Shannon Vaughn [uɐɯɹǝʌlᴉS ǝʇɐN] (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
privatematter) wrote2014-01-14 01:31 pm
privatematter) wrote2014-01-14 01:31 pm
Entry tags:
( revisionthree )
PLAYER;
Name: DJ.
Age: 22.
Journal:whitelighter
Contact: psitaniums /![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
biomagnet / eeveester{@}gmail.com
Characters: N/A.
CHARACTER;
Name: Shannon Vaughn.
Age: 34.
World: The world before this one was ruled by God. This god's name was Nate Silverman. Due to a freak accident, he had reset the universe with his wife, Alice, and placed himself in supreme position of power. Together, they had eight children and the entire family became a pantheon of elementals; in this universe, that was synonymous with their species: dragon. Although the universe could not be called a failure, it was indeed a gigantic clusterfuck. Nate was very drunk on his own power, speciesist and had no qualms about playing hands-on with his toys. This was most definitely the origin of the universe's eventual downfall.
Due to infighting between Nate and Alice, where she prophesied that one of his sons would destroy Nate and take his position as God, Nate destroyed the essence of her consciousness while giving the elemental powers to another being to keep the world spinning. This fight between the two of them birthed a new species, broken bits of memories and emotions splintered in the struggle: the angels. Oldest among these angels was Thomas Hawkins, who held Nate's memories and was the most unstable of his siblings. He was the prophesied son Alice mentioned, although the angels' nature as essences of Nate worked in their favor as it meant they lived in one of his blind spots. He did not even know the angels existed.
Because of Nate's own selfishness and disinterest in really looking after even his own children, they were theoretically incomplete. When the angels were born, some of them unintentionally took the fragments meant for the children; their destiny was to merge with the elementals and make complete beings. For every elemental except one, the end result of the merge left the elemental in control of the complete being — they retained their looks and overall powers, with alternations to personality to stabilize them as well as gaining the angel's memories. The one who did not come out on top was the youngest, named Benjamin, elemental of light. Benjamin had a long life fraught with depression and many hard knocks. When it came to merge with his destined angel, Thomas Hawkins, he allowed himself to fade into the background with the promise that Thomas would keep Benjamin's loved ones safe.
By the time the universe was coming to an end, Nate had gone completely and utterly insane with fury and paranoia. Thomas, having already fulfilled the other pieces of the prophesy by becoming one with all the other elementals, had just enough combined strength to absorb Nate and grant peace to the dying world. As Thomas was determined to be nothing like his father, he decided to enter an existence-long sleep to let the world decide its own fate. By that same vein, he let the lingering souls of all ten elementals inside of him choose whether they would join him in the unending sleep, or if they would separate their personalities, the human part of them inside of the dragon, and reincarnate into regular lives, the ones they could never have before. Not a one of the elementals declined the offer. Not even Nate.
Shannon's world is almost painfully normal, aside from the part where its foundation was laid over an alternate history before the new God (Thomas Hawkins) hit the reset button and decided to let the universe run itself. This resulted in something very, very close to our regular history. The only real differences are pieces where Aspects, the reincarnated elementals, may influence things. For the most part, these Aspects tend to awaken to memories of their original lives and are content to keep the world from the chaos it had been before. (Nate's Aspects, on the other hand, tend to only ever rarely wake up and, by that virtue, rarely make a mark on anything anyway.) These Aspects are unique in that they retain their exact essence every time they are reborn and are the only souls capable of true reincarnation in this universe due to being held inside of Thomas. For everyone else, they belong to a sort of collective unconscious where they return when they die and merge with all the other souls. When someone is born, a handful of this "lifestream" redirects into the body and becomes the new soul, making something new each and every time. (However, because Thomas loves to bend even his own rules, he can recreate regular souls from the previous universe to insert into the current one. He cannot, however, remake a soul that is original to his own, new universe.) Alternate universes aplenty sprang forth from this central universe where Shannon resides — they're more often "for want of a nail" than "but what if there were lizardmen," though.
Magic does exist, but more as an inherent natural law than any sort of force that people can manipulate; the aforementioned reborn elementals, Aspects, can tap into it due to their connection to the previous universe but only in ways pertaining to their previous elemental affinity. Shannon, as the Aspect of fire, subconsciously uses it as a sort of heatsensing radar. Additionally, although it is not an active use of magic, Shannon was born with the natural body temperature of 101.5°F as a matter of genetics for the same reason. However, because of magic's nature as something innate as physics, it is impossible to exist while innately nullifying magic; one of Thomas's children, Alexis, was born with the ability of magic nullification grafted to his soul. Due to that, it is impossible to bring anyone with similar powers into the current universe without some careful modifications to cancel it out... like mixing it with a universal constant such as God himself. Thus was Eli Delacroix born of Alexis' soul and Thomas' essence, the contradictory Aspect of both light (Thomas) and death (Alexis). He is a special snowflake.
History: Nate Silverman used to be God. He had accidentally made an entire universe with his wife Alice and was, by default, turned into the ultimate power presiding over it: the elemental dragon of fire, patron god of humans. With his wife and children, they formed a pantheon of elementals representing many different races and guarded over the universe. He was a complete asshole and very much drunk on the power he had maintained for millennia. When the inevitable happened, Nate's son, Thomas Hawkins, absorbed all elementals including himself and went on to recreate the universe once again with minimal meddling, to create something almost identical to our own world. Thomas gave each of the new pieces of himself a choice: join him in eternal slumber at the center of the universe, or have a chance at second life.
