James is a defense attorney and a psychic. Since his gifts awoke within him in his early teens, he's been doing the best he can to balance the mundane and supernatural lives he's living. He's finally taken an opportunity to move to Port-Au-Feu, maybe start a new law firm, and live more in the supernatural world than he's been able to before, while also using his powers and status to help those less fortunate than himself, in whatever way he can.
Personality
In the courtroom, James is hard, relentless, a defense attorney who lets nothing get in his way. He pursues the truth, and nothing but the truth, all the way to the bitter end, whatever it takes. But outside the courtroom, he is completely different. He is gentle, kind, selfless. He donates to charity often and tries to help out those who aren't nearly as well off as he is. He's usually wearing a smile, and he doesn't believe he's better off than anyone else, even with his psychic gifts. However, that all changes if someone he cares about is in danger. At that point, he can become enraged, and throw whatever he has at those who dare hurt his friends or family. He becomes a force to be reckoned with, not letting anything stop him, sometimes putting himself in danger to protect others. He can also become different if he's very stressed. He can be more agitated, not as easy-going and relaxed as he usually is, and he may find ways to take his stress out on people, not necessarily on purpose. He almost always regrets his outbursts later, especially if it's a friend or family.
Background
James Addams was born to very well-off parents in New York City, New York in March of 1990. They were business partners, and their business was very successful. But James's family had something else, a gift, dormant in all of his bloodline, but that would manifest in those with the potential to use it well, and selflessness and honor to use it for good, and to aid others. James's father never manifested the gift, and neither did his younger brother. His father's older sister did, however, and when James entered his early teens, he manifested it as well.
James's childhood was definitely that of a spoiled rich kid--though, somehow, seeing many in his city who weren't nearly as fortunate as he was always kept it from going to his head. He didn't ask his parents for much, and often he would help other kids by giving them extra money, or food, anything he could do. His little brother, on the other hand, was the opposite. He let the money go to his head, and looked down on those who weren't as fortunate as if they were beneath him. He took after their parents much more than James ever did.
When he entered his teens, James's psychic gifts began to manifest. He found that thinking about things started making things happen. He could move things with the power of his mind, and he could read the thoughts of others around him. He knew his family had these gifts in their bloodline, but never thought he would be able to use them. So he contacted the only person he knew had the same gifts as him, his aunt. He moved across the city to live with her when he was fourteen, and over the next two years she trained him in his abilities, as well as in meditation and focus, which were key to using some of them. She pushed him hard, but his powers grew stronger. By the time he returned to live with his parents when he was sixteen, he not only had fine control of his telekinesis, though not a lot of strength just yet, he could also astral project for a limited amount of time and had started to learn the basics of his telepathic and empathic abilities.
He kept training on his own, even after graduating high school. He knew he wanted to help others, less fortunate than he was, and several possibilities ran through his mind of what he could do with his abilities. He had learned that he had to, at all costs, keep these a secret from anyone who he didn't implicitly trust who wasn't aware that things like this existed, and he had learned why. So, ultimately, he decided to combine two choices: law and psychology.
James went to college following his graduation from high school, majoring in criminal justice and minoring in analytical psychology. He also began to get more involved in the supernatural world and trained his powers even more. He learned to manipulate fire, ice, and electricity, and to use his telekinesis to fly. He also learned more of his telepathic and empathic abilities, learning how to modify memories to make people never know he was using powers that, to them, shouldn't exist. But he started to realize how stressful some of his abilities were, and during the summer after his second year of college, something terrible happened.
He wasn't holding any jobs, because his parents were paying for his college. But he was taking a couple of classes for summer semester, just to keep the ball rolling. This was stressful enough. But he made a mistake, he hadn't been paying enough attention while flying, and didn't realize just how many people had seen him landing until he heard all the thoughts, at which point he knew he was in trouble. He had began the process of modifying all their memories, but it was a large group, maybe twenty people, and his stress levels were higher than he realized. Modification like this was stressful, especially on a large scale, and his stress levels exceeded the danger zone. He never remembered what happened, but he woke up a few days later in a hospital bed. His aunt had told him that he had killed at least a couple of people with telekinetic blasts, burned a building down, and caused mass chaos. The incident was officially deemed an accident, as there was a special team sent to cover it all up, but he was on the radar of some pretty powerful people who could kill him if he made that mistake again.
