Full Name - Griffith Maxwell
Preferred Name - Griff
Age - 31
Race - Human
Height - 5' 7"
References - Album
Description - Griffith is a skinny weakling who loves pie. He's pale and usually unkempt. His hair is brown, short, and messy, like perpetual bedhead. He has medium blue eyes, usually hidden behind thick square framed glasses. Griffith has a kiddish face, looking younger than he is; people are usually surprised by his age. He's on the short side of average in height.
Clothing - Griffith wears casual clothing. T-shirts and cargo shorts, or jeans, or hoodies. He always wears black silk boxers underneath.
Personality - Griff is a fun, upbeat kinda guy. He's very laidback and casual, and is fairly friendly most of the time. He's very tight with his money, since he doesn't get a lot of it. He doesn't talk a lot about himself, save to whine about his current shitty job or his lack of money. He mooches quite a bit from his friends, and tries to pay them back when he can. Homosexuality and his parents are touchy subjects for him, and he can become very standoffish and hostile when someone pokes at his issues.
He also loves pie. A lot.
Character History - Griffith comes from a broken home. His mom left his dad when Griff was six; he doesn't really remember her. All he remembers are her pies and cakes; his last memory of her was her serving him a chocolate cream pie for his sixth birthday.
After Griff's mom left, his dad changed. While before he had been very warm and loving to his son, now he became critical of him. Praise turned to criticism, and he became very distant. The man subconsciously blamed Griffith for his wife's leaving and lashed out at him in an attempt to preserve himself.
Griffith was very hurt by his father's change, and worked feverishly at school and at home to make him proud and change back into the warm man he remembered. That died after the first beating, when Griffith was twelve and wrecked his bike into the car. It wasn't a life threatening beating, but it changed their relationship forever. Casual hitting became a part of Griffith's home life, and he stayed away as long as he could.
The worst beating happened when Griffith was fourteen. He mentioned offhandedly to his father that one of his male classmates was cute. His father was a homophobe, and reacted violently to the mention. It was the only time Griffith was ever scared for his life, and afterward he repressed any of those 'wrong' feelings he had for men and went after girls much more vigorously.
When Griffith graduated at 18, he ran away from home. He'd packed all of his things and saved up money for years, and he went to his uncle's, his father's brother. The man had helped his nephew out as much as he could his whole life, offering him a place to stay whenever things got too bad at home. He didn't call CPS only out of his love for his younger brother, as well as ignorance to the full extent of the abuse. Verbal and emotional wasn't really abuse in his eyes.
Griffith stayed there for a few years, getting a part-time job and going to community college. He dropped out after only a year and went to work full time. Eventually his uncle kicked him out, deciding he couldn't coddle his nephew any more. Griff found a cheap apartment and a roommate and lived his life without any goals.
His roommate bailed on him after six months, and on his own he couldn't keep up with the bills. He was evicted and left on the streets. His boss fired him for lateness and laziness, and Griffith became a drifter. He went from job to job, staying in cheap motels when he could and sleeping in alleys when he couldn't. It was demoralizing to him; his father's constant criticisms haunted him, because after everything, he seemed right. In his own mind, Griffith was a loser. His friends had all deserted him after he became a couch crasher, he had no home, barely any possessions to his name, and seemed destined to stay that way no matter what he did.
Griffith stopped trying for a while. Some days he didn't move from the moth-eaten alley couch he'd claimed for his own. He just existed. His street had a bakery on it, and most days Griffith ate the old pies and pastries they threw out.
When Griffith turned 29, he decided he'd had enough of feeling sorry for himself. He started trying again, finding a job and starting to save up for an apartment. He bought himself a bike to get around and got lucky by finding a crate of boxers in his alley one day. He sold off most of them and managed to get himself an apartment nearby. He rode the edge of poverty almost all the time, and it was shortly after his thirtieth birthday that he found the new bakery. He met Byron Deer there, and over time they became friends.
Griffith has been on and off the streets for a long time, and he is always on the brink of going back to them again. It isn't until he gets a steady job at the bakery (and a part time gig as a teacher assistant) that he manages to really secure himself. It isn't until after he is financially secure that he begins to deal with his own issues, including his bisexuality. Luckily one of his friends is a psychologist and helps him out from time to time.
Companions - Griffith has no pets and few friends.
Notes - Griff is fairly new, and his development is coming along nicely.
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Character and Writing Archive
My early entries concerned my real life back when I was a teen. Now a days, I find my journal to be a wonderful place to store some of my shorter writings and of course, character profiles. Feel free to look through them, and comment when you see fit
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