Liam is, above all else, cheerful. He is the type of person who will have a smile on his face unless something devestating has happened. He's got an almost obnoxiously sunny outlook on life, and it is very hard to bring his mood down. He would rather laugh his way through a problem than let it get him down, and he likes to think of himself like a duck. Things roll right off his back, so long as they're not too serious. He also loves hard, and with his entire heart. He may come off as a total goofball, but he is also sweet, and considerate. He will literally lie down in front of a train for the people who are close to him, and has the (sometimes unfortunate) tendency to fall in love at the drop of a hat.

Liam typically has a lot of energy, and will more than likely start dancing if he's in a position where someone might typically stand still for long periods of time. Checkout lines at the grocery store are particularly amusing. As an aspiring musician, there is constantly a song in his head, and if he's bored, why not dance to the music that is everywhere? This has earned himself more strange looks than he could ever hope to count. When his endless energy font runs out, however, he will crash hard. He'll either sleep for a full day, or he'll burn himself out to the point where he makes himself sick.

On the negative side, he's very hard on himself. If he doesn't get something right almost immediately, he will take it hard. It's the only thing he's typically grumpy about. He likes to say that he'll never hold a grudge, unless it's against himself. The cheery disposition does a good job of hiding a few big hurts he's gone through in his life, and if the occasion ever comes where he cracks, it's likely he'll cry for three days straight, just because he's not used to feeling that way. It's not that he bottles things up, he just doesn't let them bother him enough to have to deal with them. Perhaps it's a denial complex; if I don't act like this is bad, then it's not bad. Even if it is.

Emotive Telepathy is the process of transferring kinesthetic sensations through altered states. In layman's terms, he is able to project feelings, rather than thoughts. If he is in a very good mood, this gets away from him, and everyone in his general area feels an unexplained burst of euphoria. And the happier he gets, the more intense the projected emotions are. It is not uncommon for people around him who know about his ability to gasp out, "Liam, STOP IT!" through fits of giggles that they can't explain. Likewise, if he's having a bad day, people near him feel inexplicably down.

Music - Liam has always, always loved music. He was singing before he was speaking, and he could make an instrument out of anything he laid his dirty, sticky little hands on. When he was in school, he sang for the choir, even earning himself a solo when he was eleven. He was in the band in high school, playing the bass, and he attempted to start more than one garage band througout high school and college. They never worked out, but he was always happy to just jam. He's in a band now that is actually semi-successful, with paying gigs and everything. And whenever he can, he will spend far too much time with his guitar, bending over it until his back screams at him and he walks with a hunch, like a cartoony villain. If you ask him, he will say that music is the only thing he's good at. His one and only talent. Oh, except for being able to eat his weight in chicken nuggets in an alarmingly short amount of time.


Writing - You could lump this into 'music', but Liam has always had a certain talent when it comes to writing. Mostly song lyrics, but he's been known to weave a short story here and there. He likes fantasy, and science-fiction, and enjoys trying to blend the two together whenever the bug bites him. It's not as often as he once was, but he still enjoys it when he does it.

Video Games - Scoff all you like, but it counts, damn it. Especially older games, before everything had a tutorial level and a thousand power ups and you didn't have to pick up extra lives. Before the game developers started handholding. He doesn't dislike new games, but they're not 1984 hard anymore, and sometimes he just likes those games that make him want to punch a baby.

Ordering Take-Out - Liam doesn't cook. The one and only thing he can cook well are burgers, and man can not live on ground beef alone. And so, he's become an expert at ordering in. Shut up, it is so a skill.

1984 (Birth)
On June 16th, a baby was born with a shriek of protest on the pool table at his aunt's house. It was at a family reunion, which everyone found unendingly amusing, and would bring up on that date for years and years afterward. . The birth was shockingly easy, and over before the paramedics that the family called showed up. And he was given the tradional name of the first-born male in the Behrman family -- William.

