#emotional maturity + openness to experience + general curiosity about life the universe and everything + he actually wants to hang out with

[strxnged]

i am so glad i'm finally dating someone who cares about fashion and about doing silly things like taking pictures and about school he cares about school and he likes learning and trying new things oh lord he actually likes trying new things

[x-mentalia]

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Name: Erika Wohlwend

Country: Liechtenstein

Alias (Optional): n/a

Pronouns: she/her

Age: 23

Species (Mutant/Human): Mutant

Group: Civilian

Appearance (1-2 Paras):A small stature of 5 feet even contains the petite entity that is Erika. With a soft, feminine frame, nothing about her is too extreme. She has soft features, with about an average size chest, and a little tiny pudge around her middle from a somewhat sedentary lifestyle and a few too many sweet treats. Her facial features are cute and girly, with heart-shaped lips, a slightly upturned nose, and light green eyes framed by long delicate blonde eyelashes. Her hair is a light ash blonde, a little wavy, currently at a length just below her chin. She wears light makeup to help make herself look closer to her age, as she’s still often mistaken for a teenager. She has a classic, ultra feminine sense of style, almost never wearing pants, much less jeans. Even her hands and feet are small and delicate; and she has soft, pale skin, marred only by a few sparse freckles.

Faceclaim: Michelle Oosthuizen

Personality: Straight-laced and a bit soft-spoken, Erika is like a clam shell that needs to be cracked open to see what lays inside. Her manners lay at the forefront of everything; she was raised to be a ‘proper lady’, so to speak, and she exercises this daily. And it isn’t like she doesn’t want to do this–even beyond her manners, she is sweet, cordial, and kind. Being a neutral, she is typically able to see beyond people’s actions and treat them humanely and even kindly. Everyone deserves to be treated well, after all. She is more of a listener than a talker, showing her consideration for others’ thoughts and feelings, often putting theirs in front of her own. Sheis very mature, often coming off as even older than she is. It isn’t even something she necessarily tries to do on purpose; though, at times, she will push it even further subconsciously if she is in a situation where she feels she is being belittled.

Putting others before herself is connected to feelings of inadequacy, often very heavily veiled. Despite having been raised in a loving and nurturing environment, she often worries about somehow not being enough. Not skilled enough, not giving enough, most certainly not interesting enough–the latter certainly plaguing her the most these days. Her interests tend to be simple, and her cautious nature added to that makes Erika believe she is rather quite boring and not engaging enough.

Being an amicable person, it is easy enough for Erika to be friendly with a wide variety of people. She is generous and has a nurturing streak, along with some Hero running deep inside of her. She seems very serious and no-nonsense at times, and occasionally does not understand jokes or references. But she does like to sneak a sly joke every once in a while, usually to the reaction of surprise.

There’s a quality to her that she tries to keep hidden but it likes to peek out at times–she can be a dreamer and idealist. She was raised by realists with an optimistic quality, though they at times seemed more fatalistic because of the way they protected their daughter. Instilled in Erika was a sense of pragmatism, though she also allowed some optimism to grow inside of her. She’s still pragmatic, of course, but with an optimistic undertone of “it will work out somehow.” One of her hobbies is reading, especially high fantasy; and another is writing fiction, which she rarely shows to anyone, so she clearly has a very active imagination. She sometimes lets it run away, and has some fantasies about how she wants her own life to turn out. She daydreams rather often, though she won’t readily admit to it because it seems foolish. But she adores love stories and happy endings.

Erika likes to be private about her life, feeling that a lot of things don’t need to be shared widely. She is from the smallest country in the world, where people leave their front doors unlocked because it is safe, but she was subjected to heavy scrutiny when her powers surfaced as a child–they were difficult to keep a secret, and everyone was curious. Though her heart rests on her sleeve, she is hesitant to share much of her own thoughts and feelings because she wants a sense of privacy again, something very important to her. Her heart is on her sleeve but it is more important to stay dignified.

