OOC [REIMS] ☢ PROFILE + PERMISSIONS
Axel.
Basics.
NAME: Axel Hayes
CANON: Kingdom Hearts
CANON REFERENCE: In case you don't have it memorized.
AGE: 24
GENDER Male
Appearance.
Quite tall and whipcord thin with a wiry frame and long legs, Axel is a figure that's hard to miss in a crowd. Couple his build with a mane of mid-back length bright red hair that is swept backward into spikes but still tries to stick out in all directions and you've got someone who is damn near impossible to overlook. He's fairly fine-boned for his height and his features are sharp with a complexion that is incredibly pale. Besides his hair, his most distinguishing features are the black facial tattoos in the shapes of upside down teardrops inked beneath each almost radioactive green eye. He's also got a black infinity symbol ∞ (or a sideways 8) tattooed on his upper left forearm beneath his elbow. Most often you'll find Axel sporting a shit-eating grin or any number of sly smiles, though his range of expressions are primarily an act. If you catch him unawares, his face his usually completely blank and neutral, almost like he has to put thought into summoning an emotion.
Wardrobe wise, Axel stretches the 'business casual' dress code to it's bursting limits. Though he generally does dress conservatively, usually in khakis and a sweater-vest over a short sleeve shirt, he's also been known to show up to school in quite literally whatever he laid his hands on that morning. He justifies Bermuda shorts and shredded cigarette-led denims if pressed by sheepishly tacking on the bow-tie he keeps in his desk drawer, but it goes farther some days than others. Whether or not he truly does forget or does it on purpose is a mystery, but he does at least seem to make an effort more often than not. Besides an eclectic (and often loud) sense of fashion, Axel usually wears his hair tied up in a ponytail to keep it from eating things in its vicinity and he dons red plastic-framed glasses for close-up reading and grading papers.
Personality.
As a whole, Axel is a character who's hard to pin down. Mercurial with a disposition that's constantly changing, it's possible that Axel is an almost entirely different person each time you meet him. He's a creature of whim to the core, his attitude often based heavily on his mood and his own flash-impressions of things (and people). Quick-witted, snarky, charming, charismatic through and through, he's always got a smile for almost everyone, even if it's got razorblades hidden in it. His sense of humor is sarcastic and can sometimes be a little dark , his jokes occasionally cutting, but his intentions are rarely cruel and he manages to find a balance that keeps things funny. He's got an easy-going perspective on life in general and likes things laid-back and informal and he can carry on a conversation about just about anything with just about anyone so long as it doesn't require him to get personal. Ever confident, cool and collected, he loves to show up, drop a catchphrase (Got it memorized?) and leave on a cocky note with a dangerous smile and a sharp remark. Notoriously difficult to rile, Axel seems to enjoy provoking others and pushing buttons buttons, finding great fun in seeing how far he can push people. Not someone to cross when he's in a foul mood though, Axel's rare tempers are as fiery as his hair and his already sharp tongue will seek to draw blood. Axel is also very manipulative even when he's not actually meaning to be; he's the type to have backup plans for his backup plans and is absolutely never caught out of his element because he makes a point to always be at the top of his game. By nature he's a unabashed schemer, someone who's eternally playing a part; the type of person who would sell you down river in a heartbeat so long as he felt the ends justified the means. Axel is hard to read and impossible to predict, his motives always a mystery. He's also got a knack for fooling people when he wants to too, playing simple, acting dumb and harmless and getting in close before twisting things or people around to suit his own ends. Despite this, he does have his own bizarre sense of morals though and he tends to stick to his own ethics even when the path of 'right' is only obvious to him. Far more dangerous than a vindictive or a furious Axel though, is a bored Axel. Left to his own devices or alone with his own thoughts, it will almost always result in destruction.
