Irving Coley, Jr.

[Irving Coley, Jr.]

The Basics

Name: Irving Ellis Coley, Jr.

Nicknames: Junior

Age: 15

Orientation: Heterosexual

Desired Rank/Job: Student

Powers: Invisibility and Undetectability -- Junior can use both his powers for up to 12 hours at a time. When he's fully invisible he's also undetectible by anyone who isn't a psychic or meta tracker; you can't hear him or smell him and would only know he was there if you ran straight into him, or him into you. He's also able to make individual body parts invisible if he so desires, although this doesn't trigger his undetectability.



Like many gifted people, use of his power burns extra calories and so in order to keep his energy up he needs to eat. His least favorite side effect is that even when he isn't using his power he's often overlooked, other people passing right over him as if he isn't there. He also occasionally has trouble with certain types of technology - heart rate monitors, facial recognition software, motion detection lights frequently don't consider him to be there.



He considers himself fortunate that he doesn't have the migraines that plague so many of his fellow metas, although he would consider trading people forgetting he was there for migraines. Since he's never actually had a migraine he really has no idea what a terrible trade that would end up being.

Play By: Nick Robinson

The Details

Hair Color: Brown

Eye Color: Brown

Any Piercings? None

Any Tattoos? None

Any Scars? None

General Appearance:

Irving Junior did not inherit his father’s height. He isn’t entirely sure how he feels about that; on the one hand he’s glad to be different from his father in some way, but on the other hand height is one thing he wouldn’t mind having in common. He favors his mother more in features, which he is grateful for. He'd rather have comments about how much like Karen he looks. If he has to share a name the least he can do is look like a different person.



Junior dresses more formally than most of his peers because that is the expectation his family has placed upon him. Of course a sixteen year old boy should wear a suit and a tie; anything less is sloppy. He keeps his shirts tucked in and ironed and polishes his shoes regularly because to do otherwise would reflect poorly upon his family and his upbringing. When it's necessary to adopt a more casual look he owns a few sweatshirts, some plaid button ups, tailored jeans, and sneakers, all of which cost at least a hundred dollars per item. He keeps his hair in a short, decently conservative cut. He's fantasized about allowing it to grow out, but he isn't yet willing to face his father's reaction should he allow his appearance to slip away from upper class WASP respectability.



Smiles are rare from Junior, including the fake ones his parents adopt for social occasions. Instead he’s more often seen with a brooding look upon his face, or at best a politely neutral expression. Once upon a time he was more prone to genuine smiles, but they've become less and less frequent, particularly when his father visits. Video calls to his mother are the only activity that will produce a smile without fail.

Personality: Junior is someone who prefers cooperation and teamwork to flying solo. He's hardworking, but he has a lot of difficulty self-directing. He looks to other people for help focusing his attention, particularly authority figures who can essentially be father stand-ins, but strong leaders among his peers will do just as well. He's smart, though, and he picks up on tasks quickly just by watching other people. He downplays these strengths, because he considers them simply meeting expectations, and because everyone in his family is smart and hardworking. He downplays his other strengths because he doesn't even notice them, or considers them weaknesses to be ashamed of.



He finds competition stressful, an unfortunate trait given that up until Hammel he attended private schools full of overachievers and he was expected to excel. Worse still, his extended family is made up of overaccievers, and no Coley family gathering is complete without measuring contests among children and adults alike. Junior doesn't underperform compared to his cousins, but he intensely dislikes participating in that competitive culture. He's on the honor roll, and he's first viola in orchestra, and he even participates in student government, but his primary motivation for all of those is for his parents to be proud of him.



He's more comfortable with music and mathematics than he is with sports. He doesn't dislike physical activity, but once again the competition is what he really dislikes. The only competive pursuit he finds tolerable is trivia, because he's able to ignore the competitive aspect and treat it as a test that only involves himself.



He finds praise and approval extremely motivating. If someone gives him positive attention he'll glue himself to them and willingly throw himself into anything they ask. Unfortunately, he doesn't use very good judgment with regards to who is giving him attention or what they're asking him to do, which can easily make him a target for more manipulative sorts. He also has a lot of difficulty picking up on subtleties in communication, which is why direct praise is so important to him. Matter of fact statements with a proud tone are lost on him, but explicitly tell him he did a good job and he'll go to the moon and back for you.



Because he grew up a trust fund baby his perceptions around money are skewed. Attending Hammel has helped broaden his horizons there a bit, but he still has difficulty grasping that not everyone can afford to spend a thousand dollars on a single outfit. The result is that he can be very insensitive to other people's financial difficulties. If confronted about it, he'll try to make amends, but he doesn't naturally consider that he's absurdly wealthy compared to much of the student body.



