~Mathieu Beaubier~
Name: Mathieu Beaubier
Age: 26
Birthday: July 1st, 1984
Country of Origin: New France
Floor in the building: First
How long they've lived in the building: Five years
Job: Former editor/proof reader for A&C Black, currently laid off; Free-lance editor
Powers: Chameleonism, Memory Erasure
Appearance: The first thing you're likely to notice about Mathieu - if you are to notice him at all - is his height. Mathieu stands at six-six, (in Nation/Canon-verse this is a reflection of his large land mass, being that he's the second largest country on Earth
(second largest, I'll leave that to the audience to figure out what else that might mean)),) however, he doesn't quite fill out his frame (In nation verse this represents his relatively small population in comparison to size). Actually, he's more awkwardly gangly then anything else. His nose shows evidence of his history playing hockey, and bears a few bumps along it from where it's been broken - largely because Mathieu plays hockey not only to win, but to let out stress that he keeps pent up over time, so he can get rather, ahem, intense let's just say.
Perhaps next most notable would be his ever-present hoodie. He's really fond of them - comfortable and easy, and nice protection from the rain - so he nearly never takes them off. He tends to wear comfortably, sloppy clothes like jeans and sweat pants with loose t-shirts more than anything else. Anything easy. He just doesn't see the point in putting effort into something you're just going to get dirty and take off anyway. So yes, he's a bit of a stereotypical bachelor in that regard.
He also has a tattoo of his own name over his heart, as well as a series of important things he can't afford to forget, Memento style. Mathieu is so used to being forgotten that he's developed an irrational fear that he'll forget
himself if he doesn't have a reminder of who he is on him at all times.
Personality:Mathieu seems to be quite a quiet person, but that's largely just because no one bothers to take the time to listen to him - if someone's willing to listen he can just go on and on for ages, it's just that no one bothers to listen when he does so he's seen as a very quiet person. On the contrary, he has a lot to say, but no opportunity. That being said, he's still very awkward around people, and can come off as very shy, when in fact he's just not used to talking so much or being paid that much attention to, so he sometimes forgets that he's supposed to respond.
Mathieu isn't a very socially conscious lad, or a very conscious lad period, he tends to space out a lot and sometimes gets lost mid-sentence if he's not interested in what you're saying. It's not that he's ignoring you, it's just that he has a very short attention span, and because very few people notice him long enough to scold him for this, he's never tried to remedy that.
Because in canon he is related to America it does show sometimes, and that'll carry over to here. He can be just as stubborn, and sometimes just as loud - it's just rare to see him so blatantly so. He certainly isn't one to shirk from something physical, despite how he might seem very non-confrontational - he makes a point to always mind his manners, and in general is quite polite, but when it comes down to it he has no problem throwing down. Though his preferred mode of settling things is a game - of hockey, naturally, one-on-one, first to ten takes the cake - largely because he can get away with throwing his weight around and letting his aggression out without being seen as a violent bastard, which isn't exactly the sort of image he wants to project. Which is mostly because he's very eager to please anyone and everyone he meets - you would too if the world forgot you. It tends to make one a bit desperate for attention, sometimes of any sort, though Mathieu's always been the sort to hunger for affection. Much like a child in foster character will often either go to destructive measures for attention or try their hardest to do everything absolutely perfectly, Mathieu's sudden forgotten status has led him to become increasingly desperate for someone to notice him.
TL;DR version:
He's a sweetheart who's very polite as a general rule, tries to get along with everyone, and sometimes has flashes of blinding anger. Also he has some self esteem problems. Ayup.
Likes:★ Tim Hortons
★ Pancakes (well, rather, the syrup that goes on them)
★ Hockey
★ His papas (all the time)
★ good beer, on occasion
★ His dog, Yukon
★ Those rare times when people actually notice him
Dislikes:✖ That Aunt Jemima
crapstuff-that-is-not-and-will-never-be-syrup
✖ Baseball - no blood? Not a sport.
✖ Being forgotten
✖ Being accused of cheating at anything
✖ Being called forgetful, a pot head, or a slacker. Yes, sometimes he can be a bit lazy and he does enjoy the finer bits he grows, but that's not
all he does, not by a long shot
Any other information:~ He consumes enough syrup in one day to make most people diabetic, but it seems he has a cast-iron stomach when it comes to sugar
~ He's part French
~ this boy can
cook.~ He's ignored so regularly he's pretty socially awkward sometimes.
