Jamie Waller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
seemssopleasing) wrote2037-03-09 02:13 am
seemssopleasing) wrote2037-03-09 02:13 am
info / history
FULL NAME
Benjamin Waller
AGE // BIRTHDAY
circa college years, 18-22ish // December 3rd
SPECIES
affected human
NICKNAMES
Jamie
PRONOUNS
he/him
SEXUALITY
gay
OCCUPATION
college student/waiter/dancer
TRIGGER WARNINGS
verbally and emotionally abusive parents
IN A NUTSHELL
Dancer, athlete, and inveterate people-pleaser finally manages to escape home, discovers unknown supernatural abilities and a whole new crowd of people to try and make like him.
Dress is usually casual and athletic, easy to move in. Favors soft fabrics and well-worn clothes, but will dress up when the occasion calls for it. He takes up a lot of space and is also aware he takes up a lot of space, and will try to be careful about it.
PERSONALITY
✚ cheerful, affectionate, playful, enthusiastic, hardworking, loyal
– overtrusting, naive, avoidant, insecure, impulsive
– overtrusting, naive, avoidant, insecure, impulsive
Jamie is eager to be liked and eager to make people happy, to the point of bending himself backwards at the slightest hint of someone else's desire. He's incredibly susceptible to any kind of pressure, and tries hard to keep the people around him happy for his own sense of calm as much as anything else. He's very empathetic, easily disturbed by others fighting or other people's bad moods, and if he can't help someone, he'll try to avoid them until things are better as much as he can.
He doesn't like to be unhappy, and he clamps down on his own bad moods, and especially his own anger, ruthlessly. His good cheer and easy care isn't entirely put on or faked, but it is the only thing he's willing to show to other people with very few exceptions. An angry or upset Jamie is only really noticeable in the fact that he'll physically push himself even harder than usual, chasing the joy (and endorphins) of physical activity and using it as an excuse not to discuss his problems. The recent discovery of his supernatural abilities, and his inability to control them when particularly upset, makes it even worse, as he doesn't want to hurt anyone by being unhappy; the problem's only exacerbated by the fact that physical exhaustion can kick them into gear as well, forcing him to be more careful with his favorite coping mechanism.
When things are good and everyone's having a good time, he's practically giddy, goofy and lighthearted, always willing to go along with a joke even if he's the butt of it, quickly reaching for hugs and affection. He's still very young, and while he's had to try and grow up since leaving home for college, it's very clearly in progress, and he's quick to defer to people who seem more experienced or more certain of what they're doing a lot of the time. He wants to be guided, badly, but far from home and coming from a position where there wasn't a lot of guidance to be found, he doesn't always look for it in the right places.
He doesn't like to be unhappy, and he clamps down on his own bad moods, and especially his own anger, ruthlessly. His good cheer and easy care isn't entirely put on or faked, but it is the only thing he's willing to show to other people with very few exceptions. An angry or upset Jamie is only really noticeable in the fact that he'll physically push himself even harder than usual, chasing the joy (and endorphins) of physical activity and using it as an excuse not to discuss his problems. The recent discovery of his supernatural abilities, and his inability to control them when particularly upset, makes it even worse, as he doesn't want to hurt anyone by being unhappy; the problem's only exacerbated by the fact that physical exhaustion can kick them into gear as well, forcing him to be more careful with his favorite coping mechanism.
When things are good and everyone's having a good time, he's practically giddy, goofy and lighthearted, always willing to go along with a joke even if he's the butt of it, quickly reaching for hugs and affection. He's still very young, and while he's had to try and grow up since leaving home for college, it's very clearly in progress, and he's quick to defer to people who seem more experienced or more certain of what they're doing a lot of the time. He wants to be guided, badly, but far from home and coming from a position where there wasn't a lot of guidance to be found, he doesn't always look for it in the right places.
BACKGROUND
Jamie is the only child of two people who should never have been married to each other, or quite possibly to anyone else. From a very young age, he's been torn between his parent's demands and used as a weapon in their arguments against each other, trying to balance things so he can please both of them and never getting any acknowledgements for his attempts. As he's grown up this behavior has spilled out more and more into the rest of his life, desperately and openly trying to make everyone happy.
His father's always been the easy one; while Jamie's still never been quite enough for him, he's always been better at physical strength and endurance than he has at being booksmart, which is what his mother wanted from him. But his father wanted an athletic son, so Jamie ran track, and played various sports as he was instructed, and did it all without complaining, because at least he could do what he was told there. Neither he or his mother had any idea that the reason his father was happy with a son who was more strong than smart was because he wanted to keep hiding the supernatural things he was getting deeper into all the time, but that only became clear much, much later.
The happiest parts of Jamie's childhood never had anything to do with his parents, though. He discovered a love for dance at a very young age, and the closest he's ever gone to disobeying his parents is to pursue that love as quietly as possible, teaching himself off of videos and occasionally getting his best friend to lie for him so he could attend an in-person class. Said best friend makes up the rest of his good memories from childhood; their parents were friends, and he and Kevin spent most of their time trying to escape their parents' expectations together. Kevin is the only one who can convince Jamie to try and take some time for himself or drop something he's agreed to do once in a while; his already sky-high stress levels would probably have been much, much worse without that influence from early on.
