JARED GRAY:

A young man woken up from a year-long coma, trying to find his place in the team of volunteer superheroes who had rescued him. Struggling with teamwork and cohesion, Jared decides he needs to go back home alone when he sees the news of bodies found there, and hopes one of those lost was the person he cared most, but matters grow complicated when his team decides to follow him, and refuse to let him avoid his past demons.

UNIVERSE:

Takes place in the Glen Murakami cartoon, Teen Titans, where young teens with superpowers or specialized skills form teams all over the world to fight evil. Psychic abilities and mysticism exist as well as advanced technology, although the year and settings resemble present day.

HAIR:

Long, thick, black hair hanging to his tailbone. It's normally in a ponytail, but if he needs to have maneuverability, he'll braid it.

BODY DESCRIPTION:

• 5'3";
• Balanced vertical body type with a trapezoid body shape;
• A warm deep bronzed skin-tone (IV - V);
• Medium-square hands with a rounded arch, and long fingers. He occasionally chews on his fingernails, which is why they're usually short, but when he isn't stressing out, he lets them grow long;
• Small square feet;
• When in his animal formes, they are usually bigger or smaller than the average animal, depending on if the animal is naturally larger or smaller than Jared.

FACIAL DESCRIPTION:

• Round face with a low slanted forehead and M-shape even-wide hairline with wispy hairs;
• Prominent brow bone with full low-wide-set eyebrows with thinner hairs between the two brows;
• Small even-set down-turned hazel eyes with slight puffiness under them. After his transformation, his eyes became shinier, and more reflective, and yet, when he is in animal form his eyes are dull and don't seem to look glassy at all. Also, when bright light shines on his eyes, they glow yellow;
• Low-set, short, large thin straight nose;
• Small wide conch ears that are flat to the head, with a pinched helix and short ear lobes;
• Short philtrum;
• Closed narrow down-turned mouth with thin lips in which the top lip protrudes farther than the bottom;
• Flat cheeks;
• Prominent and clenched jaws with a broad and slightly squared chin.

CLOTHING:

GENERAL STYLE:

He has urges to be naked as often as possible, but only does that when bathing or in his room alone. When he is wearing clothing, it's casual with undertones that have vibrant patterns or embroidery. He often accessorises with thick silver and beaded bracelets with turquois accents that he and his aunt had made. His color palette is primarily earthy colors with a pop of red.

CASUAL:

Cotton T-shirt in neutral colors; loose-fitting jeans and sneakers or boots if he's working outdoors. If it's chilly, he'll wear a thick wool flannel shirt, or a large, heavy wrap. If it's hot, he'll wear a wrap that's lighter, and allows the breeze to cool him. He also wears a straw cattleman hat to protect his eyes from the sun.

SEMI-FORMAL:

A thin turtleneck with as few creases as possible, dark-washed skinny jeans and sneakers (because he doesn't own any fancy shoes).

FORMAL:

He doesn't own any.

UNIFORM:

His hero outfit was given to him by Brother Blood before the HIVE academy and couldn't be bothered to replace it. It's a white tight-fitting spandex full-body suit with an orange star symbol over the center of his chest. To hide his identity, he has a tight-fitting orange face cover. He also has a belt to hold his knife, bolo, and a cord. The suit includes his feet, but there are one centimeter thick rubber soles at the bottom.

MYERS-BRIGGS:

INFJ, INFP, ISFJ, ISFP

BIG 5

MORAL ALIGNMENT TYPE:

Lawful Neutral - Neutral

PEARSON-MARR ARCHETYPE:

Regular Guy - Sage

HOLLAND CODE:

Realistic / Doer - Artistic / Creator

ENNEAGRAM:

Loyalist - Helper

MYTHCREANTS SIX FLAWS

VIA CHARACTER STRENGTHS

PHILOSOPHIES:

ETERNALISM - ABSURDISM - DIALETHEISM

Jared believes that humans and life in general exist in a purposeless, chaotic universe, which makes his goal of finding his purpose in this chaotic universe as a self-fullfilling prophecy to failure, but this belief, while contradictory, is both true and false to him. Other statements and beliefs are equally true and untrue to Jared, which makes Jared also believe that all points in time, past, present, and possible future, are equally "real" rather than just what is in the here and now.

HOBBIES:

Vulture culture^[1] (collecting pelts, skeletons, insect exoskeletons, etc.), sketches, frequents herbal and metaphysical shops in order to improve his spiritual skills, meditates, sings old folk songs (mostly to himself), and likes reading poetry. He once thought that he would try gardening to grow his own herbs, but . . . considering how many times their base had already been ruined, why bother trying? However, he does have a potted cactus plant to remind him of his home.

