Jennifer Noa Reese

The Basics

Name: Jennifer Noa Reese
Nicknames: She introduces herself as Noa, some shorten it in conversation to No, but her family still calls her Jenny.
Age: 19 (September 25)
Orientation: Pansexual
Desired Rank/Job: Student at the state school (Is it possible to work part time for Hammel? Maybe as an aid in peer mediation or something where her powers may come in handy?)
Powers: Truth Manipulation. She is able to tell when people are lying, and when they are being 100% truthful. When really concentrating, doubt is somewhat detectable, but only in a general sense.

Limitations:
- "Truth" is considered what the speaker believes to be true. This makes Noa skeptical of religion, gossip, and urban myth. If the speaker isn't aware of a fact that proves them wrong, they will seem truthful.
- At most times, her power only seems to her like a little tic in her brain that only engages during conversations as a small tone seeming to originate inside her head beneath her right ear (high for lies, lower for pure truth). When she activates it, the sound becomes clearer and takes on more distinct tones in a range of truthfulness that she's still sometimes perplexed by.
- Her ability only works when speaking with people in person, or watching a video (though that works best when live, and otherwise takes more concentration). It doesn't work with writing or audio recordings, or over the phone.

Side effects:
- Prolonged concentration causes headaches
- Skepticism and cynicism
- The compulsion to lie when she doesn't need or want to
- A frequent need to roll her neck and shoulders and very tense neck muscles
Play By: Scarlett Johansson (circa 2009)

Hair Color: Dark auburn red
Eye Color: Grey-green
Any Piercings? Two in each ear.
Any Tattoos? White ink "I will" on the back of her left shoulder, to commemorate the one-year anniversary of her promise to stand up for herself.
Any Scars? Nothing beyond the ordinary wear and tear.
General Appearance: At first glance, Noa appears to be older than she is, despite her petite frame (5'3"). She's curvy for her height (mostly in the bust, being a 32 DD), and flip flops between liking and disliking that fact. Her style differences greatly between how she appears when away from home and how she appears at home. At home, she dresses flatteringly yet conservatively, but away from home she will whore out to her heart's content. She loves corsets and petticoats and 1950's silhouettes, but prefers pants over a skirt. She still wears skirts (often) sacrificing comfort for cuteness. She loves heels, but tends to skew toward comfort with sneaker heels, flats, or sneakers. She also loves heavy boots. She loves to include secret (or not so secret) references to her sexual preferences, with locking chain necklaces, chokers, or cute cuffs. She's not afraid to show some skin, though she usually reserves the seriously slutty stuff for special occasions. She occasionally likes to play up her age around 20-somethings, since she has a fascination with sexual attraction and what makes people tick, and will totally pull off the schoolgirl look without hesitation.

Personality: Includes references to adult content.
Noa is a firecracker. She's always ready with a smirk, usually with a smile not far behind, and she's quick on the draw (most of the time). She can be very wry and cynical, but tries to overcompensate for her lack of faith in the world by forcing a positive outlook for the things she doesn't know. She can get grumpy easily, especially if she hasn't had enough sleep (which is fairly often), but the more people she is surrounded by, the more upbeat she is.

As the night gets later, Noa tends to get crazier and crazier. She calls it her four stages of sleepiness: 1- hyperactivity, 2- slap-happy giddiness, 3- falling over, 4- passing out. This is why she prefers to be with people she considers trustworthy when she is up past 3am. Her stages of sleepiness only apply to pre-sleep, not post-waking. Her hyperactivity stage and slap-happy giddiness stage can sometimes occur if she's had too much sugar or is overstimulated with exciting things. They make her childish and she often doesn't mind it. However, when her inhibitions are low she sometimes shares things she doesn't intend other people to know, and when she wakes up the next morning she regrets it.

At her core, Noa is an attention whore, meaning she was made for the stage and the social scene, and lives to entertain. She feeds off the energy of other people and reflects it back x10. Alone, or in a place she has no interest in, or feels alienated in, she is often introverted and quiet, but no one would know that to meet her in her element (or when completely out of her element, where she has no inhibitions and can be a completely new person). Her power sometimes backfires, and she will lie compulsively. If she thinks she's due for an episode of lying, she will make herself go out to a place she doesn't know in order to let those lies out, because she's really burned bridges when she's broken out into a web of lies at a bad time. Lying to her friends will plague her with guilt, and that guilt surfaces (along with anger, frustration, and hopelessness) when she is alone. She will berate herself over every thing she's ever done wrong, and go into severe depressive spirals if she is left alone for too long, which is why she always makes herself socialize, even when she doesn't feel like it. She frequently feels alone even in a room where she knows everyone, but will force herself to socialize.

