Congratulations Hillary, and welcome! You’ve been accepted as your original character Gabriel K’alyaan Kelley! Go ahead and set up your account, be sure to message the main from it.
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Track the tag norfolk: starter for open dash convos.
And tell us your initial reaction to Norfolk in the tag norfolk: talk!
1. OUT OF CHARACTER
Name/Alias: Hillary
Age: 25
Pronouns: she/her
Timezone: EST
Personal tumblr: persephoning.tumblr.com
Activity level: 5-6
Triggers: Removed.
What’s the secret password?: Removed.
How did you find us?: Via referral from Rhi and Eva
What character are you applying for? An OC.
Writing sample:
“I’m just sayin’, it looks like a really nice dog, Uncle Gabe. I could probably pet it.”
His nephew was sitting on the bumper of the moving van, swinging his feet to some internal rhythm, and giving him the sort of puppy eyes that would have made anyone else capitulate immediately. However, those people didn’t live with him 24/7 and those people likely couldn’t sense the antsy anxiety that the boy was clearly trying to ease by begging to make friends with the neighbor’s golden retriever. Gabriel sat the box of kitchen utensils down on the sidewalk with a muffled thump, sighed loudly, and turned to look at the dog himself. His abilities didn’t extend to animals, but it did seem like a good natured dog, he supposed. That didn’t mean he was going to let Ezra rush over and invite himself into its good graces though, because he knew that would turn into another request to then meet every person on the block. Not what he wanted to do today after several hours of driving, navigating, and contending with a cheery eight year old who only stopped talking long enough to eat or sleep.
“You could, but you don’t know for sure, so you aren’t going to. Besides, don’t you have a box of stuff upstairs that you need to set out? Mr. Otter and all his friends probably don’t want to spend all day in that stuffy box.”
An expression midway between a pout and a frown crossed the boy’s face, and a staring match commenced not long afterwards. Ezra knew he was right, and he didn’t like it all that much. There were things to see, people to meet, and spending an hour making his new room more homey was the last thing such an outgoing child would like to do. Especially after Gabriel had pulled the ugly card by playing on his nephew’s devotion to his stuffed animal collection. Not cool, obviously. Arms folded, Ezra began to glare from his perch on the edge of the van floor, and so his uncle matched the gesture. His facial expression was more mocking than serious though, and he turned it into a smile a moment later.
“After we get all this put away, we can ask about the dog. And the lady across the street you keep telling me looks so nice.” Gabriel offered, letting his arms fall to his side once more.
Small capitulations, he thought. Ezra looked unimpressed by the offer, though he knew from experience that he would hold his uncle to it until they actually did both of those things.
“And I’ll let you get pizza tonight, any kind you want.”
Eyes narrowed, Ezra slid carefully to the ground without breaking eye contact. Something about that offer shifted his mood, but there was something more needed.
“With pineapple?”
“Fine.”
Ezra gave him a tight nod and offered Gabriel a fist to bump, which he did a moment later. The boy then headed towards the house, pausing only to call over his shoulder once more.
“I want those cheesy bread things too though. And a brownie.”
It would be worth it for half an hour’s quiet, and so Gabriel nodded his assent before getting back to work on the boxes. Maybe it would mark a fresher, better start for them both, pineapple or no pineapple.
2. ORIGINAL CHARACTER
Full name: Gabriel K’alyaan Kelley
Age: 32
Sexuality: Pansexual
Species: Psychic
Psychic ability: Empathy
Occupation: Internist, with a subspeciality in infectious disease
Address: 13 Greengrass Grove, Edgewater
Quote: You never get over it. But you get to the point where it doesn’t bother you so much.
MBTI: INFJ
Positive traits (3): Meticulous, Kind, Disciplined
Negative traits (3): Self-Destructive, Blunt, Stubborn
Face claim: Martin Sensmeier
Biography:
People have always expected some grand, Horatio Alger style story to explain his rise from unwanted child to medical school and beyond. Several of his scholarships practically demanded it of him, and were disappointed at the dispassionate way Gabriel regards his past. At first there were aunts, friends of his mother, and other sundry relatives willing to watch himself and his older sister, never the same person for more than a few months at a time. Sometimes they would see their mother between these shifts, sometimes they didn’t, but Tallulah was then more of a mother to her five years younger brother than any of the substitutes along the way. Sitka to Juneau to Anchorage, and then into the custody of the state, once their mother had entirely vanished from their lives. The authorities tried to separate them many times over, it was easier to place one child than two at once, but one would always run away to rejoin the other enough times that eventually they were forced to market the two as a package deal. Tallulah was sixteen when they went into their last foster home, Gabriel was nine, and it is unlikely that either would have made it to adulthood without the steadying influence of Virginia Kelley, a leftover hippie who treated them like the children they had never been allowed to be before.
Tallulah was encouraged to follow her interests, told for the first time that she could do something worthwhile with herself, and Gabriel was given the same encouragement, albeit in a different direction. His sister was artistic by nature, gifted in many ways, but the one way that she wasn’t was supernaturally gifted. Gabriel, for all his love of science, could sense the emotions of others in powerful waves, and he hid this from his new guardian for many months with Tallulah’s help. It was safer, it was always their way around others, and so it was only under duress that he admitted this talent to their foster mother. He expected disbelief, loathing, or something equally negative given past experiences, but all he felt as he explained his talent to her in the kitchen one night after school was…acceptance. Amusement too, especially after she demonstrated her own ability to Tallulah and Gabriel both by reading off both of their thoughts like so much text on a page. This revelation marked a shifting point in their dynamic, a proper trust for once, and as the years passed some of the early wounds they both had long carried began to scab over with all of the love their foster (later adoptive) mother gave them. Gabriel was able to finish high school, to head off to college and eventually medical school, all things that would have seemed impossible when he was a young child.
Things were steady, they were normal, they were everything that he had wanted in his life. A sister and a mother attended his graduation from medical school, Tallulah even moved south with him when he decided to seek work in Washington State instead of their native Alaska. Looking back at that time now, he wonders if he should have been more wary of that contentment. He became an uncle not long after moving south, but his sister then moved further away, and he saw Virginia even less frequently. Maybe if they had been closer, maybe if he had stayed, maybe none of what went wrong afterwards would have happened. It’s reductive thinking, and he knows it, but in the years since he still wonders. Stage four breast cancer carried off Virginia, which she hid from him until it was too late for him to try to find better doctors or more likely treatments for her. That had been the first blow, but the second came a little over a year ago when a call in the wee hours of the morning at work informed him that his sister had been killed in a car accident on her way home from work. In one swift move he was the only remaining member of his family, except for his seven year old nephew Ezra. Gabriel knew too well what the foster system was like, and with Ezra’s father long since out of the picture, he suddenly had to learn how to be a father and uncle at the same time. He and Ezra have only moved to Norfolk recently after Gabriel took a position at a local hospital, and he’s hoping that it might be the sort of place where he can rebuild the safe harbor that he so greatly misses.