FAMILY:

FRIENDS:

RIVALS:

ENEMIES:

CRUSH:

LOVE ATTITUDE SCALE:

Storge - Agape

LOVE LANGUAGE:

Acts of Service - Gift Giving

ATTACHMENT STYLE:

ANXIOUS / PREOCCUPIED: Is self-critical and insecure. Seeks approval and reassurance from others, yet it never relieves his self-doubt. Constantly feels he's going to be rejected, and acts clingy and overly dependent with their partner. He turns against himself and is emotionally desperate in his relationships.

SKILLS:

He is able to handle himself in hand-to-hand combat, but wouldn't be able to fight well in medium or long-ranged fighting. Also thanks to Brother Blood's tutilage, he's pretty decent at gymnastic-like maneuverability.

Because he's a just-turned skinwalker, he doesn't have all of their powers, and because he was still deemed an apprentice in traditional healing, his spiritual craft (curses) still needs work, but at the start of the story, he can shape-shift into animals as well as other people after having direct eye-contact or handling anything containing DNA (hair, spit, blood, pelt, whatever); however if the bones have been fossilized into stone, he wouldn't be able to turn into them. He can also mimic people's voices, and had just learned how to control the will of another person. When in another form, such as other animals, in addition to keeping his human intelligence, he gains the chosen animal's focused advantage. Birds would give him craftiness and the ability to problem-solve more efficiently, bears would give him power and endurance, big cats would give him stealth and grace, etc.

Stabbed, shot, poisoned, Jared would live through it and and his body would heal. It would hurt, and probably stun him depending on the situation, but he would live. He also is faster and stronger than the average person due to gaining his supernatural abilities.

He also speaks Dine Bizaad (general language of Navajo people) and knows enough Spanish to carry a general conversation with Mas y Menos, which the three like to openly tease Speedy with.

White ash will kill him, silver would seriously harm him. If someone's will is stronger than Jared's, his control over the person won't work. If he is tricked into speaking with his true voice while in an animal form, he won't be able to shape-shift again. If someone knows his full name and title, and declares him an enemy with all of their full mind, heart and spirit, Jared's curses won't work, but if there's doubt then Jared's powers won't diminish.

GOALS, MOTIVATIONS AND OBSTACLES

BACKSTORY:

The history would have been super long if I had detailed every little thing, so just typed up the highlights--how he became a skinwalker and how he met Blood. Just because it says a lot of abuse happened, Jared actually did love his uncle, which further confuses him, and enjoyed his camping trips, community groups, after school programs. He has happy memories.

Jared's parents were robbed and murdered for drug money when he was five, so Jared lived with his uncle, aunt and cousin. The Navajo Nation has a history of drug problems despite drugs and alcohol being illegal there. He did not witness it, and was at his grandfather's at the time.

Jared's uncle, a very involved community man, started grooming and abusing Jared at eight. Because Jared became desperate for a father figure, Jared became a target, and part of the grooming process was scouting him to see if he could keep secrets, and not tell people. Because it was so discreet, and no one would have suspected his uncle of doing anything so heinous, no one realized what had been going on.

His cousin was jealous because he thought his father favored Jared over him, so bullied him. When the bullying went too far, Jared moved in with his grandfather when he was ten, who, after his parents' murder, had been teaching Jared the ways of healing, and had repeatedly performed rituals on Jared because "bad spirits" had been lingering around him, but he didn't know that Jared's depression had been due to abuse, which continued even after moving.

A few years later, Bill, Katy (15), and Mike (17) moved to the reservation. Bill and Jared's grandfather became friends, and accepted them after hearing that Bill's late wife was Navajo and wanted his children to be closer to the culture. Katy, Mike and Jared began to hang out and be friends, and grew closer. Jared spent time with them at their home and helped fix up their fences and gave them advice on their animals.

Mike told Jared that he was interested in him, as more than just friends. Jared eventually, tentatively, accepted the relationship.

Mike caught Jared's uncle molesting him. Shocked, unprepared, he didn't confront them at the scene, but confronted Jared later that night when they were alone. Jared denied it, but relented when Mike wouldn't let it go; however Jared refused to report it. They struck a deal: as long as his uncle stopped hurting him, Mike wouldn't tell anyone.

In cases like these, if the victim won't testify, or confess what had been happening, the case often either doesn't make it to court at all, or if it does make it to court, it gets dismissed. Jared fully believed that nothing would be done to stop it, convinced no one would believe him. A part of him blamed himself for letting this happen to him. Because Jared's secret was out, it was easier to become closer to Mike, but he still wanted their relationship to be discreet. They weren't hiding their relationship, but they weren't very open about it.

Jared tells his uncle to stop and begins avoiding him at all costs at the same time as hanging out at Mike's place whenever he wasn't at school, apprenticing with his grandfather, or helping around the house.

