![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Extended Bio
Jul. 12th, 2020 11:10 pmNote: This is not meant to be well written or a pretty read. It's just all relevant info put on a page as succinctly as I could.
TW: child abuse, unhealthy/codependent relationships, death, depression, suicide attempts
Birth/Childhood
Born to a single mother whose father bounced once he realized he doesn’t want a kid and also hates taking responsibility for his actions. Was chosen by the cult as 1 of the kids that fit the criteria, kidnapped ASAP after birth, and taken to the ritual site. Ritual started except with the aid of an operative focusing on magical cults, the police busts in and interrupts the thing before it’s finished. This left a seemingly untouched baby who was taken back to the mother. Mom no longer felt safe in her city of birth and was also sick of the media attention so she ends up moving the family of 2 to LA near some extended family that helped set them up.
Quickly realized there’s something wrong with the kid developmentally, especially when she became a toddler. Highlights include very light sensitive, little control over limbs, seems to barely feel pain, and just little response to most stimuli. Gets diagnosed with Autism + Sensory Processing Disorder and is put in therapy for those things, concentrating on helping her process the world better/communication (this is where she first started learning ASL)? Also movement therapies that led to dance classes when it was recommended to help her make friends. She soon lost the autism diagnosis as once the sensory shit started being addressed, it was clear that was the root of basically all her issues, and that was very slowly improving on its own. The majority of the therapy finished when she was 7.
Still had trouble making friends, partially due to the weirdness from her SPD, partially because she just gave off the vaguest sense of Offness that adults usually manage to push past (animals are also usually not a big fan of her). Even though she’s mostly “normal” by 7, she has been cemented as The Weird Kid and now finds herself alone most of the time. Attempts to approach others usually end pretty badly, and her main interactions are with teachers so she quickly becomes a teacher’s pet. At around this time, she convinces her mom to let her quit dance class due to the bullying and switched to martial arts because wow cool! Mom was down for that because learning to defend yourself is always great.
Her mom then meets a man and they start going out. She Does Not Like Him and tries to tell her mother, but of course she’s rebuffed because Coraline doesn’t actually have a solid reason. The dude tries to win her over for a bit, but soon starts subtlety abusing her whenever her mother was away from work (which happened a lot). Coraline tries to tell her mom again, but she is once again not believed due to a lack of concrete evidence on her side.
It’s in 4th grade that she makes her first friend, a transfer student by the name of Leon. On one hand, she doesn’t get the best vibes off of him. On the other hand, someone her age wants to friends for once and man is she desperate. As one can imagine, the relationship definitely had an unhealthy dynamic, punctuated by moments of genuine friendship such as when they helped come up with the plan that revealed her mom’s now fiancé’s true colors. Said plan culminated in Coraline getting punched in the face in front of her mom. Worth it. This continues until the beginning 8th grade where Leon manipulated a potential friend to attempt suicide. Coraline finally puts her foot down on their treatment of herself and others. The massive fight ends in Coraline ignoring them until they apologize, and Leon being like “yup that’s fine”. The mutual ignoring lasts until partway through the summer before high school, and surprisingly, it’s Leon that caves. She accepts the apology and they start hanging out again, though she makes sure they know if this sort of fucked up shit happens again, she’s out.
Highschool
Coraline is now going to high school. She has a lot of trouble making friends just in class and such, but manages to make some connections through color guard (she was interested in the dance team before realizing it’s mostly made up of people that hate her). She and Leon and slowly building up trust again, and she ends up accompanying his family on their spring break vacation to a cabin in the “wilderness”. Barely 2 nights pass and Leon accidently summons a malevolent otherworldly creature that they have to chase down and banish. During this, her powers activate in a moment of need and they finally manage to get rid of the thing. They both decide to keep their respective abilities a secret, and the events help to (nearly) fully repair their relationship.
And soon, freshman year ends. Coraline is dragged along by a friend to a parkour group and she fucking loves it, learning as quickly as they’ll teach her (the rare movement glitch aside). Her first time actually scaling a building, said glitch occurs and she loses her footing, nearly falling to her death. But she’s saved by a local superhero and she suddenly realizes that she can do that! She can help people (and get that sweet validation)! So with the help of her BFF, she manages to track down a local org and convinces them to let her join. Unfortunately, it’s because any who had powers similar to her have all been villains, so they want to keep an eye on her. They still train her of course, helping her gain more control over her abilities in a purely defensive manner and improving her physical fighting ability. But the attitude still carries over in interactions, especially among the few other teen heroes and she once again finds herself the odd one out. But she’s nothing if not stubborn, and just keeps working hard, trying to prove she’s trustworthy. And life moves on. Student by day, superhero trainee by night, occasional member of an idol dance cover group.
