Name: Jeffrey David Calhoun Door: Submissive, per his previous stint in Duplicity Canon: Original Canon Point: Summer of 1995, having been possessed by a demon and generally losing his grip on reality over the better part of a year. It's Fine. Age: 21 Appearance: Tall, with long legs and a slight build, and an uncoordinated style that could best be described as thrift store chic. His hair's thick and often unruly, on the longer end of short, and often blonde from the sun. Generally, he looks like he could do with some good sleep and a proper meal. ( Reference) History: For more information than you could ever want, here's an extended World Info post. Jeff's from a modern fantasy universe, set in the present day, where magic is: - Real. It exists, and it's been around for ages.
- Hereditary. Approximately 12% of the population is born with the ability to use magic at all.
- Out in the open. Everybody knows about it.
For centuries, magic users did the whole "hiding in plain sight" thing, their "society" (such as it was) existing as a secret, underground subculture. That changed with modern shifts in mass media and globalization. By the 20th century, discovery seemed inevitable. In the late 1940s, magic users outed themselves and emerged on the international stage. There were rough times, and many places are still rife with tension and conflict. But nowadays, in a lot of the world, the magical is practically mundane. Officially, magical abilities are known as Gifts, and those who possess them are Gifted. While Gifted people are generally understood as part of modern society, that doesn't mean they're universally loved or embraced. Stigma and prejudices still run deep, especially in more conservative communities. But by and large, being Gifted (or not) is just another facet of a person's identity. Although the decades since the big reveal were full of upheaval and tension, things are beginning to take a positive shift by the 1990s. It's far from perfect, but these days, being Gifted is becoming less and less of a fringe thing. Click here for the full history write-up. Here's the tldr version:Jeff Calhoun is-- well, was-- a sunny, outgoing bard who lives for the spotlight. He may have failed his way out of school, and he can barely keep a job, but when it comes to music and the Gift, there's no limit to his drive and ambition. With his band of fellow Gifted musicians, an album making the rounds on college radio, and a dedicated following in the underground music scene, Jeff's star is on the rise. As the lead singer/guitarist/frontman of the Nervous Tix, Jeff's known for being wild and reckless, a total live-wire of a performer who can (and will) literally enchant crowds. According to the hype, he's got what it takes to really make it big. Too bad he accidentally summoned a demon at one of his shows. He didn't mean to do it; it was like the cosmic equivalent of calling the wrong number. For its part, the demon didn't even know what it was getting into. All it knew was a strange and beautiful melody, reverberating through the Gift, and it followed Jeff's song all the way back to the source. It was really just bad luck and a stupid mistake that tethered the curious, music-loving demon to Jeff. The two have been trapped together for close to a year now, resulting in a mutual madness. The demon, which he's named Ziggy ( Stardust, naturally), is a constant presence, talking to him, warping his perception, making it difficult to tell what's real and what's a hallucination. It's reached the point where every moment is like a terrible dream, and sometimes he can't even tell if he's really awake. In response, Jeff has upped his own reckless behavior, diving headfirst into drugs, sex, and anything else he can use to either drown the demon out with noise, or numb himself to the point where he doesn't care anymore. He's not so sunny and outgoing anymore, and it's only a matter of time before he breaks down and goes racing towards rock bottom. Note: Jeff's arrival in this world will sever the link between him and his demon. The demon's staying behind in his world, because it's tied to the magical "essence" there (and, more importantly, because keeping it would effectively mean playing two characters at once). Personality: - Self-Destructive - Jeff's reckless and short-sighted. He's like a living Fool card, always dancing on the edge of a cliff. He'll often act without considering consequences, and he'll frequently seek out highs from recreational drug and alcohol use, unsafe sex, and generally impulsive, thrill-seeking behavior. He's sort of like a free spirit taken to a dysfunctional extreme. Raised as a latchkey kid with no boundaries, rules or restrictions, Jeff's spent his life doing what he wants and being largely indifferent to the consequences-- mostly because there were never any consequences that mattered. His parents, Gifted ex-hippies, believed that boundaries were stifling (mentally, spiritually, and magically), and they took the whole concept of free-range parenting a little too far. All Jeff's ever known is the freedom to be true to himself, in whichever reckless, impulsive ways his whims take him. Since dropping out of school and heading out on his own, he's continued to do his own thing, living on the fringes of 'respectable' society, only working side jobs juuuust enough to fund his passions, and otherwise focusing on his music career, and on magic, parties, and drugs.
His self-destructive tendencies have only ramped up in light of his ongoing struggles with a demon in his head, as he seeks out as much 'noise' as possible to try to drown out the worst of it. When he's sober or he isn't drowning in adrenaline and endorphins, he's just so pitiful and lost, that he just can't stand it.
Jeff's already risky behavior has taken an even more dangerous spin recently, as he's developed this feeling of disconnect with his own body, sometimes regarding it as nothing more than a puppet made out of meat and bones. It's another result of being kind of sort of possessed by a demon for so many months. He easily and carelessly objectifies himself, feeling little possessiveness or protectiveness over his body. He's willing to put his health and safety at risk-- or, rather, it's just something he's stopped considering as much when he acts. Self preservation is little more than an afterthought, and on some level, he's flirting with impending disaster, almost daring it to come for him, because he's reaching a point where he feels as if he's got nothing to lose.
