| Introduction
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xxxxxShe spent so much of her childhood looking for a door to another world, and when one finally appeared she didn't want to go at all.
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| Description
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xxxxxA white teenage girl with brown hair, usually worn in a pixie cut, and uncommonly bright green eyes. At 5'5", she's slim despite her athleticism and often read as a younger child, an impression not much helped by her inclination toward boyish clothes and enthusiastic affect.
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| Reputation
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xxxxxAt XS, she's quite well-known to be an interdimensional transplant and a somewhat inconvenient empath (despite not actually being an empath). She's the younger sister of Matt (a teach and X-Man) and Gaétan (one of the few human students). Those who've been around the school since before 2021 may know that there used to be a version of her in this world who died some years ago. Her power, when it escapes her control, can spill her emotional and physiological state and influence others around her, but this happens rarely now. She tends to avoid the cafeteria and the rec room at busy hours, or really any crowd when at all possible, prone to disappearing for hours at a time, but is nevertheless highly gregarious. Those who have more than just passing interactions with her tend to find her pleasant and earnest, if a bit odd.
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| History
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xxxxxSeraphine is the youngest of five children -- Matthieu, Lucien, Desirée, Gaétan being the others -- born to Elie Tessier in a reality very much -- but not quite! -- like this one. She had a comfortable and uneventful childhood with her family in Queens. Both her parents were steadfast and dedicated, and her two eldest brothers, though no longer at home, stayed deeply involved with their lives. Sera was unquestionably spoiled, but managed to come out of it without an obvious sense of entitlement to the doting she received. As she grew, she struggled with an unsettling distant sense that much of her family had a ruthless streak that she did not share.
xxxxxOutside the rosy bubble of the life her family lovingly constructed around her, though, their world was falling into turmoil. The escalating public antipathy and attendant government policies against mutants, in particular, threatened the Tessiers. Sera's mother and all of her siblings are mutants, but between the ease of hiding most their mutations and the temporal power which her brothers Matthieu and Lucien had steadily amassed over the years, the family remained, for the time being, relatively safe.
xxxxxThey -- mostly Lucien -- used their position of relative stability and privilege to provide clandestine assistance to the underground mutant resistance movement. One of Sera's closest friends, Spencer Holland, became a resistance fighter himself despite his young age, and remained in regular contact with her even beyond the assistance he received from her family. Things were tense for a time, but still not too bad for the Tessiers themselves.
xxxxxIn 2019 Sera's mutation manifested. Given the family's genetic tendencies it did not come as that much of a surprise, but its sheer sweeping power and difficulty to conceal caught the Tessiers off-guard. They pulled her out of school so that she would not give herself away in a moment of excitement or distress. Between her older siblings' respective powers and experience managing the same, they started teaching to control her own. She had just begun to harbor hope that she might be able to return to something like her normal life again, such as it is.
xxxxxIn December of 2020, however, the appearance of an interdimensional rift and subsequently interdimensional travelers threw the Tessiers' lives into chaos once again. One night, overhearing a conversation between her brothers and hoping to be of use, Sera passed some information to Spencer upon his next visit and set him on the path to rescuing a group of dimensionally displaced children. Little did she know, the straits they were in had been the result of her brothers' machinations to begin with, and Lucien had struck a deal with his counter part -- and Matthieu's -- on the other side of the rift: if he returned their Gaétan to them safely, they would take in his Sera.
xxxxxOnce this plan was in motion, Lucien persuaded Sera that there were forces moving on their family which would target her and, in turn, put them all in danger. Though terrified and anguished at the prospect of leaving her family and her entire world behind, she agreed to it in hopes of helping to keep her loved ones safe. She packed in secret and left with Spencer without so much as a goodbye to any other member of her family. Meeting the interdimensional counterparts of her siblings has been painful and jarring and her powers have not helped her transition in the least, but Sera is determined to take her new life by the horns and find -- or make -- some joy for herself and everyone in it.
