Post by lance arthur montrose on Jul 4, 2011 22:19:00 GMT -5
LANCELOT ARTHUR MONTROSE
do we really need to pay attention to the alarm?
| B A S I C S |
Name Lancelot Arthur Montrose
Nicknames Lance!
PB Billy Martin
Age 20
Sex Male
Year Junior
Major/Concentration Music/performance--piano
Minor English
Occupation lulz
Organizations None
Location Illinois| P E R S O N A L I T Y |
Lance has always been attracted to passion. He loves talking with people and getting them to share their stories and talk about what they love, be it art or sports or even something as mundane as stamp collecting. He finds interest interesting and is always trying to get people to talk about themselves, their interests, their lives. As such, Lance has always been a good listener and has often had more female friends than male friends. Though he likes people to talk about their lives, Lance rarely talks about his own life. He doesn't specifically avoid it, per se, he just doesn't offer up information. Even people who think they're his closest friends might go their entire friendship without really knowing anything about him.
People don't usually realize this, though, because Lance has the sort of personality that makes people feel like they know him instantly. Since he's good at making people feel comfortable and intimate, most people don't realize that they're doing all the talking and Lance is just prodding. Even though he's dependable and a good shoulder, he can be kind of flaky. Sometimes, he'll seem perfectly happy spending all of his time with one person and, with no notice, switch people. He often just wants to find a good conversation, since that's worth more to him than most things in a person. He likes talking about literature that he's read, although he much prefers short stories to novels since they're shorter.
He tends to consider the state of the world and strategize. Though he does like thinking, he finds most of his love in adventure and would be as happy scaling a mountain as he would be sitting down to a game of chess. Experiences are everything to him and if he hasn’t done something, no matter what it is, he will be excited to do it. He lives in the moment and, as such, likes to party. He doesn't wander around perpetually drunk nor does he really go looking for parties, but he wouldn't say no without good reason if he were invited.
Lance is generally self-sufficient. He doesn't really do housework or cook or anything, but he's good at being on his own and fending for himself, since his parents are scatterbrained. Part of his sufficiency stems around the fact that he's one of the nicest manipulative people anyone would care to meet. Since he's always so genuine and cheerful, Lance has discovered that it is very easy to persuade people to do things for him. Especially if the other person is of the female persuasion. He's not a malicious manipulator, obsessed with power over people and causing mayhem, it's just for silly things, like him not wanting to get up but wanting food. The one thing that makes Lance upset is people who take advantage of other people cruelly.
Strengths: Easygoing Things rarely make Lance mad. He’s very much a go with the flow kind of guy and it’s difficult to get on his bad side. If someone does make it there somehow, he doesn’t really hold grudges unless there’s a serious need for it.
Genuine Lance rarely feigns interest for things. When Lance wants to listen to someone, they know it, and he doesn’t make them feel like they’re boring him. He’s genuinely interested in the things people have to say and he often spends his time trying to get people to talk and feel comfortable.
Charismatic Since Lance is always interested/energetic/difficult to anger, he tends to make friends easily. He’s confident and collected and usually finds that people flock to him even when he doesn’t try.
Weaknesses: lazy With being so easygoing, Lance is also fairly lazy. He doesn’t work well without some sort of pressure because he is always thinking of new ways to put things off. He is a huge procrastinator and does not like doing things that someone else could just do for him.
disorganized He generally does not pay attention to where things are or where they’re going. He’s disorganized in his possessions and often even in life.
unaffected While he’s good at comforting people and is always there to be a shoulder to cry on, Lance himself is not too emotional. He lets things roll off his back rather than letting them get to him and he is very difficult to fully sadden or anger.
| H I S T O R Y |
Mindy and Andrew Montrose were born to be scholars. Their biggest talents were researching and obsessing over things, so it was no wonder when either of them went into history and literature. They met on a research trip to England their sophomore year of college and it was love at first sight. Both stayed in England to finish out their degrees at their separate universities and, when it came time for grad school, they applied for the same ones. Mindy was a King Arthur scholar and Andrew’s focus was Renaissance/Medieval literature, so they often found their studies intersecting. They soon found their lives intersecting even more when Andrew proposed. They had a Renaissance themed wedding, surprising no one, honeymooned in historic France, and moved to England.
