Born in Santa Monica on June 6, 1974, Jeff's the middle child of three. His parents-- an attorney and an artist-- were college sweethearts, Gifted activists who'd met each other at a protest, and Jeff and his brothers were raised with the Gift as an intrinsic part of their identities. The Calhouns were supportive, enthusiastic, and endlessly permissive parents, still clinging to the hippie ideals that brought them together, which was... good for Jeff in some ways, and disastrous in others.
By necessity, Gifted people kind of have to be inquisitive, independent, and adventurous, at least if they really want to experience the Gift to any real degree. It's difficult, because magic can't be taught, not in any 1-2-3 "this is the incantation, and this is the ritual, and here are the steps you take" kind of way. Instead, you learn the theories, and you learn to translate that into your own, individual way of communicating with the Gift. Ritual, it's called. Only then can you really begin to teach yourself how to cast the particulars. Many don't bother, or they reach a certain, comfortable level of modest skill and settle there.
So the Calhouns, Gifted to their core, and in every facet of their lives, nurtured those vital traits of inquisitiveness, independence, and so on. They encouraged their sons to try everything, do everything, experience everything-- responsibly, of course, and with some parental supervision! Mike, the eldest, really thrived, growing into a compassionate, ambitious, brilliant young man with a big heart and the drive to put his ideals into practice. Meanwhile Eddie, the youngest, may have been neurotic and high-strung, a total dork according to his peers, but he was always authentically Eddie. He knew who he was, and he liked what he liked, and he wouldn't let anyone make him shrink or hide. Where Mike was beloved by his peers (total golden boy), Eddie was the misfit with the small, tight-knit group of friends. They both had their people with whom they belonged.
As for the middle child? Jeff was the artist. He was all emotion and intuition and dreaming, drifting around with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. Music was his first, loudest, and longest love, and he picked up his first guitar before he ever even thought about casting a spell. The Gift came second, and it was only natural-- a total no-brainer-- that music would be his Ritual, his magical language. He was a bard through and through, to the point where the only reaction anyone could give to his magical-musical journey was "...yeah, that checks out."
As far as school went, Jeff would embody academic mediocrity. It was like he poured everything he had into music and magic-- learning, practicing, testing every rule and boundary-- and school was a very, very distant third in his list of priorities. To his peers, he was a friendly, outgoing kid, with a casual, easy-seeming confidence that coasted him through the different cliques. He was like a social drifter, friendly with everyone, but oddly detached from any particular group. He had one best friend, and then a sea of casual acquaintances. It afforded Jeff this mystique, an elusive kind of cool that was largely just a figment of other people's gossip and imagination.
In high school, Jeff's tendency to zero in on his interests at the expense of everything else had increasingly negative consequences. He'd developed a laid back rebelliousness, cutting classes and neglecting schoolwork in favor of cultivating his music and his Gifted rituals. It used to be, he could skate by making B's and C's. Then it became C's and D's. Drugs became a staple recreation, which he'd claim was because it helped him meditate and commune with the Gift, but honestly, it was mostly because he really liked getting high.
But, boy was he talented. He could play guitar brilliantly, sing in a voice that was beautiful and raw, and cast lively, dynamic spells like the Gift was just another extension of him. He was, simply put, good, and his ability to really push himself and excel in these things led his parents to put blinders on with his more glaring issues, and deal with his academic problems with too soft a touch. Jeff was just taking his time and finding his way, they figured. He was an artistic soul. It was fine.
It was only a matter of time before Jeff got it in his head to start a rock band with his best friend. Brazen and outgoing, he was an obvious frontman, and she was a skilled drummer with a knack for lyrics and composition he couldn't match. They complemented each other well, and soon they recruited a couple more musicians for rhythm guitar and bass. And thus, the Nervous Tix were born. All-Gifted, with magic weaved into their shows to create an experience unlike any other act out there, the Tix were going to be totally revolutionary!
