âLearn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.
The important thing is to not stop questioning.â
â Albert Einstein
âFull Nameâ
Amara Jasmine Chaplin
âAliasesâ
Most commonly known as AJ
Less common are Doc, Mara and Jass
Her S.H.I.E.L.D alias is Bones
âBirthday & Ageâ
18th August, 1996
17 Years Old
âEthnicityâ
African-American & German-English
âSpeciesâ
Homo Sapien
âGenderâ
Female
âOccupationâ
Doctor, Medical Researcher, Neurosurgeon
Avenger Apprentice
âHometownâ
Born in Manchester, England
Grew up in Oakland, California
âPhysical Descriptionâ
Height:
5'7"
Weight:
120lbs
Eye Colour:
Her eyes are hazel, although they can be mistaken for light brown given a change in light.
Hair Colour:
AJ's hair is naturally dark brown to black and normally falls down her back in loose curls.
Piercings:
AJ has only one piercing in each ear. Usually the piercing is decorated with silver flower studs, although she will wear more classy jewellery when the event calls for it.
Tattoos:
AJ has no tattoos, both from a lack of interest and because her parents have always forbidden it. She skipped the rebellious teenager phase (or it's still to come) and has never felt any inclination to go against her parents' words.
Scars:
Despite being much more of an indoor child than an outdoor, AJ still managed to pick up a child's collection of scars. She still bares a scar on her left shin from a biking accident when she was learning to ride on two wheels. Another scar on the back of her shoulder was a nasty accident involving her sister, a game of tag inside and a poorly placed kitchen knife.
Character Colour:
522B34
âLikesâ
â Brains \\ Dissections \\ Lord of the Rings \\ Books \\ Her Family \\ Hip-Hop \\ Dancing \\ Word Problems \\ Maths Games \\ Maths \\ Science \\ Doctor Who \\ Prime Numbers \\ Noble Gases \\ Neurons \\ High-tech Equipment \\ Reading \\ Helping People \\ Completing a Paper \\ Her iPod \\ Classical Music \\ Pop Music \\ Singing In The Shower
âDislikesâ
â Cooking \\ Condescension \\ Coffee \\ Illegal Drugs \\ Losing Patients \\ Goats \\ Failure \\ Mess \\ Disorder \\ Discrimination \\ Losing Loved Ones \\ Pollution \\ Politics \\ Folk Music \\ Inactivity \\ Reality TV Shows \\ Sleet \\ Mice \\ Being Woken Up Too Early \\ Earthquakes \\ Disaster Movies
âHobbiesâ
Reading \\ AJ will read anything and everything she can get her hands on, although her preferred reading material is usually related to medicine and genetics. She's also a huge fan of fantasies like Lord of the Rings.
Experimenting \\ AJ loves spending her spare time carrying out experiments in the lab. If she thinks of an idea she'll jot it down in her notebook and test it out later.
Dancing \\ Hip-hop and contemporary are her favourite, although she did study ballet and jazz for a few years when she was younger.
âFearsâ
Losing Her Family \\ Losing Patients \\ Dementia \\ Rapid Dogs
âPersonalityâ
[Enthusiastic, Extremely Intelligent, Cheerful, Chatterbox, Inquisitive, Friendly, Loyal, Perfectionist, Neat]
Amara straddles two worlds, that of a teenage girl and the world of a brilliant working professional. Enthusiastic, positive and cheerful, if you saw her passing down the street you would be forgiven for thinking that AJ was your typical teenager. She has her crushes (generally noted professionals from the academic world), she gets told off by her parents and given chores for misbehaving. She likes to joke just the same as others her age, she'll gossip with her close friends and gush over the boy down the road, she'll play truth or dare at a sleepover and scream during the scary parts of a horror movie, all things you would expect from a girl her age.
Then there is the side that sometimes scares people who don't know her. There is no way to be modest about it, AJ is brilliant. She is undoubtedly a genius and has been known to think circles around adults three times her age. Those that aren't prepared for her startling intellect can often be taken back by it, especially if they make the mistake of talking down to her. AJ dislikes nothing more than condescension. She has never been one to brag about her intellect, but if she feels that someone is patronising her she won't hold back. Any who mistake her for a naive young girl soon learn their mistake. Most of the people she works with have long taken to treating her as an intellectual equal, a respect that she greatly appreciates.
AJ has always been an over-achiever, how could she not? When she sets her mind to doing something she rarely quits until it's completed. She also likes everything she does to be completed to the highest level. Shoddy work or something only half completed would never sit well with her. A perfectionist, she isn't happy until her project is completed to the best of her ability. However, she sometimes find that distraction leads her off course. Most commonly she'll see a passing comment on a particular topic and her curiosity will eat away at her until she's answered the million and one questions that have formed in her head. She has always been insanely inquisitive. She will leave no rock unturned when pursuing something. When she was younger she viewed it as a game, seeing how fast it could take her to track down an answer. The one obsession she has yet to fully calm is her longing to study other species, particularly after the appearance of beings like Thor and Loki.
