Name: Dylan Brandon Rasmussen
Nicknames: "Dyl" is a kind of pickle. Not so much.
Age: 17
Birthday: February 28/29. In case Dylan wasn't figuratively born under enough figurative signs that proclaimed his divine specialness to all (his parents) and sundry (his parents), his Leap Day birth sparked it all off.
Sign: Aquarius
Blood Type: AB+
Fav. Food: Ice cream. Dylan loves ice cream, particularly the type that comes in cones, particularly the type that comes in neon-bubblegum colors that he can order the worker to stack in a certain way so he can watch the colors drip and eat them in a particular idiosyncratic fashion. And then throw the cone away once he's eaten a third and gotten tired of it.
Hated Food: Meat that looks like the animal, whether this be rare steak, more or less any sort of fish, or worse, any sort of shellfish. Dylan is already something of a listless eater, and will push any shrimp around on his plate. Roast turkeys are horrifying. Roast ducks are right out. He's a sensitive boy, his mother always told him so.
School: Hillworth. Said to be "a Crystal girl in Hillworth trousers."
Hobbies:
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Artsiness: This is the catchall word expressing that Dylan is in fact dedicated to several artsy hobbies: namely painting, photography and playing the piano. (And not only for their alliterative value.) His talent in each goes in that order, along with the amount of time he dedicates to each -- particularly now that he goes to Hillworth, which does not suffer self-indulgent artistes the same way his old school did -- so this has dwindled mostly to painting, occasionally stealing use of the school darkroom (generally on some whim or other), and plinking out a tune contently on any piano anyone lets him sit down at. Or doesn't let him sit down at. This is Dylan.
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Reading 25% Of Every Book Written: Does what it says on the tin. Dylan has a great and varied interest in reading and has since he was a child, but great and varied as it may be... committed, it is not. Dylan has one of the world's greatest sixteen-year-old repertoires of unfinished books. He has read part of every play Shakespeare wrote. He has read part of all of the Harry Potter books. He has read part of
The Once and Future King, most of
The Lord of the Flies, and nearly all of
Battle Royale (it was "depressing"
smile ). He's read all of some books, albeit not many, but it's hard to tell which as he's fairly adept at quoting what he's read of all of them.
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Trespassing: See Dylan. See Dylan wander. Dylan is afflicted with what appears to be a terrible wanderlust, except that it's a wanderlust that takes him merely by foot to the most esoteric, out-of-the-way and dangerous places, rather absently and without much aforethought. Dylan will meander into the Chamber of Secrets. Dylan will nonchalantly break into the forbidden west wing and sit watching the rose under the glass for longer than any human being ought to be able to watch an inanimate object. More often, people looking for him will find him on roofs, on the other sides of fences he's not supposed to cross, in basements, peering into tunnel systems, and ambling around attics. He gets in trouble for this, but -- it doesn't really seem like he's trying to go anywhere.
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One Pill Makes You Larger: And one pill makes you small. And the ones that Mother gives you don't do anything at all. The reason Dylan is at Hillworth. Dylan has a dreamy and unfortunately unshakeable interest in recreational drugs. Not the narcotic kind. Well, he tried those, but having to suck something into your nose is just so uncomfortable, don't you think, and needles hurt. He's tried different needles too. They all hurt. Anyway, E is really more his bag, E gives you wings. <3 Like Red Bull, but Red Bull wings are little butterfly wings and E wings are big angel wings, with beautiful feathers, white ones. Have you ever tried LSD?
smile He has a tab left, he takes them before bed, but only with food. Otherwise it gives you nightmares.
smile Gemstone: Aquarius - Garnet, February - Amethyst.
Virtues:
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Meet Virginia: He never drinks the water, makes you order French champagne. Dylan Rasmussen is his own particular breed of Manic Pixie Dream Girl: quirky, terminally eccentric and forever whimsical. He's an endless font of ideas and spontaneity, which makes him simultaneously fascinating and frustrating to be around -- but unquestionably a character, and with a certain sort of je ne sais quoi all the same. Dylan has a personality, but also IS a Personality. Being his friend, or even his friendly acquaintance, may be a frustrating and inexplicable rollercoaster, but it's rarely boring. He has a favorite illegal antidepressant, and a least favorite. He stuck glow-in-the-dark stars to his ceiling in imaginary constellations, which he can tell you all about, including the astrological implications. He knows where the storm drains connect to the school's tunnels and to the hospital basement downtown. He'll make you live his crazy life, but he'll take away your pain. Like a bullet to your brain. <3
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Placid: Given all that, Dylan is strangely, infuriatingly, some might say creepily calm. Insult his mother. Scream in his face. Stuff him in a locker. It is very, very difficult to upset Dylan; some might theorize that this is because he is constantly on drugs, but this is not true (most of the time). For a rich boy trapped in what amounts to juvenile detention in boarding school form, Dylan appears very accepting of his lot in life, and it's very hard to upset him. He is the #1 most frustrating bullying victim. In actuality this is very central to his dignity, and not at all as natural and whimsical as it seems -- but then again, this is true of most everything about Dylan Rasmussen.