They lived in studious bliss for about five years before deciding to move back to the states to be closer to their families. It was around that time that the Montroses began trying for a child. It took longer than they expected, Guinevere Morgan, but eventually Mindy got pregnant and they couldn’t have been happier. They were expecting a girl, so they decorated the baby’s room in pale pink and drew baby-version cartoons of old legends, with a watchful strip of King Arthur and his knights above the crib. When Guinevere Morgan came and turned out to be a boy, they were thrown for only a few minutes before deciding on “Lancelot Arthur.” The room got as much pink covered by blue sponge paint as possible, but other than that, it seemed fairly unisex to the Montroses.
Mindy was a good mother, albeit a bit absent minded, and it was lucky that Lance was such a well-behaved baby. He cried, of course, and when he was older got into things, but he was never really a screamer or an attention-grabber. Mindy and Andrew both worked at the Northwestern University and, as soon as she could, Mindy went back to work. They were lucky that they lived so close to both of their parents and so Lance never wanted for babysitters. As mostly research professors, Mindy was able to be home with him most of the time and occasionally, she brought him to the university with her, since everyone seemed to fawn.
Things started to get difficult when he got older. Mindy and Andrew tried to baby proof their house, but since they were so scatterbrained, they often forgot things. Lance played with plenty more things than he should have, like old light bulbs, blocks of cheese, and heavy pots. They were lucky that he never hurt himself or broke much and were glad when Lance was out of the getting-into-everything stage. When he turned four, he started preschool. Though Mindy and Andrew already knew that Lance was a quick learner, they were delighted when he excelled at everything he was being taught. He had always been good at puzzles and could recognize letters and some sounds by the time he started, but with teachers who actually knew how to teach children, he was learning actual words and how to put them together. It took no time at all for him to learn how to write his full name, Lancelot, even though the teachers were confused about it really being his name.
It was no surprise, again, that Lance did well in kindergarten, too. Not only was he bright, but he was popular, too. He made friends wherever he went and, though Mindy and Arthur were not exactly child-friendly to anyone else, he often had friends over. He wowed his teachers by knowing most of the King Arthur legends by heart, even if they were simple, child-friendly versions, as well as plenty of other Renaissance myths and stories. They were his bed time stories and had been since he could listen and Lance, like his parents, loved it. Lance learned his story-telling abilities from his parents, who, unable to find child-versions of their legends, had done it themselves. As he got older, he became a source of entertainment to his friends, usually the one to come up with new and exciting games that were more than just kicking a ball around.
When he was seven, Mindy signed him up for piano lessons. He had always liked music, especially the classical music his parents listened to all the time. He could already whistle and did so regularly and to everything, so this was the next step, they felt. While he was not so good at caring about the lessons themselves, he did find that he loved the piano. That next year, in music class at school, he learned how to play the recorder and found that he was equally enthralled with that instrument. It turned out that he was enthralled with any instrument, especially if it was new. He loved feeling out where the sounds came from and getting just the right notes together. In school, they continued on with drums and Andrew decided that it was time to teach Lance the harmonica.
Andrew himself was musical and specialized in older instruments, like the lute, but his favorite had always been the harmonica and Lance, too, took a shine to it instantly. When he started middle school, he started it with a harmonica in his pocket and, from then on, he rarely went anywhere without it. He was still attending piano lessons and, now that he had mostly mastered the harmonica, Andrew was moving through some older instruments, so he did not sign up for band. He wasn’t much for big performances like that, anyway. Instead, he signed up for the regular music class where he was introduced to the ukulele. He found this to be one of the best instruments ever. For his thirteenth birthday, he received his very own ukulele and he and it were inseparable.
Lance was fortunate enough to go to an arts high school. He got in for piano and, when he got there, was delighted to find more people appreciative of his harmonica and ukulele than there had ever been before. Of course, his family liked his musical talents, but all of his friends in middle school had been much more interested in the fact that he was a good listener and an interesting guy. Here, he fit in on a different level and found himself accepted into many cliques rather than just music ones. He got along well with the film people, since he liked movies, and he got along well with the artists, especially once he started experimenting with his hairstyles.
