Raisz, Sam

[samraisz]

OOC: So, I realise that I haven’t RPed much with Milo and I created Imogen last month, but um, I hope it’s okay that I post Sam’s form? I’d just like to get these guys rolling with summer. If this isn’t okay or you disapprove I’ll totally take it down and wait until a more appropriate time.

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{ A B O U T . Y O U }

Name: Didi.
Gender: Femme.
Age: Nineteen. Oh my god no almost twenty.
E-mail: [e-mail]
Twitter: www.twitter.com/xhappyxendingsx
Years of RPG Experience: Oh, a fair few.
Other: Rock me Amadeus. Or, uh, [removed by staff].

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{ Q U I C K . Q U I Z }

How did you find us? I’m blowing your secret, Ellie. She did it. She’s responsible, and I’ve known her five years, so neener. We frequently have hot lesbian sex. And by lesbian sex, I mean tea. But it’s still hot.
What about ISS inspired you to join? Well, it’s pretty coolbeans. Not only is it professional and exceedingly well-organised, but it’s also welcoming and friendly, which is...really darn cool.
Do you have any suggestions for us? Nope, not one.

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{ A B O U T . T H E . C H A R A C T E R }

Name: Sam Raisz.
Age: Sixteen, going on seventeen on October 6th.
Gender: Male.
Year: Sixth.
Face Claim: Nick Snider. He’s a model, in case you don’t recognise the name.

Canon or Original? Original.

Facial Properties: With a shock of white-blonde hair, dark eyebrows and pale skin, Sam is a bizarre mixture of his parents. Prominent cheekbones are the most evident feature on his well-structured face, tapering down to meet too-full-for-a-boy lips. His wide-set blue-green eyes are large and high on his face, shielded by heavy lids and exceptionally sensitive to the sun and other forms of bright light. He has a short, straight nose that, in his opinion, is far too wide and high above his mouth. His jaw is fairly square, forming a smooth, rounded chin that juts out slightly – especially when he’s focusing hard. He has his mother’s classical beauty, though in a male sense. The best way to describe Sam’s face would be “delicately masculine”, because really – everything about Sam is delicate.
Physique: I must say, before I begin – this section hurt to do. More than Personality. There was begging and pleading, there was compromise, and the question of “Is this part absolutely necessary?” arose more than once. Sam has insane body issues, and this section was literally torturous – for him and me. Now...let’s start off by easing into it, maybe. On his outer thighs are scars. Not from open wounds, but from burns. Little round boils and blisters from the tip of his wand. Also, he bruises exceptionally easily. Like bumping into a table, he’ll get a bruise. That was...easy enough. Harder stuff now, yeah? Sam is not exceptionally tall. In fact, his maximum height is five-foot-ten. His limbs look longer than they truly are because of their slenderness – and already we’re into hurtful material. Sam is skinny. His collarbones practically pop out from under his throat. There is nothing but skin covering his ribs. His stomach is flat, no muscle whatsoever. His hipbones strain against his flesh, as if dying to break free. Looking at him, a person could just think that he’s ordinary – maybe a little undersize, but nothing to be concerned over. But when Sam looks at himself, all he sees is something that needs fixing. And to fix himself, there needs to be less of himself. There needs to be – well, nothing, if it was up to him. Sam can’t look in a mirror without flinching. It hurts too damn much. There’s nothing right with his appearance, not in his mind. All of this, of course, makes him exceptionally brittle. A fall from even a short distance could break something. Not that Sam will ever, ever admit to this possibility. Needless to say, appearance is a highly sensitive topic for Sam, so much so that he’s nothing but a whimpering and pleading lump in my minds right now.

