Just a little dissection into a character I really enjoy writing and playing.

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Q: What exactly brought up Maddox's full name?

A: Besides the requirements neccesary to even get the role I was hoping for. I wanted to choose a name I hadn't really heard before. One that was easy to ostracize and a bit unfamiliar for a character that was already an outcast. Once I stumbled upon Maddox, well, I found it just to easy to come up with the rest. Usually I tend to not put too much meaning into the name until after, but I couldn't really help myself given that his background already had an interesting template. I imagined his mother was a bit of an alcoholic, and only thought it funny to match his last name.

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Q: Did this character come easily to you? What inspiration helped along the way?

A: At first. It was genuinely difficult to think about who Maddox could really be. I wanted him to be believable, but at the same time, stupidly outrageous. The balance was hard. Especially when bringing mental illness into play. I wasn't very clear about what he has or had, but the truth of the matter is that it's not because I don't just want it to spill, but I don't want it to be his defining traits, much less, the only thing everyone backs to to what his does. He's like me, a bit, honestly. Doing things just because he can and with an incredibly hard to bend preference. But his character is mostly based off of people I know. And what I know people are capable of doing. I was inspired heavily by the way fears control us.

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Q: What are some of the most important parts you've felt you've written about him? Past? Personality? Esthetics and otherwise?

A: By far the most important thing to Maddox's character might fall into two of his biggest fears. One, being birds.
Now, I've written a teensy bit about where it stems from, an unnaturally strong type of irrational fear that brings him to the point of panic attacks and full-blown melt downs, but never really why it's continued so strongly. I find it to be the main reason he is the way he is. I intend to write about it soon. The other fear, his driving force through a lot of his story and the way he works through the rp, is his fear of being bad. He isn't sure what being bad truly means, and because of the outside view on the subject and the way his inability to distinguish what is right and wrong affects those he cares about, well, it truly does frighten him. The last words he would ever want to hear would be "You're horrible"
Another thing I imagined to be important was the large scar on his palm, his left hand from where the bones jabbed out when it was crushed. It's a bad physical reminder of what the things he is afraid of are capable of doing to him, even though that's hardly the case for most.

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Q: What brought you to your faceclaim of your character? What are your headcannons in his looks?

A: Ross Lynch had my attention when I first started making his character, I actually had another, individual oc with the same face claim, and it was about to push me off of using him all together. But as I was trying to write him out and put his face on last, I had watched 'My Friend Dahmer'. I pasted him on without thinking about anything else besides his broken voice and sad, almost despair ridden face. He was perfect.
Besides the scar on his hand. I always imagined that he had many more scars on him. As a kid, I wanted him to experiment with his own pain... Part of his lack of reaction to it. I'm still unsure about such a thing.
Besides that, I did also think that Maddox wouldn't have any natural birth or beauty marks of any kind. He always wanted freckles.

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Q: Did your ideas change a lot, then to now?

A: A bit, really. My plan was to make him much more openly violent and mean compared to his soft-spoken childish demeanor he has now. His naiveity was always a bit constant in my vision of him though. But besides his how his temper worked and his reaction to things he didn't like (frustration wise) , he was relatively unchanged throughout the whole thing.

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Q: What parts if your character do you want to be known that you haven't talked about yet?

A: His mother, more than anything do I want to talk about his mother. I wanted to talk about how she was always a bitch, not even before she was admitted after being a hazard to her unborn child. I want to talk about why he is still afraid of Dr. Cawley even with how much he cared about him. I want to show the way he hurt himself for fun, or hurt other things as a little kid. I want to talk about what he does with that feather in the book, and how he got the teddy bear with no leg on his shelf, and why he has a jar of melted candles and a broken picture of his mother under his bed. I want to talk about so many stupid little details of his entire life I mapped out for no reason. Because they all make up the Maddox I want to show all people.

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Q: How happy are you with your character?

A: That's a bit difficult to elaborate on. I love Maddox. He's become a lot more than what I had planned him to be. He's drawn himself a detailed, overly emotional, and thought out portrait of himself that kinda just came over me. I don't like everything he does. I don't like a lot of how he's made to act. I don't like what I've done to him. But it's so interesting to see how I still love him regardless. I think I am quite happy. But on how he will turn out... I'm still not sure. He's definitely become an emotional tool, and his character has a good way of wringing it out of you, be it cheer or despair. I love that.

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Q: Any meaningless details?

A: Well there I have tons. The fact that he likes chocolate milk so much. Also the fact that he doesn't know how to use a microwave, or how he plays the piano but he thinks it's boring unless someone is listening... Which is hardly ever. He has 6 pairs of shoes, and one of them are platform boots he bought off an old goth.
Oh. And he fuckin loves dogs. But he only ever mentions then as puppies, no matter how old or big or grotesque they look.
He talked to cats in the alley a lot before he met Izz. And he always thought that if he slept too long he'd wake up somewhere else.

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Q: Anything else?

A: Not that I don't want to write first. I find Maddox to be in the rare space of some of my most intricate and thought out ocs. He's not the first, but by far he is my favorite. I'm still not sure why that happened at all. But it's really quite fun to use him like this.

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Thank you!