[quote=@Naril]
[hider=I've got fire in my soul]





[b]Name:[/b] Yasmin (Yaz) Nawar al-Fasi
 [b]Alias:[/b] Corona
 [b]Age:[/b] 38

[b]Powers:[/b]

 [b]Lord, gimme that fire[/b]: The most dramatic of her powers by far, Yaz is a living conduit of heat. She commands a veritable torrent of thermal energy, which she can put to use in ways both subtle and awe-inspiring; from blasts of explosive force that can tear the foundations out of buildings to gently re-warming a hypothermia victim. She is even capable of simply moving energy from one place to another - useful, for example, for surrounding herself with a bubble of comparative cool while pulling someone from a burning building, or an impromptu ice hockey game in the height of a Virginian summer. She can, with concentration and care, "manually" operate a rocket engine - though that perhaps ill-advised experiment never did turn into a reliable mechanism for flight. Her body temperature is normally quite high, often near 39 degrees Celsius, and she feels rather chilly at what is, for anyone else, a comfortable room temperature.

This ability, of course, has limits; in addition to being physically taxing, a small part of the power Yaz channels feeds back into her. While her internal capacity for handling that feedback is substantially deeper than her frame might suggest, her ability to channel star-hot lances of fire is very finite. The amount of power at any given time also matters, and that feedback is not a linear relationship - Yaz is capable of incredible things, but she can also, quite literally, burn herself out.

Yaz doesn't [i]have[/i] to direct the fury of her ability from her hands, but it's what the cameras expect, it looks great, and it means she can see what she's doing. In reality, she can project her power from any point within about a 2-meter radius from the center of her chest, which is blocked by solid objects - Yaz can't boil someone's brain inside their skull.


 [b]Hot stuff, baby:[/b] Yasmin's body is incredibly resistant to heat - she can comfortably walk through molten iron or stand near rocket wash. Smoke and combustion products don't bother her, with the bizarre specificity of superpowers. A room full of burning plastic is no problem, a room filled with Halon is a different question entirely. She is also substantially resistant to most forms of ionizing radiation, and hasn't had a successful dental X-ray in decades. Her visit to Chernobyl, though, was delightful. Note that this does [i]not[/i] means she is bulletproof, knife-proof, punch-proof, shrapnel-proof, or immune to freezing to death, drowning, or quite a large number of other ways to die.


 [b]You’ll still find stone:[/b] Okay, Yaz is a [i]little[/i] bit physically superhuman. In addition to keeping herself in excellent physical condition, she is a little stronger, her reflexes are a little faster, and she's able to withstand substantially more physical punishment than a garden-variety human. As previously mentioned, however, she can still be killed by falling debris, she absolutely [i]can[/i] be taken unawares, she is not immune to poison gasses, and she still gets colds, hangovers, and food poisoning.


 [b]Weaknesses:[/b] 

 [b]There are six million ways to die. Chose one:[/b] Yaz is very, [i]extremely[/i] mortal. Against someone with an enhanced physiology, she needs to be very careful to not wind up facing physical strength with her own. She's also not very good at being shot - there are clever tricks she can pull, but they don't work if she's facing an army of well-equipped henchmen. She has less of a problem with cold than you might expect, but once her core temperature stops dropping, it drops fast, and she can succumb to hypothermia very quickly. Similarly, many things that would kill a human will kill her - including oxygen starvation, drug overdose, and being hit on the head very, very hard. While Yaz is a very strong-willed person, an opponent with mental-assault capabilities would probably not find Yaz a difficult target. 



[b]Appearance:[/b]

Yasmin is tall for a woman, though she still needs a stepstool to reach the top shelves of her kitchen cabinets. She keeps her hair in a stylish cut; at the moment it's bobbed and undercut, with starlight-platinum highlights against the rest of her straight, dark locks. She works quite hard to maintain a strong, flexible build, long lines of lean muscle with a figure that is unmistakably feminine. Her skin is a rich, clear olive with few visible scars; the most prominent being a small mark that cuts through her left eyebrow. Her eyes are two flashing emeralds, depthless and crystalline, wide, intelligent, and often filled with a kind of laconic humor. Her lips are full and inviting without the bee-stung lusciousness so often in vogue, the lines of her face lean without being gaunt, just on this side of masculinity - a playful, puckish tomboy's features. She is often smiling, often laughing, and her voice has a pleasant accent that makes every word its own piece of music.

