Ariel Harper
From Betweenlines
Contents |
find the broken pieces and then start anew;
Name: Ariel Harper
Virtue: Foritude
Vice: Envy
Concept: troubled youth struggling with his own identity
Attributes
Strength 2
Dexterity 2
Stamina 2
Presence 2
Manipulation 2
Composure 3
Intelligence 4
Wits 2
Resolve 2
Skills
Mental Skills:
- Academics 3
- Science 1 (Botany)
- Computer 1
- Craft 3 (flower arranging)
- Investigation 1
- Occult 2
Social Skills:
- Empathy 1
- Socialize 1
- Persuasion 2
- Expression 3
Physical Skills:
- Brawl 2 (aikido)
- Stealth 1
- Athletics 1
- Drive 1
Merits
- Striking Looks 2
- Language: Japanese
- Language: hanakotoba
- Language: Victorian flower language
- Meditative Mind
- Fighting Style: Grappling *
Morality: 6
Willpower: 5
Derangements: Avoidance (his gender/sexuality issues)
Experience: 5
Spent: 3
Unspent: 2
you're conquered and the blood is pounding in your ears;
Ariel has not exactly had the best of luck in his life, not even beginning with his own name: his father had just finished reading the Tempest to his mother just before she went into labor, and so he was named after the airy spirit slave of Prospero. It didn't help that his parents' marriage wasn't even all that well-founded: his mother was a young Japanese model who fell for a young American soldier, and married him at seventeen, straight out of high school, and had Ariel when she was eighteen. That, right there, was a mistake that would forever color the rest of Ariel's life: neither of his parents were really mature enough to either be married, or to have a child.
He remembers his parents fighting a great deal, and he would retreat into books or mathematics or the garden to try to avoid it, until at last, they got a divorce when he was twelve, his mother being given full custody of him...and then she basically abandoned him to his own devices, latchkey kid, while she chased around boyfriend after boyfriend. His life was scarcely stable, and it didn't help as he grew through adolescence, stirrings of something else growing in him, disturbing things that he did his best to ignore. He spent a great deal of time in trouble in high school, getting into fights with people who teased him about his looks or his effeminate hobbies, and who didn't expect him to fight back.
Once he dual-enrolled his senior year, at both the high school and the local college, things got a little better-at least, on the getting into fights aspect.
On the identity issues? Not so much.
you're denying your only wish;
On the surface, Ariel seems...spacey. Very sweet and rather eccentric (especially with his fondness for plants/flowers/flower language), kind and gentle and soft-spoken, with a few pieces missing, seemingly innocent. If rather...unsettling. Creepy, rather, in the "this boy is missing a few screws" kinda way...because, well, he is kind of missing a few screws. It doesn't help that he is extremely uncertain of his own identity, struggling with his inability to feel comfortable in his own skin, his inability to put a name to what he feels, both in regards to his own gender and his sexuality.
He tends to be quiet and withdrawn, if not aloof and antisocial: he likes his plants a lot more then he likes most people, and crowded places tend to make him nervous. Really nervous. However, there is a darker streak to him: as nice as he can be, there is also a very real dark side to him. If threatened, or angered, especially concerning his latent sexuality and gender issues, he will become violent, with a side of quiet cruelty to it: he is the type of person who, while in this mood, could break a person's wrist without blinking, still smiling sweetly and vaguely.
Once he snaps out of it, he usually feels bad.
Usually.
by forgetting your promises;
Ariel is a slender, slightly built boy, who stands about 5'6" tall: while he takes after his mother more in appearance, with her fragile beauty, there is still evidence of his Caucasian descent in his fine-boned, feminine features. He wears his dark hair kinda longish, cut to frame his face: his bangs have the annoying habit of falling to cover one eye, no matter how much he tries to brush it back. He dresses very simply, usually in dark colors.
