MATTHIEU WILLIAMS | DISTRICT FIVE // FIN

matthieu adelphe williams

seventeen | male | district five

Broken hearts are left for lesser knowns
Cause the coldest winters thrive on broken homes
From a lesser known I'm here
And there's hope, there's hope

appearance

In every Williams family picture, you'll see a group of energetic-looking people who smile like they're genuinely happy. And then there's Matthieu. Although his hair is just the same blond as his family and his eyes are the same blue, they just seem to lack that sparkley pizzazz to it. Blond hair and blue eyes aren't supposed to be the boring usual, but apparently whatever Matthieu has doesn't attract any attention. Although he doesn't want to be the kid who's stared and laughed at, he does want to be just a bit more noticeable. Just so he could have a few more friends. Even with perfectly perfect blond hair with a tinge of orange to it and cerulean eyes framed by his glasses, Mattie doesn't exactly have an eye catching appearance. And it wasn't something wrong with his build or something. Mattie was as almost as tall and strong as his brother, Alfred, and Alfred was one of the most popular kids in the grade who always had girls lining up to date him. Key word: almost.

Alfred stands at 5'11'', so Mattie would obviously stand maybe an inch or two shorter. Everyone knows that he's never going to be able to catch up to his brothers height and muscle and seemingly perfect build, including Mattie himself. Even though he does have some decent muscle from the days he were bullied, Matthieu doesn't really see the need to go work out 24/7 and get all big and buff and muscle-y like Alfred does. Enough to keep the bullies away is all he needs. Not really caring too much about his muscle lead to caring a bit too much about his face. Perfectly combed wavy hair just barely touches his chin, and by the way it looks, you can tell Mattie went out of his way just to comb out all the knots and wash out all the oil from his otherwise disgusting hair. And the clear skin. Acne washes were a bit harder to come by in District Five, but not impossible. If it wasn't impossible to get, Mattie always got it.

You don't want to know how much time Matthieu puts into his appearance. Almost like a higher district girly girl. And really, let's face it, he'd just be the acne ridden, oily nose teenage boy with a bird's nest for hair without all the hours and hours put into an almost flawless face. His insecurity really gets to him this way, as he puts in way more effort than necessary. Any flaws he didn't get to, Mattie tries to get people's attention somewhere away from it. It's why he's glad to sport a pair of oval glasses, as they take the attention away. Shoes off. Socks off. The boy walks around in bare feet as much as he can. It's a bit strange, considering his usual attire of some kind of large hoodie that almost seems to hide himself away, and then completely bare feet. It's why the bottoms of his feet are constantly dirty, and of course, being Mattie, he cleans them at the end of the day. Although he does want to be noticed a bit more, he does to unconscious things that make him more invisible, like hiding behind layers of clothing. 

personality

Matthieu really is a kind little sensitive soul who's just looking for friends. Most of the time. But we'll get to that later. He’s just too shy and finds it hard to converse with other people, as he believes no one really wants to hear his opinions. People would, though, if he could make it so that they could hear him with his soft voice. The boy is nervous and jumpy, and takes a long time to get used to any given situation. He is very much a like a prey animal, looking over his shoulder at any opportunity and often hearing things that aren’t there. Mattie's a prime example of what they call a doormat. People like to take control of him and get him to do their bidding, and Mattie is naturally a polite kid. A bit too polite. Always ready to help others, even when he knows that they're selfish and are too lazy to do their own work. Always saying his "please" and "thank you"s, and of course, "sorry". Apologizing way too much for the littlest things is really something that he feels like he's obliged to do. Like it'll just cover up any mistake he ever made and ever will make.

Even though Matthieu's extremely quiet around strangers and acquaintances, once he’s one hundred percent sure he’s friends with someone (normally with stuttered badgering) he’ll open up and you won't be able to stop him babble. All the stuff he represses on a regular basis just floods out once he figures out you’re someone he can trust. A lot of people don't realize that as quiet and polite Matthieu is, he can be pushed to the extent of getting angry. The kid has a very, very long fuse, and will often keep quiet about a problem until someone rubs him up the wrong way. Each comment really does impact him and his sensitivity, but he tends to keep it in. Everything has to add up in order to get him seriously angry, which results in a flood of accusations and issues you never would have guessed that he has. And do remember that Mattie does have some decent muscle; he's not afraid to throw some punches when things get too dire. He really is a gentle creature though, and hasn’t much use for being angry at people - preferring to forgive, but not quite forget. 

