Post by sieben on Jul 5, 2011 17:29:18 GMT -8
Name: It depends on whom you're asking, but from him, you'll likely get "James."
Age: Late teens, early twenties. It's as good a guess as any.
Sex: Male
Teacher? (Include Subject): No.
Powers and Descriptions: James himself has no active powers, but does have a passive defect that makes him "porous", allowing for Demonic and Otherworldly energies to pass through his body, which acts as a conduit and channel, directing raw power into shape and mitigating some of the effects of powers already shaped. This innate ability does, however, cause him to be set on an unending status of restlessness, sleeplessness, discontent, apathy, and general unfeeling. He sees things that are not meant to be viewed, the backstage area of the world's play, if you will, and has a way of intertwining himself in things that would otherwise never have happened. An air of strangeness surrounds him like a choking miasma, and anyone sensitive to unearthly contamination will glean that he is more an amalgamation of his metaphysical pieces than a solid whole.
When Liala is channeled through his body, James is able to replicate a few well-practiced effects, though improvisation is volatile at best. A few of his grasped techniques include the creation of energy (usually in the form of fire) where there was once none, the growth of usable (if unpracticed) wings, communion and conversation with souls not yet departed from bodies (though this is something he is relying less and less on his companion for), the fixation of an interim two-way communications channel between his mind and another, and a few other perks that are minuscule in comparison to what one would be expected to do with such power.
However, the drawbacks of any of these effects are as severe as they are helpful, if not more so in the unpracticed hands of this child. Firstly and most prominently, anything brought into the world by James must eventually be brought out. Fires don't hold (unless the fires caused subsequent, natural flames), wings rot, fall off, and dissipate, mental links fail, wounds do not remain sealed unless cauterized, et cetera. Secondly, James is subjected to an unspeakable withrdrawal that worsens in severity depending upon just how much power he borrows, his soul literally attempting to pull itself through the calloused divide between the physical and metaphysical worlds. This can cause anything from a headache to an escalated case of bodily damage as flesh attempts to chase essence. With his current level of contamination, James must keep a constant, low-strength current running between Liala and him to avoid fatal despondence and dysphoria. His reliance upon her grows with every exploitation of her powers; he seems to have settled upon the fact that his soul faces ultimate eventual annihilation.
Personality: James seems to be one of the calloused youths of the modern age, desensitized to most things and detached from all. He moves slowly, talks quickly, judges harshly, and gets a rush from whatever he can at the expense of whomever is nearby. That's the outsider's view, anyways. To anyone closer, he can be seen to have a genuinely old soul - he has seen many things beyond his years in both literal and metaphorical senses and has learned that laughing at the problems of the world is the kindest way to face them. He shares little about himself without being asked and seems to draw the words from others' mouths when he is willing to listen. His smile lies but his grin is always sincere. Every once in a while, one might hear a tune humming its way up to his lips, though it is doomed to never surface. He remains ultimately enigmatic and spontaneous, though it is more out of the displeasure of repetition than for the sake of inanity that he is so.
Appearance: i399.photobucket.com/albums/pp80/KibaAngelLove/Love%20For%20AnyOne%20Characters/hot_anime_emo_vampire.jpg
History:
I always thought I'd die during summer. Los Angeles, in the hottest part of the year, used to be the most dangerous place to live. The air rising off the asphalt ripples; tar flows out of the cracks like a corrupted ooze. People's minds are much the same - the strangeness in them is called out by that closing sun.
Not that it mattered. Anna was back at the apartment - she was going to walk out and get the food. I was too kind to let her. With the hot grease seeping through the brown bag in a sweat-stain pattern and the savory air of thoroughly fried Chinese food permeating my lips and nostrils, I hurriedly made my way back to the apartment, attempting to avoid eye contact with whomever passed. The warmth that came from the food coupled with the convection oven this city was made me feel like I needed a shower, even if I was too dehydrated to sweat a drop.
The thing about our apartment was that it wasn't actually an apartment - it was an old motel that had been re-purposed for permanent living. Still, it was hardly fit for any one person to reside in. The Che-p R-om Motel lacked central air, proper plumbing or electrical work, pest control, a sense of decency for living there, a sense of community, and a sense of protection. Most of the rules of the place were unwritten. The one everyone knew from the start was 'if it isn't hidden, it's yours'. People give and take many things without asking. They walk in, remove food, jewelry, whatever, and no one can complain because they really don't have anything of actual value lost. Most doors lack locks. Ours did when we got it. That's exactly why three doors to our left and one door to our right don't have deadbolts and we now have four.
