APP!

[vanghost]

GENERAL

Name: Slade Azazel Winchester; it's on his birth certificate and it's NOT a fake name.
Nickname(s): He's tried going by anything remotely not Slade. One time he successfully achieved "Ade" or "Aden" but it's pretty much an impossible feat. Slade it is.
Gender/Pronouns: Male/ He/him/his
Birthdate/Age: June 19; 15
Grade: Sophomore
Sexuality: He probably thinks he's straight but it's relatively unexplored.

Major Arcana: Star
Minor Arcana: Wands

Concept: Skeptical ghost tourist discovers magic is real, hates it

APPEARANCE

Height:	5'11"	Hair Color:	Black
Build:	Comically Skinny	Eye Color:	Brown

Slade doesn't look like a Slade, through careful cultivation of his image in the other direction. He's shamefully tried one time to pull off the leather jacket/flannel thing, but honestly...it wasn't for him, anyway. He has no real need to prove how badass he is through his image. Which is good, because his image is a tall literal beanpole with glasses and well-trimmed hair. He likes colors. He likes dressing comfortably in t-shirts and jeans. He'll throw in little accessories if he's feeling punchy, like cute bow ties.
PB: Andre Kim

PERSONALITY

Likes: Logic. Math. Science. Baseball. Cars. Trading cards. His glasses. Bow ties. Bland food (he likes mashed potatoes?). Gum. Cats. Nonfiction. Statistics.

Dislikes: Unexpected surprises. People who want him to be brave. Ghosts! Ghost STORIES. Hot food because he burns his mouth.Fantasy. Works of fiction.
---
Slade Winchester, raised and expected to embrace ghost stories, wants nothing more than everything to be logical. Normal. He doesn't like abstract concepts or fairy-tales.They make him uncomfortable. It's honestly a miracle he's lasted so long at a school where he regularly hurls a monster out of his subconscious. He hates that so much of his world is tied up in magic. It's not that he's exactly cynical. He doesn't like what he can't understand, and Slade can't understand more than he'd ever admit. When something doesn't fit in with what Slade's decided is logical he obviously either has to pretend it doesn't exist, or embrace it. In the last year, he's done a lot more embracing than he'd like, but he's learning to live with it. After a lot of complaints.

Slade isn't naturally that bright, and he's too lazy to be a very good student. He's lucked in to discovering a few things he's good at, and that is largely his downfall. He aspires to mediocrity at best, as long as he can look good. This shooting star will only ascend so far, and as long as he can sound impressive with what he has achieved, he's kind of fine with that. The better Slade is at something, the harder he will try at it, and the more he will talk about it. And then he'll ignore everything that's hard for him, because he probably didn't need it anyway. He's the kind of perfectionist that usually gives up immediately when things become difficult for him, because he'd rather be on top in just one thing and awful at everything else than not particularly special at all. Right now, this looks like science (he loves biology, and is toying with the idea of being some kind of doctor, but maybe a psychiatrist, because frankly he's better at talking than prospective surgery.) He also happens to be really good at fighting and athletics. He's not exactly boastful about his accomplishments, but he won't let anyone forget about them, either. They're really all he has.

Just as Slade sticks to the middle of the pack in his social/academic life, all he's ever really wanted is to be some kind of version of Normal. He was raised in a van, but sought out things like white picket fences and Boy Scouts as soon a he found them. His name is Slade Winchester, but he really wants to do is change it to Craig or something. He tries really hard to prevent himself from being Weird, which makes him a little weird in turn. Like it's probably strange how conversations with him are usually small talk, in the vein of complaining about the weather. There's something a little Politician about Slade, in that you can tell that sometimes he's purposely spitting out completely banal small talk to avoid any controversy whatsoever. He's pleasant enough, but there doesn't seem to be very much backbone there. And mostly, there isn't. He's a great second, or follower. He's a bit of a yes-man who will go with a group's consensus rather than stand up for what he really believes. If he really has a moral issue with something, he'll try to quietly bow out instead of standing to fight. He's not about to die on any hill if it makes himself stick out in a bad way. He gets a little ashamed of that sometimes, but it's how he survives.

