Cyrus Vähi

[WorldFat]

Name: Cyrus Vähi
Gender: Male
Age: 17
Grade: 11th
Hobbies and Interests: Dramatic Arts/Acting, Cosplay, Psychology, Criminology, Criminal Justice, True Crime, Art, Anime, Horror Films, Slasher Films

Gift: The Evil Eye
Power Details: Cyrus’ eyes cause paranoia and intimidation in the people he stares into. The source of this power seems to be the red line in his iris closest to his pupil. Making eye contact with the victim has them experience underlying feelings of paranoia, and increased stress levels. The feeling of paranoia takes a few seconds, as the emotions have to build up to that point. The longer Cyrus looks at the victim, and the closer he is to the victim, the more potent the reaction. Cyrus' gift is voluntary, allowing him to use it at will, only working if Cyrus is looking into the victim's eyes. Eye contact is only needed to be sustained by Cyrus, and not the victim and Cyrus looking at each other's eyes.
Limitations and Drawbacks: One of the biggest drawbacks is its usability at longer ranges. A clear line of sight for eye contact must be maintained, making his power almost absolutely useless at long ranges. The victim's reaction to the feelings of paranoia and intimidation differ from person to person, based on their psychology and personality. To activate the power, it requires some concentration on the person targeted. The eyes also, of course, must be connected to Cyrus, rendering them useless if the eyes were removed. Since full eye contact by Cyrus is needed, only one victim at a time may be targeted.

Appearance: Cyrus stands at 5’10” and weighs around 178 lbs, making him slightly more on the heavyset side but still being in shape. He doesn’t have much muscle, not being too into athletics, but he doesn’t have a sedentary lifestyle. With black, messy, side-parted hair, sometimes Cyrus will gel it back, but will usually leave it as is. His eyes are green, with a red ring in the innermost part of the iris surrounding the pupil. He is always cleanly shaven, and barely grows facial hair anyways. Cyrus is also very light skinned.

Cyrus’ fashion is a bit eccentric, seeming to have hints of the 70's and 80's in his wardrobe. The typical outfit he would wear includes black shoes with black socks that go just over the ankle. He also wears a black undershirt, with a black leather jacket. When he was abducted, Cyrus wore his usual outfit, minus the fact he also wore a misfits band tee-shirt as an undershirt.

Background:

• Cyrus was born in Bend to Indrek and Madelyn Vähi, in a healthy household. Indrek works as a police officer, not being very involved in the house, and Madelyn is a part-time school aide. Cyrus grew up an only child.
• As a result of being an only child, Cyrus took to movies at a young age. Horror and slasher films were his favorite genres, being attached to the antagonists specifically. Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and other household horror film names were all things he knew. The gore especially interested him, leading him to wanting to replicate it in real life. Bugs were the first victims, leading him to pulling the legs off of cellar spiders to watch them squirm. When a squirrel was found killed in the backyard, Cyrus was placed directly into therapy, and his movie life became much more restricted. He remains in therapy to this day.
• Not only was Cyrus placed in therapy for his behavior, but he was also placed in therapy for his social skills, due to his early inability to make friends. During this time, his behavioral therapy made him interested in causing a type of emotional pain, bullying children to see them cry. This is where Cyrus discovered his power, accidentally activating it, resulting in the onset of a panic attack in the victim.
• At home, he grew an affinity towards watching Japanese animated shows, such as Naruto and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. This would drive him to cosplay and also adopt a very unique and rather eccentric fashion sense, doing it mainly to grab attention from people at cons.
• Cyrus’ art style early on would be very dark and gloomy looking, but would evolve and mature with time, adopting a very Japanese influenced style. He always carries around a sketchbook to draw in, if he gets the inspiration.
• Cyrus is a bisexual man, preferring men. He has held a few romantic relationships, all of them ending badly, as Cyrus has a tendency to be extremely manipulative in them, using his power to his own advantage. The power being used to heighten the stress levels of his partners, allowing him to be able to render them easier to manipulate and therefore making them rely on Cyrus for emotional support.
• In junior high school, Cyrus enrolled in the drama club as well as took drama classes because not only did he like the attention, but it also gave him an excuse to practice his social skills. He also just happened to really enjoy acting.
• During high school, Cyrus became interested in psychology, especially in fields related to criminology. He developed aspirations to become an interrogator of some sort as he felt his Gift would suit him well in something like that and be put to good use. He also developed an interest in true crime documentaries and listens to plenty of podcasts on the subject.
• His grades were average, never getting many A's but always sustaining a C+ to B+ grade throughout his academic career. His reputation would be rock bottom, almost every person in the school absolutely hating him. Cyrus doesn't mind, being content with the people who he manipulates and knocks down emotionally for his own enjoyment.

Personality: Cyrus Vähi is an outgoing person, seeming to be a friendly person on the outside while being a much colder person on the inside. In closer examinations, Cyrus could come off as fake and manipulative. Cyrus prefers to be with people, nonetheless, and he does have a few select friends he chooses not to be manipulative towards, but these are few and far between. Cyrus prefers to play with his peers' emotions, sometimes knocking them down just for the fun of it.

