Theo Curtis
"I can make sticks glow, watch! Wow, it's so glow-y, it turned green! And also isn't glowing!"Appearance
Theo is awkwardly thin and spindly, despite being remarkably fit, for his over six-foot height, but he still stands with his back straight in a healthy posture. His jet-black hair is well combed in no particular hairstyle and is trimmed just above his cheerful blue eyes. Across his round nose is a light spoonful of freckles, and upon his rosy cheeks appear a couple dimples whenever he opens up with his rather dorky, asymmetrical grin. Which is most of the time. You can generally see him clothed in a well-fitted, lightly-colored casual suit and derby shoes. This gives him a neat, though not flashy, appearance.
Age
17
Gender
Male
Year
1
Room Number
???
Master
His uncle, William Curtis
Rank
Taking his ability to use Psyche Manipulation and Self Control magic into consideration, Theo is very close to being considered a Master. However, because he absolutely refuses to use either of those magic types and focuses purely on Aspect Alteration, something he is dreadful at, he barely even makes it into the Apprentice rank.
Equipment
Aspect Alteration: Magic for Anyone by Riley Greenpath, a smart phone,
a couple suitcases of clothing, and nine letters in open envelopes.
Personality
Theo has imposter syndrome. He appears to be a very lighthearted, sensitive person who just likes to go with the flow and roll with the punches. However, while he is most certainly sensitive, his humor and perkiness is just a way to distance himself from anything that he fears. He very much enjoys being around others, but he's not very vocal about his personal opinions and instead, at most, attempts to hint at them. He has a hard time saying no and prefers to dodge the question if necessary. His persona of casual and cheery self-quips often leaves him open to jabs by other people, which he tries to take good-naturedly despite sometimes being quite painful. In reality, he's like most others. His failure with magic is just as disappointing for him as it would be for anyone else, regardless of how hard he tries to pretend it doesn't matter.
While he does have a hard time turning people down, he holds fast to his moral compass. Theo rejects Psyche Manipulation magic, despite being a prodigy in the field, and is instead trying to learn Aspect Alteration, at which he does poorly. He works his very hardest at it regardless, and refuses to give up. He tries his best to hide this drive from those around him, however, lest they see it's something he cares strongly about. He does use Self Control magic, but purely for the protection from others' mind meddling magic.
If Theo was forced to sacrifice something important in order to move forward, it would be his magic, so that he could start again from the ground up. A fresh start. If he was offered to have a single wish fulfilled, it would be to return to his family with the sadness of being absent for so long and the shame of not having something to show for it gone. However, what he truly needs is to just be somewhere he feels he belongs.
Magic Disciplines
- Aspect Alteration - allows the caster to change specific aspects of inanimate objects. Some of the more powerful alterations include size, weight, and even material. However, Theo is absolutely horrid at it. Not only can he cast purely the most basic of alterations such as making something covered in slime or wobbily, he also sometimes doesn't even succeed at that, either it just doesn't work or something else happens instead. And, where as intermediate level aspect alterers can cast through line of sight, Theo can only target simple objects he's physically touching. He has yet been able to alter an aspect of an object with a volume of more than two cubic feet.
- Psyche Manipulation - is a very difficult magic type which allows the caster to delve into a creature's mind and adjust elements of their mental and emotional being, possibly even so far as to affect a person's morality. Of course, Theo is not nearly powerful enough to do that. The caster must have line of sight on the target, and it's more difficult to change a detail the target firmly believes, or think they believe. Therefor, it's easier to adjust a piece of knowledge or personality trait someone is insecure about than it is to affect those who have strong senses of self. However, the more someone wants to hide something, the more difficult it is to find through delving. Delving is also made difficult if the castee is either aware of the abilities or intentions of the caster and is opposed to it or has powerful magical ability.
Theo has become quite close to mastering the Psyche Manipulation of animals, which have psyches that are significantly easier to manipulate than sentient beings. People are a seperate story, however. He can delve rather deep into most people without magic, just can't reach their inner-most thoughts, feelings, wishes, and fears. As for manipulation, he can make memories float to the front or back, make them disappear completely unless it's paramount to their character, or create new ones. Personality traits are definitely more tricky, and as so he can only target opinions, the least of the personality traits. He tweaks them by pushing their attitudes towards things in either the positive or negative direction. The amount Theo can push is dependant on how long he has to focus and how strong the subject's mind is.
