Percival Quinn
Oct 27, 2014 1:41:44 GMT -5
Post by Percival Quinn on Oct 27, 2014 1:41:44 GMT -5
The easy S T U F F . . .Name: Percival James Quinn
Nickname: Perry
Age: Fifty-Six
Member Group: Trainer
Power(s): Retrocognition and Retrocognitive Sharing. Side effects for both include migraines and growingly severe cases of vertigo - head spins and a short-lived loss of who he is. The harshest side effect for both of these abilities is that his history is relatively lost; every snippet he could, he pressed to a retrocognitive cycle in a particular book. Even then, those abilities feel like a power play, and he struggles to connect with them on the usual emotional level.
Retrocognition: The ability to connect with the past through physical contact with an object or an individual. These memories and experiences cannot be altered or changed; rather, Percival lives through these memories as if they are his own in that particular moment in time. Vast amounts of use and training - both for himself and in regards to others - has allowed him to interconnect with the most pressing memories associated with a place. Often he's thrown back a significant amount in time if the associated memory involves an incredibly traumatic experience, but the further he's thrown the shorter the provided experience.
Retrocognitive Sharing: The ability to pass slivers of memories on to those who can mentally withstand it. This sub-ability is, even now, relatively temperamental. While maintaining contact with a retrocognative object, Percival can act as a through-link between the associated memory and another person. This hypothetical individual primarily requires a strong mental state; usually it only connects with those who have a memory-based ability. The injections are short lived in comparison to his personal ability-based experiences. Rather than sharing his direct experience with someone, Percival can only offer what he's seen post-retrocognitively; the recipient doesn't have a retrocognitive experience as much as they simply watch what's connected to the object in question via mental projection. As this skill is rare, the side effects are heightened. Percival often finds himself lost in transit - somewhere between himself and the timeline the memory projects. It takes a significant amount of focus and energy to draw himself back to normality after the experience has been shared.
Play By: Peter CapaldiLet it F L O W . . .Once, there was a boy.
Now, there's a man.
I bet you're wondering how he got here, too.
There's a book, worn edges at every side.
Like it's travelled with every step he takes.
The pages appear with immaculate precision.
Each imperative side carries only two words;
Begin again.
Kocher. Switzerland. September, 1971. Not a whole lot colder than home. The school is nice. The teachers are nice, too. Very understanding. Very generous with their time. I think they're slightly more doting over the fact that I'm thirteen. It's been a long journey, but they're used to people having to take long journey's to get here.
It's Switzerland. They get everyone in Switzerland. Except for the Russians; they're protective, apparently. And the Americans. And a fair majority of Asians. Apparently, they go everywhere. Kocher gets Europe. A fair amount of Europe. They get Australian's too, in Switzerland.
It could be worse. I could be Australian.
One of my roommate's is Australian. He keeps calling me mate. I don't think he realises we aren't friends.
Begin again.
Glasgow. Scotland. Home. December, 1971. Everything looks the same, but everything's different somehow. Like the world is coated with a completely new aura. Like everything I touch burns, like fire at my fingertips. Everything has something new associated with it. A thought. A feeling. A liveable entity to dive into.
The handle of the car door reminds me of the last time my mother slammed it in an irrational rage.
The door of my house reminds me of how it felt for her to return from the airport without me.
No, it doesn't remind me of anything. It is.
The handle of the car door brings me to the moment she slammed it. The door of the house envelopes me in that regret. That irrational guilt. They are living, breathing feelings. Living, breathing moments in time. Moments I suddenly live with each touch of a surface.
Begin again.
Kocher. Switzerland. Again. July, 1976. Graduation feels slightly depressing. For five years this strange place has become something of a second home. It's been a place to grow. To learn. To thrive. There's that residual feeling again, like every touch to every surface threatens a throw to another life. It's much easier to ignore, now, but the flow of another's life is always prominently pressed into something.
She fixes the cap I wear - my mother. She brushes my shoulders for non-existent dirt. She says she's proud. As I take the hat from my head hours later, I know it to be true.
There's a sense of pride to be felt, isn't there. To graduate. Not even the idea of forcibly staying to continue on with some excess ability training is enough to dampen such a mood. As we're asked about out futures as we have been for months, I haven't an answer. Not right away. I stare at he who asks, mouth open - jaw dropped as if somehow it's enough to make a coherent shot of words flow.
This, I say. I could do this.
Begin again.
