Chesterfield Act Registry of the Expressive Database
File #15 Feb 2018 02:45
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 Shawn Mendes |
Life was always…complicated for Owain Griffin Mihangle. When he was four months old, his mother was murdered when his father's ability manifested in a horribly violent way. He was raised by his aunt, who convinced him that she was his mother and his father simply was not in the picture — and he believed this, up until his father came forward when he was ten and told him the truth about his origins.
Shortly after, he listened as one General Leon Heller murdered the woman who raised him in a play to get to his father, Griffin. From there, he lived with the Ferrymen for over a year, up until a few weeks prior to the events of November 8, 2011 — when he also welcomed a baby sister into the world. He instantly loved Mackenzie Marjorie Mihangle with everything he had in him — even more so because she was found to be deaf. He was taken to Eltingville for a few weeks, until, in January of 2012, he and his father Griffin, his stepmother Nadira, and his half-sister Jori moved to Devil's Lake, North Dakota.
From there, life found balance again. Owain had the chance to truly heal from his traumatic experiences — he worked with a counselor, got through a lot of his problems with the events of his childhood, and started living a normal life. It was discovered that Jori was deaf, and the family began to learn how to handle such things. Late in the summer of 2013, his ability manifested when he and some friends were out at Devil's Lake. A group of bullies came through and started doing what bullies do best, torturing them and chasing them onto the old highway.
It all went by in a bit of a blur. His younger friend tripped while jumping the guardrail and ate the pavement pretty hard, breaking his wrist in the process; while the boy was incapacitated, a distracted driver was heading their way, going way too fast. The bullies stopped at the edge of the highway, staring aghast at the scene that was unfolding. Owain threw his hand out, screaming in terror as what was sure to be his and his friends' deaths loomed ahead of them with bright headlights. And then, suddenly, the guardrail ripped from its foundations and moved, pushing into the side of the oncoming car. A combination of the push of the rail, the sound of metal scraping against metal, and the driver reacting to all of these things as well as the children suddenly appearing in their view, and the car was sent careening off into the ditch that separated the two directions of traffic. Thankfully, nobody was hurt — and the bullies stopped messing with Owain and his friends after that.
From then on, Owain could feel things — he couldn't quite explain them, but he felt things everywhere. The world was alight with strange new sensations, each one different in its own unique way. Every single thing had its own feel. With experimentation, he realized that could reach out and manipulate some of those things — all of them metal. With help from his parents and their Evo-Friendly family counselor, it was determined that Owain's ability had something to do with metal and the ability to manipulate it. He began to practice the use of his ability every day, with help from his father.
It was in his Freshman year of High School in 2014 that Owain's ability to feel the world around him was, in fact, an ability to sense various elements classified as Metals. He threw himself into his studies, learning as much as he could from his high school chemistry classes; in general, Owain became a model student, and the local children didn't mess with him too much.
In 2015, Owain's father was found to have inoperable lung cancer; he was given a time frame and was made to be as comfortable as possible until he passed away. This was a difficult time for Owain, but he stepped into his new role as man of the house, helping to support Nadira and his sister Jori in any way that he possibly could. Owain never knew the lengths his father went to in order to give him and his family the life they were enjoying; this is probably for the best.
In 2017, Owain graduated a year earlier than his peers and was in turn accepted into Brooklyn College. Much to his delight, Nadira decided to sell the house and move to the Safe Zone along with him, in order to keep the family together. With high hopes, they moved back to NYC, eager to see where the future might lead.
Owain is a complicated kid with a complicated past. At the age of eighteen, he has gone through more than most people have gone through in a year, from finding out that the first decade of his life was a lie, to finding out about his bloody origins, to witnessing the murder of the woman he called mother for that first decade of his life. He's been through the riots of E-ville, and more. He has lost his father to cancer. All before even being considered an adult!
Outwardly, Owain seems to have a rather cheerful outlook on life despite all of this, though his upbeat demeanor does a rather good job of masking the fact that he is slow to trust and often has difficulty believing anything he is being told unless it comes with scientific evidence and peer reviews. He is cynical, slow to form real and lasting bonds, and generally expects the worst of the world in general — all the better to avoid disappointment when things don't go as planned, and when people don't behave as expected.
He throws himself into his studies as a coping mechanism, and he is more likely to be found with his face buried deep in some kind of book than talking to anyone.
Metallokinesis
To put Owain's ability in a neat little box, he is a Metallokinetic, able to sense and manipulate any element that is considered to be a metal on the periodic table — which is roughly 75% of the periodic table. However, his ability is, in reality, much more complicated and nuanced than something that can be filled out on some piece of paper to be filed away.