~ He's not very confident in himself.
~ He has some really bad anger issues, if you push him to the point of snapping he can't always stop himself.
~ Despite his size he's really easy to overlook, and sometimes (read: often) he gets passed over completely.
~ One of his greatest fears is that he'll forget
himself and then there will be no one to remember him.
~ He can be obnoxious and loud, he's just a lot more mellow these days thanks to a mixture of what he tokes up on and because he knows the world couldn't handle
two Alfred's. (Even though I'm not making him Alfred's brother in this, I think it's important to note)
~ He has a large dog named Yukon, which is my AU variation of Kumajirou. Albino Alaskan Malamute. As a little kid Mathieu always thought they were bears, not dogs, because of how big and fluffy they are. He's since learned his mistake.
History: Mathieu was born in Toronto, Canada on the first day of the month of July in the year nineteen-eighty-four to a woman who would never know him beyond the first few days in the hospital. Why she chose to give him up and who she was, is, or will be is not our concern. This is not her story, this is his. One week later, when he was able to be removed from the hospital, he was taken home by his new parents Thom and Jean-Paul Beaubier (yeah, I totally ripped the name from Alpha Flight, shhh!) to their home, just out of town.
In his early years Thom and Jean-Paul feared that he might be autistic, or have some other developmental illness that caused him to be unable to speak. Autism was definitely suspected, because while Mathieu was ever-silent for the first four years of his life, he didn't show any other detrimental effects. In fact, he was quite a fast developing child, carefully trying to figure out each new challenge, from the discovery of walking and movement control to pushing shapes into holes, etcetera. What his parents weren't aware of was the fact that he applied the same studious focus to talking. It wasn't that he wasn't able to, it was that he was trying to get his first word
right. Now he can talk fine, it's just rare that people hear him when he does so. He's still just as methodical and slow to speak at the beginning, though, having never grown out of the habit of thinking things through before even contemplating actually doing them.
As a child Mathieu was very quiet. He rarely cried or shrieked like some babies have a habit of doing, and was generally very mild-mannered, even through the formidable terrible twos. In fact, Mathieu almost never cried - not over a soiled diaper, a stubbed toe, a head bonk - because he has congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidroisis, or CIPA, a genetic disorder that causes one to be unable to feel pain. This led to his quiet nature, and would keep him quiet through out his life, a 'fearless' child because he had no pain to fear. When he joined his schools hockey team it gave him a great advantage in that he wouldn't stop if hurt, because he wouldn’t (
couldn't) notice, but it also posed quite a danger, because he could seriously mess himself up and have no idea. The genetic disorder that was his greatest strength on the ice was also the reason he couldn't peruse a professional career in the sport he had come to love; it was simply too dangerous.
However, this wasn't all bad. While CIPA pushed Mathieu to be incredibly careful because of his inability to sense pain, it also brought some very positive influences into his life. After Mathieu was forbidden to play hockey as anything more than a casual past time, he had to find a new outlet, and that's when he discovered the passion that would lead his life for years to come: literature.
At first he fancied himself a writer, but enough courses in the subject quickly taught Matt that he had no skill with creating words. But manipulating ones others had already put down…
that he could do. So Mathieu put his attentions into working in journalism and editing, eventually getting his BFA in English and Editing, before starting his internship at the Newham Recorder in London, during which he got an apartment at Gracefield House, London. Later he got a job at Croydon Advertiser, and then as an editor for A&C Black Publishing, where he worked up until a few weeks ago when he got laid off after explaining for the fifth time who he was and that he'd worked there for three and a half years, only to have the head editor look at him as if he'd never seen him before, check the files, and tell him not to come in.
Now he's trying to work as a free-lance editor, but it's incredibly hard when people can never remember who you are or why they were talking to you in the first place after a bit of lost contact. He's getting to the point of needing to phone-home to his fathers for money, but hasn't yet on account of being too ashamed to ask for help.
Details of their powers:Chameleonism
Basically a less pimped out version of invisibility. He's the definition of a wall flower. He leans against a wall and sooner or later he'll blend into it, but you'll still be able to see his outline if you squint.
Memory Erasure
Basically, it's impossible to remember him. He leaves the room, and anyone he was talking to in it will forget him. It's hard or impossible to recognise him in film or photo, or his voice in a recorder without him in front of you at the moment of viewing it. The only way to really remember him is to have what happened written down and to read it and remember it that way.
