Laurie Collins

PHASE 1

PHASE 2

Laurie Collins
Portrayed by Emily VanCamp
Codename:	Wallflower
Affiliations:
Birthdate:	September 13, 1990
Journal:	Where the wild roses grow
Player:	Seraph

A college student currently attending New York Medical College, Laurie divides her time between the X-Men, school, trying to balance out friendships, and family commitments. Only time will tell if she manages any of these successfully.

Details

Character Journal: xp_wallflower

Real Name: Lauren Olivia Collins

Codename: "Wallflower"

Aliases: "Discharge" (trainee name), "Olive" (from John Allerdyce), Mutate 42

First Appearance: April 25, 2006

Date of Birth: September 13, 1990

Place of Birth: Salem Center, New York

Citizenship: American

Relatives: Gail Collins (mother), Zachariah "Zach" Garrison (father)

Education: Graduate of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. graduate of Westchester College, currently enrolled at New York Medical College

Relationship Status: Single

Occupation: College student, also volunteers at Angels Clinic. Former Girl Friday with X-Factor Investigations

Team Affiliation: None; Formerly X-Men

Biography

Phase 1

Childhood

Laurie had an interesting childhood, mostly looked after by her grandparents during the day, and she and her mother would spend a lot of time together during the evenings. When Laurie was old enough to travel, Laurie's mother would take her on road trips to various locations around the US, and sometimes overseas to places Gail had a connection with from her modeling days. Laurie's grandparents died while she was still young, having had Gail late in life and passing peacefully in their sleep. Laurie and Gail still visit their gravestones in the local cemetery once a year.

Laurie manifested her mutant powers in her 15th year, during a summer camp where she suddenly became aware of people's changing attitude while in her presence. Upon confiding this weird occurrence to her mother, Gail cautioned Laurie to keep her new found powers under wraps considering the mood of the town.

Laurie continued with her life and schooling, only telling a few close friends of her powers until one of those friends betrayed her to the authorities after a riot at her high school. Laurie was put on trial for inciting the riot and defended by Nathan Dayspring, who eventually cleared her name. After she was released from jail, she decided to enroll at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters with the hope of controlling her powers and one day being able to lead a fairly normal life. The incident, however, left her with a deep distrust of the local police, and a certain hesitancy about police in general, which would later cause her issues with teammate, Garrison Kane.

Life as a 'Gifted Youngster'

Laurie quickly settled into life in the X-mansion, gaining new suite mates in the form of Jennie Stavros, Crystal Amaquelin, Angelica Jones and Sooraya Qadir, and a roommate in the form of Yvette Petrovic. She was very much a mother hen type, chosen to be Yvette's roommate due to both the calming effect of her powers and her ability to take care of the bewildered younger girl.

After a first meeting with Forge, and some discussion on her powers issues, Forge made an 'air scrubber' for Laurie which allowed her to concentrate on controlling her powers without having to worry about inadvertently using them on anyone while she learned. This marked the beginning of a friendship between the two, one that changed for a time after a Christmas kiss under the mistletoe. Despite her attraction to Forge, Laurie eventually decided that their age difference, plus the uncertainty relating to her powers was just too much of a gap to cross and ended things before they really began. This created a rift between the two which was eventually solved during the events of This Savage Land.

Ambitious and hard-working, Laurie pushed herself academically, physically and with her powers training. She wasn't all work, however, indulging in rather odd bouts of pranking to relieve the stress. She discovered, however, that her powers caused a certain degree of discomfort in people, particularly the "control freaks". When she decided she wanted to try to go without the air scrubber in the suite, Jennie reacted negatively in light of her kidnapping and mindwiping. Over time this, coupled with various incidents regarding her powers (the kiss with Forge, an interaction between her powers and Manuel's at prom which ended badly, a date with Kyle Gibney where her powers effected his enhanced senses, stopping Haller's heart by accident during a rafting trip), led to Laurie becoming cautious, almost fearful, about the impact her powers could have on others. Fortunately, this was balanced by her work with Red X, where there were several instances (Living Pele, Red X Mission: Whiteout, Red X Mission: Rising Waters) where her powers were beneficial.

