HOC Reference Sheet: Sylvia Lafontaine

Sylvia Lafontaine

[ Goes by Sylvia or just Syl. She only uses her last name for formal introductions! ]

Twenty Years Old | November 10th, 1993 | Scorpio ♏

Female ♀

5' 8" | 121 lbs

Mutant

[ 3% Melanistic African Leopard | 0.5% Sacred Ibis | 0.3% Violet-backed Starling | 96.2% Human ]

European American

[ Martial ]

Unemployed

- One of Sylvia's major abilities is that she's able to read other people's minds! Seeing how she can go from medium to larger ranges, she can use this ability to track people down, or simply know what they're thinking. Sylvia can only read surface thoughts, but if she happens to make skin-to-skin contact with someone, she can delve a little deeper into their mind. She can even going as far as accessing recent memories or said person's secrets! It's very useful for getting information, sort of why the scientists tampered with it in the first place. However, she cannot reach repressed memories- and gets a headache if she over-does it. Oh, and the further away the person she's reading is, the more 'static' she hears, it's just like poor radio reception. She cannot turn this ability off without an excruciating migraine to come along with it, so sometimes, other peoples thoughts affect her dreams!

- Knowing what others are thinking isn't the only thing she can do! Sylvia's quite an accomplished psychic, and after years of testing and working with it, Sylvia can move objects with her mind. She can even move people- as well as make herself 'float' or 'glide' to substitute actual flying. (To put it more properly, she can levitate.) She isn't afraid to show off this ability, and if anything, it's the only one she's willing to reveal to others. (As not to arouse suspicion by saying she doesn't have other powers.) She does have her limits though, meaning that anything above four-hundred pounds is a huge no-no. She can try pushing it, but it's very, very risky. Putting too much strain on this ability can cause her major problems, after all. Such as a premature death or internal bleeding.

To an extent of her telekinesis, Sylvia can also put up invisible 'shields'/barriers around herself or others. This is, however, very new and very in the works. With that in mind, while her psychic energy is strong, the shields themselves are flimsy and easy to break through. With time and development, though, she should eventually be capable of making herself almost untouchable.

- Sylvia has something called telepathy, which is basically the reverse of her mind-reading. Sylvia can project her thoughts onto others, just as she can read theirs. (Perfect for secret conversations, or just to fuck with people.) However, this is a barely developed ability, and she can only focus on one person at a time when 'speaking' to them.  The thoughts she project can only be in certain pitches of her voice. It is her thoughts after all. She can also do mental images, with is perfect for giving people something they didn't want to think about. Those who are psychologically immune are not affected by her ability. Just like all of her psychic abilities, headaches do effect if she can do this.

- All of Sylvia's powers relate to the mind, meaning that getting a headache can really mess her up.  It doesn't help that all the mental stress of using said powers causes them! Lifting too heavy of an object can cause a headache, trying to listen to more than two people's thoughts at a time, the list goes on and on. A strong enough migraine can even completely disable her powers, rendering her helpless.

- Drugs that alter mental activity majorly affect her. She becomes overly emotional, and can become a danger to herself and others, as her powers go haywire. With her telekinesis, it's likely she'd end up throwing objects that can either crush or severely hurt herself or others. (Like large boulders, knives, etc.)

- Alcohol can severely affect her abilities, up to the point to where they can't work. It stunts her, and makes it impossible to call upon the concentration to move objects non-physically, make sure she doesn't blurt out answers to thoughts unspoken, and to function. It makes her a sitting duck, and much more likely to reveal what she is, as well as what she's normally capable of doing.

- Sylvia's bones are hollow and light, just as a bird's would be. While this is an advantage to weighing less, it's not very useful against heavy blows or withstanding things that can give a lot of damage. On average, a regular human's bone (depending on which one) takes only eight pounds of pressure to be broken. For Sylvia? It takes even less, making combat moves that are already lethal even more deadly when used against her.

- Sylvia has undergone surgery in the recent past, mainly below her shoulder blades. See, her bird DNA was actually mutating further, giving her the possibility of regaining her wings. However, the DNA she had was so little, so the wings that were developing ended up being more of a health hazard. Allowing them to develop further would only cause more pain, so Sylvia decided to have Natalie flat out remove them. Despite some time and healing up, the area around her shoulders is still tender, and can be exploited as a weak point.

- Large crowds can be a major problem! A lot of thoughts are usually flying around, as people never really stop thinking. So too much mental stimulation can cause a lot of distress for this panther mutant. It gets to the point that the many 'voices' of others thoughts can throw her into a panic, and possibly give her an anxiety attack! The more stimulation, the worse it gets, even to the point to where her powers short out. This is why she tries avoiding areas with too many people, despite her more social and outgoing personality.

Chaotic Neutral

[ Personal ]

Pansexual/Omnisexual

[ Vain | Flirtatious | Affectionate | Social Butterfly | Mildly Manipulative | Secretive ]

-

TBA

Karla Brandit - Lover
Natalie Fawn - Unsure/It's complicated!
Mit Enderson - Friend(?)/Aquaintance
Nite Lite - Stranger

Sylvia was born into a higher middle class family, with a father, a mother, and an older brother. Her life was pretty normal for the most part, or as normal as it was for most kids her age. She was a pretty decent kid, rarely sticking her nose into trouble and often times trying to do what her parents told her. A lot of times it cost some dignity, as her mother would love to put her in performance arts programs. Despite not liking it, Sylvia mainly did it so that she could make her parents proud of her. For the most part, it worked! Yet her mother was often reluctant with giving her daughter praise, and often showed favoritism towards her son. At the time, Sylvia didn't care to much, seeing how she often prefered her father's attention, anyways.

