Post by JAMES WINDSOR on Jan 9, 2013 17:00:34 GMT -5
James Henry Clerval Alexander Windsor
"Dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden"
OOC: This is Emmy. And, erm no.
Canon: Original Character
Face-claim: Tom Hiddleston
Social Status: High Class
Occupation: James is a ballet dancer in the New York City Ballet
Age: 26
Appearance: From a high class family, James was taught manner and etiquette from a very young age - this naturally included how one was to carry oneself, and the necessity for a good posture. After beginning ballet at the age of five, his straight back hardly reclined, as dancing required strict lines. Being a professional dancer, there is generally an air of grace to his actions, and every one seems to flow effortlessly into the other, which is really just a side effect of years of ballet.
In general, his appearance is very much revolved around dancing. Devoting much of his life to his profession means that more often than not he simply runs around in whatever he was wearing for practice. Though, when he does dress properly, he usually chooses to wear semi-casual shirts and jackets.
Overall Personality: James' personality is practically near-precisely what he generally seems to be. He is rarely secretive with his opinions - and hardly feels the need to hide whatever he is feeling, be it a form of sickly anger or contagious joy. Though this isn't to say that the man is transparent, merely that he doesn't notice that masking his emotions would, perhaps, be a better decision at certain moments (especially considering that he often tends to have inappropriate mood swings, a habit he would probably insist was somehow provoked by Victor). Some things, on the other hand, are automatically input into his system to be secreted away. Such as any creeping feeling of love that could be deemed higher than 'storge' or 'philia' (as the Greeks elegantly phrase the stages). Any sort of passion James considers too complex for him to bear becomes a dance - making the motion something of a coping mechanism.
Though James generally tries to avoid any kind of argument (quarrels with Victor not included), he will always be willing to voice his opinion - and if someone happens to contradict him, why should he not query their reasons? But even in this, the dancer will find a way to appear perfectly polite. He was raised a gentleman, after all, and if an insult is to be padded with a friendly demeanour, the person to whom it is directed is far less likely to notice. Privately offending an oblivious person with simple logic is always far more entertaining than an argument.
Being generally an exceptionally active man, it is rare for James to ever be doing absolutely nothing. The dancer is comstantly in motion (sometimes likely without even noticing) and detests to not be so. In relation, he holds little regard for lazy people - though this could simply be due to the man's lack of understanding of why they wouldn't want to be moving around. People had bodies for a reason, after all, it didn't make sense for a person to sit around all day.
It is most definitely in connection with this habit that James has boundless amounts of energy. He doesn't rely on any sort of stimulants to provide this (in fact he generally stays away from caffeine in general, and lives on a healthy diet - the rare times he falls ill of a headache or a fever it is most likely he would reject any form of medicine anyway, as he believes they 'weaken the immune system'), but rather seems to gain his energy from motion itself, as though every action generates a spark within that will fuel him for the next, where the process continues.
Likes, dislikes:
Likes: Dancing, Victor, Victor watching him dance
Dislikes: Thinking about his parents, cats, not actively doing something at any given moment, Victor - when he's being weird
Overall History: James was born in England, on the 1st of January to loving parents Hugo and Christine Windsor. The two were delighted with the arrival of a son, and - as he was the only child they would plan to have - granted him with names of the most cherished members of their seperate families. Which, as it turned out, unfortunately grew to quite a mouthful.
He remembers very little of his early life, apart from extremely frequent visits to the Natural History Museum, a seemingly blessed place for a young boy, where he could run around and discover something in every adventure. Somewhere along the way, he grew fond of ballet, and began to attend classes at a young age.
His parents had always been almost absorbed in one another, and cared passionately for James, and so when he reached the age of eight the family found themselves moving to Switzerland, so that their son could attend a prestigous arts academy located in Geneva. As, by that time, he was already in the midst of learning several languages (Christine valued intelligence, and made a habit of teaching the boy three herself, the others enforced by private tutors), and so hardly had difficulty fitting in.