Unfortunately, this doesn't always work as well as he'd like it to. He's not a complete moral wasteland, and although he's cowardly most of the time, he changes when there are real stakes. This probably most becomes clear in the shadow world, or in a real world scenario, to stand up for a friend. With enough provocation (a LOT,) Slade flares up. He doesn't have anger problems, normally. He's an emotionally stable boy, despite generally controlled small outbursts now and again. His temper is set at the slowest possible burn. Once it's turned all the way up, though, there's a sort of gas explosion. He has no idea how to handle himself when he's angry, and drops into pure impulse. If he's fed up, he'll jump in front of bullies and shadows alike. Some of his most impulsive decisions are his most brilliant, honestly, because he's lost that careful facade of trying to look like a beige wall. He tries not to let any of this happen very often, because he's still trying to fit in. But he's slowly learning that sometimes, impulsiveness can be a good thing. He risks, of course, swinging a little too far in the other direction. But that can be dealt with as it happens.

Slade likes to talk, but he should consider doing less of that. He very rarely says much of consequence. He does whine a lot, and encourages people around him to do the same. Slade's great at commiseration. He's honestly a very good open ear, and he'll take people's problems on as his own, and complain about a boyfriend or job he's never met. But then he'll turn his own on his conversation partner, and expect them to do the same for him. He shouldn't. There's always a fond edge to his very longest diatribes, though, because Slade expresses his affection best in complaints. He isn't great at telling people how much he appreciates them, but he IS great at whining, so he does that instead. He's loyal enough to his friends and family, but he expects them to know how he functions. He's not going to put his neck on the line for anyone unless he hits the point where he absolutely has to, and then he snaps. Otherwise, he can seem kind of wishy-washy, and is not always worth holding out for.

SKILLS

LANGUAGES: He was only raised speaking English, but has tried to branch into his grandparents' Korean and also, unfortunately, Latin. Neither was on offer at his middle school, and he's not really much of a self-learner, so these are getting nowhere fast. He can do some key phrases and he can do some of an exorcism ritual in Latin because his dads think it's funny when they scold him with it.
MASSACHUSETTS GHOST HISTORY: Do you want an expert on how awful Salem was. Do you want a person who can recite off the history of every former orphanage, church, and mental institution in the state. Well here's Slade, here to save the day. It's an incredibly niche area of expertise, and he wishes he didn't know it, but here we are.
SCIENCE AND LOGIC: Not math, specifically, because math's a little complicated, but Slade likes logic puzzles and sudoku, and he's good at memorizing stuff like spelling words. As long as it's relatively low-effort but also based in reality, he's interested.
BASE...BALL???: Weird, and he doesn't exactly look the part, but Slade's a REALLY good ball player. He's a good pitcher, and he's more athletic than he looks. Also, he has a weird trading card collection.
CAR STUFF: Slade can drive, but he's also really good at changing oil and tires and doing basic car maintenance. He's lived on a camper forever, it came with the territory.

HISTORY

Family:

Father: Albert Seo Winchester; Loving van denizen and business manager of Winchester's Bullet, a van that trawls through Massachusetts and the East Coast dispensing low-budget but deeply researched ghost lore tours. They also go on ghost "hunts" for the more daring people willing to pay a little more for a more in depth ghost experience. Likely the reason his family can eat. Can very effectively convince tourists they need to see graveyards at night.
Dad: Patrick (Miller) Winchester; enthusiastic driver and main tour guide personality of said van tour. He's from a moderately wealthy New England law firm dynasty, but he didn't join in. His trust fund allowed the van to come into being, and it's allll gone now, and he's generally regarded as the odd duck of his family, if not outright black sheep. He loves Slade very much even if he did stick him with the name Slade.