London. England. Cambridge University. March, 1981. Another graduation, looming. Years behind a serious of seemingly endless books graced by seemingly endless people and seemingly endless beliefs. The offer was immediate after graduation, and it felt necessary. After completing the undergraduate degree there seemed to be little point in stopping. History. History and Education. Educating history. Teaching history. With what must be years spent in the past, it all only seemed right.
But sitting at a desk involuntarily shared completing the last, mediocre test, something feels amiss.
Wrong. But so much work. So much effort. It feels restricting - it must be right.
Begin again.
Kocher. Switzerland. October, 1983. This... Particular classroom has become what one would call home. This seat. This desk. Owned by many before, laced with imprints of my own history. Each passing student and each failing grade on a paper becomes a blur; a myriad of boring tasks.
There is something pertinent in losing one's self to history. With each passing week I feel myself delving less and less. The worlds are no longer in sync - lines no longer crossable, and life becomes singular again.
At the desk, there are two. Hand written. Completely polished. Practically perfect.
A resignation and a resume. To leave the position of a history teacher and take one as a trainer. Because there are always people in this room who leave their thoughts and feelings against each paper. Far too many of them despise history, and that isn't to be changed.
But the most prominent despise their ability to see history.
Begin again.
Kocher. Switzerland. January, 1990. Retrocognition. Precognition. Psychometry. Mnemokinesis. Clairvoyance. Manipulation. Replication. Restoration. Projection. Suppression. Implantation.
These classes and sub-classes provide so much more than these people understand. The idea that these skills could be a burden is a nightmare to resolve.
The fire of a memory physically burns such young minds. Like a permanent scar each time they fall away. I say it's not falling; there's something there you're supposed to see, otherwise that sixth sense wouldn't want you to see it so desperately.
So stop. Being. idiots.
Take it. Consider it. For the love of everything you believe in stop trying to shut it out because you're scared of something new.
Begin again.
Glasgow. Scotland. November, 1998. Home, again. And a very happy fifteen years, Percival. Fifteen years of training students who are more frightened of themselves than anything the world can throw at them. Fifteen years with children so engulfed in the past that they can't see the future. Like they don't want to. Fifteen years. It's so much better than ten.
To commemorate the years, we'll take your mother. The only living entity you remember from your youth. We'll give you the keys to your childhood home, but the recollection of your childhood years will be lost to your working mind.
I stand at the door of my house. As my fingers touch the hard, weathered wood, I still feel the burn. It's residual now, years passing as they do. Fading with overlapped memories and discourses.
I touch the door of my house.
How it felt to return home on a day in 1971. Alone. For her, I remember it well.
Begin again.
Venice. Italy. February, 2000. Take a break. You need it. Everybody always says that, don't they? When trauma strikes a nerve, it's always; take a break. You're worn to the wires. You aren't thinking clearly. You're barely here.
A break, I take. With the money left. With the money saved. Months of history.
Rialto Bridge. Interesting. So many bridges, here. And oh, so many lives.
The Bridge of Sighs? Better.
The interconnection to the Doge's Palace interrogation rooms provides ample appreciation. The echoes of footsteps in the white limestone as fingers barely graze the workmanship. Nervous connotations echo the craft. Wavering confidence. Heart rates escalating with each step. A tilt of a head, a glance to the impossible wonders of Venice through the harsh workings of thick stone grates. Not a criminal. Barely a criminal.
Seventeen years, a trainer. And to a single breath of life from a detailed memory until now.
So I decide after so much thought that this is necessary. Finding these moments are necessary.
Why have the ability to see if I'm not willing to look?
Begin again.
Port Arthur. Australia. January, 2004. First of all, the country is two islands; a big one, and a small one. That's the most impractical configuration for the small one. I bet no one goes to the small one. I was wrong. A lot of people go to the small one. A lot of people live on the small one.
Last reunion, the Australian roommate who in his years has still decided we're 'mates' gave me a location. That if I wanted to see real history, I should go here.
No wonder they have a small one; it's probably where the big one throws all it's psychopaths.
Free walking through the settlement, you can feel the mark of hundreds of criminals. Physical punishment. Psychological punishment. To herd the troublemakers from the rest, it was more than simply not feeding them. Give the well behaved the best luxury items available; teach order by turning backs.
I feel the strain of the silent room. Locked away for days on end. No light. No sound. Eventually, the light burns. New sound pierces the senses. In the end, I died. By my own hands. Anything to escape the proverbial inescapable prison.
