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potterlivesrp · 7 years ago

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sample application.

Below you will find my sample application for Seamus Finnegan (FC: Thomas Doherty)! Thank you for your patience as I got this all together. I do want to make the strong point that the freeform section is absolutely up to you. I mean it when I say you can do whatever you want! I have elected to write a bunch of headcanons because that works for my personal character building process; if you want to do something different, please do! Good luck to everyone who is applying, and if there is anything I can do to help, please do not hesitate to let me know.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Name/alias: Honey

Age (18+): Twenty three

Preferred pronouns: She/her

Timezone: GMT+11

Life responsibilities: 8/10. In addition to being the admin, I am also a newly minted PhD student (yikes!). Between all the chaos that entails, I am actually quite good at time management, so I am here for the long run! If ever I need to duck away for a few days, I will make a post on the main and the OOC blog just to keep everyone updated.

OUT OF CHARACTER - Q&A

Answer the questions in the application here! No, I won’t give away the answers.

IN CHARACTER - BASICS

Full name: Seamus James Finnegan

Age and date of birth: Twenty years old (December 10th, 1980)

Zodiac sign: Sagittarius

Gryffindors born under this sign are exuberant and full of good humour. They are intelligent, but often do not make the best of students, because they would rather be outside enjoying the fresh air or off studying on their own. They aren’t good at diplomatic silence; if a teacher makes a mistake, the Gryffindor Sag will draw attention to it right away, usually loudly and in front of the entire class. At length. These students can get into trouble - their hot tempers make for easy dueling matches, and their impish senses of humour inspire a great many practical jokes. Still, they rarely mean anything malicious. They’re too jovial to harbour malice. These Gryffindors are likeable extraverts, on good terms with practically everybody, and they generally do all right in the end. Many excellent Quidditch players come from this sign. (Source)

Ex-Hogwarts house: Gryffindor

Gender identity: Cisgender male

Sexual orientation: Homosexual panromantic

Faceclaim: Thomas Doherty (if I were an applicant, I would put three FCs here in order of preference!)

IN CHARACTER - IN DEPTH

PERSONALITY TRAITS

POSITIVE: Generous, curious, idealistic, humorous, energetic, adventuresome, enthusiastic, brave, optimistic, confident, flirtatious.

NEGATIVE: Inconsistent, impatient, upfront, brash, undiplomatic, tactless, disorganized, careless, superficial, gullible.

HEADCANONS

Although he would loudly object otherwise, Seamus is a bit of a country bumpkin. His father was a muggle farmer when he met his mother, who was a field officer for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. The way they met was hardly romantic: she was there to investigate an outbreak of grindylows; he was about to call the council about the strange creatures infesting the water supply for his flock of sheep. But in a twist that is now legendary, Mary didn’t tell James about her magic until after they were married. This was hilarious to a young Seamus, who never tired of teasing his parents about their mutual deception. “Didn’t she give anything away?” Seamus would demand, laughing, and his father would grin, “Aye, I did wonder why a woman so beautiful would look my way.” Theirs was a happy home, one full of good humor and light-hearted conversation. Both of Seamus’ parents were Irish: national pride was not so much an aspect of Seamus’ upbringing as a permanent feature. Endlessly curious, Seamus would pour over old family photographs, nose nearly pressed to the unmoving faces of his father’s side, fingers tracing the crinkling smiles of his mother’s ancestors. In many ways Mary and James had parallel families, despite being magical and muggle respectively. They had seen famine and hardship, cruelty and poverty. The Finnegans were working stock, all calloused hands and sun-browned skin. Seamus burst with pride when he thought of his family’s blood and sweat that had seeped into the green fields of An Neidín.

Even in the middle of a war, Seamus knows he will return to Kenmare. His childhood was spent helping out on the farm, flying brooms with his cousin Fergus, and playing tricks on the local muggles. None of this was ever in ill-humor, for Seamus has an especially warm approach to all people. At school it wasn’t uncommon for him to apologize profusely if one of his jokes went a little too far (once he’d stopped laughing fit to burst, of course). One of the most important things in life, he reckons, is laughter. Laughter and good conversation. Indeed, Seamus could talk the hind leg off a donkey. When he was a child, Seamus would often ride his bike into the local muggle village on an errand of some kind – the newspaper for his Da, a bottle of ale for supper – and be found some hours later, engrossed in discussion with the shopkeeper over any manner of topics: animals, weather, farming. Seamus has an open, approachable manner that attracts him to farm-hands, milkmen, beleaguered Ministry workers, bartenders. With a vast and rambling mind, he manages to pick up snippets of information that, although often untrue or exaggerated, do mean he can contribute to essentially any topic in some respect. The degree to which his contribution is useful or even heeded, however, is up for debate.

