Finnegan Leighton

Title: Captain Leighton

Nicknames: Finn, beanpole, carrot top, sunflower, foxy grandpa, old man, (when in the same room as Michael Ashworth) salad

Age: 70, appears to be in twenties.

Birthday: April 22, 1946 (Death date is 1970, at 24 years old.)

Gender: Transgender male

Sexuality: Demiromantic pansexual, polyamorous.

Category: NPC, Staff, Citizen

Birth Place / Hometown: America

Occupation: A Starlight Academy scout/recruiter/agent Captain, oversees job training for scouts, gardener/gardening club supervisor, counselor, and part-time healer on medical staff. Has been working at SA for forty years. Office and home description here!

Race/Species: Undead human fused with a nature spirit.

College Major: Had a double major, Horticulture and Environmental Studies.



Finnegan is a willowy, tan, ginger haired man with excessive freckles. He's five foot eleven inches tall, and it would be fitting in more ways than one to label him as a beanpole. His posture tends to make him come across as steady and comfortable, perhaps even a protective presence, like an old tree.

There's also something in the way he holds himself, moving less hurriedly, smiling at the antics of children, as well as his clothing choices, that makes him feel older-- more his actual age instead of what his cute face might convey. And it is a very cute face, with honey brown eyes, pleasant smile, dimples, and ears that stick out. His bedhead haircut and floral eyepatch are the cherry on the cake.

Under the eyepatch, however, is a bit more gruesome. Finn has lovely flowers growing in his gored eye socket, and while nothing hurts, it doesn't look pretty up close. The area around them appears very infected and gross, so he'd much rather cover it up with a much more visually appealing eyepatch. This is where his plant roots originally found a way into him, where the blow that killed him struck, and it'll always show.

Finn can often be found wearing a straw sunhat when outdoors, flower crowns and daisy chain necklaces, and rarely, may be caught in things leaning towards ridiculous 70s fashion or hippie outfits. He has a chest binder he wears when not sleeping or alone at home for a day off, as he's never made any changes to his body and never will, thank you very much.


Finnegan is what you get when you combine adorable old man, workaholic, hippie, disney prince, and inhuman plant. To say the least, something pretty neat. Finn is down to earth, reliable, kind, and a sturdy fixture at the Academy after spending forty years working there. Yes, he's read your file. No, he isn't judging your teen shenanigans, and finds them pretty endearing. Don't worry, you crazy kids. He's a friendly elderly person, not the get-off-my-lawn sort.

His attractiveness and attitude mean a lot of people get crushes on the guy, but his grandpa mindset means he's about aware or easily believing of this as a brick wall. With the younger aged he'll brush it off, but he isn't opposed to flirting in the slightest! He still has his hippie beliefs on free, open love and sexual pursuits, though more committed interest in others is a little slower and different at his age. He's dated a plenty over the years, had even more sex-- and though he's absolutely up for having some fun, falling in love and being serious is another matter entirely. Finn's more for friends with benefits, and friends in general. He prefers something honest and nice over a one night stand, but still a lack of messily emotional and childish. Before he can romantically love someone, he has to truly get to know and spend time with them.

While those he's dated have come and gone, Finn has made a lot of friends. They can go too, but that tends to be more from their dying, or moving away and losing contact, than anything else. He values his friends, and when you befriend Finn, he tends to be a friend you'll have for life. He's stuck by people through growth, marriage, children and tragedy. He understands what means something.

On the other side of this, however, is that sometimes the little things just don't move him as much. Finn thinks big picture, the long term, and doesn't waste his energy or get stressed out being dramatic otherwise. As a counselor, he can still sympathize with the problems of others, even if not empathize personally-- and he can also say with full confidence, at a certain point, 'smile, don't lose hope, and chin up, because this isn't forever'. The sun is always just behind the clouds, even in a storm, and after the rain, it'll be shining down on you again. Eventually, the rain doesn't feel so bad, either.

Finnegan's work is a very defining aspect of him. He loves his job, and he loves Starlight Academy. For most, the scouts were never the most glamourous part of their whole experience, but Finn always remembered them. The people who had found and brought him into what would be one of the two central focuses of the rest of his existance. The opportunity to help play a huge part in giving others a better life, to him, was an amazing honor, something to strive for. Finn represents the school and Headmistresses' ideals to the best of his ability, with a great pride.

Finn's other central focus is nature. Especially seeing that his passion for the environment and protecting it was what saved him from death. He appreciates and respects everything from the tallest trees to the tiniest blades of grass. He cares about the springs and summers, the falls and winters. Beginning, ending, starting anew, the circle of life is beautiful and everlasting. True magic, to him, more impressive than any 'entertaining' acts of violence and irresponsibility, or flashy spells that'll fizz out and be forgotten.

