[hider=Blackstar]

[center][img]https://i.postimg.cc/Hk8NKQ4L/95e33eea24bba26cd5ef62ee04258c49.jpg[/img][/center]
[center][img]https://i.postimg.cc/dDPC0Pp7/blackstar.png[/img][/center]
[center][b][color=#636363]"[/color][color=#666666]W[/color][color=#696969]h[/color][color=#6C6C6C]a[/color][color=#6F6F6F]t[/color] [color=#767676]a[/color][color=#797979]r[/color][color=#7C7C7C]e[/color] [color=#828282]y[/color][color=#868686]o[/color][color=#898989]u[/color] [color=#8F8F8F]g[/color][color=#929292]o[/color][color=#959595]n[/color][color=#999999]n[/color][color=#9C9C9C]a[/color] [color=#A2A2A2]d[/color][color=#A5A5A5]o[/color][color=#A9A9A9],[/color] [color=#AFAFAF]s[/color][color=#B2B2B2]t[/color][color=#B5B5B5]a[/color][color=#B8B8B8]b[/color] [color=#BFBFBF]m[/color][color=#C2C2C2]e[/color][color=#C5C5C5]?[/color][color=#C8C8C8]"[/color][/b]
[i][color=black](she was then stabbed.)[/color][/i][/center]

[color=#636363]Name:[/color] Alaine Barrows

[color=#636363]Age:[/color] 25

[color=#636363]Appearance:[/color] 
↳ Standing at 5'6, Alaine is fit but not thin, describing herself as "sturdy". She has a fair complexion that tends towards being pale, a few random small scars from life scattered across her body and nothing very notable. She has a beauty mark/freckle at the corner of her right eye. Her eyes are grey-blue and she has excellent vision; her faceshape leans towards being squarish with a greek nose, high cheekbones, and full lips. her hair is a mousy blonde-brown, and she current has a [url=https://hairaide.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/peekaboo-_0008_IMG_1055-2-683x1024.jpg]red[/url] [url=https://i0.wp.com/therighthairstyles.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/15-red-peekaboos-for-blonde-lob.jpg?resize=500%2C549&ssl=1]peekaboo[/url] dye job. She doesn't wear makeup and the only accessories she wears are a simple, [url=https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-5jktp/images/stencil/1280x1280/products/1917/6520/10mmRing__33051.1515448500.jpg?c=2]stainless steel band[/url] and a [url=https://i.etsystatic.com/5685636/r/il/d2d2f7/1683514529/il_794xN.1683514529_oig3.jpg]friendship bracelet[/url] made for her by two of her younger sisters before they went to college. (She wears neither of these when in uniform.) Outside of "work", her style consists mostly of jeans, t-shirts and sweaters, and cowboy boots. She avoids dressing up as much as possible.

[color=#636363]Role at SDN:[/color] Hero (fairly new to heroing)

[color=#636363]Background:[/color] [center][b][color=#474747]o[/color][color=#484848]b[/color][color=#4A4A4A]s[/color][color=#4C4C4C]e[/color][color=#4E4E4E]r[/color][color=#4F4F4F]v[/color][color=#515151]a[/color][color=#535353]n[/color][color=#555555]t[/color] [color=#585858]-[/color] [color=#5C5C5C]i[/color][color=#5E5E5E]n[/color][color=#5F5F5F]t[/color][color=#616161]r[/color][color=#636363]o[/color][color=#656565]v[/color][color=#666666]e[/color][color=#686868]r[/color][color=#6A6A6A]t[/color][color=#6C6C6C]e[/color][color=#6E6E6E]d[/color] [color=#717171]-[/color] [color=#757575]r[/color][color=#767676]e[/color][color=#787878]s[/color][color=#7A7A7A]i[/color][color=#7C7C7C]l[/color][color=#7D7D7D]i[/color][color=#7F7F7F]e[/color][color=#818181]n[/color][color=#838383]t[/color] [color=#868686]-[/color] [color=#8A8A8A]c[/color][color=#8C8C8C]u[/color][color=#8D8D8D]r[/color][color=#8F8F8F]i[/color][color=#919191]o[/color][color=#939393]u[/color][color=#959595]s[/color] [color=#989898]-[/color] [color=#9C9C9C]s[/color][color=#9D9D9D]e[/color][color=#9F9F9F]l[/color][color=#A1A1A1]f[/color][color=#A3A3A3]-[/color][color=#A4A4A4]c[/color][color=#A6A6A6]o[/color][color=#A8A8A8]n[/color][color=#AAAAAA]t[/color][color=#ACACAC]r[/color][color=#ADADAD]o[/color][color=#AFAFAF]l[/color][color=#B1B1B1]l[/color][color=#B3B3B3]e[/color][color=#B4B4B4]d[/color] [color=#B8B8B8]-[/color] [color=#BCBCBC]g[/color][color=#BDBDBD]u[/color][color=#BFBFBF]a[/color][color=#C1C1C1]r[/color][color=#C3C3C3]d[/color] [color=#C6C6C6]d[/color][color=#C8C8C8]o[/color][color=#CACACA]g[/color][/b][/center]

