Maximo Gallardo

- Zak Bagans

Maximo Gallardo is a citizen representing District Six in the Hunger Games. They belong to Tehblakdeath. Please do not utilize this tribute in your Hunger Games without their permission. If you wish to use this tribute, leave the owner a message, either on their message wall or in the comments section. This tribute's district partner is typically Helena Coupe, although they do not need to be submitted with them.

Information
Name: Maximo Gallardo

District: Six

Gender: Male

Age: Sixteen

Alignment: Lawful Evil

Personality: Despite the general populace's attitude towards the paranormal, Maximo is a staunch believer in what he pursues: groundbreaking evidence of an afterlife. His beliefs are strongly pursued by him, to the point of stubbornness. He's an outspoken, "loud and proud" kind of guy, especially when it comes to what he's captured in regards to evidence. This behaviour can extend towards cockiness, taunting, and provocation, especially towards entities that are negative or demonic in nature. Maximo strongly believes that he is gifted in his ability to make contact with spirits, making use of scientific methods to validate as much as he possibly can towards the skeptical side of Panem.

Height: 5'7"

Weight: 143 lbs

Weapon(s): Though not traditionally trained in the same manner as a Career might be, during his time as a paranormal investigator, Maximo was taught to use the saber as part of a Dark Days reenactment to attempt to trigger activity. Even after the investigation was complete, he continued to train with it, as he found it a mesmerizing and entertaining tool to use. Plus, who knows, maybe it could serve as a defense against evil spirits. He believes this sort of skill could also apply to a basic one-handed sword, though he's not exactly certain of this.

History:

Backstory=Being the heir to a rich and powerful family had its boons.

The third child of Matteo Gallardo and Becca Volkner-Gallardo, Maximo was raised in a respectful, high-class environment, one that trained him to know his family's place in society. His older sisters, Zara (eleven when Maximo was born) and Faith (thirteen when Maximo was born), were considered ineligible for the heirdom upon Maximo's birth, as they were both the results of his mother's past marriage, and did not carry his father's bloodline. Despite this, neither of them resented the young Maximo, and Zara in particular took great care to babysit the child during his toddler years.

From a young age, it was well-established in the boy to never look down upon others. "You never know when the lesser can assist the greater among them", his father would say. And thus, Maximo established himself as a confident, cocky, and yet respectful child. Despite the oxymoronic nature of these traits, the youngest of the Gallardo children was aware of when he needed to bluff himself up and when to back down and look upon others as his equals.

He spent his formative years as a child being exposed to the culture of Panem's upper caste, and the ideology that came with it: they were fortunate to live the lives they did, when the proles working on day-to-day operations in each District's niche society were struggling. And while most aristocrats would run their businesses with strong wills and great dominance, the Gallardos were different: the number one rule in their factories was respect, and Maximo was expected to match this. Of course, having been an unruly child, socially outcast by the other elite's children, he became friends with many of those who were under his family's direct control. Despite this, Maximo was homeschooled by hired help.

Being homeschooled had its disadvantages, unfortunately, one of which was an excessive amount of free time. Thusly, from a young age, Maximo spent a lot of time browsing Panem's limited forums. It was here where he was first exposed to the paranormal. Now, Maximo had long heard of tales from before he was born: ones in which people would stumble across supernatural entities or unexplainable circumstances, ranging from specters to cryptids, aliens to demons, and much further than those categories alone could cover. It was these paranormal encounters that people described that managed to grasp the attention and focus of a young Maximo.

By the time he was 11, he managed to convince his parents to allow him to socialize with other likeminded young paranormal investigators to pursue what they saw as the truth of an afterlife. Though the introduction of the reapings into his life put a hurdle into his plans, by the age of 13, he had formed his team, the Paranormal Action Squad, with 14 year-old Bentley Blackburn, 15 year-old Carson McManus, and 13 year-old Gavin Townsend.

Gavin was another aristocratic child, and he had mingled with Maximo several times a year prior to the formation of the Paranormal Action Squad. It was during the year prior to the formation of the Paranormal Action Squad that Gavin and Maximo began to converse a lot more, and the pair bonded over a shared love for horror, and eventually, the supernatural.

Bentley came from a poorer family working in the auto industry, where an accident had left his father partially disabled and his grandfather killed. His mother worked in Panem's limited airline industry as a baggage handler, and was mostly absent at home, leaving Bentley to be raised by his widowed grandmother. If it weren't for the Gallardo attitude towards lower-class citizens, Bentley would have been disregarded by the corporation, and thus by Maximo as well. However, their moral structure allowed for Bentley's father to receive a well-paying position that kept him and his family safe, and for the boy to meet Maximo and request to join the likeminded group being formed.