In every day matters, Finn is relaxed, stable, trustworthy, and non-pressuring. He can be less appealing to those always rushing through it all, invested in immediate gratification and explosive bangs, but a lifesaver for quieter, more anxious types, people just out for an easygoing good time-- or those that like to really savor someone and whisper secrets on a late, warm afternoon with an individual that feels like honeyed tea. Finn had a lot of fire in his youth, and it's still there, coming out in the right circumstances.


Finnegan is a dead body combined with a nature spirit. While he is, or was, technically human, he doesn't smell or feel like it. He's all plant matter, instead, and is unthreatening to some due to this. With creatures that would be hostile to humans, or anything flesh and blood and person in general, he doesn't set off alarm bells and can be around them without provoking attack or discomfort. If something is just looking at his aura and what their instincts tell them about him, he'd be about the same to them as a cluster of flowers. This saves him a lot of trouble with predatory hunter types, though not those that are malicious just for the hell of it, unless they have soft spots for flowers. Other plants, sentient and non-sentient alike, react very pleasantly to Finn, and want to be close to him.

This isn't to say he isn't still skin and bones, even if it is interwoven with greenery, flowers, and vines all crawling through his insides. His plant aspects have simply taken over the sense of species and vibes, a certain magical intervention in this phenomenon.

If a plant based life form is at least semi-sentient, and in close distance (the same room or area, within a normal human's talking or yelling to catch someone's attention distance), Finn has the ability to talk to it. Depending on the intelligence levels, he could have a conversation like you would with an educated person, or have to use very simple language. This 'speaking' is nonverbal, based around chemical/hormonal/electrical and magical signals unique to plant communication. Fairly minor, with non-sentient plants, he can send signals similar to those that other plants would send them, such as things like 'there are nasty bugs coming, protect yourself'.

On a personal basis, if Finn himself is wounded, flowers will spring from the injured flesh, and bloom there until he has healed. This healing functions on the usual rules of smaller things being fixed quick, while bigger things can take up to a week.

As a plant, Finn relies on sunlight and water to live. If he has these things, he can stay practically immortal, bouncing back from anything with his floral healing. If he is deprived from them for too long, he weakens greatly and experiences the symptoms of starvation and dehydration. If this goes on for a month, he will die. If he is in a strongly deprived state and attacked too much, even before that month is up, he could die as well, no energy and health to heal himself with.

While these won't immediately kill him, traditional plant weaknesses can screw Finn up pretty bad. He's not great with being burned, pollution, various toxins, general unnatural things, saltwater, and has a bit of a fear of certain kinds of bugs getting too bold with him (though, really, this is sometimes just more amusing than a threat), etcetera.

While the nature spirit and Finn were at first separate entities with differing thoughts, that is no longer the case, and they are simply one and the same. Finnegan is a nature spirit, and the nature spirit is the undead human Finn.

Finnegan has the power to combine plant life and flesh, and to cause them to thrive together more than they would've alone, empowering the creation. This can come in a few forms.

One of the smallest is taking his own or something else's blood and causing something the size of a small patch of flowers to spring from it. This is fast working, taking minutes or seconds, and fairly unambitious. If he wanted to make something more along the lines of a bush or even a tree that'd be on the supernaturally healthy and durable side, it'd take additional flesh to leech and grow from, and would be slower. A week at the shortest, month at the longest, for ambitious plants, but with tough and lovely results.

Finn can heal others by temporarily planting flowers in their wounds. He has to be touching them and focusing for this to work. It's best for immediate use. He can use this on internal injuries and illnesses as well, though not if they're particularly ambitious or terminal. He can help heal up colds, or have a painkiller effect to things he can't fix, and while he can't stop a more intense illness just on his own, using his powers on someone can make them healthier and give them better bursts of energy to fight through things.

Having Finn use his healing on you can be odd, as it is actual plants sprouting from your skin and body, taking root there for a while-- but also would make one feel like they just stepped out into a fresh spring day, and have them more connected to nature while they're healing. In terms of timespan for the healing, tiny things like a nasty papercut would be healed in minutes. Moderate wounds would be a few days to a week, and in the milder area, a day. Severe wounds would be a few weeks to a month, possibly longer. When healing is over, the flowers wilt peacefully after blooming their brightest to signify all is right again.

Lastly and most intensely, Finnegan can use full on, bringing things back from the dead, plant based necromancy. On both plants and people. If Finnegan uses magic along with some form of organic flesh and blood, he can bring a dead plant back to life, rather than just create something new. The longer it has been dead, the more effort and energy this takes.

It's a little more complicated with a person. He starts the same way he would with his other healing, touching the corpse, growing flowers where the killing blow (or whatever's closest) struck, letting them flourish and bloom there. With this method, if he brings someone back, they end up similar to him, rather than your typical zombie. The flowers permanently grow and root themselves into their host, working in harmony, giving life force and getting it back.

The plant factor will mostly take over in terms of species, and though they may keep some powers, those powers could also adjust more around the other changes and themes. Another undead with plant attributes would be reliant on sun and water like Finn is, more attuned to and comfortable with nature, feel like a plant to others, and share the same weaknesses. They'd have a light healing and durability, though usually not as powerful as Finn's (unless their own powers were to play into it) and not bouncing back from anything like him, even when healthy on sunlight and water.

