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[phin]

GENERAL

NAME: Phineas Edgar Bones.
NICKNAMES: Phin. Phineas will also go by Bones, or sometimes Phinny.
AGE/DOB: May 22nd | Gemini sun, Scorpio moon.
BLOOD STATUS: Half-blood/fullblood.
GENDER/PRONOUNS: Male, he/him.
SEXUALITY: Pan.
HOMETOWN: Birmingham, West Midlands, England. Phineas grew up on the outskirts of the city, sharing a private, highly-warded flat with his mum. It's full of plants and weird art.

CONCEPT: Eccentric Hufflepuff tinkerer: child of tragedy, loud laugh.

PHYSICAL

APPEARANCE:
Phineas is tall and a bit fuzzy-looking, with dirty blonde curls and an expressive face. He has a restless, clumsy energy -- it's hard for him to exit or enter a room without touching something, for example, and despite the athleticism of his frame he very much lacks grace. He fidgets constantly.

Phin's wardrobe out of uniform is, frankly, horrifying. Old sweats, holey bargain bin t-shirts, ugly cable sweaters, sometimes fancier robes for no reason out of nowhere, early 2000s pseudo-futuristic fashion wear, neon trainers, skinny jeans, dad caps. It's usually not even meant to be ironic, bless him, which has its occasional charms.

Apart from this, there's nothing especially notable about him except for a series of stick-and-pokes he and some friends did while drunk at someone's summer home over the summer: a wobbly "crescent moon" on his upper left wrist, an inexplicable letter X further up the same arm, and assorted small stupidities on both legs. His favorite is the funny-at-the-time inscription of "burger queen," in which the q and u blurred together while healing into the shape of a fat cat.

Despite growing up in Birmingham and his tendency to look like a dirt ball, Phineas talks like his mother. His accent is standard, enunciated modern RP that doesn't quite align with his appearance or bearing. He can sound very Brummie if he likes, though.

HEIGHT: 6'0"

PB: Jeremy Allen White.

PERSONALITY

LIKES: the ocean, transfiguration, art, aesthetic magic, artificing, card games and puzzles, visual novels, muggle fiction, running, alcohol, pranks, watching quidditch games, food (especially sweets, especially junk), animals, travel, wandering and exploring, exercise, people, architecture.

DISLIKES: jumping through hoops, paperwork, purists, fish, gossip, lying, losing, talking about his mother.

PERSONALITY:

at a glance:
+ confident
+ goodnatured
+ hardworking
+ secure in self
+ loyal
+ playful
= odd sense of humor
= eccentric, unpredictable
= stubborn
= restless, easily distracted, forgetful
= competitive
- jealous
- careless
- tactless
- selectively honest, prone to be repressive/secretive about anxieties aka things he should fucking tell people
- slow burn temper

Phineas had an unusual childhood in many respects, and is somewhat unusual himself: a product of privilege to some extent, coddled and encouraged by his reclusive mother and her vault of inheritance, but also in the strange position of translating between her and the rest of the world. It was necessary for him to craft a certain resilience and strength of personality from a young age; he's often had to be positive when she could not be, learn to find his own amusement, and stick up for himself in her general absence of mind or ability.

Today, Phin comes across as a sort of careless eccentric. For much of his early life he had little to do with other people, despite desperately wishing for friends of his own age. He learned quickly after entering Hogwarts, but at the end of the day he's still "quirky," occasionally unpredictable, and prone to the special oddness of someone who isn't used to answering to other people and has had few consequences for it.

He is generally confident, easy-going, and genuine, if somewhat brash and restless of energy, and doesn't seem to want for or fear much of anything. This security in himself means he's usually quite an honest person, at least demonstratively, and at least when it comes to things outside the inner core of secrecy we'll inevitably discuss below. While he'll keep secrets or lie if asked to, for example -- and not really think much of it -- Phineas is not going to be a number one choice for either of those things if you know him well. He does not have the tact or subtlety to be good at them, for one, he has a horrible attention span and will forget, and frankly it's enough emotional energy keeping his own self in order, thanks.

With that, though, Phineas is dependable, in that he'll always be himself about things. He is very trustworthy in that he'll tell you his real thoughts about something if you ask, and his feelings tend to be very black and white once he's sorted out what they are. While his sense of humor can be strange and inappropriate, he often seems to speak without thinking, and he generally lacks the patience to rephrase or reframe for someone else's comfort, he does have inherent concern for others. He can be quite giving and would prefer to make friends, and he enjoys seeing people happy when they aren't "winning." He loves to play games and pull pranks, chat, try to make people laugh.

