General Information

Real Name Orla Applegate
Current Alias Rapunzel
Marital Status Single
Classification Super

Characteristics

Gender Female
Age 37 (05/07/1981)
Height 5'08"
Eyes Hazel
Hair Blonde
Discovery April '97
Abilities Hair Manipulation
Empathy

Extended Information

Nickname Blondie
Sunshine
Relatives Montgomery Applegate
Christina Marie Applegate
Claudia Applegate
--- Dalley
--- Dalley
Kathryn Dalley
--- Applegate
--- Applegate
Sexuality Heterosexual
Handler Kingfisher
Occupations Waitress
Campaign Lackey
Reg Recruitment Feb '18

Orla is the personification of sunshine and light with brilliant blonde hair and stunning green/blue eyes. She is a statuesque young woman, athletic and toned with a penchant for fitness, usually in a combat heavy exercise routine, keeping herself healthy is important, as her mother passed away when she was young due to health complications.

Usually, Orla's hair is vibrant looking, glossy and long -but not unmanageable long. Her powers mean she can change the length to suit herself, although she tends to keep it a healthy, mid-back length to suit her lifestyle. Which is usually all go- which means she keeps it casual, jeans and loose shirts with tank tops and boots, generally flat boots for walking or running. She's got a bit of a tom-boy style, something that she feels suits her the best, although she was used to dresses and heels when she was at home. She just avoids them for now because of the time it takes to get gussied up.

Orla does have the general sunny presence that goes with her personality, she generally has a smile, even when she maybe doesn't feel like smiling, and tries to have a warm and engaging presence in general. Sometimes she can be a little bit scattered, usually because of the emotional build up she battles, but it lasts as long as she lets it, and Orla favours being warm and open to frowning and dour.

Orla is exceptionally idealistic, this was cultivated at a young age by her mother, who she sadly lost early in her life, but Orla held strong to the lessons her mother taught her. She has the inherent belief that people are good, even when the evidence doesn't support her optimism, and is forever offering more chances, even to those who don't exactly deserve them. She's chosen to see the good in as much as she can, despite constant let downs, and tries her hardest to keep upbeat all the time.

She's very much a live-and-let live type, she understands not everyone sees things that way, but she does what she can to avoid imposing her own values on others, attempting to give people the benefit of the doubt. So long as her belief system isn't challenged in the act, Orla will support whoever she can in their own attempts to live their life and truth, she's very open minded and supportive in general.

At times, Orla can be very reserved with people, prone to watching than automatically jumping in with her own opinions. She can get overwhelmed at times, because it's hard to Orla to not try and help people, and while she has suffered in the past from helping people who she maybe shouldn't try to help, she keeps trying. She can be described sometimes as being too altruistic, she can give so much that there's little left for herself. It doesn't stop Orla from trying though.

With her friends, she's very open, openly caring and affectionate, very loving and supportive and a steady ear to listen to. She'll always put her friends needs before her own and rise to any occasion where they need defending or helping. She will put herself at risk if it protects someone else.

While she is prone to forgiving people, even those she shouldn't, Orla isn't entirely naive, she understands when people really aren't going to change, no matter how hard she might want them to. She will give second, third and even fourth chances, but Orla doesn't forget the slights inflicted in the past.

Orla's implant is sufficient to control her powers when needed, however her disposition means it's rarely used. At times where there's a lot of stress in the group, Orla might request her implant is triggered to mute her empathy which can lead to some distress for her. However, turning off her empathy also means turning off her hair manipulation and therefore leaving her vulnerable.

Hair Manipulation

Orla has the ability to manipulate hair, both her own and other peoples; she can alter the length, texture, colour and movement. Due to the fact that hair does not have nerves and isn't directly affected by changes in the nervous system, Orla is largely unaffected by attacks or damage to her hair, able to simply regrow or mount another attack.

