shifts into a female form. It's this final act that finalises Karolina's decision and she agrees to go with Xavin, leaving the Runaways and Earth behind.

Much of their time in space isn't shown together but their relationship is shown to develop to the point that Karolina accepts Xavin's proposal for marriage. But the marriage is never meant to be, as just at the start of the ceremony a Skullos guest insults the dresses of the Majesdanian bridesmaid which leads to an instant restart of the conflict. Xavin and Karolina run, and while they do manage to escape Xavin's outpost world launched anti matter missiles at Majesdane, forcing the star to go nova which caused the destruction of both planets. This means Xavin's home is gone, and with Karolina's help she tries to build a new life on Earth, whilst learning to be human, and adjust to being the woman Karolina deserves.

It isn't easy. From the very beginning Xavin is an outsider, even more than Victor was when he joined up. She doesn't understand humans, and this is made clear when she can't understand why the team and Karolina grieve so after Gert's murder. In her eyes, the fact that both her and Karolina's home planets and people have been destroyed is much more tragic than the death of one person. And she struggles to see Victor as anything but a robot, another point of conflict that she causes within the group. But she tries, by trying to impress Karolina in fights, and doing her best to assist in the occasional fighting of LA’s crime. It’s only when the group discovers that Chase is going to sacrifice himself to try and bring back Gert that Xavin begins to find her place. With Karolina needing to wait for the sun to come up to recharge her powers, Nico de-staffed by Chase and Victor stuck in a loop of 1’s and 0’s thanks to his coding, Xavin finds herself as one of the few with powers, and so she leads the charge after Chase, beginning the fight against the Gibborim. And while she’s knocked unconscious, it leads to acceptance from one of the group, with Molly deciding she’s definitely her sister now, even if she changes a lot. It’s the first step in a long road.

The Civil War highlights her warlike attitudes, with her instant thought of seeing Molly unconscious in the arms of the young avengers is to attack rather than stop and listen. Though she later shows her need for peace, as she scorns Teddy for not living up to the prophecy that Dorrekk VII will bring union to the Skrull worlds. In her eyes Teddy should do what is best for his people, and shouldn't cling to his Earth life. It's telling, it shows that even as she spends time on Earth she clings to her heritage and isn't willing to truly leave her past behind. But she's trying, and it's always clear why. For Karolina.

The trip to New York and the subsequent trip back in time is also important to Xavin, specifically with her relationship with Karolina. Prior to the time travel, Nico brings up Xavin's constant shape shifting and switching between the male and female gender with Karolina, and Karolina's own tense reaction in which she is adamant that Xavin is really a female learning to be human and not a male learning to be female shows that this may be something that has subconsciously concerned Karolina. When in reality the answer to Xavin's consistent changing is simply that it is her nature. It is her nature to change, and also her nature to adapt her form to the situation she faces. Her male form is taken to show more aggression and power, something Xavin doesn't realise is sexist in Karolina's eyes. She takes a male form when meeting with the Kingpin for this exact reason, and really it simply shows how much Xavin has picked up from Earth culture. To this day men are still seen as aggressive, as protectors, while women are more nurturing and careers. The trip back in time also highlights other issues between Xavin and Karolina, with Karolina wanting to delay their return to the present so she can learn more about the past whilst Xavin worries about the affects their being in the past will cause, i.e. the Butterfly Effect. Xavin doesn't understand Karolina's desire to know more of the past and thinks her foolish, growing irritated quickly. It’s clear Xavin is more interested in living in the now and considers the past gone.

At the same time, their trip back in time does help in repairing some of the damages in Karolina and Xavin's relationship. During an argument Xavin's form slips from the white male one she has taken and back into her African American female form. This makes Karolina pause in surprise, before calling Xavin on it, to which her reply is that it takes a measure of focus to hold a form, and without that focus she'll slip. Whilst Xavin doesn't understand the full importance of Karolina's excitement, who now believes she was in fact right, as Xavin became a woman again in her loss of focus, making that her true form in Karolina's eyes. Any concerns about Xavin's gender are rectified in Karolina's eyes, and the tension that has been between them for days eases away. Karolina now seems to understand that whilst Xavin changes forms to adapt to situations, such as taking a white male form over her African America male form in 1901, she does it only for that, and currently identifies her true form as her African American female one. With that solved they work together to return the group back to the Leapfrog and onwards to their own time, taking a new member, a young girl named Klara with them.