Other Skills: Impressions, Speaks some Estonian

[Jilly]

Hey, WorldFat, I'll be looking at Cyrus today. I'll be upfront, he's DENIED at this stage since I have some concerns with him regarding the mechanics of his power and stuff that I feel has to be expanded on due to subject matter in his background as well. We got some work to do and time is money so let's get right into it. I'll hit my concerns in sequential order and quote the relevant sections as we go, highlighting any grammar changes in red text.

The gender section's missing a space after the colon, so remember to hit that.

And now, onto his Gift. I'm mainly concerned with the mechanics since, as written, it's a little nebulous, and specifics is the name of the game here:

Making eye contact with the victim has them experience underlying feelings of paranoia, and to feel slightly intimidated by Cyrus. The longer and closer Cyrus looks at them, the more potent the reaction.

Is Cyrus's gift voluntary, in that he's in control if/when it activates, or is it involuntary and always active? Is the feeling of dread and paranoia immediate or does it take several seconds for the other party to even start "feeling" it? Do people's individual reactions depend on their own physiology and psychology or does it cause more or less the exact same reaction across the board? And how do you mean by "eye contact" exactly, like does the other party have to be directly staring at Cyrus's eyes as well for his Gift to activate on them, or does it happen even if they're just kinda indirectly glancing over him? Does his Gift activate on only one other person at a time or can it be used on multiple people at once? Once someone looks at Cyrus's eyes are their eyes locked in or can they just look away?

I ask this because these all have very different implications on how Cyrus would be allowed out in public assuming his power isn't subtle or controlled very specific, since if his Gift is indiscriminate and involuntary past an extent then he'd probably need to take power inhibitors or wear a blindfold or something that would block his eyesight so he wouldn't be a total menace just going to school.

Sayuna Lewis has a Gift that's mechanically similar, so I invite you to give her profile a glance if you'd like an example while thinking about how to address these points. You don't have to be as detailed besides addressing the questions I asked you, but I just want to give you an idea of what I'm looking for.

Depending on how you address those points we'll probably need to expand the Limitations section, but for now I'll keep going.

You accidentally double-spaced between the "Limitations and Drawbacks" and "Appearance" sections, so remember to take one of those paragraph breaks out.

Onto "Appearance", just some tense switching that needs to be corrected:

With black, messy, side-parted hair, sometimes Cyrus will gel it back, but will usually leave it as is. His eyes are green, with a red ring in the innermost part of the iris surrounding the pupil.

Cyrus’ fashion is a bit eccentric, seeming to have hints of the 70's and 80's in his wardrobe. The typical outfit he wears includes black shoes with black socks that go just over the ankle.

Onto "Background":

So the first thing I noticed is that all of your bulleted sections have double spacing to them, but looking at the bbcode for your post I think there's just a little confusion on how lists should be formatted. Using the first three bullets, you have this:

Code: Select all

[list]Cyrus was born in Bend to Indrek and Madelyn Vähi, in a healthy household. Indrek worked as a police officer, not being very involved in the house, and Madelyn being a homemaker. Cyrus grew up an only child.[/list]
[list]As a result of being an only child, Cyrus took to strange hobbies at a young age due to sheer boredom. Experimenting with bugs in the backyard by pulling their legs off. Early on, he was never very sociable with other kids, so he was put into social skills therapy.[/list]
[list]His small curiosity with the torture of bugs in the backyard grew much more morbid and unhealthy, as he began to enjoy picking on children at school, while keeping the facade of the perfect, good child. Cyrus slowly became sadistic, enjoying seeing the emotional or even physical pain in his peers' eyes.[/list]

And really, it should look like this:

Code: Select all

[list][*]Cyrus was born in Bend to Indrek and Madelyn Vähi, in a healthy household. Indrek worked as a police officer, not being very involved in the house, and Madelyn being a homemaker. Cyrus grew up an only child.
[*]As a result of being an only child, Cyrus took to strange hobbies at a young age due to sheer boredom. Experimenting with bugs in the backyard by pulling their legs off. Early on, he was never very sociable with other kids, so he was put into social skills therapy.
[*]His small curiosity with the torture of bugs in the backyard grew much more morbid and unhealthy, as he began to enjoy picking on children at school, while keeping the facade of the perfect, good child. Cyrus slowly became sadistic, enjoying seeing the emotional or even physical pain in his peers' eyes.

[...]

[*]His interest in criminal justice would also lead him to watch true crime documentaries, preferring to listen to podcasts about the subject rather than get too much into music.[/list]

In other words, leave only the very first "[-list]" there, get rid of every instance of "[-/list]" except for the last, and put a [*] in front of every individual bullet point you want and it'll be formatted correctly, if that makes sense. I know it's a really pedantic difference, but we need to keep these things standardized for the wiki and such so it is important.