Hometown: A camper currently located behind a van in Salem, Massachusetts

Slade's dads had a dream born of too many horror movie dates, and the ridiculous notion ghosts were real. That's what they bonded over at their dumb high school when they were hidden sweethearts. It's what they reconnected over years later once they graduated from college. They would go to the middle of a cemetery in the middle of the night with flashlights and EMF meters. They'd never really see anything, but there would sometimes be enough of an orb, and enough of a chill seeping through their bones and driving them closer together that they thought truly, ghosts must be real, and they'd be the ones to discover them. And they wanted to publicize it to the world. So they bought a van, some ghost hunting equipment, a camera and a gun. And also, they each changed their last name. It was their own show of loyalty to each other before they could marry legally (which they did, quickly,in an abandoned church.) And honestly, they thought that a tougher name than either of their given ones would add to the appeal of a possible television show based on ghost hunting, starring them. They were in love. They had a son through a surrogate. They wasted most of formerly wealthy Patrick's trust fund in a matter of a few years from both these activities, but didn't much care. They were going to be ghost hunting tv stars. They hand-filmed their adventures exploring old crypts and hospitals (one featuring Tiny Baby Slade in a baby Bjorn in a dicey looking orphanage, so that's funny.) They were a little ahead of their time, though, and no networks seemed interested. It was also before the youtube era, so they didn't have any other big medium for uploading videos.

And then, in 2005, the biggest blow came to their potential ghost hunting show operation. A new show about ghosts and demons aired on the popular channel the WB called Supernatural featuring THE WINCHESTER BROTHERS. This was devastating for obvious reasons. Neither of Slade's fathers can look at a Supernatural poster to this day without spitting (figuratively.) Albert wrote a hate letter to Jared Padalecki but it didn't really make him feel better. Funds already lost, though, it was time to rethink. They decided to cut their losses and operate on the small scale. They moved out of their apartment and into a camper. They bought a tour van and researched relentlessly the ghosts and haunted phenomena of Massachusetts, their home state. And then they took advantage of the haunted tourism business already flocking to Salem and elsewhere, and brought people along on rides across the state, allowing them to experience ghosts too, for about $50 a pop.

So that's how Slade grew up; always in the backseat of a ghost van, trying to read while his dads took strangers into dilapidated buildings, always neatly avoiding trespassing laws. It wasn't the most stable childhood. Albert and Patrick parked the camper in a trailer park so that they could establish residency, and Slade could go to grade school. Which he was always grateful for; if he had to stay for much longer in the back of a camper, he would've got even more stir-crazy. He participated in a lot of after-school activities to fill the hours while his dads were with tourists, or doing any variety of odd side-jobs to fill their pockets. (They had a lot of those, and even today part-time as bartenders, shophands, etc, as needed.) Slade was a boy scout and in soccer. Those activities showed him what a normal childhood looked like, through all the PTA moms' houses he visited, and he saw that he definitely didn't have that. He was a little jealous, but he always had the coolest show and tell stuff, and his dads always did a haunted van ride just for the students every Halloween, so that made up for it. And more than. It was actually sort of a problem. Slade's dads were way cooler than him, and it showed.

Slade wanted nothing more than to pretend that he didn't live in a cool ghost-hunting van. From the time he was very small he believed more in the rational than the supernatural. He wasn't exactly ashamed of how he grew up, but he didn't like going around advertising. Kids thought it was cool, and would ask about ghosts and cryptids. Slade told them that he just wanted to study science. Or math. He almost spitefully turned to books and got smarter. He wasn't unpopular either. He had some Mysterous Weird Kid infamy, and a prickly exterior that obviously hid a veritable cream puff. It made people want to take him under their collective arm. He hated it. But he liked it, too. He was reluctantly successful. The things that he tried to be ironic, he ended up being good at. He didn't really want to be part of the baseball team, but he sure was. He thought spelling bees were really nerdy, but he was reluctantly delighted when he emerged victorious from them.