The body runs cold, when dying. Here, the people are silent. Like they've seen it all before. But the life physically runs dry; every passing second as the heart slows. Living it to know you're still living is the worst kind of thrill.
I died again in 1996. In the town, at a cafe. By someone with a gun shooting up the place. I'm still not sure which was worse.
Begin again.
Haute-Vienne. France. January, 2006. The commune Oradour-sur-Glane, not the rebuilt town. Walking to the razed ghost town leaves the villagers in silence, but they comply and I’m grateful for that. They have every reason to be silent. From what I’ve heard and read, the site in question was the stage for something awful.
Streets are stagnant, collapsed buildings from the partial raze are impossible not to touch. The fear practically seeps through the remaining walls. Anxiety for the rush and the force and the strain of the inevitable.
The centre of town brings everyone together, identification papers in hand. Women and children are separated from the men, though both are pained by means of destruction.
Locked in a church. The air is heavy, thick with desperation and ripe with absolute terror. Set alight.
Shot in the legs in a barn, crawling over forms as a means for safety. Set. Alight.
Here, I don’t die. I don’t meet an end in 1944. I set alight.
Began Again.
Luanda, Angola. Eighteen miles out. June, 2008. Nova Cidade de Kilamba. Kilamba New City. A modest idea? Hardly. It was a theoretically brilliant idea. An obvious response to a potential crisis. The outcome is... Beautiful. Linear. Perfectly structured. The colour coding is a little over the top for my taste but hell, they built a completely contained city with no definite residents. Might as well splash out.
Expect it was an miscalculated error. A city - apartment complexes, schools, shopping districts - with far too few bodies. A lifeless sliver of modern society.
There are few memories associated with this place, and that's exactly why I'm here. A relative blank canvas - nothing but the foundation in the concrete. This derelict city is a place to stay quiet. It's calm. Nothing burns, and almost every voice is quiet. These little breathers are impossible everywhere else. What others mightn't realise is just what it feels like to walk a world without this silence.
It's a shame. No matter how old I am, I've lived years beyond that in memories. The bursts might be short, but it all adds up.
Began Again.
Cappadocia. Turkey. December, 2010. The closest thing a man can realistically get to standing on the moon's surface. Ideally, it's a bit too busy for my usual tastes. I prefer the places where few follow simply because they can. Because it's accessible. But this is the exception.
Göreme specifically is where I spent most of my time. Where houses are made from carved rocks. Where temples are built. Where endless tunnels burrow underneath the Earth and people still live in them. It's like a physical step backwards in time, and it's every reason to be here. To fall away into certain memories, only to breathe into the now and feel as if little time has ever passed.
Back to basics. Sometimes, it's necessary.
Began Again.
Šiauliai. Lithuania. Or rather, seven and a half miles north of it. July, 2012. Within the lay of the land is a perfect anomaly. The pilgrimage has little significance to me religiously. Morally it's questionable, too. But there's a surprising sense of spirituality, even for those who believe in so little.
The Hill of Crosses. A speculated origin, but nothing concrete. It's unfortunate that a vast amount of history has been demolished. The ground practically shakes with trauma's tremors.
Because the unclaimed land has no boundaries, the sea of crucifixes run flush against the steps. Leaning down, I feel my fingertips brush the aged wood; the mark of forgotten souls standing as tall as they are able.A sea of lives. Of people's pilgrimages. The endless search for guidance, but hope hangs heavy in the air. As if to plunge a cross into the disturbed dirt is enough to bring a new life.
Over the course of my stay, I dig hundreds of little crosses into the dust. I feel the belief rise, like hearts strung high on a steady breeze. It isn't mine, and I suspect it never will be, but a morsel of that unbridled devotion is astounding.
Began Again.
Bloody Kocher. Switzerland. October, 2014. Over thirty years training students in the same buildings. The same halls. Over thirty years of the same memories, day in. Day out. After every place I've been and everything I've seen, it's impossible to settle somewhere so memorable.
So I ask; can I move?
Yes, Percival. You can move. It's called a transfer. Where would you like to go?
I take the time go consider the options, glancing over the available schools; their procedures and their protocols. But the largest draw comes from memory based abilities for the current students at hand. The way they prefer their students trained.
In the end, I make my choice. When I finish my impromptu trip to Mexico, I'll be traveling a significantly shorter distance to get home.Behind the M A S K . . .Name: Eddie
Age: Twenty-Three
RP Experience: Almost a decade
How did you find us?: Haven't a clueShow your S K I L L S . . .+ See Calliope Gallo
