Character Basics FULL NAME: Alexander Charlemagne St. Croix. NICKNAMES: Alex. He only gets called by the full complement of names when he's in trouble. AGE: 16 BIRTHDATE: June 12th, 1994 YEAR: 11th Grade. GRADE POINT AVERAGE: Mostly A's, some B's in the subjects where he doesn't get along with the teacher, and so puts less time into class assignments and more into private study of what he considers important. CLASSES ENROLLED IN: Core classes+ music appreciation (1), debate and politics (2), advanced dance (3) ACTIVITIES: Quodpot (regular team), choir BLOOD STATUS: Pure, on both sides for at least six generations back. POLITICAL VIEWS: A muggle-lover through and through, Alex is fascinated by Muggles and very much like to go back 'out there' and try to intgrate properly, at least for a time. He doesn't get blood purists, having a very good example of what too much inbreeding does to you, in his father's family. Family/Relationships PARENTS:

MOTHER: Abigail Alexandra St. Croix (nee Martin), successful CEO FATHER: Richard Arthur St. Croix IV, 'retired'

SIBLINGS: Older brother, Richard Arthur St. Croix V, 20, newly married through the AMP, and two younger sisters Elizabeth Anne (14) and Margaret Eleanor (12) EXTENDED FAMILY: Alex and Katherine Lawrence are first cousins (their mothers are sisters), though neither one likes to talk about it much. His father was an only child, but more Martin-side cousins are definitely possible. AMP Status: Alex was put in the AMP program at the age of 6, and betrothed at 8, but after he was kidnapped by his father and removed from the magical world, the girl's parents broke off the arrangement. Since his return his grandmother's been trying to put him back in the program, but they're reluctant to re-enroll him and he's violently opposed to the idea as well, so he's free so far. For now. Appearance APPEARANCE: Tall for his age and toned from years of dancing and broom-riding, Alex moves gracefully despite a recent growth spurt that made him seem all knees and elbows for a while. He's adjusted now, more or less. He's a little hyperactive, rarely walking if he can run or fly, and unless he's fully focused on set steps in a dance, never really still. He's always doing something, fidgeting with pens or tapping his foot or worse. It drives his mother to distraction. He has sandy blond hair that he keeps short and safely out of the way, and blue grey eyes. As much as he dislikes his family's status and the need to uphold it, Alex tries his best to always be neat and well dressed. If it were up to him he'd live in blue jeans, but as that's not an option he puts up with uniforms and formal-casual clothes of the best sort, without too many complaints. He absolutely refuses to wear anything that chafes or is otherwise uncomfortable- fortunately that's where magic comes in. One of the reasons he loves Quodpot is that it gives him a chance to be a little wild and often muddy. PREFERRED PB: Shawn Ashmore- I know he's too old now but there are plenty of younger icons of him- see in the character journal. Personality LIKES: dancing, sports, music (plays piano and bass guitar, and sings), dogs, history, Muggles, travelling to other countries. DISLIKES: Snobs, his grandmother, The System, formal events, meat (he's a vegetarian), dishonesty. STRENGTHS: Curious, intelligent, excellent dancer, font of useless trivia, open minded, friendly, good flyer. Speaks good French and some German. WEAKNESSES: Stubborn, can't hide his feelings to save his life, too honest to the point of tactlessness, occasional foot-in-mouth disease, touchy about his father. DETAILED PERSONALITY: Alex is basically a good guy. He just wants to live and let live without having other people's ideas forced on him, and preferably without anybody getting hurt. While he still sees things very much in black and white, as if anybody who doesn't agree with him is 'Them', and thus against him, he's slowly growing into some perspective, and trying to see things from both sides as best he can. He's a bit excitable, never still, always in a hurry, always curious about anything and everything. He reads both the Wizarding and Muggle news (when he can get his hands on a Muggle paper, not very easy at school I'm guessing), and studies history to understand the present. Still, what he most wants is to still be a kid for a while longer, and not to be forced into the too-structured society quite yet. He wants to travel, go to university, and absolutely not marry someone he doesn't know or love. Hell, when he's entirely honest to himself, he's not even sure he's that interested in women- but he doesn't think about that too hard. History CHILDHOOD: The St. Croix family is an ancient pure-blooded family, New England 'royalty' that came over somewhere before 1700 and decided to stay. Firm believers in blood purity, they started marrying