Post by Lucien Astin on May 31, 2009 13:13:13 GMT -5
Super alias: None
Gender/Sex: Male
Age: 17
Height: 6’4-5” (will be 6’6-7” at full height, within a year)
Physique: Still a little unfinished-looking. Broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted. Muscular, though it’s clearly not as heavy as it could be. He’s the sort who looks like he should be wielding a broadsword in the middle ages. Long fingers, calloused from guitar—pianist’s hands, if you note how he holds them. Strong facial features.
Costume description: None.
Powers/Abilities: Distinctly not magical, he has an ability to change the world around him just by willing it, on a small scale, or seem to. On stage, he doesn’t just play the role he’s given well—he makes the story itself seem real, makes the audience live it. When he wants to pretend he’s invisible, if he wants it hard enough, it happens. It’s draining for him, of course, and how hard any given thing is depends on a lot—how many people it’s affecting, the type of thing, etc. For instance, when there are a lot of people milling around and not focused on him, it’s easy to keep the focus further off him. When they’re all looking for him, though, it’s hard—he tends to get bad migraines if he overreaches himself. What he’s capable of also depends a lot on his bipolar—in a manic phase he tends to forget how easily drained he can be and go too far too fast, even be capable of more simply by forgetting it isn’t possible. Usually this comes out in his music, although he’s very capable of doing it through a simple gesture instead. While he’s around, the world just… changes, a little bit. Not for long, and not fundamentally, and when he goes away unless people change their minds it won’t stay changed—but for just a little while, the world is as he wills it to be.
(To put it in the words of author Jim Butcher, he has "a rather irritating talent for impersonating a fulcrum.")
Home City: Currently Mercury
Citizen Alias: Lucien Robert Astin
Backstory: Born in Scotland and raised for the last ten years mainly in Blackwork City, Lucien comes from an background which seems to have gone out of its way to contradict itself. On the one hand, his parents are highly educated and kept him as sheltered as they could, and on the other growing up in Blackwork meant learning to be more street-smart than the average academic’s child. On the one hand, growing up in the US meant a solid grounding in the Real World—and on the other, living in rural Scotland meant a certain exposure to old magics. Living with a doctor with healing superpowers meant he learned about dealing with those strange, innate ability to subtly change his world which seemed totally unrelated to the magic around him; living with an enchanter meant learning how to use that ability, mixed with the more standard magics, for dangerous results—and how to control it to prevent that danger from erupting.
Lucien was always something of a strange, special child. His family jokes about him being a changeling child, with his birthday coming on Midsummer. He was always mercurial, his mood bouncing from quiet and thoughtful, so tractable his aunts and uncles would tease his father about the lack of fire in him, to hyperactive and nearly uncontrollably energetic, to sullen and snappish and the rare fit of temper. He almost always tried hard to please, even in his more aggressive moods, and always felt horrible afterwards for any true transgressions. He was very much the favorite of the family, with his spark and ability to pull every eye in the room simply by existing. It wasn’t long before his father realized that there was more to that charismatic pull than was normal, and a few minor tests (which made Lucien’s mother have words with his father at some point) confirmed it wasn’t magic. It was Lucien himself, and his father was a little baffled and deeply concerned.
Very early his talents began to show—and he was brilliant. Some things he simply didn’t have the patience or commitment for, but he loved stories (he was reading young), and always seemed to grasp mathematics with ease. More than that, though, he had a natural gift for music which was remarkable. He was, quite simply, a genius when it came to music, and he loved it as he loved nothing else. Different kinds, too—he liked to experiment and try new sounds, although certain ones he always came back to. In his schoolwork he was always the lazy genius boy, the one who could help others but rarely applied himself to his own work—his mother forgave him completely (and his father mostly) because he truly did apply himself to his music, and practiced for hours. He also did, on the side, pick up a little knowledge of magic from his father, a skilled enchanted. Admittedly it was more theory than practicality, because after a few spells simply worked too well, Lucien grew bored and his father alarmed.
They moved to Blackwork when he was about seven, and he was more than a little heartbroken. The playgrounds and streets and being old enough to think of being out more on his own began to give him a city-bred, street-smart edge that no amount of living in the rural, agrarian-poor Highlands or the more comfortable university areas of Edinburgh could have done. He continued to practice, and as he grew up naturally got drawn to the musical doings of his school. Never having picked up a bowed string instrument, he never got too deeply involved in orchestra (although choir and jazz groups were his favorites, and he rarely helped out the winds if they needed it) and instead gravitated towards musical theater. Between his strange charisma which always seemed to make the world refocus around him and his gifts, he was an easy cast more often than not. On the younger side of his grade—he was only just fourteen at the start of high school—and a bit of a late bloomer, it wasn’t until sophomore year that his voice broke and he started growing. He quickly went from being the cute little soprano boy who looked younger than his years with a mild mad streak to the attractive baritone who acted older than he was and who… still had a mad streak, honestly.