She moves through the world with the perfect confidence of someone who knows exactly who they are, and where they want to be. She is neither predatory nor timid, she does not dominate or shrink - Yaz is the kind of person who is enough within themselves, and is made all the more magnetic for that. Yaz will almost always be found with a pendant around her neck, along with a ring on each hand and bangles, bracelets, or arm cuffs as her mood dictates. Her ears are each pierced several times, along with the left side of her nose. Delicate lines of cybernetic tracery cross her scalp, arc down her spine, and flow in thin, silver vining shapes across body, deliberately beautiful and just subtle enough that you might think they're tattoos.

Yaz' left arm is artificial, a sculpture in polished metal and ceramic. The prosthesis wraps around her shoulder, her back, and flows down her side. She often keeps the colors in blue and white, highlighted in silver and dark graphite, though this can change with her mood or whim. There are no visible scars around the prosthesis; it seems that her skin simply becomes something else. She makes no attempt to hide it, and many of her outfits either complement, or directly display her artificial limb.

In public, and especially for official events, she is almost always dressed in something bespoke from her own design house. Skirts and blouses flash in cuts and styles that perhaps show more skin than the casual viewer might expect; suits are cut in ways that project confidence and power in her femininity. Yaz is very aware of the potential of a heel, and while they will never be an everyday part of her wardrobe, there are times she enjoys them. This isn't to say that Yaz has never been caught brunching in yoga pants and a comfortable tank - sometimes you don't need your look to take an hour to put together, after all. In private, at home, she's often in whatever feels comfortable at the moment, which depends on what she's doing, who she's with, whether the curtains are drawn, and if she cares about that at the moment.

In the days when she embraced her superhero identity, Yaz' outfit was, naturally, eye-catching, practical, and colorful. Blazing in a rich, twilight blue highlighted in silver and accented with the geometric patterns of traditional Islamic art, it was never difficult to find Yaz, even in less than ideal lighting. The costume itself only came into being when required, manufactured on the spot in a piece of a second by nanoscale fabrication engines built into Yaz' jewelry and accessories. In appearance, Yaz' costume shared elements with an armored encounter suit, a kaftan dress, and a belly dancer's outfit; thin, strong material hugging her body without a sprayed-on appearance, marked with bright jewelry and offering both protection and freedom of motion.


 [b]Equipment:[/b] 

Nowadays, most of Yasmin's accessories are just that - decorative and sentimental. On a day to day basis, she is no more or less equipped than many other people around her; save that she is often rather more fashionable. 

Yaz does have a neural lace, and a limited suite of cybernetic systems. Particularly, an implanted communication system for taking calls, messages, and texts, along with starting her car and opening the door to her house. The remaining visible metallic lines etched in her skin were primarily for communicating with the equipment that manufactured her costume, and now exist primarily for aesthetics.

Her artificial arm has the powers and capabilities of a human arm, with the aesthetic variability of an early-21st-century cell phone case. The limb has a full sensorium, is warm to the touch, and great care has been taken to give the various surfaces a pleasing, if not necessarily organic, texture. The limb, and the implant site, are made of materials that can withstand a poorly-calculated atmospheric entry on Venus, but it has no extraordinary abilities.

Corona’s costume is no bulwark of safety, though it does offer Yaz some advantages. The material, while thin and lightweight, is remarkably difficult to tear, and is capable of deflecting a limited amount of gunfire. She is no walking bastion, but a hero needs to be able to shrug off the occasional bullet or blade - the bruises they leave behind are a problem for the next day. In a similar vein, the costume can absorb and spread impact damage to a degree; she's already a little tougher than normal and spreading impacts over even a few more tenths of a second can make the difference between being dazed and being pulverized. The costume does not cover Yaz' face; she's been quite public about who she is for her entire career.

The suit is very, [i]very[/i] fireproof. It is, however, not quite Yaz-proof. The bangles, jewelry, and other things the suit is manufactured by, are. The entire setup was a gift from another hero in the far-off days of the past.

In a more mundane sense, Yaz owns a motorcycle that she lovingly maintains herself; the activity is something of a meditation. The bike is a companion piece to her car, which is low, fast, and practical for perhaps two people who already like one another and don't have much luggage.

Oh, and she also owns the al-Fasi Couture design house; a high-end and bespoke clothing and jewelry firm. She is in enough demand to have a small staff and a very comfortable lifestyle, but is only occasionally counted among the elites of the fashion world. Yaz definitely works for a living, but that living is a pleasant one.