Wand Type: Ivy and unicorn hair, thirteen inches, pliable, unusually thin.
Wand Expertise: Ollivander might have mentioned something about it being good for Transfiguration, but Sam doesn’t care about expertise. So long as it can hex someone who gets in his way or lock a door when he wants it to, it’s good enough for him. I will say that he smirked to himself and got, er, ideas. “I have lots of expertise with a wand, if you know what I mean.”
Patronus: The Large Flying Fox, or Pteropus vampyrus. Since he’s not a fan of things that fly, this really pisses him off. He doesn’t like bats, either. He thinks they’re creepy and unnatural. Despite his grievances, this Patronus does suit him in a bizarre way. Maybe it’s because they both have restricted diets and prefer to come alive at night. He doesn’t know. Or particularly care. It’s a bat. He’s freaked out enough as it is.
Boggart: This doesn’t even require explanation. Himself, exposed – every secret, every insecurity, every crazy thought he’s ever had inside his head, just laid out for all to see and hear and judge. Oh, he’d die if that truly happened.

Personality:
We’ll start with the basics of Sam. A first impression of him could easily be “arrogant prick”. He’s definitely not the most mature for his age, but he doesn’t care. He’s Sam Raisz, he doesn’t have to care. Right? Precisely. Sam likes to look at people and things in terms of class, and oh, you can bet he considers himself to be “first”. Now, even though he’s a pureblood with the typical pride, he doesn’t have the same prejudice that certain families have. Oh he loathes Mudbloods and Muggles, to be certain, but he doesn’t want them exterminated. He considers them to be necessary. After all, the purebloods need something to rule, otherwise they’d all fight each other for dominance. The existence of Mudbloods and Muggles makes that part easy. He’s haughty, because he knows he can get away with it. He knows he has a reputation that will enable him to coast through school, if not life itself. Of course, his ego has everything to do with money and reputation, because when it comes to himself, it stops. Sam’s biggest enemy is himself – and oh, you can bet the use of “biggest” hurt him like hell. See, he’s got this problem.

Sam is obsessed with weight.

It’s not just a worry for him, it’s his whole life. His world revolves around the fit of his pants. The desire to be thin and “perfect” is always on his mind, and has been since childhood. His mother is an ex-model for dress robes and now designs them, and his father is a photographer who specialises in magical fashion – dress robes, styles, et cetera. Growing up, Sam was surrounded by artificial beauty, and it set a standard for his mind that he strives to achieve. Starting as young as nine, Sam has had issues with food and eating, and looks for ways to avoid it. At school, he works on a system. He finds breakfast easy enough to skip by getting up early and pretending he’s already eaten during the weekdays, and by sleeping in and missing it on Saturdays and Sundays. To his knowledge, lots of students skip lunch to work on homework, so that works to his advantage. Dinner is a tough one: he can’t always skip it. Years of practice has taught him how to “fake” eating (pushing food around so it looks eaten, lifting it to his mouth and putting it down when the person he’s speaking to is distracted, causing distractions himself by talking a lot), as well as how to chew-and-spit without being noticed. If he absolutely has to eat, he does so by taking in as little as possible, but it doesn’t stay in his stomach long. He obsessively weighs himself daily, sometimes three or four times if he can get to his scale. He’s just under six feet tall and he’s not physically fit; he’s afflicted with asthma, so any sort of exercise is tough on his lungs. Making sure he doesn’t eat enough to gain weight is all he can do, and he panics if the number on the scale goes anywhere near the limit for recommended body weight.

Ever since he was a kid, touch has been an issue. This, he knows isn’t normal, but he also knows it has a diagnosis that he can work on – tactile defensiveness. By this point, he’s managed to keep it fairly under control. He’s grown accustomed to the scratchiness of the school robes, as well as the blankets and pillows. The floors are an issue – stepping out of the shower, the first thing he does is pull on seamless socks or slippers – and he hates when his bare skin touches stone or the wood of the desks. Even skin – he has to ensure his own skin is smooth to the touch (with the exception of a small space on each outer thigh) and it’s not just a vanity thing, it’s a sanity thing. (Rhyming was unintentional, I promise.) He has it mostly under control, but every now and then if he touches something rough, or grainy, or just a texture he loathes, he’ll have a massive reflexive jerk and deliberately stay as far from it as he can.