High school brought with it a variety of ways to briefly escape the pressure of their families, and Jamie followed his best friend as he always did into finding his own methods of dealing with it: parties, drinking, sometimes sex, but mostly dancing above all, any kind of dancing with any kind of partner who was willing. He pushed himself deeper and deeper into physical activities as well, both to tire himself out until it was easier to stop caring for a little while, and to chase the joy he got from it. It paid off in the form of a scholarship for track and field, to a college far away enough to get out from under his family's thumb, and despite the guilt for both leaving his parents behind and putting distance between him and his best friend for the first time in their lives, Jamie took it.
Being alone for the first time was thrilling, and Jamie quickly stopped taking his parents' calls -- already infrequent now that he was no longer there to use to bludgeon each other with or easily demand things from. He got a job to try and support himself, slowly starting shifting focus to take more and more dance classes and enjoy the things he loved, and all in all started to really enjoy himself for the first time in his life, despite the continued urge to make others happy.
Until late in his freshman year, when the last parting gift from his father became clear. Being too close to places where the planes of the world cross over at a formative age can have consequences, and Jamie's unawareness of what his father was playing with wasn't enough to spare him from them. While being near that nexus meant he had a subconscious source of energy to reach for first near-constantly, without that there, strange things started happening, particularly when he began running himself to ground during his second midterm and finals periods. After a few times, he stopped writing it off as coincidence, started cautiously trying to research without any idea what he was looking for, and began being much more careful about taking care of himself so he didn't instinctively feed off of anyone else -- but he still gets sick, and he still gets scared, and sometimes he can't stop it from happening anyway.
His father's always been the easy one; while Jamie's still never been quite enough for him, he's always been better at physical strength and endurance than he has at being booksmart, which is what his mother wanted from him. But his father wanted an athletic son, so Jamie ran track, and played various sports as he was instructed, and did it all without complaining, because at least he could do what he was told there. Neither he or his mother had any idea that the reason his father was happy with a son who was more strong than smart was because he wanted to keep hiding the supernatural things he was getting deeper into all the time, but that only became clear much, much later.
The happiest parts of Jamie's childhood never had anything to do with his parents, though. He discovered a love for dance at a very young age, and the closest he's ever gone to disobeying his parents is to pursue that love as quietly as possible, teaching himself off of videos and occasionally getting his best friend to lie for him so he could attend an in-person class. Said best friend makes up the rest of his good memories from childhood; their parents were friends, and he and Kevin spent most of their time trying to escape their parents' expectations together. Kevin is the only one who can convince Jamie to try and take some time for himself or drop something he's agreed to do once in a while; his already sky-high stress levels would probably have been much, much worse without that influence from early on.
High school brought with it a variety of ways to briefly escape the pressure of their families, and Jamie followed his best friend as he always did into finding his own methods of dealing with it: parties, drinking, sometimes sex, but mostly dancing above all, any kind of dancing with any kind of partner who was willing. He pushed himself deeper and deeper into physical activities as well, both to tire himself out until it was easier to stop caring for a little while, and to chase the joy he got from it. It paid off in the form of a scholarship for track and field, to a college far away enough to get out from under his family's thumb, and despite the guilt for both leaving his parents behind and putting distance between him and his best friend for the first time in their lives, Jamie took it.
Being alone for the first time was thrilling, and Jamie quickly stopped taking his parents' calls -- already infrequent now that he was no longer there to use to bludgeon each other with or easily demand things from. He got a job to try and support himself, slowly starting shifting focus to take more and more dance classes and enjoy the things he loved, and all in all started to really enjoy himself for the first time in his life, despite the continued urge to make others happy.
Until late in his freshman year, when the last parting gift from his father became clear. Being too close to places where the planes of the world cross over at a formative age can have consequences, and Jamie's unawareness of what his father was playing with wasn't enough to spare him from them. While being near that nexus meant he had a subconscious source of energy to reach for first near-constantly, without that there, strange things started happening, particularly when he began running himself to ground during his second midterm and finals periods. After a few times, he stopped writing it off as coincidence, started cautiously trying to research without any idea what he was looking for, and began being much more careful about taking care of himself so he didn't instinctively feed off of anyone else -- but he still gets sick, and he still gets scared, and sometimes he can't stop it from happening anyway.
ABILITIES
MUNDANE SKILLS
◾ Dance, running, sports; physical strength and endurance; hand-eye coordination
◾ Figuring out what people want from him, if not always giving it to them
◾ Gives great hugs
◾ Figuring out what people want from him, if not always giving it to them
◾ Gives great hugs
MAGICAL ABILITIES
◾ Energy manipulation -- at default point, generally this takes the form of instinctively draining energy from people around him when threatened, scared, or overly exhausted/overtaxed. He can do serious damage to people with this, but he's unlikely to need to do enough to do more than make them overwhelmingly tired at worst. Eventually this may extend to the ability to give energy as well as take it, the ability to control when he takes, etc, but he's yet to learn this. Range is roughly line of sight, though he doesn't have to actually be looking at someone.
◾ Notice-me-not -- instinctive ability to fade into the background when threatened or scared. This won't work if there's already close focus on him, or he does something that draws attention, but if he's in a crowd for example, he will be hard to find unless you already had your eyes on him.
◾ Notice-me-not -- instinctive ability to fade into the background when threatened or scared. This won't work if there's already close focus on him, or he does something that draws attention, but if he's in a crowd for example, he will be hard to find unless you already had your eyes on him.
MISC
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