Chad would have a much easier time in life if he just sat down and accepted what the big cruel world gave him. He pretty much checks every box for a stereotypical "geek." He's a verifiable math genius whose father is one of the leaders in wizard technology. He has a stepmom who creates video games. If he wanted to, Chad could create a very comfortable life among the tech-loving, High-Fantasy-Reading probably future leaders of the world. It's too bad Chad can never just be happy with what he's been given. It always just feels too easy. Ever since he was little, Chad has hated the word "nerd" or "geek," and even though he'd sometimes he'd like to align himself more with those stereotypes, he can't, because it feels like giving up.

So instead, Chad's constantly trying, striving toward one goal or another. He wants, more than anything, to be popular. He's never going to get there, he's smart enough to know that already. So he wants, second more than anything, to be acknowledged. Negative attention is better than none at all. It isn't easy for Chad to make friends. He comes on a little too strong. Sometimes a lot too strong. He wants to make a good impression, but takes "good impression" as "assertive" too often. He's not afraid of speaking up, and will say what he's thinking, bluntly. He's bad at sinking into any shadows or backing down, which makes him an easy target for bullies or people who just find him intolerable. This doesn't really bother him. He'd rather have people calling him names than just blocking him out entirely. So Chad pokes at people. He won't let them forget he's there. He's insufferable in every meaning of that world. But at least he gets acknowledged. He's very insecure about his own social skills and often overcompensates for that by talking up the parts of himself he knows are good. He's smart, and often acts like the smartest person in the room. This can come off as preachy and again, pretty annoying. He can be pretty funny, but those moments are often lost in the maelstrom of annoyance he's made of himself.

If Chad ever had any dignity, it flew away a long time ago. That's another thing he exchanged for being heard. He sticks up for every dumb idea that comes into his head, but unfortunately, if someone he likes has the opposite idea, he'll fold. He doesn't see the shame in offering bribes to hang out, or eating a particularly disgusting moldy food item for $5 and a little attention. He does much better when there's someone around to guide him in a semi-productive direction. His teachers at Port Prep eventually took him under their wing and plopped him in front of a chess board, and he thrived. Left to his own devices, though, Chad will find the person who looks most like a leader and follow. He hero worships older students and adults he respects a lot. Maybe a little too much. He's still very innocent about how the world actually works, but has some romantic ideals about it. He simultaneously thinks he's a David with a Goliath that he hasn't quite pinned down yet, and that if he can just find a star in a person he can pin himself to, he'll be flying, and people will finally appreciate him. He hasn't quite learned that he needs to carve out his own way.

Probably because he's made himself a bit of a pariah, Chad is legitimately very mentally tough, now. (Physically, not so much.) He's used to people making fun of him, and he's used to being shoved around. He's able to let that roll off his shoulders, and he's very good in stressful situations. He's able to power through a lot of difficulties. Although he's prone to outbursts of anger, they're short, if loud, and go away quickly. He always apologizes if he actually offends anyone; Chad's not exactly one to stick with bad ideas to the death. Again, he's influenced by the opinions of people around him a lot, and if they think something's bad...well, it might be, and he's usually willing to consider that. The one thing that really does make him genuinely angry is mocking him when he's already annoyed. No one likes being picked on, but Chad flips. Sadly, ironically, this often results in a vicious circle where people rile him up just to make fun of him. He's not smart enough to have figured that out yet.

As much as he shies away from the reputation that comes from this, Chad's genuinely very intelligent, but really only in the math/ logic kind of way. His emotional intelligence obviously is lacking. He is the epitome of a bright student who should probably study more. He's always curious and interested in what else there is to do, sometimes to his own detriment. Although most of the bad ideas he gets into are inspired by others, Chad is naturally quite adventurous. If he liked sticking in his bubble, he'd be happy, but he always wants something else. He makes a point to do things that are uncomfortable to him, which is why he's in all the outdoorsy clubs while he'd really rather not be. He can't imagine a life where he didn't try hard, and would much rather struggle and come out on top than coast on something easy for him.

Chad, for all his abrasive yet sadsack ways, is surprisingly gentle when it comes to people who are more downtrodden than he is. He isn't a cruel person, although he can be a little vulgar, and for all his false swagger, he'd never actually put someone down just to be more popular. He has to draw the line somewhere, after all. He's of the strong opinion that you gain respect not by putting other people down, but going to confront the strongest person in the room. That makes him feel proud, although of course it hasn't worked for him even one time in his life. But hey. If you can stomach the fact that he won't shut up until you're listening to him, Chad is at least funny to talk to, if not half as engaging and charming as he thinks he is. He, as in all things, is at least trying very hard.

