Jasper Blackwater

[Jasper Blackwater]

The Basics

Name: Jasper Aaron Blackwater
Nicknames: Jas
Age: 17 (June 26, 1997)
Orientation: Bisexual
Desired Rank/Job: Student
Powers: Physical Pain Detection. Jasper has the ability to tell when another human (or meta-human) is in pain, and to determine the severity and the location of said pain. Small sources of pain (such as paper cuts or small bruises or scrapes) can be difficult for him to detect accurately. He is able to use this ability in a radius of approximately thirty feet, and is also able to sense the pain of more than one individual at a time, although this is generally too overwhelming for him both physically and emotionally. The difficulty of sensing and assessing pain increases with distance.

Over the course of his training at the Hammel Institute, he has gained a moderate-to-high level of control over his power. In short, this means that he doesn’t sense the pain of others constantly (much to his relief). However, if someone within the radius of his ability experiences acute or severe pain, Jasper will often sense that pain, whether he is exercising control over his ability or not.

The actual process by which Jasper senses the pain of another occurs within his nervous system. Although the condition which causes the pain is not transferred to Jasper’s body, his brain still receives the signal which results from the pain stimulus. Generally, this will cause a vague sensation of discomfort in the affected area, such as stinging, prickling, tingling, burning, or itching. It is not uncommon for him to feel breathless, nauseous, or out of sorts. Additionally, it is worth noting that Jasper can only sense pain that originates from a physical stimulus (such as injury or illness)—he is unable to sense pain that originates from a psychological source (such as phantom pain or psychosomatic pain disorders).

Since he regularly experiences varying levels of discomfort, it can be difficult for Jasper to distinguish his own pain from the pain of others. Occasionally, he will injure himself on a small scale and not realize it for some time. Also, if he finds himself in a situation which requires him to sense pain for a prolonged period of time, it is possible for him to experience tingling and numbness along the affected nerves for hours or days depending on the severity of the pain that was sensed.
Play By: Nathan Kress

The Details

Hair Color: Dark brown
Eye Color: Dark brown
Any Piercings? No
Any Tattoos? No
Any Scars? He has several thin, faded white scars—standard fare for an energetic boy-turned-adolescent. They are most visible against the tan of his forearms, and none of them are particularly serious looking.
General Appearance: Jasper has a youthful face, with soft features and perpetually rosy cheeks. His eyes are almond-shaped and deeply set in the rounded contours of his face, where they are framed by sparse lashes and unruly eyebrows; his irises are the same deep, dark brown as his hair, and are nearly always lit with enthusiasm. His nose is broad and button-like. His lips are thin and naturally pink; when he smiles, they are pulled so taught that his top lip is barely visible at all. His teeth are acceptably white, although several of them are subtly crooked, especially along the bottom row. He has dimples in both cheeks. Jasper is one-quarter Tohono O’odham on his father’s side. This is most obvious in the summertime, when the natural warmth of his skin turns a rich golden-brown and serves to punctuate the striking dark of his eyes and hair.

It would be most polite to describe Jasper’s build as heavyset (and it is worthwhile to take the care to be polite, for Jasper is notoriously sensitive). He is broad-shouldered, stout, and healthy, but not especially tall; at last measure, he had 183 lbs (83 kg) spread over his 5’9” (175 cm) frame. He has a dime-sized brown birthmark directly between his shoulder blades, and a handful of long-faded stretch marks along his belly and sides. He keeps his fingernails clean and short. His hair never gets longer than three or four inches, because it’s thick and textured and he can’t stand the heat of it on the back of his neck. He wears a size 10 (US men’s) shoe.

Where clothing is concerned, Jasper is a fan of the classic t-shirt and jeans combo—it’s hard to get wrong. The majority of his clothes were bought from thrift shops or clearance racks, and many of them are faded or pocked with small holes. Still, he keeps them clean, and generally manages to look decent enough for public consumption.
Personality: The centerpiece of Jasper’s personality is his empathy. More so than most, he understands that pain is inextricably linked with the human condition; he also understands that pain is private, individual, and often impossible to articulate. Because of his ability to sense this private and individual thing, Jasper is very openhearted and gentle, and feels personally involved in the lives of others. If everyone was able to sense the pain of other people, he believes, the world would be a much kinder place to live in. It is worth noting that Jasper thinks about this sort of thing a lot—“the world would be a better place if.” He thinks deeply and philosophically, and generally occupies his mind with issues that seem too complex for any 17-year-old to tackle. He does not have all the answers, but this does not stop him from trying to find them as he goes... and wherever those thoughts lead him, it’s highly likely that he’ll tell you all about it along the way.

