♦ skies further than you can imagine

[biomagnet]

Revisions + extra info in this direction
ABOUT YOU

Name: DJ
Are you 18 or over? Last I checked, 20 > 18.
Other characters played: Chris Halliwell (inplaceandtime), Liam McNally (inequal).

CHARACTER

Name: Sefton Lowell (would fill in his PHS as S. M. Lowell if he can get away with it)
Canon: Original ("Knickknacks")
Age: 26
Appearance: Standing at 6'1", Sefton might cut an intimidating figure if he didn't spend much of his time trying to counteract that very image. His build is lean and focused, any muscle he has simply making him more lithe instead of bulking him up. Thanks to Italian heritage, his skin tone is a moderate olive. Along with ingrained tendencies to blend into the crowd and a wardrobe leaning more toward the innocuous, only two things really tend to stand out about him: his insistence on wearing a scarf no matter what else he has on, and his blue hair/violet eyes. From the crook of his left arm up a little over halfway of his bicep is a ragged and thin scar that he constantly hides underneath his clothing.

His played-by is the Vocaloid Kaito.
History: Sefton Michael Lowell was born to Gabriel and Cary Lowell on September 20th, 2027, in a small town inside Vermont. From birth, Sefton possessed the power of polarization which had a heavy influence on how he grew up. As his power ensured that he was always treated with kindness, Sefton never wanted for attention and grew up to be a very happy young man, surrounded by a few close friends and numerous friendly acquaintances. Despite his mother growing to border obsession with her son, there was no reason for him to think these sorts of relationships abnormal because it was all he ever knew.

However, when he was nearly fourteen years old, an incident with a transfer student trying to bully the popular kid (Sefton) was what finally made things click into place. Sefton had always known about the physical parts of his power while assuming it did nothing to the people with whom he interacted. Horrified and sick with guilt, Sefton ran away from home soon after, never staying in one town or city for very long. He made it for three months before coming across another adept with the ability to understand what it was people needed who gave him a pair of shoes infused with cold — the way they converted energy into power would give Sefton a touch-safe zone up to his shins, which was the perfect security blanket for an insecure teenager. It was not very long after that he ran into a boy named Chivy. Rather, Chivy tripped over him. Same difference. Their friendship wasn't instant, but luckily for them both, Chivy was an adept who could locate lost things—or, in this case, a very lost little boy named Sefton—and they continually ran into each other as the days passed.

Many months passed in relative peace, until the missing posters started to appear. Sefton's parents were desperate to find their son and had put cries out to the entire country to help them locate him. Of course, Sefton did not want to be found and simply moved faster than ever before to try and outrun the spread of information. It didn't work. Eventually, when Sefton was fifteen and a half, the authorities caught up with him (or Chivy, if you want to get technical, as he was much less careful about telegraphing where he went and was certain to reunite with Sefton at one point or another) and took Sefton in. As it turned out, "the authorities" were government officials put on Sefton's trail by his father, Gabriel, in a deal that they could study his ability as long as they returned Sefton to his family in the end.

Although Gabriel visited his son once, the officials never finished their research before a man by the name of Devon Fischer blew the whistle on them. Dr. Fischer was one of the forefront researchers employed by the government, and had glimpsed a report on the backdoor experiments going on due to this connection. Although he did his best to quell the murmurs inspired by the revolution of the paper on the "unnamed subject's" abilities, the damage had already been done in the black market circles. Soon after his release, Sefton met with Devon and was reunited with Chivy. Devon promised to keep in contact with Chivy through his niece Adria and send care packages for the both of them, effectively taking the two misfits under his wing in a sort of apology, while agreeing to not try and contact Sefton directly lest they lead some of the worse sorts right to him.

Sefton left soon after, refusing to appear at his father's trial. (Even without Sefton's testimony, Gabriel Lowell was convicted with aiding the kidnapping and experimentation of a minor and given thirty years in prison.) Nearly a year later, Sefton accidentally helped Chivy locate his errant father, Galvin Darrell, and at some point returned with Chivy to his hometown to meet with his mother-figure, Lynna, before she passed away from a longtime illness. With Devon's help and Chivy's encouragement, Sefton managed to catch up in schoolwork over the next few years and even finish high school at 18 despite all of the time he missed while traveling. GED in hand and with internet technology quickly on the rise, he then enrolled himself into online courses to begin training for a doctorate in imbuology thanks to Devon's influence.

