Application for ilpromenade.

[spaghettiole]

PLAYER

✧ NAME: Mikey
✧ LJ USERNAME: mikeyetc
✧ CONTACT: AIM/PLURK: MikeyEtc; EMAIL: mikeymalicious@gmail.com
✧ CURRENT CHARACTERS PLAYED AT PROMENADE: None. :(

CHARACTER

✧ NAME: Xavier Benjamin Martez
✧ SERIES: Original Character
✧ HISTORY:
Benjamin Aníbal Martez, a Mexican immigrant, had been working as a lawnkeeper for a wealthy family in Virginia. At the age of 29, he had been working there for only two years. The family's youngest daughter, Cindy Marie, was nineteen years old. She had recently moved back in, after leaving home at the age of seventeen because of an unplanned pregnancy. Her parents had offered to help raise her two-year old son, Ashton. Moving back in to accept her parents help, she met Benjamin for the first time. Though nothing came of their acquaintanceship at first, the two soon became friends, and Cindy would keep him company often while he worked. It wasn't long before the two became infatuated with each other, and within a years time, they were engaged to be married.
When Cindy was twenty-one, and Benjamin thirty-one, the two got married. Only three months later, Cindy discovered that she was pregnant. The couple did not have much money, but Benjamin's family had a place for them in Colonia Jaurez, Chiuaua, Mexico. He took her and her son Ashton there, and on April 17, 1992 another son was born! They named him Xavier Benjamin Martez, and Benjamin and Cindy were elated to have him.
After a brief two years in Colonia Juarrez, the family moved to San Antonio, Texas, where they could keep away from the violence of the drug cartels near Chiuaua. They moved into a predominantly hispanic neighborhood within the city, where Xavier was able to learn English in school, and Spanish from his peers. By the time he was old enough to speak, he was well-versed in each language.
Xavier enjoyed his time in San Antonio, making many friends in school and even taking his very first art class there, where he developed a passion for drawing and painting. He also spent much of his time at home with his father, who was out of work and homebound most often from his bad health. Because his mother worked hard as a nurse, Xavier's father was the one to watch over him at home. He grew very close to his father, taking camping trips when he felt well enough and spending the rest of his free time watching television with him and sharing his art with the man.
Xavier and his family lived in San Antonio for nearly eight years, and moved to Cindy's home town in Virginia when he was ten. The move proved difficult for Xavier. He left many childhood friends back in San Antonio, and seemed to have a hard time making new ones in Virginia. Though he did become very close with a neighbor girl named Emily, he made very few friends otherwise. Old opinions of his mother from her peers seemed to reflect in kids behaviors toward him, and while he was a rather chubby and nerdy child, bullying was a daily occurence in school. Constantly being teased for his weight, race, behavior, and interests, Xavier self esteem plummetted. He became extremely self-concious and resentful, and as he entered his preteen years and began to go through the hormonal changes of adolescence, his emotions darkened further. He took interest in darker-themed music and movies, and focused on negative emotions rather than positive. He became depressed and self-loathing, and around the age thirteen he developed anorexia nervosa, which caused him to starve himself in order to rapidly lose weight. Though he used this only as a method of weight-loss toward the beginning, the disorder soon became out of control. He dropped an unhealthy amount of weight, and his health rapidly decreased until he was officially diagnosed with anorexia nervosa at the age of fourteen and sent to a rehabilitation facility for four months. Cindy's parents, who were quite wealthy, offered to pay for the rehab after learning about his disorder. After four months of extensive therapy and steady weight gain, he returned to his home and school in Virginia with new coping methods for the bullying that he recieved.
He developed a new sense of confidence, and learned to ignore the cruelness of his classmates. By the time he started highschool, he had learned to more or less fade into the background, and did his best to go unnoticed by his classmates. Once he stopped responding to their bullying, they seemed to lose interest in him and more or less let him be. Life went on in a relatively similar manner until he was around the age of seventeen. Shortly after his seventeenth birthday, though his classmates rarely bothered him any more, his mood began to fall again. This was due to several things: his father's health issues, his stress from school work, monetary stress on the family, etc. The build up of stress and depression caused Xavier to gradually relapse back into his eating habits, or lack thereof. Even after his time in the rehabilitation clinic, he had not fully regained his control over food and the pyschological effect that gaining weight had on him. Older and smarter, he managed to keep his weight loss from his family while he gradually slipped back into his anorexic habits.