As the oldest of three boys in a single-parent household, Jas learned to be responsible at a young age. This responsibility is evident in everything he does, from classwork to extracurricular activities to simple promises between friends. He is punctual, hard-working, and reliable. In this same vein, he has very little patience for people who don’t do what they say, and finds it difficult to relate to people who do not have a lot of ambition. His greatest desire is to see everyone happy and well, with not an ounce of their potential wasted. As happy as he might seem when helping others achieve their goals, though, it is very rare to see Jasper reach out to someone else for the same reason. He doesn’t like to accept help with things that he feels he should be able to do on his own.

Even so, Jasper plays as hard as he works: his emotional sensitivity gives him an advantage in the realm of creativity. His unique, rapid-fire thought process enables him to solve problems quickly and inventively, as well as create beautifully imaginative stories in person or on paper. This part of him—the same part that does all that deep thinking—becomes intensely excited by ideas, both others’ and his own. He has a particular knack for turning ordinary objects or situations into games, and can be a little silly and impulsive, although generally not to the extent that it impedes his responsibility. He laughs genuinely and often. If he is prohibited from using his silliness to cope, however, he can become a little moody; likewise, if he feels that his ideas aren’t being properly appreciated, it’s not uncommon for him to get downright upset.

Growing up in an environment where money was scarce has made Jasper keenly aware of the cost of living a good life. He abhors wastefulness, especially when it is borne of arrogance, and obsesses about how he can make the best use of the resources available to him. Although most of his basic needs are taken care of, he keeps a small budget, cuts coupons out of the local paper, and always purchases used goods when he can. Buying something nice for himself makes him feel extravagant, and it’s not uncommon for him to suffer a little guilt over treating himself. Gifts, however, are a very important concept to him; he will save up for weeks or months to buy a friend or family member something nice for their birthday.

The darker, less happy side of Jasper can be hard to pinpoint, for he takes great care to hide it from others (and, often, from himself). He is especially loath to admit that he is terribly, terribly insecure; he goes to great lengths to be liked by everyone, and when he inevitably fails in this task, he will wallow in his own shame and guilt so completely that it becomes painful and embarrassing to watch.

If empathy is the centerpiece of Jas’s personality, then so, too, is nosiness, empathy’s well-meaning but annoying cousin. He is boisterous and direct and unashamed in his prying, and often oversteps boundaries on accident (or, less frequently, completely knowingly and on purpose). He will insert himself into a situation that is none of his business without apology, and will become hurt and confused when this is pointed out to him. What’s more, growing up with two younger brothers has made him immune to most forms of polite protesting, and he will often miss signals from shy individuals who do not have the guts to tell him that he is making them uncomfortable. Being that he worries constantly—no, really, constantly—it is nearly impossible to shake him once one has let him into one’s inner circle. Even to people who love him and find him endearing, his deep-seated need to care for others can be a little much.

Because he works hard, Jasper has a tendency to be lax in areas of his life where he feels that he should be rewarded for his persistence. This self-indulgence is most evident in his love for food—nothing has ruined more of his two-week diets or halfhearted resolutions than “just one brownie.” Less evident are those times when he becomes swept up in a new hobby so completely that he is blinded to everything else; he can jump headfirst into an activity, gripped by obsession, only to emerge a few weeks later disillusioned and disgusted with himself for having wasted so much time.

No one would call Jasper immoral outright; at best, one could say that all people are warped by their circumstances, and that even very good people often find ways to justify bad things. So too it is with Jasper and his history of stealing, for in some ways it could even be considered necessity, and borne from the goodness of his heart. Still, the fact remains—and Jasper knows it—that stealing is wrong. He has not stolen anything for some time, and has never stolen from an individual or a local business in financial peril. Even so, lifting cheese or a package of sandwich meat from the local Safeway is considered petty theft. Yes, he knows it’s wrong—but he would do it again, and again, and again, if push came to shove.

Your Vices

Likes:

• Food. It’s not unusual for Jasper to surf food blogs on his laptop or phone during idle moments.
  
• Telling stories. He loves to talk. With Jasper, there is no “short version.”
• Fry bread. It’s the holy grail of all foods.
• Warm weather. He is uncomfortable with the idea of a summer day with a temperature under 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Dogs. He’s never had one, but he reblogs a lot of pictures of them on Tumblr.
• Video games. His family wasn’t able to afford any when he was young, and now he’s obsessed.
• Writing. Consider this an extension of his love for storytelling. His grammar isn’t impeccable, but he has some very original ideas.
• Kids. He has two younger siblings, and tends to automatically assume the older brother role around anyone considerably younger than him.
• Motor vehicles. If it’s shiny, potentially dangerous, and goes really, really fast, Jasper is probably into it.
• Rock music. He’s always wanted to learn to play the drums.
  