Anyone who knows AJ know that she's a chatterbox. She could talk your ear off if you asked the right questions. Simply put, she gets excited and passionate about her fields of interest and she's more than happy to explain all the intricacies of it to anyone who asks. After all, why wouldn't anyone want to hear about the ins and out of the human brain? AJ can't quite understand why most people don't find neuroscience and genetics as interesting as she does. She's become somewhat used to people's eyes glazing over when she begins to excitedly explain her most recent discovery, although that could also be because she usually makes little effort to use terms that the average person will understand.
AJ has always felt an extreme sense of loyalty to her friends and her family. Caring and friendly, she hates to see anyone she cares about upset or hurt. She would die before she knowingly betrayed a family member and has never understand how people could back-stab their friends. She has never had a large number of friends her own age, but the few she has picked up she has made sure never to lose. She also made sure to stay in touch with her sister when the two found themselves separated. Despite the distance between the sisters and the different paths their lives were taking, AJ has always been positive that nothing would push itself between their friendship. AJ is overall a positive person, considering dwelling of life's negatives as a waste of energy. That being said, she knows that life isn't always easy. She's dealt with enough patients to know that not everyone is given a fair hand. Yet, AJ always tries to look on the bright side. After all what is the point of living in concious gloom when there are still so many exciting discoveries to be made and new secrets to be learnt?
âSkills, & Talentsâ
[+]Education â AJ graduated from Johns Hopkins University at age fourteen. She received first class honours in Biochemistry, her particular area of interest being Molecular Genetics. During this time she also took an interest in neuroscience, the study of the nervous system, which includes the spinal chord and brain. It began as a simple hobby, yet when she decided to seriously study it it took only a few months for her to become a listed surgeon and a short time under the supervision of a noted neurosurgeon until she was performing solo surgeries. (It usually takes over a decade to be a practising Neurosurgeon).
[+]Languages - Aside from English, AJ speaks German, Swahili, Latin, Spanish, French, Japanese, Italian and Sign Language, with odd phrases in other languages here and there.
[+]Professional - Other than a startling intellect, AJ has several skills essential to a doctor and neurosurgeon. She has an almost picture perfect memory, meaning she can recollect data and information almost word for word. Her understanding of anatomy, physiology and so forth is almost unmatched. She also possesses a good degree of manual dexterity, a needed ability when dealing with scalpels and minute parts of the human brain. She is also able to keep a cool head under pressure.
[+]Domestic â AJ is a speedy and effective cleaner, no speck of dirt escapes her when she's in cleaning mode.
[+]Physical - AJ has always loved dancing and she is surprisingly good at it. Since she was a young girl she's been going to ballet and jazz classes, which changed to hip-hop when she got older.
âWeaknesses, Disabilities, & General Flawsâ
[-]Physical â Before her arrival at S.H.I.E.L.D her only form of physical exercise was dancing. She has began to learn hand-to-hand combat, but is still very much a beginner. She knows most of the theory, having read a good deal on martial arts, but is finding putting the theory into practice is a lot harder than she expected. Not to mention that she lacks a lot of muscle, long hours in the surgery or the lab will do that to you.
[-]Oddities â Given her stellar performance in chemistry it would seem only a logical step that AJ have some talent in the kitchen. However, she might be able to memorise a recipe, but no matter how hard she tries her meals always end up a mess.
[-]Mental and/or Emotional â AJ is logical. She likes facts, reason and order. She cannot handle mess, whether a messy work station or dirt on her clothes. Some might say that AJ has a mild form of OCD, she would just reply that just because she likes things neat and tidy, does not mean she has a condition.
âEquipmentâ
â»Weapons - Only her wits.
â»Vehicles â Her car was a gift to herself after she passed her driving test. She calls it her Silver Neuron.
â»Sentimental Items â A necklace made by her sister just before she went away. It is a pure silver heart pendant with A & S engraved on one side and a perfect engraving of their two faces together on the second side. Her parents also gave her a pair of silver flower earrings as a graduation gift, which is another item she rarely goes without.
â»Gadgets â AJ never goes anywhere without her iPod. It has a collection of classical music, which she listens to when performing surgeries, and modern pop music that she'll play loudly on speakers whenever she's in the lab. She also usually carries a small notebook and pen with her in case she has any bright ideas.
â»IDs â AJ has a driver's license, a Medical ID for the Hospital she worked at and her S.H.I.E.L.D ID.
âHistoryâ
Amara Jasmine Chaplin, AJ as she's known to family and friends, was the first child of George and Jana Chaplin. George Chaplin was an American zoologist studying abroad in the UK when he met Jana Heins, an English-German doctor working in low income neighbourhoods. The pair married and two years later Amara was born. Even as a baby it was clear that AJ was special. She developed much faster than other toddlers her age and when she learned to talk was constantly asking questions.
When AJ was three the family moved from Manchester, England to Tanzania. Her mother had been offered the chance to work at a rural clinic and her father, always keen to study animals in the wild, found the move worked well for his studies too. It was during this time that AJ learned Swahili, picking up the language faster than her parents thought possible. She continued to further surprise her parents as she grew, quickly proving that her intellect was well above average. Her parents are both intelligent in their own rights, but they realised that their daughter was something more. By her fourth birthday she was already devouring high school level science books and also begging both parents to take her to work with them.