their own second (and sometimes first) cousins well before they came to the New World, and kept the practice up, with eventual unfortunate consequences. A growing tendency towards mental instability led to Richard Arthur III, Alex's grandfather, breaking tradition and allowing his son to marry outside the immediate bloodline- through an arranged marriage, of course. Fortunately Abigail Martin was one of the few eligible witches who wasn't related to the St. Croix line as far as five generations back. Both families hope this'll help. Abigail agreed to the marriage willingly, since even at the ripe old age of 22, her husband was quite incapable of holding up the family's magical enterprises, and she was ambitious, capable and more than willing to fill in for him. Fortunately for Alex, he was the second son rather than the first. His older brother got most of the indoctrination and most of the responsibility, although of course Alex was also raised in a highly formal environment, encouraged to justify his high breeding with magical skills, and held to as high a standard as his older brother who might, as they were both often told, die without an heir as previous heads of the family had. It was hardly an optimistic, nurturing childhood. As Alex really was reasonably powerful when it came to magic and artistically inclined from a young age, he was never considered a disappointment- until his father's fragile sanity finally snapped, that is. Alex was 11 when it happened. His older brother was already at Eligere, and his younger sisters too young, which is probably why he was the one taken when his father decided he couldn't stand another second of the magical world. Kidnapped into the Muggle world along with his father, the following year and a half were part thrilling adventure, part nightmare- splitting about equally between feeling special and learning the Muggle world, and moments of terror when the elder St. Croix's paranoia got the better of him and anyone was a target, his own son included. They moved every few weeks, using only enough magic to screen them both from searching authorities (and they were certainly searching), and muddled along somehow. Alex took to the Muggle world like a fish to water, and discovered that not only were they not monsters or lower beings, they were downright fascinating. Still, it didn't last. Alex's father became less and less stable, more and more scary to live with, and finally he slipped and forgot the masking spell that kept them hidden. He put up quite a fight when the Aurors caught up with them, which Alex remembers as the single most terrifying moment of his life, but was taken in and swept away quietly to a private 'rest home' where he's stayed ever since. Alex was returned to his family, and after the first week or so of being extremely relieved to be back in a stable environment, the stability started to stifle him. His mother and grandmother, shocked by his mostly positive reports of his time 'out there' and worried by his stated wish to go back sometime, put him through a relentless set of lectures and reminders of the standards he'd be held up to. That only served to annoy him into further rebellion- he tried to run away twice and developed something of a reputation as a difficult boy, which put his future at risk. Happily for him, his grandmother hasn't managed to put him back in the AMP yet. Still, with the threat of being disowned and having his magic blocked he settled more or less back into line just in time to be sent away to school. AT ELIGERE Coming to Eligere was a shock for Alex. He'd comforted himself with the belief that the old fashioned and restrictive views he had to suffer at home would be less common among people his own age, and discovering that most of them were almost as bad as his mother depressed him enough that he passed through most of his Freshmen year in a funk, making few friends and doing well in class simply because he enjoyed learning, not because of any real drive to change his situation. He enjoyed Quodpot as a 'safe' outlet for his negativity, and discovered he was reasonably good at it but didn't try out for the team. During his first summer vacation, however, he realized that home felt even more demanding and restrictive, and that school was actually a vast improvement. At home playing Quodpot was considered improper, his every hour accounted for; as an almost-adult, he had to attend formal and business functions, join his older brother and their mother in overseeing the family's many investments, and other things that bored him to tears. Coming back for his second year of school, he was determined to enjoy himself as much as possible, and to gain as much as he could from what the school offered. Also, he wanted to see if he could get invited to stay with someone over the summer- anything not to return home. So, his