Ashton "Hatter" Young

[ashton]

Hi, my name is Cyan and this is my first character. I found this site through online forums. Something you should know about me is I love my writing like I love my Margaritas... a lot.

Ashton "Hatter" Young
Low Class

Canon: Alice in Wonderland
Custom Title: Mad Hatter

PHYSICAL
Age: 25
Gender: Male
Orientation: Straight... ish
Appearance:
Ashton is a rather scrawny man, but tall for his ethnicity, standing at a height of 6' even. While his chest has only a thin layer of muscles, and ribs can almost be seen when he breathes in, he has long well toned arms and legs with pale skin that tans lightly in the summer. Of course his extended height is not what makes Ashton a man who stands out. Instead it's the dozens upon dozens of tattoos that riddle his body with... riddles. As much as he has a fascination for his own background, he also has a love for words and riddles. Most of his body is covered in a diagram of small phrases and riddles, some in English, while others are written out in Kanji.

His appearance is ever changing. He often wears grunge styled clothing taken off the racks of second hand stores and altered by his own hands. He is a fan of color and and excitement, always one to stand out in a crowd. One thing that he rarely is seen without is hats. Ashton owns quite a large collection of hats, from bolder caps and fedoras to ball caps and beanies. His collections has been collected over the years, like a woman in love with her shoes, he has an obsession with his hat, hence being given the nickname "Hatter". He has an expressive style that goes with a very expressive and wayward personality.

His face is rather feminine with playful lips that always have a loop ring on the right and dark brown eyes that always have a spark of mischeif crossing them. Often Ashton portrays himself as light hearted and goofy, though when angry there is a certain spark of madness that sparks from his eyes, the features changing dramatically into a cruelty, if only for the few moments that it lasts.

[/b] Dark Brown
Height: 6'0"
Weight/Body Type: 140 lbs / Lean body
Play By: Miyavi


PERSONALITY
General personality:
Ashton is not a bad person, despite his love for drinking, partying, and getting into trouble. More often than not he is misunderstood. Most people have a hard time keeping up with him as his brain seems to work a hundred miles per minutes. He's constantly on edge, ready to do something new and exciting. Ashton basically seems to be hard wired like the energizer bunny, seeming to only ever want to settle down when it finally comes time for him to sleep. Even than insomnia might make come up and smack him in the back. Sometimes in his insomniac state of mind he seems a little more off than usual. A hyper man, he has a rather goofy light hearted sense of human than usually lowers down the guard for many people.

Ashton loves to toy with people. He often has a joke or riddle to wrap someone in. To him it is amusing to catch people off guard, even more so when they look at him as someone beneath them. He knows how to work a person between his fingers, with a coy playful manner, and at times even mocking respect. Of course there are people out there that he does truly respect, and those that he does he often shows a slightly more in depth side of him, taking off the jokers mask, if only momentarily. Perhaps Ashton has been warped over time, with reality and fiction colliding, he has a hard time knowing who he is, and has no desire for others to figure out.

His goofy playfulness is what keeps people underestimating him, which Ashton prefers. This is his defense mechanism that often keeps him out of fights. However, there are times when he takes off the mask and slips another one on. From white to black he has moments where he will snap and lash out at others, both verbally and physically. Sometimes it only takes someone shouting out his names to calm his sudden rage, but other times he appears to be completely out of it. It doesn't last long, only between a few seconds to several minutes, but it is often enough to shock people who are so used to the sweet tempered quirky man.

More like a cube than a coin, there are several sides to the Ashton. The closer you get to him, the more sides you will see. However, even Ashton doesn't know every side, having lost sight with it as much as he has lost sight of reality over time.

Quotes, frequently used expressions: "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"
Likes:

• Alcohol
  
• Cigarettes
  
• Music
  
• Sweets
  
• Dancing
  
• Adventure
  
• Free style running
  
• Gambling
  
• Dreaming
  
• Maybe a little bit of... scheming
  

Dislikes:

• Authority
  
• Corruption
  
• Boredom
  
• High class snobs
  

Strengths:

• Quick fingers, from years of picking pockets
  
• Solving riddles
  
• Singing
  
• Street smarts. He might be a bit odd, but he knows how to get out of sticky situations, even if they might be situations he put's himself into.

Weaknesses:

• Alcohol, he might not be an alcoholic, but Ashton has always had issues with saying no to a good drink... or ten
  
• His temper, while usually cheerful, he does have a tendency to snap at inappropriate times.
  
• Staying out of trouble
  

BACKGROUND
Family: Orphan
Education: High School
Occupation/Job: Musician, theif
Image:
Most people take one look at him with scorn. He is a man who stands out willingly and always seems to be up to something. Many mistake him as being dumb because of how odd he might act, when in fact he is quick witted and intelligent.

