FULL NAME: Howdy [SHRIEK] Stoppelbein
NICKNAMES: ???
AGE/DOB: 18 / October 27 / Scorpio, and thinks horoscopes are fake until he reads something about how sexy and passionate Scorpios are and he's like "wow VERY true"
YEAR: Senior
BLOOD STATUS: Halfblood.
GENDER/PRONOUNS: Male, he/him. Openly trans since 8th grade/3rd year. It's not a secret and you can assume your character knows.
SEXUALITY: Would pretentiously describe himself as "sapiosexual" although he's historically been a moron drawn to other morons of his ilk until they inevitably end up burning each other. Oscillates between obsessive and neglectful while in a relationship, but is mostly uninterested in getting involved in one to begin with. He's way more attracted to girls than dudes and has only ever dated girls, but if the right intellectual comes along who connects with him on a deep cerebral level... he'll swap spit, yeah.
HOMETOWN: Wendella, Chicago, Illinois & Elflock Falls, WV
Wendella is a magical city based out of Chicago, but situated deep at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Though the city welcomes everyone, it was founded for and caters to conservationists, cryptozoologists, and MagiTechnologists (specifically those whose focus is in underwater research and advancement) who make up most of their residential population. Their magical population is diverse and unique for most magical cities in that it strives to make itself accessible for merpeople, many of whom are researchers themselves or work as liaisons for outside Mercolonies. A lot of research and advancement in marine MagiTech has come out of Wendella because of this.
Wendella is connected via Floo network to underwater sister hubs in the ocean, though most of these hubs are exclusively for researchers, their family members, and registered guests. Wendella gladly offers paid guided tours through their facilities.
APPEARANCE: Howdy’s a small but sturdy dude who works out a lot and has the strength to show for it. He's muscular and in great shape, though his weight fluctuates based on the sports season. During Quidditch season, he tries to bulk up and consume extra calories in order to maintain a layer of fat to help pad him from bludger blows but tries not to gain so much weight that he loses speed and agility on a broom. Typically, though, he sports a swimmer's physique and stays fairly lean.
He’s handsome but scrappy, with untamed curls and clothes he almost definitely pulled out from a crumpled pile kept at the foot of his bed. The unkempt look is just part of his DGAF aesthetic.
He dresses in Muggle clothes because he likes how cool they look while being easy and cheap to buy and wear. Sometimes there’s something slightly off about his execution, like wearing a tank top tucked into long pants or… whatever this is. For the most part, though, his clothes are fairly normal. He likes a sort of edgy, punk-ish look with band and skateboard brand t-shirts under a leather jacket. Everything looks cooler with a leather jacket.
His body is a canvas, baybeee!! He's got some piercings (septum, 0g lobes, helix, industrial) and a lot of tattoos and keeps going back to Audrey for more.
Usually smells faintly of cigarette smoke. Gin is a smoker and he picked up the habit when he was about sixteen. They don't smoke in the house, and smoking is extremely discouraged in Wendella, but the smell still permeates most of his belongings. He doesn't mind, though. To him, it's comforting and reminds him of his mom.
HEIGHT: 5'5 and always jumping up to slap the top of the door frame
BUILD: Small, but mighty!
PB: Elliot Fletcher
INSPO: Pinterest &&
Playlist
Man, Howdy does not give a
fuck except for when he
does, and then he gives a whole lot of fucks.
Howdy is a creature of chaos, walking a fine line between genius and disaster mostly veering off to the side of the latter. He's highly gifted in maths and sciences and already has a full ride to
[MAGIC UNIVERSITY TBD] to study MagiTechnology (which he’ll be sure to remind you of if it helps him win an argument) but, God, he's an absolute dumbass. The epitome of a high INT, low WIS build and too cocky about both what he knows and doesn’t know. He delights in being an idiot who’s still somehow better than you and loves to show off just how stupid he can be!!
