EREN ÖZTÜRK INTRODUCTION.
meet eren; private investigator banshee
GENERAL
FULL NAME: Eren Öztürk NICKNAME(S): N/A AGE/DATE OF BIRTH: 54 (appears 29), 01/04/1969 GENDER: Cisman PRONOUNS: He/Him OCCUPATION: Private Investigator, and owner of Tower Treasure Detective Agency SPECIES: Fae, Banshee
BIOGRAPHY
TRIGGERS: death, haphephobia, racism, xenophobia, gore
ONCE UPON A TIME there was a boy who fell into a hole.
It’s not a normal way to start a fairy tale, but in the case of Eren Öztürk this was the way his literal fairy life began. Falling face-first into a dark, seemingly endless hole. It was that night that his banshee powers had manifested themselves for the first time within this specific timeline, as well as the defining moment which led him down the path to his current life. Seated in a small office above a laundromat on a corner in Downtown Lunar Cove, surrounded by case files, grainy photographs, and dozens upon dozens of takeout cartons, the banshee often reflects on that pivotal moment way back on that early 80’s autumn day in middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania and how everything changed forever after.
Eren Öztürk was born to a mechanical engineer and a children’s book writer in Istanbul in 1969. He doesn’t remember his homeland, at least not back in that time, because shortly after in the early 70’s his parents made the decision to migrate to the United States. Settling in a small and charming town in the foothills of Pennsylvania, Eren was set to have a pretty idyllic childhood. Being the only child the Öztürks would ever have – as far as he knew – he had a warm upbringing full of love and everything a young kid like him could ever ask for. Everything seemed absolutely perfect… That was, until it wasn’t. Being an immigrant to the United States in the 20th Century wasn’t exactly the easiest thing, and being one of the only Turkish families in their small town made things worse. When Eren started attending school, he quickly found himself growing into an outsider and began hiding his sweet and warm demeanor behind a stoic and socially anxious exterior. The kids at school made fun of his homemade dishes, a stark contrast to their pizza and chocolate milk carton lunches bought at the cafeteria. They mocked him and his family as they spoke in their native tongues at the supermarket, and they found every way to let him know he was “just too different” from them.
As a result, Eren had only a couple of friends – Frank, his brother Joe, and their oftentimes collaborator, one Nancy Drew. While the other kids ran about the playground playing freeze tag and hide and seek together, Eren spent his recesses in the library, checking out Hardy Boys book after Hardy Boys book. He delighted himself primarily with the mysteries at the core of each adventure, but also the brotherly bond and camaraderie between its main characters – something he always wished he had in his own life. These novels were the first signs of an inquisitive and curious mind, having bred a love for anything mystery and crime detective related, and when Eren was going through puberty and feeling woefully alone, he began to act out. Combined with a bad attitude, which was undeservingly flung at his parents, Eren began sneaking out of the house and running off to a local art theater late at night when they began showing Noirs from the 40’s and 50’s. Films which he quickly became addicted to. Out of the Past, Murder, My Sweet, Kiss Me Deadly — these movies and so many more all became quick favorites for the young boy, who soon after began daydreaming he was a detective in a trench coat and fedora, on a hot case with a femme fatale in a dark and smoky city.
After one such late night excursion, and imagining himself as the quick witted detective at the center of the narrative, Eren left the theater on his bike and cut through the woods which lead to his backyard. It was supposed to be a shortcut, a quick way to get home so he could be tucked back in his bed before his dad checked in on him to ensure he didn’t sneak out again. But one sharp turn turned a simple bike ride through the woods into him stumbling face-first into a barely concealed hole. One that felt like it went on forever, endless and dark. He woke after an indecipherable amount of time in the pitch black, sore and covered in scrapes and bruises. As Eren tried to feel around for something to help him up, his hands felt something softer than the hard, cold ground. Adjusting to the dark, he was able to make out a silhouette of what looked to be an oddly shaped object, which his hand reached towards. Moonlight piercing the clouds revealed it to be a corpse, and as his hand sank into the decomposing flesh, Eren let out the loudest, piercing scream he had ever made or even heard in his entire life. His vision clouded as a chilling vision unfolded, depicting the deceased's final moments — a visceral connection to death that marked the onset of his supernatural gifts.
This was the first time his abilities as a banshee manifested themselves.
The trauma of that encounter lingered, overshadowing the remainder of his youth and impacting his relationship with his parents. The banality of life faded into the background, replaced by the manifestation of even more peculiar abilities – a debilitating scream, the ability to transfer an injury inflicted by his bullies to them, and retractable wings which made for many an awkward moment. But all of those were eclipsed by the even more horrifying ability to witness moments of death from just touching a person. It all made adolescence a confusing and isolating period. He was desperate to escape whatever was going on with him, but especially his parents who were stuck between wanting to help their son with whatever was happening to him and horrified as stranger and newer symptoms of his unknown curse made themselves known. He couldn’t stand the terrified look on his mother’s face, or his father’s confusion which quickly turned to frustration when Eren lashed out when they tried to make sense of everything going on with their teenage son. Or the hurt that crossed their faces when he refused their touches, caresses of love and concern from a parent watching their son become undone. The last thing any kid wanted was to see how their parents would die, long before the event itself happened.
