OCCUPATION:Â Westwood School of the Arts - Fine Arts Professor, Oil Painting
DISTRICT:Â Garond, near the border of the Shipyard
Davis sees things. That's been the case for almost half of his life, with the onset being in his late teens. Most of his experiences thereafter have been spent trying to contextualize these experiences, and spending time with the people he cares about. He started painting when he was very young, with most of his subjects in the beginning being landscapes and animals. Upon the onset of his schizophrenia however, his art changed, becoming raw and self expressive. It focused on body image and the hallucinations that haunted him, indistinguishable from the real supernatural world around him. Young, feral, and starving for something to go right, Davis bled himself out onto the canvas all but literally. It paid off, and at the tender age of 21 he was making gallery showings throughout the city, sowing contention amongst his elders with a brazen and arrogant demeanor. He was never one to mince words, especially in the face of unfairness or being looked down on. His work spoke for itself, however, and his notoriety seemingly couldnât be stopped. Until it was.
Davis decided he wanted to get better. By his side through his journey to recovery was his closest friend and stanchest ally, his adoptive brother Marcus. They hadnât gotten along as kids, with Davis refusing to understand the bias their mother had towards him, refusing to see that he was the favorite child. However, they reconnected after Davis' diagnosis, finally having a conversation about their inequities as adults. They became friends and roommates, with Marcus becoming the big brother Davis needed as the world decided that they liked his art better when he was sick.Â
To keep the bills paid Davis took up teaching at an old haunt, the same school he dropped out of to pursue his career. Being washed up never felt so good. Davis found out that he really enjoyed being a mentor, helping young artists grow and discover their own direction, letting them know that it was okay to slow down and take care of themselves. Because he frankly, hadn't until he started teaching. It wasnât long until he saw his protĂ©gĂ©âs works lining the same galleries where his own used to stand tall, creating new shadows for him to happily stand under.
With a mostly stable workweek, he found time to nurture the other parts of his life outside of art, becoming a fuller person for it. He took up audiobooks, parkour, and most importantly ghost hunting. It had been a hobby that him and Marcus had entertained as teenagers, one of the only things they had in common. Their mother often scolded them for the dangerous places they went to, with Marcus being the one to constantly get in trouble despite it being Davisâ idea most of the time. With his brother now living with him it was easy to find the time to get back into it, and so the two indulged their childish hobby and took their mundane equipment out into the most abandoned and broken parts of the city they could get into.
They picked up little bits and bobs, nothing definitive enough to prove anything to any mundane person. Neither of them minded though, given it was all in the name of good fun. Until it wasnât.
One night, they visited somewhere with a Ouija board in tow, determined to make contact with the unknown. Davis, having forgotten his medicine for a few days thanks to his adhd, assumed that the thing he saw lurking amongst the shadows wasnât real. After all, he saw all sorts of things at his lowest. Why would this be different? The scare of it and the fact Davisâ schizophrenia was known, however, was enough for the brothers to leave quickly.Â
Within a week, Marcus disappeared. A few more months later? He was presumed dead. Davis mourned without a body to cry over, helping his mother carry an empty casket. The lack of closure nearly ruined him, causing him to take medical leave to grapple with his mental health mostly alone. He never put the pieces together that Marcus disappeared after ghost hunting, that the thing he saw may have been real. And so, he kept doing it, if nothing else to connect with his brother. Sometimes that was figurative, but other times he hoped for something literal despite believing that deep down his experiences with the supernatural were just all in his head. And so, the eye just between his eyebrows remained closed, and a medium stubbornly remained unaware of his gifts.Â
PERSONALITY: Hard-headed, smart mouthed, empathetic, heroic, creative, lightly paranoid, awkward, introverted, old-fashioned, nostalgia prone, curious, adventurous, playful, gullible
