Name : Joshua Langford
Age :
Birthday : May 25th
Gender : Male
Nationality : Kiwi (Mixed Pacific Islander, Asian, and British)
Category : Civilian / Miscellaneous / NPC
Appearance Description : Joshua is a very tall man of six feet and seven inches in height. He has fair skin and light freckles dusted across the bridge of his nose. His hair is a sandy blond color and is cut to his shoulders. His eyes are dark lilac and strangely enough, he doesn't appear to have pupils. They faded away after his powers became active. Normally, he disguises this fact by wearing lab goggles around people he is unfamiliar with.
Joshua dresses simply in brown slacks and a light yellow button up shirt with short sleeves. He wears beige colored fingerless gloves. Around his wrists and neck are several chains of a sleek, shiny material that seems to shift between various shades of dark violet, black, and red. This material is carefully woven into lacework patterns and the details are not noticeable from a distance. As some people might observe, these chains make no sound.
Personality Description : Joshua has a distant personality and is not usually bothered by annoyances or bad news. Outwardly anyways. He likes to take his own sweet time with tasks, unless it's related to his eking out a living, and will simply blow off things or people that he doesn't want to deal with. Usually keeping to himself, Joshua does prove to be somewhat friendly when confronted but never really loses that aura of distance from other people. Emotions, both positive and negative, often don't show on him very well because he makes a conscious effort not to let them show through most of the time. Positive emotions in particular tend to embarrass him greatly.
A cynic at heart, Joshua doesn't expect too much from the world and simply wants to get on with his life. If he sees somebody in need of help, he might consider lending aid. But he's also just as likely to walk on by without a care. If the person is a woman, however, that's a whole different story. Even though he's less attracted to women than men, Joshua firmly believes in a certain code of chivalry. He'll probably complain about it as he goes, though. If somebody complains about it back to him, he will simply tell them to shut up about it.
Major Power : Darknova - Joshua has the ability to control all dark matter and dark energy. In fact, this is what the material of his jewelry is made of. He is able to tightly condense dark matter until the distortion of gravity is strong enough to bend and trap light. The streaks of black which frequently appear are from particles accelerating at high speeds inside. He keeps dark energy pockets wrapped around the condensed dark matter to ensure that its gravity won't rip nearby objects apart.
Joshua can form barriers or gravitational vortexes that will pull apart objects caught within them. Depending on how much energy he puts into it, these may or may not be somewhat visible due to particles in the air around them. His barriers can only pull matter to them, not deflect. So they would be good for arrows and bullets. Not so great for low tech bombs. For the latter, even if the barrier pulls the blast into it, if it explodes while on the barrier, there will still be a brief period when the explosion will hit people or objects nearby. Also, when the barrier is dispelled, the energy and matter still needs to go somewhere. As long as Joshua doesn't need to worry about other people or property damage, he's fine, though. When he makes vortexes, they are very difficult to control and he runs a risk of getting caught in them himself if he doesn't push away from them fast enough.
Minor Power : Burnout - All technology near Joshua is rendered useless, sometimes even blowing up due to the force of his main power. Mental based powers are also stonewalled because they can't penetrate the curtain of dark energy around him. Depending on how hard a mentalist attempts to use their powers on him, they might feel no effect from the failure or experience a blackout from trying too hard.
Using his main power, Joshua is somewhat able to put a cloak on this ability. It is far from perfect, however, and if he forgets to maintain it, it might slip right off. While this cloak in active, technology will simply start working very haltingly or stop working at all. It won't blow up or do anything destructive like that, so this is good. Since it causes a lot strain on him to keep up with, he prefers just to go on without it. This is a relatively new skill that he has picked up so it can be very simply disrupted by other people's powers at times.
Birth Place / Hometown : Christchurch, New Zealand
Occupation : Shopkeeper / Lace Maker / Doll Maker / Tailor / Jewelry Maker
Father : Edward Langford (Deceased 45, Died 36) Grocery Store Owner
Mother : Sophia Cook (Deceased 44, Died 35) Grocery Store Salesclerk
Sibling(s) : Anna Langford (Deceased 20, Died 11) Elementary School Student
Biography : Joshua was born a lower middle class family, fully unaware of his powers. His parents' marriage was not a happy one and throughout his childhood, they were always fighting, with accusations of infidelity on both sides. Though his first five years were somewhat peaceful due to a mutual agreement to try to create a normal life for their firstborn child, Edward and Sophia fell back into an unstable relationship after the birth of Anna, who Edward doubted was really his.
As their parents' marriage continued to descend into chaos, Joshua and Anna grew to become very close, with Joshua coming to act as a father figure to his younger sister. They weren't always happy growing up but it was a somewhat content life. Nothing remarkable happened, although Edward and Sophia came closer and closer to divorce. Then one day, Edward came in with the papers and demanded that Sophia sign them. Things snowballed into a huge, violent argument as the two argued over custody of their children.
Joshua can't remember much of what happened after Edward struck at Anna in frustration but it was that moment that his powers came out of their long dormancy. To put it simply, there wasn't much left of anything or anybody where their home had been. He doesn't like to think of that time very much. Not at all.
The letter from Starlight Academy came soon afterwards as he attempted to make sense of the destruction but his powers were observed to be too unstable even for the Academy itself. Preparations were made instead to send him to a private tutor. Though Joshua initially refused to go to Manta Carlos at first, he was forced to go by the Academy staff for the safety of everybody around him. Still shell shocked from accidentally killing his family, Joshua acted hostilely towards his assigned mentor, an old artisan lady named Martha. However, despite her age and appearance of weakness, Martha wouldn't take any kind of attitude from him and wore Joshua down until he finally accepted his new life.
Soon enough, Joshua came to see Martha as kind of a grandmother. The kind who would beat you over the head for being an idiot and then serve you cookies to make you feel better (about being an idiot). It was from Martha that Joshua learned about the community of Manta Carlos as well as some of the trades that he currently works in. Under her strict tutelage, Joshua managed to get his powers somewhat under control but never managed to do away with his tendency to fry major electronics.
After Martha died, she had no surviving family so Joshua inherited her estate. Nowadays, he owns a small shop called the Antoinette in the Underground, selling magical and nonmagical trinkets that he's come by. Among them are some of his own handmade dolls, clothes, and jewelry. Some are even created with his powers. He also gets some of his stock from Niccolò Belmonte.
Additional Information : Joshua lives in one of the oldest houses on the island without electricity, a fenced Victorian with multiple signs reading Warning! Anti-electronic field! People who enter the Antoinette are also warned of this before coming through the door.