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The gap in the door... it's a separate reality.
The only me is me.
Are you sure the only you is you?


DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL NOW, WE'RE JUST GETTING STARTED

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D R . S O L O M O N ' S A L L Y ' W I N T E R S
D R . S O L O M O N ' S A L L Y ' W I N T E R S
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"This is the shape and the point of the tooth: nothing has ever lived that will not die."
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P R O F I L E I N F O R M A T I O N
P R O F I L E I N F O R M A T I O N
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NAME: | Dr. Solomon Isaac Winters
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STATUS: | Active
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INDEX DATE: | TBD
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DATE OF BIRTH: | 1952/10/18
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ALIAS(ES): | The Occultist
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RESIDENCE: | Damascus, Virginia
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CITIZENSHIP: | American, Canadian
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CLEARANCE LEVEL: | Special Agent

B A C K G R O U N D
B A C K G R O U N D
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Born in a Virgina mining and logging town on the edge of Appalachia in the 1950's, Solomon Winters grew very accustomed to injury, death, and the campfire tales told about the forested mountains their town was nestled against. He was a morbid child, accustomed with the macabre through familiarity, but otherwise developed well as a young boy, growing tall and thin and with a sharp mind, used to his own company as an only child. He spent 15 years living a steady, normal childhood and early adolescence; stability that would be sorely missed for the rest of his life.

In 1967, on Solomon's 15th birthday, the Dark Eclipse hit the planet, and Damascus suffered poorly. The outages from the CME that hit Earth caused severe malfunctions and shockwaves, causing a cave-in deep in the mines and trapping two shifts of miners deep underground, Solomon's father, Thomas, among them. Though a rescue effort was mounted, emergency services were stretched thin, and the resource simply wasn't available. Many men of the town lost their lives in the Dark Eclipse; Thomas Winter was one of them, counted among the miners who never saw the surface again.

A few months after the tragedy, Solomon began hearing voices, claiming to speak to the ghosts of the trapped miners, and in particular his father. While initially mistaken by his mother, Louise, for difficulties processing grief and trauma in the wake of the Dark Eclipse, soon Solomon's tales and assertions were not limited to the calamity that had claimed his father's life, and he began repeating town secrets too old and too buried to have any earthly way of knowing. His mother took him to multiple doctors, and all came back with a singular diagnosis: schizophrenia.

Prescribed a cocktail of anti-psychotics and mood stabilizers, Louise had saved her son from incarceration in an attempt to keep her remaining family close, but instead only introduced Solomon to a different kind of prison. The medication dulled his interface with the world; he became socially withdrawn, emotionally numb, mind clouded and engaging in long periods of mutism. All the while, the voices continued; Solomon simply didn't talk about them anymore.

In the summer of 1970, Solomon neared eighteen after a medicated 2 years, and the Winters household was approaching a criticality. The insurance payout from Thomas' death had paid off a sizeable chunk of the mortgage, but what had been left was trickling away on further bills. Solomon was unable to work; a mute shut-in with a propensity for the morbid and macabre, his diagnosis and medication scaring away any employer who may have been willing to look past his developmental difficulties. Despite medication, he had grown - slowly, steadily - worse in his condition, often holding entire conversations with thin air; more worryingly to Louise, he'd also begun to dechiper her own thoughts and memories through physical contact, repeating back - seemingly involuntarily - the feelings and musings she held as her own. Solomon frightened her; fear he felt directly through those same repetitions, and found confusing. He frightened himself. The medication did nothing. Wasn't she his mother?

A week after his eighteenth birthday, doctors and nurses arrived to Damascus to escort Solomon back to Petersburg, where he would be interred and treated at Virginia Central State Hospital. Medicated, sedated, and often confined to his room for days on end, Solomon plummeted to rock bottom and stayed there. In 1971, alongside many other patients at the institution, Solomon was chemically sterilized. Determined to retain some semblance of self, Solomon spent the few conscious hours he had, whenever possible, reading - attempting to educate himself and stay abreast of the world outside the white walls of his confinement, ignoring the continued voices and the waves of information from every touch. Solomon began, ever-so-slowly, to suspect - or finally give credence to long-held suspicions - that he was not schizophrenic. That he was something else entirely.