- Thoughtless - Jeff's flighty and superficial and, ultimately, pretty thoughtless. He's a major flake, forgetting things (and people) easily, as he's so wrapped up in his needs, his dreams, his emotional, artistic bullshit. It's an innocent sort of cruelty, where he seems really engaged and intimate with another person, only to forget them as soon as his attention moves on to other things. It's not uncommon for Jeff to seemingly connect with a person, only to ghost out of their lives the next day. Jeff tends to be simultaneously friendly with everybody and friends with nobody. As a result, he can be quite superficial or unintentionally inauthentic in his interactions with others. And while he won't necessarily throw people under the bus in order to get ahead, he will leave them behind as he zeroes in on, well, whatever it is he's trying to achieve at any given time. He may not even think about it, or realize he's doing it; it's just a thing that people in his circle have come to expect from him. Sometimes Jeff's there, and he's a great friend, and sometimes he's an absolute stranger who'll look right through you.
And now that he's hitched to a demon and truly living the Tortured Artist life, Jeff's myopic tendencies are at an all time high. Where before, the worst thing his friends could say was that he was sometimes a flake, sometimes kind of thoughtless, but generally pretty considerate and well meaning... Now it's become a dynamic where he'll fall into periods where it's no give and all take. He'll steal from friends, acquaintances, and his most beloved of loved ones if he can justify it to himself. He'll dump his problems on them and give no support in return. At his worst, he'll smile to someone's face while he lies, takes advantage, hurts feelings, breaks hearts, and enacts other little cruelties, all while making excuses for why he's not really doing anything harmful. It's fine. It's justified. He's not really hurting anyone. It doesn't count as long as he doesn't mean to be harmful.
- Needy - He's a performer, so it's probably no surprise that he absolutely craves attention. All Jeff's ever really dreamed about was the spotlight, and the sound of a screaming, adoring crowd is the greatest high he can experience. Though he won't readily admit this to others, it feels like there's some bottomless black hole in him that feeds on being loved and adored and cherished, and it's always hungry, never satisfied. Jeff's tendency to make superficial connections is a result of this; it's like he's going for quantity over quality. He can feel as if he's somebody's best friend for one fleeting night, and that'll feed that need for intimacy, without putting him in the terrifying position of being open and vulnerable. In a way, Jeff has hundreds of loved ones, even if he doesn't remember their names the next day, and their faces are kind of a blur...
And really, his neediness brings us to his dirty secret: Jeff kind of likes being possessed by the demon. It's always with him; it loves him, in some fucked up, destructive way. (And Jeff, in turn, loves it, just as much as he hates it.) It's obsessed, and it can't get enough of him, and sure it's destroying his sanity as an inevitable side-effect of their, uh, 'cohabitation,' but now he's never alone. His number one fan is in his head all the time. Of course he wants it gone-- at least, he's pretty sure he wants it gone-- but on some level, he's afraid of the solitude and silence that's going to follow. Which, since the demon won't be coming with him to Duplicity, will be something Jeff will struggle with. He might have an initial honeymoon period, overwhelmed with excitement that he's got his mind and sanity back, but once reality sinks in and he realizes, oh, yeah, he really is alone now, just a lost and unloved lonely boy, he's going to seek out a replacement wherever he can get it. If he finds the right person to scratch that itch for adoration, love, and affection, he may become clingy, needy, and desperate.
- Kind-Hearted - Despite his many flaws as a person, at his core, Jeff is a sweet, gentle, kind person. Though his sense of humor may be dry at times, and he may seem superficial, but he genuinely doesn't want to hurt or upset others. Whatever harm he causes is rarely deliberate, and for as selfish as he can be, Jeff generally has good intentions. Well. Decent intentions. Chaotic neutral intentions? Anyway, when he's at his best, Jeff's friendly, outgoing, and cheerful-- hell, he can be a living beam of sunshine. Emotionally and socially, Jeff's a bit nomadic, in that he can-- or is at least willing to-- befriend just about anyone. He's that guy who can get invited to any party, no matter who's throwing it, even though he isn't part of any group in particular.
When he's not dealing with his personal demons, Jeff tends to come across as a laid-back burnout, friendly and a bit goofy, and ultimately sweet and harmless. He can't stand to see others in distress, and will usually try to do his best to help if somebody's crying or otherwise upset (barring those times when he's in peak Moody Tortured Artist mode and can't/won't look past his own nonsense to notice anybody else). Though he can be selfish, Jeff's also got a lot of compassion that he doesn't really know how to direct, and a nurturing spirit. He especially loves animals, and will usually drop everything to help one in distress. He can't stand to kill bugs, and he thinks plants are cool and totally wants to grow one, even if all he can ever manage to do is kill them. Jeff may not think much of his safety and well-being, but he loves life-- he loves the concept of life, and the lives of others, and animals, and the planet and--
Basically, tldr: Jeff's a sweet magical hippie at heart.
