Wanda Maximoff
Wanda Maximoff, daughter of Magneto and twin sister to former Brotherhood of Mutants member Quicksilver, currently a member of Pete Wisdom's Snow Valley team. She might have a chequered history and a quick temper, but she's determined to do what's right. Even if her reformed brother might not agree with her methods.
Contents
Details
Character Journal: x_scarletwitch
Real Name: Wanda Maximoff
Codename: Scarlet Witch
Aliases:
First Appearance: September 26, 2004
Date of Birth: February 10, 1976
Place of Birth: Bulgaria
Citizenship: Bulgarian
Relatives: Erik Lehnsherr (father); Magda (mother - deceased); Pietro Maximoff (twin brother).
Education: Masters in Social Anthropology with a minor in Archaeology. Currently doing her PhD. via correspondence with Cambridge University.
Relationship Status: Single, former long-distance relationship with Dr. Stephen Strange now ended. Currently casually dating Kurt Sefton.
Occupation: Researcher for Snow Valley Memorial Center for Mutant Affairs
Team Affiliation: X-Force
Biography
Daughter of Magneto and a Gypsy Upbringing
Erik Magnus Lehnsherr first met Magda Maximoff in Bulgaria while he was in the process of hunting down a Nazi fleeing the tribunals. While Magda was 20 years his junior, it was hard for her not to fall for the charisma and steely intelligence, as it was hard for him to ignore her beauty and spirit. They were wed within months and she soon left her caravan for the first time. When Magnus first reveled his powers to his wife, it was during an attack from the former Nazi that Magnus had been tracking down. In the ensuing firefight, Magnus believed Magda and his infant twin children, shot and killed. In his rage, Magnus lashed out with his magnetic powers and had killed their attackers in a rather gruesome way. Magda, who later described the power as if he had reached out the sky and used the lightning on the metal (it had been storming rather heavily that evening), fled the scene, fearful for the safety of her children. She eventually met up with her caravan nearly a year later in Poland and it was then decided to head to England, in case Magnus decided to follow.
Having grown up with her mother's Gypsy caravan and knowing who her father was, and is, she struggled to find her own place in things. Magda Maximoff was the daughter of Holocaust survivors and she and her parents strove to instill many lessons in Wanda and Pietro. She also had no qualms in telling her children exactly what Magnus did and why their father was not allowed to contact them. Wanda grew up rather torn between the desire to protect her mother and the desire to meet and get to know her father.
Wanda's, and her twin brother Pietro's, powers emerged when they were 12 and a angry mob accused the caravan of stealing from them (which was, actually, rather true. Wanda was normally used as a "mark" to draw people to her and someone else would do a bit of pickpocketing). Amid thrown rocks, someone drew a gun and shot one of the men in the camp. Furious, scared, and confused Wanda instinctively lashed out. She managed to knock down a large tree in her panic and the mob scattered. Unfortunately, she was too much in shock to remove herself from the path and only Pietro's intervention with his own just-emerged superspeed saved her.
Growing up, she and Pietro were inseparable. Magnus had gotten into contact with his separated wife, attempting a reconciliation. Things progressed, but when she demanded that he move to where they were so she could watch him in case he was still a danger, he had to pick between his wife, who had left him, and his children, who didn't know him, and the dream he and Charles Xavier were building. He choose the dream but every once in a while sent letters to Wanda and Pietro. Wanda paid little attention to them but never knew how much Pietro clung to those letters. And once college was over with for Pietro, he set out to find his father.
Wanda never really got over Pietro's leaving and has some rather large trust issues and she has never forgiven Pietro for leaving, especially once Magda passed away as the result of an aneurysm caused by the Great Headache in May 2003. Since then, Magnus himself contacted her once asking Wanda to join his Brotherhood of Mutants alongside her brother, in his attempts to further mutantkind. She refused and asked only one thing out of her father…that if he were to ever come for her, that only he or Pietro would come. Magnus agreed and Wanda did not speak to him again. She did trade letters with her brother once a month, though she did not understand why he left.
Thanks to Magda's own lack of formal education, she did all she could to make sure her children could get as much education on the road as possible. From home schooling, Wanda then went onto correspondence courses and eventually managed to finish her Master in Social Anthropology with a minor in Archaeology. Wanda added to her caravan's travels by going out on her own to study other traveling groups, and as a result has seen a good bit of the world.
While in university, she stumbled upon Agatha Harkness, who decided to take the slightly wild young woman under her wing.