Nate, being a terrible horrible person and even worse of a father, took that to mean "be stuck with me or be separated" and chose the second-life bit. Since then, he has reincarnated as an Aspect of himself throughout the ages. None are entirely the same, but one thing binds all of them together: they are generally cocky assholes with hearts of gold, a return to who Nate used to be before unfathomable ages dealing with the pressure of all existence on his shoulders. Although Aspects tend to Awaken to memories of their previous lives, more often than not Nate's Aspects only ever get to a "sleepwalking" stage of being aware of their identity without the rest of the headfuckery to go with it. Nate himself is ridiculously unhappy to be a puny, powerless mortal, while his Aspects would rather continue enjoying life and not become bitter, toxic assholes upon returning to their Nate-like states.
It works out. Less than 1/10th of every Aspect truly awakens to Nate's memories.
That doesn't mean that they cannot tap into his elemental powers of fire, and many end up doing just that. Thankfully, fire has many different and subtle uses that would not incur Nate's proper attention by being outright destructive and seductive to use.
Shannon Vaughn is the current Aspect of Nate Silverman. Despite there having been one as recently as fifteen years ago, Shannon's birthday on February 29th, 1956, gives something of a metaphysical loophole that allows him to theoretically have existed alongside the previous Nate Aspect; Shannon is, after all, only 8 years old. Shannon was also born blind, having the fortune of well-off parents to make sure he got proper education and care in his younger years all the way up into locating a job — he works with the Chicago PD as an assistant of sorts, doing some paperwork, yes, but also helping with the intellectual sides of cases and sometimes appearing on secured crime scenes to give aide even there.
As Shannon's natural temperature is a toasty 101.2 degrees Fahrenheit and, since his teenage years, he has been able to sense masses of heat around him like some kind of heatsensing radar, it was hard not to notice something was different about himself. He was not one to flaunt this type of specialness in front of others, rather than using it inconspicuously to put himself ahead of expectations and make himself more valuable by virtue of natural talents. Despite much initial resistance with his placement in the department, Shannon has become something of a fixture to them over his eleven years of employment there. During that time, two particular foreign officers had transferred in to the department: Matheus Rocha, from Brazil, and Javier Vasquez from Spain. Thanks to a whole bunch of friendly conflict between the three, they all bonded quickly and became close in spite of what should have been a tense relationship. (It was here that Matheus, the Aspect of Poison, and Javier, the Aspect of Wood, realized they were dealing with an Aspect of Nate when Shannon made it a running joke to comment on the girliness of Javier's hands; it was simply an asshole comment from Shannon's side of things, but hinted at the completely terrible person that Nate was underneath due to Javier's original life as a FtM transgender in the previous universe. They don't hold it against Shannon for being unknowingly beholden to his previous life and have, thus far, never mentioned it to him. Shannon would not deal well with having made such horrible comments to someone he genuinely respects.)
In 1984, Shannon had an unusual encounter with a young man named Eli Delacroix. Eli was a journalist attempting to get a scoop about an unusual case back in the day, and Shannon had been the lucky one to intercept him and run him in a few loops before Eli could catch on to the man's blindness and lack of badge. Despite some hard feelings, they then agreed on a lunch date for a proper interview when it became clear Shannon knew just as much about the case as any cop might and would gladly use his own time to keep the proper officers on the case without interruption. It was that incident that started the precedent of Shannon becoming Eli's informant — no other journalist had quite the pull or the charm that Shannon appreciated, but where Eli was concerned he felt it necessary to make the time.
Only a few months after the friendship began, Eli asked Shannon a favor. He wanted a restraining order—several, actually—placed against seemingly unrelated peoples who kept bothering him despite his and his father's wishes to be left in peace. This was how Shannon unknowingly widened his social circle to almost all of the current Aspects alive, who had unconsciously begun gravitating toward the Chicago area starting around twenty to fifteen years prior. While Shannon did not understand the point behind their "harassment" of Eli, he did help fill out the paperwork and push it through for the orders... all while getting closer to several of the restrainees despite all attempts not to bond. It was all kinds of awkward, but Shannon could not help the pull he felt to these people and made sure not to ever let it cross the professional boundary of the restraining order due to his friendship with Eli. Still: awkwaaaard.
In 1987, Shannon became aware of Matheus and Javier growing obsessed with a case far outside their jurisdiction: the missing person Jasper Keaton. He aided them when he felt like it, because they were pretty intent on the case, but for the life of him could not fathom why it was so important when his own private inquiries turned up no real connection between any of them. It was not until a year later, when Eli made passing mention of the name, that things started to seem more and more suspicious. It was Shannon who accidentally spilled what all the other Aspects had been hoping to hide from Eli for fear of what the young man might do. Jasper Keaton had gone missing within the last two years and no one could locate him. Eli then stormed down the station to drag Matheus and Javier out by their ears to give them a gigantic dressing down for hiding the situation from him, all while Shannon invented popcorn.gif and observed.
Once the chewing out was done, all four of them did the only thing left to do: combine their forces and double their efforts. While Shannon still had no idea who Jasper Keaton truly was to Eli aside from a childhood friend, no one seemed inclined to call the investigation unimportant. After about a month of meet-ups, the unbelievable happened. Shannon, Eli, Matheus and Javier were all kidnapped straight from Javier's home and tossed into the back of an unmarked van. The long ride down to the warehouses gave them enough time to clear much of the air of confusion, with Shannon's nature as an Aspect being revealed to him, as well as getting introduced to Harvey Adair, Aspect of Darkness, and Denise Trepanier, Aspect of Metal. As Denise had fully awakened who knew how long ago, she was fully capable of wrenching control of the very metal van from their captors and getting them to safety — however, the group eventually decided to wait for the other four Aspects that the group of Very Shady Individuals must have surely grabbed as well, then make a break for it with the full ten of them (plus a dog) in tow. When they arrived, there was very little to be done; the Shady Fucks did not know the whole story of the Aspects, their true place in the world, and believed the group to be people in some kind of cult with a large amount of unexplained power. Jasper's disappearance worried them immensely, and they had hoped to scare his location out of the Aspects with their little show.
