STUDENT FILE
Name: Shirley Florence Villarrubia, although she hates being called Shirley and far prefers people come up with nicknames when outside formal settings, where she uses her middle name
Alias: The Pontchartrain Princess
Age: 19
Year: 1st Year
Gender: F
Powers:
- Hydrokinesis: Florence, quite simply, can control water, in its liquid form. Her way of doing so is generally quite clear and straightforward as well. While some hydrokinetics may almost always control water without any physical motion, Florence tends to accompany her hydrokinesis with hand motions, parting her hands to part waters, flicking her hands to make waves, etc. This is usually not necessary per se, but it does bolster her abilities greatly. Likewise, she can make use of hydrokinetic constructs to a degree, with her primary construct being an arm of water which mirrors her own, although she does on occasion attempt others, with her current subject of practice being flight with water, attempting to use her hydrokinesis to make wings to lift herself from the ground with.
- Form Change: Far simpler in principle than even her hydrokinesis, Florence can shift into the form of a mutated mermaid, allowing her to breath and see easily underwater, as well as allowing her to swim much faster. This secondary power otherwise has little effect on her, and is more of a convenient partial metamorphosis than a weaponisable power that can be used in any metric other than making Florence primarily aquatic rather than terrestrial.
Drawbacks & Limitations: Florence's hydrokinesis first and foremost can only be used on liquid water, meaning not only does she have no control over the temperature of her water, but she cannot control it if it changes state. Further, her abilities to use water are affected by substances dissolved within the water, although this does not follow conventional logic. Unlike many other hydrokinetics whose abilities are affected by what's in the water, her hydrokinesis is at its peak when there are some dissolved substances in the water, making her at her best with brackish water, liquids such as tea and coffee with some dissolved plant material, etc, while her abilities with extremely clean water or saturated water are when her abilities are weaker. Naturally, her hydrokinesis also does respect conservation of mass, so places without water leave her powerless.
Weaknesses: Florence isn't physically strong, and is overall a lightweight.
Equipment and weapons: N/ABACKGROUND
Nationality: American
Hometown: New Orleans
Personality: Florence is pretty smart by any metric, holding an academic record of all available honours courses in high school, although she participated in relatively few extracurriculars. She is generally not terribly social, and can sometimes be rather repugnant, although she has been compelled to improve in recent years. While not particularly mean-spirited, she isn’t shy about mocking certain people. Even so, she is generally even-tempered, and quick to forgive, although not quick to forget. She’ll almost always help a friend, even if she’ll often make a satiric fuss about it to them. As far as definitively bad qualities go, she can quickly shift into a bad temper, and can be rather clingy to those she likes, with a penchant for worrying. In a general sense, though, she can be described as a mostly decent person with a few caveats.
Bio: Florence was born in New Orleans to two married parents, with an overall normal family life, save for the unique situation of living with two of her maternal great grandparents, with her aunt and uncle living in the basement. Her early childhood saw little turmoil or upheaval, save for the crisis of 9/11, which of course shook the paranoias of parents more than anything else, and then the passing of her great grandmother, who’d long battled illness.
As the world always insists, however, a simple life simply isn’t a thing. Thus came Florence’s first experience with the power of water. Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, and devastated the city of New Orleans. The Villarrubias stayed, as Florence’s great grandfather refused to leave, so they all stayed out in Metairie with the grandparents where the flooding was less severe. Some things that were more permanent hit as well, however. Her great grandfather had a fall, and needed to be rushed to the hospital all the way in Baton Rouge while the city was under lockdown. Her parents volunteered to make the trek with him, taking along her young brother. None returned, having made it only a ways from the unflooded areas to skid out on the highway and crash.
In the years following, Florence was nominally raised by her aunt and uncle, but, as the both of them were still in their 20’s and working hard to rebuild, it was her grandparents that took up the yoke. Her father’s parents were divorced, with one still working long hours, and the other physically injured and unable to easily handle a young child. So she grew up in the care of her grandmother, and spent most of her early childhood with them, until she turned ten, when she gradually phased into being in the care of her aunt and uncle. She spent most of her teenage years with her aunt and uncle, and saw as they had kids of their own, but remembered her lost family clearly, even after years and years.
It was at age eight, soon before beginning the third chapter of her life with her aunt and uncle, that Florence’s powers first showed. Out in the sun room, she sat with her grandparents listening to the reports coming in of Hurricane Gustav. As her grandmother reported to ARGUS: “Well little Florence, she just looked at the big pond of water and she started yelling “No” at it and Lou and I thought she was just still upset about her parents, and I turned to Lou and he just says “Nanc, look at your f-ing granddaughter” and I turn around and see little Florence just still yelling at the window but I look out like Lou said and the water was—it was listenin’ to her, stayin’ back like she was Moses or something!"
This began a series of events where Florence would demonstrate her abilities without true conscious control of her primary abilities, most of which luckily happened to be on private property. Her late middle school years would see her begin to gain conscious control of these hydrokinetic abilities, and would lead to her discovering her mermaid form. Luckily for Florence, as she began to harness her hydrokinesis, her grandaunt had her own pool and small fish pond, while her paternal grandmother co-owned a condo on the gulf coast with access to a bayou. The two of these allowed Florence place to practice her powers once in a while, without running afoul of the law, although the waves she sometimes caused would eventually lose her bayou privileges, as her grandmother wanted to avoid any breaks of civil law for wave height in the bayou.
Hydrokinesis wasn't the only thing she practiced in her high school years, however. With a lust for languages and an inheritance, she booked herself three tutors, for three languages: Indonesian, Thai, and Hungarian. In school, she enrolled in the French and Vietnamese programmes, and excelled throughout her pursuit of language learning, occasionally at the expense of her other core classes, particularly math and science. Her superhuman abilities would put her on the track to become a student at the William J. Nantz Institution,ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Fears/Phobias: Although she has no deep concrete fears, Florence does tend to catastrophise things around loved ones, beelining to worst-case scenarios very quickly.
Skills: Florence is fluent and literate to varying degrees in English, French, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Thai, and Hungarian, and knows rudimentary woodworking, plumbing, and is an excellent cook thanks to her grandfather. As far as other skills go, she is a reasonably decent singer and pianist, and has a knack for learning languages.