When she found herself kidnapped along with the many of the students, again she was able to use her powers to help herself and her friends. The experience shook her up, however, and she returned to her mother's house until Jennie came to talk her into coming back. The apparent deaths of Crystal and Forge with the disappearance of Attilan hit Laurie hard - unable to do anything to help, she became uncharacteristically angry and moody, having several journal altercations, especially with the equally hot-tempered Kyle.

Floundering

An incident in a dream world led Laurie to start wondering about her absent father, a man she'd never met and who her mother rarely spoke of and never in a flattering way. When Laurie's mother fell ill during a morning taping, Laurie discovered that her mother was suffering from cancer brought on by a prolonged exposure to Zach Garrison's mutant power. After Laurie hunted him down, Zach eventually (and reluctantly) consented to help them find a cure for Gail, and he moved to New York so that he and Laurie could reconcile their familial relationship into something resembling that of a father and daughter bond. Gail was less than pleased with the situation, but couldn't deny Zach access, despite his less-than-rosy past.

Following Gail's cure, Laurie became an X-Man trainee, more determined than ever to fix the world. Her enthusiasm led to a rift opening between her and her roommate, as Yvette felt more and more treated like a child and a victim than like a friend and peer. All was not well on the team either, with Laurie's insecurity regarding her powers and her inability to trust others causing issues with her teammates. She acquitted herself well in Japan, engaging Noriko's help in resuscitating Julio Richter after he stopped a major earthquake in Tokyo. It was a small break, however, as the chaos caused by the breaking of the astral plane drove Laurie to push herself into taking care of everyone around her, whether they wanted it or not. A threat to use her powers to force Jack to eat was taken extremely badly, but Laurie didn't seem to realise what she was doing until a talk with Jean Grey, who she respected immensely and who had also trained with her father and seen the results of using pheramone powers recklessly, frightened her into physical flight. Trying to repress her fears, she engaged in a series of pranks that tended to annoy rather than amuse. Only Morgan Lennox, her new suitemate, seemed to appreciate her.

A series of 'failures' followed. Her training with the X-Men faltered, as she became obsessed with being a 'good' X-Man and compared herself to everyone around her. Her hand-to-hand classes with Garrison were curtailed when she used her powers on him without telling him. She failed to get into NYU's medical school and attempts at "helping" were more often interfering, such as her telling Jay Guthrie about Kevin's powers addiction. Then a mission in Sri Lanka went terribly wrong as the Indian military conducted ethnic cleansing of Tamils trapped outside the Red Cross camp and the Xavier's people were forced to watch. Laurie, with her need to "do something to help", found the situation especially intolerable, at one point restrained by Crystal from taking on the Imperial Guard. The incident shook her up greatly and she returned to the school in even more turmoil than before.

Hitting the Bottom

The next two months were marked by the loss of two friendships, seemingly for good. Injured when trying to stop Yvette from attacking the man who had kidnapped her, Laurie felt betrayed that a friend would hurt her, even in the throes of emotion. And then in October 2008, following an attack by another mutant, Laurie accused Kyle of not being able to control himself due to his mutation on the open journals, causing an eruption of open hostility against her. Alienated by almost everyone she had once called 'friend', Laurie fled home once more, only to have her mother send her back to the school to take responsibility for her actions.

Apocalypse's attack on New York pushed Laurie to limits that terrified her. Fleeing with her father, she abandoned him when he 'stole' from the apartment they had sheltered in, only for him to come to her rescue against Post. When Post nearly killed Zach, Laurie saved his life, and later discovered she had the reserves to control entire crowds of people as she coordinated with Team Alpha against War. This discovery, plus the knowledge her stubborn moralism had nearly cost her father his life, pushed Laurie even further into not-coping. Eventually she wound up with pneumonia from self-neglect, and wound up in the sick bay and then bed rest for a time.