 Origin: 

A cloudless day, the kind that used to be rare during a London Autumn. Nothing like the furnace heat of home, but while the elevator rose, I watched the city on the Thames adjust to what would doubtless be another uncomfortably hot day. On the sunward side of the buildings nearby, huge shades unfurled, every surface lined with solar collectors; vast artificial flowers that would track the day's light. Even in their stark necessity, I thought they were beautiful. I rose further, and out the car's window I could see the rest of the city waking up, the first trickles of people onto the sidewalks, walking by holographic signs that flickered on outside buildings hewn from timbers older than whole nations. The car slowed, and I thought I could make out the whine of electric busses far below. Before long the first passenger drones would whir by, scant meters from the curved glass and adding another strata to the busy city. To the South, the Shard reflected the hard cerulean sky, still lonely and proud at the end of London Bridge, though perhaps not for long. The elevator stopped with a quiet chime, the door sliding aside in silken silence. I took a few steps down a short hallway, touched my hand to a reader in the wall, and a moment later, the door swung in.

My mother spends a lot of time on the phone, or video conferences, or on globally-televised stages, arguing. Arguing for a different world, and maybe a better one. She's been called the most important thinker in modern Islam, but she's been called a lot of other things, too. True to form, when she opened the door, her other hand held her phone to the side of her head, and she was speaking a stream of Arabic so hot and fast that it could have melted glass. She gave me an exasperated look, tilted her head at the phone, and invited me in with a hand gesture. I started taking my shoes off while she turned away, her free arm piercing the air with sharp gestures. She wouldn't be long - she never was, when one of her children came to visit - but I wished that someone would just take her word for something, sometimes. Maybe they would, one day.

I padded my way further inside, air still crackling with the clipped, rapid-fire sound of my mother in full I-can't-believe-I-have-to-explain-this-to-you mode. Her apartment is, if I admit it to myself, nicer than mine, with high ceilings and the rare view of London that isn't obscured by another supertall or arcology, at least for now. Her decorating is minimalist, but with a purpose - whatever she does, my mother makes a statement. Along one wall, she keeps a collection of letters - invitations to the United Nations next to the unhinged missives that you see once you've really gotten people's attention. Every time I visited, I felt like I found a new way to misspell 'Rana al-Fasi.' 

With words that almost sounded conciliatory, my mother finished her conversation. I didn't hear the sound of her thumb on the phone, but I did hear the way she took in a long, slow, steadying breath. She would be muttering something to herself; either a prayer or curses which would then be followed by a prayer. Based on how long it took for her to come back into room, I suspected the latter. She appeared after a few long moments, composed, for the most part, and she looked like a different person when she smiled and held her hands out to me.

"[i]As salaam alaikum[/i], Yasmin," my mother said, taking my hands in hers. She squeezed them with a strength few expected, a gesture I returned.

"[i]Wa alaikum salaam[/i]," I returned, resisting the urge to engage in a game of escalating pleasantries. After all, she always won.

"Was that-" I began.

"The Secretary General, yes," my mother replied, blowing out an exasperated sigh. She let my hands go, "After everything, he still makes speeches filled with foolish nonsense. The worst kind, too. Sometimes I wonder if any ideas actually get into his head, or if every thought he's ever had just bounces inside his skull, and occasionally becomes something useful." "

I laughed, "It's good to see you, Mom," I said, making my way toward the kitchen. "Tea?"

My mother made an eloquent gesture with one long-fingered hand that communicated yes, that she was glad I had offered, that she apologized for the state of the kitchen, and that we should start with anise and make further decisions from there.

I have been her daughter for a long time. I busied myself for a few moments, pulling tea things from the cupboards and setting water to boil. 

"And I'm glad to you see you," she said with a sigh, "If only the world weren't going mad."

I poured hot water over the tea sachets, and the room blossomed with a pleasant, heady scent. "If you're expecting me to recite something to you, I hate to disappoint."  I held a mug out to my mother, who wrapped it in her fingers with another small smile while I settled onto the couch next to her.

"Hah!" she said, her voice without heat, "You have never disappointed me, Yasmin, you know that. Allah may have set you one path, and you chose another." She took a sip of her tea, "I am so proud of you, daughter. I know your father would have been, too."

We drank tea and enjoyed the quiet for a few moments. Then my mother leaned forward and picked something up from the coffee table, bright copper, squashed at one end. She rolled it between her fingers slowly, touching every part of the misshapen lump.