[hider=spoiler 'cuz it's a bit long lol]
Born to Roger and Laverne Barrows one January, Alaine was the couple's first child and quickly followed by five more in the next eight years. Roger was a pastor and worked in several different states throughout her childhood, so she and her siblings were homeschooled to help with frequent moves. Originally returning to the state she was born in, Alabama, when she was sixteen, Alaine and her family lived humble but happy lives. 

But she was directionless. Two of her younger sisters went off to college, got engaged. One of her younger brothers joined the National Guard with plans to eventually become a cop, and the other brother and youngest sister already knew what they wanted to do with their lives. But her? No clue. She had options but none of them seemed quite right. She felt as if she was perpetually [i]waiting[/i] for... something. 

It was hard, watching her parents be proud of all her other siblings while she sat there collecting dust, no clue what to do with her life. She'd always been decent at art so her parents suggested she get a degree for it, if nothing else; trying to appease them, she found an art school based in California and headed west. 

She didn't like being on the opposite side of the country from her family, nor did she like the crowded city or having to share a room again. It didn't help that her roommate and suitemate were a toxic pair that made her sole semester at the school a nightmare.

Without telling her parents, Alaine dropped out before her second semester. Once again directionless, she stayed at a hotel for a week while trying to figure out what to do and applying to jobs, desperate to make the trip across the country and all the money spent [i]worth[/i] something.

Stressed and depressed after a week of dead ends, she tried to give herself a break by traveling to a smaller town and getting some fresh air out in the surrounding nature.

Instead, she was hit by a falling star.

[center][img]https://i.postimg.cc/xT47tsHM/3d1d815687f4815fa73b0634ccb551e8bannerresize.jpg[/img][/center]

Alaine still doesn't fully understand what happened. One minute she was out in the hills, watching the stars -- the next there was a dazzling light tumbling out of the sky and headed straight for her. When she woke up she didn't know how much time had passed. Her phone was fried so she had no way of contacting anyone as she hauled herself out of the small crater she found herself in. Unfamiliar energy crackled through her veins, pulsing in her nerve endings and buzzing in her head.

When she made it back to the town she was staying in she didn't know what was happening to her. Her body didn't feel like her own, she was disoriented. It was early in the morning, the sun just barely rising, and the first person she ran into was a kind old gentleman who noticed was something was wrong and stopped to try and help her.

She killed him.

It wasn't intentional. She'd been trying to explain what had happened  when he touched her arm; the feeling was foreign, a jolt that caused a surge of unfamiliar energy through her body. Alaine saw stars -- literally. Behind her eyes she caught a glimpse of the cosmos, incomprehensible dark matter and glittering star-worlds. It only lasted a second and when she blinked, the old man was falling back on the pavement, a smoldering gash in his chest as dark light flickered around her hands.

Horrified and terrified, she tried to help the innocent man but it was too late. She knew she shouldn't have but she ran anyway, shaken as she struggled to comprehend what had happened to her, how her feet kept missing steps and instead of falling she [i]floated[/i].

She managed to catch a ride to the nearest city from a stranger who she was careful to keep her hands off of, and when they left her she took to the task of surviving. Overcome with guilt and horror, Alaine did her best to scrape by for a few weeks; many times she considered going to the authorities or to a hospital, but she was scared she'd kill someone else. So instead she dedicated herself to controlling the new, strange energy coursing through her veins and slowly but surely she began to learn. Only when she felt sure she wouldn't accidentally murder the next person she touched did Alaine venture back among the public to purchase a phone with what little money she still had available; she needed to make contact with her family, which was the first step to finding some sort of normalcy in her new reality.

But, like the star that had fallen right into her, her newfound abilities couldn't be ignored. And, like all things, they needed practice in order to be controlled.

Alaine isn't proud of that period of her life -- it was a two-and-a-half-year stretch of shady work, struggling with powers she wasn't sure anyone should have, stumbling along the line of wrong and right that made up vigilantism. It came from the right place, the want to do good with whatever had happened to her... but it was tainted with the knowledge that she'd killed someone, that she [i]could[/i] kill. Throwing herself into situations where she was being threatened or protecting someone else who was in danger meant emotions were high and decisions couldn't be reversed.

The old man wasn't the only person she killed during that period. They weren't all intentional... but there were a few she didn't try to keep herself from hurting. 

