Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
Hobbies and Interests: Urban exploration, Alternative music, Photography
Gift: Walkin' on Sunshine
Power Details: Javi can walk on air like it was stairs, and with little more exertion than climbing stairs. The effect extends to jumping and climbing, and it is almost physically impossible for Javi to fall, since he must effectively go horizontal in order for his Gift not to simply catch him. He does not appear to have a height limit, but practically speaking does suffer from environmental effects (e.g. wind, temperature) the higher he goes.
Limitations and Drawbacks: The primary problem with Javi's power is that it is involuntary and requires active effort to counteract. If he so much as raises a foot off the ground, he has to push down in order not to rise up through the air; he frequently shuffles his feet as a result. It is also difficult for him to make a controlled descent in any kind of timely fashion; as soon as both feet are off the ground he must grab onto something to manoeuvre himself down, or else wait for his Gift to allow him to drop to the floor. This descent is very slow, only around a foot every minute. If, for whatever reason, Javi loses all vertical orientation while in the air, he will begin to fall. While it is possible for him to arrest a fall by getting his feet or hands underneath himself, this impacts his body in the same manner and at the same force as if he had hit the ground at the speed he had been falling.
Appearance: Javi is 5'5" and a slightly heavyset 155 pounds. He carries a lot of weight around his hips, rather more than he is comfortable with. He has strong calf and thigh muscles due to the efforts of pushing against his Gift. He wears a binder in order to compress his chest and mitigate the size of his breasts. He is Mexican-American, and has light brown skin. He has dark brown eyes, slightly rounded cheeks, a small nose, and a cupid's bow. He has two ring piercings in the helix of his right ear. His hair is brown, cut short on the sides and longer on the top.
Javi favours looser clothing, as he does not like his body shape. He usually has a drawstring stowed in his pockets or tied around his arm to use as an impromptu grappling hook for his Gift. His sneakers tend to be very scuffed, since he drags them along the ground a lot. When he was abducted, Javi was wearing a white sports hoodie over a plain black tshirt, stretch fit jeans with a belt, and battered off-white sneakers.
Background:
- Javi was born in Bend to Miguel and Ana, who both worked night shifts in the same gas station. Javi was often looked after by his abuela due to his parents' hours.
- Javi was AFAB, and by the age of ten, was confident in feeling that his assigned gender did not match his own. He did not tell his family until he was fourteen, when he was unable to hide how miserable he was feeling with puberty. The reaction was cool at best, and his immediate family did not offer any real support, hoping that he would grow out of it.
- Javi's main support came from his cousin Rio, who was gay, and his uncle (Rio's father, Miguel's brother) Gabriel. Rio asked her father to speak to Javi's family, and Gabriel had a long talk with them about the topic. Subsequently, Javi's parents allowed him to begin presenting male and wearing a binder, but do not always gender him correctly or use his correct name, especially when talking to friends and family. Javi began speaking to specialist doctors when he turned eighteen, but finances are a barrier to affording the right specialist care.
- Because of his frequent use of his Gift, Javi has come up with a couple of tricks to get himself down from high places more easily. He usually carries a drawstring with an L-shaped piece of metal tied to one end, which he uses to hook around anchorpoints on walls/buildings.
- Javi does not like to spend time at home due to his challenging relationship with his parents. He spends most of his time at the library with Rio, using his Gift to reach difficult-to-access locations (and taking photographs there), or working part time at a record store. He sometimes is able to gain extra money by selling photos or cleaning up roofs/ceilings.
Other Skills: Cimbing