Laurie Collins World Tour '09

Pushed beyond her limits, physical, mental and emotional, Laurie decided a change was in order, and hit on a plan to spend several months traveling the world. Starting in Ireland with Morgan, she met the former mercenary's team mate Eamon again, the two of them hitting it off. Then, joined by Crystal, she continued through Europe, meeting up with mansion residents along the way in Germany, Egypt and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The trip did Laurie much good, although there were the occasional lapses in her judgement - one or two further journal altercations with Forge and Kyle, a heated email exchange with Manuel about his wanting to keep Laurie (and her powers) away from his empathic sister Valentia. Meeting up with Eamon again in Venice, she incurred Morgan's wrath by losing her virginity to him. It wasn't a one-time thing, however, with both of them deciding to give a relationship a shot despite all the obstacles surrounding it, not the least of which being Eamon's continuing work as a mercenary.

In Egypt she found herself, along with Crystal and Kurt, facing down a possessed Monet St. Croix - Laurie used her powers to subdue the archeologist using Monet as a weapon. In Bosnia, at a Red X venture, she reunited with Dr. Pierre Marcel, the man who had stitched her up following the incident with Yvette in Kosovo. Marcel is a long-time member of Medicans sans Frontiers, and was able to give Laurie much advice and support, especially in regards to the genocide in Sri Lanka. The peace was shattered, however, when Yvette was injured by a land mine and evacuated to hospital in Kosovo. With doctors unable to treat her due to her mutation, Laurie attempted to use her powers as she had before, to make the younger girl relax, but found she was too far gone for Laurie's powers to work. It was difficult, accepting she wasn't able to do anything for her once-roommate, but Laurie managed far better than she had in the past, looking after others without being obnoxious or holier-than-thou about it.

Following the incident, Crystal and Laurie traveled to Dubai, where they were to meet Forge, Kyle and Doug for a vacation in a state of the art electronically-controlled hotel. After some initial confusion about Laurie's presence (and some rudeness on Forge and Kyle's parts), the group settled in nicely, until attacked by Milan and Quentin Quire, nerds with grudges against Forge and Doug. Laurie and Kyle were trapped in an elevator but managed to escape, Laurie using her powers to give Kyle the energy to climb multiple stories with her clinging to his back. She then joined Crystal in taking down Quire, although he managed to attack her psychicially for a moment before Crystal bounced him off the wall. Regrouping and relaxing in Attilan briefly, the group then returned to the school, where Laurie announced the end of the trip and her hopes to complete her X-Men training and get back on track with her attempt to get into pre-med. New suitemate Jean-Phillipe Colbert was in for a shock.

A New Leaf

Laurie began July 2009 determined to start afresh, clearing the air from old disagreements and burying the hatchet with those she'd fought with. The new beginning was almost literal, when an incident at an art exhibit resulted in a powers swap and Laurie manifesting Crystal's ability to control air molecules, while Kurt Sefton acquired her pheromones. Laurie was perhaps less upset about the new powers than the others, setting herself to train with them and mourning their loss when her own 'morally dubious' abilities came back, something which disturbed Crystal.

Continuing her medical studies and working in the medlab, Laurie began to use her powers more to assist healing, a reluctant Nathan Dayspring her first patient. She also returned to the X-Men, the training a lot harder than before after her prolonged break. She still had issues, however, conflicted about how she should act with various people when faced with differing opinions, and her relationship with Manuel was as still as volatile as ever, given his protective streak over his sister, to the point they sought mediation from David Haller.

Two relationships she did salvage were with Yvette, her former roommate and fellow trainee, and with Logan, although they would never be friends. With Yvette's mediation, Logan and Laurie got to the point where she accepted stealth training from him, joining Yvette in the work she did with the older X-Man. She also got pointers from X-Forcers Amanda and Doug, about teamwork, trust and combat, before they took her to Silver in an effort to get her to relax from her usually tightly-wound self.

Following the mission in Pakistan, during which she and Hank worked together to save refugee lives and during which she prevented one of the students, Fred Dukes - Phase 1, from killing a member of the Imperial Guard, Laurie finally obtained her blacks and took the X-Men codename of 'Wallflower'. It was a very proud moment for Laurie, who had felt (and sometimes been told), she would never graduate past trainee. Her first 'mission' was the graduation attack, where she was aided by a mysterious mutant (who turned out to be Crystal in disguise).

