sortinghat application

[ficklefuckwit]

Player Information
Name: Anna
Timezone: Eastern Standard (GMT-500)
Personal Journal: [Bad username or unknown identity: italicizedlies"]
Players Contact/AIM/MSN/YAHOO: godtiertits @ AIM, wrinklefucker
Email Address: wire.bird.cage@gmail.com
Former/Other Characters in the RP: None at this time!
How did you hear about us?: Abby and Jamesy. :>



Character Information
Name: Jake English
Canon Origin/Series: MSPaint Adventures' Homestuck
School Year: First!
Gender: Male
Age: Eleven!
Out of school living location: Bearsden, Glasgow, Scotland.
Blood status: Muggle-born.

Personality:

So Jake is sort of an oddball. He grew up for a number of years basically living in the freaking Outback. Given that he had a sort of split-upbringing between Magical and Muggle folk, he has a strong admiration for witches and wizards, and a healthy enjoyment of Muggle pastimes. He fancies himself some kind of wild adventurer, when in reality he spent about 50% of his time in Australia helping his grandmother mine opals, and the other 50% he spent split about evenly between running around playing silly pretend games with himself and a pair of airsoft pistols his grandmother gave him and inside watching Muggle films and television. Due to the rather... rural nature of where he spent a good part of his childhood, Jake is more than a little awkward around new people. He tends to be shy right at first, and then run head-first into trying to befriend someone without really stopping to think about discretion or tact. Also due to the fact that he spent a lot of his time playing by himself, he has an extremely overactive imagination, and tends to live our his life as though he were playing the lead character in an action movie.

Speaking of movies, Jake loves them. All of them. He literally has no preference toward good or bad movies, he thinks they are all just absolutely rootin' tootin' splendid. Some of his favorites include old classics like Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider, lesser-known comedies like Weekend at Bernie's, and somewhat more controversial films like James Cameron's Avatar. Jade provided him with these on a whim, and while she personally doesn't really give any sort of a rat's butthair about them, she would watch them with Jake whenever she had the time, just to watch him get all overexcited about a particular story. He has a funny habit where in his running about in the Outback, he likes to dual-wield a pair of airsoft pistols that Jade gave him (he was too young for actual firearms) in a pair of thigh holsters as though he were Lara Croft, having adventures and solving puzzles like Indiana Jones. ...We're not sure if he'll ever grow out of these delusions of grandeur. He also has a bit of a personal inclination toward women of a cerulean hue or a spider motif, which is shown both in his enjoyment of Neytiri from Avatar (whom he named his cat after) and comics like Spidergirl. Jake also really freaking likes skulls, and frequently states this (he had a small collection of animal skulls when he lived with his grandmother that are some of his most prized possessions).

This kid is also pretty gullible, and way too trusting for his own good. He never faults anybody for anything, which includes his parents for the fact that they more or less gave him away at birth because he was a wizard. He's also a pretty spectacular listener, giving an unbiased opinion on anything anyone should choose to come to him on. This could, in turn, wind up getting him in big trouble one day, however. He always gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, but with the people out there today... Well. Let's just say it's good that up until recently he's had someone to watch out for his impressionable butt.

Gullible and trusting and awkward aside, Jake's got a pretty hilarious temper in there, too. He'll rant and he'll rave and make an honest to God fool of himself, but it takes a good amount of riling to get him to that point. The quickest way to get Jake into a tizz is easily to bring up his grandmother in a negative context. This is also the quickest way to seriously upset Jake, as he has a tendency in his young age to get so worked up and angry that by the end of it he's in tears, and then he feels silly, and tends to run off to isolate himself. He's got a lot of pent-up sadness and frustration over his situation, both with his parents and his deceased grandmother, that being only eleven hasn't really given him the chance to properly deal with. He's reasonably optimistic by nature alone, so he'll probably pull out of it all right, but there is definitely some sad and some hurt in this kid that he doesn't really bother recognizing.

Canon Background: Wikia.
Background (AU!Canon; HP):

Pooting

Jake English was born Jacob McCall, to Aileen and Camden McCall. Being muggles, and ones with a fear of magic-folk due to a bad experience with witches in the past, his parents were fearful of Jake (and in fact abstained from having other children, for fear they would wind up magical as well). When he was very young, they signed custody of Jake over to his maternal grandmother, Jade English. So while Jake was born in Glasgow, he spent many years living near Coober Pedy in South Australia. His grandmother was a bit of a wild mad scientist, who also mined opals in the opal capital of the world (Jake wears a necklace of the first opal he helped her mine as a child).

