Paul Lindrum

Paul Lindrum
Age	28
Gene Status	Advanced
Profession	Acquisitions
Affiliation	Crain Corporation
Ability	Emotional Projection
Played By	Teddy Sears

Notes

• A cog in the Crains' corporate machine. But a well-paid cog.
• Midwest accent.
• Stick in the mud.
• Adopted. Okay with it.

Character Information

Description

Short blond hair combed straight, clear blue eyes, clear complexion, square jaw. In another life, he might have been a surfer, but he'd need a tan for that. And a smile. And a change of outfit; he's wearing a dark jacket, slacks and loafers, a light blue shirt with matching silk tie and handkerchief.

Background

Born in Columbus, Ohio, Paul was turned over to the foster care system as a baby. It wasn't a horror story, but it was depressing just to see people come and go and feel worn down a lot: staff, would-be adoptive parents, other children. After one of the other kids started a fight with him - for all that it was broken up quickly, and neither of them harbored a grudge afterward - it occurred to him that he wasn't in control of his life, and that stuck with him well after the original incident faded into distant memory.

At the age of six, he was adopted by a couple in their forties: doing well financially and emotionally, but having failed to conceive on their own (and not /so/ well off for fertility treatments to look like a good idea). He had a couple months to settle in before starting first grade. Over the years, he was transferred to another school due to poor conditions at the old one, which helped his education but put some more hitches in his social development.

A bright child by nature, and having adopted his parents' work ethic as his own over the years, Paul got into the prestigious Wharton School at UPenn. Of course, things didn't stay that simple for long; left to their own devices for months at a time, some of his fellow students indulged in various forms of pettiness - an echo of his early youth, simultaneously more subtle and more insidious, as they approached it with a level of skill that had been largely absent in high school - and Paul learned how to counter them with needed. He found it easy to draw them into mirroring his own emotional state, for good or ill. /Too easy/, he sometimes thinks to himself, nowadays.

Late in his junior year, he was tipped off to an opportunity at the Crain Corporation, and made arrangements to spend his next semester interning there. He found the Crains' working environment to his liking, as well as the challenging nature of the work itself; he returned there a few years later with MBA in hand and joined one of their new teams in Las Vegas, pursuing new acquisitions and closing the deal. The gambling and the flashy entertainment were largely lost on him on a personal level, but they suited his ambition just fine— if things kept going well, he might someday get to head up one of those teams.

Skills

• Management: He has a few years of hands-on experience with analyzing and rearranging different types of businesses and their employees.
• Economics: He has experience here, too; once you analyze this, you can hit the low-hanging fruit first and build momentum.
• Computers: While he doesn't know the details, he does have a good general sense of how they can be used and how people react to them.
• Spin Doctoring: He prefers to actually have the facts on his side, but he's had to use this from time to time, as well as counter it when a lagging competitor tries to use it against him.
• Lack of Sympathy: While he can empathize intellectually with why people feel a certain way, he's slower than most to accept that they /should/ feel that way - and so he usually isn't troubled by the idea of making them feel a different way.

Ability

Paul can project an emotion onto other people nearby, at the cost of amplifying it in himself as well. His direct influence is limited to a ten-yard range and a one-hour duration, though mob psychology may carry the effect further or longer in practice. On a 1-to-5 scale with 3 neutral, it first pushes himself a step away from neutral, then pulls the targets two steps each toward his own state. (Targets who already feel more strongly are ignored. If there are half a dozen targets or more, or if he started out neutral himself, then he only pulls them one step each. If he started out feeling strongly, then he stays there and the rest of the ability works normally, but afterward he's too tired to use the ability again until he gets at least half a night's sleep.)

Logs

August 2012

Date	Title	Who
08/26/1955	Party Like It's Nineteen-Fifty-Five	Amelia, Finnegan, Nobara, Paul, Rylie, Tilly & Zan

June 2012

Date	Title	Who
06/04/2012	Ezquites	Paul & Shay
06/07/2012	What Are You	Amelia, Paul & Zan

May 2012

Date	Title	Who
05/20/2012	Total Eclipse of the Heart	Amelia, Finnegan, Isabelle, Paul, Sibyl & Zan
05/22/2012	Time to Switch to Decaf	Isabelle, Jake, Paul, Rylie & Zan

April 2012

Date	Title	Who
04/18/2012	Walk in the Park	Isabelle, Paul & Sasha
04/19/2012	Slot Machine Craze	Isabelle & Paul
04/25/2012	A Sudden Little Jerk	Isabelle, Paul, Sasha, Terri & Zan
04/25/2012	Elevator aftermath	Isabelle, Paul & Zan
04/25/2012	We Are Not Alone	Isabelle & Paul

Gallery