Working hard is another principle Erika was raised on, and it’s led her to become something of a workaholic. It’s not so much that she enjoys working her fingers to the bone; it’s that she’s a perfectionist who cannot rest until everything is finished, and she often challenges herself to take on more. She loves things associated with relaxing but every once in a while she needs to be told to do so. It’s not that she doesn’t take care of herself–she sleeps well, keeps herself looking neat and groomed–but she could certainly take a little more time for herself. She is astoundingly humble, rarely taking the chance to brag. Though she allows herself some pride in her accomplishments, she keeps it under wraps and continues trying to get even better.

Something that’s become associated with Erika is her pretty big collection of pets. She was never allowed one as a child, and jumped on the chance when she came to America. She loves them dearly because they help her feel a little less lonely. Having been scrutinized so heavily as a child, she has little experience with having close friends, and she sometimes feels she may be a bother to them; so the animals are a nice comfort when she is having some sort of emotional distress. She craves companionship deep on the inside, but she’s working more on approaching people just to spend some casual time together.

Words come from her mouth spoken cleanly and crisply, with rarely any contractions used in English. She is very formal and prefers to call people by full names rather than nicknames. Her accent is a soft Liechtensteiner accent, often mistaken for Scandinavian. It adds a nice quirk to her voice but she’s almost always understandable. Her voice is not really quiet, but stays even in tone, though she hates raising it and would easily have her voice lost in a noisy crowd. She only has small fidgets–fixing her headband or bow, messing with the sleeves of her sweater. She still struggles a little with appearing a little younger, and she sometimes finds herself wishing she were prettier.

Though harsh words are uncharacteristic of Erika, she will state her mind very clearly when the situation is appropriate. Her words are always chosen carefully–even if she may think ill of a particular person, you would really have to examine her words thoroughly to glean that information. Again, politeness is a virtue; and you never really know the whole story of what a person could be going through.

Her charming, likable, giving personality has led to Erika being taken advantage of in the past–she was far too trusting of really any person. After more than enough instances of her being screwed over, Erika has become more aware of this and can sometimes be skeptical of others’ intentions if she feels they may be trying to take advantage of her.

In short: Sweet, kind, cautious, private. Actual muffin.

Strengths: Kind, patient, thoughtful, gentle, humble

Weaknesses: Self-conscious, workaholic, lonely, perfectionist

Backstory: In the little Alpine town of Feldkirch, Austria, a baby girl was born to a young unmarried couple, who had already decided to put the child up for adoption. Their relationship was unstable, after all, and the best option was to keep her away from that mess. A couple from Liechtenstein, passing childbearing years and unable to conceive, adopted the girl, named Erika.

Vaduz is a tiny city, not even the biggest in Liechtenstein despite being its capital; and so when the small girl’s powers developed early in childhood, it attracted a lot of attention. Luise and Patrik were always overprotective of their little girl, to the point that Erika would become sheltered. This didn’t stop the overexposure of the glowing girl, since mutants are even more uncommon in the tiny country of Liechtenstein. There was plenty of interest in the small, shy girl, curiosity often manifesting into a lack of privacy, as it was a pretty well known fact among neighbors and classmates; and people always feel entitled to information, you know? But this led to Luise and Patrik becoming even more protective over their daughter. This led to Erika spending a lot of time alone when not at school, using her powers to heal injured birds in the back yard, or play with the light streaming through a window and creating threads of light to embroider with.

Her parents were well intentioned, but ultimately Erika grew up very lonely; and by the time she was about to complete high school, she yearned to taste some sort of freedom outside the blanket of security that was her parents’ house.

After briefly considering studying something like linguistics in Austria or Switzerland, ultimately Alice Salomon University in Berlin, Germany, was the answer for a newly adult Erika. Her parents were somewhat upset that she would be going further away than they wanted, but it was the independence that the young woman needed.