second year at Eligere was quite different- he tried out for the Quodpot team and started out as a reservist, being promoted to the official team in the middle of the year. He also joined the ballroom dancing classes and the school choir, and found he could do at least a dozen things at school which were quite impossible at home. His grades improved, and although he was still something of an outsider, a 'strange one' and politically opposed to many of the more conservative students, he made a real effort to become a part of the student body. He also found himself bothered and angry about the discrimination between males and females, and the fact that everyone seemed to be gearing towards a life of marital sameness (bliss didn't seem to be a factor at all). Seeing his brother prepare for marriage and knowing he'd be trapped in the same net as soon as his grandmother had her way, he became even less fond of the idea of joining the herd. This brought on his latest bit of rebellion- at the end of his sophomore year, Alex demanded to be allowed to join the event-planning class in his junior year, despite being neither female nor in the AMP. He was refused, of course. He asked again, stating that as he wasn't in the AMP but would most likely need to plan events, as his brother's second in command for the family firm, and citing famous male event-planners of the past, and examples of greater equality in other countries. When this second request was turned down as well, he tried to start a student rebellion, with little to no success. Deciding that he was already in it and might as well see it through, he decided for the first time to see if he could bring his family's influence in to force the issue. Bringing them over to his side had involved appeals to the sense of humor (his older brother), sulking, bitterness and outright threats to either fail all his classes on purpose or go directly to wizarding tabloids (his grandmother) and blissful ignorance (his mother). After a month and a half of exhausting back-and-forth, his grandmother relented and backed him up, just to shut him up already. Even so, it took no little effort, but Alex presented himself at the first event planning class, bright eyed and bushy tailed, and actually found he really did rather like it. He's not making any new friends being there, but still finds it intensely funny, and a total victory that he even made it in. Examples JOURNAL ENTRY: Ah, homework. I swear, if we didn't have so much of it, I don't know what I'd do with myself all day. There's absolutely nothing else to do. No Quodpot practice, no dancing, no reading-just-for-fun...Nope, nothing at all. Good thing homework's filling up my life. No, I kid. Homework's actually being interesting this year. Seems we're finally trusted to do independent research, and I'm loving it. That, and with the current weather Quodpot's not the safest thing to be doing, even under weather protection spells. Poor Shikoba was held up in a storm for two days and came in all wet and miserable. I need to buy extra owl snacks for him to pamper him a bit. Back to work, I guess. RP SAMPLE: The library was Alex's main refuge, at least when the dance studio was otherwise occupied. He grabbed a book, deciding to let his mind unwind a little before tackling homework, and fell into a sofa. Somehow, it looked less graceless than it might've, but it was still far from delicate and raised a cloud of dust from the abused cushions. He was tired, feeling overworked, and the snow was getting him down. The snow was making Quodpot practice harder and making him stay indoors longer, and he was slowly going stir-crazy. That, and he dreaded going home for winter vacation. Grandmother would be harping on the AMP issue, his mother would be as distant as ever, and he wasn't even sure Rich would be home for the holidays. Most likely he would be, it being traditional and all...Didn't matter. Alex gave himself a mental shake, stretched his legs out and opened the book at a random page without even looking at the title. He'd do his homework- and worry about his family- later. OOC Info NAME: Gills AIM SCREENNAME: Eluialana E-MAIL ADDRESS: gills(at)gmail(dot)com TIMEZONE: GMT+1 (France) JOURNAL TO BE USED: alex_stcroix. LINK TO PUBLIC BIO: (this must be a link to a PUBLIC POST in your character's journal that we can link on the character list.) HANDWRITING FONT: Bradly Hand ITC (it's in the standard Office package) BLURB: The eternal black sheep, Alex would really just rather be left alone to live his life. He's a self-styled rebel, trying to reject the social structure and the social games his family supports- but behind that he's just a kid, and wants to stay a kid at least until he leaves school, please. He's clever, athletic and not hard on the eyes, not that he notices, but was too busy being against things to use that so far.