FULL NAME: Oliver Goodliffe
NICKNAMES: Ollie, but he's ready to grow out of that one.
AGE/DOB: 16 / May 23rd / Gemini
YEAR: Junior
BLOOD STATUS: Halfblood. A Pureblooded Squib mother and a muggle father made for a somewhat tumultuous mix.
GENDER/PRONOUNS: male, he/him/his
SEXUALITY: Noncommittal, but low key goin' for that Slootquest Bingo Blackout.
HOMETOWN: Elflock Falls, WV / Baltimore, MD
APPEARANCE:There's a slight wave to Oliver's hair that makes it utterly resistant to taming. As if that insolent fwoop weren't bad enough, Ollie tacks on a button nose and a contagiously bright and goofy smile that make him far more adorable than he has any right to be. He's incredibly emotive, and despite also being carefully controlled, is still working out exactly how to not to obviously broadcast whether an emotion is real or put on with his eyes.
Oliver is wiry, thin and on the shorter end of average height for his age. Much to the chagrin of his family, he dresses in bright poppy colors and patterned button ups, always looking a bit like he's on his way to interview for a role hosting a funky, fun new comedy web series or something. He falls somewhere between approachable boy next door and eminently punchable — handsome, put together and unmistakably dweeby, but utterly unrepentant about it.
Oliver has the faintest hint of a central Appalachian accent, barely audible except for on certain words. He strains to sound as Midwestern as humanly possible, but has absolutely picked up even more Appalachianisms since moving here three years ago.
HEIGHT: 5'8"
BUILD: Wiry, fit
PB: Ajay Friese
INSPO: Pinboard What would others say is their most prominent personality trait — what's the first thing people notice about them?Every single day Oliver Goodliffe finds the line between Golden Boy and Great Disaster and walks that thing as hard as he can. He projects a bright and easy confidence while simultaneously seemingly like he has absolutely no clue what he’s doing, a little lion cub playing at pride leader before he’s even learned how to walk properly. He takes pains to appear enthusiastic, happy, competent and reliable. Lucky for him, he’s quite good at seeming to be all of these things, so first impressions of Oliver are generally quite positive: such a polite young man, a pleasant person, whip smart, engaged and funny. A people person, for sure. And you can’t really even assert that it’s a facade, because Oliver truly does want to be everything good. He wants to be loved. The problem is, that’s impossible. People who know him a bit better will certainly agree that he is terribly, obnoxiously charming. But they’ll also point out that he is anxious and impatient with those who frustrate him. He tries a little too hard to fit a very specific mold, to please others and usually ignoring his own wants and needs to an unflattering and unendearing degree.
Friends know he’s got a near superhuman ability to self-sabotage,
that is probably his other most prominent personality trait. For as careful and controlled as he seems to be, Ollie tends to get a little too excited about big plans, new things or intriguing ideas and he jumps forward while everything’s still half-baked. For as much
thinking and
worrying as Oliver does, he struggles with waiting for the right moment to act. Things are constantly blowing up in Oliver’s face. The only thing more impressive than his track record of fucking things up is the resilience with which he bounces back from everything, from physical injuries to emotional wounds.
How would this character describe themself? What do they think are their best and worst qualities?If he had his druthers, Oliver wouldn’t describe himself at all. He’s afraid of opening up to others, dodging heart-to-hearts with jokes and self-deprecation that’s fun, funny and light enough to obscure the fact that he
is a deeply insecure person. But, even if he doesn’t want to talk about it, he is fairly self-aware. Oliver knows that as much as he wants, desperately, to be a charming, kind, funny ray of sunshine, he’s also anxious and easily irritated by inconveniences, difficult people and lack of cooperation. He can hold a smile through just about everything, but he can’t hold his tongue to save his life. Oliver can’t not comment on things that are absurd, or that annoy or upset him. Talking back may not be his fatal flaw (the reasons Oliver will inevitably die young are many and varied), but it sure as hell gets him in loads of trouble. He does genuinely like people, though. He is an extrovert, but, in the most archetypical ENFP way, he likes being around people on his own terms and hates feeling controlled or smothered. He’s made it this far figuring things out on his own, and the idea of losing that sense of independence is sort of horrifying to him; that’s why Deeplurk had so appealed to him at first.