Berlin proved to be much different from the safe, boring life that Erika had led for the first 18 years of her life. It was a much more diverse city, far bigger and more populous than the one she had grown up in. And it was her first time interacting with other mutants of all calibers. She was still very young and gullible, and easily influenced, so it was initially difficult to find the right people to fall in with. It was also terribly scary being away from her parents, but she persisted, fully intent on going through with her social work degree.

It turned out to be exactly what she wanted–having grown up as a mutant adopted by humans, she had personal experience, and she also learned the stories of other mutants as well; and Erika became incredibly interested in the welfare of mutant children. Mutant children seemed to be accused of acting out more, whether it was true or not, and plenty were discriminated against by teachers, and punished more harshly by teachers and parents than human children. Erika wanted to help these children no matter what, and make sure they found safer environments to live in, and maybe even lobby for their protection.

Finishing her degree just before turning 21, she spent a couple more months in Berlin, doing some administrative work; until deciding to move to the United States and work on a masters degree there. She had met international students from America while in university, and the climate for mutants seemed even worse there. When she arrived and began her masters degree, she needed a place to work to get hours to count towards her degree. After some searching, the perfect position came up: a behavioral health center for children (up to age 21) needed an admissions counselor, which required merely a bachelors degree in a social services field and no licensure. From the many stories she had been told by other mutants, Erika was aware that mutant kids were extremely prone to being sent to behavioral health centers, whether or not they were known mutants. While she isn’t part of the staff constantly interacting with the patients, she does get enough contact with them to keep a close eye on the ones who are or may be suspected of being mutants, making sure they are being taken care of and getting equal treatment as the human residents,biding her time until she has her masters degree and license which will let her help individual children and families.

Ability: Light manipulation. She possesses a few applications of this. The possibilities are endless and her capabilities really only end with her imagination and willingness to try new things.

The most obvious part of her ability is light production, or bioluminescence, meaning she can make her skin glow. She has almost total control of this–it’s not a constant thing, and she can control the brightness. The default is a nice soft glow, though she can brighten even more, having the potential to blind.

Erika can also use light to heal. Basically she just lays your hands on you near the injury and uses light as the ‘fuel’. She can use the light coming off of her, or she can use a separate light; and combine her own light and a separate light for more ‘energy’ and a more effective heal. This also extends to herself: she can heal her own injuries in a regeneration type of way, and she’s a little bit more immune to illness. When she heals wounds, it typically does not leave scarring behind. She can also heal existing old scars. When she heals, initially a numbing sensation comes out, and then it’s painless for the recipient.

Another application is solidifying light and molding it with her hands. Using a separate light source (or her own if it’s bright enough) she solidifies the actual light, which briefly turns into a malleable substance that she can shape before it hardens. The items she creates will likely glow forever (though they could very well go out when she passes away). She does have some control over texture and makeup, being able to decide whether something will be hard and solid, or bouncy, or breakable like glass.

Of course, Erika also possesses the ability to use light as a weapon. Specifically she can fire blasts and rays of light that disintegrate anything in their way.

Drawbacks & limits: Glowing doesn’t take too much energy out of her; however, Erika is a bit like a solar powered lamp, and needs outside light sources to recharge herself. Staying lit up too long can become draining; and, combined with excessive usage of her healing abilities, can cause extreme exhaustion and even unconsciousness. She can only use her own light for so long when it comes to healing and will become dependent upon separate light sources.

She is capable of healing her own injuries; but too many times repeatedly can result in permanent scarring and potentially loss of sensation in those areas. She also cannot heal diseases or regenerate body parts, for herself or others.

Her light attacks are extremely unstable as she’s never really practiced them, seeing as she’s a pacifist. They’re highly destructive and she could even blow off one of her own limbs if she doesn’t aim right. These powers are much more draining at an immediate rate. One hand blast and she’s very dizzy and light headed.

