Karin Ansa

[Karin Ansa]

NAME: Karin Jessi Ansa
NICKNAME: Fire Ant
AGE: 15
GENDER: Female
ORIENTATION: Asexual
POSITION: Student
FACE CLAIM: Merritt Patterson

POWER:
Human Ant
Karin has many of the abilities and capabilities of ants.

While not nearly as strong for her size as her smaller ant brethren, Karin is substantially stronger than natural humans, roughly three times as strong. A pique human can lift around 350 lbs above their head. Once fully developed, Karin could have the ability of lifting around 1050 lbs. Where a pique human can squat around 900 lbs, Karin could eventually have the capability to squat around 2700 lbs. Her stamina is similarly roughly twice that of a natural human. Currently, as Karin is not yet fully developed, she is able to lift around 600 lbs above her head and squat around 1500 lbs.

Karin’s saliva is acidic. Similar to natural ants, her saliva is acidic enough to dissolve most organic substances including such things as meat, vegetables or fruit and leaves. It is strong enough to do damage to wood and some softer plastics but not strong enough to break them down entirely. If she were to bite a human, the acid is strong enough to create a painful burn but not strong enough to do significant damage. Breaking down or damaging substances such as metal, glass or stronger plastics would be beyond her abilities.

As a direct result of the above, Karin is able to eat and gain sustenance from many things as natural human would not. While she cannot safely eat anything that has gone rancid or that is actively poisonous, she is able to gain sustenance from nearly any other organic substance that can be broken down by her saliva. This can include such things as raw (but not rotting) meat and most types of plants and leaves.

Karin has a far superior sense of smell, comparable to that of a dog. Her smell is linked to her antennae and is good enough to use for tracking. Through her antennae alone she is able to determine the identities of individuals even if in disguise, assuming said disguise does not also modify their scent. Her sense of smell is so keen, in fact, that it results in a sort of olfactory map of the world around her which she relies on more heavily than her limited vision.

Karin can create and follow pheromone trails. This is effective so long as she is moving no faster than a bicycle and so long as she is not travelling within some manner of closed in vehicle such as a car. Different trails can be created with different pheromones.

Karin can detect vibrations in the ground. Without shoes, she is able to do so at a range of 20 ft. As a result and especially in combination with her enhanced smell, it is incredibly difficult to sneak up on her.

Karin has arolia on her hands and feet allowing her to climb up walls.


Side Effects and Limitations
Karin cannot digest solid food. It must first be broken down by her acidic saliva and then consumed. When eating conventional food, normally this isn’t much of a problem because the acids in her mouth will break it down immediately into liquid form. When eating less conventional foods, sometimes extra time is necessary. She has only a very limited sense of taste.

Because Karin’s sense of smell is tied to her antennae rather than her nose, they must be out and obvious in order to be effective. Additionally, she cannot put any scented shampoos or products in her hair otherwise they will interfere with her smell.

In order to follow her pheromone trails, Karin’s antennae must be out and engaged. Another mutant with an enhanced sense of smell or ability to otherwise detect pheromones could also follow her trails.

When Karin wears shoes, the effectiveness and range of her vibration sense is cut in half.

Karin has a very poor sense of sight. With eyes that are technically compound but without the range of vision that full compound eyes might grant her, she has all of the disadvantages of compound vision with few of the advantages. She can tell shape, colour and movement well enough to navigate in her day to day life but lacks in any details. Without her antennae, she would not be able to tell one face from another. She doesn’t have the detail in her vision to be able to read. In general, she relies upon her other senses more than she relies upon her vision.

While Karin is able to climb up most walls, the walls must be rough enough for her arolia to latch onto them. Unlike natural ants, she is too heavy to climb upside down on ceilings. In order to scale walls, Karin cannot be wearing footwear.



APPEARANCE SECTION: Karin is 5'6, athletically built with long dark hair. Her skin is pale although not unusually so. Usually, she is neat and clean if generally rather plain. Karin never wears makeup and, due to her relative inability to see, rarely makes eye contact with those she's speaking to.

Karin has two visible mutations which she normally takes the time to hide. First,Karin has foot long antennae protruding from the top of her head. They are light brownish red and have an almost feathered appearance, similar to that of a moth. The antennae are flexible and can be flattened against her head to hide within her hair. The antennae are entirely within her control to move and flex. They can be rotated nearly 360 degrees, move up and down or left and right. They can be flattened flush to hear head in order to be hidden within her hair or can be out and sticking up.

Second, Karin's eyes are slightly larger than normal human eyes and are compound. They are lacking in a pupil, white or iris.

MUST HAVE APPAREL: Due to Karin's inability to see detail, her clothing tends towards plain and usually lacks any sort of design or pattern. She dresses for comfort first and foremost. Unless inside the academy itself, she can almost always be seen with dark sunglasses in order to hide her unusual eyes. When walking outside, she usually uses a white cane for the visually impaired.