He restricted his use of his abilities after that for a couple years. He never wanted to hurt anyone, and killing had weighed on him. He couldn't remember what happened, but he could never, ever forget what his aunt had told him. He got his degrees in criminal justice and analytical psychology, and he eventually became a defense attorney. From there he rapidly rose to the top of his field, because he had never, ever lost. No client he had taken had gone to prison, because no client he had ever taken on was truly guilty. He learned to use his abilities to help him win case after case, without anyone knowing he was doing it.
Eventually, in 2015, he opened his own firm in New York City. He ran it well, and he became very well known amongst others in his field. His streak of helping put those truly guilty away and keeping those truly innocent free continued, and his involvement in the supernatural world eventually returned, especially after he had created the app for his watch that would allow him to always see his stress levels.
A few years went by, and he was living well and doing what he could to help the less fortunate. But something called to him. There was something in another city, the supernatural nexus, Port-Au-Feu, so he sold his law firm in July of 2020 and packed up to move to Port-Au-Feu, to see just what awaits him next.
SKILLS
First Aid - Competent Level
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Not only is James certified to perform first aid, but he's taken extra, more advanced classes on it, just to make sure that if he needed to do so, he would be qualified. He is also certified to perform CPR, and has learned to combine his CPR training with electrokinesis, able to become basically a living AED.
This is what some of James's abilities require: focus, and concentration. James has trained his mind over the years, so his focus and concentration is almost completely unbreakable now. It is more difficult to focus when he is very stressed, though, which means performing many focus-based abilities back to back could not only stress him very greatly, but will also become more difficult with higher chances of failure the more he does them without finding a way to destress first. He can also be distracted by emotions, true emotions; faking emotion won't do anything to him since he'll know if it's real or not.
Investigation - Competent Level
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James is good at investigating crimes, it's part of being a criminal defense lawyer, after all. He has gotten good at finding details and piecing puzzles together, even with a piece or two missing. He has even taken on work as a private investigator in the past, mainly for fun and to help him get better at it.
James is a lawyer. As such, it's very important for him to know the law he is either upholding or attempting to find a loophole in, depending on what he's working on. Thanks to his idetic memory, he knows the law like the back of his hand, so to speak, at least when it comes to criminal defense. He is not quite as smart in other areas, but he could definitely master a particular area of law for a client or friend if he needed to, or if it ever caught his interest.
James is a part of the supernatural world, and, wanting to be more aquainted with it, has studied supernatural lore, from laws, to traditions, etc. He is not an expert in any field, but instead knows more or less a little bit of everything, but there's still plenty he could learn.
Meditation - Expert Level
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This is also partially tied to James's focus skill. He has learned and mastered the art of meditation as a way to train his focus, and has also learned to use it as a method to achieve peace and destress. If he wants to use it to destress it will take time, though, meaning that, if he's got time to relax and is alone, he could use it, but if he is in a rush and needs to destress quickly he'll have to find another way to do so.
Psychology - Competent Level
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James minored in analytical psychology when he went to college, thinking he could find ways to use it in the court room. As such, he knows even more about psychology than some other psychics might, and has learned to use it to both his advantage and the advantage of others.
Stealth - Competent Level
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James has had to investigate places where he shouldn't have been more than once. He has gotten good at being sneaky, especially because he needs no light to see. It would be tough for him to hide from anyone who was supernatural, of course, after all he does have a heartbeat, but any normal human, if he wants to be undetected, he'll remain undetected, especially because he can lift just a couple inches off the ground with telekinesis and walk completely soundlessly.
Technology - Competent Level
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James has an interest in technology, not as strong as some of his others, but still there. As such, he knows his way around computers, and even smart devices, watches, phones, TVs, etc. He's a decent coder and hacker, though he's not much more than good at either of them, definitely not anything that could ever earn him an award, but he knows enough to use it for what he needs it for and wants to do with it.
James has worked hard to train this skill over the years. Knowing he could mentally influence people, he wanted to make sure the same could not be done to him, so he made sure that his will was unbreakable, and very, very, very difficult to bend, in combination with forming an extremely strong mental block to prevent others from reading any deeper into his mind than simple surface thoughts.
ABILITIES
Power: Advanced Telepathy - Supreme Level
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Simply reading surface thoughts for James is passive. He can close it off, but he had to learn to be able to do that as the minds of a dozen people all around him spewing their thoughts into his head all at once could get overwhelming. But he can do much more than just read minds. He can easily view memories, even without the target knowing. A good mental block could prevent this, and even if it's one he could easily get through, any mental block he would have to break would definitely alert the target someone is trying to spy. If he's not trying to be sneaky about it, though, if he really wanted to see memories, the equivalent of Supreme-level mental defenses would be needed to completely keep him out.
