lyin' lyle malarkey

[Lyle Malarkey]

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{ A B O U T . Y O U }

Name: whiskey
Gender:
Age: twenty on the nineteenth of this month.
E-mail: haaaas it already, darlings.
Twitter: officially and according to didi, i have not tweeted since oh-nine.
Years of RPG Experience: six/seven. i started at thirteen.
Other: fuck if i know, darlings. i am just far too lazy to look. i know the rules by heart, though. is it still teddy? i hope it is.

also: read the history first to understand the rest of the app. (:

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

How did you find us?
What about ISS inspired you to join?
Do you have any suggestions for us?

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

Name: Lyle Wilson Malarkey.
Age: Seventeen.
Gender: Male.
Year: Sixth.
Face Claim: Darren Criss.

Canon or Original? Original.

Facial Properties:
This is what the world sees:

Strong, angular bone structure on an otherwise youthful face, as if Lyle sometimes forgets to eat (as if sometimes he forgets that being hungry isn’t normal). Large bushy eyebrows over otherwise dull brown eyes, a long nose over relatively full lips (though nothing overtly feminine), lips often cracked into the tiniest of smiles. As if he is just constantly, hesitantly happy. As if he doesn’t trust happiness, but can’t help the constant feeling of mirth that settles in the pit of his stomach sometimes and only the most random of times. His teeth are, surprisingly, rather well-taken care of for someone of his history. The floppy curls that sometimes obscure his view are endearing rather than offensive in their chaotic messiness.

This is what Lyle sees:

A face he can’t explain because he doesn’t recognize the features. The only thing he had really inherited from his mother was her magical ability. The face he sees every time he looks in the mirror is foreign to him as much as it is familiar to him. He waits for the day that his mother remembers who his father is, just from looking at Lyle. He knows that he might just be waiting forever.

(And his straight, white teeth were a present from his mother after her restaurant got high enough reviews in the paper to establish revenue unheard of by their previous standards; the two years of braces are worth the “million-pound-smile” his mother affectionately calls it every time it appears on Lyle’s face.)

Physique:
This is the lie:

Lyle is the epitome of the gay stereotype. He is small but lanky with impeccable taste in clothing. He is skinny naturally, due to a high teenage metabolism that he exploits to the extent that most teenagers do with indulgences in chocolates and pizza and potato chips and a bunch of other nasty habits that will be hard to break when his metabolism shuts down as all teenage metabolisms do in the decades to come.

This is the truth:

Lyle is not naturally skinny by any stretch of the imagination; he often forgets to eat, as he’s not entirely used to the idea of regular meals with occasional snacks. His taste in clothing is scattered due to what he’s used to and what he’s been thrust into in the past few years of his life. He’s tall, taller than his mother, and he’s reminded of this every time he envelopes her in a crushing hug on a holiday. He is athletic due to his infatuation with running, forming lean muscle in the places where extra bulk can form from a rather routine work out regimen.

Wand Type: 13 inches, Cherry wood, unicorn tail hair core.
Wand Expertise: Charms.
Patronus: Cheetah.
Boggart: He has never faced a boggart, and wouldn’t know which of his fears would surface if ever given the opportunity to face one. It’s not because he has so many that he is unable to discern which of them would be on the forefront of his mind; it’s that he fears them all so deeply and so equally that he doesn’t want to spare the thought of which would appear to him when cornered by such a beast. He wonders, sometimes, if what he fears the most is fear in general, but it’s a fleeting thought soon replaced by much, much happier and simpler ones.

Personality:

This is the cause:

Lyle’s mother was a fantastic story teller.

