Post by Shadow on Mar 12, 2012 17:06:33 GMT -5
Rebecca Jane Torres
As my frozen heart quickens, the black plot thickens...
"If I wanted to kill you, you'd be six feet under right now."
THE BASICS;;
NAME: Rebecca Jane Torres.
AGE: 17 edging on eighteen.
SEX: Female.
CODENAME: Shadow.
ALIASES: At the very least she'll let you call her Shade. Don't make it a habit, though. Or she'll get angry.
AFFILIATION: Hero, but edging on anti-hero.
STATUS: Stalking the Titans somewhat. She's not personally following them into the tower or whatever, but she's mostly just checking to see if they are trustworthy. She's interested in perhaps joining with them.
CANON: No.
PLAYBY: None
THE GOOD STUFF;;
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:
Shadow stands at a rather average 5'4". She's slim and smooth, being somewhat wiry from exercise. A feature you could potentially notice about her form first seeing her, however, has to be her hair. It's really long, and a platinum blonde. It has enough black streaks in it to give her hair somewhat of a zebra effect, but she assures you it's all natural.
Her skin is really pale - almost white, which gives her somewhat of a pallor. Her lips are a deathly red, caused by make-up so that she's not completely washed out. Of course, this potentially isn't the best thing to do, but she does it anyway.
Shadow's eyes are also a rather pale blue, with the bare amounts of make-up and rather thin eyebrows. There isn't anything particularly remarkable about her face, however. If it wasn't for the extreme paleness of her face, she could potentially disguise herself in crowds freely.
That is, if she managed to hide her hair too.
Her costume's pretty much the only thing the public ever sees her in. Luckily, she has about a few hundred spare uniforms in there somewhere. She's never seen in civilian clothes. Her costume consists of something that appears to be a black corset and leotard, which has silver seemingly wrapped around the part just under her breasts and above the end of the leotard. Under this is a pair of grey leather tight like material, which is under her thigh length steel toed boots. It's topped off with black sleeves, which criss cross over her neck and don't seem to be attached to a shirt at all.
If Shadow is ever pretty much forced to wear civilian clothes, don't expect there to be any neon colors at all. She absolutely loathes neon colors. She prefers darker colors, obviously. She'd wear something simple, such as a t-shirt and jeans.
PERSONALITY:
Shadow's pretty unflappable. She can witness a murder and not bat an eye. Most of the time. It just depends who it is. This is one of the main criteria why she's been called 'a heartless bitch' by about half of the people she's ever associated with.
And this is totally not the case. Because this 'I am so not amused by this murder' attitude actually stems from some mental instability that she has.
Not that it's immediately obvious, but the fact that she acts like a real life internet troll 90% of the time probably hints it. Maybe.
In this regard, it's also hard to anger her. One thing that can DEFINITELY get her mad is mentioning her past. Not that she'll ever willingly tell anyone, but even if someone says something along the lines of 'What, did your father never love you?' or 'You're a freak' could potentially set her off.
So don't do it. She's pretty violent when angry. In fact, she
She's also rather secretive, usually hiding injuries and secrets and such because she doesn't want to bother others. As confident and cocky as she is, she has trouble taking things seriously. Which also unfortunately means that her self-esteem can suck sometimes. Terribly.
Another outstanding feature of Shadow's personality is her perseverance. She refuses to give up. She won't let herself do that - and she surely wouldn't forgive herself if she did. Even if the situation seems dire, she'll do the best she can to fix everything. Part of her hero complex, supposedly.
She can appear to be somewhat enthusiastic in her duties, but she hides this well. In fact, she hides this behind a mask of indifference. The same thing she can do to a lot of things. The mask grows evermore powerful when she's depressed about something. It's not often, but she also tends to want to be alone at this time. Anybody who so much as socializes with her while she is depressed is likely to anger her instead, because it makes her automatically assume that they think that she's some helpless baby. She really isn't.
Shadow can sometimes be rather vain, but this is not often. Actually, it's literally just to piss other people off. Most of the time. She hates her hair - the streaks ruin it, she thinks. But no matter what she does, she can't change the black back to blonde.