Orla is able to use her hair offensively in a series of attack styles; as expanding hair bolts which expand rapidly and snap at objects, as hair blasts of larger groups that expand to impact objects and people, a hair wave emission which generates waves of hair to cause wind blasts and hair combat, where she can make her hair take on the form of a solid, like a hammer head or a fist, and use it to attack.

Orla's hair can act as tendrils to move, gather or direct things, allowing Orla to use her hair as extra appendages, she can make her hair longer or shorter and strengthen it greatly, making it strong enough to hold a great weight. Using her hair, Orla could grapple to a ledge or hook and pull herself up by manipulating the hairs texture, strength and length.

Limitations: Orla is limited to what she can see. While she can make other peoples hair respond to her, she has to be able to see them and their hair to do so, she cannot overrule genetic conditions like alopecia, and if someone removes themselves from her presence their hair will revert to how it was before her manipulations.

Orla can only control and manipulate head hair, she has not been able to control hair follicles on the arms or any other body part. Additionally the hair has to be connected, cut hair is rendered useless or 'dead', it does put Orla closer to danger in some regards, as she needs to be within a certain proximity to what she's doing.

Is exceptionally vulnerable to ice or fire powers due to damage to the hair.

Empathy

Orla also have the power to interpret and replicate emotions, she can read people's feelings in ways the telepaths can read thoughts, able to pick up small nuances in people that don't come across in thoughts. Orla herself is capable of reading a room of people and picking out each individual's emotional signature, the thing that tells them apart from all the others, she can sense their moods and temperaments and even manipulate them slightly. Orla's ability can be used on numerous people at once, but she can only use one emotion on a group, she can't isolate people enough to set off different emotions. This is primarily good for crowd control.

Empathy can be used offensively, picking an extreme emotion and amplifying it to the point of intensity to subdue an adversary. Orla has rarely implemented this part of her power and loathes using it to cause anyone pain. Orla generally uses her empathy to sooth and subdue in a more gentle manner, if she has to use it on people at all. Most of the time, she doesn't like manipulating emotions and keeps her empathy to herself, reading people rather than manipulating them. She does feel okay about using a sense of calm for people who are aggiated, without fully altering a persons emotions.

Limitations: Orla needs to have line of sight on people to utilise her empathy, she cannot use it on people if she cannot see them in some manner -even through a window or scope, just looking at a picture does not work. Additionally, Orla is limited to influencing one emotion at a time, she cannot influence one person with anger while simultaneously influencing another with calm. This power can, at times, get overwhelming if she senses too many people for too long.

Montgomery and Christina weren't sweethearts, they weren't first love or even true love, they were just ... good together. With a family like the Applegate's, very well to do in real estate across the country, there needed to be a proper match within the social hierarchy. Christina's family weren't quite as well known or connected as the Applegate legacy, but her upbringing, wealth and attractiveness made her a suitable match for Montgomery. That she was also fairly meek and soft spoken was a bonus.

The pair were married young, expected to begin their family quickly and provide the next generation of fortune owners. Within a few months of the wedding, Christina's pregnancy was confirmed and soon after a daughter was born. It would've been better if Orla were a boy, but it wasn't the biggest let down, Christina was young and the potential for a son soon after was still present.

As a child, Orla wanted for nothing. Her father wasn't around much, but her mother doted on her; pretty dresses, stories, picnics in the garden, creative games in the play room. Orla had all she needed. When she was five, Christina fell pregnant again, excitement was a buzzing part of all of their interactions as they planned for the baby.

Until tragedy stuck, and in a flash, Orla lost her mother and potential sibling.

Family Growth

For the next several years, Orla was raised primarily by nannies; Montgomery was far too busy to deal with his young daughter who couldn't quite grasp why her mother wasn't coming home. Orla escaped into the fairy tales her mother had read to her for several years, going so far as to sneak them out of the library at home when her father declared her too old for such silly nonsense.

