Who the hell is Ian Manning?

[badboyniceguy]

In short, Ian is a bad boy on the outside and a nice guy on the inside.


On the surface, Ian acts like a typical delinquent. While he’s obviously a high school student, he shows a very apathetic or antagonistic attitude towards school. Actually, check that last point. Ian hates school. Despite putting in the hours of time—very reluctantly and usually coerced by his boyfriend, Sam—to study, he regularly flunks his tests, sits at the bottom of his class grade-wise, and everyone else knows it. He’s had to repeat classes before, implying that he’s been held back from moving up grades. However, considering he’s not expelled and has reached where he is, he’d managed to pass enough classes so far. It’s likely Ian simply doesn’t “test well” in class, as he studies when forced, but still bombs his exams. Of course, his study habits are noted as poor, since he frequently gets sidetracked or distracted by doing more fun things. He also admits he’s not as smart as the others, but is intelligent and innovative enough to try and seek out other ways to make up for his short-comings.

He has some bitterness towards the classroom as well, insulting the teacher in his mind and ruefully wondering why he wasn’t called out in front of everyone, showing a disrespect towards authority when he’s in a bad mood. It seems this isn’t the first time they’ve clashed and the teacher hasn’t said the nicest things about Ian either, to put things bluntly. He has a hard time handling repeated failure, which ends up leaving him angry, frustrated, and almost defeatist, practically ready to give up when things mount too much against him. Much of his schoolwork ends up being thrown towards the “why bother” pile when he doesn’t see improvement, though he’s usually too stubborn to truly give up… albeit needing encouragement to kickstart his fire again. Because of these issues and part of the cause for them, Ian skips school semi-regularly, though tends to coordinate this with Sam or his friends so they can do something fun for the day rather than waste it alone.

Much of this comes from his pride and hating to feel embarrassed over something. Ian admits he can’t stand to see himself repeat the class again and thus forces himself to begrudgingly hit the books once more rather than face the humiliation of being held back again. At the same time, he hates it when people notice his failures or when he has to own up to them; he quickly lied to his boyfriend about bombing the test when asked about it. Likewise, he’s more apt make excuses about something than flat out admit he doesn’t want to due to being upset or feeling bad. For example, he made up some excuses to turn down a request to hang out from his friend rather than admit he was upset and didn’t want to be around anyone else.

Ian has a quick temper and gets angry when things don’t go his way, though his tends to be the boil and sulk version rather than the explosive one. After failing his test, he packed up silently and quickly left without a scene. When a classmate caught up to him to chat, Ian shot him a glare and snapped a “what do you want” at him, which stung enough to make the other guy freeze up for a bit. Ian only got more annoyed when his classmate launched into an invitation to come over and hang out with him and his friends. Still, he bore the pestering, even when the other boy hung on his shoulder and poked him in the chest a few times to tease, showing a tolerance for someone in his space even when he’s irritable. He did explode at Sam when he found out the guy skipped school without telling him, but cooled off quickly when he realized he probably missed his phone call to tell him of the plan…

Despite his grumpy attitude, Ian controls (or at least masks) his anger when he’s around others. Instead of continuing to sulk around his classmate, he stuffed his brooding away and abruptly popped up a chipper attitude, giving a casual, flippant answer as he declined the invitation with a smile. This nice guy attitude, however, is a forced thing, like when someone smiles even though you can tell they’re upset. It’s made even more apparent when Ian quickly comes up with two vague excuses to get out of the invitation, one wanting to go see his boyfriend and one needing to go get a proper workout. He doesn’t like to show his vulnerable side to others and thus hides his disappointment / frustration / sadness / anger from all but the people he’s closest to.

When Ian feels something, he feels it hard, and attempting to slap a different emotion over it doesn’t last for him before the real emotion starts to come out. Neither of his excuses “work” on his classmate, who ends up not only stunned at the sudden gush, but also proceeds to teasingly call Ian out on the excuses before letting him go regardless. Ian himself ended up sweating nervously and trailing off towards the tail end of it, showing he has a hard time keeping ahold of his own facades for too long.