The return to present day New York is marred, when a group of fanatical religious Skrulls invade the city, looking to take over it and the rest of Earth as they believe it is a land promised to them by their god. Xavin must now choose between standing with her people or standing with what has become to be her new family. And while at first it appears she chooses the Skrulls, by knocking out the Runaways and then being observed talking to another pair of Skrull soldiers by a newly awoken Nico and Victor. Instantly they suspect her, and as soon as the Skrulls leave attack. It's then Xavin shows her true colours, confessing she knocked them out so they wouldn't be able to fight the Skrulls and get hurt, before urging Nico to take all the group besides her and runaway, saying that these Skrulls will not hesitate to kill them all, including both Molly and Klara. By eliminating them as a threat she gave them the time to run, and while she knows it'll make Karolina furious, she sends them away before heading back into the city to find Teddy, who she knows the Skrulls will be after to eliminate, as they can't risk him interfering and perhaps swaying a few to his side if he confesses his true heritage as Dorrekk VII, the supposed savior of the Skrull empire. Running however proves futile and the Runaways find themselves dragged back into the thick of it to be used against Xavin to try and force her into giving up Teddy and handing him over to his death.

While the Runaways and Young Avengers do eventually triumph, the battle is highly important to Xavin. She must not only fight against her people, but against her old teacher and mentor, to save her new family, and Karolina. She makes it clear in this fight that her loyalties lie with Karolina, the Runaways and Earth, and in a way, her loyalty to the Skrull race had begun to fade ever since her home world was destroyed, and her people once again proved they couldn’t manage peace. We learn more of what Xavin’s life was like before Karolina, and how it was very much just like a soldier, and that how her inability to use her Super Skrull abilities isn’t as much as a weakness as she’d always assumed it was. By being unable to combined her powers she has become stronger in using all of the separately, and it’s this way that she manages to stop her teacher, by creating a shield that manages to contain the explosion of him going nova. Had she had a natural talent for combining her abilities this strength and control individually would have never developed.

Xavin’s teacher defeated the Runaways do what they do best and runaway, leaving New York and the remains of the invasion to the Young Avengers and the rest of New York’s many heroes. Here they run into the old problem of where to hide out, Xavin having accidentally given away their hideaway in the rush to find and stop Chase from sacrificing himself. And while they find Chase’s parent’s old home in Malibu, and settle in slowly (With Xavin taking the role of a ‘dad’ to the group to ward off worried neighbours) peace doesn’t come easily. Almost as soon as they find themselves relaxing they’re under attack again, this time by a small team of surviving Majesdanians, looking for Karolina. They plan to take her back to an off-world military base, home to the remainders of the Majesdanian race and place her on trial for her father’s actions in revealing the Majesdanian home world. Naturally the Runaways don’t agree with the idea of punishing Karolina for her father’s mistakes, and thus begins the attempts to outrun and fight the aliens, which is only halted when civilians are almost harmed. Throughout this Karolina tries to halt the fighting, knowing the fighting won’t stop until the Majesdanians have her and that even if they succeed against this one group, more will eventually come. And slowly Xavin comes to realise this as well. And so, to keep Karolina and the Runaways safe, she gives the Majesdanians what they want. Karolina. Knocking Karolina out, Xavin takes her form and calls a truce, agreeing to go despite the protest this gets from the Runaways. But she doesn’t sway, and as Karolina, Xavin leaves, facing an uncertain future, from a race that wants to punish Karolina, and also loathes Skrulls and would likely try to kill her if they discover the ruse.

But that’s the way Xavin’s story has always been. Everything she’s done, everything she’s become has been to prove herself to Karolina as well as protect her. In the end it only makes sense for her to make her ending as ambiguous as she, and end it like it’s always been. For Karolina.

Personality:  First and foremost Xavin is a skrull. This means an impatient and war like attitude is in her very nature, and as much as she tries to suppress these tendencies, they will still often get the better of her. She doesn’t often spare time for issues she deems trivial, and she’ll often be frustrated when people don’t automatically see eye to eye with her. This can be seen easily in the fight she and Karolina have over leaving the past quickly, and when Xavin finds out Teddy has rejected his destiny as Dorrekk VII, saviour of the Skrull race. She just doesn’t understand it, and this lack of understanding is a large part of what fuels her frustration, along with her temper. As for the impatience and war like attitude, Xavin is very much a shoot first, ask questions later person, as seen when she attacks the Young Avengers after seeing an unconscious Molly in Patriot’s arms. While the Runaways’s try and act a little more diplomatic, Xavin launches straight into a fight, which only exacerbates the tension between the two groups. At the same time she acknowledges this flaw of herself, and tries to work towards changing it, wanting to become a diplomat and not a soldier.

