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info & prefs
player
valerie, 30s, central timezone
discord available upon request
triggers: none
prose or brackets
will backtag forever
character
ava starr, 30s, quantum anomaly.
invisibility, intangibility, instability
5'6" with poor posture, slim athletic figure, nervous fidgety demeanor
permanent 'woke up like this' aesthetic
messy dark brown hair with bleached ends, often worn in 3 (yes 3) pigtails
dusty green eyes, medium skintone that hasn't seen much sunlight because she's a shut in
soft voice, british accent (she's never lived in england don't question it)
friendless weirdo raised by shield as a stealth operative
living in hiding near sf,ca since ca:tws, so secretive and evasive
conspiracy theory enthusiast, easily radicalized, holds grudges for the rest of your life that she intends to make short
sensitive, pls don't be mean but if you are she'll be so much meaner back because she doesn't need anybody (yes she does)
no i promise she's actually nice (ignore that she threatened to kidnap a child for blackmail, or that she yeeted her father figure...)
moody, morbid, molecularly unstable
timeline flexible since she's been awol since 2018
who knows if she survived the snap but until canon says otherwise: yes
future member of the thunderbolts, prayer circle for her survival vs sentry... lol
crossovers and aus welcome~
shipping: 25+ only, resistant to trust and doesn't play nicely with normal sorts, you gotta match her freak... due to isolated upbringing she's rather inexperienced and therefore awkward and likely to get stupidly attached way too easily to positive attention ;( her type tends to be 'this is probably a bad idea'
valerie, 30s, central timezone
discord available upon request
triggers: none
prose or brackets
will backtag forever
character
ava starr, 30s, quantum anomaly.
invisibility, intangibility, instability
5'6" with poor posture, slim athletic figure, nervous fidgety demeanor
permanent 'woke up like this' aesthetic
messy dark brown hair with bleached ends, often worn in 3 (yes 3) pigtails
dusty green eyes, medium skintone that hasn't seen much sunlight because she's a shut in
soft voice, british accent (she's never lived in england don't question it)
friendless weirdo raised by shield as a stealth operative
living in hiding near sf,ca since ca:tws, so secretive and evasive
conspiracy theory enthusiast, easily radicalized, holds grudges for the rest of your life that she intends to make short
sensitive, pls don't be mean but if you are she'll be so much meaner back because she doesn't need anybody (yes she does)
no i promise she's actually nice (ignore that she threatened to kidnap a child for blackmail, or that she yeeted her father figure...)
moody, morbid, molecularly unstable
timeline flexible since she's been awol since 2018
who knows if she survived the snap but until canon says otherwise: yes
future member of the thunderbolts, prayer circle for her survival vs sentry... lol
crossovers and aus welcome~
shipping: 25+ only, resistant to trust and doesn't play nicely with normal sorts, you gotta match her freak... due to isolated upbringing she's rather inexperienced and therefore awkward and likely to get stupidly attached way too easily to positive attention ;( her type tends to be 'this is probably a bad idea'
etc
thunderbolts scenarios always welcome. love zemo and taskmaster and walker. anyone play the comics tbolts? i dream of songbird or moonstone.
any heroes welcome to have an 'oh you' love/hate relationship with her antics. she's prone to getting in trouble but also getting away with trouble. she's not really arch-enemy status for anyone.
Crossover: very into this! especially other superhero or sci-fi genre movies/shows/comics like dc, tua, the boys, star wars...
but open to others too that blend well. especially if you need a conflicty morally blurred reformed(??) antagonist. she tries to be good. she's just not super great at it. (she's better than she thinks she is, but also can quickly teeter right over the edge so give her a lil poke.)
feel free to throw ideas at me for aus too
Shipping: open to exploring the dynamics on most anything. i'm a sucker for negative cr turned romance situations but not excessively drawn out on the negative part. villains that drag her down or heroes that drag her up are equally enjoyed.
supers/villains/vigilantes/mercenaries/bounty hunters/assassins/agents/military/government/scientists probably work best?
powers
Before the cart would have hit her, we see Ghost appear in at least three positions at once, each dodging the cart in a different way. After the cart passes through, the image of her walking straight forward (without having dodged) becomes dominant, while the multiple dodge positions fade away.