It didn't work. They were released once the monologuing was done, and the Aspects that knew what was going on decided on their next course of action: locate the incarnation of Thomas Hawkins. Eli apparently didn't count as he was simultaneously a reincarnation of someone else, and there would be a purer version somewhere in the world to consult. Which was all well and good, except for the fact that Shannon had only just learned that Thomas Hawkins had eaten his previous life and probably had the most reason to hate his entire being. It was the standard reaction when talking to an Aspect about Nate Silverman.
[ADD MORE FOR THE CANON BUMP, DJ, STG]
Appearance: Shannon Vaughn's eyes are the color of the sea after a storm. His hair is somewhere mysterious between brown and black, cut short and kept well-groomed. Warning: messing with his hair may or may not make him look ten years younger. His skin is pale, and he stands at 6' exactly. In The World, he has gained wave symbols along his body to match with the rest of the PCs running around, shapes inclined toward swooping and sloping lines in a dark, rusty sort of red that mainly appear around his face, neck and down his back. It inspires the image of a dragon or its smoky, fiery breath. Clothes are in the range of form-fitting casual, following the idea of late-80s fashion while giving in to the trend of useless slots to show skin and lots of buckles everywhere. His played-by is Matt Bomer.
Personality: Shannon Vaughn is a very confident man. He feels no less for his disability, having known nothing else, because he knows that he can function perfectly well in this sight-less world. There are things he can't do or understand the same as everyone else might, but really, how is that different than any other human interaction on the face of the planet? Exactly. As long as he has his independence, as long as he maintains his job and keeps his friends like a regular guy, he doesn't need anything else to confirm that he is whole. What does sometimes frustrate him is his own personality. He can be rough around the edges, quick to speak and insult, keeping on top of his game to prove that he is on top of his game — even if Shannon is positive he needs nothing more from his life, that doesn't stop others from treating him like something lesser, and he cannot stand being treated with less respect than is due. His attention must always be sharp, he must always make sure others are aware that they can't pull anything past him. This has resulted in the habit of him practically detaching himself from his own thoughts, operating on finely honed instinct and intellect than ever stopping to think things through, because thinking things through tends to catch him up on the myriad options presented to him from a too-active mind. He does not stop to think about the true consequences of what he says, the intricate details and power of words, and that has damaged friendships as well as strengthened others. His unique way of living sometimes makes him difficult to get used to.
None of this is to say that Shannon is a hardass. He is playful, bright and always willing to take part in a joke. Even jokes involving him, sometimes, when he knows it won't target his weaknesses in good faith. One of his favorites is wearing a pair of spoof-glasses not only to make himself more handsome (he has it on good word that it makes him even more handsome than usual), but to mess with the preconceptions of anyone who might assume things by watching him at work or with Lacey. To pair with his bright attitude, Shannon is incredibly responsible: he's always had to look out for himself more than others, and for about half his life he has always had a guide dog to care for along with himself. His line of work can necessitate working with shaken and confused people, and he does try to help them out of some confused echo of a fatherly instinct. He wouldn't call it his soft side; he simply has compassion enough to use his own time helping others with things where the world had failed them. He is not the type to donate his time to charities and goodwill, just the sort that doesn't like seeing someone fester when they cannot help themselves.
Although his confidence is natural and hard to shake, there are some days when it just does not come with Shannon. It's difficult to maintain such a high opinion of yourself in the face of external onslaught and on bad days where nothing seems to go right, or maybe even a day where he rolled out the wrong side of bed, gloom and doubt can overtake him. While it isn't anything particularly overt, Shannon does tend to take these days very slowly, resists going outside even with Lacey's help, and will try to avoid any activity that might make someone doubt him or comment on his abilities. These moods can last for up to several days or only just a few hours, but they crush him and close in on his assertion that being able to see is not as great as everyone else thinks. It makes him wonder, truly wonder what it would be like, and the world of the sighted is one of the most terrifying things he can imagine.
His life has always been relatively simple. With help from his parents, Shannon has not wanted for much, and could always put his life and daily activities in boxes where things made sense and he could easily know where he stood at any one time. Only in recent days has it gotten ridiculously more complicated with the reveal that Shannon is some sort of godlike reincarnation with sway over fire. His feelings on the matter are mixed. On the one hand, it excites and pleases him to know that the oddities of his life (body temperature, his sense of the heat around him, a nagging offness with his place in the world that he could never claim as his own) have an explanation; odd as the truth may be, it rings correct in his soul. On the other hand, everyone seems to hate the man that he was and Shannon is inclined to agree. While it's technically possible to remember being Nate Silverman, Shannon will never go that far for fear of losing his own identity and becoming the apparent monster that he used to be. As long as the other Aspects treat him as more or less his own person, an inheritor to Nate and not some sort of ticking time-bomb, he's pretty okay with the new twist his life has taken. It's expanded his social circle several times, and has given him a goal beyond just getting up in the mornings: staying himself, and making sure the others remain all right. It's that misguided fatherly instinct again, but he doesn't deny himself of it as long as they don't catch on. What's the harm?
Race: Boring ol' human.
Class: Steam Gunner. Shannon is the Aspect of Fire and works with the police, so: firearms. Nate Silverman was also a military-trained sniper in his own time, not to mention it will be a job that would require Shannon to quickly adapt to his newly-gained sight.