[severestrangerenthusiast-blog]

Unpopular and Unmade

I’m gonna be honest.  School was always a fool’s game to me.  From what I know of what happened early on, what I remember, no special talents were identified in yours truly.  I recall trying very hard to pay attention, especially when it was made a point that I was not keeping up.  Looking back, the experience across the board and within the incremental process was full of self-disappointment, emotional put downs, and constantly led me to try little to excel.  By 2nd grade, I knew nothing and knew I knew nothing.  By 3rd grade, it was obvious to me that I was being treated differently than others and that it was affecting my level of interaction with others.  By 5th grade, school was beyond stressful.  The prospect of going into middle school was daunting, knowing the proficiencies I was lacking as I continued to know that I knew nothing by comparison to average students.  The harder I tried to make myself better at school, as it was taught to me, the harder things got for me, for at every turn of achievement the ladder only got taller and the rungs farther apart.  I kept on having to jump higher and higher, faster and faster, while my classmates seemingly enjoyed themselves, accessing a wide network of friends and mentors and by the merits of the education system, clubs, teams, and activities outside of school.  Others who were not as social even seemed to be having a grand old time compared with the tediously boring and eventually self-deprecating tasks of study-hall and “special” classes devoted to “slow learners.”  Where student quality was already in salvage mode, quality students were the last thing I ran into.  C, D, and F students were all lumped in together.  We were encouraged to be aware of our faults and discouraged of our ability at the same time.  It was a bad environment to say the least, but that it coexisted with a relatively healthy or supportive education system for others is still more interesting.  

Before education took root, I knew that I am here because I want to be here, because I want things to be the way they are, a wisdom eternal and hidden from ourselves for too long.  In other words, everything is in order and there is nothing of which to resent or be ashamed.  That feeling was only compromised during transitions from one level to another, between elementary and middle, middle and high, and high school and university. The feelings I was having and have again today are irrevocable and unyielding, despite my efforts to ignore them for a period.  I was meant to journey through a struggle, so that I could defeat it in ways that accelerate its total demise.  Hence, I didn’t resist the schools or the religions, the cliques, or the hopes of parents.  I never fought for any reason and never denied the envy that comes with witnessing more popular routes being taken than the one I felt I had to follow.  

Going against the grind wasn’t just cool to me. On the contrary, I thought it to be unwise or distasteful, but it was and is who I am.  Whether it was out of visceral necessity or something more abstract, I always opted for counter-strategy, cunning, and caution above and beyond the merits of society despite my moral and computational limitations.  I knew the power of silence, patience, timing, and fear, but there was something, finally, that I didn’t know, that I learned to my benefit toward the completion of the undergraduate years.  

I had forgotten how integral each of those powers were to a whole, autonomous, and unique being.  Before that realization took place, fear was taking priority and pervaded all interests, exemplified through many preventable embarrassments of hidden insecurity.  Even if I had loads of money or privilege, the mind had always remained in a mode of survival.  The years of education, through college, never had me in a single protest, nor truly devoted to any club, society, or cause, no explicit passions whatsoever, exiting many personally novel commitments half-way through initiation. Nothing felt right except to stay in and hunker down.  If something did catch my eye, it would be oppressed and repressed quite consciously, and yet, at great pain.  Devotion itself was often worthless to me, so it would appear to others.  A nihilist from birth, so I believed, there were neither freedom nor salvation to gain.  Still, life today has paid for those older days.  

Why this is true depends on a will to bring the authenticity of such a statement into the world, to be and not be made, as a creator of creation, as an atheist of God.  The occurrence of any depth of resolution, as a journey to scale, brings measurable improvement.  A stream of substantial reciprocity like this is reliable, simple, and risky enough to be real.  Indeed, life may be worth the effort it takes to live.  Mistakes and incremental corrections of mistakes can effectively endorse more and more efficient improvements upon our lives. Some call it common sense, but if only it were a fact so commonly utilized.  What is accumulated over time is an integrated pattern of information that comes with and offers us very satisfying adaptations, a synergy as it were.  To make it the best we can make it, we also can pass those adaptations out of the abstract and into the eternal spectrum that contrasts our very narrow view of the world, investing in the foundations of our highest desires and highest powers. Of course, finding those foundations is easier said than done.  

