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CHARACTER INFORMATIONCharacter Name: Waldo Woodrow Angerville.Gender: Male.Age: 18-ish.Blood Status: Halfblood.Education: Hogwarts, Hufflepuff - Dropout ‘45.Residence: Hurst Road, Bexley, London.Occupation:Archivist and Administrative Assistant.Do you plan to have a connection to a particular existing place (for example: the Ministry, Shrieking Shack) or to take over an existing shop in need of new management?Yes, the Ministry.Requested Magic Levels:
- Charms: 6.
- Divination: 12.
- Transfiguration: 7.
- Summoning: 7.
Do you wish to be approved as a group with any other characters? If so who and for what IC reason? No.Please list any other characters you already have at the site:Cladis Perses Gallion, Loxias Ricardus Jr., Salazar Ricardus, Arcus Ricardus, Ignis Fides Rivers.Biography: (300 words minimum.)The psychological need to belong has always been compromised in the life of Waldo Woodrow Angerville. Always having found difficulty in settling down and accepting the way he misfitted the current context, always finding it hard to stay in one place for too long as he was driven by an unmistakable wanderlust which continually chases him from one place to the next. A home is hard to find in times of war wherein everything is destructed, not only a familial home, but also the ties crafted out of trust between one’s former friends and foes. Uncertainties have always ruled his existence and plagued his ever busy mind, making him feel lost in the world more often than not - like the world is nothing more but an ill-fitting jacket he could not make himself comfortable in wearing.
His undiagnosed case of hyperthymesia has not eased his search for answers. For this condition causes his mind to continuously replay past events and memories in response to the present happenings. This makes up for the fact that he lives more in the past than the present, his brain dwelling on events which have already occurred whilst finding it difficult to take in the present at the same time. It is difficult for him to distinguish the two and tell them apart, making him unable to tell whether he himself belongs more to his past memories or the present occurrences. It makes it hard for him to focus on the present at all times, especially if the present situation consists of social interactions. No matter how hard he would try, he would consistently prove himself to be incapable to follow along the lines of a conversation and fail to make sense of all the words linked together in sentences. Eventually, he finds himself to be pulled back into the past again and deviate from the conversation - posing himself involuntarily as rude.
His condition, however, does not imply that his memory is impeccable. Due to the continuous stream of recollections which passes his mind’s eye, he finds difficulty in recalling book knowledge and wisdom. The facts and the small little details would oftentimes surpass him, rendering his mind to be blank at moments he had to reproduce book knowledge. Waldo has always learnt best when he could practice, for as long as he would be able to link knowledge with a practice-gained past event, he would be able to reproduce it.
Nor does his condition imply that he can reproduce his entire autobiography, that he can recall everything that has ever happened to him for he has never been able to dig back in his recollections as far as that he could remember where his roots lay. He has never been able to remember who had left him on the doorstep of the orphanage where the caregivers had found him and taken him in, had given him a name and had guessed his birthdate. He has never been able to check all labels he had been assigned in the first year of his life by the loving caregivers, which makes up for him continuously doubting his own identity and therewith the person he ought to be.
But this entire situation and condition would have been workable if he had not fallen prey to his own merciless projection as well. He is prone to fill in the blanks in what he does not know, which means that he envisions what others think of him and what kind of expectations and desires they cherish for him without checking whether his assumptions align with the reality. Too often has he felt like he could not live up to the expectations others had in mind for him, too often he has felt like he has left people down and has disappointed them whilst it never was his intention to. But the guilt that inevitably followed was all-embracing, making him distance himself from all whom he held dear and considered his friend in order to protect them from the disappointment he thought he would inevitably evoke in them. He has become sure over time that people are better off without him, that they could better live their lives apart from him.
It is for this reason that Waldo has dropped out of Hogwarts after a struggling fifth year. He found trouble in keeping up with the pace of the educational institute which expected him to push himself to the limits and to cross the borders of his comfort-zone, they expected him to perform better at the subjects he took and at least improve more steadily in the magical arts than he possibly could. He grew tired of the constant reminder that every single student around him was doing a better job than him, grew tired of having to watch how all his fellow students managed to gain skills before he did. But most of all, he grew tired of feeling like he kept them back and limited them in all they could potentially achieve. Not to mention that Waldo knows that his undiagnosed Hyperthymesia potentially makes people feel awkward around him to the degree that they don’t like to spend time with him. It’s therefor that he prefers to distance himself and shies away from large groups of people, either by pretending to be a chamber plant or hiding behind one.
Or running away from all the obligations of the wizarding world.
After he dropped out of Hogwarts, he has fled to the muggle world where he hoped that the society expected less from him due to their lacking emphasis on magical skills. Not to mention that he was next to nobody in the muggle world, meaning that he could start over again with a clean slate. They were unaware of his shortcomings and his flaws, knew next to nothing about his past mistakes and missteps and cared too little to find out. Yet, although the muggle world was unaware of his past and everything he had been through before, Waldo’s mind continued to revel in the beauties of the past. No matter he had tried to run away from it the best he could, the harder he tried to run away from it, the more he found himself to be pulled back into the memories and recollections of everything he had ever been. In an attempt to console the past as a recurrent theme of his life, Waldo picked up a job as an archivist and administrative assistant during his stay in the muggle world, finding it easier to allow himself to drown completely within the past than the present. Always trying to run away from the consequences his past decisions had for him and the ugliness with which they presented themselves, ever trying to dash the expectations and desires others had had for him.
