Reuben Walters

[blastinus]

Name: Reuben Elijah Walters
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: George Hunter High School
Hobbies and Interests: Tabletop gaming, film/TV critiques, video games, and cheerleading (wears the mascot costume)

Appearance: Reuben stands at 6'3" and weighs 180 lbs. He is Caucasian and ghostly pale, with blue eyes and straight long black hair that extends to his upper back. He is skinny and gangly with a weak physique and very little muscle tone. His face is long and triangular, ending in a pointed chin. At school, he wears black and grey T-shirts, often video game-themed and never tucked in, along with dark blue jeans and white sneakers. He is never seen without his laptop, either on a table at lunch or in a messenger bag slung over his shoulder.

Biography: Reuben Elijah Walters is the only child of a middle-class family in the Birchwood area. His father Nathaniel is unemployed and manages the home, while his mother Karen works as a financial consultant for the local branch of a major accounting firm. Reuben's father is supportive and accommodating, preferring to let him learn as he wishes without fussing as long as he isn't failing, while his mother is stricter and more demanding, wishing to see him do as well as he's potentially able. This has been a source of friction between Reuben and her, since about the time he was seven years old, and she and his father frequently argue over whether his father is "enabling" him or if his mother's being too demanding.

At a young age, Reuben was not fond of the outdoors and preferred to stay inside, which his father indulged. As a result, his youth was mostly spent playing video games with his father or sitting in front of the TV screen. He started out playing sports games and shooters, his father's genres of choice, but he was mostly unsuccessful and became frustrated with them due to poor reflexes. Realizing that he was more slow-paced and analytical, his father introduced him to some turn-based JRPG's like Final Fantasy, and they just clicked in his brain. Not just because he could take his time and think his actions through, but because he found more that he could think over and consider. He had varying opinions on JRPG plotlines, finding a number of eye-rolling moments in them, but at least he had material for analysis compared to what he thought were threadbare or nonexistent plotlines in sports games.

Video games were not the only area where Reuben found fodder for discussion. He would pore through TV shows and movies; any that he could get his hands on. He found no fascination in sitcoms, since to him, they never went anywhere and involved stale humor and one-dimensional plotlines. Teen romances were cringeworthy to him for the same reason. He liked comedies (but not the vulgar, childish sort), thrillers (but not the brainless action hero sort), psychological dramas, and works that offered questions without easy answers. To him, technical achievement was good, certainly commendable, but if something had complexity, interweaving narratives, clever dialogue, and the like, he would forgive a lot of faults otherwise.

As he grew older, Reuben would demonstrate an ability to memorize and recall facts and minutiae almost perfectly. Anything he read or saw, he would be able to dictate back with only the occasional error. However, he would discover that he had no desire to excel if the topic didn't immediately pique his interest. Dispassionate studies like mathematics or biology were doable-he could recite genii and formulae all day-but there was no life to them, no human element that he saw in the works of fiction he consumed ravenously. The more his school topics explored characters and motivations, the more attention he gave. Literature and history were his strongest subjects, though he felt no drive to be a novelist himself.

In fact, a lack of career motivation was Reuben's greatest issue going through school. He loved to critique, but everything he considered had some reason to reject it that did not fit into his very narrow perspective. Engineering, which his mother thought would be a good fit for his analytical mind, bored him to tears. Data analysis was just dull numbers, accounting was tedious busywork, and he could never see himself in a customer service profession. That would involve too much standing on his feet. Law was his most enthusiastic consideration to date, until he realized the amount of research that would involve. This caused friction at home, especially with his mother, who believed that he had the potential to be brilliant, but that he was refusing to apply himself.

In particular, she saw his obsession with pop culture as hurtful to his future career, as he would come home, mull through his assignments, and spend the rest of the evening either at his computer or on the family sofa. It soon became clear though that he was not a passive observer, as he and his father would discuss at length about characters and motivations and narrative and other such things. And unlike with his classes, he had opinions about a number of things. Having grown up with this kind of entertainment all his life, he could talk for hours about shifting trends and how things were improving or getting worse, much to his mother's disapproval. His father loved it, however, since he'd had these strong opinions himself but had nobody to share them with since Karen had no interest in the topic.

It would soon become the case that, rather than try to interject, once the two of them got going, Karen would simply excuse herself, refusing to be a part of what she considered an inane and foolish waste of time. Dinner time in particular would become a tense affair, as while Nathaniel would try to be respectfully silent for his wife's sake, Reuben had no compunctions about speaking his mind, no matter how uncomfortable it made her. There were times where she would snap at him and tell him to be silent, but Reuben would just stubbornly keep at it, unwilling to keep his thoughts to himself. He was never disciplined, at least not physically. Occasionally his parents would agree to disconnect the TV and confiscate his laptop and smart phone, but Reuben would never learn anything from it. He would simply use the school library or some other means that his parents couldn't control.

As he was going into high school, his mother insisted that he find some extracurricular activities, since he was approaching college with no clear goal and no credentials of note. It was at that point that he happened to notice that the cheerleading team was in need of someone to play the role of Hunter the Horned Owl. Since he was very tall and thin, he was able to fit into the costume easier than most, so he decided that this would be a simple enough activity to satisfy his mother. Though he initially found the costume stifling and somewhat embarrassing, he would eventually start to enjoy it once he realized that he could play a role and be someone else, in effect becoming a character outside of himself. The costume was his existence, and any time he wore it, he ceased to be Reuben.

This is what also drew him to tabletop gaming. When he discovered that there was a Dungeons & Dragons group at school and learned how to play, he started enthusiastically taking on personas and becoming fantasy characters, at least in the context of the game. He would hardly pay attention to optimizing his characters or number crunching, because in his perspective, they were people, flawed and imperfect as that would imply, and so it was more important to stay true to a theme than to try to maximize rolls.

As of now, Reuben is still unmotivated and lax, performing his assignments with a modicum of effort. He has no clear plans for graduation, preferring not to think about it until it becomes necessary to do so. He figures that he'll just find a job that pays and then mull over whether to pursue higher education. He has not made a great effort to socialize with others, aside from those who are willing to hear him speak at length about his opinions on pop culture. He can be best described as socially lazy, preferring that others come to him instead of making an effort to know others himself. He is relaxed and easygoing, treating everyone with respect, but has little patience for those who treat him poorly, preferring to just go elsewhere than have to listen to them. He has very strong opinions about entertainment, and the closest he's ever come to raising his voice is when he's determined that someone is absolutely "wrong" about what they think.

Advantages: Reuben is intelligent and sharp, able to pick up on and memorize information quickly and exactly. He's even-tempered and calm, unlikely to alienate others or make a fool of himself.
Disadvantages: Reuben is not physically fit and has little experience with most outdoor activities. He's lazy and not very assertive except in his narrow focus of interest, and is unlikely to step up and face adversity head-on. Of the few things he has an opinion on, he is intolerant of other opinions, and is unwilling to yield.