As if he didn’t stress himself out enough with weight, Sam also is heavy (again, he’s freaking out over word choice) into self-injury. His burning was sparked by an accident, but after he discovered that he enjoyed the feeling, it only took two more “accidents” for him to need it. His thighs are covered with small and deliberate scars and burn marks from the tip of his wand. Sam is under the unshakable belief that he requires this release to simply function normally, and it’s something he refuses to let anyone see.

He likes routine, and requires organisation and planning before he will agree to anything. One of the reasons he likes school so much is because of the set schedule. He doesn’t particularly enjoy studying, or work, but he likes the fact that there are designated times for everything and that his day is planned. Sam can’t stand spontaneity. It scares him to death. School is something he doesn’t take seriously. He has very little faith in himself and doesn’t believe he’ll succeed in life. He can’t see himself going places and so he doesn’t try very hard. He attends every class, he’ll do his homework, but only because of the schedule and routine. He’s not the top student and he never tries to be. A lot of his class time is spent comparing how tight he can fit his chair to his desk, or how far his stomach may protrude over the top.

He doesn’t like being close to anyone, the exception being Victoria Macmillan, but even she can only know so much about him. Being close makes him feel vulnerable, and he hates that more than anything. Love is something he refuses to believe in. He sees it as nothing more than bodily hormones and physical attractions combining to fool the mind. He doesn’t believe it’s permanent, so why even bother? Sex is more fun than the complications of love, in his opinion. No, Sam is determined to stay as far away from love as he can – but things like that aren’t really his choice, are they?

Friends are people Sam values more than he likes to let on. Because he doesn’t like to be vulnerable, he’ll even go so far as to belittle the people he cares about most. His way of being affectionate is to be rude. It’s when he’s not insulting one of his friends when there’s a bigger (oh gosh the way he moaned “stop” in my head was heartbreaking) problem. Sam’s way of “fighting” is to back off and be completely isolated from those he cares about; if he chooses to speak, it’ll be a personal insult, one he truly means to hurt rather than being an affectionately biting remark. But with Sam, he’ll never tell a person just how much they mean to him. (Tori is a special exception, because he’s known her as long as he can remember. She gets a special place in his heart.) He’s afraid that person will realise how much power and control they’ll have over him, and control is something Sam simply cannot lose.

Despite his issues, Sam has the decency to make himself appear normal. His greatest manipulation is giving the impression that he’s “fine”. He can slap on a smirk and crack a joke and just work his way through the bad stuff. And he won’t stop until the issue is dropped. Because if anyone knew what he did behind locked bathrooms doors – yeah, no one is allowed to see the crazy.

Control is something he needs, image is his obsession, burning is a release and relationships mean vulnerability. Those are the four constants in Sam’s life. He doesn’t know exactly who he is and part of him is afraid to find out the truth, but it’s something he’ll have to face sooner or later – whether or not he likes the outcome.

Likes:
+Beauty
+Classical music
+Being thin
+Soft objects
+Night
+Winning
+Drinking
+Dreaming
+Nightmares
+Being scared
+Giggling
+Quiet
+Company
+Cussing
Dislikes:
–His weight
–Rough objects and textures
–Heights
–Swimming
–Exposure
–Food
–Dolls
–His knuckles
–Running
–His lungs
–People touching his hair
–Losing hair
–Dancing
–Loud noises
–Blood where it shouldn’t be
–Bright lights
–Being alone in the spotlight
–Excessive vulgarity (I feel I should explain this one. Sam will swear like a sailor. But there are some words he just can’t stand to hear or say. Let’s just say, the c-word, for example. Or the derogative definition for the word that can also mean “cigarette”. Sam simply can’t stand their use. He’s funny that way. But Sam’s always been the oddball.)

History:
If the Raisz family can be summed up in two words, they would be new money. Not necessarily the most exciting two words, but they do a decent job based off the associations with them alone.

