Rebirth App

PLAYER INFO

Name: Danii
Age: 30+
Contact: yarnzipan

CHARACTER INFO

Journal: epistemological
Name: Jonathan Sims
Age: 30s
Canon: The Magnus Archives
Canon Point: post 121; he was blown up and put into a 'coma' where he was technically dead other than his brain activity. After this episode and a choice he makes, he's started breathing and will be waking up.

Canon World

Pretty much our world as we know it, except all supernatural occurrences (which are very very prove-ably real but still not publically known) are caused by Entities, all of which are certain kinds of fear. These entities work through evil books, monsters, and 'avatars', or people who've been marked and claimed by one of the entities, given abilities in line with the entity while also needing to 'feed' it accordingly.

History

JSimms@TMA Wiki

Personality

Motivation
Jon's motivation at all times is two fold: to prevent harm/see justice done AND to find out the answers. The problem is that for him, he sees the two as the same thing, sees information as the ultimate defense against the dark even if he's not quite sure how to make it work. His need to know has been a part of him right from the beginning, and after his experience at the age of eight watching someone die right in front of him, he spent his life trying to find the answers that could prevent more death, that could stop terrible things like that from happening to anyone else. Ultimately, it speaks to the fact that he's a bizarrely hopeful person (something you would NEVER believe from first meeting or even twelfth meeting) because he does, in fact, seem to believe that he can find a solution to even the most horrible situations. It also, however, means that he will sometimes seek the truth as being more important than caring about people's feelings and can cause unintended harm by not trusting others or doing things on his own instead of bringing them in if he's being paranoid. He tends to feel that protecting people even if they hate him, even if they're angry at him, even if it makes them upset, is more important than anything else.

With Others?
Jon's... kind of an unsocialized puppy, in a lot of respect. He's snappish, sarcastic, occasionally snide, and even when he tries to keep to his manners, has a tendency to mutter side comments to himself. He's very very much an introvert who can only handle other people for a certain amount of time and he makes no bones about when that certain amount of time is up. He's also exacting (even if he himself makes mistakes) and has a lot of problems understanding why people might be upset about things that don't upset him (aka his empathy is... not at all good). He's also the literal worst when it comes to emotions, people having them, what to do about them, and actually sharing any of his own other than anger and irritation. Regardless of these facts, however, he never actually wishes harm or pain on ANYONE, doesn't really have a lick of violence in him, and will throw himself bodily between others and potential danger at the drop of a hat. He cares about everyone, from the nameless idiot who filed things incorrectly to the people he works closest to but this usually only shows in moments of extreme danger. Otherwise, he's a bit of a piss pot, difficult as sin, and TERRIBLE at communication. He is, however, WORKING on some of this and has recently shown tendencies to try and reach out, try and be accessible, and try to be reasonable when people are upset at him instead of exploding with anger back.

Reactions in Life?
Jon's reaction to life has always been the same: seek answers and hide his feelings. When someone was killed in front of him, his answer was to find out more about the book. When he thought he was being watched, his answer was to hide his beliefs and try and make sense of the world that was slowly closing in around him. When he finds out his predecessor was killed, he seeks to find out who and why and how and to what purpose. When the end of the world is coming, he tries to figure out how to stop it through whatever means necessary. He also LEARNs when he makes mistakes, and does his best not to repeat them.

What makes them feel helpless or afraid, and what do they do with those feelings?
Not knowing things and not being able to act. Not knowing how to act. And to this, Jon does what he always does: Jon seeks answers. Jon seeks ways around things. When he's feeling afraid, he tries to find a solution, even if it makes him look bad, even if it makes him look like a coward or a crazy person. He doesn't really mind sniveling, doesn't mind making deals that end with paying part of himself, doesn't mind begging, doesn't mind lying either even though he's bad at it; he's done all of them and he'd do it again because it lets him keep living and working and doing what he needs to do. His fear for others turns into anger; his fear for himself, which really really only comes up when he is legit about to be killed and not a second before, still doesn't drive him to violence or attempts to fight physically. He always tries to talk his way out of things.

