FSfsfsfsfs! I'm FINISHED! Sort of. Profile now open to scrutiny. Please gnaw it to bits so that I can revise and resubmit it, because it's probably littered with anachronisms. Yup. Sorry it took so long. Ignore the weirdo behind the curtain. I'm a very bad wizard. A good woman. But a very bad wizard.

Nowhere near done, but I just wanted to post what I've written so far and open it up to scrutiny. I'm sure I'll be revising this quite a bit before it's approved; I'm not familiar with this era at all and I find myself having to do quite a bit of research. Anyway... if you guys need a problem child, here he is!


Username: Amethysta
Who recruited you?: D's signature in the petitions forum

Name: Jasper MacLaren
Age: 14
Gender: Male
Height: 5’6”
Weight: 129

Race: Caucasian/?
Social Class: Middle Class

Appearance: Jasper stands at about five and a half feet, but often appears to be shorter, due to the fact that his posture is far from exemplary. He is often reprimanded for slouching or standing with his hands in his coat pockets. His dark eyes dart from subject to subject (not unlike his topics of conversation), forever searching for something more interesting to examine. He has dark, curly hair, and boyish, almost elfin features. Jasper has a copper-tinged, freckled complexion that is not dark, but not completely fair either - something his family laughingly attributes to the time he spends outdoors. His expression is usually mischievous, sometimes contemplative, and, from time to time, worried.
I drew a picture... not my best (lots of proportion issues, bleh!). He looks older and more effeminate than I meant for him to (I think it's the lips) but after spending a couple of hours on it I didn't want it to go to waste, so look at it if you want, but you've been warned gonk . [here].

Personality: He is often mistaken for an attention-hungry boy, but in truth, his main goal is to amuse others - even if it's at his own expense. His heart is in the right place, but the means by which he sets things "right" are often quite unorthodox. While generally calm, Jasper can become fierce if provoked, and he will not back down in a fight - verbal or physical. While he seems to be outwardly cheerful, he often tends to dwell upon things excessively. He is a boy of great curiousity, and is attracted to anything unusual - strange objects, odd people, and foreign places - and can often be found wandering alone through dark passages or combing through odd books with strange illustrations. For this reason, and his lack of social graces, he is often considered by his elders to be quite an oddity.

Character flaws: As a young child, he was a chronic liar, frequently creating stories of questionable verity. Most of these revolved around the legend of his luxurious mansion where he lived with his eleven brothers, twenty-six horses, and rich mother and father who let him eat cakes for dinner every night and never made him go to bed. He enjoyed the reactions he garnered from other schoolchildren with his ridiculous stories, until it was brought to the attention of his parents by one of his teachers. The blurred line between fiction and reality was quickly reestablished, but the habit of slightly exaggerating (all right, perhaps completely fabricating certain things) has never completely left him. He shows disturbingly little hesitation in telling a lie if it is to benefit himself or a friend. He lacks the foresight to realize when such lies, however small, could potentially cause a problem in the future, even though he usually manages to talk himself out of trouble. He isn't a person to plan ahead, and instead acts on his instincts at the time.

Oh, and he's not exactly the organized sort, either.

Background: Since childhood, Jasper has known he is different. He is very different from the rest of his family, especially his studious older siblings, both in appearances and temperament. Even his name - Jasper - seems to hold a whisper of something exotic.

As a child, he was left with a great deal of free time, as his family was often busy. His father, a banker, was constantly at work. His mother had worked as a seamstress before marriage and had not completely given up the practice, and often sat sewing in solitude while his older sister and brother pored over their textbooks. As a result, Jasper was left with a great deal of free time, and spent a most of it outdoors. He was occasionally sent on errands by his father, who would ask him to deliver messages or pick up packages. On the way, he would observe street urchins, buskers, and dancers, and was amused by their carefree lifestyles, flagrant dress, and animated performances. Working from careful observation, he taught himself to juggle - though he generally keeps this skill to himself, since he admits that it is not exactly the kind of hobby that his father would see as befitting to a respectable young man.
Easily distracted and constantly daydreaming, Jasper is, and has always been, an average student. He tends to procrastinate, but still receives mediocre marks, not realizing that if he were to apply himself, he perhaps could be an above-average student. He takes a moderate interest in the arts, and finds math and science practical, but has little interest in history. He is able to run fairly quickly and has good hand-eye coordination, giving him some advantages in sports, but he is not particularly muscular, and is often mowed down in games like rugby (? or are we going early 1800s?). Because of this, he generally shies away from organized sports.

