Post by Harmony on Jun 28, 2017 19:01:12 GMT -5
Name: Walter Lucas Costello
Alias: Harmony
Ethnicity: Caucasian/Mutant
D.O.B.: August 17
Place of Birth: Worcester, Massachusetts
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Height: 6’ 1”
Weight: 165 lbs
Hair Color: Dark Brown
Eye Color: Brown
General Appearance:
Walter is tall and lean, though he possesses broad shoulders such that his build could be larger without dipping into unhealthy, if he had ever been interested in weightlifting as a hobby. His skin is olive-toned when he doesn’t get enough sun, and he develops a healthy tan in the spring and summer, when he spends more time outside. He keeps his dark brown hair in a longer style, although not one so long that he could form a ponytail, and he goes through phases with facial hair. At present, he has a neatly-trimmed beard, but that will undoubtedly change as the months go by. His most distinguishing feature is a mole on his right cheek that he refers to as a beauty mark whenever anyone calls attention to it.
He dresses for comfort, saving outlandish costumes for the stage as opposed to everyday life. His favorite outfit consists of a leather jacket with a pair of comfortable black jeans and a collared shirt, or a blazer or sweatshirt as the situation might call for. He has a small tattoo on his left bicep that reads, “He loves thee, he is here” and one on his right that reads, “I am as I ever was and ever shall be.”
Personality:
Walter is friendly and oscillates between being serious and being fun at the drop of a hat, depending on the setting. He has a personality as big as all outdoors, which makes him a natural draw for friends, students, and colleagues, and which served him well during his performing years, and still during his time with the community theater. He’s quick with a joke, quick to offer support to someone, and quick to jump into a situation where he thinks he might be helpful. At the same time, he has intense focus and takes his job seriously. He also considers himself closer to adventurous than not, open to new experiences in a way that might have tagged him as a hippie had he been born a few decades earlier, although without the emphasis on drug culture.
He has a deep admiration for passion in other people; he doesn’t think that everyone has to share his hobbies or his interests, but he thinks that the only useful advancement comes when other people treat their interests with dedication. He thinks that art, all art, is the result of practice and inspiration, and he cultivates both; one of his biggest sticking points is the pervasive belief in society that art and other forms of creative works are a waste of time, and that everyone should be an engineer or a financier instead, as though that would somehow improve society rather than suck the life out of it from both ends. In his spare time, he keeps up with a number of projects, and during those periods, he prefers not to be disturbed. He’s a bit of a night owl and functions on only about five hours of sleep each night; he does some of his best thinking at night, which in turn means he runs on coffee and highly-caffeinated tea, and he can be found in the theater or the studio long after lights out.
Powers:
•Voice Manipulation – Walter possesses a powerful voice and through conscious and unconscious manipulation, he can attain a number of feats, and still experiments to discover new applications of his ability. At present, his feats consist of:
-Vocal Mimicry: Walter has the ability to mimic any sound with his voice, extending to mimicking other people’s voices, animal noises, and sound effects, or harmonizing with himself.
-Sonic Scream: Walter can scream at a frequency high enough to shatter glass, cause ear pain, induce vertigo, temporarily incapacitate a person or an animal, or push objects out of his way.
-Hypnotic Voice: Walter is able to focus hard and speak in a particular rhythm and frequency that can lull those who are listening into a hypnotic state that makes them susceptible to his instructions and post-hypnotic suggestions. As with most forms of hypnosis and mind control, a strong will or mental shields make it easier to resist him.
-Echolocation: By throwing his voice in a particular way, or by making particular clicking noises, he can discern his surroundings and measure distances by the echo he hears in response.
-Voice Projection: Walter can throw his voice as well as the very best ventriloquist, if there were such a thing.
-Perfect Pitch
•Super-Enhanced Hearing – Walter’s hearing is more akin to a dog’s rather than a human’s, he’s so sensitive to sounds. This also provides him with perfect pitch. This comes with the downside of never being able to turn it off, which makes loud noises painful and often interrupts his sleep since a pin dropping on the other side of the house might wake him up. Additionally, only his hearing is enhanced; the rest of his senses are within the typical human register.
•Perfect Balance – Just as his hearing is super-humanly enhanced, so is his sense of balance and equilibrium, since the sensory organs responsible for balance are also part of the ears.
