ADULT APPLICATION!

OOC info:

Your name: Verdego
Age: 18
How'd you find us? RPD
Other characters: None

The Basics

Full name: Keith MacViersen
Age: 28
Sexuality: Bisexual
Class taught or job within the school: English
Appearance: (at least two nice paragraphs)

Keith is very careful about his appearance in public, nearly to the point of obsession; his dirty-blond hair is thick and tends to grow in shaggy, so he has to keep it very heavily slicked back to avoid looking out of sorts (and to camoflage the fact that he likes to keep it slightly longer than is proper). His clothes are always immaculate, he keeps his shoes shined to a mirror polish, and his tie and handkerchief and his cufflinks always match.

He also hates having to be so rigid in his dress, so he always looks slightly irritated, even when he isn't; Keith usually has a stern expression on his otherwise fairly attractive face, and on the very few occasions that he smiles, it very rarely makes it to his eyes. As a result, he tends to come off as short-tempered and serious. He's about 5'10 and svelte, with an athletic build from years of part-time bicycle courier work.

Digging deeper...

Personality:

Keith has a love/hate relationship with his own double life. As an alumnus of the school, the only reason he returned was for the sake of other children who are in the same position he was in at their age; he was a "problem child", and sent to the Enlightenment to be "rehabilitated" into being a productive member of society. He was punished severely for his transgressions when he was young, and as a result, was scared straight-- to a point. In public he acts the perfect gentleman (if somewhat cantankerous) but his goal is to provide a place where students he trusts can safely indulge less acceptable habits without fear of retribution.

As a general rule, he finds most people boring and visionless, mindless livestock milling through life, and that he himself isn't very different; he knows nothing about the government and is too afraid of punishment to try to buck the system-- he tried it in his youth and got nowhere-- and so he's just as much a sheep as the rest. His lack of ability to significantly change things frustrates him to no end, and it has soured him somewhat.

He also has very little concern for the opinions of other people; he makes absolutely certain that nothing about his appearance or mannerisms is objectionable, and keeps his words very carefully measured (becoming an English teacher was the easiest way to study the nuances of language), and this gives him a certain amount of social breathing room; he works hard to be "serious" and not "mean". For the most part, he tries not to deal with anyone more than is strictly necessary.

History: (at least three nice paragraphs)

Keith was among the worst sort of transgressors as a child; he was willful, rude, and worst of all, imaginitive. He liked to draw, even if it was just with bits of coal on concrete (or the walls, which his parents found insufferable), and it only got worse as he got older; he started asking questions and getting into "rebellious behavior". When his parents caught him with an illegal book about symbolism in art and literature, he was shipped off to the Enlightment school.

As a student, he was in and out of trouble for posession of banned literature until one of his teachers told him that if he was caught with contraband again, he would simply be shipped away and disappear. Fearing the unknown more than anything else, Keith immediately straightened up, afraid to show even the slightest bit of individuality. He was miserable until he graduated (though his grades and citizenship marks were excellent), and became increasingly withdrawn. It was only worse when he went to university.

After he was out of school he became a courier, despite his degree; it was harder to wallow in depression if he was moving, and he liked the sense of freedom it gave him; on one of his business runs, he found a a few illegal art rings, and began making extra runs for their distributions. Working for a service and being careful with his shift records, Keith was able to avoid responsibility for the illegal activity, and was never caught with any of the materials himself, and being able to be around art again was enough to lift his spirits considerably.

Unfortunately, his family much preferred his new, more manageable personality, and immediately set about finding him a wife as soon as he came home; his mother set him up to marry a neighbor's younger cousin, Ermina, who Keith had known as a very young child. Not wanting to marry, Keith managed to weasel out of the wedding by saying that his poor behavior in his youth was embarassing, and that he felt he wouldn't be worthy of the young lady his mother had chosen for him until he'd found a way to make it up to society as a whole. He became a teacher at the Enlightened School because of this, and now, he works toward providing an outlet for dissatisfied and creative students.


Ruminations:
(Answer these in character, make them as long as your like)

What do you think of The Enlightened School?

(External) "The Enlightened School is a fine institution, and a last saving grace for the redeemable among these unruly misfits. Our work is hard, but as long as we persist with firm hands and gentle hearts, we may all see these students become productive elements of society."

(Internal) "This school is a festering abcess under the tongue of the world; I can only hope to catch some of these young people before they are devoured."

What are your views on discipline?

"Discipline is necessary to correct the unacceptable behavior of problem students; spare the rod, spoil the child, I always say. Most students don't need such extremity, though, I find that copying the student laws fifty times is more satisfactory anyway."

What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?

"I have a firm grasp of the English language, and that is my primary strength. I also consider myself fashionable. If I have a weakness, it is probably my intolerance for nonsense. Children are given to a certain amount of whimsy, and must be weaned from it if they are to grow up properly; perhaps I expect too much of them at their tender years."

What do you fear the most?

"Being caught; I love books and art and I keep stashes of it in discreet places in my quarters. Having been at this school for several years in my youth I've got a bit of a sense on how to keep that sort of thing away from prying eyes, but I am terrified of being sent away..."

What do you want the most?

"I want a full deck of Tarot cards; I've only managed to get my hands on six of them in my life and I think I would kill for a complete deck."

And finally...

Writing sample:

(I haven't written for an RPG in a long time, so I'm using a little narrative thing I wrote for a tabletop game I played in awhile back. I hope that's okay.)

Emlyn saunters up the walk with a certain smoothness; a compromise of bloodborn predilections of movement, the happy medium between MacKander swagger and Elven stride. He tosses a lascivious grin back at a few red-kilted girls as he approaches the front gate; as it gets toward sunset there'll be more of them, he's sure, but there wouldn't be room for the crowd he knows the stories will draw here tonight-- yet another magnificent mission accomplished by the for-profit Department Of Organized Miscreancy, bringing Caer Ducaine one step closer to independence. The young bard's grin changes its timbre as he feels the weight of their latest reward in his knapsack, and he opens the front door.

It's probably the least conspicuous of the D.O.O.M. houses; a Clannish cottage, unconnected to the circuitous Caer Ducaine residential network but for a ladder running up the side of the toolshed, and chosen for exactly that reason. It's secluded enough to be private and dark enough to be holy, and as cozy as any grandmother could ever want. As Emlyn comes into the foyer and toes off his shoes, the smell of food that isn't tasteless stew and Fitz-Kevannaugh piss beer caresses his senses, and he remembers he skipped lunch.

The table's only big enough for four if no one's eating, and in the back of his mind he thinks it's probably better that Naughten and Seamus are with their families. Sinclair hasn't actively served with the rest of the group in years, anyway. He finds his chair already backwards and straddles it, and almost asks 'How did you know?' before the priest slides a plate of buttery mashed potatoes, steaming soft bread, and roast pork under his nose.