So, to others, Axel is friendly and outgoing with a vigorous enthusiasm, a snide wit, and a devil-may-care attitude along with a trouble-making tendency and a penchant for invading personal space. He likes things flashy, fast, and over the top- his philosophy being that it's only worth it if it will be remembered. Beneath the surface, contrary to his flippancy, Axel is sensitive and very closed-off, with defenses that he put into place so early on he has trouble remembering that his numbness towards the outside world may not actually be legitimate. He's got a turbulent mind that's a lot less confident than he lets on. Deeply cynical, Axel does in fact have doubts, and he tends to question things (especially himself) mercilessly. For reasons he can't explain, he has always felt somewhat apart from most people, unable to connect with others or understand their reactions and emotions. He sometimes thinks that perhaps he's lacking something other people have, a conscience or a real sense of empathy, often finding himself going through the motions to console or sympathize, since he himself lets things roll off of him like water, never allowing himself to feel things deep enough to affect him. The real kicker is that a part of his does want to reach out, and he has the capacity to be a loyal and devoted friend to someone who can push past his shields. He tends to shy away perusing friendships, trusting others, or having lasting relationships though, ever afraid that letting someone in will reveal his "true self" to others and that they're going to discover that he's heartless underneath- the irony that a heartless person wouldn't worry about being heartless at all is beyond him. The only cracks that are seen from the surface are the times when he is prone to odd moments of seemingly careless introspection and that he tends to avert his eyes from direct contact when he is lying, though he's practiced enough that it's often too smooth to be noticed, even by those who know him well. Is this arrogance or part of a plan? Or perhaps it's an convoluted way of attempting to reach out without opening himself up to attack.
Though Axel has always been a floater without much motivation, perpetually bored, there are a few things that have managed to capture his elusive affinity. These things seem to range from cooking (at which he's not half bad but is sometimes naked), gambling (or rather perfecting the art of cheating), reading (everything he can get his hands on- novels to cereal boxes), magic tricks (which he IS half bad at), and following soap operas (which he won't admit to). A few of his likes consist of firecrackers, lightening storms, spicy food, dancing, sleeping, Chinese take-out, inventing mixed drinks, the smell of matches, and things that explode. He's rather impartial to cats, swimming (or really water and getting wet in general), early mornings, being cold, getting beaten at Guitar Hero, being ignored, children (this irony does NOT escape him), and fussy women.
History (AU).
As far as childhoods go, Axel's was uneventful. House in the suburbs of a fairly big Mid-Western city, middle-class, two parents (not divorced), only child, dog, minivan, yada yada, you get it. He was bright kid though, smart enough to be eternally bored but not such a genius they'd skip him ahead. Being bored led to being a bit of a trouble-maker, as if often does, and Axel grew up fairly used to detentions and getting notes sent home, but even as his teachers would tell you, especially early on, he wasn't a bad kid, just distracted. Diagnosed ADHD and subsequently brushed off, Axel skated through school with mediocre grades and enough friends to just qualify as unpopular. By the time High School rolled around, Axel's boredom had become full-fledged apathy and though his parents tried to enroll him in every hobby, after-school activity, and sport they could think of, none of them stuck. Axel spent most of his time outside of class playing video games and holed up in his room doing the one thing that did interest him, no not that, perv reading. Axel read a lot and as he cultivated preferences, he also began to develop real identity, slowly evolving from a loud-mouthed class-clown to a high-school outcast, taking hold of a defiant, bad-boy persona that both served to generally get people to leave him alone and to attract those who's interests were also obscure and outside of what they (as a group now) considered to be mundane. So that was Axel- skipping class to read Salinger and Burroughs behind the auditorium, smoking cigarettes lifted from his mom and swapping mix CDs full of 70's Punk and Post-Punk rock. It's a fairly typical scene, yes, but Axel flourished, feeling for the first time that he really fit in somewhere by not fitting in, he started dying his hair violently red and wore jeans that were more Sharpie-ink and safety-pins than fabric. Taking strong pride in setting the rebel-standard, Axel's behavior became more and more extreme as his limit-pushing escalated, and after a particularly bad summer that culminated in a shop-lifting arrest and crashing a girlfriend's car, Axel's parents, pre-occupied with divorce and frustrated with his "showing out", decided to try sending him to therapy.