When AJ was five her younger sister Samantha was born and shortly after her birth the family moved to Oakland, California. It was here that AJ first attended a normal school, having been too young and then previously home-schooled by her parents. Her parents already knew that she was gifted, but they also wanted her to have a normal childhood. So she was enrolled in a local school with kids her age, which lasted all of one day. She was so far beyond the other five year old children that she was put in a class with children over double her age. As you can imagine, while the education was more at her level, she was so much younger than her classmates that it made making friends that much harder. Eventually she, her parents, and her teachers came up with an adequate solution; she would spend half her time with the children her age when they were doing art or P.E and would take science, maths, English and so forth with the older children.
In this way AJ completed high school, graduating well before many of the children her age had even started. She loved reading and finding out anything and everything. She only had to read something once and she would remember the facts. She learned languages unbelievably fast, picking up Latin to help her understand medical terms in one of her mother's books and learning sign language in order to befriend a deaf girl in her class. She was constantly reading, asking questions and learning. She had became a regular at her mother's practice. Her comprehensive knowledge of medical illnesses seemed to surprise her mother's colleges at first, until they got used to the precocious girl.
AJ became particularly interested in genetics when the family discovered that her little sister Sammie was a mutant capable of creating images on any surface with only a wave of her hand (which is how she created AJ's necklace). For the Chaplin parents having a genius and a mutant in the family was hardly what they had expected when planning their family, but they loved their daughters and wouldn't have changed anything about them. For AJ her sister's mutation was a source of great curiosity. Her mind whirred with questions, questions that she was currently unable to answer. She wrote a paper when she was ten on the diversity of genetics, although making sure not to mention her sister or anything specifically to do with mutants. It was picked up by several scientific and medical journals. It was this paper that brought her to the attention of several prominent universities.
However AJ wasn't quite ready for university. She didn't want to move away from her family just yet, she was only a young girl despite her brains. Above all else she wanted to be there to help her sister, whose mutation, while not particularly dangerous or showy, made her feel different to the rest of her classmates. When AJ was twelve and Sammie was seven, a man came to the house, claiming to be from a school for children like Sammie. Xavier's School for the Gifted offered Sammie the opportunity to go to school with children like herself where she wouldn't have to hide her mutation. Sammie was initially hesitant to go, sad at the idea of leaving her family. But, AJ and her parents convinced her to go. At the same time AJ realised that the best thing for her was also to leave. Before they said goodbye Sammie gave AJ a necklace that she had made. AJ has never taken it off.
She attended Johns Hopkins from the age of twelve, taking courses in chemistry, biology, psychology, microbiology, and genetics, with a few courses related to neuroscience in her last few months at the university. She graduated at age 14 with First Class Honours in Biochemistry. Having come top of her class as well as having published several of her laboratory studies it was no wonder that she was offered numerous jobs upon graduation. In the end she decided to take a job at a prominent California hospital under a famed neurosurgeon.
It was a curious time for the young girl. While she was preparing for her first solo surgery she was also learning to drive a car. Her parents, who had moved closer to her once she left college, grounded her whenever she broke a rule, but would also happily discuss work related topics over the dinner table. Boys were a problem she rarely had to deal with, given that the majority that she dealt with were either patients or considered her frighteningly smart. However, like any other teenage girl she had her celebrity crushes. Unlike other teen girls though, hers weren't the newest singing group, or the hottest actors, hers were the brains and the scientists that lit up the academic world.
So you would imagine that when the Bruce Banner walked into AJ's office one Friday afternoon, AJ was naturally excited. For the first time in her life words failed her. She had an endless list of questions that she wanted to ask him, but she found herself unable to speak. Mr Banner sat her down and explained that he would like to sit in on one of her surgeries. AJ could only nod, stunned at such a compliment. She had had many guests sitting in on surgeries before, after all you don't get many 17 year old neurosurgeons. She wasn't to know that Bruce Banner was there to study her in order to determine if she was the right person for the Avengers Apprentice team. She performed the surgery with her usual finesse, even with the added pressure of her hero watching her. Then, after the surgery he asked her out to lunch. Rather than taking her out to the street he took her up to the roof where Tony Stark waited with a helicopter.
AJ didn't eat much, her initial shyness had given way to an avalanche of questions. She had barely enough time to form each sentence let alone get food in her mouth. Bruce Banner and Tony Stark answered what they could, deflected when necessary and countered with questions of their own. The lunch proved everything that they had believed of AJ, that she was extremely intelligent, a master of her profession and most of all someone who would fit in to the team they wanted. Then as dessert was being served AJ asked the question that had been playing on her mind since Bruce appeared, why were they there? They explained that they wanted to offer her a spot in the Avengers Apprentice Initiative. AJ was sold the moment they mentioned the technology she would be able to play with, not to mention the chance to study other species. They took her to HQ to meet Nick Fury, whose quick questioning of AJ proved her to be everything that Banner and Stark had claimed her to be. It was unanimous and with a slap on the back she was officially accepted into the Avengers Apprentice Initiative.
âExtraâ
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