Adam Deulane
Dec 21, 2013 1:52:04 GMT -5
Post by Adam Deulane on Dec 21, 2013 1:52:04 GMT -5
The BasicsName: Adam Michael Deulane
Age: 25
Orientation: Heterosexual, though this is rarely if ever relevant
Desired Rank/Job: Math Teacher
Powers: None
Play By: Henry Cavill (from the neck up)The DetailsHair Color: Dark brown
Eye Color: Angry (blue)
Piercings? : None
Any Tattoos? What part of paying a stoned high school dropout to put permanent markings on my body sounds like a good idea to you?
Any Scars? Six-on-one “fistfight” with high school football team. Doctor could not put nose completely back together
General Appearance:
For about three seconds after you lay eyes on him, Adam Deulane is an unusually good-looking young man. He has a strong, linear face with intent blue eyes, dark, wavy hair, and a sharp jaw. His cheekbones look photoshopped. His nose bears the unevenness of an old break and there are acne scars on his cheeks, but for most observers these imperfections only help a scruffy edge to his handsomeness. He has recently grown a beard to assert authority over his new students, and it suits him well. He is slightly shorter than average and a long way from anyone's definition of muscular, but he is trim and well-proportioned and looks like a million bucks in a suit. Not that he ever wears one—his standard uniform is jeans and an assortment of hooded sweaters, or button-up shirts while teaching. He takes little concern with his appearance in general, as only the naturally handsome or apathetic can afford to do.
The charm is broken the moment Adam makes eye contact. Like a bad smell, the man's horrific temper lingers in his knitted brows and knotted jaw and quickly saps all appeal from his face. After five minutes in his company, most people can see nothing but a scrawny, sour-faced jerk. His scruffy handsomeness becomes sloppiness, his angled cheekbones arrogant. A smile will temporarily revert the damage done by his moods, and the improvement is almost unbelievable. But people don't see very many of those.
Personality: In a word: caustic. Though Adam has recently turned over a new leaf and is trying to learn better ways to cope with his anger, he still comes off as one of the most unpleasant people you have ever had the misfortune to encounter. His standard moods are indifferent, sarcastic, and openly hostile. In conversation, his goal seems to be to get you to leave as quickly as possible. He has a hair-trigger temper, little patience for people less intelligent than he is, and lashes out at random when he is frustrated or stressed. This is what ultimately got him fired from his last job, when he shouted an intern into tears for accidentally using a permanent marker on his whiteboard.
Suffice to say, Adam doesn't have many friends. His appalling social graces and solitary disposition mean that he spends most of his time alone working on his math. This suits him just fine, and the easiest way to see Adam's better side is to put a pencil in his hand and ask him something about calculus. Math is the one place in his life where Adam feels sure of himself, and when he is working through a problem all the unhappiness and insecurity that makes him so hostile fades away.
A conversation with this Adam will show an introverted, rather terse person, but not the raging sociopath his first impression would lead you to expect. In the evenings, it's not uncommon to see his little sister doing homework and chatting in his office while he grades papers. Even at ease he still has a temper, but an unkind comment has a chance to be followed by a muttered apology. He expresses his emotions more easily in deeds than in words, and his sister has often gone to bed in tears and woken up the next morning to find her laundry washed and folded neatly in front of her door.
Like most brilliant men and women, his personal habits are sometimes a bit strange. His diet consists mainly of caviar and Chinese takeout, and his rooms and offices are arranged with all of the furniture jammed into the smallest possible area to maximize wall space. He made a very healthy paycheck at his previous job but hates spending money, and will not get into a suit unless he is physically forced to do so. He has the focus of a surgical laser, and when he's working it often takes him more than a minute to realize that someone has entered the room. Once that's happened, his reaction is usually either to throw an eraser at you or turn back to his work and ask absently what you want. It's difficult to tell which one it's going to be ahead of time.Your VicesLikes:
Vector calculus
His half-sister
Puzzles
Being praised
Caviar
Dislikes:
Dogs
His half-sister
Anyone who might be smarter than he is
Interruptions
Strengths:
Brilliant mathematician
Remembers everything
Good teacher when he's in a reasonable mood
Herculean work ethic, even for things he's not good at
Surprisingly competent at reading social cues
He is working very hard to get his anger under control
Weaknesses:
Perpetually irritable, aggressive, and rude
Showboats when he feels intimidated
Picks fights with the wrong people
Strong tendency to isolate himself
Has a hard time looking at things from anything other than a mathematical perspective – see disastrous seventh grade history project.
