Hope Abbott
| Hope Abbott | |
|---|---|
 Portrayed by Shelley Hennig | |
| Codename: | Trance |
| Affiliations: | X-Factor |
| Birthdate: | 18 May 1997 |
| Journal: | Floating away... |
| Player: | Eva |
Tested and tried by her years at Xavier's, Hope is tired of being a pawn and now is stepping on the path of becoming a player, in her own unique way.
Contents
Details
Character Journal: xp_trance
Real Name: Hope Abbott
Codename: Trance
Aliases: n/a
First Appearance: June 21, 2012
Date of Birth: 18 May 1997
Place of Birth: Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
Citizenship: American
Relatives: Parents Jason and Catherine Abbott & her grandmother Hannah Abbott
Education: Bayville Charter High graduate, freshman at Bernard College
Relationship Status: Single
Occupation: College student at Barnard, research assistant at X-Factor Investigations, freelance event planner
Team Affiliation: X-Factor
Biography
Phase 1
Childhood
Hope was born and raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. On the outside she had an idyllic childhood in many ways. Her father Jason was an accountant, her mother Catherine was an stay-at-home mom. As an only child, her parents poured much of their energy in her. She lacked for nothing, though she wasn’t spoiled. Her parents sent her to an expensive private school, Detroit Country Day School, where she started learning French and the violin in Kindergarten and art history in third grade. At school she was a good student, making good grades. Her mom was a stay-at-home mom, though she could be something of a helicopter mom. After school she would do homework, practice the violin and occasionally play in the neighborhood with her friends. Her father worked long hours and as a consequence he wasn’t around that much.
Yet there was always a subtle pressure on Hope. Her parents were social climbers and they were very much concerned with how they would appear to the people around them. Hope was supposed to be the model of a perfect child. Well-behaved, well-liked, well-dressed, well-read, and successful in her grades and hobbies, but not so she would stick out in any way. A good marriage later would be important and a man doesn’t like it if a woman overachieves him in anything. The first time this happened was when she was only six and in first grade. She came home, telling she had beaten one of the boys in her class on a spelling bee they had had. Her parents didn’t congratulate her, but her mother told her that she should have let the boy win. She needed to marry a good boy when she was grownup and boys don’t like it when girls are better then them.
When she was eleven, Catherine decided her daughter needed more sophistication. So she convinced a few of her friends and together they enrolled their daughters in a summer etiquette course/camp for young teens for five days that included things like introducing yourself and others, handshaking, making eye contact, extending and accepting invitations, thank you notes, table manners, giving and receiving compliments, telephone etiquette, poise, posture, the art of listening and leadership. Things like the fundamentals of ballroom dancing, public speaking and how to dress were also included. It was concluded with a formal dinner. This was reinforced by Hope taking Junior Cotillion classes for several years.
Things looked good for Hope in her freshmen year. She enjoyed her classes, had joined the Day Times Newspaper because she wanted to try something new and she even got her first boyfriend Simon just before her fifteenth birthday. He was a fellow student at Detroit Country Day School and also played the violin, where they were closely matched in capabilities. Their relationship was very much still a puppy love relationship, nothing much further then holding hands and a few small kisses. Nothing like unchaperoned dates or French kissing.
When Hope's powers manifested, everything changed. On a sunny spring evening her parents berated her for winning an outside violin competition in which she and her boyfriend both had competed. She won, Simon was pretty angry and broke up with her. According to her parents, Hope never should have won. Wishing she to get away, she felt herself floating up...
It appeared as if a ghost had come out of her body, giving her father a heart attack. Because she lost consciousness after her projection returned to her body, Hope and her father were both rushed to the hospital. There a blood test confirmed she was a mutant. Her mother received an information packet for parents for a newly manifested mutants and did some research. Her parents decided to sent Hope to Xavier’s with the believe that she would be "cured".
Living At The X-Mansion
Hope arrived at the mansion with the belief that she would go to a medical facility where they could cure here. She was quickly set straight and settled in to stay while the Professor explained things to her parents. Though fairly shy, reserved and formal she quickly started to forge relationships, bonding with (and being corrupted by) her suite mates Madelyne Pryor and Tandy Bowen and forging a tentative friendship with Matt Murdock.
