Benjamin Davies

OOC

Game	Journal	Portrayed By
Invol	likeamonkey	Tyler Blackburn

Basic Stats

Full Name: Benjamin Alexander Davies
Nickname(s): Ben
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Date of Birth: October 15, 1993
Zodiac: Libra
Sexuality: Straight
Relationship Status: Dating Norah Wright (non-Vol)
Hometown: Brighton, England
Room: 5A (roommate: Benjamin McIntyre)
Power: Prehensile Tail
Abilities: Simply put, one day he woke up and had a tail. His tail is about three feet long and actually sort of resembles a monkey's, minus the fur (there's a bit of fine hair on his tail, but no more than on, say, his legs or arms). He can use it as an extra limb, to pick up, carry, grab, move, whatever other people and objects. Rather like any other limb, he does have to exercise it, and it gets fatigued just as easily as any other limb if he tries to grip something for too long, or lift something too heavy (or hold something heavy for a long period of time). He lifts weights with his tail, to build up (and keep up) his strength.

Family

Father: Andrew Patrick Davies (history teacher; b. March 15, 1962)
Mother: Victoria Emily Davies (née Thompson; nurse; b. January 23, 1966)
Brother: William Oliver Davies (normal; bartender; b. September 15, 1989)
Sister: Lucy Eleanor Davies (unknown powers, if any; b. May 2, 1999)
Aunt: Elizabeth "Bess" Charlotte Thompson (seamstress/tailor; b. August 16, 1970)

Girlfriend: Norah Melanie Wright (normal; b. January 16, 1994)

History

Benjamin Davies had a relatively normal childhood. The middle child of a teacher and a nurse, he was always the one of his siblings to get into the most trouble for attention. Older brother William was the Golden Child while younger sister Lucy was the Little Princess, so Ben was your typical Middle Child. He fought with his older brother and doted on his little sister (at times; at times he got annoyed with her, just like any older brother would be with his kid sister), he went to school, he played outdoors with his friends (climbing trees, scraping knees, breaking limbs, the usual), he snuck his vegetables to the dog when no one was looking. When he was eight, he bought a guitar at a pawn shop and learned how to play it, because he heard that guys with guitars got chicks. He was never particularly interested in becoming a musician as a career path, just a hobby to play around with (and a way to pick up chicks).

In all, Ben grew up in a rather unextraordinary manner. There seemed to be nothing all too special about him. Not, that is, until the summer he was fourteen. The morning of the 17th of July was like any other morning: it started with his mum pounding on his bedroom door, yelling at him to get up already, just because it was summer didn't mean he could laze about all day in bed. The first thing he noticed was that the boxers he was sleeping in felt uncomfortable in the back. And then when he sat up, he sat on something that was even more uncomfortable. Jumping up, he first checked the bed, but there was nothing there. He could feel something brushing against his legs, though, and looked around and down.

His initial reaction to a tail sticking out through the leg of his boxers was just flat out shock. He yelled out for his parents because What The Hell Is Going On?! They took him to the hospital where his mum worked, to get him seen by a doctor. As this was only a few months after The Seattle Incident, the doctor who saw Ben figured out pretty quickly that Ben was a "Vol," to use the newly-coined term. England had implemented registration of all Vols, so the doctor reported Ben to the government, and he was forced to register. Because his power was deemed to be rather harmless to others, he was left in the general population, though he had to regularly check-in to ensure he wasn't using his tail to break any laws or hurt others.

Even living in a rather open-minded and liberal city, Ben encountered some friction, but he refused to hide away just because he had a tail. His seamstress aunt helped tailor his trousers, so that there was a hole in the back to let his tail out (he certainly wasn't going to hide it … that was such a wimpy way out, not to mention uncomfortable), though it is a little annoying to always have to send your new jeans and shorts to your aunt to fix for you before you can wear them, not to mention having her fix his underwear, too!

He returned to school at the end of the summer, determined to not let a little thing like a tail stand in his way of having as normal a life as possible. He got some funny looks from his classmates and was avoided by some, and others tried to tease him, but once everyone seemed to get that he just Didn't Care that they stared or avoided or teased, they basically left him alone about it. Some classmates were fascinated by the tail. One such classmate was Norah Wright, who thought that a tail was pretty cool (plus, he played the guitar). They started dating the following spring, and have been together ever since. Having a girlfriend seems to have helped normalise his teenage years, and helped his other classmates see him as less of a freak.

Neither Ben nor Norah was too keen on the idea of continuing their education at the university, but their parents urged them to at least continue through sixth form and their A levels, just in case they changed their minds in the future. They finished their schooling at the end of June 2012, but their plans of getting a flat together were ended before they ever really began by the summons that Ben received in May, to attend a school for Vols in Australia starting in July of that year. Ben balked at the idea: he didn't want to leave England or Norah, and he was certainly not that interested in continuing his education. It wasn't like he had some kind of weird power that he had to learn how to control: he had a tail for chrissakes! But attendance at IVI was mandatory, and he also didn't exactly fancy going to jail or anything for refusing to go. Unsure of how long he'd be stuck in the Great Down Under, he gave Norah an out before he left: if she wanted to move on, date someone who was actually there, then no hard feelings, just let him know that she was cutting him off. Otherwise, they'd write and call each other, and hopefully he might be able to get away to visit sometime, or maybe she could visit him. Even prisons allow conjugal visits sometimes, right? And this is supposedly just a school.

Personality

Ben has something of a larger-than-life personality. It's pretty much straight-up middle child syndrome, coming out of a desire to Be Noticed and to Stand Out when he has a Perfect Older Brother and an Adorable Younger Sister. He's outgoing, friendly, and annoyingly optimistic. He's also an annoying morning person when he bothers to get up before noon. He will talk to nearly anyone, and is willing to befriend nearly anyone. Ben's rather chill, he doesn't anger too easily, preferring to go with the flow instead of blowing up just because Somthing Went Wrong. Which is why he isn't too overly bothered by this whole Being a Vol Thing. I mean, he has a tail, that's pretty much the coolest thing ever, and a Really Great Way To Be Noticed. I mean, really, there's so many worse superpowers he could have. He was never really into comic books, but he loves superhero movies. He could probably get his own movie if he had a more popular power, but he could totally save the world with his monkey tail if given the chance.

Growing up in Brighton, with its nudist area of the beach and substantial LGBT community, led to a great sense of openmindedness. It was helpful to live in such a liberal area as he came to terms with his tail, because there tended to be less discrimination against people who were Different. It made it easy to continue living his life without too much extra friction just because of his Really Cool Tail.