• Vortex Breath – The ability to inhale/exhale with super-humanly powerful strength. In addition to an increased lung capacity, he can exhale with the power of a gale-force wind or inhale like a vortex. He doesn’t do this often indoors for obvious reasons.
• Empathic Projection – This ability is purely unconscious, but if he’s caught up in a mood, he subconsciously projects it onto other people around him, or projects onto them how he would like them to react. This is a broadcasting ability, not a receptive one.
Languages Spoken: English, Italian, some German, Gaeilige/Irish Gaelic
Other Abilities:
Walter is a multi-talented individual who has devoted his entire life to creative arts, starting from a young age. Between his powers, non-powered natural aptitude, and several decades of practice, he’s mastered a number of different forms. His powers grant him perfect pitch. He plays the piano, the guitar, and the alto saxophone, and he has a strong, crisp baritone singing voice, although he can also sing in other registers when using his powers. He sculpts, he paints, he sketches, he acts, and he does some physical comedy and circus arts for fun or as part of his classes or performances – juggling, for instance. He knows how to dance – some jazz tap, line dancing, and some ballroom dances like the waltz, all of which are a lot of fun for him. For passion, he enjoys helping others to discover which of the arts is the best fit for them individually.
Current Occupation: Art, Music, and Theater Teacher at Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters
Background/History:
Walter is the younger of two children, born three years after his older sister. He was raised in Massachusetts and spent summers with his grandparents in rural Vermont, where he learned how to work their orchards and their small farm, while participating in summer stock theater. He had a happy childhood, although he and his sister were as different as night and day. She was drawn to sciences, while he had his head in the clouds and filled endless sketchbooks with drawings of whatever he came across that day.
During the school year, he did well in his studies, but his real passions came from art, drama, and music. He was that kid, the one in middle school who found a way to be in choir and to play saxophone, and the one who took art classes at the Y on weekends. By high school, he starred in the school musicals and every last one of his extracurricular activities involved art or music in some form or another – he was in marching band and choir, he sculpted, he was in art club, and he helped to found the school’s improv club, and he earned pocket money by working the circus arts club at the elementary school when classes let out.
He had developed his earliest abilities as a child, and he hadn’t even realized. He’d had sensitive hearing and perfect pitch for as long as he could remember, but he didn’t think anything of them. Likewise, when in elementary school, he could do great impressions; he thought that was just a natural skill. It hadn’t occurred to him that it might be mutation, because mutants were only on his radar due to the occasional fear-mongering headline. His family never discussed mutants over the dinner table, and they didn’t learn about them in school, either. But, slowly, those natural skills of his developed into something else; by late middle school, he could shatter glasses when he hit certain notes, just like the often-parodied professional opera stars. And when he spoke in the right tone of voice, people did what he asked of them, if he asked nicely.
By high school, the rest of it had set in. He taught himself, and he did his best to keep his mutant status under the radar. That served him well enough, and to the best of his self-control, he didn’t take advantage of his particular set of skills.
When it came time for him to choose a college, he and his parents reached a compromise about what he would do. He’d go to a liberal arts school that had a good music and art program; he could double major, but he needed to have something more concrete than growing up to be a starving artist or a struggling actor waiting tables while trying to get his break on Broadway. He was fine with that. He joined Drama House, acted his heart out, studied art history and performing arts, kept up with his saxophone and the piano, and continued to keep his powers to himself. After college, he got his teaching certificate and his master’s degree, and he did a decade-long stint at a public high school as his day job, while performing with a local theater group on nights and weekends, and sometimes selling some pieces for additional reputation and pocket money. He had job security, and one perk of his job was that the school district would pay for him to go back to school to gain additional degrees or certificates if he wanted. He took advantage of this and ended up with a second master’s degree, this one in a cultural studies program that was purely for academic interest rather than expanding on his undergraduate coursework.
He liked the work and ended up earning a small pension. However, with the backlash against mutants that continued to come in waves, between first the Cure and Alcatraz Island, then the sentinels at Washington D.C., the constant riots and rallies, and then the election President Bridge and Vice President Petrie, his position became untenable; stress caused occasional slip-ups with his powers. Eventually, he was forced to retire, far too early. He later saw a posting for a position at a school in Westchester county, and so he applied; this brought him to Xavier’s School for the Gifted for the first time.