I proceeded through the mildewing lobby, past the reception desk and the broken elevator, and over the broken stair. This whole building reeked of roach hatcheries and rot, like it had already been demolished and put into a landfill for years. Quite honestly, it was a major oversight on the part of the city for it to still have been standing.
Anna and I didn't really deserve much better - she still lived with her mother, technically, though Miss Ferris never seemed to leave her work long enough to come home, and I...well, I was a fifteen-year-old squatter with nothing much coming my way. Anna was the best thing to happen to me, period. She wasn't really my girlfriend, but she was more than a friend...hell, I can't explain it. We dated other people, did other things, but we were always there for each other at the end of the day. We weren't in love. We weren't making marriage plans. We were just...well, we were.
Ten more paces and I'd be at the door. Every creak was a little quieter in the floor, every stride a little longer. That little twenty by twenty five efficiency spelled sanctuary to me; I had a million complaints on the tip of my tongue, but they'd all evaporate when I closed and locked the door behind me. I fumbled with the keys, trying to balance the bag on my knee. I had them marked, but the lights in the hall had gone out and the sun was hidden behind a few clouds, reducing what I got from the window at the far end. I suspected that she'd have just gotten out of the shower. For some reason, I always walked in when she was wrapped in a towel. I knew it was unintentional because the first time I sneaked into this room, she was so. She hit me so hard, I broke the door recoiling back. That's why we had the new one.
First lock done. I thought I heard dripping on the old linoleum, or maybe I just wanted to. I smiled. I never expected that a girl that could hit that hard would ever give me a chance to explain myself. She could smell me from the hall, she said. In winter, the stench of mold was a little less prominent and the smell of sweat was less frequent. Second lock open. She gave me a smile and a look with her eyes like I was something. If it had been anyone else in the world, I would have thought they were tricking me. Not her. Her eyes didn't lie. Third lock.
Something was out of place. I knew that from the moment I opened the door. It didn't squeal like it had every day. It didn't catch on the floor. The room smelled of sub-earth in a way that the outside hall could never compare to, nearly gagging me, almost physically choking me. I can't tell you what it was. It had her, wrapped in its fingers, its body seeping out of the wall like wet smoke...but it had no body. It had no arms. It looked at me - into me - its head contorted and twisted to exist in dimensions infinitely beyond my own, a thousand tongues from a mouth-less visage lapping at the matter of my soul. She didn't scream. She didn't even shudder. Her bare body was enveloped in the curtains of false reality that sprung from it, and she was a shadow of apathy. It collapsed into itself, exiting in a direction no man could follow.
I fell. I never touched ground - I must have missed it. I kept falling, down, down, beyond the precipice of life and what might have lain after. It was black where I was - rippling seas of dead and dying souls - the incinerator at the end of time that burned with no warmth. This was where gods came to be extinguished - where time atrophied and passed away. I lay before the end of all things, torn in every direction by the grave gravity of my absolution. I was conscious of being shattered - mutilated by the forces of entropy. She wasn't here. That's all I could be thankful for. She wasn't here.
But something else was. I felt...it. Something that had been dwelling here, subsisting on the meager detritus of half-dead time and waning existences. It coiled itself around my veering shards, its embrace a stark red in this utter black - a velvet ribbon binding the unbound.
I opened my eyes. The world was still cold from the abductor's passing, but it was a sunny paradise when juxtaposed with the all-encompassing mortuary I had journeyed to. There was something new with me...not a second consciousness - it was more than that. It was a second framework to my existence - mortar between the stones that now composed me. I was no longer whole, but I was at least held together.
It was strange, at first, hearing her voice...she chose Anna. I don't know why, but she chose Anna. She used her words, her laugh, even her appearance, animating a little folded photograph in my wallet. She couldn't have known...Maybe she did. Maybe she knew that's what would drive me. Liala guides me now. She is the only chance I have at saving Anna. The only thing keeping me alive. I just wish that...I wish that I couldn't see just how much is wrong with the world.
My eyes are open. The light burns, but the dark places hide nothing. I'll find Anna. Maybe one day - maybe at the end of time. I won't let what took her win like that. I'll make it suffer. I'll hear Liala's devilish laughter, and I'll end it.
There, Liala. Happy? I spat out all my troubles at the sea. Will you let me sleep, now? Shit...How long have we even been on this raft? The cooler's almost empty...Is that a storm?
