Lorenzo Vázquez

{Warning: long as hell bio ahead with some brief references to ableist abuse done in mental hospitals. Also if you have any questions/suggestions/concerns about Lorenzo and any other characters mentioned here please don't be afraid to ask! Lorenzo is an old as hell OC that I've been revamping on and off for the past ten years. Originally he was the main character in a novel attempt of mine from back in middle school, but recently I've been kind of lowkey developing his story for television for fun~}


Full Name: Lorenzo Eduardo Vázquez Azarola

Nicknames/Aliases: Renzo and "Loki" as his alter ego

Age: 15

Birthday: May 27, 2001 (Gemini)

Gender: Cis Male (though honestly he is questioning some things)

Sexuality: Bisexual

Species: Magically-modified human "Seer" and accidental "Proxy"

{KEY NOTES: A Seer is a person who is able to see, sense, interact and converse with the dead and see what normal humans in general cannot see. They also have retrocognitive abilities, as in they can see visions of the past that's tied to the dead, though most of the time they don't have control over this. Usually this ability can be triggered in the presence of the deceased, in a place that the deceased frequented in life, via their dreams or by touching something that belonged to the deceased. Also due to this Seers can go into a trance. A lot of times Seers will also be Empaths who can sense and be influenced by intense emotions of other people and creatures, but not every Seer will have this ability. Like the retrocognitive abilities, this ability cannot be controlled either. Also while most Seers are born with this ability and it can also be inherited through blood, a normal person can become one if they go through a traumatic enough near-death experience.

A Proxy on the other hand is a person who serves as a vessel to a being from the AMARANTHINE (Pantheon of unspeakable Eldritch beings/Gods/entities who have existed since the dawn of time. Think Lovecraft) and is able to use some of their powers, but at the cost of their humanity and mental health. For instance, Lorenzo as a proxy involuntarily coughs up black smoke and black blood, which also leaks from his eyes; he gets nightmarish visions almost every night, his naturally brown eyes have turned blood red, and he has an inexplicable craving for charcoal. Other proxies, especially if the God that they are playing host to is a particularly cruel or powerful one, then their body might slowly mutate into something horrifying. Not to mention, most proxies will also get the memories of the previous proxies before them. Said entities can also possess their vessel at anytime to force them to do their bidding and in general act like parasites upon a host. Lorenzo becomes one when he is 15, but was able to keep his agency due to the fact that his specific Eldritch  being was still slumbering inside him. One also does not have to be a Seer in order to become a Proxy; since usually once the Eldritch being bonds with someone they basically become a Seer whether they are already or not, but most beings from the AMARANTHINE prefer possible Proxies that already are Seers.}

Race/Ethnicity: Latin@/Mexican

Birthplace: Redondo Beach, CA, USA

Family:
-Vera Vázquez (Older sister who wants to become the female Stanley Kubrick; currently 17)
-Óscar Vázquez (Father who was a successful prosecutor; killed in a car crash)
-Alma Vázquez nee Azarola (Mother who was an anthropologist/folklorist; killed in a car crash)
-Héctor Vázquez (Grandfather who's obsessed with the supernatural and is a Vietnam Veteran who can't cook if his life depended on it; has been divorced for a good 30 years; Lorenzo and Vera currently live with him)

Current Living Location: Poincare, RI, USA

Occupation: Student at Howard Roberts High//unwilling town hero and unwilling vessel to the unspeakable eldritch abomination, Khaos.

Personality: At first glance he seems to be a very apathetic and closed-off boy, but don't let it fool you, this boy cares immensely. However once he actually starts making friends for once, a more confident, brash, mischievous, drama queen personality starts shining through. Not to mention a more nuturing and caring one as well. Also can't forget that he can and will be petty as hell if someone crosses him or his loved ones.

Likes: Watching stuff on Netflix and Crunchyroll, watching television in general, junk food (especially hamburgers, fries, potato chips, and pocky because while he ain't 12 anymore he can't run nor hide from his past), frappuccinos from Starbucks, reading comics and manga (hE CAN'T RUN) along with reading in general, getting a new pack of charcoal all to himself (because sometimes when you're a proxy you get "cravings" for something "new"), music like alternative, punk, metal, showtunes and classical, musicals, playing the guitar (or attempting), playing video games (faves are Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley and Undertale), hanging out with his friends and hanging out at Makena's cafe The Loved Dead, not being bothered by any ghosts whatsoever, peace and quiet in general, and not having to deal with an emergency in town.

Dislikes: Being constantly bothered by ghosts, not getting any alone time, being called and thought of as a "psycho," when his grandfather actually cooks, whenever Julia tries to bother him in the middle of the night or when she tries to drag him off to one of her tea parties in the attic, whatever monstrosity from the internet that Luis tries to show him, mental hospitals, therapists, people who think mentally ill people are violent "psychopaths," when people pick on his friends, racist/sexist/ableist/homophobic/biphobic assholes, and when people use religion as an excuse to act as assholes.

