PLACE OF RESIDENCE78 Courtland Street
PERSONALITY TRAITSFor all intents and purposes, Walter presents as a well-intentioned Iron Giant-esque figure, if the Iron Giant was 5'8" and 78% sure he had undiagnosed ADHD. His eyes scrunch up when he laughs, he types out 'hahaha' when he finds something funny, and the only emojis he uses are text emoticons. Plus, he has a killer sweet tooth.
Walter's strongest trait would probably be his nonchalance—his automatic downplaying of any situation, good or bad. This is good for when, say, a child drops their ice cream ("Hey, buddy, it's not a big deal. I got two dollars here, let's go get another, huh?"), though proves less useful in the event of an accident or death. His attempts to comfort others who are stressed or generally hurt can often seem as lacking tact. If you want to get him a birthday present, maybe write out some cue cards for different situations. There's a reason he's only well-intentioned.
Academically... his teachers may have been a tad enthusiastic to see him off at graduation. Often he was distant and altogether somewhere else in class; still on the first assigned task while others were finishing up with their final one. Completing work took him four times as long and twice as many unwelcome snapping fingers in front of his face, earning him a reputation not for delinquency, but overall incompetence. This isn't to say he is incompetent, but most of his teachers had long since lost their patience for him and would rather label him as such. His lack of focus wasn't particularly aided by his insecurity in which field he would like to build a career in.
Of course, Walter's distracted nature translates to his home and social life, too. Socially, he mainly talks to those who don't ask much of him. He's unassuming, more one to respond than initiate a conversation, and will often leave long gaps between texts. At home, his mom tries to offer the support she can, but is uncertain of what there is she can do.
HISTORYWalter is a lifetime resident of Everbrook, his dad—Ryan—having been born there and living on Applen Avenue. His mom—Charlotte—hails from Freeport originally, but moved in with Ryan after their relationship solidified. Three years later, she gave birth to their baby boy, somehow naming him Walter despite loving him unconditionally. They never married.
Neighbours and academic figures alike fawned over young Walter, for his excitable personality and inheritance of his father's best features (and his mother's selfless kindness). He preferred the great outdoors to games consoles and iPads, though he wasn't tech illiterate; he just possessed a fondness for being active and climbing and running about. Sometimes, his mom exclaimed how lucky she was to have a kid that wore himself out, even with all the sugar he ate, essentially doing half the work for her. His dad would often be part of his activities, building makeshift obstacle courses or wrestling with him or playing action heroes.
Seventeen days after Walter's ninth birthday, Ryan Dawson went missing. Police investigated. His life was a state of unrest in the months following, uneasiness shaking his body, and it seemed like life would always feel like this. Many condolences and apologies flooded in from family friends and others on the street, as though they personally were the ones to snatch him away in the middle of the day, or as though he died. The police inquiry eventually ended, though it hardly felt like it ever started, and they announced the same conclusion they had come to at the very beginning—it was 2010, after all.
Things went back to normal. People walked down the streets with their grocery bags, laughing to friends down the phone and nodding their head in polite greeting to familiar faces. Walter and his mother moved to Courtland Street, now devoid of the income Ryan's freelance graphic design provided, his mother unable to secure a >16 hour contract. Walter quietly sold some of his things to help with groceries.
Years moved on. Walter's lovable, excitable nature morphed into a "disruptive personality".
Charlotte moved on. She started dating again, someone more local to her this time. They're an on-and-off thing. Things must be hard when you're dating someone whose father of her children is Schrodinger's missing person. (When people die in Eastbrook, they find the body. They never found his body.)
Ten years later, things are once again as they were. Walter doesn't like to talk about his dad, not that anyone broaches the topic much anymore. It's not because it hurts, because it doesn't. He's accepted it. But whenever he thinks about his father, all that unease from those months in 2010 comes swimming about in his mind again. It feels off. It feels like his father's disappearance was something that should've never happened—not in the sense that Ryan was a good person who didn't deserve it, which he was, but in the sense that it was before his intended time. Like a character being removed from a show's plot too early, due to circumstances surrounding the actor. So Walter pays it no mind, and he is at ease.
Now summer is here, he's officially graduated from his extra year of high school, held back for obvious reasons. His attempts to hold a job during previous summers were unsuccessful, to say the very least, so he made the decision fairly early to start looking for jobs out of town. Except, when the day came for his first interview, none of the buses were running. And he could feel unease itching in his feet, compelling him to stay firmly where he stood, within the confines of the town...
OTHER INFORMATIONHe shoplifted once when he was fourteen, just a single item—a can of Sprite. He still feels guilty about it.
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