This is just how a particle behaves on a microscopic scale: we see Ghost existing in many places at once, yet she doesn’t always interact with objects that pass through one of her possible positions. An electron, for example, exists in many places at once—it doesn’t stand in an exact spot around the nucleus.
The dodge represents a smeared-out probability, where Ghost’s possible states (continue forwards, dodge left, dodge right, &c.) existed simultaneously. She then controls her phasing to select the non-interacting state, so she remains in a superposition of dodging in all possible ways until the cart passes through her position, effectively tunneling through the cart. Once the cart is gone, Ghost can continue forwards as if nothing happened, since, for her, nothing did happen—the possibility of interacting with the cart wasn’t selected." source
"As a result of a childhood accident, she is blessed and cursed with a unique set of superpowers: She can “phase” through solid objects and often appears as though her body parts are in multiple places at once. While moving, she leaves after-images of where she was that look, well, ghostly. Ceretti says his background in quantum mechanics helped him come up with that approach. “I knew that, in quantum mechanics, a particle can be in multiple places at the same time,” he says. “So that is when we started to explore, as a visual effects concept, how to show this, and we played around with time-manipulation and space-manipulation and multiple actions taking place at the same time." source
"The idea is that she was out of phase with this reality because she was entangled with multiple different realities very strongly," he explained. "It's actually what happens when you isolate a system from the rest of the environment and all of a sudden that system reverts back to its nascent quantum state, a state of superposition between multiple realities."
Ghost is often seen fading in and out and popping up all over the place in the film. That's precisely because she's entangled with multiple realities, explained Michalakis.
"The world that you're interacting with is trying to place the Ghost in a specific reality. As it's trying to do that, the light that is bouncing off of her body ends up getting mixed up and confused, creating a human superposition at the macroscopic scale." source
visuals
FM permissions
Character Name: Ava Starr
Character Canon: MCU
Canon Iteration: Canon
Character Age: 29
Character Species: (super) human, visibly ghostly.
Backtagging: yes, and please feel free to give me a poke if i've dropped off on a thread you're still interested.
Fourth walling: no thanks, unless across marvel universes (if your character knows comics Ghost please tell her lmao)
Thread hopping: with a heads up
OOC opt-outs: sexual content involving minors
Anything else: pretty open to about anything, but anything major please give me a heads up.
Physical affection: could end fairly badly unless she's expecting it, takes a certain level of familiarity and trust. but otherwise she's secretly craving it.
Romance: ... honestly, yes, but it'll take a lot to get there. and she's got a lot of issues to work through. she doesn't do casual, she does obsessive.
Violence: absolutely.
Injuries : she can be tough to hit, due to intangibility. punches, bullets, etc are largely ineffective. otherwise yes.
Death: only with discussion and decent plot justification.
Telepathy and mind-reading: not while intangible.
IC opt-outs: sexual content involving minors.
Content warnings related to the character: Forced medical experimentation, childhood trauma due to death of parents, childhood neglect and exploitation, fictional terminal illness, chronic pain, depressive tendencies, so much violence, killing, unknowingly working for fictional nazis (Hydra).
Sensitive subjects related to the character: Her triggers are less content-related and more conflicting styles. Communication misunderstandings are unfortunately very likely and a cause of frustration for Ava. Ignoring or twisting what she says, making assumptions, being dismissive... and yet she's likely to do the same. She doesn't like people being overly invasive, too suspiciously friendly, or telling her what to do. Please understand she's socially stunted, lacks a fundamental understanding of social cues, and prone to paranoia and lashing out... it's not you, it's very much her.
FM App
Character Age: 29
Character Species: (super) human, visibly ghostly.
Current Health: Alive. Temporarily stabilized molecular disequilibrium, brought back from the edge of death by quantum energy transfer. Deterioration is ongoing and must be maintained. She occasionally "glitches."
Outfit: Worn out SHIELD "Ghost" stealth suit custom-designed to manage her phasing, with matching full body undershirt and leggings. Both in a dull light grey. Her mask is missing.
Character Canon: MCU
Link to History: wiki
Canon Point: End of Ant-man and the Wasp, while being healed by Janet Van Dyne
Canon Iteration: Original canon
Canon Iteration Explanation: n/a
Skills: Trained from childhood to be a stealth operative for SHIELD, Ava's primary professional skills include spying, infiltration, thieving, and killing.