He projects the image of being easygoing just because of how little he can care about things, but he can be a dick and has trouble with authority and being told what to do. He’s not malicious and more just… aggressive and always thinks he's right. One of his most annoying traits is that he enjoys playing devil's advocate and will argue just for the fun of it even if it's not something he necessarily cares about or agrees with.
If anything, he’s a straight shooter. If he has beef, you’ll know it, and he rarely shies away from expressing just what he thinks about someone. When he's bored and restless, he's been known to go out of his way to talk shit and pick fights, and his mouth has gotten him in plenty of scraps. For the most part, he's peaceable until provoked, but his patience is pretty thin and he rarely backs down from a challenge.
Challenge is what drives Howdy. Without challenge or a passion to pursue, he gets bored, and when he's bored, he becomes destructive. Chaos is the fuel that keeps him going, but it can become a temptress he so eagerly gives into if he's not allowed to harness it for himself to use it in constructive ways. It's why robotics and broom sports are both so intoxicatingly appealing to the point of obsession. By having the freedom and the power to play with chaos, to puzzle out different ways to mould it into his desired results, he's able to keep his mind busy and his nose out of trouble. For the most part, anyway.
FUN FACTS:
Left handed and has a strange way of holding writing utensils so the ink doesn't smear.
Unexpectedly, his handwriting is exceptionally neat for what a sloppy boy he is. All that Symbology practice and trying to perfect his form has his handwriting resembling Courier New.
Has goblin-like tendencies to hoard trash with the purest intentions to upcycle it, compose it, or collect enough to bring to a recycling facility… eventually. Matter cannot be created or destroyed and the vanishing spell is just an "out of sight, out of mind" method wizards use to avoid thinking about where their garbage goes.
LANGUAGES: English & ASL & Mermish (He can definitely understand his mermom's screeches and wails out of water, too, or so he claims.)
HOBBIES: Magitech, broomsports - (Quid, brodeo, NASBROOM), swimming and diving, looking so fucking cool, hoarding garbage, doing sick skateboard tricks
SKILLS:Magitech - Howdy's true passion lies in Magitechnology, from building machines to programming them and tweaking their script until they're just the way he wants them. He spends hours in the artificing workshop tinkering away at new ideas. He's exceptionally skilled in this field and earned a full scholarship in a Magitech program his Junior year after creating a self-propelling underwater skateboard and submitting it. (Basically he thought it would look really fucking sick to do an ollie underwater, so he made it.)
Water-based activities - He's lived at the bottom of a lake for most of his life and most family travel plans revolved around visiting different bodies of water so Ria could participate. He's very good at water-based magic and casting underwater and he's tried his hand at all sorts of aquatic sports. He likes to fish (especially spearfishing) and he's a strong and fast swimmer, having played on his school's
Gillyball team for several years before transferring to Peckenpaugh.
Broomsports - He's been really into NASBROOM and brodeo since he was a kid and has been competing nationally in youth leagues since he was about eight. He's small, fast, and agile, and his brodeo training has given him thighs of steel to clench onto a broom for dear life.
Wendella's school does not have a Quidditch team (a dedicated pitch is not an efficient use of space) but he played on a community team in Chicago although they only competed with other community teams within the state.
Skateboarding - As a kid, he took it up to look cool and masculine and also to impress girls. As a tween, he started tinkering and adding mods to it to make his skateboard tricks even SICKER. His Magirobotically modified skateboard now does most of the work for him but he still looks HELLA RAD and also VERY SMART.
Singing - Surprisingly talented singer, given his Goblin status. He loves the euphoria he experiences when he hears the sound of his own deep and gravelly voice.
Guitar - Not…….. a skill, really. But he owns one! And he looks extremely cool while holding it and looking like he's about to play! He knows the basics enough to play a few simple chords and impress non-musicians.
FAMILY:Gin Stoppelbein • mother (adoptive. biological aunt) • marine cryptobiologist for BoMB. former thorntrail.