Special Abilities

Jon has no combat-related abilities whatsoever. He can get stabbed (oh he gets stabbed so much), burned (yup), beat up (several times), knocked out (again, several times)... all that jazz. He is, according to canon 'not human enough to die;, however, so it looks like if he takes enough damage where he'd be dead, he goes into a 'coma' where his entire body just kind of shuts down while it fixes itself (no heartbeat, no breathing) while he dreams (but brain activity!) until he's ready to wake up. Nerfed!

Instead he's got a couple of nifty major (and minor) talents. Starting with minor:

• He will always have a tape recorder with him, even if he has to generate it out of thin air (not by choice, it happens), and they turn on when he's having important conversations with other people. Even if he turns them off, they turn themselves back on.
  
• His presence makes remembering experiences narratively coherent and allows the person to remember details they wouldn't otherwise remember.
  
• When reading or hearing such an experience, he can 'live through' the experience as if he was in the person's position. by permission
  
• If he takes an audio recording of someone's statement, he will end up witnessing any dreams they have on the subject; aka if they tell him about this creepy house they saw and what happened in it, any nightmares that say have them walking into that creepy house again (regardless if it matches the actual events that occurred) will be shared with him if he is also asleep.
  
• As such, he has no normal dreams of his own, only walking through the nightmares of others every night in something of an endless loop.
  
• When reading or listening to a statement, there are no language barriers for him; he can understand it as if it were English.
  
• Unfortuately, this comes with a requirement: he needs to take/read statements every once in a while in order to maintain his health. Nerfed.
  
• He can also use 'statements', if he's conscious, to heal himself; recording one legit makes him better.

Major Abilities:

• The 'Compel': If Jon asks a question, and specifically wishes to do so, he can make you answer the question to the best of your ability. He cannot make you provide information you have no way of knowing, but he CAN cut through illusions and warped perceptions to make you realize the truth. It doesn't work on hypotheticals, and the question has to be in person and heard directly; it cannot be recorded nor transmitted through a phone or other device and someone who is deaf would accordingly be immune to the effect as it is a purely audio-based ability. He also has to FINISH the question so if someone, say, murders him in the middle, well, not really going to work. It is not magic/a spell, psychic/mental, or anything like that: the best comparison would be to a gorgon as Jon is technically an avatar of an eldritch god, a monster in other words aka 'you meet it's eyes, you turn to stone' with similar workarounds accordingly.
  
• Knowing: Sometimes, Jon just knows things, as in pieces of information drop into his head like he read them somewhere or he ought to be aware of them even if there's nowhere he could have read it and he has no way of knowing it. It has to be something actually somewhat important to him, he can't direct it in any way, and it's always restricted to what is necessary for action: in a case where he had to do impromptu surgery on someone, he did not know the dosage or information for a general anesthetic (which was his preference) but as he was being handed a local, he knew exactly how and where to inject it for the proper effect and to cause no harm as well as how and where to cut through to remove a bullet that was in someone's leg even though he most certainly has not gone to medical school.
  
• Seeing: Sometimes Jon can see things others can't, such as in the case just mentioned with the bullet; he could see it through the skin, see the rot around it, etc, before he ever opened up the skin. This seems to be seeing through what other powers or illusions might be hiding from other people; seeing the truth. Again, this is very much not something he has super amounts of control over and he needs to know it's there, know what he's looking for, have some manner of focus on it beforehand; he doesn't just know the truth right out no question.

Happy to make adjustments, etc, as needed for the setting and play/plot requirements on all of that, of course!

SAMPLES

In His Nightmares [linked post has appropriate content warnings; click the sections to see what's inside]
Jon Finds a Leitner
Jon's Supplemental, a run down of his experiences for the first month in his other game