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| Powers
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xxxxxSera's power may appear at first flush to be some kind empathic influence, but is in fact a form of sympathetic biochemical manipulation. Her power senses and changes the neurochemistry of those within its range, forming both stable and unstable feedback loops with them. These feedback loops occur automatically without her conscious input, and while she is capable of guiding or forcing them certain directions she cannot break them. In other words, any biochemical change she produces in another, her power also creates in herself, and vice versa.
xxxxxThe nature of the changes, whether intentional or otherwise, are intuitively accessible to Sera, although this does not grant her abstract contextual knowledge she does not otherwise possess. She can recognize and recreate joy, pain, sleep, or even hallucinations, for example, but might not be able to accurately diagnose an obscure neurological condition she had never encountered (she could replicate its effects, but would probably have a great deal of difficulty trying to describe it in words).
xxxxxChanges which are consonant with existing neurological tendencies (conscious or otherwise) are easier to produce, while "unnatural" changes are more difficult. The conscious cooperation, if applicable, of whose within the feedback loop also make it easier for her to produce changes. The range of this power is variable and can be consciously pulled in as near as touch or pushed as far out as 50ft, though her control over this is at present very crude and it default to a few fluctuating feet around her. It functions continuously -- including while she is unconscious -- unless deliberately suppressed (also currently beyond her skill for more than a few seconds at a time).
xxxxxHer skill at managing this immensely complex and frankly overwhelming power is rudimentary at present and she often slips into automatically syncing her own neurochemical processing (most obvious in terms of emotional and physical state) to those around her. Without conscious guidance this is often jarring as her power struggles to reconcile all those it has pulled into its feedback loop. She can overtax her power, though what conditions produce this problem are highly variable, based on the number of brains she has looped in, the complexity of the changes she has undertaken, and the degree to which all those in her loops (consciously or unconsciously) attempt to resist the changes. Overtaxing leads to progressively worse irritability, headaches, and eventually seizures and loss of consciousness (yes, those also loop others in range).
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| Skills
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xxxxxSera is enthusiastic about learning but not necessarily so great on follow-through. As such she has accumulated much familiarity with a wide range of hobbies -- archery, chess, painting, knitting, pottery, rock collecting, woodworking to list a few. She only dabbles in most of these, is notably a strong chess player and an excellent (highly physical) hockey player who works well with others on the ice. Her most enduring passion is reading, and she is in fact very proficient at creative writing in her dual native languages of English and French.
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| Connections
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Joy
- DJ - Righteous, swift, heroic
- Lucien - Attentive, elegant, kind
- Nanami - Spirited, strong, beautiful
- Naomi - Mesmerizing,
Sadness
Anger
Fear
Disgust
Apathy
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| XS Schedule
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Winter 2020-2021
- English: Expository Writing
- Math: Geometry 2/3
- Science: Intermediate Astronomy
- Phys Ed: Psionic Self Defense
- Health: Health & Human Development
Winter 2021-2022
- English: AP English Language & Composition (2/3)
- Math: Trigonometry and Precalculus (2/3)
- Science: The Brain and You
- Philosophy: The Ethics of Power
- Sport: Ice Hockey
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| Trivia
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- She feels your pain
- No, literally
- You feel hers, too
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| Gallery
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| Seraphine Tessier
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| Codename
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None
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| Birthdate
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9 March, 2008
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| Birthplace
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Queens, NY, in another dimension
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| Species
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Mutant
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| Affiliation
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Tessier(?)
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| Alignment
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None
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| Powers
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Sympathetic neurochemical adjustment
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| Occupation
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Student/Dimensional refugee
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| Registration Status
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(currently n/a)
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| Faceclaim
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Millie Bobby Brown
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| RP Hooks
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| Surprise Mystery Bonus Tessier - People joke about how large their family is, but this is getting kind of ridiculous.
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| Under Different Stars - Enthusiastically interested in astronomy, she often goes out on clear nights with binoculars or even her small telescope.
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| Words, Words, Words - She loves reading and can often be found tucked away with a book in the library, the study, the rec room, the tree house, or Conservatory.
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| What is This Feeling? - Her power attunes her to other people's biochemistry and them to hers. She has gotten pretty good at controlling it, but under duress she can still lose control of it and cause those around her to feel overwhelmed by whatever she's feeling, and vice versa.
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