Under the influence of her friends Hope slowly started to spread her wings a little, but when her mother realized this, she clamped down hard. Claiming Hope needed to make up for her mutation, she send her many books and pushed to to start learning embroidery and calligraphy. She also started calling daily. Hope withdrew and tried to do what she wanted. Supported by her friends, she managed to make a stand to her mother when she wanted to pile ever more work on Hope. In reaction her mother wished to send her to Switzerland. After David Haller found her trapped outside her body once more the truth came out and the Professor managed to get Catherine Abbott to back down.
January 2013 brought a difficult point for Hope. Under influence of the Slenderman for the first time Hope's anger other emotions were allowed free reign and though calmed down a lot, they still are simmering in the background. Hope continued her classes, training and violin lessons and continued to spread her wings.
Summer 2013 brought yet another confrontation with her parents, when she stood up for her own educational choices and when she outed herself first to a friend named Amy Wright and later to her hometown of Bloomfield Hills during a search and rescue. Once more deciding to withdraw her from Xavier's, this time Jean Grey came to her rescue. Hope's father Jason though saw a new side to his daughter and they have been rebuilding their bond.
Search for her own identity
Returned to Xavier's for the new school year, Hope followed her own educational choices and started exploring even more who she was. She joined Red X, feeling drawn to it after her experience helping to find the young girl back in Michigan. New arrival Namor Mazur of Attilan forced Hope to question who she was deep inside, something she is still figuring. Joining the Model United Nations team of the local high school she took a class at and the organizing committee of a Red X fundraiser gala gave her new challenges.
Her first Red X Mission in early May in Avalon, saw Hope working to evacuate various residents. Caught in the wave, she became desperate to flee and physically unable to, she fled astrally, somehow managing to shift to the astral plane. Namor managed to pull her from the water and Dr. Grey helped come back to her own body, leaving Hope with a new aspect of her powers to explore. In August 2014 she, along with her fellow students, found herself on the wrong end of the field trip curse once more when a mutant lost control of his powers at a District X art fair and brought a bunch of paintings to life. Hope and Topaz ended up helping the out of control mutant, who was having a stroke, with Hope's first aid skills allowing her to treat him until someone came to take him to the mansion for treatment.
In September, Amy contacted Hope and introduced her to a forum for the Foundation for Genetic Harmony - a group based out of Europe which claimed to strive for the betterment of mutants.
This was just a cover, however, as Hope learned the hard way when she went home - accompanied by Laurie Collins - to help Amy convince her mother to let her take an internship with the group in Europe. When Laurie recognized the foundations spokesperson, Sarah Ryall, as a former Brotherhood member, Laurie, Hope, and Amy were kidnapped and taken back to the "foundation's" headquarters. There, Hope and Amy were brainwashed and given new "mutant" names, and they joined a class of four other teens, also recruited by the foundation's promise of making the world better for mutants. In reality the organization, run by Rudolph von Habsburg, was striving toward creating a world where mutants ruled, using the Foundation to recruit teenage mutants who would be able to help with that goal.
Over the following weeks Hope fell into an easy pattern with her fellow classmates, working with them on projects that revolved around advancing mutants in the world and what would happen if mutants were to take over. Eventually Hope managed to break her conditioning when she learned about a very distorted version of Genosha that didn't mesh with the version she'd heard about while living at the mansion.
When a party put on by the Foundation was attacked by X-Force, Amy turned on Hope, accusing her of bringing her "friends" down on them. The X-Men later raided, and the group turned on Hope, beating her, but she was rescued before they could injure her too badly. She was brought back to the mansion to recover, where she withdrew from her fellow classmates and tried to just get through everything quietly.
The End of the World
January 2015 was a time of more change. It started with Muir Island being attacked, where Matt Murdock was killed. Julian Keller provided his mourning friends with wine, which would later turn out to be a bad idea. Shortly after, she went to Egypt with team to gather information about the group who attacked Muir Island. When the mansion was attacked, Hope helped to act as one of the last defenses. It was all for naught, however, when destroyed the mansion and reality fell apart.
Phase 2
New World
Hope was part of the group rescued by Xorn and brought to the new universe, pieced together from bits of other universes that had been destroyed. Upon discovering they were the only surviving students, Hope and Topaz retreated into themselves, stealing wine to help them drown their feelings and generally avoiding the world and just keeping one another company in their suites.