Stoppelbein Hell Genes give her a genetic proclivity toward chaos that she has tempered by using that energy to go really, really, really fucking ham on whatever her passion is at the moment. Since moving to elflock, she's poured that energy into beautifying her yard and always having the most bomb-ass Extra lawn decorations for every major holiday.
She used to be an independent researcher based out of Wendella, but she kept stepping (more like stomping) on BoMB agents' toes when their research overlapped and they would purposely sabotage each other's work until MACUSA eventually sent her a cease and desist letter. And also a job offer??
So she lives in Elflock Falls and works for BoMB now, where they can keep a closer eye on her and she gets paid better for being a thorn in their side. She does excellent work, she's just a shithead about it.
[Screeching noise] or "Ria" but like REEEEEa • mermother (adoptive) • Researcher @ Wendella, Mermaid-Human liaison. She's Gin's ex-wife & the primary partner of Idyia. She's stupidly popular in the local dating scene for reasons Howdy doesn't want to understand, but he hates it and he hates her paramours.
Idyia [open] • goth mom (adoptive) • Marine Magitech Engineer @ Wendella. Born and raised in Wendella. Deaf-Mute, but American sign language is commonly used in Wendella, especially among researchers, since Mermish screams are hard for many non-native speakers to accurately replicate.
Cowpoke Stoppelbein • adoptive brother • Chaos Freshman (Wildgulch). Likes to steal the balls out of the old school mice in the computer lab to chomp on during class. Usually the ringleader in destructive Freshmen antics. Aspires to become the fourth Quackenbush.
[YEEEEEEE'AAA] (Yeehaw) • baby mersister • Swamp green guppy with needle-sharp teeth. She's, like, four but still tiny and still teething. Howdy leaves with puncture marks all over him when he comes back from visiting Wendella.
--
Moonshine "Moonie" Stoppelbein • bio mother, adoptive aunt • Frustratingly famous Quodpot player, especially since they share the last name and there's no avoiding the connection.
She had Howdy at the beginning of her Senior year at Peckenpaugh (MOTHGARDEN REPRESENT) and he was adopted by her sister. After she graduated, she was recruited to a pro-Quod team and gained celebrity for her showy antics and also her very messy, very exciting social life. Eventually, she began to mellow out and seven years ago, she started to plan a family. She has three beautiful young children.
Last year, she wrote a tell-all memoir and only mentioned Howdy as the beautiful baby she was so heartbroken to give away. Otherwise she doesn't acknowledge Howdy as her biological child and Howdy isn't bitter about it at all, especially when they have to see each other at family gatherings.
BACKGROUND:Peckenpaugh's 2001 homecoming theme was Ghost Peppers: ghosts that are also peppers. Moonshine Stoppelbein won the unauthorized eating contest by eating twenty-two ghost peppers meant for decoration before strategically yarfing on Capella Capulet, rival Thorntrail captain. Moonshine Stoppelbein was also heavily pregnant and ready to pop and the ghost peppers were the push she needed to evict her tiny tenant with magically-guided recovery time to spare before Quodpot season.
The baby had been arranged to be adopted by Gin Stoppelbein, Moonie's older sister and probably the Stoppelbein most qualified to raise a child although the bar was so low, it was on the ground. Fortunately, she had a very smart and capable wife and a fantastically brilliant metamour by her side and together, they made up a mostly competent squad of first-time moms who read a lot of baby books and sort of knew what they were doing. … Well, aside from naming their child
Howdy, but Ria loved watching Muggle Westerns and she was too charming and charismatic for them to say no to.
Howdy's childhood was fairly normal for a kid raised by a polyamorous inter-species triad of moms. Sure, he got into mischief. And, sure, he got into his fair share of scraps. And, okay, MAYBE he was known to bite a police officer or two at the health and safety fairs. But, you know, that was just the Stoppelbein way and they really had it coming, honestly.
