definitely NOT alexander hamilton { { warning for mature themes } }

Name: alexander lavien
nicknames: alex and lavien, depending on the person and their relations
Age: seventeen
Gender: male
sexuality: bisexual and polyamorous

Eyes: hazel
Hair: black, curly, and shoulder length. when he's writing alex pulls it up in a ponytail to keep it out of his face
Height: 5'3"
Body Type: alex is just about made of skin and bone, never quite recovering from his impoverished youth and childhood illness. he's managed to gain some wiry muscle, but not much
Skin Color: light brown
distinguishing features: alex's stature always makes him stand out from a group of people, carrying himself tall and proud despite being so short. while he did recover from his illness, his face still carries some remains of his sickly pallor, leaving him with sunken eyes and deep eye shadows. he's also got lots of freckles

God Parent: hermes
Mortal family: alex’s mother, rachel farin, had alexander on january eleventh when she was twenty five years old. born into a wealthy family, rachel fell from her societal status after marrying an abusive man who took control of her finances. out of desperation rachel fled in the middle of the night with a friend, james lavien, abandoning the child she had with her husband who she eventually had an unplanned child with whom they named peter lavien. something of a mutual agreement was formed that they'd try for peter's sake at least, but they never could truly have a normal family life as rachel was still married according to the law.

rachel never really got back on her feet again after that. while she had a college degree she didn’t have enough experience to earn a high paying job, and james wasn’t very financially well off either. he was the child of a wealthy american businessman and was placed in charge of a new branch that would be opening in puerto rico which ultimately failed due to james' bad judgement, leaving his relationship with his wealthy father severed and him in debt.

rachel managed to get work with the help of a friend, a low paying job cleaning hotel rooms, and even though it wasn't much it was still money and food on the table. as long as she could provide for her family she was fine.

when her firstborn son was three years old, rachel's parents died - her mother first, and then her father five months later - and her husband took all the money they left her in their will. it was this that finally prompted her to seek a divorce, but her husband refused to sign the divorce papers and refused to return the get* to his wife, therefore not allowing her to seek a divorce. due to a lack of funds rachel couldn't take her husband to court.

it was around then that she met hermes, and around that time when alex became a thing she'd have to deal with. she slept with him in a fit of self destruction after peter refused to sign the papers, and by the time she knew she was pregnant hermes was gone. she convinced herself the child had to be james' and raised him as a mortal.

*a get is a jewish divorce document that annuls the laws of marriage. it must be presented by the husband to his wife in order to annul the marriage
Country of Origin: puerto rico
Pets: none
life before camp:
alex was born on january eleventh in puerto rico to a hardworking mom and a deadbeat dad, although he'd never actually admit to his upbringing. it still stings, sometimes, the whole mess of it all - the fact that his parents never married, the fact that his pa never really cared, the distance between him and his brother because they were both so different. no one ever said anything about it, but it was always there, hiding under the surface of alex's skin like a reminder that he didn't belong.

the big difference was that peter had friends. he was fun, he was agreeable, the other kids liked him. alex just didn't know how to make people enjoy being in his company. he was too short and too quick to anger, always getting into fights with the other kids and getting on the bad sides of his teachers. when his brother was with friends, alex was alone. he'd punched someone in the nose once for taking his toy at recess and nobody wanted to talk to him anymore.

and then there was the matter of school itself. it was obvious he had some sort of learning disorder from the way he squirmed in class and stared out the window, but medication was another expense on the endless list of priorities, and they couldn't even afford a diagnosis in the first place. alex knew he was smart, knew he was different from the way he could spend hours at a time reading, but that didn't matter much when he spent hours reading over finishing his math homework, while peter got along with his teachers and got his work done.

but he was alright. he taught himself how to buckle down, learned to read his notes and books out loud to make them stick, learned to make himself do his math and science homework. he had to; his pa always talked about how he'd need to get off of this island if he wanted to make anything of himself, needed to be as fluent in english as he was in spanish and make it to america if he wanted people to listen to him, and if he wanted to get to america he needed to study and do well in school. pa only ever seemed proud of him when he got good grades, and so he learned how to make his pa proud so he wouldn't be disappointed.

alex kept his grades up, and he still got in fights but it was never at school. he learned to make his teachers like him, at least, even if he gave rico alvarez a black eye for calling his ma a prostitute and nobody at school talked to him. he worked it down to a science, how to make his pa proud and keep the wrinkle from ma's brow, figured out all by himself to ice his busted lip before ma got home and keep it hidden from her with excuses of homework and studying.

