Clarice Ferguson

PHASE 1

Clarice Ferguson
File:Clarice.jpg Portrayed by Christina Ricci
Codename:	'Blink'
Affiliations:	X-Men, Xavier Institute - Graduate student
Birthdate:	June 3, 1988

Journal:	My Reflections are Protections, they keep me from Destruction
Player:	Maureen

"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are" - E.E. Cummings

Clarice is a graduate of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters and the University of Maryland and is currently on sabbatical from the X-Men while she focuses on her graduate studies at Pace University.

Details

Character Journal: x_blink

Real Name: Clarice Molly Ferguson

Codename: Tinky Winky (trainee name); Blink (X-Men name)

Aliases: Purple Pixie, Glitterbug, Candy Cane

First Appearance: December 24, 2003

Date of Birth: June 3, 1988

Place of Birth: Ithaca, New York

Citizenship: American

Relatives: Ferguson Family: Mary (Ferguson) Eddings (Mother), David Eddings (Step-father), Jacob Ferguson (Father), Lisa (Richards) Ferguson (Step-mother), Stacie Richards (step-sister), Karen Richards (step-sister)

Education: High school diploma from Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, currently a grad student at Pace University

Relationship Status: Single

Occupation: College student

Team Affiliation: X-Men

Biography

Childhood

Mary O'Connell met Jacob Ferguson in the Caribbean shortly after they both finished law school. Mary was working for a human rights organization and Jacob was on vacation from a corporate law firm. They fell in love and Mary followed him back to Ithaca, New York in a whirlwind romance. Less than two years later, they were married and had a daughter they named Clarice.

She had a typical childhood, although her parents both worked a lot and as she got older, fought a lot. They separated when she was nine and were divorced when she was 10. Their divorce devastated Clarice and she lived with her mother who was a big believer of following your heart. Doing just that, Clarice began making her own clothing and doing many crafty things.

When Clarice was 11, her father remarried, instantly adding a second mother and two step-sisters to her family. Clarice was a few years younger than her step-sisters and was frequently relegated as their annoying tag-along in what they thought were budding modeling careers. It was her step-mother that got Clarice to start dancing and she quickly took to it, joining a local team and going to local competitions.

She joined her junior high school dance team and expected to go on to her high school team as well, until her powers began to manifest. Her hair and skin began to change before she knew she had powers and she was asked to leave the dance team.

The fencing team allowed her to join and since all but one hand was covered by the uniform, her mutancy was easily disguised. She took to fencing with a vengeance. When she wasn't fencing, her mother took her to every doctor she could think of, dermatologists, crystal healers, acupuncture, anything. She was a mutant. She was requested not to return to school for her own safety.

Her parents, for the first time in years, agreed that Clarice's safety was paramount and shuttled her between their houses, keeping her locked away until they could figure out what to do. They found Xavier's through a friend that knew of Professor Xavier and in their last agreeable decision together, drove her to the school.

Living At The X-Mansion

Initially, Clarice was untrusting of the adults at the school and jealous of her normal-looking classmates and soon turned towards Sarah Morlocke and Jonothan Starsmore, the self-proclaimed Monsters in the Basement. When the school was attacked in January, 2004, Clarice hid under Sarah's bed and refused to leave the basement for a week afterwards. Due to their age and maturity differences, Sarah and Jono tended to look at Clarice more as a pesky younger sister than as a friend.

Their friendship was challenged during Marauders (plot) and Sarah went after the people that killed the Morlocks. Ultimately, Clarice realized that she was not like Sarah and that despite her inaction, she was just as culpable. Sadly, she broke off their friendship in what was her first major step to growing up and leaving the childhood she clung to behind.

On the advice of Dr. Leonard Samson, Clarice began working on earning her learners permit so she could learn to drive a car and was taught to drive by Jean-Paul Beaubier before he left. When Red X began, Clarice joined and through her work with them and her classes at Xavier's, became a licensed EMT-basic. She worked for a summer as an EMT and ended up being at the hospital when Bad Blood occurred.

Initially, Clarice had no interest in joining the X-Men, but after working with Red X, Remy's Eleven and generally being around the school, she decided that she would become an X-Man once she was old enough to join. Once she got over her appearance and began accepting it, she fell into her own and has made it her mission to get out into the world and make them deal with her on her terms.

In addition to her medical interests, Clarice is an avid sewer and has made clothing for Jay Guthrie, Warren Worthington, and Hank McCoy amongst others at the school with physical mutations and was torn for a while over whether to become a doctor or have her own fashion line. She believes she can do it all.