Play By: Robert De Niro (Younger)
Alias: Harmony
Ethnicity: Caucasian/Mutant
D.O.B.: August 17
Place of Birth: Worcester, Massachusetts
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Height: 6’ 1”
Weight: 165 lbs
Hair Color: Dark Brown
Eye Color: Brown
General Appearance:
Walter is tall and lean, though he possesses broad shoulders such that his build could be larger without dipping into unhealthy, if he had ever been interested in weightlifting as a hobby. His skin is olive-toned when he doesn’t get enough sun, and he develops a healthy tan in the spring and summer, when he spends more time outside. He keeps his dark brown hair in a longer style, although not one so long that he could form a ponytail, and he goes through phases with facial hair. At present, he has a neatly-trimmed beard, but that will undoubtedly change as the months go by. His most distinguishing feature is a mole on his right cheek that he refers to as a beauty mark whenever anyone calls attention to it.
He dresses for comfort, saving outlandish costumes for the stage as opposed to everyday life. His favorite outfit consists of a leather jacket with a pair of comfortable black jeans and a collared shirt, or a blazer or sweatshirt as the situation might call for. He has a small tattoo on his left bicep that reads, “He loves thee, he is here” and one on his right that reads, “I am as I ever was and ever shall be.”
Personality:
Walter is friendly and oscillates between being serious and being fun at the drop of a hat, depending on the setting. He has a personality as big as all outdoors, which makes him a natural draw for friends, students, and colleagues, and which served him well during his performing years, and still during his time with the community theater. He’s quick with a joke, quick to offer support to someone, and quick to jump into a situation where he thinks he might be helpful. At the same time, he has intense focus and takes his job seriously. He also considers himself closer to adventurous than not, open to new experiences in a way that might have tagged him as a hippie had he been born a few decades earlier, although without the emphasis on drug culture.
He has a deep admiration for passion in other people; he doesn’t think that everyone has to share his hobbies or his interests, but he thinks that the only useful advancement comes when other people treat their interests with dedication. He thinks that art, all art, is the result of practice and inspiration, and he cultivates both; one of his biggest sticking points is the pervasive belief in society that art and other forms of creative works are a waste of time, and that everyone should be an engineer or a financier instead, as though that would somehow improve society rather than suck the life out of it from both ends. In his spare time, he keeps up with a number of projects, and during those periods, he prefers not to be disturbed. He’s a bit of a night owl and functions on only about five hours of sleep each night; he does some of his best thinking at night, which in turn means he runs on coffee and highly-caffeinated tea, and he can be found in the theater or the studio long after lights out.
Powers:
•Voice Manipulation – Walter possesses a powerful voice and through conscious and unconscious manipulation, he can attain a number of feats, and still experiments to discover new applications of his ability. At present, his feats consist of:
-Vocal Mimicry: Walter has the ability to mimic any sound with his voice, extending to mimicking other people’s voices, animal noises, and sound effects, or harmonizing with himself.
-Sonic Scream: Walter can scream at a frequency high enough to shatter glass, cause ear pain, induce vertigo, temporarily incapacitate a person or an animal, or push objects out of his way.
-Hypnotic Voice: Walter is able to focus hard and speak in a particular rhythm and frequency that can lull those who are listening into a hypnotic state that makes them susceptible to his instructions and post-hypnotic suggestions. As with most forms of hypnosis and mind control, a strong will or mental shields make it easier to resist him.
-Echolocation: By throwing his voice in a particular way, or by making particular clicking noises, he can discern his surroundings and measure distances by the echo he hears in response.
-Voice Projection: Walter can throw his voice as well as the very best ventriloquist, if there were such a thing.
-Perfect Pitch
•Super-Enhanced Hearing – Walter’s hearing is more akin to a dog’s rather than a human’s, he’s so sensitive to sounds. This also provides him with perfect pitch. This comes with the downside of never being able to turn it off, which makes loud noises painful and often interrupts his sleep since a pin dropping on the other side of the house might wake him up. Additionally, only his hearing is enhanced; the rest of his senses are within the typical human register.
•Perfect Balance – Just as his hearing is super-humanly enhanced, so is his sense of balance and equilibrium, since the sensory organs responsible for balance are also part of the ears.
