Ezra Bellefonte

[Ezra Bellefonte]

Ezra Ichabod Bellefonte

FACE CLAIM: Will Graham

♦ THE BASICS ♦

AGE: 25

GENDER: Male

ORIENTATION: Heterosexual

POSITION: Art Teacher

♦ THE ABILITY ♦

POWER: Pheromone Manipulation

Ezra's body generates a scentless pheromone that the human body responds to with a spike of creativity and motivation.  Those who are exposed to it will feel a powerful urge to engage in their creative passions, whatever they may be for any individual.  Those affected can resist if they have to, as in, if they were at work or in the middle of an important conversation, but they wouldn't want to any more than they would if they had a sudden moment of inspiration on their own. The pheromone is potent enough to affect anyone within ten meters of him as long as they are not closed off (as in being outside a closed window or directly above him on a different floor).  

Individuals who are already inclined towards creative pursuits or are motivated personality types on their own will be hypersensitive to the pheromone, whereas those who are less creative or are generally unmotivated will be less affected.  

The effects of the pheromone last about an hour, but there is a "comedown" that lasts about two hours where those affected feel lazy and emotionally fatigued to where they can't summon any kind of motivation or drive for anything.  Think of an art student showing up to his studio feeling excited and inspired, but then feeling completely drained after spending ten straight hours working on final projects for his classes.  For a short period of time, he might groan at the thought of having to touch another paintbrush.  The come down from Ezra's pheromones is a similar feeling, only a bit worse as the full intensity of several hours of inspiration, like the ten-hour painting session for the art student, has been condensed to a single hour.  After the two hours is over, the affected individuals go back to normal, feeling no more or less motivated than they were to begin with.


Trigger warning: mentions depression and suicide.

 

LIMITATIONS:

• Only effective within ten meters.
• The effects only last an hour.
• After the hour is over, those affected experience a two-hour "comedown."
• Others cannot be affected by the pheromone again until after the comedown period is up.
• Ezra's body releases the pheromone for a period of five minutes.
• After five minutes of emitting the pheromone, Ezra's body cannot produce more for a period of forty-five minutes.
• Ezra experiences the effects of the "come down" (laziness, lethargy) during and two hours after the release of the pheromone, but the feeling affects him only a third as much as it affects others.
• If Ezra releases the pheromone again after the forty-five-minute "recharge" time and within the two-hour come down, the effects of the comedown period will be extended by another two hours, and intensified for the remaining duration of the original two-hour period.
• For example, if there is one hour left of Ezra's come down and he releases the pheromone again, the effects will feel doubled in intensity for the rest of that hour, but after that hour is up, there will be two hours in which he feels as lazy as he would have felt if he had only released it once.  The effects will continue to multiply over each other in this way until he has served a full two-hours for every release. 
• Experiencing only a third of what others feel from the pheromone's come down allows Ezra to withstand the effects of repeatedly releasing it and worsening his side effects, but he can only bring himself to a point in which he feels twice as worse as others affects before he has to stop, mostly because he doesn't even have the will or motivation to even try to release it again.
• Ezra is able to purposely release the pheromone by willing it.  Think of any other art teacher trying to inspire his students, but rather than trying to motivate them, he diliberately motivates them.  He doesn't consciously think of it as releasing a scentless chemical, but rather interprets it as willing or wishing them to feel the way he wants them too, like the feeling of wanting to convince his students to participate, but without having to think of anything to say to convince them.
• Although Ezra can release the pheromone on purpose, he can also do it accidentally when his emotions are high or he is under physical strain.  He has no way to prevent himself from releasing it during these times, and usually has no idea he is doing it until he feels the effects of the comedown.

SIDE-EFFECTS:

• Laziness and lack of motivation.  This affects Ezra during and two hours after the production of the pheromone.
• Fatigue and lethargy, usually resulting in frequent naps.
• Chemical imbalances in the brain causing forgetfulness, a low tolerance for frustration and boredom, difficulty focusing, absentmindedness, and a short attention span.  
• These imbalances can sometimes result in bouts of depression, mood swings, or increased emotional sensitivity.
• These imbalances are present whether he uses his powers or not, but he is more susceptible to them when he hasn't been using his powers for a while.
• There is a risk of addiction to the pheromone after prolonged exposure to it.  Intense inspiration and motivate is a pleasing feeling, and those who know he is the cause of it may want to come back for more.  But thankfully, this isn't the kind of addiction that leaves people with withdrawals or a constant yearning.  In most cases, it just leaves students feeling like art is their new favorite class and wanting to do more creative things for fun.
• In rare cases, slightly creative types can become dependent on the pheromone for those spikes of creativity, as they normally wouldn't be as motivated as other artists without it.

