Doctor Belasco

A Wizard's Pilgrimage

Imperfectionist said
His theory isn't about the Dark Arts, though. I mean, that's the point, isn't it? That there are no "Dark Arts", just magic. You say he's quite friendly, so apart from keeping his indiscretions secret, what problem would he have with casually discussing the of his research with someone who was genuinely interested?

You're right - he'd just keep quiet about that part. I'm just not sure what Emma gets out of it or how they really found out about each other's oddnesses.

A Wizard's Pilgrimage

Imperfectionist said
Ah, I him! Just the kind of person Emma would seek out.:) If they have any kind of prior history, I bet they taught each other quite a bit. Emma really is supposed to be closer to the "core" of magic than most people, hence the aptitude for wandless spells and rituals and that kind of thing, but it's more intuitive, more instinctual, while Michael is the colder, methodical, sciency type. So, his perspectives on the nature of magic could have been broadened from his conversations with and observations of her, while her understanding of she does what she does, and what magic really would be fostered in return!

I think they may have tried an official mutual learning system, but I don't think it would have worked for Emma or Michael. He works by breaking everything down into its constituent parts and taking each individually, which is a slow and tedious process, and I doubt Emma would be able to sit through it. Apart from anything else, he's quite quiet about his research, not least because it involves breaking into the dark arts, which is obviously not cool (if only there were a member of the group with a strong grounding in the dark arts... It's almost like I've planned this). That said, he may well have a fascination with her magic and pay attention slightly more subtly, while agreeing, if that's what she wanted, to a certain degree of tuition.

A Wizard's Pilgrimage

Sloth said Give another read-through of Eo-Logan's sheet, he actually told people to call him Logan because people kept butchering his actual name.

Expect Michael to do this mercilessly. >:D

A Wizard's Pilgrimage

Fuck Slytherin. Nazis.

I didn't want dark-dark, but it would be nice to have that Shakespearian feel where the audience can see they're probably going to go disastrously wrong but nobody else can see it. And, in terms of Quidditch, I'll go with whatever works best for you, so long as Logan wasn't the captain that gave him a spot. Michael would've smelled nepotism a mile off and withdrawn.

PS: I'm so glad I don't have to keep checking to spell Eghoeoeanghean's name. Logan's much easier. :P

A Wizard's Pilgrimage

Sloth said
I like this new not-James. All the outward appearance of just your average Hogwarts student, person in general really, but has those couple of quirks that make him stand out.Also his mother memory-wiping herself was great! Pity not that many Muggle-Borns followed her lead.

Cheers dude. I think he needs a few tweaks still; I kind of wanted him to have some darker undertones which haven't come through as strongly as I might have liked. We don't really have any manipulative or straight-up villainous characters (yet?!) but I think if we did, his weaknesses would be better exposed.
Long-term, his mother probably wouldn't have survived. She was just mildly harder to find than other muggle-borns - if Vloddermor had had more time, he'd have tracked her down eventually.

A Wizard's Pilgrimage

In other news, here's a re-vamped James, featuring a total name chance.

Statistics

Name: Michael Adams
Gender: Male
Date of Birth: 6/7/96
Blood Status: Half-blood
House or School: Hufflepuff

Appearance

Michael is quite average-looking. He is average-size, being both just a little bit stockier than normal and entirely unremarkable in height. His slightly untameable hair is a nothing-y sort of brown colour, and his watery eyes a bluey grey. He tends to just wear muggle clothes in neutral colours.

Personality: Michael is a bit of a weird one. He is, in many ways, a typical Hufflepuff. He works hard and generally tries to be a decent person. He is gutsy without being aggressive and offers a shoulder to cry on where it is necessary – essentially great support to have on your side. However, he is not the strongest person ever; while he may, if pushed to it, try to challenge somebody's behaviour, he doesn't really have the confidence to force them to do anything, and certainly not the physical or magical ability. He is often a bluffer, and calling him on it will generally expose him as one. As a prefect, he always had a higher authority to go to and isn't used to having to sort out issues by himself.

He is frequently seen to be displaying what appears to be great displays of intelligence, and was frequently asked at school why he had not been sorted to Ravenclaw. The answer is that he is no more intelligent than the standard person and learns at quite a slow rate; however, he puts time and effort into what interests him, and he naturally works incredibly methodically and efficiently, ensuring he always understands the basics, then working through the complexities. Since he generally comes across as a genius, it can sometimes be frustrating to see how tediously and slowly he will pick a subject apart before proceding.

Essentially, he is a cautious being, and academia is no different; he will not commit to any one school of thinking, and is in fact working on his own personal 'project' as an understanding of magic. This he calls Holistic Magical Theory, and it essentially boils down to the notion that magic is a universal force, and there is no distinct difference between schools of magic, beyond the pigeon-holes by which they have been labelled. Perceiving magic this way, he believes, enables it to be understood at a higher level, and so analysed more effectively. In particular he believes that the theory will enable the reverse-engineering of most spells, and so to find ways of breaking current boundaries of magic (resurrection, undoing the dark arts, conjuring food, etc). This research does require and involve the understanding of the dark arts, which he has been studying secretly since his sixth year.

While he spends most of his time being serious and dedicated to his studies, even outside the classroom and the context of exams, he is ironically quite strict about making sure he has some goalless downtime, which he will intentionally spend smoking like a chimney and doing absolutely nothing.

