InsaneJournal

NAME: Fabian Francis Prewett.
AGE/BIRTHDAY: 27 years old, born August 8th, 1953.
BLOOD STATUS: Pureblood.
FORMER HOUSE: Hufflepuff, 1971.
OCCUPATION: Works in Flourish and Blotts, where he’s disorganised, absent-minded and makes customers despair.

FAMILY: Getting larger by the minute. It's rather alarming, the rate that his sister is shooting tiny humans out of her vagina. Not that Fabian would ever dare to say that to her face.
Father: Marius Prewett.
Mother: Claudia (née ____) Prewett.
Older brother: Gideon Prewett.
Older sister: Molly Prewett Weasley.
Brother-in-law: Arthur Weasley.
Nephews: Seven million of them at last count.
Uncle: Ignatius Prewett.
Aunt (by marriage): Lucretia Black Prewett.
Cousins (by marriage): Sirius and Regulus Black.

SEXUALITY: Straight. I'm almost definitely sure. [Insert MY CHARACTERS DO WHATEVER THE HELL THEY WANT disclaimer here.]

SIGNIFICANT OTHER: Not at the moment.

CHILDREN: No thanks. They are terrifying.

LOYALTY/ALLIANCE: Order of the Phoenix.

ROLE IN THE WAR: Looking at Fabian he certainly doesn’t seem like a big asset. Or any sort of asset, really. He’s a bit rumpled, probably has ketchup on his shirt and can’t remember where he’s put his keys more often than not. Beyond that messy exterior, however, there’s a lot going on. Well, a bit. More than people expect anyway.

There are two things Fabian is good at that will likely benefit the Order.

First; he’s awesome at research. He’s the sort of bloke that can bury himself in books for days on end (and frequently does). He’s not bookish as much as he’s curious, and one he finds something that interests him he needs to know everything. Right now. So basically, when shit needs to be found out Fabian Finds Out. Just don’t expect the information to be presented in a tidy memo. You’re much more likely to get a torn piece of parchment, a stack of napkins or a handful of grocery receipts with scrawls all over them.

Still, it can be useful. Even if he doesn’t do it ‘right’, as far as some people are concerned.

Second; Fabian is unexpectedly good at defensive magic. He really has no idea how it happened. Growing up he practiced with his siblings during the summer as their father, a member of the local amateur dueling circuit, taught them the basics. He was all right then, but never brilliant. It was only as he got old enough to join the Dueling Club at Hogwarts, which let him and Gideon practice together all year long, that things fell into place.

That is, if ‘falling into place’ means sort of by accident hitting a wall torch and setting your robes on fire. Really, it’s a good thing Molly is (and always have been) prepared for anything.

POLITICAL VIEWS: Being born into a pureblood family Fabian was six years old the first time he encountered a muggle. It wasn’t that his family was against them or anything, they just didn’t have all that many reasons to venture over to The Other Side, as Fabian came to call it. The trips were pretty rare, but he quietly took in as much as he could manage, and when they came back home he would write down what he could remember. Cataloging this might’ve been the very first research he did, and in no way or form did he use his notes to write his first short story. And it was definitely not about a ghoul lost in a muggle department store. Nope. Not at all.

This is to say that he was about six when his fascination for muggles first started. He isn’t Arthur style crazy about them, or at least he’s more about observing things than poking them to see what happens. Sure, he likes to know things, but he also loves a good book, and perfers to look at the muggle world like it's a strange fairytale land. If possible he’d like to keep that illusion alive.

I wouldn’t say that Fabian understands muggles or know where they come from in every aspect, but he does find them rather intriguing. He has very little prejudices when it comes to muggles (except that one girl he met that was absolutely mental), muggleborns, halfbloods, purebloods (okay a little, but only when they deserve it) and so on. Werewolves can be dangerous, but there are some good people who only happen to have been bitten, and he tries to judge them on a case by case basis. Unless it’s full moon and one of them is coming right at him. Obviously.

This makes Fabian sound like the most openminded person alive, doesn’t it? He’s not. He just tries to judge people by his own personal scale of... uh, judginess. (1 = awesome, 10 = are you shitting me?) Which he’s mostly successful with. Except when he’s not.

