Welcome to Gaia! ::

AMITYVILLE ACADEMY ENROLLMENT FORM

Status: Ready but still very much accepting crits!

Name: Donovan Blackwell
Nickname: Don, Hey Kid, You With the Headphones, Are You Even Listening?
Gender: Male
Age: 17

Faction: Ghost
Race: Urban Spectre - These denizens of large cities have come into being fairly recently, born from the fear of "those kids". You know - the ones who are always out too late, causing trouble. Setting fires, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes under overpasses with music pounding from headphones stuffed into their ears. These vagrants are generally faceless, no one you know and no one you want to know - they lurk in the darkness of the city streets after the sun has set, roaming about with nothing good in their heads. Any decent citizen of the city knows that "those kids" are trouble and also knows deep inside that a large enough group of them gathering in one place can cause some serious mayhem. Urban Spectres are the very epitome of that fear, usually living in large clans or packs and roaming the cities of the world, sometimes alone and sometimes with others, to gather FEAR. Their hoods hold nothing but shadows and the headphones stuffed into their ears pulse with the bass beat of their hearts as they hunger for the vibrant life of the city.

In Halloween, they are born and gather in cities that are fairly close to the human equivalents, making it easier for adults to adjust to acting and looking human at a distance in the human world. Much of their FEAR gathering requires them to get fairly close to humans and be generally creepy as well as being able to understand concepts such as cars and technology. So their Halloween cities have become quite close to the human equivalents with the obviously notable exception of having humans in them. Donovan hails from a Halloween city that more or less mirrors the human city of London.

Natural Ability: Melodic Empathy - Normally the music playing in Donovan's headphones matches his emotional state - slow and calm when he's relaxed, upbeat and fast when he's excited, etc. But if he concentrates upon a particular person, the music will instead change to reflect that person's emotions. This is useful to adult Spectres in judging at a distance how susceptible to their scares a human might be. The only being the ability does not generally work on is another Spectre, because their own music keeps him from getting a good "read". It is rumored that there are a few Spectres born who, with enough power, can consciously adjust their own music and even spread the effect to those near them in the pack, gaining a measure of control and leadership within the group.

OOC'ly, I will probably ask RP partners to choose a type of music or song that he hears if he uses the ability and they can be specific or vague, depending on how much they want to reveal, and on each character's age/level.

In Amityville:
Y1 level - Donovan can generally read other students his own age without too much trouble, unless they are specifically trying to hide their emotions. It gets a bit harder then. The music that plays is open to interpretation and he doesn't always get it right.

Y2 level - Can read other students his own age and younger, possibly some of the more open NPCs or professors (permission will be asked first). He's gotten a bit better at interpreting what he hears.

Y3 level - He can now read other students his age and younger, as well as more NPCs and professors, though they require more concentration since they are still older then him and likely have more experience hiding their emotions. At this point, he is fairly accurate at interpretation, though some can still stump him.

FEAR Ability:
Y1: The Eye, Bass Beats - The music pumping from Donovan's headphones seems to permeate the ground and air around him, disorienting and keeping his opponents off-balance so that his attacks hit easier.
Y2: The Eye (Y2 lvl); Battle Cry (Y1 lvl), Sound Blast - Donovan ups the volume of his headphones and projects the sound outwards in a punch of sound that knocks opponents to the ground.
Y3: The Eye (Y3 lvl); Battle Cry (Y2 lvl); Barrier (Y1 lvl), Heartbeat Shield - The beat of the music that powers the Spectre's heart extends out in an invisible barrier that deflects attacks against him.

Personality:
Ambitious
For the most part, Spectres are perfectly content growing up in the pack and simply learning from older members what to do and how to scare. All they could ever need or want is provided, and stepping outside the mold is not encouraged. Donovan, however, has always found himself wanting ... more. He wants to see what exists outside of their small corner of the world, perhaps see if there are other packs out there, find new scaring techniques and even meet other Halloween creatures. His ultimate goal is to learn enough to come back home to his pack and emerge as some sort of leader - though such a thing happening is pretty rare.

