About You - The Player
Name: Katie
Age: 25
Contact: superkappa @ plurk mostlyverytired@gmail.com
Past Role Playing Experience: I’ve been rping for about ten years now various places.
New Players (completely optional), if you'd like tell us how you found BTR:

The Character
Name: Maxwell Davis
Age/Birthdate: 20
Species: Angel
*Type: Guardian
Canon: Rift

Dreamwidth: othered
Played By: Penn Badgley
Icon:

Appearance: Maxwell is decently tall, but seems much shorter due to the way he hunches over and slouches all the time. He rarely stands straight. He has shaggy, black curls for hair that he lets grow a little out of control most of the time. Clean shaven, for the most part, and he tends to favor jeans and flannel shirts as far as clothes go. He tries not to let his wings come out as much as possible. He does constantly have a book on him though.

Personality:

Maxwell has always been a bit of a loner, preferring the company of his dogs or his books to that of people. He never had a lot of friends growing up, and is rather quiet and awkward because of it. He didn’t mind it, not terribly. It’s lonely, but he found ways to cope. He read like crazy.

He wasn’t horribly teased, he wasn’t intentionally left out of things, he just had a tendency to blend in. He had a few friends at any given time, but that was it. Otherwise, people didn’t have the tendency to notice him much one way or another. Somehow, that was worse.

The transition into becoming an Angel made it that much worse for him. Even the few friends he had he suddenly felt alienated from. Othered. He didn’t know how to fit into the world as he knew it anymore. So he found himself withdrawing even more.

Normally socializing people do at that age? Like dating and things like that, he never went through. He doesn’t know how to talk to anyone, let alone anyone he’d be interested in (and honestly, he’s not sure if he’s interested in anyone or who exactly he’d be interested in, his sexuality confuses him just about as much as everything else does, honestly). So he never went on dates. He’s never kissed anyone, and he’s certainly never had sex. It’s another way he feels disassociated from the people around him. Most people his age, that’s all they can really focus on. It’s all they want to focus on.

Because he’s distanced himself from other people so much, he’s very bad at interacting with them as a result. He often misses rather major social cues, and gets annoyed or frustrated when conversations are difficult. If it’s a safe subject like literature or music, he can navigate a little better, but even then, he often comes off more abrasive than he means to. It’s not that he hates people or anything, he just doesn’t know how to talk to them.

He’s observant though. He’s good at watching people, taking in their body language, picking up on things. The problem is the way he communicates that could use some work. He could use some sensitivity training, to say the very least.

For the past four years or so, he’s been keeping to himself, interacting with people as little as possible. After he graduated high school, he hit the road, picking up jobs where he could, never staying in one sitting for very long. No matter where he goes, something feels missing. What he doesn’t know is that it’s his ward, he hasn’t totally figured out his calling just yet. He doesn’t want to, not really. Well, he does and he doesn’t. He wants to find purpose in his life, but he wants to define it for himself. He doesn’t want it to be something pushed on him just because of what he was born as. But nature is hard to resist, you can’t deny what you are even if you try. And he’s tried.

Which is what brought him to Chicago. He’s heard about the activity here, the rifts from other worlds, the supernatural activity. And he found himself drawn there. Like there was something he was supposed to find there.

His ward? Maybe. Not that he knows what that is. He’s never really known any other angels. He’s never had any guidance. His mother told him what she could, but it wasn’t much. And he doesn’t feel like hunting down a man he’s never met. So he wanders, trying to ignore it, trying to pretend he’s still human. Just a young man. But the problem is the more you deny a very central part of yourself; the more you begin to hate and resent that part.

And the older it gets, the harder parts of it are to ignore. Like the tug in his chest when he sees someone being mistreated, when he sees someone who needs to be protected. He doesn’t want to get involved but part of him feels compelled too. There’s just constant conflict there. He’s not sure how to sort it out.

He feels mostly aimless. Caught between two worlds and not fitting into either one. It’s also very lonely, but that part he was used to. He had never really felt a part of anything. The only close connection he had was his mother, and he hasn’t seen her for years now.

Oh and he’s kind of pretentious. The type of guy who read Catcher in the Rye in High school and personally connected to Holden Caufield. You know the type.

History:

Maxwell had a fairly normal childhood. His father was out of the picture before he was born, and he was an only child. It was just him and his mother. He was born in Southern California, near the beach. He'd live in the same house all of his life. Because his mother worked so much, he was often babysat by his grandfather. He was the one who first taught Maxwell to read.

His childhood was mostly uneventful, nothing traumatic really. But he was a quiet kid, and he never quite knew how to interact with other kids. He was teased, but not unreasonably so. He had a few friends, but mostly, he read. He imagined lives he could be living. Things he could do, someday.

His biggest accomplishments were his grades. He was always on honor roll, and a few of his writing pieces even won awards. Really, all in all, he wouldn’t complain about most of his childhood. Well, until he was a teenager, anyways. Then everything kind of drastically changed.

And then when he turned sixteen, he transformed into an Angel. It's still the most traumatic thing he's ever gone through. His mother was human, so she never bothered to warn him. After all, when one parent is an Angel and one is human, the child is sometimes human as well. It's a fifty fifty chance. But the odds weren't in his favor. Not this time.

He graduates with grades near the top of his class, but chooses not to go to college. He had no idea what he wanted to do with his life. So instead he began to travel a lot, settling in places for a few months or so, but never too long. He's held a million jobs, and met many people, but he's never felt at home anywhere. So he keeps wandering, trying to figure it all out as he goes on.

And then he gets to Chicago.

Writing Sample:

One of the first places Maxwell goes to when he gets into Chicago is the Tower. He's heard a lot about it, and he has to admit, there's one aspect of it that's really caught his attention.

A magical library. Considering how many awful things have been in the news lately (an angel has been murdered and it makes his stomach twist in ways he can't explain) it's nice to indulge in something nice for once.

He wanders through the stacks, occasionally taking out a book to flip through. Sometimes he compares different editions to one another, different translations of older texts, just to see what differences he can find there. It's an interesting way to spend time, to say the very least.

He feels at home here. He could see himself running someplace like this, one day, when he's more settled. More stable. Ready to stay in one place.

Assuming the day ever comes. He really hopes it does. Sometimes, he gets tired of wandering.

But for now? He'll enjoy said wandering, continuing to inspect interesting looking titles as he stumbles across them.

That is until one of them launches itself into his face, causing him to stumble over his feet a little, just barely catching himself before he actually fell.

"What the hell was that?"

He murmurs, unaware if anyone was even around to answer.

Apparently, they really hadn't been lying about the magic part.