Post by Gabriel Rhodes on Nov 15, 2023 4:31:34 GMT -5
WELCOME TO LOS EUROSIA,
GABRIEL IGNATIUS RHODES
"I don't have the answers you need, 'cause I live in the in-between.
So if you put your bets on me, you better be down for anything."
BASICS
NAME: Gabriel Ignatius Rhodes
AGE: 29
BIRTHDATE: September 19th
PRONOUNS: he/him
SEXUALITY: mostly gay
RELATIONSHIP STATUS: single
OCCUPATION: translator & healer
NEIGHBORHOOD: Grey Pebble
MEMBER GROUP: Sector (Blackstorm informant)
POWERS: healing & tactile anesthesia
Healing: he has the ability to heal any living thing from a physical injury or illness, as long as they aren't dead. It isn't instant, and direct contact is required, preferably to the injury, though it doesn't have to be, it just makes it easier. The worse the injury or illness, the longer the healing takes, and it can wear him out if it goes on for hours. It doesn't draw from his own health, so he can't accidentally kill himself by healing too much, but it does take a lot of concentrated energy.Tactile Anesthesia: he can secrete a chemical, through skin contact, that can calm and sedate any living thing. It doesn't cause unconsciousness by itself, only calmness and a slight easing of pain. It can cause unconsciousness if the subject was already very tired or already close to unconsciousness. It can calm anxiety and an overactive mind, for as long as contact remains and sometimes for a lingering time afterward if the contact was held for a long time. It doesn't take any energy from him to maintain it.
THE LOOKS
HEIGHT: 6'2
WEIGHT: 165lbs
HAIR COLOR: dark brown
EYE COLOR: brown
FACE CLAIM: Anar Khalilov
OVERALL APPEARANCE
Comforting and trustworthy face. Disheveled dark brown waves. Fathomless dark eyes. High sharp cheekbones. Angular features.
INSIDE
LIKES
- trying new foods
- plants
- cold climates
- museums
- superhero comics
- classic art
- yoga and meditation
- authenticity
- arthouse movies
- taking pictures
DISLIKES
- most television
- sports
- untrained dogs
- driving
- being ignored
- conflict and confrontation
- small talk
- not understanding jokes
- insincerity
- being late
STRENGTHS
- Good Luck: things seem to go unusually well for him, he has close-calls but manages to avoid disasters, and he is presented with a lot of opportunities without having to work hard for them. His father jokes that his mother, with her gift of probability manipulation, charmed him as a baby, but it's just a running joke, because they know that's not possible.
- Languages: he knows a great deal of languages and finds it easy to pick up new ones
- Intelligence: he knows a great deal about a lot of different subjects, including but not limited to art, music, history, cultural anthropology, anatomy, psychology, and economics.
- Good Listener: people tend to tell him things and blurt out their life stories and all of their trauma without him even asking, and then go "why did I tell you that?!". He just has one of those faces that make people want to open up.
- Problem Solver: he finds it very easy to see solutions to problems
WEAKNESSES
- Indecisive: he finds it nearly impossible to make important decisions without a big push from his loved ones or the universe
- Hard On Himself: if he does something wrong he finds it hard to forgive himself
- Holds Grudges: if someone grievously wrongs him, or one of his sisters, he finds it very hard to let it go. Even years later, he will remember what the person did and always hold it against them if they don't make amends.
- Overthinker: he dwells on things and second-guesses himself
- High Expectations: for himself and others. He frequently expects the best out of people, and he is often disappointed. As for himself, nothing he ever does is good enough, and he always strives to be better, but he is never satisfied with his own efforts.