The only problem was: they sucked. At least, they sucked at first. But, for all their failings, they worked hard. They brainstormed. They composed different music and played around with their sound. They practiced. They found a style that worked for them, and in time, they improved.
Meanwhile, Jeff was flunking through his senior year of high school, and he wouldn't be able to graduate without putting his band to the side, putting his head down, and working his ass off to repair the damage for the rest of the school year, and likely through the summer. When he opted instead to flunk everything and skip out as soon as he turned 18, he would tell everyone it was because it didn't matter. After all, he had his art, his calling, his future career all mapped out, and you don't need a high school diploma to be a fucking rock star.
But the truth was: Jeff was afraid of trying, because if he tried and still failed, it would confirm to himself and the world that he really was just an idiot. At least this way, he could end his academic career on his own terms.
Still, flunking high school was a reality check in some ways. Jeff got a job (which assuaged some of his parents' fears), doing his best to support himself and his art. He kept himself busy, eventually saving up enough money to move into an apartment with his bandmate. The Tix kept performing, starting out at little dives, then moving up to clubs and other venues. They'd open for other up-and-coming acts, broadening their audience. And, the more magic they weaved into their shows, the bigger they got. The Tix became known for cultivating a revelrous, bacchanalian (and occasionally spiritual??) experience, and as they developed a following, they became a fixture in the LA music scene. Jeff and his bandmates had never worked so hard at anything else in their lives, and it was paying off in hype, momentum, and what was looking like an increasingly bright future.
But when you meddle with magic the way Jeff was, amping it way up, way too many times, eventually it's going to blow up in your face. Despite knowing this, despite warnings, he kept at it, because he was young, cocky, and invincible. His star was rising, and he wasn't gonna stop now. With all the magic the Tix were slinging around, it was only a matter of time before he got attention from other beings who possessed an intrinsic link to the Gift.
Which is to say: Demons.
In his world, demons aren't inherently evil. Some are malicious, others are benevolent, but most of them are utterly indifferent to humanity. They exist on a separate plane of reality, and their only connection to reality as humans know it is through the Gift. It's like: if the various planes of existence were laid out on a Chutes and Ladders board, the Gift would be both the chutes and the ladders. Most of the time, that means... effectively nothing. Your average spell isn't going to be enough to attract otherworldly being's attention, let alone create a pathway for it to take a trip to Earth. In order to ever have a brush with a demon, a Gifted person would have to be a particular blend of brilliant, driven, and utterly stupid and reckless. And even then, your average demon is likely to want little to do with any human. At most, it may impart a little bit of wisdom to whoever summoned it (or a vague, meaningless, and totally misleading riddle), then peace out back to its home.
Jeff's demon was different. It was intensely curious, intrigued by what little it understood of humans. In particular, it found music so utterly captivating that it took notice of these odd, melodic manipulations that would reverberate through the Gift with increasing volume and frequency. It started to anticipate it, to look forward to it, until one day, it followed the music all the way back to its source, like a rat trailing after the Pied Piper.
Going back to that earlier analogy: Jeff's magic, in this case, would be a chute. A one-way ticket. So when the show-- and the musical rituals-- ended, and all that magical energy dissipated, the demon was effectively stranded on Earth. Specifically, it was tethered to Jeff, which was kind of similar to possession, but not quite the same. With full-blown possession, it could have taken the reins, used him as a meat puppet, and really experienced all that humanity had to offer. Instead, it was more like the demon was tied to him, and neither could escape the other, and so it just... made itself at home. Invisible and inaudible to everyone else, it became his constant companion.
At first, he didn't notice it. The demon took some time to quietly learn and absorb the world around them. And boy did it come to love pop culture. Jeff's heroes became the demon's heroes-- actually, so did his likes, and his dislikes, his tastes and family and friends... Without realizing it, he'd influenced this thing, fed into its growing obsession with the human world. And soon, it started to reach out to him, in the only languages it knew.