Dislikes: 

• Snow. It’s cold, and makes life difficult.
• Gym class. It’s not cold, but it still makes life difficult.
• Broccoli. It made him really, really sick once when he was a kid...
• Pills. Even when he needs them, he doesn’t like to take them.
• The smell of wood burning. Even if he knows where it’s coming from, he can’t help but feel a little nervous.
• Violence. He doesn’t want to see it in real life or the movies. Needlessly gory things make him nauseous.
• Sleeping under the covers. The only time he will condone being covered with a blanket is when he is too ill to protest.
• Hair gel. Getting it to work with his hair texture is basically brain surgery.
• History. He’s not convinced that the people writing the books know what they’re talking about, but he’s more than happy to give you his perspective on things.
• Country music. He doesn’t “get it.”

Strengths:

• Cooking. He can make almost anything from a recipe, and his instincts aren’t bad, either. He’s especially good at baking.
• Leadership. He’s totally comfortable with people looking to him for direction and support, and will even encourage it under the right circumstances.
• Speaking his mind. Jasper has no trouble articulating his thoughts and feelings so that they can be easily understood by others.
• Good aim. It might not seem like much, but it sure does come in handy sometimes.
• Hard work. Jasper is well aware that life sometimes requires buckling down and getting your hands dirty. He’s punctual, reliable, and very rarely misses an assignment (if he does, he’ll apologize profusely).

Weaknesses: 

• Sports. He likes to watch them, but trying to play them stresses him out.
• Grammar. He really likes words and he also likes to tell stories but he never really got the hang of punctuation and sometimes his sentences just kind of go on and on and on and before you know it they’ve taken up an entire paragraph if you know what I mean.
• The quiet game. If his mouth isn’t moving, he’s probably using it to eat.
• The concept of personal space. What do you mean, ‘you need time to be alone?’ Why on earth would anyone ever want that? Okay, I get it. I’ll go upstairs and text you instead.
• Self-confidence. He might seem like an upbeat guy, but leaving yourself wide open comes with consequences.

Fears: 

• Hospitals. Jasper is wary of any place where people are bound to be in a great deal of pain; he has a very specific and severe phobia of hospitals, though, and will take great care to avoid them. He respects the work of healthcare professionals, but the very idea of being inside an emergency room is enough to make him hyperventilate.
• Losing his family. He is especially close to his mother and two younger brothers, and frequently worries about something bad happening to them while he is at Hammel. He makes a point to call them twice per day—once in the morning, and once before bed. If he can’t reach them on the phone for any reason, he will worry himself into an obsessive, panicked sickness.
• Being unworthy. Never one to take the simple things for granted, Jasper is constantly aware of how much different (and how much nicer) Hammel is compared to his childhood home in Tucson. Deep down, he’s afraid that he’ll be singled out by his peers if he doesn’t perform well enough. It is crucial for him to feel as though he deserves all the amazing opportunities that he’s been given, and he believes that the best way to do this is to overachieve—just to be on the safe side.

Secret: Jasper has been caught stealing once, at the Safeway on North Oracle in Casas Adobes. He tried to smuggle some cherry tomatoes home in his hoodie pocket. Since he was only twelve at the time, the store manager didn’t call the police; instead, he was punished with the sternest, most intense lecture of his short life. He was two hours late getting home, but his mother never asked him what had caused the delay, or why he looked like he’d been crying. She did, however, ask where the cherry tomatoes she’d sent him to pick up were. (He told her Safeway had run out.)

Family Ties

Father: Victor Blackwater (40)
Mother: Marianne Keyser (36)
Siblings: Hunter Keyser (12), Brandon Keyser (9)
Any Other Important People: Irene Blackwater (paternal grandmother, d. 2012 aged 65)

History

In the small trailer park on the outskirts of Tucson where Jasper Aaron Blackwater spent his formative childhood years, there are two versions of the story of his birth: one camp (which mostly consists of his Uncle Frank’s drinking buddies) insists that the boy was born a legend. Their opponents, otherwise known as funsuckers, maintain that he was actually born in a Legend—a black 1985 two-door model, manufactured by Acura.