Abilities: As any more violent powers are tied to Nate's memories and Shannon is continuously oblivious to those, he only had two real powers to call his own. The first is more of a state of being, as his temperature hovers around 101.5°F — this will manifest as a skill that adds a flat 30% immunity to status effects to mirror his heightened resistance to the average germ. His second ability is a heat sense that can clue him in to vague positions of people and other living beings around him — this will manifest as the ability to sense treasure chest locations in the near vicinity and the general rarity of items within (how "hot" they are).
Items: ???
You may list up to 5 starting items, but they are locked from the character until they reach level 15.
Other: Shannon is blind in canon. He shall be gaining his sight in The World. Although The World can translate any language, Shannon will be unable to read at start because his written word was a very different format than how the rest of the world reads their own written words.
SAMPLES;
First-person: This is the format used in the Network community. Actions are in brackets while spoken word or text is not. Minimum length is eight sentences. You may link a post or thread from a musebox, a meme thread, or a previous games, but make sure they are long enough for the mods to accurately judge your writing.
Third-person: Someone new was being transferred in. It happened often enough that it was no real notable thing; gossip turned up a few notches, people trying to fit their social circles and business relationships around the new cog in their well-oiled machine. Shannon, too, was letting himself acclimate to the presence of someone new in the department.
After eleven years, he had his own desk on the floor with the rest of the actual officers. It helped keep his ears to the ground, made him more productive to be a part of the proceedings; his desk was adjoined to Javier and Matheus's as something of a mutual request between all of them. Lacey was tucked up half underneath it and to the side of his chair, with him reaching down every now and then to give a scratch behind the skull or a rub behind the ears. He was going over one of the case files when he heard it, the sound of the office coming to a slow stop while the newbie walked in. It wasn't anything overt, simply the cut of background noise from a murmur to a soft hum, no one willing to admit they were watching with their eyes, ears, anything they could without being accused of slacking.
Shannon felt his lips tug upward. "Guy or gal?" he asked casually, letting it collapse into the background noise so as to not attract attention.
"Gal," Matheus said promptly. He wasn't going to question how Shannon knew. It wasn't even his fifth sense (the heat one, not his missing sight) as the summer temperatures made it hard to keep a bead on anyone who hadn't been sitting still long enough.
Shannon nodded to himself, adjusting his senses. Women in the workplace tended to smell much more pleasant and done-up than the men did, their strides carrying a different cadence and center of balance. It helped him know what to look for when defining their newest coworker. Judging by the footsteps making their way through now, in fact, she was making the rounds to introduce herself — bold move, one Shannon couldn't disapprove of. Not going to meet the chief immediately in favor of taking it to the heart of the force.
The steps got closer. Shannon earmarked his file and shut it, placed his arm over it, timed the steps with the slight vibration and air currents. Some people said he was insane to be so aware of his surroundings; Shannon knew they were just compensating for their lack of attentiveness with their eyesight. He enjoyed keeping people surprised, kept them from thinking he was somehow unaware.
He shifted at just the right moment, giving a grin and tilting his head toward the newcomer. "Hey, welcome to the Chicago PD," he greeted. There was a soft ah, stuttering motion as he caught her off-guard, and he turned his face toward the voice. She was to his right, an angle where he doubted she would notice Lacey of her own accord. His glasses were on and Matheus always complained of them glaring like a bitch from the natural lighting at this time of day. It meant she might not notice his lack of exact visual aim and that was good enough for him.
"Thank you," the woman said. Her voice was of a soft pitch, natural, more like taut and musical strings than anything syrupy unburdened by a need to please. "Officer Vaughn, is it?"
"Shannon's fine," he said, waving off her attempt at propriety.
Javier laughed across from him. "You must be Officer Gretzky," he said. "Javier Vasquez, and this bozo to my left is Matheus Rocha. You've already found Shannon's nameplate, I see."
"You're... three people to a team?" asked Gretzky, clearly confused by the configuration of their desks.
"You could say that," Matheus answered. Shannon just grinned up to Gretzky pleasingly. "Or you could say it's two partners and a consultant."
"Which would be way more accurate," said the consultant with a tilt of his head. He had no idea what it must look like for his movements, but they came so naturally to him and no one ever told him it looked weird, so who cared? Not him.
There was another ah. "Mr. Shannon Vaughn, then," she reaffirmed. "What do you consult on?"
"I dabble here and there. Little bit of everything," he said in a very helpfully unhelpful manner. "Except the crime scene photos. Can't make heads or tails of those."
There was a pause and he heard Matheus trying to contain a laugh. "Truly hopeless with the photos, our Vaughn."
"Van Gogh, he's not," Javier agreed.
Shannon shifted his arm, unobstructing his file. It didn't take long for Gretzky to notice it, he noted approvingly. She was disarmed, off her game, but still taking in new details. Good, good. "Braille?" she asked, her voice curious and tainted with some uncertainty. "But... your glasses?"
"I'm blind without them," Shannon said with a large shoulder shrug. She chuckled, seeming to make some connections with the joke. Before either of them could continue, someone called her name and she was excusing herself to trot off and continue the rounds.
"You're blind with them," Javier said pointedly once she was out of earshot.
Opening his file once again and scanning the first few words of each line until he located his place, Shannon smiled. "Hey, not my fault she didn't ask about that part."
Age: 22.
Journal:
whitelighterContact: psitaniums /
Characters: N/A.
CHARACTER;
Age: 34.
