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Name Calista Ivers
Age 26
Code Name TBA
Height 5'5"
Weight 125 lbs
Occupation Photographer
Costume TBA
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Strengths
Computer Nerd - Motorcyclist - Strong Spatial - Understanding - Remarkable Memory - Amenable
Weaknesses
Too Trusting/Too Optimistic - Too Meticulous - Shady Work Habits - Unskilled Civilian - Soft Hearted
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Shapeshifting
Calista will never be able to completely change her biology. This means that she won't be able to ever change into an animal, or take on the face of another human. This ability instead allows Calista to choose one part of her body, and apply a shift in that one area only - she may only shift that body part into either an inanimate object, or, when she beings to train and get to know her powers more intimately, perhaps even weapons.
For example, if Calista has decided that she wished for her hands to turn into a certain ID card - it will happen. However, if she needed her right elbow to turn into some hook for whatever reason, she will have to drop the shift on her hand, in order to pull off the next desired transformation.
Weaknesses
At the moment, Calista only knows how to shift into things that she knows well and regularly uses - like a pencil, her home keys, and occasionally the electronic ID card she needs to slide across her door to get into her designated office.
She can only transform one part of her body at any time [this rule stays no matter how much experience she may get throughout the roleplay].
Presently, and in the near future, the transitions between each transformations will be slow and horribly uncomfortable for Calista. [However, in the far future, I plan to have her be able to transition through shifts easily, though it will irritate and leave her arm spasming if she overexerts herself.]
Digital Manipulation/Hacking
The most basic way to think of this ability is to liken it to something that's like 'information extraction' - at Calista's level at least, for the next long while. This particular superpower makes it so that when Calista makes contact with machinery, she essentially intrudes as an an auxiliary admin may have access to whatever the machinery may hold, information or otherwise - while this doesn't make her a cyborg, whenever she does use this ability, one may assume that her human behavior and thoughts are dimmed, overridden by the flow of digital signals that she needs in order to understand the languages and codes of the machinery.
This isn't something that Calista actually understands herself, it is something completely unexplored, since she does fear getting a visit from the feds about hacking things and whatnot - or worse, if she were to stumble upon some great scandal and needed to be 'silenced'. In the beginning, where Calista may first truly exercise this particular ability, she will find it most easy to make a connection and properly manipulate cameras - of most kinds.
An example of her executing this ability while at a very novice level, would be if she were to follow someone suspicious in an hotel. Upon visiting the control room, she'd simply connect with the main control system, and bring herself into the camera records - scrolling through a particular time frame to find whatever it is she needs, the date and time, and whatnot.
It's very basic, and things that even normal people may be able to do - but with time, this may be Calista's greatest asset to bring people the comfort and protection they may need in the far future.
Weaknesses
At the moment, Calista has to make physical contact with the machinery in order to be granted access. This means she might actually have to climb a ladder and fondle a security camera, or crawl through vents to sneak into some control room to properly take whatever information she needs - she is unable to remotely extract information using a private or tertiary system.
She is limited as to how much information she can take - as she is very much in tune with her humanity, there will be multiple times in where she may suddenly find herself 'overloaded' with the digital signals. It isn't dangerous to her health in any way, but she will be unable to rearrange and string the codes together from overexertion, and conversion of languages and signals jamming against one another. She will be unable to, for a very long time, to properly balance both digital inputs and human processing at the same time - which means she will have to remain stationary while receiving the digital signals, or ignore any incoming signals to properly tend to her human functions.
While Calista officially deals with computers for a living - and photography, but still - she still has to learn a whole lot about illegally breaking through walls, erasing her traces, multiple different coding languages, making her own languages and algorithms before even contemplating on more complex uses with this ability.
Future Growth
In no particular order, and does not encompass absolutely everything I have in mind with this
1. When Calista begins to make her own codes and programs, she can then begin to insert them into the machines she connects with - so instead of just taking existing information from the the machine, she can begin to implant her information - false or true - into the database/system/etc. (Ex. A facial recognition method)
2. When she is familiar enough with the workings of several typical machine systems, she may be able to connect to them from a safer distance - without the need of actually fondling the machinery - and use another computer, or even a phone, to get what she needs from an outside system.
3. In the far future, if she learns how to get through firewalls, and read different codes, she may be able to do way more than just getting information - opening electronically locked doors with passwords and whatnot, turning off the lights of the building, control the timing of elevators, etc.
4. Tentative Last Level: Retaining her full human functions while receiving information [though not necessarily doing the more complex abilities]. Example, walking into a shoot out and getting the enemy numbers, who may be armed, who is closest/easiest to throw something at, is there a visible hostage [picked up from cameras], escape routes, etc. This will require Calista actually being able to compute both digital information and physical concrete authentic information before her very eyes - literally, I don't plan on doing this until a very, very long time.
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At a glance, many are right to assume that Calista is an earnest person. Firstly, she is someone who always does her best to steer herself along the right path, guided by her strong moral compass. Or, as some may say, her naivety and optimistic perspectives often take lead and bring her nothing but trouble. She is a very honest person, nearly incapable of lying - lying well at least - but she is most sincere in her compliments and her words, never failing to truly convey her interest or her genuinity to those she may address.
She is a bit of a quiet person, but only because she spends more time alone than she does with others - though not necessarily by choice. She can be a little shy, but who wouldn't be when they're usually found with some of the raunchiest/cheesiest/lamest romance novels in their hands most of the time? Calista is definitely a bit of a bookworm, but never fear, for she enjoys human conversation so much more than the fantasies that she loses herself in at times.