So, his best quality? In Oliver’s estimation, that’d be his resilience. Like a real old fashioned hero, Ollie refuses to give up on anything or anyone. Knocked down seven times? Stand up eight. Easy-peasy. Now, his worst quality? That would have to be...also his resilience. This kid is going to see everything through to it’s inevitable conclusion, regardless of the consequences. Sometimes, that’s a good thing. Often, it’s extremely bad. Ollie is intimately familiar with failure and the concept of a Pyrrhic victory. In a way, he kind of revels in it, laughing as he burns.
That is something of a blind spot, and this purportedly self-aware little donut should probably unpack it when he has a moment.
What drives them to action? Doing good? Getting rich? Receiving praise?Love and acceptance aren’t at all unusual motivators, but simply receiving positive attention isn’t enough for Oliver. No, he honestly doesn’t care for the spotlight and has no desire to be placed on a pedestal. In fact, he struggles to believe that even the most straightforward gestures of appreciation and affection are authentic. Instead, he predicates his success as a human being on whether he feels useful. He wants to be valuable to the people he cares about, and that desire drives most of his decisions. I suppose you could say that what drives Oliver is a petrifying fear of being abandoned and unloved. Goodness certainly is not its own reward as far as he is concerned. While, overall, he tries to make things better instead of making them worse (regardless of overall success), he needs to feel like he’s making a real impact whenever he does something, and may not always choose
good and right when less good, or even outright bad, will make someone he cares about happy.
How ambitious are they? What are their short term and long term goals?Oliver likes to be in the director’s chair. He likes to be responsible for seeing a good idea through to fruition. He wants to have his hands in things and control them from behind the scenes, so in that regard he is
quite ambitious, but a clear vision is not something he comes by naturally. Oliver’s full of ideas, and he’s great at seeing things through, but he’s not actually all that good at
good ideas and he’s TERRIBLE at judging whether his own plans are disasters waiting to happen. He’s an excellent collaborator, though—the sort of Wildgulch purpose built to pair up on group projects with someone from Mothgarden.
Short term, Oliver tends to pick out specific people he’s looking to impress and focuses on leaving a good impression on them. Adults, teachers and mentors, mostly, but from time to time he gains particular interest in a classmate he wants to charm (platonically speaking or...not). Long term? Whew. Uh, maybe...you know, he wants to do something, like,
BIG and
GOOD. He’ll...probably hammer that out soon. Just gotta find your passion, right? Hahaha ha haha, totally.
How do they adapt (or fail to adapt) to change?With a stoicism that borders on eerie, honestly. Oliver has had very little stability in his life, and more than that, the chaos he's faced has almost always been of the emotional whiplash variety. So, Oliver is quite adaptable in the sense that he can keep moving when things go topsy-turvey, but ask him to process things emotionally and he just...cannot.
What are their opinions on rules? How do they interact with authority figures?If Oliver were a Dungeons and Dragons character, he would be an infuriatingly chaotic good bard. He wants to do the right thing, and he also does not give one single shit about anything standing between him and whatever The Right Thing happens to be. Good and Lawful do not always line up for Oliver, and he tends to have an inflated option of his own sense of right and wrong. He’s a bit of an anarchist, and bending and breaking the rules is very much his bread and butter. Getting in trouble, however, is not. Oliver lives and breathes validation from people he respects and admires (adults), so he does is best to keep his mayhem strictly on the down low, and publicly does his best to impress most authority figures. As a result, he kind of winds up straddling the line between smarmy equivocating politician and exactly the sort of guy you want on your side when a teacher’s pissed, because he can talk you out of trouble.
What is this character’s relationship with magic and the world of witches and wizards? Are they highly reliant upon magic? Are they a particularly inept spellcaster? Do muggle things seem alien?Like most muggleborn children, Oliver spent the first ten years of his life thinking magic was real. Unlike most muggleborn children, Oliver was not muggleborn. He’s not even quite a halfblood, seeing as the Goodliffes are ready to name him heir to their name and fortune. Oliver is
quite “muggle-y”: tech savvy, up on current popular trends, into movies, tv and computers. It’s not at all unusual for a halfblood to be these things, but it
is unusual for a pureblood. Oliver’s straddles all three worlds, desperate to please his newest family members while taking issue with things like the statute of secrecy and wizard resistance to muggle conveniences.
There is no denying Oliver is a gifted wizard, but all the talent in the world doesn’t change the fact that he’s uncomfortable with the idea that there are so many people utterly in the dark about magic. Magic changed his world, largely for the better, but he still tends to think in mundane terms, first. Biking instead of apparating, texting instead of owling. His frustration with the lack of cell reception in Elflock Falls is especially silly, since he frequently forgets there are magical alternatives to iMessage and WhatsApp.