Thankfully, it's a progressive problem, and prolonged exposure to him over time can allow a person to develop an immunity to such, so that eventually you can remember him for longer and longer periods of time with him out of sight and hearing.
Furthermore, anyone with, say, animal senses would run a much lower risk of forgetting him because his scent will keep him in their mind. This is why Yukon still knows his master. Contact with him with any of the five senses will keep one from forgetting him until you are completely separated.
RP Sample: (From a Herotalia roleplay where I cursed him with the same power, in which he started the slow and painful process of dating a Mexican-American Lois Lane style reporter by the name of Maria (North Mexico) obsessed with unmasking heroes by repeatedly unmasking himself to her day after day, originally hoping that it would lead to a solution to his forgotten problem. Instead it blossomed into feelings and they began dating, through a series of letters detailing their previous activities so she could remember him, if only indirectly. Unlike in this roleplay, their was no immunity or resistance to his mutation and so they had a very fifty-first-dates style relationship
So. Uhm. He'll be Matthew in this sample, not Mathieu. But yeah.)
Beloved Maria,
Hello, it's me again. Matthew, if you can't remember. Matthew Williams. You are asleep right now, and I do not want to frighten you when you wake up, so I'll be leaving as soon as I finish this letter to remind you of our day. I'm sorry it has to be this way, that you have to find me in this letter instead of in my face, and that you have to put up with all this complication and hassle. You deserve so much better then me, and why you would settle I have no idea, but I'm grateful. And lucky, so, so lucky to have someone like you. I love you.
Even if you can't remember me, remember that, okay? I love you.
God, you're so beautiful right now. I know you'd disagree, tell me that your hair's a mess, that you're sleepy and groggy and not made up, but it's true. You are. Beautiful. Stunning. I cannot for the life of me find the words to describe how radiant you are, or the ways in which you have taken my life and spun it all out of proportion until it was utterly transformed and perfect in ways I never knew were missing until I found you. I love you. I love you I love you I love you. Je t'aime. Te amo. Je t'aime.
Today we didn't do much. You read yesterdays letter and called me over while holding the picture - the one on the mantle, don't forget it for tomorrow - and I came over to make you breakfast before you went to work. It was simple, I suppose, but it was nice. It's always nice with you, each little thing. Like when you flicked a berry at my nose when it missed the bowl, it left a mark on my cheek when you missed, and I had to lean down so you could kiss it off. It was perfect. you're perfe- Matthew froze as a soft noise came from the woman curled next to him. Heart hammering in his chest he held his breath, waiting for the inevitable screaming of a woman horrified to find a strange man in her bed when she had no memory of taking him home with her. Five. Four. Three. Two. One….
Silence.
She was still asleep, thank god. Still, he should finish his letter and leave lest she really wake up. Looking over her sleeping form again, he sighed. She
was perfect, sleep mussed and all. Her hair knotted over her back and across her shoulder, skin a soft mocha, and yes, her breath might smell of morning already but it was
her and that was enough. Sighing, he quickly worked through the letter before turning to her once more. She looked so peaceful, there. And what a crime, to leave her, to have to get up and go when all he wanted was to be able to, for once, for
one single night, sleep beside her and hold her close. To feel that form not curled up on her side, but pressed in back-to-stomach, to bury his face in her hair and stay there. All night. Just to hold her.
Funny, how people took for granted the ability to sleep with one another. Not to have sex, just to sleep. To fall into slumber encircled in another's embrace, legs tangled together, breath slowing to match paces, warm in eachothers touch. To spend the night dreaming beside one another and to wake in the morning. Together.
To share a kitchen sink, a counter, a cup, a table. Every day. To share a bed every night no matter what you did in it. To do laundry together and kiss one another good morning, to make the bed or watch your partner brush their hair as they get ready. The gift of putting away dishes, or of coming home after a days work and spending the real, meaningful part of the day together straight through to the end and
not stopping.
How people took for granted the gift of being known.
Folding his letter, Matthew set it on her nightstand under a picture of himself, bent with use, kept to let her remember his name, his face, his life.
Their life. That done, he leaned over the bed, carefully pushing her hair away from her face and leaning down to press a kiss to her temple.
"I love you. Please, please, try to remember."
And with that, he was gone.
~OOC~
Name: Ember
Timezone/Country: PST
Age: 19
A little about yourself: Y'all know me by now
Anything Else?: Silver! Or Navy Blue! His is red.
