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Name: dylann Age: 30+ Contact: PM Timezone: mountain Other Character(s): Quentin Coldwater

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Name: Jamie Heller Door: door pass for dominant Canon: original Canon Point: n/a Age: 33 Appearance: Average height and build, reasonably strong. Curly dark hair and medium-tan skin. No tattoos or piercings. History: Tens of thousands of years ago, before the beginning of civilization as we understand it, there was one human species, Homo sapiens sapiens. Creation myths abound, but whatever the cause, this species evolved into two: Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo sapiens affinis. Only the Good Neighbors know where the bulk of their species resides now, but all humans know three things: they have strange magic, they don't think like us, and they are not to be angered. Fae magic is variously referred to as the Gift, the Eye, arcane magic, and the Knowledge. Humans have their own magic, usually referred to as cunning, but also called birthright, elementalism, and heart magic. When someone just talks about "magic" with no modifier, the implication is that they mean fae magic. As does happen, Good Neighbors have interbred with humans on rare occasions. The hybrids are frequently sterile, but sometimes the bloodline can be passed on, diluted by more human ancestry. These hybrids can emerge at various times in various ways, but when humans have the Gift, things tend to go wrong. Cunning works in predictable ways and has more to do with the physical world than anything as arcane as fae magic. The Gift has to do with illusions, the future, knowledge, minds; cunning has to do with healing, plants, matter, the elements. Cunning is stable, but The Gift is a wild force, difficult to handle for humans. Like cats trying to play with fire, they usually get burned. Jamie was born in Hollywood, California, the fourth of five children, to Ari Heller, a film director, and Brenna Heller nèe Wilson, a songwriter and session musician. Ari was responsible for a bumper crop of the B-rated horror movies of the late 70s and 80s, so Jamie was born into considerable wealth and privilege, including being in an area of the country where being Jewish was not out of the norm. By the age of two, it was clear to his mother that something was not right with Jamie. He was much clingier to her than any of her previous children, he still wasn't speaking any recognizable words, and he would sometimes cling to her and cry at seemingly nothing, staring at some spot on the wall or in the distance. He was subjected to a battery of tests, which found that he was probably partially deaf. Relieved to have an answer, Brenna and Ari enrolled themselves and their oldest daughter (the only one old enough to qualify) in a sign language course and began using sign at home as much as possible, though the crying and clinginess continued, and nagged at Brenna. When Jamie was nine, Brenna was sitting with another mom at the playground. Brenna's youngest and Aurelia's only child were best friends. They got to talking, and Brenna mentioned some of Jamie's persisting difficulties. Aurelia turned out to be Kin, and she mentioned that her problems hadn't been with hearing, but had been otherwise similar at his age -- was there any chance that Jamie was also Kin, and might be struggling with magical abilities? Brenna thought back to her own mother, and to one of her brothers, both of whom had always been strange in their own ways, with the same uncanny intuition Jamie seemed to have. Aurelia came to their house that Sunday and gave Jamie what ended up being his first lesson in controlling the Sight, the ability to see the future and Foretell things that were going to happen. His lessons with Aurelia only lasted a year and change, because she eventually suffered an aneurysm that had been building for most of her life, worsening every time she had a Seeing. He still has and uses the deck of cards she gave him in their first lesson, and kept track of her son even after he and Jamie's little brother had drifted away from being friends. Jamie had thrived under Aurelia's tutelage, and his mother sent him to more lessons, this time with a professional magic teacher. His ability to identify and interpret sounds was only worsening as his Sight strengthened, so he was also given audio therapy, much to his annoyance. Jamie would have been perfectly happy to use sign and be capital-D Deaf the rest of his life, even though deafness is not exactly the problem. Jamie graduated from his lessons with the professional at sixteen, though he continued to check in and brush up with her every so often until graduating college. He did so with a degree in social work, whereupon he went to work for Los Angeles County Child and Family Services, specializing in Kin families. This work is grueling under the best of circumstances, but proved to be too much for someone with the Sight. He attended a twenty-sixth birthday dinner with his parents and siblings with compounding concussion symptoms and almost no ability to hear what anyone was saying. His family pleaded with him to quit, and he did, giving the department a month to distribute and help transition his cases. His hearing never fully recovered, and he's relied more heavily on sign language, writing notes, and other accommodations since this period. Jamie considered other social work options, but the few positions specifically open to Kin were going to draw too heavily on his Sight, and general