Expert fighter, highly acrobatic with quick reactionary times, situational awareness, and ability to anticipate threats.
Road rage driving, don't let her get behind the wheel unless it's a chase or escape situation.
Survival.
Canon Abilities: Quantum genetic mutation, Ava suffers a condition called molecular disequilibrium. Her body exists in a near-constant state of flux between realities, allowing her to phase through physical space in the same way a quantum particle might. The main components of her condition are intangibility: moving through solid objects at will, and invisibility.
However, her control over her condition has suffered as it has continued to rapidly deteriorate, putting her at risk of getting torn apart into nothing. Sometimes she struggles to keep physical contact with objects, or remain whole. Her body glitches and visibly separates, which is an extremely painful process as her cells have to "stitch back together."
Her physical state also allows her to shift between possibilities, in a limited capacity. Only one version of Ava can physically interact with reality at a time, the rest is a ghostly after-image. If there is an oncoming object she is trying to dodge, Ava can simultaneously move left, right, and straight forward, and shift herself into an outcome that allows her to avoid or phase straight through said obstacle. Ava can quickly "catch up" with a version of herself that's already ran ahead, leading to often confusing visual movements. The multiple images of Ava vanish as soon as her actions converge again, and cannot be sustained for very long.
Her mutation has also given her enhanced strength and durability beyond that of a regular human's, though in contrast her overall health is very fragile.
Role: Myth
Role Qualities/Attributes: Curled black ram horns and sharp glossy black claws.
Role Reasoning: While Ava is generally a sympathetic antagonist, she's still intently focused on her own survival. She has no grand plans to take over the world, but is very bitter against her place in it. She isn't cruel for fun, won't go out of her way to make anyone else suffer, unless she has a specific grudge. But Ava is extremely pragmatic with her use of violence to do what's necessary to protect herself. She can easily justify extreme measures, and is quick to lash out when feeling threatened.
In game Ava is likely to be unsurprised by her designation, she very much knows she's not a hero in contrast to all the ones celebrated in her own world. She already has the mindset that she's an outcast and a monster. She's not likely to be all that apologetic or ashamed, hoping it's enough warning to steer clear and not bother her. She'd be uninterested in finding a way to 'redeem' herself and wary of anything anyone expects of her because of her role. Mostly it depends on how others treat her how defensive she might get over it.
❥ What was the most traumatic experience your character endured? How did this change them?
Ava's father was a former SHIELD scientist dismissed from his position due to escalating disagreements with Dr. Pym. Elihas was ostracized from the scientific community and moved his wife and young daughter to Argentina to continue his work with stolen plans. Due to his desperate and unethical research practices and dangerously cutting corners, Elihas's efforts to build a quantum tunnel turned catastrophic. Ava was visiting the lab when the machine became unstable and the alarms went off.
Fearing the inevitable, Elihas told his wife and daughter to run as he failed to prevent the experiment from melting down. However, Ava saw her scared father and didn't want him being alone and ran back toward him much to his distress. The explosion of quantum energy ripped through the lab and turned most of the building to rubble. Ava was the only survivor, waking alongside her dead parents. She was found by responding firefighters, quickly discovering Ava was incapable of being touched, their arms going right through her.
Not only did she traumatically lose her parents, Ava has a lot of guilt over running back and getting her mother killed as well. This accident has negatively shaped the entirety of Ava's life in a way that's also prevented her from recovering. The condition she gained is extremely painful and isolates her from society, not allowing her a normal childhood as she got locked away in research facilities. Her gained abilities made her extremely valuable to SHIELD, who exploited her into working for them. Living in constant pain and rapidly approaching death has pushed Ava toward increasingly desperate searches for a cure.
❥ What is the most important and defining relationship(s) in your character's life and why?
Dr. Foster, her father's former colleague at SHIELD, found Ava in the orphanage when he was sent to investigate the accident in Argentina. He offered comfort and encouragement in working through the struggles of her new condition. Giving her a stuffed bear, Bill quickly became her new father figure.
He brought Ava back to SHIELD, believing that with research that they could alleviate her pain and find a cure. Unfortunately the potential uses of her unique abilities drew interest from the agency. Despite Bill's attempts to protect and advocate for her, they began experimenting upon and training Ava as an assassin and spy, using the health treatments as leverage. She doesn't blame Bill for his inability to prevent their mistreatment, only solidifying her belief he's the only one that cares.