It would take seven more years of commitment before he would have an opportunity to test these theories.
R E C R U I T M E N T
R E C R U I T M E N T
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In 1978, the fledgling Bureau of Hyperhuman Enforcement, Logistics, and Protection received an unusual, incoherent, but urgent plea from Solomon Winters in a letter he'd managed to send out, and by some miracle, they followed it to its source. H.E.L.P. arrived at Virginia Central State Hospital to an incredulous and hostile staff, but whether through providence or persuasion or sheer medical apathy on the part of the state of Virgina, they left with Solomon Winters remanded into their custody.

What followed were hard but monumental years for Solomon. Still suffering psychologically from his abilities and the years of stunted development after the fateful disaster of the Dark Eclipse, he now had H.E.L.P's assistance in weaning himself off the medication he'd spent a decade growing physically dependent on. He sobered up, and with the aid of the Bureau's research, began to educate himself on the nature and function of his abilities. The time he had spent reading while committed now gave way to a voracious appetite for knowledge, and with H.E.L.P's guidance he secured his G.E.D., and then dived headlong into further education, becoming a specialist in the occult and paranormal as he strived to understand the implications and ramifications of his powers. He plunged into Death & Culture academics alongside his extra-curricular studies, and soon possessed a Bachelor's degree - majoring in Death & Culture Studies, minoring in Mythology & Occult Sciences - and after that, went on to secure a Masters, and then a Doctorate.

The freshly-honoured Doctor Solomon Winters was now H.E.L.P's - and most of the continent's - foremost expert on occultism, death practices, and paranormal culture, with an additional insight afforded to no one else. He was inducted into the ranks of the Bureau after a short vetting process, granted Special Agent status immediately in recognition of his expertise, and more subtly, his unique status even among other Hyperhumans, which did not escape the Bureau's attention. His continued research was permitted, even encouraged - as long as Solomon would keep himself available for H.E.L.P's own research.
C A R E E R W I T H T H E B U R E A U
C A R E E R W I T H T H E B U R E A U
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Solomon has worked within or alongside H.E.L.P. for over twenty years now, and for such a long career, his rank within the Bureau - Special Agent - doesn't reflect the sheer breadth of his experience, service, and expertise. What is does represent is the reaction his comrades, superiors, and the Bureau at large invariably have to him. Solomon remains an odd, vaguely-absent, stilted man; off-putting and anti-social in personality, and unnerving and disquieting in nature; there is also H.E.L.P's long-standing wariness about Solomon, due to his troubled history and the unique and not-yet-well-understood circumstances of his abilities. Coupled with his obsessive study and research into aspects of the supernatural and un-reality that the organization doesn't necessarily consider work the time-and-resource-investment Solomon continues to commit to it, he ends up passed over for promotions and more senior leadership positions simply for being deemed unsuitable for it.

As a result, while Solomon is a well-respected and widely-known agent among most within the organization, he's also an incredibly 'internally-mobile' one; he's been shipped around and transferred between many units, offices, operations and task-forces across the wider H.E.L.P. structure, more than nearly any other individual within the Bureau. He struggles to make friends, and is absolutely incapable of playing the political-and-social networking game to his advantage, spending more time in the company of the morgue than his fellow agents in the field; it is only the sheer tenure of his service, the span of niches filled by his academic expertise, and the unique utility of his powers (and H.E.L.P's continued research into them) that cause him only to be shuffled, instead of disciplined, demoted, or fired entirely.
P H O T O I D E N T I F I C A T I O N
P H O T O I D E N T I F I C A T I O N
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P H Y S I C A L D E S C R I P T I O N
P H Y S I C A L D E S C R I P T I O N
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RACE: | Caucasian
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SEX: | Male
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HEIGHT: | 6'3"
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WEIGHT: | 161lbs
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HAIR COLOUR: | Brunette (going grey)
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HAIR LENGTH: | Short-cut
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EYE COLOUR: | Grey
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HANDEDNESS: | Left
A B I L I T I E S, L I M I T S, & W E A K N E S S E S
A B I L I T I E S, L I M I T S, & W E A K N E S S E S
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H Y P E R H U M A N A B I L I T Y || NECROMANCY
__PRIMARY CLASSIFICATION || Exoteric
__SECONDARY CLASSIFICATION || Fundamental
__POWER SCALE || 1
__THREAT CLASSIFICATION || Σ

