Coraline Li

Real Name: Coraline Li
Hero Name: Nightshade
Title: Daughter of Darkness
Alignment: Neutral Good
Age: 22
Gender: Female???
Race: Human???
Hair: Black
Eyes: Black
Height: 5’2”
Weight: 104
Blood type: N/A



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Coraline is a rather average looking person. Pretty and perhaps a bit too slim, but nothing overly special. This combined with her short height means she tends to get lost in the crowd on occasions. Her clothing does not aid in that manner, as her style can be best described as simply: ordinary. Think t-shirt and jeans, sweatshirts, hoodies, sneakers, etc. Nothing to stand out if possible, other than an ever present pair of sunglasses.

Once the glamour drops however, her inhumanity is brought to light. Her whole skin is tinged a dark grey, almost black, interspersed with shadowed veins that are closer to the surface. This is especially noticeable at the eyes, where the veins are most visible and hence, fully black.


Coraline is a rather bright person so to speak, displaying massive amounts of curiosity and enthusiasm in most parts of life. She loves to learn new things, and tends to throw herself wholeheartedly into her new obsession before tiring of it and moving on to something shinier. This combined with her intelligence makes her a jack of all trades with tons of random knowledge stuffed into her head. On the other hand, she is a bit of a know-it-all and rather stubborn in her opinions when she thinks she’s right. As one may expect, she also veers towards book smarts rather than street smarts, and hence, doesn’t always have the best judgements on people and situations.

However, most people wouldn’t know this from first meeting her, as there is a timid side to her. She is rather anxious, fearing what others think of her as well as constantly doubting her own capabilities. So in situations where she doesn’t feel comfortable, she tends to be rather quiet, shrinking in on herself. Once she opens up though, the fire within her awakens and she can become rather loud and admittedly obnoxious, especially if the topic of her current passion is brought up.

She is also very compassionate, finding great joy in helping others and making others happy. She is fiercely protective of those she loves, and despite flashes of pessimism due to her anxiety, in the end, she is an optimist at heart. Coraline truly believes in the overall good and endless potential of humanity with a rarely dampened ferocity and hopes to aid in the protection of that in all she does.


For all intents and purposes, Coraline should have been born a perfectly normal (insignificant) child with a perfectly normal (insignificant) life and with a perfectly normal (insignificant) death. However, whether by fate or by chance, she was stolen from the hospital to be used in a ritual meant to bring upon the end of the world as most knew it. Once again, due to either fate or serendipity, she was saved. The police crashed in during the ritual, foiling whatever plans they had for the baby sleeping in the middle of a spell diagram drawn in blood. The cultists were seemingly all captured and the kidnapped child was safe. So after the usual media circus that happens after such an event, life went on.

Her parents moved from New York to escape the attention and traumatizing memories, ending up in a small town in Utah. There, she had a perfectly normal childhood. She attended school, was enrolled in extracurriculars, and made friends. All the usual things.

Then, she turned 14. Turns out, the ritual did do something to her: It gave her powers. And being who she was, she decided she would become a superhero with them (ignoring that she was in a rather small town with very little actual crime). Her attempts at practicing in secret spread rumors, and those rumors soon gained the attention of the very same cult that had taken her on the day she was born. They stole her away once again except this time, she died, sacrificed in an attempt to free the thing that had been put inside her. They didn’t account for two things though: A friend, and that the thing had merged with the human it had been put inside (or perhaps, there was never truly a person, just the thing).

She doesn’t quite know what she is, or what she is meant to do now. She attended college in the great state of California and in present times, is finally returning to the city of her birth for grad school. She continues to hope to find meaning in all that has happened. More importantly though, she still wants to help. However she can.


1. Reaction
2. Agility
3. Endurance
4. Strength



Power 1: Shadow Manipulation
At the most basic, her abilities are shadow/darkness manipulation. She can mold and change the properties of the darkness around her rather effortlessly, allowing rather novel ways of attacking, defending, and transportation.

Power 2: Shadow Sense
They don’t have night vision so to speak, but more just a highly precise and intuitive understanding of anything happening in shadows/darkness around them. This also allows her to feel the location and presence of shadows/darkness. The range is generally around 10 feet but in continuous shadows/darkness, it extends to however large that area is or at the very least, larger than their usual range. (For an example, at night, their possible range is extremely far.)