History:
For a man who seems to be always smiling, Ashton's past does not bode well. In his early youth, perhaps three years of age his mother and father came to London on vacation. They were a loving couple that didn't have much when it came to money, but plenty when it came to a passion for life. They had been saving up for years and had finally been able to go on their first vacation since their baby was born. It was supposed to be one week of relaxation and sight seeing. Unfortunately a midst there outing they met an untimely death in automotive accident. The front of the car was completely crushed inward, but the back was almost untouched in the collision. With the two parents dead in the front the little boy in the back was left crying until someone spotting the accident rescued the three year old. Uncertain of who the child was they had placed him in temporary foster care until the identity could be solved. It took several months of what turned out to be pointless work. His mother's side was all but gone, and his fathers side... well they didn't approve of the marriage, being a family that came from wealth. They had disowned their son and had little desire for the small boy despite their last connection to their own son. After several months of confusion the little boy was sent to Saint Marie's Home for Children.

Too young to remember his parents, he wasn't scarred by the traumatic events and grew up a playful child. He was always an odd one, and a smart boy who loved to read, and had a fascination with riddles. Perhaps he wasn't the most proper boy in the Catholic school, often getting in trouble for doing outrageous things, but he wasn't dumb. More often than not he would get into trouble winding a tail of confusion for the sisters as they tried to make sense of what he was saying. At most he was a good child who rarely got into scrapes with kids, and never seemed to stop smiling.

Now around the age of fourteen he started to grow curious, as most orphaned children did, about his origins. It was always there in the back of his mind, picking at his brain, but he had never really thought too much into it until then. With that he began to do some investigating, sneaking into the offices and peaking through files, a few minutes here and there, night after night just to try and find his file. When he did he stole it under his shirt and ran back to his shared room. He had read the profile over and over again that night, a sleepless night that would start a spin off of many sleepless nights. It didn't have much to say about his parents, other than the fact that they were tourists from Japan. However it did have a record of notes from conversations from family members that were alive. The words "Mutt" and "Disgrace" stuck out, hitting the boy like a cold needle through the heart. This was the night that he found out he actually had a family, but they wanted nothing to do with him.

For the next few weeks he walked around in a daze. People became wary and uncertain of the boy, not knowing what to do when he had never acted like this. At one point a boy not from the orphanage tried to pick a fight with him. While usually he would use his wit to slip out of the grasp of others, especially those larger than him, he snapped. Asthon didn't remember much of the fight other than the boy crying out and him being pulled away, his hands sore and the boys nose rather bloody. It made him smile... just a little.

After that he seemed to go back to his quirky self once more. As if that fight had let go of the anger, he was smiling and laughing again, but not quite the same. Once he got into high school he began to hang out away from the Orphanage, usually mingling in the poor alleys with other teenagers, gambling and drinking. He started to enjoy the taste of parties and night life. Of course this always required money, which he didn't have much of. This led to him picking pockets. He was rather smooth at it, quick on his feet, flexible, and snappy with his fingers. He could make a mans wallet disappear without him ever noticing that Ashton had been near. It worked, more often than not, but one fateful night at 6 pm he was caught by the cops trying to swipe a mans pocket watch. He was seventeen at the time that it happened. That night he had to remain in the jail's holding center. It turned out to be the first night that he had truly slept in a long time. It also happened to be the night that he fell into Wonderland.

Perhaps the most extraordinary experience of his life, he found himself wondering through this fantastic world for what seemed like ages when it was only a few passing hours. When he was released from the jail and brought back to the orphanage he could think of nothing, but the dream. It was so real, everything he heard, touched, tasted, even smelt, had a realistic aspect to it that he couldn't get out of his mind. It continued on this way for weeks. Each time he would fall asleep he would fall back into wonderland. The people he met, the places he visited, some frightening and some amazing. He was sucked into this world and it's growing story, the characters becoming real, but echoing the people that he knew from his life, save the red queen. While he did not cross her path often, the woman reminded him of the files he had read, of his grandmother who had cut off the head son to his own family with nothing more than a snap of her fingers. Oh he hated her. There was nothing he wanted more than to see that woman fall from her throne forever.

Still it was a world of egg shells to carefully step around, a world, that seemed like his that needed to be saved, yet wouldn't. For awhile he tried to pull himself out of the dreams, realizing that he was being sucked into this unreal world while abandoning reality. He turned to clubs, music was the way to keep himself awake. Days of insomnia went by and he truly began to make the same name for him in reality as he had in Wonderland as the Mad Hatter, emphasis on Mad. Ashton was spinning out of control and he was unable to see up from down, what was real and what was not. It was near his graduation that he finally met Alice in his dreams. A Strange girl who didn't quite know what she was doing in the world. She was much like he had been in the beginning and yet... far different. The girl fascinated him and so he teased her, toyed with her, but helped her none the less through the fantasy. It didn't take him long to realize that she was the protagonist of this fantasy. After having the dreams for so long he had begun to forget that they were dreams and moved in the dimension as if he were just playing in another reality.