X-Factor

Laurie's close friend Vanessa (whom Laurie still called Morgan, as that had been the name she'd previously known her as), and Bishop set up a private investigation service in District X, with funding from the Xavier Institute. Laurie volunteered her services as a personal assistant, although she was quickly 'traded' to Bishop as Vanessa could never find anything after Laurie had 'tidied' her desk. As an unofficial part of the group, Laurie was involved mostly in the paperwork side of investigations, such as the missing persons case that was the group's first. She took the returned Jean-Paul Beaubier under her wing also, confused by the changes in his personality and behaviour since his departure from the mansion the previous year.

She continued to work with both Red X and with the X-Men, assisting in the evacuation of wildlife during a wildfire in Alberta and in X-Men missions such as the search for a pyrokinetic firebug in Chicago. Laurie experienced first hand the effect of an inhibitor on her body's chemistry, suffering from cramps and disorientation while under the effects.

Perhaps due to the influences of Vanessa and her boyfriend, Eamon, Laurie herself began to relax and act more naturally, even getting drunk at a college party and calling Kyle for a ride home. The pair also revisited their worst moment when Karl Lykos resurfaced and became a investigation for X-Factor; recognising the modus operandi from the coroner's reports, Laurie and Kyle lent their experience and training in dealing with Sauron to the team, helping take him down for SHIELD to take into custody.

With Eamon working in New York for the duration, Laurie's life seemed to be on the upswing, her roommate Jean-Phillipe commenting that she was far too cheerful from all the sex she was getting. Her sex life became rather more public than she could have anticipated one night in March 2011, when her air scrubber failed while Eamon was staying over at the mansion; the ensuing spread of pheromones impacted the graduate wing of the building and resulted in several assignations and a particularly bizarre situation where Marius Laverne jumped out of a window to avoid having sex with Laura Kinney. Shocked and embarrassed, Laurie fled to Eamon's apartment until the filter could be fixed, reacting defensively on the journals. At last, she came to her senses and apologised for the inconvenience, especially after several emails from her friends.

Laurie's lack of people skills reared its head once again in the X-Factor offices, when the grieving friend of a murder victim came to demand answers. It perhaps wasn't Laurie's best performance and that summer, she decided another break - shorter than the World Tour - was in order. With a group of friends - Kyle, Kevin, Laura, Angelica and Jean-Phillipe - she left the mansion for several weeks for a road trip to New Orleans, returning in early August 2011.

When Yvette's eighteenth birthday celebration was gate-crashed by Toad and Mister M., who released Kick into the air, the drug set Laurie's powers off, and she cast a bunch of happy vibes that mixed with Megan's pixie dust, creating a rather happy atmosphere within the club. The resulting headache the next morning, after the high had worn off, didn't take away from the fun, at least.

Life stayed busy for Laurie, between X-Men training and school and just in general, resulting in her dropping a class at school and quitting her job as Girl Friday with X-Factor.

2012

The year started on an interesting note when a film festival, featuring an independent movie about the events of Day Zero, was targeted by terrorists. Laurie joined the security detail, which included a fight between mutants and FOH protestors that she helped to diffuse.

Much like the rest of the world, Laurie kept a close eye on the news when word of Genosha's crime against mutants started becoming public knowledge. She, along with a couple other younger X-Men, acted as bait in a sting to capture mutant traffickers in an attempt to find out more about what was happening in the country. In May she received back her MCAT scores, and was disappointed by the results, though they were still quite high, and enough to get into NYU for medical school.

While attending a protest at the Genoshan embassy, Laurie was kidnapped along with many other members and associates of Xavier's. She ended up in Genosha, stripped and powerless, and spent a night in a cell suffering from the effects of losing her powers before being put through the mutate process along with several other Xavierites.

