OOC: Character Profile
basics
name: Matthew (Matt) Alexander Buckley
age: 30
birthdate: October 5, 1977
location: An apartment near Prospect Park in Brooklyn
occupation: Currently unemployed and living off a modest inheritance after deciding to abandon the priesthood.
tale info
fairytale: Mary, Mary Quite Contrary
ability: None, unless being contrary counts in some way.
relationship with tale: Matt came to the realization of his Tale fairly late in life and it's something he still struggles with a great deal. After all, learning that you are a reincarnated fairy tale while studying for the priesthood can definitely mess with your head. Let alone a fairy tale that was penned to mock a great Catholic. He's anything but comfortable with his origins and it's something he generally refuses to talk about. Up until abandoning the priesthood, he wanted absolutely nothing to do with the Atheneum and is just now starting to explore Taledom. He doesn't have a whole lot in common with his Tale (well not much is known about her) since he isn't a little girl surrounded by pretty maids all in a row. But he does have one distinct trait in common with Mary, and that is his contrarian nature. And he is rather fond of gardening, but he's not going to be seeing any silver or marine life in his garden any time soon.
past incarnations: Matt does not remember any of his past incarnations, nor does he care to since he's still trying to deny this whole reincarnation business.
public knowledge: The only way Matt is going to reveal his Tale is if he is absolutely forced. Or if it comes out when he's piss drunk and ranting incoherently.
personality
first impressions: It's like Bluto escaped the Animal House and lost 100 pounds...
personality: Matt has two distinct sides of his personality. Ordinarily, he's actually quite the nice guy and he definitely has the compassion and empathy that made him a good priest. He's happy to listen to the problems of others and is genuinely interested in doing what he can to help. The problem is that he's turned out to be a rather belligerent drunk and he seems to be spending a fair amount of his time in that state these days. Which just means that he has a tendency to drink too much, insult everyone around him and feel absolutely horrible about it the next morning. He's getting really good at apologies.
While he used to be one of the more ambitious and driven types of the world in his future MBA days, he's now the very definition of sloth. He is perfectly content to lounge around all day with his Xbox. He doesn't even want a Wii because all of that arm waving seems like far too much work. His apartment hasn't seen a cleaning product since the day he received his inheritance, although he does bother to pick up some of the pizza boxes when they really start to smell. He maintains that the wall of beer cans is art. Basically he's a 30 year old man living like he's straight out of Animal House and he just can't be bothered to care about the fact that this is really fairly pathetic. In his mind, he's compensating for all of the years lost to school and religion.
In terms of social interactions, he has three distinct stages. Sober, he tends to be a little on the awkward side, especially when it comes to women. Being a thirty-year-old virgin can do that to a guy. After a few beers, he relaxes and turns into a pretty affable and good-natured guy who is fun to be around. And then there's the drunk and belligerent stage. The problem is you never really know which "Matt" you're going to get. The one constant is that he pretty much always just wants to have a good time. It's just that what constitutes a "good time" tends to change wildly, from sequestering himself in his apartment to starting a bar fight. That he will invariably lose.
And obviously his contrarian nature is a definite aspect of his personality. It's not that he feels the need to disagree with whatever someone else says (that was his last incarnation, to the misfortune of everyone who had to deal with her) but it's just that whenever he feels that something is "expected" of him, he has this innate urge to run the other way. And as a result, he's turning into pretty much a whole mess of contradictions.
likes: Beer, pizza, video games, any movie with Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell, theological discussions (some habits don't die)
dislikes: Cleaning, suits, politics, pot
hobbies: Matt has nothing but hobbies in his life right now and yes, he considers the Xbox and the Playstation to be separate hobbies. He's also a big fan of watching tv and downloading porn.
sexuality: Straight
relationships: Single and quite hopeless with women.
turn-ons: He's a thirty year old virgin. Everything turns him on.
turn-offs: See above.
history
birthplace: Arcata, California
parents: Barry and Laura "Moonbeam" Buckley who run a medical marijuana dispensary in Arcata
siblings: Matt is the youngest of three brothers. His oldest brother, Travis, works at the dispensary with his parents while the middle brother, Aaron, is supposedly off "finding himself" in Eastern Europe.
high school: Arcata High School, class of 1995
college: Undergrad at Yale University, class of 1999; Seminary at Catholic University, finished in 2005
background: Matt was born to the quintessential aging hippie parents who had protested Vietnam, attended Woodstock and generally professed their anti-establishment beliefs at every opportunity. So of course his response was to turn into a young Republican a la Alex P. Keaton at a very young age. His parents were quite perplexed by their youngest son and his desire to wear ties to kindergarten. But they figured it was a phase he would grow out of and rationalized that they were just nurturing his creativity.
