GARRETT WHITFORD

the basics

full name ♦ garrett lee whitford 
nicknames ♦ please don't 
age ♦ thirty
birthday ♦ february 2nd, 1989
occupation ♦ 
school ♦ monroeville  
species ♦ human
ability/power ♦ precognition
how the ability works ♦ 

garrett has a form of precognitive ability which allows him to see glimpses into the future. he’s not a psychic, not in the traditional tv sense. he can’t hold your hand and tell you how old you’ll be when you get married and he doesn’t have dreams about future terrorist attacks.

well, not usually any way.

most of the time, garrett's ability manifests into feelings, hunches — those little flashes most people get that remind them to lock the door, or tell them they should call their mother. the ones that suggest maybe you should use sick time today, or no, do not eat the shellfish. everyone gets hunches like that, but not everyone has a 10/10 record on being right about them.

garrett also receives what he likes to call ‘warnings’ — and those are always taken in as sensory input. for example he might hear rain an hour before rain actually starts to fall. or he may walk into a building and be overwhelmed with the smell of smoke. (he has no idea if the fire will be that day, that week, or that year, of course. that kind of thing would be far too convenient.) he’s seen injuries on people before they get them, and gotten answers to questions without having to ask.

garrett has absolutely no control over what he finds out or when he sees it, though there is a clear correlation between the distance of a person or place at the time of his precognitive spells. generally if he’s standing in a room, touching someone, to talking to them, he’s more likely to find out things about them than someone who he’s just happening to pass by. but if he wants information, that’s almost a sure fire way to make sure he doesn’t get any. life's a bitch that way.

he occasionally has more traditional visions, the kind that encompass all his senses and provide him with a clear picture of something that is going to happen— but those happen more rarely, and always knock him out.

sexuality ♦ bisexual

the appearance

face claim ♦ aaron stanford 
height and weight ♦ 5'8 & 180 lbs
identifying features ♦ he has a faded scar on the left side of his forehead, and a few cheap flash tattoos on his right arm
overall appearance ♦ garrett has the build of an average adult male, a little on the short side, who’s familiar with the dollar menu at most fast food places. he has light skin, long hair, and generally can’t be bothered to shave on a regular basis. he dresses in mostly dark, neutral colors, when he has a choice in it.

the personality

likes ♦ 

despite being antisocial, garrett genuinely likes being around people. he finds the noise and especially physical contact to be grounding. he’s all about the small pleasures, since, yanno, there aren't really any big ones. he enjoys being outdoors, jazz music, and ice cream.

dislikes ♦ 

garrett does not do well with isolation. he is strongly against taking drugs or medications, and hates hospitals, which is.. ironic, considering his current circumstances. he wants to like optimistic people, but they just make him want to punch them in the face.

strengths ♦

years of cryptic prophesies have made him pretty observant, and pretty good at solving problems. he’s no genius, but coupled with his precognitive abilities, most people would consider his intelligence to be above average. when he sets his mind to something he’s extremely determined to see it though.

weaknesses ♦ 

he’s jaded. can you blame him? he tried to get help from his family, doctors, the law, and they all failed him. so now he prefers to work alone, and knows better than to tell people the truth. because of his powers, his grasp on reality isn’t the strongest, and he’s usually in some state of frustration/exasperation trying to solve the puzzles left in his mind, which makes him come off as if he’s some crazy conspiracy theorist.

dreams ♦

right now, burning down monroeville seems pretty nice  

fears ♦

garrett's surrounded by fear, every time he closes his eyes. and just closing his eyes often sends a chill through his spine. there’s plenty of things that set him on edge, make him jump out of his skin, hell—just coming up on him the wrong way will usually get you cursed out. at the same time, because he’s so used to seeing violent, scary things, he can be rather fearless when faced with them. what is your hundredth car accident, or fifteenth fire? in all truth he’s terrified of the responsibility that comes with knowing things

overall personality ♦ 

garrett is a generally well intentioned guy who just happens to fuck up everything he touches. he spent a lot of his life being told that he was crazy and a good portion of it believing he was crazy.. which is enough to drive someone crazy. he’s got a cynical and sardonic sense of humor, and can be a little off color, but doesn’t go out of his way to cause problems.. except for the monroeville staff. he’s extremely paranoid, especially considering recent events, and can exhibit an unpredictable temper because of it.

the history

father ♦ everett whitford, 64, state treasury employee 
mother ♦ mae whitford, 62, librarian   
siblings ♦ nope, lucky only child
important people ♦ n/a. garrett refuses any and all contact from his family 
hometown ♦ baton rouge, louisinna 
overall history ♦

“he always seemed smart for his age. even as a baby. we would do those blocks with him, you know, and have him point out the colors. he spoke at four months.”

as a kid, garrett's ability was a neat parlor trick, one that made him seem smart and allowed him to develop skills more quickly than his peers. after all, he knew things, things that other people didn’t. he knew the answers to questions people were going to ask, the right choices to make to make his parents happy. happy parents meant an extra cookie, and what other motivation did a baby need.

