[OOC] Application & Backstory
OOC;
name: Lome
age: 22, almost 23 (gaaaah I feel so old)
experience: A few months with this character at http://community.livejournal.com/gakuenaph_dr/. I’ve been role-playing for eight years, and have been in LJ rpg games for about four.
e-mail: odette88@gmail.com
MSN: lomelindi888@hotmail.com (yes, that's three 8's)
IC;
nation: Egypt (Arab Republic of Egypt)
name: Gupta Hassan
nickname(s): He doesn’t mind affectionate or silly nicknames (like "Guppy"), but he has one helluva glare ready if you insult him.
age:22
date of birth: June 18, 1988
hometown: Cairo, Egypt (although his mother insists on calling it Memphis after its ancient name)
occupation: Graduate student majoring in archaeology at FU. As an undergrad, he majored in history with a fine art (sculpture) minor. He currently works part-time at the Reptile House in the local zoo, but during vacations, he often helps his mother on excavations in Egypt.
residence: Tailles D'or Condos, with his mother.
family:
MOTHER: Nefretiri Hassan/Ancient Egypt (the_all_goddess )
FATHER: Roma, but he doesn't know this. (By extension, this means he's half-uncle to the Italian brothers.)
BEST FRIEND: Heracles/Greece (platomycat )
first impression: “Dude... What’s up with the pot?”
TEN(-ish) TRUE FACTS AND A SECRET.
1. Gupta loves to admire, make and generally obsess over pottery. Like many Egyptian children, he spent his childhood playing in and hiding in the large pots that line the streets of Cairo. He's under the belief that the bigger the pot, the better, but he used to bring home such large pots that his mother banned him from bringing back anything that was larger than himself. Nonetheless, he usually makes his mother a hand-spun, hand-painted vase for her birthday every year, and their condo has shelves upon shelves of these vases on display.
2. Gupta owns a black jackal named Anubis that he brought over from Egypt. The jackal was named as such because, as a puppy, it was found wandering around and begging for scraps from archaeologists at the Valley of the Kings. Gupta and his mother have trained it to understand only Arabic and a few words of ancient Egyptian, so it rarely follows the orders of anyone else. It’s a gentle animal, however, and rarely snaps at strangers unless severely provoked.
3. Gupta has a borderline unhealthy fascination with snakes, especially cobras, asps, and other poisonous species. He can be very touchy with them and isn't afraid to dive into a bush to study a garter snake close-up. He's very happy with his part-time job in the Reptile House of the zoo and spends most of his time there spoiling the animals and helping older researchers study snake venom.
4. Surprisingly, Gupta is not Muslim, but he deeply respects Islam and is always careful to follow its traditions when visiting his home country. Since his mother believes in ancient Egyptian gods (a rarity in modern Egypt), she gave her son the rare option to worship freely, and he, in turn, chose not to be bound by one particular set of beliefs. This has made him more open-minded about topics like homosexuality and the proper role of women in a household (especially since his mother does not fit the typical stereotype well).
5. Gupta is an gentle, quiet man, partially by choice and partially because his English is not quite as good as he wants it to be. He understands and writes English well (not as fluently as a native speaker, but at least with good grammar), but speaks in short, halting sentences with an Arabic accent. Because of this, he's rather bad at recognizing sarcasm and tends to take people overly seriously.
6. Although extremely polite and often times "expressionless" around strangers, Gupta is very gentle and affectionate once you get to know him. If he doesn't know you, it's easy to win him over with something as simple as a cone of ice cream or a compliment on his artwork. A note of caution: while a peaceful man by nature, he CAN hold grudges against those that truly piss him off. He isn’t above threatening, usually in a deathly calm tone of voice, to put an asp into someone’s bed. No one really knows if he's joking or not. (It’s always the quiet ones...)
7. Gupta's likes include sunlight (he needs his daily requirement of sun, damn it), museums and ice cream, which he's never had before coming to the States. Gupta's dislikes include pork, winter, scorpions and large bodies of water, mainly due to the fact that the Nile is full of crocodiles and Egyptian children were always taught to avoid the water outside the safety of a boat. He's fascinated by snow and ice, but usually shies away from playing in them because of his low tolerance for cold weather.
8. Gupta is a total and complete momma’s boy. He values her opinion more than his own and will always return to her when upset or feeling vulnerable. He doesn’t mind living with her even as an adult and, despite spending much of his time outdoors or around the city, he always calls home to let her know where he is. Gupta is more than willing to slip MULTIPLE asps into someone's bed if they insult his mother within earshot.
