NEMESIS

OLEANDER / GMT
[break]DC COMICS, jason todd / red hood

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[attr="class","appcat"]profile

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max ezra fischer


ezra fleischer, nemesis, insight (formerly)


human/mutant


29


11th november


newark, new jersey


male


male

[attr="class","appcat"]dossier

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confident, sociable, determined, knowledgeable, observant, perceptive, passionate, motivated, independent[break][break]
conniving, merciless, unforgiving, impressionable, manipulative, calculating, deceptive, impulsive, headstrong, stubborn, reckless[break][break]



how long, initiative, will you go on abusing our patience?
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or so max would think, if he’d ever read the roman classics - cicero would have really resonated with him. alas, no - growing up he was lucky to get enough peace and quiet to struggle through his assigned reading for english, never mind anything else. born in newark, eldest child of four in a busy household, max has been expected to be responsible and helpful his entire life. expected to be a lot of things, really - a perfect student, a perfect big brother, perfect son, and he can’t remember a time where it didn't grate on him. so quietly resentful was max that his discovery of his psionic powers was something he kept to himself, in absolute secrecy. his parents still don’t know. whoops.
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the grade-a student part was about the only thing he managed despite his best efforts, his natural cleverness supplemented with an extremely bullheaded attitude towards his work (‘practice until it’s easy’, which is essentially his life motto at this point), and he was the first of his family to go to college - the nearby SenTech, to study mechanical engineering. it was there, in kingsport, that the greater density of powered individuals led max to start using his powers in practical situations, rather than just as a party trick. after a few incidents averted by literally a stern word on his part, he joined a vigilante group of fellow students in his sophomore year, going by the name ‘insight’, working as part of a team to stem petty crime and low-level or lone villains. it was fulfilling, he felt like he was achieving something, and it didn't even cut into his grades all that much.
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but max has always been something of an impulsive, self-destructive mess, and it wasn't that long - just over two years, admittedly long enough to earn a fairly good reputation around town as part of his crime-busting team - before he started going after solo villains himself. but when you’re something of a violently secretive romantic, you can prove easy prey - as a newly-graduated max found out when he found himself being quite accidentally flirted with by the man he was mind-probing for Evil Secret Plan details. a few explicitly nc-17 mental images thought hard in his direction, and he was putty in the hands of evil. what a loser.
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as far as meet-cutes go it's not exactly one for the grandkids but that’s okay - the torrid romance that quite literally seduced max to the dark side is no longer, but the year-long relationship did much to shape his sense of independence and freedom - even if he could go back, he’d feel stifled, suffocated. he also would have to go back to relying on just his salary, and younger siblings’ college funds don't pay for themselves. after all, nothing will excuse him from trying to be a decent big brother.
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of course, that might end up falling by the wayside - max’s bad decisions have recently forced him into the semi-aware, unwilling service of the supernatural entity known as hashr, and it’s... something of a change. it led to him getting his abilities back after they were taken, sure, and they’re now even more formidable, but, well.
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strength comes at a price.

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variant: active. max is able to exercise telepathic insight to communicate with and learn from the minds of others. this is something he must consciously extend and control on a one-to-one basis, and through his baseline mutation only works on human brains. he is able to probe into thoughts and memories - at its most subtle, one might just notice a few random thoughts coming to mind without being aware their subconcsious is being rifled through like a cheap rolodex, but under time pressure more brute-force attacks are clearly noticeable and tend to have the side effects of acute, debilitatingly painful migraine-like headaches on both sides of the link.



variant: active. as with most telepaths, max has a heightened awareness of psychic attack do on his own mind. he isn't protected as such, but he is able to identify the source and launch his own counter-attacks. as with basically everything max does, the best defence is the strongest, most vicious attack he can muster.



sensory- & action-based, max has a fairly broad, jack-of-all-trades iteration of mental manipulation. at an optimal distance of up to about ten metres (sometimes up to twenty, if he is dealing with someone extremely susceptible and he's in particularly good form) he is able to influence sensory interpretation for a given individual, ranging from altering what they see or feel to dramatically altering their sense of time. depending on the complexity of the given change, it might take a single thought or intense concentration, and it is sustained for as long as max cares to maintain it. the link is specific to individuals, not areas, but simple tricks like his favoured simple blacked-out field of vision can be applied to up to three people at a time.[break][break]
the action-based aspect - ‘mind control’, if you want to be dramatic - is more precisely max’s ability to compel individuals to carry out certain tasks. the level of success and difficulty it has is dependent on several factors - the target’s psychic defences, their general level of suggestibility, their strength of will and their moral compass relative to the orders being given - but max can usually establish enough control to get a single human individual to do what he wants for at least a short length of time. giving verbal commands helps to improve the results, but isn't necessary for a single person, as long as they’re within the same ten-metre radius his other powers work best under. again, simple commands can affect up to three people. he’s fairly sure he could do more, but he’s never really tried - his ability to concentrate has limits, and the result of a slip could be disastrous. after all, he might be psychic, but he sure isn't bulletproof.



through his pact with the dragon hashr, his mental powers have upgraded considerably, allowing nemesis to affect both supernatural creatures and spirits. If not controlled properly, he can send lesser humans into a coma. Hashr's powers tend to decay minds that nemesis 'hooks', especially over longer periods of time. assume that none of nemesis' powers are harmless - in fact, his victims will feel as if their mind is being eaten. the trade-off for the host is constant paranoia and a feeling that he's never quite alone.
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nemesis is able to visit the minds of other dreamers, provided that he himself is sleeping. he is able to affect things in the dream realm.
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once per thread, nemesis can give himself over to Hashr in order to devour the mind of his chosen victim. The body will live, but the brain will become irrepairable.
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hashr's upgrades have no effect on the following characters: physis VALKYRIE delta and Zahir - only his original powers will be effective as usual. if nemesis uses his powers on grey while he is J, then hashr himself will intercede. no harm will come to his true champion.



alas, max is one of those crossfit lunatics. at the gym most days, probably doing something dangerously reckless and punishingly physical on the others, he’s pretty hardcore about it, and has been since deciding amateur heroism was a good way to spend his time. he’s strong, he’s fast, and he’s stubborn enough to keep getting up every single time he’s put down.