Name: Raphael Rutowski (nee De Luca)Ethnicity: Italian
Position: Theater Teacher
Sex: Male
Age: 26
Appearance:
Hair: Dark Brown to Black depending on light.
Eyes: Black
Skin: White, Pale
Weight: 188 lbs.
Height: 5 ft. 9 in.
Other: Has scar from appendix surgery on hip. Small scar on elbow from attack.
Date of Birth: April 9, 2002
Place of Birth: Naples, Italy
Education: High School Graduate, Associates in Theater Arts, Five years on and off Broadway productions. He also briefly studied the art of theater under Anthony Stageletti - a major Broadyway Director of the past few years.
Mother:
Name: Angelica De Luca
Age: 49
Race: Meta-Human (human who gained powers)
Father:
Name: Ercole De Luca
Age: 50
Race: Human
Other Relatives:
Older Sister:
Name: Susana De Luca
Age: 33
Race: Human
Younger Sister:
Name: Mellissa DeLuca
Age: 5
Race: Believed Human
Husband:
Name: Dusti Rutowski
Age: 27
Race: Human
Daughter:
Name: Makena Rutowski
Age: 3
Race: Believed Human
Powers: Raphael is a mutant with the ability to speak to spirits, channel spirits and leave his body in a spirit form. When he is channeling a spirit it is seen by the fact his eyes will change. Generally to the eye color of the deceased, he sometimes get voice inflections based on the spirit as well. He can use his spirit form to travel and see things without any detection from psychics, though some magical barriers and people can sense him. He has also learned to make minor changes to his physical environment while in his spirit form such as; moving books, turning on and off faucets, closing doors, blowing out candles, making lights flicker, etc. Just general ghost like things while in that form of his powers.
Power Limitations: When in his spirit form Raphael's body is completely vulnerable. If it was to be killed or destroyed he would be stuck in his spirit form, not dead, but not able to take solid form again. Raphael can not control when spirits possess him, completely. He is able to stop it, but once one has control they have to give it up before it ends. Raphael can not see the spirits unless in his spirit form, when in his body he can only hear them. Also when Raphael is possessed, while he takes on the mannerisms and eye color of the spirit he does not gain any of there powers. His ability to move things is limited by his own concentration and skill, he just isn't that great at effecting things in his spirit form.
Hobbies and Interests: Raphael is very into art and ceramics, though he has never been very good at either. His favorite thing to do, his passion is theater. Raphael has a flare for the dramatic and loves to be on stage. He was at one point an actor in a few different Broadway plays, he loves to teach and loves theater for what he believes it can do for a persons confidence.
Background:
Born in Naples, Italy he was raised there for the first ten years of his life. During the conflicts in Italy over mutant rights his mother was mistakenly labeled a mutant and the family was forced to become refugees in America. They lived in about six different places all over America. Growing up Raphael always felt outcast and different, being looked down on for being foreign and homosexual. Raphael did everything he could to hide his homosexuality, but people still figured it out.
Raphael poured himself into religion. He is very much into the spiritual side of things and the Christian religion. He has trouble justifying this with his sexual feelings. It puts him on edge all of the time. When his powers came into play he knew for a fact there was an afterlife and he was torn even more as a person.
He became very quickly defensive and vocal. He would tear people apart with his words if he had too. Mid-way through high school his powers manifested themselves. He started hearing voices and even his good friends began to think he was insane. Raphael believed them too because of the things he was hearing. It wasn't until the first time, while in his sleep, that he walked out of his body as a spirit that Raphael realized what was going on with his mind.
He figured out his powers and stopped talking about the spirits and stuff telling his friends he had been on drugs to get them to drop it. He began talking to the ghosts every night making friends with some and enlisting others in cruel jokes he could pull. Such as having a ghost listen in on someone's conversation then come and talk to him telling him the best gossip. His sophomore year of High School his family moved again to New York City.
During his senior year of school his sister got an apartment back in Italy to try to help her friends back home and to get connected to her heritage. His parents stayed in New York City for the time being. Raphael graduated from Washington High School in New York and was getting ready to apply to college when he heard of the Grey Institute. He went to the school and ended up being a student there for only a couple of months before he received a cryptic phone call from his sister.
Leaving immediately he has lived in Italy with his sister for awhile now. He found out she was sick and was able to get her help. She had a tumor on her spine that was able to be removed. Raphael had finally moved back home to New York City, taking his sister with him, and moving back into his parents home. Everything seemed to be going fine until people showed up to kill him and his family. Needless to say Raphael was more then pleased to see his old friends from the Grey Institute show up to save the day. He had decided when the new school year started that he would, with his parents approval, return to Grey and continue his college career as well as learning to further the use of his powers.
Since returning to the Institute, Raphael found love. Something he never expected to find. Over his first year back he rekindled some old friendships and made some new ones. One of his best friends becoming a boy named Vincent and his first real boyfriend becoming another student Nikolas. He came out to the school and eventually over the last summer came out to his parents. They didn't take it perfectly but, his Mom was still speaking to him and eventually his family began to come around to the idea.
Raphael was hit pretty hard when one of the students, Daniel, died and his spirit made a stop to say goodbye to Raphael. It shook Raphael to his core and he came much more adamant in his religious activities. Dragging his boyfriend to a gay friendly church on a lot of Sunday mornings. He also began to pursue his love of acting more directly, getting some parts in local plays. He hoped to someday try out for a Broadway play.