Growing up in Arcata, California (Humboldt County), Matt frequently found himself as the odd man (or boy) out in the community. Most of his classmates seemed to take after their parents and while they were all spending their lunch hours smoking pot, he was writing his ten year plan and studying business models. For the most part, this suited him just fine as long as the other kids left him alone.
When the time came for him to go off to college, Matt packed his bags and moved across the country to study economics at Yale University with plans of going on to business school. Preferably at Wharton. Except after a year of being surrounded by all of the other future MBAs, Matt's contrarian nature struck again and he changed his major to Religious Studies. He had never been a particularly religious person - it was perhaps one of the few things that he had in common with his parents - but through his coursework he found himself strangely drawn to Catholicism. By the end of his sophomore year, he had converted and made plans to spend his junior year studying abroad in Rome.
While spending a year hanging around the Vatican seemed like it would be enough to get this whole "Catholic thing" out of Matt's system (at least that's what his family hoped) it only intensified his interest in the religion and when he returned to Yale for his senior year, he decided that what he really wanted to do with his life was to become a priest. Although he did not make the decision as a deliberately contrary thing to do, the unusual nature of his interest did make it more appealing to him. So he began researching seminary schools before finally settling on the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.
He went straight on to the seminary after finishing his undergraduate degree and immersed himself in his study of the Catholic faith. While studying the English Reformation and Queen Mary I in his third year, Matt discovered an essay discussing the famous nursery rhyme and debating whether or not it was the English or Scottish Queen Mary who served as the inspiration. He started having all manner of disturbing dreams, from seeing himself as a little girl in a bonnet, standing in a field of strange flowers, to kneeling before the executioner's block in Mary, Queen of Scots's blood red dress. A week later, Jacob Anser was standing in his living room telling him some strange nonsense about being a reincarnated nursery rhyme. Matt did what any sensible Catholic would have done (in his mind at any rate) and completely rejected all of this, tossing his compendium in a box to be ignored.
Matt managed to defy expectations and actually went on to finish his work at seminary and go on to take his vows as a member of the Dominican Order of Preachers, becoming Father Matthew Buckley, O.P. Once he was officially ordained, he moved to New York City and took a position in a church in the city. He thought being a priest in such a godless city like New York would satisfy his contrarian nature. But he almost immediately found himself rather overwhelmed by the urge to go do something completely different. Still, he managed to hold out for two and a half years before he finally had the impetus to move on.
Two months ago, Matt's last grandmother passed away. She didn't hold his parents in the highest of esteem, at least not when it came to managing finances and instead decided to leave her money to Matt in the hopes that he might do some good with it, or at least be relatively responsible. She had actually been rather pleased with his decision to become a priest, figuring he was at least devoting his life to helping others. The inheritance wasn't a large sum, but enough to live off of for at least a year. When Matt received the news of this inheritance, it was the last little push that he needed to abandon the priesthood.
But for the first time in his life, Matt isn't entirely sure what he wants to do next. At the moment he just wants to sit in his apartment, watching movies, playing video games, drinking heavily and generally enjoying all of the little nonsensical pursuits he's missed out on so far in his life. And one day when he was packing up all of his religious texts, he stumbled upon his long-forgotten compendium and decided to see just what this Tale business was all about.
appearance
height: 6'
build: Definitely on the scrawny side
hair: Medium brown, rarely combed
eyes: Blue
dress: Generally whatever jeans and shirt he picked up off the floor that morning.
appearance: Matt is actually quite capable of looking presentable - he's done it for most of his life, after all. But he sees no reason to bother with appearances right now and generally looks like he just rolled out of bed. Although he swears he does shower before leaving his apartment. Usually.
ooc
name: Ali (2)
aim: reigning in ore
played-by: Edward Norton
disclaimer: This is a role-playing journal. I'm not Edward Norton or Matt Buckley. Please don't sue