Sense Metal
Owain can sense any elements considered to be metals. Each different element has its own unique 'feeling' to Owain; he can even sense the different components that make up various alloys. Currently, he can only identify the most common metals found in various constructs around him (e.g. iron, nickel, copper, titanium, lead, calcium, silver, platinum, gold, etc.), having the most connection to Transition metals; this will change as he completes his college education and is able to experience more elements — up until now, he has had a small town high school science lab, which didn't have much in the way of a chemistry department.
While the potential is there, he can not sense things down to individual atoms; he needs there to be at least as much material as the ball of a ballpoint pen in order to even sense said material; anything less will have a vague sensation, but he will be incapable of determining what is what. He also needs to be much closer (within about five feet) to sense these smaller amounts. This works quite a bit like nearsighted vision: the further he is from a given material, the 'fuzzier' it is, and the more difficult it is to make out fine details without straining to do so.
(OOC Note: For reference, these are the metals that he is able to sense: https://sciencenotes.org/list-metals/ )
Metal Manipulation
The heavy hitting portion of Owain's power is his ability to manipulate the metals within his range. This portion of his ability can be used in a variety of different ways for many different applications, but the bottom line is that he can bend, shape, and move metal. At current, he is limited to common metals and alloys within his environment, such as building materials, small vehicles, pocket change, and other everyday sources of material.
He can currently manipulate any amount of metal in the general range of around 15-20 lbs, all the way up to about 700 lbs. (about the size of a large motorcycle), with increasing effort as he goes higher on the weight scale — and an increasing need for closer proximity to the object, the smaller the object or more complex the action is. Varying degrees of concentration are needed for various deeds, as well; to bend a steel beam or lift a motorcycle requires much less concentration and energy than, for example, shaping a hunk of metal into a particular shape.
He is incapable of manipulating smaller amounts of metal — his power is, simply put, too 'big' to handle small things, much more than perhaps making them clumsily flop away (think of a large hand attempting to grasp at tiny items — it's difficult if not impossible). The one exception to this, it seems, extends to items containing copper. For some reason or another, it is much easier for Owain to manipulate this element, and most alloys containing it. This allows him to manipulate pocket change and, much more easily, the bag of custom copper balls that he carries around wherever he goes.
- Shaping Metal: This is the rawest form of Owain's control. He can cause metal to bend around to various degrees (e.g. Bending a crowbar, or on a larger scale, a steel beam), or he could shape a piece of metal into more complicated shapes (for example, taking a large chunk of steel and turning it into a heart shape with perfectly rounded edges). The more complicated the task, the closer to his target he must be, and the more he must focus. In theory, he could create complicated metal statues with extremely fine levels of detail — though he would likely have to have his nose up against it to accomplish individual hairs (though he doesn't have the patience to do such things most of the time).
- Moving Metal: Using this facet of his ability, Owain can lift metal objects into the air, by picturing himself reaching out and picking these objects up. This requires almost continuous concentration for him to maintain control, the levels at which increase depending on how close he is to the material, and how much the material weighs. Touch makes this as easy as simply thinking about it, whereas something at the very edge of his range would require all of his attention, often to the detriment of his awareness of his own surroundings. Using touch to lift up a small motorcycle and tossing it as hard as he can is as easy as thinking about it, but doing the same thing from 50 feet away requires him to ignore everything else. Like the shape manipulation aspect of his ability, the difficulty also increases as the action grows smaller and more complicated. Picking up a ball and tossing it is effortless compared to twisting a copper wire into a specific shape. Causing a dozen ball bearings or a pocket full of change to float about or shoot out like bullets requires much less concentration than picking a lock, etc.
Currently, he is unable to separate the individual metals in alloys, despite being able to sense them.
Range and Limitations
Owain is able to sense metals within 100 feet of himself. This acts much like nearsighted vision; the closer he is to an item, the easier it is to 'see' what it is, but the fine details become more difficult to make out the further he gets, with the furthest reaches of his senses more resembling a large blob of unclear 'shapes' that he has to strain to make sense of.
He is able to manipulate metals within 50 feet of himself, though it takes much more effort and concentration the further away and heavier the metal he is attempting to affect — just as it is more difficult to lift a heavy weight with your arms held out vs your arms folded close to your body, it is the same for Owain's ability. It would require great effort and overexertion on his part to lift a motorcycle from 50 feet away and throw it. In turn, the closer he is to an object, the easier it is to manipulate it; touching an object makes manipulation nearly effortless (within reason).