World: The world before this one was ruled by God. This god's name was Nate Silverman. Due to a freak accident, he had reset the universe with his wife, Alice, and placed himself in supreme position of power. Together, they had eight children and the entire family became a pantheon of elementals; in this universe, that was synonymous with their species: dragon. Although the universe could not be called a failure, it was indeed a gigantic clusterfuck. Nate was very drunk on his own power, speciesist and had no qualms about playing hands-on with his toys. This was most definitely the origin of the universe's eventual downfall.
Due to infighting between Nate and Alice, where she prophesied that one of his sons would destroy Nate and take his position as God, Nate destroyed the essence of her consciousness while giving the elemental powers to another being to keep the world spinning. This fight between the two of them birthed a new species, broken bits of memories and emotions splintered in the struggle: the angels. Oldest among these angels was Thomas Hawkins, who held Nate's memories and was the most unstable of his siblings. He was the prophesied son Alice mentioned, although the angels' nature as essences of Nate worked in their favor as it meant they lived in one of his blind spots. He did not even know the angels existed.
Because of Nate's own selfishness and disinterest in really looking after even his own children, they were theoretically incomplete. When the angels were born, some of them unintentionally took the fragments meant for the children; their destiny was to merge with the elementals and make complete beings. For every elemental except one, the end result of the merge left the elemental in control of the complete being — they retained their looks and overall powers, with alternations to personality to stabilize them as well as gaining the angel's memories. The one who did not come out on top was the youngest, named Benjamin, elemental of light. Benjamin had a long life fraught with depression and many hard knocks. When it came to merge with his destined angel, Thomas Hawkins, he allowed himself to fade into the background with the promise that Thomas would keep Benjamin's loved ones safe.
By the time the universe was coming to an end, Nate had gone completely and utterly insane with fury and paranoia. Thomas, having already fulfilled the other pieces of the prophesy by becoming one with all the other elementals, had just enough combined strength to absorb Nate and grant peace to the dying world. As Thomas was determined to be nothing like his father, he decided to enter an existence-long sleep to let the world decide its own fate. By that same vein, he let the lingering souls of all ten elementals inside of him choose whether they would join him in the unending sleep, or if they would separate their personalities, the human part of them inside of the dragon, and reincarnate into regular lives, the ones they could never have before. Not a one of the elementals declined the offer. Not even Nate.
Shannon's world is almost painfully normal, aside from the part where its foundation was laid over an alternate history before the new God (Thomas Hawkins) hit the reset button and decided to let the universe run itself. This resulted in something very, very close to our regular history. The only real differences are pieces where Aspects, the reincarnated elementals, may influence things. For the most part, these Aspects tend to awaken to memories of their original lives and are content to keep the world from the chaos it had been before. (Nate's Aspects, on the other hand, tend to only ever rarely wake up and, by that virtue, rarely make a mark on anything anyway.) These Aspects are unique in that they retain their exact essence every time they are reborn and are the only souls capable of true reincarnation in this universe due to being held inside of Thomas. For everyone else, they belong to a sort of collective unconscious where they return when they die and merge with all the other souls. When someone is born, a handful of this "lifestream" redirects into the body and becomes the new soul, making something new each and every time. (However, because Thomas loves to bend even his own rules, he can recreate regular souls from the previous universe to insert into the current one. He cannot, however, remake a soul that is original to his own, new universe.) Alternate universes aplenty sprang forth from this central universe where Shannon resides — they're more often "for want of a nail" than "but what if there were lizardmen," though.
Magic does exist, but more as an inherent natural law than any sort of force that people can manipulate; the aforementioned reborn elementals, Aspects, can tap into it due to their connection to the previous universe but only in ways pertaining to their previous elemental affinity. Shannon, as the Aspect of fire, subconsciously uses it as a sort of heatsensing radar. Additionally, although it is not an active use of magic, Shannon was born with the natural body temperature of 101.5°F as a matter of genetics for the same reason. However, because of magic's nature as something innate as physics, it is impossible to exist while innately nullifying magic; one of Thomas's children, Alexis, was born with the ability of magic nullification grafted to his soul. Due to that, it is impossible to bring anyone with similar powers into the current universe without some careful modifications to cancel it out... like mixing it with a universal constant such as God himself. Thus was Eli Delacroix born of Alexis' soul and Thomas' essence, the contradictory Aspect of both light (Thomas) and death (Alexis). He is a special snowflake.
History: Nate Silverman used to be God. He had accidentally made an entire universe with his wife Alice and was, by default, turned into the ultimate power presiding over it: the elemental dragon of fire, patron god of humans. With his wife and children, they formed a pantheon of elementals representing many different races and guarded over the universe. He was a complete asshole and very much drunk on the power he had maintained for millennia. When the inevitable happened, Nate's son, Thomas Hawkins, absorbed all elementals including himself and went on to recreate the universe once again with minimal meddling, to create something almost identical to our own world. Thomas gave each of the new pieces of himself a choice: join him in eternal slumber at the center of the universe, or have a chance at second life.
Nate, being a terrible horrible person and even worse of a father, took that to mean "be stuck with me or be separated" and chose the second-life bit. Since then, he has reincarnated as an Aspect of himself throughout the ages. None are entirely the same, but one thing binds all of them together: they are generally cocky assholes with hearts of gold, a return to who Nate used to be before unfathomable ages dealing with the pressure of all existence on his shoulders. Although Aspects tend to Awaken to memories of their previous lives, more often than not Nate's Aspects only ever get to a "sleepwalking" stage of being aware of their identity without the rest of the headfuckery to go with it. Nate himself is ridiculously unhappy to be a puny, powerless mortal, while his Aspects would rather continue enjoying life and not become bitter, toxic assholes upon returning to their Nate-like states.
It works out. Less than 1/10th of every Aspect truly awakens to Nate's memories.
