William Bower
| Will Bower | |
|---|---|
 Portrayed by Jake McLaughlin | |
| Known Aliases: | None |
| Affiliations: | District X |
| Socked By: | Nichole |
| Introduction: | none |
A visible mutant who relocated to District X in February 2011 from Virginia and found general acceptance for the way he looked for the first time in his life. He befriended Jean-Paul Beaubier and Vanessa Carlysle not long after arriving in NYC.
Contents
Details
Name: William Bower
Aliases: none
Birth date: May 23, 1979
Height: 6'1
Coloring: Black skin with green shimmer/sparkle which is constantly shifting all over his skin and intensifies if/where his blood rushes to the skin (i.e. the shimmering seems to intensify on his cheeks if he blushes and grow brighter if he's drinking or flushed from being hot); bright emerald green eyes with black flecks in them, black hair and a dark green, forked tongue that splits all the way back.
Occupation: Computer Software Engineer specializing software that links the software to the human mind.
Relationship Status: (casually) dating Jean-Paul Beaubier
First appearance: March 2nd, 2011
Biography
Grew up in rural Virginia where he stuck out thanks to the physical mutation he was born with. His parents chose to keep him despite his mutation, but they also came to resent their son for the way other people looked at him (and how they were looked at as a result). Will found himself largely ignored as a child so he focused on studying, thinking school was where he could be an equal. Equality didn't exist thanks to his status as an outsider and so out of spite he worked hard to become and remain the top student in his class. Will graduated from high school as the valedictorian and received an academic scholarship thanks to academic efforts. Unfortunately, the scholarship was rescinded when the school found out he was a mutant. Will applied to schools anew for admission the following year and managed to cobble together enough money in scholarships and grants to pay for his education when he was accepted to Carnegie Mellon University. He focused on software engineering in school with his concentration being neural cognition with the applied purpose of making AI brains and software that can be communicated with and controlled through a user's mind.
Will stayed at Carnegie Mellon for all his levels of education, unwilling to move from the institution since they had taken him in despite his mutation on top of being one of the best schools in the country for what he wanted to study. He earned a Bachelor's of Science in Computer Science & Human-Computer Interaction with a minor in Neural Computation, a Master's degree in Computer Science: Software Engineering and a PhD in Computer Science with a focus on Neural Basis Cognition Thinking. He graduated at or near the top of his class at all levels.
In college Will found some level of acceptance, but he was never really part of the group or crowd. His romantic and sexual entanglements can all be brought down to people who used him to get back at their parents or an ex (rebellion) or a sexual kink/fetish/curiosity because of his tongue. Whether or not anyone has ever had any other motives for getting involved with him Will doesn't know, but he doesn't believe so. He's never had a real relationship which he tends to put down to his mutation. Will's gotten quite a complex about it all over time and he's got a pretty strong belief that no one is or could be seriously interested in him. The level of rejection he's felt and internalized has turned into quite severe shyness with new people and it often takes talking himself into it and gathering all his confidence to talk to new people (he also stutters whenever he's nervous or has any sort of anxiety). The combination of shyness, poor self-image/self-worth socially (he has a great self-image and sense of self-worth professionally and intellectually) and his history make it very hard for him to make any friends at all. He gravitated toward Jean-Paul and Vanessa at Zeitgeist because of the way they interacted with one another more than anything. It's something that kept him coming back to them (sex aside) after that first night with them because he likes to watch the way they play off of one another. It's the sort of dynamic Will has never had with anyone. He considers the two of them the first real friends he's ever had.
He's currently casually dating Jean-Paul and seeing if it leads to something more serious and committed, which Will is very much hoping for. He spends a lot of his free time on pet AI-related projects, reading, cycling and running. He signs up for triathlons pretty regularly and travels around to other cities to do them whenever he can. Thanks mostly to his proficiency in math and science in general Will can nail almost any recipe he's given the first time out. Cooking without a recipe, however, is a bit of a gamble as to the end result's edibility.
Powers/Abilities
Will has a prehensile tongue which is dark green and forked all the way back. He has such fine control of his tongue that he can speak normally and without any sort of speech impediment. Otherwise, his mutation is purely physical. His skin is black with a green shimmer/sparkle to it. The shimmer is in a constant state of flux, moving all over his skin at all times and also concentrating and intensifying when blood rushes to his skin (such as when he blushes). The green shimmer does emit a low level glow. His eyes are also a bright emerald green which matches the shimmer of his skin and has black flecks all over the iris.
Plots
None
Meta
PB: Jake McLaughlin
Socked by: Nichole