APPEARANCE: Fabian is on the shorter side at 5’9 (or so he claims; he’s really 5’7), and half the time he seems to have forgotten how to a) shave, b) fix his hair, or c) dress himself properly. It's a good thing he works in a book shop where the owners are impressed enough by his ‘people skills’ (read: ability to geek it out with the customers and make them feel as if he's fascinated about whatever area they're interested in) to wave aside his more or less dishevelled state.

When Fabian was younger he was painfully shy. He could barely even look at another person that wasn’t his brother or sister without wanting to burst into flames. This is something he has worked hard on getting over, and what’s left of it he’s hiding behind an almost overly casual can’t-be-bothered mentality, both in looks and demeanor. It’s mainly when he’s tired, stressed or talking to a pretty girl that it shines through, and he becomes quieter, more reserved and moves in a quicker, somewhat tense manner.

Fabian is generally the most comfortable hiding behind his journal (he has a thing for words), talking about something he really cares about, or, absurdly, under serious pressure. That’s when he goes from a hard-earned, not quite natural ease, to actually being that way. The difference between the two are very slight, at least if you don’t know where to look (his hands, mostly), but it’s there all the same.

I’ve covered quite a bit of Fabian’s background already, so apologies if I repeat myself below.

CHILDHOOD: Fabian’s childhood was in no way remarkable. He grew up following his older siblings around, not being above wailing until their mother ordered them to let him play with them. As they got older he and Gideon became partners in crime, and did indeed cause a lot of trouble (see gnome incident above). Molly went along with it sometimes, but most of the time she proclaimed herself too grown-up for the sort of things they were doing. Yes, even at nine years old.

Despite all the messes they managed to get themselves into Fabian was usually not the instigator. He was still the first one to be told off, more often than not. Why? Because Gideon kept daring him to do things, of course. Any older sibling knows that’s the best way to get their baby brother sent to his room without dinner.

I believe this was when their close relationship was cemented. They simply spent more time together than they did with anyone else, and by the time Gideon went off to Hogwarts Fabian hardly knew how to finish his own sentences. Admittedly this had more to do with his vague, meandering sort of speech being interrupted and sped up by his brother than anything else, but he still felt rather... half on his own.

He would get letters from Gideon several times a week, something that helped a little, but mostly made him anxious about all the fun Gideon had without him. He worried that his brother would come home and find him childish and stupid after making new friends all year long. He worried that he wouldn’t be interesting anymore. He worried about anything and everything. Simply put, he was a wreck. It never crossed his mind to go and spend some time with the friends he did have. All of them had been Gideon’s friends first anyway. They probably wanted nothing to do with him.

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

HOGWARTS: When it was finally his time to begin school Fabian was just as terrified as he was excited. He couldn’t wait to join his siblings at school, but he was scared to. He desperately wanted to end up in the same house as both Molly and Gideon, a Gryffindor and a Ravenclaw respectively, and it was impossible so either way it couldn’t go right. As he sat down on that stool in front of the whole school he was relieved that he wasn’t the one to make the choice. How would he even know if Gryffindor or Ravenclaw suited him the best? The Hat would know. It had to.

Except that it didn’t. It thought he was a Hufflepuff. To say that Fabian was stunned as he sat down with his house mates rather than his sister or brother is an understatement. Possibly there was tears, although it’s something he denies to this day.

It took him a few months, but eventually he settled in. Having to speak for himself was hard, and he kept stumbling, both over his own feet and the words he tried to say. He somehow managed to make some friends, although how he still does not know. It wasn’t as if he was the height of entertainment back then. (Unless you like laughing at people making a fool out of themselves. Which some people did. More than some, really.) It would take a long time before he trusted any of them enough to call them proper friends, but somehow he managed to keep a few of them around through this period of blushing, stammering, stumbling and general awkwardness.

Then he turned fifteen or sixteen and grew into his face. His arms were no longer too big and his feet didn’t look like boats. In fact, he rather alarmed realised that girls suddenly had decided that he was good-looking. Cue horror. Other boys may have enjoyed the attention, but it only made Fabian clumsier, quieter and more nervous. He went on a few dates with girls who asked him out, but most of the time they were the height of awkwardness. Only one of them ever asked him for a second date. None of them wanted a third. The fact that Gideon teased him that his looks were wasted on somebody who couldn’t even talk to a girl without sweating didn’t help.