It helps that she is very blunt. She will often say things like; "Yeah, I was moping alone over there, so I decided to force myself awkwardly into this conversation," or "Hello there people who's names I don't remember! I don't remember your names. But you seem like cool people!" Her blatant acknowledgement of social customs can sometimes put people off, as can her sense of humor (highly politically incorrect, and often sexual). She also tends to get nosy and overshare about sexual topics. She has a fascination with sex, sexuality, and fetishism, and isn't afraid to admit it. Except to adults. She's often afraid to admit it to adults. And her parents. They are clueless. It hurts her to be looked down on by others because of her interest in sex (she always says she'll try anything twice, as long as she feels safe), but she pretends not to care because, well, she rationalizes that she probably wouldn't like those people anyway. If someone she respects looks down on her, she will be heartbroken.

She is a bit preachy on the subject of sex, advocating for sexual freedom and rights, and always for safety and consent. She will spout off to anyone about how stereotypes aren't always true, and how kids go around doing things the wrong way because they feel alienated for their desires, and she will talk your ear off about how people are doing it wrong. She lives by the alternative lifestyle motto of "safe, sane, consensual" and preaches it to everyone she knows. She wants to be the next Dan Savage. But she's not only a know-it-all about sex, she also tends to be a know-it-all in class. She's gotten better about monopolizing teacher attention, but she is still very eager to learn and to share her opinions and tidbits of information. Her addiction to attention makes her a student who over-participates and can become very prideful over her work. If she doesn't know something, and is put on the spot, she will be overwhelmingly embarrassed, given her propensity to act like she knows everything, and will later berate herself about it.

Noa will flirt with all of her friends and will often seduce them to be bed buddies, if they're interested. If they aren't interested, she knows where to draw the line. She honestly feels guilty if she ever makes anyone feel threatened by any of her actions (unless she's actually attempting to threaten them). She is terrified of a relationship. She has, in the past, broken the hearts of people who said they just wanted a physical relationship and then changed their minds. She is upfront and honest when she starts a fling, letting them know she isn't interested in a relationship. But part of her rebels against that, and wants a lover who will take it slow, refuse to sleep with her until they've gone on at least three dates, and will sweep her off her feet. She is very conflicted between her desire for inappropriately rough sex and her secret fantasy of innocence, but always reiterates that one should never feel ashamed of what they want. She's just not entirely sure what she wants.

If anyone ever crosses her boundaries, Noa will snap. She makes her boundaries clear in all things, and will warn her friends if she doesn't want to talk about something. If they persist, she can become snappy, withdrawn, and overall vindictive. This will usually calm down (if the subject is dropped) within twenty minutes, if not one or two hours. She does, however, keep a mental tally of offenses against her that she occasionally recalls when feeling especially angered. If anyone violates her trust, her privacy, or her body, she will attack them at full force. She still regrets the incident from last year, and wishes she'd done things the right way and gone to the police. If it ever happens again, she's sworn to do so, but her goal is to make it never happen again.

Likes: Includes references to adult content. Cards Against Humanity, sex, basically everything associated with sex, long baths, long showers, sunbathing, flirting, teasing, being the center of attention, laughing, making others laugh, making others blush, being made blush by people she's attracted to, take-charge partners, bdsm, being right, the NCSF, Dan Savage, anything sweet, wry comedy, dark humor, psychology, laughing during sex, being a brat (but a cute one), learning people's secrets, bragging about her accomplishments, corsets, burlesque shows, pin-up girls, geeks, board games, watching people play video games, internet culture, puns and wordplay, NPR, being smarter than people assume she is, indie rock, theater, photography, film, musicians and artists, hipsters, people who are complete goofs

Dislikes: People who refuse to acknowledge the truth, people who are irresponsible (she still thinks safety is the most important thing), people who lie (unfortunately, she knows this is everyone, so she has a bitter edge to her thoughts on humanity), health food, the religious right, intolerance, injustice, slut-shaming, computer software, the outdoors (the majority of the time), (due to) bugs, humidity, sand in her clothes or shoes, people who take advantage, pushovers, pleated pants, gangster rap, country music

Strengths: Lying (though she can get guilty about it), getting people to come out of their shells, meeting new people, sex ed, knowing what she wants and going for it, making others happy (in both the innocent and the corrupt forms), and she's a decent singer (though she doesn't do anything with it) and a talented actress (but never sings an acts together, or is in musicals, at least not since coming to Hammel)

Weaknesses: Resisting temptation, admitting anything to her parents, guilt over lying to her friends, questioning her self-worth, general depression

Fears: Hypnotism; that one day she won't be able to take it, she'll feel so alone, and she'll do something drastic; losing friendships because of a compulsive lie; and she fears her 'play abuse' may turn into real abuse.

