Recolle Application

[thole]

PLAYER
YOUR NAME: Teresa
18+?: Yep!
CONTACT: lycanthropy101; PM
CHARACTERS IN GAME: Faolan (reticence)
RESERVATION LINK: here!

CHARACTER: CANON SECTION
NAME: Remus Lupin
AGE: 38
CANON: Harry Potter

CANON HISTORY: HP wiki
CANON PERSONALITY:

Remus Lupin is a good person, if deeply scarred by the life he has led and the experiences it has put him through. Yet it is impossible to talk about Remus without talking about the wolf as well, seeing as it is a part of himself that he has carried around for almost as long as he can remember. Perhaps it is because of the wolf's existence as a dark weight on his conscience and thoughts that Remus strives so hard to counterbalance it. Werewolves traditionally are not perceived very well by the wizarding community, and there are even those who have let their animal natures get the best of them. The best example of this comes from Fenrir Greyback. He abandoned his humanity and let the wolf control his every thought and move long ago. He is greedy, he enjoys scaring people, he enjoys killing people, and he may even enjoy the taste of human flesh, as he has certainly aluded to in conversation throughout the books. Fenrir is the wolf that bit and turned Remus as a child and is therefore literally the stuff of his nightmares, and there is no way that Remus would ever let himself give in and become the monster that he may be inside.

As such Remus has taken great lengths to train himself to remain calm and gentle through almost any situation. He almost never loses his temper, even in the face of prejudice he faces every day. For example, even when he is forced to quit the job that he loves because it was 'accidentally' let slip his condition, he simply accepts it to be fact. He could and perhaps should be angry that Snape revealed his condition to purposely force him out of the job, but he does not. He calmly accepts it and moves on. He avoids conflict at all costs and has done so ever since he was a child, when he recognized Sirius and James' bullying of Snape was cruel and wrong but decided not to speak up about it, as that would be siding against his friends in the defense of one of their "enemies". He never is seen to be participating in their teasing, however. Remus recognizes what it is like to be picked on simply for who (or what) you are.

He has put up with so much prejudice and hatred aimed at him and what he is that he is almost ridiculously tolerant in the face of it. He does not hold grudges or prejudices himself, making an effort even to get along with Snape, despite the fact that neither of them will truly enjoy the others company. He had to teach his friends the meaning of it growing up, especially when it came to the Prank -- when Sirius finally snapped and revealed to Snape the Shrieking Shack. If not for James' intervention, Snape could have been killed and the whole event intended to merely have been a prank could have gone horribly wrong. Remus showed great restraint for one as young as he was then in forgiving his friend for using him in that event.

Still, Remus was a Marauder and he does like to have fun. He has a dry sense of humor and is very, very clever. He had to have been, to wind up with friends like Sirius and James. Even as an adult and a professor, he still knows how to enjoy himself, even in front of his students (responsibly, of course). This is evident in the Waddiwasi scene, when he demonstrates a new and exciting spell on Peeves, a fiendish spirit who thrives on terrorizing anyone who he happens by, in front of the students. Upon uttering the spell, a wad of gum that Peeves has stuffed into the lock of a door comes flying out of it and straight through Peeves' nose. His dry sense of humor is also demonstrated in the flashback with his friends at school, when they're speaking about their essay question to "give five signs that identify the werewolf" and Remus replies that he thinks he got the question right, specifying to say, "One: he's sitting in my chair. Two: he's wearing my clothes. Three: his name's Remus Lupin."

Given his condition, Remus has become good at hiding truths and telling lies. Such is evident in the exchange with Snape when he is summoned to consult on the Marauders' Map, a document which he obviously had a hand in creating. Even as his written words scroll across the page, informing Snape that "Mr Moony presents hsis compliments to Professor Snape and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other peole's business" Remus dismisses the map as nothing more than a childish prank from any joke shop.

He has a gift for teaching, and as perceptive as he is, a talent for understanding his students on a personal level. This is clear most in his Boggart lessons, both individually with Harry and with the class as a whole. He is encouraging of Neville, the underdog, coaxing the boy out of his shell, and understanding with Harry in his frustrations as he goes again and again against the Boggart Dementor. He is proud of his students when they demonstrate their knowledge and their skills, even if sometimes he would rather they not be so smart, as is the case when Hermione makes her reveal that she had worked out her condition from Snape's werewolf essay assignment.

Remus is professorly, informative, instructive, and insightful, but also pleasant and conversational. He makes himself very relatable to Harry, and this is reflected in his classroom teaching as well. He does not teach through fear and intimidation, as does his colleague Professor Snape, nor does he instruct through rigorous structure as Professor McGonagal. Rather he has his own methods and approach. He is patient, and he coaxes Harry through every up and down he experiences with the Boggarts, giving him the time he needs to recuperate but understanding the boy's need to best the charm. In their private lessons together, he is equal parts friend and teacher to Harry, and that helps Harry relate to him on a level he does not relate to any of his other professors. This is true of many of Harry's classmates as well, who lament once Remus is forced to leave the job that Remus was their favorite DADA teacher, the greatest they have ever known.

