CONCEPT
Lawyer on the run from the law craves vinegar and peace
POWERS
Rapid Decay
If Rhodes touches something organic, and he wills it to be so, it will decay extremely quickly. He has had a lot of practice with this, and therefore can control it a lot better than he used to, but still not totally perfectly, and it's best not to shake his hand when he's angry, because strong emotions will bring out the rot. The larger the target the more tired he gets; it takes nothing out of him to wilt a little flower, but if he ever necrosis'ed an entire human he'd be out of it for a few hours to a day. He has never necrosis'ed an entire human.
Organic Preservation
And he can do the opposite as well. By touching and willing it the other way, Rhodes can keep fresh organic material like it has never aged a day, without need for refrigeration or other tools. He does have a refigerator because who likes warm milk. This does not to his knowledge work for giving animals or humans everlasting life; something about just freezing the object in time wouldn't prevent time from still passing. It does work on corpses though if that's...I mean hopefully that one will never come up.
PERSONALITY
++++: Friendly, resourceful, creative, optimistic, intelligent
====: Midwest Nice, brave in an unnerving way, passionate about interests, easy talker, not a serious homesteader anymore but sometimes weird attitudes about living off the land because you can't trust the government only Jesus (not Jesus anymore) slip, isolative
----: largely amoral (oops,) vengeful, petty, deceptive, arrogant, has been in a sort of terrifying crisis of faith for the past decade but it's fine, temperamental
APPEARANCE
He's about 6'2" and built like a string bean with hair that never seems to be cut properly, and sometimes a weird little beard that he forgets to shave. Unkempt in general, dresses like your grandpa or friendly librarian with lots of cardigans and novelty t-shirts, often from Oberlin or his church but some are dumb puns.
HISTORY
Rhodes was born into a very Christian farm community from Minnesota, and he didn't mind it. The child of two teenagers' sins, he was raised by his grandparents in a little farmhouse, and touted as the smartest child in the little town. It did in fact go to his head. He was named Rhodes after the scholarship, which was a little vain, perhaps, but there were high hopes for him since he was a tiny child. A strange boy, he didn't like the company of kids his age much anyway, and found much more objective value in the approval of older and wiser adults. Of course, Jesus's was the most important opinion of them all and he definitely had that one in the bag.
Rhodes was homeschooled all the way through high school which did make him incredibly smart, but it did literally nothing for his social growth, predictably. He did learn all about how to homestead, though, and was a quick study in both outdoor jobs (farming, etc) and inside jobs (he loved pickling.) He read every book there was to read in every library in a ten mile radius. He did exactly what he was supposed to do in order to be successful.
And it worked for a little while, because he went to college, and not just some little Bible school like everyone else from town. It was Oberlin! He got into law school in Minneapolis, too, and the produce must've absolutely sucked there, because he noticed it getting bad within hours. Sometimes. But those baby carrots in his fridge had been in there for a million years with no rotting. That was weird. He attributed this at first to water toxins, but he quickly realized that it was all the things he was touching that were going to rot. This was terrible and he did not enjoy fresh food or handshakes for quite some time because if he held hands for more than a few minutes, necrosis would start setting in. That only happened once, to a future employer (not after THAT interview,) and he withdrew after his hand started tingling and turning a little grey, but the damage was done and Rhodes knew what he was.
He didn't want to be a Liminal. His church community hated them and thought they were devil-sent, even when it was clearly all science. Rhodes learned how to control his powers alone and very well out of necessity. But it didn't work anyway. The first time he went back to his grandparents' home, he got a little emotional and absolutely demolished their dinners (and it was steak!) into ash in front of their eyes. Devil powers indeed.
It was a little sad and very difficult to see the community that had raised him turn on him the way it did. He, the golden child, had done everything right and was getting ready to be a testament to the Lord and whatever, and all he was in the end was one more story about how the sinful city corrupted good children. Even his grandparents turned on him. This enraged Rhodes, actually. But they still asked him to help write their will.
He lived in Minneapolis until his grandparents died, setting up a cute little house of his very own where he was perfectly pleasant and made a lot of fridge preserves. When his grandparents did pass away (natural causes) (probably) (prove him wrong you can't,) it was found that their entire farm was left to Rhodes. Which didn't seem right. Rhodes didn't really anticipate anyone finding out his little ruse, but wasn't banking on the community turning out to be such an investigative force. He'd imagined selling the farm to someone they'd hate with nothing they could do about it, but instead he found himself fleeing fraud charges for enacting a fake will. He insists it was because the farm people just wanted the chickens.
He fled all the way to Enodia Station four years ago, where he promised that he could impart his lawyer skills ethically while also exploring the rifts, which were much more exciting than Minnesota, anyway. He's decided to stay there until all the heat dies down a little, go and get his own little grandpa farm somewhere. Explorer wasn't the most natural or logical fit for a noted indoor boy, but now that he's here, he's very curious about what's going on in the rifts and not exactly afraid of death or consequence, so it does work out.
NOTES
🥒 He is still a big proponent of making your own food and self-reliance and knows all about it. He has a pantry full of preserved vegetables of varying flavors and he does maybe use his preserve powers to see that they don't rot. The flavor experiments get weird.
🥒 Has a cockatiel named Jacob
🥒 Cannot legally do law work he's sort of on the downlow with that but he can look over documents maybe
OOC
lyss . cst . matthew gray gubler . see contact sheet!
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quickpickled