When the demon's influence was small and subtle, it was easy to rationalize away anything unusual in his perception. But then, he'd catch glimpses of something, briefly, in reflections. Not just mirrors, but any reflective surface. In time, the demon (Ziggy, as Jeff named it) began to appear more, finding ways to articulate its wants and demands. It started speaking to him, not just with words, but through the Gift, and through his other senses. Inherently inhuman, an abstraction forced into a world of flesh, Ziggy's very presence began to eat away at the barriers in his perception, between this world and that world, and so on. More and more, Jeff would experience nightmares, then hallucinations, reaching a point where he had difficulty distinguishing between dreams and reality. Already a habitual, but largely functional, drug user, Jeff's own drug use escalated, along with his risky, impulsive behavior. He began experiencing fugue blackouts, lasting hours to days. It was this unsettling, dissociative feeling, like he'd wake up after having already lived the day as somebody else.
All the while, Ziggy kept talking to him in as many languages as it could. It was enthusiastically chatty, always having something to say, though its moods were utterly mercurial. It could be sweet, vicious, friendly, cajoling, demanding, needy; it was whatever it felt like being in the moment. Often, it would call itself his biggest fan, and what it wanted, more than anything, was for him to write a new song for it. And that song would be a ritual, a spell, that would make the suffering-- both of their suffering-- stop.
What Ziggy wanted was for Jeff to finish what he (accidentally) started and bring it all the way into the world. It wanted to take the wheel, to really become human and experience life in flesh and blood and fluids. It wanted to trade places with Jeff, which, if you think about it, could only be an improvement for both of them, since Jeff was hardly functioning anymore, and Ziggy was just overflowing with goals and life and inspiration!
Besides, their existence, as it was, all tangled up in each other, was unnatural, and inherently unsustainable. And, eventually, Jeff was starting to see Ziggy's point. By the time of his canon point, he was planning to give the demon what it wanted, indifferent to whatever consequences it might lead to. Best case scenario, it would take his body, and complete his slow-burn suicide. Worst case, it would take the nearest Gifted person (likely one of his bandmates, who were like family... maybe some unlucky sap in the audience?), and he'd be free. Win-win, right?
Full History
By necessity, Gifted people kind of have to be inquisitive, independent, and adventurous, at least if they really want to experience the Gift to any real degree. It's difficult, because magic can't be taught, not in any 1-2-3 "this is the incantation, and this is the ritual, and here are the steps you take" kind of way. Instead, you learn the theories, and you learn to translate that into your own, individual way of communicating with the Gift. Ritual, it's called. Only then can you really begin to teach yourself how to cast the particulars. Many don't bother, or they reach a certain, comfortable level of modest skill and settle there.
So the Calhouns, Gifted to their core, and in every facet of their lives, nurtured those vital traits of inquisitiveness, independence, and so on. They encouraged their sons to try everything, do everything, experience everything-- responsibly, of course, and with some parental supervision! Mike, the eldest, really thrived, growing into a compassionate, ambitious, brilliant young man with a big heart and the drive to put his ideals into practice. Meanwhile Eddie, the youngest, may have been neurotic and high-strung, a total dork according to his peers, but he was always authentically Eddie. He knew who he was, and he liked what he liked, and he wouldn't let anyone make him shrink or hide. Where Mike was beloved by his peers (total golden boy), Eddie was the misfit with the small, tight-knit group of friends. They both had their people with whom they belonged.
As for the middle child? Jeff was the artist. He was all emotion and intuition and dreaming, drifting around with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. Music was his first, loudest, and longest love, and he picked up his first guitar before he ever even thought about casting a spell. The Gift came second, and it was only natural-- a total no-brainer-- that music would be his Ritual, his magical language. He was a bard through and through, to the point where the only reaction anyone could give to his magical-musical journey was "...yeah, that checks out."