She finally gets her chance at 17 during a particularly disastrous battle, and manages to save some civilians from falling debris on live TV! Very cool. Unfortunately, this gets the attention of The Cult who manages to track her down and kidnap her from her home, killing her mother in the process. She wakes up in another fucking warehouse, abilities sealed and tied down in another spell circle. Gets told to her face she’s a mistake and killing her will hopefully release the thing that’s inside her. What’s the thing? A force of destruction that will help end the world as they know it! And then, she dies, her heart carved out of her chest right as her BFF gets there.
She gets consumed by the Darkness Within, but instead of being mentally obliterated, she wakes up. Still herself. Kind of. Leon and The Cult are fighting, and her first attempt to defend her friend ends in death. She then watches Leon kill the rest. This, combined with her suddenly new Senses and boost in power = panicking. Leon’s also kind of panicking. No one’s having a good time. They finally calm down enough to come up with a plan. First, adapt the spell the cult had used to seal her and replace in on her. It takes a couple of tries because too strong and she’s literally unable to move, but they finally get it (at least to the point she can walk). Second part? Illusion spell. Third part? Lie to the police! The story is she managed to escape on her own, and found she was close to Leon’s place so ran there for help.
They take her statement and she finds out her mom actually died. She is taken in by Leon’s family, and they come up with a plan to help her get control over her powers. Basically, they’ll help her practice as well as continue to refine the sealing and illusion spells that later get tied to the choker she wears everywhere. The police investigation goes nowhere and she tries to kill herself a couple of times, failing each time and racking up enough damage that she finds out about the whole regeneration thing. With no way out on that end, Coraline starts to withdraw socially and professionally. She quits her extracurriculars, quits the superhero org (that was a bit hard but she manages to convince them she had her powers taken during the whole kidnapping thing), and finishes her high school career trying to be the most boring student ever.
College
She ends up getting into NYU with a scholarship, though the real reason she chose that school was to be close to Leon who got accepted to Columbia that bastard. There, she continues on her goal to be the most boring student after and quickly realizes she has 0 idea what she wants to do with her life. Outside of that, she continues to ignore her abilities beyond what’s necessary to get control over them. Just don’t think about how she can’t sleep and doesn’t technically feel things anymore. It’s so bad she has to go through student services to get various accessibility services because on particularly bright days? “Seeing” becomes a bit of an issue. Thank god for that SPD diagnosis.
After one year of dorming, she and Leon move into a shitty apartment together and life goes on. Except she’s starting to get control over her powers? And there’s always so many things going wrong in NYC, things she can help stop. So she starts going out again, tentatively building up a kit. Then, Leon gets kidnapped by the same fucking cult (I swear this is the last time). Coraline tracks them down, fully aware that she’s being led into a trap. This time, Leon is the one that gets monologue’d at (though she misses most of it). From what she understands, they’re trying to force her friend into doing… something with the sword they’re now holding. Also apparently some form of her friend masterminded this whole thing, including what happened to her. Unfortunately, despite their efforts, Leon is forced to use the sword, and next thing she knows, they’re turning towards her and acting… different. Like themselves still, but more somehow. They gather “their followers”, thanking them for a job well done and Coraline readies herself to die once more, betrayed. Except Leon turns their magic onto what’s left of the cult, passing out when whatever they did finished, forcing Coraline to quickly drag them out of the suddenly collapsing warehouse.
Another Big Talk once her friend wakes up, and the results convince her to, well. Truly try again despite the risks. This time, she’s determined to stay in the shadows, going out as an unmarked vigilante focused on the stuff more attention seeking superheroes wouldn’t care about. There’s a massive learning curve where she starts learning the limits of her new physiology, developing a fighting style, and even getting a costume after she somehow found herself recruited to work part-time at a boutique that totally wasn’t a front for a Hero Costume Crafter. She’s still terrified of exploring the full extent of her powers, especially since her friend flat out won’t say that her destroying the world is impossible, and for all their faults, Leon doesn’t Lie. But still, things are becoming better. College continues. The friend group grows from 2 to 5. She even finally figure out what she wants to do, that being social work.
Current
She’s now graduated, taking a gap year before applying to graduate school. Still living in that shitty apartment, still working at the boutique (though now full time). Other than that? The vigilante-ing continues, though she knows a choice has to be made soon. She’s already become known in the local neighborhood, even by some members of the superhero community that have been sworn to secrecy with the help of her boss. Words going to get out though, especially with her level of power. She needs to figure out what she wants to do with that aspect of her life. Bigger picture though? She wants to figure out exactly what she is, if she will inevitably become a danger because if so? Well. Here’s to hoping.