Fine, yeah, Howdy was a fucking menace to society. He was already on several sports teams, and was training hard with a coach to compete in the brodeo and broom racing youth leagues. He was happy when he was active and focused on competing, but it did very little to ease his aggression off the field. He was bored, restless, destructive, and disruptive. Teachers wrote him off as a troubled kid; he rarely completed the coursework and did everything he could to try to disrupt class. They suggested holding him back to repeat second grade, but his moms knew their child was bright… if a bit of an asshole. (Okay, he was a HUGE asshole.)
He had a thirst for knowledge, but only on his own terms. Howdy loved taking Idyia's scrapped projects apart and putting them back together. A lot of the time he fucked them up beyond repair, but he loved to tinker and use them as bases for his own little baby experiments. And it was surprising how quickly he got the hang of it.
No, Howdy wasn't stupid. Howdy was bored out of his mind and Howdy wasn't being challenged in ways that were productive. None of his parents had the time or knowledge to homeschool them properly, so they asked to have some of his coursework upped to a fourth grade level (he was in no way emotionally mature enough to
be in the fourth grade) and they placed him in STEM-focused after-school programs. And, ohhh, it was just what the little hellion needed to finally calm the fuck down. Math and robotics became near-obsessive interests and his parents held the big robotics youth competition over his head to keep him (mostly) in line. You can't tame a Stoppelbein but you can threaten their good time.
When Howdy reached the beginning stages of puberty, he realized something was very, very wrong. As a kid, he took pride in being the rough and tumble tomboy and liked being considered as one of the boys but he didn't have the knowledge to recognize how or why he felt different from other girls until his body started changing and dysphoria punched him in the face. Even then, he didn't know the term for it or what it was, just that things were definitely not how they were supposed to be and he didn't know how to fix it.
Gin and Ria's relationship had been on the rocks and, unfortunately, Howdy's crisis just seemed like a regular Puberty Thing that they were sympathetic toward but also attributed a lot of his stress with their crumbling marriage. Even after they separated and it seemed like things would calm down, Howdy's anxiety was at an all time high. So they took him to a therapist for a check-in and, oh boy, now
they felt like the assholes for being dismissive of their
son.
When he was thirteen, Gin moved back out to her hometown of Elflock Falls. He'd finish up eighth grade at Wendella, but wanted a fresh start at Peckenpaugh the next year and the affirmation that came with living in the boys' dorm. He'd have to give up his brodeo training during the school year, which meant he'd have to work even harder during the summer if he still wanted to compete, but it was fine. It was worth it. Quidditch would tide him over and make sure he didn't get too rusty on a broom.
Howdy loved Peckenpaugh. He loved choosing his own classes-- he could take what he wanted to take and give the finger to courses he didn't give a shit about-- and loved having an abundance of free periods to do whatever the fuck he felt like with his time. Wendella felt like a cage in comparison. And the sky! There was a sky! And trees! A whole forest to explore! Granted, he didn't know jack fucking shit about hiking and barely knew the direction in which the sun set but that didn't stop him from bravely charging into the woods and getting lost several times until a staff member rescued him.
Quidditch wasn't a popular sport in Wendella. There just wasn't a reason to create a large, dedicated field indoors when the space could be used for other, more important things. Gillyball was more popular and with the right pressurized suits, they had the whole lake to play in. He'd played on a Quidditch team in Chicago, but they met irregularly and mostly played pick-up games. Any kid worth their salt was already on their own school team and Peckenpaugh was in a whole different league.
Nothing could wipe the shit-eating grin off Howdy's face when he made Seeker his freshman year. He was fast, agile, and those thighs of steel used to clenching bucking BroncoBrooms made him hard to knock off. Unfortunately, it was boring. He thought playing with Peckenpaugh would make it more exciting, but he wanted to do more than sit and wait and watch. He wanted to turn the tide of the game with more exciting methods. So the next year he went for Beater. And got it.
