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goosemods
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Oh, I’ve been worryin’
that my time is a little unclear
I’ve been worryin’
that I’m losing the ones I hold dear
I’ve been worryin’
that we all live our lives in the confines of fear
GENERAL
NAME: Iliya Krum, please. (His full name is Iliya Viktorov Krum-Plunkett. It's an awkward nightmare of a name. In Durmstrang, he was Iliya Viktorov Krum to everyone; in Hogwarts, he was Iliya Krum-Plunkett. In America, he goes exclusively by Iliya Krum, because it's simpler.)
NICKNAMES: None he's willing to let his classmates use.
AGE/DOB/ZODIAC: 16 / April 25, 1998 / Taurus. He's a year younger than his peers, having started schooling in Durmstrang.
BLOOD STATUS: Half-blood
GENDER/PRONOUNS: Male, he/him
SEXUALITY: Bisexual, and equally terrified of boys and girls.
HOMETOWN: Sheffield, Yorkshire, England. He's also spent considerable time at his father's home in Sofia, Bulgaria.
CONCEPT: Socially awkward and taciturn cellist struggling to be braver than he is.
PHYSICAL
APPEARANCE:
At first glance, Iliya doesn't much resemble his famous father. His mother's delicate features and paler colouring are much more evident in his face, but he's tall and thin like Viktor Krum, and he has Viktor's black hair and near-constant scowl. Iliya carries himself like he's not particularly comfortable with who he is; he tends to slouch like he's trying to make himself smaller, and will cross his arms and curl in on himself when he's sitting. It's all very don't talk to me.
He's not bothered by the uniform. Durmstrang was much stricter than Hogwarts, which is in turn was stricter than Gooseberry, so he accepts the dress code without complaint. He looks awkward in it, though, especially with the constant slouching. His ordinary clothing usually has a looser fit, and he'll wear multiple thick layers to hide how skinny he is. His wardrobe is entirely in shades of black, grey or navy. He never wears bright colours if he can help it.
His accent will strongly adapt to whomever he's speaking to. It's unintentional and one of the reasons Iliya dislikes speaking, because he finds this habit embarrassing. His accent at home, arguably his "natural" accent, is strongly Yorkshire; but when he was at Hogwarts, it would slide around to different parts of the UK. It takes only a day in Sofia before his Bulgarian loses any kind of accent, and on cue, he can speak English with a strong Bulgarian accent, patterned on his father (usually in an attempt to discourage people from talking to him—it's the only time he intentionally changes his accent). After several months in Utah, Iliya's accent has already shifted to something less blatantly British. Sometimes he'll even pick up shades of American regional accents from his classmates, which, again, he finds very embarrassing. His mother already teased him for it when he came home for Christmas. Consequently, Iliya forces himself to talk in a very stiff and clipped way, to mask this habit, and often resorts to mimicking a Bulgarian accent when talking to someone unfamiliar.
HEIGHT: 6'2" — he shot up two inches since last year, and is now the same height as his father.
PB: Cole Sprouse
PERSONALITY
LIKES: cello, rock music (mostly classic British rock), Quidditch, confident people, pretty girls, American muggle candies (he will fight you for chocolate), napping (sleeps like the dead), his pet mouse
DISLIKES: Quidditch (he's very ambivalent), athleticism in general, speaking, when pretty girls speak to him, being in the spotlight, emotional displays, making decisions, waking up early
PERSONALITY:
People who know Viktor Krum often tell Iliya how similar he is to his father. Iliya wishes he was anything like his father. Viktor is always confident and fearless, and never cares about what people think of him. Iliya shares his grumpy, taciturn demeanor, with a bluntness that borders on rude. He lacks his father's charisma or gentleness. He makes little effort to be warm to people who approach him, and often seems to be trying to escape any conversation he's caught in. If you get to know him, you'll realize this is less Iliya's natural personality and more a consequence of severe self-consciousness. He tends to worry everything that comes out of his mouth is stupid, and so he tries to speak as little as possible. Oh god, he hates talking. He hates attention of any kind. Please just leave him alone.
Life would be easier if Iliya could run off to live as a misanthropic hermit, except that he always ends up becoming curious about other people. He tells himself to stay home, you'll hate it, but then ends up going to the latest party just to hold up the wall. He prefers noise to quiet rooms, and finds he obsesses too much over stupid worries when he's alone. The terror of social gatherings is preferable to the terror of his constant internal monologue of insecurities. Since it's so easy at Gooseberry, he'll often drink too much at Grotto parties (social lubrication, etc.) and then feel absolutely terrible about it in the morning.