Skills: Jasper has quick reflexes and good coordination. He is crafty, and quick to think and act - he almost always has something up his sleeve (though sometimes quite literally - coins, pens, small animals... no, maybe not small animals). He is also quite observant, and is extremely curious (a double-edged sword). He isn't particularly book smart, but he is somewhat witty.

Belongings: Jasper has a few sets of clothes - mostly muted colors, as he isn't fond of bright ones. He has a small notebook that he doodles in - nothing particularly artistic, but rather technical drawings of clockwork gadgets or things he has taken apart. He also has a pack of playing cards(* see anything else section) which amuses him for hours on end.

Character secrets: Jasper has always secretly feared that the father he knows is not his biological one. Obviously the subject is taboo, and he has never dared to inquire about it, but it worries him often. While there is no evidence, save for his complexion, to suggest this, he often wonders if it might be a cause of the silent tension in his family.

Anything else?
I honestly can't remember studying Victorian England in school at all. Ever. No, that's a lie, I remember a day where we studied the effects of the industrial revolution. (This consisted of watching Tupac, Rage Against the Machine, and Pink Floyd videos and talking about how they did or didn't convey themes present in Romanticism. Uhhh. Yeah. Student teachers.) In a nutshell...
There are several things I'm not certain about:
- Jasper is kind of... a social anomaly. I understand that for the Victorian period, he's pretty weird. If he's too "out there", I can change it. I understand that this is kind of a weird profile, and bless your soul just for reading through all of it!
- I understand that MacLaren is a pretty Scottish name. Do I need to explain how his father's family migrated to England, or is it just enough to say that it happened quite a while ago and isn't relevant?
- Playing cards - they existed, but were they common? Were there games to be played with playing cards? I couldn't find any sources that said much about them.
- I'm still a little unsure about what would be available, socially and economically, to lower/upper/middle classes, so some of this is totally skewered, I'm sure.
- Sorry for length.. this must be the most ridiculously longest profile ever in the history of everything.

RP Sample: (I got lazy toward the end. Sorry for rambling-ness...)
Rain. Jasper liked it. Rain made everything into a mirror. He gazed into his own reflection in a puddle, and kicked it gently with his shoe, watching the ripples distort his face. He looked up at the sky. It had cleared by now, and only wisps of clouds remained. It was a nondescript color: not quite gray, nor blue, nor white, but something in between. It was a windy day, and the cold stung his face, making his eyes water. Pulling his coat tighter to fit more snugly around his body, he looked out across the patchy grass, watching the small birds hop across the field. They were searching for the worms that had been drowned from their homes during the flood, he imagined. They always looked so lost, he thought - flitting about as if they didn’t know where they were going or what they were meant to be doing.

He climbed the steps to the school building and stepped inside. Pulling the door closed behind him, he looked into the main hall. There were no classes at this time of day, but students still milled about the halls, engaged in conversation, or examining notices posted on the walls. It was like a tiny slice of the city - students from every niche and corner of the country were here. It was strange to be constantly in the company of people his own age, and yet it was something he was becoming accustomed to. It was certainly more entertaining than attempting to speak with his siblings. Unless he wrote a note and slipped it in among the pages of Lucan or Vergil, it was unlikely that they’d pay any attention to anything he said. He sighed and stared at the ceiling. The lowering sun poured light in through the windows, casting an amber glow on the walls. It was getting late in the day, perhaps it would be best if he retired to his room.