#when I say dancing with Harry Shum Jr. is a dream I mean it!

[justawanderer]

Y’all wanna see an award winning routine?!?!

Husband and I got Best Presentation at or Ballroom Competition!!!!

[anneesfolleshq]

Bonjour et bienvenue! Paris welcomes you, our Promoter,  Anatole de Céleyran! May we say, you’re the spitting image of Harry Shum Junior! Please make your presence known within 24 hours, and do have a look at our checklist before setting out into the city on your own.                                                                                  À bientôt!

MUN

Name/Alias: Max (I write Augustin Badeaux)

MUSE

Chosen Skeleton: The Promoter

Muse Name: Anatole de Céleyran

Muse Age: 28

Chosen FC: Harry Shum Jr.

Muse Occupation: Promoter for the Moulin Rouge

Muse Affiliation & Frequent Haunts: He’s definitely affiliated to Montmartre.

Anatole spends a lot of time at the Bâteau-Lavoir, and he can also be seen at the opium dens of the Blue Lotus. The Moulin Rouge is obviously the place where you have the most chances to see him but these days he also likes to hand at the Closerie des Lilas’ tables because of its clientele’s diversity that never stops to inspire him.

Direct from Le Petit Journal: What a great surprise to see Monsieur de Céleyran at the market today who, for once, stepped outside his flat during daytime. It is so rare to see the Moulin Rouge’s famous promoter under the sunlight that people were already whispering about him being a vampire! Sadly, the excitement was brief, since the artist was found unconscious and reeking of alcohol behind an alley before being transported to the nearest hospital. Has the artist’s condition taken a dark turn or is it just another cry for attention?

BIOGRAPHY

It is said that when a mother drinks during a pregnancy, the child will have sequels, whether they are behavioral, social or physical. None of this was known at the time, and thanks to Anatole’s mother who couldn’t survive prostitution without being drunk 24/7, he was graced with a good deal of those problems that followed him from the very beginning of his existence. Weak lungs, a hearing lower than normal, depression, anxiety, poor impulse controls and so many other issues that made him different from other humans that his self-esteem couldn’t do anything else but hit rock bottom since childhood.

Unsurprisingly, at his birth, Anatole’s mother abandoned him at an orphanage in Toulouse, not worrying much about giving him a name or letting him know about her own identity by leaving a letter. It seemed she couldn’t care less about one kid amongst the many others she had probably already brought to life, and his father was probably no one else but a traveler who had had some money to spare around. Thankfully Anatole never found in himself the desire to look for brothers or sisters in this too big world, finding the task to be more of a bother than a relief and deciding instead to let this part of himself into Fate’s hands.

All in all, the orphanage was nothing but a living hell and to this day, Anatole is still haunted by the first stages of his life. The mockery from the other kids who found it funny how different he was from them; the loneliness that crept behind his back whenever he had to stay in his bedroom in winter to protect his lungs; and even the food traumatized him. It was all so sad and gloomy for an outgoing boy like him that he couldn’t see a way out of this.

But thankfully, Anatole naturally started to develop a skill that could be accommodated to his fragile constitution and special temperament.

Everything began with a pencil and the back of a book, a bird, some trees and lots of frustration. The time he spent alone was dedicated, little by little, to the only thing he discovered himself to be good at. His art, born from despair and boredom, fastly became his solace in a world ruled by darkness. The looks of jealousy on the other kids’ faces was enough to assure him of the fact that he was good at it and, in the midst of self-hatred, Anatole realized that a meaning to his life had been placed at the core of his hands.

“Your art is special”, the nurse would say during his monthly check ups, words he would cherish and reward by offering her portraits and sketches of the utmost precision; she was the nicest woman he had ever met and without her support, Anatole knows he would have never found the guts to leave Toulouse at his majority.

He needed a new place to stay after being thrown away from the orphanage and, without lots of hopes, he made his way to Paris with the money he had won by drawing in the streets of Toulouse. Arriving in this big city felt like seeing colors for the first time, which is a lot to say considering how much he knows about colors. His heart had never felt lighter than it did when he first stepped into museums and started sketching for entire days without eating or going outside. His sleep was nearly nonexistent because of the night scenes he had to capture and the people he met who were finally different with him.