This is the effect:

Lyle is every bit a dreamer. It’s distracting during his more boring classes; he will sit so still, so stoically, staring off into space as he wonders about such trifle things as where a pirate would logically bury his treasure – of course, he always ignores the questionable logic of burying treasure at all – or marveling at the seamless way wizards and witches blend in with muggles. He builds these fantasy worlds in his head, all of these vivid and colorful dreams for his future, full of lively ideas and wishes and hopes. He imagines how situations will go before they happen, and is often disappointed if the results are not the same as his idea. It’s not that he lives in his dreams; he would just prefer to. Life is just easier when you are in control of each aspect, when the only limitations you know are the ones that you hold on yourself.

His incredible imagination has made him a rather believable liar, though it’s not exactly a trait he exploits frequently. He knows how to manipulate words to make even the most far-fetched ideas seem so believable, but he really only uses it when he’s in trouble or feels like he’s in trouble. Sometimes, though, sometimes he lies just to see how much he can get people to believe. Sometimes, he lies just to see if he’s still as good as it as he was when he was younger and had the genuine need to lie.

He’s a fantastic story-teller, though. He spins tales and stories and half of the things he tells people are the things he’s imagined over the years. Because Lyle is a romantic, and he understands that fantasy is often far more interesting than reality.

--- --- ---
These are the important facts:

Lyle is gay.

Lyle has been gay since he knew what gay was.

It was quite an interesting experience; someone told him what the word meant and all he said was, “Oh, yeah, that’s me.”

--- --- ---
These are the details:

There was a covering of dust in the attic of the theatre, making the otherwise lustrous costumes seem somewhat dull in the faint light. Roland was bent over a trunk, trying to find a specific pair of pants that were better-suited for the period of the current play they were doing than the ones the director had previously chosen. Lyle was perched on top of one of the dressers, legs kicking back and forth between the dust particles floating in the air like snowflakes. He spent a lot of time at the theatre; it was right down the street from his house, and the people were very nice. What nine year old boy didn’t enjoy rather attractive women fawning over him? Pinching his cheeks and slipping him chocolates and just generally spoiling the little boy from down the way? Roland was muttering under his breath, throwing clothes this way and that, disturbing more of the dust in the room. Lyle sneezed.

“Do you have a girlfriend, Roland?” Lyle had asked, and Roland had laughed as if Lyle had said something particularly funny; Lyle didn’t think it was a particularly funny question.

“No, Lyle, I don’t,” he said after he had caught his breath.

“Why not?”

And Roland was quiet, and Lyle knew that that was the face of someone who wasn’t quite sure whether or not they should answer Lyle’s question. Lyle saw that face a lot; he asked a lot of questions. Finally, though, Roland seemed to decide. “I like other men, Lyle.”

“Like – you like men like most men like women?” Lyle wasn’t sure if he was making sense.

“Yes, Lyle. I have a boyfriend. I’m gay.”

And Lyle just kept swinging his legs back and forth, watching the dust float around his shoes, dancing in the air like the women dance on the stage. He just kept swinging his legs before he nodded his head and said, “Oh, yeah. That’s me.”

--- --- ---
This is the lie:

Lyle’s a pushover.

This is the truth:

Lyle doesn’t quite know how to say no to people who ask things of him.

He’s really just offended by the word push-over.

He blames his mother, sometimes, for that habit. Ever since they came into money, his mother had constantly reminded him of harder times and less fortunate situations. It’s not that he doesn’t do these favors for people out of the kindness of his heart alone. More often than not, there’s just that little sense of guilt that he made it out of a crappy situation, and those people are still stuck there.

--- --- ---
This is the cause:

Lyle hasn’t had the best of childhoods, and, sometimes, not the best of mothers.

This is the effect:

Lyle has an incredible amount of common sense. He’s street smart, contextually brilliant. He can tell when someone’s lying and when they mean it. He can look at a stranger and figure out who will give him a few dollars for the train if he just wanders up and asks. His mother used to gasp and call him a mind reader. He had laughed at her for being somewhat ridiculous.

--- --- ---
This is the lie:

Lyle is an incredible student.

This is the truth:

Lyle can’t really be bothered.