To be completely fair to Uncle Frank’s drinking buddies, there’s a little bit of truth to be found on both sides. One could argue that it takes a legendary baby to survive being born in the cramped backseat of a 1985 Acura Legend that’s traveling over ninety miles per hour down Ina Road, which never truly ends.

By the time Victor and Marianne Blackwater arrived at the Tucson Medical Center, there was nothing left to do but cut the cord and swaddle their baby. They stayed overnight, anyway, so as to not waste the trip.

The Blackwaters and their son Jasper were a happy, loving family—until they were not. Victor left Marianne when Jasper was only three, for reasons that Jasper never asked and Marianne never told. He simply disappeared, and mother and son found that their lives shifted and stretched to cover the hole that he had left, as lives are wont to do when they have no other choice.

Hunter, the middle child, was born one month after Jasper’s fifth birthday. He had a different last name—their mother’s maiden name, Keyser—as well as chestnut-colored hair and striking blue eyes. Jasper loved him immediately and unconditionally. In his five-year-old opinion, there could be no room for superficial prejudice when happiness and love were so desperately hard to come by.

Even with that love, life was hard. Marianne worked three jobs, and babysitters came and went at odd times of the night and day. When no babysitter could be found, the boys stayed with Irene Blackwater—Jasper’s paternal grandmother, who had maintained a cautious friendship with Marianne despite her son’s absence in the younger woman’s life.

Irene lived on the San Xavier Indian Reservation in a small, flat-roofed yellow house. She was a widow, and she lived alone, “except,” she would say, “on the days that my boys come to visit me.” She adored both children, but she and Jasper grew to be especially close; he was bright like his father, Irene would say, with his mother’s determination and a sweet nature that was all his own. She taught him to make fry bread, and to sing in O’odham; in return, he taught her those little, indefinable things that only children can teach.

The youngest of the three brothers was born some three years later, when Jasper was eight. Like Hunter, little Brandon Keyser didn’t look anything like his oldest brother; in fact, if they hadn’t always been spotted together, one would have been hard pressed to determine that the three boys were related at all. Brandon had fiery red hair and freckles, like Marianne’s ex-boyfriend Zachary who played drums in a band in Phoenix. This meant very little to Jasper, who only saw in his baby brother’s face another person to love and cherish and care for.

For Jasper, public school was a place of harsh realizations and ugly truths. The first and most prominent of these, perhaps, was that everyone didn’t want to be loved and cherished and cared for. Some people just wanted to be left alone, and this was especially true of his classmates, whose main objectives seemed to be picking out anything and everything they could use to lower Jasper’s self-esteem. He began collecting an obscene amount of disparaging nicknames, most of which referred to his weight, his family’s mobile home, or his mother’s romantic life.

Life at home wasn’t getting any easier, either. Marianne had been laid off at two of her three jobs, and money for the tightly-knit family of four was more scarce than ever. Even with government assistance, food was an incredibly precious commodity. The power was shut off nearly as often as it was turned on. Still, they got by—sometimes, Marianne would joke halfheartedly that they were like the saguaros out front: proud, hardy, unshakeable. At least they managed to keep food on the table.

At twelve, Jasper never had the heart to tell her that he stole half of the food he brought home.

Brandon turned five in December of the same year that Jasper turned thirteen. As the youngest, Brandon was wide-open and beloved and cheerful despite his circumstance. He and Jasper were especially close, being that Hunter was more introverted and independent than either of his brothers; Jas, who had resolved to always do everything that he could for both of his younger siblings, felt obligated to make Brandon’s birthday something special. Birthdays, he knew, were a big deal for younger children (Jasper had started to think this way early on—if one thought to bring up the fact that Jasper, too, was still a child, his only reaction was polite confusion).

As it so happened, what Brandon truly wanted more than anything else for his fifth birthday was a gallon tub of chocolate ice cream, like he’d seen at the barbecue party on the reservation where Grandma Irene lived. As it so happened, Jasper promised him that gallon tub of chocolate ice cream, even though he knew that there was no way that they could afford it. Why, he thought, should he not have? The fact that they could not afford something had not stopped him from lifting it before.

Unfortunately, gallon tubs of chocolate ice cream are considerably larger and harder to hide under clothing than small packets of meat and cheese; the day of Brandon’s birthday arrived, and there was no ice cream at all. Jasper, who was loath to break any promise, no matter how small, was ridden with guilt. Brandon, who was simply five and only knew that he wanted ice cream that he could not have, was livid in that special way that only very young children and the occasional overwhelmingly immature adult can be.