OVERALL PERSONALITY
Cynical about love. Aloof but becomes lonely easily. Compassionate and people-pleasing. Doesn't do casual. Stands up for what he believes in. Feels misunderstood and like nobody really "gets" him. Loves talking about himself but only when people seem interested. Deep. Highly aware of body language, facial expressions, and tones of voice that may reveal how someone is feeling. Understands other people's emotions very well, but has trouble comprehending his own. Nonjudgmental. Likes to help people. Can see a situation from every angle and often plays "devil's advocate". Understanding, open-minded, tolerant, and accepting. Fiercely protective and loyal to those he cares about. Emotionally reactive. Usually tactful and sensitive, but bluntly honest when asked to be; if you ask for the truth you're going to get roasted. Accidentally hurts feelings at times without meaning to. Prefers the cold hard truth over pretty lies. Very sensitive to criticism and rejection. Detail-oriented. Seems like he can fit in anywhere, but feels like he fits in nowhere. Independent. Never asks for help. Dramatic. Doesn't often understand pop culture references because he wasn't exposed to a lot of pop culture growing up. Tends to take people under his wing. Loves teaching people things. Likes being smarter than other people, but doesn't gloat or lord it over them, and doesn't enjoy making people feel stupid unless he thinks they deserve it.
BACKGROUND
HOMETOWN: Verona, Italy
FAMILY (only immediate family mentioned)
- Father--Kessler Rhodes--sector agent--gifted with intuitive aptitude, psychometry, and omnilingual
- Mother--Naadiya Cunningham--sector agent--gifted with probability manipulation, persuasion, and immortality (un-aging)
- Half-Sister--Evangeline "Evie" Rhodes--32--sector agent--gifted with empathy and omnilingual
- Half-Sister--Angelica "Angie" Rhodes--25--sector agent--gifted with invisibility and wallcrawling
PETS: none
HISTORY
Born in Italy to two workaholic parents. His father, an American man, is a womanizer with kids all over the world. His mother, a British-Arab woman, is married to her job and has no interest in settling down. Gabriel has a lot of half-siblings and cousins scattered about in different places, that he saw now and then while growing up during his family's travels. Some more than others.
Gabriel's first couple of years were spent in Italy, while his father was stationed there for work, but he grew up moving all over. It was usually just his father, his two half-sisters, and him. His uncle, and a cousin or two, sometimes joined them, though. His mother's job is often dangerous and stressful, so she couldn't stick around to help raise him. Gabriel thinks she's some kind of spy for the sector, but doesn't know the details because she and his father don't talk about it, and Gabriel doesn't have the clearance needed to know about it. He saw her at least once a year while growing up, usually on his birthday.
His two sisters both have different mothers. Evie's mother didn't want children, but Kessler convinced her to have their daughter and then give her to him. Angie's mother died during childbirth. The rest of Gabriel's half-siblings live with their mothers or other family members, and Kessler regularly sent them money for child support, seeing them for their birthdays when he was able.
Growing up, Kessler placed very high expectations on Gabriel and his sisters. He pushed them to be the very best that they could be, in whatever they were involved in, and sometimes pushed them to be involved in more things, wanting them to be "well-rounded individuals". Pushing them to be the best included developing their gifts as far as they were able to.
As they got older, Kessler became even more demanding of their time, talents, and abilities. He wanted them to be impressive, to make him look good, and to be smart and skilled enough to join the sector as soon as they were able to. They weren't given much choice in the matter. Evangeline always did her best to make their father proud, and never questioned him. Angelica was the rebel, wanting to do her own thing and not have her life planned for her by their father. Gabriel fell somewhere in the middle, which seemed fitting, as he was the middle child. Angie often convinced him to be rebellious with her, but as soon as their father demanded he fall in line, he did so without question, wanting to please him as much as Evie did. Maybe even more so.
When he finally got to go to university, it was like a taste of the freedom he'd always craved and never realized. His father chose his school, and his majors, of course, but that didn't matter. He got to take classes on things he loved. He got to be away from his father's influence and experience a taste of what it was like to have a home, even if only temporary. His time at university was the longest he'd ever lived anywhere.