(It doesn’t really help that he’s never really, really learned how to read. He’s a visual learner, though, and he often gets by on the help from other people to understand the texts. He can write, though, and his handwriting is more often a scribble than actual words. He wonders if the grades he gets are more based on his professors merely giving him the benefit of the doubt.)

--- --- ---
These are the important facts:

Lyle loves to tell stories.

If he hadn’t been a wizard, he probably would have been an actor.

He knows how to ballroom dance.

Roland taught him how.
Roland also taught him how to play the guitar and the piano.

Singing just came naturally.

These are the details:

Growing up in a theatrical setting, Lyle has a flair for all things glitz and glamour, though you would never know by merely looking at him. Roland became his closest confidant; the ten-year age difference had never really come up. They had preferred not to really look at it. Don’t be one of those people, though, who believe the relationship to be inappropriate by any means. Beyond the occasional hug or high-five, they didn’t touch. (Roland’s boyfriend later became his life-partner, too, if that’ll help stave off rumors.) He was a mentor to Lyle, teaching him how to dance, how to play musical instruments, helping him train his voice to sound like singing instead of just immature warbling of a young man. Later, when Lyle came into money, Roland helped him pick clothes and put together outfits. A favored pair of bright pink sunglasses had been a gift from Roland and Mark (the boyfriend-then-life-partner) when Lyle was fourteen. Lyle’s relationship with Roland and Mark and Christina (the young dancer who was slowly becoming something-of-a-celebrity) and the other actors and actresses and seamstresses and choreographers and even, on occasion, the directors helped him realize what it means to be a friend. He’s not popular – he’s far too shy and introverted to really be something of a figure in the school – but he’s good to the friends he has. Trustworthy and loyal and generous, Lyle gives more than he receives, almost as an indulgence now. He spent most of his life on the receiving end of life, and now that he has the opportunity to give and give and give and give, it’s all he ever really does at this point.

--- --- ---
This is the lie:

Lyle Malarkey is a bad person.

This is the truth:

Lyle Malarkey is a tough kid with a good heart.



Likes:
+ “First, I grew up with just me and my mum and her stories. Then, it was just me, my mum, and the theatre down the street. I met all kinds of dancers and actors and seamstresses and make-up artists and choreographers and – well, I picked up on a few things. I’ve always had a love for the theatrics. I always told my mum; if I wasn’t going to be a superstar wizard, I’d probably be an actor. Not really surprisingly? She wasn’t exactly thrilled.”
+ “Roland taught me how to play the guitar. And then he taught me how to play the piano. And then he taught me how to sing – or, well, how to sing better. Then he introduced me to vinyl records. He took me to my first concert, too; snuck me in the back and let me stay the whole time. He even dealt with my mum afterwards when she was freaking out over curfews. Music is just something I’ve always liked. Or, well, something I’ve liked ever since Roland took me under his wing and showed me the good stuff.”
+ “I would do anything for my friends. Anything.”
+ “My mum’s a chef. She’d disown me if I didn’t say I liked her cooking.”
+ “Once, when I was younger, my mum took me to the ocean, and I remember her telling me that France was just across the way. It seemed so far away, but she kept telling me how close it was. That people actually swim to France. The world just seems so huge, and I want to see it all. As much of it as I can. France, America, Italy – hell, even the Soviet Union seems pretty… I dunno, pretty interesting.”
+ “I run at least a mile a day. At least.”
+ “Blue eyes. Just a preference.”
+ “Oh, and a nice smile.”
+ “Girls. I love to surround myself with a lot of girls. They’re just so compassionate and sweet. They’re beautiful – I love to tell girls just how beautiful they are. Seeing their faces just light up is worth it. Maybe not the awkward, misplaced crushes sometimes, but I like making girls’ days.”
+ “London. I grew up there. Of course I’m going to have a thing for the place where I grew up. It will always be home.”

