[Tanagura] Application

OOC INFO
_NAME: TJ
_PLURK: teag
_AGE: 25
_CURRENT/PAST CHARACTERS: N/A


IC INFO
_CHARACTER'S NAME: Ryan Farrow
_CHARACTER'S (ACTUAL) AGE: 28
_CHARACTER'S (APPARENT) AGE: Mid-twenties, he's not often assumed to be late twenties just judging by appearance.
_CHARACTER'S HAIR COLOR: Blond
_TANAGURA (elite) OR MIDAS (mongrel)?: Midas
_HOUSING PREFERENCE: No preference!


_HISTORY:
(world background:)
His background is essentially in your usual super-original modern supernatural setting: 2015 Earth, with few differences save for the existence of the supernatural in most forms (which is kept quiet outside their own circles.) He sees and interacts with ghosts, he's in touch with a wizard and others in on the existence of the supernatural via internet forums, one of the local pests is a carnivorous water-dwelling shapeshifter, magic exists, vampires/werewolves and other fabled creatures are all real. Few normal humans learn any of this for certain unless they're either personally informed or happen to see something they shouldn't have, and thanks to the little changes myths and stories have gone through over the years to make them more entertaining, those humans who simply believe in the magical and weird side of things often have the details wrong. This secrecy is largely by general agreement, primarily for safety- in earlier eras when human myths about other creatures were developed, they were known and often hunted either out of revenge for feeding on humans, fear of what they were, or simply for their physical attributes (claws sharp enough to be made into weaponry, better meat than mundane game, even acidic blood.

In the case of supernatural humans such as magic-users and mediums, they aren't often a risk (as they're rarely believed enough to pose an actual threat of exposure), and are generally left alone. A person who sees and interacts with restless spirits will always become one of them upon their own death, and seeing as they've got all the time in the world... those with a benevolent bent (or at least a practical one) will seek out a living person or two with the same talent to pass on what they know and function as a sort of mentor, as Ryan's has done for him. Similar mentoring practices are common among those with some magical talent, with experienced mages taking apprentices to ensure they learn not to be a danger to themselves or others.

The internet has become such a large part of modern life and such a convenient tool that it's no longer something more traditional sorts can just ignore-- the information they've long safeguarded is slowly spreading across wider and wider areas, encoded or simply disguised as fiction, and individuals from all kinds of circles are connecting with each other to share their knowledge and experiences far more freely than they've ever been able. Forums for supernatural discussion may just have hidden boards you can't navigate to without being given the right directions and passwords-- and many of them use the public boards to keep an eye on theories, sightings, and discoveries so that they can debunk anything getting too close to the truth.

Of course, keeping everything completely secret just isn't possible, especially when some think the time for it has long passed. It's getting harder and harder to maintain in a world where the spread of information just keeps getting faster, where leaks are harder to stop.

(character history:)
Ryan saw ghosts from a very young age, and it was difficult to convince his five-year-old self that the deceased went anywhere when his great-aunt was quite clearly still around after her funeral; that could have worked out fine regardless, if it weren't for his sixth sense being so strong that they were tangible to him and might as well have been living people. Sure, there were clues sometimes (going through walls or objects, or just being completely ignored by everyone else around) but it took him a while as a child to really catch on that there was anything off about what he saw. His claims of seeing people that nobody else could were seen at first as just a kid being, well, a little kid with an active imagination- handling death by pretending his relative was still around, or making up imaginary friends everywhere. Past a certain age, though, it raised concerns with his parents and teachers; the resulting attempts to find out what was going on ended in a diagnosis of hallucinatory psychosis, and when no treatment really worked to stop him from 'seeing things' his family opted to just homeschool him.

It was in early high school that he discovered online forums for supernatural discussions and theory. He became a frequent poster on a few in particular, and when his messages caught the attention of others who recognized that he actually knew what he was talking about when it came to spirits, he was brought into the fold of users with legitimate supernatural experience. Realizing that he wasn't alone, that he really had that extra sense his family had always thought to be an illness, was a major turning point for him-- with the discovery of the other side of the world came a driving urge to know as much about it as he could, to find a place in it where he fit. Finally there was more reason to believe what he saw and less to doubt himself, to think that maybe they'd been right about him all along. And, most importantly, his time spent there gave him enough confidence to actually consider leaving home rather than folding to his parents' wishes for him to keep living with them after graduating.