FUN FACTS:
✒️ MBTI: ENFP / Enneagram: 3w2
✒️ Deeply enjoys terrible, trashy novels, particularly of the romance variety. Particularly of the supernatural romance variety.
✒️ Has a knack for computer science, unsurprising given the sorts of magical subjects he gravitates towards. He knows the basics of programming languages like java, javascript, HTML and CSS, though he hasn't practiced as much as he'd like since moving to Elflock Falls.
✒️ Oliver Goodliffe is the Marilyn Munster of the pureblooded Goodliffe family. A very muggley ray of sunshine living in a funeral home, next to a cemetery, among a bunch of very spooky adults (and one ghost) who don't quite get him, but still love him anyway.
LANGUAGES: English
HOBBIES: Piano, Calligraphy, Drums & drumming on every surface ceaselessly, Reading but only books under 350 pages and/or half-finishing longer books while skipping whole chapters, H e l p i n g :)
SKILLS: Academics: In addition to being very clever, winning at school is just a skill Oliver comes by naturally. Some of his classes exacerbate his anxiety and he struggles as a result, but generally speaking he's very quick to zero in what he needs to do to ace a class.
Calligraphy & Symbology: Easily one of the most talented students of Symbology at Peckenpaugh, Oliver dabbles in all aspects of the field, but his specialty is traditional calligraphy: beautiful, ornate glyphs and quickly and elegantly drawn sigils. Most of his possessions have sigils on them somewhere—sigils for grace and focus in his shoes, for follow through on his notebooks, for protection in his coat pocket.
Music: Oliver's been playing piano since he was old enough to walk. He has taken lessons as money has allowed (infrequently, unfortunately), and is largely self-taught, his mother having imparted what limited knowledge she has on the subject years ago. Thankfully, public school systems still have music programs, and Oliver has expanded his interest into percussion and music theory. He writes his own compositions, and is particularly fond of transposing popular music to piano pieces. And also at using these skills to try and woo whoever he feels like making out with at any given moment.
Penmanship: The boy just has really nice handwriting, ok?
Sleuthing: Convinced that the world's mysteries are his to solve, Oliver's curious and highly observant nature has made him a bit of a junior detective. He is very good at noticing things, connecting dots, at reading over shoulders and remembering strings of letters or numbers after a second's glance. The boy doesn't know how to mind his own business. He is making this everyone else's problem. Apologies.
Mixing Drinks: Oliver can take one of those cheap jugs of diluted grocery store rum and turn it into one mean mojito, complete with a bit of cup tossing flair. Maybe not a skill to brag about when you're sixteen, but it does look pretty cool. Oliver saw it in a movie once, back when Tom Cruise was just charismatic and not alarmingly weird and wrapped up in a cult, and he's trying to nail that pre-red flag Cool Tom Cruise thing. I don't know, he's kind of already hitting Oprah Interview levels, but at leasth he's got a career he can fall back on when he inevitably burns out.
FAMILY:Persephone Goodliffe (Mother. Mortician, Goodliffe Funeral Services.)
Oliver's mother is a strange one. She loves her secrets, but she also loves her son. Their relationship is a bit awkward, and certainly damaged, but Perse is taking steps to repair it. For most of Ollie's life, Persephone was a quiet, reticent woman. After she returned to Elflock Falls, however, it was like she'd come to life and Oliver is frankly shocked by how similar they are. Perse, once a freelance artist and Sephora employee, was apparently fully trained and now works as mortician and the funeral director of Goodliffe Funeral Services, taking over the job that had been intended for her in her youth.
Sachin Desai (Father. HR Manager.)
An angry, self-absorbed man who squandered his family's meager savings on personal purchases and gambling. Oliver hates that he still gets a tiny thrill whenever his father deigns to acknowledge him, and is working to embrace apathy when it comes to dear old dad, but it's an uphill battle. Sachin is in Oliver's life only when he needs something, and has historically taken little interest in him outside of using him as a weapon to torment Persephone. That relationship ain't good.
Angharad Goodliffe (Grandmother. Administrator, Goodliffe Funeral Services.)
An ancient, fiery witch who, despite taking some issue with Oliver's overall sunny demeanor and bright fashion sense, does seem proud of her grandson. For his part, Ollie has a hard time reckoning this woman with the one who somehow stayed married to Chester Goodliffe all those years.