“I hate you! You never let me have anything! You promised—I hate you, I hate you!”

Jasper was heartbroken by his brother’s words, in that special way that only big brothers and dedicated caregivers of young children can be. Still, he chased after Brandon, who had fled the small living room of their trailer and escaped into the rocky yard. The desert was tinged blue with the light of late evening; he did not see his younger brother trying to make off with a bicycle that belonged to one of their neighbors, which was too big for him by far and had a flat back tire and no training wheels. By the time he realized that anything was amiss, it was already too late. There was a crash and a snap—Jas knew, instinctively, that he would remember the sound for the rest of his life—and then, afterward, howling tears of rage and confusion and hurt.

The sound seemed to rouse the entire neighborhood; Jasper, who could not bear to leave his brother’s side, managed to convince one of their neighbors to drive all three boys to the local emergency room—their mother was at work. Jasper did his best to hold a still-wailing Brandon steady in the cab of an ancient, sputtering flatbed Chevrolet. He had barely enough mental stamina to wonder how on earth he would pay an emergency room bill when he couldn’t even pay for ice cream; still, it wasn’t like it had ever stopped him before....

The three brothers, close as ever but a little worse for wear, arrived at the Tucson Medical Center in much the same way that Jasper had arrived there on the night of his birth: quickly, loudly, and with no plan whatsoever.

Brandon was accepted by the nurses and taken back into the hospital’s emergency department, with Jasper and Hunter in tow. He had lost sight of their neighbor; for the first time in a long time, he felt as young as he was. He did not know what to do. People in scrubs were asking him questions. The chorus of distant, beeping machines grated at the fuzzy edges of his thoughts.

He did not feel well....

There was an avalanche in his mind, a rolling cascade of discomfort that began in his extremities and swept along every single nerve in his body. The sensations were too many and varied to inventory; after a few moments, his muscles were lax and could no longer hold him upright.

Pain. He couldn’t explain it, for how did one explain the nature of pain, apart from the fact that it hurts? Pain could be rated on a scale from one to ten, described with vague adjectives, given a location or a cause—and still, it was a mystery to everyone save the one who experienced it. Jasper did not have any words. He had discovered, in that instant, the concept of pain as a state of being. Such was his power—his gift, and his curse.

When Jasper woke up nearly half a day later, he was surrounded by people. His mother was there; he could see the tear stains half-dried on her cheeks under the harsh fluorescent light. His brothers were there, too: Hunter was reading a book on a chair in the corner, and Brandon was curled up against their mother’s chest, cradling his arm (which was now in a lime green cast) and sniffling. He was discharged shortly afterward; the small family, a little worse for wear (but still a family after all), went home.

The next day, a man arrived at the door of their small mobile home. Jasper had never seen him before. He explained that he was from a school in Vermont called the Hammel Institute. It was a school for meta-humans, he said—“young individuals with special abilities”—and money was no object for his admission.

Truthfully, Jasper was more shocked by the idea of money being no object more so than he could have ever been about being a young individual with a “special ability.”

Over the course of the next two years, Jasper’s life changed more drastically than he could have ever imagined. The comforting and constant desert scenery of his childhood had been exchanged for impossibly verdant forests and temperatures that regularly fell below 60 degrees; there was not a single saguaro to be found anywhere, and, in Jasper’s opinion, there was way too much snow. Still, he’d been shown unprecedented kindness. He had a room of his own, friendlier classmates (well, for the most part), and learning resources that far surpassed his old public school. It was luxurious—practically paradise. Still, Jasper never managed to shake the homesickness.

He visited Tucson again the summer he turned fifteen, although his visit was not a cause for any celebration. Irene, who had struggled with diabetes for the better part of the last decade, was now battling kidney failure and a host of other health problems. He was there for the last day of her life, older and wiser and far more well-versed in pain than any fifteen-year-old boy should have ever been.

“Be good,” she said.

With his power, he felt her pain gradually recede as she slipped away. As odd as it might have seemed to anyone else, it remained his only comfort. Two days after her funeral, he flew back to Vermont.

Now seventeen, Jasper still longs for the saguaros and the dust storms and Tucson’s dry summer heat, although he has learned to grow roots and bloom where he has been planted. He has been good, for the most part, and still calls his younger brothers to remind them to wash behind their ears and do their homework and be nice to their mother. He carries the pain of others with him as a constant reminder, like a heavy, invisible locket—his gift, and his curse—and with his power, endeavors to make the world a kinder place.

Roleplay Example

Please see Amos Freeman, Wren O'Hara, Jin-hwan Park.

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