Re-boot Max

Main Information
Maxim 'Max' Zander Rodgers is the first of the Main Four to be introduced in the re-boot and the original. He's seen as a very weird and skittish guy, introduced in the re-boot as Occidere's partner in crime. They both get into some trouble with the police-due to Occidere's bad streak-and its uncertain as to how long he's been friends with Occi. Overall he's a very finicky and secluded, coming off as odd to most of the people that see him.

His overall design is most likely the biggest change, nearly everything is different to better suit his character and his story, now that he has one established.

Appearance
Max's body stays the same from original to now-more skinny but still pretty strong, not bulky, with broad shoulders. He has a bad posture and slouches or tucks his arms in-most likely from lack of confidence. His hair has changed from white, blonde or even peachy orange to ink black, and its cut shorter than it was before, slicked or brushed back and not in his face. Since his hair is darker, you don't see the dark roots. His eyes have also changed from being yellow-gold to being a light blue. He has more defined cheek and jawbone, and has bags under his eyes.

He dresses in a black turtleneck sweater and a bigger coat overtop, skinny jeans, and boots as opposed to his original outfits. Dressing more comfort-first and wearing what makes himself comfortable. Max sometimes wears Occidere's jackets or coats since they're warm and smell like him. He also occasionally forgets to shave-or just does a bad job here and there. Leaving some scruff sometimes or having cuts from messing up.

Max's reboot has a tattoo, but doesn't show people what it is, or tell anyone about it. He has no memory of getting it-only waking up one day with it and a very bad hangover. He asked Gene about it: only getting hysterical laughter as an answer.

(Spoilers)

Since Max is technically in Genes body-his appearance is how Gene would have looked if him and Max never swapped bodies. Max's birth body is long dead, nothing but bones now. He did have light brown-dark blond hair and green eyes in his original. And while he is in Genes body-Max has full control roughly ninety percent of the time, meaning his lifestyle choices have reflected on said body. Gene describes Max as being thinner and wimpier than he would like.

In the short story "An Interview: With Max IV," Gene says he doesn't like Max's hair, and that the slick back looks "Gay." When questioned about that, Gene clarifies that he has no problem with Max's sexuality, and that he doesn't like it because he himself isn't gay.

Exo Traits
As one of the many side effects Max has from him and Gene's condition-he gets out of control easier when he gets hungry, acting almost like a different person. Sometimes-only happening a few times-Gene has taken the reigns during their hunger fits and he helps Max with dealing with issues related to the matter. Both Max and Gene were both high expression Exo's, but only Gene could eat human food when they were younger. This isn't the case surprisingly now: in fact Max can barely stand the smell human spices or ingredients give off. Getting sick in an instant and often results in him puking. The only things that humans eat that he can stand to ingest is bread, raw pork or other similar meats, beer, alcohol, pickles or other preserved goods, something about the fermentation makes it easier for him to take in. Sometimes even enjoying them. This isn't the case for Gene, as proved in the before stated short story, Gene openly ate peanut butter crackers without any issues, while Max had refused them by saying he was alergic as an excuse.

His Exo eye color is a pale lavender color, looking more grey or purple depending on the light.

Being part of the Rodgers family line, he has a unique Exo trait that you'd only have if you were somehow within the family tree, extra rows of teeth in his throat. People in the family range from one to three extra rows, and on occasion some have more. Max himself has two extra rows, the teeth being very sharp and thin yet strong. Acting like razorblades to help cut up his meals when he eats. This trait is especially helpful for him-since in his hunger rampages he often forgets to chew everything enough. Just trying to eat as much as he can in the moment.

Backstory
Max and Gene lived with their parents in a small cabin built on a clifftop that dropped into a ravine-like drop, and as you got further away you would run into woods. The brothers only left twice before the accident, and later stated by Max, his mom had the twins at the house and not a hospital. This proved to be an interesting thing when Max was found by the cops, only to realize he didn't have any identification.

Sammy had come over a handful of times, mostly special events like Max's dads birthday, but Max and Gene never went to her house. They never had the chance, and never will.

When Gene and Max were around 9 years old, a freak accident happened that killed one of them and left the other severely disoriented. Though much later on, its clear that Max had somehow died, and his consciousness was put in his brothers body. This is why Max looks like Gene and its one of the things his parents never found out about before they died. They had a very hard time grieving the loss of one of their kids-and it was around the time of the accident that they were killed by an unknown person or persons (assumed to be Exo hunters) which left Max an orphan with no initial memory of any other family. This entire string of events is known as The Ridge incident.