In tenth grade, he and some friends formed a band. While he was very musical and enjoyed every style from rock to pop to jazz, Lance could not sing to save his life. He could carry a tune, but that only worked for bad screamo bands, and so Lance settled gracefully into the background of his band as the keyboardist/pianist with occasional harmonica tones. They played mostly jazz and mostly at school functions and broke up fairly quickly. High school worked much like this for Lance--he would get a new hairstyle, join a new band, and be moving on in a few months. He had about a hundred close friends and a few girlfriends here and there, but mostly, he did everything he could to soak up everything he could.
When it came time to apply to colleges, Mindy and Andrew of course wanted him to apply to Ivy Leagues. He did, but onl5y to appease them, and he was not surprised that he didn’t get in. While he was very bright, he was terrible at keeping up with schoolwork and mostly passed his classes with Cs and Bs. Sometimes, for particularly easy classes, he would scrape up an A, but he usually couldn’t be bothered. As long as he graduated and was smart, it didn’t really matter, especially since he soon got acceptance letters from the University of Illinois Chicago, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, and some smaller schools in both areas. Despite the fact that his parents wanted him to go to Northwestern and likely could have gotten him in, he didn’t apply because he knew that college was where he was supposed to live on his own. They understood, since they had done the same thing as undergrads, and were pleased with most of his decisions.
They were slightly less pleased, however, when acceptance came from Rhode Island. They had never expected their only offspring to traverse all the way across the country like that, but as soon as Lance saw the acceptance letter, they knew there was no doubt that that was where he was headed. He had applied to all of those schools as safeties and for their benefit, but it was obvious that this was where he wanted to go. As a congratulations for this and graduating, they bought him a station wagon and a new harmonica.
Lance had never been away from his parents for more than a few days at a time, but he wasn’t too worried. They, despite having prepared him and themselves for college his entire life, were much less excited than they expected to be and Mindy cried a lot as they steadily packed Lance up over the summer. They bought him new things, made sure everything fit in the car, and eventually shoved everything into his station wagon and road tripped across America. Mindy and Andrew helped him move in and stayed a few extra days to sight see and visit some historical places, but soon it was time to leave their only baby on the east coast while they flew back to Chicago.
Lance and his new hairdo took to college immediately. He made friends, went out, and spent his freshman year going from party to party. He would have had most of his gen-eds done, but AP classes had always bored him in high school, so he only had a few. This meant that he could take fairly easy classes while he adjusted and he took advantage of this. He still doesn’t take more than four classes a semester unless he has to, but his classes have gotten more music-oriented. He still parties.| A P P E A R A N C E |
Lance’s look is constantly changing. Of course, he’s always blue-eyed and fair-skinned, but his hair is rarely the same for too long. This is not just because Greta cannot decide on which hairstyle she likes best from the pb, but also because Lance gets bored. It’s usually black, but he has been known to dye bits of it purple or green or blonde for contrast. It’s possible that he’ll have three or four different hairstyles in one week, so it’s best for everyone around him not to get complacent. He is also unashamed to admit that he occasionally wears eyeliner and black nail polish. It makes his eyes pop. He’s not sure when or how he acquired these habits, but he has always been pasty and thin no matter what he does and it was either that or look like a pasty geek. He chose to look like a scene musician.
Despite appearances, Lance does not wear tight pants. His jeans fit him and only occasionally do they have chains. He is much more likely to be seen in a black dress shirt or a band shirt than anything too fancy and complicated. He does wear jewelry, mostly black, and has both of his ears pierced multiple times. He has many tattooes, most of them on his arms and back. He has a bracelet of black stars on his left wrist that trails into a quote, a guitar on his shoulderblade, the cheshire cat resting comfortably on his right knee, and a few more miscellaneous ones.
Lance isn’t towering, but he is tall. Standing just below six feet, he looks much taller than he is because he is reed-thin. He does not like going shirtless because his chest is very nearly concave and sitting in the sun for hours couldn’t cure his pasty whiteness, just burn it. He has some muscle definition, due to his attempts to bulk up, but he’s mostly just skinny and pasty. He hunches a bit, but not too much, which also tends to make him look taller. Though he’s not athletic, he does like the occasional sport and has been known to play things like ultimate Frisbee and volleyball when the mood strikes.
| S K I L L S |
THIS IS SPARTAAA.| P L A Y E R |
Name Grrrrrrrreta!
Age 20
Gender Female
How you found us I sat.
Who else do you play? EVERYONE.
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