Powers: Before becoming a proxy, all he had was the ability to see/speak/interact with the dead along with the abilities of retrocognition (can see past memories of the dead in visions and cannot control this at all), some empath abilities (also can't control this and can get really influenced by intense emotions of both the living and the dead). After he becomes a proxy he gains, fire and darkness manipulation (usually uses this to fashion chain-like and whip-like weapons), a minor teleportation ability that is similar to "flash step" where he can teleport short distances in a flurry of black butterflies, some chaos manipulation/reality warping but cannot control this at all, and increased healing, strength, endurance, durability and speed. He also seems to have some sort of potential shape shifting ability, but he also cannot control this at all and it is more of a response to extreme stress where he seems to "glitch" in and out of reality or maybe some extra eyes may appear on his head or hands, etc.

Backstory: Blessed cursed with the "gift" of being able to see the dead, being a seer had made Lorenzo's life a literal living hell. He was constantly accosted by Earthbound souls, both well-meaning and...not so well-meaning; both wanting to turn him into their own little messenger/delivery boy/avenger. The fact that nobody else that he knew could see these things didn't help any matters and caused everyone in his school and his own family to think that he was mentally "insane." Eventually at the beginning of middle school, his parents got him (mis)diagnosed with schizophrenia and thus began his next couple of years of hell where he was put on anti-psychotics (of which he is still suffering from side effects aka hand tremors, to this day) and institutionalized against his will by his parents in various mental hospitals, some kind of decent and some...well, let's just say that he did NOT have a good time (and instead had many a right violated...). Of course, this ended up straining his relationship with his parents (especially his father) severely, which was brought to a head with a screaming match between him and his father right before his parents were to go to a special event....Annnnnnd with luck as great as his of course his parents promptly died in a car accident on the way home, leaving he and his sister orphaned and having no choice but to move across the country to some weird as heck small town on the east coast to live with their estranged grandfather (it was either that or live with their grandmother aka Héctor's overly religious ex-wife who is literally emotionally abusive). So off they went to live in Poincare to try and mourn their loss and to move on with their lives (with Lorenzo trying to ignore whatever was possibly haunting their grandpa's house) and it was fine...for a couple of days. By the time Vera got friendly with a couple of girls at their new school, Lorenzo got dragged unwillingly to some weird yearly tradition where local teenagers try to sneak into the local spooky abandoned library that is totally not haunted™ to party that Lorenzo could immediately tell that it probably was haunted

And haunted it was! Next thing Lorenzo knew after entering the obviously condemned place (and possibly meeting some new friends of his own), was that he was being hunted down by a local infamous spirit by the moniker of "The Lady in Black," a skeletal-looking ghost clad in full Victorian mourning clothes that is usually only seen to forewarn when a fire is about to break out somewhere in town. Now what did The Lady in Black want with Lorenzo? The hell that he knew. The only thing that he did know was that he needed to get the heck out of there, but before he could finally reach the window that everyone snuck in through and while everyone else was freaking out and trying to escape themselves before the police got there to break things up, he fell through some rotted floorboards into the basement. Oddly enough the basement seemed to be bigger than the main building itself seemed to appear and in a daze, Lorenzo kept trying to limp through what looked like an actual Godforsaken labryinth only to come across a series a doors. Going through a couple of them, eventually he came across a room with a box with God knows how many intricate old paper seals all over it, and was immediately cornered by The Lady in Black. Just about when she was about to close in on him, Lorenzo fell backwards onto the table knocking the box over which in turn caused the seals to disintegrate and for what looked like a simple white mask to fall out right next to him. This was when Lorenzo made his final mistake of the day and accidentally touch said mask, which then promptly turned him into the new proxy for Khaos, the literal embodiment of chaos and the first of the AMARANTHINE to emerge in this universe. The first one in over a century. This of course caused The Lady in Black to actually become (somehow) visibly distressed and actually flee in fear only to leave Lorenzo having the time of his life (aka the most painful moment of his life up until that point) getting transformed into Khaos' new proxy with all of the fun experiences of convulsions, bones literally breaking and then healing a moment later, his naturally brown eyes turning blood red, having black liquid leak from his eyes and coughing up waaaaaay too much black smoke than what was considered to be "healthy." Eventually, just as quickly as it began it stopped and almost like in a trance he calmly got up, picked up the mask, navigated the now normal-looking library basement and went home to his freaked out sister.

