Nikola Kessler

### Namesake

Nikola Tesla, Serbian-American Engineer, and Donald Kessler, American astrophysicist

## Other Information

### Goals

Find stability in life, understand himself and his world

### Dislikes

Unnecessary toxicity, labyrinths

Nikola Kessler is a deuteragonist in Jade Jam, and an ally to Jonah Bijou.

Nikola is a psychologist who arrives at Seattle and joins the group after Elijah asks him to help out with a stand attack (see Tony Orlando VS Goodbye Stranger).

He gets caught up in the world of Stands and develops a stand of his own, Headspace.

## Appearance

Nikola is of average to medium build, standing at around 188 cm, (6'2"). He is incredibly fit, even though he never works out. He usually wears oversized sweaters, typically in shades of dark green and greyish blue. He wears brown corduroy pants with a belt. His shoes are worn from travel.

## Personality

Nikola is naturally withdrawn and compliant with people. He listens to reason, and has a very strong moral sense. He usually likes to know what's going on, and can be a bit curious and nosy. He doesn't have many friends, which leaves his time to himself and his mind. This is displayed through Tahikana's Ability, Headspace. However, he does have more vocal attitude when under pressure. Nikola understands this as a sort of dual force in his mind, one half of which learns from experience and is sensitive to the collective, and another half which is aware of the condition of the body and is sensitive to the self. Normally, the two halves of that force oppose each other, producing his withdrawn attitude. When the two forces cooperate, however, Nikola becomes incredibly strong-willed and vocal. The name of his stand, Tahikana, is the unification of the names of those two forces.

## Abilities

### Stand

Nikola got his stand, Headspace, after he was mugged in a train station by an enemy stand user and stabbed with a Golden Arrow. He still doesn't know how he survived the encounter. He usually lacks the power to summon his stand, but in a few erratic cases, he manages to cause his stand ability to activate.

### Other Abilities

Nikola's most notable ability is his ability to think deeply and critically about a situation, a skill that serves him well as a psychologist and a stand user. He also plays bass in his free time.

## Early Life to Present (1964-1986)

Nikola Kessler was born in London on March 20th, 1964. He grew up in a low to middle class family and an unstable economic status. He learned at a young age to keep his thoughts and desires to himself, knowing that his family was more important. He never had many friends, but that free time allowed him to explore and navigate his mind, and eventually, others' minds as well. When his parents finally secured jobs, this skill prompted his parents to get enough money together to send him to Uni to practice psychology, a field of study in which his skill set served him well. Even though his life had changed for the better, however, the behaviors he had learned from his childhood to suppress is personal desires were still intact, leading to a deteriorating mental state and total lack of self-worth. Attempting to push back these feelings, he put everything he disliked about himself, every memory he regretted, every shameful feeling, in a box so that he wouldn't try to look at it. Unfortunately, the box only grew, and when he did accidentally open the box, he found it hard to look away. He eventually came to understand this box as a labyrinth that he chooses to stay in, because leaving the labyrinth would be ignorant and show denial of what he perceived as the truth. He lived with this labyrinth in his mind for all of his early life. While practicing psychology at Uni, he met Elijah Rose, who was searching for a way to remedy his PTSD. Despite having plenty of problems of his own, Nikola walked Elijah through the process and helped him control it. A few years later, Nikola decided to travel to America to study its growing mental health crisis starting in Seattle, Washington, where his story begins.