1985 - 1991 (Childhood)
Little William was a ball of neverending, sunshiney energy. He had been a happy baby, but as a boy it seemed his good cheer knew no bounds. If he fell off his bike and scraped his knee, he would get up almost immediately and shrug it off, smiling because he would get a Ninja Turtles bandage. When his older sister Amy picked on him, he would make a joke rather than fight back, which would often diffuse the entire situation. The boy sang constantly, drawing attention from their neighbours on summer afternoons when he would make up songs about his toy dinosaurs. He did well in school, but there was something that bugged him. Just a little something, but it was a big deal. Finally, when he was seven, he declared his apparent dislike for his first name, and asked if he could go by the second half of it, rather than the first. From that day on, he was called almost exclusively Liam.

1992 - 1996 (Tween)
While most kids his age became gloomy and emo in the delicate pre-teen years, Liam remained almost obnoxiously cheerful. His friends were grouchy? He had pie! The girl he had a massive crush on told him he was a freak with weird thumbs? Yeah, well those thumbs were great for playing video games! He had feelings for his male best friend, and got punched in the nose when he professed them? ...Okay, that one admittedly hurt. But rather than spending the next week devastated, he moped for a day or so before deciding he didn't need people who were going to punch him in the face for admitting that he was less than straight. And it wasn't that he wasn't sad, because he was. It was, perhaps, his first big hurt. But he got over it quickly, the way he got over everything quickly, and he got through it with a smile on his face.

In the end, middle school was very much like elementary school. He went, he did well enough to keep his parents happy, and friends clustered around him like little kids around an offering of candy. He was the candy, and that was just fine with him. His family was large enough that sometimes he felt like he got lost amongst his brothers and his sister, and so having a wide social circle made him feel... noticed. And at that age, even the most cheerful person needed positivity thrown their way, rather than always being the one throwing it out.

1998 - 2003 (Teen)
As a teenager, Liam sometimes felt like he was living in an Archie comic. Surely, life couldn't be this simplistic and... well. Not boring. Not exactly. Life couldn't be boring with three siblings and a wide circle of friends. There was always some kind of drama going on. Jenny was dating Michelle's ex who she was totally still in love with. Robbie's boyfriend broke up with him, so he started dating the other Rob. Liam really loved that, because he couldn't think of anything more hilarious than getting to scream out own name out during sex. Not that he'd had sex, but from what he'd heard it was pretty awesome. And the idea of screaming your own name out? Hilarious. But that was really all there was to his life. The drama of high school, and his music - he'd started playing the guitar in ninth grade, and picked up the bass in the high school band - and that was really... it. It wasn't bad, but he always craved a little more. When he was grown-up, he decided, he was going to have adventures.

2005 - 2010 ( Young Adult )
And adventures he had. Nothing too wild. He wasn't that brave, nor that reckless. But he did take his ancient Jeep on a few cross country trips - stopping here and there to fix whatever on her broke down that time - and he met people in karaoke bars and arcades that became lifelong friends. Or, at least lifelong facebook friends. He met family he'd never known about and crashed on the couches of distant cousins, and he offered to give guitar lessons in tiny towns to earn enough money to keep himself afloat. He didn't visit every single state, but he managed to hit a lot of them. And when he'd talk to his parents, and they would ask him when he was going to settle down, start school, become an actual functioning member of society? He would scoff at them, and tell them not to worry about him, that he would be fine, and change the subject. He had a hint of a Peter Pan complex, truth be told.

Nothing good lasts forever though, and soon his adventures came to an end. When he was back in Seattle, and things began to normalize again, Liam was faced with a decision; what was he going to do now? And life, his always-kinda-perfect life, answered that question for him before he really had to ask it. He was at work one day, a mind-numbing job at an ice cream booth in the mall, and he was having a really shit day. Just, really terrible. The sort of day where everything went wrong, where all you wanted to do was put on some disgustingly emo music, curl up, and cry. So you can imagine his surprise when a cluster of girls, bubbly and ponytailed and giggling to each other, came up to the counter to order ice cream cones. And one by one, all of them - all five of them - started to cry. And when Liam panicked a little, and handed them napkins while asking if he should call someone, or get help, they all proclaimed that they didn't know why they were crying. That they just all of a sudden felt so sad that crying felt like the only option. Which had been a trip, because that was exactly how Liam had felt himself. And, come to think of it, he'd noticed that his customers had been a little... moody that day. Quiet, subdued, as if there had been something heavy weighing on all of them. And that was strange. Right? It sure felt strange to Liam. Strange enough that, when he got home that night, he told the story over dinner. And his aunt, who happened to be visiting that evening, suddenly found her nephew far more interesting than the meal in front of her. Later on that evening, she pulled him aside and asked him if that sort of thing happened often. If he noticed that people would pick up on his moods, sometimes even if he didn't tell anyone how he was feeling at the moment. Which... he had. It had happened a few times, but only recently. Only since he'd gone on his cross-country adventure. He'd noticed that if he laughed, people around him laughed harder. If he was feeling a little down, the people he was hanging around would be more subdued than normal. He'd brushed it off as just a coincidence, but the more his aunt talked to him, the stranger it seemed.