He's a follower, not a leader. When there's a decision to make, he'll spend hours going back and forth on his options, frozen by questions like "what's the right thing to do?" or "will this make me look like an idiot?" or "how are all the ways I can screw this up?" When Iliya does act impulsively, it's usually as a result of being put on the spot and panicking, and he always ends up regretting whatever decision he made, but then takes way too long to take it back. (When he's feeling especially self-conscious, he sometimes impulsively pretends not to be fluent in English in hopes of discouraging whoever's trying to talk to him. This doesn't really work anymore because, Iliya, it's been over a year, everyone knows you're an Englishman, but he tries anyway.) He's slow to act, and slow to change.
He's very easy to influence. Despite his grumpy demeanour, Iliya is most drawn to showy, assertive personalities. Confident people make him feel more confident, fun people make him feel more fun. He likes it when someone else can take the guesswork out of the dreaded "what should I do?" question, but this also means he's a total doormat to very domineering people. He's always going to act like a grump no matter what, but he's a grump who can be talked into things extremely easily. He'll do anything for his closest friends, up to and including returning to an American school where a third of the students were kidnapped by a creepy forest monster. Iliya hates being back at Gooseberry, and won't hesitate to complain about being back here, but when push comes to shove, he's already demonstrated that he'll walk into the unknown for the people he loves.
If only Iliya could see himself as brave. Iliya doesn't know how two confident, adventurous people like his mother and father produced someone so scared and neurotic. He's envious of people who seem to move through life easily. He works hard at everything because he has to; he can never pretend to be "effortless" at anything, and god, does he sometimes wish he could pretend. Nothing comes easily to him; not school, not flying, not conversation, not even music. By the time Viktor Krum was this age, he was already playing for Team Bulgaria; meanwhile Iliya is struggling just to finish high school. But as terrifying as it is to live with his mediocre self, he can't just give up and stop caring about trying. He figures they let him into "brave Gryffindor" and "tenacious Ebonhide" for a reason.
SKILLS
LANGUAGES SPOKEN: Fluent in English and Bulgarian. English is his first language, although you might not guess it by the way he sometimes imitates a Bulgarian accent when talking to strangers, in hopes of discouraging them from conversing with him. Sometimes this habit bleeds into his normal speech.
PATRONUS: He can't cast a Patronus, but it would be a starling.
SKILLS:
Cello. Iliya first picked up a cello at nine years old, and has never missed a single day of practice since. There are too many cello prodigies in the world for Iliya to think he's show-stopping, but he is talented by any measure, even if he could use a lighter hand on the strings. Iliya's shown himself capable of playing extremely difficult pieces, and puts a tremendous amount of emotion into anything he plays. Playing cello is the only time Iliya's self-consciousness doesn't overtake him; whenever he touches the strings, there exists nothing but him and the music. Ms. Thrussell has been urging him to try his hand at his own arrangements this year, which is far from Iliya's forte.
Music in general. Thanks to his grandmother, Iliya's been playing piano since he was about four or five years old, although he stopped looking at any other instrument after he discovered the cello. Iliya's piano playing was rusty before he came to Gooseberry, but Ms. Thrussell put him back on it to make his skills more well-rounded, so Iliya's fairly competent now. Over the summer, Iliya ended his monogamous love affair with the cello by trying out the double bass, for a more authentic jazz sound to pair with Mackenzie's voice. Jumping from cello to double bass was less challenging than he thought it would be, and Iliya's turning into a pretty capable bassist.
Flying. Iliya learned at the knee of Viktor Krum, one of the world's most famous Seekers. Unfortunately, whatever genius Iliya possesses went to music, not Quidditch; but he's much better on a broom than he'd have you believe. Admittedly not good enough to make one of Gooseberry's Quidditch teams, but if you're staging a pickup game, Iliya knows his way around.
Sleeping through natural disasters. Once Iliya's head hits a pillow, he won't get up again until he's good and ready. One time, his roommates made a game of stacking things on him while he was napping, and Iliya didn't wake up until hours later. He's still not sure who won there.
Seemingly limitless capacity for eating dessert. For an Englishman, he has amazingly good dental genes.
HISTORY
FAMILY MEMBERS:
— Rhiannon Plunkett, mother, half-blood. Journalist, The Daily Prophet. Former Gryffindor. She got her start reporting on Quidditch matches, but was always chasing other news stories while on assignment. Rhiannon is ambitious and fearless, and often more Iliya's friend than a disciplinarian in the way she encourages him to pursue bad ideas. "You're a teenager. Live a little!" Iliya does not think he can or should live a little. Rhiannon's assignments often take her far away from home. She never married, preferring her independence.