Uncle Methodius (A Ghost. Administrator, Goodliffe Post-Life Services.)
A great great great+ grandfather or possibly uncle who died sometime before the second World War, or maybe the first? He was definitely mostly alive for the Civil one, at least. Surprisingly lucid for an Elflock Falls ghost and very keen on Oliver. Despite being nearly (or more than?) a hundred years dead, is the most normal of all of Oliver's relatives. Methodius heads up the Post-Life Services half of Goodliffe Funeral & Post-Life Services.
Chester Farraday Goodliffe (Grandfather. Deceased.)
Oliver knows very little about Chester Goodliffe, except that no one was sad to see him go. It seems in addition to isolating every one of his daughters, he nearly ran the family's business and name into the ground.If he is mentioned at all, it is as though he were a shadow cast over the lives of everyone he met. A cruel, unpleasant man, there are rumors around Elflock Falls that his death was not of the natural variety. There is some worry that he may someday return as a ghost, but four years on from his death, he doesn't seem eager to come back.
Other Goodliffes
There are at least five Goodliffe daughters out there, and that's just the main line of them. Oliver has a massive extended family he's hardly aware of, and with Chester Goodliffe gone, they may begin to come back to the fold.
BACKGROUND:oliver desai: 100% muggleIn the grand scheme of things, sixteen years is, like, nothing. Especially when you’ve spent a not insignificant chunk of that time in diapers, blowing bubbles and considering your tongue. Which is why you really can’t blame Oliver Goodliffe — who started life as Oliver Desai — for feeling a bit of emotional whiplash as a teenager. It’s been quite a ride in a
very short timespan. Cosmically speaking.
He was born in May, a bouncing baby boy with a bright smile and curious gaze that seemed to snap like a magnet to the things that grabbed his interest. One of those first snapping things was the upright piano his mother and father had somehow squeezed into their too tiny Baltimore apartment. The mystery of how it had gotten there in the first place always nagged at him, certainly, but more than that was his desire to mash on its keys—to make music.
Music may’ve been his first distraction, but the mysteries in his life never went ignored for long. The too big piano was just the beginning. From his parents’ many secrets (Where was mom from? What did dad do all evening?) to the myriad of inexplicable physics defying occurrences (faces in fireplaces, visitors from nowhere) and just plain oddities (strange sounds, odd lights, and birds with letters), the prominence of
questions in young Oliver’s life should not be undercut. That said, there were plenty of things that Oliver, being so young, didn’t quite understand, but also didn’t consider worth investigating. His father’s screaming? The tangibly tense silences? The smashing of plates and picture frames? No mystery there.
Growing up in the Desai household was complicated. His mother, Persephone, was doting, unfettered with her affection, even if she was secretive and restrained in every other way. She would answer some of his questions, but not all. And if he asked about one of his many mysteries, she never seemed to know what he was talking about. Oliver had always thought of it as his mother coloring within the lines. It made sense. He liked when things were neat, too. His father was far less orderly. Angry if he was around at all, and never impressed by anything Oliver did. Sachin was the primary breadwinner, but despite ostensibly long work hours, he never seemed to bring home more money. Or enough money, at all.
As Oliver’s world began to expand beyond the confines of his tiny apartment, he came to understand some unfortunate truths about his life. Firstly, that he’d been meant to mend a marriage fractured long before his birth. Second, that babies are rarely bandages, and are more likely to be the penny that derails the train. On top of all that, apparently it wasn’t normal for utilities to be shut off, or for the landlord to come by and bang on the door with such frequency. His parents’ relationship was
not normal or healthy. He came to understand his mother’s silence as fear. For a time, he tried to endear himself to his father, to try and fix things, himself—like he had been
intended to. But Sachin only weaponized his son against his wife, and Oliver very quickly learned to give his father a wide berth.
magic is realSchool started out wonderfully. Oliver was brilliant and charming, well liked by students and staff. Unfortunately, that was not to last. Oliver had given plenty of thought to magic, but only as something to fantasize about. The wild adventures and supernatural romance novels he’d sneak into his room to read at night were
just stories as far as he knew. And though, throughout his childhood, he bore witness to a variety of strange, inexplicable happenings, his mother had always managed to explain them away, and he’d always taken her at her word. But as Oliver got older, the phenomena got worse. What started as sounds or smells or flashes of light became moving objects: floating furniture, flying dishes, slamming doors. Even Sachin had started to take notice, and it only served to make him angrier. The worse things got at home, the more miserable Oliver was. The more miserable Oliver was, the worse the odd events. Everything was escalating, seemingly without end. Try as he might, Oliver could not explain the mysterious disruptions. But they were centered on him, and when they started to happen at school, he took the blame.