She was spiraling deeper and deeper into the mess of vigilantism and the web of lies she was spinning all around herself, between the diner where she'd gotten work during the day and her family back home who still didn't know what had happened to her out in the hills. Little by little she was losing herself and venturing into dangerous territory, which she recognized -- as a last-ditch effort, she packed up her bags and left town, traveling to a new town further west.

Denying herself vigilante work and any use of her powers seemed to be detrimental to her health however, slowly but surely driving her insane with the buildup of cosmic energy that had no outlet. She would've inevitably imploded if not for John.

She didn't know his last name, but he was an older man who'd been keeping track of the strange goings-on in the city she left. He'd pieced together that a new, superpowered individual had emerged and tracked her down, hoping to help; he seemed more knowledgeable about heroes than he should've been, for someone seemingly without powers himself, but he was able to help her get a new, normal job while simultaneously helping her learn more about her abilities and ways she could use them for the good of society.

Because she was still struggling internally with the guilt of what she'd done, intentionally or not, Alaine latched onto John's help and encouragement, eventually getting herself to the level of a functioning hero. John helped her pick out a name and even managed to procure her a customized suit from somewhere, and that was when he told her he'd gotten her an interview with SDN. He promised her they didn't have to know about the past two and a half years and said he'd keep her secrets as long as she needed him to, if she would in turn promise to use her cosmic-granted powers for good for as long as she was able.

It was a promise Alaine was happy -- [i]relieved[/i], really, to make.
[/hider]

[hider=in-depth personality]
Alaine is overall a kind and hardworking individual. She's naturally quiet and more of a loner, but in a group she does her best to make everyone feel comfortable and keep things running smoothly, if it's needed -- otherwise she tends to fade into the background and observe. Despite these quiet tendencies, she's more than capable of sticking up for herself. She's earned a reputation in certain circles as being tough, independent, and a bit of a vigilante, never one to back down from a fight when someone's honor or safety is on the line. She's fiercely loyal but has a hard time making good friends because she's had her loyalty taken advantage of before, and blames herself for several incidents that led her to believe she was better off on her own. Even though she tells herself that often, she still feels very lonely at times and wouldn't mind someone to be close to. 

She has a tendency to be protective over people she likes, or those that remind her of her younger siblings. Although she's patient in many ways she also has no fondness for arrogance, cruelty, and people who don't use their heads, and she's been known to keep a grudge. Although she's incredibly resilient (and values that trait in others), she also tends to keep her problems under wraps and handle them herself, believing they're her responsibility and not wanting to bother anyone else. "Responsibility" was hammered into her from a young age and, despite going through a period of uncertainty about what her responsibilities were with her powers, she feels the weight of expectations (from herself and others) heavily. 

More than anything Alaine considers herself a guard dog. Always putting others first, working tirelessly, and knowing when to be gentle makes her a good friend - being keenly observant, tough-skinned, and unafraid to attack makes her a dangerous protector.[/hider]

[hider=Hero/Villain (if applicable)]
[hider=suit]((I drew these kinda quick and rough the other day but I wanted to have a visual reference rather than just trying to explain my specific idea lol))
[img]https://i.postimg.cc/Vk0hTjB5/IMG-0264resize.png[/img][img]https://i.postimg.cc/Dw4NDqd8/IMG-0266jacketsresize.png[/img]
[img]https://i.postimg.cc/y83G5FXd/IMG-0263resize.png[/img][/hider]

[color=#636363]Appearance:[/color] Alaine's suit is a charcoal black color, and she has a version with white detailing and a version with dark black. She prefers the black-on-black one, as she feels it makes her less visible. The suit has a half-cowl that goes up her neck and halfway up the back of her head, effectively hiding the portion of her hair that's dyed red and leaving the rest visible; it hides the midsection of her face and her eyes, though she has a detachable mask that covers the lower half of her face. She prefers it, as she's desperate to keep her anonymity (both for the sake of her family and the risk of being traced back to her less-than-reputable first years as a "hero"), but John suggested she looked more like a good guy without it.

[color=#636363]Powers:[/color] 
[b]↳[/b] [color=#636363][i]flight[/i]:[/color] Alaine can fly surprisingly high and has discovered she can survive low levels of oxygen for extended periods of time, but she's not able to exist in space or stay in the upper atmosphere for more than ten minutes without suffocating or freezing. She is able to fly slow enough to hover as well as fast enough to outpace a commercial jet (around 400-500mph) but she hasn't attempted to go faster and is unsure of her max flight speed. Flying at high speeds or altitudes for extended periods of time will gradually wear her out and she'll need to rest afterwards (think of it like running a marathon). Flying uses energy either way, and her ability to remain in the air can fluctuate with exercise; for example, when she first discovered she could fly she couldn't stay in the air for more than an hour. Over time and practice she's built up a flying endurance. If she were to fall out of practice she would have to get back into it before being able to fly to higher altitudes or for prolonged amounts of time.

