Sharon Quatrevaux [NPC]

[Marshall Quatrevaux]

Sharon Quatrevaux

Full Name: Sharon Caroline Quatrevaux (neé Franklin)
Age: 60
Civilian or Special: Special
Currently Located: Grand Isle, Louisiana, USA
Affiliated with: Hero
Celebrity Claim: Baranski, Christine
Relation to You: Mother

Appearance: Sharon is of average stature, standing about five feet five inches tall and weighing about one hundred thirty pounds. Her dark blonde hair usually falls around her shoulders. She has blue eyes and a narrow, angular face, with a thin nose and lips. Her skin is lightly tanned, a natural effect of working outdoors. Her manner of dress tends toward casual, but with a good deal of jewelry and makeup.

Personality: A lifelong resident of Grand Isle, Sharon has all the Southern charm one expects to find in a Louisianan. She is friendly, cheerful, open, and warm-hearted, and caring to a fault. She is also respectful, talkative, insightful, and family-oriented- qualities that make her an excellent mother-in-law but a terrifying mother. Like Marshall, she seldom gets angry, but when she does, she is liable to throw a tantrum. She is hard-working and trustworthy, and loves to entertain guests. She considers raising her three children her greatest achievement.

At times- very rarely- she becomes very depressed and closes herself off from others, usually by locking herself into her room. This is almost always caused by her ability. However, these sudden bouts fade quickly, or rather she is able to push them away quickly, and she is soon back to her usual cheery self.

Panmnesia allows the user to access memories that most people forget or repress and derive facts from them, making the user seem to "know everything." It is not omniscience- panmnsia is limited to knowledge that the user has encountered before. For example, Sharon is able to recall facts from elementary school classes, from newspaper articles she glanced at, even from things she saw as a baby. However, she would not know everything about a person she had just met, unless she had read or heard about that person before, in which case she would recall those facts only. Additionally, in most cases, she does not realize that she had obtained the information somewhere else beforehand.

This ability is not exactly the same as having eidetic memory; although the memories can be very vivid and often include sounds and other imagery, the basis of the memory is always the facts that were involved, and not necessarily the setting in which they were learned. She cannot predict the future, and she does not know anything about the past that she has not heard about or was not present for. The knowledge contained in the memories is not necessarily accurate; if the user picked up incorrect information somewhere, it would remain incorrect upon recall. However, the memories themselves are perfectly accurate- they are not affected by the memory biases that most human minds are plagued with. Her memories cannot be altered or erased by other abilities, though her mind can be read (it would be a bit of a maze) and controlled just like anyone else's.

In Sharon, this ability is completely passive. She has no control over it. When she sees an object or person, her mind automatically recalls everything she has ever learned about it or him. Additionally, she has no control over which facts she wants to remember; once she picks up a bit of knowledge, it sticks with her forever. This leads to her reliving experiences, both good and bad, very often, which she finds extremely distressing. Having had this ability for over forty years, she is now able to block it from her conscious, allowing her to get through the day without completely breaking down, but the memories do play out in her subconscious, and occasionally cause mood swings or breakdowns.

Sharon Franklin was born and raised in Grand Isle, a small community on a barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico. Her mother was a homemaker, and her father was a developer and city planner, and had a great deal of involvement in the growth (and often, rebuilding) of the Gulf Coast in the mid- and late-twentieth century. She and Lauren Quatrevaux II grew up together, though they did not become close until much later in their childhoods. They attended the same small school, and their families were familiar with each other; both lived modestly but were considerably wealthy.

She had always been a talkative, outgoing girl, and she perceived that her family and friends had come to expect- though not necessarily like- those qualities from her. As a result, when she first developed her ability, she found it difficult to balance the person she was becoming and the girl everyone knew. She first noticed her ability as a teenager, when she discovered that she continually relived the devastating events of Hurricane Betsy whenever she was in a certain room. At first she thought this was some sort of psychological trauma, but when the same began happening in other places and with other memories, she realized that whatever she had was not typical. However, she had no exposure to other Specials and would not realize they existed for decades, when her second son manifested an ability of his own.

Instead of mentioning her odd new ability to anyone, she suffered with it in silence. Her personality became much less stable, which her family simply wrote off as "growing pains." Eventually, Sharon did grow used to her ability's effects on her, if only through desensitization. She also learned to appreciate it when she found how helpful it was in being a singer. Once she looked at a part or score, she basically had it memorized. She went on to become a well-known and favorite soprano in local events, including the New Orleans Opera. Lauren Quatrevaux, also a vocalist, starred opposite Sharon in a production of Verdi's La traviata; subsequently, they began a relationship, and married about a year later.

Sharon joined her husband's family and began to help them run their marina on Grand Isle. She gave birth to her two sons in her early twenties; later, she had a daughter as well. As something of a stay-at-home mom- the marina was not far from the Quatrevauxs' home- Sharon homeschooled her children at an early age, teaching them to speak, read, and write in French as well as English. She also taught Wesley and Lauren (who would soon begin using his middle name, Marshall, to avoid being confused with his father) to be perfect gentlemen; Angela, on the other hand, was expected to be as ladylike yet vivacious as her mother was. Once Marshall manifested, she also helped him manage his ability, based on experience with her own. All three children were brought up as devout Catholics, and were expected to excel in school, take on distinguished careers, and start families of their own.

Her three children fared well in their obtainment of these goals, except for one slight slip. Wesley, as expected, studied business, married, and took over management of the arena; Angela became a lawyer and is currently engaged to a financial analyst. It was Marshall whose future looked problematic. After a year of college, Sharon had Marshall committed to a mental health hospital. The young man had fallen into a downward spiral involving drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, and severe depressive episodes. After a summer in the hospital, Marshall returned to school and focused on his studies, which culminated in a degree in psychiatry. Sharon had successfully secured her family's future.

These days, Sharon still helps with the marina, and also sings occasionally. She holds quite a few parties every season, as she loves to entertain. Her primary goal is to marry off her last son. This had seemed an impossible task during the long period in which Marshall did not date (to her knowledge), but his current relationship is encouraging. She's noticed how his eyes light up and his voice brightens when he talks about Jessica. Based on the little she knows about the woman, Sharon likes Jessica and thinks she is a good match for her son. The odds of Marshall getting this close to settling down again are slim, and she plans to do everything she can to help their relationship along. She would never mention that to Marshall, though. God, she wouldn't want to embarrass him.