Carson was the son of a recognized chef and restauranteur in District 6, and though he didn't grow up with the Gallardos, he was well-aware of his name and the weight that it carried with it. When his mother received the opportunity to work for the Gallardos, at the age of 14, Carson encouraged her to jump at it, and worked with her in the kitchen, giving him a direct connection to the similar-in-age Maximo. Intrigued by the conversations between Maximo and his parents, he began his own research into the paranormal. He was the last member to join the group.

The quartet would spend the next two and a half years exploiting the Gallardo family's connections to gain access to travel permits into a variety of paranormal hotspots, including abandoned plantation homes in District 9, outdated steel production factories in District 2, and old Dark Days-era battlefields in the outskirts of District 13.

During Maximo's 15 year-old year, shortly before the reapings, they gained an exclusive opportunity to investigate the arena from the Games 5 years prior. Throughout their three-day investigation, Gavin was strongly affected by what the team believed was a negative entity from a former tribute. Though they captured plenty of compelling evidence of this entity, as well as another tribute from District 5, they weren't able to establish specifically who it was. However, their candidates for who this near-demonic entity was were a District 1 Male, a District 10 tribute, or a District 8 Male.

At the conclusion of their investigation, Gavin was supposedly cleansed by a priest of the attachment, though he couldn't shake the overwhelmingly negative feelings he had implanted by this spirit. For the next two months, Gavin struggled with severe depression and suicidal thoughts. It was three days before Maximo's 15 year-old reapings when Gavin commit suicide, via a stab wound to his chest. This was the same way all of their candidates were killed, and confirmed, at least to Maximo, a connection between this entity and the death of his best friend. Anger and grief flooded through Maximo, even more than the other members of his team, and he resolved to revisit the arena that took his best friend's life as soon as he possibly could.

As luck would have it, the next opportunity was a few months prior to his 16 year-old reaping, and Maximo immediately confronted this entity, which responded with what Maximo claims to have been a possession and violent attack, leaving severe bruises, scratches, and a broken collarbone for the boy to recover from, putting a hold on any investigations for the now-trio for the foreseeable future.

While recovering at home after his release from the hospital, Maximo was visited multiple times by Bentley and Carson alike. Bentley offered his sympathies to the younger man, before requesting a short leave from the team so he could spend time with his dying grandmother, which Maximo granted on the condition that they kept in touch about upcoming projects.

Carson, meanwhile, visited Maximo to discuss the political and social atmosphere of Panem on multiple occasions. This would culminate in his bringing along a new visitor: his boyfriend, Daniel Edwards. This coming-out sequence helped shape Maximo's dynamic with Carson, and he took great pride in supporting Carson and Daniel alike.

Though the new developments in his friend circle and his life were beginning to lead to things looking up for Maximo, he still couldn't shake the toll that his experiences revisiting that arena had on him, especially as the reapings grew near. And though he passed the one-year anniversary of his best friend's death successfully enough, Maximo was unaware of the even crueler twist of fate that awaited him on reaping day.

The bowl cycled, and spun, before the escort pulled a name.

Maximo Gallardo.

Guidelines/Condensed Version=
 * Born the third child and heir of the Gallardo clan, given his older siblings were both from his mother's previous marriage.
 * Disliked most of the Panemian aristocracy, but kept up formal relations for the sake of the Gallardo name.
 * Homeschooling led to him spending his free time on the internet, specifically on paranormal forums.
 * At 11, he convinced his parents to let him try and make a junior paranormal investigation team.
 * At 13, he formed a squad with 13y/o Gavin Townsend, 14y/o Bentley Blackburn, and 15y/o Carson McManus.
 * Gavin was a fellow aristocratic child; Bentley was from a poor family; Carson was the son of and sous-chef to the Gallardo's personal chef.
 * The quartet investigated for two and a half years.
 * The next two paragraphs are pulled from main backstory because they are important!!
 * During Maximo's 15 year-old year, shortly before the reapings, they gained an exclusive opportunity to investigate the arena from the Games 5 years prior. Throughout their three-day investigation, Gavin was strongly affected by what the team believed was a negative entity from a former tribute. Though they captured plenty of compelling evidence of this entity, as well as another tribute from District 5, they weren't able to establish specifically who it was. However, their candidates for who this near-demonic entity was were a District 1 Male, a District 10 tribute, or a District 8 Male.
 * At the conclusion of their investigation, Gavin was supposedly cleansed by a priest of the attachment, though he couldn't shake the overwhelmingly negative feelings he had implanted by this spirit. For the next two months, Gavin struggled with severe depression and suicidal thoughts. It was three days before Maximo's 15 year-old reapings when Gavin commit suicide, via a stab wound to his chest. This was the same way all of their candidates were killed, and confirmed, at least to Maximo, a connection between this entity and the death of his best friend. Anger and grief flooded through Maximo, even more than the other members of his team, and he resolved to revisit the arena that took his best friend's life as soon as he possibly could.
 * This next opportunity was when Maximo was 16.
 * He was the victim of the demonic entity the Paranormal Action Squad claims killed Gavin, and purported that it possessed and violently attacked him.
 * During recovery time from the incident, Bentley got time off to visit his dying grandmother, who raised him.
 * Carson also came out to Maximo as gay, which Maximo supported.
 * Maximo believes that, when he was reaped at 16 and a half years old, it was the influence of this same demonic entity that caused him to be reaped.