Seamus has no clue what he wants to do after the war. Survival is his priority, as is anyone’s, in his opinion. For some years, however, he and his cousin Fergus have discussed opening up a whiskey distillery. This idea often surfaces after they have had a few too many whiskeys themselves, although Seamus would be remiss to say he isn’t seriously interested in the idea. He likes to imagine himself as the salesmen, the face of the company, while Fergus can do all the hard work. Fergus, needless to say, refutes this distribution of labor, and usually remarks that of the two of them, anyone would be more willing to look at Fergus’ pretty face than deal with Seamus and all his freckles. These conversations then regress into a tussle, which Seamus rarely wins. Fergus is a slippery little fucker.

The Finnegans are a small clan, and so Fergus is Seamus’ closest and only cousin. His senior by five years, it was Fergus who introduced Seamus to the first of most things. They attended the Quidditch World Cup together (where Seamus got catastrophically drunk – at fourteen, no less – under Fergus’ careful “supervision”); they often met in Diagon Alley for a pint and a game of chess together (Fergus always loses, mainly because he is easily distracted by the barmaid); and they flew brooms together. The last is among Seamus’ most treasured memories. Fergus would say he wanted to be a famous Quidditch player when he grew up. “I’m destined for greatness,” he insisted seriously, “haven’t ye seen me skills? Lad, you’ll be beggin’ for me autograph one o’ these days, just you wait.” Fergus did in fact make the reserve team of the Kenmare Kestrels a couple of years ago. Professional Quidditch, it turns out, is more about training and hoping you stick out enough to be picked for a game than it is about fame and glory. Now that the war has struck, Fergus has returned to Kenmare to stay with Seamus’ mother and father. The Regime has little need for sports at the moment, particularly when they’re too busy murdering muggles. If Seamus writes to anyone, it’s to Fergus, and damn Hermione’s rules about owling out too often. Fergus is his one link to home: without him, how would Seamus know about the new calf, or his mother’s redundancy from the Ministry, or his father staying up late, night after night, smoking his pipe and gazing into the fire? War means more than battles; it means leaving your family behind and hoping beyond hope that they’re missing you less than you miss them. For Seamus, who is so connected to his blood, the Resistance can be a form of torture.

Seamus dresses in muggle clothes more often than not. His parents had a relaxed attitude towards presentation, with his mother foregoing wizarding robes in favor of floral dresses or comfortable slacks, and his father usually slogging through the back door in enormous green wellies, a tweed flat cap crammed over his greying hair. Seamus is all muggle black Levi jeans, tight t-shirts of bands he’s never heard of, flannel overshirts, and a denim jacket littered with magical badges. He’s often found lounging on a sofa, trainer laces trailing, t-shirt rucked up his freckled stomach, a Quidditch magazine glued to his nose. Seamus has perfected the art of claiming a sofa to oneself (this also extends to beds, brick walls, and queues outside clubs). The trick, he reckons, is in looking utterly bored and somewhat post-coital, with half-mast eyes and a ready smirk, should anyone catch his eye. Seamus does have an air of sensuality about him -- and he can be an incorrigible flirt. “I can’t help being a sex god, can I?” he’s asked rhetorically on more than one occasion. In reality, Seamus is less sex god and more sex menace. At school he was often complaining about the regularity of his shags, the quality thereof, and the attractiveness of his partners. Being a part of the Resistance has had the effect of dampening his sex drive, but only slightly. Instead, Seamus channels his frustration into dueling. Blue balls is a very effective battle tactic.

Seamus is actually remarkably ordinary when it comes to magic. He is fair at transfiguration, good at charms, and reasonable at hexes. But it’s his patronus charm that is remarkable without exception. Seamus’ corporeal patronus – and it is always corporeal, make no doubt about that – is a fox. At first he demurred when it was suggested he teach others in the Resistance how to cast a patronus charm. “I’m not that good,” he said uncomfortably, “can’t ye get someone else t’do it?” Seamus isn’t a very good teacher when it comes down to it. He is easily distracted and often goes off on tangents, preferring instead to fall into conversation than to actually direct his student’s magic. This is a shame, because Seamus does have a gift, and it’s certainly lucky that this falls into one of the most difficult areas of magic there is.