During all of this time, Sefton was periodically taken by "the uglies" and subsequently rescued from a variety of different experiments aimed to harness his ability's various uses. A notable incident when Sefton was 23 resulted in an incorrectly-inserted needle that ripped halfway up his left arm, forcing him to settle in D.C. for the last year of his education while he attended physical therapy. His thesis was dedicated to the theory that adepts were in fact infused-humans and he received his doctorate at the age of 24. He managed to land himself a job as Devon's apprentice, but thankfully was constantly outsourced to look into naturally infused relics and artifacts to check their viability for research — a thin excuse to keep him traveling and from becoming a sitting target.

Sefton remained in contact with Chivy, Adria and Devon throughout the years, finally beginning to open up to the possibility of a life without constant guilt and the allowance of friendship. He had not, and likely never would, grow out of being a stubborn pain in the ass.

Point in canon: 2054, two years after Sefton graduates

Window location: Off the beaten path of a hiking trail between two cities in southern Maryland, USA

Universe: Sefton's world is very, very much like the Earth we all know with a few key differences: technology took a much more eco-friendly bend which resulted in the dichotomy of some truly staggering advancements in "green" tech while the rest of the world was stuck somewhere in the 1990s; there exists a phenomenon known as "infusion" where objects were randomly imprinted with concepts of reality themselves, some much more useful and notable than others; and there are people among the population called adepts who possess "knacks" (abilities, tendencies or outright powers) that are basically relegated to folklore since most adepts are as innocuous as their neighbor. In truth, these adepts are people imprinted with the same facets of reality as infused objects and science has simply not advanced enough to determine the origin of an adept's knack. Recent years (starting around the '10s) have seen strong advancement in the field of imbuology, the science of infusion, once mankind discovered how to infuse simple elements into objects. Weapons and the like were infeasible due to technological limitation, but appliances saw dramatic increase in efficiency and sales. Coincidentally, the number of adepts in the world grew exponentially with the technological revelation of man-made infusion... though no one has yet to notice the correlation due to adepts' underground style of living.

Because this would totally be an anime if it were a published canon, people tend to have some strangely colored hair naturally. It's a rare, cultural thing, like how red hair is generally an Irish trait — Sefton's blue hair, for example, speaks of Italian heritage.

Abilities: As an adept, Sefton is a human infused with the concept of polarization. This results in producing a natural field of biomagnetism, which generates three notable effects on the world around him: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Push someone, they fall. Pull someone, they follow. The first facet of his power is an amplification of that simple fact where he constantly exerts a 1:1 force on inanimate objects that enter his magnetic bubble (only a few centimeters off his skin), halting or progressing their momentum by 50%. This reaction to objects is controlled by an intellectual mental switch and is one he has learned to flip between at will.

His effect on sentient beings is much less benign. Every time contact is initiated, his power flares and draws in their heart inch by inch. Platonic endearment is the name of the game; developing romance is up to the individual affected. Light touches only incur light effects, while heavy contact works more strongly. Sustaining contact after the first touch does not increase the effects and is, in fact, the only workaround to this aspect of his power — by entering his field with as little impact as possible, his power fails to trigger. Walk softly, carry a big stick. Overexposure of this biomagnetic mind-warping can result in obsession and does not easily fade. However, the more someone is affected by this power, the harder it is for it to continue building and would require years of constant exposure to result in dangerously high levels of emotional attachment. His reaction to people, animals or otherwise necessitates an emotional component to move between attracting or repelling their attention. These triggers are love and hate, which Sefton refuses to master since it would require learning how to hate someone on command. For the moment, he is permanently stuck attracting people.

(What about the third aspect? Simple: magnets are simply magnets, one reacting to the other — even if one of them happens to be a young man.)

All in all, this power causes him to produce a ridiculous amount of energy and creates drawbacks such as eleven hours being the suggested amount of sleep, and an appetite to put a growing teenager to shame. This says nothing of the emotional detriment it has on Sefton (because it's already laid out in personality, durr). He wipes magnetic strips whether he means to or not, and an electromagnetic pulse could very well knock him into a coma and result in death if not treated soon after.

Possessions: Along with his messenger bag carrying most of his worldly belongings (clothes, a laptop, an old worrystone, a camera and very few, random trinkets), the only things Sefton tends to keep on him are a scarf, no matter the temperature, and his cold-infused shoes. These are black with ice-blue highlights and simply generate a small field of cold from his feet to the top of his shins, replacing the magnetic effect should anyone touch him there and effectively grant him a totally-safe zone.