Growing up with Rowena for a mother -- often paranoid, doubtful, and mistrustful of others -- taught Phineas to be good-natured and easygoing in compensation, at least for show. He can keep his head on. He can have a laugh. He can appear downright careless. He doesn't mind if he loses something, if you have to cancel plans in a disappointing way, if this hat looks stupid on him, if this painting is crooked or this book is missing a cover. Phineas couldn't quite be called an idealist, but he's sort of ...a soft, happy nihilist. Things will turn out fine because, in the scheme of things, nothing's more or less fine than anything else actually. This is more of a defense mechanism than an honest belief, but he wants to believe it and has decided to believe it, so he does.

Phineas has a legendary ability for stubbornness in this way. He has a difficult time backing down from decisions or stances, particularly if they're philosophical in nature (what's right? What's wrong? What do I believe in, what do I love?) and particularly if he's made them in front of other people. Phin isn't as easy to win over or push away as he might seem on the surface, with all that restlessness and bouncing around; he often navigates based on deep gut impulses, and once he's put himself behind someone or something it's rare to see them fade in importance to him. He's a loyal badger fox.

On the positive side, this translates further to his willingness to work and put in effort. In spite of some difficulty with focus and time management -- he likes to swoop in at the last possible second, is often late, and forgets appointments and promises alike -- Phineas is, when it comes down to it, very much a Hufflepuff in this regard. He'll roll up his sleeves when he's ready and when he cares. He can get shit very done.

More negatively, that stubbornness makes Phineas difficult to truly, intimately get to know. While open and happy to make friends and mess about, always willing to be honest on his own terms, there are things that remain very "private" and that he has decided for himself are better kept that way. Of course, people can't ask about these things if they don't know about them, which means he'll never have to tell the truth about any of it, so -- there you are. An open book's loophole. Good luck trying to get him to confide when he's made this designation.

While these subjects often rotate -- he can spend months not wanting to talk about an ex or a stupid thing that happened and then, one fine day, sit across from you and discuss it like it's the fucking weather -- the one that never, ever changes is his mother and her various tendencies. Phin keeps up a charade that she's perfectly normal and pleasant, while in truth she sometimes very much isn't. His relationship with her has given him a tendency to hide the worst of his own anxieties from others, since he's done it for her sake for quite a long time. Phineas means well, and he's rarely truly angry, but he has bouts of nerves and occasional intrusive thoughts that he puts great effort into keeping to himself for the sake of his image and not having to bother. Often these go away on their own, but at their worst he can behave even more erratically and unpredictably than usual. Very deep down, Phineas has fears that he'll simply turn into his mother entirely one day, and that there's nothing he can really do about it.

Finally, he can also be very jealous. While he'd often like to be, it's challenging for him to be supportive of others when they're getting something he privately believes he deserves, or succeeding in ways he thinks he ought to have succeeded. Even silly or lighthearted contests can bring out an edge of aggression if he wants the prize or the winning attention badly enough. In general, Phin doesn't handle these kinds of feelings well and expresses them, in the best case scenario, through "friendly" competition, and in the worst case sniping and bitterness. While rare to witness, Phineas' temper is a sight; though his intentions are rarely to cause real harm, when pushed he has a tendency to be spiteful and unforgiving in his commentary. He can be pushy, demanding, and frankly a nuisance if truly upset or angry.

SKILLS

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: Fluent in English. Phineas also had Latin and French tutors on and off as a child, and would describe his skills in these as limited-working.

PATRONUS: Phineas can cast a corporeal patronus. It takes the shape of a Coyote.

SKILLS:

The Way Things Work. Phin is interested in the how and the why of magical objects, mechanisms, gadgets, etc. He has a sharp eye and good spatial and logistic intelligence, and especially enjoys the challenge of fixing or improving things -- especially if they've been enchanted, and especially if someone else came up with the idea first. It's safe to say that the best of Phineas' magical talents have to do with manipulating physical objects. He enjoys tinkering with things and trying to get them to "be more interesting."

Transfiguration. Phineas' best subject. It comes to him quite naturally and he's capable of advanced work and quickly mastering new spells (especially when he needs to learn something in order to supplement aesthetic or artificing work).