Meanwhile, he was being expected to pull his weight a little more on the haunted tours, as well. He had been raised on the stories of haunted houses, but he wasn't a natural speaker. He wasn't a salesman. He was relegated pretty quickly into Head Researcher. Slade learned a lot about local lore. He's an historian in his own right. He can tell a lot of ghost stories, but you've never heard a more snappish retelling.

Still. Life was happy enough. Strange, but happy. As high school approached, Slade began looking into options. He knew it would probably just be what middle school had been. But he was in the counselor's office one day, and saw a Finchwood brochure. It was a whim, to apply. It didn't really surprise him when he got accepted. He decided to go immediately. And of course, to make it certain that he wanted to leave, his fathers drove him up in the ghost van. (He made a pretty big fuss. But he was pretty happy they were around. And he hugged them goodbye very sadly.) Slade didn't know, however, that he was walking straight into more magic. When they took him to the velvet room for the first time, he laughed outright. He almost left. The only thing that kept him from leaving was the thought about going back, that for the first time he'd have to face people surprised because he hadn't been successful. And it was something new. He's tried, since then, to pick apart the mystery of the Velvet Room and personas. He comes at every new challenge ready to uncover that this world is fake. They're dancing with weapons in a light show, and the only shadows are in their own imagination.

But they're not. He's faced enough to know that by now, and became good enough at hunting them to know the threat's real. He wishes he was worse at it, he'd love to hide back in logic, but the duty that comes with the danger being real too keeps him at Finchwood. He can't wait to prove that it's all wrong.
He knows he probably won't.

COMBAT

Persona: Hahasiah
Element: Lightning

ACADEMICS

Core Classes: English, Mathematics*, Science*, Social Studies, Training

Elective Classes: Computer Science, Shop, Leadership

Clubs: Athletics, Gaming

General Performance: He's naturally pretty bright in some subjects, although definitely not all, but he's a coaster. He enjoys accolades when he gets high grades and everything, but not enough to put more work into getting them. He definitely doesn't get straight A's. He tends to talk a lot in class when he knows a lot about what he's supposed to be talking about, only to get distracted and start staring out the window when he's no longer the expert in that given moment. He is best, predictably, at science, followed quickly by math.

OOC

Player: Lyss
Email:facemcfacerson@gmail.com
CDJ:You know all this!
Other Contact:
Time Zone:

Comments

BATTLE STATS

[vanghost]

Character Name: Slade Winchester

Squad: 10
Squad Position: Second
Primary Weapon: Hurlbats (he carries 2!)
Combat Style: Slade doesn't have a logical base for any of this, and he never has a plan. This means his impulsive flip side is exposed a lot, and honestly that's a good thing. He flourishes in the corners of fights. He's the one coming in for a kill when the creatures are distracted by someone in front of them. He sneaks behind shadows, if he can, and will always try to get the drop on one if it means he doesn't have to fight them face to face. And he does all that with more brute force than clean precision. He knows he's likely to not get a second chance.

Second is actually a good position for him to be in. He's much more comfortable following and executing someone else's orders. But he's the most enthusiastic about it, and encourages everyone else. In the battle, he's at people's shoulders, yelling to encourage them, and fighting off the threat himself. It's the least he can do. He fills in the blanks. When the tactics clearly aren't working, he doesn't correct anyone. He just makes it possible.
Attribute: Strength
Persona Name:Hahasiah; angel of healing
Persona Appearance: The angel of healing takes on a bit of a different appearance in Hahasiah. It's a massive, rotting hulk-sized zombie creature that seems like it would smell really bad, if shadows could smell. It's dressed in white, biblical robes. Bald on one side, long, flowing hair on the other. The facial features are constantly changing with the ever-rotating scar tissue and skin that makes up his features. Hahasiah takes damage cast by shadows dramatically. Patches of his skin slough off into the ether, leaving behind angry red welts. But they patch over. It leaves behind something ever-growing, if grotesque. He hulks over Slade, stomping his feet, and in every stomp there is lightning.
Affinity: Lightning
Weakness: Thunder
Ailment Susceptibility: Ennervation