Power 3: Nonhuman Physiology
With their death and subsequent transformation, their body has been rather drastically changed. Instead of blood, what runs through her body can best be described as shadow stuff. Due to this, everything about her has a decidingly grey, blackish tint to it, belying her now inhuman nature. She is now much more durable than before, with wounds being automatically sealed by the shadow stuff flowing through her. Pain is also deadened, and they can use the shadows within their body to augment their speed and strength.

Indeed, they are no longer even bound to human form, able to turn into a living shadow that can become incorporeal at will. At lesser extents, they can simply blend into shadows, giving an extra layer of stealth to their movements.

Power 4: Shadow Step
She can enter what is left of the primordial darkness oozing between universes. Theoretically, this allows her to travel anywhere (and when) she desires.


Weakness 1: As to be expected, anything she creates is rather susceptible to light, dissolving away at speeds depending on the intensity of the light as well as her concentration on keeping the construct going. The more intense the light is, the more damage they can do to their constructs. Those that are left out in the day (and even at night due to starlight and such) slowly start to dissolve, melt, and vaporize into the light. Also, creating darkness is pretty hard and generally it just isn’t worth the effort to do so.

Weakness 2: As one can imagine, a large and precise range is cool but can also be extremely overwhelming, distracting, and even gross. In smaller ranges it’s much easier to control what is being sensed vs a mile long range that can very easily become a sensory overload and cause them to pass out just to preserve their own sanity. Also the understanding generally requires movement, textures, or even an energy pulse.

Weakness 3: With this, since she is basically held together by shadows now, she is rather sensitive to light: especially at the eyes where veins are more exposed, hence the sunglasses. The skin areas are generally alright though unless it’s a particularly bright day. The light becomes even more dangerous when she is in her shadow form, being one of the few things that can cause massive pain now (and also probably kill her). So it’s probably a good thing that she can only maintain a purely inhuman form only temporarily: up to 5 minutes with straining.

The other thing that can easily cause a lot of pain is regenerating her actual body. The wounds aren’t actually healed, the shadows simply acting as a very effective band aid that is unfortunately also very susceptible to light. Thankfully, healing is a rather speedy process since the shadows just stitch their body back together. Unfortunately, the process is as said, extremely painful, with what could be months or even years of healing compressed into seconds to minutes. With her senses as deadened as they are, damage can unknowingly build up rather fast.

Weakness 4: This is a very tiring action, no matter the distance. She also prefers to never use her ability to travel between universes and dimensions because it terrifies her in its immensity and what it symbolizes. [Once per thread]


Shades/Light Blocking Googles – Depending on whether she’s in civilian clothes or in costume, she always has something to protect her eyes from light.


N/A


Binding + Glamour Seal – Taking the form of an intricate tattoo on her back, this seal lowers her power levels and with it, the general aura she gives off. It also hides her inhuman appearance and more inhuman movements. This glamour is very powerful, able to trick all five senses on normal human beings. However, it can’t fool machines, so under mechanical surveillance, she’d have no pulse or body temperature.

Presence w/o Glamour – She seems to gives off an otherworldly aura which tends to terrify other people, especially when she is actively using her powers. She isn’t supposed to exist in this world, and people can tell. Hence, seeing what she does and what she is gives people a very off feeling. It’s basically a fission in reality that should no longer be there, a darkness that’s never ending and all consuming, and humans are naturally afraid of the dark.

Everyday Effects – She can no longer sleep and everyday sensations have become duller than before, especially in the light. Taste, sight, touch, smell, and even sound. Whether this is due to her new physiology, or because in comparison to her new senses, everything else just feels weaker, is unknown.


The Library of Minerva. It truly has been awhile, even by the standards of a nonlinear Power. The last time he was here, he had been attempting to destroy this place, recognizing it for the threat it would become. Unfortunately, he had been thoroughly… turned away, though he did almost manage to demolish that thorn in his side thankyouverymuch.

…

Former, thorn in his side. He was reformed now. On the side of Good and all. Despite that, seeing the library in all its splendor still sent a twinge of annoyance through him. The fact that it was now going to be useful to him just further rubbed salt in the proverbial wound. As he approached the Librarian’s desk, he had to grudgingly admit that the guardian had done rather well for himself. The whole space thrummed with power and indeed, it felt almost alive. While he had known this through various past attempts at sabotage and the like, actually being here was something else.

“Good evening sir, I don’t suppose you could help me find a book on the magic systems of Universe T95D512SZ?” He asked with a pleasant smile, though his eyes revealed his latent irritation ever so slightly despite attempts to hide it.