She can be quite the bitch if provoked. Shadow doesn't necessarily bring up the past, but she could. She just chooses not to. She can be rather unfriendly and aloof if she's feeling the slightest bit grumpy. So naturally, she's labeled as some type of "ice princess" by some of her peers in the Underlands.
She usually only talks in one liners. It isn't common for her to say more than a few words - and when she does, she's probably gotten angry, upset, or she's reacting badly to the situation. It's not often this can happen, but it has.
Shadow can be seen as somewhat callous at times. Yes, she appears to be a rather heartless person. She does care sometimes, but what's the use in being concerned if it's not life threatening?
In somewhat of a nutshell, Shadow is somewhat of an enigma. She hardly voices any pain of hers and keeps secrets locked behind her teeth, so you better be careful.
Every silver lining has it's cloud.
POWERS AND/OR ABILITIES:
As her code name suggests, Shadow has the power over... Shadows. Yes, she is an umbrakenetic. Umbrekenisis is the power to create or manipulate darkness, often by mentally accessing a dimension of dark energy and manipulating it. In this case, Shadow's 'dark energy dimension' is the Underlands. However, she's not alone there. A whole sub-species of metahumans that have been in the same situations as she has reside there. She's able to use this power of hers in a variety of ways, such as being able to make 'shadow claws' out of her hands, which are highly sharp and/or create darkness constructs. Her dark constructs usually manifest in a 'vine' like shape, and work like vines/tentacles/ropes and whatnot. She's been able to do other things with her umbrakenisis, such as vanish the bullets out of guns and turn into shadows herself, which 'move' like the tentacle things she can create, except they're not rooted to the ground and 'ball up' in a smooth 'dome' shape at the front. She can even teleport from one place to another using this power, although she is unable to attack whilst doing so. Her umbrakenisis is high skilled, but she currently has not hit her potential and as such cannot control it all the way. In situations of extreme anger, she's been known to lose some control over her powers, such as her shadow claws coming out on their own. However, her anger may also let her inner 'Shadow' come out. This is extremely dangerous as her 'inner Shadow' is dangerous. However, this is more of a 'possession' kind of thing as it is not an outlook of Shadow's personality at all. Nope.
Due to a corruption caused in 'the Underlands', Shadow has landed herself two more powers on top of that. She can't control them. At all. The first of these is Fear Inducement (via toxin)- Her shadow constructs now produce a toxin which causes fear. She cannot control it and the 'toxin' is like the flu in a minor way, in which it creates new strains of it every once in a while (Monthly. Insert 'Its that time of the month again?' joke here.). However, the toxin may only take effect (in the manner of fear inducement) if she attacks someone (and manages to pierce their skin/flesh) with her umbrakenisis. Otherwise, they're safe. It requires blood contact with her shadow constructs. Which is unlikely to happen as Shadow mainly uses her tendrils in blunt force, and she never intentionally uses her claws to try and claw somebody to bits. And as such her fear inducement does not effect non-biological people. For instance, if she decided she was going to claw Cyborg (or someone similar), and somehow hit his machinery rather than human parts, then he'd be entirely unaffected unless it somehow found it's way into his bloodstream. Which is unlikely as the toxin relies on blood to move and would probably become dormant within 5-10 minutes. Not that she would randomly attack anyone, anyway. The fastest (but not entirely the least painful) way Shadow would intentionally apply the toxin is using her 'shadow claws'. However, she purposely stays away from using fear inducement because there is a tiny chance that she may accidentally use far too much of the toxin or lose control, which is disastrous for herself AND the target. Why for herself? Because it could drive her insane. Why for the target? Well, why not? It could potentially kill them, after all.