"But you could be doing-" she started.

"Mother!" I said, my voice sharp even to my own ears, "No. That's in the past."

She smiled, "So often, our past catches up. And you can't run from one like yours, Yasmin."

I took a drink of my tea, one that should have burned my tongue, "I haven't been running," I said into the fragrant steam, "I've been...walking with purpose."

"Are you telling me Sorrento can't mind the business for a few days? Or a couple of weeks?" My mother's voice was cool, "I don't think you'd surround yourself with that kind of incompetence."

"No, not..." I trailed off, "You remember what happened the last time I saw Addison." I rolled my shoulder involuntarily, the fingers of my artificial hand clicking against the mug I held.

"And you remember the letters she sent afterward," my mother took another sip of her tea, "The ones you never opened. The calls you never answered. Twelve years is a long time."

I looked down at my tea, "It's someone else's job to save the world." but I couldn't find the fire I wanted in my own voice. I swirled the tea in my mug for a few moments, then looked up, "Now you [i]are[/i] going to recite something to me," I said, and I couldn't help the small smile that tugged at my lips.

"And whoso saveth the life of one," she began.

"It shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind," I finished, still looking at my tea.

"Your father's favorite," my mother said, her voice gentle.

I blew out a sigh, "And look where that got him."

"[i]Yasmin.[/i]" The reproach in her voice drove into my spine and though gentle, made my cheeks flush with shame, "I did not teach you to be so unkind."

I raised my hand in a gesture of peace, and settled back against the couch, still drumming my fingers on the mug. 

"Did Addison really call you?" I was still looking at my tea.

"She said your comm didn't respond to her message. And, well, it's obvious that you're still alive." I could hear the smile in her voice, "I liked your outfit last week, during the interview with...what was his name, Hatoshi?"

I smiled, closed my eyes, and shook my head. "I threw that comm in the Thames right after the hospital let me go home. She's persistent."

"Then there is probably a very well-informed catfish somewhere in the riverbed." My mother took a long drink of her tea, her ring clinking against her own mug, "But Addison was - is - resourceful. She called my private line."

I opened my eyes, and turned my head to look at my mother. She studied me, the light shining through her hazel eyes and making them seem to glow from within. She had a small smile tugging at one side of her face, crinkling the skin at the corner of one eye. She only looked like that when she already knew she'd won. I looked up at the ceiling and took a deep, long breath, savoring the smells of leather and wood, of anise and the scented oil my mother dabbed on her skin.

"Do you know what I remember the most about that day?" I kept my gaze on the ceiling, "The day I met Stardust?"

My mother stayed quiet, the sound of her tea mug her only reply.

"I was never scared. Not for a moment." I sighed, "Not that I expected everything would be all right, but I don't remember any fear. When I could think again, I wasn't scared, I was angry. Either Stardust would take out Parson, or he'd finish whatever he was trying to do to me, and all I wanted was to go to graduate school. And then she threw him through a gas main, and I woke up in a burning building without a scratch on me." I closed my eyes again.

"And then I was [i]Corona[/i], and I felt like I still didn't get to have a say in what happened to me." I could feel a tear welling, pressing between my eyelids, "And then that built and built, and all I wanted was that [i]choice[/i]." 

"And when I got a chance to make my choice, I thought I'd made the right one," my voice roughened, "I thought the world didn't need us anymore. That I didn't need that world." I took in a long, shaking breath, "But that's not true at all, is it." I sniffled, my chest feeling tight.

"I [i]want[/i] to say that I'm going to go to SoHo and work on dresses for the Gala," I said, my voice shaking, "I [i]want[/i] to say that the world can take care of itself. I want Zara's machines and anyone else who's still alive to go fight this. I want to say I'm done."

"But that isn't the daughter I raised," my mother said, steel and fire in every word.

I took a few slow, deep breaths, willing my heart to stop pounding, the tears to stop sliding down the sides of my head. Tears of what, I couldn't say - frustration, joy, relief, dread - but they flowed all the same, leaving tracks past my ears and down my neck. 

The cushions creaked, and I heard a mug settle onto the table in front of the couch. A moment later and my mother's arm pulled me close, settling my head onto her shoulder, her hand on my cheek. She whispered soft words in Arabic; a prayer, I think, though I couldn't quite make the words out. 