In terms of limitations, Owain's power is a capable but wholly unexercised muscle, and how long / how far he can go very much depends on what he is attempting to do. If he is simply causing a pocket full of change to float around himself, he can last for about an hour or so (though he will need to take breaks every fifteen minutes or so). If he is pulling out the big guns and doing large displays of his ability that require more strength (e.g. lifting a heavy object or manipulating metal into complicated shapes), he can overexert himself in as little as ten minutes. Like a muscle, his ability will wear out slowly over time, as well — if he were to start out by throwing a motorcycle and then revert to making his copper ball bearings fly around, he'd not last nearly as long as normal — though he can take rests in between to refresh his mental stamina levels. To put a finite level on things, Owain could likely lift and throw a heavy motorcycle roughly three to four times (depending on the weight of said vehicle) before reaching his limits.
Overexertion can be quite taxing on Owain's health. A sharp pain behind his eyes is typically the first sign of overexertion. Pushing himself further may lead to bleeding from the nose, mouth, eyes, and ears (often in that order). Further use of his ability at this point can result in great pain through his entire skull, and eventually a loss of consciousness. In the first few days following the overexertion, Owain will find himself physically weak, sick to his stomach, and in the possession of a constant migraine; in addition, his metal sense is painfully oversensitized (a primary contributing factor to all of the physical effects, meaning if he is in a metal cell he will be in agony, whereas if he is in the middle of a forest with less 'harsh' metals the sensations will be much less), while his manipulation is in turn painfully debilitated to the point of being almost unusable.
In extreme cases of overexertion, a more drastic consequence depends on what metals he may be manipulating, as well; should he push himself to the point of unconsciousness, Owain can actually 'burn off' the metal balances in his body, causing a whole variety of complications such as anemia, loss of smell or taste, or other neurological issues that can be brought on by metal imbalances.
Owain can not currently manipulate metal in a biological context.
Miscellaneous
- Like his father before him, Owain's ability comes with a visible component. When he is actively accessing his ability, Owain's eyes are completely masked by an eerie metallic mirror-like effect. This can make it extremely difficult to use his ability in secret without the use of sunglasses.
- Owain's education at Brooklyn College will serve more than one purpose. With access to college-level chemistry equipment and supplies, he will be able to learn and understand each element, and how and why it 'feels' the way it does — so not only will he be attending classes to help him learn how to better harness his ability, but he will be learning the science behind what he is able to do.
- Owain has a variety of stage tricks that he has mastered, including pulling himself into the air and briefly 'flying' by holding onto a copper bar that he keeps in his dorm room (the big guns), causing spare change and/or his copper ball bearings to float around, and a variety of other applications.
- Owain has attempted to make himself 'fly' using copper arm braces and steel-toed boots. This didn't end well; he lacked proper muscle control, overcompensated with his ability, and ended up dislocating his shoulder and spraining his ankle, along with a shiny black eye. He could, in theory, have an easier time of this if he could figure out some way to support himself without using his limbs, but for right now it's just not worth the trouble and injury.
- Owain has also been known to use his ability for less than wholesome means; he will occasionally snatch change from various types of machines that accept change if he's sure nobody is looking.
Appendices
Logs
Owain's logs
Skills & Such
Owain isn't the most athletic person out there, but he likes trying to impress the girls sometimes. He is in moderately good shape, though he is by no means buff.
Owain graduated high school a year early and has completed the first semester of his freshman year of college, in which he is pursuing a Chemistry degree. He is quite familiar with elements — thanks to his ability, his chemistry classes are also helping him learn how to control his ability.
Owain is by no means a great (or even very good) shot with a gun. However, he is/ the son of Griffin Mihangle and his father showed him the basics of using a handgun. Owain is probably accurate about 60% of the time, but even then he probably won't hit exactly where he is aiming. Owain cannot shoot a rifle, though he does know how to properly brace himself to shoot a shotgun if need be.
Owain is NEVER without pocket change; usually, he carries around several quarters, dimes and nickels (pennies annoy him at a base level). He doesn't always get this in the most honest ways; every so often, he might wander over to a soda machine or a parking meter, or even a gumball machine, and casually grab some change (and maybe a soda or snack) with his ability.
Being the son of Griffin Mihangle, Owain was raised to play piano and play guitar. He is classically trained in both, though he prefers his guitar over the piano any day.