Since he didn't remember anyone and pretty much anything for quite some time, he was taken into foster care. Over the years he went from home to home, either the family's he stayed with found him too off putting, generally weird, or for whatever random reason, they never kept him long. He saw one therapist right after being taken into care, and was diagnosed with amnesia, PTSD, and (falsely) split personality disorder after he talked about how him and Gene would switch in and out. Not too much longer-Gene made Max stop talking about him all together to other people, and made him throw away his medication for the diagnosis.

He was eventually adopted by a therapist and his wife, both older people, who were determined to help him. Concerned about his health both mentality and physically-having lost quite a lot of weight. It wasn't too much longer that Max grew too unstable to keep control over himself. Killing both of them and eating everything he could. Fleeing after his first kills at the age of twelve. For the next several years, Gene was pissed and enraged with Max being too weak to own up to what he was doing, and blamed him for all sorts of things that were and weren't directly his fault, mainly how he took over his life. It wasn't till very recently that the two of them started getting along. Gene still annoys Max, and Max puts up with it till he met Occidere when he was twenty five, and a year or so later he was reunited with Sammy.

Max doesn't remember much before The Ridge incident, only bits and pieces or repetitious things, many of the memories came to him later on in life. It also doesn't help that he shares memories with his brother, so things get even more mixed up. Making it very hard for Max to understand what was his memories, his brothers, or just fabrications.

Family
Max only had Gene for awhile, not remembering or knowing about anyone other than him for the longest time. Their dad, Dan Rodgers, and mom, Ammie Rodgers got married a few years before they were born, and both died not long after The Ridge (presumably by Exo hunters.) With both of their parents being Exo, both Gene and Max are high expression Exo's.

Their childhood had been quite isolated outside of his aunt and uncle, and eventually cousin Sammy since she is three years younger. Her father and their dad having been brothers. Other than them, nor any three of them knew anything about their grandparents, only knowing stories and that they were dead. Max learns about Sammy's parents being dead when she shows back up, to which is also presumably due to Exo hunters.

The therapist and woman that took Max in were the most helpful people in Max's life at that point, and he feels severe guilt over what he did to them. As a random bit of information-Max learned Spanish from the woman, who was a Spanish teacher. Gene knows some words and phrases (mostly curse words) so Max writes in Spanish in a diary so Gene can't read it.

Relations
Max and Occidere haven't known each other for that long, but that didn't stop them from dating. Its unclear exactly how they met in the reboot, but its assumed to have been by running into each other while Occi was committing a crime or was on the run-since that's how they met in the original. That would line up with the start of the reboot, in which the couple are on the run from cops. Max having no idea what Occi did.

Its also assumed that quite a bit of time is between when they meet and when they start dating, nothing too long, but at least a bit since they both don't know too much about the other, and how they both act like they've just started dating, Max being very embarrassed by nicknames, and is generally more playful with Occidere. Gene doesn't express these feelings at all, and teases Max a lot.

Max has a weird rivalry-friendship-enemy relationship with Dell, having gotten off on the wrong foot and by a gut feeling that something about him was weird. Gene notes that Dell smells familiar somehow, but he can't tell where, and for some reason it reminds him of when they were little. All he knows is that it's not the demon smell-since Occidere has that sent and its a very strong difference between smells. Max does try and be nice to Dell, feeling guilty that he made allocations against him and having kinda been a jerk to him too. Gene doesn't express any negative or positive feelings on Dell, just that he doesn't trust him, but the two of them would/could get along just fine.

Though Max has no outside relation to Hex-he can't stand the guy for being such a creep and for how he treated Sammy. He is one of the only people that both Gene and Max want to get rid of.

Trivia

 * Max and Gene were identical twins in the original, but not in the reboot.
 * While he never had a set birthday before now, he was a Gemini. Now his birthday is the day right after the cusp-so he's now a Cancer.
 * Unlike most characters-Max had some very established background before he became a character in Conflicts. The only things that stayed at least a little similar were: he was american-canadian, he was some sort of cannibal-like-human, and he used to have a brother.
 * Max is gay, though Gene's sexuality is in the air, but assumed to be straight.
 * Even though Max never went to proper school, he has a very good vocabulary and he's really good at math. He spent a lot of time learning things from books, while his 'street smarts' is lacking.
 * Max's full name was originally 'Maxwell Rodgers' though his first name was changed to 'Maxim' after a comparison was made to Scribblenauts's main character, Maxwell. He was also given a middle name for the reboot.
 * Max was also originally green-red colorblind.
 * He had braces for a few years.
 * His tarot card is The Tower, the 16th card in the major arcana.