• Vortex Breath – The ability to inhale/exhale with super-humanly powerful strength. In addition to an increased lung capacity, he can exhale with the power of a gale-force wind or inhale like a vortex. He doesn’t do this often indoors for obvious reasons.
• Empathic Projection – This ability is purely unconscious, but if he’s caught up in a mood, he subconsciously projects it onto other people around him, or projects onto them how he would like them to react. This is a broadcasting ability, not a receptive one.
Languages Spoken: English, Italian, some German, Gaeilige/Irish Gaelic
Other Abilities:
Walter is a multi-talented individual who has devoted his entire life to creative arts, starting from a young age. Between his powers, non-powered natural aptitude, and several decades of practice, he’s mastered a number of different forms. His powers grant him perfect pitch. He plays the piano, the guitar, and the alto saxophone, and he has a strong, crisp baritone singing voice, although he can also sing in other registers when using his powers. He sculpts, he paints, he sketches, he acts, and he does some physical comedy and circus arts for fun or as part of his classes or performances – juggling, for instance. He knows how to dance – some jazz tap, line dancing, and some ballroom dances like the waltz, all of which are a lot of fun for him. For passion, he enjoys helping others to discover which of the arts is the best fit for them individually.
Current Occupation: Art, Music, and Theater Teacher at Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters
Background/History:
Walter is the younger of two children, born three years after his older sister. He was raised in Massachusetts and spent summers with his grandparents in rural Vermont, where he learned how to work their orchards and their small farm, while participating in summer stock theater. He had a happy childhood, although he and his sister were as different as night and day. She was drawn to sciences, while he had his head in the clouds and filled endless sketchbooks with drawings of whatever he came across that day.
During the school year, he did well in his studies, but his real passions came from art, drama, and music. He was that kid, the one in middle school who found a way to be in choir and to play saxophone, and the one who took art classes at the Y on weekends. By high school, he starred in the school musicals and every last one of his extracurricular activities involved art or music in some form or another – he was in marching band and choir, he sculpted, he was in art club, and he helped to found the school’s improv club, and he earned pocket money by working the circus arts club at the elementary school when classes let out.
He had developed his earliest abilities as a child, and he hadn’t even realized. He’d had sensitive hearing and perfect pitch for as long as he could remember, but he didn’t think anything of them. Likewise, when in elementary school, he could do great impressions; he thought that was just a natural skill. It hadn’t occurred to him that it might be mutation, because mutants were only on his radar due to the occasional fear-mongering headline. His family never discussed mutants over the dinner table, and they didn’t learn about them in school, either. But, slowly, those natural skills of his developed into something else; by late middle school, he could shatter glasses when he hit certain notes, just like the often-parodied professional opera stars. And when he spoke in the right tone of voice, people did what he asked of them, if he asked nicely.
By high school, the rest of it had set in. He taught himself, and he did his best to keep his mutant status under the radar. That served him well enough, and to the best of his self-control, he didn’t take advantage of his particular set of skills.
When it came time for him to choose a college, he and his parents reached a compromise about what he would do. He’d go to a liberal arts school that had a good music and art program; he could double major, but he needed to have something more concrete than growing up to be a starving artist or a struggling actor waiting tables while trying to get his break on Broadway. He was fine with that. He joined Drama House, acted his heart out, studied art history and performing arts, kept up with his saxophone and the piano, and continued to keep his powers to himself. After college, he got his teaching certificate and his master’s degree, and he did a decade-long stint at a public high school as his day job, while performing with a local theater group on nights and weekends, and sometimes selling some pieces for additional reputation and pocket money. He had job security, and one perk of his job was that the school district would pay for him to go back to school to gain additional degrees or certificates if he wanted. He took advantage of this and ended up with a second master’s degree, this one in a cultural studies program that was purely for academic interest rather than expanding on his undergraduate coursework.
He liked the work and ended up earning a small pension. However, with the backlash against mutants that continued to come in waves, between first the Cure and Alcatraz Island, then the sentinels at Washington D.C., the constant riots and rallies, and then the election President Bridge and Vice President Petrie, his position became untenable; stress caused occasional slip-ups with his powers. Eventually, he was forced to retire, far too early. He later saw a posting for a position at a school in Westchester county, and so he applied; this brought him to Xavier’s School for the Gifted for the first time.
Play By: Robert De Niro (Younger)