9. Silent and attentive to anyone that wants his attention, Gupta is a great listener and can get along with practically anyone. This also means that he often has to act as a pacifier between friends that don't get along, but he usually finds a way to calm both parties down without making the situation worse. (With friends like Sadiq and Heracles, one has to be an expert at this task by now.)
10. With his slim, short build and his fondness for eyeliner and gold jewelry, Gupta has been called feminine but doesn’t really care about the complaints. Having only known his mother as his own fashion idol, he often uses dark kohl to line his eyes and wears a variety of earrings out in public. His style is probably best described as metro, although he sometimes weaves in some Arabic influences like an intricately designed scarf or an anklet. In Egypt, however, he wears conservative, Muslim clothing out of respect.
11. Gupta' s greatest fear is drowning. He won't admit it unless he's forced to, but he never learned how to swim.
12. Having only come to the United States at the beginning of summer, Gupta is still suffering a degree of culture shock from being exposed to Western culture so suddenly. He is extremely naive and curious about everything, but doesn't really understand any of it. This makes him an easy target for prank jokes, which in turn has made him come to the conclusion that Westerners are inherently mad and that he will never fully understand them.
13. Although he prefers for this to remain a secret from his male friends, someone with a sharp eye might notice that Gupta is more comfortable around women than around men. This isn't because he likes to chase tail but because he actually had very few male friends as a child. His mother was (and still is) suspicious against males in general and had banned a young Gupta from associating with 'those naughty ruffians' after he came home from school with a scraped knee. For then on, the boy spent most of his time around his mother, her friends and their daughters. This has made him annoyingly quite tolerant of what most men may consider the more 'baffling' qualities about girls; he's fine with them playing with his hair, dressing him up and using his face as a playground for new makeup techniques. (It's not like his mother doesn't do the same...)
SECRET:
The art of bellydancing is usually associated with Egyptian women, but men traditionally danced it as well. Having learnt the dance from a woman that lived near his mother's home in Egypt, Gupta is confident in his skills but hesitant to show them off in public. He much prefers to dance in private, simply for the joy of it.
NOTE: Application updated October 13, 2010. Made Gupta less of a "poker face" sort of character and more of a "super naive" sort of character.
name: Lome
age: 22, almost 23 (gaaaah I feel so old)
experience: A few months with this character at http://community.livejournal.com/gakuenaph_dr/. I’ve been role-playing for eight years, and have been in LJ rpg games for about four.
e-mail: odette88@gmail.com
MSN: lomelindi888@hotmail.com (yes, that's three 8's)
IC;
nation: Egypt (Arab Republic of Egypt)
name: Gupta Hassan
nickname(s): He doesn’t mind affectionate or silly nicknames (like "Guppy"), but he has one helluva glare ready if you insult him.
age:22
date of birth: June 18, 1988
hometown: Cairo, Egypt (although his mother insists on calling it Memphis after its ancient name)
occupation: Graduate student majoring in archaeology at FU. As an undergrad, he majored in history with a fine art (sculpture) minor. He currently works part-time at the Reptile House in the local zoo, but during vacations, he often helps his mother on excavations in Egypt.
residence: Tailles D'or Condos, with his mother.
family:
MOTHER: Nefretiri Hassan/Ancient Egypt (the_all_goddess )
FATHER: Roma, but he doesn't know this. (By extension, this means he's half-uncle to the Italian brothers.)
BEST FRIEND: Heracles/Greece (platomycat )
first impression: “Dude... What’s up with the pot?”
TEN(-ish) TRUE FACTS AND A SECRET.
1. Gupta loves to admire, make and generally obsess over pottery. Like many Egyptian children, he spent his childhood playing in and hiding in the large pots that line the streets of Cairo. He's under the belief that the bigger the pot, the better, but he used to bring home such large pots that his mother banned him from bringing back anything that was larger than himself. Nonetheless, he usually makes his mother a hand-spun, hand-painted vase for her birthday every year, and their condo has shelves upon shelves of these vases on display.
2. Gupta owns a black jackal named Anubis that he brought over from Egypt. The jackal was named as such because, as a puppy, it was found wandering around and begging for scraps from archaeologists at the Valley of the Kings. Gupta and his mother have trained it to understand only Arabic and a few words of ancient Egyptian, so it rarely follows the orders of anyone else. It’s a gentle animal, however, and rarely snaps at strangers unless severely provoked.