Arts & Doodlins. Phin grew up helping, observing, and learning from his mum. He's good at things like simple magical sculpture or jewelry work, the sorts of things she required from her in-home assistant. He also enjoys sketching and drawing stupid cartoons of people he knows, and has taken some basic coursework in Art History.

Physicality. Phineas is a kinetic learner with a lot of spare restless energy and endurance. He finds physical activity soothing and takes daily runs, enjoys walking or swimming, and can always be counted on for pick-up games of football or other sports.

Extreme Multi-Tasking. He'll put things off until he absolutely can't, and then he'll do it all at once in a mad, laser-focused stretch. You might look at Phineas on an average day and not trust him to remember to tie his shoelaces, but when push comes to shove he can achieve ridiculous amounts of work at passable and even impressive levels of quality when needed.

Makes A Good Cup of Tea. Call it a stereotype all you want. You will feel restored.

Why, mum? Rowena has occasionally had some interesting ideas as to skills and knowledge Phineas requires for a full life. As a child and during summer vacations he's taken some random coursework in diverse subjects according to her whims. (Recognizing Poor Omens, Ancient Greek, public speaking, medicinal herbs, tai chi, fire cookery, etc etc etc.) None of these has ever lasted long enough for him to know much -- even things he sort've liked -- but here and there he's held onto small bits of knowledge.

HISTORY

FAMILY MEMBERS:

✎ ROWENA BONES, mother, fullblood. 40. Rowena is the youngest and last living child of Edgar Bones and his wife, Virginia. She gets by on inheritance money and what she makes selling sculptures and animal bone jewelry (a sizable amount, due to slight fame after being interviewed for The Prophet). Rowena is a sweet and giving person, but also incredibly paranoid and unsettled, prone to odd flights of fancy and distress. Throughout childhood, Phineas spent many a confusing week or two shuttled off to visit his great-aunt and cousin during extended "moods" of hers.

✎ BEATRICE BONES, great-aunt, pureblood. Occasionally cared for Phineas as a child. Involved with the Ministry of Magic.
✎ SUSAN BONES, cousin, fullblood. Beatrice's daughter. Phineas doesn't know her incredibly well, but he considers her family.

✎ AMELIA BONES, great-aunt, pureblood. Murdered during the Second Wizarding War. Prominent with the Ministry of Magic. Rowena's childhood caretaker.
✎ EDGAR BONES, grandfather, pureblood. Murdered during the First Wizarding War. Order of the Phoenix.
✎ VIRGINIA BELL-BONES, grandmother, halfblood. Murdered during the First Wizarding War.
✎ THEODORE BONES, uncle, fullblood. Murdered during the First Wizarding War.
✎ ELLA BONES, aunt, fullblood. Murdered during the First Wizarding War.

HISTORY:

FAMILY BACKGROUND. The Bones family was an older line, once considered great, prone to turning out notably talented witches and wizards with proclivity toward social justice and social services, Ministry work, and fantastic dueling. Unfortunately, those same proclivities made them obvious targets for Voldemort during the First and Second Wizarding Wars. The vast majority of Phineas' relatives are dead. Left alive are a collection of distant and estranged cousins and second cousins that he is not in contact with, his aunt Beatrice, a cousin Susan he hardly knows due to difference in age, and his mother Rowena: the sole and unexpected survivor of an 1981 attack that murdered Phineas' Order-affiliated grandparents and both of their other children.

The nature of Rowena's survival is something of a mystery to Phineas. Amelia is no longer alive to tell the tale, Aunt Beatrice was not involved for security reasons, and Rowena herself has a selective and finicky memory. She spent her formative years with Amelia, tutored in magic due to the goodwill of family friends and with the use of an inheritance that had been intended for three siblings. Intensely shy, paranoid and volatile, she was not considered emotionally stable enough for Hogwarts, and continued her education this way and in private classes until her eighteenth birthday, when she moved away to start an arts internship under careful surveillance by Amelia. This blossomed into a tentative business.

After rumblings of the Second Wizarding War began, Rowena maintained her new and growing independence under extreme ward and pseudonym. She was fragile and fanciful still, but determined to create a life for herself. Amelia's murder in July 1996 set off a downward spiral that ended with the discovery of Rowena's pregnancy and the ensuing disappearance of her boyfriend, Phineas' father (he ran off on her, of course, but she often tells dramatic tales otherwise). Once the war was over, reeling with losses old and new and clinging to love for her son, Rowena retreated into herself and her art. She felt unfit for the world, and so holed herself up and away from it.