Strengths

Hard-working
Creative
Principled

Weaknesses

Dishonest
Weak-willed
Naïve

Goals

Become an unspeakable
Develop 'holistic magical theory'

Hobbies

Experimenting with magic
Sport, including Quidditch
Relaxing

History

Michael was born to a muggle-born witch and a muggle father, making him as slimly a half-blood as is possible to be. His mother, however, never passed any OWLs: she had the misfortune of being to sit them during Snape's tenure as Headmaster of Hogwarts. Instead of going into magical hiding, she, quite creatively, had a memory charm used on herself to simply reintegrate into the muggle community as the ultimate deep cover. As a muggle again, she met Samuel Adams, a muggle surgeon, with whom she would later get married and give birth to Michael. The notion that she was herself a witch only came when Michael's Hogwarts letter began to reemerge her deleted memories.
Michael attended Hogwarts and quickly learned about the magical world from his mother (while his father continued hyperventilating) but, of course, the information he received both overwhelmed him, and was several years out-of-date. To all intents and purposes, Michael considers himself basically another muggle-born. While at school, he worked hard as any good Hufflepuff does and got himself reasonably noticed as a all-round decent student among the teachers, and, when he hit the 5th year, he was appointed prefect. Around this time, he became more and more interested in the exact nature of magic and began his personal studies into magic itself. When, following his NEWTs (in Transfiguration, Arithmancy, Charms, Potions and Ancient Runes), he had the opportunity to experience the wide and varied types of magic from all over the world, he leapt at the chance.

Extra Info

Patronus: Can't quite muster one. A whispy bit of something is the best he can do.
Worst fear: Ignorance
Boggart: Himself, glassy-eyed and useless
Amortentia: Honey, that smell when you blow out a candle, and disinfectant

Credentials

Prefect/Head Boy/Girl (1)

Astronomy (1)

Charms (2)

Defence Against the Dark Arts (1)

Herbology (1)

Ancient Runes (2)

History of Magic (1)

Potions (2)

Transfiguration (2)

Arithmancy (2)

Apparition (1)

Quidditch (1)

Healing (2)

Dark Arts (1)

Michael's slow precision really comes out in his magic. His wandwork is flawless and almost always achieves the required result. The thing is that he will be tediously slow in order to achieve his high level of precision, and will rarely attempt spells he does not know well in any practical scenario. It's with that in mind that he is excellent at theoretical magic, particularly Transfiguration, Potions and Arithmancy, but, while he is, in theory, a strong duellist, any competent duellist will simply be faster than him. He also has a highly-advanced knowledge of healing, especially for his age, due to some guidance from the resident healer at Hogwarts and lots of self-study. Self-study has also given him the basics of theoretical and practical dark arts, something he doesn't exactly shout about.
He is a very average but competent Chaser, but only really tried out to give the captain more people to choose amongst, never realising he might get chosen. He considers himself the weak link though, and assumes his positive attitude and general supportiveness to be what he really brings to the table.

Wand

Length: 12”
Wood: Willow
Core: Unicorn Tail Hair
Flexibility: Flexible

Inventory

[list]

Muggle stationary

Muggle first-aid kit

Undetectably-extended tent

Textbooks (lots of)

A Wizard's Pilgrimage

Imperfectionist said
I keep thinking, throughout all of this, why not make it Russia? I understand that you know more about Germany, but really, you're just using it as a proxy for your obvious opinions about the current state of modern Russia... What would really be the problem with getting rid of the proxy and simply making our "conservative ally that's also pretty scary" (and marginalizaes Muggle-borns) Russia to begin with?EDIT: Wow, I say "just" way too much... Edited.

I take the point, but when we're talking about fictional versions of places, I think it stops mattering where the geographical original was - just as how JK's blatant allegory for Nazi Germany still totally worked set in a fictional version of the UK in book 7. I doubt many people scratched their chins and wondered why it wasn't set in Germany! If I could set it in Russia, I probably would, but I feel like my general knowledge about Germany will enable me to play a much more realistic character and, certainly, having be able to mutter a bit in German will be a definite plus (for me, maybe >:D)! On a side-note, it does help that Germany has a little bit of cultural heritage (presumably some involvement with Grindelwald) in canon, while Russia has a big fat nothin'.

A Wizard's Pilgrimage

Imperfectionist said Anyway, now I truly understand where you're coming from. Marginalization, not discrimination. Well-meaning fear mixed with ignorance and more than a hint of pride and superiority. Not a second coming of the Germany of Grindelwald, but perhaps, over time, given the right conditions... it's hard to say. I like it.

I spent a lot of time looking at the marginalisation of the LGBT community in Russia and wondering when they'd actually do something completely psychotic*. I kind of want to capture that feel.

* I have to be honest, an invasion did surprise me.

A Wizard's Pilgrimage

The answer is that there is no active, government-sponsored persecution of a muggle-born, just as there is no official persecution in Russia. Western Wizards may well speculate about how far there is a culture of persecution and how far the laws encourage this, but, as I said, it's not as though there's death camps or anything. The atmosphere that I'm going for is one of a country that may or may not be on the brink of turning into something much uglier. As a cultural thing, I might suggest that the people from Germany vastly downplay the number of muggle-borns in their country (think how the Mayor of Sochi asserted that there were no gay people in that town).The marginalisation is subtle and difficult to quantify, since the governmental involvement is barely more than passive.

I can't help but be reminded that there was a large press interest (especially from the Daily Mail) in the UK about the developments in Nazi Germany, and general support for their direction. I like to think that (remember how Voldemort was never officially back) Thicknesse's government was only seen to be one of strong leadership, with clear direction in domestic and internal policies by the Germans. The ethnic cleansing bit isn't really noticed that much beyond the feeling of the United Kingdom's magical community feeling a lot prouder and a lot more united. Essentially, rose-tinted goggles and general ignorance. I certainly don't think the Germans would care much for Shacklebolt's touchy-feely, wishy-washy, namby-pampy nanny state government at all.

A Wizard's Pilgrimage

It's really not a problem. He was being a bit one-dimensional and needed a kick up the arse. Eoghan is the more interesting character and James will have greater depth as a result of making space for him.