Sadly, around age twelve, Sylvia's parents went through a divorce, on the grounds that one of them happened to be cheating on the other. Never getting the story straight, the ex-couple still had to go to court to see just who would gain custody of their daughter. In the end, Sylvia's mother ruled out, getting full custody of her child as well as alimony from her former husband. This devastated Sylvia, and seeing how Paul was a legal adult at the time, she was left alone with her mother.

At first it wasn't so bad, it seemed that her mother was at least going to try and make it bearable- but once school came along, things went south. Constantly she harped, nagged, and complained to Sylvia about how her A's and B's could be straight A's. How her brother was on high honor-roll and was enrolled in a lot of extra activities. Sylvia tried her hardest to meet up with her mother's expectations, but after three years of nothing but mistreatment and yelling, she eventually just gave up. She was always going to be second best, so what was the point? Wanting to spite her mother, Sylvia ended up falling into a bad crowd. She was introduced to drugs, alcohol, and even sex. The last one was the one she grew to love most out of all three. First, she tried doing all this stuff under the radar, making sure her mother didn't know and that she wouldn't get yelled at about that too. Yet eventually..she became more open about it, doing so just to enrage her mother and indulge on her bad habits.

After a while of reckless behavior, she ends up being confronted by an old friend, being asked if she could go out on a nice walk to the park. Seeing how it was nearly night time and a perfect chance to stay out late and piss off her mother even more, Sylvia agreed to it. Her friend wasn't just there to catch up though, he was there to warn her about how her lifestyle might be a little too dangerous, especially at such a young age. Sylvia kept denying his words, and by the time they got to the park, they were bickering and yelling. Getting fed up with what he was saying, Sylvia left him behind and followed along a dirt path to clear her head. However, that was a big mistake, for as soon as she was out of sight, a pair of Itex workers quickly came into the scene and abducted her.

Hours after being chloroformed, Sylvia awoke to bright lights, and a lot of confusion. She saw needles, and masked faces, but it wasn't long before she passed out once again. After that day, things were a haze, as Sylvia was often in and out of consciousness. When she finally managed to keep awake without feeling overly sluggish, she found herself in a room that almost resembled a prison cell. She was trapped, and at the time, in an extreme amount of pain thanks to her genetics slowly being altered.

Her first mutations began to show a few days later, starting with a tiny bud on her tail bone and two bigger bumps around her shoulders. Eventually, it was revealed that she was growing both wings and a tail. The process wasn't pretty, and both mutations made movement unbearable for the most part. More mutations came, but none surpassed or caused as much pain as the previous one. After a few weeks, she began developing psychic abilities, which was both a surprise to her and to some of her handlers.

After a few months of tweaking with her DNA, the scientists finally decided to test her abilities to see what they had to work with. At first, Sylvia didn't comply, refusing to be some kind of circus act and perform for them. They applied a few methods to get her to listen, and finally, they settled on indulging her current addiction, sex. Using that to their advantage, not only did they get her to display her abilities, they managed to make her addiction worse to keep her under their thumb.

For over three years they work on developing her abilities, eventually getting her ready to be shipped to another base in Australia. This was when she made her first escape however, the mutant managing to break out of a slightly damaged crate and fuck with the current transfer. After she managed to escape, she flew as far as she could, for as long as she can, until eventually she found the camp. Learning that it was a safe haven for mutants such as herself, she stayed, deciding that it was better than being trapped in a base.

 After a year of being at the camp, multiple captures that involved more genetic splicing, and bouts of depression- Sylvia finally decided that she wanted to leave. Rounding up what little friends she had left, they headed out of the camp and into the unknown. Of course, this ended in them being captured and sent off to Scotland. A similar safe haven was found, but eventually the group left it for another - until finally the trio decided just to go where there weren't many other mutants or need for staff. It was settled that they'd all stay at Natalie's house, seeing how the deer mutant's parents were far more accepting and willing to put up with them than anyone else, currently.

- Sex
- Pokemon/Video games
- Sun bathing
- Summer months
- Meaty foods
- Sweet drinks
- Attractive people
- Attention
- B Movies

- Cold
- Winter
- Being ignored
- Much older women (Mommy issues ahoy.)
- Being wrong
- Sour foods

- Sylvia's voice sounds a lot like this.

- Thanks to Sylvia's animal genetics, she's capable of sawing, purring, chirping, and wide variety of birdy cat noises!

- Due to being an accomplished psychic, Sylvia is less susceptible to illusions and other 'mental' abilities. However, she is not immune, and can still be tricked/read/etc. The reading just won't be very effective, that's all.

- Sylvia is bilingual! She can speak both English and French, although she rarely does the latter as no one would understand her.

- She has scent glands in her cheeks, thanks to her big cat genetics. This means she can rub her face on things - or people - and mark it with her scent.

- Sylvia has feathers on her shoulder blades and just over her tail. She often violently rips the ones from her shoulders off. This is mainly because she feels it's sort of a 'mockery' to her lack of wings.

- She's quite upset that they keep growing back.

- The starling DNA has made it to where her hair and the dark splotches on her tail iridescent! This means that they shine a bright purple hue when sunlight hits them. If enough light hits Syl's hair, it can look completely purple, rather than black!