InsaneJournal

player information
NAME: Brandi
AGE: 26
TIMEZONE: CST
CONTACTS: AIM: brandied plum ; e-mail: garnet.sunrise@gmail.com
EXPERIENCE: Here in my CDJ, and also here in wiki format.
EXAMPLES: I was Alice, I was Doyle, I was Guy (SERIOUS warnings for that third one: brutal torture and murder), I was Marlene, narrative

character information
FULL NAME: Nikolas Oliver Swann
AGE & DOB: 17; 23 October, 2008
HOUSE & YEAR: Ravenclaw, 7th year
BLOODLINE: Half-blood (two muggleborn parents)
POSITIONS: None

PERSONALITY:
Nikolas is essentially the epitome of "geek" and "nerd," but not in anything resembling a "cool way." His entire life has been spent with his nose in some huge book or other. The only muscles he has are from carrying lots of big heavy books. Nik has a tendency to duck if a ball is flying his way, and he has never managed to stay aseat on a broomstick any higher than three feet off the ground (and even at three feet or lower, his chances of staying on the broom are about 50/50). He's shy and has trouble talking to girls (and, really, everyone, but especially girls. Especially cute girls), so he comes across as stuttery and flustered and shy. Which ... really isn't that far off, honestly.

Everyone says that curiosity killed the cat. Nik will be quick to remind you of the next part of that saying: but satisfaction brought it back. Nik is absolutely obsessed with knowledge. Trivial, arcane, archaeic, modern, whatever, if it's capable of being known, Nik wants to know it. He'll go through spurts of obsession with his subject of the week, practically swallowing any information on the subject that he can find. In fact, despite being quite smart, this is the only reason his grades ever tend to suffer: he'll become particularly obsessed with learning about something and neglect his actual schoolwork for it. Of course, the moment his grades begin to drop, he switches into Freaked Out Stress Mode and does whatever it takes to bring his grades back up: up to and including begging the professors for extra credit work.

Nik has never, in his entire life, been in detention. Probably, if not for the fact that he's a stressed out guy under normal conditions, he might have been considered for prefecture. Or maybe it's because he's a quiet guy who's never managed to successfully stand up for himself or anyone else, and nobody would be able to take him seriously in a position of authority. He's a quiet guy, and despite being very smart and always doing the reading and homework (except when it slips his mind while he chases his pet obsession of the week), he almost never speaks up in class. In fact, if not for the professors randomly calling on him on occasion, most of his classmates might think him mute: he only very rarely actually raises his hand, and that's only if he's sure that nobody else knows the answer.

If Hogwarts had lockers (and Nik is quite thankful that there's not a locker in sight ... or at least not in the main building or any of the other places he frequents), Nik would be the kid who gets shoved into them and locked inside. If he wore glasses, they would probably frequently be broken. Nik might as well be walking around with a "tease me. bully me. pick on me!" sign taped to his back. The Prank Wars are a nightmare for him, because he has, on multiple occasions, been the victim of the pranks. At least this is his last year, so he'll be able to leave this all behind soon.

HISTORY:

• Jason Swann and Fay Dunbar were both lucky: muggleborns both of them, they didn't find out that they were headed to Hogwarts until the summer of 2000, a year after the end of the war. They never had to be accused of stealing magic or thrown into Azkaban, or forced to go on the run or into hiding. Of course, on the other hand, their introduction to the wizarding world was amidst a massive rebuilding of that world after a major war.
  
• Jason and Fay were sorted into the same house (Ravenclaw), and they became fast friends from the very beginning of their first year. They started dating in their sixth year, got engaged in the middle of their seventh year, and were married in July 2007, mere weeks after finishing school.
  
• Son Nikolas was born a year and a few months later, with daughter Effie following in [2009-2010]. Jason was working in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures (as a researcher) while Fay went to work on becoming a librarian.
  
• Nik and Effie were very much raised in a book-heavy environment, with a researcher for a father and a librarian for a mother. Nik took to books like a duck to water, loving the different worlds that books could take him to, and just all the information that could be learned from books.
  
• Even from a young age, Nik was a scrawny kid with ears that were too big for his head. He was absolutely and completely fodder for every neighbourhood bully. Instead of learning to fight back or to stand up for himself, he just retreated even farther into the worlds that were inside his books.
  
• Fortunately (for her sake, it was pretty much too late for Nik), Effie was the tough one of the family. She had the gumption to stand up for herself, so Nik was able to feel moderately less-bad about not being able to watch out for his little sis.
  
• In September of 2020, Nik boarded the train to Hogwarts for the first time. From everything his parents had told them, he was absolutely positive that he would be sorted into Ravenclaw, and of course he was right. After settling into the tower, he sent his parents a letter, excitedly telling them about his new home. All around the common room, he could imagine his parents being there, meeting for the first time, becoming friends, falling in love.
  
• His first year was rather unremarkable, except for flying lessons. Never before had Nikolas failed at anything to do with school, and yet he just could not for the life of him do well in flying lessons. He couldn't even stay on the broom, and flying was just one subject that he couldn't do better at by just researching or studying. Instead, he did his best to do his best in all his other classes.
  
• In his second year, Effie joined Nik at Hogwarts, and he was hoping that she would be sorted into Ravenclaw, as well. He wasn't disappointed, per se, just surprised and saddened when she was sorted into Slytherin instead. But he put on a happy face for his sister, anyway.
  
• Fourth year was when things got really bad for Nik, and it could be summed up entirely in two words: Prank and Wars. He had already been picked on and teased and bullied a lot over the past three years, but now it was suddenly a billion times worse: it was a school-wide game to get the best prank, and Nik was unfortunately a frequent victim of these pranks. Maybe if Nik had more of a backbone, he would stand up for himself. Or mention something to a prefect or the head boy or head girl. Or one of the professors. But instead, he just kept quiet and hoped that if they didn't get a reaction out of him, they'd stop. But they didn't (partly because he was really bad at not reacting ...).
  
• Sixth year was the worst so far, in terms of the Prank Wars, because word got out that Nik had earned an O on all of his O.W.L.s. Somehow, that seemed to prove exactly how much of a geek and nerd he was, as if the past five years hadn't already proven that, and so he found himself being the brunt of the pranks that much more often.
  
• Now that seventh year is starting, Nik is just counting down the days until the N.E.W.T.s and his ticket out of the school. He's not entirely sure what he wants to do when he's done with school (his post-school career focus seems to change every time he gets a new major obsession), but he just wants to be done with school already.

miscellaneous information
PLAYED-BY: Anton Yelchin
JOURNAL: still_duckling | still_duckling
PRANK WARS: The Prank Wars are pretty much exactly what Nik imagines hell to be like. He is only directly involved in that he is quite often the victim or the butt of the pranks. He would never be able to come up with a prank, let alone put it into action. But at the same time, he wouldn't tattle on anybody. He's like a doormat that way.
WOULD YOU MIND?: Absolutely anything you want to do to this boy is completely and totally fine by me. TORMENT HIM! :D