Soon, he came to be in the acquaintance of a local boy, Victor Frankenstein, and a girl named Elizabeth (whom he later found to be Victor's second cousin). The three were practically inseperable from then on, the diveristy of their interests and abilities - and even the austere nature and long hours ballet practice at the academy demanded - hardly stretching the ties the three had to one another. Victor, James had always felt, was somewhat of a dearer friend to him that Elizabeth had been. Perhaps it was his odd sort-of intelligence that drew the boy in (it seemed he had inherited the same value for such from his mother, at least).
The years spent in Geneva were never forgotten, but it wasn't long before James needed to return to England, having been offered a placement at a University in order to follow his aspirations of becoming a professional dancer. There, he spent the better part of a year, improving his technique and concentrating intensely on the ballet. Though his studies were interrupted unexpectedly only a few weeks ahead of the end of the last term before summer, when James recieved news of his father's unforseen and untimely heart failure. Despite it being such a personal event, the tight rules of the University made it unlikely that he would be able to visit his mother before the funeral, which was planned to be held during the first week of summer.
So James continued to dance. Often he thinks he should have known, having seen the depth of his parents love for each other so frequently in their lives. Having seen, constantly, the burning love they held. But it was just as unexpected when the man was soon later informed of his mother's suicide.
With little time to think over what had happened, and the freedom of summer then upon him, James attended the funeral (for the both of them, their ashes released combined to the heavens) fleetingly, before embarking on a journey to Ingolstadt, where Victor was attending University. Though the man he returned to was far from the Victor he had left.
But he fixed him. He fixed him, and took him home. Back to England, which - although it was not the home they both shared, was host to a place that Victor would never be turned away from. It was James' home, after all.
Their lives continued for around five years, during which James finally progressed on to dancing with the Covent Garden Ballet - Victor and the dancer taking care of each other, and the former man healing from his insanity (at least as much as James was able to help him to). When he was offered a transfer to NYCB, the man knew that it would be the opportunity for them to leave the past behind. The opportunity for them both to fly, and to flourish somewhere completely new.
Most Influential Event: More a constant, than an event, is the influential nature of James' parents' relationship. At a young age he noticed that their love was an unconditional one, and no matter how hard he tried not to notice, the passion of their gaze was something he was never quite able to understand beyond the fact that it was dangerous. Indeed, there were times that his mother and father seemed to be a united whole, no visible seam where one became the other. James always had an interest in ballet, but when he decided that those were emotions he was probably better off living without, he drove the same passion he had seen in his parents into his dancing. James grew used to losing himself in motion. The actions released the feelings he was too scared to admit to.
Sample Writing:
Dancing was James' passion.
It had been for years. From the days he remembered watching the graceful motion of the ballet dancers of Covent Garden Opera House, to the memories of spying Victor observing one of his classes in the academy. The other boy was never allowed to be there, which made it all so much more thrilling, really. He had felt unnerved slightly by Victor's gaze, the first time he crept into dance practice - but James had easily become accustomed. Now, it seemed, dancing without feeling the presence of his strange friend felt curiously lonely.
But of course, that was impossible. James was never lonely when he danced.
Because dancing was James' passion. Though not as a term of speaking, as the statement was actually rather literal. Every entrechat, or cabriole, or jete, was never something rehearsed or enforced. Each movement was more than that - it was an expel of the energy generated from thousands of thougths of feelings or passions that James was afraid to expel conventionally.
It is difficult to truly be real. Many people will think or believe or know what they feel - but that is thinking or believing or knowing, not feeling. Being real is feeling. Any boring nobody can understand how to think or believe or know, but it is near impossible to learn how to feel. Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people. But the moment you feel, you're nobody but yourself.
And to be nobody but yourself in a world which is trying unrentlessly to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle anyone could ever imagine fighting - and to never stop.
The dancing is real. And so the dancing is James' passion.
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