Fears:
Someone else in his family dying
Spending the rest of his life like he spent the last five years--angry and alone
Being replaced or outperformed in his field—if he's not the best at math, what is he?
Secret: He is deeply ashamed and disgusted with himself for losing his job. He doesn't know which is worse, that his behavior was so bad that it got him fired or that his work wasn't good enough to keep him there in spite of it. He desperately wants to do better at Hammel, though he is terrified of what he'll do when he's in charge of a room of 30 teenagers.Family TiesMother: Mary Gwinn, nee Deulane, deceased
Stepfather: Brent Gwinn, telekinetic
Half-sister: Nora Marie Gwinn, 8 years younger, accelerates radioactive decayHistoryAdam's mom, Mary, was in her last year of high school when he was born, and she was the only one happy to see him when he arrived. Her boyfriend was horrified that she had kept it and wanted nothing further to do with either of them, and her mother had similar sentiments. Adam's earliest memories are split between the daycare at Portland Community College and the quilt-sized apartment he shared with her.
When he was five years old, Adam's mom married a large, gentle telekinetic who worked as a mechanic. A whirlwind of change followed the wedding: they moved into a new house, Mary graduated, he started school at Pearson Elementary. He didn't like school at first, he would have rather been at home with his mom. But then, during their fourth addition lesson, something magical happened in Adam's mind. Afterwards, during reading time, he grabbed a crayon and piece of paper and began writing out the numbers. One. Two. One and one was two. One and two was three. Two and three was five. Three and five was eight.
He had reached forty-six thousand when his teacher came over and asked what he was doing.
The numbers danced for him. After a conversation with his teacher, Mary and Brent decided to hire a private tutor. The tutor had never had such an eager student. She would start on a new lesson to find that he had already read ahead and had questions about it, plus the chapter after. She would assign him homework and he would do every problem in the section, twice. The rest of elementary school was a frantic, joyful blur of learning. His half-sister Nora Marie was born just as he started learning algebra. She brought the new element of utter chaos into the Gwinn family, but Adam liked having her around.
Adam's early adolescence was about as pleasant as you could expect for a scrawny, acne-ridden boy who worked through math textbooks for fun. The long, friendless ordeal ended when Adam got jumped by half the football team and Mary pulled him out of school. As soon as he met the state requirements, he took his GRE and applied to the nearby Portland State University. At only 15 years old, he stood out on campus like a sore thumb, but he at least managed to make friends with a few of the homeschooled kids, and he loved his classes. He lived at home, and graduated with a double degree in mathematics and physics shortly after he turned 18.
He had been enrolled in the graduate program at PSU for less than a year when Mary was diagnosed with liver cancer. She was 36 years old and had no family history of the disease, and by the time the doctors realized what was wrong the cancer had metastasized. Her family could only watch in horror as her health deteriorated in spite of every treatment they tried. In two months, she was dead.
It took three nurses to pull Adam off the doctor who told them the news. They tried to restrain and console him at the same time while he struggled, still screaming for the doctor's blood. Brent just stood and stared, struck dumb, and Nora Marie started to cry. Adam didn't remember much after that.
Everything fell apart. Adam couldn't concentrate on anything, couldn't think more than ten minutes ahead, couldn't understand how his mother could be gone and he was still here. He alternated between lying in a stupor on the floor and crying hysterically. After the funeral he still couldn't believe it had really happened. His life became a haze of grief and rage.
It was around that time that the recruiters came to visit. Looking back on it, Adam shouldn't have been as shocked by it as he was. Brent was a meta, after all, and Nora Marie had just turned eleven. It took a while for the recruiters to explain what was going on to the grief-numb family, since neither Nora Marie nor anyone else had noticed anything happening. After a few visits and a small test, the recruiters told the family that Nora Marie could accelerate radioactive decay. In other words, anything that was already radioactive, she made more so. She was going to be enrolled in Brent's old school, the Hammel Institute, to learn how to control it and ensure she wouldn't harm anyone.
Something in Adam snapped then. His mother had dropped dead in two months from liver cancer, and his baby sister was radioactive. It was her fault. Her freaky mutation had poisoned his mother to die unconscious in a hospital bed plugged up with tubes. He didn't care that she had manifested after Mary was already dead, the recruiters had it wrong. She wasn't showing any visible signs, she could have manifested months ago for all they knew. It was her fault, because it had to be someone's fault. And Brent was just as culpable, he was the one who brought those freaky genes into their family, and even with his powers he hadn't been able to save her. The raging fight that ensued did not end well. Three hours later, Adam threw his half-packed bag in a taxi and headed for the airport.