That doesn't mean that they cannot tap into his elemental powers of fire, and many end up doing just that. Thankfully, fire has many different and subtle uses that would not incur Nate's proper attention by being outright destructive and seductive to use.
Word of Eli-mun Yeah, Eli's story is he was a mysterious child found near an impossible headstone by a journalist. After Marcus adopted him, they were given photographs and names of people who would know who Eli was and what the headstone meant. After going on a sidequest to get Jasper Keaton, Aspect of Light, to help, he joined the party and the three had to travel all over the world to do sidequests to get the other Aspects to help. And then they met Alice and Nate's Aspects.
This version of Nate's Aspect is the rare one who doesn't have the asshole with a heart of gold thing going on.
He's just an asshole.
Eli is both the Aspect of Thomas and a reincarnation of someone Thomas holds very dear to him.
Once Eli found out that his whole search to find out who he is was basically just a game to Thomas himself, he wanted nothing to do with any of the other Aspects save Jasper and wanted a perfectly normal life without powers or other memories or anything. So he and Marcus went back to Chicago and Eli decided that he was going to grow up and be just like his adopted father instead.
Or "Eli found out Thomas pulled a Nate and ragequit the game."
(And then Thomas just wiped the Nate and Alice pieces once the game was over?)
Nope, just the Nate piece. Alice was a nun that Nate was harassing.
She was a nun who ran an orphanage. Nate's level of asshole knows no bounds.
Shannon Vaughn is the current Aspect of Nate Silverman. Despite there having been one as recently as fifteen years ago, Shannon's birthday on February 29th, 1956, gives something of a metaphysical loophole that allows him to theoretically have existed alongside the previous Nate Aspect; Shannon is, after all, only 8 years old. Shannon was also born blind, having the fortune of well-off parents to make sure he got proper education and care in his younger years all the way up into locating a job — he works with the Chicago PD as an assistant of sorts, doing some paperwork, yes, but also helping with the intellectual sides of cases and sometimes appearing on secured crime scenes to give aide even there.
As Shannon's natural temperature is a toasty 101.2 degrees Fahrenheit and, since his teenage years, he has been able to sense masses of heat around him like some kind of heatsensing radar, it was hard not to notice something was different about himself. He was not one to flaunt this type of specialness in front of others, rather than using it inconspicuously to put himself ahead of expectations and make himself more valuable by virtue of natural talents. Despite much initial resistance with his placement in the department, Shannon has become something of a fixture to them over his eleven years of employment there. During that time, two particular foreign officers had transferred in to the department: Matheus Rocha, from Brazil, and Javier Vasquez from Spain. Thanks to a whole bunch of friendly conflict between the three, they all bonded quickly and became close in spite of what should have been a tense relationship. (It was here that Matheus, the Aspect of Poison, and Javier, the Aspect of Wood, realized they were dealing with an Aspect of Nate when Shannon made it a running joke to comment on the girliness of Javier's hands; it was simply an asshole comment from Shannon's side of things, but hinted at the completely terrible person that Nate was underneath due to Javier's original life as a FtM transgender in the previous universe. They don't hold it against Shannon for being unknowingly beholden to his previous life and have, thus far, never mentioned it to him. Shannon would not deal well with having made such horrible comments to someone he genuinely respects.)
In 1984, Shannon had an unusual encounter with a young man named Eli Delacroix. Eli was a journalist attempting to get a scoop about an unusual case back in the day, and Shannon had been the lucky one to intercept him and run him in a few loops before Eli could catch on to the man's blindness and lack of badge. Despite some hard feelings, they then agreed on a lunch date for a proper interview when it became clear Shannon knew just as much about the case as any cop might and would gladly use his own time to keep the proper officers on the case without interruption. It was that incident that started the precedent of Shannon becoming Eli's informant — no other journalist had quite the pull or the charm that Shannon appreciated, but where Eli was concerned he felt it necessary to make the time.
Only a few months after the friendship began, Eli asked Shannon a favor. He wanted a restraining order—several, actually—placed against seemingly unrelated peoples who kept bothering him despite his and his father's wishes to be left in peace. This was how Shannon unknowingly widened his social circle to almost all of the current Aspects alive, who had unconsciously begun gravitating toward the Chicago area starting around twenty to fifteen years prior. While Shannon did not understand the point behind their "harassment" of Eli, he did help fill out the paperwork and push it through for the orders... all while getting closer to several of the restrainees despite all attempts not to bond. It was all kinds of awkward, but Shannon could not help the pull he felt to these people and made sure not to ever let it cross the professional boundary of the restraining order due to his friendship with Eli. Still: awkwaaaard.
In 1987, Shannon became aware of Matheus and Javier growing obsessed with a case far outside their jurisdiction: the missing person Jasper Keaton. He aided them when he felt like it, because they were pretty intent on the case, but for the life of him could not fathom why it was so important when his own private inquiries turned up no real connection between any of them. It was not until a year later, when Eli made passing mention of the name, that things started to seem more and more suspicious. It was Shannon who accidentally spilled what all the other Aspects had been hoping to hide from Eli for fear of what the young man might do. Jasper Keaton had gone missing within the last two years and no one could locate him. Eli then stormed down the station to drag Matheus and Javier out by their ears to give them a gigantic dressing down for hiding the situation from him, all while Shannon invented popcorn.gif and observed.