"The work is never done, Yasmin," she said after what felt like several long, quiet minutes, "We owe it to the future to fight with whatever tools we have. I fight with my words, Zara with her mind. You've made the world so much more beautiful, my daughter, in so many ways. But I think it's time to rise again."

I took another long, shuddering breath and nodded, my cheek against cool and smooth fabric. I sniffled again, then found myself relaxing, unwinding mental blocks I'd kept in place for so long I almost didn't realize I had them. I felt things stirring in my chest, a tingle across my skin; the spring-coil tension of something waiting to be let free. With one last breath, this one almost easy, I shifted my head, looking up at my mother.

"Do you have Addison's number?"



 [b]Personality: [/b]Yasmin is proud, independent, usually even-tempered, and stubborn. She has an internal moral compass, and a firm belief in right and wrong, though she tends not to deal in absolutes. Despite her upbringing, Yaz is not particularly religious, though she tries to be kind, compassionate, and to see the good in people. In other words, she [i]is[/i] nice, but she has limits, and if someone assumes that nice equates to pushover, they likely have a (potentially painful) lesson to learn. She rarely keeps real grudges, finding the effort to maintain them corrosive, but there are certainly people she'd rather not speak with too often - or ever.

Corona was never really a separate character, more of an extension and exaggeration of things that were already part of Yaz' psyche. Despite her ability to blow a hole in an armored vehicle, Yaz was always the one who wanted to talk first, to see if there was a way past the situation without violence. She has no particular regrets or anxieties about the fact that, quite often, there was no room for daylight between her view and her opponent, and the fact that the team she worked with came out the victor doesn't bother her. 

Over the last decade, a certain grimness has come into her sense of humor, though she tries to keep the darkest cynicism away. Though a staunch ralist, she steadfastly refuses to give in to despair, and chooses to believe that things can be made better - not perfect, not quickly, not without effort - but better all the same. This can be charming to some, and [i]breathtakingly[/i] annoying to others. 

Yaz takes orders poorly, but accepts suggestions readily. She believes in free will to the depths of her soul, and occasionally resents a combination of her upbringing, her inherent nature, and the sheer fact that she can do so many things that 'normal' people can't means that she [i]has[/i] to be Corona, that her normal life will always be secondary. She [i]wants[/i] a world where she can be normal. She understands that it probably won't happen.

She identifies as mostly-gay, but she's had a boyfriend or two in her life that she didn't regret. She enjoys the company of other people almost as much as she enjoys reading a book with her cat, and she can be a ferocious and shameless flirt when the mood is on her. She forms connections with people easily, and enjoys when those connections bloom into friendships, more than friendships, or something even more, but she doesn't mind the mayfly-short bursts of emotion that sometimes enter her life. Sometimes it's talking with the person next to her on a plane, sometimes it's one (or two, or three) nights in someone's arms, sometimes it's the quiet, shared intensity of watching a sunrise with a stranger.


 [b]Misc Facts:[/b] Yasmin's father was an Imam, a kind and good man. He was killed by people who resented his kindness. Her mother is a scholar, tireless and ferocious, who raised her children to make their own choices. Yaz has a younger sister, Zara, who works for a weapons and cybernetics firm that tries to make weapons, armor, and other devices that might help normal humans confront super-powered individuals. So far, most of them don't work, though it isn't for lack of trying, or the bottomless well of of practical inspiration that churns out of Zara with every heartbeat. 


 [b]Relationship with Hex:[/b] She didn't have one. However, Yasmin dated Addison Reynolds for several years. At one point, it appeared they were going to get married. That ended when Addison had to make a hard choice that cost her a fiancé, and cost Yaz an arm.




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I like the sheet, I like fiery heroes and Yaz is that. The powers and weaknesses make sense, and I'm happy with them. I like her reactions to cold, perhaps even doing something with a weakness to prolonged exposure to water might be interesting as well? The appearance section that you wrote was lovely too, and I got a very clear picture of the character. I liked the perspective you took for writing the origin story too. A nice sheet all round, and she brings a power that I was worried we wouldn't get.


My main issue is how much you've written Addison into it, Addison may be more NPC than PC, but she's still my character and much of her is deliberately in mystery - the relationship you've written with her goes off of the assumption that she isn't already married or something and takes a bit of agency out of my story. I would ask you to remove that element completely from the sheet, or just rename the person in the relationship and forgo a relationship with Hex as I'm not *too* hung up on it at this point. Addison idolised Supers, but never knew any personally, certainly wasn't almost married to one.