alexander 'xander' barlow ( 𝖝𝖛𝖎𝖎𝖎. 𝖘𝖔𝖓 𝖔𝖋 𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖒𝖊𝖘. ) you carry the heavens in you eyes like one of those old greek tragedies. but my heart don't beat the way it used to
okay so this isn’t a regular announcement but i realized i’d never made a task graphic and photoshop is currently out of commission so … this is what we’re working with !! anyway, i’ve made an interaction-y ask meme for our members to send to each other !! i guess it’s not really a task, but i don’t know what else to call it. we’re thriving here. as always, it’s not mandatory but highly recommended. reblog this if you want your fellow members to send you memes, and please send to everyone who has reblogged it !!
ever since he’d set foot inside the camp borders, joshua had never really left again. the few times he had, he could count on one hand. there wasn’t anything outside of the borders for him. the only thing remaining of his old life was his little sister, and he’d only just started to get to know her again. she was the only reason why he had decided to make a quick last minute trip to the nearest town just now. he hadn’t meant to come back after dark, but yet here he was. picking out birthday presents had never been his strong suit, especially not for a soon to be thirteen year old girl he hadn’t really seen in years
of course he bumped into someone right when he returned to camp. maybe a camper on border patrol, maybe someone else who had snuck out past curfew. pulling the hood of his hoodie back, he greeted them with a nod. “i won’t tell if you won’t.”
xander took a step back from joshua, a seemingly unimpressed once over of the other camper his only outward sign of surprise at running into someone else. he tore a ratty earbud from one ear, letting it dangle uselessly from the cord that kept the other pumping now - faded music, and cocked his head before speaking. “ who the fuck do you think I’d tell? “ it was a genuine question; he wondered if he seemed like someone just dying to confide his late night run - ins with someone else. unless something seriously exciting was going on with the
xander had, actually, been running. with, again, no outward sign of anything, he felt a pang of amusement at the accidental pun going through his head. “ in fact, who the fuck would you tell? why is that even an option here? “
“ I wouldn’t not fuck a god. would I fuck a god just to say I fucked a god? no. but if circumstances aligned themselves enough for it to seem like a good option ... maybe. “
“ and there are definitely gods I wouldn’t fuck, full stop, but I like living just enough to not wanna rank them out loud. but c’mon. some of them are clearly bad decisions. “
“ our father’s kind of known for being a jack of all trades. being family has never been about being like any of them --- in fact, I think we all prefer our differences. it’s not hard to have each other’s backs and loads of respect and shared history. I don’t know if I fit in but I also don’t think it matters next to all that. “
“I want to say it was a good game, but…” Leaning on a tree, Angela had to catch her breath to finish her sentence. “I think I’m too tired to speak at all.” She had removed her armor as soon as the game finished, always feeling a little claustrophobic wearing the full set. “Besides, my team lost, so that’s bummer, but I guess you can’t win all the time.”
Angela was too busy talking to notice the spot of blood that seemed to be growing in her shirt, and even if it started as something small, it was quickly going from grape-sized to hand-sized. She only noticed it when a few drops fell to the floor, and saw blood that wasn’t there when she first arrived to rest next to the tree. “Oh fuck, that’s mine? I didn’t fight with anyone! Gods, it must be from when I was running and tripped.”
“ stains sometimes spread, “ xander said, absently. he was more focused on dealing with his own armor than seeing what it was exactly that angela was talking about; being on the same team during the day’s game hadn’t done much to endear him to the daughter of aphrodite, and he hadn’t turned to focus on her as she spoke to him.
for the most part, he was convinced that she’d walked to the tree near where he was standing without registering it was him standing near it. xander had no other explanation for why their current conversation was taking place. he finished untangling some unruly straps, discarding the last of his armor along with his only good reason for ignoring angela. it was too much work to do something so deliberate, when he could see her out of the corner of his eye. he glanced up at her just enough to be polite before he leaned against a tree himself, looking away again. “ if you weren’t fighting, it might just be someone else’s blood. no need to panic. “
camper’s name: alexander james barlow
camper’s age: 18
camper’s birthdate: august 25, 1999
camper’s birthplace: orono, maine
gender identity & pronouns: cismale, he / his
sexual orientation: bisexual
personality
+ traits: pragmatic, composed, decisive
- traits: isolationist, judgmental, nihilistic
zodiac: virgo
moral alignment: ???? true neutral, if only because he doesn’t care enough to be anything else. being either lawful or chaotic is like, a lot of work. xander says no thanks! i’m good!
hogwarts house: slytherin
mbti: istp
enneagram: types 3 & 5
four temperaments: phlegmatic
celtic tree sign: hazel
appearance
height: 5′8″
hair color: brown
eye color: blue
any tattoos/piercings?: no
other attributes: absolutely nothing about this boy is remarkable.
the demigod
godly parent: hermes
any mortal family?: matthew barlow (father), jenny barlow (mother. he’d say, for lack of any other words to describe his relationship with jenny barlow), currently unnamed demigod.
abilities: enhanced theft, speed (esp. when wearing the shoes his father gifted to him), skilled with a sword.
relationship w/ godly parent: not any worse than his relationships with his mortal parents! xander has absolutely no complex feelings about hermes beyond thinking that adults are dumb and the gods are about ten times dumber. he also has no earthly idea what any god, let alone hermes, would’ve seen in his father, which really only cements his thought that hermes is as dumb as any other authority figure he has ever met. he doesn’t dislike hermes though and gets that he’s ....................... trying. he appreciates the shoes hermes gifted to him when he was ten, and like, thanked him for them at the same time that they had the ‘i’m your dad!’ talk. they haven’t had much contact since then and xander likes it that way. his parental figures growing up were always distant, more involved with themselves and their own drama than him and his sister --- he doesn’t think he’d appreciate having a father, all of a sudden, who cared about what he does.