On top of this he is also responsible. He reprimands Harry for the use of the Marauders map, taking it away from him once he catches him with it. He takes charge, as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher on the train to go to investigate the delay, returning to provide them all with pieces of chocolate to defend against the effects of the Dementors. He had been a prefect in school growing up, demonstrating that he had a maturity and responsibility about him even at a young age that the professors perhaps had hoped might rub off on his friends. Of course, that would have required him speaking up against them, and the professors in making him a prefect neglected to take into consideration the fact that above all else, Remus needs to be liked by others.

For this is Remus' biggest character flaw. Even though he might express his disapproval to his friends, he would never speak up against their behavior to them. His time at Hogwarts was the happiest time of his life because of his friends, as he describes it. He would never have done anything to jeapordize that friendship. Even if he knows what they are doing is dangerous or wrong, and thus he does not speak up against their treatment of Snape even though he knows it is cruel, nor does he admit to Dumbledore that Sirius was an animagus -- even though this might aid in keeping Harry safe -- for it would mean admitting to possibly the only man who had trusted him fully that he had betrayed that trust and he had dragged other people down with him.

Remus is prone to self-doubt and self-loathing, much of this is centered around his lycanthropy. He is noted to dislike that his patronus takes the form of the wolf, to the extent that he will purposely cast a noncorporeal patronus in the company of others for fear that the wolf might give him away. His Boggart is the full moon, for he fears the wolf the most, or perhaps what it makes him. He pushes people away from associating themselves with him on a personal level because of his condition, and later in life fears that he may have passed it on to his son by blood, despite knowing that his condition does not work like that. The wolf lives within him, forces him tot transform every month, and without the Wolfsbane Potion he loses his control and sense of self during that time as well. The wolf is chaos and everything that makes him uncomfortable about himself -- the fact that it is there with him every hour of every day only intensifies his dislike of it. Which is why he keeps such an iron control on everything he says or does. People already will judge him for the knowledge of what he is, the best he can do is change their minds and not give in to the animal inside of him.

Of course this driving need to be liked means that Remus possess a loyalty that, once won, is hard to lose. For example, even though Sirius had been imprisoned for the murder of their three friends, then wanted for his escape from Azkaban, he is still Remus' sole surviving friend. Remus is quick to listen to his story and forgive him when the truth of the real story comes out in the Shrieking Shack. And when he recognizes that Sirius had suspected him of being the spy, he forgives him for that as well. It is no small thing that he is forgiving in that moment either, for it means that James and Sirius' distrust of Remus himself is what led them to pick Peter as their Secret Keeper, eventually leading to Lily and James' deaths. But he means what he says. His loyalty towards his friends is so deep that he will forgive them of anything, that he would do anything for them, so long as they continue to like him in the end. For that is at the core of every interaction Remus has. With his teachers at school, with his friends both in school and once they graduate, and then with his students once he eventually returns. In the end, Remus just likes to be liked.

SKILLS/ABILITIES:
Remus is a wizard from the Harry Potter universe and it has been demonstrated that he is a skilled one at that, having had a hand in the complex magical object that is the Marauders Map. As such he would know all beginner and intermediate spellwork taught at Hogwarts, as well as some advanced. To give an example of Remus' skill, to do most magic in the Harry Potter Universe it is required to use a wand, but Remus knows how to do some wandless, non-verbal magic as well, summoning a ball of blue fire into his palm on the Hogwarts Express with just the gesture of opening his hand, and opening locks and chests and relighting candles by just waving a hand at them. When he and Harry have a disagreement later, Remus hits Harry with a silent spell so quickly that Harry barely has time to reach for his own wand, as he says. He is a skilled magical duelist, coming out of most of the battles he faces (save for his last) unscathed, and is ultimately bested by Antonin Dolohov during the Battle of Hogwarts, Dolohov being a duelist of the highest quality, having bested other skilled wizards such as Alastor Moody and the Prewett brothers before him. In terms of other skills, Remus is pretty good at flying on a broom and has excellent book-smarts, as well as street-smarts, having lived a roguh life after the death of the Potters (for who would hire an impovrished werewolf?).

CHARACTER: AU SECTION
AU NAME: Randolf John Lyall (aka John)
AU AGE: 35
PHYSICAL DIFFERENCES:
Because John is not a werewolf he will basically be lacking all of the characteristics that piece of Remus has given him. He will have no scars from the transformations that Remus has gone through over the majority of his life, he will not have any of the pain that is associated with the wolf or the transformation, and he will not be going prematurely grey since his body is not stressed by constantly pulling itself apart and putting itself back together. He is, in effect, just the average human version of himself.

