Name: Rose Kemp
Code Name: Probably just "Rose."
Age: 19
Power: Innate Vine Growth

Rose grows extremely strong flowering vines from her body; they are motile, attached directly to her nervous system, and react to her desires without the input of conscious thought.  She can currently grow roughly a half-dozen of them, and they can extend nearly ten yards, can trap and restrain foes, or move Rose along with impressive speed.  She can regrow them, as well, and they're connected to her nervous system, reacting to her desires without conscious thought being necessary.  She does receive sensory input from them, including a sense of touch, heat and cold, and pain.

Personality:

Rose is generally upbeat and positive, as well as highly empathetic-- if she sees a friend or even a stranger who appears to be distraught, she'll probably go to help them.  She's developed that trait in part because of the long period of time that she's been hiding her own thoughts and feelings from herself (as well as others), and she's still not entirely comfortable expressing her own inner feelings.  Her preferred approach for many problems is encouraging some kind of group activity, and inviting whoever's sad or lonely to participate, in the hopes of turning it into something fun for everyone.

Rose finds her powers a bit embarrassing at times, especially the tendency of her flowering vines to act on her subconscious desires and feelings.  She likewise finds her intellect embarrassing, for she was raised to regard smart women as suspicious if not dangerous.  She's only beginning to come to terms with who she really is, and desperately wants some acceptance for herself as she does so, which is one reason that she's participating in this program.

Physical Description:

Rose is very tall for a girl (181 cm, and 73 kg), and very athletic, with a surprising amount of muscle.  She has tanned skin, long, wavy honey-blonde hair, and large, clear blue eyes, very much a certain archetype of American beauty, but nowhere near skinny enough to be a model.  Her voice is a bit low-pitched (alto rather than soprano), and she speaks with an unmistakable Texan twang.

She tends to dress fairly conservatively, in long skirts or jeans and blouses, and always wears a gold chain with a small cross on it, a present from her late grandmother.  She tends to dress in white or pink, and is more comfortable while wearing light make-up, nail polish, and so on.

Background:

Rose was born in the small town of Santa Perlita, TX, and lived there most of her life.  She was raised in an extremely closed-minded Texas Baptist community, with a strict set of standards and values, and the belief that she would grow up, get married to some man her family approved of, and start producing grandchildren that would be raised the right way in her church.  A natural athlete and very pretty, she inevitably found herself a cheerleader as part of involvement in the most sacred of all Texas traditions (football), and attempted to live a happy, normal life.  She was never going to succeed in this for several reasons, including her inquisitive, questioning mind that challenged the assumptions of the society around her, and her utter lack of interest in dating boys, while spending time with, and getting very close to, girls was much more interesting in ways she couldn't bring herself to admit to.

Perhaps her tendency to repress her own true nature contributed to the delay in the expression of her mutant powers; her only hint of them, for many years, was waking up to find rose petals in her bed for no apparent reason.

Her secretly disquiet normal life ended, though, when a spurned young man decided to erase his shame by trying to murder his ex-girlfriend with a high-powered rifle in the middle of a high school football game.  After the first shot fired, Rose found herself acting without a moment's thought, long, powerful vines exploding from her body to deflect further shots and capture the gunman, bending the barrel of his rifle into a circle as they went.

But the game had been televised on local access.  Rose had had her mutant nature revealed to all of Texas, and shortly thereafter, the entire world, and her family rejected her.  For a time, she lived with her disreputable Aunt Kate in Austin, but when this new program came along, Rose knew that she had to participate.  This is what she was meant to do.

Other Information

Rose is extremely intelligent and has been educating herself as best she can for the past year.  She's a great athlete from her cheerleading, and considers herself devoutly Christian, but her personal theology has been considerably revised, and is still changing.  She's a good cook, if you like old-fashioned American family cooking.

Hobbies:  Listening to music, singing along, dancing, jogging, swimming, any kind of whole-body athletics practice.
Likes:  Music of all kinds.  Doing things with friends, whether it's making cookies, bowling, seeing movies, or fighting giant killer robots.  Reading.  Shopping.  Dressing in pretty clothes.  Mooning over pretty girls.
Dislikes: Being hit on by guys.  Closed-minded views on religion, from any direction.  Bullies.  Being condescended to.  Having her intelligence insulted or underestimated.  Eating seafood other than fish.
Sexual Orientation:  Lesbian
Relationship With Family:  Rose's mother, father, uncles, nieces and nephews will not talk to her and have taken to denying that she exists.  Her little sister Rebecca still writes to her secretly, and she's very close to her aunt Kate as well as Kate's girlfriend Layla.
With Friends:  Most of Rose's old friends cut her off completely, with the exception of Sarah Miller, the girl who Rose outed herself to protect.  Sarah stays in touch via discrete email and text, and seems to find Rose's new life fascinating, and was even accepting of Rose's sexual orientation.