Thus, for the first few months, Anatole’s Parisian life couldn’t be described as anything else but psychedelic. He discovered drugs, alcohol, sex, fashion and found in himself passions that expanded his mind towards new horizons. Yet, his priority never wavered from his art, which quickly impressed the people he met on a daily basis. They had never seen someone who couldn’t go a day without sketching at least once, -who seemed to feed on the world’s most random assets like a baby bird opening its beak for worms.

He would be advised to visit some place or another, go, camp there for a few weeks and come back with new inspirations. His brain became a sponge and new experiences kept adding up on his plate. Some were revolutionary -like the first taste of a man’s skin against his lips, while others nearly killed him, offering a reminder of the origins he should never ignore. Dancing made him happy but he couldn’t do it for too long, absynthe offered the best dreams and purple suited him the best. The smoke of cigarettes made his chest hurt, his fingers would shake if he went too long without having a sip of alcohol and since his hands were his tool for survival, he fastly learned to always carry with him a flask of brandy.

Furthermore, Anatole liked to say that even if he was born in misery, he had found himself a family within the artists whose only purpose in life was to defeat ugliness. At night they would paint the town red -literally-, and sing until the Moon went to sleep. Anatole had never thought of himself as a social person, mostly because his personality had never been fit for public environments, but in that kind of milieu, he could act and talk freely. People would even go to him because they had heard of the man who spoke with the brightest of smiles and walked around like a space walker. Even if he still had issues with concepts, feelings and public behaviors, it seemed that everyone thought of it as an act that had to be enjoyed and applauded.

How could he complain? His antics were finally appreciated for their own value and, in this town of debauchery, he seemed to be the king of da Vinci’s heirs.

In 1917, near the end of the war he had been excused from thanks to his bad health, Anatole finally found a real career and started making his name in the business of art.

The Moulin Rouge, also known as the realm of beauty and passions, had always been magnetic to Anatole. His best nights had been spent inside its walls and his best drawings had for subjects its community. Gods and goddesses roamed this place freely, bringing to Earth a dimension of ethereality that made Anatole frantic with a desire to sketch he had never known. Being offered the role of designer for the Moulin Rouge was the best thing that could happen to him, and the salary that came with it was certainly a helpful factor to accept the offer.

Yet, Anatole has started dreaming about the fame that his peers have gained before him. Why can’t he be graced by fans, money or international exhibitions too? What is he doing wrong? Doubting his art won’t help his case, he knows, but it’s the only thing that matters to him and the world deserves to experience it. The Moulin Rouge is reaching its due date, even though Anatol still has no idea where to go if he ever quits his current position.

POTENTIAL PLOTS/CONNECTIONS

I would die for Vivienne and Anatole to know each other, probably because he used to sleep at her hotel and she became his favorite woman in the whole world

I definitely need someone who will help him understand that taking care of his body is important, because mah boy is a nihilistic soul and survival is not one of his instincts when it comes to life.

Obviously the romance is important so come fill that heart with love

I just thought that people might not like Anatole because he draws everything, even the dirty moments of people’s lives, and sometimes that knowledge doesn’t please some crowds so idk, tbh I just want him to get into trouble

Could definitely use a few bffs because he’s a very funny bud and his weirdness tends to weird out people

EXTRAS

Anatole is extra enough in himself for this section to be needed.

[what-if-rpg]

Welcome to the family, JEN! Your application to MIKE CHANG was accepted. I am really happy to have you around! Make sure to read the beginners checklist, and remember, have fun! I can’t wait to roleplay with you! Have fun!

IN CHARACTER

CHARACTER NAME: Michael Robert Chang Jr CHARACTER AGE & DATE OF BIRTH: 30, May 20 OCCUPATION: Dance Instructor FACE CLAIM: Harry Shum Jr HOMETOWN & CITY WHERE LIVES NOW: Born in Lima, OH, currently in NYC by way of Chicago SEXUAL ORIENTATION & GENDER: Cis male, bisexual RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single POSITIVE TRAITS: Talented, intelligent, disciplined NEGATIVE TRAITS: Conciliatory, passive, self-conscious CHARACTER QUOTE/LYRIC: “When you’re doing what you love, it’s never a waste of time.”

HEADCANONS

A lot of people mistake Mike’s propensity for being quiet to growing up with reserved, traditional parents. In truth it’s a big part of Mike’s personality. He has always been comfortable with silence. He learns a lot about people by watching them, and doesn’t usually feel the need to inject his opinion into everything. But ‘quiet’ doesn’t mean repressed or unhappy. He has always had friends and hobbies, he jokes around and flirts with everyone and has a lot of fun. If you asked him he’d say he’s totally normal. He’s just much more comfortable in his own head than most people, and that tends to come out as quietness, and that can give other people the wrong idea about him.