As far as school went, Jeff would embody academic mediocrity. It was like he poured everything he had into music and magic-- learning, practicing, testing every rule and boundary-- and school was a very, very distant third in his list of priorities. To his peers, he was a friendly, outgoing kid, with a casual, easy-seeming confidence that coasted him through the different cliques. He was like a social drifter, friendly with everyone, but oddly detached from any particular group. He had one best friend, and then a sea of casual acquaintances. It afforded Jeff this mystique, an elusive kind of cool that was largely just a figment of other people's gossip and imagination.
In high school, Jeff's tendency to zero in on his interests at the expense of everything else had increasingly negative consequences. He'd developed a laid back rebelliousness, cutting classes and neglecting schoolwork in favor of cultivating his music and his Gifted rituals. It used to be, he could skate by making B's and C's. Then it became C's and D's. Drugs became a staple recreation, which he'd claim was because it helped him meditate and commune with the Gift, but honestly, it was mostly because he really liked getting high.
But, boy was he talented. He could play guitar brilliantly, sing in a voice that was beautiful and raw, and cast lively, dynamic spells like the Gift was just another extension of him. He was, simply put, good, and his ability to really push himself and excel in these things led his parents to put blinders on with his more glaring issues, and deal with his academic problems with too soft a touch. Jeff was just taking his time and finding his way, they figured. He was an artistic soul. It was fine.
It was only a matter of time before Jeff got it in his head to start a rock band with his best friend. Brazen and outgoing, he was an obvious frontman, and she was a skilled drummer with a knack for lyrics and composition he couldn't match. They complemented each other well, and soon they recruited a couple more musicians for rhythm guitar and bass. And thus, the Nervous Tix were born. All-Gifted, with magic weaved into their shows to create an experience unlike any other act out there, the Tix were going to be totally revolutionary!
The only problem was: they sucked. At least, they sucked at first. But, for all their failings, they worked hard. They brainstormed. They composed different music and played around with their sound. They practiced. They found a style that worked for them, and in time, they improved.
Meanwhile, Jeff was flunking through his senior year of high school, and he wouldn't be able to graduate without putting his band to the side, putting his head down, and working his ass off to repair the damage for the rest of the school year, and likely through the summer. When he opted instead to flunk everything and skip out as soon as he turned 18, he would tell everyone it was because it didn't matter. After all, he had his art, his calling, his future career all mapped out, and you don't need a high school diploma to be a fucking rock star.
But the truth was: Jeff was afraid of trying, because if he tried and still failed, it would confirm to himself and the world that he really was just an idiot. At least this way, he could end his academic career on his own terms.
Still, flunking high school was a reality check in some ways. Jeff got a job (which assuaged some of his parents' fears), doing his best to support himself and his art. He kept himself busy, eventually saving up enough money to move into an apartment with his bandmate. The Tix kept performing, starting out at little dives, then moving up to clubs and other venues. They'd open for other up-and-coming acts, broadening their audience. And, the more magic they weaved into their shows, the bigger they got. The Tix became known for cultivating a revelrous, bacchanalian (and occasionally spiritual??) experience, and as they developed a following, they became a fixture in the LA music scene. Jeff and his bandmates had never worked so hard at anything else in their lives, and it was paying off in hype, momentum, and what was looking like an increasingly bright future.
But when you meddle with magic the way Jeff was, amping it way up, way too many times, eventually it's going to blow up in your face. Despite knowing this, despite warnings, he kept at it, because he was young, cocky, and invincible. His star was rising, and he wasn't gonna stop now. With all the magic the Tix were slinging around, it was only a matter of time before he got attention from other beings who possessed an intrinsic link to the Gift.
Which is to say: Demons.
