[nick / name]: Haku
[personal LJ name]: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
hakuren
[other characters currently played]:
Harry Crew (Hari) || The Blue Sword || laprunminta
Haruhi Fujioka || Ouran High School Host Club || commoneresque
Luna Lovegood || Harry Potter || suncolors
Peter Petrelli || "Heroes" || justdoingmyjob
Peter Pevensie || Chronicles of Narnia || oshutup
Will || "Merlin" || disagreetoagree
Zach || "Heroes" || filmzbyzach
[e-mail]: loveinmypocket@gmail.com
[AIM / messenger]: wing.stock [y!m]
[series]: The Chrestomanci Chronicles
[character]: Conrad Grant Tesdinic
[character history / background]: Conrad Tesdinic lives in Stallchester, a small town in his world's version of the Swiss Alps. In the mountains high above Stallchester lies Stallery Mansion, a grand and imposing house, home to the Count and his family. Conrad's father is dead; his sister Anthea left home to go to university; his mother, Franconia, is a rather eccentric feminist author, and her books are sold exclusively sold in her brother's bookshop, where she and Conrad also live.
His uncle tells him that someone up at Stallery Mansion is pulling the possibilities––that is, changing the details of the world. Judging from the affluence of Stallchester, this person is making a great deal of money by doing so, perhaps by playing the stock market; but this is adversely affecting the rest of the world. At first only small details change––the colour of the postboxes, the titles of books––but the changes keep getting bigger and bigger.
Here’s the main thing though: Conrad is going to die. According to his uncle, this is because of his bad karma, which, if he does not kill the person pulling the probabilities, will result in he himself being dead (horribly and painfully so) within a year. Conrad's uncle and his group of magician friends work a strange spell on a cork, giving it, and Conrad, who has possession of it, the power to summon a Walker at will. A Walker is a being who will give him what he needs to defeat the person he should have eliminated in a past life. Conrad needs to be sure who this person is before he summons the Walker, however, so instead of moving forward in school with his friends, he is sent to work at Stallery and study its inhabitants, one of which is the person Conrad needs to defeat (kill) in order to right his karma.
Conrad soon finds that he is not the only one snooping around the mansion. He befriends his fellow servant-in-training, Christopher "Smith" (really Christopher Chant), who is searching for his friend Millie. Together, they discover that she is trapped in one of the possibilities. Conrad and Christopher must stop the person behind all the mischief, rescue Millie, and fix Conrad's fate, all without spilling soup on the Countess.
[character abilities]: He supposedly has a great talent for magic, but honestly he doesn't understand how it works or what it means, so...yeah. End of the book tells us he is capable of seeing probabilities outside of the ones that are actually there.
[character personality]:
When you’re older, you’ll understand {} You’re too young, you don’t know what you want {} Trust me, I know what’s best.For the entirety of his life so far, Conrad Tesdinic has been bullied around by his family—sans his sister—and in addition to that, lied to and ensorcelled.
Yeah. I know. Right?
Anyways, he doesn’t know that of course. He thinks that everything bad that happens to him is the result of his terrifically bad karma. According to his uncle, it is the result of Conrad failing to carry out one action or another, or carrying out the wrong action in his previous life, and because he failed, he has a sort of severe streak of bad things that happen to him, and by bad things, we mean Bad Things and by streak, we mean his whole life, every day, and nearly every minute. By the time we get to the point where the story really begins—when he is sent to Stallery—he is so wrapped up in his bad fate and a bundle of lies that it is rather hard to tell sometimes what part of him is really him and what part is him acting under the influence of a spell or something. Even with having had some of them removed by a certain someone, it’s later revealed that he likely remains cloaked in several of them, among those, a fear spell.
That disclaimer of all disclaimers said, what
is the personality beneath the fear and the confusion?
Points that remain consistent, even after everything is revealed are as follows.
He tends to be very observant (bad karma being a bunch of ridiculousness doesn’t count because he was bespelled as such to be more susceptible into believing it, from what we can tell, in addition to having been told it over and over…and over) and eager to please, though not in an overly overt way. Much of the time his excitement about one thing or another is described distinctly as internalized but never fully expressed, but that suits him. When he thinks someone is being stupid he will often think it—in one or two witty lines—but not often say so, except where Christopher is concerned, but we quickly learn that where most of Conrad’s inhibitions lie, Christopher Chant breaks them all by virtue of his generally insufferable way of…existing.
Through action it’s difficult to clearly describe his personality because the bulk of it really is him believing in this codswallop that his uncle fed to him and his mother never denied, and as a result of believing it, acting on it—ALSO by his uncle’s direction. Ugh. Family.
Best, maybe, to focus on aspects of how he handles what he does, and if one was to pin down adverbs for the way he does so, carefully, bravely, and blindly would not be the least among them. At the beginning he is a much more nervous sort of fellow, especially before he lands a job at Stallery—seeing as how so much hinges on it. The more time he spends trying to figure out how to expiate his Evil Fate (his words) the braver he becomes, sometimes by mistake, and other times because he has to, though he doesn’t really see it as courage so much as Have Task Must Do. Christopher, despite his irritating nature, also serves as a sort of image to measure up next to in his own mildly competitive way, evident even after the older boy has said in all clearness that he has no intention of vying for the permanent station.