What time Jake didn't spend mining opals with his grandmother he tended to spend entertaining himself in the freaking Outback despite the overwhelming heat. Because of this he's a bit of a free spirit and a dorky adventure-loving git, who used to play a whole lot of pretend games with himself, since there weren't many other people around where they lived, much less children his age. He has a healthy adoration of the great outdoors and hates being cooped up inside, frequently falling asleep in various forts he erected around Jade's property (she regularly had to search for him when she got home from work, and rarely found him inside the house unless he'd fallen asleep watching television or one of his movies). He has a funny little scar on the back of his left hand where he was stung by a scorpion when he was eight, and it's shaped a little bit like the Skull Terror associated with him as his emblem in canon. He actually has a t-shirt with the design on it-- he liked to pen in the design over the scar so much that Jade got it screenprinted on a shirt for him for his tenth birthday.

Apart from Jade, Jake is the only magic-bearing member of his family that Jake is aware of (this, of course, leaves him open to be distantly related to other members of canon I did not have the chance to collaborate with on this application). Because of this, Jade saw to it to give him a mixed upbringing, with equal parts muggle knowledge and lifestyle to magic. She regularly boasted of her time spent at Hogwarts before she moved to the Outback to be solitary and mine opals (she never told Jake she was actually exiled to living in Coober Pedy.). Jake was never certain he himself would attend the school, but Jade made certain that he would without he or his parents knowing. She taught him the very basic concepts of magic and let him read all her books both on magic and from her years at Hogwarts, but made sure he never tried practicing magic (not that he could, as she kept her own wand on very strict watch). She gave him tips and pointers, made sure he knew the proper pronunciation of simple spells, and overall ensured that when he started school at Hogwarts he would be prepared. Despite not understanding that this was the purpose of her teachings, it has always been a quiet dream of Jake's to attend the school.

For Jake's eighth birthday, one of their strange Muggle neighbors in Coober Pedy gave him a kitten when she wound up with a litter. Aforementioned kitten was promptly given a blue collar with a bell and named Neytiri, and is basically Jake's best friend. Neytiri is a Maine Coon, and within about a year and a half had grown to be large enough to be used as a blanket (and frequently sleeps sprawled over Jake with this exact purpose). She will likely be brought along with Jake to Hogwarts as his wizarding consort, as she fits the cat/rat/owl stipulation. Jake very rarely was seen without Neytiri; they became sort of a joint set.

Jake's grandmother was also a bit of a weapons enthusiast, being a skilled markswoman and a collector of many rifles and handguns. She taught Jake how to use smaller, airsoft models of some of her handguns, but never got the chance to teach him how to shoot an actual firearm. Two months after Jake's tenth birthday, Jade was killed in a tragic mine collapse in Coober Pedy (Jake will inherit further information about this "accident" later in his life-- it wasn't actually an accident at all.*). At this point, too young to live on his own and with no other surviving relatives in the area, Jake was forced to return to Glasgow to live with his birth parents. At this point, Jake chose to take on his grandmother's surname of English, and his parents were quietly obliging of this, since it meant they could claim the wizard anomaly was not their birth son.

Despite his parents' dubious care, Jake never held their mistrust of him against them. They fed him and clothed him and gave him a place to live after his grandmother's death, and were kind enough to have his name legally changed to reflect his relation to aforementioned grandmother, so he was grateful. They were never unkind to him, just wary and a bit evasive. Jake spent most of his time in Glasgow alone, usually cooped up in his bedroom watching movies and cleaning the airsoft guns Jade gave him (he did occasionally leave the house, usually with Neytiri in tow. People started to find it strange that an alarmingly large cat was following this young boy around the city, so Jake's mother bought a small dog harness for Jake to put Neytiri on when he left the house. Neytiri promptly snubbed the harness and opted to just wait patiently at home whenever Jake left the house.). He has a number of inherited heirlooms from his grandmother, including a small collection of actual guns, but for obvious reasons he doesn't have access to those. He did inherit a rather large sum of money and a whole bunch of raw opals that Jade had harvested, though the money he's not entirely aware of. He also inherited all of Jade's magical things-- her wand, though it likely won't be his, her books, though outdated, and her robes. Jade, however, was sorted into Ravenclaw, and Jake himself rather fancies Gryffindor.

When Jake's Hogwarts letter arrived, his mother recognized the insignia and was both horrified and excited for her estranged son. She held a small, modest party for him, both in joy that he would no longer be cooped up alone in her house (fear of his magic or not, he was still her son and she didn't like seeing him grow up all alone) and in congratulations that he would get to go to the school his beloved grandmother attended. Jake had to send off for a second copy of his necessary school supplies, as he smudged the first one terribly by crying all over it.