(Also for the record he does not look like David Thewlis since he does not really look like the book description of Remus himself...)

AU HISTORY:

- John had a relatively normal childhood. Born and raised in Cumbria, in northern England, he spent a large portion of his life between his parents' house in the rural countryside and a boarding school in rural Scotland.
- John's days at boarding school were some of the best times of his life, and were ultimately what shaped him into the person he is today, directing his career path into teaching and fuelling his love for knowledge, academia, and wanting to help shape that love in others.
- John was the child that his parents thought they might never have and as such John's full name is Randolph John Lyall, after his maternal and paternal grandfathers. He will rarely introduce himself by his official given name, instead choosing to go by his middle name, feeling that it fits his personality better. (Seriously Mum and Dad, could you not have chosen to go the other way around?)
- John was teased in school about his name and his accent and his bookish ways. Not being particularly athletic, he had to learn how to win his battles in other ways. Though he was by no means a popular boy, the few friends that he did make quickly became a tightly knit group, inseparable throughout their days of school, though once they graduated eventually their choice in career paths caused them to start to drift apart.
- John had a good life and settled into a job he loved in England. He met a woman that he loved very much, the pair of them quickly got married, and they were very happy together. But it wasn't meant to be, as John's wife was killed very suddenly in a seemingly random mugging.
- John was devastated. Every corner of the life they had made together reminded him of her, of them. So he did the only thing he could think of to make things easier for himself and he ran away from it all. Moving out of the country and across the seas to America, where he had landed a job at Recolle University teaching English Literature. This is the job he has continued for the last decade, teaching at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.

AU PERSONALITY:

John and Remus have very similar personalities in some aspects, although the greatest difference between them is that John does not have the wolf to carry around as the chip on his shoulder that Remus does. John has learned to live with people teasing him about his name and as such has a tendency to keep that part of himself a secret from anyone that would use it against him. Even more than his name, the history of his life before in England and specifically what happened to his wife is kept a secret from even the closest of friends here in Recolle. He does not want to bring attention to his tragic past because it would make him stand out from the crowd, because it would make other people feel pity for him, call attention towards him, and John has always been far more comfortable at blending into the background. But each time he pretends not to have this history or even worse, he lies about it, he feels wracked with guilt about the fact that he is lying about the memory of a person he loved for his own personal gain. Even if that gain is only to keep people from worrying about him.

The core of John's personality is mostly the same as Remus' as well, even if it is interpreted in slightly different ways (as above). He needs to be liked by other people (even to the extent that he would lie about things he cares about to keep from being pitied). At this point in his life, his job and the friends he has made (which are probably all mostly centered around his job as well) are all that he has to his name. Therefore these are the things he treasures above all else, and he would go to the ends of the earth for them. He puts everything he has into his friendships, into his classes, and into his mentoring of students. (If anyone has seen the movie "Dead Poets Society", I'd like to mention the character of Keating from that film, for that's the level of investment John has in his classes -- and the level of admiration that his students have for him in return for that level of investment in them.)

He is so invested in the lives of his students that sometimes it is hard to step away and understand he is merely their professor rather than their friend, and they will move on without him at the end of the semester. He goes so above and beyond for these people that are only peripherally aware of his existence, it does at times take a toll on him mentally. Whereas Remus had only been a professor at Hogwarts for one year, John has worked at the University for a decade now after all. Without the intrusion of friends or other students or mentees into his thoughts, John at home or by himself tends to be a somewhat melancholy man. His fears, rather than being centered around the wolf, are instead much more personally motivated around abandonment, loneliness, and the suffering of those he cares for, for that is how he has been hurt the most in the past. What happened to his wife really left a mark on him in deep and complex ways that only those closest to him will really get to know -- and only with a lot of digging on their part.

But that is not to say he is not without the same fun-loving attitude he has in canon as well, when the mood strikes. In fact, it's fair to say that because he only has a somewhat tragic past, (rather than an awful, terrible past where all of his friends were suspected of murdering each other) he is better at picking himself up than he is in canon because he does have more things to look forward to and less to weigh him down. The wolf is not a constant weight on his mind, he does not have to worry about whether he will accidentally "out" himself as a werewolf and risk his job/friendships/etc., he is not transforming every full moon and therefore he does not have to worry about his schedule or making excuses for his behavior/disappearances/unavailability around the full moon. Compared with his canon self, John has a lot less to be concerned about, all things considered, and therefore he is a lot more carefree and fun. Especially because he has friends that are alive and well, friends that he will not always be fearing for the safety of. This is a remarkable weight off his shoulders, compared with his canon self.

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