His father wanted him to start at the sector right out of university, and he tried to argue for more time to pursue his studies, but his father refused, and he couldn't get out of a career at the sector any longer. He re-joined his father and sisters in their work once he had earned his degree.
He wasn't very happy working for the sector, but he didn't hate it, either. What he did hate was being under his father's control once again, after the years of near-freedom he'd had. He did his best to be his own person, separate from who his father wanted him to be, but his father was a very strong-willed and persuasive man, so it was difficult. They argued more than they ever had before Gabriel had gone to university, but Kessler usually won the arguments.
The straw that broke the camel's back came when the small village they were staying in was attacked and his father refused to allow him to use his gift on an injured man and child. Gabriel and his sisters were no strangers to conflict in the middle east, having dealt with it often once Kessler deemed them old enough to operate within the more dangerous areas with him. Gabriel had used his gift to heal people in those situations before, though it had always been other gifted, or other people who were already in the know because of gifted family members, or because they worked for the sector, or for other reasons. That was the first time he was around people who were ignorant of their powers that had been injured and needed him. His father refused to let him heal them, claiming that keeping their secret was more important.
The man died, leaving the severely injured little girl without a father. Gabriel never forgave Kessler for that, and he was taken off that kind of field work when he made complaints to the sector. They supported his father's decision, but thought he wasn't fit to work in the field any longer if he didn't see the merit in keeping the secret, no matter what.
He was put on low-priority translation work, the kind that was important, but not quite important enough for one of their omni-lingual agents to attend to it, as they were needed elsewhere. Mostly he acted as translator, tour guide, and babysitter for gifted foreign dignitaries and sector agents.
He lived in London for a few months, then Barcelona, Lima, Cancun, New York. He was moving around almost as much as he had growing up, and he was unhappy. He put in for a more permanent position, and finally, after months of waiting, he was transferred to California. He hated the city they'd stationed him in, though, and chose to rent an apartment instead of buying a house, determined that the city wasn't going to be his permanent home. He began looking for houses in surrounding areas, eventually finding a beautiful place at the base of the mountains in Los Eurosia.
He commuted for a while, and was eventually reassigned to the offices in the city he now lived in. Gifted activity was ramping up, with an apparent rebel group on the rise, and they needed all the help they could get. Gabriel had been keeping his head down, following orders, and working not to draw suspicion ever since his brief outburst of rebelliousness, but he had remained disillusioned with the sector ever since. He didn't like that they got to choose who he helped, who he used his abilities for, who lived and who died. It was his power, and he felt that he should be able to help anyone and everyone that he wanted to help. He briefly considered joining the rebel group, but dismissed the notion almost immediately, figuring he could do more to help people by staying in the sector than by joining a shadow organization where he thought he would have to stay in hiding.
He did all sorts of work for the sector by then, but mostly he used his gift of healing on other agents, and on gifted individuals who were brought to him. He had an office at the sector headquarters which he shared with another healer, though he was often requested over them because of his other gift of tactile anesthesia. He was sometimes called into the field, if something big was going down and someone thought they would need a healer, but it didn't happen often.
Once when he was in the field, only a year or so after his transfer to Los Eurosia, he met a group of Blackstorm. The sector was raiding what they thought was a Blackstorm base of operations, and he was there in case any fighting occurred and injuries were sustained. Fighting did, in fact, occur and, through a series of events he remains embarrassed by, he was taken hostage. The Blackstorm operatives didn't mean him any harm, he could tell that right away, they were only trying to buy time for their escape. Some of them had been injured in the brief scuffle, though, and he offered to heal them. They questioned his motives, but he only told them the truth, that he didn't like seeing people hurt if there was something he could do about it. He asked after their own motives, and they gave him a very interesting insight into what Blackstorm was all about and what their goals were.
