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Topics - Michael Woods-Taylor

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Archived Applications / Michael Woods-Taylor [Photographer-Style]
« on: 17/10/2012 at 06:43 »

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Michael Woods-Taylor
Gender: Male
Age: 22

Education: 
Salem Institute, Primary I. Half a year each at Valle Del Sol and Raven Lodge. Homeschooling and self-study for two more years.

Residence:
Displaced after warp, currently living in London.

Applying to be: (select one, see here)
Photographer


Department of choice: (select one)
Gossip

Why did you request that particular department?
To be honest, and Michael never would be, he would prefer the light hearted nature of gossip over the more serious affairs of foreign matters or politics. He would feel more confident that he could perform the tasks required of him within the Gossip department, which would then leave him with the time necessary for other endeavors or research if/when the opportunity arose.

OOC: I have experience with working on graphics and know how to use Photoshop, I have also used GIMP but I'm more familiar with Illustrator. I also love photography, although actual photos probably won't play a part here ;)

Requested Magic Levels: they already exist
  • Charms: 6
  • Transfiguration: 6
  • Divination: 4
  • Summoning: 8

Please list any other characters you already have at the site:
Elizabeth Woods-Taylor, Loring Reinhardt

Biography: (300 words minimum.)
Michael Woods-Taylor. So many things about that name felt foreign on the young man’s lips now. If it was possible, he’d simply introduce himself as Mike to world, because the Woods portion was missing and the Taylor portion disgusted him.

Michael didn’t even feel as if he belonged anywhere anymore. At least before the New Year began, he’d felt ownership over the States. He traveled when the mood struck him, he worked any job that might pay his way, and no matter what trouble he got into he always had a family to return to. Now he lacked not only a safety net but he’d gained an entire person to rely on him.

Mike loved his sister more than anything in the world, but the sudden shift and rewrite of history had left him scrambling. His home base, his interests and his job-status had to change overnight if he was going to make this new world work.

Michael’s stubborn tendencies, obsessive qualities and his entrepreneurial flair would have to aid him in a way he’d never attempted before. He needed to find a job, first and foremost, but he also needed to find their parents, because he refused that they were gone.

Michael took to the job search as a wealthy gent might take to a designer suit. He would find a job in London, he would eventually find a more permanent place to stay, and he would provide for his sister.

The gruff looking young man was determined to make this work. He was even willing to dress the part and set his casual attire and disheveled look aside. He wasn’t quite willing to give up that childish need to avoid becoming an adult, but he was willing to pretend for a while.

Michael Woods-Taylor, Mikey, on a cold day in January, 1937 he’d stepped closer to adulthood than he’d ever wanted.

Roleplay:
Reply as your character to the following:
Jim hated Mondays.

He had always hated Mondays, really; that cursed beginning of the week, that day where it still should have been the weekend and yet there was work to be done - deadlines to be made - stupid lunch meetings to attend.  Even when ‘lunch meetings’ had been just plain lunch; ‘work’, homework, he had despised the start of classes and - all at once - the next five un-fun days before the weekend started up again.

Now, cloudy October morning, Jim hated Mondays more than ever.

His desk filled with the wide-open arms of the Sunday Prophet, he scribbled furiously over sections with a bright red ink.

All the new graduates with their impeccable NEWTs and superb teacher recommendations had come in last month, only too eager to start preaching the truth - their truth - to the whole of Wizarding Britain.

Jim’s train of thought was bitter, but he smiled wanly, for he had once been one of those recruits themselves.

Most of their dreams should have been been smashed in the first week, from the first time people like Jim had told them to fetch the group some coffee. Day after day, hour after hour, that was what they now said to their youngest colleagues, as their older counterparts had told him years before: At some point everyone has to fetch us our drinks.

Almost every year, the new recruits sat down and took it - and fetched the group some coffee - and maybe it was just the age or the nostalgia, but Jim was fairly certain that they deserved it all.

They did not deserve to publish half-coherent drafts with way too many adverbs and completely unmodulated opinions.

Jim threw down the quill in disgust, ink splattering onto his button-down shirt as though it were blood.

Smartly, he piled up bits of paper, and then, still angry, face marred by an unhappy Monday, deposited the pile in front of his door before reaching out to grab at the first person he saw.

“What happened to this paper?”

Roleplay Response:
Mike was still new to this job and the position he’d applied for was all but solidly in his grasp. He felt like a fraud, and because of that he walked as though stepping on eggshells. Sure he’d do his best to keep up the façade and produce what was required of him, but someone would surely see right through the game.

Mike walked into the department, careful not to draw too much attention to himself. The young man had done things like this before, and he could do it again, right? All he had to do was carry himself well, respond with ‘yes Sir’ and ‘no Sir’ and speak with confidence if ever one of the higher ups asked him for an opinion. He sighed. It felt like all he ever did was hand someone a line to make it by in this world.

Michael was on a mission to get a sip of water before attending a staff meeting, or rushing off to some early morning assignment, when he felt a hand on his arm urging him to stop and listen. Mike was started by the action, and a little more confused about the man’s question.