Personality: On the surface, Sefton affects the disposition of someone uninterested in social interaction and keeps a professional distance from everyone he comes in contact with. He insists on using his title or his last name and rarely will give out his first name in order to strengthen the gap between himself and anyone else. He doesn't want anyone to know his name, because their interaction would only ever remain superficial. Most of the time, he can remain civil and perform accordingly to cues; he simply refuses to be lured in by someone's friendliness or kind invitations. If someone tries to push through this icy exterior, he becomes snappish and rude, acting for all the world like he would prefer to be left alone, thank you very much now kindly get out of my face.

At heart, Sefton is a very kind person. His formative years were spent surrounded by love and care, from and for his loved ones. Despite all of the things he has gone through in life, there is a part of him that cares for people far too much to close them out entirely. He relies on the presence of others to keep from going insane with loneliness, although he would never allow himself to be more than an outsider looking in. For Sefton, this sort of fake-closeness is enough to sustain him. There is a lot of contrast between his focus on other people with his determination to stand apart from them: he is the type to offer aid in carrying groceries back home, stop and try to fix a broken bicycle, or even listen to a stranger's problems, but would just as soon disappear before being thanked or insist the deed be forgotten once he finished. While he can easily say 'no' and walk away from someone in need, he is much more likely to agree to help if it is a stranger.

These actions can easily seem contradictory until one looks deeper and realizes that Sefton harbors the mother of all guilt complexes. His power has the ability to bend the will of the people around him simply through touch, and he cannot stand to accidentally expose anyone to this effect. It is easier to remain apart from people and earn their dislike naturally than to approach and force them to deal with his eccentricities and hangups. Simply telling anyone about his power to give them an informed decision is something he can't bring himself to do, out of both guilt and self-loathing. If someone were to reject him for the one thing he has dedicated his life to contain and can do nothing to completely neutralize, it would crush his already meager self-confidence.

Years of building up the importance of others' right to free will and his own agency in destroying it has left Sefton with a crippled sense of self. If he has to be the one to stand apart from others to keep them safe, then so be it. If there were a contest between what he wanted and what someone else wanted in a situation, chances are that Sefton would stand down. This isn't to say he cannot stand up for himself — on the contrary, he can become a spitfire when his own interests are on the line and will defend himself as necessary. He simply cannot abide by trying to enforce his own wants or needs over someone else if their need is greater (which is often, in Sefton's opinion), having unknowingly spent fourteen years of his life doing just that to his parents and friends. Hating someone for acting against him or the ones he cares about has always been out of the question to Sefton: condemning them for doing something that came naturally to them without any influence from him stands against everything he's shaped himself to protect. While he does allow himself to anger, he has far too much practice in internalizing negative emotions that would be much healthier to express outwardly.

Because of how Sefton's power requires physical contact before it activates, he has developed a genuine fear of being touched by strangers. It was not born of any physical trauma, but out of fear of his power's consequences on both others and himself. If he doesn't know it's coming, it gets even worse and more often than not results in Sefton becoming very tetchy and evasive around whoever it was that touched him. He avoids physical touch at all cost, which ties in well to his exaggeratedly aloof nature, yet does his best not to let on to this fear in front of others. As with other exceptions to his behavior, light contact from friends when he knows it's coming does not trigger a reaction beyond an ever-present nervousness. Opposite of this fear, Sefton tries to maintain contact with inanimate objects as a sort of anchor and often finds himself leaning on walls, benches or the like to ground himself.

While this behavior is inherently very destructive, Sefton has come to a compromise with it over the years and found a stable balance. Touching anyone remains completely off-limits, but he allows himself to form some acquaintances and enjoy solitary activities instead. His guilt remains a constant reminder to never let go completely, but no longer tries to outright punish himself for something he cannot stop and instead focuses on keeping it under control. With this semi-peace regarding his power, Sefton has allowed himself to settle in a way that means he maintains a certain calmness when in private or the company of the few people he trusts.