— Meredith Plunkett, maternal grandmother. Sometimes the only person in Iliya's life who is a proper parental figure, and worries a lot in her letters about whether or not he's eating enough at his American school. Meredith was the one who got him started on cello lessons, as her late husband (who'd died when Iliya was too young to remember) also played.
— Viktor Krum, father, half-blood. Retired Seeker for Bulgarian National Quidditch Team. Despite being somewhat old for a professional Seeker, Viktor came out of retirement last year and won the 2014 Quidditch World Cup for Bulgaria, which has been a very big deal in Quidditch news. Iliya is proud of his father, but please, please don't make him talk about it.
— Lyudmila Krum, stepmother. She and Iliya have a cordial relationship. She's never been unkind, but Lyudmila has always been a little uncomfortable with the fact that her husband had a child with some random Englishwoman before meeting her, and he goes yearly visits to see that child in England. Iliya does his best to stay out of her way whenever he's in Bulgaria.
— Polina & Konstantin Krum, half-siblings, aged 13 and 11 respectively. The only people in the world who think Iliya is cool. He's not especially close to his sister and brother, but Polya and Kosta adore him with the unselfconscious affection of children who've not yet grown jaded.
HISTORY:
BIRTH AND EARLY CHILDHOOD. Iliya was born in England in 1998, towards the close of the Second Wizarding War; the product of a fling between Rhiannon Plunkett, a Daily Prophet journalist, and Viktor Krum, an international Quidditch star who was only spending a few months in England. Even while it was happening, the fling was nothing serious; Viktor had been holding out for a girl he'd met some years earlier at the Triwizard Tournament, and Rhiannon was too busy with her career to want to settle down. And yet, after Viktor had already long since departed and Rhiannon learned she was pregnant, she decided to keep the baby. It seemed like a hopeful sign, in the chaos and grief of the war.
When Viktor learned Rhiannon was pregnant, he proposed marriage, but she turned him down, not wanting to marry (in her own words) a man who pitied her. Still, Viktor insisted on being a part of the child's life, and was there for Iliya's birth. He tried to get Rhiannon to come with him to Bulgaria for it, and they'd argued about that for awhile. They also argued about Iliya's name, and where he would live, and who would raise him, and the only concession Rhiannon granted Viktor was naming the child after Viktor's deceased grandfather. Iliya was raised in Sheffield by Rhiannon and her parents, but Viktor insisted on regular visits, even after he got married to someone else back in Bulgaria. Iliya would see his father at least one month out of every year (often spending it in Sofia), and receive letters and presents while Viktor was on the road playing Quidditch.
DURMSTRANG. For all that they argued, being both stubborn people, Iliya's parents got along quite well, and he remembers his childhood as being happy, if unconventional. It changed when he was 10, when Viktor proposed that Iliya go to Durmstrang instead of Hogwarts, and Rhiannon encouraged the idea, thinking it would do well for Iliya to see more of the world. And of course, Durmstrang was eager to accept the son of Viktor Krum, arguably the most famous Bulgarian Quidditch player of all time, but Iliya turned out to be a disappointment. It was a struggle to fit in with his peers: he spoke clumsy Bulgarian with an odd accent; he wasn't used to the strictness of Durmstrang nor the social mores of another country; and he was barely average at playing Quidditch.
Although his Bulgarian had improved considerably by the end of his third year at Durmstrang, his social life had not, and Iliya was growing into an antisocial, close-mouthed teenager whose only joy was angrily playing the Coriolan Overture on his cello. To be fair, this might have happened anyway, but his mother could see how Iliya dreaded going back to school, and she pushed for him to be able to take up studies at Hogwarts instead. Nepotism struck again, with the Hogwarts headmistress willing to do a favour for a former Triwizard Tournament champion. So for his fourth year of school, Iliya was off to Scotland.
HOGWARTS. He chose to be sorted into Gryffindor, based off of his mother's house and also his father's long-time friendships with famous heroic Gryffindors such as Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. This was a terrible idea. Everyone was already tightly bonded, and they were so loud and boisterous and assertive while Iliya was still a shy, awkward kid who hated the spotlight.
Still, it was friendlier than Durmstrang, and Viktor Krum had been in retirement long enough that most of his classmates didn't even know who he was. What a blessing. Iliya's marks improved, and he contented himself with playing the cello instead of attending Quidditch games, at least until a fellow Gryffindor found him dodging common room parties and urged him to see Gryffindor's team play. It helped, actually. With the pressure off of him, Iliya found that part of him did share his parents' love of Quidditch.
In fifth year, his attentive Head of House suggested Iliya apply as an exchange student to Gooseberry High, as the American school had a music program.