“Is that a rhetorical question Sir? Or would you like me to give my opinion?” Mike asked, eyeing the spatter of ink across Jim’s shirt. Michael was hoping for the first, as answering such a query from a man that worked for the paper in question was a little like answering a woman when she ponders whether some piece of clothing made her look fat. Nothing good came of such a position.



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Elsewhere Accepted / Michael Taylor app
« on: 21/08/2012 at 05:32 »
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Michael Woods-Taylor
Gender: Male
Age: 21

Education: 
Believing that knowledge is an item best experienced through action and use rather than from a teacher within a classroom utilizing outdated books, Michael is what some might call homeschooled. He might argue against that term as well, believing any applied box to stifle the real pursuit of true knowledge, but ultimately he is a boy trapped between that decade’s ideals of truth and change, and his own self-imposed alienation from the wizarding world.


Residence:
California is his home state.

Occupation:**If you are planning to work at St. Mungo's, please fill out the St. Mungo's application.
He is about as close to a mechanic as you get without training under one. His magic levels would probably be too low to make him useful anywhere until he RPs the gaining of skill through practice (I don’t know how that would work) He would fit well in a lower level job that requires little magic use/skill, but since he’d be RP as a protective brother figure, during the occasional holiday surprise visits and as a means to fill in some story bits that affect my other character Liz, he probably won’t have a job.

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?
Not as of yet

Requested Magic Levels:

I would like to write this character with a sense of weakness in his use of magic. I think I can safely say that his official school knowledge only amounts to that which can be obtained in two years total, any more specialty he’s gained would be through self-taught methods which have been distracted at best by other interests. I would like it if he has at least enough magic ability to use various transportation modes like the floo network but I don’t think he would have made enough progress to learn apparition, which I would be happy to RP over time to show that he is trying to learn/perfect that, or even find a tutor that might work with him RP style to learn it. He loves cars and working on their engines so any bits of magic that would aid him there, such as spells to control small objects – threading screws into hard to reach places, plugging leaks in a radiator hose for a temporary fix, might be his only care initially.

  • Charms: 6
  • Transfiguration: 6
  • Divination: 4
  • Summoning: 8


Please list any other characters you already have at the site:
Elizabeth Woods-Taylor (Michael’s sister)

Biography: (300 words minimum.)
Michael was a dark haired youth with wide shoulders, a tall stance and a big presence. His offhanded jokes and sarcasm might make a passerby think he thought little of ‘serious matters’, politics and world affairs, but nothing could be further from the truth.

He had his mother’s focus which at times meant for a cursed obsessive quality. He had his father’s heart which allowed him to justify his decisions if he thought he was doing so out of love, when at times it only hurt his prospects. And from them both he received their stubbornness and joyous attitudes, which somehow turned into a strong sense of sarcastic glee for following the opposite of societal norms.

These qualities made it easy for him to shun school in general, but it wasn’t by far the only reason he left both his father’s childhood scholastic institute in Salem after one year, or the closest establishment from home Valle del Sol High after six months, or The Raven Lodge after six even though he’d insisted it would be the best fit for him. In retrospect he wished he had stayed at the latter school, as they promised to offer quite the interesting perspective on magic.

No, he had developed a restless urge from his father’s school, one that had made him develop certain trust issues against his own family name, and rather than allow people to say that he’d run away from responsibility or run scared from the verbal bullying by a select few, he cemented his reasoning in a need to be unique and ‘real-world-tested’. He allowed it to grow into a steadfast breaking of the status quo and hadn’t looked back since.

Sort of…

Michael was actually obsessed. Thanks mom…

He had heard some uncouth rumors about his father’s family while attending school and the stories only blossomed the longer he stayed. They were beginning to sound like a merry bunch of heartless purebloods, and Michael began wondering how his father ever made it out. Attending the Salem Institute had not been his father’s choice either, but Michael insisted on it. Like many boys his age, he looked up to his dad, enjoying his kindness, his regard for humanity and the no-nonsense way he looked at the world. What boy wouldn’t want to grow up like that? Michael figured going to the same school would help him get there. Only, it wasn’t as positive as he’d thought it would be.

After one year, Michael had had enough. If it wasn’t the one or two rumors that would cycle the moment he got within earshot, it was the confrontations he had with a handful of older kids that seemed to expect him to behave a certain way. Had he joined a club without knowing it? His name seemed to suggest something, and he did not like what it was alluding to, so he simply did not attend the following years.

Unfortunately for Michael, the connections had been made. His father was still quiet about family ties which only fueled Michael’s need to know, and even though he wanted nothing to do with people that seemed to have darker intentions, the boy desperately wanted to find out about them all the same. The sudden interest in that side of the family put a wedge between he and his father, a bigger wedge between he and his focus on schooling, and eventually developed into a larger sense of hidden agenda covered by feigned ignorance.

The happy go lucky guy, yearning for instant gratification and a quick fix to the attainment of knowledge, couldn’t possibly be researching anything serious, right?

