Character Name:Series: DC New Universe
Age: Apparently she's like 17 in Kryptonian years and 24 in Earth years.
From When?: The beginning of Supergirl #18
Inmate/Warden: Kara has experienced what it’s like to be truly desperate and what it’s like to make a nearly catastrophic mistake. Having realized that H’el intended to sacrifice the entire planet Earth in order to bring back Krypton, she has learned just how easy it is to lie to yourself when you want something bad enough. She also has a very good understanding of what it’s like to be beaten down by life and to feel as though you can’t trust anyone. This gives her a perspective that will allow her to relate to a large number of inmates in a way that will help to build trust and an effective repertoire. She is also tough, resilient, and intelligent enough to make up for her young age, and not only because of her superpowers. Her household was exceptionally scientific even by Kryptonian standards, which also gives her a unique set of methods for dealing with problems that cannot be solved by punching something (she’s gotten a lot better at that.) When faced with a problem of an intellectual nature she can approach the problem scientifically and with a mind towards learning something new.
Item: A sunstone.
Abilities/Powers: Kara has all of the abilities of a Kryptonian exposed to radiation from a yellow sun. These abilities are particularly amplified and difficult for her to control as a result of her pod’s orbit around Earth’s sun while she was in stasis. These powers include super strength, speed, and stamina, invulnerability, heat vision, x-ray vision, a sonic scream, a sort of internal heat source that is capable of building to an explosion, and a lack of the need to eat or breathe.
Personality: When we are first introduced to Kara, what we see is a young girl who is lost and afraid. Despite all of the confusion and pain, her first instinct is to fight back. She may not have gotten far in her combat training back on Krypton but Kara is certainly a fighter in spirit. Part of the reason she has such a difficult time of it when she first arrives on Earth is her willingness to fight back in time of trouble. She is unable to communicate clearly, and in trying to defend herself she only draws more attention, which escalates until she is public enemy number one.
You could call Kara violent, but you could also call her passionate. She cares deeply for her family, even the extended portion that her father refuses to speak to. This explains why, when already vulnerable from her crash onto a strange planet far from home, she reacts to seeing her family's crest on a stranger with anger.
Even under the dangerous circumstances she finds herself in when she first lands, Kara doesn't want to hurt people. It's only when that stranger claims to
be her family she reacts with violence. He must be lying, which means that he must have something to do with her presence on Earth, which means he must have done something to her family. And when people she cares about are at risk Kara doesn't pull her punches. When she’s been hurt, she can be a touch vindictive, but she does not actively seek revenge.
She can be very stubborn and something of a loner. Once she sets her mind to something she is very difficult to convince otherwise. She likes to find answers for herself and is not overly trusting of others. But she isn't stupid, either. She can tell when more violence is only going to make things worse, she is a decent judge of character, and she can tell that someone who attacked her once but decided to save her life later is not her enemy. Even with all that information, making the 'right' decision can still be difficult, but for someone who quite suddenly found herself unable to communicate she does pretty well.
The people that she does attach herself to Kara will defend viciously. She throws herself into battle without thought in order to defend a girl who she's only known a few hours. Siobhan was the second person on Earth to try to defend Kara, and although it isn't enough to instantly win her trust it does gain some measure of loyalty. When shown kindness Kara is readily willing to make new friends and show them kindness in return. When she does make friends she stands by them no matter what. Kara's loyalty is fierce and it is allotted to everyone that she cares about.
For a girl who has been afraid almost constantly since the moment she crashed, Kara is incredibly brave. She experiments with her new powers in dangerous ways knowing that it might kill her, but determined to find the answers she's looking for. She never hesitates to start a fight when it's what she thinks is right.
When it comes to boys Kara is sadly clueless. This is somewhat cultural, as there is a tradition on Krypton of being paired based on genetic tests, and it's somewhat her inability to communicate well enough to flirt. Although she shows interest in Tom and he shows interest in her, their relationship is very tame and doesn't involve much in the way of meaningful glances or touches.
Barge Reactions:Kara has grown a lot from her time on the barge. She's learned about Earth, and trust, and love, and surviving both physically and emotionally.
From meeting (and usually befriending) a large variety of people on the barge she's learned which instincts to trust and which instincts not to. While her attitude about trust used to get her in trouble on a regular basis, now she has a much better handle on how to protect herself from the kind of people who would try to earn her trust for their own purposes. She still tries to make friends, but she's far more aware of ulterior motives than she was when she first came here.
Love she learned about mostly from rather strange conversations with Vergil Sparda and a combination of flood-type happenings. During the steampunk breach she gained a lot of knowledge about Earth culture as it was in that world, which is not too far from where it is now. She learned a little about history, but most of it isn't applicable. The cultural insight she gained in that breach helped her understand other perspectives and spoke to her desire to learn new things - it showed her that she wants to learn new cultural things, too, like dating and pre-marital sex.