When his Junior year of highschool began, Xavier met a girl named Gwen Pratt. She was a new student to the school district, and had moved to Virginia from St. Louis, Missouri over the summer. Though she was in most of his classes, and his lunch period, Xavier didn't take much notice of Gwen at first. He admired her looks from time to time, and occassionally commented on various band t-shirts she wore and the colors of her hair. But, after a month or two passed, the two met alone in a hallway while Xavier was battling with his ornery locker and Gwen was getting ready to skip school. Amused by his efforts to negotiate with the locker, Gwen came over to try and help him get it open. Once the two succeeded, she convinced him to skip school with her. They spent the day together, and became fast friends. Gwen was loud and unashamed, and quickly brought that kind of attitude out in Xavier. He was easily able to be himself with her, something he had never found in his other classmates.
The two took to hanging out during and after school; in the lunchroom, in the classrooms, at each other's houses, at the park, etc. They quickly became inseperable, and it was rare to see one without the other. They never seemed to have anything planned, but just hung out together walking around town and doing whatever, often hiding away somewhere to smoke weed or skipping school to go terrorize Wal Mart employees. Xavier had never done either before meeting her, but he didn't seem to mind breaking rules if it made her happy. It seemed that his times with Gwen were the best times in his life. She could convince him to do just about anything, and he would trust her judgement on that. They talked about everything, and did everything together. Though they never officially started dating, they hung all over each other during school, made inappropriate gestures to each other. No one in the school doubted that they were each other's. Gwen was Xavier's, and Xavier was Gwen's. They didn't need anyone else. Even Emily, who had been Xavier's only friend in Virginia from the time he was ten years old, took a back seat to Gwen. She was his everything. Without realizing it, he had fallen madly in love with her...and he didn't even mind! It was an incredible feeling.
Xavier wasn't positive that Gwen felt the same as he did. Even though she teased him and acted romantically, when it came to actual feelings the two awkwardly avoided the topic. Though he was head over heels for her, he was embarrassed and afraid that she wouldn't feel the same way and reject him.
One night, in her car pulled over on the side of a country row, under the influence of marajuana, the two had sex for the first time. It was sudden and unexpected, but intense, emotional, and affectionate. But, before they could be on their way, a police officer drove by and spotted the car. The two were arrested for possession of Marajuana and indecent exposure. Gwen's father, Alexander Pratt, just so happened to be a police officer that was working at the station that night. Enraged by what had happened, he forbid Gwen to see Xavier anymore, and banned the young man from his house.
This didn't stop the pair. Though Xavier thought at first that he would really never get to hang out with Gwen again outside of school, Gwen was not about to let that happen. She continued to skip school with him and hang out with him afterward, all while expertly sneaking around her parents. At night Gwen would sneak through his window (as his mother was not too fond of her anymore either), and Xavier would sneak through hers on occassion. They found ways to hang out with each other even past their parent's rules.
The point from which I'm taking Xavier is somewhere in between all of this sneaking around. He's in a period in his life where he's fallen in love for the first time, and though he isn't officially in a relationship with Gwen, he would do most anything for her. He spends all of his free time with her, or sometimes on his art. He is still slipping back into bad eating habits from his disorder, but even so, he is more or less content.
**There is no real period of time where this began, but at some point in Xavier's childhood, so far back he can't even remember when, he began to draw pictures of little creature who he named Jak. He has a round, pale head, with over-sized black eyes and tufts of black hair sprouting from his head. His shoulders are big and bulky, and his entire body is shrouded in black, a long whispy tail taking the place of his legs, as if he were a mist or a shadow. Over time, Jak developed into a main character in a series of comics that Xavier drew in his free time. Most of his doodles incorporate Jak in some way, and he is very proud of the character. He has even been known to refer to him and Jak as 'we' in conversations pertaining to his comic. I wasn't sure where else to fit this in the history, because it more or less takes place in the background of his life throughout it.