Dislikes:
– “Dicks. Not, like, the anatomical dick. That’d be quite counterproductive to my cause. I just don’t like assholes who are assholes for no other reason than to be an asshole.”
– “Er, last comment aside, I really don’t like to swear. My mum didn’t do it much, and Roland always made the words sound really, really… I dunno. Dirty.”
– “I don’t really like having money. It’s like this burden that I was completely unaware of before my mum came into it. I never know what to do with it. What’s too much to spend, what’s too little to spend; what’s worth more money than other things.”
– “Cooking. I’m really bad at it.”
– “Cleaning. I can admit that I’m a bit of a slob.”
– “Crying. I don’t do it much myself; I am even worse at handling people who are. That’s when I steer the girls toward each other and back away slowly. I’m really, really bad with crying people.”
– “I’ve never liked holidays. Growing up, I always felt like I was missing out. Now, it’s weird getting things from people. I prefer to give. I could do without the taking.”
– “Low self-esteem. There is nothing less attractive than a person who doesn’t know how great they really are. As much as I like reminding people, it’s tiring having to constantly tell them.”
– “Mice. They gross me out, and I feel like they’re sucking my soul out with their little beady eyes. Like, just sucking out my entire soul. Do you trust anything with red eyes? No. The answer’s always no.”
– “My grandparents. Never met them, never will. I don’t really appreciate the way they make my mum cry every so often when she thinks I’m asleep.”

History:
There are always two sides to every story, sometimes it’s a cause and then the effect, sometimes it’s the important stuff and then one filled with all the little unimportant details, and sometimes? Sometimes it’s the truth and then the lie.

So here is Lyle’s story, from every single side.

--- --- ---

This is the cause:

Free love. That was what the posters proclaimed as they littered the streets and the lamp posts and the mailboxes, crammed under windshield wipers and plastered on every window available; for tree huggers, they sure murdered a lot of them in the hopes of spreading their word. They had met, naturally, at a concert. It was a nameless, faceless, tuneless band that sounded as terrible as the last one, but the tickets were cheap and the weed was good and nothing else mattered at that point in their lives. It was a night of sloppy kisses that tasted of cheap whiskey and bad cigarettes, of shotgunning marijuana smoke with gentle licks of quick tongues, of losing clothes as fast as they were losing their inhibitions.

This is the effect:

John Doe got Elisabeta Malarkey pregnant at a concert and had disappeared before she could even catch his name.

--- --- ---

These are the important facts:

Elisabeta was a student at the time, her third year in university for education; she wanted to be a primary school teacher, to bring kids up in a world full of hope and love.

Her parents were lovely, Christian people, married for thirty years with seven children.

Elisabeta was the second eldest daughter.

She stayed in university for seven of the nine months she was pregnant; that had been how long she had been able to keep it hidden from her parents.

They didn’t disown her, per se. They gave her five grand to establish herself and her child, paid for the medical bills, and politely asked her to never return to their house.

They were, after all, lovely, Christian people, who just happened to have a daughter with a bastard.

--- --- ---

These are all the details:

Lyle Wilson Malarkey was named after his grandfather, the one he was never going to meet. He was born on a beautifully snow-covered Sunday evening in December, three days before Christmas. The labor was long, hard, and lonesome; just because her mother was paying for it did not mean that she actually had to be there to witness her first grandchild being born. As far as her parents were concerned, Elisabeta had died. They didn’t waste a single second of their day thinking about their grandchild at all; he had died with Elisabeta.

Lyle first witnessed sadness when he was exactly five minutes old. After he had been spanked and cleaned and weighed and measured and coddled, he had been handed to his mother, nestled gently in her arms. He had turned his brilliant eyes up to hers, adoring and questioning and oddly silent for a newborn, nothing but a concerned whimper in her direction, not close to the wails he had let out only a few moments previously, and he had witnessed sadness. His mother did not stop crying for hours; she had held her son, who made her heart swell to five times it’s natural size, whom she had fallen in love with the moment she saw him, and she had sobbed uncontrollably for hours. Because he was also the reason her parents would never speak to her again. He was the reason why she had to give up her dreams of teaching. He was the reason she was so, so miserably unhappy. The fact that she was also undeniably, uncontrollably overjoyed just made things far too messy and complicated.