Adrienne Frost found out about this and made a deal with the girls: she would supply the wine and the girls would go into therapy with Rogue. Julian Keller also asked her to be his personal assistant, partially to draw her from her shell. When more and more new, yet familiar faces started arriving, Hope took more rigorous measures and went to an three week cultural exchange program/finishing school in Switzerland. When she returned from there and the return of her old fellow students from Asgard, Hope was more ready to face this new world.
One of the first things she did was approaching Doug Ramsey, asking him for further training in the art of observation, background checks and disguises. With Wade Wilson she is aiding skills in the area's of lock picking, hot wiring, working with security systems and other skills. Especially in Doug's area's Hope proved to be an apt student, picking them up quickly. Her job as an personal assistant allowed her learn and really get to work in one of her passions, namely event planning. Generally working on at least one event a week and given a lot of freedom by Julian, Hope learned quickly.
2016
January found Hope in a few spots of trouble. First, she ended up being trapped on the astral plane with the other psi's as a consequence of the events of Xorn, as well as being accused of corporate espionage at Keller Industries. X-Factor investigated, but in the end it was evidence gotten by Julian and Sue that cleared her name.
Hope also set about expanding her set of 'gray skills' with Marie-Ange Colbert tutoring her in art of sedatives and other potions and Jubilee teaching her pickpocketing. After the loss of Julian's hands and her boss going on sick leave, Hope found her responsibilities at the office increased greatly as she shed most of her PA duties and assumed most of Julian's charity work. At the June she started bundling those duties though to join X-Factor Investigations and at the end of August she had to leave completely because she started attending Barnard College.
Early September 2016 brought a long desired goal close as Hope interviewed with Emma Frost about joining the Hellfire Club as White Herald. A few days later she received a message from CJ Ward about having seen Scanner and Garrulous in Richmond, Virginia where they were working to get a set of anti-mutant laws passed. Working with Doug, Darcy, CJ and new young woman named Cara Montgomery, they captured Scanner and Garrulous, undid the damage Garrulous did and worked to stop the sponsors of the bill. At the end Hope met up with Ian Archer again as well and she, CJ, Ian and Cara agreed to form a network to keep an eye on mutant affairs. Celebrating this let to a little more and Hope slept with Ian and CJ.
Physical Characteristics
Height: 5’8
Weight: 39 lbs or 63 kg
Eyes: Hazel
Hair: Brown
Other Features: Her ears are pierced.
Powers
Hope has the power of astral projection. She goes into some kind of altered state of consciousness to release her astral self. Her body falls unconscious when she leaves and in the beginning she will always return after about ten minutes, but with training she will be able to spent a few hours outside her body. She has a range of about 100 meters at first, but this can expand to about 1000 after a lot of practice. She can see an hear, but she cannot feel or smell things. Her astral form appears as a white ghost to the people around her and is visible to everyone. Her astral form is capable of flight and can pass through walls.
Since she is a from of energy herself, she can detect parts of the psionic and electromagnetic spectrum, since the two are closely related, instead of the normal human five senses. She perceives auras and energy patterns that are invisible to the naked human eye such as the emotional state of others from their auras or heat signatures. From the electromagnetic spectrum she perceives:
- Infrared - 'see in the dark'. She can se heat signatures with this.
- UV - ‘see UV-light’ She will be able to use this check if bill or other documents with counterfeit measures are real.
- X-Ray - 'see through walls'. This she can use to see through walls or look into locked containers.
At first she will have a lot trouble processing all the information that she receives by this. She will see everything at once as a large jumble. Later on she’ll be able to sort things out and maybe even filter things out. First she can only to this in astral form, but later on she will be able to do this in human form also. She can communicate with humans by a form of projective telepathy, much like Jane Doe.
Recently she discovered she is able to shift to the astral plane, but her abilities there still need to be discovered.
In her astral form she is invulnerable to physical attacks and getting hit by an energy blast will force her back to her own body with a shock.
Equipment
None
Trivia
- Hope is skilled at playing the violin, speaking French and other culturally relevant subjects.
- Hope can almost always be found in skirts. She very rarely wears pants.
External Links
Plots
Phase 1
2013
2014
2015
Phase 2
2015
None
2016
The Two Sided Coin of Ambition
2017
Meta
Player: Eva
E-mail:
AIM:
Player Icon Base: Shelley Hennig
Meta Trivia
Hope is Eva's second character. From her introduction till September 2013 Hope was played by Ariel Winter.