Powers and Abilities: Jeff is Gifted, which means he has the potential to make magic work through self-directed Ritual. Magic, in this universe, isn't some amazing superpower, nor is it something that's as simple as picking a spell out of a book. Its applications can be versatile, running the pretty typical fantasy gamut (clairvoyance, glamours, telekinesis, vague curses/blessings, etc), with the potential mixing, matching, customization, and so on. The principles of magic are universal, but the actual spellwork is based on the individual. Spells and Rituals are unique to the caster. Rituals are tied into some aspect of who they are, what they're interested in, or what they're skilled at. As for spells, they have to be crafted/composed and cast by the individual. Think of them like a song that can only be played by one person. They can cast the same spell over and over again, or remix it with something old and something new, or craft a new one. The bigger the effect you wish to have, the more difficult and complex the ritual spellwork must be. Jeff's Ritual is music: singing, humming, whistling, playing the guitar, etc. Any spell he works has to be built on music, which makes him a bard. As far as magical potential goes, Jeff can be powerful, when he applies himself, and his magic is the epitome of style over substance: flashy, potentially useful, but applied frivolously. What boosts him up and sets him apart from your average Gifted person is his willingness to be amplified by other casters (his bandmates), and further fueled by his crowds' energy. On his own, Jeff's magic has a very limited range and influence, and his spells tend to be small, personal, and borderline mundane. It should also be noted that his spells only work in person, and only when he's actively casting them. So a studio recording of one of his spells wouldn't have any effect on anybody listening, nor would a live broadcast. Typically, his range of magic includes: - Telekinesis: He can move objects (or small living creatures) provided 1) they're in his general vicinity (about a 10 foot radius), 2) he knows where they are, and 3) they're not all that heavy (~40 lbs or less). So Jeff could never lift a car with magic, but he could put it in park by manipulating the gearshift. Really, this kind of spell is mostly useful when his hands are full and he doesn't want to make the extra trip to carry something.
(It's also great for pick pocketing and shoplifting)
In theory, he could use this kind of magic to do things like pick locks! But since he's likely unfamiliar with the lock's structure, it would be the magical equivalent of throwing shit at a wall to see what sticks.
- Empathic Manipulation & Intoxication: One of his go-to party tricks is to sway the moods of his audience. His spells can have an intoxicating effect on the listener, usually a temporary state of euphoria or lowered inhibition. On the darker end of the spectrum, he can induce hysteria, terror, aggression, and other negative emotions, but it's nothing he has any interest in doing. Typically, effects wouldn't last for more than 30 minutes, and would be weaker/more diluted if cast over larger groups. On his own, Jeff can have a moderate effect on a handful of people. When amped up by other magic users (like his bandmates, back home), he can work a crowd into an ecstatic frenzy.
Note: This ability is opt-in only, and will be included in my permissions post if accepted.
- Pyrokinesis: Starting fires is Magic 101, and Jeff's no exception-- provided there's something flammable to actually ignite. He can light a candle, or start a campfire (y'know, that's already got kindling and kerosene or whatever), but nine times out of ten, he'd rather just grab a lighter to do the same thing. Jeff can snuff out small flames, but he can't stop an uncontrolled fire.
Beyond lighting/snuffing out fires, Jeff can manipulate them a little with magic, but only in flashy, pointless ways. He can make them dance a little, or take shapes temporarily, but that's about it. Jeff can't change the size or intensity of fires.
- Lights: Jeff can use magic to light up an area-- sparkling fairy lights, or creepy will-o-the-wisp looking things, or colorful lights, and so on. They're showy, pretty, and temporary. Mostly, this spell comes in handy if Jeff's stuck in the dark and nobody has a flashlight.
- Locating: Sometimes, Jeff can use magic to find things. Like if he misplaces his keys, the right spell can give him a sense of where they might be. This can work on all sorts of objects, but he has to be familiar with the "essence" or "energy" (or whatever you want to call it) of the object's owner. So Jeff can find his own misplaced objects, but he couldn't find his friend's dad's missing golf club. I mean, unless he spent some time with the guy first. As a teenager, Jeff would use this kind of magic to try to locate and steal test answers from his teachers.
- Blight: He can kill plants, but it's rude and he tries not to. He also can't do the opposite-- nurture life-- with magic, as much as he'd like to. He just wants to grow some plants, man!
There's also a range of magic that Jeff's absolutely not capable of: healing (that's kind of a one in a billion skill), telepathy, mind control, flying, anything permanent, and anything that might have a larger scale influence than his immediate area. In addition to all the magical wizard shit, Jeff's an exceptional guitarist and talented singer, and he's got some standard juvenile delinquent skills, like shoplifting, basic breaking and entering (ie simple locks), and uhhhhh urban foraging (dumpster diving). Inventory: - Guitar
- Amp
- A mixtape cassette
Samples: Sample 1, Sample 2 ( Bonus Network) |
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cacophonish) wrote2021-10-11 06:39 am
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?