acatalepsy app.

[dogwood]

OOC INFO;

NAME: TK
AGE: 21+!
CONTACT: couplets or PM crawly
CHARACTERS IN GAME: None.

IC INFO;

CHARACTER NAME: Jun
AGE: 25
CANON Original
CANON POINT After he finishes his job at the cabin in the woods.
HISTORY:
In the world Jun comes from, supernatural powers exist in a tiny percentage of the world's population. It's a genetic mutation, but so uncommon that it hasn't yet been noticed in public society. Abilities are generally low in power. People with telekinesis can lift a mug, or maybe a large book. A few small groups of people with powers have gathered, but they keep their existences secret. With the world being otherwise very similar to earth 2018, if the powers were ever discovered they'd become the subject of intense scrutiny.

For Jun, intense scrutiny is something he's always tried to avoid. He grew up in a town with academically-focused schools in Connecticut with a mother and father and two older siblings. His brother and sister, two and five years older than him respectively, were always more successful in school than he was. Which isn't to say they didn't all work hard, but Jun was not an overachiever, and after a few years of half-hearted struggle, he realized he was fine with it. He was comfortable with his efforts making him third best in the family.

Of course, it was at the age of fifteen, as Jun was settling for being just above average in academics and sports, that something extraordinary happened to him. He began to hear the voices of the people around him saying things they'd never say out loud. He began to be able to hear people's thoughts and feel lingering psychic energies, a kind of sixth sense.

The quiet suburban town ended up being perhaps the best environment for Jun to adjust to his strengthening psychic powers. Living in a town where the biggest news was the football team losing (again), Jun only realized that among the voices were those of the dead because his walk home from soccer practice took him past the graveyard. Even so, despite the uneventful setting, Jun was overwhelmed at first by learning about just how many people had had affairs, committed crimes, or simply insulted others. He'd never been a cheerful child, but even his parents, occupied as they tended to be with work and his two older siblings, noticed how withdrawn he became due to the psychic "noise". They started bringing him to counsellors. Jun refused to tell them anything, blocking himself off even more, hating that he could know exactly how deep the concern and disdain alike from the various adults around him went. As he isolated himself, he researched as much as he could while alone in his room. He even tried methods of telepathic "training" from fiction and myths, figuring that it couldn't hurt any more than knowing what he did now.

In the end there was no breakthrough. Jun's research just told him what he already knew. Telepathy shouldn't be possible. His powers shouldn't exist and no one would believe him if he tried to ask for help. He would have to figure everything out alone. But that was fine—he was used to being self-sufficient. After the research he came to terms with the fact that he was hearing thoughts and ghosts, and used the following months to figure out a way to deal with that.

Jun taught himself to adjust, and ended up more stable for it. He found ways to distract himself from the constant noise around him like keeping headphones on him at all times. Through discreet practice and under the pressure of needing to learn how to control his new senses or catch more attention, Jun learned until he finally found himself in a position to actually use his abilities rather than block them out. He started socializing normally again and actually getting better at soccer, thanks to the telepathy. His parents were put at ease, and they were more than pleased with his performance by the time of his graduation.

When he reached college, things were easier for Jun because he could manage new friendships much more easily than the old ones he'd changed in high school by suddenly being able to tell who liked who, or who had secrets. No one questioned that he could somehow give great advice and warn people off of dangerous choices when in middle school he'd always been quiet and somewhat out of touch.

Keeping up with intramural soccer and accounting classes went over easily, but a couple of late-night college events helped Jun realize that he could do something else. He could use his abilities, strange as they were, to benefit himself and others. And he wouldn't even have to do more math.

He picked up work keeping books for a few small businesses after graduation (to his parents' chagrin), then started advertising his services as vaguely as possible by word of mouth for the weekends. He told people he could solve problems of a mysterious nature, essentially: voices when no one else was home, things moving without being touched, or the desire to talk to someone already passed on. At this point Jun had developed his own sense of morality, figuring that lying about someone being at peace was better than telling a client that they were being harmlessly haunted by an old man who just wanted to stay where he'd lived his whole life.

After a few years, he was settled in the city, established enough to get calls every few days that he saw to when he wasn't at his day job. People were happier after he "helped" them. He had his own apartment and two budgies to keep him company. He'd found the line he wanted to walk between knowing people and letting them know him.

Directly before arriving in the game, Jun was meeting an older man who lived in an out-of-the-way cabin. Jun didn't find any ghosts, but he did possible evidence of someone having been in crawlspace the man couldn't reach himself. He couldn't be sure, so he didn't ask any follow-up questions about strangers hanging around. All he told the man was that there weren't any ghosts, which was true, as far as he knew.

