Jonah King

[Jonah King]

The Basics

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Name: Jonah King
Nicknames: None
Age: 18
Orientation: Bisexual
Desired Rank/Job: Student
Powers: Telepathy – he’s good at controlling what he projects, but if he’s touching someone (or under the influence of anything from a beer to a painkiller) he can’t block them out.
Play By: Russell Tovey

The Details

Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Brown
Any Piercings? No
Any Tattoos? No
Any Scars? As Jonah spends a lot of his time either running around or playing with broken things, his hands and arms are always covered in burns (old and new) scrapes and bruises.

General Appearance:

Jonah has only recently grown into his own body. All his life he’s been too tall, too gangly – then, last year, he suddenly filled out in all the right places. People who had known him since he arrived at the Institute started to see him differently: no longer that skinny, sticky-out-eared teenager, but a young man with a powerful build, standing tall and fit at 6”2. He’s lucky, really, that he enjoys being outdoors so much. His love of sports and any kind of physical activity means that he’s in very good shape, and strong with it. He’s no mirror-gazer, and cares very little about how he looks…although sometimes he wishes that he was more conventionally handsome.

But the first thing you’ll probably notice about Jonah is his stillness. In a room full of fidgeting, chattering people he will be the quiet, calm one. Being deaf of course means that he doesn’t react to sound – and as he’s not very comfortable with speaking aloud, he doesn’t talk needlessly. A lot of communication with him involves facial expressions and body language: as a result, he’s very much in control of his own body, and has peacefulness about him that can often be very restful.

Other than that, he’s an ordinary guy. Jonah’s often rather scruffy (a result of his being a poor timekeeper – he’s usually late for things, which means that he has little time to groom himself), and the teachers have given up chastising him for it by now: they know that they’ll never be able to change his habit of a lifetime. Jonah is comfortable in his own skin and it shows – he moves with grace and a cheerful smile.

Personality:

As a boy, there was a lot of frustration in Jonah – mostly due to his lack of control over his own life, and his inability to communicate with the wider world. But he has changed a lot in the last few years, and Hammel has done him the world of good. Like everyone, he has a temper, but overall he is an easygoing young man with a ready smile and a very good nature.

There’s a powerful shyness in him, though. Before he got full control of his telepathy he would avoid crowds, and that habit is now hard to break. His dislike of speaking means that he isn’t often the first person to start a conversation, and while he has many acquaintances, his close friends are few and far between. He’s afraid of being rejected by people (for his deafness, his lack of book-intelligence, and for his telepathy), so most times he won’t let himself get into a position where that rejection can take place. He’d rather keep his distance than get too close and find that nobody wants him.

Jonah doesn’t like to pry, but sometimes he can’t help hearing things from people – sometimes due to the fact that his control just slips (the closer the person, the more he has to fight not to hear their thoughts), and sometimes due to the fact that they’re touching him. Physical contact makes it impossible for Jonah to block out the person in question, and as a result he does his best to keep from touching people as much as possible…if he can. But any secrets you have are safe with Jonah – he is staunch in his ethics when it comes to his telepathy. If he knows something he shouldn’t know, he won’t mention it unless it becomes absolutely necessary.

His main insecurities stem from his lack of academic prowess. He’s sharp and bright when it comes to most things, but school has always been a trial. So far he’s scraped passes (in everything except maths, which is his idea of hell), but he has no confidence in his schoolwork. Before he arrived at this school he responded to his teachers’ indifference by skipping classes and playing up in the ones he actually did attend. At Hammel he’s been doing better, but he was so far behind when he arrived that he’s still catching up. He’s great with his hands, and can often figure out how to fix anything you put in front of him, but ask him to write an essay and you might as well be telling him to put his hand into a fire.

Your Vices

Likes:
Being outdoors
Running
Snow
Autumn
Fruit
Doing things right
Having something to laugh about
Fixing things
People who like him
Dislikes:
Handshakes
Alcohol
People who think ‘deaf’ means ‘stupid’
Crowds of people
Mathematics
Studying, in general
Having to speak when he doesn’t want to
Chocolate
Strengths:
Very fit and able, physically.
Laid-back – doesn’t get angry often.
Good with his hands – he can fix a lot of things.
A high tolerance for stupid/irritating people
Weaknesses:
Very poor grades.
Gives up when he doesn’t think he can do something.
Dislikes verbal communication.
Fears:
Jonah is terrified of the dark – after all, he relies intensely on his sight.
Secret:
He wants to study mechanics, but fears he will never get the grades.

Family Ties

Father: John King.
Mother: Rayna King
Siblings: Rachel & Noah King, both older.
Any Other Important People: Nope.

History

Jonah’s mother and father had never expected to have a deaf child. It didn’t run in either of their families, and they had always set a lot of store by the fact that they were ‘normal’ – an attractive couple with two healthy, appropriately cute children.

Then Jonah came along, and surprised everyone.