The toxin works like most normal poisons, with the added bonus that it can be entirely undetected by the body until it's started. The fear toxin provokes the target's brain to release fear-inducing chemicals to an extreme, along with a large dose of adrenaline. The victim's perception is altered, they may see their environment as ominous and Shadow as dark and foreboding, or even seen as a monster. The toxin expires within two to three hours at a normal dose, although it's unpredictable in that regard as it can wear off in mere seconds. Which Shadow is somewhat glad about as she'd rather use it as a minor distration. There is no guarantee that someone will be hit by the toxin straight away (or at all) and the toxin can be 'treated' with empathy. (Although the toxin will still be there for the duration, the victim will feel whatever the empath makes them. It's rather easily thwarted. Darn.).
However, she is not completely immune to her own power. She can sometimes accidentally give herself some of the effects, but the chances are slim. Her body is immune to the strains, but if the dose is big enough it can effect her anyway.
Her second power is more of a weakness than a power, but it potentially still counts. She has pain suppression. Literally, you can smack her around all you want in combat, she'll just keep getting up.
Unless you cut off her legs, but she'd probably regenerate them so that's not a good idea. She's never really tried so she wouldn't know.
This power 'shorts out' if she is knocked out, particularly if one of her weaknesses is used. Her power also fades when no longer in combat. What is meant by this is that the pain she receives in combat builds up and eventually it will come back.
Again, usually after combat. But if she ends up with the right amount of pain the barriers will break anyway and she'll completely feel it again.
WEAKNESSES: One major weakness would be electricity. Shadow has never told anyone, and doesn't understand why it's her weakness. She'll feel the effects of a electric shock twice as much as anyone else, but she'll die at the regular amount of amps as a regular human. (For example, say 50 amps kills a human. It'll take 50 amps to kill her too, but she'll feel like there's 100 amps coursing through her as she dies. 1 amp would feel like two amps to her, and even though 25 amps would not kill her, she would feel like she was being electrocuted to death.)
Shadow is also particularly vulnerable to mental attacks (especially through telepathy). It's actually surprisingly easy to attack her on a telepathic level. In fact, ordinary telepathic communications are uncomfortable for her because of this, too. (She's also a victim to mind control - even though she can resist like anybody else, it's much easier to get a grip on her mind. Just expect a extremely bumpy ride. She's determined like that.)
Shadow isn't particularly bothered by electric light, but fire and solar light are probably some of her worst weaknesses. Fire because - for some reason - she has a fear of fire. People assume it's because of her past, and so haven't asked her yet. Even if they did, Shadow simply wouldn't reply. Fire also can 'eat through' some of her shadow constructs. Usually her tendrils and platforms, although it doesn't effect her shadowform as much.
Solar light (from the sun, or controlled by other people. Same thing.) is also a major weakness to her. Extended exposure to the sun literally saps her strength and gives her flu-like symptoms (<Somewhat similar to the disease in the plot! However she hasn't got it right now.). A controlled amount of sunlight against her could give her some major burns (more sun-burn than actual burn) and possibly leave her with severe migraines, of even become comatose from extreme energy drainage and whatnot.
Finally, her fifth (memorable) weakness. Shadow is one of the types of girls that won't say what's wrong. If it puts the mission at risk, she's going to hide the wounds she just received in battle. Sure she'll report incoming problems (EG 'Someone's broken into the tower!') but not if the problem's about her. For this reason the more observant people have kept more of a watch on her. In fact, thanks to her 'pain suppressing' power (Which she loves. For precisely this reason) she rarely has to tell anyone anyway.
GOALS: A passion for justice.
Mainly. She just needs shit to do while she's still young and with powers. Shadow wants to fit in, and by being a hero she's doing it.
At least, that's what everyone thinks. She actually isn't sure of her goals...
HISTORY: Shadow didn’t always look like she did. Of course, she’s been shorter and tinier and happier than she is now, but that’s not the point. What I mean is that she used to actually look normal. She had black hair, brown eyes, and skin the colour of coffee. But let’s start from the beginning, shall we?