3. Gupta has a borderline unhealthy fascination with snakes, especially cobras, asps, and other poisonous species. He can be very touchy with them and isn't afraid to dive into a bush to study a garter snake close-up. He's very happy with his part-time job in the Reptile House of the zoo and spends most of his time there spoiling the animals and helping older researchers study snake venom.
4. Surprisingly, Gupta is not Muslim, but he deeply respects Islam and is always careful to follow its traditions when visiting his home country. Since his mother believes in ancient Egyptian gods (a rarity in modern Egypt), she gave her son the rare option to worship freely, and he, in turn, chose not to be bound by one particular set of beliefs. This has made him more open-minded about topics like homosexuality and the proper role of women in a household (especially since his mother does not fit the typical stereotype well).
5. Gupta is an gentle, quiet man, partially by choice and partially because his English is not quite as good as he wants it to be. He understands and writes English well (not as fluently as a native speaker, but at least with good grammar), but speaks in short, halting sentences with an Arabic accent. Because of this, he's rather bad at recognizing sarcasm and tends to take people overly seriously.
6. Although extremely polite and often times "expressionless" around strangers, Gupta is very gentle and affectionate once you get to know him. If he doesn't know you, it's easy to win him over with something as simple as a cone of ice cream or a compliment on his artwork. A note of caution: while a peaceful man by nature, he CAN hold grudges against those that truly piss him off. He isn’t above threatening, usually in a deathly calm tone of voice, to put an asp into someone’s bed. No one really knows if he's joking or not. (It’s always the quiet ones...)
7. Gupta's likes include sunlight (he needs his daily requirement of sun, damn it), museums and ice cream, which he's never had before coming to the States. Gupta's dislikes include pork, winter, scorpions and large bodies of water, mainly due to the fact that the Nile is full of crocodiles and Egyptian children were always taught to avoid the water outside the safety of a boat. He's fascinated by snow and ice, but usually shies away from playing in them because of his low tolerance for cold weather.
8. Gupta is a total and complete momma’s boy. He values her opinion more than his own and will always return to her when upset or feeling vulnerable. He doesn’t mind living with her even as an adult and, despite spending much of his time outdoors or around the city, he always calls home to let her know where he is. Gupta is more than willing to slip MULTIPLE asps into someone's bed if they insult his mother within earshot.
9. Silent and attentive to anyone that wants his attention, Gupta is a great listener and can get along with practically anyone. This also means that he often has to act as a pacifier between friends that don't get along, but he usually finds a way to calm both parties down without making the situation worse. (With friends like Sadiq and Heracles, one has to be an expert at this task by now.)
10. With his slim, short build and his fondness for eyeliner and gold jewelry, Gupta has been called feminine but doesn’t really care about the complaints. Having only known his mother as his own fashion idol, he often uses dark kohl to line his eyes and wears a variety of earrings out in public. His style is probably best described as metro, although he sometimes weaves in some Arabic influences like an intricately designed scarf or an anklet. In Egypt, however, he wears conservative, Muslim clothing out of respect.
11. Gupta' s greatest fear is drowning. He won't admit it unless he's forced to, but he never learned how to swim.
12. Having only come to the United States at the beginning of summer, Gupta is still suffering a degree of culture shock from being exposed to Western culture so suddenly. He is extremely naive and curious about everything, but doesn't really understand any of it. This makes him an easy target for prank jokes, which in turn has made him come to the conclusion that Westerners are inherently mad and that he will never fully understand them.
13. Although he prefers for this to remain a secret from his male friends, someone with a sharp eye might notice that Gupta is more comfortable around women than around men. This isn't because he likes to chase tail but because he actually had very few male friends as a child. His mother was (and still is) suspicious against males in general and had banned a young Gupta from associating with 'those naughty ruffians' after he came home from school with a scraped knee. For then on, the boy spent most of his time around his mother, her friends and their daughters. This has made him annoyingly quite tolerant of what most men may consider the more 'baffling' qualities about girls; he's fine with them playing with his hair, dressing him up and using his face as a playground for new makeup techniques. (It's not like his mother doesn't do the same...)
SECRET:
The art of bellydancing is usually associated with Egyptian women, but men traditionally danced it as well. Having learnt the dance from a woman that lived near his mother's home in Egypt, Gupta is confident in his skills but hesitant to show them off in public. He much prefers to dance in private, simply for the joy of it.
NOTE: Application updated October 13, 2010. Made Gupta less of a "poker face" sort of character and more of a "super naive" sort of character.