For the next five years, Adam turned to his math the way that others turn to alcohol. He entered the graduate program at MIT and filled his life with nothing but endless whiteboards. He volunteered for twice the normal number of research teams, slept in the lab, and stopped talking to anyone who suggested that he take a break. It was MIT, the thesis board didn't care that his lifestyle was unhealthy. In two years, he graduated in distinction with a Masters in Mathematics, and one of the best research labs in Boston asked him to join their R&D department.
It was a vicious cycle. The lonelier and unhappier Adam became, the more he retreated into his head, and the more he retreated into his head the more his impatience with others grew. By the time he was 25, his temper had spiraled so out of control that he lost his job. “It doesn't matter how strong your work is,” Adam's boss said as she pointed him out the door, “You've had enough warnings, your behavior is inexcusable, and you're bringing the whole team down.”
Adam didn't bother to clear out his desk, because he was afraid he would start shouting and throw everything out the window. What was he going to do? He could find another job, but it would probably end even worse than this one. He could go back to school, but at MIT there was the constant threat of being upstaged by some rookie savant. He needed to be the best at what he did, it was all he had.
These thoughts churned in Adam's remarkable brain as he stomped up to his apartment. There he found that someone had smashed in his front window. Inside, he found his sister.
Adam hadn't spoken to his family since he left for MIT, despite their efforts to contact him. He hadn't laid eyes on Nora Marie in years. And there she was, standing in his living room, with acne on her cheeks and a face and eyes just like Mary's. The sister who, even though he knew it was impossible, he still blamed for Mary's death. The sister who, he also learned later, had given her escort the slip and would end up with her off-campus visiting privileges revoked for a year. They stared at each other for a minute, then Adam broke down in tears. She gave him the first hug he'd had in a long, long time.
~~~
“Really, a teaching position?”
Adam sat in a small, low-lit room across from an older man holding a pad of legal paper. He had his elbows braced on his knees and stared intently at the floor. It was his last meeting with his anger management counselor before he moved to Pilot Ridge.
“I've been thinking about it for a while. I already started the paperwork, I'll finish with my teaching credentials after I move. It's been good to be back home, but there's no real jobs for me here, and it's hard—being in the house, sometimes.” He gave a long, slow exhale. “Nora Marie has told me a lot about her school, and it sounds like they need teachers, especially ones that can work with the brightest kids. I'd be in my field, but it would be less...intense. I wouldn't be spending all my time alone, there will be students and other staff around."
He ran his hands through his hair. “It's a bit of an odd school, and a different location would probably be better. But after all the stuff with mom, I just...I don't want to leave them again.” He pressed his palms into his eyes until he saw stars.
The therapist frowned slightly. “Are you going to continue to see a counselor after you move?”
“Yes. I've already gotten in touch with a few people.”
“Good. You've made a great start, but you still have a ways to go. It sounds like you've thought it out, which doesn't surprise me in the slightest.” The counselor stood up and offered his hand. “I wish you the best of luck, Adam.”
“Thank you. I'm probably going to need it.”Roleplay ExampleAdam's apartment looked like someone had nearly finished moving out of it. All of the furniture: an armchair, a coffee table, a TV, and a rack of servers, had been shoved into one corner of the room with hardly enough space to walk between them. The tiny kitchen contained a single chair with a stack of binders sitting on it and a carton of takeout on top of that. The rest of the house was barren, empty except for the text that sprawled across the walls.
Just past the kitchen, a man stood with a pencil in his hand, another in his mouth, and earplugs. He was staring hard at the wall and sketching a graph, and occasionally he leaned over to look at another section of writing. It took a full minute for him to realize that someone had just broken into his house.
Adam's first glance was only a cursory one, and his eyes had a glazed look. He was in his mid twenties, wore an old hooded sweater and hadn't shaved in a day or two, and he was for a moment exceptionally good looking. He had a strong, linear face, with bright eyes and wavy dark hair. His face went blank with shock, then all trace of handsomeness disappeared.
"Who the hell are you?! Get the hell out of my house!" he half snarled, half shouted as he tore out the earplugs and snatched up his phone.What About You?Name: Ellie!
Age: Taylor Swift is feelin' my age
Experience: Eighth grade
How Did You Find Us? Lugia
Ready To Play? We shall see...we shall see...