And he did. His moods got worse, although he concealed them more and more as he got older, sometimes trying to cover the deep depressions by acting more wild than he did on his most manic of days, and he doesn’t understand why it happens to him, or what’s wrong with him. There were more arguments with his father, over small, ridiculous things, and he began wandering outside after dark to take his mind off of his own thoughts. It has culminated in his decision to turn down a full scholarship to study in Warber, on the basis of “I already know how to perform. I don’t need to waste my time being bored for another few years.”
And beneath it, a quiet, unarticulated fear that if he doesn’t take it now, he’ll kill himself before he gets a chance to be anything.
Other: He’s undiagnosed bipolar—forgive him if you meet him on a bad day, it’s not really his fault. Musically, he has perfect pitch and a mild case of synesthesia which goes with it (he tends to think of sounds and colors/light as much the same thing). He tends to be able to pick up whatever instruments he chooses, although primarily he plays the plucked-string family (guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, etc, both acoustic and electric), and piano, with secondary attention on flute, clarinet, bagpipes (yes, he knows it’s ridiculous, it amuses him), and percussion. He’s dabbled in most of the wind and brass instruments at some point or another, although he refuses to touch anything bowed out of an illogical belief he couldn’t play them if he tried. His taste is eclectic, running from classical to Celtic and bluegrass to an apparently disconnecting love of rock, and he tends to like pushing the boundaries of the genres and seeing what he gets. Particularly he likes rewriting classical and Celtic/bluegrass for rock and vice versa, mixing those styles. Oh, and he kind of does musical theater as well.
(Side note: Cam Phillips-Astin is his second cousin. As Lucien’s mother was from Walsh, they’d go visit family, and sometimes they’d play together over holidays despite the seven years between them (meaning that Cam got babysitting money from it, which he appreciated). Poor Cam tried to teach Lucien how to play video games. Lucien became the type of kid who would willingly play if it meant not being bored, but would never actively want to play/own a console.)
Gender/Sex: Male
Age: 17
Height: 6’4-5” (will be 6’6-7” at full height, within a year)
Physique: Still a little unfinished-looking. Broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted. Muscular, though it’s clearly not as heavy as it could be. He’s the sort who looks like he should be wielding a broadsword in the middle ages. Long fingers, calloused from guitar—pianist’s hands, if you note how he holds them. Strong facial features.
Costume description: None.
Powers/Abilities: Distinctly not magical, he has an ability to change the world around him just by willing it, on a small scale, or seem to. On stage, he doesn’t just play the role he’s given well—he makes the story itself seem real, makes the audience live it. When he wants to pretend he’s invisible, if he wants it hard enough, it happens. It’s draining for him, of course, and how hard any given thing is depends on a lot—how many people it’s affecting, the type of thing, etc. For instance, when there are a lot of people milling around and not focused on him, it’s easy to keep the focus further off him. When they’re all looking for him, though, it’s hard—he tends to get bad migraines if he overreaches himself. What he’s capable of also depends a lot on his bipolar—in a manic phase he tends to forget how easily drained he can be and go too far too fast, even be capable of more simply by forgetting it isn’t possible. Usually this comes out in his music, although he’s very capable of doing it through a simple gesture instead. While he’s around, the world just… changes, a little bit. Not for long, and not fundamentally, and when he goes away unless people change their minds it won’t stay changed—but for just a little while, the world is as he wills it to be.
(To put it in the words of author Jim Butcher, he has "a rather irritating talent for impersonating a fulcrum.")
Home City: Currently Mercury
Citizen Alias: Lucien Robert Astin
Backstory: Born in Scotland and raised for the last ten years mainly in Blackwork City, Lucien comes from an background which seems to have gone out of its way to contradict itself. On the one hand, his parents are highly educated and kept him as sheltered as they could, and on the other growing up in Blackwork meant learning to be more street-smart than the average academic’s child. On the one hand, growing up in the US meant a solid grounding in the Real World—and on the other, living in rural Scotland meant a certain exposure to old magics. Living with a doctor with healing superpowers meant he learned about dealing with those strange, innate ability to subtly change his world which seemed totally unrelated to the magic around him; living with an enchanter meant learning how to use that ability, mixed with the more standard magics, for dangerous results—and how to control it to prevent that danger from erupting.