PERSONALITY SECTION: Karin is a girl who feels conflicted. She knows she shouldn’t be ashamed of being what she is and really, she doesn’t actually believe that there’s anything especially wrong with being a mutant. It’s just the fact that she can never quite fit in anywhere and, even if she could, it’s not like she can do the normal things that normal people are able to do. Not being able to see properly sucks, even with all the other cool things she can do that no one else can. The struggle to be a normal human with a physical handicap defined her life and then the discovery that she wasn’t really a normal human girl at all turned it all upside down and around.

Karin just doesn’t know whether her greatest desire is just to be normal or if she wants to truly embrace being one of the ‘freaks’. She knows she’s lucky in some ways; keeping her hair long plus some dark glasses and she can pretty much pass for human. A human with a disability, granted, but still a human. Some aren’t so lucky and on some days she’s grateful for what she has. On other days she wants to show the world what she and do so with the pride of knowing she can do amazing things that ‘normal’ humans could only dream of.

Karin suffers from self-esteem issues. Because of her inability to read, she believes others see her as stupid. In truth she’s rather bright, but she knows how others react to those with disabilities. As a result of her belief that everyone sees her as little more than a dull witted burden, it takes a lot for her to trust the good will of others. That someone might actually like her and want to be around her for reasons other than pity is a hard idea to swallow. Of course she wants to be liked and have real friends, but real friends are for those more fortunate than herself. Real friends are for those who aren'ta burden.

Because she sees herself as a burden, Karin dislikes asking for help nor does she like accepting it. She’s learned to work around the things she’s never been able to do and is only just starting to learn how to work the things she’s now able to do. She mostly keeps to herself and tries her best to simply not get noticed because if people don’t see her then they can’t judge her. She has a great desire to find a place and people for which she feels like she belongs, but her self-esteem issues almost always override any potential action to try and transform that desire into a reality.


EXTRA QUIRK: Karin doesn't wear scents because it interferes with her sense of smell.


FATHER: John Ansa
MOTHER: Cassie Ansa
SIBLINGS: n/a
PET: n/a
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: n/a
WORTHY MENTIONS: n/a


CHILDHOOD: From the moment Karin was born it was known that there was something a little off about her. It was her eyes and, more specifically, the fact that they didn’t quite work right. At the time of her birth they hadn’t yet acquired their compound nature, something that would happen later in adolescence, but even then they didn’t work right. Although she could see well enough to navigate and recognize what things were, she was deemed legally blind. Her world was a fuzzy blur filled with indistinct colourful shapes and there was little hope of ever correcting that disability.

Born to Cassie and John Ansa, Karin never had cause to feel unloved. She was their only child and if having a disabled child was sometimes a struggle, her parents loved her dearly and did what they could to make her life as normal as possible. In general, her vision problems weren't much spoken of nor the fact that the doctors were unaware of what caused them.

Karin was fortunate to grow up in an upper middle class household in which her parents could afford to send her to a private school for other disabled students. At Argent Academy, she was taught techniques to help survive and, it was hoped, one day thrive in the world despite her disability. While her lack of proper vision prevented her from ever learning to read, she was a clever student who enjoyed listening to audio books. From a young age it was those stories of fantasy, heroics and the odd ducklings being chosen to save the world that drew her rapt attention.

ADOLESCENCE: Karin's powers developed over the course about about 2 weeks. It began with crippling migraines from which the doctors couldn't identify the cause. Perhaps they were linked to the strange genetic defect that was her eyes. It seemed probably, they said, although no test they completed could confirm as such. The migraines continued for several days with some days bad enough to leave her bed ridden.

While the first few migraines seemed little more than the symptom of some unknown illness, it didn't take long for Karin to realize that there was something different about them. When the migraines stopped she was able to see, for a short period of time, better than she ever had in the past. 'See' was, perhaps, the wrong word to use but she didn't know what the right word was. Maybe she was going crazy and with everything else wrong with her, would that be so surprising? Afraid for the loss of her sanity, she didn't mention anything to her parents or anyone else.

Just as the migraines started to reduce in frequency, the other changes began and those happened quickly. It was terrifying when her saliva started burning things and her strength, inexplicably, began increasing. When her antennae started growing and her eyes started changing, that was when she was found and brought to the academy.


SAMPLE: It was her last night at home with her family and Karin found herself sitting alone on the third floor balcony of her house.  She looked down on the world and everything was the fuzzy blur that it always had been.  She had never been completely blind but there were also things she would never be able to see or describe.  The simple act of reading a book would always be denied her or to tell one face from another was impossible.

It was night and Karin was alone.  Slowly, tentatively, her antennae rose rose from the confines of her hair and the world took on a different form.  To describe what she saw was impossible because she didn't actually see anything at all.  And yet, things took on a new clarity and she could tell where one thing ended and another began.  She could perceive the differences in the people around her without having to hear their voices.  It was confusing still and she had only just started learning what her new senses meant for her life or how they worked, but it was exciting as well.  Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't always be resigned to a life where she was a burden to everyone around her.

USERNAME: Mage

AGE GROUP: 29

EXPERIENCE: Around 5 years.

WHERE DID YOU FIND US? Google

[Fate]

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