Strengths: Maximo's key strengths are reliant upon his physical condition. Though his physical strength is rather average for a man of his size, it is his other physical attributes that are vital parts of his survivability. He's fast, agile, and has remarkable endurance. Though with spirits he thinks of himself as a fighter, he knows that, mano y mano, he won't stand a chance fighting against Careers.

Weaknesses: Maximo's personality can come off as irritating, seeing as it's a pretty perfect loud, cocky, alpha male archetype. Maximo also can't swim, though he can certainly float. Finally, Maximo struggles with his metabolism, which is strong enough to force him to eat more food to sustain himself than the average person would.

Fears: Maximo can stand most things, including the most ghastly of ghosts or the most ferocious of demons. But if there is one thing in the world he is completely unable to stand, it's arachnids. Spiders creep the hell out of him, and he's never been fond of the whole concept of them crawling all over his being. Although he can pretend to not be afraid of them, inside he knows the ugly truth. The weavers will forever invade the thoughts of mind.

Reaping reaction: Though part of Maximo was disappointed that he was going to have to push back an investigation he'd been waiting months to do, another part soon started to look forwards to being able to see if there were any hauntings in the training center's apartments or training grounds, something he'd never been able to investigate no matter his connections through the Gallardo family. Despite this, he couldn't help but feel that this misfortune was the result of the same attachment that had affected Gavin.

Group Training: Maximo spends most of his time in training trying to brush up on his swordsmanship.

Individual Sessions in Training: Maximo runs the gauntlet once, then the tribute simulation chamber. If there's any time remaining, he'll practice once more with swordsmanship, just to squeeze every last minute he can out of it.

Interview Angle: Maximo approaches the interview in a manner that plays up his background and puffs up his odds for the Capitol audience.

Alliance: Maximo would rather put himself into a small alliance of himself and two to four others, preferably without another alpha male archetype in its members, though this isn't mandatory in his books.

Token: Maximo's token is a crucifix necklace in case he stumbles upon an evil entity in the arena. Who knows how effective it'll be, though.

Mentor Advice: I can't believe you never grew out of those children's folk tales. How applicable is that in the Hunger Games?

Inspiration and Etymology
Maximo's inspiration roots entirely from my love for the paranormal. Nothing else.

Maximo's first name came from one of the most underrated PS2 games of all time, Maximo: Ghosts to Glory. Gallardo came from the Lamborghini vehicle of the same name.

Trivia

 * Maximo's lunaii belonged to Kekai's former tribute Rufus Silks's adoptive father Griffith.
 * Rufus's lunaii, in turn, is used for Lee Beales.
 * This was kind of perfect when I originally wrote Maximo for a Hunger Games set later in a series than Rufus's Games.
 * All of Maximo's friends and family are named after Battlefield 1 characters.
 * SPOILER ALERT FOR, LIKE, THE ENTIRE CAMPAIGN
 * Matteo Gallardo is named after the deceased brother of Italian campaign protagonist, Luca Vicenzo Cocchiola.
 * Becca Volkner-Gallardo is named after Luca Vicenzo Cocchiola's daughter, Becca.
 * Zara Gallardo is named after the protagonist of the Turkish campaign, Zara Ghufrain.
 * Faith is likely the name of the messenger pigeon in the British tank Black Bess.
 * Gavin Townsend is named after British tank officer Townsend.
 * Though, Gavin's first name came from punk band Dance Gavin Dance, whose album "Afterburner" I listened to while writing Maximo.
 * Accidentally-on-purpose, Townsend also kills himself, in order to save Edwards and McManus.
 * Bentley Blackburn is named after British "pilot" Clyde Blackburn.
 * Carson McManus is named after British tank gunner McManus.
 * Daniel Edwards is named after British tank engineer and protagonist Danny Edwards.
 * Yes they're also gay in Battlefield 1, I make the rules, fuck you.
 * Maximo has my longest self-written tribute backstory, at 1258 words and 7758 characters.
 * Nicholas Mecha, who also is inspired by the paranormal, has a longer backstory that was claimed at the Auction.