Afterwards he tried to ignore what he had become; tried to ignore the scorchmarks on the furniture in his room, the nightmarish visions of another world at night, the cravings for charcoal and the constant coughing of black smoke, and the annoying little, Victorian ghost girl by the name of Julia who he had found out was the spirit that was actually haunting his grandfather's house. But then the weird as heck small town that he was starting to call home, starting getting a lot more weirder with the local esoteric cults, which were at one point just seen as more of a harmless annoyance, start getting a lot more violent, the government and the police starting to get a lot more controlling, and the strange things that the townspeople once tried to ignore starting to get a lot more prominent and hungry. Soon Lorenzo couldn't ignore things any longer and (thanks to the prodding of Julia) decided to use his newfound "gifts" to proper use. And then of course he finds out that the cults are after him for the slumbering Khaos' power, some more of the AMARANTHINE want to "play," and that he isn't the only proxy around in town...

FUN FACTS:

He is currently banned from the art room due to being caught by the art teacher lowkey stealing charcoal

He was bullied a lot back at his old school for being a "psycho." He also just in general had this lowkey ability of making anybody uncomfortable whether they knew about him or not and sometimes people have a hard time looking him in the eyes. He doesn't understand why this happens and just wish that people would actually treat him as "normal" for once in his life.

While he does not actually have schizophrenia he is still mentally ill and has both PTSD (from not only the messed up stuff that he has had to see and deal with as a seer but also from the abuse that he suffered from both orderlies and other patients while institutionalized) and depression, along with anxiety. He also tends to dissociate a lot.

It wasn't until Poincare that he actually did get some friends aka Delilah Seung (15 year old autistic, bisexual, Korean-American girl that will fucking fight you over who's the best metal guitarist of all time), Nate Hadamard (15 year old gay, Jewish punk boy that just wishes we could all get along like we used to in middle school... I wish I could bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat and be happy...), Luis Littlewood (14 year old pansexual, African-American/Native American boy with ADHD who is simultaneously the sweetest boy alive while also being a shitposter extraordinaire and a Goddamn furry™), Yijun Chua (15 year old, potentially bicurious but is currently too engrossed in some good ol' fashioned toxic masculinity and internalized biphobia, Chinese-American boy who is on a million different sports teams and is Call of Duty trash), and Nico Rivera (14 year old, Dominican-American transboy who is also the actual lone hetero of the group, who just wants to sleep and probably would end up having to bake Nate's cake of rainbows and smiles himself because he is honestly the only one of the group who can use a stove without it bursting into flames).

Makena Alemayehu, the 25 year old, bisexual, African-American transwoman owner of The Loved Dead becomes one of Lorenzo's first confidants about his powers. She is also literally the first Seer other than himself that he comes across and they pretty much bond with having to deal with persistent and desperate dead people who don't know boundaries.

While he and his parents, while they were alive, had a strained relationship (said strained relationship coming from Lorenzo trying to get them to understand him and to believe him about some of the physical, mental, medical and emotional abuse that he went through at some of the mental hospitals that they had him institutionalized in along with some of the physical abuse and injuries that he had sustained from some not so friendly ghosts), ironically back then he had a pretty good relationship with his sister and she was his confidant. After their parents' deaths however their own relationship becomes strained due to grief and it becomes and even strained after Lorenzo gets his powers and tries to hide his secret life from his sister who is just worried about him Goddammit.

He starts pretending to smoke cigarettes as a front to explain the black smoke that he sometimes uncontrollably coughs up. Though most of the time when he's alone he'll have a piece of a charcoal stick in his mouth.

After becoming a proxy, whenever he enters a room it starts smelling like smoke, ash and cinders. Many a false fire alarm were pulled at school because of this...

Julia, the little ghost girl constantly hangs around him and he has to sometimes bribes her with candy or appease her by playing "tea party" in the attic where she resides, in order to get her to leave him alone. Eventually she pretty much becomes like a little sister to him.

He and his friends (after they finally get let in on the secret) eventually find a Shoggoth in an abandoned lab that they name Geizler. It is not known how old it is, but it seems to be "younger" than it's counterparts and seems to act more like a puppy or a toddler. It doesn't also have the full madness inducing effect that most other Shoggoths seem to have but Delilah, Vera, Nate, Luis, Nico, and Makena usually tend to get massive headaches after prolonged exposure to it. Also Lorenzo, Luis and Delilah are literally the only people that it will listen to.

Khaos' proxies usually take up the names of deities of chaos or mythological tricksters. Right now Lorenzo is "Loki" (because an Avengers DVD was literally right there when someone asked what his name was and he couldn't think of anything else) and the previous proxy of Khaos was named "Eris."

Usually whenever he's doing his stress-glitching thing (which will also kind of happen whenever he teleports) black butterflies will kind of appear. Sometimes he will also find black feathers that seem to be coming from nowhere in his bed and in his room.

Strangely enough, again due to Khaos being "asleep," he still has complete self autonomy unlike other proxies. He also does not have any of the previous proxies' memories and does not even seem to realize that other proxies even came before him. As a proxy he is basically like a clean slate which frankly actually troubles some of the other AMARANTHINE and their proxies. He does however have some cryptic flashes and glimpses every once in a while from the previous proxy, Eris who did something to Khaos and the mask a century ago causing it to act like it currently is.