He thought that would be that, but when he checked in a few weeks later he received the news that the man had been hurt by the squatter in a confrontation and was in the hospital. It was the first time Jun's inaction lead to serious consequences—at least that he knew of—and it shook him. He'd kept to his own rules, but those rules hadn't helped the man. He felt at fault and he didn't know how to fix it.

PERSONALITY:
Jun is collected and efficient, both in his job and his social life, and willing to drop a dry joke or two around the right company. He's polite and professional with clients in both of his jobs. After a decade of learning to control his abilities, Jun is skilled at talking to people and reading them physically as well as mentally. However, being able to recognize lies hasn't made him the most open person emotionally or socially.

Distance is a common thread in Jun's life and has been since he was young. As the youngest in the family, rather than become louder to try and get more attention from parents already occupied with his older siblings, he became quieter. He became a person satisfied by simply achieving, rather than excelling, and nothing convinced him that doing otherwise was necessary. When he was a teenager and his telepathy developed, he didn't feel more powerful, he felt vulnerable. He was nice enough to people, got along fine with most and had his friends, but abruptly being able to know both their fleeting thoughts about him when he walked by didn't benefit him when he was in a developmental stage of his life. He withdrew even more, avoiding conflict as he usually did, not wanting any change from his comfortable status quo.

But during high school and throughout college, Jun did change because of his telepathy.

Jun now realizes that his powers a part of him, for better for worse. He focuses on keeping boundaries between himself and others without completely withdrawing like he did in high school. Accepting that people lie, are cruel, and that justice can't always prevail let Jun stop being drowned in the noise of thoughts around him. He's found his own way to adjust to the noise and live his own life. Changing other people is usually impossible, so he's better off focusing on himself and the good that exists. Overreaching his limits is more risky than it's worth. He prioritizes getting by comfortably, keeping himself and his friends safe, and trying to not do more harm than good.

Taking on clients who need spiritual assistance is part of that. Jun's seen and heard the lies that people can tell. In his mind, telling people what they want to hear when they're not in danger is more acceptable. Telling ghosts to cool it on the poltergeist activity is a means to the same end.

On the other hand, because Jun has seen the worst in many people, he has a slight vindictive streak. If a client in his slightly more supernatural business isn't worth helping, he'll tell less of a white lie and more of one that could hurt them later. Jun firmly believes that there are some people who deserve to be punished. On less serious levels, he's not above telling his more gossipy friends things he shouldn't quite know.

In his daily life, Jun prefers to be either busy or alone. When he's working he doesn't have to dwell on the questions that still linger in the back of his mind: why does he have these abilities? Is he the only one? What if something else changes? These are issues Jun has done his level best to put off thinking about, having decided that he can't do anything to answer them. Better to focus on the day-to-day and keep things as they are. And when he's alone, Jun doesn't have to keep up the appearance of being normal. There are no thoughts he has to block out. He can be himself in his apartment, a place he picked because it was devoid of any spiritual energies—possibly because it's so newly built.

Despite his own deceptions, other people putting on an act do annoy Jun. The mild hypocrisy is another issue Jun tries not to think about. All of these worries are shut away along with the deep concern that someone may one day uncover his telepathic powers and drag them into the public eye. That fear is part of what motivates him to not go out of his way to get involved. He wants to help, but he doesn't want to be known or seen as anyone special. People are opportunistic. They can be cruel. Jun knows that well, and as he continues in the comfortable life he's made for himself, he's doing so while keeping his walls up.

CANON POWERS:
- Telepathy: If he's not concentrating on keeping the noise out (with headphones, other distractions, or selective listening), he can hear all surface thoughts from the people immediately around him. When concentrating he can get deeper thoughts and some memories. He cannot transmit his own thoughts nor influence others with telepathy.
- Psychic sensitivity: He can feel most spirits unless they're hiding themselves, see ghosts, and talk at them. He can't hold actual conversations with them or channel them like a medium. In addition, he can sense "energy" in the vaguest, most TV-medium sense. It mixes with the telepathy so he could for example feel that someone has a lot of negative feelings about their father when they start talking about them.

OTHER:

GAME INFO;

CRAU INFO: N/A.
MAGIC ABILITY: Can communicate with animals and control "normal" ones (e.g. birds, deer).
ANY WEAPONS/MAGICAL ITEMS?: None.
ANY PETS?: His blue-and-white budgie, Georgie.

SAMPLE;

LINKED SAMPLE: On the TDM!