Once popular, Oliver found himself isolated from his peers. They were frightened, maybe not for their lives but of catching whatever
cooties he had. At home, things didn’t fare much better. His mother couldn’t even speak of what was happening, and his father could only yell about it. Oliver dove into creative pursuits as an outlet, picking up instruments and art, reading and writing, anything to escape his life and himself.
Then, not long after Oliver turned ten, the birds came back.
oliver desai: muggleborn?At ten, Oliver could only vaguely recall the birds with their letters. Owls and pigeons and crows that would stop by occasionally. He’d thought they’d been dreams, but they weren’t. These birds arrived in droves with letters addressed to Mr. Oliver Desai. His mother intercepted most of them, but Oliver had long ago learned how to sneak around his parents. He retrieved a letter, and couldn’t believe what he was reading: magic was real, and he was a wizard. It was impossible, but it made perfect sense.
Ten-year-old Ollie took it upon himself to get more information. He wrote a lengthy letter right back with at least sixty questions. The birds stopped, then, but they were soon replaced with a young man. The MOO agent seemed not to know what to make of this situation, but offered what information he could, anyway. He spoke mainly to Oliver and Sachin, who furiously and very nearly violently objected to every point the MOO Agent made. When
magic isn’t real and
this is a scam were both disproven, Sachin jumped to
not my useless son. Oliver was devastated. But for the first time, maybe ever, Persephone stood up to her husband: like it or not, for his own safety, their
amazing son would be going to a school of magic.
Two weeks later, Perse and Sachin separated. Oliver and his mother packed up their meager possessions and moved from the small downtown Baltimore apartment to an even smaller one just outside of Baltimore’s magical neighborhood. With what Persephone claimed was the help of MOO agents, they brought that piano with them. She took up work at a local Sephora to make ends meet. They worked out a custody plan with Oliver’s father that he seemed hardly interested in unless he could use it to inconvenience Persephone. That summer was rough, but change was on the horizon.
Ilvermorny was a terrifying prospect. Oliver had never been so far from home for so long, before, and he expected to go in well behind the other students. But, in the end, it had been the right move. While still somewhat awkward from years of being an oddball, Oliver fell in easily with other muggleborn students, found himself sorted into Horned Serpent, and seemed a natural at most magic. He took very quickly to the more carefully structured subjects, and found a real passion in Ancient Runes and magical writing systems. Soon, going home—to the tiny, cramped apartment and weekends with his withholding father—was what Oliver dreaded. He had found a sense of belonging at Ilvermorny, friends who accepted him, fun mysteries to solve, a clear purpose. Oliver had no reason to believe he would go anywhere but Ilvermorny for high school. Of course, life had to throw him another cureveball.
oliver goodliffe: pureblood scionOliver had heard the name ‘Goodliffe’ several times throughout his life. Usually in a history book, or attached to some magical business, but it really threw him for a loop when he heard the name dropped in conjunction with his own, whispered by a teacher during the spring quarter of his eighth grade year. He spent the last few months of class researching the Goodliffes and in addition to the countless BoMB diplomats and politicians bearing the name, he found something extremely interesting: a missing daughter. At the end of the year, he went home intent on being direct with his mother—something he’d learned long ago was rarely a good tactic. On the one hand, she had answers. On the other, Oliver got a bit more than he’d bargained for.
Oh, no big deal, it just turns out that Persephone Desai, freelance artist and Sephora employee, was
actually Persephone Meriwether Goodliffe, eldest daughter of the Pureblooded Goodliffes of Elflock Falls, West Virginia. Squib. Oliver got a crash course in the half of his family history that he’d always been desperate to know. She’d grown up magicless in a magical family, and came to hate the culture she was immersed in. Chester Farraday-Goodliffe, his grandfather, had disowned and banished Persephone when she refused to cow to his demands. She’d thought herself free, but eventually, fell in with Sachin Desai, a similarly controlling, awful man. At least that time, she’d gotten something good out of it: Oliver.