In his world, demons aren't inherently evil. Some are malicious, others are benevolent, but most of them are utterly indifferent to humanity. They exist on a separate plane of reality, and their only connection to reality as humans know it is through the Gift. It's like: if the various planes of existence were laid out on a Chutes and Ladders board, the Gift would be both the chutes and the ladders. Most of the time, that means... effectively nothing. Your average spell isn't going to be enough to attract otherworldly being's attention, let alone create a pathway for it to take a trip to Earth. In order to ever have a brush with a demon, a Gifted person would have to be a particular blend of brilliant, driven, and utterly stupid and reckless. And even then, your average demon is likely to want little to do with any human. At most, it may impart a little bit of wisdom to whoever summoned it (or a vague, meaningless, and totally misleading riddle), then peace out back to its home.
Jeff's demon was different. It was intensely curious, intrigued by what little it understood of humans. In particular, it found music so utterly captivating that it took notice of these odd, melodic manipulations that would reverberate through the Gift with increasing volume and frequency. It started to anticipate it, to look forward to it, until one day, it followed the music all the way back to its source, like a rat trailing after the Pied Piper.
Going back to that earlier analogy: Jeff's magic, in this case, would be a chute. A one-way ticket. So when the show-- and the musical rituals-- ended, and all that magical energy dissipated, the demon was effectively stranded on Earth. Specifically, it was tethered to Jeff, which was kind of similar to possession, but not quite the same. With full-blown possession, it could have taken the reins, used him as a meat puppet, and really experienced all that humanity had to offer. Instead, it was more like the demon was tied to him, and neither could escape the other, and so it just... made itself at home. Invisible and inaudible to everyone else, it became his constant companion.
At first, he didn't notice it. The demon took some time to quietly learn and absorb the world around them. And boy did it come to love pop culture. Jeff's heroes became the demon's heroes-- actually, so did his likes, and his dislikes, his tastes and family and friends... Without realizing it, he'd influenced this thing, fed into its growing obsession with the human world. And soon, it started to reach out to him, in the only languages it knew.
When the demon's influence was small and subtle, it was easy to rationalize away anything unusual in his perception. But then, he'd catch glimpses of something, briefly, in reflections. Not just mirrors, but any reflective surface. In time, the demon (Ziggy, as Jeff named it) began to appear more, finding ways to articulate its wants and demands. It started speaking to him, not just with words, but through the Gift, and through his other senses. Inherently inhuman, an abstraction forced into a world of flesh, Ziggy's very presence began to eat away at the barriers in his perception, between this world and that world, and so on. More and more, Jeff would experience nightmares, then hallucinations, reaching a point where he had difficulty distinguishing between dreams and reality. Already a habitual, but largely functional, drug user, Jeff's own drug use escalated, along with his risky, impulsive behavior. He began experiencing fugue blackouts, lasting hours to days. It was this unsettling, dissociative feeling, like he'd wake up after having already lived the day as somebody else.
All the while, Ziggy kept talking to him in as many languages as it could. It was enthusiastically chatty, always having something to say, though its moods were utterly mercurial. It could be sweet, vicious, friendly, cajoling, demanding, needy; it was whatever it felt like being in the moment. Often, it would call itself his biggest fan, and what it wanted, more than anything, was for him to write a new song for it. And that song would be a ritual, a spell, that would make the suffering-- both of their suffering-- stop.
What Ziggy wanted was for Jeff to finish what he (accidentally) started and bring it all the way into the world. It wanted to take the wheel, to really become human and experience life in flesh and blood and fluids. It wanted to trade places with Jeff, which, if you think about it, could only be an improvement for both of them, since Jeff was hardly functioning anymore, and Ziggy was just overflowing with goals and life and inspiration!
Besides, their existence, as it was, all tangled up in each other, was unnatural, and inherently unsustainable. And, eventually, Jeff was starting to see Ziggy's point. By the time of his canon point, he was planning to give the demon what it wanted, indifferent to whatever consequences it might lead to. Best case scenario, it would take his body, and complete his slow-burn suicide. Worst case, it would take the nearest Gifted person (likely one of his bandmates, who were like family... maybe some unlucky sap in the audience?), and he'd be free. Win-win, right?