This pretty much sums up his school years. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

He was fairly decent in most subjects, but his lack of organisation and state of his homework (stained, torn, messy and sometimes missing altogether) was the cause of more than a few detentions. Potions and Transfiguration was the worst, because the professors demanded nothing but the best. His favourite subjects came to be Charms and Muggle Studies, the former because Fabian had a fascination with building his magic from the ground up, and the latter because it fed his curiosity regarding the odd people on The Other Side.

And yes, a good portion of the friends he made at Hogwarts were muggleborn, and he probably drove them crazy asking questions about their lives back home.

He didn’t play Quidditch on account of being about as uncoordinated as a newborn foal, but to most people’s surprise (including his own) he was quite adequate in dueling. His skills picked up when he could practice all year long, and him and Gideon became somewhat of an unbeatable pair.

To be perfectly honest practicing with the Dueling Club was the only time he didn’t felt awkward and horribly out of place. He was swift and precise there. He never blushed, he rarely knocked things over (except when he was supposed to) and he knew what he was doing. People seemed to look at him differently after seeing him and Gideon getting down to business. Sure, they still seemed to find him a bit odd and utterly hopeless, but there was something that could almost - almost! - be mistaken for respect.

It was an amazing feeling.

POST-HOGWARTS: After graduating from Hogwarts Fabian did three things, approximately in this order:

First, he moved in with his brother, who, to be perfectly honest, wasn’t very excited to share a house with him. It was just supposed to be a ‘for a while’ arrangement, because the two of them had never even been able to share a room at home without it coming to blows. In the end, though, Fabian never got around to finding his own place and with time they learned not only to hate each other's idea of what constitutes a clean home, but also how to do it without wanting to kill each other.

Secondly; he started looking for a job. Not having any particular interests beyond reading, twisting words (there may be the occasional poem in addition to the many short stories he’s writing, but shhhhh, big secret) and model trains, he had no idea what to do. His grades were average at best and he wasn’t exactly good at being assertive and Making Things Happen. In the end he found a job in a shop in Hogsmeade, and when that ended he went on to a second and a third. He didn’t seem to be able to keep a job for long, probably because somehow shop keepers expect their employees to actually be able to talk to their customers. Weird, that.

When he was a bit over twenty his mother (so embarrassing) set up a job interview for him at Flourish and Blotts. She was a friend of the owners, which was a very good thing indeed. They probably wouldn’t have given him the time of day otherwise, because showing up to a job interview with your hair standing on end and robes looking like you’ve slept in them just isn’t all that impressive. Still, they decided to give him a month to prove himself, and the moment they let him loose in the shop they realised that actually, he did know a thing or two. Sure, he wasn’t exactly employee of the month material, but the customers liked him (except for the ones who didn’t), he could talk about almost any subject at length and he had read a staggering amount of books.

When that month had come to and end they decided to keep him around. By now it’s been nearly seven years, which is just weird. He just isn’t a career person, and it’s kind of staggering to manage to keep the same employer happy for this long. This job was also the one that helped Fabian grow up and become more sure of himself. It wasn’t a quick or easy transformation, but after a few months of hiding behind his books he started to feel as if he actually knew what he was doing. Little by little he left the awkward, painfully shy incarnation behind, and managed to stand on his own two feet.

In the beginning he very carefully feigned carelessness to hide it. By now he goes back and forth between actually being confident in himself and his abilities, and faking it. As I said earlier, it still shines through from time to time, and there’s times when he just can’t deal with it and end up hiding instead, but in all his late twenties have treated him rather well.

And then there was the Order. It’s no secret that he probably wouldn’t have gotten around to joining had it not been for Gideon. He has never not agreed with what they’re doing, but normally he’s not a man of action. Once he was part of it, though, he quickly became an enthusiastic member. He rather likes feeling as if his life has a purpose, that he’s doing something worthwhile.

I imagine that he has been in England for a while now, having been running amok around the world with the Order previously. Why? Um. Handwavy? Convenience? His employer being distinctly unimpressed with his absence? I DON’T KNOW. Whatever suits the plot and the way the game is developing and so forth is good with me. I just know it’s sometimes awkward to come in while pretending you have been there all along, and would be happy to work around of that.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR DEVELOPMENT: I have several thoughts about what to do with Fabian from here on out, and although I should probably save them for the Five Reasons of Doom I’m going to mention them here too.