They thanked him for his services and left him tied to a chair, escaping through a passageway in the basement while the sector agents outside thought they were in a hostage standoff. He was eventually liberated from his confines when the sector realized they had been tricked, and he was interrogated extensively, but told them honestly everything that he knew. Which wasn't much, as all of the operatives had been masked, and hadn't used names.
A couple weeks later, he received a note requesting that he go to a specific location. Intrigued and having an insight into what it was about, he followed the directions in the note. He found another note, sending him to a different location. Then another. He was impressed by the dedication to secrecy and safety. Eventually, a small group of Blackstorm operatives greeted him, blindfolded him, and took him to yet another location. He thought it was getting a bit tedious, but he understood the need, considering he worked for the sector; if he ended up telling anyone he worked for about the incident, he wouldn't have much to tell that would be of use.
Gabriel's first couple of years were spent in Italy, while his father was stationed there for work, but he grew up moving all over. It was usually just his father, his two half-sisters, and him. His uncle, and a cousin or two, sometimes joined them, though. His mother's job is often dangerous and stressful, so she couldn't stick around to help raise him. Gabriel thinks she's some kind of spy for the sector, but doesn't know the details because she and his father don't talk about it, and Gabriel doesn't have the clearance needed to know about it. He saw her at least once a year while growing up, usually on his birthday.
His two sisters both have different mothers. Evie's mother didn't want children, but Kessler convinced her to have their daughter and then give her to him. Angie's mother died during childbirth. The rest of Gabriel's half-siblings live with their mothers or other family members, and Kessler regularly sent them money for child support, seeing them for their birthdays when he was able.
Gabriel's father worked for the sector long before any of his children were born. His abilities, intelligence, charm, and knowledge of powers made him a valuable asset. A scholar at heart, he studied gifts extensively for the sector in his early days as an agent. As his own abilities and charm developed, his ambition pushed him to strive for more. He now travels the world, often just behind his power-sensing brother, acting as a liaison for branches of the sector in other countries and uncovering gifted individuals, and covering up their messes, all over the world.
Growing up, Kessler placed very high expectations on Gabriel and his sisters. He pushed them to be the very best that they could be, in whatever they were involved in, and sometimes pushed them to be involved in more things, wanting them to be "well-rounded individuals". Pushing them to be the best included developing their gifts as far as they were able to.
As they got older, Kessler became even more demanding of their time, talents, and abilities. He wanted them to be impressive, to make him look good, and to be smart and skilled enough to join the sector as soon as they were able to. They weren't given much choice in the matter. Evangeline always did her best to make their father proud, and never questioned him. Angelica was the rebel, wanting to do her own thing and not have her life planned for her by their father. Gabriel fell somewhere in the middle, which seemed fitting, as he was the middle child. Angie often convinced him to be rebellious with her, but as soon as their father demanded he fall in line, he did so without question, wanting to please him as much as Evie did. Maybe even more so.
When he finally got to go to university, it was like a taste of the freedom he'd always craved and never realized. His father chose his school, and his majors, of course, but that didn't matter. He got to take classes on things he loved. He got to be away from his father's influence and experience a taste of what it was like to have a home, even if only temporary. His time at university was the longest he'd ever lived anywhere.
His father wanted him to start at the sector right out of university, and he tried to argue for more time to pursue his studies, but his father refused, and he couldn't get out of a career at the sector any longer. He re-joined his father and sisters in their work once he had earned his degree.
He wasn't very happy working for the sector, but he didn't hate it, either. What he did hate was being under his father's control once again, after the years of near-freedom he'd had. He did his best to be his own person, separate from who his father wanted him to be, but his father was a very strong-willed and persuasive man, so it was difficult. They argued more than they ever had before Gabriel had gone to university, but Kessler usually won the arguments.