Daniel Raisz grew up poor, but his parents drilled into his brain that because he was a pureblood, he deserved better, that he was better than everyone else. It didn’t matter if they had no money to their name whatsoever: they always were, and always would be, better than any filthy little Muggle, Mudblood or blood-traitor to cross their paths. And Daniel was to grow up and marry for blood. Wealth was favourable, but love was simply a bonus and therefore unnecessary. No matter how poor they were, Daniel was not going to be the one to put a dirty smear in the Raisz bloodline.

Desperate for money, Daniel swallowed his pride and applied for a low-key job: a personal assistant at a wizarding fashion photo shoot. He was surprised to find he didn’t completely hate it. It was challenging, and he learned a lot about organisation and responsibility. Even though he utterly loathed being someone’s “assistant” – it could have been worse, he could have been working under a Mudblood – it was an exciting workplace, and he soon discovered that he had a love for something he never thought he would. It didn’t take long for him to steal an old camera and start taking candids of strangers around the city, or even just of objects at home. And to his astonishment, he seemed to have a knack for it. After gaining a decent reputation for himself as a dedicated and reliable worker, he mustered the courage to show some shots to lower-key, yet still established, photographers. They, fortunately, saw that he had talent, and one offered him a small display in his next gallery.

And that was where he met her – Adriana Hough.

She was the very picture of beauty. Daniel hardly believed in love, let alone love at first sight, but from the moment he set his eyes on her he knew she would be his. A pureblood witch seven years his elder, she was a well-established model, and Daniel was determined to photograph her at the next opportune moment. And, to his immense surprise, she seemed to take a similar interest in him. It was Adriana who approached Daniel and expressed interest in having him photograph her. He would have complete artistic control of the shoot, so long as she got to design what she wore. Daniel eagerly and instantly agreed.

Adriana herself came from a recently-middleclass pureblood family, just burst from poverty a mere generation ago. While she was more privileged than her own parents had been, and Daniel, she understood the value of saving money and ensured that she kept control and didn’t spoil herself. Modelling, to her, was a way to make money. In all honesty, she hated it. She wanted to design. Modelling was merely her income until her line of dress robes got off the ground. The problem was that no photographer would shoot her, or any model, wearing them. Not until Daniel.

To say that she took complete advantage of him purely for selfish needs would be one-hundred percent true. She saw someone in a desperate situation and used him to achieve her own needs. Developing a liking for the younger man – someone who, in all honesty, she had very little physical attraction to – and having them both gain success from the shoot was something she wasn’t prepared for. But the chemistry between the two was absolutely undeniable.

His photo shoot skyrocketed both of them to high levels of fame. Daniel became a sought-after photographer by dozens of magical designers, even for things that weren’t fashion-related. Daniel could make a cauldron look artistic. And that winter, Adriana’s dress robes were flying off the shelves. Their friendship, as well, continued to blossom. Daniel began to see her more and more as a friend, his crush fading into simple affection, and Adriana soon saw him as her closest confidante.

Funny how one drunken and stupid night between good “friends” changes everything.

Daniel and Adriana were married within weeks of her telling him that she was carrying his child. The union was really no surprise to the rest of the wizarding world, since it was presumed they were dating anyway, but their families were immensely shocked. There had been no signs or hints of romance between their children whatsoever. When Adriana gave birth to Samuel seven months later, however, reasons became clear. Not that it mattered: Daniel and Adriana were perfectly happy with each other. They loved each other, despite not being in love. Being legally married took out the pressures of relationships, and they were both happier for it. And hey, they were both purebloods. Awesome.

Sam was a breakable child, in a way. He was born a bit prematurely, and was always a small, frail thing. He developed pulmonary issues at an early age that continued as he grew, making sports exceptionally difficult for him. But his parents loved him, even if their careers meant they weren’t around as much as they could have been. When they were with him, they spoiled him, and instilled the pureblood pride that they, themselves, had grown up with. Despite the arrogance and confidence they built within him, he was always a bit weird and therefore never good at making friends – except for Victoria Macmillan. Sam was so little when he met her that he doesn’t even remember how it happened; all he knows is that she’s in his earliest memories. From racing on toy broomsticks to pretend marriages, they seemed inseparable as kids. Tori is perfect, in his eyes. He trusts her more than anyone in the world – but even she can’t know his darker side. He’s afraid it would just – destroy everything. Destroy her.