Whenever he's really stressed out to the point where he's really angry, Matthieu would prefer to take out his anger and stress in a calmer manner. Breaking things, sweeping precious belongings off a table, throwing something across the room; all while keeping a completely straight face and cool demeanor. It's why you don't want to get him angry. Of course, no one actually sees cute little doormat Mattie do these kinds of things. They always come back home to pots broken and everything messed up and they don't ever consider Mattie as the one who did it. No one ever knows what happens inside, and that fact alone sometimes just makes him mad. Everyone just thinks that he's the unbreakable doormat that you can step on as many times as you want and it'll be happy. It's like Mattie wants to be stepped on. No he doesn't. The boy has feelings too, you know. He's also human. Of course, him being angry or stressed isn't a common sight, but you never know. Not a lot of people really know which things piss him off and which make him happy; Mattie doesn't make his likes and dislikes known to the public.

history

Everything about Matthieu's childhood and even now is about Alfred. The two brothers were born as twins, and from the very beginning, Alfred was the one favored. What made him better than Mattie? Maybe it was because of how much more energetic Alfred was than him. Maybe it was because Alfred was much more popular than him. Even in preschool, Alfred was the one playing and laughing with all the other kids while Mattie just kind of sat by himself with his toys. All throughout grade school, Mattie was the loner who couldn't exactly make friends due to his shyness. That's about when the bullying started. Everyone would pick on him and he could never fight back, always just taking it in. And this isn't the super-popular-brother-who-doesn't-give-a-damn-about-his-troubled -sibling cliche. Alfred really felt bad for his brother, so he decided to give him some lessons. Big muscle-y Alfred had enough muscles to beat up any kid if he wanted. So Matthieu trained and built up his strength and from then on, he could fight the bullies back if he felt like it.

Even with the bully problem cleared, Matthieu still was pretty much friendless and was still used as a doormat (but not as much). Eventually coming to the untrue conclusion of it having something to do with his appearance, Mattie tried his best to idealize that. So as Alfred was leading the best sports teams in the district, Mattie would be doing his hair and skin care. While Alfred was going on all these different dates with all these different girls, Mattie would be shopping for shampoo. Even after all that, it still seemed that no one really noticed Mattie as anything more than a doormat, but he continued the appearance treatment anyway. Alfred had always outshined Matthieu in terms of popularity and friendliness, and there was no changing that. Mattie could never be the leader of the sports teams. At every family gathering, everyone would be swooning over how many trophies Al had won and how much of an idol he was at school, no one really payed attention to Mattie. Really, there were some relatives who didn't even know the Williams had another soft-spoken son.

Although everyone's attention was focused on Alfred, the two have a pretty healthy relationship. With all siblings, even the most loving ones, there's bound to be fights and pranks and highs and lows. Because of the fact that Matthieu didn't have many friends, Alfred served as his source of happiness. And Alfred was sick of everyone being so clingy to him and following him around everywhere, so he was glad to have a brother who didn't. Of course Mattie had points of jealously along the way. Wouldn't you be jealous of your too popular brother if you were someone like Mattie? Being Mattie, he always got over these points, as he knew Alfred was sometimes jealous of his stalker-free lifestyle. Sometimes the two brothers wished they could live in each others' shoes for a change. The two weren't identical twins, so a change would be hard to pull off. So even though Mattie and Alfred had two exactly different lives, they still managed to be each others' source of sanity; listening to the other's problems and having a good time together.


codeword - odair

colors -
doing - 948C75
speaking - D9CEB2
hearing - 7A6A53
thinking - D5DED9
italicized - 99b2b7


word count -

face claim - who?

theme songs -
hello alone by anberlin