Xavier's - A Place of Sanctuary
Following the death of her mother and her father's increasing noteriety, Wanda began considering her own safety. She had her father's assurances that only he or Pietro would approach her to join his Brotherhood, but the same could not be said for his followers, particularly Toad and Sabretooth, who might take it into their heads to curry favour with their boss by bringing him his estranged daughter. In August 2004 she wrote to her father's old colleague, Professor Charles Xavier asking him for help. However, on her way to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, she was set upon by the remnants of Stryker's forces, who were looking for ways to recover from the disaster of X2. Fortunately the X-Men were there to rescue the unconscious Wanda, bringing her back to the school.
Upon regaining consciousness, Wanda was offered and accepted an invitation to remain at the school as long as she wished. She quickly fit in, sharing a suite with Jake Gavin and acting as chaperone for the ill-fatted Halloween party at Neon - as a result of her actions during this crisis, she was asked to join the X-Men, and became a useful and passionate member of the team. When Jake left, she took on his position of student counsellor, also working as a researcher for her professors at Cambridge and subbing for classes at Columbia University. It was here that she met Dr. Stephen Strange, tutor to Amanda Sefton, and a mutual attraction sparked. It was Wanda who tracked down Amanda's birth family through her Rom name, the same Rom caravan that had adopted Kurt Wagner, and she accompanied the young witch on her first visit with them. Their friendship has remained strong to present day. Wanda also flirted with various staff members, including Scott Summers prior to Jean's return and Kurt himself, before beginning a relationship with the academic and shy Stephen Strange.
Stephen's self-appointed quest of acting as a counter to Selene interfered with the relationship, however. Following the fight with Amanda and her firing him as her tutor, Stephen went underground, using the rift as an excuse to make final preparations to enact Pete Wisdom's plan. It necessitated the ending of his relationship with Wanda, something she took harder than she expected. When Mother Askani died to save Alison's life, Wanda received a telepathic dumping of her people's culture and knowledge, in order to preserve it.
Wanda's powers, always susceptible to stress, began giving her trouble during her time as an X-Man. Being forced to use them directly against a person in Youra caused her to question her ethics. A mission in Peru went awry when she lost control, leading her to clash with Cyclops. Eventually, she realised that there was something more deeply wrong than simply stress, and received confirmation in a rather violent fashion.
Chthon and The Road To X-Force
In March 2006, Chthon, an elder god of chaos of the ilk of Cyttorak, had apparently found Wanda to be the perfect vehicle to rebirth itself. Drawn to her by her powers, Chthon possessed Wanda and tried to seduce first Kurt (knocking him out when he was alarmed and tried to alert the team), then Cain Marko, avatar of Cyttorak. Fortunately they were interrupted by Nathan, sent by Marie-Ange Colbert as the result of a vision, and the X-Men managed to subdue their teammate and restore her to her right mind. As a result of these events, Wanda took a sabatical, returning to her mother's grave and finding out more about Chthon and the guardians who ensured it remained trapped on the earthly plane through Wanda. She also encountered her father again, and the two spoke for the first time since her mother's death. No violence, but they continued to remain diametrically opposed. Upon Magneto's departure, Wanda hit the panic button and the X-Men came to bring her back to the mansion. She remained unsettled, however, and soon left again, travelling first to England to work on her degree (and rescue Pete's sister Romany) and then to India, where she encountered someone she'd never expected to: Dr. Stephen Strange.
As part of his continuing work to rid the world of Selene and any possible means of reviving her, Stephen had secured a particular mantra designed to free evil from its shackles. Pursued by cultists of a local evil diety, he was rescued by Wanda, who assisted him on his quest. When she was taken by the cultists, Stephen contacted his former pupil, Amanda Sefton, and a rescue was launched and the mantra destroyed. The experience served to give Wanda the drive she had been missing - she resigned from the X-Men and joined X-Force, intent on using her powers in a more direct way to stop cults to entities such as Chthon. She became Amanda's supervisor, the witch and the anthropologist combining their talents to become the group's 'Weird Happenings' unit. Wanda's experience also made her perfect to teach the younger members of the group to fight, and she especially trains Amanda and Mark Sheppard.
Wanda's relationship with Stephen, resumed following their adventures in India, was sadly ended due to the constraints and stress of both their jobs. continues as a long-distance arrangement due to the demands of both their schedules and work. The appearance of her brother Pietro Maximoff, fleeing their father after his status as double agent was exposed, was another source of stress - the twins, always volatile, fought over Wanda's choice of work and Pietro's abandonment of the family. Something of a truce was achieved, but tensions remain high between them.