Ryan's parents weren't thrilled with the idea of him living on his own, but he was capable enough of caring for himself that he managed to talk them into allowing him to get out of the city; his problem had never actively been a danger, only a hindrance, and he argued that in a less populated and stressful place he might even improve. They reluctantly agreed-- on the conditions that he stay in regular contact, keep up on online courses for college, and find somewhere not too far from their home in Seattle.

In the small coastal town he moved to, he soon found a bit more than the quiet he'd expected. The house his family rented for him was the home of a late medium who happened to still be around (only less corporeal), and she'd been known as something of a supernatural problem-solver for the area in life. She instructed him in handling hauntings and acquainted him with the ghosts who stayed there-- the population fluctuated as some moved on or decided to relocate themselves, and he added one or two himself once people caught on that he was the same sort of strange that Ms. Richards had been. They came to him as they'd come to her, still somewhat skeptical of the cause of their home disturbances but willing to acknowledge that whatever the mediums did, it worked.

Ms. Richards had studied the supernatural over her career and passed that knowledge on to her replacement-- spirits would always be a medium's primary focus, but they were protectors of sorts just as much as problem-solvers. Fortunately for them, the area was small and unimportant enough not to attract too much undue attention; on the other hand, small and out-of-the-way places sometimes were targets for the occasional lone predator, and that included the need to deal with a few minor ones like weak vampires. She instructed him in protective methods such as the creation of blood wards and various creature repellents, which he supplemented with his own research and a little help from the ghosts haunting the place. Well-timed phenomena such as streetlights flicking on or cutting out, electronics failing or seemingly working on their own, slamming doors and odd noises... all of those turned out to be decent intimidation tactics at times, at least for the weaker threats the area attracted, and with some practice he wasn't a bad hand with a dagger when all else went wrong.

And the ones that weren't threats? He had no problem covering for them when they needed it or providing them aid and shelter, so long as they hadn't come to prey on the town. The vast majority of his contact with others was online, and while the ghosts were generally decent company, he was still always enthused to have someone else living around.

The general quiet, though, couldn't last indefinitely. After a few years in his new home and role, Ryan began finding reports of hauntings in the general area that, on investigation, had no spirits present at all; over the course of a few months they grew more frequent, as did a persistent feeling of something wrong that only seemed to intensify as the sightings began to happen over a smaller area, gradually focusing on his own town, then his home-- and on him, in particular. The unsettling presence finally revealed itself through him, using Ryan as a bridge between the more physical plane and the intangible one that spirits and similar entities inhabit-- where he existed between the two from birth, it had been forcibly trapped, stuck and unable to affect either side. All he knew of the incident was that he'd felt a sudden and intense pain that felt like something was trying to literally split him open before he lost consciousness, and that he woke with what appeared to be a hole in his chest so dark it was impossible to see into.

It would have killed anyone else, but in his frantic efforts to figure out what the hell had happened he managed to discover he was a living point of crossover, a fixed 'door' in a planar divide. That seemed to be why his sixth sense was unusually strong, as well as the reason for his survival. The downside to all this was that the entity's escape through him hadn't left him unscathed: he'd been left an open door, lacking in the knowledge and ability to close himself off to similar incidents.

His current canon point is roughly a year past that incident, which he's spent researching and contacting other mediums for whatever information they can provide. Ryan hadn't ever bothered to push the limits of his potential, content to take his sense as it was, but those with other specialties have been teaching him the basics of banishment and exorcism. He's been practicing those new skills in the course of his work, using them to put spirits to rest that he previously had no ability to help, and while it's resulted in a smaller ghost population-- at least the ones that are left are those who want to stick around. The other focus of his research has been protection, to stop anything else from taking advantage of his more vulnerable state to cross over.

_ABILITIES: His sixth sense is his only real ability, but includes multiple aspects. Firstly, it stems from his nature: Ryan is a natural, living 'door' between the physical and intangible. Spirits occupy a slightly separate plane that's essentially an overlay of the physical one, and he's a spot connecting the two where crossover can occur. It's because of this that his sixth sense is stronger than normal.