Shortly after arriving at the school, Clarice established a reputation as the Glitterbug, glittering people's rooms and belongings if she felt they could use cheering up. Among the people glittered have been Paige Guthrie, Jono, and Kevin Ford. She hasn't glittered anyone in quite a while and has mostly passed the glitterbug title to Karolina Dean. Kevin has had the joy of being glittered by Clarice twice, both times shortly after he moved to the mansion.

Clarice's first boyfriend was Shiro Yoshida and they spent almost as much time fighting at first as they did dating, especially with the culture clash and tempers. The relationship did them both good for many reasons, for Clarice it helped boost her self esteem and for Shiro it helped him see that American's weren't as bad as he thought. Their relationship couldn't survive though when Clarice found that Shiro was addicted to Kick and broke up with him.

College and Beyond

Clarice began college as an undeclared premed major at the University of Maryland and is now a sophomore with a formally declared major of biological anthropology. She spent her freshman year in the Maryland dorms in an uneven triple with two girls that she just couldn't quite be friends with. They weren't bad, but Clarice has realized more and more that she just doesn't have much in common with other teens her age - her life experiences are too different. Saving the world and then going to classes just gave her a different outlook on things. After all, not may people can say they were gender-switched while on a weekend retreat, fought dinosaurs or been to outer space.

After her freshman year, Clarice moved back to Xavier's and now shares a suite with her former frienemy and now friend, Monet St. Croix. They had big plans to start their own mutant-centric clothing company once Monet finished college and Clarice had more than 2 seconds of spare time. She was also a bridesmaid in her former roommate and best friend, Terry's wedding at Cassidy Keep.

Her flighty, glitterbug persona has steadily dissolved, leaving Clarice more mature and stronger than she thought she could be. She still loves a good time, but the bright happy colors and insatiable energy she used to be known for has given way to a more mature wardrobe with colour included as opposed to the main ingredient and an ability to make the difficult decisions in life. College is about growing up and between that and her X-Men duties, she has been.

Serving on the X-Men with her ex-boyfriend, Shiro wasn't easy at first, especially when she found out he was dating Alex Summers. Enraged, she hit Shiro when she found out, but they have since worked on repairing their relationship again. Even though they are broken up, their relationship is just as volatile as it was when they were dating. More recently, she and Kyle Gibney dated, to mixed responses.

During the mission Opera Redux Clarice was exposed to radiation and had a medical withdrawal from both school and the X-Men until she got better. She spent her days trying to will her hair to grow back faster, wishing her wig looked better, sewing and watching daytime TV, bored to tears from it all.

Radiation Poisoning and Recovery

Clarice remained off the team until well into the summer of 2008 when she was allowed to once again begin training. While sick she had lost nearly 40lbs and had to carefully build back her muscle and endurance. Fortunately, Clarice never lacked for appetite once she began feeling better (and stopped throwing up). She began classes again in August of 2008 at the University of Maryland. On her first several missions back on the team she added a black do-rag or bandana to her uniform to cover her head. Her hair began to come back and she acquired a weave to make her hair look normal while it grew back as it was still very thin and wispy.

With the stress running high at the end of 2008, Clarice went to visit her friend Callie in Italy. While there they were involved in an attack on a mutant night club and picked up by well-meaning, if slightly deranged do-gooders in Papa Don't Preach. The perceived kidnapping shook Clarice more than she wanted to admit as she never thought she would be kidnapped as well what what the people wanted to do - marry her and Callie into their group so they could have mutant babies. Clarice declared her lesbianism shortly after running away with Callie and returning to Xavier's, having a make out session with Monet.

Fit to resume her X-Men duties once more, Clarice found herself involved in increasingly dangerous situations, such as the bombing of Samson's clnic in Salem Center and the Preserver attack in Budapest. Clarice's experience showed during this situations, with her taking charge of triage and first aid situations without second thought. This included evacuating Yvette to Kosovo following her accident with a mine and calming a distraught Shiro after a meditative nightmare.

In June 2009 Clarice finally turned 21, celebrating the event at Silver. She also became one of the few people to ever declare their heterosexuality after attending Pride. She also began considering a courier-type business venture, given her powers, with resident courier Jake Gavin giving her advice. She also shared her own advice with new X-Man Lex, who was having difficulty with his powers.

Jailbreak

In November 2009 Clarice's cheerful outlook on life was rocked by what she saw during inside a prison riot. Faced with Masque's 'artistic' handiwork and forced to perform mercy killings for his victims, she found herself questioning herself and her own actions. A talk with Garrison Kane and a lot of drinks at Harry's Hideaway helped initially, but eventually Clarice decided to focus more on her pre-med studies, taking a sabbatical from the X-Men and moving out of the mansion in February 2010 in order to avoid the distractions both created.