The second that Eren came of age in the late '80s, he had made a rather difficult choice. He couldn’t stay there, with parents who would likely never understand what he was going through and in a town where he wasn’t accepted when he was at his most “normal”. So he left home – without farewells, leaving behind the tearful visage of his mother as his last memory of her. His search for answers regarding his strange abilities propelled him into a nomadic existence, hopping from place to place, country to country, continent to continent, searching for something he wasn’t quite sure of, avoiding attachments all along the way. It seemed all across the world there were many places with their own myths to explain what was happening to him, but nothing concrete beyond old wive’s tales. No documented cases of another going through what he was, from what he could find. His existence quickly became the one mystery that Eren had no way of solving.
With little to nothing to work with, he gave up on his soul searching for a moment and made his way to Turkey, his homeland which he only heard about in stories and in faded memories from when he was really quite young. All his life he had felt like an outsider looking in, only feeling a sense of belonging within the pages of old children’s mystery novels. When he arrived in Turkey, things were instantly somewhat different. For once, he didn’t feel like he didn’t belong, he felt like just another face in the crowd, blending in fully to the environment around him. It felt like maybe things would be alright, maybe he found some happiness despite all the strange occurrences surrounding his existence. He still had the premonitions which haunted him any time he came in contact with people and sometimes objects which formerly belonged to others. This gave way for a severe case of haphephobia, which made him awkward and anxious when out in public. This being the only thing that marred his time home in Istanbul, he didn’t think of it as a major tell as to the supernatural things which had been going on in his life. But he was wrong, there was someone who was able to notice something was off about him and was able to quickly deduce what was going on.
When Zehra first approached him, he didn’t know how to take her boldness, especially when she began asking him about his wings and if this was his “first life”. Of course it was his first life – as far as he knew, this was his only life – but her vagueness gave way to more transparent explanations and soon Eren was getting the explanation he had longed for for a handful of years now. According to Zehra, he, much like her, was a faerie, only he was one called a banshee whereas she was a siren. Suddenly everything about himself made sense, and all because of this stranger who was able to recognize the shared struggles of their kind. Slowly, they forged a profound friendship, and Zehra became Eren's guide, helping him understand his banshee abilities, introducing him to a supernatural world within their own. With her he found his first family outside of his parents, and they worked on his trauma and helped him make sense of his past. Eren knew he was finally with someone who understood him when Zehra gifted him with his first pair of leather gloves. “You know,” she had said warmly, “To help you with your fears.”
He was content to stay there in Turkey with Zehra, but as quickly as he learned about the broad supernatural world they were part of, he learned there were those who wanted to destroy it. Hunter activity was growing across Europe and Asia during that time, and so the fae duo knew they would need to keep moving if they wanted to survive. At Zehra’s insistence they began moving westward. She had heard talk of a supernatural haven back in the States which many of her compatriots had either come from or escaped to. While the thought of going back homeward gave him anxiety, a sense of self preservation prevailed and the pair began slowly making their way towards Lunar Cove, Rhode Island. Between 1988 and 1991, they found themselves settling in towns here and there, meeting others like them and of different species, and trying to find some sense of normalcy wherever they could. Wherever they stayed Eren would pay keen attention to the local goingons, and Zehra was surprised to see the young banshee quietly following and even solving some of the local crimes which were being documented by the public, talked about in small coffee shops and diners.
During a particularly long stay in a town in the Southern US, Eren went as far as crossing paths with detectives on a cold case and made light comments after touching something he was supposedly not allowed to touch. He may have been the anonymous tip to help things progress to justice. While talking over coffee in the middle of the night at a Waffle House in Alabama, Zehra made a throwaway comment about them opening a Private Investigation agency together when they settled in Lunar Cove. At first he shrugged it off, but as they continued their northward travel the thought became more and more appealing. When they finally crossed the barrier into Lunar Cove in the spring of 1993, Eren decided he would make that vision a possibility. Working days bussing tables at an Italian restaurant while he spent nights getting his criminal justice degree at the local college, it seemed like this was the cherry on top of Eren’s life turning out just as it was meant to be. So much so that he stopped aging in 1998, finally feeling his true self. When he got his PI license, Eren began renting out a small office space above a laundromat in Downtown Lunar Cove, and thus the Tower Treasure Detective Agency was born – aptly named after the first Hardy Boys adventure which started his long journey towards amateur sleuthing and now real detective work. Things were going great, perfect even, and after skirting around their feelings for so long, Eren and Zehra finally progressed their friendship into a romantic connection.