He had turned his back on the wizarding world, but he too realized that he could not forever ignore the fact that it had left an imprint on his entire life and thus belonged to the past he could not run from. He could not continue to fool himself for the rest of eternity and not go back to where presumably his roots lay. So he has returned to the wizarding world shamefully, like a beaten dog who returns home after having run away. He feels ashamed for having run away, he feels guilty of having left his friends behind without saying goodbye. He is back, but there is no telling whether his past self has survived.
Roleplay: Option Two -The snow had been falling steadily all morning and it didn't look like it was going to stop any time soon. Joshua Campbell scrunched his face up in a frown as he lifted his gaze to look to the sky. Snow. It really was quite a bother.
And it certainly didn't make it better that Diagon Alley seemed to be getting more and more crowded. Joshua sighed and pointed his wand at the large box that was currently placed on the doorstep of his shop. He had to get going. He had an order to deliver.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" The elderly man muttered and watched the box hover in the air for a moment. Honestly, did St. Mungo's really need that much tinsel? And with glitter of all things? He sighed again. If it hadn't been for the rather convincing stamp on the order, he would have been likely to believe it had been a prank by one of those orphaned rascals living up there.
Oh well, there was no point in waiting. Joshua deftly stirred the box down the doorstep and out onto the street, carefully levitating it above the heads of the crowd.
"Coming through! Coming through!" His voice sounded over the chatter of the crowd. "Keep out! Move ahead! Go on!" This was going way too slow. People were in the way and walking like they had all day! He huffed. Luckily the road was down hill.
"Coming through! Coming th--- arrrgh!" Joshua let out a loud shout as his feet suddenly slipped in the snow and sent him, the box, and several long strands of tinsel tumbling into the person who had been walking in front of him.
"For Merlin's sake!" Joshua muttered angrily as he hurried to his feet again, red and gold tinsel now decorating his black coat. "I am so sorry! This blasted snow!" He looked apologetic at the person he had crashed into.
Roleplay Response:He was completely and utterly lost. It did not help much that all the landmarks that he might have remembered from before had been covered with a thick blanket of snow, nor did it help that the retreating darkness still seemed to cover up some of the characteristics of several buildings that he otherwise might have recalled from when he had been younger and shopping for supplies for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. A recollection which now inevitably belonged to a piece of his past that he was most keen on forgetting and to never think about it again, yet he could not hold back the memories which flooded his mind as soon as the institute was brought back to his attention. The countless corridors, the moving staircases, the pictures which both moved and talked like nosy little children who empathized with the students of Hogwarts simply because they themselves would never be able again to experience everything they went through.
But he too remembered some of the faces of the professors which had taught various classes, in his opinion always keen on killing off their students during the term so that their job would get easier along the way with less individuals’ wellbeing to care about. And he remembered the way the Quidditch pitch had looked like when the colors of various houses were spanned across the tribunes, the way all students of the respective houses would scream their lungs out for the selective few which had managed to get through the tryouts without killing or critically injure themselves. Familiar faces passed his mind’s eye, faces of people he had called friends before he had left behind in his egocentric attempt of escapism.
Hands dug deeper into the pockets of his jacket, meanwhile nuzzling the scarf which was wrapped tightly around his neck to keep him as warm as possible. His eyes squinted slightly against the cold wind which tugged at his clothes in order to freeze him to death right there and then on the street. Surely, he should have picked a better moment of the day to do his errands, the weather outside resembled Christmas in Hell if nothing else.
Hunched slightly to brace himself against the cold and wind, he could hear another male’s voice carried on the thin crisp air which surrounded them. He could not make out much as his hearing was impaired by the ridiculous pair of pink earmuffs he wore, yet he quickly glanced over his shoulder to see what the fuss was about, halting slightly in his track to make sure that he did not slip.
"Coming through! Coming th--- arrrgh!""Ah!" He let out a sharp cry as something attacked him from above, immediately reaching upwards to try and get the attackers on him. He swatted with his hands at the brightly colored tinsel which had wrapped itself around his shoulders as if they were most determined he was just another Christmas tree in need of decoration. "Get ‘m off! Get ‘m off!"
"For Merlin's sake!""Merlin’s got nothing to do with it!" Waldo yelled out as he continued to swat at the decorations until they fell defeated at his feet, looking perfectly innocent against the white backdrop of freshly fallen snow. He tilted his head slightly to the right as he looked at the tinsel, stepping back slightly as if he was scared that it might attack him once more like vicious snakes made out of cheap material.
"I am so sorry! This blasted snow!""What did you do that for?" Waldo cried out, on the verge of a hysterical breakdown. He looked up to find the other man’s gaze, staring incredulously at the other as he wrapped his own arms defensively around his own torso.
OTHERHow did you find us?
The mystery of expanding one's knowledge skills.