Why was she suddenly so forthcoming about something she had, for years, avoided speaking of? Even
after Oliver’s magical talent had come to light? Well, Persephone’s original boogeyman, her father, was gone, and her family needed her at home.
They moved again, which was not so traumatic to Oliver. He had no connection to the microscopic apartment he lived in only three months out of the year, even if he wasn’t in love with the idea of moving to some weird old wizard town in the middle of nowhere. His experiences with other Purebloods had made him apprehensive, but his grandmother, Angharad, and his “uncle” Methodius, seemed quite thrilled to have him over the initial shock of a grandson who wore such a brilliant smile and dressed in such bright colors. The Goodliffes were
comically appropriate for their home: an ancient, fiery witch and an impossibly old ghost living in a purple Victorian mansion on the edge of a cemetary. Oliver didn’t fit in at all. But he also did. Completely. Like Marilyn Munster.
That summer was a whirlwind, everyone trying to get comfortable and establish boundaries. Oliver put on a brave, happy face, but internally he was an utter mess, hurt, confused, and tired. His mother had, after all, lied to him his entire life. He understood why she had, but that didn’t make it okay. He liked his new family well enough, but needed time, and didn’t like how they
insisted that he take the name Goodliffe. There was also the matter of school. Oliver was clever, he knew they’d make him go to Peckenpaugh as soon as he’d seen the school. He didn’t want to, but he
did want to protect his mother and please his family. So Oliver took the name Goodliffe with his mother (Sachin Desai was not someone he wanted to be associated with, anyway) and enrolled in Peckenpaugh.
PeckenpaughBy some small miracle, Oliver wasn’t the only former Ilvermorny student at Peckenpaugh. In fact, the incoming freshman class had come from all over. Still, it was a bumpy start. No longer able to fit in as a muggleborn, but utterly lost when it came to the whole Pureblood thing, he floated, lost. Wildgulch wasn’t a typical House for a Goodliffe, but it was the right one for
him. He eventually settled, and made friends by virtue of his insistent personality.
He really seemed to find his footing in his sophomore year, and now, going into his junior year, it looks like he’s coming out on top. What he hasn’t let on is that it’s all a very precarious balancing act. Oliver works overtime to ensure he fits a very specific mold. Hoping he doesn’t slip and fall is pointless, though. Fucking up is just kind of what Ollie does.
WAND: Acacia, will-o-the-wisp cinder core, 9", springy. The wood of Oliver's wand is worn smooth, the color faded but the grain dramatically dark, like driftwood. The handle, left largely natural and full of holes, has been inlaid with quartz to create a more solid grip. It's a beautiful wand that looks much older than it actually is. Acacia wood and will-o-the-wisp cinder core make for a very subtle, very poweful, very finicky wand that responds to no one but its owner.
FAMILIAR: A ferret named Bearret. Both Oliver and Bearret think this is a lovely, hilarious name.
CAREER GOALS: Praying :) for :)) death :))) Probably a cursebreaker! Or an auror! Oh, or a healer! Or...maybe a politician? Something very impressive to the adults in his life for SURE, though.
PART-TIME JOB: Oliver unofficially helps out at Goodliffe Funeral Home when needed, assisting his mother and grandmother with various menial administrative tasks (verifying and assisting with flower orders, chasing death certificate signatures, ordering supplies, cleaning public areas). Most of this work is constrained to the summer months, and his mother is careful to shield him from the more emotionally draining tasks.
CLASSES: A natural gift for figuring out how to Win at school and a seemingly endless supply of academic focus and energy make Oliver an outstanding student, overall. An indefatigable overachiever, he tutors multiple subjects in addition to his work as Symbology TA.
CHARMS: (H) Feelings are tough, but rote memorization is not. It's important to Oliver that he be successful at such a cornerstone subject, that doesn't mean he's great at it, but he does try extremely hard.
POTIONS: The only class Oliver seeks tutoring in. Not his favorite subject, but necessary to truly master every aspect of Symbology. He's certainly clever enough to know the material, but Mr. Berzelius's "okay, cool, moving along" style of teaching flusters him and he struggles as a result. In a different environment, he might do much better.
TRANSFIGURATIONS: (H) While he wouldn't call himself a math person, Oliver takes very well to Transfigurations. The numbers may be a bit daunting, but the structure of it comes very naturally to him. At Ms. Min's suggestion, he tutors other students in the subject.