Once the chewing out was done, all four of them did the only thing left to do: combine their forces and double their efforts. While Shannon still had no idea who Jasper Keaton truly was to Eli aside from a childhood friend, no one seemed inclined to call the investigation unimportant. After about a month of meet-ups, the unbelievable happened. Shannon, Eli, Matheus and Javier were all kidnapped straight from Javier's home and tossed into the back of an unmarked van. The long ride down to the warehouses gave them enough time to clear much of the air of confusion, with Shannon's nature as an Aspect being revealed to him, as well as getting introduced to Harvey Adair, Aspect of Darkness, and Denise Trepanier, Aspect of Metal. As Denise had fully awakened who knew how long ago, she was fully capable of wrenching control of the very metal van from their captors and getting them to safety — however, the group eventually decided to wait for the other four Aspects that the group of Very Shady Individuals must have surely grabbed as well, then make a break for it with the full ten of them (plus a dog) in tow. When they arrived, there was very little to be done; the Shady Fucks did not know the whole story of the Aspects, their true place in the world, and believed the group to be people in some kind of cult with a large amount of unexplained power. Jasper's disappearance worried them immensely, and they had hoped to scare his location out of the Aspects with their little show.
It didn't work. They were released once the monologuing was done, and the Aspects that knew what was going on decided on their next course of action: locate the incarnation of Thomas Hawkins. Eli apparently didn't count as he was simultaneously a reincarnation of someone else, and there would be a purer version somewhere in the world to consult. Which was all well and good, except for the fact that Shannon had only just learned that Thomas Hawkins had eaten his previous life and probably had the most reason to hate his entire being. It was the standard reaction when talking to an Aspect about Nate Silverman.
[ADD MORE FOR THE CANON BUMP, DJ, STG]
Appearance: Shannon Vaughn's eyes are the color of the sea after a storm. His hair is somewhere mysterious between brown and black, cut short and kept well-groomed. Warning: messing with his hair may or may not make him look ten years younger. His skin is pale, and he stands at 6' exactly. In The World, he has gained wave symbols along his body to match with the rest of the PCs running around, shapes inclined toward swooping and sloping lines in a dark, rusty sort of red that mainly appear around his face, neck and down his back. It inspires the image of a dragon or its smoky, fiery breath. Clothes are in the range of form-fitting casual, following the idea of late-80s fashion while giving in to the trend of useless slots to show skin and lots of buckles everywhere. His played-by is Matt Bomer.
Personality: Shannon Vaughn is a very confident man. He feels no less for his disability, having known nothing else, because he knows that he can function perfectly well in this sight-less world. There are things he can't do or understand the same as everyone else might, but really, how is that different than any other human interaction on the face of the planet? Exactly. As long as he has his independence, as long as he maintains his job and keeps his friends like a regular guy, he doesn't need anything else to confirm that he is whole. What does sometimes frustrate him is his own personality. He can be rough around the edges, quick to speak and insult, keeping on top of his game to prove that he is on top of his game — even if Shannon is positive he needs nothing more from his life, that doesn't stop others from treating him like something lesser, and he cannot stand being treated with less respect than is due. His attention must always be sharp, he must always make sure others are aware that they can't pull anything past him. This has resulted in the habit of him practically detaching himself from his own thoughts, operating on finely honed instinct and intellect than ever stopping to think things through, because thinking things through tends to catch him up on the myriad options presented to him from a too-active mind. He does not stop to think about the true consequences of what he says, the intricate details and power of words, and that has damaged friendships as well as strengthened others. His unique way of living sometimes makes him difficult to get used to.
None of this is to say that Shannon is a hardass. He is playful, bright and always willing to take part in a joke. Even jokes involving him, sometimes, when he knows it won't target his weaknesses in good faith. One of his favorites is wearing a pair of spoof-glasses not only to make himself more handsome (he has it on good word that it makes him even more handsome than usual), but to mess with the preconceptions of anyone who might assume things by watching him at work or with Lacey. To pair with his bright attitude, Shannon is incredibly responsible: he's always had to look out for himself more than others, and for about half his life he has always had a guide dog to care for along with himself. His line of work can necessitate working with shaken and confused people, and he does try to help them out of some confused echo of a fatherly instinct. He wouldn't call it his soft side; he simply has compassion enough to use his own time helping others with things where the world had failed them. He is not the type to donate his time to charities and goodwill, just the sort that doesn't like seeing someone fester when they cannot help themselves.
Although his confidence is natural and hard to shake, there are some days when it just does not come with Shannon. It's difficult to maintain such a high opinion of yourself in the face of external onslaught and on bad days where nothing seems to go right, or maybe even a day where he rolled out the wrong side of bed, gloom and doubt can overtake him. While it isn't anything particularly overt, Shannon does tend to take these days very slowly, resists going outside even with Lacey's help, and will try to avoid any activity that might make someone doubt him or comment on his abilities. These moods can last for up to several days or only just a few hours, but they crush him and close in on his assertion that being able to see is not as great as everyone else thinks. It makes him wonder, truly wonder what it would be like, and the world of the sighted is one of the most terrifying things he can imagine.
His life has always been relatively simple. With help from his parents, Shannon has not wanted for much, and could always put his life and daily activities in boxes where things made sense and he could easily know where he stood at any one time. Only in recent days has it gotten ridiculously more complicated with the reveal that Shannon is some sort of godlike reincarnation with sway over fire. His feelings on the matter are mixed. On the one hand, it excites and pleases him to know that the oddities of his life (body temperature, his sense of the heat around him, a nagging offness with his place in the world that he could never claim as his own) have an explanation; odd as the truth may be, it rings correct in his soul. On the other hand, everyone seems to hate the man that he was and Shannon is inclined to agree. While it's technically possible to remember being Nate Silverman, Shannon will never go that far for fear of losing his own identity and becoming the apparent monster that he used to be. As long as the other Aspects treat him as more or less his own person, an inheritor to Nate and not some sort of ticking time-bomb, he's pretty okay with the new twist his life has taken. It's expanded his social circle several times, and has given him a goal beyond just getting up in the mornings: staying himself, and making sure the others remain all right. It's that misguided fatherly instinct again, but he doesn't deny himself of it as long as they don't catch on. What's the harm?