Regarding people with magic (depending on their level of magic), he can only look at surface thoughts, recent or important memories, and opinions, and can only manipulate their noninfluential memories. Low-level magic masters he can only read the surface thoughts of, and anyone with more magical power than that he cannot target under most circumstances. However, if the castee is aware and accepting the delve and alteration, he can move as freely as they allow (though actually changing things is still difficult). This is what allowed him to delve and affect his own mind, starting
- Self Control - magic, a slight variation of Psyche Manipulation. Self Control magic allows the caster to target their own mind in order to overcome many variations of physical, mental, or emotional obstacles. In his case, he used it to protect his mind from his uncle's magic.
Biography
Theo was born to a pair of close, loving parents and lived in the suburbs of a smaller city several hours north of Los Angeles, California. His father, Felix, worked as a psychology professor in the nearby college while his mother, Victoria, stayed at home and took care of him, the house, shopping, etc. The boy's life wasn't anything out of the ordinary (especially compaired to the existance of magic) up until he turned eight. While he often had trouble in school when it came to learning, he was very social and was often surrounded in friends wherever he went
However, it turned out that his father had belonged to and left a bloodline of wizards specializing in Psyche Manipulation magic. Though he himself had left to pursue a normal life without magic, his brother, William, still very much practiced the art and wished to tutor Theo. Felix hesitantly agreed on the condition that it would be the boy's decision.
After Theo turned eight years old, his father approached him and told him about William, someone Theo had previously known nothing about. William was a very successful stock tycoon who lived alone, besides his servants, in a mansion in Los Angeles. Felix didn't tell his son about magic as that was something that one needed to be eased into, and instead just told him that his uncle wished to take over his schooling. However, mysterious multimillionare uncle that wanted to tutor him personally was plenty enough to intrigue Theo, and so he excitedly agreed.
Yet, as the month passed and it neared time to leave, his excitement began to wain as a cloak of realization fell on his mind. He'd be leaving his friends and parents behind, and he may not see them again for a long time. Still, it was too late to turn back and he knew it. Bags were packed, final goodbyes were said, and he was off. Once he arrived, however, his excitement returned. It's hard to stay upset when one finds their new home to be a beautiful mansion in the center of what's basically an entire city park.
Surprisingly, after Theo arrived and met his uncle, he had no problems after that. Sure, he thought of home every once in a while, but it never got him down. In fact, nothing seemed to interest him more than learning whatever it was Uncle William was teaching, and he learned well. This was already an incredible improvement compaired to back home. First, he learned how to understand how the horses in his uncle's stables were feeling, than how to tell what they were thinking. Sometimes they'd go on field trips to the zoo to practice communicating with other types of animals, or short camping trips at a realitively nearby national park to practice with feral squirrels. And all along, he never knew he was learning real, actual magic.
Of course, he was being taught other things the whole time. He was taught arithmetic, english and history, sciences and geography. He began learning algebra after he turned eleven, then geometry, then trigonometry. All the while making sure to stay fit. It seemed like he was spending almost all the time learning, but his uncle was a great teacher and all of it always made sense. Plus, it was fun.
During the times he wasn't learning, Uncle William had a bunch of strange but interesting fantasy books for him to read. They were almost self-aware in how they treated themselves like history books instead of fantasy tales, and all of them had the same magical... stuff, despite being written by a bunch of different people. They even referenced each other sometimes. It was pretty amusing to read about all sorts of historical events, but twisted to include magic.
It wasn't until he was fourteen, after he was being taught how to use the technique to learn what other people were feeling and see some of their surface thoughts, that his uncle told him that it was magic. It was like a shattered piece of glass came all together at once, every question he had never thought to ask had been answered. And most importantly, it somehow made perfect sense. Theo was surprised himself at how casually he could, just, take a revelation like that and move straight on. His uncle had just told him that magic was real, all kinds of different magic! And just as many different people using it all over the world! Yet he felt as if he had just been told the answer to some calculus problem.
He continued to practice using psyche manipulation on other people for the next few years, getting to a point where he could actually manipulate rather than just read. It was at this point when he was sixteen years old that he was sitting in his room with a few fantasy stories, or true history books as he now knew, when he became curious about what his own mind was like. Laying the book he was reading behind, he closed his eyes and focused on the point just behind his pupils. Sure enough, he could visualize all that made his own psyche tick, just as he could with the psyches of others. In fact, he could visualize more clearly since he was allowing himself into his own mind. What he saw was just like any other person's mind, except oddily familiar. He began sifting through his memories, most of which he already knew about and were pretty recent, but as he sifted deeper he saw things that he had
almost forgotten. Memories from when he was a kid. All his friends and the good times they had together. His teachers, his school, and even the mailman. It was nostalgic... Or at least he thought it should've been. While still holding some of the enjoyment, the reminiscing held no bitterness of times long gone. This was a bit puzzling, as from a logical standpoint he should be feeling at least something.
