application for theinstitute

[gottathinkbigtobebig]

PLAYER INFORMATION
PLAYER: Adeline
ARE YOU AT LEAST 14 YEARS OLD?: Yep
CONTACT: AIM: almond cookie tea EMAIL: nerd.chaos [at] gmail [dot] com
PERSONAL JOURNAL: ouo
CHARACTERS PLAYED: N/A


CHARACTER INFORMATION
NAME: Tracy Turnblad
CANON: Hairspray
CANON REFERENCE: bam (I'm combining the 2007 film and the stage musical versions somewhat, as they're not identical but don't contradict each other in terms of characterization)
AGE: 16
GENDER: female
YEAR IN SCHOOL/FACULTY POSITION: HS3

APPEARANCE: bam
PERSONALITY:
Tracy Turnblad is hard to ignore, and she likes it that way. Her love of dancing and dreams of stardom seem to occupy her every waking moment, and her interest in staying in style (in terms of fashion, dance, attitude, and otherwise) mean that she attracts a lot of attention – both positive (from the friends she seems to make quite quickly so long as they don’t think she’s too odd) and negative (from teachers who wish she would just settle down – and if not, time for another detention).

Paired with this is a relentlessly optimistic and determined attitude that is directed toward both personal achievements and her goals for the wider world. Her own success in dancing isn’t enough for her; she has to use that newfound power as a force of good in the world. Tracy believes strongly in equal rights and opportunities for everyone and she’s an activist who doesn’t believe that equality will happen if she takes discrimination sitting down. (In canon, the issue is racial segregation; in Institute it will be discrimination toward mutants.) She’s very upfront and stubborn about her views (announcing her controversial love of “negro day” on television), often annoying those who are less open-minded.

This optimism and stubbornness can turn into being enthusiastic to the point of ridiculousness (see: “afrotastic”), naivety (that is, it’s hard for her to wrap her head around why people discriminate in the first place), and even getting herself into serious trouble. Sure, getting detention for “inappropriate hair height” is really no big deal, but when it gets to the point that she to jail for a protest that she played a major role in organizing, even Tracy has trouble handing it. As much of a leader as she is, Tracy needs the support of her friends and family to do her best and get over slumps; she thrives in groups and occasionally needs someone else to take the wheel and get her back on track.

She’s faced other kinds of discrimination as well – namely, due to her weight. Overweight presumably due to uncontrollable factors (given that she is quite clearly in shape), raised by a mother who struggles with emotional eating and a poor body image, and teased not only by classmates but sometimes adults, Tracy is no stranger to the idea that some people find her size laughable and unattractive. Amazingly, it never seems to let her down, and she firmly believes that she can do anything a skinnier person could do, from being a successful performer to being the girl with the best hair in school to getting the boy of her dreams.

Ultimately, Tracy is a romantic, an optimist, and a relentless extrovert who won’t be forced to take things sitting down, literally and figuratively.

POWERS/ABILITIES:
Tracy has the power of dance manipulation – that is, she can control the movements of other people and objects through her own movements, so long as she is dancing. Ideally this is only activated through a conscious effort, but she’s had quite a few awkward moments in which this power has been accidentally activated.

AU HISTORY:
If she hadn’t been a mutant, most people would say that Tracy’s life was pretty normal. Born in Baltimore as the first and only child of a loving couple, her father the owner of a small joke shop and her mother a seamstress, she was raised with a nice balance of her father’s happy-go-lucky attitude and her mother’s loving strictness. They didn’t expect much of her, so long as she was always happy and well-adjusted, and despite obstacles that managed to happen.

Like many young performers, Tracy was always attracted to the performances she saw on television, and she began singing and dancing along practically as soon as she was able. Her dolls even joined in the fun, and she didn’t even realize that it was unusual that sometimes they would get up and dance along with her (didn’t they do that in Toy Story, too?) Her mother, Edna, didn’t feel the same way, and (after screaming and practically sewing through her hand) reassured her daughter that she loved her but that those kinds of powers should never, ever be exposed to other people. It didn’t seem right to Tracy, even at that young age – if she could do something so fun and unusual, wasn’t that just a special talent? – but nonetheless she obeyed her mother, except around the closest of friends.

As she grew older, it became clear to her that Edna’s warning was not without reason; most people were afraid of people who were different, and especially hated the thought that they could be hurt by those differences, even though Tracy herself was harmless. But it also became clear to her that that kind of thinking was just plain wrong. Her powers were something good, and useful, and even if they weren’t, being different wasn’t hurting anybody! Clearly, she had to do something about it, but the way to do that was hard to find when she got detention for disagreeing with teachers about how important her homework was.

After finding out about Xavier Institute soon before she entered high school, it seemed like just the answer. There, she could meet others like her and they could work together to understand their powers and eventually teach humans that they deserved to be respected, just the same as everyone else, without hiding a thing. Beginning to attend school there only cemented her beliefs, and soon she began to become an expert on mutant rights and activism, which did little to help her grades in unrelated classes but helped her to make friends who had similar concerns and interest in advancing mutant acceptance. And, of course, she never stopped her love of dancing and her dreams of performing – but now aiming to the first world-famous star who was mutant and proud.

SAMPLE
1ST PERSON SAMPLE:
I am so not into midterms. Math is great and all, if you’re going to be an architect or something, but this place is kind of lacking for the more artistically-inclined students. Can you believe Mr. Jones doesn't think acting things out is even acceptable for presentations?

How many mutants have been on America’s Got Talent? Not enough! Now there’s a project that matters.

THIRD PERSON SAMPLE:
Even when it was a topic that interested her, Tracy would be lying if she said that sitting in the library and leafing through books was ever fun. Couldn’t they make these into TV shows? Musicals? A teacher had told her that it was impossible to be an activist without knowing about the works of the people before her, and there was apparently some sort of unspoken rule against picketing in front of the nearest government buildings (something about keeping a good image?) so books seemed like the best answer.

As used to this as she was by now, it was really freaking unfair. Who needed to hear a good argument before they would be willing to make friends with people? That was all it would take, being friends!

She sighed and leaned back, accidentally smacking a classmate with her hand. “Oops, sorry!” she said almost immediately, confirming that it was only a light brush.

“Be careful, fire whale,” the boy said with a sneer and a roll of her eyes. Tracy “tch”ed, but turned back to her book when she couldn’t come up with a clever response before he walked away.

She supposed that with the kind of attitude some people had, systematic discrimination shouldn’t be so surprising, but half of the time it still did.