Anyway, onto the actual content:

Indrek works as a police officer, not being very involved in the house, and Madelyn is a homemaker. Cyrus grew up an only child.

As a result of being an only child, Cyrus took to strange hobbies at a young age due to sheer boredom, such as experimenting with bugs in the backyard by pulling their legs off. Early on, he was never very sociable with other kids, so he was put into social skills therapy.

There's plenty of only children out there that just read or watch tv out of boredom, so why did he start doing stuff like torturing bugs? His parents were concerned about his social skills, but were they not concerned with his strange hobbies?

His small curiosity with the torture of bugs in the backyard grew much more morbid and unhealthy, as he began to enjoy picking on children at school while keeping the facade of the perfect, good child. Cyrus slowly became sadistic, enjoying seeing the emotional or even physical pain in his peers' eyes.

Why did he try to look like a "perfect, good child"? What benefit did he get from looking good to adult figures behavior-wise, considering he could just use his intimidation Gift on anyone?

With this therapy, he was able to gain an affinity to talk to people very well, gaining many friends quickly. Soon, however, he learned he was able to gain what he wanted from them, simply by maintaining eye contact. He grew accustomed to using this ability that others seemed to not have.

Would this be implying that his Gift isn't common knowledge, or was ever even officially deduced? Who did he make friends with, if he was also a known bully to a significant number of his peers?

At home, he grew an affinity towards watching Japanese animated shows, such as Naruto and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. This would drive him to cosplay and also adopt a very unique and rather eccentric fashion sense.

Cyrus is a bisexual man, preferring men. He has held a few romantic relationships, most of them ending badly, as Cyrus has a tendency to be extremely manipulative in them, using his power to his own advantage to make his partner emotionally dependent on him.

How do you mean by "emotionally dependent"? Would that really come from a Gift that just makes people feel scared, or would it just be from how much of an emotional terrorist he tends to be on his own?

Cyrus, in junior high school, enrolled in the drama club as well as took drama classes because not only did he liked the attention, but it also gave him an excuse to practice his social skills. He also just happened to really enjoy acting.

Later on, during High School, he started to get interested in psychology. Specifically in fields related to interrogation and criminology, feeling he could put his gift to good use while interrogating, therefore becoming one of the best on the job. Of course, for him it wouldn’t be about catching criminals, but for being the best and also to toy with the interrogation subjects.

His interest in criminal justice would also lead him to watch true crime documentaries, preferring to listen to podcasts about the subject rather than get too much into music.

The first bullet point reads kind of awkwardly because of all of the commas (and I think the last sentence is a little too informal and should go and I feel like the implications are strong enough in his profile you don't need this comment anyway), but I also think these two could be combined so I'd suggest rewording it like this:

During high school, Cyrus became interested in psychology, especially in fields related to criminology. He developed aspirations to become an interrogator of some sort as he felt his Gift would suit him well in something like that and be put to good use. He also developed an interest in true crime documentaries and listens to plenty of podcasts on the subject.

- How are his grades? What's his social reputation around school as of recently?

Cyrus prefers to be with people, nonetheless, and he does have a few select friends he chooses not to be manipulative towards, but these are few and far between.

Cyrus prefers to make peers emotionally dependent on him, sometimes knocking them down for the fun of it.

Same thing as before, I feel like "emotionally dependent" is implying something different here since codependency doesn't seem like what Cyrus strives to do. I'd reword it like this since I think this is more the vibe you're going for:

Cyrus prefers to play with his peers' emotions, sometimes knocking them down just for the fun of it.

And that's all I got on this pass. I know it's quite a bit to address, but I have faith in you and I'm here to work with you. If you have any questions, feel free to DM me either on the boards or on Discord. Let me know when you've got all of my concerns taken care of and I'll give Cyrus another look.

[WorldFat]

Edited.

[Jilly]

Awesome, Cyrus is looking better. There's some grammar stuff (including some stuff I didn't pick up myself on an initial pass) that needs to be fixed but that should be it.

There's still a missing space in the Gender heading. There's an extra comma that got slipped in at the end of Hobbies & Interests that should be removed as well.

The feeling of paranoia takes a few seconds, as the emotions have to build up to that point.

Eye contact is only needed to be sustained by Cyrus, and not the victim and Cyrus looking at each other's eyes.

The victim's reaction to the feelings of paranoia and intimidation differ from person to person, based on their psychology and personality.

Cyrus is also very light skinned.

The typical outfit he would wear includes black shoes with black socks that go just over the ankle.

Horror and slasher films were his favorite genres, being attached to the antagonists specifically.

Bugs were the first victims, leading him to pulling the legs off of cellar spiders to watch them squirm.

In junior high school, Cyrus enrolled in the drama club as well as took drama classes because not only did he like the attention,

That's all I got for this round, post here again once you've touched on these.

[WorldFat]

I'm apparently quite bad at getting all the edits, so I apologize. Here you go!

[Jilly]

Looks good to me. Welcome to SOTF Supers, as soon as Cyrus gets rostered.

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