It was at this point that something unusual within his own mind became apparent. A strand of magic, like the ones he caused when he tweaked the minds animals or other people. He followed where it lead and, sure enough, it was filtering the nostolgia and homesickness out of his system. Now that he saw the one strand, he began spotting several. Some originated from his interests and directed them towards history, math, and especially magic; some were carefully monitoring any anger or rebelliousness; a few were connected to his information input, decoding the pieces of learning that he'd been having trouble with; and several were needed to syphon his bewilderment caused by learning of the magical world in general.
Though he himself didn't feel anything by this revelation other than, "Oh, that's interesting", he watched as feelings of betrayel and anger brew only to be syphoned out before he actually felt them. Theo became curious. If his psyche was feeling angry and hurt and he wasn't, what else was his psyche like that he wasn't? He opened his eyes, took a couple deep breaths, closed his eyes again, and began to focus. It was like a spheroid wave appeared at the center and began growing outward, cleaning out all the strands as they were reached and removing them until all of them were gone. Then he opened his eyes again. At first he felt the same as before, but as his mind reestablished connections, he slowly began to feel... more. He felt homesick, afraid, depressed, and he felt betrayed. Why would his uncle to do this? Why would he change who Theo was? Followed by this was guilt, regret, shame. He'd been doing it to others for the past two years, and never thought once of what he'd been doing to them. His uncle hadn't changed his morality.
A servant found him the next day having never left his bed. Theo had been laying there ever since he removed his uncle's magic from his mind. His emotions were in turmoil, and he didn't know who he could talk to. He'd never
really became close with any of the servants, and his uncle had been the one to do this to him. He could try to call home to talk to his parents, but he was terrified and didn't know why.
The servant who found him returned with Uncle William and Theo immediately felt better. However, he knew now. It wasn't him feeling better, it was him not feeling. He closed eyes, removed the strand of magic, and this time left the spherical wave in place. It probably couldn't stop anyone as strong as his uncle, but it'd lessen it and warn him. Then he looked up towards his uncle, and inside he was afraid. His uncle had been very nice, but it's easy to be nice to someone you've bent to be exactly how you want them to be. His uncle was powerful, both magically and nonmagically, and Theo didn't know what type of person he really was. But Theo was determined.
Theo told him that he didn't want anything to do with the magic he was being taught. Fully controlling others in any way is not a good thing to do, regardless of what one's attempting to achieve. He didn't want to control, or be controlled. William didn't know how to respond to this. He loved the boy, but didn't really know what to do from here. So, he just nodded and left.
The mansion was pretty quiet after that. Neither really knew how to talk to each other or what to talk about, so Theo's studies just slid. They saw each other every once in a while, but mostly William stuck to his office and Theo stuck to his bedroom. He eventually grew bored after finishing off the books he had in his room, and so found himself in the library, just looking around. It was there that he found something that caught his eye. Books about magic, other magic. Up until this point, he had
known there was other magic, and had read about other types such as the Aeons being used in the wizard history books, but didn't really know how it all worked.
He looked them over and grabbed a few books that interested him such as one on plant growth magic and another on animal morphing magic, and returned to his room. However, without the help from his uncle, learning things like this was very difficult. Thus, instead of focusing on all of them, he skimmed them to see which specific one would be the nicest to use, easiest to learn, and so on. He decided on Aspect Alteration, which seemed like a simple but convenient and versatile type of magic. It was very rough and slow moving as he tried to learn how to use it from a book not meant specifically for teaching, but he kept at it. Several weeks later, he was rewarded for his efforts as he managed to turn the color of a pencil from yellow to orange.
This proving of power rejuvenated him, and he continued to work hard. He spent the next year trying to learn, and in that time his and his uncle's relationship, while not much, at least improved. This was when Theo asking his uncle about going to a university for magic. He'd read about them in wizard history, and he hoped maybe he'd be able to learn more general magics that way. And so, Theo was off to Breakfast University thanks to a reccomendation from Uncle William.
Other
If it ever comes to a point where Theo
does use his mind manipulation magic, I'd never use it on another player's character or important NPC without their or your permission. That way we'd be able to discuss what the most interesting potential plot would be for the both of us, and they'd never actually lose control of their character.