✧ TIMELINE: Xavier will be taken from the point at which his history section ends!
✧ PERSONALITY:
Despite his struggles with self esteem and confidence, Xavier tends to be a pretty chill guy. He's learned to cope with the teasing of his classmates (and anyone else who may try) with sarcasm and snark, though he isn't easily angered by petty name calling and useless insults. For example, calling him gay or insulting his masculinity won't typically effect him in anyway. He'll just laugh you off and prance around in an exaggerated and feminine manner. His weight and body are definitely sensitive topic, but Xavier isn't prone to anger. If something is said to him that upsets him, he will try to either change the topic, leave the situation, or finally, troll the person into leaving him alone. Of course, after enough antagonization, Xavier will snap and begin to show signs of anger, even getting aggresive if pushed too far, though this is rare. The only time he will snap straight to anger is when his family is insulted, particularly his father, or he is insulted because of his race. Xavier is very proud of his Mexican heritage, and though he can easily take a light-hearted racist joke now and then, he does not take malcious insults about it very lightly.
Xavier finds comfort in humor, and will make light of nearly any situation, however dark it may be. When something becomes uncomfortable or awkward in any way, even if the situation is confrontational, he's the sort of person that will make jokes in an effort to ease the tension. Though he does tease people from time to time, it is never malicious. In fact, he see's a real problem in bullying of any kind, and will intervene to an extent if he see's the need. He doesn't like to see the innocent being mistreated, and will most often try to comfort people once something bad has happened, though he is not very good at it and finds it somewhat awkward to do. Even so, his heart is often in the right place. A typical teenager, he likes to goof off, especially when it comes to Gwen. He can often be found messing around in public places, wrestling with her, or having theatrical, dramatic mock fights with her in public for entertainment purposes. He's a highly-creative person, and when he is with Gwen, his insecurities all but vanish and he feels comfortable doing such things in public, even if he makes a spectacle of himself.
In fact, when it comes to Gwen, Xavier will do damn near anything to please her. Though they are best friends and he is comfortable with her, he is also entirely infatuated with her, and what she says, goes. She definitely wears the pants in the friendship, and if she wants to do something, that's what they're doing. This isn't a source of frustration for him though, because he seems to be concerned with pleasing her at any cost neccesary. Where once he was afraid to break rules in school, once he met Gwen he began to skip school, smoke weed, argue with teachers, get landed in detention. She even convinced him to sneak in through her window when he was banned form seeing her by her father, and though he was terrified of the man, he did so. Of course, in any relationships there are struggles, and their's is no different. Xavier has been known to argue with Gwen when he feels a line has been crossed, and doesn't put up with any sort of abuse from her yet. The things that he does for her that may come off as dangerous or irresponsible can't simply be blamed on her influence over him; he has fun being rebellious with her, and is quite capable of making those decisions on his own. He never tries to place the blame on Gwen for the bad situations he gets caught up in with her.
While Xavier can be the typical loud, cussing, rebellious teenager, he also has a strong set of values. He finds extreme importance in his family, close and far. He dreams of someday settling down and having a wife and children, looki­ng forward to having a son in particular, since his realtionship with his father is so strong. He's very proud of his Mexican heritage, and would happily talk about it with anyone who was so curious as to ask. Though he is not religious, he does believe in doing the right thing when it comes down to it. Sure, he breaks rules and acts out, but when push comes to shove, Xavier will do what he thinks is right, even if the almighty Gwen tells him not to. He's not about to break any rules that would have a directly negative effect on anyone but himself. Xavier cares about people, and even though he is awkward and somewhat untrusting of them, he likes almost everyone better than he likes himself. He has an extremely low self-confidence, though he is good at hiding it with humorous remarks about how amazing he is. He feigns self-confidence as a defense mechanism to keep people from teasing him like they did when he was a child, even if he does not realize it. His low self-esteem is not to be confused with shyness, for though Xavier is weary of his classmates and prefers to go unbothered by them, he's not afraid to speak his mind to any one of them should the opportunity arise. Xavier isnt' the type of person to make the first move with anyone, but if he is contact first, you are more or less garunteed some sort of response.
Above all, even Gwen, Xavier loves his art. A true artist to the core, he has been known to shut himself up in his room for days while working on a painting. Doodling whenever he can, Xavier's character 'Jak' often appears in his works. A strange skeletal figure, shrouded in black, Jak has been with Xavier since he was just a small child. He takes a great comfort in Jak, and has even been known to refer to him and Jak as 'we'. Jak is the closest thing to an imaginary friend that Xavier ever had, and even to this day, he feels a close connection with the character.
Xavier's biggest downfall? Anorexia. When he was fourteen he was officially diagnosed with it, after he began starving himself at the age of thirteen. Though he did go to rehab for the disorder, he has never fully gotten past it, and has started to slip back into the disease. He never eats much when he does eat, and often times goes days without eating anything other than water and maybe half a can of Spaghetti-O's. He relapsed for the first time only months before he met Gwen, and even after he met her and his mood improved drastically, he didn't stop the starvation cycles he put himself through. Though his moods do influence his habits somewhat, for the most part, reguardless of how he is feeling, he will eat as little food as possible and try to maintain a weight of around 110lbs so that he is thin enough to feel somewhat alright with his body (though he would like to be smaller), and not thin enough to alarm his mother into a frenzy. He also tends to wear baggy clothes to hide the change in weight from her. Xavier isn't proud of his problem. He tries to hide it from anyone that he can, and will quickly change the subject if it comes to food, weight, or body image. He rarely talks about his disorder with anyone, even Gwen, who has yet to find out about it at the point from which I am taking him.
✧ ABILITIES/POWERS: None, other than being a considerably skilled artist.
✧ TIME OF ARRIVAL: Night
✧ MASK DESIGN: Xavier's mask will be split directly down the middle of the nose. The right half will be very thin, flimsy, and stark white. It's cracked in places, and fits very closely to his face. The left side of the mask is thicker and very heavily decorated. It spikes out on the edges in a feathery design, though there are no actual feathers on the mask. It's bright blue, edges with silver and gold and covered in curving designs of the same colors.
✧ PLACE OF SOLACE: N/A