As far as classes are concerned, Jake is probably going to be pretty hilariously bad at everything that doesn't require some form of physical exertion until he gets the hang of it. Anything that requires him to be still for longer than about five minutes is going to drive him nuts, and he has a really short temper when he gets frustrated. Another thing to note is that he grew up in Australia but is actually Scottish, so he has what amounts to the absolute strangest accent for an eleven-year-old boy. He's also very prone to making up words, so this is probably going to negatively affect his studies.

* So I have some vague ideas of trying to tie Jake to Lord English through his grandmother, sort of like how it's alluded to in canon since Jade took on the surname of "English" to spite the Condescension. However this is not something I felt was appropriate to work into his application as it would probably wind up affecting most of the Homestuck cast, so it was something I would like to discuss should I be accepted into the game. /)__(\; If that's not acceptable we can just ignore that aspect 'cause it's not really vital to his history. :>

Dragons

How would your character fit in to each House?

Gryffindor: This house is where Jake would be best-suited, and probably get the farthest. He is a bit of an adventure-seeker, and he doesn't like to think things through terribly well before he does them. At one point in canon, the phrase "Going on adventures isn't about UNDERSTANDING them. It's about being brave, and leaping into fistfights without thinking ahead." was used in thoughtful prose of Jake's when he was putting together a robotic plush rabbit for John. This statement holds true of most of Jake's mannerisms and actions-- he doesn't think, he acts. He is courageous to a fault, and has an unbridled amount of energy that he puts to both ridiculous and constructive use.

Hufflepuff: Well he did help his grandmother mine opals as a young thing, and they do say that Hufflepuffs are great finders. That aside, Jake is terribly, terribly loyal to the people he cares for, shown in the fact that despite their giving him up in fear when he was barely a year old, he never resented and still loves his birth parents, and in canon he never once resented Jane despite being the cause of he and his grandmother getting exiled to a tropical island all their lonesome. Jake likes to find the best in people, even if there isn't always as much good in a person as he tries to find.

Ravenclaw: He may be a bit dense, but Jake is a reasonably smart boy. He deduces things and notices small details that most people don't think he's picked up on, and you wouldn't know he had until he brings them up later in relevant conversation. He is far from bookish, and even less studious, but he does have a sharp noggin on his shoulders when he can be arsed to care enough.

Slytherin: Jake and ambition are not terribly good friends. He only has a vague sense of where he's going in life, largely because he thought he knew what he wanted to do, only to have his grandmother die and his entire life be uprooted and replaced in Glasgow with his muggle parents. He has absolutely no standing on blood purism, and in fact finds it quite silly, since he upholds his grandmother to be the best Witch on the planet, and she, like him, was muggle-born.

RP Samples: Here have a Dressrobes post!

Third Person Sample:

He couldn't sleep.

It had been the strangest day of his life, though certainly not the worst or the most surreal-- those had both been the day he had come home to be told that his grandmother was dead. He had cried for about as long today as he had that day, but for an entirely different reason. He looked to his left at the small yellowish envelope on his bedside table, and shifted under his covers to sit up and look at it again. From his feet, Neytiri trilled curiously.

"Sorry, 'tiri," Jake whispered. "I just couldn't possibly sleep tonight." He held up the letter and the cat's large green eyes narrowed slightly, then shut. She curled her tail further around herself and laid her head on her feet. Jake chuckled. "All right, all right, I'll be quiet, then."

He turned the envelope over and over in his hands until he finally opened it again, rereading the letter for what had to be the hundredth time since his mother had called him downstairs to show him he'd received it. With a gusty sigh, he flopped over backward onto his bed to stare at the ceiling again, letter in one hand and envelope in the other.

He had never thought this would happen. He had been perfectly happy, "home" with his grandmother in the middle of nowhere, and even if he'd never truly had a friend outside of said grandmother and his cat (because the crazy neighbor that gave them Neytiri was old and suffering from every possible disease an old person could have, and only sort-of counted). And now, here he was, at home with his muggle parents, with a Hogwarts letter in his hand.

He was going to Hogwarts' School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, just like his grandmother had. He was going to be sorted into one of four houses, and take classes, and learn how to use magic, because Jade had always taught him never to use it unless he knew how, and he could watch Quidditch, and--

Neytiri swatted him with her tail.

"Oh-- golly, Neytiri, I'm sorry. Am I keeping you up?" He rolled onto his side, neatly tucking the letter back inside of its envelope and scritching the feline just behind the ears. Within seconds she had begun to purr. Jake curled up beside her, atop his blankets, and slowly drifted off to the rumbling sounds of his pet.

"Gram," he whispered as his eyes closed. "This is going to be my greatest adventure yet, I'm sure of it."