But how did Sam’s issues start? It can’t just be because he was raised in a superficial environment. There’s gotta be something mental buried in there, right?

He was always a picky eater. He never liked breakfast, and he hated meat. That could have partially been the texture of it, too. And he liked weird food. He used to have bizarre lunches with him when he followed his parents to their work and just hung around the office while they earned their Galleons. And on one day, he had a craving for peanut butter and pickles at the same time, and so he had his father’s personal assistant make him a peanut butter and pickle sandwich. Sam never forgot the look of utter disgust and confusion on her face as she handed him the peanut butter sandwich with the sliced pickles between the bread. That sparked his initial paranoia surrounding food, where he started dividing meals up into categories of Safe versus Unsafe. He wasn’t a meat eater anyway, but he soon became strictly vegan, even though he technically didn’t know that was what it was called. He was off dairy – cheese, yogurt, chocolate, anything that had milk in it. As a designer and ex-model, his mother kept him on a fairly strict diet anyway. It wasn’t hard to live off salads, breads and rice. Not when his parents were barely around at mealtimes anyway.

The utter need to restrict himself came at fourteen. His parents took a weekend off during the summer and took Sam to Fistral Beach. It was riddled with Muggles, but it was a holiday – they could make do. Daniel tried to convince Sam to go swimming with him while Adriana lounged on the beach. The second Sam dared to remove his shirt, his mother “joked” that he still had his “baby belly”. That hurt – it hurt a lot. He barely got through the day without a breakdown. Sam is actually refusing to go into details but...but he taught himself how to adjust and manipulate and fake his way around eating. Since then, his life has revolved around the why can’t it be two three numbers that appear when he weighs himself.

Burning, his self injury – given his tactile defensiveness, one would think pressing a white-hot wand tip to one’s skin would be the most unpleasant sensation in the world. Oh, it hurts. It’s worse than any pain he’s ever experienced. But in the moment where he can think of nothing but it, he feels almost – almost free. And it’s another way to control what happens to his body. Just lighting the tip of his wand creates such a wonderful release that he can’t imagine how he’d get by these days without it. It started recently, around Christmas of his fifth year. He went home for the holidays and burnt his arm lighting a candle. It hurt like hell, but it fascinated him. He cleverly found his way to burn himself in more accidents before he realised that arms were much, much too obvious. He would have worked on his stomach – he hated it anyway, and it’s a damn large enough canvas – except Fistral Beach became a holiday tradition, and as much as he hated swimming (god being half-naked, showing himself to others who would judge and mock and see everything – no, he can’t stand it) he knew if he didn’t, his parents would complain. Not that they spent much time with him during the vacations anyway – whatever. He settled on his thighs. And it’s worked without a hitch. Yes, they’re tender. God they hurt all the time. He hates the oily slickness of crème, so he wouldn’t use it. Besides, that would defeat the purpose.

Oh, Sam’s got his issues. He has enough for two people, he’s the first to admit it. But if he’s happy...if he’s happy, isn’t it okay? If he can be happy, won’t everything he does in the meantime...not matter? It’s not up to others to judge him...right?

Sample Post: Not to toot my own horn, because hah, I really really don’t, but this was a kinda shocking Hogsmeade revelation for Milo. So let’s go with it. Because it breaks my heart a little.

Whatever traces of laughter had been on Milo's face were gone in an instant. The smell of burning flesh was filling his nose, making him feel sick to his stomach. He licked his lips and choked back a gag before he hesitantly stepped toward the carriage door. For a second, his breath stopped in his chest and his lungs felt constricted. The feeling of dread erupted in the pit of his stomach and spread throughout him, travelling along nerve ending until it reached every inch of his body. "What the hell...?” he heard Brody ask, and Milo turned back to shake his head briefly. All he knew was that he was afraid to step out of the carriage, but he couldn't stay in there. They couldn't stay in there.

