BLU4: STADLER, AXEL [DECEASED]

#1

DECEASED

Name: Axel Stadler
Gender: Male
Age: 17
School: Detroit Central High School
Hobbies and Interests: Movies, Internet, Music, Reading

Appearance: Axel stands about 5'9" and is very skinny, weighing only about 130 pounds. His metabolism keeps him this thin even though he has terrible eating habits and exercises inconsistently. His face is pale and freckled, his nose long and narrow, and his smile reveals a rather pointy set of teeth (from the canines back). His eyes are big but heavily lidded and make him look tired all the time, and they're green, but not an attractive green - green like dead algae floating on a pond. His hair is light brown and rather shaggy, and goes down to his collar in the back. Axel is very light on his feet and walks very quietly. He has fast reflexes and quick but very jerky movements, which gives an impression of a puppet being jerked around on strings, something he sometimes exaggerates for amusement. He's going into the show in a red t-shirt and jeans, along with a cross necklace, as well as the one thing he always has on: a black zip-up hoodie. Its oversized by several times and hangs down halfway down his thighs, but he's cut the sleeves off at the wrists so they stop midway down his palms. His voice is rather high but pretty versatile and he sometimes confuses people by speaking in different pitches than his norm.

Biography: Axel is somebody most people have trouble understanding. He talks to many people at school but he doesn't really have many true friends. he one thing he thinks most people think of him as is mysterious (or weird, when he's in a less generous mood). His behavior is very erratic throughout the day depending on who he's with. Sometimes he's very talkative and seemingly cheerful, at others he is almost silent and totally withdrawn. Axel believes that everyone has layers and that he is cursed with having more than anyone else. He's a cynic deep down but he doesn't deny good things when they happen. He's pragmatic in the extreme and gets impatient with idealism and anyone who speaks for it. believes in "no bullshit" and thinks that everyone would be much better off if they just told each other what they were really thinking. He doesn't hesitate to criticize anything, and his relentless sniping at so many things does not endear him to many people.

Axel's relationship with his parents is functional but not very close. Their foremost goal for him is to get himself into a good college and get out of the city life. If they had their way he'd be working a lot harder on schoolwork, but he doesn't share their long-term view and just coasts in school. They've more or less given up on trying to motivate him to do more by this point. He doesn't think they understand the real him, but he's so secretive about his opinions around them that they don't have the chance to learn.

Axel is a loner for the most part; the friendships he makes in classes are usually short-term and fade out once the classes end. Most people don't understand why he acts so inconsistently towards them, and some just find him plain creepy. For his part, he doesn't usually share details about himself and he has a rather dismissive view of most people his own age as being stupid or naive. His closest friendship is with an on-and-off girlfriend, Laney Shaust, who is rather similar to him, with a lot of "layers." They come together and drift apart in cycles based on how needy for each other they feel. Overall, Axel feels very detached from most other people; his interactions with others are mostly functional and the emotional aspect just doesn't kick in for him.

Movies are his thing; he watches somewhere between five and ten a week if he can while eating tons of popcorn and junk food, to the exasperation of his parents, who think he should be doing something more productive. His main interests include horror, smart action, surreal, and psychological movies, along with a lot of B-movie schlock, which he watches to make fun of. SOTF-TV is his favorite television program, and he's accumulated a lot of knowledge of who's been in it and what got people killed. He also spends a lot of time watching behind the scenes features and searching on sites like IMDB and TVTropes for more info. He hopes to get a career in the film industry, but is not very optimistic about his chances of rising above a shit job in it. He's also trying to develop his singing voice for rock music through self-teaching. Without any background in chorus and only what advice he can find on the web, it's been a long, slow process, but he's progressed from "always horrible" to "okay sometimes" (though in his mind, still bad). He doesn't have the confidence to perform for anyone, as the imaginary audiences in his head are just as critical as he is. He has a Youtube channel on which he's posted a couple short videos of his own making, as well as stuff like movie and song reviews and clips he likes or wants to make fun of. Reading has been another interest of his since he was a little kid, and he usually goes to school with a novel. He currently is very much into post-modern books with a lot of bizarre and surreal elements and satire, and his favorite author is Chuck Palahniuk, for the content and themes of his books as well as their simplicity of style (Axel's a slow reader, which is very frustrating to him).

Axel's personality has gone through a lot of evolution since his childhood. When he was a kid in elementary school he was acted a lot more outgoing and friendly, but nonetheless he still found it hard to get along with other kids - mostly because he didn't want to talk about the same things as they did. His trust of other people was further eroded by having things stolen from him on multiple occasions. By middle school level he had become withdrawn and angry at the world in general and people his age in particular, and had become a target for bullies who liked so seem him get mad. The one thing that remains most strongly from his childhood is a sense of justice, although he now responds with sarcasm rather than outrage to violations of it. During his time in middle school he started getting his hands on knives and carrying them outside of school, and practicing at home with handling them. Throwing knives at a spot on a raggedy old couch started out as just a means of relieving stress, but enough repetition of it made him pretty skilled. His mom threw a fit about it, so he took that particular hobby outside. By the time he reached high school, he mellowed out a lot and his responses to things happening around him shifted from angry outbursts to external apathy and internal cynicism. Becoming more thoughtful and widely read has made him more mature in the sense that he recognizes the problems of himself and those around him as insignificant in the big picture. By now, the bullies in school have mostly moved on to other targets because they can't get a satisfying reaction out of him anymore. Axel's growing detachment from other people and things around him make him (at least externally) calm in almost any situation; the two things which do faze him are heights (he'll never approach a ledge or climb something unless he has something to hold onto TIGHT) and the dark (his imagination tends to go berserk when it's dark and quiet, and as a result he becomes very nervous, paranoid, and borderline panicky). Axel also has a struggle with insomnia; he'll feel tired but it takes him several hours of lying down before he'll actually fall asleep.

Advantages: Axel is a pragmatist who relies on reason more than emotion; he probably won't hesitate to fight dirty or to betray someone else for his own advantage. He's very fast in terms of his reflexes and tends to be alert and observant of his environment. He's watched a lot of SOTF-TV and he reads a lot about survival and combat on the Internet. Watching SOTF-TV and seeing a lot of other graphic content online has slightly desensitized him to violence, although he is a little overconfident of this effect. And he does own several knives and has practiced with wielding and throwing them, although he's never actually taken them into a fight.
Disadvantages: Not a team player or one who will make friends easily. Axel doesn't have much in the way of raw strength, and will have to rely on speed and shock factor to hold up in hand to hand. He's a good sprinter, but his lack of exercise means he doesn't have much long-term endurance. He's uncomfortable with heights, so he won't be climbing trees, and he tends to get very paranoid when it's dark out and doesn't think as clearly or rationally. His insomnia also worsens when he's not sleeping in ideal conditions, which will probably tire him out severely after the game's run longer than a couple nights.

Designated Number: Blue Team no. 4

----

Designated Weapon: Complete set of Team Rosters
Conclusion: Knowledge is power, and if Axel can learn to trust his teammates, that could give them quite the edge!
Mentor Comment: Axel's paranoia is sure to make an appearance, I'm sure it will make for great viewing when it does!

DECEASED