When graduation rolled around, the ticking of the clock began for him to leave. He was nearly eighteen and would soon be homeless. With no money to go to college and an education of slacking, his real world was far less fantastic than the inner dimensions. For awhile he tried to escape the the dreams, but he realized he wasn't facing the fears he needed to. He found himself a job working at a small pub as a bartender while he housed himself with his mates. A lover for music he, had played with guitars before, but had never taken anything seriously. However his friends convinced him to join their band and from there he seemed to find a passion that wasn't just in sleep. He ended up as the singer in a band, that while wasn't huge, did well in different pubs and clubs. It was enough for him to get up off of his feet and live on his own.

The next few years were nothing but night life and adventure. Often he would be out until the wee hours of the morning after a performance drinking and fooling around. He had a crazy personality that loved to get in trouble, but hated to get caught, and while he made enough money to get by, he had sticky fingers at times when walking down the street past couples who looked to prim and proper with their noses held high. It was a lesson in itself, hold your nose too high, you'll never see whats happening below. He also had acquired a bad habit when it came to messing with law enforcement, often getting into trouble blatantly just so that he could have a good run and dessert them. Perhaps the world of his imagination was slowly seeping out into the streets of his life, but he was having fun, save for the moments of temperament. Still, there was something lacking in his life. Several years had gone by with the same life style, and while he had grown to love his waking life, there was a certain love for the dream world.

Perhaps part of him knew that Alice was a real woman, or just hoped for it, but he had no idea what the draw was for him to finally leave London. There was no way of knowing if this girl existed, though she always talked about getting home and about the real world... his imagination spinning reality with fiction, or something else? In waking most girls seemed to have little appeal to him, and Ashton didn't find it at all amusing that he was crushing on quite literally the girl of his dreams. Over the years though she had been the person who had grown to know him the most, the one that seemed to understand him, take him with a grain of salt, and not look down upon him for his quirks and unseemly temper. She was... a dream. A man can hope though, one step above dreaming because the lord knew he had been doing plenty of that.

What did compel him to finally move to New York. Ashton couldn't remember if it was something she had said in a dream or just a feeling, a need to go there. Either way when he was twenty three he finally packed up and moved to New York. If nothing else it would be a new adventure, and he really loved a good adventure.


THE SAMPLE
In Character Sample:
The night was buzzing alive with life. In this great city it always seemed to be wild and breathing, but during the day it was a frenzy. At night there was a different atmosphere to the surroundings. People were shedding their work clothes and either crawling into bed, or slipping into something far less simplistic to go out into the night and join the many owls that wandered the street. Ashton of course was one of them. He was often seen late at night, bumping around the bars, grabbing some drinks or playing a gig. If he was lucky, it would be both. Tonight however it was just the former he was aiming for.

His half dreaded, half shaved blue and black hair was pulled back into a loose pony tail that slipped through the back of an unbent side turned pink and white ball cap. Fingerless gloved hands were shoved into the deep pockets of his baggy worn out pants as he walked down the street whistling quietly to himself, a certain perk in his steps.

In the shady streets no one was watching the young man. One hand slipped out of his pocket as a business man walked by him deep in conversation with another. Passing the man he slid his hands into the back of the mans pocket, pulling out his wallet and sliding it into his own pocket. The motion was so quick, the slip of a hand that no one would have seen it, nor had the man felt it. At the feel of the wallet he had a feeling he probably made a decent find from the man, which would help to pay for his outing for the night. He waited until he turned the block before pulling out the wallet and pulling it open. He glanced down, eyes sparking with delight as he paused from whistling, a large grin crossing over his lips. Now he had made out rather nicely with a large wad of twenties neatly placed, fresh and crisp. He slipped the money out of his pocket before tossing the wallet into a near by trash can. A faulty move.

"Hey, you! Stop right there."

Now that was a familiar phrase he had heard more often than not. Ashton turned his head to the side, watching the blue uniformed man walking quickly towards him. He smirked and brought his hand up, index finger pressing under his right eye as he stuck his tongue out before he darted across the street, weaving through the temporarily frozen traffic.

"I said stop!"

Did it ever dawn on them that, that phrase never actually worked unless a gun was involved. He could hear the mans heavy footfall behind him, but he was thinner, more lithe, and much quicker. He ran through the crowd of people, laughing as the cop started to lose sight of him. The odd tickle of laughter caused people to turn there heads before he turned into an alley way and ran down, picking up speed until he turned the corner to the next block and finally slowed down, coming to an area he knew well. He knew that it would take the cop several minutes to get down the alley, so he slipped into the nears bar, a small grunge pub. He was breathing heavily at that point, but when he entered the bar he suddenly fell into a fit of laughter. He shook his head and breathed in before heading to the bar and pulling out a twenty, resting it on the bar.

"How 'bout a Guinness Mate." he stated breathing in as he jumped onto the bar stool. God he loved a good chase as much as he loved a good beer. This night was starting out with quite a bang. He wondered what else might be in store for him later.

Always an adventure... that's how life should be.

(Sorry about the rp sample not being great. nearly 6 am and I just wanted to finish it before I went to bed.)

[hamlet]

The sample is great! This was really creative and well thought out, I was thoroughly engaged in the history. And the personality I think is spot on! Accepted!