Jean-Francis Chapman

[Jean-Francis Chapman]

THE BASICS
Name: Jean-Francis Chapman

Former Character's Name (if you had one):

CHARACTER DETAILS
House Request:Jean-Francis’s epicurean nature lends itself to Hufflepuff house.  A love for food, relaxation, and conversation defines the typical Hufflepuff, and these all apply to Jean-Francis.  Also, though none of the houses really claim indolence as a trait, if any house was to fit a character who “endeavors to never endeavor” it would likely be Hufflepuff.



Year: 2nd or 3rd.

Bloodline: Muggleborn

Magical Strength (pick one): Charms

Magical Weakness (pick one): Divination

Biography: Jean-Francis’s mother says often that she named him “after his father.  Well, after he left that is.”  The youngest daughter of a wealthy English family, Susan Chapman met Jean-Francis’s father while on vacation in the French Riviera.  Charmed by his enchanting good looks and, if she is encouraged to be honest in telling her story, the simple fact that he was foreign to her, she spent the night with him. In one rather reckless night they conceived Jean-Francis.  The father would never know however, as he left the next morning before the sun had risen, much less before the signs of pregnancy began make themselves known.    Wanting to name the boy after the man she had met in Paris Susan named him Jean-Francis, because, as close as she could recall, the mans name was either Jean, or Francis. 

   She does not consider him a mistake, instead Susan sees the boy as an example of the triumph of impulse, her own work of art.  Her father, on the other hand, saw the birth out of wedlock as a disgrace.  For his first male heir to be a bastard was inconceivable to the old fashioned gentleman, leading him to cut off the steady supply of funds he had been gifting his, until then, favorite daughter for the entirety of her young adult life.  The attacks by the press that were to follow did well to prepare Susan for a life of dating her way through the richest men in Britain and Europe.  That sort of lifestyle was, as she put it "the only way she knew how to continue to live the only way she knew how to live."  What the crucible of the jet-setting social pariah and reluctant sex symbol had not prepared her for was the possiblity that her son was a wizard, which would obviously out do any other headlines she had created in the past, if leaked. 
   
   Susan's fear that somehow her son's eccentricities, what she would call the strange things that the tot seemed to incur every so often before she learned that he was magic, might be exposed meant a life of solitude for Jean-Francis.  Most of his time was spent reading, though he thoroughly enjoyed being taken to the races and other sporting events whenever his mother gathered the courage to take her strange boy out into public. 
   
   While they're together Jean-Francis and his mother bicker harmlessly on a regular basis.  Both having rather tough skin as it were, they enjoy blunt comebacks and dry irony with a nice white wine.  Most of their conversation takes place between words as they both consider timing important, and have never believed silence a problem to be solved. 
   
   So far as his father is concerned, Jean-Francis is not concerned.  He has no intention of finding his father, or of trying to learn more about his father.  He sees no point in it and feels it would be rather anticlimactic when he did find him, considering all of the fuss that would surely go into such an endeavor in comparison and how very little he cares.



ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Please include these sections if they are not addressed in your biography.

Personality:
Jean-Francis is not driven, Jean-Francis is not pushed, Jean-Francis simply is.  Effortless in all things, he is a fan of spectator sports, finding joy in the movements and aesthetics of his favorite games.  He is never passionate, however, preferring instead to take pleasure in the dichotomy between his own reclined state and the dynamism of those partaking in the spectacle of his chosing.  He possesses a strong sense of self, but not one of self importance.  As Jean Francis sees it the decisions that shape the world connect in such beautifully complex ways that it is foolish to think of himself as anything more than a domino.  There seems to be no need for worries or ambitions in Jean Francis’s world, only the pursuit of pleasure, whether it comes from food, sport, or conversation.  In conversation Jean-Francis is jovial, a joker, willing to go down any silly path to laughter, so long as the path is metaphorical and does not actually require him to walk.  He tends to steer conversations away from topics of melancholy, but in as subtle a way as possible to ensure he does not insult a valued friend. 


Appearance:
Tan not from labor but from lazing, Jean-Francis is, for now, young, spry, and thin.  His kind, ethereal eyes point to his French father while their drab, sensible, grey hue is reminiscent of the tea and overcast Sundays of his mother’s native England.  He is of average height for a boy of his age, however his growth spurts will yield little result, leaving him to watch his peers surpass him as he enters his late-teens.  He will not be concerned by this.  In contrast to his stagnant height Jean-Francis’s love of food will eventually lead to an expanding waistline sometime in his early twenties.  Until then it shall be carefree gluttony without side effects for Jean-Francis.  Though his name may seem to indicate French heritage his only ties to the country are genetic and he speaks only English with a decidedly, perhaps defensively, English accent.  When he speaks he tends to take long pauses to ruminate, to think everything through, before letting out a concentrated, rather short, direct, and eccentric statement.  He sometimes finds it necessary to quote a poem or two, though this is not a product of his love of literature, instead it is a way of saying what he has to say without taking the time to put the words together himself.