The turn of the century brought with it many changes. Tower Treasure was doing well, mostly dealing in smaller crime cases that the local authorities didn’t pay as much attention to, as well as targeting cold cases in the greater local area in order to earn some extra big cash. With his banshee abilities, Eren began taking on more and more cases regarding inexplicable deaths, using his premonitions to help families get a glimpse of exactly what may have happened when their loved ones perished and providing much needed closure and even a bit of grief counseling as a result. It was simple and sweet, it made those visions which oftentimes plagued him and scared him as a youth into something good for the community, at least he tried to think of it that way. It didn’t always pan out that way and in his seemingly perfect life, there were some cracks which exposed a less happy underbelly. No matter what positive spin he tried to put on things, Eren still suffered with his phobias and fears, as well as an unending guilt for having never reconnected with his parents who likely would always wonder what exactly happened to their boy. Zehra had been supportive of everything he went through, but every person had their individual needs and soon enough she wasn’t feeling as fulfilled as she hoped. And despite himself, Eren pulled away from most everyone and everything. The visions of death began having a toll on him once again, and he found himself pulling more into himself after years and years of detective work. Solidarity has always been his best coping mechanism.
Eventually Zehra left, citing a desire to go back to Europe and find some of the others they used to commune with. Eren knew she didn’t want him to feel bad for not being adequate for her and he comforted himself with the thought that she was back in Europe or Asia, living out her vivid and interesting life and hopefully in the arms of someone who could love her properly. It felt better to think that way than to imagine hunters found her and she had regenerated, or worse. Since she left, Eren never took on another partner in his detective work, or personal life. Left alone, aside from his only lasting employee which was an eternally middle aged vampire secretary with a nasally voice and penchant for knit cardigans decorated with woodland creatures, his agency continued on — still bringing closure to Lunar Cove’s residents in death whenever it’s needed, but with his somewhat dreary case load he’s lost a bit of love for the work over the past couple decades. Now it seemed he was just robotically going through the motions of work and life, as he has been over the past couple decades now. His social life remained minimal, not interacting much beyond his clients and the other members of the fae court, and he shied away from forming new attachments, being haunted by the fear of another heartbreak. Life reached a standstill, a boring downhill slide…
That was, until the Catalyst arrived.
With the chaos and turmoil enveloping Lunar Cove due to the mysterious Catalyst, Eren has found himself contemplating the unfolding mystery between his usual lighter case load. Alone in his dimly lit office, surrounded by the remnants of takeout and mountains of case files he ought to be working on instead, he often reflects on the facts laid out before him on a board hung up on his wall. Photographs, newspaper clippings, and anything he could find about the town’s biggest adversary, pinned up on a corkboard with red lines crossing over all of it, connecting invisible dots he’s yet to figure out, but delights in seeing. The prospect of a tumultuous mystery has been slowly rekindling Eren’s passion for detective work, as the promise of more danger and chaos looms on Lunar Cove’s horizon and ensures that something bigger than they’ve witnessed yet is surely on its way. And Eren Öztürk welcomes the developments, taking in each and every thing that comes up, and prepares to face the shadows that he hopes will soon darken his agency's doorstep. In the meantime, he continues paying close attention to the goings on, doing what little work comes his way, and keeping a careful eye on every new face that shows up in Lunar Cove. In this new chapter of his dark fairy tale life, everyone is suspect. That is, until he can prove their innocence beyond a reasonable doubt.
HEADCANONS
Typically wears all black, a mix between casual and dressy, in particular is usually in a suit and tie but sometimes rocks a tee and leather jacket. The one thing Eren is never without are his gloves. Black or Brown leather racing gloves which he wears to help him interact with the world without a fear of seeing things he doesn’t want to (outside of work) or direct touching with others
Doesn’t invite and has never invited a single person into his home. If you want to see him privately, go to his office, but don’t ever expect to make a house visit.
Has a very dry sense of humor and delivers teasing banter in a very monotonous voice. If you didn’t know him, you may construe this as mean but he is actually a very sweet person. He just rarely shows that side of him to others.
He appears young, but he’s an old man at heart. He loves sitting at the park and playing chess with others, his favorite show is the nightly news, and he will complain about nonexistent back pains. His sensibilities skew towards older interests, namely with music and media. He loves noir films from the 40’s and 50’s but also loves his 80’s coming of age films, and carries a Walkman and mixtapes of 80’s hits on any case. If he’s doing a stakeout there’s a 100% chance he’s listening to Tears For Fears or Spandau Ballet.
No hookups, no romantic relationships, nothing beyond professional (even for his few platonic relationships) — he’s afraid of touch and there isn’t a single exception to the touch rule. Aside from his dog. He needs cuddles somewhere, the poor man.
idk more will come to me I’m sure lol
MISC
SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Demisexual ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Biromantic FAMILY: a dog named Hardy HOMETOWN: TBD, Pennsylvania FACE CLAIM: Emin Günenç HEIGHT: 6’2” EYE COLOR: Brown HAIR: Dark Brown DISTINGUISHABLE FEATURES: STYLE: ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: capricorn PINTEREST: (x)
WANTED CONNECTIONS
Past clients
Acquaintances
Few close friends
Maybe you were one of his cases / he had to trail you at the request of a former flame/loved one
Unwanted Partner In Crime
‘It’s Always You, Seemingly Caught Red Handed At The Scene Of The Crime’