SAMPLES

✧ FIRST PERSON: Wow, this is a long thread. :'D I hope that's okay?

✧ THIRD PERSON:

***This game sample was taken from his application to thewake_rp***

Waking up in Nautilus, Xavier felt...not so great. You know those what-the-hell-just-happened-did-I-get-hit-by-the-bus-and-mauled-by-a-bear-all-at-once feelings? Yea, it was one of those. Alright, so admittedly, Xavier had never been hit by a bus or mauled by a bear before, and he had certainly never experienced both at once, but he knew what it was like to feel shitty, and that was certainly how this felt. On top of feeling weak and drained, his back was aching from the cold, hard ground beneath him. With a groan, he reaches up to rub his eyes, expecting his fingers to slide under the familiar cold plastic of his glasses, but...nope. No glasses either. Awesome. Xavier was damn near blind as a bat without those things. Another groan, and he pushes himself up, glancing around in an attempt to survey his surroundings. No use, of course. It's dark out already, and everything is just one big blur of black and grey.
He starts to panic. Why? Because Xavier can be one hell of a logical person when he wants to be, and this? This made no sense. Last he remembered, he was sleeping peacefully in his bed, dreaming of rainbows and butterflies and what the fuck else, and now? Now he was lying in the street somewhere. That was concerning enough, but the worst of it? He hadn't even the slightest recollection of how he'd gotten here. Something about just felt so...foreign. Somehow, he was under the impression that he wasn't just out lying around somewhere in the middle of town. No, this place wasn't home...This place was bringing goosebumps to his arms and making his hair stand up straight. There was no smell of industry, no sounds of cars on the highway, no streetlights...No no, this didn't make sense. None of this made sense...
His heart was practically beating out of his chest, and he felt sick to his stomach. He was scared--no, terrified. Where was he? How had he gotten there? How would he ever get home? Where the fuck were his glasses?!
He somehow manages to get back on his feet, and after just two steps forward: crunch. Oh. There they were.
Shit.
"Fuck..." He whispers to himself, leaning down slowly to scoop up the shattered remains of his glasses, holding them in front of her face and trying desperately to see through the cracked lenses. There was no way the bent plastic would hold over his ears and keep them on his face anymore...but seeing a little was better than not seeing at all. He'd have to do with holding them out in front of his eyes for now.
He's breathing heavily, trying to get a better view of the world around him through these lenses. Surely this was some sort of fucked up zombie apocalypse or something...r-right? A zombie apocalypse could be cool...right?
Fuck, this was bad. This was really, really bad.
For whatever reason, he checks his pockets. Really, it's always a good idea to check your pockets...right? Right. And voila! His phone! Score. He pulls the device out from his pocket, just about ready to dial his mother's phone number when he realizes that, a.) he doesn't actually have a phone, b.) he's never even seen this phone before, and c.) it's preparing to broadcast some sort of recording...

✧ ORIGINAL CHARACTER QUESTION:
Because Xavier is an average teenager at the core, of course he is going to be a little shaken up, waking up in a strange city with a bunch of people he's never even seen before. He'll be scared, confused, and maybe even a little angry. God knows he'll be frustrated, and without Gwen or his family around, he'll really start to get homesick after a while. Honestly, the city will probably be a pretty hard adjustment for it, but with something so overwhelmingly strange, he'll try to deal with it as calmly as he can. This will probably involve some joke-cracking, sarcastic humor, etc.; normal teenage coping mechanisms. He'll cling to those who he feels he can trust, and snark at the ones he feels threatened by, if not avoid them altogether. Once he begins meeting meeting magic users, giant mechas, talking ponies, etc., well...he'll be pretty shocked...probably even scared! But, as with most things, the shock will eventually fade and he'll adjust to the city and it's people as best he can. He's rather adaptable, when he needs to be, and in such a strange and sudden change of environment, it may be one of those situations where one is able to think clearer because of the stress.