Following the botched rescue attempt, Laurie - as Mutate 42 - and her handler, Semoko, ambushed a group of escapees at the Genoshan Broadcasting Commission building, and later ambushed a second group attempting to take out the tank laager. It was there that Mutate 42 was finally subdued, and the Xavierites were able to reverse the mutate process, bringing back everyone who had been put through it. She assisted in the final attack and take down of the monstrous Thomas Moreau.

Returning home and back to normal was a difficult path for Laurie. She spent a lot of time feeling scared, and was very obviously (to anyone who talked to her) not okay. She blew up at Matt after he disappeared and subsequently posted on the journals laughing about his punishment, though she later apologized. Not long after her return, Eamon came for a visit, which did much to help Laurie's spirits. She went away on vacation with him in the middle of July, returning a few weeks later.

In August she volunteered herself as security at a mutant-positive rock concert being threatened by the Purifiers, lending her abilities to keeping the crowds calm when an attack occurred. She started medical school in September, unhappy with having to start at a new school but making it through without much difficulty.

2013

Laurie rang in the New Year with a hangover, spending a good deal of the first few months buried in books and homework, resurfacing every now and then to let people know she was alive. In February, she joined a group of X-Men in rescuing a shipwrecked Adrienne and Garrison from Magneto.

The year passed mostly quietly, with Laurie throwing herself into her studies, often losing track of what day it was. In August 2013, she and Eamon broke up, and in September, she and Doug discussed the possibility of going out on a date, although it didn't actually happen until after a horde of demons invaded the mansion in December.

2014

The year started on a quiet enough note, with Laurie and Doug continuing their relationship at their own pace, managing a couple more dates between school and general life responsibilities. August brought with it an overload of work in the med lab when a team of X-Men were badly injured on a mission, and in September she helped Kyle rescue a young mutant who was playing vigilante on the streets of Brooklyn. Things took a bad turn for Laurie at the end of the month when she was kidnapped along with Hope Abbott, and held hostage for several weeks where she was tortured, mentally and physically, for information about the X-Men. Upon being rescued she was nearly catatonic and in a state of acute sleep deprivation.

It's The End Of The World

Laurie's recovery went well, and by the January 2015 she was ready to join the X-Men in defending Muir Island when it came under attack by the Brotherhood. The fight took a turn for the worse, and Laurie's arm was cut off Psynapse. She spent the next few days drugged in the med lab, and when the mansion came under attack by The Dark Phoenix North had to force her to keep moving and evacuate.

Phase 2

A Whole New World

Despite all odds, Laurie was among those to wake up in the new universe created by Xorn after their old universe fell apart. Unfortunately she was still an arm short. She made the best of it, however, throwing herself into her work in the med lab and spending as much time as possible with her friends and Doug, eventually moving in with him. She did quit the X-Men, acknowledging that one arm wouldn't make her useful in a fight.

She began looking into prosthetics and trying to make life as easy as possible on herself, throwing herself into mansion life. She also began looking into returning to medical school, though she wasn't sure yet how she'd be able to make rotations work with a prosthetic arm. Still, it was a quiet year for Laurie, exactly what she had earned after the way the year had started.

2016 was similarly quiet - Laurie went back to work and school, resuming her normal life. She also threw herself once more into taking care of her friends and partners.

Sleep deprivation and work ruled most of 2017, although Laurie did find herself recruited to the new team Clint Barton was starting, acting as the medical expert for the team.

Time Passes

Laurie kept herself busy with work, working through different rotations at a nearby hospital. She also continued to hone her less than welcoming personality, largely withdrawing from mansion life. That didn't exempt her from getting involved in missions and mansion shenanigans, of course. 2018 was particularly eventful - she joined a group going to rescue Christopher Summers and his crew from mind controlling jellies (and thankfully did not have to join in on turning into a sea creature to help), assisted with first aid when a fire android attacked NYC, and was drawn into an odd, zombie-esque scenario during a Danger Room mishap. 2019 was mildly quieter - magical hammers were set loose around the world, and a cursed house pulled Laurie into her worst nightmares, but it could have been worse. 2020 passed in blissful peace.