Secret: She was somewhat molested at the beginning her of 'exploratory phase' when she was 18, and has blamed herself ever since for not taking the right precautions, which is another reason why she advocates for safety above all else. And her alone time depression is a secret.

Father: Eddie Reese, doctor
Mother: Gabrielle Reese, stay-at-home mom
Siblings: Spencer Reese, 25, and Ben Reese, 23
Any Other Important People: Two black lab mutts at home, named Sophie and Joey

Includes references to adult content.
Noa basically grew up as a regular kid - the youngest of three and the only girl. She didn't have a dramatic childhood in the least, no horrible experiences really until middle school. She was addicted to games of adventure and danger with her friends - boys and girls alike, and years later Noa realized that she had been enacting a damsel-in-distress story since she was a child. All of those games of 'pretend' where Noa or her friends ended up with their wrists tied to the bedposts with hair elastics, all of the convoluted romantic storylines and Stockholm syndrome... Noa had only vaguely remembered it like a dream until she realized how odd it was. It effected her deeply, but not in the way some people would expect. Instead of feeling abused or violated, that concept of restraint and controlled lack of control instilled itself in her mind.

In eighth grade, after a huge fight in her group of friends, Noa began her downward spiral into depression. Luckily, before she could do anything drastic, her mother got her to a therapist, who then got her to a doctor, who did some tests. He ended up prescribing anti-depressants, as well as recognizing a latent meta-human gene in her blood. Since taken the pills, though there have been occasional outbreaks, Noa has felt much better. Her meta-human power would eventually manifest itself two years later, and Noa would embrace the new environment of Hammel to become someone who didn't limit herself to one group of friends (though she still felt closest to the geeks and drama nerds - a highly dysfunctional family, but a family nonetheless). She became the person she is today, letting her freak flag fly. People on the outside only see her happy self, but Noa has just become very good at pushing away the depression. She likes to party, though not to drink, and has become quite promiscuous. She likes to think that she took her own virginity, but she knows it was actually a boy she met at summer camp when she was 16.

Adult content warning, trigger: sexual abuse.
When she turned 18, she immersed herself in the 'over 18' world, and learned everything she could. In the first few weeks of her 'experience' she responded to an ad placed by an elderly man advertising him as an 'erotic hypnotist.' She thought she had done the right thing, asking for references before meeting him, and letting a friend know where she was going, but she never followed up on asking any of the people who she'd been referenced, assuming that just their names meant that he was comfortable with her contacting them, which meant they must've had good experiences. She'd only said that she would try non-erotic hypnosis, just to see if she was able to be hypnotized, because she was curious.

She never should have agreed to go with him to his car. She never should have agreed to meet him at the restaurant in the first place. At first, he seemed ok (though he kind of creeped her out because he reminded her of her grandfather), but once he thought she was under hypnosis he started asking her to do things that she certainly was not comfortable with, rubbing her (above her clothes), and overall breaking her boundaries completely. She felt paralyzed, torn because she wanted to be the perfect hypnotizeable female, and yet totally aware that what he was doing was not something she liked. Finally, after wallowing in silent fear and despair for about ten minutes, she managed to ask him to stop. He did, and they each went on their way, but she would remember that day with trepidation for the rest of her life.

She overcame the trauma of it quickly, mostly by ignoring it, though it left her with a deep distrust of hypnotism. She doesn't really have anything against hypnotists, or those interested in hypnotism, she's just adamant that she will never be hypnotized until she's come to terms with what happened, and worked with someone she fully trusts. That experience taught her to be assertive, that even if she wanted to be dominated she had to stand up for her own gut instincts. It didn't stop her journey into the alternative scene, and, in fact, it made her more interested in the safety aspects then ever before (she always negotiates with her partners and uses safewords, lets friends know if she's meeting someone new, sets a silent alarm with a trustworthy friend, etc.).

She is proud to offer her expertise to anyone looking for advice, and likes to think of herself as 'the cool aunt' to younger Hammel-ites with questions about alternative lifestyles. Though she doesn't advertise that, since she doesn't want to corrupt those Hammel-ites still not ready for curiosity. Let Dr. Neville teach them the basics, she's there when they decide to go varsity. Her goal is to be a sex educator when she grows up, focusing on adolescents and sexual psychology.

See Astley's app.

Name: Turner
Age: 20
Experience: bleh
How Did You Find Us? bleh
Ready To Play? Hell to the yes. Please.