Eventually, his uncle got Jared alone and assaulted him again.

Jared had planned on hiding it, but Mike found out. After hours of comforting Jared, after Jared had fallen asleep, Mike had snuck away.

Mike went missing, and there was a search party. The entire community volunteered, and eventually, the desert was the only place left. Groups and teams were formed to search sections of desert. Jared, his uncle, his cousin, and his grandfather formed a group.

His uncle told his cousin and grandfather to search in a different direction, while he and Jared went in another. Once they were away, his uncle tried to talk Jared into believing that Mike had abandoned him because of disgust, and that he would always be with him. Jared refused to believe it, and when his uncle began to get physical, Jared grabbed a rock and hit his uncle over the head. Repeatedly. His cousin, who had ditched his grandfather in order to help his father, saw the murder, but not the assault and lunged at Jared. Jared escaped into the desert, intending to avoid his family, but more so to find Mike. He was convinced that his uncle had hidden Mike away somewhere. He was so focused on finding Mike, panicking, and angry towards his uncle and cousin that he hadn't noticed that he was shifting in and out of different animals, animals he followed because they might have been attracted to a body, which made the search party tracking Jared confusing and difficult.

After a full week alone in the desert, his clothes lost, and his most basic survival instincts no longer focused enough, Jared collapsed.

Search parties had continued, and because Talon had seen the direction Jared headed towards, along with Gent's knowledge of Jared's favorite places to hike in, he was found unconscious and treated for minor scrapes and bruises, dehydration, exhaustion, and major sun poisoning. Before Jared was found, Katy had found Mike's journal and read it, finding the entries pertaining to Jared's abuse. Bill read it. Eventually, Jared's grandfather read it.

The police were notified of Mike's journal and pictures of Jared's bruises he had secretly taken on his phone, which solidified the evidence, so Jared wouldn't be charged as a major crime due to it being declared as "self-defense." His cousin didn't believe a word of it because all he wanted to see was that his father was a good man.

Once Jared woke up, realizing that Mike was still not found, and that his grandfather knew what had been secretly transpired between him and his uncle, his shame welled up and he shut down through hostility.^[2]

During the nights, he had wandered outside, and found out he could change his form, but kept it hidden. He knew what he had become, and knew the ramifications if anyone found out. Mostly, he didn't want his grandfather to hate him.[3] Jared regularly practiced with his grandfather whom occasionally told him examples of Witchery Way practices, if only to deter him from doing it in the first place, had anger and disgust towards his uncle, cousin, and even the rest of the community for not realizing his abuse on their own, and he killed his uncle. The court may have considered it self-defense, but his uncle wasn't going to kill Jared, which Jared knew. Because he was a skinwalker, Jared regularly questioned his sense of morality, whether certain events were his fault, feels guilty but doesn't want to burden the blame and a multitude of other complicated and often contradictory feelings.

One day, his cousin had confronted Jared alone, again, accusing him of lying, that he, his aunt, and even his grandfather would have known if his uncle had been abusing him. There was a struggle, but Jared landed a good punch to the jaw and ran away, taking advantage of his different animal forms to confuse anyone trying to find him, and to travel as far and as fast as he could.

Half a year later of living on the streets or in the wilderness, all-too-slowly getting a hang of his powers, he ran into Brother Blood. Brother Blood told Jared that he could help him learn about his powers. Without knowing Blood's true ambition to lead a cult of criminals (this was before the HIVE academy was founded), he accepts being Blood's protege. They travel the world, helping Jared with combat abilities along with gaining more animal forms to transform into, and Blood also helped him with mysticism and magic. Unlike Blood, Jared, more than anything, didn't want to be consumed by evil as the skinwalker legends had said, but because he was desperate, he didn't see or ignored the warning signs that Blood emitted.

A year later, he finally got his first mission, and learned that Blood's goal was to lead criminal organization, and refused to continue on, even sabotaging his mission. Blood was pissed, and tried to mind control Jared, but found he couldn't, and that Jared had forced his will onto Blood. He tried to escape, but because Blood was far more experienced, Jared was caught and drugged for experimentation. Blood wanted to learn how Jared was able to resist him, but Jared had forced himself in a perpetual coma-like trance, closing his mind off from Blood.

During the next half year, the HIVE academy was built with students recruited and Bee had infiltrated the academy and got to work spying, getting information, exploring the campus, and getting information on the students. Eventually, she found Jared and read a snippet of "Shift's" file, but had to leave before she was caught. She meant to find Shift again and get him out when Cyborg became a spy, but the situation proved too dangerous, and had to leave without him, but Bee never forgot, and made it a personal mission.

A few months later, Bee got a tip that Brother Blood had set up shop, and Bee finally got her mission to rescue Shift.

SCENES

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