While she never lost faith in Kylar Stern's ability to graduate, there were many times while he was gone when she was afraid that she would never be able to graduate an inmate. With a relatively safe environment, friends to talk to, and plenty of space and time to grieve in, she was finally able to mostly recover from the loss of her world and her old way of life. She came to terms with the knowledge that she might never go home, and even when she did she would be a different person from her experiences. She was able to embrace that possible future, and no longer places the fate of her planet above all other considerations.
She also learned a lot about using her powers, especially how to control them. This turned out to be a very important skill, as she was often thrust into circumstances which cancelled out her powers. She's grown somewhat dependent on that skill set, but she has learned through trial and error how to get along as an ordinary human in a superhero mindset - mostly.
Most transformative from her barge time is the year she spent in her own world after Kylar's graduation. She had an idea of what she wanted to do with her life beyond just seeing her family and friends again, and she was able to pursue it on her own. She decided not to maintain a secret identity like her cousin, but to travel between Earth and Krypton as an ambassador. This meant taking her place in an adult world, which required a lot of maturity gained very quickly. She also embraced the role of Supergirl, which was thrust on her when she first crashed on Earth and which she had refused because she had no desire to be a superhero. Now she understands that she cannot change her circumstances, and the only alternative to growing the hell up is being a terrible role model for everyone on not just one but two planets.
Kara will remember the barge as though she only went to sleep in her cabin and woke up months later. Unfortunately I don't think she's familiar with the story of Rip Van Winkle.
Path to Redemption: NA
Deal: The return of the shrunken city Kandor to its original size and home on Krypton, where there is currently just a really big crater and a lot of cut flowers.
History: hereSample Journal Entry: [ Kara is not the type that relishes asking for help. In general she prefers to work things out on her own and find her own answers. But she didn’t come here to stroke her ego. She came here because it could be her only chance to bring Krypton back without sacrificing billions of lives. She just has to remind herself that she knew it was going to be hard. Everything worth doing was hard. ]Hello. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Kara Zor-el. I’m having a bit of trouble and…
[ This is the part where she has to swallow her pride. ] I need help. I’ve looked in the library, and it’s been a big help, but there isn’t a lot of information on Earth culture in the… 21st? Century.
[ That’s the one, she thinks, probably. ] I’ve looked at Christian holidays and historical accounts, but they’re too clinical. It would be really helpful if someone could… I don’t know, maybe just sit and tell me about what it was like to grow up there?
[ And now she starts to get a bit nervous, because she didn’t really plan this out. You can tell because she starts chewing on her thumbnail between words. She’s not sure what she needs, just that she needs to know and more importantly, to understand. She’s sort of flailing. ]That sounds really boring, but if you’re interested at all I could tell you about Krypton in exchange. Anyway, I would really appreciate it.
[ And she shuts off the feed before she has the chance to look any more unprofessional. ]Sample RP: Kara had been on Earth for close to a month. In that time she was able to get a grip on most of her powers, but after she found her Sanctuary she spent most of her time there, where it was quiet. She couldn’t hear inside the rooms on the barge, but it was definitely not quiet. She knew she could go to her room or into the CES and have some peace, but she was here to do a job. Shutting herself away from the world wouldn’t help her inmate graduate. She had to learn to cope.
She sat cross-legged in the air, about seven feet above the deck. From here she could hear all of the goings-on of the barge, but she was out of the way enough that nobody would disturb her and she would not be in the way. She laid her hands gently on her knees and closed her eyes. Then she started timing her breaths. Ten in, hold for five, ten out. Like a wave, crashing on the shore, washing her feet, then pulling back in to the ocean.
She frowned. Somewhere downstairs somebody was shouting. Or were they just talking loudly? It was difficult to tell. She found herself listening in, learning about the stranger and their irritation with their warden, whom they felt didn’t allow them any freedom and treated them like a child. Well, she thought to herself, they were rather like children put in a very restrictive day care. That was the point, wasn’t it? Then she realized what she was doing and huffed. She started timing her breaths again. She had to focus.
This went on in a cycle for a good five minutes before she decided that it was time to try something new. She forced her brow to unfurrow and thought of the sky. Not the sky as it was here, full of starts and the strangeness of interdimensional space travel. She pictured the reddish blue sky of Krypton, the red sun Rao shining through the clouds. She timed her breaths. She thought of the sun reflected on the crystal buildings that towered over Argo. She thought of standing on the balcony of her parent’s home and looking out over the beautiful city. Her home. She would have it back soon.
She was pleasantly surprised when she heard a voice below her, calling her out of her revery. She hadn’t even heard them approach.
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