Finch Black

Personality

Impulsive, prone to emotional outbursts, swings from one emotion to the next. Finch has a lot of issues with giving up situational control and also admitting when he's wrong. He has an addictive personality and struggles with prescription drug abuse (adderall) and occasionally cocaine. He is also what he likes to describe as a "functional alcoholic", though "functional" is debatable. He's a night owl and always has been, and he tends not to wake up before noon if he can help it. 1-2 pm is the standard. He's also deeply emotionally insecure, suffers from undiagnosed Bipolar II and ADHD.

History

his dad was a long haul truck driver and was never home and his mom was an ER nurse and similarly, was never home. He is the youngest of six, and he has five older brothers.

he grew up in a pretty white middle class suburban setting, but a family of eight is not easy to sustain and were more or less always struggling for money, so finch got all the hand me downs that were too big for him still and he always got the smallest share of food and he felt very much like a throwaway child. like nobody loved him or cared about him, especially because his parents were rarely around.

his dad died of a heart attack when he was around eight or so, and his rearing sort of fell on the shoulders of his siblings. he was very close with one of them, but after he rose to fame they had a falling out and now he doesn’t speak to his family at all anymore. he doesn’t know if his mom is still alive and he doesn’t care.

in school he was a below average student. he’s got several undiagnosed learning disorders and math especially was very hard for him, and information retention in general was almost impossible if it was a subject he wasn’t interested in. when he got into high school, he would get detention and in school suspension purposely because they were to be served in the band/music room and it basically meant that he could spend an entire afternoon playing music and writing songs.

he always had a knack for singing and playing basically any instrument he picked up, though he only learned to actually read sheet music in his mid-twenties and it still takes him a good couple of minutes to parse out what the dots on the paper mean. he prefers making music by ear.

when he was 17, he was eight weeks short of graduating (if he promised to do summer school) but he and his best friend at the time decided to drop out together and live in the attic of a much older friend/weed dealer’s apartment. their goal was to start a band and become famous, which they did.

from 17 to 19, he worked at a gas station doing janitorial work because he wasn’t very good at the register and he got into arguments with customers. during this time, he started the ascendants with his high school friend (danny, drummer) and the weed dealer (caleb, guitar) and finch would show danny and caleb how he wanted the songs played and he would sing. he has never been able to sing and play an instrument at the same time.

finch was also sexually abused by their first guitarist, though he refuses to acknowledge it because it was done by someone he trusted and wanted to love, but caleb definitely took advantage of him numerous times and finch definitely thought or felt like he should just put up with it if he wanted to keep their band together and because he wanted to pretend it was affection, when it really wasn’t. he still has a hard time parsing what happened to him and copes with it by being hypersexual.

Interests

Likes

• His boyfriend, Linus
• Sleeping in whenever possible
• Sexual promiscuity
• Christian Louboutin Shoes
• Dolma

Dislikes

• Feeling a lack of control
• Vulnerability
• Being sober

Relationships

Madelyn (Maddy) Cabrera

Maddy is his manager, both in business prospects and in daily life. They had an off-again, on-again relationship for four years while the band was still active, and they dated tenuously during this time. Maddy has a lot of affection for finch and he has the same for her, but they have mutually agreed upon the fact that they really don't work well as a couple due to them both having type A personalities. He thinks the world of her but he regularly griefs her over text message and she does the same to him. At this point in life, they behave more like siblings than anything else.

Linus Khouri

Linus is Finch's boyfriend and biggest fan. He met Linus while buying beer at the stop and shop near his apartment, and the two have been inseparable since then. He had a hard time expressing his emotions to Linus at first, but after a while and after Linus' continued support, Finch opened up to him and learned that it was alright to be vulnerable with him. Finch thinks it's very endearing that Linus thinks so highly of him and likes to poke into his past. When he found out that Linus had written fanfiction involving him, he got so excited about it he made an account on the website that hosted it and left feedback for him. Finch still cycles through periods of feeling like he needs to spare Linus the hardship of being involved with him because he knows how difficult he is, and becomes very self-sabotaging and tries to break up with him. Linus, for the most part, does tolerate it but his patience is not infinite.

Trivia

• He was given the nickname "finch" in highschool for being loud, high energy, obnoxious, and very small. the surname "Black" was chosen as an addendum to his nickname when the band became popular.
• He has his tongue pierced and he also has a Prince Albert piercing, and both ears are stretched to 1/2".
• The total amount of money he has spent on tattoos hovers somewhere in the range of $10,000-$15,000
• His driver's license is currently suspended. He could get it back, but that would require him to buy a car and have a breathalyzer installed in it. Instead, he borrows Maddy's car when he feels like it. Notifying her is optional.
• He has extremely bad vision, and although he can wear contacts to correct this, he prefers glasses because his glasses are photochromatic (transitions) and because he feels like they complete his "look" and hide his dark circles.