Father: Clayton Winterbottom-Halfblood- Very much a genius, he works in the wizard technology sector helping to integrate magical and muggle internet, with the eventual goal of giving wizards their own magically-aided internet system, not just ripping off muggles and risking the Statute of Secrecy. Right now, they mostly have government contracts, so it's not really available for private use, but when it is, he'll probably be even richer. He dresses like he's 21 and has three sports cars, all in red. Chad thinks he's amazing, and sees him every other holiday.
Stepmother: Stephanie Winterbottom (Featherby)- Halfblood- She designs video games for the no-maj sector that are frankly gorgeous but don't use any magic. She chooses to work in the non-magical world to keep in touch with her mom's muggle roots. Chad likes her fine, because he gets a lot of free stuff from her job.
Stepbrother: Marlon Featherby- Halfblood- 13 years old-Goes to Port Prep. He's already ten times cooler than Chad, even though his last name's Featherby. They get in arguments a lot because Marlon steals Chad's stuff, and Chad always gets blamed for losing it and is never at fault okay.

Mother:Penelope Christiansen-Halfblood-Art dealer/purchaser. She's really good at it and is a big name in the wizard art world. She flies around the world a lot and met Chad's father while they were both at a gallery show. She's gone a lot, but makes special trips to be back home when Chad's finally out of school.
Stepfather: Rodrigo Montoya- Halfblood- Chef, owner of several restaurants. His mom didn't take his last name. He's nice enough, and he cooks good stuff, so hey, approved.
Stepsister: Mariana Montoya-16- Halfblood- She has her room locked most of the time, and Chad's had a total of like five conversations with her, ever.

All of the members of Chad's family, both new and original, are way cooler than he ever could hope to be, and he was doomed from the start. Chad's parents met at a fancy tech party in the burgeoning wizard section of Silicon Valley. Penelope was actually there with Clayton's boss, but she left him that night for the younger, smarter model. She'd always known what she wanted. They got married after only a few months, eloping in the dead of night. It was a very glamorous ceremony, and they were both very beautiful people. They were also both firecrackers, and maybe that's why they only lasted about seven years. As time went on, their jobs meant they saw less and less of each other. They started blowing up in each others' faces a little too much, and they decided that they were out of love officially, and needed to rethink the relationship. They always remained civil and on good terms.

In the middle of this was baby Chad, six at the time, inheritor of too big a nose and too many eye problems. His parents were civil enough through the divorce that split custody was never a big issue. He just grew up between two homes. Lots of kids did that. He went back and forth between two extremely glamorous lifestyle, and his parents, trying to navigate this whole divorce thing overcompensated a little. During his time with each parent, he never really lacked for attention. At his father's house, he got new toys every time he came over. With his mother, sometimes he'd weekend to Italy. Tiny Baby Chad liked this arrangement almost better than he had liked it when they all lived together.

And then he had to go into grade school.

He was sent to Port Prep, a ritzy Southern California school known for its famous students and parents, and unofficially its bullies. On his very first day there, he fell and broke his glasses, and started crying. His nanny had to oculus reparo them and put a bandaid on his nose in front of everyone. It was pink and had dancing unicorns on it, because it was from another kid's house. It was maybe not the strongest start. From that nightmare of a first day on, Chad was never very popular in school. He was always very small for his age, not through the fault of anything but dumb genes. He was an ill-looking child who wasn't good at running or much of anything athletic, and he didn't really want to put in the work to get there.

Slowly but surely as school started, Chad's path started to get paved for him. He was good at math. His father was a computer genius. He had glasses before most people had lost teeth. Chad was called a "nerd" and had his books shoved out of his hands...also fairly early. He decided right then, that very first time, that he didn't want to be one. It would've been easy to fall in with some very lovely people who happened to like video games and computers a lot, and he probably would've been very popular down that path. But Chad aimed higher, or arguably, lower. He was a veritable buzzard around the popular kids at school. They paid him attention, but never the right kind. They shoved him around at school, but they'd come over if his dad was having a movie night or something. (And Chad's father in particular really did feel sorry for his son and found no issue with the fact that he was, essentially, buying fake friends. They had a few talks about the benefit of real friendships, but...Chad wasn't finding those very easily.)