♦ THE CHARACTER ♦

HEIGHT: 6'1''

HAIR COLOR: Brown

EYE COLOR: Brown



MISC: He wears glasses whenever he isn't wearing contacts, and usually has a pencil tucked behind his ear.  He likes to dress in nice looking sweaters, button downs, or dress shirts, but they usually end up wrinkled or stained with paint or clay.


PERSONALITY: Ezra is an artist. A painter, a sculptor, a writer, a photographer, a musician, an actor, a dancer.  Ah, the arts.  He loves them.  He loves them all.  He has the talent and inclination towards all the previous listed pursuits, but painting and sculpting is where he most excels.  When he has an idea for a project, it completely consumes him.  He wants to think of nothing else but burying himself into his work until his vision has been achieved.  He is motivated and driven, excited by the thought of his work and enthusiastic about the process.

But Ezra hasn't been feeling like himself lately.  As in years lately.  As in since the day he became a teacher lately.

Other than a few people who have known him long enough to see his real nature, most people would laugh at the description above.  "Have you MET Ezra?" they'd say, rolling their eyes and shaking their heads.  Because that is Ezra's personality before his powers start to affect him.  It's a standard base, a starting point, like the canvas before the paint.  It's the egg they used in Scared-Straight lectures to say "this is your brain" before frying and scrambling it to demonstrate: "this is your brain on drugs."

Because as much as Ezra loves these moods, the effects of his powers make it nearly impossible for him to experience them.  In fact, they're not even moods.  That's his natural personality, but he only ever experiences it as occasional moods.  By nature, he is motivated and enthusiastic, but as a result of his powers, he is lazy and bored, lethargic and sleepy, wanting nothing more than to have a snack, watch some Netflix, and nap.  Nap hard.  What was once an occasional bored, tired mood for an enthusiastic artist has become what most understand to be his regular personality, while his artisticness and enthusiasm are reduced to occasional moods.  

If Ezra really wanted to just "be himself" again, he would just have to refrain from using his powers.  But the problem is...Ezra doesn't really know how to teach.  And when he tries, he isn't good at it.  Sure, he can show them the steps and assign them homework and all, but he's no "Oh-Captain-My-Captain."  He doesn't know how to motivate people, how to make them want to learn about art.  And isn't that the point of being an art teacher?  Not just to help aspiring artists fine-tune their talent, but to inspire students to explore their talents and to show them how to appreciate their creativity?

Well, that's what Ezra thinks, and he has no idea how to do that.  It is just so much easier to use his powers to inspire his students and let them take over.  And it often goes when one becomes accustomed to taking the easy way out, Ezra has become dependent on that cheat-code.  He knows it's a cop-out, and he feels bad about it sometimes, but the results of his students' work changes his mind every time.  So what if it was a lazy cop-out?  It worked, didn't it?  Why fix what isn't broken?

And so what if it makes him lazy and tired and bored?  So what if he has little interest in the passions that once drove him? He's a teacher now, and he's doing his job.  He can worry about his own projects later.  He isn't motivated to care about them.  It's a constant "oh, maybe I'll feel like painting tomorrow, but I had a long workday of doing nothing, and right now I'd like to sleep" that perpetuates itself every day he uses his powers.

But believe it, baby, on the weekends and school breaks, this guy comes alive.  He barricades himself to studios and workshops, throws himself into projects, chums it up with as many art buddies as he can before that bell rings again and it's time to switch himself off.



SECRETS: Ezra's dream is to one day teach without his powers, and he deeply envies other teachers that can. He is afraid to try to teach without using his powers and risk failing or causing a student to miss out on any progress the pheromone would given their developing skills.  And with a steady stream of side-effects from overusing his powers, he doesn't really have the motivation to try to change his methods.  His greatest insecurity is his failure to motivate students on his own without "drugging them up."  He hasn't really accepted this as an insecurity, and constantly ignores it and justifies himself by how much his students improve on their own with his abilities affecting them.  He becomes very defensive whenever it is brought into question. 