Owain's family has been left with a pretty decent amount of money to the tune of roughly $250K in net worth, thanks to Griffin's betrayal of the Ferrymen to General Leon Heller. He has no clue why or how, just that his dad made sure they were well off before he died. His bastard father killed hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent people to get this blood money. His stepmother, Nadira, is in control of the money; Owain just enjoys having nice clothes and food. Owain is weaning himself off of the blood money teat.
Having a deaf little sister, Owain has learned to speak American Sign Language alongside Jori. He is proficient in this, and is able to verbally spar with his little sister quite a bit — their arguments are quite interesting to watch.
Relationships
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The Stepmother. However, Owain has known her only as 'mom' for the past eight years, however, and he loves her very dearly. His dad loved her with every fiber of his being, and she gave him and his dad little Jori. Griffin made Owain promise to stay by Nadira's side and take care of her and his sister once he passed on, and he fully intends to keep that promise — really, he wouldn't have it any other way. |
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The Baby Sister. It's really quite difficult to put Owain's relationship to his baby sister into words. She was born deaf but has always been a bright and shining little light in everyone's lives despite her disability. He loves her pretty fiercely, and he is quite the protective older brother. They often have animated chat sessions, speaking in ASL, and have their own little secret language that they share with each other. They love playing video games together, and generally going out and about on adventures; Owain doesn't really mind babysitting duties. There is nothing he wouldn't do to protect her — when it comes to Jori, there is no such thing as too far. |
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She was the nice giant woman who was kind to him when he was a scared little boy who had just lost his mother on Pollepel. She is still a nice giant woman — though these days, she's only three inches taller than him. He thinks pretty highly of her. |
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Owain hung out with Joe and the other Lighthouse kids back during his time on Pollepel. He has since met back up with them, and enjoys their company — though he's pretty sure they're probably going to get him into trouble one of these days. |
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Another Lighthouse Kid, Owain is pretty cool with Lance. |
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Pretty okay kid. |
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Owain knew Kaylee back when he was at Pollepel. He would often help her out with chores and tasks — in part because he always thought she was beautiful. She also happens to be his boss, now, and is the entire reason he got his internship with Raytech. |
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Owain's new boss. He found that he and Richard have a bit in common in terms of their father figures — Richard Ray definitely has Owain's respect and loyalty after he met the man on his first day as an intern at Raytech. |
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Sure, he knew her back when they were at Pollepel, but he was a kid then. Now? Owain is quite convinced that she is the most beautiful person he's ever met. She comforted him when he needed it the most, and then they kissed. Owain is pretty much in love with her. Hopefully, she will reciprocate. |
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Owain's mother by birth. When Owain was only four months old, his father's ability manifested in a horrible way, brutally killing murdering his mother in a bloody mess. Owain never got to know his birth mother, and for the first ten years of his life, he didn't even know that she existed — a fact that he resents was concealed from him. His father told him stories of her, how good she was, and how strong she was. |
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Dad. Owain didn't know him — or even that he existed — for the first ten years of his life. Granted, this was because his mother did not survive his father's manifestation in a time when the world at large did not even know that Evolved Humans existed. His father more than made up for it, however, at least in Owain's eyes. He remembers his father with a sense of awe and wonder — his father was a powerful Evo, and he was part of the Ferrymen. As far as Owain knows, his father was a quiet hero, who withdrew from the war for the sake of protecting his family. And he did exactly that, providing Owain with some sense of a normal life, along with a chance to heal from all of the damage that was done to him in his youth. Owain loved his father dearly and misses him every day. He has no clue what lengths his father went to ensure that Owain and his family would get to live the life that they have lived. He is more than a little mad that his father offed himself, but he also kind of understands why. The cancer was a pretty horrible way to go. Bastard and a traitor. Cut a deal with the man who murdered his aunt mother. Lied to Owain and let him believe he was a war hero. Couldn't even let the cancer eat him alive — he took the coward's way out and offed himself. Good riddance. |
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Owain's aunt, who raised him from the time he was four months old, up until he was ten. She raised him believing that she was his mother, that she had given birth to him, and his father was just plain not in the picture. He found out differently after a decade, and while a small part of him can understand her motivations, he still harbors some resentment toward her for not telling him the truth. This is softened by the fact that, two and a half weeks before Christmas of 2010, she was murdered by Colonel Leon Heller while Owain hid in a hiding space that she had made for him in case of exactly what happened. He saw the man's face — he heard every word the man and his aunt exchanged. He saw Heller put the gun against her head, and turned away just in time to hear the gunshot. And he saw the aftermath. Her death still haunts Owain to this day, despite the years of therapy he's been through to heal the damage left behind. |