Solomon's hyperhuman Einseele, or 'OneSoul', has a unique resonance (even among fellow Hypes) with HZE ions, granting him a peculiar dominion over the lingering Überseeles ('Oversouls') and Unterseeles ('Undersouls') of the deceased, and even partial communication with those of the still-living. This dominion allows Solomon to interact with the dead (and sometimes the living) in a handful of ways:

• Through focus, Solomon can conjure up the Überseele of the dead and communicate with the lingering consciousness contained within, able to ask questions, share memories, and with the more recently-deceased, engage in full two-sided conversation;
• By making physical contact with deceased bodies, Solomon can funnel his dominion into simple commands to the Unterseele of a being, animating the dead flesh into carrying out his command;
• Through a combination of resonance with the Über- and Unterseele in tandem, Solomon can dip into a being's memories and emotions, feeling them for himself. Using the same method, he can also experience the final living moments of a recently-expired corpse.

L I M I T A T I O N S & W E A K N E S S E S

• While Solomon can connect with the Überseele of a living being to experience their memories and thoughts, he cannot influence them, nor can he command the Unterseele.
• Solomon's Unterseele commands require a corpse, and physical contact with said corpse; he cannot animate dead-flesh from distance.
• Commanded dead-flesh is still subject to real-world physics, and isn't imparted with any additional durability or strength, so can be fended off accordingly by those capable.
• The Überseeles of the more recently-deceased, or those of individuals who were particularly strong-willed in life, can manifest to Solomon independently of his summons, which can distract, frighten, or overwhelm him with voices and thoughts he didn't willingly conjure.
• Due to the Einseele inherent to Hyperhumans that unifies and balances the Über- and Unterseele, Solomon's abilities do not work whatsoever on other Hypes.
Redacted; re-written sheet will be re-posted in due course.
I will reply to the IC, barring any unfortunate incidents, within 24 hours.



Should I fail this task, know that Scotland has fallen.

Location: San Francisco - California
Titans Together! #1.16: Rehearsal Speech
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Interaction(s): Arsenal - @Simple Unicycle

"Make it so. Green Lantern, Robin and Martian will investigate the transport and see if they can determine how Cinderblock escaped. Arsenal, Stitch and I will take to the T-Bird for the eagle-eye view; Superboy and Wondergirl will fly ahead, with Kid Flash holding the line until we arrive."

The movement from the team was instantaneous; had Stitch a nose to wrinkle they would have wrinkled it at Troia's ongoing cavalier attitude toward murder, but while Nassour's short departure speech to Stitch upon their arrival to the tower could only be described as laconic, their creator had still taken the time to impart upon Stitch the sheer breadth of culture - and subsequently cultural differences - that existed across the muddled planes of Earth, and which they were surely to clash against. Tact was a tricky skill to master, but one Stitch was getting a lot of practice at. At this moment, with Troia leaving swiftly, Superboy trotting to heel after a beckoning finger, they exercised that muscle by maintaining a firm silence; still, the reactions of select other Titans to such a definitive statement did not escape them, and for a moment they allowed themselves a moment of kinship in shared distaste.

They sidled carefully to Arsenal's side, silent as the grave and half as unnerving; absent of the usual biological functions, Stitch's form was incredibly still when not in motion, no chilly shudders through limbs or the soft rise-fall of lungs or the half-minded fidgeting when distracted. When they moved, it was with careful planning and measured forethought, an act not yet instinctual. Stitch was still getting used to locomotion in its entirety; the simple willing of direction in their astral manifestation was insufficient to propel their physical body. It was with some trepidation that they tried an imitation gesture, pushing their elbow into Arsenal's ribcage in what they hoped would be interpreted as a playful manner. The fabric rags of their constructed epidermis gave slightly beneath the pressure, but there was still enough firmness beneath to nudge.