Above all, as far as personality is concerned however, Conrad is most prolifically explained in the narration of the entire story. This might sound obvious, but it really is an important thing to consider, as the book is entirely in the first-person perspective. Where he does not speak much of the time, there is, of course, prose to roll things along, and as with most stories, it has a voice, that being his. Given over to what feels like laid back and often unintentional humor, somewhat flourishing phrases (perhaps the result of being English?) and other times comparatively stark and short ones, as with many of her characters, Diana personifies him, it would seem, as an older version of twelve years-old. That, or maybe I’m not remembering twelve properly, but I’m sure I was never as clever with detail as Conrad tends to be. His attention to specifics likely has something to do with his particular knack/ability which we find out more about near the tail end of…the tale, that being the ability to photograph alternate probabilities (yes, so, like, alternate possibilities, universe equivalents, etc.) Up until then all we know for certain, from others’ observations, is that he is ‘stuffed with talent’ or full of magic and other similar descriptions. Conrad doesn’t particularly believe this, having never done a spot of conscious magic in his life, but as they say, just because one doesn’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Oh double negatives. Much of what is internal, I can see easily being externalized when he is alone and thinking to himself, or under that impression, one much inclined toward the inner monologue made outward by being absentminded or the like. I think we would see more of this if we were able to follow him, particularly in times when he is less busy, but the point of much of his story here is that it is jam-packed with Things to Do, and as a result, such opportunities are pretty much nonexistent. At the end of the book time has skipped and the narration refers to itself in a way that suggests a memoir style of record keeping, which I wouldn’t put past him, though it feels more thoughtless from the age I’m taking him and more ordered and purposeful from the other—that happens when you get older though, in theory.
[point in timeline you're picking your character from]: After meeting Millie and, as a result, Christopher's disappearance, but before everything super spoiler-y happens....aka resolution 83;;; ...just sort of he'll backtrack on what lies are really lies probably...due to attributing the City to his undeniable evil fate---like Alfred was lying but maybe he was accidentally right------fail Conrad logic...basically
[journal post]:AUDIO;
Well this isn’t how I’d imagined it in the least. I’m sure it must be a part of my Evil Fate. I wonder if it gets worse as time goes on, the longer it takes for me to right whatever I did wrong with whoever I’m supposed to do that with. Bother with it though. I was hoping I would know by now. Surely there can’t have been someone I missed? Oh but there must be! How else would I still be stuck in Stallery, and besides, whatever Christopher says he can’t be right all the time. Mum would have said something. Anyway, he did say he was in the middle of learning, which means he wasn’t finished, which likely means he has no idea what he’s going on about and just trying to sound superior, as usual.
Although I do wish he hadn’t run off ahead like that. Suppose he’s gone off and walked clear out of the probability shift (I don’t even know if I’m sure what that means!) and I’m stuck here.
Well, logically, I just have to get back to the top where the shifts happen, but…there doesn’t seem to be any tower here, not any version, and that’s not right because even when the changes happen there tends to be something in the place of what was there before. This all looks quite a bit more like another place entirely, but that’s not possible.
…unless
it is…
…and then I suppose
…
Oh help.
[third person / log sample]: Conrad “Grant” sighed as he got up, not a sigh of exhaustion but a sigh that one sighs when one is trying to steel himself for what feels like what might be something important. He was certain that he had heard Christopher leave, and upon looking at the other boy’s bed, that much was confirmed. Tiptoeing out—or near that—he felt a flurry of excitement and curiosity in spite of himself. Really, he should have been more focused on expiating his Bad Karma than his interest in What Christopher is Doing, but he couldn’t help himself, and besides, he doubted the older boy would outright tell him. Investigation was clearly the only option if he wanted to know anything about Christopher “Smith” and he did, very much more than he preferred to let on. He felt a little odd about it, all but spying on his supposed rival—though not really rival since Christopher himself relinquished any competition from the beginning—but wondering got the better of hesitation as, drawing the blanket over him (Stallery was cold, especially up in the attics where they stayed) he paused at the door, waiting as the dark eyed boy walked straight past their room toward…who knew what. Following, ever as quiet as possible, Conrad blinked a few times in the dark, listening as his co-worker grumbled and mumbled to himself, eventually making himself known as he asked, “What are you looking for?”
At which point he jumped, possibly, startled, definitely made a sound of surprise anyway, and asked about how Conrad had woken up. It seemed a silly question, and even the mention of a sleep spell didn’t really get past what was on his mind to begin with, that being why Christopher would need to put someone under a sleep spell at all, so he plowed on.
“I made myself wake up,” it seemed the most honest and shortest answer, but all that earned him was exasperation from the older boy, not a real answer. By the time he had finally given a much more thorough explanation of why he was here and, in addition, why the alias and all the sneaking, the younger boy felt only more intrigued for knowing, but even with that, he ended up falling asleep in the middle of Christopher saying something or other. A pity, because it might have been important, but then again, Christopher talked an awful lot, and it just wasn’t possible that Everything that came out of his mouth would be of equal significance.
The next thing Conrad was aware of was stupid Gregor shouting for the both of them, banging on the door with no small amount of force, calling them all sorts of things, though mostly lazy and lumpish—something like that, though Conrad would argue that he wasn’t even vaguely lumpish, and Christopher even less so.
Bother with Stallery, he wanted to say, but then he remembered his problem of having an Evil Fate, and that without righting it fully and properly he would be, as his uncle said “painfully and horribly dead” by the year’s end—if not sooner—and that was enough to keep him in line, however dour looking. It helped, a little, that there was the mystery of Christopher and the girl he had come searching for. In all his life, Conrad had not imagined meeting anyone quite so obnoxious and impressive, but all in all, riding down the lift, he had to decide that he was glad of the other boy’s presence. It made staying in Stallery with pear-shaped, fuss-oriented Mr. Amos and beastly Gregor a little more bearable.