That being said, while she does enjoy having friends and being a good friend at that, she does have a low tolerance for things that simply drain the life out of her. She is easily uncomfortable hearing about the negatives in a person's life. She will lean a shoulder and an ear, but like they all say, lines have to drawn somewhere - and Calista never really knows where that lies, but if the situation is just a bit too sour and salty for her taste, she will give the person the space they need. She simply isn't well equipped to handle drama or some of the more darker aspects of life. Surely, whoever believed that she was someone with good advice at hand would appreciate her leaving them be too.
Perhaps the best quality that Calista prides on having is how her perspectives hardly change. She is very much her own person, in a sense where she seldom finds comfort by 'strength in numbers'. Mostly unafraid to step out and play both devil and angel's advocate when needed. It is hard for Calista herself to even pinpoint where exactly her passions lie, and as such, she has an easier time finding and seeing both sides of the lens - so to speak.
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Calista's parents were both powerhouses in their fields. One was a top tier lawyer, and the other a highly reputable doctor. Growing up under such shadows had always played a huge factor in the ever fluctuating levels of Calista's self esteem, not to mention her dreams and goals. Even at a young age, Calista had been a well disciplined child, always preening under the praises of her parents and teachers. In all honesty, she simply looked up to her parents, both of whom while swamped with their work, still managed to give her a fulfilling childhood, giving into [most] of her [reasonable] demands.
They were basically Calista's childhood heros, and still are to this day. Both excelled and made saving people part of their everyday life, and while her parents had laughed at the comparison, Calista had so firmly believed that no one could ever top them, that nobody could measure up or actually stop them. Alas, as she grew up, she came to discover that just like any other human, they weren't invincible or impervious to the ill will of others.
In one of her mother's' more complicated and dangerous cases, the entire situation had spiraled out of control - which unfortunately, would seem to happen when organized mafia crime was involved. Their house had been tampered with when they arrived home from a family dinner night out, though they weren't sure if anything had really been taken, her parents had immediately went through procedures to make things right once more. It wasn't the same after that though, the case continued, and of course, being a professional hit, little to no evidence was found of that incident. Calista had just a bodyguard and a few official looking people shadowing her from time to time as the case continued though, for her safety.
When things escalated though, they took her out from her school into a safehouse of sorts. This was when Calista was just about 18, and more than terrified for her family. Pleading and screaming at the officials hadn't done much to get her out of the situation, and that was when her powers came to be. At the time, the relief and smugness within her had made her overlook the entire thing - her arm had turned into a ... bat of sorts, and in her haste to smash the window to pieces, she failed to realize that she hadn't grabbed for one like she had thought for the next few years. So she escaped that little safe house - though she did leave a post it note on the fridge for her handlers - and immediately went to seek out her mother and father.
Long story short, Calista eventually found them held at another safehouse, one that hadn't been too heavily guarded, though the door was definitely one beautiful piece of technologic work - she'd simply unconsciously called on her powers, her desire overriding her senses, and unlocked the door easily. The whole case eventually cooled down, though the family decided to move away from the terrible memories, and it was through that experience that Calista found the confidence in herself to go for what it was she really wanted to do, at least for a little while - capturing the moments of life.
It wasn't as cool as her parents' job, and hardly a heroic one, but this was something that her parents supported wholeheartedly, and brought out the best qualities, the positive ones, from their daughter, one that they were so proud and so delighted to be witness to on most days.
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Calista stood rigidly by the small window. Her legs were shoulder width apart, and her arms were raised, though tucked close to her body as the camera was held firmly in her hands. In such a position, one would barely notice if she moved, twitched, breathed even ... which meant that when she chose to snap the shot, it should turn out just as still, and unmoving. Lightly inhaling, Calista's eyes darted from side to side, from one side of the lens to the other. Admittedly, there wasn't too much within her field of focus right now, but she knew that her time would come. After all, this was a little side project of hers that she had been looking into for just a bit over a week for now, and tonight, she would launch it.
Several minutes later, she caught a shadow coming in from the top right side. Stopping the circulation of her breathing, Calista completely froze up. The grip on her camera strengthened, and the finger hovering over the shutter was now lightly caressing the button, more than ready to reflexively snap whenever she needed to. A couple of seconds later, a man walked right into view, and Calista felt the tiniest bubble of relief wash over her, that meant that the first step of her plan had been correct.
The man continued walking, eventually stopping right next to a plain silver car. Clearly, he wasn't in any kind of a rush to get anywhere, as he took his time unlocking the car and making slow progress in actually opening the doors. As the man wrapped his hands around the handle of the door, Calista's shoulders dropped, forcing the tension to leave - the money shot was going to come by quick, and she would be damned if some nerves got in the way of her task.
Just as the man slid half of his body into the car, Calista's finger immediately snapped down onto the shutter. There was an audible flickering sound - the picture had been taken. But Calista didn't have the time to check if it was as good as she hoped it was. She snapped down once more on the shutter, this time capturing the car's license plate. As the car drove off out of her field of view, Calista exhaled loudly, inhaling quickly right after.
Slightly lightheaded, she took a few steps back and fell onto the bed behind her. It was a horrible habit of hers to hold her breath whenever she needed to take a picture, but this was the first of many of her small side projects, a project that often bit into her integrity more often than not when she first planned it out. Perhaps with some time, she'd find herself comfortable enough to snap pictures left and right out of the blue without minding the invasive actions she was partaking in.
She spent the next few minutes shuffling through the two pictures that she had taken, a small smile blooming on her face as she noted that both pictures were exactly as she had imagined. That took care of step two. Just as she was running herself through the next step, her cell phone lit up, and peeking at the message, Calista decided that she'd forward those pictures to Katherine, the journalist who needed an edge, tomorrow. She had a family dinner to get to.