Physical Characteristics

Height: 5'5"

Weight: 115 lbs

Eyes: hazel

Hair: brownish-blonde

Other: When exerting herself with her powers, Laurie's hair, skin and nails all turn purple. This can take several hours or days to fade, depending on the depth of the power use.

Powers

Laurie's mutant power is that of pheromone control. She can affect the physical state of a person through the release of these pheromones. They do not effect a person's emotional state, although if someone did not know what was going on, they might develop an emotional reaction such as fear simply from the strangeness.

An example: when Laurie is in a state of stress, people around her will start to sweat, their heart rate will increase and they will have tightness in their abdomen but they will not have the corresponding emotion for this set of reactions. It would be very disorientating to someone who didn't know what was going on.

One of the side effects of her power makes her a clear communicator with animals, although she is not able to understand them at all. This has also been shown to be detrimental, as in the dinosaur incident, where she discovered reptiles and insects are drawn to her.

As of 2009, Laurie is now able to control whether her powers are "on" or "off", including when in contact with someone, although she needs to wash her skin to avoid residual contamination. Under great stress she is still known to "leak", and if she has been using her powers a lot, she turns purple. She has also been shown to be working on limiting the 'on' state of her powers to particular areas of her body.

Equipment

Formerly the air scrubber Forge made for her. Looks vaguely like an iPod and makes a small humming noise when turned on. She uses it mainly now when sleeping. Laurie also owns a bow that Forge enhanced for her after she used one made from his leg during the dinosaur incident. While she doesn't use it in combat, she has become a crack shot with the weapon after several years of practice.

Trivia

Laurie used to be on the track team at her old school and still keeps up her training in the mornings, usually getting up quite early to do so.

The name of Laurie's journal is inspired by the song Where the wild roses grow sung by Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue

External Links

xp_communication posts

xp_journal posts

xp_logs posts

xp_staff posts

Phase 1 Comms

x_students posts

x_medical posts

x_grads posts

x_team posts

x_factoragency posts

Plots

Phase 1

2006

Law and Order: Westchester

Living Pele (as part of Red X)

2007

When It All Goes Wrong Again

Red X Mission: Whiteout

This Savage Land

Voodoo Child

Family Portrait

Thirteen Days

Jishin Da!

2008

The Shadow King (plot)

Red X Mission: Reconstruction

Shakespeare Syndrome

Red X Mission: Rising Waters

Red X Mission: Shake Hands With The Devil

Razor's Edge

Community Service

First Do No Harm

Day Zero

2009

Congress of Behram

The Mummies' Return

Face The Blood

Analog Kid, Digital Man

Mutation Sternutation

X-Men Mission: Jailbreak

2010

Noise and Confusion

Lakshmibai Raj

Red X Mission: Firestorm

X-Men Mission: Who You Gonna Call?

There Will Be Peace

2011

Dinosaur Bugaloo

Aftershocks

Mortimer Toynbee's Electric Funkedelic Boogaloo

Capital Turpitude

What Goes Around, Comes Around

Sons of Liberty

X-Men Mission: X-Mas in Milwaukee

2012

X-Men Mission: Day Zero, the Movie

X-Men Mission: Amid These Storms

For Free Trade

Step By Step

Savrola

Onwards to Victory

The Dawn of Liberation

X-Men Mission: Joyful Noixe

2013

Tropic of Capricorn

Deal With The Devil

2014

Not So Amazing

Higher Than Hope

2015

Dark Phoenix Saga

• A Touch of Brimstone

• The Dark Phoenix

Phase 2

2017

Green-Eyed Monster

2018

Poor Unfortunate Souls

Set Fire to the Rain

The Danger Room Paradox

2019

Fear in the Dark

House of Horrors

2021

A Fistful of Nanites

Meta

Player: Seraph

E-mail:

AIM: LadySeraAngel

PB: Emily VanCamp

Grade change: Laurie spontaneously changed from Junior to Senior when the player realised she'd completely buggered up the U.S grading system from the start and needed to change things in order to reflect what she'd been w