Turned out, his aunt was what you might call gifted - she had an ability that most people did not. The ability to read minds. And, after a long discussion filled with a bit of skepticism, and then a whole lot of 'holy shit' realization, Liam came to the conclusion that he, too, was 'gifted'. Especially after his excitement at the prospect blossomed and his aunt, laughing, told him that she felt as if she was a kid at Disneyland. Which was exactly how Liam felt himself. She told him that he should probably work on harnessing his ability, so that it would overwhelm everyone around him. He wasn't a fan of making random girls at the ice cream counter cry, and the only way to stop himself from doing that again was to learn how to control himself. And, lucky for him, she had an idea on just how he could do that. She left his room to make a phone call, and came back ten minutes later and told him to start packing. That there was a place, not so far from the Behrman family home, that could help him. A place where he could learn to hone his ability. Someplace she called The Institute

The Institute was not as forboding as he'd thought initially. While he'd pictured a hospital-like setting, with bars on the windows and orderlies walking the halls with a mean look in their eyes, what he'd found was much warmer. Impressive houses on sprawling grounds, a barn that looked like it should house parties in some teen romance flick, and an atmosphere that was so warm and welcoming Liam immediately decided that this had the potential to become his forever home.

2011 - Present ( Old Man Liam )
To say that Liam's life was better than it had ever been would be an almost gross understatement. The Institute provided him with things that he had known had been missing from his life, but he'd never thought too much on. Stability, without losing a sense of adventure. A community of people that he loved desperately, and he felt connected to in a way that was almost sacred. A kind of secret that made him feel like a superhero. He quit his job at the ice cream counter, and took over ownership of a little music store that was a mishmash of records, instruments, and band merch. He formed a band that was actually kind of successful. It was all... good. Just really, really good.

He still struggles to fully control his ability, which is why he's still there after... several years. But he's doing better now than he was when he got there, and that's something. There are hard days, sure, but why let a few clouds ruin the sunny sky?

→ He claims that he created the term 'Netflix and Chill' and he will fight you to the death if you disagree with him.

→ He has a hedgehog collection. he can't remember when he started it, or why.

→ He has an addiction to bad reality shows, that he'll never tell anyone about. We're talking 'Teen Mom' levels of bad.

→ He still has his original NES, and despite having most of the good games on Virtual Console he breaks it out once or twice a year to play all the classics. And despite how many times he's beaten it, he still needs a map to get through The Legend of Zelda.

→ He's afraid of dark hallways, and will often sprint from his bedroom to the bathroom in the middle of the night, not feeling safe until he's behind a closed door with the light on. Despite the fact that several mediums have told him that there is nothing there. Shut up, you have an irrational fear of the dark as a grown-ass man.

→ He came down with a nasty case of norovirus on the same night that his parents took him to a Chinese buffet, and due to the association with the restaurant and being violently ill, he couldn't eat Chinese food for a decade. Even homemade stir-fry made him queasy.

→ He will listen to any type of music you put in front of him, and he will enjoy it for what it is. Even the twangiest of country has a spot in his music-loving heart.

→ He has night terrors if he eats within an hour before he goes to bed.

→ He likes to say he has no time to read, while he's sitting on the couch eating chips and doing absolutely nothing productive.

→ There are three movies that he can watch a thousand times and never get sick of them; That Thing You Do!, Robin Hood: Men In Tights, and The Prince of Egypt. It's gotten to the point where people won't watch any of these with him, because he sings along with every song, and will often recite his favorite lines.