Code Words: I walked to Mordor.
Age: Late teens, early twenties. It's as good a guess as any.
Sex: Male
Teacher? (Include Subject): No.
Powers and Descriptions: James himself has no active powers, but does have a passive defect that makes him "porous", allowing for Demonic and Otherworldly energies to pass through his body, which acts as a conduit and channel, directing raw power into shape and mitigating some of the effects of powers already shaped. This innate ability does, however, cause him to be set on an unending status of restlessness, sleeplessness, discontent, apathy, and general unfeeling. He sees things that are not meant to be viewed, the backstage area of the world's play, if you will, and has a way of intertwining himself in things that would otherwise never have happened. An air of strangeness surrounds him like a choking miasma, and anyone sensitive to unearthly contamination will glean that he is more an amalgamation of his metaphysical pieces than a solid whole.
When Liala is channeled through his body, James is able to replicate a few well-practiced effects, though improvisation is volatile at best. A few of his grasped techniques include the creation of energy (usually in the form of fire) where there was once none, the growth of usable (if unpracticed) wings, communion and conversation with souls not yet departed from bodies (though this is something he is relying less and less on his companion for), the fixation of an interim two-way communications channel between his mind and another, and a few other perks that are minuscule in comparison to what one would be expected to do with such power.
However, the drawbacks of any of these effects are as severe as they are helpful, if not more so in the unpracticed hands of this child. Firstly and most prominently, anything brought into the world by James must eventually be brought out. Fires don't hold (unless the fires caused subsequent, natural flames), wings rot, fall off, and dissipate, mental links fail, wounds do not remain sealed unless cauterized, et cetera. Secondly, James is subjected to an unspeakable withrdrawal that worsens in severity depending upon just how much power he borrows, his soul literally attempting to pull itself through the calloused divide between the physical and metaphysical worlds. This can cause anything from a headache to an escalated case of bodily damage as flesh attempts to chase essence. With his current level of contamination, James must keep a constant, low-strength current running between Liala and him to avoid fatal despondence and dysphoria. His reliance upon her grows with every exploitation of her powers; he seems to have settled upon the fact that his soul faces ultimate eventual annihilation.
Personality: James seems to be one of the calloused youths of the modern age, desensitized to most things and detached from all. He moves slowly, talks quickly, judges harshly, and gets a rush from whatever he can at the expense of whomever is nearby. That's the outsider's view, anyways. To anyone closer, he can be seen to have a genuinely old soul - he has seen many things beyond his years in both literal and metaphorical senses and has learned that laughing at the problems of the world is the kindest way to face them. He shares little about himself without being asked and seems to draw the words from others' mouths when he is willing to listen. His smile lies but his grin is always sincere. Every once in a while, one might hear a tune humming its way up to his lips, though it is doomed to never surface. He remains ultimately enigmatic and spontaneous, though it is more out of the displeasure of repetition than for the sake of inanity that he is so.
Appearance: i399.photobucket.com/albums/pp80/KibaAngelLove/Love%20For%20AnyOne%20Characters/hot_anime_emo_vampire.jpg
History:
I always thought I'd die during summer. Los Angeles, in the hottest part of the year, used to be the most dangerous place to live. The air rising off the asphalt ripples; tar flows out of the cracks like a corrupted ooze. People's minds are much the same - the strangeness in them is called out by that closing sun.
Not that it mattered. Anna was back at the apartment - she was going to walk out and get the food. I was too kind to let her. With the hot grease seeping through the brown bag in a sweat-stain pattern and the savory air of thoroughly fried Chinese food permeating my lips and nostrils, I hurriedly made my way back to the apartment, attempting to avoid eye contact with whomever passed. The warmth that came from the food coupled with the convection oven this city was made me feel like I needed a shower, even if I was too dehydrated to sweat a drop.
The thing about our apartment was that it wasn't actually an apartment - it was an old motel that had been re-purposed for permanent living. Still, it was hardly fit for any one person to reside in. The Che-p R-om Motel lacked central air, proper plumbing or electrical work, pest control, a sense of decency for living there, a sense of community, and a sense of protection. Most of the rules of the place were unwritten. The one everyone knew from the start was 'if it isn't hidden, it's yours'. People give and take many things without asking. They walk in, remove food, jewelry, whatever, and no one can complain because they really don't have anything of actual value lost. Most doors lack locks. Ours did when we got it. That's exactly why three doors to our left and one door to our right don't have deadbolts and we now have four.