when/how was the camper claimed?: in the middle of a quest maybe a year or two out from his arrival at camp. xander never really cared to find out who his father was and had been more than content to hang around the hermes cabin while unclaimed; that one conversation didn’t change much at all about xander’s life.
any quests? or smaller missions?: yeah! i haven’t ironed them out but i assume the one where he was claimed was his first quest. he’s capable and doesn’t talk a lot and likes to just get shit done and get out, so he’s honestly a very decent quest - choice, so long as the other people on the quest can stand him.
what is their fatal flaw?: he probably has like .............................. ten. the biggest might be how quick he is to judge and hold tight to that judgement. he hasn’t spoken to his sister since his arrival to camp because of something that happened when he was eleven. if you cut him off in line in the dining pavilion once three years ago he’ll never forget, and dismiss you as a cheat in his mind from then on. it’s bad! very not good! he has a lot of issues!!
what is their preferred weapon?: a sword.
favorites
favorite camp memory: coming back from that first quest and getting to move to a more permanent position within the hermes cabin. he doesn’t feel a lot towards their father, and is still immensely wary of looking up to any older siblings, but he does enjoy the camaraderie and sense of belonging he feels with his siblings.
favorite food: blueberry waffles
favorite color: grey. he’ll argue with you that it is a color, too.
favorite animal: cats
favorite movie: i highly doubt he has one. whoops! he likes movies, and the experience of watching them, but it seems highly unlikely to me he develops a lot of strong emotions about them once the credits roll.
likes: early morning runs, comfortable silences, fresh fruit eaten by the handful, staying outside a storm, long showers, being left to his own devices.
dislikes: wearing shoes, forced team building exercises, organized sports, authority figures, arguments about trivial things, overly repetitive music.
miscellaneous
mini playlist: backseat driver by shakey graves; hurricane (johnnie’s theme) by lord huron; bad boyfriend by spector; nighttime hunger by overcoats; tyson vs. douglas by the killers.
describe their aesthetic: the grey crash of stormy waves against dull sand and a duller sky, on a day when being on the beach doesn’t mean anything beautiful. the glint of a knife stuck in your pocket, not yours, but taken --- after all, some things are necessary steals. footsteps pounding against the pavement until the thud of them syncs with a pounding heart. settling into the shadows of the night outside and letting the rumbling quite take over. sticking earbuds in as an excuse not to talk or listen or be present. slapping a band - aid over a problem and calling it cured. not being able to sleep at night and never once questioning what the cause for that could be. inviting the cold in, tempting fate, not believing anything comes from it. the need to do something, to keep your hands busy, to fill everything with a touch of white noise.
if your camper was a vine, which one would they be?: i couldn’t pick one so ig pick your fighter (here & here) and we’ll let them fight it out
if they weren’t a demigod, where would they be in life?: his father really pushed him into organized sports as a means of getting xander out of the house and like, giving him coaches to maybe be stand in parental figures! xander doesn’t give a single shit about the sports he played but he’s very, very quick, and generally light on his feet --- he was good at them. he’d have probably stayed with them until his tendency to just do whatever rocked the boat the least got him decent grades and excellent records in whatever sport he pursued in high school so he could snag a college scholarship and get the hell out of dodge. would probably major in business just for something to do.
[ xander — linda: CANCELLED at 7:36pm ] i don’t want tp panic my siblings with this and i literally do not know a nyhuone else who would answer my distess call [ xander — linda: CANCELLED at 7:36pm ] fuck it its’d not worth it ll deal with bettttttys stress. maybe i’ll yust bleed out bit mre and it’ll go away but theres no way these are worthr rsending
send “$” for an ACCIDENTAL text.
[ xander — linda: 7:41pm ] het betty [ xander — linda: 7:42pm ] g uess who got stabbed
[ xander — angela: 8:35am ] michael where the fuck are you [ xander — angela: 8:35am ] i’m on the running trails and i’m not waiting for you anymore[ xander — angela: 8:36am ] i didn’t even want a running buddy in the first place
@itsbettybiotch ------ stick their tongue out at my muse
" look, you can do that all you want, but I’m not sayin’ anything else here, “ xander said, a nonchalant shrug making its way across his shoulders as he worked to keep any hint of laughter out of his words. he was trying to look busy, focused, on untying his shoes, but he shot a glance up at betty and matched the silliness of her stuck - out tongue by miming a hand across his mouth, zipping it closed. “ you want something from their cabin you’re gonna have to figure your own way in. the getting out is valuable enough information. “
xander tried not to move too much from his space crouched on the floor; a bit too far forward and he’d potentially end up with an uncool story behind an injury, a bit too far backward and he’d fall on his ass. he could admit that maybe it was on him --- that he’d brought his brother pointing a weapon at him upon himself by coming into their cabin through a window in the first place. but in his defense there were far more people standing in front of it than usual and he hadn’t been in the mood for small talk. “ fuck. hey --- it’s me! there is no need for that. “
@charlottejean ------ tug on my muse’s sleeve/shirt/skirt
" yeah, sure, “ xander said, incredibly distracted and not at all paying attention to who was at his side or what they wanted. he had constructed the perfect bite on his fork ( as perfect as a bite could get, he figured, when one had to shove the best part of one’s plate into a fire ) and needed to focus on not dropping it. sure, xander had peripheral vision, but he didn’t quite care to use it as he ate. whilst chewing he glanced over, saw charlotte, and raised an eyebrow as politely as he could manage. “ --- sorry. what? did you need the salt? “
that road outside that you've been taking home forever
that'll be the same road that I take when I depart
those charcoal veins that hold this chosen land together
may twist and turn but somewhere deep there is a heart ( listen )
