Our Life: Now & Forever MC Intro
This is Charmaine “Maine” Oakland! He is an intersex boy and uses he/him pronouns in step one. Charmaine goes through many identities (notably demigirl using they/she in step two) before landing on being bigender and using she/he/they pronouns by step three.
This is his step one introduction with his full body reference (ft. my edited doll face for him as well!!)
He is my only MC, but my main route for him is the poly route!
In step one, he starts out as neighbors with both Qiu and Tamarack. Not wanting to claim friends with people he just met. Much less friends to people that he will only know for maybe a school year or two at most.
However, he agrees that he and Tamarack can be friends at the end of the prologue. Maine was charmed by her openness and inclusion to him, though he still doesn’t truly believe they're true friends until much later. He had never been invited to hang out with anyone before since most kids left him be in his aloofness. Plus she was just staying at her grandparents and had just moved like he did. So Maine thinks that she would get it the most (since they are the same).
Qiu is not as lucky as Tamarack in Charmaine’s good graces. Charmaine does not accept being in Golden Grove easy and this boy who is confidently & smugly connected to this town is no different than the town itself. Maine does not get why Qiu wants to be his friend or be nice to him when he has literally all of Golden Grove as his friends. He’s not special, not that he wants to be special to this pretty boy anyway. The opposite!
Maine only accepts his kindness and crush as he can’t help but be attuned to Autumn and wish the best for him. It is after that Maine accepts Qiu’s friendship and that maybe it was inevitable that they would be close.
He does not like getting his haircut. His mama has to bribe him for him to get a trim and even then Maine will only let her do so. So his hair is really long but he keeps it in a braid that gets put into a bun most of the time.
The earmuffs that he wears are a comfort item that he wears all the time. He got them from his grandparents for his “big move” across the country. Wearing them reminds him of home and his family that wants him to stay in one place.
Opal has moved them around many times in Charmaine’s ten years. They never really last for more than a school year. At most was the apartment they lived in before he started school and that was for about two years. For most of the moves it was moving counties and maybe across a state line. They were not far from their extended family until this move where they moved across the country. Charmaine was ill about it the moment his mom “let him know” her plans. Like he had a choice. Like everything was normal.
If you have any questions about Charmaine himself or his relationships to other characters, please ask!! Either in the comments or my ask box and I will do my best to answer! I am so excited to show my mc for this cozy game (^ ^)