Eventually Raphael got his wish, with voice training from his good friend Aaron, he ended up landing a role as the understudy in the play Next To Normal. When the male lead was disposed for a week, Raphael got to star in five opening shows, his first real run as an actor on the big stage. Raphael was attacked after his final performance by a group of men who were upset by the gay male lead. Raphael was bashed, his life saved by Aaron Blaine who happened upon him with the attackers. The event rocked Raphael mentally and he became withdrawn and didn't like to be touched, the stress of all of it and Raphael seeking help from Aaron instead of his boyfriend Nikolas lead to the two breaking things off and Nikolas leaving the school.
Eventually one of the men who had attacked Raphael got out of jail, before he did Raphael went to reconcile things along with his friend Vincent. The man threatened to kill Raphael when he got out and Vincent more or less told the man to bring it, saying he didn't know what he was getting himself into with going after Raphael. The man never made an appearance at the mansion, but the distaste and hate festered in the back of Raphael's mind. Getting up a lot of courage Raphael admitted to Aaron that he was in love with him, something that didn't run horribly smoothly and created a rift of sorts between the two men.
Raphael mended his bridges with Aaron when the man nearly died when his insane boyfriend, Brian, tried to murder Aaron, burning him down in his own club. Raphael told Aaron they were even now and he knew he still had feelings for Aaron, but he was in control of them now. He was ready to move on, he had matured a lot from when he had first panicked about being a homosexual. When the semester ended with the mansion being destroyed and the X-Men disbanded, Raphael wasn't sure what to do with himself.
Moving to New York, he managed to get an apartment, working as a waiter and trying to land small acting parts while going to a local acting school. He got his Associates Degree in Theater Arts and then with some more voice training by Aaron landed his first major Broadway role. The Disney movie Sleeping Beauty was being turned into a Broadway musical and Raphael landed the lead part of Prince Phillip. He ended up doing the role three nights a week on stage for almost a year. He lived near Broadway and just enjoyed himself, striving to be the best he could be, his next role coming as a surprise to him.
Raphael was approached to help create a musical and Broadway production dedicated to the original five X-Men and Professor Xavier. It seemed the Producers had wanted Jean and Iceman, the remaining living original X-Men, to come in and help them with details. A couple calls from Raphael and some pressuring by some of his friends and former co-students, Jean and Bobby agreed. Pietro Stark funded the play and Raphael landed the lead role of Scott Summers in the play, it becoming his crowning role. He recorded the original cast album, he gleaned a small amount of fame on the Broadway circuit for his performance, having it critically acclaimed. But none of the feedback mattered except for Jean's who cried when she told him how good of a job he had done.
While spending nearly two years on the show, Raphael had himself a steady and well paying job. Then he met Dusti. Dusti was a gay youth pastor who had brought his local church in New York to see the play. He told Raphael how great of a job he had done and waited until the play was over to meet Raphael personally, in a moment of unusually high confidence, Raphael asked the man out. They began dating and Raphael was nervous the entire time. He ended up taking Dusti to meet his friends and Dallas actually came along on a mission trip with Dusti, teleporting things into Africa for the youth pastor. Raphael was most nervous for Dusti to meet Aaron, but it went really well.
After only six months they were married at the church that Dusti was a youth pastor at, Dusti's good friend and pastor doing the ceremony. Raphael asked Vincent to be his best man and ended up asking Aaron and Dallas to round out his lineup for his wedding. Raphael's friends and family all came, as well as some press, an X-Man gay wedding hitting the headlines pretty hard, also discussing Raphael's play, his first show after the wedding the biggest they'd ever done.
Eventually Raphael quit the play and didn't have any other immediate jobs, so when Aisha came and asked him to teach as the theater teacher at the new school in Seattle, Raphael was intrigued, even if it wasn't open yet. Dusti had just gone on a trip to Africa with his youth group for a mission trip, after coming back the two talked and Dusti had decided he wanted to adopt. The two ended up, with some push to the front of the line by Nightcrawler's political clout, adopting an African daughter named Makena Rutowski. More so then ever Raphael didn't want to live in New York, NY.
Dusti and Raphael moved to Seattle, which happened to be very close to Dusti's family in Idaho. Though Raphael's parents still lived in New York, they did plan on visiting a lot and eventually moving out west as well. Dusti found a job as a youth pastor in Seattle fairly quickly for a church known as the Living Water Fellowship in Kenmore, WA. Head pastor, a lesbian female named Debbie, made both Dusti and Raphael feel instantly welcome as part of the church body and on the church staff. Raphael and Dusti got a house in Kenmore near the Church, Raphael commuting to work in downtown Seattle everyday.
Now with the school in full swing and his two year old daughter Mekana, Raphael is a full time member of the staff at the Grey Institute and feels like his life has ended up in a place where he is happy with it. He is comfortable and has good friends, a good church and fellowship and an amazing husband. He doesn't think a much more perfect life could exist for him, despite his occasional doubts and insecurities, Raphael is actually happy with how things have ended up.
Personality: Raphael is a very tempered person, he is fairly insecure about himself and worries a lot. This insecurity can sometimes be played out as a sarcastic manner and short temper, these are just self defense mechanism to keep Raphael from getting hurt in his mind, something he strives to avoid is pain. He also tends to be a crier when he is upset, he doesn't generally do it around anyone but he'll become angry and throw a fit alone in his room or something.
Special Notes (if any): Raphael talks with his hands. He moves his hands always when talking. It is a habit he picked up from his sister and has continued to this day. Raphael is also an Italian, mutant and a homosexual. He feels very much like a minority a lot of the time. He is fluent in English and is nearly fluent in Italian, when speaking English he hides his accent, with years of practice, because people made fun of him for it as a child.