This left Chad with a lot of alone time in which he decided to pursue interests that would make him cool. Seeing the amazing sports Port Prep offered made him choose Quodpot. He begged his father for a broom, and he got one. Chad crashed it into the side of the house on the very first time on it because he tried to go really fast, and his glasses fell off. Chad did not get another broom. He did, though, get season Quodpot tickets to his father's favorite team, and his dad would go with him. Chad began keeping obsessive notes about the players and their stats, to see if he could guess the outcome of seasons that way. He became pretty good at it and took it to school games, too. He thought maybe that would make him fall in with the popular crowd a little more easily, but turns out the Quidditch and Quodpot players at Port Prep didn't like a little weedy kid telling them their odds of failing. He could never win!

When he was in fifth grade, his custody situation changed around a little. His father got remarried. So hey, that was weird. His new stepmom was really nice, and his friends ("friends") liked the fact that Chad now got cool new video games before anyone else. But this meant that there was an intruder in Chad's world for the first time in his stepbrother, Marlon. There wasn't anything particular wrong with Marlon, except for the fact that they couldn't stand each other, and Marlon was instantly popular at Porp Prep. Legitimately. Even though he was a couple years younger. Chad announced him his enemy immediately. Marlon was too little to care.

This was also around the time Chad began to exhibit a few more problems in school. He went from passively trying to buy friends to more actively standing up for himself. It was kind of too little, too late. Everyone had already pegged Chad as a quiet nerd. He just turned into a loud one, who didn't listen to the words "stop" "don't fight someone three feet taller than you," or "back off, Chad." He got into a lot of yelling matches (that he lost) and a few fistfights (that he really lost.) Luckily, he also got into chess. It was sort of a defeat, as it was definitely the kind of game that Chad associated with the Loser Class that he was definitely not part of. But he needed to give himself some kind of reprieve.

When he was in eighth grade, Chad's mom got married, too. He was suddenly part of a two-family, three-children rotating wheel of who was where at each holiday. He didn't mind it too much, except when it meant it interfered in his social life (which wasn't often, Chad didn't have a social life.) It was still tiring enough that he complained a lot, and the answer seemed to be boarding school. All the cool Port Prep kids went to Gooseberry. It was an elite institution,for smart kids but distinctly cool. He heard tell of kissing games and hiking trips. Finally.

Although Chad got in because of his math prowess, he signed up for everything Cool at Gooseberry. ("Cool.") He wanted very distinctly to rebrand himself. Unfortunately, he still acted and looked exactly how he always had. He was undeterred. He aggressively pursued friendships at school. This meant he was very interested in what people had to say. It also meant that he would do literally anything for them, including inadvisable things like participate in human experimentation and deliver about a million freshman owls. It was exhausting, sure, and he was resentful, definitely, but people talked to him at Gooseberry. He liked it there, even though they bossed him around, and even though at the end of the year, he slept through the coolest kidnapping ever. He wished he could've been awake to prove to everyone how brave he really was. But...maybe next time.

YEAR: Sophomore (Grade 10)
HOUSE: Coppertale
SORTING: Chad's sorting was pretty easy. He quickly mentally sorted them into "the cool ones" (Coppertale and Azurcrest) and the "not cool ones." (Those other two.) He was a little intimidated by the bird. It promised fun and happiness, carefree joy. He'd never had that in his life and he wasn't sure he could actually deal with it. Coppertale at least promised that he would always fight, but this time, he stood a chance to win. He liked those odds.
WAND: Cypress and erumpent horn; 11"
FAMILIAR: Chad has a leopard gecko named Lucky that he bought as a conversation piece but ended up loving him.

CLASSES: Charms, Hermeticism, History of Magic, Potions, Transfiguration, Artificing, Astronomy, Defense against the Dark Arts
ADVANCED STUDY: N/A
SENIOR PROJECT: He doesn't really know. It's going to have something to do with magic and math. Good job, Chad.
ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: He's a very smart kid, normally. He highly prefers logical and math classes. He excels in Hermeticism and Astronomy, and those are the classes he's actually intolerable in. He has the tendency to be overinvolved when he's excited, and asks a lot of questions, makes a lot of comments. He doesn't do that in the classes he's bored in, like History, or even if he's trying to be particularly Cool that day. He's very bright, but he doesn't often have the discipline to study. He doesn't like sitting down with books at all. There's usually so many more things to do!
EXTRACURRICULARS: Boating, Duelling & Fencing, Archery,Event Committee, Outdoor Exploration...aka all the exciting, dangerous sounding clubs. He looked at Gaming for a second, sighed once wistfully, and moved on.

NAME: Lyss
EMAIL: facemcfacerson@gmail.com
CDJ: N/A
OTHER PREFERRED CONTACT: I have so many dropboxes!
TIME ZONE: CST