He can also force minds that he can gain access to to relive memories, good or bad. He can even modify memories. For a large group, the modification might be small, like editing his sudden crash onto the ground from nowhere out of the memories of a group of tourists or hiding the fact that he lit a cigarette with the tip of a finger. For a single person, though, the modification can be much deeper, even affecting deep or vague memories; he can modify as much as he'd like, or even delete. He also has limited forms of mind control and hypnosis. At the very least, he could put someone in a trance, even a group of people, which is required for memory modifying, though he can also use it to keep people distracted if he's doing something supernatural in front of them as well.
Any of the things that fall under this ability apart from passive mind reading and the simple trance require focus, the more complex or the more people he's trying to do it to, the more focus. If he doesn't have enough focus, anything could go wrong, whether modification or viewing, and ranging from not working as intended, to simply not work at all, to a catastrophic failure that could seriously damage either his own mind or the mind of the target. So, if he feels he won't be able to focus enough to successfully pull off what he's trying to do, he won't risk it. Also, it's extremely rare that he would ever actually go beyond simply modifying memories of seeing the supernatural out of someone's memory. He knows the very real dangers of this ability and has made a promise to both himself and any powers that be that he would never, ever, ever use this ability for anything other than hiding the existence of the supernatural or for helping someone he deeply cared about. This is a focus-based ability.
Power: Astral Projection - Enhanced Level
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James can actually leave his body and enter the Astral Plane. He can use this ability to see what is happening in other places without actually traveling there. He can be as far from his body as he'd like, and will his projection, without much effort, to be anywhere he'd like. There are places he can't go, anything with wards to keep spirits out will also keep him out, as well as anything with wards to keep humans or other creatures out. He can't cross any kind of magical barrier while projecting either. There is also another drawback of projecting, his body is left completely vulnerable. He is technically not in it, so he won't know if he's being attacked, or even feel any pain until he returns. He can return to his body with a snap, but the longer he's been projecting, the more time it will take for him to return to his senses, as the Astral Plane and the normal world are different experiences. If he's been projecting for an extended amount of time it could take up to a minute or two to fully return to full awareness of his surroundings.
Power: Astral Translocation - Enhanced Level
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Using the Astral Plane, James can, essentially, teleport. He can, with deep concentration, will his body to be somewhere else. He must have a very clear picture in his mind to do this successfully, however--much clearer than is required to do it while simply projecting. If his focus isn't strong enough, or the picture isn't clear enough, he has a chance of ending up somewhere random between his departure and destination locations. He may even make it to where he wants to go, but if he fails, he will simply fall onto the ground wherever the Astral Plane spits him out, which could be painful, not only to his body, but also to his pride. The further he wishes to go, the more focus is required and the higher chance of failure, especially if he doesn't have enough focus, not to mention the more stressful it will be. This is a focus-based ability.
Power: Clairvoyance - Enhanced Level
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James has psychic vision. This allows him to see much more than a normal human would be able to, including having a 360 degree view around him if he wanted to, without turning his head. He can also see perfectly in the dark, even the kind of magical pitch black that might impair even many supernaturally enhanced senses won't affect him. He can also very clearly see any psychic anomalies, such as someone else using astral projection, or spirits, ghosts, etc. He also has the ability to focus his vision elsewhere, on a location up to a mile away, without leaving his body. This will leave him blind to what's going on directly around him, but he's learned to adapt his other senses so he can still tell while looking elsewhere, and not become confused.
Power: Cryokinesis - Basic Level
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James can freeze things. He can encase something small in a block of ice, or simply make it extremely cold. He can also thaw things out using basically the opposite of this ability, and lower the temperature of something without completely freezing it with fine temperature manipulation. This is an energy-based ability.
Power: Electrokinesis - Enhanced Level
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James can create and manipulate electricity. He can charge a battery, fire lightning bolts at an enemy, or even drain the electricity out of something. This last ability will not actually charge him up, though. He has even learned to combine his electrical ability with CPR to basically turn himself into a living AED in the event he needs to. This is an energy-based ability.
Power: Pyrokinesis - Enhanced Level
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James has the ability to control fire. Through his fine control of temperature he can do anything from creating a flame at his fingertip to setting someone on fire to creating a near limitless flamethrower. He can even douse a fire, by more or less using the opposite ability. He can also warm things up without using fire, simply raising their temperature by as much or as little as he'd like within his range of ability. This is an energy-based ability.