To know and not just say confidently that this generational, compounding, and benevolent element exists, it would need to prove to the living, every day, that it is worth keeping, and all that need be done then is to keep it.  Seeds are for spreading, but then, come harvest, many are for saving, and on and on it goes, getting better and better.  More complex versions of existence seem to consistently await us regardless of our values, obliging us to keep our values up to date with the current or future trends and patterns of the world we behold.  It is, therefore, important to state that it is because of this sacred and very human phenomenon of tradition and intergenerational culture that any of us are prospering or alive at all.  The Earth, the Sun, the Moon, and, in fact, the Universe has been giving itself to and passing through all of us, since we were around long enough to receive it.  Some see the sacred in the outstanding cultural objects, and some see it in the less exposed and more under-pinning, negative nature of the world as we know it. Put another way, the epigenetic field is as pertinent and pervasive as the genetic field, from which so many are most comfortable sourcing their proof of life-worth or identity.  Someone we cannot ever meet and that never personally met anyone living today took far-reaching action, through both time and space, for us to live in a relatively pleasant way, and that miracle of that conscientiousness is more common in places that also aspire to a rich future, to viable spaces to raise children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.  Mere life alone is not much a miracle of notice, but so is the making of it.  

Now, I have to start on why this was meant to be. I was wise and I was weird, because the schools held me back, put me down, made me vulnerable, were frustrated by me, and, yet, I stayed out of drugs and drama, had few friends, started no fights, picked on no one, respected all authorities, tolerated abuse, used manners, followed directions, and kept coming back for more.  We would have to go back to pre-school to find a Josh that attempted to physically exit the classroom, prying open windows to escape and having to be torn from the classroom door when dropped off in the morning. By kindergarten I realized that my limitations had been set within that room and other rooms alike.  It would have to be tolerated.

In undergraduate, not much had really changed and I have now easily, nostalgically compared the anticipation of college with that of middle school.  I wasn’t very kind to myself.  The first two semesters marked the best and worst times and some of the most defining moments of my life.  If I was supposed to go somewhere, I’d go there due to compulsion, guilt, utter loyalty, or sincere submission to authority.  Waiting till the last second to do homework or show up for class was as routine then as it was in elementary; miserable the whole way and facing inevitable punishment through and through, forcing everything and knowing I would have to do more when it was over for everyone else.  I was preparing for overtime and hating it more each day.  The odds were always great in breaking through personal limitations, thought to be fixed by prior experiences and cynical, desacralized philosophies of hopeless, oppressed positions against the world.  The demands made by school were, by the college years, the least of my concern; only willing to comply out of a curiosity for higher possibilities that thankfully always managed to slip through my tortured beliefs of helplessness.  Obsessions allowed me to be a student.  My lacking mathematical skills had scarred me and I saw the SAT as the last mark I would have to carry, likening the introduction to a university to that of a prison or higher-level self-torture camp, where I could discover even more deeply how dumb I was.  The only escape was to distract myself with studies that the university would not offer undergrads who required prerequisites most students had completed in high school.  

I went to school again, followed directions, but never deeply or truly believed in the process or that anything was right about it.  The experience of higher learning and formal learning was a great suffering that repulsed me.  It disgusted me further to discover that a college education was considered high leisure, but I adapted it in some useful way, improving steadily with the extermination of the discomfort and complaint that has plagued my life and others’ lives thus. My optimism grew to maturity in the last 3 out of 5 years of undergraduate curricula.  Employment instilled, finally, a sense of dignity, of progress and not stagnation, heading for change and not heading for eternal disappointment. All of schooling has been and still is a journey of self-discovery, although it had a rough beginning.