X-Force
Wanda has settled in quite nicely with the ranks of her new coworkers and teammates at Snow Valley. As their chief researcher, she has acquired Amanda as her assistant and Illyana Rasputin, as well. Their chief goal, when there are no pressing concerns, is to build a standing database of all the magical information they can gather. She trains with Remy LeBeau to hone her fighting abilities (and to get rid of the hand gestures she relies on) but also helps to train Amanda and Mark, though she's always up for a sparring session with anyone if they ask.
She's gone on to start her PhD, finding time between her various positions and responsibilities, including continual training of Jennie Stavros in regards to powers. As of now, she's been doing quite well. Recently, she and Kurt have started up a relationship.
Physical Characteristics
Height: 5' 10"
Weight: 172 lbs
Eyes: Dark brown/almost black.
Hair: Dark brown, tends to be rather uncontrollable when long, currently cut to just above shoulder length.
Other Features: Tanned and tends to be stronger than she looks; muscular and statuesque.
Powers
Wanda "hexes" things via chaos manipulation. She makes what could happen, happen, or what could not happen happen. Or what could happen but would be wildly improbable and outside the bounds of expectation happen. She's studied quite a bit into chaotic theory and basically thinks of her powers as getting "A" and "D" to create "Z". However, it's a lot more complicated than that. There's another aspect to our world, the chaos side. When Wanda utilizes her powers, she essentially rips open the barrier between and tosses out the end result, not caring how it happens, just that it does. Sometimes she can't even quite predict the end result - Wanda's manipulation of chaos and reality does not extend to precognition.
But if she concentrates, she can force it; force "A" to connect to "D" and result in exactly "Z", but at a higher cost to herself. When she doesn't force it, it's like she mentally reaches a hand into probability, rummages about and tosses out a result. When she forces it, she has to hold open the barrier longer and mentally look for what she wants. She describes it as "Looking into the abyss, and yes, it's looking back, but the worst thing is... I think it's hungry". She's looking into things that most people aren't supposed to see and she wipes it from her mind.
When she uses her powers, her mind becomes almost a chaotic whirlwind, making it hard to read or grasp (but only when she's actively using her powers, in order to keep up with all the information she's processing); most psionic powers have difficult affecting her in this state.
When she actives her powers, red "hex" rings appear around her hands, glowing brightly depending on how hard she's trying. She doesn't necessarily have to use her hands to make her power work, it's a fallback for her and one that Remy is working on eliminating completely. Also, if she lets an unfocused "burst" go, she can reform it and create a "hex blast", a beam of entropic energy that erodes or decays whatever it hits.
Before Chthon and the reset of her powers by the Knights, if she didn't mediate or relax before bed, she tended to lose some slight control of her powers (this also happened during moments of extreme emotion) and that caused slight "poltergeist" activity to occur around her (glasses breaking, books falling down, that kind of thing). Now, meditation is simply more of a habit and not one of necessity.
After Chthon, she lost the limitless well (tapping straight into his chaotic nature), though that has been less of an issue over time. What she gained, however, was an ability to spot the breaking points in an object/person. Using this trick enables her to locate the weak point and then use it against the object or the person in question.
Equipment
None.
Trivia
Because of the amount she traveled, with and without her family, Wanda speaks a good number of languages. Not all of them well, in fact most she only has a smattering of the necessary phrases down. She speaks Rom (Gypsy language, but mostly used for trading and cursing) fluently, along with German, though not nearly as well as she would like. She speaks French, and Hungarian and handles the Czech languages pretty well and she can bluff her way through most Germanic languages. Her English is rather good, though she gets confused by it sometimes.
Wanda is a gym rat and she relishes working out -- sparring, lifting weights, etc.
She owns a set of business cards that Amanda gave her for a gift with the term "Boss Lady" printed on them. It's a term that a number of the younger trenchcoats have picked up and Wanda considers it a fantastic term of endearment and she rather adores it.
Plots
2004
2005
Ties That Break, Ties That Bind
X-Men Mission: Mutant Michelangelo
X-Men Mission: Who's The Thief
2006
Operation: Don't Leave Me With The Germans
2007
2008
Meta
Player: Indiana J
E-mail: 
AIM: KatzMT
Player Icon Base: Carrie-Anne Moss
Meta Trivia
Wanda was introduced to the game long before Pietro Maximoff was ever applied for.