SAMPLE ROLEPLAY
Option II:

“Oh, come now!"
 
Astrid Bixby’s voice carried down the corridor, the tall blonde girl not far behind. Her interviewee – or victim, depending on perspective – turned a corner and she frowned. They were always so elusive when she needed them. Sure, they would talk as if there was no tomorrow during class, but once she actually needed them to say something, they were nowhere to be found. Gryffindors.

Flustered, Astrid stopped in the middle of the corridor and stared, her parchment hanging limply from her hand. She was a good reporter, really, and she always did her best to make sure that everything she wrote was accurate. She glanced down to the quill, eyeing it with disdain. It wasn’t her fault
if her quill misquoted. How was she supposed to know? It made for interesting articles, at least, and if she had misquoted the Head Boy last term as saying he had a love for stuffed animals, then that gave him personality. Astrid sighed.

A pout formed on her lips as she turned away, discouraged. The corridor was mercifully empty, though the doors to The Spellbound – the school newspaper – were ominously closed. Corbridge was a mercifully sweet editor, but Astrid was terrified of disappointing her all the same. She hadto come back with quotes.
Her eyes, blue, trailed her surroundings before choosing a new path, and she
turned down a new corridor. A figure was ahead, and her eyes lit up, an
impossibly rosy smile blossoming across her lips.

“Hey!” Astrid called, her voice light and singsong. She trotted to catch the person, her shoes clicking on the stone floor. “Wait up! It’s for the paper!” Her legs aided her admittedly poor running, and Astrid gasped as she came closer. “What do you think about serving frog legs at lunch? Some say it’s a delicacy, but others think it’s plain gross.”

Sample Roleplay Response:
   Corridors often offended the oft offended Jean-Francis.  Their bleak,  monotonous, lines reminded Jean-Francis of the rudimentary perspective in a medieval mural, their endless scores of vanilla textured doors and creamy tiles that seemed green under the primary school lighting that sprang to mind whenever he thought of them, in everyday life the corridor was an  amaranthine abomination.  It commanded one to move briskly to this or that minor irritation, the echoing footfalls of some manic janitor in the background provide the tempo to a tedious tango.  The corridors of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, however, bucked the trend.

   They were filled to the gills with portraits and tapestries, suits of armor and marble busts.  These accoutrements and nick-knacks which lent the corridors of Hogwarts their beauty also endowed them with the air of a museum.  Accordingly Jean-Francis adopted the pace of a strolling tourist, passing by this or that masterpiece with an appreciation of those two essentially touristy imperatives: the need to slowly absorb the work of art in front of you, and the need to beat the crowds back to the hotel resturant(in this case the Great Hall) in a quest to eat something unadventurous and pass out in the hotel room (his dormitory, of course). 

   Visions of candied ham danced merrily round in his head, the snaking trail of some beguiling scent beckoned, and every tapestry looked a table cloth to Jean-Francis as he continued his tour of the halls of Hogwarts.  It was in the midst of all this gastronomic phantasmagoria that Jean-Francis was approached with a less than appetizing proposition about frog's legs.  It was a rather hard fall from  culinary nirvana to frog's legs, meaning, so long as terminal velocity still factors into the metaphor, it took quite some time for Jean-Francis to hit bottom.  He paused.  Tapped his feet.  Opened his mouth.  Closed it.  Then recognized the joke.  "Ah, I get it," he chuckled as he turned round to meet what he assumed would be the face of an associate or a friend he had not spoken to in some time, "You ask that, I respond, and then you ask if I'm worried about the house elves mistaking my legs for frogs legs to be cooked..."  It was at that moment that he realized he did not at all know this particular girl.  "Because...French," he finished rather weakly.  She had actually been asking about frog's legs.  Wonderful, now the whole thing was out of context.

   

[Esme Vartan]

Mr. Chapman,

Congratulations, your application to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has been accepted.

Term begins 01 January. Currently, students have gathered at the Summer Campus. Your admission is joint for both the school and the summer campus, and we encourage you to spend your summer there. Should you choose, you may also visit our Elsewhere board via the Floo Network to visit or purchase school supplies. We look forward to seeing you at the Castle.

Regards,

Head of Ravenclaw