He does have a tough time putting words to things when those things are important, which was why dance was such a salvation for him. As comfortable as he is with his own silences, when it comes to expressing really deep feelings, he would so much rather do that with his body, through dance, than any kind of verbal way. He is incredibly comfortable in his own skin. Through years of training and practice he knows his body will do everything he wants it to. It makes him a brilliant dancer, but it made him a lousy instructor for other people until he learned how to put things into words that he could make his own body do without thought. These days he’s a fantastic instructor, and since it’s one of his only dance outlets he puts his entire heart and soul into his job.

His relationship with his parents is, in a word, complicated. As a child they pushed him towards the most obvious kinds of success: good grades, big ambitions. Become a doctor, he heard since he was a kid. As if there was never a choice, that was simply the plan life had for him. He loved his parents, and they spoiled him a great deal when he was growing up. Telling them that he had made up his mind to keep dancing and had no interest in medical school was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. To his relief, they both seemed to come around to the idea. His father a little more reluctantly than his mother, but amazingly they both gave him their blessing. But family is always complicated, and Mike found that when he left home for Chicago to learn dance formally, his visits home got more and more strained. His mother stayed supportive, but his father seemed to realize the gravity of his choices over time, and it put a stress on their relationship.

Mike has a difficult time staying in relationships. That tends to be a combination of things: his comfort with silence is easily mistaken for aloofness, and his difficulty saying meaningful things can make people think he doesn’t care. He tends to be overly honest and blunt when he does talk, telling his partners outright when they hurt him, when he’s disappointed or angry or confused. He can be unforgiving when it comes to being lied to, tricked, cheated on. Any kind of mental games. He doesn’t understand the need for it and he finds it hard to trust people after they subject him to it. A lot of this, he realizes, is probably due to a high school experience full of insane emotional friends all fighting and cheating and hurting each other. He credits those same friends with a lot, though, especially once he was outside the pressures of high school and his parents’ home and was able to come to terms with realizing he was attracted to both men and women. He wouldn’t have been able to deal with that so easily if not for those ferociously open-minded friends from high school.

CONNECTIONS

JULIA & MICHAEL CHANG SR. (Parents): Mike and his parents have a loving but distant relationship. They pay him a visit in New York once a year, dutifully, the same way he goes home for major holidays the way he’s supposed to. He gets along much better with his mother, and can’t help but feel like his father is still disappointed in the choices he made. TINA COHEN-CHANG (EX-Girlfriend): If it wasn’t for Tina, Mike would be Dr. Chang somewhere living a repressed life and probably raising repressed children to ignore their own dreams as well. His relationship with Tina had been mostly stable for his last years of high school, and though they had rough patches he thinks they ended it well. She helped open him up to a lot of things. She will always be his first love. SAM EVANS (Best Friend): Sam was a welcome addition to Mike’s life in high school. Mike had never felt really comfortable with the bullying, jockish ways of the football team, even among those players who were also in Glee. Sam felt like company for Mike in that he was never a bully, always unabashedly geeky and kind and himself, no matter what. Over the years they’ve grown a bit apart, since Sam is still in Lima, but Mike will always consider him a close friend. BRITTANY PIERCE (Best Friend): Mike loves Brittany and has since high school. Not in any heartsick or sexual way, but he very much considers her a similar soul. She was quirky and sweet and gentle to everyone, but most of all she was the one person he felt like who actually understood him when it came to dancing. She was as talented and as crazy about it as he was, and they always moved incredibly well together. She’s like a sister to him, she’s family. And she’s his boss now, technically, so he couldn’t be happier. ARTIE ABRAMS (Friend): In hindsight Mike and Artie probably shouldn’t have gotten along as well as they did. Mike and Tina started dating soon after Tina and Artie broke up, and Mike was aware that when he and Brittany got so close, through dancing, it might have seemed like he was trying to close in on Artie’s second girlfriend. But somehow, in the midst of the drama that was glee club, Mike and Artie rose above it. They could talk more easily than Mike talked to most people. They understood each other. Artie had the voice, Mike had the moves. Even now Mike considers Artie a good friend.