When it was revealed that SHIELD was infiltrated by Hydra and brought down, Bill took Ava in and sheltered her in California so she couldn't be recaptured by the government. He continued the research for a cure on his own, in which Ava participated in stealing lab equipment. Bill built a stabilization chamber to help slow her deterioration.
Bill's compassion provides Ava with the only semblance of family she has left, though she's conflicted about the danger she puts him in with her illegal activities. While others see her as a tool or a threat, Bill recognizes her as a suffering woman that needs help and is driven by a sense of responsibility to save her. Ava deeply trusts Bill and depends on his support as she struggles with the toll of her condition as the pain and fear drives her over the edge. He provides valuable guidance and is the only voice of reason that she's willing to listen to when her methods get too extreme.
❥ What does your character feel like they struggle with still? Where could they improve? This could be physically, mentally, emotionally, or otherwise.
Ava's extremely stunted socially, and outside of Bill has never had anyone she's been able to consider a friend, and no romantic experience. She didn't attend school or grow up with peers, never learning social norms or participating in regular childhood activities. She's always operated solo, so figuring out how to work with others is a challenge. Even after escaping SHIELD's downfall, Ava lives out in a secluded area in the woods, and her priority remains survival and evading capture of the authorities.
And while she'll blame it on distrust and disinterest, a lot of her continued isolation is rooted in intimidation and fear of rejection, and a frustration with not knowing how to handle situations that don't go the way she expects. Ava's insecure that she's beyond fitting in and doesn't think there's much of anyone that can relate to her or that would sympathize. She's also suspicious that any interest is purely exploitative or a trick to turn on her.
Yet she's lonely after a childhood of neglect, in ways that she's so used to that she doesn't fully register as something to solve. She longs for the comfort of physical touch and emotional connection, but due to the abuse and violence she's endured, she's also wary of being touched or letting down her guard. She's aware that her prickly attitude continues to drive others away, but that it's preferable to allowing herself to get hurt.
❥ What is your character's moral code? Do they have one? Why or why not?
While once a sweet girl, Ava's morality is damaged by extreme trauma and grooming into an assassin. She learned killing and stealing were not only effective methods, but that the authority figures directing her to do so were justifying it as necessary. Violence is ingrained into her as an acceptable tactic to protect herself and get what she wants, and she finds it hypocritical that the government would consider her a criminal for it now. But she doesn't delight in killing, doesn't want to hurt anyone that doesn't deserve it.
The world isn't fair, and so it's her own responsibility to look out for herself. Ava's sympathetic toward those she views in a similar position, victims and outcasts that can't get help and are vilified for falling over the edges that they're pushed to. She's more likely to defend and justify somebody's wrongdoings against a society that's turned its back on them, than she is to praise heroes for defending the status quo.
She prioritizes autonomy and making her own choices, and views authority as the ultimate threat toward her wellbeing and freedom. She's uninterested in obeying laws, but knows it's a skill issue if she gets caught. Ava keeps her head down not out of respect for following rules but because she doesn't want to face the consequences.
At her core Ava is emotionally sensitive. She's compelled to do right by the people she's loyal to, and absolutely despises dishonesty. She's more offended by lies, especially with the intent of manipulation, than somebody outright being rude or violent.
OOC opt-outs: Sexual content involving minors
IC opt-outs: Sexual content involving minors
Content warnings related to the character: Forced medical experimentation, childhood trauma due to death of parents, childhood neglect and exploitation, fictional terminal illness, chronic pain, depressive tendencies, so much violence, killing, unknowingly working for fictional nazis (Hydra).
Sensitive subjects related to the character: Her triggers are less content-related and more conflicting styles. Communication misunderstandings are unfortunately very likely and a cause of frustration for Ava. Ignoring or twisting what she says, making assumptions, being dismissive... and yet she's likely to do the same. She doesn't like people being overly invasive, too suspiciously friendly, or telling her what to do. Please understand she's socially stunted, lacks a fundamental understanding of social cues, and prone to paranoia and lashing out... it's not you, it's very much her.
Pronouns: she/her
Are you over 18?: yes
Contact(s): ghostesque on discord, dm
Link to invitation: Link
Current Characters: n/a
Permissions: Here.
Writing Samples: tdm 1
tdm 2