GOOSEBERRY, JUNIOR YEAR. Now Iliya Krum was off to the United States to be a junior in high school. Although this wasn't the first time he'd headed off to a new country all by himself, he was still horribly intimidated, and tried to keep to himself on the bus. When a popular girl named Mackenzie Prince attempted to befriend him, he panicked and pretended he could only speak Bulgarian in hopes of scaring her off. It didn't work, as Kenzie took the opportunity to unselfconsciously chatter at him for the rest of the bus ride. Iliya was so embarrassed by the incident that he ended up pretending to everyone that he couldn't speak English very well, and only owned up after two full weeks of monosyllables and a bad Bulgarian accent. For her part, Kenzie thought it was hilarious, and she and Iliya became unlikely friends.
He was baffled by the supernatural goings-on at Gooseberry, and did his best to steer clear of it all. He'd heard enough stories about the Karakondjul and Torbalan to know that you don't want to be messing around with unusual spirits at night. Unfortunately, he wasn't left with a choice when two of his roommates were kidnapped by Anonymous at the end of the year. It was the moment Iliya realized how tightly he'd bonded with the four boys who shared his cabin. Despite knowing him for only a short time, Cameron Carney, Casper Kim, Ulysses Quayle and Jonathan Wilde had all accepted Iliya as part of their family, and he was willing to face terrors to bring them back. He, Mackenzie, Casper and Wilde ventured into the forest and rescued Ulysses and Cameron. Iliya was grateful they were safe, but swore he would not return to Gooseberry.
SUMMER OF 2014. He spent the summer in Bulgaria, to offer his father support during his return to playing Quidditch, and practically lost his voice cheering as Viktor Krum caught the Snitch and won the Quidditch World Cup for Bulgaria. The rest of the summer was spent thinking... far, far too much. He'd committed to returning to Hogwarts, but the decision kept pulling at him like an ill-fitting suit. Iliya tried to fill his days with distractions: concerts and sightseeing, cello practice and even letting his father talk him into doing some flying. He started studying the double bass, inspired by Mackenzie's love of jazz music, but that only made him feel a terrible yearning for what he had at his last school. He'd been bullied at Durmstrang, and never let himself connect to others at Hogwarts. Gooseberry had been different.
So Iliya changed his mind, and he returns to America for his final year of magical schooling.
SCHOOL
YEAR: Senior (Grade 12)
HOUSE: Ebonhide / Gryffindor
SORTING: Iliya expected that Ribbonfin would take him. Or maybe he just hoped it would. It seemed like the quietest and most accepting of the houses, someplace where he could just hang out in a corner and play cello. While the fish was glad to welcome him, the bear insisted that Iliya's passion and dedication should be cultivated in Ebonhide. Also, Ribbonfin mentioned something about "people skills," which caused Iliya to change his mind fast on joining that house.
WAND: Pine with core of dragon heartstring, 12 inches and springy, from Ollivander's.
FAMILIAR: A mouse named Yo-Yo, after his favourite cellist. Iliya got Yo-Yo when he first started at Hogwarts, and often let him roam outside of his cage. Iliya would like to do the same at Gooseberry, but he's seriously afraid that his mouse will get eaten by a wild bird or snake. Even with magical heritage, Yo-Yo is now very old and spends most of his time sleeping. Iliya likes to play a cello song for Yo-Yo every night.
CLASSES: Charms, Hermeticism, Outdoor Education, Potions, Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Music.
ADVANCED STUDY: Music, his favourite class, and one of the few places he actually feels comfortable with himself. Iliya plays cello and a little bit of piano. He took piano lessons first and then started on the cello when he was nine, and fell in love with it. He's talented, but has an extremely aggressive playstyle and tends to saw through bowstrings like nobody's business.
SENIOR PROJECT: No idea. A cello piece is the most obvious option, but Iliya is at a loss on exactly what to do with that.
ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: Iliya has always been a mediocre student, and needs to really, really work at it to make anything higher than a B. (Triwizard Champion material, he is not.) Starting at a brand new school put behind most of his peers, and Iliya's been making a real effort to study more just so he doesn't embarrass himself when he's called upon in class. He did well in Potions in his previous schools, but he's warmed up to Charms at Gooseberry, due to the teacher. DADA has always been one of his weak points, but it's a subject his father has always insisted was of paramount importance, so Iliya is stuck taking it until graduation. He does not enjoy either Outdoor Education or Hermeticism, but he's sticking with Hermeticism because he's stubborn about quitting, and he's in OE because last year's events made him realize he's out of shape.
EXTRACURRICULARS: Choir (but he will never, ever sing a solo), Duelling/Fencing, Equestrian, Gardening, Outdoor Exploration
OOC
NAME: Marin
EMAIL: righthandmarin [at] gmail
CDJ:
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TIME ZONE: Mountain
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