TW: child abuse, unhealthy/codependent relationships, death, depression, suicide attempts
Birth/Childhood
Born to a single mother whose father bounced once he realized he doesn’t want a kid and also hates taking responsibility for his actions. Was chosen by the cult as 1 of the kids that fit the criteria, kidnapped ASAP after birth, and taken to the ritual site. Ritual started except with the aid of an operative focusing on magical cults, the police busts in and interrupts the thing before it’s finished. This left a seemingly untouched baby who was taken back to the mother. Mom no longer felt safe in her city of birth and was also sick of the media attention so she ends up moving the family of 2 to LA near some extended family that helped set them up.
Quickly realized there’s something wrong with the kid developmentally, especially when she became a toddler. Highlights include very light sensitive, little control over limbs, seems to barely feel pain, and just little response to most stimuli. Gets diagnosed with Autism + Sensory Processing Disorder and is put in therapy for those things, concentrating on helping her process the world better/communication (this is where she first started learning ASL)? Also movement therapies that led to dance classes when it was recommended to help her make friends. She soon lost the autism diagnosis as once the sensory shit started being addressed, it was clear that was the root of basically all her issues, and that was very slowly improving on its own. The majority of the therapy finished when she was 7.
Still had trouble making friends, partially due to the weirdness from her SPD, partially because she just gave off the vaguest sense of Offness that adults usually manage to push past (animals are also usually not a big fan of her). Even though she’s mostly “normal” by 7, she has been cemented as The Weird Kid and now finds herself alone most of the time. Attempts to approach others usually end pretty badly, and her main interactions are with teachers so she quickly becomes a teacher’s pet. At around this time, she convinces her mom to let her quit dance class due to the bullying and switched to martial arts because wow cool! Mom was down for that because learning to defend yourself is always great.
Her mom then meets a man and they start going out. She Does Not Like Him and tries to tell her mother, but of course she’s rebuffed because Coraline doesn’t actually have a solid reason. The dude tries to win her over for a bit, but soon starts subtlety abusing her whenever her mother was away from work (which happened a lot). Coraline tries to tell her mom again, but she is once again not believed due to a lack of concrete evidence on her side.
It’s in 4th grade that she makes her first friend, a transfer student by the name of Leon. On one hand, she doesn’t get the best vibes off of him. On the other hand, someone her age wants to friends for once and man is she desperate. As one can imagine, the relationship definitely had an unhealthy dynamic, punctuated by moments of genuine friendship such as when they helped come up with the plan that revealed her mom’s now fiancé’s true colors. Said plan culminated in Coraline getting punched in the face in front of her mom. Worth it. This continues until the beginning 8th grade where Leon manipulated a potential friend to attempt suicide. Coraline finally puts her foot down on their treatment of herself and others. The massive fight ends in Coraline ignoring them until they apologize, and Leon being like “yup that’s fine”. The mutual ignoring lasts until partway through the summer before high school, and surprisingly, it’s Leon that caves. She accepts the apology and they start hanging out again, though she makes sure they know if this sort of fucked up shit happens again, she’s out.
Highschool
Coraline is now going to high school. She has a lot of trouble making friends just in class and such, but manages to make some connections through color guard (she was interested in the dance team before realizing it’s mostly made up of people that hate her). She and Leon and slowly building up trust again, and she ends up accompanying his family on their spring break vacation to a cabin in the “wilderness”. Barely 2 nights pass and Leon accidently summons a malevolent otherworldly creature that they have to chase down and banish. During this, her powers activate in a moment of need and they finally manage to get rid of the thing. They both decide to keep their respective abilities a secret, and the events help to (nearly) fully repair their relationship.
And soon, freshman year ends. Coraline is dragged along by a friend to a parkour group and she fucking loves it, learning as quickly as they’ll teach her (the rare movement glitch aside). Her first time actually scaling a building, said glitch occurs and she loses her footing, nearly falling to her death. But she’s saved by a local superhero and she suddenly realizes that she can do that! She can help people (and get that sweet validation)! So with the help of her BFF, she manages to track down a local org and convinces them to let her join. Unfortunately, it’s because any who had powers similar to her have all been villains, so they want to keep an eye on her. They still train her of course, helping her gain more control over her abilities in a purely defensive manner and improving her physical fighting ability. But the attitude still carries over in interactions, especially among the few other teen heroes and she once again finds herself the odd one out. But she’s nothing if not stubborn, and just keeps working hard, trying to prove she’s trustworthy. And life moves on. Student by day, superhero trainee by night, occasional member of an idol dance cover group.