"I should believe the 'T-Bird' to provide adequate vantage point for your sixteenth bullseye, Titan Arsenal." They said, attempting an air of jocularity to their tone in an effort to manifest this 'camaraderie' that they had been encouraged to find within the team. Their voice hummed and reverberated with a strange intensity, words not spoken with breath over vocal cords so much as simply the appropriate sound waves crystallised and broadcast as thoughts manifest through will and magic. It came from Stitch's direction, but expulsed from a bodily aura rather than thrown from tongue and throat. The sound arrived immediately, punctual and clear, and disappated just as quickly. "It should prove plenty recompense for the previous interruption of your practice. I, for one, am keen to number your efficacies. Perhaps there is opportunity yet for competition?"
Location: San Francisco - California
Titans Together! #1.16: Rehearsal Speech
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Interaction(s): Arsenal - Simple Unicycle

"Make it so. Green Lantern, Robin and Martian will investigate the transport and see if they can determine how Cinderblock escaped. Arsenal, Stitch and I will take to the T-Bird for the eagle-eye view; Superboy and Wondergirl will fly ahead, with Kid Flash holding the line until we arrive."

The movement from the team was instantaneous; had Stitch a nose to wrinkle they would have wrinkled it at Troia's ongoing cavalier attitude toward murder, but while Nassour's short departure speech to Stitch upon their arrival to the tower could only be described as laconic, their creator had still taken the time to impart upon Stitch the sheer breadth of culture - and subsequently cultural differences - that existed across the muddled planes of Earth, and which they were surely to clash against. Tact was a tricky skill to master, but one Stitch was getting a lot of practice at. At this moment, with Troia leaving swiftly, Superboy trotting to heel after a beckoning finger, they exercised that muscle by maintaining a firm silence; still, the reactions of select other Titans to such a definitive statement did not escape them, and for a moment they allowed themselves a moment of kinship in shared distaste.

They sidled carefully to Arsenal's side, silent as the grave and half as unnerving; absent of the usual biological functions, Stitch's form was incredibly still when not in motion, no chilly shudders through limbs or the soft rise-fall of lungs or the half-minded fidgeting when distracted. When they moved, it was with careful planning and measured forethought, an act not yet instinctual. Stitch was still getting used to locomotion in its entirety; the simple willing of direction in their astral manifestation was insufficient to propel their physical body. It was with some trepidation that they tried an imitation gesture, pushing their elbow into Arsenal's ribcage in what they hoped would be interpreted as a playful manner. The fabric rags of their constructed epidermis gave slightly beneath the pressure, but there was still enough firmness beneath to nudge.

"I should believe the 'T-Bird' to provide adequate vantage point for your sixteenth bullseye, Titan Arsenal." They said, attempting an air of jocularity to their tone in an effort to manifest this 'camaraderie' that they had been encouraged to find within the team. Their voice hummed and reverberated with a strange intensity, words not spoken with breath over vocal cords so much as simply the appropriate sound waves crystallised and broadcast as thoughts manifest through will and magic. It came from Stitch's direction, but expulsed from a bodily aura rather than thrown from tongue and throat. The sound arrived immediately, punctual and clear, and disappated just as quickly. "It should prove plenty recompense for the previous interruption of your practice. I, for one, am keen to number your efficacies. Perhaps there is opportunity yet for competition?"
<Snipped quote by Sep>

lol I don't think that's what the issue is. Hillan has a post cooking and then I'll build from there.


Speak for yourself; my productivity has gone WAY down across the board since the 22nd. I'm at nearly 60 hours already. I have a problem.
Location: San Francisco - California
Titans Together! #1.11: Slip The First Stitch
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Interaction(s): All - Everyone
Previously: None

Astral Projection was one of the earliest tricks Stitch had learnt, and it remained even now one of their favourites.

In the early weeks, lacking the need for (or ability to) sleep Stitch had quickly found the night hours to be particularly boring; after initial bodily excursions had been deemed "dangerous" and "hazardous" and "creepy when you stand in the corner and watch me", their creator taught them the art of breaking free the spirit from the shackles of the body. In this way, one could enter a deep and restful meditative state in their earthly form, while the soul continued to freely experience and absorb the world around them, imperceptible to most and unhampered by tellurian limitations like 'walls'. When they arrived to the Titans, it became a habitual practice; the illusion of sleep that meditation provided helped ease their colleagues' instinctual aversion to the uncanniness of Stitch, while the projection allowed them to explore the tower, linger in its spaces, and generally mill about unseen, unheard, unfelt. Some might call Stitch's nightly custom "spying" or "an invasion of privacy" or "voyeuristic", but if they did, no one voiced it to Stitch, who themselves regarded it as little more than "healthy curiosity". In Stitch's short life thus far, they had learnt that 'living' could mean a lot of different things, and those differences became all the more pronounced between observed and unobserved behaviours. Eating, for example, was often a communal activity, rarely partaken in alone (apart from a few select cases), whereas bathing was a ritual nearly always undergone by oneself. The one time Stitch had seen two parties bathing simultaneously, cleanliness did not seem to be the ultimate goal, which was even curiouser still.