[b]↳[/b] [i][url=https://i.postimg.cc/FHk6qjgz/169093948624012194.png]cosmic/dark energy blades[/url][/i]: Alaine is able to manifest a mysterious kind of dark/cosmic energy, and it takes the form of visually-crackling/flickering "blade" shapes that protrude out from her hands/fists with a hard-to-describe, inverted kind of light. These blades are at minimum four inches long and the longest Alaine has ever been able to extend them was around three and a half feet. When slicing into things they have a similar effect to lightsabers, able to melt/burn through most materials (though thicker/denser materials will take longer to melt and require more energy; generally Alaine tries to avoid this as it can wear her out quickly, leave her or others vulnerable, and in her early days she got stuck on more than one occasion). Touching organic material with these blades can cause burning (mild to severe) and instant cauterization of wounds. The blades can be maintained apart from her body but only briefly (around 10-40 seconds) and thus [i]can[/i] be used as projectiles, though the effectiveness varies (read: non-lethal; more of an energy blast that acts like a punch). Oftentimes when the blade/energy pulse is separate from her body she can't control its intensity, and she hasn't practiced this skill much. Most usually she goes for close combat over ranged, unless she has some other weapon on hand. Like flying, she has to keep up her endurance with the blades in order to maintain them for longer amounts of time, extend them further, or make them stronger. [color=yellow]*[/color]
[hider=*][color=yellow]The closest example to what I'm imagining, as far as what this power [i]looks[/i] like, is Psylocke from Marvel ([url=https://static0.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Stephanie-Hans-Psylocke-Hellions-15-variant.jpg?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop]example[/url], [url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/all-worlds-alliance/images/e/e5/7056197-2896785138-latest.png/revision/latest?cb=20200314043301]example[/url]). I'm still working out the kinks of how exactly I want it to work; my original idea was that the "meteorite" that hit her (imbued with some kind of dark matter/cosmic energy, [i]maaaybe[/i] alien tech??? idk idk) actually fused with her, either untraceably or via a shard of it being embedded in her heart (like Iron Man's arc reactor heart lol) without her knowledge, thus putting the energy in her actual bloodstream and making it part of her biology. So it's a physical power that needs her mental state to be in focus to properly use).[/color][/hider]

[b]↳[/b] [color=#636363][i]other[/i]:[/color] She has an overall enhanced physiology, putting her speed, strength, endurance, and healing at an above average rate. While she can't carry a whole commercial jet or hold a breaking bridge together, she can lift a car to help someone out from underneath or knock a normal human out with a solid punch. She can run [i]slightly[/i] faster than the average human being, but most of her speed seems to be related to flight. Endurance-wise, she has a natural above average endurance (after gaining powers) and it can be trained to last longer. Her healing won't instantly heal a wound but it will help her recover at an increased speed, effectively cutting most recovery times in half (depending on the severity of the injury). On the whole, she's still vulnerable to normal weapons/injuries; guns/bullets, knives, broken bones, hard hits, electrical shocks, poison, etc., are all able to hurt and incapacitate her.

[color=#636363]Crimes (If Villain):[/color] n/a (none that anyone can prove)

[/hider]

[color=#636363]Likes:[/color]
✧ orange sherbet
✧ animals
✧ stars + the sky
✧ her family
✧ flying

[color=#636363]Dislikes:[/color]
✧ tomatoes + onions
✧ wolves
✧ physical restraints
✧ poor work ethics
✧ waking up early

[color=#636363]Quirks:[/color]
✧ Alaine has lupophobia (fear of wolves)
✧ as she's from the American South but hasn't lived there her whole life, she has a mild southern accent
✧ she refuses to drink or use any illegal substances for multiple reasons, but mostly because she has a fear of not being in full control of her own mind and/or body
✧ all niceties drop the second someone who knows her name tries to call her "Lainey"
✧ she's a big animal person and has a natural aptitude for working with them (except for wolves...)

[color=#636363]Extra:[/color]
[url=https://www.pinterest.com/cosmotellurian/blackstar/]pinterest board <3[/url]
[hider=mini playlist ♡]
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntQM3WVP9UI]don't give up - ursine vulpine[/url]
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94gqS34Bub8]little girl gone - chinchilla[/url]
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=so8V5dAli-Q]control - halsey[/url]
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51XUr7uEcq8]last shot - valorant[/url]
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dG9pXeOgT0]trials - starset[/url]
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOPtrsdFdxE]stronger than me - sarah cothran[/url]
[/hider]

[color=#636363]Stat Specialisations:[/color]
Combat: 3
Vigor: 3
Mobility: 3
Charisma: 3
Intellect: 1
[/hider]