Things didn't really change when Claudia entered their lives. It was always expected that Montgomery would remarry, that he chose someone just as wealthy and closed off as him shouldn't have been a surprise. Orla had been hoping her new mother (step-mother, she was reminded constantly) would fill the hole in their family and bring the fun back to their lives, she was sadly mistaken.

Claudia wasn't cruel, not entirely. However she made it clear that Orla was not her child, would never be her child and had no right to expect to be treated like hers. Claudia came with her own children, and while Orla attempted to befriend her step-siblings, she was cruelly mocked for her optimism and open naivety.

Home life was somewhat bleak, and while Orla was near the top of her class at boarding school, very little seemed to impress her father or gain his attention. Even less so when Claudia finally gave him the son he'd been wanting. As the nannies were more involved in the raising of the new baby, Orla's half-brother, she was able to get some respite from the cruelty of her step-siblings through the unbiased love of a baby. Orla took to reading her favourite stories to the baby when the nannies needed a break, or when the baby was fussy through the night. For the longest time, Orla's baby half-siblings were the only source of positive familial love in her life.

Power Development

And then Orla compounded the mistake of her birth. Aside from being female, Orla turned out to be part of the Super population. She'd always had luscious hair, golden yellow like her mothers, and sometime wild and glowing like sunlight. She coveted her hair, taking great care of it, since a lot of the girls at school were utterly jealous and it felt like one of the best things in her life. It turned out to be more than that.

During a summer at home, near her sixteenth birthday, Orla discovered the power her hair had. Her step-brother accidentally bumped the baby's chair, causing a topple, no one was close enough to catch the little one from falling, except she didn't fall. From almost six feet away, Orla had managed to stop the fall, completely on instinct. Using her hair.

The commotion kicked up instantly, Claudia denouncing Orla all over again, Montgomery disgusted, Orla was banished to her rooms for the remainder of the summer, not permitted near any of her family and called all sorts of names. The staff were told she was sick, exceptionally contagious, and it was a genetic flaw from her mother.

By the end of the summer, Orla had been denied human contact for so long that she felt utterly disconnected. Reaching out for anything, she discovered that her hair wasn't the only power she had. Orla was able to sense every emotion in the house, from the innocent and uncomplicated contentment of the baby and toddler to the disgust and contempt of her father, the ridicule of her step-siblings and the resentment of her step-mother. It almost seemed impossible to turn it off, to dampen it down. After just a week of the barrage, Orla had enough, she took her trustfund, packed up what little she wanted and left.

Activism & Regiment

The streets were a complex place for Orla. She hadn't really been on her own before, and she was still exceptionally young and inexperienced. Not wanting to dip into her trustfund (which she moved to a smaller bank) too much, finding a small apartment and a job in a diner that was known for taking in runaways. It gave her contact with numerous people, including some rather nurturing older women who gave Orla a sense of direction and some support.

The diner helped Orla to learn to harness her powers, able to feel the people around her but not interfere, able to keep her hair from helping or hindering in any way. She got a taste of the political hunger there too, before one of the other long term diner girls mentioned the Pennsylvanian Senator who was running with a pro-super stance. A few days later, Orla and her friend were out in Pennsylvania, volunteering to help with the campaign.

It fell through in the end, but Orla decided to stay relatively local, keeping up some of her activist habits, maintaining her friendships with the people she met through it. Including a fellow Super, Alejandro Vargas, one of the others who'd been working on the campaign. She decided it was best for her to stick around when Alejandro got caught up with a group of young rebels, super powered kids who had a penchant for slightly more outspoken revolutions.

Orla stayed around primarily to make sure that Alejandro didn't get too caught up in the crazy, her attempts failed, and after one of the group was caught, it was only a matter of time before the rest were rounded up, and that included Alejandro. Orla made the mistake of going back afterwards to see if any of them had avoided being found, if she could help any of the kids or not. It got attention on her, and after a short time, she was cornered and taken in to detention herself. After a few weeks in a facility in Ohio, Orla was scheduled for transfer to the Washington facility.

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