The sight that met his eyes sucked the breath from his lips. There was fire everywhere. People in black cloaks and masks were flying around on broomsticks, hexing and cursing anyone within reach. A small squeak of shock left his mouth as he saw students - gosh, his classmates! - fall victim to spells cast by the cloaked figures. Milo snapped his head to Brody, opening his mouth to say something - anything, a warning or just a rare expletive - but before he even had time to get out a syllable, he stumbled off the carriage steps and into the panicking crowd. His hand plunged into the back pocket of his jeans and gripped the handle of his wand, whipping it out in front of him protectively. "Brody!" he called, trying to look back and see if he was all right. Gosh, and Emily was with him...The crowd was just too thick, and he felt himself being dragged away like current. Milo turned to look ahead, then gasped and fell hard to his hands and knees as his foot caught on something and tripped him up. Wincing, he gritted his teeth and grasped at his wand, trying desperately hard to not allow himself to cry out as his fingers were crunched under a foot. Oh, they were definitely broken. Milo bit his lip and gripped his wand between his thumb and index finger only since they were least harmed. He ducked his head as students leapt over him and struggled to stand, glancing back briefly to see what he'd fallen over.

Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. No no, that wasn't a body. That wasn't a student, that wasn't - it couldn't be - she wasn't dead, she couldn't-

Bile burned at Milo's throat, bubbling up from his stomach and making him retch and clutch at his abdomen with his good hand. He turned away, shocked at how guilty he felt for vomiting at the sight of a dead girl when it wasn't her fault, not in the least. That wasn't the right thing to be thinking about. No, he had to focus on surviving. And what about Brody? And Doc, Doc had to be there too - gosh, he'd made plans to ride the carriage with Brody and hadn't even thought of Doc, and Doc was - he didn't even know if he was all right, or if he'd even decided to come to Hogsmeade. He hoped against hope that he stayed back. Milo looked around, and prayed to God that the fact that he didn't see him meant he wasn't there to be-

"CRUCIO!"

The utter agony that tore through Milo's body was unlike anything he'd ever experienced in his life. He'd broken an arm as a kid when he fell from a tree, and he'd thought that had hurt. But oh, he would rather break both arms in seven different places all at once than to go through this. It felt as though his skeleton had been lit on fire, like needles were poking into his flesh, like every single organ inside of him was twisting around another and being pulled tight into knots. And his skull, oh his skull was going to explode. He stumbled forward, instinct alone keeping him from falling to his knees and just maintaining balance. Milo's left hand crept up to his neck and reached inside his shirt, his fingertips brushing the small silver crucifix he kept hidden beneath his clothes. God give him-

"Crucio!"

Strength, whatever he had left, left his body in a scream.

"Crucio!"

God wouldn't let this happen. There was no way. God didn't-

"Crucio!"

-exist.

Safety was something Milo had never truly considered and he never realised how much he'd taken it for granted. Tears stung his eyes and rolled down his cheeks as his entire body shook, his knees finally failing him as he went down. Students were still fleeing all around him and he eyed them vacantly, a hollow feeling beginning to take over within his body. He released the cross. It was just an object. It had no magical ability -

Magical ability. Like the wand in his hand, like the reason he was in Hogsmeade in the first place. His throat was raw from the screaming he hadn't even heard himself doing, but he tried anyway. Milo lifted his wand, his unfocusing vision seeing two of the black-cloaked figure that was casting at him. His voice cracked, but he chose one of the figures and hoped to G- he hoped it was the real one and not the illusion from the pain. All he needed to do was buy time, just to clear his head and get away. Please let me hit the right one, he begged silently, then parted his lips and cracked out,

"Impedimenta!"

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{ C O N T R A C T }

I solemnly swear that I, Didi, have read the rules, understand clearly what my responsibilities are now that I am joining ISS, and will abide by these standards set by the staff.

[Professor Albus Dumbledore]

Pending.

PMed account. [:

[Professor Albus Dumbledore]

A c c e p t e d !
into Slytherclaw (;