Description
Name: Neil Tanner
Age: 17
Gender: male
Role: Damien's protective older brother
Appearance: relatively tall for his age. Sandy hair buzzed short, with the beginning of a grown man's facial hair edging in across his square jaw. He's been only shaving it every couple of days, because he likes having stubble, because he thinks it makes him look older and tougher. He puts a lot of effort into looking tougher and more mature, because in addition to normal teenage insecurity, he also feels constantly responsible for his more nervous, bookish younger brother, and feels like he has to be tough enough to protect both of them, in addition to wanting to impress the guys on his wrestling team. He dresses simply, just plain t-shirts and jeans and listens to earbuds coming from an MP3 player in the interior pocket of a charcoal gray leather jacket, his hazel eyes rarely making eye contact with people.
Personality: Neil is a bit of the black sheep of his family, headstrong, independent, and prone to taking risks and pushing back, both on and off the sports field (though if he doesn't pull his grades up, he's at risk of not graduating high school). He was a hard child to handle when he was little, and never got along with any of his teachers, so when his A-student brother came along, Damien quickly became known as "the smart one", and Neil sadly resigned himself to feeling, by processes of elimination, like "the dumb one", which is how he thinks of himself. Which is unfortunate, because he's not. He's quite intelligent, insightful, and creative. But he's not the kind of smart that does well on tests, or keeps colour-coded notes, or can do square roots in his head, so it's the kind of smart that tends to slip by most people. Especially since he sort of 'plays dumb' around his team mates from school to fit in: they wouldn't treat him the same if they knew he was secretly interested in classical music and chess and philosophy. That sensitive, intelligent side of him isn't one he likes to admit he has, so he tries just a little too hard to be edgy and cool, running with the wrong crowd at school, collecting decorative fantasy knives of the sort all teenage boys think are cool, listening to heavy metal, and giving his brother a hard time to show he likes him. His brother is extremely important to him, and he feels responsible to watch out for and take care of him, even when his brother might not actually need or appreciate it. He can drive, but don't yet have his own car. He likes to act like he's too cool care, and would never admit it in so many words, but at the end of the day, his brother is more important than literally anything else in the world.