Shrinks, Axel decided rather quickly, were monumentally useless. Over the next couple of years, he went through a slew, finding each one unhelpful and beneath his own intelligence, mostly spouting out text-book responses that were inferior to common sense. He did however take some interest in Psychology as a notion, realizing figuring out how people think is fascinating, not to mention useful. It didn't quell Axel's outrageous behavior though, if anything, possibly serving only to exacerbate it as he took monumental pleasure in shocking and confounding his therapists and learning to manipulate teachers. Senior year, things came again to a drastic head when an accidental fire he'd started while indulging his long-time (and fairly innocent) pyromaniacal tendencies burning plastic cafeteria forks behind the gym got out of hand and spread to the building, burning it down. This event not only resulted in Axel's expulsion from school, but stands out as the first time things had really gotten out of his own control and truly frightened him. No one was hurt, but Axel was lucky not to be sent to Juvenile. His crime was ruled a misdemeanor and he was required to agree to surrender to his parent's supervision and remain in locked-down house-arrest while he home schooled the rest of his year. Though frustrating, it did serve as a wake-up call to Axel, who felt substantial guilt upon noticing the toll things were taking on his mother, who he lived with, and had been taking for-granted for some time. He redoubled his school efforts as well and raised his grades, even resulting in offers from small Universities. This only heightened the impending weight of what next for Axel, a subject that he'd been avidly avoiding for a long time, along with all things even remotely related to college. The truth was, Axel really didn't have any direction and he was surprised to find that he actually wanted some, another first. Not knowing where to even begin to start, Axel graduated and fought to bide time. He took the summer off and worked in a record store, something he was immensely happy doing, and took a few core courses at the local community college as fall rolled around.
By the next Fall, nothing had changed. Still working and under pressure to choose a major, Axel gave into his innate impulsiveness and dropped his classes in favor of touring with his manager's band and operating their pyrotechnic shows. Touring was good for Axel, at least in his own opinion, and it opened him up to all of the things he felt he'd been missing in his small-town existence. Big cities, big parties, and massive amounts of experimentation with things ranging from drugs and alcohol to sexuality, Axel was happy to be blown off-track. By the end of the year, he'd joined a band himself, serving as lead vocals for a glorified rock-and-roll garage band put together by some guys he'd met in the underground music circuit. They weren't bad but they definitely weren't good, and Axel, now caught up in the lifestyle of the scene, dropped his last name and dropped the band he was with and started another with his at-the-time boyfriend, whom he had moved in with in the city. His new band, much better than the last, developed some impressive local fame and did little to discourage Axel embracing Bohemia, something with a spirit he could get behind. It all had a rather abrupt end though when Axel's boyfriend left him for the girl Axel'd been seeing on the side, a turn of events that was troubling to Axel only because the only upset he felt at all was related to the connections the relationship had given him access to. Once again, Axel was prompted to do some serious self-evaluating (damn that Psychology) and found that he wasn't really happy with where he was or who he was becoming. This more than anything else caused him to quit the band and go back to school, something his mother had been constantly nagging him to do, this time at the State University which was an easy move across town into the dorms.
Having a little real-world experience under his belt, school felt much more like a comfortable fit; a choice he had made himself rather than something he was shoved into by indecision. Resuming where he'd previously left off, Axel started taking classes in whatever interested him, declaring himself a Psychology major after his first semester there. Even at the community college, he'd had straight-A's, and he kept up the momentum at his new school, winning himself scholarships and grants that allowed him to stay once his mostly-drained college fund had run out. He was also developing surprising affinity for Science and he actually enjoyed his schoolwork, especially when he discovered the true joys of the things a college-level Chemistry lab has access to. It was really then that he was sold, changing his major to Chemistry and then to Chemical Engineering as he got further along. Unable to put his trouble-making days totally behind him, Axel became rather well-known around campus for being the master of prank-wars and the leader of several hazings (though he wasn't even in a Fraternity), but on the whole he did tone down his act for at least long enough to graduate with his BS in Chemical Engineering and then, a year later, with his Master's.
College was simple once Axel buckled down and found the momentum, but once he was finished he found himself once again at a complete loss as to what he wanted to DO. Get a job? He guessed, but it didn't really have the same draw, since no matter how hard the work (even on this thesis), school had always had a balance of freedom and fun and none of the pressure that the "real world" seemed to face him with again. Out of money to continue toward his PhD and unable to find an 'in' as a research assistant or intern, he decided once again to take a break and give it some time. Despite that he still had student loans and bills to pay, Axel called his best buddy from his band days (who happened to have rich parents), and booked a flight to Europe. Despite several weeks in Amsterdam that Axel doesn't actually remember, traveling was both fun and educational. It was somewhere in Germany though that money ran out and Axel's friend ditched him for a pretty Heiress on vacation, Axel left crashing floors and making his way to stay with an Indie-Artist ex-girlfriend, now in Paris. Lots of schooling seemed to help very little when Axel was forced to start working whatever low-paying jobs he could get that didn't require speaking much French, and after a couple months his Visa was threatening to run out. Thankfully, it was right around this time that he saw a posting for teachers at Reims, a Private International Academy in need of English-speaking Science teachers. Jumping at the chance to apply, it seemed like the perfect solution to Axel's problems.
