Personality
Anton is careful, hardworking, exacting, and objective to a fault. He is immensely concerned with his public image: he makes sure to follow all the trends, know all the right people, show perfect manners, and get good grades. On the plus side, he's a very hard worker. However, he can be snobby and overly critical if everyone else doesn't live up to his standards. On principle he looks down his nose at anyone who's not in the "popular" crowd. He needs to feel like he's better than someone. Naturally, a lot of people who aren't popular dislike Anton because they see him as just another pompous snob. While it's true that his behavior does nothing to disprove this, their scorn is based on two false assumptions.
The first is that Anton actually likes being in the public spotlight. In truth he hates the pressure, hates having to constantly restrain himself and worry about his reputation. Under his suave facade, Anton is actually quite shy. He gets horribly nervous just talking to someone he doesn't know well, and public speaking is enough to give him a stroke. But no one will ever know, because the turmoil within doesn't even ripple his smooth exterior. Anton is excellent at hiding his feelings, and even more skilled at faking them. He is extremely manipulative; he has no problem with lying and cheating to make sure he comes out on top. But it's not really because he's selfish.
And that brings us to the second false assumption: people assume that Anton wants to be the best for his own benefit. Anton does what he does in a desperate bid for affection. He's trying to bring honor to his family so that his father will accept him, and trying to become a successful businessman so that society will accept him, and all the while trying to be a perfect person so he can accept himself. It is the last portion which he fails miserably at.
As much as Anton loathes popularity, he's obsessed with it. Public recognition is his way of validating his own existence. Because he grew up feeling that he must prove himself to his father in order to be loved, he now feels that he has to win awards and be trendy in order to be accepted by his classmates. To him life is based on a set of rules: follow the rules and you'll be successful, do the wrong thing and you'll be ostracized with no hope of redemption. He lives in constant fear of becoming an outcast, so he forces himself to do everything right. On the flip side, he can't understand why some people don't like him when he does do everything right. He doesn't understand that people aren't machines, that there is no set formula for making friends.
Deep down, Anton senses that many of his so-called friendships are shallow at best. That bothers him more than anything, because he's beginning to think that that's as good as relationships get. As a result he feels he can't trust anyone fully, and that leads to a general disgust for humanity. Unforunately that scorn manifests itself as even more snobby elitism. Anton has a few false assumptions of his own, the greatest of which is that everyone is like his father, and that all his peers are as shallow and heartless as Anton himself is trying to be.
In the end, the person he's fooling most is himself.
How to Write Him
- Anton plays the role of snobby jerk quite well, and can be used simply to antagonize the other characters.
- In spite of this, he probably won't be as openly hostile as some. He prefers subtlety and left-handed compliments to outright insults.
- His weak point is his father.
- Remember: what Anton says and what Anton actually feels are two different things.
- Anton is not likely to be romantically interested in girls. The only person he shows any semblance of real affection toward is his mother.
- Anton is not the type to angst. He is desperately trying to convince himself that he and his life are perfect, and saying "woe is me" is akin to admitting that something is wrong.
- In battle, Techo is fast and very agile, but he doesn't really have any fighting skill. He doesn't know how to use weapons and he doesn't know any martial arts. He'd probably be strong enough to knock someone out if he knew where to aim a punch, but he's pretty predictable and easy to read, so a good fighter could block him easily. Also, his power doesn't do any damage, and he can't move easily while he's using it. All things considered, he's not going to win any battles without help.