Darwin Damaskenos
age: 23
height: 5'9
build: underfed
hair: black and unkempt, longish and in need of a trim
eyes: brown, completely unremarkable
Darwin gives off the vibe of someone who can't be bothered to look after his appearance; most of his clothing is too big and hasn't made the acquaintence of a washing machine in a while. His hair needs to be cut, or at the very least combed, as he looks rather shaggy right now. He also looks like he doesn't remember to eat, ever; anorexic comes to mind, though he isn't, really. His metabolism simply resembles a humming bird's. He wears glasses for reading unless he can't find them, in which case he squints. He does, fortunately, remember to bathe regularly, though lately he hasn't bothered to do even that.

Dar lived with his mother and Diana because neither of them had any place to go. Diana came in off the streets at his mother's invite, and his mother had been evicted from her apartment a few years before. So he wasn't exactly living with his mother; more like his mother was living with him. Really, he's not quite that much of a loser. Pathetic, yes, but not precisely a loser.

He works in a bookstore, more or less full time. It's one of those hole-in-the-wall places that specializes in the weird and occult. Dar loves his job because he gets to write up his own ordering lists, and as a result, the store has one of the most well stocked Pagan and New Age sections in the city. In addition to books, they also sell occult supplies and random kitsch; the problem with this is that they're not sure where half the stuff came from, and sometimes you can see something one day and never see it again. Not because it's been stolen, but because it's decided to literally wander away. Dar is sure he saw a copy of the pop-up Necronomicon sitting on one of the coffee tables, but when he went to put it back on a shelf, it tried to bite him. He got the manager, and when he got back, the book was gone.

Under normal circumstances, people would just assume Dar had imagined it, but other equally strange things have happened to other employees. It's become so commonplace that no one really notices anymore, unless small children get lost in the stacks. (Think Terry Prachett's L-space; it's a little like that.) They do sell normal books, too; bestsellers and trashy romance novels and art books and the like. The store is actually much larger than it looks, due to the dimensional warping and the upstairs loft.

Dar himself is a little spastic at times, but usually pretty easy going. Since he can't get away from his mother no matter how hard he tries, he's developed a rather shy personality and tends to lack self confidence. His mother was a complete and utter manipulative bitch. Being around Diana really just made it worse; the crush he developed for her really never went beyond puppy love, but she manipulated his emotions according to her whims. She wasn't quite as bad as his mother, as she was a little bit nicer about what she did, but still...Dar will let you walk all over him without a second thought. No spine whatsoever.

His two closest friends, Jude and Miranda, have tried for years to get him to stand up for himself. He's progressed to the point where he can stand up to them, which is a rather marked improvement from when they all first met. But anyone else can order him around with no problem.

Yes, he is pathetic. In may ways, he's a lot like Zazi, aside from his perpetual disorganization; people use him and then ignore him. When the archetypes appear, they do the same thing; only Adarial really has any sympathy for him, but Adarial has sympathy for everyone, when she feels like concentrating on it hard enough. (Stupid spastic archetypes.)

Dar was raised Pagan by his mother and they lived like gypsies for the most part; he never received any formal education as they more or less wandered the country. He also has no idea who his father is; his mother won't tell him. Now he's a solitary eclecltic Wiccan who occasionally helps out at his mother's Coven. He has an uncanny knack for spell casting and rituals, but he really wants nothing to do with the coven, preferring his own methods of worship. Of course when his mother tells him to do something, he generally doesn't see a choice in the matter. (He knows perfectly well that it's unhealthy and that she's crushed his spirit completely; he just isn't capable of doing anything about it at this point. And he doesn't fawn over her- he's tried time and time again to get away, but he can't.)

And that's Dar in a coconut shell, more or less. So many issues. Alas.