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Patient: In accordance, Dylan has a near-saintly patience with the personalities and indiscretions of others. Once he takes an interest, you're forgiven for just about everything, and he doesn't seem to carry a grudge for any period of time at all. At the worst he'll give you a gentle suggestion, and probably a gentle suggestion that you should be nicer, but that's all right. <3 It's quite all right, we're all human. As well as this, he's a great listener to your problems and concerns and keeps a secret until the grave (or until he finds a better use for that secret, but, well
smile ), and quietly insinuates himself as confidant, asking inquiring but not nosy questions about your personal life. There's nothing creepy about this. Not at all.
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Artistic: See "Artsiness." Dylan unfortunately has a genuine talent with a pencil or a paintbrush, a lesser talent with a camera and a minor talent with a piano. He probably could have had more useful talents, but that wouldn't be very Dylan of him, would it. Parents coo. The PTA is impressed. Classmates are gagged with spoons.
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Self-Assured: And beneath all this airy-fairy, butterfly-chasing artsy dreamer bullshit is a certain amount of self-assurance and nerve that it takes to pull it off. Dylan Rasmussen is not afraid of much; he is very confident of his divine right to be the way he is, and that things will turn out all right for him because, well, he's Dylan goddamned Rasmussen. With this confidence comes a bit more charm also, as it backs up his ballsier and stranger actions. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Flaws:
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Space Case: Sorry, what? Dylan zones out while the teacher's talking, trails off in the middle of his sentences, changes subjects radically while you're still trying to talk about the first one, forgets what he was saying, and spends a great deal of time concentrating very hard on something in the distance. He has no apparent concept of weird behavior in this regard, or else doesn't give a s**t. He forgets a lot of things (though appears to have a razor-sharp memory for lots of other things, so his "forgetfulness" is somewhat questionable), most of all to deal with practical, earthly matters. Such as homework. Or class, whoops. Or laundry, whoops again. Oh well. He's just so sorry.
smile He'd never dream of doing it again.
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Laughs With The Sinners: The sinners are much more fun. Being charitable to him, Dylan is bohemian and free-spirited. Being uncharitable, Dylan is a casual drug user, a school-skipper, a vagrant, a vandal and an all-around bad influence on your son or daughter. A good 50% of his time seems to be spent doing something bad. His limits on "bad" are so-called victimless crimes: violence has never even occurred to him. (Shouting has never even occurred to him.) However, while he can be turned to slightly more direction and commitment with his schoolwork and life, he cannot really be successfully turned away from sex, drugs and rock-'n-roll. He seems to have a loose moral code and looks upon bad behavior with amusement and remote fascination, and appealing to his whimsy is a hell of a lot easier than tugging on his heartstrings.
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Only Child: Dylan is one, and in addition, his mother always told him he was special. He went to a gifted school, and he'll probably be going back to one once he serves his time at Hillworth. Dylan is used to attention and people who accommodate him, and it shows itself in a myriad of small ways: him rambling for long periods and expecting that you'll listen, him doing crazy s**t and expecting that you'll tolerate it. Eating dessert for dinner. Ditching you at the movie theater. You'll forgive him. Of course you will. Everyone always has.
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Whatever Lola Wants: He always get what he aims for. And your heart and soul are what he came for. Let's face it: Dylan is manipulative. Dylan wants to influence other people, for all his mild, dreamy, eccentric ways, and he spends a lot of time thinking about what the right thing to say is and what the right button to press is to open you up. He'll drop other connections (see Only Child) to focus on one if he's determined to get them on his side. He may or may not succeed, but he devotes a great deal of his time to it -- in fact, he has a hard time not doing it. And most of all, it's not even obvious to a person it's being done to. He doesn't have sinister goals; the most he usually does is try to charm people, open them up, get them to confide in him, maybe join him in some of his more chemical hobbies (but only once or twice!). But he's incapable of having a relationship without working to make it a relationship between his little finger and you, wrapped around it.
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This Land Is My Land, This Land Is Also My Land: A different sort of entitlement -- Dylan merely has no conception that anything is off-limits to him. He invades people's personal space constantly in a whimsical manner, but doesn't give any indication that it's okay for anyone to invade his -- strangers' faces are for touching, people's hands are for taking. In addition, EMPLOYEES ONLY signs, locks, fences and walls mean just about nothing to him. Neither does MY DIARY: TOP SECRET. He cannot bear the idea that there is anything he is not meant to know. He does not believe the idea. He'll keep it a secret, don't worry.
smile These rules just don't apply to him.
Physical DescriptionHair: A pale, flaxen platinum blonde, falling somewhat loosely around his face. Dylan's family is Nordic and his coloring shows it.
Eyes: Somewhere between violet and lavender. Big, wide, and dreamy.
Face: Boyish, handsome, and uncommonly fey and elfin, with a small but definite chin, a button nose and rosy cheeks. Pale in complexion.
Body: Also fey and elfin. Dylan is lanky, with all the muscle definition of a man made out of spaghetti, and about midway through his growth spurt at 5'8".
Fashion: Hillworth uniforms. Aside from that, Dylan was a bit of a rich hipster and showed it through fashionably worn clothing and matched-mismatched thrift store gear, sports t-shirts from teams that existed before he was born, occasional bowler hats. If he gets the chance, he still dresses this way. Aren't you just aching for him to date your daughter.
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Cavalier: Alexandros, Prince Cavalier of Oblivion.