Of course there's the obvious aspect of 'seeing dead people'. Ryan sees ghosts everywhere, basically, since they tend to stick around a while; in addition he sees signs and imprints of deaths that have occurred whether a spirit haunts the location or not. Seeing things like bloodstains and char marks all over the place is perfectly normal to him, to the point that when they're actually physically present he tends to ignore them. The sight aspect also applies to things like illusions- it's similar to a truesight ability in that he sees what's actually there instead of the illusion, unless it's especially powerful and created with his sort of ability in mind. Ones made to fool normal humans may as well not be there, but stronger illusions are more capable of outclassing his sight. This specifically applies only to magical/supernatural effects; holograms and other tech-based projections won't be seen through. This also does not apply to physical effects, he can't 'see through' shapeshifting to see what someone's actual form is.

Thanks to his position right in the middle of that physical/intangible divide he's able to touch ghosts as though they're both fully on the same side- and they can do the same to him. Generally, it makes dealing with spirits easier, but the angrier and more malevolent ones are capable of doing actual damage to him that they can't inflict on other living people. (On the other hand, it's pretty great for the ones he gets along with. He has absolutely slept with ghosts.)

His sense also lends him limited detection. Within a range of about 100 meters he can sense non-mundane items or people who are anything but a normal human, and to a certain degree he knows what they are as well as relative strength (which correlates with the strength of the feeling he gets.) It's not a perfect, specific identification; a werewolf will give him the vague sense of something canine, vampires give him goosebumps and feel vaguely sharp, magic-users feel like they have something flowing through them, and so on. Items give only a sense that they're definitely not normal and a measure of their power. He can sometimes use this sense to identify what someone might be based on other people he's sensed before, and he can identify a person by their 'signature' once he's gotten used to it. However, this only really works for people he's either focused on remembering, or has run into often; he won't bump into someone once and identify the exact person later (though he may recognize he's felt that signature at some earlier point.)

Ryan's nature doesn't make him hard to kill so much as it's hard to keep him dead after the fact- his spirit can't actually leave his body, keeping him locked between life and death if he's killed, and his body will start to repair itself back to a functional level as a method for the natural forces on each side of the divide to keep the connection he embodies intact. His body has to be destroyed or continuously damaged to keep this process from being successful, and in the meantime he's generally unconscious. Generally. The process is only kicked off by death and stops once he can function, whether he's healed or not, and it'd be possible to keep his body close to dead for an indefinite amount of time. (NOTE: I am fine with disabling this function or altering it in any way necessary for the game! It's essentially resurrection with the trade-off of still being in pretty bad shape, his body will not heal past the point of hitting stable condition.)

On the drawback side: he lacks any natural defenses against mind-affecting abilities such as telepathy. They won't meet any resistance unless it's been specifically put into place on him by someone else who can block mental abilities; for this purpose 'mental abilities' include any effect that bypasses the body to affect the mind, the emotions, anything non-physical. The open-door status resulting from the entity's escape also means he can't defend against possession from anything capable of it, at least not on his own-- his only 'defense' there is the fact that he's capable of possession from up to 2 entities, so a second could conceivably do the same thing and try to push the first out. ...Or they could just argue and leave him caught in the middle. It's a toss-up, there. Spirits' ability to touch him just as he can touch them can also easily become a problem for him, especially since objects he holds still can't affect them.

As for other skills: Ryan is very good at cooking and baking, as well as sewing/knitting/clothing repair. He's a researcher at heart and has collected a large amount of knowledge about the supernatural in his world, including basic warding (only works against weak targets); his own affinity with spirits let him learn basic exorcism (forcing weak to average strength entities from their target) and banishment (forcing weak to average spirits to cross over and pass on, using his status as point of crossover to expedite the process.) Technically capable of using a dagger or knife, but he's lacking in physical strength and stamina (and experience.) He's also had a mage he knows from his forums place protective wards on him-- they're in the form of a line of runic-style symbols tattooed directly over his spine from neck to tailbone, and are meant to protect against possession (they don't) and malevolent spirits (keeps weak and slightly weaker than average ones at bay.)

_PERSONALITY: Despite being surrounded by death, he's a surprisingly optimistic person. Ryan doesn't have much fear of it anymore, not when it's so intimately familiar to him, and he finds there's actually a lot of comfort in speaking with the dead and in the idea that the end's not such a final thing. They're all normal people, just no longer corporeal, and he's got a largely positive outlook on his own life and work now that he's been spending time either helping them out or just making a quiet afterlife a little less lonely.