There are exceptions to every rule. In Sefton's case, these exceptions are named Chivy Darrell, Devon Fischer and Adria Fischer. After over a decade of their presence, he has allowed them past his prickly, tetchy barrier and comfortably into a very empty slot in his heart for his loved ones. Chivy has had the largest emotional influence on his life, having taught Sefton that life was still worth living despite the limits he would have to place on himself, and for never giving up on trying to pry his way into friendship. Calling them "best friends" would be an understatement — think of it more as a relationship without the romance. While they rarely fully agree on something, they understand each other in a way no one else does and that kind of support is the most precious thing in Sefton's life. Although they are not always together nor do they keep in constant contact, the fact that they can meet up and pick up right where they left off is nothing to sneeze at. Because of Chivy's influence and his willingness to deal with Sefton's eccentricities (to a certain extent), Sefton began to wear scarves whenever possible as a compromise to his "no touching" rule by giving Chivy something to pull him along by even if the other wasn't wearing his infused gloves. Silly as it sounds, it signifies the huge amounts of trust Sefton has learned to place in his friend.

If Chivy was the emotional support, then Devon is the intellectual. Throughout his teenage years, Devon supported Sefton in continuing his education and made sure to keep him as safe as possible from those who would use Sefton's power for their own gain. Devon was a mentor and a good friend despite the age difference, something neither of them truly seemed to care about considering the circumstances of their meeting. While not as close to Sefton's heart as Chivy, Devon certainly has the utmost respect from Sefton for being trustworthy and someone to look up to. Devon's niece, Adria, is more distant than either of them, yet still very close to Sefton: she respects his boundaries but doesn't let it put her off from treating him like a completely normal person. Sefton counts himself as lucky for this, rather than believing the insistence that others might react similarly to his power as "no big deal".

Aside from these individuals, Sefton's trust is extremely hard-won. Despite the irrationality of it, he feels betrayed by those who are affected by his power for falling prey to it, then blames himself for feeling this way and creates an emotional barrier to keep from making things worse. Even if someone is unaffected by him and tries to get in close, Sefton has a difficult time understanding why anyone would want to do that due to inexperience in genuine relationships (he only has three friends, all under some pretty weird circumstances, to be fair). His self-loathing means he finds it difficult to see why others would think him worthy of approaching, even if by now he has realized there must be something more to it than he sees. Stubborn and curious individuals are the ones most likely to get to him, as he has an easier time letting his guard down when he thinks someone has only an intellectual interest or thinks him useful for something anyone else could do in his place. He's similar to a cat in that regard. His trust absolutely does not carry through to any type of government, despite working for the United States'; it's Devon that he really works under and believes in, not anyone affiliated with the start of his regular kidnap, experimentation and abuse thanks to The Man's sticky fingers so many years ago.

Thread sample: An entry from dear_mun.

Prose sample: Every two weeks, the check-in happened. Of course, it was never on a specific day or a specific time, just... every fourteen days or so, Sefton would make the call. As much as he would get teased for being the one to go searching for contact, it wasn't as if it was easy to get him over a phone line when he had no cell phone. E-mail was possible and happened every now and then... but it was kind of impersonal, words on a page rather than a voice in your ear. Is this what it feels like to get older? mused Sefton with a quiet huff of laughter under the ringtone.

"Chivy Darrell, what do you need?" His friend might not like answering professionally, but it wasn't like he had a separate line for delivery-related calls. Sefton got that.

"Hey," Sefton greeted easily. "Checking in, boss. Or'd you forget?"

"Prickly! Hey," Chivy said, voice brightening. "It's really been two weeks? Or, well, obviously, that's why I have the Harris delivery tonight. Where're you now?"

Sefton allowed himself a smile as he leaned back against the sun-warmed glass of the phone booth. Not that Chivy needed to know, but these calls were definitely a highlight of his time spent traveling. There were equal parts pleasure in the solitude of the journey as there were interaction with people he trusted; he just wasn't the type to be clingy about the latter, which made it all the more of a bonus when time rolled around again. "Fifteen days, actually," he corrected. "Uh, I'm..." He turned his head, catching sight of the post office down the street. "Parkersburg. In Parkersburg."

"Time flies." Here, Sefton could easily imagine Chivy gesturing about with the words. It was a good thing he had (mostly) stopped answering the phone on the bike. "Where's the next destination? Any place fun?"

"Got a couple towns left 'til I hit the University," Sefton said, shrugging along in a way he knew Chivy would be able to read. "So not really. S' pretty nice out here, though. Got some nice pictures." Which, of course, meant more postcards for Chivy once Sefton had them all developed. He wasn't much to talk about himself, so he found his curiosity wandering closer toward Chivy than to answering questions. "How's business?"