EARLY CHILDHOOD. If asked, Phineas will tell you he had a good childhood. Safe, cared for, coddled, pushed to develop interests and curiosity. These things are true. Rowena is a loving mother who means well, at the very core of things -- she's just also somewhat unpredictable, easily frightened and suspicious, depressive. Life in their apartment has been and is freeform and unscheduled apart for whim or sudden necessity. Phin never had a set bedtime growing up, for example, and apart from tutoring that his mother drilled into his head as Very Important, few actual responsibilities. Sometimes things were clean, sometimes they weren't. Sometimes mum liked to cook, sometimes she didn't. Sometimes Phineas could go outside and play with the neighborhood kids, but only to the end of the street or in the lot behind the building. Sometimes Rowena didn't think so.

Sometimes, too, Rowena became very upset or very confused, and she'd call Aunt Beatrice to come and take care of Phineas for a few days. He liked those times, long visits at Beatrice's London flat. Sometimes his cousin Susan was there. It actually felt like a vacation, which was funny because Aunt Beatrice could often be much more concerned with rules and routine for him, and he had to listen. She'd bring him back and tut at Rowena, and then for a little while after mum would really try and get him to line up his shoes at the door or eat broccoli or take a bath every night before bed.

The things Phineas thinks back on most fondly do mostly center on Rowena, for all her strangeness and difficulty. Though as he's grown older she's gotten simultaneously better and worse, she's always rooted for him and done her best to provide him a "normal life" and prepare him for a terrible world (at least to the best of her ability). Phineas studied basic magical concepts, history, mathematics and language with tutors at the kitchen table -- tutors who, when mum felt confident enough, took him off to the library or a museum for the day.

Mum encouraged him to learn "self-expression" and often relied on him to help her with various commissions -- first as a way to keep him busy, and then because he was actually helpful, of course. Phin has fond memories of standing near as she worked, fetching this or that.

As a mother, Rowena was also very good at games of pretend, and sometimes at adventures. When she was doing very well, she'd take him out into the neighborhood to drink tea in a cafe, or to see muggle movies, or to antique stores to look at funny gadgets and things. She'd let him bring his favorites home to play with, but sometimes she'd become inexplicably worried and throw them away.

HOGWARTS. Phineas' Hogwarts letter came with a lot of fanfare. Mum was incredibly proud of him, but also incredibly nervous -- she'd never gone to Hogwarts, after all, and wasn't sure how to prepare him or what sort of stories she knew that might help. In the end she was just as excited buying various supplies and reading through his texts as he was before leaving. She cried bitterly on the platform and made a scene before letting him go, something people teased him about for ages, firstly because it was very dramatic and secondly because she was wearing an enormous purple leopard coat.

As you can imagine, school was a shock to the system for Phin.

He'd never, ever been around so many children at once before, and he wasn't used to having an enforced schedule, being told what to do, or having consequences for his actions that affected other people, let alone consequences at all. (House points??? What??)As it happens, he... sort of hated it, at first. He was too energetic and restless, his sense of humor didn't seem to mesh, his time management was, to say the least, lacking, and his family name seemed to have something to it that he didn't quite understand. Mum had rarely talked about either War, not fully, and he'd never actually questioned why he had so few relatives.

At least he truly enjoyed his school work -- he did want to learn and to do well, and in some ways to fit in, but it required more letting go than learning to conform. He was never going to really be exactly like his friends, or like the people he'd vaguely noticed making fun of him or feeling sorry, and he didn't want to be.

As the years went by, Phineas found his own way with the help of friendships with housemates and mentorship from his Transfiguration professor. He gained his own reputation and became vaguely well known in his year: a capable student, good grades, sometimes does strange things. His mum sends a lot of letters.

Rowena, as it turns out, isn't very good at living alone. Since Phineas entered Hogwarts, she's been incredibly supportive, but guilts a bit here and there -- and disappears down the rabbit hole of her imagination more often than ever. Over the years, she's sent him many longwinded notes that devolve into odd stories or lists of concerns. At least once a year he's been requested not to come home at all just in case, instead spending holidays with roommates or his Aunt Beatrice. These are things he's kept mostly to himself -- though the good mates he's made would completely understand, it's emotionally easier to keep the worlds apart. He doesn't know what he'd do if people started asking after her all the time or, God forbid, wanted to go and visit. That said, when mum does things that look the part he tries to give her in public, it's perfect: sending him money and actually useful gifts, helping him secure a Ministry internship no one thought him qualified for, that sort of thing.