His place in the Resistance is unquestioned. Seamus couldn’t bear to be at home, twiddling his thumbs, hoping that someone else was going to save them all from His reign of terror. Part of the reason why he joined the Order for a hot minute was simply all that energy. Seamus, for all his humor and chatterbox nature, is a doer. He needs to be in the fray, to feel useful. The Finnegans never got anywhere without getting their hands dirty, after all, and hard work is something Seamus is used to. His father certainly didn’t allow his only son to lollygag about the farm when there were cows to milk or agricultural fairs to attend. Much of Seamus’ early memories take place in the passenger seat of his father’s truck, bumping along endless green fields, heading towards some distant destination, their border collie panting and bouncing over Seamus’ shoulder. The problem with the Order was that he felt peripheral. Seamus will never kid himself: he knows he’s not a leader. He doesn’t have the charisma, for one, or the attention span. Although he’s definitely gifted at boosting morale and connecting with people, he far prefers a secondary role than being right at the front (this doesn’t stop him soundly criticizing anyone he believes is slacking off, of course). In the Resistance at least there is the feeling that they are working towards something. The Order was all cloaks and daggers: now Seamus is engaged in the gritty everyday of the Resistance’s existence. Someone has to scout out new camping spots, to figure out when they should attack that Death Eater hot zone, to teach people how to cast a patronus. Seamus is happy right in the middle of the action. He needs to feel valued.

For Seamus, the war sounds like late-night laughter, hushed in the blue dark, from people sitting around a bonfire. It’s the smell of a forest at dawn, of the rain-washed clean of another nameless British moor, the cold rush of ocean air whipping over dunes. Unmade beds, dish-washing duty, the organized cacophony of group breakfast. It feels like trudging along another country track, his boots sticking in the mud, Dean bumping into his side as their readjust the straps of their backpacks. The war sounds like the music that thumped out of a muggle club that one time in London; the way it pounded into the close summer air and tangled in Hermione’s sweat-damp hair. It’s that time he and Ron found themselves stuck in an abandoned warehouse for hours, watching a Death Eater do Merlin knew what across the way, until finally she apparated at four in the morning and left them sore, tired, and stupid, snapping at everyone when they arrived back at headquarters before collapsing asleep in bed for twelve hours. It’s the red bruise forming between his fingers from where he holds his wand. The war mainly feels like one anticlimax after another, but it mainly feels like holding a cup of tea on a frosty morning in Devon, sitting outside the flap of the tent and watching the light turn from dust to silver to gold. It feels the way that Dean makes him feel: short of breath, nervous, thrilled with their proximity.

For all his positive qualities, Seamus is a flawed individual. He finds it easy to identity the alleged weak spots of other people and does not hesitate in pointing them out, often loudly at at length, with little regard for other people’s feelings. He can also be quite brusque and even dismissive, believing that he has already considered the consequences and someone else’s opinion is merely a beat too late. In addition to this, his brash nature can cause him to be sloppy, clumsy, and heedless of consequence. Taking responsibility for his actions is something he struggles with constantly. There is a reason Seamus is not put on the trickier missions, when a careful hand and a steady eye are the only ways they can succeed. He is far better in the thick of it, with his spirit burning bright, his spells shooting through the dark like jets of flame. He lacks the finesse that a true spy requires; he does, however, have the mettle of a freedom fighter, and that is his redeeming feature.

One of Seamus’ biggest problems is his ability to jump to conclusions. It’s not an uncommon occurrence for Seamus to forego any logical explanation and simply choose whichever answer is the most salacious, extraordinary, or unbelievable. And somewhere, in the crowded, bright places in his mind, these tales take on a life of their own. At school it meant he was especially susceptible to gossip. More recently, his doubt in Harry Potter exemplifies this. Seamus would never discriminate based on blood status, and that is not the reason he feels uncertain around the prophecy of Potter being the Chosen One. No, he has a problem with the fact that Harry essentially knows nothing about how to fulfill this supposed prophecy. Although a halfblood himself, Seamus did essentially have a magical childhood. His mother imbued their home with magic in all of its ordinary glory: floating teapots, evergreen flowers on the sill, self-refreshing laundry. Seamus is used to the lovely everyday of magic and the wonder it can inspire in even the most mundane of chores. Even his father, in his sentimental moments (which are frequent; the Finnegans are an emotional lot and prone to heated monologues) expresses how strange and empty his old life feels without the touch of his wife’s wand. So how can someone who has never known the poisoned touch of You-Know-Who, who never grew up with stories about his reign of terror -- how can someone like that be expected to save someone like him? Even Seamus’ mother had a rough time during the first war; Seamus has seen her scars. You-Know-Who might have taken everything from Harry -- and that angers Seamus on Harry’s behalf -- but he also doesn’t know about the grim reality of Dark magic. What a word without Light is really like. And that, to Seamus, is difficult to reconcile.

EXTRAS

Seamus’ blog can be found here!

Here is a Pinterest board for him.

This is also where I would link to two writing samples if I were an applicant! They do not have to be IC.

#hp rp #golden trio rp #harry potter rp #literate rp #seamus finnegan #sample application

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