Lucien was always something of a strange, special child. His family jokes about him being a changeling child, with his birthday coming on Midsummer. He was always mercurial, his mood bouncing from quiet and thoughtful, so tractable his aunts and uncles would tease his father about the lack of fire in him, to hyperactive and nearly uncontrollably energetic, to sullen and snappish and the rare fit of temper. He almost always tried hard to please, even in his more aggressive moods, and always felt horrible afterwards for any true transgressions. He was very much the favorite of the family, with his spark and ability to pull every eye in the room simply by existing. It wasn’t long before his father realized that there was more to that charismatic pull than was normal, and a few minor tests (which made Lucien’s mother have words with his father at some point) confirmed it wasn’t magic. It was Lucien himself, and his father was a little baffled and deeply concerned.
Very early his talents began to show—and he was brilliant. Some things he simply didn’t have the patience or commitment for, but he loved stories (he was reading young), and always seemed to grasp mathematics with ease. More than that, though, he had a natural gift for music which was remarkable. He was, quite simply, a genius when it came to music, and he loved it as he loved nothing else. Different kinds, too—he liked to experiment and try new sounds, although certain ones he always came back to. In his schoolwork he was always the lazy genius boy, the one who could help others but rarely applied himself to his own work—his mother forgave him completely (and his father mostly) because he truly did apply himself to his music, and practiced for hours. He also did, on the side, pick up a little knowledge of magic from his father, a skilled enchanted. Admittedly it was more theory than practicality, because after a few spells simply worked too well, Lucien grew bored and his father alarmed.
They moved to Blackwork when he was about seven, and he was more than a little heartbroken. The playgrounds and streets and being old enough to think of being out more on his own began to give him a city-bred, street-smart edge that no amount of living in the rural, agrarian-poor Highlands or the more comfortable university areas of Edinburgh could have done. He continued to practice, and as he grew up naturally got drawn to the musical doings of his school. Never having picked up a bowed string instrument, he never got too deeply involved in orchestra (although choir and jazz groups were his favorites, and he rarely helped out the winds if they needed it) and instead gravitated towards musical theater. Between his strange charisma which always seemed to make the world refocus around him and his gifts, he was an easy cast more often than not. On the younger side of his grade—he was only just fourteen at the start of high school—and a bit of a late bloomer, it wasn’t until sophomore year that his voice broke and he started growing. He quickly went from being the cute little soprano boy who looked younger than his years with a mild mad streak to the attractive baritone who acted older than he was and who… still had a mad streak, honestly.
And he did. His moods got worse, although he concealed them more and more as he got older, sometimes trying to cover the deep depressions by acting more wild than he did on his most manic of days, and he doesn’t understand why it happens to him, or what’s wrong with him. There were more arguments with his father, over small, ridiculous things, and he began wandering outside after dark to take his mind off of his own thoughts. It has culminated in his decision to turn down a full scholarship to study in Warber, on the basis of “I already know how to perform. I don’t need to waste my time being bored for another few years.”
And beneath it, a quiet, unarticulated fear that if he doesn’t take it now, he’ll kill himself before he gets a chance to be anything.
Other: He’s undiagnosed bipolar—forgive him if you meet him on a bad day, it’s not really his fault. Musically, he has perfect pitch and a mild case of synesthesia which goes with it (he tends to think of sounds and colors/light as much the same thing). He tends to be able to pick up whatever instruments he chooses, although primarily he plays the plucked-string family (guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, etc, both acoustic and electric), and piano, with secondary attention on flute, clarinet, bagpipes (yes, he knows it’s ridiculous, it amuses him), and percussion. He’s dabbled in most of the wind and brass instruments at some point or another, although he refuses to touch anything bowed out of an illogical belief he couldn’t play them if he tried. His taste is eclectic, running from classical to Celtic and bluegrass to an apparently disconnecting love of rock, and he tends to like pushing the boundaries of the genres and seeing what he gets. Particularly he likes rewriting classical and Celtic/bluegrass for rock and vice versa, mixing those styles. Oh, and he kind of does musical theater as well.
(Side note: Cam Phillips-Astin is his second cousin. As Lucien’s mother was from Walsh, they’d go visit family, and sometimes they’d play together over holidays despite the seven years between them (meaning that Cam got babysitting money from it, which he appreciated). Poor Cam tried to teach Lucien how to play video games. Lucien became the type of kid who would willingly play if it meant not being bored, but would never actively want to play/own a console.)