Power: Telekinesis - Enhanced Level
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One of James's psychic abilities is telekinesis. He can lift objects with the power of his mind, able to lift up to three tons with little effort, four tons with moderate effort, and five tons is about his limit. He can push past in the event he must, but doing so can cause strain, and consume even more energy than normal. He can also use his telekinesis for fine manipulation of objects, such as writing, opening doors, etc. He can use blasts of telekinetic force against enemies and can put up powerful telekinetic barriers. He can also use his telekinesis to fly. This is an energy-based ability.
ADVANTAGES
Working in law, James has made connections with many other people working in law, from all kinds of different areas: police officers, detectives, private investigators, prosecutors, judges, even people working in different fields of law besides just criminal defense. He's made quite a few connections in the supernatural world as well--vampires, werewolves, the fae--though the list isn't quite as extensive there. He doesn't necessarily have any real allies, but he does have people he could call if he needed information or advice, etc.
James is, simply, unable to forget. And not for lack of trying. He can recall every thing that has ever happened to him since his gifts manifested. Before that, his memories are either vague, or gone. This also applies to any memories of others he has viewed and thus made part of his own memories, though in a slightly different way.
Some of james's abilities require a lot of energy to use, which directly translates to caloric intake. Fortunately, he has a very fast metabolism, able to quickly digest food he eats into energy to not only power his abilities but also fuel his body. This has also allowed him to stay skinny, and will likely allow him to do so for many years to come.
As a defense attorney, James quickly rose to the top of his field, and even ran his own law firm in new York City. This put him in a position to make a great deal of money. Some of this money has gone to living a very well off lifestyle, but a lot of it he's put into savings or stocks to allow it to grow in the event he needs it, or for a retirement fund.
While James does not know it, the Queensmouth Academy has taken interest in him. They have helped him in the past; in fact, they were the ones who discovered his accident when he lost control of his powers, and they covered it up. They now keep close tabs on him, but it's very possible that at some point in the future they might decide to return the favor by lending assistance to their cause in the future.
Really this is nothing more than a standard Android smart watch, which James has linked to his phone. It can do all the standard things a smart watch can, make and take calls, receive and send texts, etc, but what makes it important is that he wrote a very specific app for it. The watch has vital sign monitors built into it, which he's tapped into. The app can show him, mainly, his stress levels, including a red line where the danger zone begins, and a yellow line where he knows he really needs to get under control. He can of course feel the stress, but having access to a sort of stress gauge on his wrist at any time has made a lot of difference in keeping his stress levels as low as possible.
WEAKNESSES
James's psychic abilities generally fall into two categories, either focus-based or energy-based. There are a couple of exceptions, but they have their own drawbacks. Focus-based abilities both require a very large amount of focus and concentration to successfully accomplish, with a risk of failure, possibly even catastrophic failure, if performed without the required concentration, as well as cause James a great deal of stress. If his stress levels get too high, at the very, very top end of what his mind and body can handle, he has the potential to lose control of his abilities and even himself, potentially harming, or even killing others, and even himself. Only once in his life has he ever come to that point, and thankfully he got control before the damage done, though serious, got any worse, and he aims to never reach that point again. He has developed many methods of dealing with this stress, from meditation to smoking cigarettes. The other category is energy-based. These abilities use his energy, which directly translates to hunger. The more he uses them, the more he must eat to keep using them.
James is a true empath. He can feel the emotions of others around him, and even absorb them into himself. Unfortunately this can weigh rather heavily on him. He's learned, through tough training, to deal with it, but very strong emotions can still weaken, or, if it's many strong emotions, overwhelm him.
James has psychic vision, so his vision does not work in nearly the same way as the vision of a normal human, or even most supernaturals. As a direct result of this, his eyes are also not normal. Instead, they are dull grey, with no whites, and no pupils. This would make him stand out as very not normal to any regular human who saw him, so he wears glasses to hide his eyes. But if someone were to somehow see him without his glasses, they'd definitely know, so it's something he's always got to be conscious of.
James has a lot of power. His abilities are quite strong, but he's rather squishy. He has no enhanced toughness or endurance, without his abilities he would be just a normal human. So, if something or someone catches him offguard, difficult but possible, or manages to break through a telekinetic shield, or anything else that would allow them to actually contact his body, he might be pretty screwed pretty fast.