“he was usually very well behaved. very polite. but sometimes he’d have these fits… there was just no consoling him.”

the terrible two’s were, well, terrible. he didn’t have words to articulate the things he felt, so he screamed, a lot. often he would have episodes that his parents thought were seizures, snapping back with little recollection of what happened, but completely terrified of his surroundings. sometimes he tried to put a word to his feelings. but when he told his parents that there was ‘death’ in the bathroom they carted him off to his pediatrician who diagnosed him with night terrors and recommended calming exercises and less sugar. 

“it was when he started school that we could tell he was.. different.”

up until that point he has just assumed everyone saw the things he saw, thought the way that he did. it was normal to predict the weather before the people on tv, and know who was about to pass you the ball at recess. he was in the first grade when he realized he had been wrong. one day he went up to a girl in his class and asked her how she’d gotten all the cuts and bruises on her face. the strange thing was, she didn’t have any cuts and bruises on her face. not that day, anyway. not that anyone else could see. later that week she missed class because she had been in a car accident. when she returned monday, the bruises were fading, but in a pattern that he still coudn’t forget if he tried.

“it’s common with smart kids, overactive imaginations. but with the seizures.. we thought it would be better to be safe than sorry. so we took him to a specialist.”

like any kid who grew up watching superhero cartoons that discovered that they had a secret power, garrett did what was only natural— tried to use his gift to help people. but people didn’t like being told things that were going to happen to them (especially bad things, which they usually were), and they really didn’t like finding a child trespassing on their private property (apparently not even if the intent was to save their cat’s life). he figured he wasn’t being taken seriously because of his age, so he told his parents everything. and like any good parents who had a child with an overactive imagination and trouble focusing they took him to a psychiatrist. he was diagnosed with adhd and tested for schizophrenia and given a cocktail of medications, from mood stabilizers to sleep aids.

“no one in out family had ever had a mental illness before. we didn’t really know what to do. we just.. wanted to help him.”

the drugs had a mixed effect on his abilities. some dulled them, but others enhanced them, and some gave him regular hallucinations, which only made it harder to tell what was real and what wasn’t. those weren’t even counting the psychical effects of the drugs. tremors, insomnia, nights spent on the bathroom floor puking up his guts. one of the pills ruined his vision, which he actually didn’t mind so much, because at least when he saw things clearly, he knew that they weren’t real.

“we tried everything. we tried different treatments, different schools. but it seemed like he wasn’t trying anymore.”

he wasn’t. trying, that was. there was no point. by eighteen he had spent what felt like most of his life in therapists offices and mri machines. he had nothing to show for it, just a high school diploma, a suspended license, a notebook filled with what anyone would call the ramblings of a madman if he let them glimpse at it (so he didn't), and a box with newspaper clippings— that ones he knew, the ones he could have done something about. he needed to get out of there; leave his family, leave the goddamn city, get clean and start over.

“the week before the.. incident, he seemed brighter. we should have known— they always say that’s something to watch out for. because it means they have a plan.”

for the first time in his life he saw something that could actually help him, something that he could use, without research, without endangering himself. he saw the winner of the super bowl. it was only the second week of the playoffs, but he was sure. he stole a hundred dollars from his parents (he’d put it back when he one, no, he’d double it- they deserved that) and bet on his team. the winnings were in the thousands. he bought himself a car, a new jacket, more snacks from the convenience store than an adult probably should have been excited about — and set off on his new life. 

“i do believe it was an accident. he would never hurt someone on purpose.”

he lasted about sixty miles. which was probably what he should have expected, considering his track record of spectacular failures. he was exiting a highway when his eyes glazed over— it wasn’t a long vision, but it was long enough for him to run the light and hit another car head on. he broke two bones and nearly bit his tongue off, but the driver and passenger in the other car both died. the cops didn’t believe his story, the one that was the truth, and one look at his record - a number of petty crimes, mental disorders, and regularly being just a little too close to suspicious crime scenes- sealed his fate.

“but he’s sick and this is the best place for him to be.”

the role player

alias ♦ nick
age ♦ twenty-two
pronouns ♦ he/him
code ♦ ADMIN EDIT
other characters ♦ not yet