Ezra nearly committed suicide once in his final year of high school.  It wasn't long after his powers first emerged, and he was plagued by chemical imbalances making him depressed and anxious. He changed his mind when one of his siblings texted him: "What was that book you said you hated? I forgot the title."  It reminded him that he had people in his life to be there for, and things he wanted to do, and brought him to the terrifying realization that he did NOT want to die.  He started seeing one of the school therapists and the side-effect of chemical imbalances was discovered and addressed.  He has never told anyone, and he has never reached that point again.

Ezra takes prescribed medication to tackle the chemical imbalances his powers cause.

♦ THE HISTORY ♦

Okay, let's not even deny it.  Ezra has totally milked that last name for all its worth.  Because for a recent college graduate to land a job as an art teacher on Bellefonte's campus right off the bat?  Yeah, you better believe there was some serious name dropping there.  But as the firstborn Bellefonte sibling, grandson to the headmaster, what did you expect?  It was candy for the taking.  It'd be a waste to not take advantage of it. 

He was given the middle name Ichabod, the first name of the man who founded Bellefonte Academy, because his parents expected great things of him, things that would further the family's reputation.  But he was given the first name Ezra because his mother happened to like poetry and had a fondness for Ezra Pound's work.  And wouldn't you know it, that came back to bite her in the rear.  Because even with a name like Ezra Ichabod Bellefonte, the Ezra in that name happened to be an artist.

And much to her horror, that's exactly what became of her oldest son.  An artist.  An art student.  Her son, an artist by profession.  A starving artist.  Why, the very idea!  It was one thing to appreciate the fine arts, but it was another for her son to pursue a low-paying industry primarily.  Had he built on his talents in his own time while going to school for law or medicine, that was one thing.  But Ezra had only one path for himself in mind, and he saw no other option.  It was the subject of much tension and argument when he was in high school and college.  His father didn't have much to say about it, not that he had any interest in much of anything in his children's lives, but he stood by Ezra's mother's convictions.  

But when Ezra's powers emerged towards the end of his junior year of high school, his mother backed off a little.  It was she who first suggested he consider putting the pheromones to use in an art classroom.  After all, what was more befitting the Bellefonte name than education?  And though she would have MUCH preferred him teaching a more "dignified" subject, his powers gave him the potential to really succeed as an art teacher. 

"If you really insist on going to school for that, you might as well teach it."

Actually...yeah, he might as well.  Ezra agreed.  Fully agreed, even, and he wondered why that hadn't been his plan all along.  The idea of inspiring other artists excited him.  He always had a reverence for the art teachers that helped him grow, and he dreamed of being as much of a guru as they had been.  He spent the rest of his high school years at Bellefonte, and went on to get an art degree with an education minor at Bellefonte's college.

Of course, Ezra's mother probably didn't intend for him to rely on his powers for teaching quite as heavily as he does.  She probably figured he would use it to draw talents out of students with untapped artistic potential, or maybe give them an occasional boost when they needed it.  Had she known he would be sitting around "drugging up" his students all the time, she would probably still be nagging him to go to law school.

But what she doesn't know can't hurt her, and she has all the dinner party bragging rights she needs.  Her son became a teacher at his esteemed alma mater right after graduating college.  Good enough.

Ezra has been teaching at Bellefonte for three years, since he was twenty-two years old. Most of his time as a student at Bellefonte was spent wrapped up in his studies and his artistic pursuits, so much so that he became a little isolated from his family and more involved in the art community on campus.  After he became a teacher and surrendered himself to the side effects of his powers, he began to realize how he had neglected his siblings, and is always trying to be a consistent part of their lives again.  He loved his little siblings growing up, and used to be so much closer to them.  With a distant, busy father and an overbearing mother, a big brother was someone they needed.  And though he had never become completely estranged from them, they aren't nearly as close to him as they once were.  

He let his own life take up all his attention, and let those relationships fall by the wayside.  This is one regret he's been working hard to make up for.  Those kids mean everything to him.  One of them did save his life, after all, though they may never know it.

♦ THE PLAYER ♦

USERNAME: raizabluma. Ya'll can call me that, Raiza, or...whatever you like, really.


AGE GROUP: Early twenties.

EXPERIENCE: I've been role-playing since I was in middle school, but didn't really get into forum role-playing until I was in highschool.

WHERE DID YOU FIND US?  RPG-D

[Mel *]

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