He tends to let disappointments and failures weigh him down and sit on his shoulders for a long time. While wandering the forest, Ian admits to himself he really did want to go have fun with his friends, but thanks to failing his test, he self-depreciatingly notes there was nothing for him to celebrate. Unable to shake the flunk off, especially since he studied for so long for said test, Ian’s only way to cheer up is being with Sam, showing he values the attention and care of someone very special rather than the general encouragement of a group of friends. Amusingly, he’ll pep-talk himself, as he reprimanded himself for his depressed state of mind and told himself to focus on things he could do well, rather than things he couldn’t. Such as acknowledging his own amazing looks and strength rather and plotting on ways to use them to pass his class rather than try and study again.

On the positive side of things, Ian’s friendly when he’s in a good mood and likes being around his friends to hang out. When seeing his classmate off, Ian offers a casual, but sincere, apology for having to turn him down and promises to attend next time. He later admits he wanted to go hang with them, but was simply too down. Considering his preferences, he has the most fun doing things that are physical and competitive with them, such as playing video games, racing around town, getting into a good scrape, or any other similar activity. He also shows concern for his friends when something unknown or bad happens, as he was worried about Sam’s lack of show at school and went out to look for him, not just to comfort himself after failing his test, but because he wanted to make sure he was okay. Similarly, he went out of his way to make that promise above to let his classmate know he could still be counted on to hang out instead of simply rudely dismissing him.

Beneath his attitude and school issues, Ian really is a kind-hearted person who cares about. He cares a lot about his boyfriend, to the point of a luminescent blush when he thinks about him sometimes, and finds his appearance and mannerisms cute enough to stun him into silence. He was immediately touched when Sam told him he skipped school to look for herbs for his sister, who was suffering under a bad cold, and promptly asked—in a gentler voice—if there was anything he could do to help. He even crouched down to talk at his boyfriend’s level so he didn’t have to get up and move from his current spot as they chatted, showing consideration for other people’s comfort (though this is likely only for people he likes). Ian also gets excited easily when he’s given the chance to do something for someone he cares about, as he was pumped to go get Sam’s sister’s medicine from the pharmacy for him so he didn’t have to leave off his herb picking. Having someone trust him, rely on him, and/or put their faith in him makes Ian feel good about himself and he’ll do what he can to make good on his promise, showing he’s at least honest and trustworthy where it counts.

He’s got a teasing side to him as well, as when he left Sam in the forest to go pick up the medicine, he told him to be careful out in the woods, as there could be wolves around, even throwing in a reference to the fairytales for good measure. The cheeky wink and grin only added to his amusement. Later, after delivering the medicine and tending to Sam’s sister, he pretended to be her and slept in Sam’s bed just so he could surprise and prank his boyfriend when he got home with the herbs, saying he couldn’t resist tricking him like that. Plush he’s quite prone to flirting with others and enjoys showing off his body, ranging anywhere from verbal flirts and teases to lounging around either partially or fully in the nude for his boyfriend to enjoy. Ian’s also has a great deal of pride in his appearance and body. He regularly works out almost all the time to keep himself in shape, as well as holds an intense love for physical activities for the same reasons.

Ian has a very active libido, as Sam wryly notes his study habits would be better if his brain didn’t always keep circling around to sex. While he can control himself if and when the time comes, Ian admits it’s a struggle for him and he’s very eager to pounce on his boyfriend when his patience runs dry. Heck, even just listening to Sam compliment him is enough to get him aroused (though that was after he’d been holding back all day). The two have sex quite a lot, which often poses some issues to his boyfriend who sometimes has to fight Ian down to make him focus instead of getting sidetracked by his own horniness. His impish side comes out during sex too, as he teases his boyfriend about “corrupting” him more and playfully taunting PK, one of his other friends, about liking sex more than he lets on.

His love for intimacy does lead to some bad habits. Despite caring for his Sam great deal, Ian has no problem being sexually active with others. He finds sex to be a fun past time, a bonding activity, and a competition. He even entertained the idea of trying to seduce his teacher to get better grades in class. The last one, however, he opts to do when his boyfriend’s sick at home so he doesn’t have to explain it to him, suggesting Sam know about his out-of-relationship exploits and either accepts it or at least wants to know about them before Ian goes off to play. It may go the opposite way as well, as when Ian finds Sam out in the woods (looking for herbs for his sister), his first thought is to suspect that his boyfriend was out here doing something lewd without him. Of course, this could also be a show of one-sided possessiveness; it’s up for interpretation.