but it wasn't enough, couldn't keep pa there in the end. he sat up the entire night with peter, sitting cramped up by the door of their shared bedroom to try to hear what their parents were shouting about (the same as always, ma's low income and pa's lack of consistent jobs). it'd happened so many times that alex didn't really even register anything was different until they mentioned him, until pa said, 'we both know alex isn't mine,' and ma screamed and sobbed. peter jerked back like he was burned and alex took it as a given that it was his fault that pa wasn't there at the table the next morning, or the next, or the next, or the next.

it was a week from peter's birthday, and they'd never talked much but alex never realized how lonely he was until suddenly his only human contact was ma and his teachers, until peter whispered to him, 'it's all your fault that pa's not here, i wish you were never born,' two nights after his birthday, after getting three small gifts and not one from pa, not even a note. it cuts like a knife and he wears the words close to his heart, wrapped around his throat, a litany of 'if you were better he would have stayed, if you'd tried harder pa would love you,' for the rest of his life.

things get better, vaguely, in the months following pa leaving. alex still catches ma sitting at the table, the weird of the world on her shoulders as she stares vacantly at her cold cup of coffee, still catches peter glaring daggers sometimes and the coldness never really leaves their interactions, but it's okay. alex learns to shoulder it, launches into impassioned rants about whatever book he's reading at school when ma goes empty and pretends not to notice that peter's still cold to him.

things aren't perfect, but they're okay. ma saves up and buys alex and peter nice chanukkah gifts to make up for their small birthday presents while recovering from pa leaving, and alex gorged himself on at least fifteen latkes - he lost count, kind of, and even his stomachache couldn't ruin his mood.

the point is, they were all doing fine when the worst struck.

it started with ma, coming down with what they thought was just a cold, turning into a severe case of the flu. the second they realized just how bad it was ma organized to send peter and alex off to stay with a friend for however long it took her to recover for fear of infecting them, but it was too late for alex. a nurse who lived in the neighborhood tended to them when she was home from work.

they shared a room, laying on separate sides of ma's bed up until the end, when ma knew she wouldn't make it. he was delirious from the fever and nothing going on around him felt honestly and truly real, but he still can't handle large amounts of physical contact without remembering ma dying in his arms.

even then, alex was lucky. he made it out; he lived to tell the tale, metaphorically, even if he never really told anyone except for through stilted sentences to the therapist he saw after moving in with his third cousin and his wife, rafael and maria lytton.

he and peter moved to their apartment in new york city, which wasn't luxurious by anyone's standards but was better than what they had before, and far better than the memories they left behind. he remembers choking on his words to the therapist, stumbling his way through the culture shock of being surrounded by english speakers. pa had made sure he and peter knew enough, though, and they adapted quickly enough.

he lived with them for a year before maria found her husband dead in the bathtub, wrists slit and water bloody. rafael was buried three days later at a nearby jewish cemetery, on a bright, sunny, midsummer morning. it was another loss in the long string of tragedies, and alex learned that relying on people was dangerous; they left, or they died, or they never cared about him as much as he cared about them.

and on top of that, he still didn't fit in. he was still short and still angry and sure, people would talk to him, but no one cared enough to actually want to be his friend. which was fine, really. it suited alex just fine to have people to talk to during lunch who didn't bother him out of school. he spent his free time either holed up in his half of his and peter's shared bedroom or holed up in a corner of the public library, reading just about anything he could get his hands on.

the rest of his life in the city passed more or less like this. his acquaintances stayed acquaintances, and his afternoon time stayed his own. he did homework help at the hamilton grange public library on tuesdays and thursdays starting with younger kids while he was fourteen and going up more as he aged, and he spent the rest of his time reading or blogging (social justice, mainly. fight him). he spent as little time at the apartment as possible and when he had to be there he did his best to avoid having to talk to peter. he'd never really gotten it out of his head, that it was his own fault that pa left, and if peter blamed him for that then it would only make sense that he'd blame alex for ma as well. avoidance only seemed like the best tactic.

at sixteen, though, a new student at his school named kevin continued to bother him, trying to become his friend for whatever reason. it wasn't harassment, really; alex wouldn't consider it that. he was just persistent, really, and alex was mostly baffled by it. it only clicked (and only vaguely at that) when some monster-dog (hellhound, he learned later) came at him while he was walking through central park one day and kevin popped up out of nowhere and saved him. he explained everything - the gods, the monsters, the mist, the camp. alex wasn't there when maria got whatever explanation she was given, but he assumed it had something to do with a heavy amount of mist and boarding school, likely. maria was far more religious than alex had ever been, and he doubted she'd accept the greek mythology explanation of it easily.