It wasn’t that they were horrible parents, more that they never really knew how to deal with him. Jonah grew up being expected to speak and be a part of the hearing world – something he rebelled against. When he spoke at school he was mocked, so he stopped speaking. When he went to a deaf club at the age of 9, he was amazed to find that there was a language he could use perfectly well without having to speak – not, however, that anyone else in his family wanted to use it.

There were no schools for the deaf in his area, and no money to send him away to one. Jonah’s schoolwork became worse and worse, and he was considered very below-average in a family where his siblings were attaining straight A-grades. By the time he was thirteen he was a rather unhappy boy, shy and silent, who was only ever on the fringes of his family.

Then, the problems began. At first, it started with a background buzz – as if he were standing outside a packed room, unable to make out any of the words of the people inside. But Jonah had nothing to compare the sound to. Describing it to doctors led first to hope that his deafness was miraculously receding, and then to treatment for ear infections. But the buzz continued, louder still. After a couple of weeks he began to make out clearer voices, and then a barrier inside his head finally snapped – he was signing to someone, and suddenly it was as if he could hear her voice, inside his head.

He thought he was going insane. So did his doctor, who sent him immediately to a psychiatric ward. But drugs did nothing to alleviate the voices (which were getting louder and louder) – they only made it more difficult for him to block them out. It was lucky that on the day he first started to project his own thoughts, a trained telepath was in the area. The Institute was notified, and Jonah was taken there the next day.

It took a long time for him to comprehend that his hearing voices was ‘normal’. And having to get used to being able to ‘hear’ people was even more difficult, not to mention learning the etiquette of telepathy. But the most difficult thing was his family’s reaction.

His mother’s sister had, it transpired, been rejected by the family when abilities manifested within her (nobody will really talk about it, but Jonah’s guess is some kind of telekinesis). While his parents and siblings expressed only a little relief that he was being sent away, the rest of his family couldn’t cope with the scandal. While not cut off, Jonah knows that nobody in his family has an interest in him. He is invited to family parties, but he knows that he is on no account expected to attend. His parents don’t talk about him to other people, and if asked they will say that his appalling grades meant that he was taken to a school for ‘special’ children.

He knows his place in the family, and is pretty content – after all, he fits in better at Hammel than he ever did with them. But still…every now and then, it gets him down.

Roleplay Example

It had begun to snow around 2pm.

It had begun to snow around 2pm, and Jonah was in the last place he wanted to be: the library.

He was gazing out of the window at the falling flakes, his expression not unlike that of a dog pining for a human being – longing, wistfulness, and boredom. Given the choice between the books spread out in front of him and the chance to go outside and watch the distant horizon take on a white glow, he would have instantly been throwing on his coat and hat; but, unfortunately, no such choice had presented itself. Jonah had been ordered to go to the library, and in the library he would remain.

With his books.

A sigh escaped him, and he slowly turned back to the almost blank piece of paper on the table. He had written the title at the top (his handwriting was another thing that the professors were constantly tell him ‘was a problem.’ If it was such a problem, why did they keep on making him write things out for them?) and had subsequently reached a block. Deep down, Jonah knew that he was being childish about this – but there was nothing he hated more than being forced to show someone how bad he was at writing things. And as far as he was concerned, this whole piece of writing had been engineered to do just that: show the new teacher how thick he was.

“ ‘Meta-humans are portrayed positively in modern media.’ Do you think that statement is true, or false? Discuss.”

While the others would be writing in complex, multi-clause sentences and using colons, dashes and bullet points, Jonah knew that his essay would be painful in comparison. He knew that, overall, meta-humans did not have a good reputation – but somehow he couldn’t make his thoughts on the matter translate onto the paper. They just wouldn’t come.

‘Ever since the first meta-humans were reveled revealed to be'

He paused, chewed the end of his pen, and scratched that out.

Ever since the first meta-humans were revealed, the media has not been positive about them.’

Jonah read back the sentences he had written. They would have to do. With another sigh he picked up the book closest to him – a recently-written book about meta-humans in the media – and idly flipped through the pages. It was actually a pretty interesting subject, but the language the book used was like a wall Jonah had to climb:

‘The relative difference in mitochondrial abnormalities within the cells of the ‘meta-human’ are, naturally, a source of constant research.’

Something moved into his field of vision, and he looked up. One of the girls in his class had sat down at the table opposite him – and as he looked up, he caught a word: ‘…books?’ Jonah frowned up at her, polite but quizzical. She flushed, remembering, and began the sentence again: ‘Can I borrow some of those books?’

Jonah gave her a smile and a nod, pushing the pile over to her side of the desk. She murmured her thanks and pulled out a pad of paper – leaving Jonah to turn back to the one book he had kept possession of.

‘In the novel and film Carrie, for instance, the gentic nature of the abilities demonstrated by the eponymous central character are…’

Jonah gave another of his inaudible sighs.

What was the point?

What About You?

Name: Sandrine
Age: 21
Experience: A couple of years
How Did You Find Us? Caution 2.0
Ready To Play? Hell yeah!

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[Admin!]

Accepted!
Oooh, I like, I like very much. I can't wait to see what Jonah goes on to do. Now go do your claims.