He's capable of patience and self-control, both of which he had to practice growing up because of parental and class expectations. He's best at exhibiting them when tutoring peers and in group projects, because he enjoys helping other people. He's always proud when someone who was struggling begins to understand the material and passes because of his help.



His two big weaknesses aside from his need for praise are direct communication and a tendency to sulkiness and snapping sarcasm when emotionally wounded. He's improved at both of these since attending Hammel thanks to the help of Dr. Neville, but they remail difficult areas for him nonetheless.

Your Vices

Likes:

Praise/attention

Books

Walking in the rain

Coconut pie

His viola

Obnoxiously aggressive rock music

Group projects

when the red maples turn in the fall

outer space (he went to space camp every year up through middle school

local festivals. Art festivals, hot dog festivals, apple picking festivals....

Apple cider

chess

Home economics

Dislikes:

Political functions

Not getting credit for his work

The burden of high expectations

His name

Ties

Viola/violist jokes

competition

His height. He isn't short but he wishes he were tall

Strengths:

Cooperative

loyal

Diligent

Patient

Helpful

Weaknesses:

Need for validation

Difficulty finding direction on his own

Pushover

Daddy issues

Communication

Fears:

Failure

His mother's health getting worse

Secret: Junior shares nothing with anyone, so everything is a secret. But there's nothing particularly dark or shameful outside of his internal struggle with his need for validation.

Family Ties

Father: Irving Ellis Coley, Sr. (45 - mind control)

Mother: Karen Coley, nee Lyons (43 - shapeshifting and vocal mimicry)

Siblings: None

Any Other Important People:

Primary caregiver growing up: Teri Cunningham (50)

Numerous cousins, most of whom attended/are attending prestigious boarding schools:

Sherman "Tripp" Coley, III (20)

Victoria Coley (17)

Grant Coley (14)

George Fleming, Jr (17)

Catherine Fleming (15)

Nicole Fleming (10)

History

Junior grew up in a wealthy suburb of Connecticut, the only child of Irving Sr and his wife, Karen. They had wanted more children, but Karen's health had taken a turn for the worst during her pregnancy, and the delivery was harrowing. Another pregnancy would have been too risky, and so Junior had no siblings. Because of his mother's poor health his parents hired a housekeeper, Mrs. Cunningham, to help look after Junior and to cook and clean, and as the years progressed they also hired an in-home nurse.



Even among the wealthy and elite of their suburb and the private schools Junior attended the Coley wealth was noticeable. Junior had a trust fund, and not just a measly trust fund that might help pay for college; no, this was a trust fund that would allow him to never work a day in his life. Of course, his family would have frowned at that option; he was expected to go into some Important career, like medicine or politics. He's been sending out college applications this year, although the one that's most important is Yale. Both his parents are Yale graduates, and most of his cousins and other extended family attended Yale, or are attending. If he fails to get into the family alma mater then that will be a mark of shame he isn't sure he can ever overcome.



He's spent his childhood trying to live up to expectations, but remains uncertain the extent to which he's actually succeeding. His mother is freer with praise than his father, but her poor health prevented them from having the sort of close relationship he longs for. When he was very young they sometimes attended local harvest festivals together, until her health finally prevented those sorts of excursions anymore, and so he associates fall with his happiest moments.



The happiest associations he has of his father are playing chess together when he was in elementary school, before his father began to come home too late to play. Chess was the first club he signed up for when he came to Hammel, but he has mixed feelings about it because he isn't always able to get his dad to play it with him when he goes home for breaks. Of course, he's never asked outright if his dad would, instead preferring to hover around and hope the older man can read his mind.



When Junior was 13 his power manifested and he was packed off to Hammel. Both his parents were alumni, and so it wasn't as much of a shock as it could have been.



One of the first people he met was Dr. Neville, who initiated a meeting to check in with him because of his mother's poor health. Junior was instantly smitten; Dr. Neville was fatherly in exactly the sort of way he wished his own father was. And so, although discussing his feelings wasn't exactly his strong suit, he was happy to begin seeing the school therapist with some regularity. At first they primarily discussed how he felt about his mother being sick, but it wasn't too long before his longing for validation from his dad came up, as well.



Junior latched onto Dr. Neville as a substitute father figure, eager to please him, which meant of course signing up for every club the doctor chaperoned, and discovering that he engaged in a lot of volunteering and thus trying to engage in that, as well.



Volunteer work included a bit of a learning curve; so much volunteer work included hard work of a variety he didn't have to do at home. Making straight A's and participating in student leadership positions was a far cry from working in a soup kitchen or helping to build a house.

Roleplay Example

lalalala

What About You?

Name: Dryope

Age: ANCIENT

Experience: SINCE THE BEGINNING OF DAYS

How Did You Find Us? I've been here almost since the beginning

Ready To Play? uncertain