It had helped that little Lizi came along when she did, because Michael could better deflect his father’s worry about his interests. A little girl, innocent, sweet and helpless was of more importance than a boys fleeting interest in a family matter best buried. To be honest, his little sister had nearly distracted him as well. He enjoyed having a sister. They were great, after a certain age, for teasing, pulling pranks on and blaming, but soon even those graduated into a genuine love. The little girl seemed to look up to him, as if he could do no wrong. 

Lizi didn’t have quite the same upbringing as he did. She hadn’t learned about their father’s side of the family and best of all she wasn’t obsessed with finding out their secrets. Maybe it was the nine years that separated their ages that made them so different. Maybe it was because he was a male first born and needed to know what he came from, good or bad. Maybe he was just too protective, not wanting himself or his sister to be blindsided. Either way, the result was the same; he had shunned much of the wizarding world in lieu of the simpler muggle one on the outside, but searched for answer using as many connections as he could find in wizarding world.

In a way it was simple; he was painfully stubborn. Michael was caught up in a spot of bad news and he'd been trying to justify it or make it disappear, and he had paid a price. Socially entertaining at times with a flair for quiet rebellion, he had neglected official studies and was awkward at best with the magic expertise one might expect in an individual his age.

He had a lot of learning to do if he wanted to make it in this world, and even more if he wanted to get to the bottom of his father’s family.


Roleplay:

It was impossible for Dianne to stay out of trouble. It wasn't that she was looking for trouble, it's just that trouble always managed to find her. Today she wished she could find something equally familiar but more comforting.

The five-year old girl hugged her puffskein closer to her and brushed her face in its soft fur for comfort. She had named him herself and he was always her special pet. No she was certain she had never gone down this side street before. Her anxiety increased every second as darkness fell as she walked down the road. A loud noise came to her left and she buried her face in her pet's fur completely. The scared girl bolted the opposite way slamming the both of them into the wall of the nearest building. Tottering back a few steps she found a door a few feet to her right and ran to open it. What light there was inside spilled out into the darkness and she spilled into the room.

Once in, she was caught between the impulse to curl her cloak up more tightly around her and loosen her grip on it. She wasn't alone anymore but she was now among strangers instead, which was nearly as terrifying. Her puffskein had recovered from the shock of the wall and now was purring contentedly as the girl hugged it, causing a mildly calming effect on the girl. Gathering her courage, she marched up to the nearest person, pulled on the nearest clothing hem and blurted out in a loud voice:

"I'm lost and it's dark and I wanted to know where I am but I'm not scared but I am worried that Sambundeakin is scared because he's little and needs something to eat and wants to go home."

She paused to draw a breath in her nearly never-ending sentence, "He misses my and his mommy."

To explain the scared girl held up the custard-colored puffskein. Sambundeakin the puffskein, however simply purred as if nothing on earth was wrong in the world.

Roleplay Response:
Type your response here.

Michael had been walking through the streets as if only marginally aware of the shop window goodies meant to pull the young and old alike into the stores. He wasn’t bored per say, even if it did seem that way, and the trinkets and gadgets and tasty delights weren’t invisible to him, he just wasn’t interested at the moment.

He had spent too many years teetering on the acceptance or dismissal of this magical world. His mother and father both had completed their schooling and always spoke fondly of their experience as students but at the same time they dismissed the need to live among or make use of the magically inclined. Later he would find out, and accepted the fact, that his mother’s family had all been muggles and therefore were most comfortable around them and his father didn’t get along with his own at all. When Michael had dabbled with school himself he had begun to grapple with why his father distrusted and avoided his kin. Now, even as he stood up to his decision and made up a world of excuses as to its validity, he lived in a very gray area.

The handsome young man, or so he would be if he bothered to dress in something other than worn out clothing, cut his overly long hair or even wear something other than the face of a jaded workaholic, decided to step into one of the shops to get a bite to eat. No sooner than he’d closed the door and walked toward a dimly lit counter, had the door chimes announced another visitor. Michael didn’t bother to look back so he was quite surprised when he felt tiny hands tug at his shirt.

What met him was a whirlwind of speech, nervous energy and a terribly sweet deflection.

Michael’s heart went out to the little girl. There wasn’t a whole log of resemblance between this child and his own sister but just the fact that a young girl was alone, frightened and obviously doing her best to be strong was all he needed to melt. He may not have allowed the handsome caring side out to be viewed often, but it was there in spades during this sort of plea.

With a soft and kind voice he said, “Oh my, Sambundeakin was it? I can tell you care a lot for it by its beautiful coat.” He smile at her and gave her a nod of approval as if to say, good job! before furrowing his brow in mock concern, “Hmm, you are right, it does look hungry and you came to just the right place.” Michael raised his brow a bit, “One second.” And while his attention was still mostly on the little girl he turned slightly and flagged down the attendant behind the counter. He asked for some bread and jam, and cup of tea for himself.

“Now tell me, where did you get that lovely pet and how can I help you find your way back to your mother, to alleviate Sambundeakin’s fears?”

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