PERSONALITY
Stanley is focused and disciplined, with little use for laziness. He is a goal oriented over achiever of the highest order, with excruciatingly high expectations of himself. Organization comes naturally to him while idleness and boredom are the banes of his existence - he can't stand to be inactive for long, always on the hunt for something productive and constructive to be doing. For the most part, he is serious and down to earth, leaving the joking and messing around to people with nothing better to focus on.
Stanley is the sort of person who won't approach anything without a plan, and he excels at thinking for the long term. While he is usually well prepared and able to execute his actions with precision and care, he is remarkably bad at adapting to change and handling surprises. Consequently, he is a creature of habit - routine is what keeps his world turning, and deviating from it is not only an inconvenience but highly stressful for him.
The usefulness of others is something that he considers to be negligible; experience working with those less responsible than himself has taught him that dependability is rare, and that trust should be kept in reserve for a select few who will go the extra mile to earn it. He is cautious and wary, skeptical of the unknown and any uncertainty that it might bring. He prefers predictability and security, and can at times come across as somewhat stiff and overly proper.
SKILLS
Self Control - By far one of Stanley's best qualities is his ability to harness control of himself. While not without effort, he is able to demonstrate an impressive level of restraint.
Independance - He is excellent at taking care of himself in order to remain completely self-sustaining. He excels at working alone and making the most of his own abilities to take on life's challenges.
Determination - When he sets his mind to something, he will give everything he has to see it through. He takes commitment seriously and can be thoroughly relied upon to fulfill his responsibilities.
WEAKNESSES
Epilepsy - In his childhood, this first manifested as absence, then as grand mal seizures. However, as he grew older, the absence seizures eventually grew much less frequent until he recently stopped having them altogether, although he does still occasionally experience grand mal seizures.
Lone Wolf - A prideful, stubborn need to do things on his own makes it difficult for Stanley to accept help from others, even when he knows full well that he needs it.
Poor Memory - Stanley has always had a less than stellar ability to remember things, making him slightly absent-minded at times. While this is for the most part only a minor inconvenience, it can prove to be quite dangerous if he forgets to take his medication, or forgets that he's already taken it and takes it again unnecessarily.
HISTORY
Stanley was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, between two older brothers and two younger sisters. His father was a remarkably skilled businessman, self-employed as the owner of several Tim Hortons franchises, while his mother made her profession that of homemaker. For the duration of his childhood, there was nothing lacking by way of money or activity - with her children as the centre of her world, Mrs. Savage was a whirlwind at fashioning their lives, primarily in the form of ferrying them to and from an excess number of extracurricular activities. From dance lessons to sports to impromptu mini vacations across the country, there was scarcely ever a moment to spare in the Savage household.
With such a non-stop pattern of breakneck busyness, Stanley grew to detest most of these activities both due to having no say in whether or not he participated, and as a result of how exhausting it became. In his early childhood, it became a source of contention between himself and his parents, which eventually resolved when he was allowed to choose a single activity to focus his time on, free of parental intervention. He chose the one thing that held no interest for any of his siblings, ensuring that his participation in it would be utterly independent - tap dancing. While the non-stop lifestyle of dashing hither and thither never gained any true appeal for him, he was never quite able to settle for boredom.
At first, it was just a necessary compromise. But, gradually, he came to genuinely enjoy and even love tap. Unfortunately, the peace was not to last. A few months after settling into this new routine, he started having seizures. During the chaos and uncertainty that came with it, dance became his haven, a safe place where he could get lost and forget to worry.
Into his teen years, he became increasingly more convicted of the path he dreamed of following for the rest of his life - there was nothing else he had ever wanted to do, so it was a simple decision. His goal was to become a professional tap dancer, his vision was to perform in the hopes that his audience would enjoy their side of it as much as he enjoyed his own.
All his dreams, all the years of his life spent preparing were decimated in the space of a few minutes.
While crossing the street on his way home from practice, Stanley experienced his last and most impactful absence seizure. The careless driver who blew the stop sign might otherwise have been granted the benefit of careening towards an alert pedestrian capable of maneuvering out of the way. Instead, he would go on to spend the rest of his life regretting the consequences of one stupid decision. The accident left Stanley with a badly broken leg that would never fully heal, and no chance of living the life he had always envisioned.
When the news was broken to him in the hospital that he would have a limp for the rest of his life and never again be able to dance the way he used to, his emotional state spiraled downward at breakneck speed. Within the week, he was severely depressed. His friends and family were naturally concerned, but unfortunately, they all bought into the misconception that it would pass and that he would find a new purpose. Surely everything would return to normal.
After nearly a year, it was abundantly apparent to all involved that things were not going to return to normal. While mentally and emotionally there was some - if minimal - positive progress, Stanley remained listless and disinterested in life on the whole. As he seemed to have lost all initiative to find a purpose for his life, his parents took it upon themselves to give him one by choosing a college in Philadelphia and shipping him off to live with his aunt and uncle until the fall.
Unfortunately, the well-intentioned plan conceived by Stanley's parents turned out to backfire royally. While they may have thought a change of scene was in his best interest, they failed to properly consider how stressful and difficult he finds even small changes in routine. As a result, the sudden, drastic uprooting brought about a swift downward turn in his emotional state.
Early on the morning of the pulse, he went for a walk along the Ben Franklin Bridge that ended when he took it upon himself to jump off, and that was that - until that is, he woke up safe and sound in his aunt and uncle's house the next morning, much to their relief and his confusion. Now, he's determined to find out why death failed to stick, and if the pulse or the mysterious tower have anything to do with it.