As implied, Xavin is a very protective person, who will go out of her way to protect the people she cares for, especially if that person is Karolina. Molly was essentially the next person who gained Xavin’s protection, aided by the fact that Molly was also the first person to be upfront with Xavin, and make an attempt to form a relationship. But it also seems like Klara would have also gotten this protectiveness, as Xavin groups her with Molly as a hatchingling, and thus Xavin would feel that they both need that protection due to their ages. But Karolina is definitely the one who cops it the most, with Xavin risking her very life to protect Karolina from the Majesdanians and the trial they wish to put her on. The likelihood of Karolina returning to Earth safe and sound is too uncertain for Xavin to risk it, and thus it’s clear in her mind that she will take Karolina’s place and face her battles for her.

She’s also very loyal. Loyal to Karolina, to the point of following her to a planet she doesn’t really know, to trying to fit in with her friends, to rejecting her very own people to save Earth and Karolina. She’s also loyal to Teddy, who she knows is supposed to save the Skrull race from destroying itself in its battle against the Kree. And so the idea of others not being loyal in return is foreign to her, often to the point that it actually insults her. But at the same time, she also finds her loyalties change through the series, to the point it becomes more important to her that she helps protect and save Karolina, the Runaways and Earth than to dutifully serve the Skrull Empire, and she finds herself rejecting orders to do so.

And she’s adaptable. She changes her physical gender without hesitation, to please Karolina. She tries her best to fit in with the Runaways, to fit in with Earth. It takes time, but Xavin learns more about Earth culture so that she properly adjusts and starts to become more human. It’s one of her greatest qualities, that she adjusts to change so readily and with apparent ease, but it’s a quality that should come naturally to a shape shifter. And yet sometimes she takes it too far. Shape shifting into Nico in an attempt to please Karolina, to make her more comfortable. Xavin changes, but she changes to fit in with others, to make them more comfortable with her, to the point she sometimes forgets who it is she really is.

Finally there’s Xavin’s gender. Appearing originally as a male, she shifts into a female when Karolina confesses she’s a lesbian. And while she says it’s just like changing her hair colour to a skrull it’s clear she struggles with it, never staying completely in a female form when the return to Earth. She claims it’s just her nature, but she then says she doesn’t know who she is, suggesting that she is struggling with her gender identity, amongst other things. But at the same time she seems to grow, taking on a male form to show aggression and power, or to adapt to a situation to make it favour her more so, like becoming a white male when being an African American and a woman would limit what society would be accepting of her doing. And it’s clear by the time they go back in time that she’s begun to identify as a woman, as she thinks of that as her natural form. And upon returning to Malibu, she has progressed to the point that she has a female Skrull form, implying she feels more comfortable as a woman. Still, she won’t raise a fuss if someone uses male pronouns, because she still does take a male form at times, and it isn’t as big a deal to her as it would be to a genderqueer or trans* human.

Overall Xavin is a mix of complication, and like any teenager, she’s still growing into herself and discovering who she is.

Strengths

Physical:
As a Skrull Xavin has the innate ability to shape shift at will, able to change race, size and gender as well as other minuscule details about her appearance. However, maintaining a form requires concentration, and should she forget she can lapse back into what she is thinking of as her true form, as seen when she slips from the guise of a white male into her African American female form during an argument with Karolina.

This ability to shape shift also makes her harder to kill, at least by bullets, as demonstrated when Geoffrey Wilder shot her vol 2, chp: 17-18 and she simply moved her organs out of the way. She also appears to have an advanced form of healing, as she once had her neck snapped and recovered quickly despite apparently being killed by the action. She was however out for a reasonable amount of time as she healed.

As well as shapeshifting, Xavin was in training to become a Super Skrull, which means she has the powers associated with the Fantastic Four, ie: Invisibility and creating psionic forcefields like the Invisible Woman, super human strength and superhuman durability as well as taking on a rock like appearance like the Thing, pyrokinesis and flight like the Human Torch and plasticity and elongation like Mr Fantastic. However as she is in training, Xavin is still only able to manage to use one power at a time, which is both a pro and a con depending on the view. As a pro she is stronger with each power individually, but as a con most super Skrulls will use powers combined. It also possible to force her to lose control of her powers, if she is in Skrull form, by creating a high pitched noise, something her larger than a human's ears cannot handle and causes her pain. And then sometimes her powers just plain fail her, like her plasticity and elongation did in vol 2, chp: 25 where she over stretched.