The straw that broke the camel's back came when the small village they were staying in was attacked and his father refused to allow him to use his gift on an injured man and child. Gabriel and his sisters were no strangers to conflict in the middle east, having dealt with it often once Kessler deemed them old enough to operate within the more dangerous areas with him. Gabriel had used his gift to heal people in those situations before, though it had always been other gifted, or other people who were already in the know because of gifted family members, or because they worked for the sector, or for other reasons. That was the first time he was around people who were ignorant of their powers that had been injured and needed him. His father refused to let him heal them, claiming that keeping their secret was more important.
The man died, leaving the severely injured little girl without a father. Gabriel never forgave Kessler for that, and he was taken off that kind of field work when he made complaints to the sector. They supported his father's decision, but thought he wasn't fit to work in the field any longer if he didn't see the merit in keeping the secret, no matter what.
He was put on low-priority translation work, the kind that was important, but not quite important enough for one of their omni-lingual agents to attend to it, as they were needed elsewhere. Mostly he acted as translator, tour guide, and babysitter for gifted foreign dignitaries and sector agents.
He lived in London for a few months, then Barcelona, Lima, Cancun, New York. He was moving around almost as much as he had growing up, and he was unhappy. He put in for a more permanent position, and finally, after months of waiting, he was transferred to California. He hated the city they'd stationed him in, though, and chose to rent an apartment instead of buying a house, determined that the city wasn't going to be his permanent home. He began looking for houses in surrounding areas, eventually finding a beautiful place at the base of the mountains in Los Eurosia.
He commuted for a while, and was eventually reassigned to the offices in the city he now lived in. Gifted activity was ramping up, with an apparent rebel group on the rise, and they needed all the help they could get. Gabriel had been keeping his head down, following orders, and working not to draw suspicion ever since his brief outburst of rebelliousness, but he had remained disillusioned with the sector ever since. He didn't like that they got to choose who he helped, who he used his abilities for, who lived and who died. It was his power, and he felt that he should be able to help anyone and everyone that he wanted to help. He briefly considered joining the rebel group, but dismissed the notion almost immediately, figuring he could do more to help people by staying in the sector than by joining a shadow organization where he thought he would have to stay in hiding.
He did all sorts of work for the sector by then, but mostly he used his gift of healing on other agents, and on gifted individuals who were brought to him. He had an office at the sector headquarters which he shared with another healer, though he was often requested over them because of his other gift of tactile anesthesia. He was sometimes called into the field, if something big was going down and someone thought they would need a healer, but it didn't happen often.
Once when he was in the field, only a year or so after his transfer to Los Eurosia, he met a group of Blackstorm. The sector was raiding what they thought was a Blackstorm base of operations, and he was there in case any fighting occurred and injuries were sustained. Fighting did, in fact, occur and, through a series of events he remains embarrassed by, he was taken hostage. The Blackstorm operatives didn't mean him any harm, he could tell that right away, they were only trying to buy time for their escape. Some of them had been injured in the brief scuffle, though, and he offered to heal them. They questioned his motives, but he only told them the truth, that he didn't like seeing people hurt if there was something he could do about it. He asked after their own motives, and they gave him a very interesting insight into what Blackstorm was all about and what their goals were.
They thanked him for his services and left him tied to a chair, escaping through a passageway in the basement while the sector agents outside thought they were in a hostage standoff. He was eventually liberated from his confines when the sector realized they had been tricked, and he was interrogated extensively, but told them honestly everything that he knew. Which wasn't much, as all of the operatives had been masked, and hadn't used names.
A couple weeks later, he received a note requesting that he go to a specific location. Intrigued and having an insight into what it was about, he followed the directions in the note. He found another note, sending him to a different location. Then another. He was impressed by the dedication to secrecy and safety. Eventually, a small group of Blackstorm operatives greeted him, blindfolded him, and took him to yet another location. He thought it was getting a bit tedious, but he understood the need, considering he worked for the sector; if he ended up telling anyone he worked for about the incident, he wouldn't have much to tell that would be of use.
THE PLAYER
NAME: Calamity
AGE: 32
TIMEZONE: CST