Lazy
Despite his lofty goals, Donovan doesn't seem to be in any kind of hurry to reach them. Just getting into school is enough for now, right? When it comes to classwork and practice, he's not likely to take the initiative - most likely having to be encouraged (dragged) to go to classes. He's the same way in much of his habits, failing to eat, excercise or generally do anything beyond laze around and smoke. He's fairly quick to jump onto bandwagons and join others for group activities so long as he thinks that he can easily get something out of it but if things get difficult he's more likely to give up than press on. So far as things look at this point in his life, he doesn't seem like much of a leader-type.

Loner
Though he grew up in a pack, the Spectre never really had "friends" there. Such a concept is a foreign one to him, as every member of the pack is fairly similar in looks and attitude. It's a bit difficult to make friends with someone almost exactly like you, after all. In the same way, there is no one in the pack that he's enemies with - hard to hate someone so similar to yourself. He's also always been just a little different from the other members of his pack, actually questioning how things work and whether there might be something else out there. With no one else interested in such things, he's taken to spending quite a lot of time alone. He doesn't really expect that to change once he gets to school and so has no expectations so far as friends or enemies goes.

Loyal
The exception to the rule of laziness comes into play whenever Donovan is with his pack or with others that he considers a type of pack. If or when he does end up making some friends, they will essentially become like a secondary pack at Amityville. These people will be the few that he is loyal to, willing to make an effort for and listen to.

Callous
Being able to concentrate upon and read others' emotions does not at all mean that he's careful of said emotions. Donovan will quite simply not think before he speaks or does something a lot of the time, uncaring if his actions hurt someone else. The ability to read the painful emotion isn't the same as feeling it himself or caring that something he did may have caused that emotion. This ties back into his laziness... he just really can't be bothered to give a s**t, honestly.

Quirks
- Whenever he's inside (especially the dorms), Donovan generally won't wear shoes
- He doesn't wear socks or a shirt
- Donovan smokes about two packs a day, and hates having to put out a cigarette early. He actually smokes less when he's stressed or upset about something
- He speaks with a faint British accent and tends to use expressions from that general area of the human world - as his pack is fond of London and elements of that city have bled over
- Ghouls are a mystery to him - most troubled kids are stereotypically seen as male, so every member of his pack is male
- Whenever he's standing around doing nothing (which is a lot of the time) and not smoking, he tends to fiddle with the cord of his headphones, rolling it around in his fingers, tangling it up, looping it about itself and so on
- Said headphone cord seems to be longer than it appears, allowing him to play with it and pull more cord out of his hoodie pocket than should be possible
- Donovan likes fire and smoke ... any kind
- Being a "city boy", in a way, a lot of weeds/grass/hay etc make him sneeze
- For the most part, he thinks owning minipets is stupid ... mainly because he's too lazy to take care of them. If he ends up with something fairly self-sufficient and somewhat useful he might change his tune

Why are they enrolled in Amityville Academy? Despite his fairly lazy attitude about life (or unlife, as it were), Donovan actually has a deep-seated desire to somehow stand out from the crowd. Though the Spectres don't often have leaders, he wants to be the one from his pack to eventually be able to gather more FEAR than the others, and possibly bring in new ideas and ways to scare. So he wants to enroll to learn so he can go back and be awesome... at some point.

Bump? crying

Ooh yay thank you!

Oooh yea, I meant to change that actually. It's more like the Halloween-equivalent of London. He's heard stuff about the human city but never been there. He did peek through a portal, once, when he wasn't supposed to be anywhere near it but... XD That's it so far as him and human world goes. Thank you so much for the crit! Do you have a Quest thread up? I'd be happy to lave you a crit in turn whee


Aah I see what you're saying about his natural ability, it is kinda broad right now. I was thinking that it's more subtle and/or he doesn't always know how to interpret what the music means at a younger age. Right now it probably doesn't work as well (if at all) with anyone but others that are his age. I would assume that professors and older NPCs would have more experience keeping emotions under wraps so it wouldn't be so easy to pick up on them. But I could also see there being exceptions like in someone is OBVIOUSLY REALLY ANGRY his music would change no matter what if he focused on them. I think I'll edit the write-up for it and try to put this stuff in there, maybe put specifically what he can get at which years.

Thank you so much for the crit!