profile. irene adler (destiny)

[destinydiaries]

basics »

name »	Irene Adler
codename »	Destiny
age »	Old. But appears to be in her 30s.
birthday »	July 1st

personality »

Irene Adler is shrewd, intelligent, and knows how to go about getting what she wants. With her precognition powers as an aid, she tends to be one step ahead of others. Irene is neither good nor evil. Like most skills and talents, which are not inherently good or evil on their face, Irene's traits take a good or bad spin depending on how she is using them at any given moment. And Irene feels that there is a place for both ruthlessness and compassion, especially in the current state of the world.

To Irene, a mutant life is worth its weight in gold, whereas a human life is negligent to her. She sees it as necessary. Survival of the fittest. And Darwinism at its absolute best. Conquer or be conquered. Irene relies on her mind and precognition as her greatest weapon.

However, while Irene is extremely practical and pro-mutant, she is also a compassionate and caring individual. She tends to play the role of the mother, nurturing and providing for whoever she feels needs her attention. This compassion, though, primarily extends only to other mutants. If it was not for her pro-mutant stance, she would easily and more likely fall more into the ideology of Charles Xavier but years of living and seeing several possible futures where homosapiens force mutants to knuckle under has made Irene bitter toward those who want to wipe mutants out of existence. Though she believes Xavier's goal for peace is a good one, she also has serious doubts that it's a likely outcome. Irene supports the school most for its necessity as a place for wayward mutant children to go when they've been turned out of their homes.

Irene is also fiercely independent; because of her disability, she's had to learn alternate ways to do things that other people take for granted. And prefers to learn her way around any new environment on her own than have someone take her by the hand and lead her around. She carries a three-section cane everywhere she goes in order to help her get around and utilizes her precognition in order to get 'mental images' of her surroundings. The one exception Irene makes to this is use of a Guide Dog -- a Chocolate Lab she calls Oracle. She's had the dog for a few years and has found that it's helped her to get around in the outside world, especially a place as crowded and busy as New York City, a lot easier without forcing her to waver in her determination to be able to do things for herself. Irene is also capable of utilizing technological devices -- computers, the internet, and, most importantly, the network system -- via use of software and hardware manufactured by Freedom Scientific.

Likes: Classical music, classic literature (via cassette tape or CD, obviously), knitting, peace, children
Dislikes: Violence for the sake of violence, war for the sake of war, bloodshed
Phobias/Fears: Losing her precognitive abilities, losing her hearing, being unable to stop particularly bad predictions from coming true
Hobbies: Knitting, writing, practicing a number of musical instruments she's picked up along the way
Goals: More than anything, Irene wants some sort of peace to be achieved and for mutants to be able to live their lives without fear of being persecuted. Whether this takes place at the cost of the human race or not is irrelevant to her.
Strengths: Intelligent, compassionate and practical when she needs to be, Irene is a worthy mental adversary. Her powers and greatest strengths lie in her head and she tends to use her calculating mind in order to achieve the outcome she wants.
Weaknesses/Flaws: Being blind and having no physical enhancements -- other than her prolonged lifespan -- to speak of, Irene is not a physical fighter. She avoids hand-to-hand combat of any kind, knowing that she would be at a severe disadvantage and isn't a fighter, per say, in the true battlefield sense.

history »

Little is known about Destiny's early history; what is known is that she was born in Salzburg, Austria in the early 1900s. She was an orphan, barely surviving on the streets by herself until she was finally taken in by a Catholic nunnery.

She developed her second sight at the age of 12 and almost immediately began falling into trance-like states where she would scribble notes down of things she saw in her mind. It became obvious that the things she wrote down were predictions about future events and the nuns believed her to be a messenger from God.

At first.

Irene began to fall into deeper and deeper trances, ones that lasted for longer stretches of time until, a few months after her mutation first manifested, Irene's precognitive abilities caused her to enter a six month long trance and write several volumes of prophecies about the future entitled the Books of Truth, or Libris Veritatus, a series of longterm predictions about the future of the world.

When Irene awoke from this trance she was completely blind.

In her adult years, Irene met and became romantically involved with Raven Darkholme. There may be some truth to the claim that the pair were the famed Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler, though only the two -- and possibly a few others -- know that for sure. The relationship abruptly ended when Irene packed up and disappeared without a word, or even letter of explanation, to Raven, leaving the other woman to imagine anything she wanted. And, likely, as the years went on, to believe that Irene had aged and eventually died.

The explanation Irene would give -- and the truth of the matter -- about the situation is extremely vague. Her visions indicated that the natural course of future events required that she leave Raven in order to culminate into a positive outcome. Irene, never one to fight fate or her visions when she feels they are leading her in a specific direction for a reason, simply followed the path she believed was set out for her and Raven's relationship.

She traveled around Europe for years, discovering, as time passed, that she had seeming stopped aging somewhere around her early 30's. And, in fact, future visions that included herself showed her as resembling a thirty-something woman. Irene simply assumed that it was a side-effect of her mutation.

Earning money as a freelance fortune teller and 'psychic', Irene finally came to the United States in the late 1980s; unknown to Mystique, or the other members of the Brotherhood, she kept tabs on the group, agreeing with their ideals that revolved around mutant superiority, but put off by their often violent way of getting things done. Able to stay one step ahead of anyone she wished and, what with Manhattan being so vast, she assimilated into New York life, making a living by telling fortunes and selling prophecies, along with, briefly, working as freelance writer under an assumed penname, using her visions in order to come up with story ideas.

powers & skills »

Destiny is a mutant with the psionic power of precognition, the ability to perceive in her mind's eye the events of possible futures. Although she is blind, Destiny can mentally scan the probability spectrum of alternate futures and mentally perceive sounds and sights of events that distinguish them. By concentrating she can focus on only the most probable alternate futures.

The accuracy of Destiny's ability to foresee future events decreases in direct proportion to the distance those future events lie ahead in time. The greater the time factor, the greater the number of alternate futures to scan. She can comfortably scan the alternate futures that exist from one second away up until those that exist fifteen minutes away. Hence, she can be 97% accurate in her predictions of the future ten seconds away or less.

A secondary effect of Destiny's mutation seems to be that she has stopped aging in her early thirties. She has no control over this ability and doesn't know what it means for the duration and/or eventual end of her life. However, her visions indicate that she she has a more than a bit of time left at this age.

Level of Control: Moderate; though Destiny has had nearly decades to perfect her powers, she's still struck by visions at random times that she is unable to control.

playlist »

1. The World Is Not Enough | Garbage
   
2. I Can Wait Forever | Air Supply
   
3. Mental Pollution | Jo Davidson
   
4. For Good | Wicked Soundtrack
   
5. Pieces of a Dream | Anastacia
   

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