Ryan is, for the most part, fairly reclusive given the option to be. The internet is where he spends a good deal of time, particularly on forums and online RPGs. Outside of the internet most of his free time is spent taking care of the house and working on the real-life hobbies he's taken up; he's taken enough lessons in cooking from Ms. Richards to be fairly proficient, and he's found knitting and sewing are great for keeping his hands occupied and giving himself something to do when he's stressed or nervous. Most of his clothes need a little tailoring to fit well, anyway.

At this point in life, he's largely grown accustomed to the idea that people are just going to think he's completely nuts, and his old intense shyness in public or in group settings has seen some improvement. Where he used to be scared to speak up for fear that the person he was talking to was invisible to everyone else, now he manages to be a good deal more social, a little more capable of not internalizing every odd look shot his way as a personal failure in 'playing normal'. His internet presence is still where he gets a good deal of his interaction, though-- the anxiety is by no means gone, and he's simply more comfortable with it. He still has a habit of being incredibly fidgety, apologizing a lot, and gesturing with his hands a little too much when he's excited.

He also tends to be insecure and a little desperate for contact and acceptance- someone he considers a friend being upset or annoyed with him is A Big Deal and he'll do whatever he can to try to smooth things over. Any accusations of clinginess are pretty accurate, and once he considers himself close to someone he's anxious enough about losing them to often prioritize their needs over his own.

Ryan deals with conflict, discomfort, and outright fear in very similar ways: lightening the mood is his go-to tactic, and he tends to make cheesy plays on words or crack bad jokes at completely inopportune times. He also tends to laugh more when he's nervous or anxious, and that nervous laughter is sometimes his reaction to shock (which, predictably, doesn't do much to help the general impression of awkwardness.) It's not an across-the-board reaction to negative situations, though; he's a supportive and empathetic person when it comes to consolation and sympathy, which is a large part of why he's been spending his life helping out the dead.

As one of the few locals who has any idea how to deal with the stranger sorts of threats, he considers it sort of his duty to keep his area protected to whatever extent he can; ever since the entity's escape, this has extended to trying to research what the hell it is and how it can be forced back where it came from. Ryan mostly relies on subtler means for this; he's human aside from his extra sense and lacking in magical talent, and placing wards is about the most he can do to try to keep things at bay. He's gotten somewhat experienced in using protective blood wards, especially recently, but he's incapable of putting extra power into them-- his personal wards for protection from spirits were all made by a mage he knows from his forums. Ryan also reads tarot cards, but he swears his deck hates him (despite this, he keeps consulting it because he's sure it'll be blunt with him.) Regardless of the type of problem, he's never used lethal force against anything-- he refuses to kill, partly because he knows exactly how easy it is to haunt him, but mostly due to personal discomfort. He aids the dead, he doesn't add to their numbers.

He's also grown pretty desensitized to gore, considering his ability. Violent deaths leave imprints that he sees the signs of, some ghosts still look like they've just died, and after twenty-eight years of living with seeing all of that... well, you just get used to it. In fact, he's so used to writing off things like bloodstains that he tends to completely fail to react to them when they really are physically present. Similarly, he tends to be harder to spook than your average person after so much time spent around ghosts-- bumps in the night and odd phenomena are a fact of life for him, and he's more skittish about people than he is of a haunt.

In fact, he tends to be more comfortable with ghosts and other creatures than he is with humans, and he's never had a relationship with another living human. He's had a fling or two with ghosts and one longer relationship of about a year, which ended when his partner decided to pass on to whatever afterlife was waiting. Probably for the best; the fact that they couldn't go out in public together was a bit of a strain on the relationship after a while, and neither of them liked that Ryan had to be subtle about going on dates (or else end up being that guy at a corner table talking to an empty chair.) He's also had a sort of extended fling with a local fae recently, who's been mooching off him in exchange for giving Ryan attention and sex. It's a completely imbalanced relationship, and he's been lonely enough he doesn't really care.

_ITEMS: Clothing includes: skinny jeans, white button-down shirt, brown argyle sweater vest, sneakers, a weathered brown leather jacket, and glasses. Pants/coat pockets contain: his wallet with about $10 cash and a state ID (labeled with NOT A DRIVER'S LICENSE warning), a 2" pewter dragon figurine, a pocket sewing kit, an old deck of tarot cards.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I ACKNOWLEDGE THAT MY CHARACTER IS THE FOLLOWING:
_SENTIENT: Yes.
_MENTALLY ADULT: Yes.
_CAPABLE OF CONSENT: Yes.
_CAPABLE OF SEXUAL AROUSAL: Yes.