"Um, Harris. Who is going to tell me all about his daughter again, so that's fun. But, no, it's good. Busy enough. Haven't fallen off or dropped something anytime lately." Sefton kept silent as Chivy spoke on, merely rolling his eyes in amusement. He was pretty sure he didn't need to say more, and was soon proven right. "Had the coolest little box the other day, though. It had all these little spring-loaded compartments? The guy was going to keep infused pieces in it. The way he explained it, it sounded like a display case, but you'd think, like, glass would make more sense."

"He collects infused stuff?" mumbled Sefton. That was an interesting tidbit. Most naturally-infused objects amounted to junk when it turned out their concept wasn't feasible or hardly even noticeable depending what they had been infused into, but many could still be used for research. That didn't really discourage the collectors' niche, not that Sefton could blame them, either. Some people just wanted fancy, if not entirely useless, toys. "How's he plan to display 'em?"

"He does repairs — mostly coldboxes, but lately he's just been doing anything he can find time for. He said he wanted to keep it on the counter, so people can mess with it when they come in to make appointments and stuff. Kind of surprised he isn't worried somebody'll break it." Chivy was many things, but a person who let others touch all of his things was not one of them.

"Probably just the cheap stuff," Sefton concluded.

Please insert four quarters for another five minutes of your call.

Hissing under his breath, Sefton shifted away from the booth wall and began patting through his pockets for his wallet or any spare change. It wasn't as though he had anywhere else to keep his money except for on his person, but loose change tended to pile up and he made a habit of keeping only bills if he could manage it. Now that he stopped to think, the last of his change had gone toward dinner the night before... He groaned quietly and let his head thunk on the top of the phone box.

"You're on an actual payphone again, aren't you?" Chivy asked, entertained.

Without moving from his position, Sefton replied, "As opposed to what, pray tell?" while the nice lady inside the line reminded him how close his call was to finishing.

"A lot of people will let you use store phones. Or you could get one."

"Oh, shut up," Sefton huffed.

The call disconnected. Sefton didn't even look at the receiver when he settled it back on his cradle and stepped into the summer sun. He fixed his scarf around his neck to allow it to breathe better, the call with Chivy making him more reluctant than usual to peel it off in the heat, and set off toward the library. He might as well ask around about any infused artifacts or wives' tales while he was here.

Plans: Sefton is very much a research-oriented individual, likely to take on more intellectual tasks than the physical. His first course of action would be to check in on his friends back home, then probably return to Cittàgazze to see what sort of opportunities it could afford him; he would be very interested to see if anyone could solve the conundrum of adepts without revealing what he can personally do.

DÆMON

Name: Leslie
Sex: Male
Form: Tree pangolin (Manis tricuspis)
Additional notes: Nothing especially worth noting. If genetic dispositions carry over to the dæmons, then Leslie would possess Sefton's power and maintain whatever wavelength Sefton sets them on.
Why this form: Generally, much of my view on using a tree pangolin as a dæmon is influenced by this essay (though not entirely), while the rest comes from the idea of a creature that keeps itself from other people through climbing, tends to be a loner, and literally grows a prickly exterior to protect its soft underbelly. It reflects Sefton in the idea that the tail gives it a long reach, but it would rather curl up to avoid predators or maintain its position than reach out. Much of Leslie's appearance is more reminiscent of who he was when his dæmon would have settled (around the time he ran away from home) rather than who he has grown into in the years after while still retaining the core aspects he refuses to give up.
Same? Sefton's life is a matter of extremes and opposites. Push, pull. Repel, attract. Kindness covered in what he considers a necessary prickly exterior. When I said he was born infused with the concept of polarization, it didn't just manifest in his power but how he lives his life. Managing to find anything resembling a balance with himself only started when he was well on his way to college. Before that, he lived in drastics — openness and loving to his friends and family, then closed off and terrified of anyone that tried to get close once he ran away. It's in his very nature to not meet things halfway.

My thoughts on his dæmon's sex is that Leslie would be that "opposite" from what should be normal, not a balance to Sefton (as anyone else would have, the positive and negative to create a whole, neutral reaction of both genders between person and dæmon) but an anchor, a similarity and fullness, that always falls on the same side as Sefton does. His temperament, of course, would still be affected by Sefton's personal and mental development, but his gender relies on matching up with Sefton, similar to his magnetic polarization; they are the same piece of a whole, rather than two oppositely-polarized objects that attract. It's hardcoded in the way Sefton resonates as a person.