Talents: alex has always been an incredibly talented author, and he's surprisingly good at making people think they know him while they actually don't know anything about him. he's good at picking up new talents, but mainly because when he decides he wants to pick something up he works at it until he's mastered it. he's quick in the way most children of hermes are - not quite in the same sense as the nike kids, but he's almost constantly doing things, and doing them rapidly. quick in the way that makes it easy to blow through tasks, and easy to run away from the scene of a prank when he engages with his half siblings. he's good at thinking on his feet, too, coming up with witty replies and solid covers on the spot
Weapon: he's got a four color ballpoint pen that'll turn into a seven inch celestial bronze hunting knife, a seventeen inch celestial bronze sword on blue, a ball pump on green as decreed by josh, and stays in pen form on black (this is a solstice gift - already approved here, including josh's decision on the green setting)
Personality:
alex is incredibly proud, his hubris making the biggest impact on his personality. he's quick to refuse help, whether it be an editor on an essay or someone helping him pay for something as necessary as a meal. this isn't to say he thinks himself above others - his self esteem could only be described as 'truly awful, kind of pathetic' - he's just too terrified of relying on anyone to accept charity. he takes offense easily and is far too quick to anger, often causing him to lash out with malicious words or even physical violence if he thinks someone's mocking him.

he's incredibly organized for a demigod, especially a demigod child of hermes. he's learned over the course of his life to keep everything in perfect order so as not to lose it, so he'll know if it's been stolen immediately. he's got journals upon journals for different topics, a section of his trunk sectioned off for folders for receipts and letters and notes, photographs and drawings, anything he could possibly store, and a set of miniature bookshelves tucked underneath his bunk with books organized alphabetically by author. he's not a neat freak by any standards and in all other regards is just as messy as his cabin mates (the amount of times he's misplaces his ballpoint pen is bordering on ridiculous), but he has a system for the things that matter to him and he sticks to it.

alex is tireless in his ventures, completely unyielding and unrelenting. he'll work himself to death on a project, spending hours and days and weeks reworking and perfecting; however long it takes, he'll see it through. more often than not he ends up falling asleep at his self claimed desk in the library after hours of meticulously researching and writing for a blog post, often going overlooked and waking up with a crick in his neck from sleeping in a chair.

he's horribly stubborn and horribly opinionated, never once deviating from an opinion once it's been cemented into his mind. even in an extreme situation of life or death he wouldn't back down, much more willing to die by his beliefs than change his mind, would rather lose personal relationships than compromise on his statements or beliefs.
Flaws:
alex is always going after better, bigger, more. he's rarely satisfied with what he has, generally as a form of self depreciation. he always believes he can do better, that he's not good enough, and will go to any lengths to improve himself, even when it isn't healthy.

he's brash, a bit too honest about his opinion. it's not usually in a mean way, where he'll just blurt out that he doesn't like someone; it's more that he never stops to think about the consequences of giving people a piece of his mind. if alex thinks your opinion is stupid, he won't hesitate to tell you, even if you're some superior to him. there are times when alex is able to restrain this, mostly when he'll get some benefit from keeping quiet, but even then it's difficult.

alex's fatal flaw is his hubris. he always thinks he knows better than others, always knows the best way to do something. he never backs down from a challenge and rarely admits that he's wrong. alex would stand by his beliefs til the end of the line.

when alex was young, he and his mother became horribly ill. while alex survived, his mother didn't, and she died while alex was in her arms. because of this alex has extreme issues with sharing a sleeping space with others, and if he wakes up with someone else plastered along him he forgets that he's no longer ill on the island of nevis with his mother dying next to him. ((note: i know having ptsd isn't really a flaw, i just wasn't sure where else this would fit and went with this section of the form))
hypothetical hogwarts house: gryffindor with like. slytherin undertones or capital w whatever

Abilities: alexander got more of the god of literature and poetry bit from hermes than the rest of his half siblings and was born with a natural talent in writing. when writing he tends to go into this hyperdrive, focusing in on what he’s doing tirelessly for hours at a time. only part of this is from hermes, though, and most of alex’s hyperfocus comes from his adhd. alex also suffers less from dyslexia, but his
Powers: none
RP Example: [fart noise]
face claim: anthony ramos
quotes: all quotes come from the broadway musical hamilton, written by lin-manuel miranda

background: "alexander hamilton"
personality: "aaron burr, sir", "non-stop" and "your obedient servant"
flaws: "aaron burr, sir", "satisfied", "schuyler defeated", and “hurricane”

Any notes about your character: gonna be honest i cried while writing his backstory!!! god!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
this is like 75% based on lin-manuel miranda's interpretation of alexander hamilton in the broadway musical hamilton and 25% based on the image of alexander hamilton as painted in ron chernow's biography of the man himself. i feel no shame. (the hamilton grange library is the only one in manhattan where u can do homework help i did researc h please belieb me im not that tacky holy moly)
also he's jewish just like the rest of ur faves srry i don't make the rules what can ya do