On this night, they drifted through corridors and walls awaiting the sunrise that would oversee their comrades' rousing into the waking hours, poking a head through closed doors to assess whether anyone else forsook their sleep. All things told, the early morning had been relatively bustling as the minutes ticked by; by their reckoning, Stitch would likely be the latest to rise, despite not even actually sleeping at all. Something in this irony burst joyfully within them, and their ghostly form twitched and hacked silently as they let the humour wash over them. They were still getting the hang of 'laughing'. Wally was up and about, pacing furiously through the corridors and Stitch in equal measure, before pausing - as he so often did - in the kitchen; Robin could be found haunting the gymnasium, all pirouettes and somersaults elegantly spun and caught, his body a whirling display that ended in a flourish and a bow, Stitch his unseen audience providing unheard applause; Roy, similarly, was practicing his own skills, counting his perfection seemingly to himself. Stitch lingered in the lounge, hovering an inch or two above the cushions of the sofa, observing how Megan sat and how best to emulate it, how best to reproduce camaraderie with a peer. They turned their spectral eyes to the television, practiced laughter again. They departed.

The noise blossoming through the hallways drew their attention next; Kyle, of course, there had been no doubt that the short, simple chords and rough-edged voice emanated from his dormitory, a habit as frequent as Stitch's phantom excursions. They had to admit the words were catchy - they'd found particular enjoyment in this thing called 'music' since coming to the tower, and often liked to spin rhymes about their own (strictly metaphorical) tongue in imitation of what they had been exposed to, stringing pleasing-sounding nonsense together in a manner not dissimilar to their creator's own ceremonial chanting, a recurring element of their early life. Kyle's music did not seem to cast any spells, however, unless the spoilt moods of those in proximity was an intended effect. Stitch couldn't be sure. The evidence was certainly there, punctuated as if on cue by the thumping of the shared wall between Kyle and Troia's respective rooms.

Their jaunt was cut short by the alarm blaring, and Stitch gasped as their astral form blinked out of existence and their consciousness was wrenched back to their ragdoll body. The echoing rhythms of Kyle's speakers were replaced jarringly with the ambient melodies of Stitch's own music, pulsing from the earbuds stuck to either side of their head; a technique to clear the mind, in aid of projection. Gingerly, they tore the tape affixing their earbuds, and the bellowing klaxon dipped momentarily to be replaced with the voice of their collective benefactor, Loren Jupiter:

"All team members please suit up. We have a situation developing."

With that, Stitch was up, taking a quick moment to smooth out their indentation from lying on top of the otherwise pristinely-made bed (they had never had a need to actually get underneath the covers) and then slipping into the all-blue, one-piece suit Jupiter had provided them on arrival; they paused in the mirror momentarily, admiring the outfit. They were, secretly, quite proud of it. Stitch's creator, a man of pragmatics and more cosmological concerns, hadn't seen the need for clothing at first, given Stitch's anatomy (or lack thereof); but Jupiter's costume both enabled Stitch's modesty (a lack of which, they were told, often made others uncomfortable, even in Stitch's special case), and also welcomed them fully into the fold. The 'T' logo, emblazoned on the suit in the center of the chest, was the strongest symbol they knew. It made them part of the team. It made them a Titan.

And right now, slipping silently into the fray of the gathered team members in the kitchen, tensions and jokes and clashing personalities making the space fraught with apprehensions, Stitch put a hand to that same symbol, feeling - not for the first time - that these were not comrades, or compatriots, or even colleagues. They were strangers.
Location: San Francisco - California
Titans Together! #1.XX: TBC
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Interaction(s): TBC - [TBC]
Previously: None
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