DEFENSE AGAINST the DARK ARTS: Mostly, Oliver is in DADA because it's the sort of course that looks impressive on a resume. He has no great passion for Dark Arts Defense, but he studies hard all the same. That said, even Oliver is not immune to the dulcet tones of Mr. Purcell's lectures, and you can catch him head bobbing at least once a month.
HERMETICISM: (H) Hermeticism ticks all the right boxes for Oliver's brain. He finds it fascinating and engaging, even if the stringent Science-And-Numbers aspects of it sometimes make him want to die.
MUSIC: (xylophone, piano, percussion) While Oliver pours his heart and soul into his music, his dedication to the class itself is a little more flimsy. He enjoys studying music theory and is happy to participate in both marching and concert band, but can regularly be spotted studying for other classes during Music class hours.
WIZARD LITERATURE: Oh, Oliver absolutely loves Wizard Literature class. Not only does he enjoy reading, in general, he's got a particular fondness for the sort of pop trash Mr. Crockett assigns. Werewolf romance novels are only improved when they're written by actual werewolves. He's an attentive student and eager participant in discussions.
SYMBOLOGY: (TA, H) Oliver is Peckenpaugh's resident Symbology nerd, evidenced by the fact that he is the course's teaching assistant. Catch him reading ahead, organizing regular study sessions, doodling glyphs on every surface he can, and making fawning eyes at Mr. Stirling during class.
ARITHMANCY: Twice a month, Oliver is 100% sure that he's going to die. This happen, like clockwork, about ten minutes into Arithmancy. He's much better at the subject than he thinks he is, though the Divination-y aspects elude him, and for as much as he panics over it, his grades are outstanding.
EXTRA-CURRICULARS:Symbology TA: Most students and teachers approach Symbology like a hard science, much like Hermeticism and Potions. But, somehow, Oliver has always seen it as an art. It all flows sort of naturally, like music. That is perhaps part of the reason for Instructor Stirling selecting him as his teaching assistant. Oliver has been tutoring his peers in the subject since his freshman year, and he has a clear knack for making the content more accessible. Oliver is enthusiastically dedicated to his work as TA, putting in more time and effort than is necessary, frankly. But, as we know, Oliver never does things by halves.
Student Council: (Vice-President) Oliver is a facilitator, a helping hand, a smoother of social bumps in the road, a doer of dirty work. He's not afraid to be the final vote to break a tie, or to eat the ensuing shit with a smile on his face. He is an excellent administrator, and despite some misgivings when he first began here freshman year, Oliver truly loves Peckenpaugh.
Band: (Xylophone/Percussion - Marching / Piano/Percussion - Concert) Oliver is most interested in his own personal musical pursuits, but enjoys participating in the marching and concert bands well enough.
Arithletes: Combining Oliver's insatiable thirst for knowledge with his insufferable need to look good and right.
Duelling & Sport Wandwork: While he doesn't tend toward quick spellslinging in regular practice, Oliver still enjoys the explosive excitement this club brings, and it's certainly helped him to be a bit quicker on the draw.
Performing Arts: Mostly, Oliver winds up as musical accompaniment, but he enjoys being on the stage in actual roles and he absolutely loves the prospect of directing or organizing, so you can really find him filling in wherever needed.
SORTING?: Oliver did not want to come to Peckenpaugh, and the Sorting Path seemed to know it. Wildgulch had asked him how he might get to where he'd rather be, Thorntrail about what his favorite tradition at Ilvermorny had been. Deeplurk had asked him, "If you are an imperfect cake, what ingredient did the baker forget to add?" Which seemed very much like a neg to Oliver after the fact (embarrassingly and over-dramatically, he'd answered "love"). Being asked "Where do you want to grow?" was a nice sentiment, but it still made fourteen-year-old Oliver quite huffy. He
wanted to grow at Ilvermorny, where he'd spent the last three years.
At the end, Thorntrail temptingly appealed to his work ethic, and Mothgarden knew how deep the former Horned Serpent's thirst for knowledge ran. He'd thought for a long moment about Deeplurk—the traditional house of the Goodliffes—which knew he valued his independence and had the will to change things he could not accept, but that cake question
really rubbed him the wrong way. It was Wildgulch's door that had been lit for him, and the words written on the plaque, well, he won't tell anyone what they said exactly, but Wildgulch promised a path to creating something very important for a boy who'd never stayed long enough in one place to make anything permanent at all.
NAME: Jenny
EMAIL: tiny kitty feet a gmail
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10billionghostsOTHER CONTACT: dropbox me ;*
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