Grad School

The 18 months that Clarice spent focused on college was an eye opening one, partially in terms of herself, having an apartment and being independent, but in terms too of the ‘outside world.’ In college few cared that she was a mutant, which was nice, but she couldn’t relate to her classmates and felt very awkward around them. It was also incredibly boring. She stayed busy with classes, getting active in the fencing club and exploring new interests as well as taking summer and mini-mester classes in paramedic medicine in addition to her major classes. The idea, she kept telling herself, was that it would better prepare her for medical school.

In the end though, she never applied to medical school despite taking her MCAT. She didn’t want to spend the next four years in medical school, then a residency and all that, not when she wanted to get back to the X-Men in less than 10 years. However, her interest in medicine didn’t abate either. Instead, she took paramedic classes and earned her EMT-I certification from the work she had done with Red X. Talking with her adviser helped a lot and she ended up applying to several schools to become a Physician’s Assistant as it was a shorter program than medical school, but ultimately not too dissimilar from being a doctor, though she wouldn’t have the title, but that was fine with her. It was a good compromise.

Clarice was accepted to Pace University in Manhattan and she considered first moving back to Xavier’s then, but then decided not to because despite missing it, she knew she would get drawn back into the crazy there and she needed to focus on school. She could always go visit.

Things…did not quite work out though. School kept her busier than she anticipated and with one thing and another, plus trying to make friends in her classes, Clarice never quite got around to going up to Westchester. She meant to though. It was on her to-do list. Her entire little bubble of a world was centered on lower Manhattan and the hospital affiliated with her school that was right there.

Returning to Xavier's

Reconnecting with Xavier's came in the form of [Brennan Mulwray], an escaped convict she first encountered in X-Men Mission: Jailbreak when he was brought into her hospital. Worried that he might do something and given the brush off by hospital security, Clarice called the X-Men for assistance to take him back into custody. It was then that she realized that she could leave Xavier's and the X-Men behind, but that these things had a way of sneaking back again. This, coupled with a roommate that she couldn't stand, meant that once the semester ended in December 2011, Clarice moved back to a grad suite at Xavier's.

Genosha

Physical Characteristics

Height: 5ft 5in

Weight: 130lbs - slim and athletic, with well defined muscles without being muscle-bound

Eyes: brown

Hair: purple, generally a little past her shoulders, but she is always curling it, straightening it or something. She rarely dyes it.

Other Features:

Piercings: two earring holes in each ear

Tattoos: one curved vertical line above her right eye, one vertical S through her left eye and a diamond on her forehead (covers a scar sustained in Full Metal Mutants).

Scars: a small one on her back from childhood and numerous scars on her hands from swords. In Full Metal Mutants Clarice was cut on the forehead by a ninja. This scar she covered with a diamond shaped tattoo. In Kaiten she sustained moderate burns to her upper back which has resulted in some scarring.

Powers

Clarice used to look like a normal brown haired, pale skinned girl, but shortly after she turned 14 her hair began growing in a dark purple and several months later, her skin began to change to a soft purple.

She can also teleport via discs which she can create to any destination on Earth, transporting herself or someone/something else to that location instantaneously. Distance is not a factor for her powers, however mass is. The more something weighs or the more she teleports, the more energy she uses. Her discs manifest similar to the flat, glassy water of a Stargate wormhole, although they are also a purply-pink colour.

Equipment

Sabre sword - not used on X-Men missions, but has been used in the past.

Katana

Trivia

Is a licensed EMT-II in New York state and worked for a summer as an EMT and also is deployed with Red X.

During Remy's Eleven Clarice learned to crack safes, a talent she used again during Acumen.

Glitterbug by The Vanity Project is Clarice's theme song - although she had acquired the nickname before the song came out.

Clarice can sew, knit, crochet, and cross stitch. She cannot (or will not) do latch hook, needlepoint or tatting.

Clarice refuses to wear most shades of pink or red and she never wears purple.

Prefers plaid skirts and doc martens with funky socks.

In Thirteen Days Clarice broke her leg and convinced Shiro and Kevin to draw fetishist dwarves and other dirty things on her cast.

In X-Men Mission: Opera Redux Clarice was irradiated by a bomb that exploded as she was teleporting it away. While the radiation was not enough to kill her, she did lose her hair. This caused her to sport a number of outrageously bad wigs in an array of colours for most of 2008 and be placed on the team disabled list for most of the year. Or only serving in a limited capacity.

Clarice has "dated" (that is, some of them were dates to her, but not to the other person) or crushed on almost every gay or bi guy in the school - Warren, Piotr, Jean-Paul, Shiro, & Kyle. The only ones she hasn't are Alex and Jay, and they dated Shiro and Kyle respectively.