positions tended to go to full humans. In his search, his dad invited him to a movie set to see if there was something he might like to do in film. Jamie had always been an artist, sometimes using it to Foretell and get Seeings out of his head, and he realized that, having Seen a lot of gore in his time, he had a pretty solid understanding of what realistic gore looked like. He worked his way through film school, with a lot of parental support with tuition and rent, but making enough money for bills and groceries as a low-level special effects consultant. Helping art directors, set dressers, and makeup artists hit the level of realism in violence they were going for got his name out there and gave him some existing connections that weren't his parents' when he graduated. He did so with a master's, and has been working for the last few years in the art departments of various productions and studios, improving his pay and standing as he goes. He's a proud union member and has a mortgage and everything. Personality: +caring: Despite himself, Jamie does have a good heart. He wishes he didn't, his life would be easier if he were better at hardening himself, but he just never developed the skill. With a passel of siblings and two loving parents, he's never really felt the loneliness or abandonment that might have made him so, and he's tended to stay close with them, out of both safety and genuinely just liking them a lot. He has a lot of love inside him to give, and he can't seem to help letting it out. People who don't give a shit don't become social workers and persist long past giving themselves obvious brain damage. -distant: Jamie sees himself as an observer. That's what the Sight is -- he believes it exists to make sure important moments don't go unnoticed, even if only by one person. Being the one to notice and remember these moments is the role the universe has assigned him, and he doesn't see any reason or point in fighting that. For that reason, he doesn't really pursue relationships or assert himself, sometimes when he should. Unless you really, really catch his attention, if you want to get close to Jamie, all the work is going to be on you. -learned helplessness: Jamie is a victim not of family or domestic abuse, but of his own abilities. The Sight does not show what might happen, it shows what will happen, and in some cases what is or has happened. There is no action Jamie can take to prevent what he Sees, and he's tried dozens of times. All he can do is Foretell it. This has given him a somewhat defeatist attitude in life -- it's not that he won't try for things, but if he meets adversity he doesn't keep trying very hard. -snob: For better or worse, Jamie was born into privilege, surrounded by intelligent and creative people and never struggling for the basics. He's been broke, and his parents have allowed him to sit on the poverty line once or twice, but he's never had to fear dipping below it. If someone says something he thinks is stupid, he's not afraid to let them know, and this can extend to material goods and places as well -- he will undoubtedly avoid the Down as much as reasonably possible. Powers and Abilities: Jamie has the theoretical ability to do magic, but he hasn't developed it much. He could make someone hear a single word, create some pretty lights in the air, or make a dandelion grow from a seed, but anything more complicated he might attempt would be more akin to a ritual or prayer than real magic. He hasn't learned any cunning, either, as those with the Gift typically can't advance very far with human magic. What he has developed is the Sight. This is a precognition ability, allowing him to see (or See) the future, and sometimes the present or past. Jamie has limited control over it, but it tends to be activated by physical touch and by strong emotion. One of the few spells he has trained in is a mental ward, designed to help him close the Eye and keep other Eyes off him, which he'll use if he thinks the impact of the ward is likely to be less than the impact of being unprotected in a situation. The only thing that really turns the Sight off and gives his brain a rest is physical pain, but exercise and certain drugs can give an extra layer of protection. Jamie's Sight and magic affect his brain. Every time he uses either, whether with his consent or not, it's very akin to a blow to the head. Some blows to the head are minor, leaving no damage and letting him shake them off in a minute or two. Some blows to the head are serious, resulting in his nose or ears bleeding, pain, dizziness or balance issues, vomiting, or loss of consciousness. Jamie never knows how severe a blow will be until it happens, or whether one of them is going to kill him or put him in a coma one day, like it did to Aurelia. He also has severe auditory processing issues and neurological hearing loss related to this brain damage -- his ears are physically fine, but his brain doesn't handle the signal correctly. Hearing aids and earplugs can help, in different situations, and the severity of his hearing issues wax and wane with how often he's used the Sight lately. Inventory: -a magically expanded sketchbook (holds many more pages than should be able to be contained in a book that size, can flip to specific dates or pages by thinking about it) -a worn deck of playing cards, used to channel the Sight -his mezuzah necklace Samples: https://throwitinabox.dreamwidth.org/127393.html?thread=7893409#cmt7893409 https://duplicitymemes.dreamwidth.org/19209.html?thread=50435081#cmt50435081