She finally gets her chance at 17 during a particularly disastrous battle, and manages to save some civilians from falling debris on live TV! Very cool. Unfortunately, this gets the attention of The Cult who manages to track her down and kidnap her from her home, killing her mother in the process. She wakes up in another fucking warehouse, abilities sealed and tied down in another spell circle. Gets told to her face she’s a mistake and killing her will hopefully release the thing that’s inside her. What’s the thing? A force of destruction that will help end the world as they know it! And then, she dies, her heart carved out of her chest right as her BFF gets there.
She gets consumed by the Darkness Within, but instead of being mentally obliterated, she wakes up. Still herself. Kind of. Leon and The Cult are fighting, and her first attempt to defend her friend ends in death. She then watches Leon kill the rest. This, combined with her suddenly new Senses and boost in power = panicking. Leon’s also kind of panicking. No one’s having a good time. They finally calm down enough to come up with a plan. First, adapt the spell the cult had used to seal her and replace in on her. It takes a couple of tries because too strong and she’s literally unable to move, but they finally get it (at least to the point she can walk). Second part? Illusion spell. Third part? Lie to the police! The story is she managed to escape on her own, and found she was close to Leon’s place so ran there for help.
They take her statement and she finds out her mom actually died. She is taken in by Leon’s family, and they come up with a plan to help her get control over her powers. Basically, they’ll help her practice as well as continue to refine the sealing and illusion spells that later get tied to the choker she wears everywhere. The police investigation goes nowhere and she tries to kill herself a couple of times, failing each time and racking up enough damage that she finds out about the whole regeneration thing. With no way out on that end, Coraline starts to withdraw socially and professionally. She quits her extracurriculars, quits the superhero org (that was a bit hard but she manages to convince them she had her powers taken during the whole kidnapping thing), and finishes her high school career trying to be the most boring student ever.
College
She ends up getting into NYU with a scholarship, though the real reason she chose that school was to be close to Leon who got accepted to Columbia that bastard. There, she continues on her goal to be the most boring student after and quickly realizes she has 0 idea what she wants to do with her life. Outside of that, she continues to ignore her abilities beyond what’s necessary to get control over them. Just don’t think about how she can’t sleep and doesn’t technically feel things anymore. It’s so bad she has to go through student services to get various accessibility services because on particularly bright days? “Seeing” becomes a bit of an issue. Thank god for that SPD diagnosis.
After one year of dorming, she and Leon move into a shitty apartment together and life goes on. Except she’s starting to get control over her powers? And there’s always so many things going wrong in NYC, things she can help stop. So she starts going out again, tentatively building up a kit. Then, Leon gets kidnapped by the same fucking cult (I swear this is the last time). Coraline tracks them down, fully aware that she’s being led into a trap. This time, Leon is the one that gets monologue’d at (though she misses most of it). From what she understands, they’re trying to force her friend into doing… something with the sword they’re now holding. Also apparently some form of her friend masterminded this whole thing, including what happened to her. Unfortunately, despite their efforts, Leon is forced to use the sword, and next thing she knows, they’re turning towards her and acting… different. Like themselves still, but more somehow. They gather “their followers”, thanking them for a job well done and Coraline readies herself to die once more, betrayed. Except Leon turns their magic onto what’s left of the cult, passing out when whatever they did finished, forcing Coraline to quickly drag them out of the suddenly collapsing warehouse.
Another Big Talk once her friend wakes up, and the results convince her to, well. Truly try again despite the risks. This time, she’s determined to stay in the shadows, going out as an unmarked vigilante focused on the stuff more attention seeking superheroes wouldn’t care about. There’s a massive learning curve where she starts learning the limits of her new physiology, developing a fighting style, and even getting a costume after she somehow found herself recruited to work part-time at a boutique that totally wasn’t a front for a Hero Costume Crafter. She’s still terrified of exploring the full extent of her powers, especially since her friend flat out won’t say that her destroying the world is impossible, and for all their faults, Leon doesn’t Lie. But still, things are becoming better. College continues. The friend group grows from 2 to 5. She even finally figure out what she wants to do, that being social work.
Current
She’s now graduated, taking a gap year before applying to graduate school. Still living in that shitty apartment, still working at the boutique (though now full time). Other than that? The vigilante-ing continues, though she knows a choice has to be made soon. She’s already become known in the local neighborhood, even by some members of the superhero community that have been sworn to secrecy with the help of her boss. Words going to get out though, especially with her level of power. She needs to figure out what she wants to do with that aspect of her life. Bigger picture though? She wants to figure out exactly what she is, if she will inevitably become a danger because if so? Well. Here’s to hoping.