Mental: Xavin is extremely strong willed and persistent, something she's learnt over time as a soldier. She rarely backs down, and even if she does, that's usually for the benefits of others. She's also a strategist, and can often analyse a situation quite quickly and form a plan, like when the Skrulls invaded and she pretended to be on their side, knocking out the rest of the group for their own safety. She also is quick to see that the Majesdanians won't leave without Karolina, and plans to take Karolina's place for her, in her form.

She also started to try and become a diplomat, rather then a soldier, a move first seen when she comes to find Karolina, knowing that through their marriage they may be able to end the Majesdanian-Skrull war, and later, that by taking Karolina's place she may again try and hell the rift between the two races.

Finally, she's clearly adaptable, easily switching gender when Karolina admits she's a lesbian, and later shouldering the burden of learning to be human. She also knows that in the past, her usual African American female and male forms will make her life difficult, and switches to a white male form out in public, acknowledging that she understands American's history.

Emotional: Loyalty is something Xavin respects, and while she may no longer be loyal to her own race, she is extremely loyal to the Runaways, and even the Young Avengers. Though to be truthful that loyalty lies in the fact that Teddy is also Dorrek IV, the supposed saviour of her race, and thus she sees it as a duty to make sure he's safe when the fanatical Skrulls invade.

This loyalty leads to protectiveness, something she gives effortless to Karolina, and soon Molly and even Klara, as they are both the two youngest of the group, 'Hatchlings' in Xavin's eyes. Slowly over time the Runaways have become her family, and this shows in how easily Xavin makes the decision to keep them together, while she the outsider does what is needed.

Weaknesses

Physical: While Xavin has a natural healing ability, there is an obvious waiting time when she is killed. It takes her a few hours to recover from having her spine snapped by Noh-Varr. She needs to be aware of the danger to prepare to protect herself, as she clearly expected Geoffry Wilder to shoot her and had already shifted her major organs out of the way. But without that preparation time she's easily struck down.

Her shape shifting also requires at least a small amount of focus, and without that focus Xavin will slip back into whatever she is currently considering her default form. This can cause troubles if she is undercover, as it gives her away quickly.

While she has had combat training, and she is noticeably strong in her Skrull form, her human form is often weaker then that. Her skrull form also has noticeably large ears and as such high pitched noises cause her distress and make her loose control which can have disastrous problems.

She also struggles with using her Super Skrull powers together, rather then separately, something that is unusual with Skrulls, and as such gives her a disadvantage in a fight against another Super Skrull. She also can loose control of them, either by over stretching herself, or causing an explosion of fire when distressed, something that is due to her still young age.

Mental: As mentioned before, her shape shifting require some focus, and thus if distracted or under stress Xavin's control can lapse, and return to what form she considers her default one. She also needs a measure of focus when using her Super Skrull powers, less she loose control.

And while Xavin is adaptable, she often looses herself, confessing to Karolina she doesn't know who she is, early in their return to Earth. She shifts often because she is still trying to find where she fits in, changing between whose she's around, male around the guys, female around the girls. And she often simply just thinks in a different way, having a rocky relationship with Victor due to the facts robots are looked down upon on her home planet, and not understanding why the group grieves so for Gert's death and yet Karolina and her don't have the time to grieve for the people of their home planets, who would have died just before. So she often suffers from a case of foot in mouth, and needs some things explained to her.

Emotional: Xavin is stubborn, often to a fault. She often comes into conflict with Nico, the unofficial leader of the Runaways on their stance of avoiding conflict and living up to their name. It's simply not programmed into her that running is a sensible option, because she's been trained to be a soldier, and on top of that she's a Skrull.

She also has a temper, one that's quick to flare up when confronted. She gets into an argument easily with Victor, insinuating he's not human enough and that being robotic makes him inferior. And when she's told Teddy turned down his supposed duty to the Skrull Empire to remain on Earth she berates him.

Anything else?: As a skrull Xavin is a shapeshifter, and it is natural for her to change shapes depending on the situation she's in. As powers are weakened here, I would like to ask that rather then completely limit her shape changing to just one form, it is merely just made harder for her to change, with a possible limitation of 2-3 changes per day, so that instead of being stuck she merely needs to be more cautious before shifting less she get stuck in one form for too long.

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