#tl;dr - this is tad's final boy. he plays the drums. he's a sweetheart.

[applesontheground]

oc: rex langston 🦖

🦖 and when we ask you why, you raise your sticks and cry and we fall.🦖

full name: Terrance “Rex” Langston

aliases/nicknames:  T-Rex, Terry (his sister established that name growing up and he’s lukewarm to it; i wouldn’t call him it if you don’t know him well)

birthday: february 22, 1994

age: 20 (canon takes place in 2014; age for 2022 is 28)

height: 5′9″

physical appearance: Slightly stocky build with large chest & shoulders. Lowkey skips leg day, but the drumming saves him from looking funny and in turn he kicks like a kangaroo. Longer, dirty blonde hair that he styles up and out. Always has a little unsightly blonde fuzz on his jaw. Hands are constantly bandaged or beaten up by some drumming mishap (or so he says). Aquamarine blue eyes with a smudge of green near the edges. Perpetually tired looking expression. Has a poor quality stick-and-poke of a dinosaur on his left shoulder.

bio:

Being “the oldest” for as long as he could remember (his second sibling coming around when he was only six) gave Rex an almost innate sense of responsibility. His parents had been insistent on him to set an example, putting weights on his shoulders to “act well” in hopes it would rub off on their oncoming children, and then after that they only grew distant in favor of said younger brothers and sister. He never minded in the context of how he would go on to treat his siblings, though. Brad (13), Lou (10), and Rachel (8) are in his top list of concerns, even after moving out and trying to worry about himself for a change. That’s something he’d never say aloud, though. He prefers to say it through actions instead, including them in his life as much as he can. It’s not as often as either him or they want, but it’s something. You can sometimes catch him on his off hours walking his sister home from school, or taking his brothers to a local skate park to smoke and to be there in case one of them break an ankle.

Rex’s interest in percussion piqued through friends being in the band programs, and after being annoying enough with household objects and drumming rhythms on any surface that would take it, his parents threw him a bone and got him a drum set (“to be played in the basement and the basement only”). He never really saw to make a career out of it, but when a local dive bar asked for a stand-in percussionist, Rex told a couple white lies and convinced his parents that it was at another part of town. Before he knew it, he was playing with musicians who had done it for the seventeen years that he had been alive. Maybe even more.

After a couple years through the wringer, ducking spotlights to hide his young-looking features from suspecting bar patrons and standing behind the adults whenever possible, “T-Rex” is better known as he nears his twenties. He gets some special attention just to make sure he doesn’t drink on the bar’s expense, of course, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t get given shots under the table by the older musicians. Rex is still somewhat reserved most of the time, but finds that when he’s behind the set and with people who focus on him, he can let go of that strange innate guilt he holds close and start to feel like something other than an older sibling or a nameless percussionist.

If he had it his way, he’d stay in the glow of feeling what he understands as love for as long as possible.

CHARACTER TRAITS

soft spoken/cowardly: It takes a lot for Rex to demur or argue with someone. He was always the one being reasoned with to take the high road when growing up, and the disposition that formed in turn made him the same scapegoat in any argument he got into outside of the home. He likes to agree with people, and likes not being noticed or causing outward trouble even more. He isn’t shy to telling lies to get out of things, but that’s as far as he goes when it comes to retaliation. He usually lets everyone else call the shots and hopes he can find the silver lining if he doesn’t agree with it.

devoted/selfless: Once Rex makes a friend or develops a crush, he’s very loyal to their thoughts and desires. If he can help them, he’s almost too quick to jump in. He also will be the first to defend said person if someone challenges them (one of the few times he becomes rather intimidating) and is a very steadfast friend once he comes out of his shell and opens up to someone. Sometimes, it’s to a fault. Rex often wonders if he’d still agree or go along with some of his friends/romantic interests if he didn’t like them so much. He tries not to lose sleep over it, though.

reserved/repressed: The closest thing Rex sometimes has to self expression is his drumming. He chokes up when he gets into his heavier feelings, but then again it’s not often he lets those show in the first place. He holds them as close as he holds a lot of things about himself, but that’s no place to keep them of course. He speaks mostly through actions and body language if he doesn’t have the heart for talking.

coordinated/“straightened out”: Rex is rarely late to things, and when he says he’s going to be there he’s fucking going to be there. He’s been stood up before for things he’s felt were important (maybe it was his parents saying they would see him perform one night and getting caught up in something else...he’ll never say, though.), so he’s very adamant on following a set schedule when people make them or the thing matters to someone. He’s also big on setting specific times for things, and gets a little frazzled when people say loose estimates instead. He likes to know where he needs to be when he goes out, dammit!

idealistic/abstract: Rex has goals, alright? He wants to find his “home group” in a band, and not play for gross bar crowds for the next twenty years. How is he getting there? ...Get back to him. He makes rent money just fine right now, but he has dreams of finding his spot. When he falls into the lap of Complex Electric, a local group that is rather interchangeable save for its leading man, he quickly hopes that he might get to chase that pipe dream when said frontman offers him a semi-permanent position with him. Rex Langston & Tad Kennedy. Has a ring to it, right?

Rex is guilty. Of what? Good question. He wishes he could let go of his titles, his worries, and sometimes just about everything about him – and he likes to think that maybe he’ll have the chance to one day. It’s about time the docile drummer boy got to have his hands dirty, and then cleaned again like a tide that washes back out and takes all that was on the shore with it.