Howdy, Chaotic Dumbass, always seemed to have luck on his side. During his Junior year, he wowed the judges at [MAGIC COLLEGE] when he submitted in his pet project, an underwater skateboard, for review. He thought it was a cool novelty to skate off the bowl of Wendella's dome, but they were impressed by the underwater propulsion system and ease of use. … Which, yeah, he was TOTALLY going for. Anyway, the awarded him a full scholarship and he hasn't stopped gloating about it since.
Senior year now, and he's taking it easy now that he knows what he's doing after graduation. His classes are the ones he wants to take and he dumped potions and lame-ass herbology for an easier schedule with more free time. It's smooth fucking sailing from here, baby.
WAND: 14", tupelo, mermaid scale, rigid.
FAMILIAR: Giant African Land Snail,
Garbage Disposal.
CAREER GOALS: Magitech engineer. His current focus is on marine technology, since that's mostly what he grew up around, but he's looking to broaden his interests in Wizard College. He doesn't want to get stuck living in Wendella for the rest of his life just because it's comfortable and familiar to him.
PART-TIME JOB: Nahh. You can pay him a premium to have his mom buy you shit off the Barely Functional Muggle Internet and have it delivered, though.
CLASSES: Charms - He performs very precise spellwork and his wand movements and incantations are exact, but he lacks the emotional depth that gives it that
oomph it needs. His essays on charm theory are lackluster and the longer the year drags on, the more he slacks. He likes Ms. G a lot, though, and definitely calls her Mom-- or, rather, "Maahm".
Transfiguration (H) - Math is fun and Ms. Min is hot. 👀 He WILL complete the short essay for this class and maybe also hit it with a spritz of Axe body spray.
Artificing (H) - FUCK YEAH, LET HIM BUILD!!!!!! Hnnnnhhhh he loves robots… Definitely his favorite class by far and he likes to come in after class hours to tinker on new projects.
Outdoor Magic - The lad loves sports. He aces those underwater exercises, but knows fuck all about wilderness survival except what's been taught in class. He delights in his ignorance of land animals and likes to misidentify them outloud, even if he knows what they are.
Hermeticism (H) - mMAaatthhhh 👌 good !!! math good!!
Symbology (H) - MaAAAAAA th !!!! Programming!!!!!!! C R E A T I O N?
He's interested in studying symbology post-grad and using it in conjunction with magirobotics. Combining symbol magic with the moving parts of magirobotics opens up new possibilities to explore.
Arithmancy - He's never taken Divination and is slow to get the hang of that aspect of the class yet, but he loves some predictive analytics and hopes this class will make him a better captain.
EXTRA-CURRICULARS: Quidditch (Beater, Captain), Magirobotics, Duelling & Wandwork, Gaming (gobstone, chess,
go), Adventure Club (fishing, boating, swimming), Debate (loves to argue for the sake of arguing, no matter the topic), Arithletes
SORTING?: The sorting hall was like "Deeplurk" and Howdy thought he was being subversive by doing what it said instead of giving into his impulse to run full speed toward literally any other door than the one suggested.
NAME: Ali
EMAIL: check
contacts page
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DEEPLURK QUIDDITCH CAPTAIN
POSITION: Deeplurk Quid Captain (First year as captain.)
WHY THIS SPOT?: Howdy has a mind for strategy, constantly collecting data on all players in a notebook and using it to try to predict their future performance. (Hello, Arithmancy.) Buuuuut he knows humans are imperfect and not entirely predictable. They're chaotic creatures but fortunately, so is Howdy. He likes the challenge of trying to harness chaos to his advantage.
IDEAS?:
Hey, you want an asshole captain? Howdy's horny for data and disorder. Maybe Deeplurk needs a little polish to win the cup this year… But also, maybe, they could stand to play a little dirtier instead. The rival seeker can't catch the snitch as quickly if their arms are giving them trouble, but there's really no reason to sub them out if they can still fly a broom, is there?
Expect conspiring against friends and dissecting their weaknesses all in the name of Broomsports Victory. As long as they're not breaking the rules, it's a fair game. And if they do break the rules… well, best not get caught.