I proceeded through the mildewing lobby, past the reception desk and the broken elevator, and over the broken stair. This whole building reeked of roach hatcheries and rot, like it had already been demolished and put into a landfill for years. Quite honestly, it was a major oversight on the part of the city for it to still have been standing.
Anna and I didn't really deserve much better - she still lived with her mother, technically, though Miss Ferris never seemed to leave her work long enough to come home, and I...well, I was a fifteen-year-old squatter with nothing much coming my way. Anna was the best thing to happen to me, period. She wasn't really my girlfriend, but she was more than a friend...hell, I can't explain it. We dated other people, did other things, but we were always there for each other at the end of the day. We weren't in love. We weren't making marriage plans. We were just...well, we were.
Ten more paces and I'd be at the door. Every creak was a little quieter in the floor, every stride a little longer. That little twenty by twenty five efficiency spelled sanctuary to me; I had a million complaints on the tip of my tongue, but they'd all evaporate when I closed and locked the door behind me. I fumbled with the keys, trying to balance the bag on my knee. I had them marked, but the lights in the hall had gone out and the sun was hidden behind a few clouds, reducing what I got from the window at the far end. I suspected that she'd have just gotten out of the shower. For some reason, I always walked in when she was wrapped in a towel. I knew it was unintentional because the first time I sneaked into this room, she was so. She hit me so hard, I broke the door recoiling back. That's why we had the new one.
First lock done. I thought I heard dripping on the old linoleum, or maybe I just wanted to. I smiled. I never expected that a girl that could hit that hard would ever give me a chance to explain myself. She could smell me from the hall, she said. In winter, the stench of mold was a little less prominent and the smell of sweat was less frequent. Second lock open. She gave me a smile and a look with her eyes like I was something. If it had been anyone else in the world, I would have thought they were tricking me. Not her. Her eyes didn't lie. Third lock.
Something was out of place. I knew that from the moment I opened the door. It didn't squeal like it had every day. It didn't catch on the floor. The room smelled of sub-earth in a way that the outside hall could never compare to, nearly gagging me, almost physically choking me. I can't tell you what it was. It had her, wrapped in its fingers, its body seeping out of the wall like wet smoke...but it had no body. It had no arms. It looked at me - into me - its head contorted and twisted to exist in dimensions infinitely beyond my own, a thousand tongues from a mouth-less visage lapping at the matter of my soul. She didn't scream. She didn't even shudder. Her bare body was enveloped in the curtains of false reality that sprung from it, and she was a shadow of apathy. It collapsed into itself, exiting in a direction no man could follow.
I fell. I never touched ground - I must have missed it. I kept falling, down, down, beyond the precipice of life and what might have lain after. It was black where I was - rippling seas of dead and dying souls - the incinerator at the end of time that burned with no warmth. This was where gods came to be extinguished - where time atrophied and passed away. I lay before the end of all things, torn in every direction by the grave gravity of my absolution. I was conscious of being shattered - mutilated by the forces of entropy. She wasn't here. That's all I could be thankful for. She wasn't here.
But something else was. I felt...it. Something that had been dwelling here, subsisting on the meager detritus of half-dead time and waning existences. It coiled itself around my veering shards, its embrace a stark red in this utter black - a velvet ribbon binding the unbound.
I opened my eyes. The world was still cold from the abductor's passing, but it was a sunny paradise when juxtaposed with the all-encompassing mortuary I had journeyed to. There was something new with me...not a second consciousness - it was more than that. It was a second framework to my existence - mortar between the stones that now composed me. I was no longer whole, but I was at least held together.
It was strange, at first, hearing her voice...she chose Anna. I don't know why, but she chose Anna. She used her words, her laugh, even her appearance, animating a little folded photograph in my wallet. She couldn't have known...Maybe she did. Maybe she knew that's what would drive me. Liala guides me now. She is the only chance I have at saving Anna. The only thing keeping me alive. I just wish that...I wish that I couldn't see just how much is wrong with the world.
My eyes are open. The light burns, but the dark places hide nothing. I'll find Anna. Maybe one day - maybe at the end of time. I won't let what took her win like that. I'll make it suffer. I'll hear Liala's devilish laughter, and I'll end it.
There, Liala. Happy? I spat out all my troubles at the sea. Will you let me sleep, now? Shit...How long have we even been on this raft? The cooler's almost empty...Is that a storm?
Code Words: I walked to Mordor.