Phin's decision to apply for Gooseberry upset her, but to an extent she understood his need to get away despite the suddenness of the decision (he'd had no interest at all in studying abroad until the application was nearly due, being Phineas).

Toward the end of sixth year, Phin endured an uncomfortable break-up with a girl he quite liked [Elspeth McGonagall, Violet's sister], which kicked off an itch and made him more restless than ever. Heartbreak isn't easy to keep to yourself, especially when your ex is friends with all your friends and you're trapped in a castle together, and he theorized that going across the fucking ocean and meeting loads of new people was at least a start to getting over it.

Besides, what a way to see what life's like when you aren't Phineas Bones in Wizarding England, yes, that Bones. ...Also, fuck it.

SCHOOL

YEAR: Senior, Grade 12.
HOUSE: Coppertale | Hufflepuff
SORTING: Phineas doesn't care about leading anyone, but he's a confident person with a competitive streak and belief in his own abilities, and he's not afraid to speak his mind and opinions. Ebonhide and Azurcrest might also have been good fits for him in various ways, but he likes Coppertale's colors better, and he figures a fox is sort of closer to a badger.
WAND: 10" English oak | unicorn hair | swishy
FAMILIAR: A raven called Lucy. Lucy is of indeterminate age; she belonged to Rowena for quite a long time, and was gifted to Phineas after he received his Hogwarts letter. She's quite clever and secretive, brilliant at imitating various sounds and songs, but sometimes prone to strange outbursts (mostly as if admonishing someone who isn't there, or just shouting out strands of words that don't make sense). Lucy can also tend on the jealous side, especially of other birds.

CLASSES:
CORE
Hermeticism
Transfiguration
Charms
History of Magic

ELECTIVE
Aesthetic Magic
Artificing
DADA

ADVANCED STUDY: Nah.

SENIOR PROJECT: Essentially, the equivalent of a magical Wi-Fi repeater. Phineas wants to create something that can extend the radius of various enchantments while amplifying their effects to desired strength (or even complexity). Specifically, the intent is to grant an individual the strength of cast that might typically be better achieved by a group -- so perhaps best suited for layering of defensive charmwork, such as in home or business security, but of course applicable to other effects or intentions. It's not an incredibly glamorous project, but there's an unexpected level of complexity to it that makes it feel like a puzzle.

Alternatively, perhaps he actually will just make a fucking puzzle or draw some cartoons and call it a day.

ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: Phineas does all right. As and Bs.

He's always been considered bright, if a bit easily distracted and prone to putting things off. Academics just aren't inherently fun or especially captivating to him, not in the way they are for his more serious or "intellectual" peers; while he's by no means inept, always managing to push himself just hard enough to do well, he would rather be outside or messing around with friends than cooped up in a library. He's also very much a physical or kinetic learner. Heavy reading and bookwork is often necessary for success, but he often struggles with finding focus for them.

When given the room or opportunity, Phineas will put things off until the last possible second, and is very much the student you'll see marathoning through an assignment for seven hours straight one tireless afternoon, or padding an essay with extra words at three in the morning the night before it's due. Honestly, he seems to get better marks when he works this way.

Phineas does have very obvious favorite subjects. These are things he's often actually glad to work on and more willing to devote personal time to outside of class, and also the things he feels the most personal investment (ie competitive jealousy) in: Aesthetic Magic, Transfiguration, Artificing. Phin is a tinkerer, interested in enchanted objects and magical mechanisms, and has organized his studies around this -- which is why you'll find Hermeticism on his schedule despite how difficult it is for him to wrap his mind around quite a bit of it. He's good-natured about how hard it is, though, which is possibly the only thing getting him through apart from a willingness to ask questions.

DADA is a bit of an interesting subject for Phin. He's not necessarily very talented in it, which is occasionally discouraging, but he feels responsible for learning and doing as well as he can. The history of the Bones family is, frankly, full of being murdered by horrible people, but it's also full of powerful duelists and hero types. Phineas knows no one expects him to be just like them, but he figures he'll make an attempt.

EXTRACURRICULARS:
ARCHERY CLUB
Good form

GAMING CLUB
A jolly presence, if a bit easily bored

OUTDOOR EXPLORATION
Can't decide if this is actually fun

DUELING AND FENCING
Semi-competent; physical and confident
No fencing please

OOC

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