Like the plants, bringing back a dead person is easiest when they're still fairly fresh. Older corpses can be hit or miss, and take a lot more energy, along with time. If brought back, these are likely to be much more plant than person. The oldest and oddest Finnegan has managed was a skeleton he'd found in some forest ruins, creating a being with vine muscles that bloomed all over between bones, and appeared outright frightening and unnerving for some. It made for a peaceful forest guardian in the end, without typical sentience, but happy. It still wanders, and all it cares about is tending to the plants and wildlife, sometimes sitting down dormant for days on end, birds perching and nesting in it. Finn visits this construct at times, very fond of it.

If someone has just died, it can take as little as an hour for Finn to bring them back. If they've been dead a week or a few weeks, a day or few days. Months translating into weeks. Years translating into months. You get the picture!

If Finn walks on open ground with bare feet, little bursts of flowers will spring up where he's just walked before fading away again, leaving the soil richer and making for a pretty sight. Overall, his presence can have a very nurturing affect on already natural areas.


Finnegan was born a year exactly after world war two ended, one of the first baby boomers, under a different first name. He grew up pretty happily, then got heavily dedicated to the hippie movement. Traveling, making love, doing drugs, gaining friends and lovers whenever he went. He was especially invested in the activist half of it, more than some others were, going to protests often.

At twenty-four years old, after personally leading some very loud efforts against deforesting, he was murdered for it, skewered straight through his eye and brain. The spirit of the forest he'd been defending was able to squirm in and infect him like this. The forest wasn't quite able to be saved, as the movement nervously died down at first after Finn's disappearance, but the forest spirit stuck within Finn after he came back to life-- and guided him towards a revenge against the corporate goon that'd offed him, taking down that man and the whole operation after revitalizing the rebellion against it in what felt like a miracle (and really, absolutely was).

They replanted in the area when all of that was done, but the spirit had bonded and mixed with Finn by this time, and he would've been dead again without it either way. His powers bloomed further due to this, and he was discovered by the beloved Starlight Academy scouts he'd eventually join the ranks of. The school dazzled him, was a utopia, and it was decided he'd be loyal to the establishment for as long as he was alive and it didn't stray from its wonderful ideals. He majored in Horticulture and Environmental Studies, went through SA Scout training, finished it all up at thirty years old and started working. He picked up other staff jobs pretty quick, though initially just going for scout, and may be a bit out of control in that area. A workaholic that can't be stopped.

As he's been Starlight Academy staff for forty years, living in Manta Carlos for forty six, and around in general for seventy, Finnegan has seen a great deal of shit. If you've had a student within those last forty years, especially one who was hunted down and given an SA invitation in the outside world, it's likely Finn has met or is familiar with them, often having a lot more information on them than most. He's watched over and helped a lot of students settle in, especially when they're his own recruits, and acts as a counselor for that specific reason. Some people see him as a parental/guardian figure, or old friend, and he welcomes this with open arms. He's had no end of relationships and dalliances, as well, so it wouldn't be strange to be close or distant to him from that, either.


Worst Memory: Dying, having his old friends and family pass away while he stuck around

Best Memory: Being a part of the hippie movement, transitioning, settling in to Manta Carlos, being hired onto Starlight Academy staff

Likes: Sentiment based treasures, the Headmistress, love and peace, little adventures, things that are by no means trendy anymore, the radio, psychedelic drugs, sex, Ghibli movies

Dislikes: Shallow/material wealth, pointless cruelty, politicians, government, capitalism, discrimination

Weaknesses: Workaholic, not very trendy/hip/with the times, deep set anger/sensitivity on certain matters, distant

Strengths: Mature, kind, trustworthy, comfortable, optimistic, hardworking, supportive/protective

Fears: The earth becoming a wasteland without a hint of green or life, endless war, fire, rude bugs that want to eat him

Habits/Hobbies: Activism, bike riding, long walks on Academy grounds/the forest/Oceanic Park, hanging out with new and old friends, listening to radio shows, doing drugs, having sex

Skills/Talents: Gardening, combat/tracker training, swordsmanship, diplomatic, seasoned traveller, fantastic researcher


Finnegan probably, maybe, most definitely has a ridiculous crush on Headmistress Cordelia Moor that other older staff members know about and tease him over. It's been forty damn years and he still gets weak kneed when the woman is around, but he can't help it, she's his idol.

Finn's most preferred weapons, and those he's most skilled and graceful with, are swords.

He totally grows marijuana in his backyard, has been doing so for years. He shares it with friends, not for profit. If he smokes weed with the college students he knows, well, that's none of your business and not questionable at all, he doesn't care.

He rides a cute, vintage white bike with a basket on the front (that often has flowers in it) almost everywhere in Manta Carlos, including around the SA campus.