Reims.
COMPUTER APTITUDE:
Intermediate. Axel's no computer genius, but he can social network and pirate music like a pro. He will also kick your ASS at most video games, but this is fairly irrelevant. As far as hackability is concerned, it's possible, but he does know how to set a password with lots of numbers and random capitol letters. Personally, he probably won't be doing any hacking unless somebody's left their computer logged in. In that case, he will feel obligated.
TENURE: None; first semester.
SUBJECT/POSITION: Middle School (lower level) Earth Science and Intro to Chemistry. He's also available as a club sponsor, depending on the club.
RESIDENCE: At the academy, though he's saving his pennies for his own place on the island. And also a moped. Yeaaah.
JUSTIFICATION:
Axel hates kids almost as much as he hates authority figures, so it makes little sense that Axel would seek to become an authority figure for children. However, despite this and many, many other reasons he should probably never be allowed to influence impressionable minds, Axel is actually a really great teacher. He smokes, he curses, and he thinks "melt something" is a completely appropriate homework assignment, but he has PASSION for his subject and for imparting the importance of learning something upon young minds. It's this that came through in his interview, combined with a few unexpectedly dazzling recommendations his professors and colleagues back home, that landed him the job at Reims. Because of his rather sketchy background and massive world-experience, Axel has unique viewpoint and good understanding of kids and the way that they work. He'd never given teaching as a career much of a thought before it was convenient, but he also thoroughly enjoys it, remembering how hard it was when he was a teen and the things he wanted to know. He's very lax when it comes to rules and following them, but his classes have value both in learning the subject matter and in life-lessons when subjects tend to run off-course a bit. Kids seem to enjoy his attitude as well, feeling comfortable with him as he acts more like a student than other professors and is never judgmental, though he does have little pity and makes no concession for those that break the few rules that he lays down. Effort is more important than actual scores, he figures, and does his best to make the classroom a fun and relevant environment, often to the distress of his peers.
I decided to make Axel a teacher rather than a student because I do feel personally that he'll be a totally fun and interesting addition to a staff and because he does have a lot to learn himself, which'll be most effective from this kind of a perspective as he struggles with overcoming his own trouble-making tendencies and is forced to deal with providing and conforming to a structured environment, also growing to understand where adults are coming from rather than blatantly throwing away rules and causing problems like he did when he was younger himself. He also takes his job far more seriously than he lets on, seeing himself as a role-model even when his actions are directly contrary. He doesn't mind being 'buddies' with students instead of 'the man' and he'll defend this with the philosophy that kids don't open up if they don't feel comfortable with someone who's on their level. Obviously, this sometimes serves to undermine the effectiveness of his authority, but it doesn't stop him from laying it down when he feels the need, and has been known to show up to underground parties, have a beer, and then shut the whole thing down.
Sidenote- Axel just goes by 'Axel' and discourages any title or formality. It's debatable whether it's actually his real name or whether he changed it, but either way, he seems to be keeping the secret.
Random Facts.
Permissions.
[OOC]
Backtagging: Yes, always!
Threadhopping: Hopping/jacking is ALWAYS okay with me as long as the thread is open to your character!
Fourthwalling: See Reims rules.
Offensive subjects: None really, not much is off-limits with Axel, even if it's not quite appropriate. He can be a little evasive with personal things pertaining to him though and if he doesn't want to talk about something he'll shut it down himself.
[IC]
Hugging this character: Go for it. Axel isn't really a touchy sort, so he may be confused or freeze up unless you're somebody he likes/knows well enough.
Kissing this character: How old are you? He's gonna need to see your ID unless this is something we've pre-planned out for some reason.
Flirting with this character: Axel loves to flirt, encroach upon the personal space of others, say suggestive things and make vulgar innuendo because it makes people uncomfortable or gets a rise out of them. There's still a teacher/student line of appropriateness though and feel free to push it, but he may close the door in your face.
Fighting with this character: Axel is quite capable in a fight. He's fast, he's not above dirty tricks, and he always carries a lighter. He's probably not going to rile to a fight with a student though unless you push him pretty far, and then it's unlikely to get too physical.
Injuring this character: This really isn't that sort of game but feel free to get with me OOC for plotting.
Killing this character: Not at Reims.
Warnings: Nothing I can think of right now.