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[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

Being an empath, Caleb has the ability to experience the emotions of others as his own. The strength, clarity, and understanding of these emotions varies based on familiarity with the person or persons, as well as proximity to them. He tries very hard not to react to a person's emotions, but sometimes, it gets the better of him, and he might blurt something out. In the interest of avoiding awkward infomod moments, I decided to make this post.

Caleb currently uses the color system to identify some of the emotions that he feels from those around him. Every person experiences feelings differently, however, and so not every color means the same for every person, even if the emotion itself feels more or less the same between people. These are the common colors he uses for the following emotions:

Anger is red.
Concern is traffic-cone-orange.
Sadness, is offwhite.
Happiness is pink.
Disappointment or shame is black.
Pride, i.e., feeling proud of an accomplishment, is gold.
Exhaustion, especially that 'bone-deep weariness' that accompanies depression, is blue.

For those emotions that don't have a specific color, or for which the color system doesn't properly apply, Caleb has physical sensations that allow him to clarify what they are.

Curiosity feels like Pop Rocks or ants against or beneath his skin. It makes him feel itchy and restless.
Nerves, especially those associated with flirting, are a very specific butterfly sensation.
Disappointment feels like sludge in his belly.
Pity feels like toffee in his joints or in his mouth.
Surprise feels like falling, giving his stomach a swooping sensation.
Pride feels like sunshine. Self-pride, as mentioned above, feels like inner sunshine, while feeling proud of another person feels like bathing in sunshine.
Calm is usually a blanketed, quiet feeling.

These two systems have helped Caleb focus on how to differentiate his emotions from those of others.

I will always, always do my best to make sure that nobody is unaware of or uncomfortable with Caleb's 'reading' of a person, using OOC methods such as DMs/PMs/Discord etc. If you don't want Caleb to be able to get a reading on your pup, we can assume that Darrow has muffled his power regarding them, and he'll be confused, but maybe also relieved. So, below are a couple of questions that could help make Caleb's interactions with your pup a little smoother and more interesting!

<b>Player Name:</b> <b>Character Name:</b> <b>How clearly would you like Caleb to feel your pup's emotions?</b> <b>Caleb categorizes emotions into colors, and sometimes, one color shadows over all the rest. What color would you like Caleb to see your pup's emotions as?</b> Someone who is always angry might have emotions constantly tinted with red. Someone with depression might have largely blue emotions. Caleb associates himself with yellow. Or, make up your own color and what emotion it might relate to!

Comments

[femmejosephine]

Player Name: Kes
Character Name: Nikita
How clearly would you like Caleb to feel your pup's emotions? As clearly as needed. It'll freak her out because she's always very careful to portray the emotions she thinks are necessary, and it often has nothing to do with how she actually feels.
Caleb categorizes emotions into colors, and sometimes, one color shadows over all the rest. What color would you like Caleb to see your pup's emotions as? If there's a color for wary/suspicious, go with that!

[chesspolitik]

Player Name: Sarah C
Character Name: Anatoly Sergievsky

How clearly would you like Caleb to feel your pup's emotions? Clearly as needed! Anatoly will try not to show any emotion but boy howdy, does he feel them
Caleb categorizes emotions into colors, and sometimes, one color shadows over all the rest. What color would you like Caleb to see your pup's emotions as? Combo of off-white and black - the sadness and guilt combo

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

Poor Anatoly! why him so guilty!

[chesspolitik]

He's been remembering all the crappy things he did - how he pretty much ignored everyone around him in favor of chess. And while he doesn't want to be home in Moscow again, he does wish he could see his children and apologize to them for not being around.

[forthsofar]

Player Name: Caitlin
Character Name: Rosie Wilson

How clearly would you like Caleb to feel your pup's emotions? As clearly as you like! Rosie tends to be very open, emotions-wise, so it honestly doesn't even take a superpower to figure out what she's feeling most of the time. XD
Caleb categorizes emotions into colors, and sometimes, one color shadows over all the rest. What color would you like Caleb to see your pup's emotions as? I'm not really sure what emotion/color this would translate as, but Rosie is often at least low-level aware of her faults (or what she perceives to be her faults) and how hard she feels she has to try to make up for them, so I feel like that would tinge anything Caleb might get from her regardless of her general emotional state. Maybe some lightish shade of black, since she's a little bit disappointed with herself? idk

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

Ooooh that's interesting. I wonder if we could like. Hmmmmm.

[forthsofar]

Yeah, it's weird, I know! It's not really shame, and it's not really anxiety, it's just...the existential discomfort of being a teenage girl? XD Something like that, anyway.

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

Well, let me know if my tag works, then! We can adjust the color as needed (or make up a new one XD like purple, or something!)

[forthsofar]

No, that tag works great! I love the ambiguity of it, I think it's perfect.

[openagain]

Player Name: Ashley
Character Name: Susie Bannion

How clearly would you like Caleb to feel your pup's emotions? Susie's kind of tough, because she's a Very Powerful Witch with mostly nebulous powers, and would most likely be very good at shielding herself. That said, she would know better than to completely block him, since she wouldn't want to draw attention to the fact that she is Old and Strange and Maybe a Personification of Death. She would most likely project calm and warmth and pride. She, herself, feeds of the shame of guilty men, and would very rarely project shame herself... if that makes sense. God, her canon is weird.
Caleb categorizes emotions into colors, and sometimes, one color shadows over all the rest. What color would you like Caleb to see your pup's emotions as? Calm. Warmth. Tinged with gold.

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

Her canon is sO WEIRD but I'm okay with it. I like this idea, though, that he'd get a hazy read on her beyond 'calm and gold.' I feel like it'd be really comforting to him at first, actually??

[littleorphanalien]

Player Name: Manda
Character Name: Michael Guerin

How clearly would you like Caleb to feel your pup's emotions? He'll be able to feel them pretty strongly, as Michael has VERY STRONG emotions a lot of the time, there is chaos in his head, so it's very noisy
Caleb categorizes emotions into colors, and sometimes, one color shadows over all the rest. What color would you like Caleb to see your pup's emotions as? Lots of red, offwhite, black, orange, and then the teensiest thread of pink through it all.

[scarequotesreggie]

Player Name: Merr
Character Name: Reggie Mantle

How clearly would you like Caleb to feel your pup's emotions? As clearly as you like, he only tries to be glib all of the time.
Caleb categorizes emotions into colors, and sometimes, one color shadows over all the rest. What color would you like Caleb to see your pup's emotions as? GOLD. GOLD. BRIGHT GOLD. NUMBER ONE GOLDMAN.