Race: Boring ol' human.
Class: Steam Gunner. Shannon is the Aspect of Fire and works with the police, so: firearms. Nate Silverman was also a military-trained sniper in his own time, not to mention it will be a job that would require Shannon to quickly adapt to his newly-gained sight.
Abilities: As any more violent powers are tied to Nate's memories and Shannon is continuously oblivious to those, he only had two real powers to call his own. The first is more of a state of being, as his temperature hovers around 101.5°F — this will manifest as a skill that adds a flat 30% immunity to status effects to mirror his heightened resistance to the average germ. His second ability is a heat sense that can clue him in to vague positions of people and other living beings around him — this will manifest as the ability to sense treasure chest locations in the near vicinity and the general rarity of items within (how "hot" they are).
Items: ???
You may list up to 5 starting items, but they are locked from the character until they reach level 15.
Other: Shannon is blind in canon. He shall be gaining his sight in The World. Although The World can translate any language, Shannon will be unable to read at start because his written word was a very different format than how the rest of the world reads their own written words.
SAMPLES;
Third-person: Someone new was being transferred in. It happened often enough that it was no real notable thing; gossip turned up a few notches, people trying to fit their social circles and business relationships around the new cog in their well-oiled machine. Shannon, too, was letting himself acclimate to the presence of someone new in the department.
After eleven years, he had his own desk on the floor with the rest of the actual officers. It helped keep his ears to the ground, made him more productive to be a part of the proceedings; his desk was adjoined to Javier and Matheus's as something of a mutual request between all of them. Lacey was tucked up half underneath it and to the side of his chair, with him reaching down every now and then to give a scratch behind the skull or a rub behind the ears. He was going over one of the case files when he heard it, the sound of the office coming to a slow stop while the newbie walked in. It wasn't anything overt, simply the cut of background noise from a murmur to a soft hum, no one willing to admit they were watching with their eyes, ears, anything they could without being accused of slacking.
Shannon felt his lips tug upward. "Guy or gal?" he asked casually, letting it collapse into the background noise so as to not attract attention.
"Gal," Matheus said promptly. He wasn't going to question how Shannon knew. It wasn't even his fifth sense (the heat one, not his missing sight) as the summer temperatures made it hard to keep a bead on anyone who hadn't been sitting still long enough.
Shannon nodded to himself, adjusting his senses. Women in the workplace tended to smell much more pleasant and done-up than the men did, their strides carrying a different cadence and center of balance. It helped him know what to look for when defining their newest coworker. Judging by the footsteps making their way through now, in fact, she was making the rounds to introduce herself — bold move, one Shannon couldn't disapprove of. Not going to meet the chief immediately in favor of taking it to the heart of the force.
The steps got closer. Shannon earmarked his file and shut it, placed his arm over it, timed the steps with the slight vibration and air currents. Some people said he was insane to be so aware of his surroundings; Shannon knew they were just compensating for their lack of attentiveness with their eyesight. He enjoyed keeping people surprised, kept them from thinking he was somehow unaware.
He shifted at just the right moment, giving a grin and tilting his head toward the newcomer. "Hey, welcome to the Chicago PD," he greeted. There was a soft ah, stuttering motion as he caught her off-guard, and he turned his face toward the voice. She was to his right, an angle where he doubted she would notice Lacey of her own accord. His glasses were on and Matheus always complained of them glaring like a bitch from the natural lighting at this time of day. It meant she might not notice his lack of exact visual aim and that was good enough for him.
"Thank you," the woman said. Her voice was of a soft pitch, natural, more like taut and musical strings than anything syrupy unburdened by a need to please. "Officer Vaughn, is it?"
"Shannon's fine," he said, waving off her attempt at propriety.
Javier laughed across from him. "You must be Officer Gretzky," he said. "Javier Vasquez, and this bozo to my left is Matheus Rocha. You've already found Shannon's nameplate, I see."
"You're... three people to a team?" asked Gretzky, clearly confused by the configuration of their desks.
"You could say that," Matheus answered. Shannon just grinned up to Gretzky pleasingly. "Or you could say it's two partners and a consultant."
"Which would be way more accurate," said the consultant with a tilt of his head. He had no idea what it must look like for his movements, but they came so naturally to him and no one ever told him it looked weird, so who cared? Not him.
There was another ah. "Mr. Shannon Vaughn, then," she reaffirmed. "What do you consult on?"
"I dabble here and there. Little bit of everything," he said in a very helpfully unhelpful manner. "Except the crime scene photos. Can't make heads or tails of those."
There was a pause and he heard Matheus trying to contain a laugh. "Truly hopeless with the photos, our Vaughn."
"Van Gogh, he's not," Javier agreed.
Shannon shifted his arm, unobstructing his file. It didn't take long for Gretzky to notice it, he noted approvingly. She was disarmed, off her game, but still taking in new details. Good, good. "Braille?" she asked, her voice curious and tainted with some uncertainty. "But... your glasses?"
"I'm blind without them," Shannon said with a large shoulder shrug. She chuckled, seeming to make some connections with the joke. Before either of them could continue, someone called her name and she was excusing herself to trot off and continue the rounds.
"You're blind with them," Javier said pointedly once she was out of earshot.
Opening his file once again and scanning the first few words of each line until he located his place, Shannon smiled. "Hey, not my fault she didn't ask about that part."