First of all I’d like to see how he settles into the game. I think he will be comfortable being thrown into the madness, with being better under pressure than he ever was just wandering down the street. It will be interesting to see if I’m right, and if so, exactly how will he do it? I’m hoping he’ll be more than the messy guy who bumbles along and does what people tell him to do, but who knows? I have been wrong before.

Second, I want to give him a bit of structure and clear goals in his life. He’s very much the guy who wanders along and lets things happen to him. Hunting horcruxes and/or Death Eaters is the exact opposite of that, and I’d like to see him grow with it. I’m a sucker for character development and while I have a clear idea of what Fabian is like I want to see how this Order business changes him. Will he become more sure of himself? Will he throw out ideas even when there’s other, louder and quite likely smarter people around? (I really hope so.) What will he do when things go down? Which yes, is rather wishy-washy, but that’s also what he’s like. Sorry.

Third, I want to see how he develops playing with other people. I’ve never joined a game with a cast this size, at least not where I know so few people. I know that you shouldn’t let your character develop just in relation to other players, and that’s not what I mean either, but probably needing some time to adjust to this style of playing I might have to get back to you with some concrete ideas once I settle in.

This is obviously just a few things. There’s a lot more opportunities than this, but I’ve already rambled on for 6000 words and I’m sure your brains are melting and running out of your ears at this point, so let's leave it at that.

FIVE THINGS:
• I have never before played Marauder era, and I almost never play boys. These are two things that are outside my comfort zone, and as I’m always eager to develop my writing and push myself further I thought that doing both of these in one go would be good both for me personally and for the character. Being comfortable in a specific type of a character (in my case: kickass, mouthy female Quidditch players) is a good thing, but to stretch your writing muscles I believe you have to move past what you know.

• Shy characters are sometimes hard to play because they are reserved and a bit quiet. I have done the shy-and-awkward, which can be fun, but in this setting I’d like to push it one step further and having had him already dealt with it. At the same time you can’t say ‘it’s gone now, the end’, because honestly, if you could just say bye bye to shyness nobody would be that way! It is, from time to time, not all that much fun. So I’m hoping to do a mix of Getting Shit Done and him being sure of himself combined with a bit of underlying insecurities, which I hope will be interesting and something new for me personally.

• For some reason the name Fabian Prewett always stuck with me. I don’t know why. We don’t learn a lot about him and his brother in the books, yet he is the one I’m fascinated by. Not Gideon, just Fabian. I suppose it’s just one of those things where a name chooses you and you simply have to write the character to figure out why. It’s not really a solid reason, I know, but I really look forward to see if I can work out why it is that I’m so drawn to his name.

• Knowing nothing about the Prewetts save that they died young and that it took five Death Eaters to take them down, I find the idea of fleshing Fabian out interesting. When you speak about the dead they often turn out like saints or at least good, strong and if not perfect so at least something in that direction. JKR makes clear in her books that there isn’t one version of a hero. She puts Neville next to Harry, or the twins next to Hermione, for example, showing that any person can be a hero in their own way. I find it interesting that the dead mentioned are described as good and kind and in every way the typical hero, while the living have so many different facets. Because of this I’d like to figure out the good and bad in Fabian, and how his positive and negative sides play together with Gideon’s; after all, they are spoken about like a pair, rather than separate people.

• There is nothing I love more than playing out family scenarios. Siblings, cousins, friends-close-enough-to-be-family, I don’t care. I’ve done a lot of this in the past, but never in the form of two brothers who are so different yet so very close. I would never dare to try my hand on Fred-and-George because they are so... iconic, in want of a better word, but Fabian and Gideon feels a bit similar, yet not at all. So, basically, I love playing out family scenarios. And yes, I’m sure you get that answer a lot. (Also, doing it with a person I don’t know well playing the other sibling? A new experience altogether.)

JOURNAL ENTRY:
Millicent Bulstrode takes a cracky gender swap plot too seriously. Grabbed from A Fortiori, a game where prejudice has turned towards the purebloods. (Here it is the conversation with Theo that I like the most. Just FYI.)

Ginny Weasley asks what the hell is going on. Also grabbed from A Fortiori.

RP SAMPLE:
Millicent Bulstrode (my character) and Romilda Vane in a somewhat furious exchange. A Fortiori.

Angelina Johnson (my character) goes into labour OFF SCHEDULE. Percy Weasley is an innocent bystander (and also father-to-be). Life Ahead.