Rebecca grew up in California to two Spanish parents, and a huge family of brothers, sisters, aunties, uncles, grandparents and who knows what else. Her life was extremely basic, other than the fact that her father was often away fighting crime as a policeman. He was perfectly normal, too. The family grew up close with each other, and her father would come in ever night to tuck her into bed. He’d do other things too, but Rebecca didn’t realise it was so wrong until her older sister tried to warn her about it. But it was too late. Nobody ever found out, though. Rebecca had never told anybody.
But Rebecca would have terrible nightmares. She knew deep inside that what her father was doing to her was horrible and wrong and disgusting. She felt dirty and violated. She couldn’t bear to think that she was “Daddy’s little girl”, but she loved him. He was her father, after all. She didn’t want everything to be ruined because she felt a little wrong. So she started to change.
No longer was Rebecca the happy girl she once was, but completely an introvert. Her older sister eventually told on her father because he was doing the same thing to her. He was put into jail. Rebecca still didn’t tell anybody. So nobody found out. She didn’t want him to be in there for longer than necessary. The family fell on hard times, as the mother had 6 kids to look after. (More like five, as Rebecca stopped coming to meals and bunked off of high school to do whatever she pleased.) But she wasn’t ever able to be normal, was she?
Being 'killed' changed her forever and into more of a freak than she thought she ever was. Not even Shadow understands this, as she certainly isn’t immortal. She was minding her own business (in high school for once, at the tender age of 16) when a high school shooting occurred. She was hit by one of the bullets in her chest and she died right there.
But let's just step back and explain that. As she was shot, she somehow had managed to tap into her powers for the first time. The bullet instinctively was 'pushed' away by her shadows, and a wound resembling a gunshot appeared on her chest. Instead of dying as she should have, she fell into a sort of 'deep sleep' for a while. Her bodily systems temporarily slowed down to the point where she appeared to be dead.
So what a shock it was when she’s climbing out her grave days later during the funeral ceremony, then escaping into the darkness with an entire new appearance and a head full with some kind of ‘superhuman survival guide’ that she's learned because her powers are just super nifty like that.
In fact, she’d immediately become a superhero after that. No questions asked. Her family wouldn’t want her with them anymore anyway. She was a freak. It would be better if she found justice elsewhere.
THE NITTY-GRITTY;;
SCREENNAME: Pansam.
Time spent roleplaying: In this game, pretty much first day :l. Role-playing in general though? Six years. SIX WONDERFUL YEARS.
Other Characters: N/A
Other Notes: Hopefully this character isn't god mod. Other people seem to think she's alright. If you need me to improve this in any case, let me know via PM and I shall do so.
RP Sample: The next day came too fast for one certain hero’s liking. The sunlight was glaring through the shuttered windows of the abandoned warehouse when Shadow, still somewhat asleep, began to stir. She groaned, not quite ready to wake up, and then seemed to move further into the shadows that hung from one of the bigger crates. She’d never been a morning person, and this justified it. Eventually, she opened her eyes. Shadow’s eyes flickered around the area. She hadn’t been detected. Good.
One hand shot out, gripping onto a small black box that lay by the head of the girl. She chose that moment to completely wake up, sitting up with enough speed to make her feel nauseous. She ignored the dizzy feeling and started messing on with the black box – the radio – until it tuned into the private channel she’d tapped into late last night - with the help of a police scanner, of course.
"Charlie 101 to COM.”
Shadow heard the line go silent for a moment, before she set the box to the side and started putting on her costume. She was getting ready to go patrol, and she really needed to know if there was anything she could help with before she started it. The umbrakenetic started to get ready, listening for further conversation.
”Go ahead Charlie 101.”
“10-31 and 10-32 at south Jump City, need backup."
They’d get back up alright. Shadow jumped out of the open window behind her, making sure to open the wooden shutters as she did. The blonde girl made sure to leave the radio behind, however. As well as her supplies – she’d be back later.
“Copy. Dispatching back up.”
Damn straight. Even if he wasn’t referring to her.
Shadow bent her knees as she fell, not making a sound as she landed. She straightened up and ran forward, before jumping at one of the shadows at the start of the alley. If she had been powerless, she would have crashed into the wall.