--- --- ---

Elisabeta had had a stroke of luck when Lyle was only five months old. She had been working behind the desk at her receptionist job in London; Lyle nestled in a basket at her feet, fast asleep, when the president of the company’s son had come into the building. A handsome man with sharp, angular bone structure, hair the color of corn silk, curling rather handsomely around his face, framing it and bringing out his delightfully startling blue eyes, and with the body of an athlete, he was everything a girl could ever dream of dating, of falling in love, of marrying. Yet he had taken one look at Elisabeta, haggard, tired, stressed Elisabeta with her frizzing hair and the bags beneath her eyes, and he had fallen in love.

It was a fast and furious romance, filled with dates that he had graciously planned to accommodate the child, letting little Lyle sit on his lap at the play, feeding him little bites of pizza at the Italian restaurant that didn’t even serve pizza (and Elisabeta was charmed with a life of being so wealthy that you could snap your fingers and get anything you desired). He brought her home to his family, who were equally charmed with Elisabeta and her beautiful baby boy, a child who smiled so brightly the lights in the room dimmed considerably each time. He swept her away to Paris on their sixth month anniversary. He had held little Lyle’s hand as they rode the elevator on the Eiffel Tower all the way to the top, the one year old boy enraptured with the people on the ground growing smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. He had Lyle tottle over to his mother, the ring in the pocket of his overalls.

Two years later, after a decidedly long enough engagement that Elisabeta could return to university and get her degree, Lyle carried two more rings down the aisle as his mother wed Charles Williams, the man of her dreams.

Charles’ parents had gifted them a large house on the edge of their generous estate as a wedding present, and Charles and Elisabeta had soon made it their home. It was filled with fancy things that he had grown up with, domesticated with simpler things that she adored, tiny knick-knacks she picked up at the flea markets in town, with Lyle’s drawings taped along the walls, a progression of scribbles and colors until they’re distinguishable characters: a mother, a father, a son, occasionally a dog they don’t have (but one that Lyle’s been begging for months now to receive), a house on a large yard with blue grass and purple trees. The drawings become spelling tests and math exams, all marked neatly with A’s, nary a B nor C in the bunch. The tests and exams and essays all led up to the inconceivable letter written neatly across parchment paper that had been sent in the mail on Lyle’s 11th birthday. He was special. He was a wizard.

Unlike her own parents, Elisabeta was accepting of this information, and Charles grew to accept it as well, consindering it just one more thing that their darling child was impeccable at. They went with him to Diagon Alley, purchasing only the best of the best, sending him on the Hogwarts Express with a stomach warm with hugs and pockets heavy with coins.

He came home every holiday and summer to a house bursting with excitement over what he had learned, his parents wanting to see his scores and hear all the stories he could remember.

He was thirteen when he realized he was different, in his second year of Hogwarts and terribly, terribly confused by the feelings stirring in the pit of his stomach. What was worse was how afraid he was of his parents’ reactions when they heard the news. The fear caused his shoulders to sag in defeat, caused his head to hurt with all the thinking and questioning and worrying, caused him to stop eating and participating in class nearly as often. It wasn’t until he had passed out in the middle of class that he was faced with who he was and what it meant to his family. The school nurse had contacted his parents, brought them in to check on him; she could tell that he was devastatingly underweight, that he had collapsed from lack of proper sleep, that he was barely functioning. They asked him why he was doing this to himself and he cried. He cried and he told them the truth.

The quiet, afterwards, had killed him the most. Fortunately, it had only lasted a few moments before he was crushed between the two of them in a fierce hug. They didn’t care who he fell in love with as long as he learned to love himself.

He’s carried that message with him ever since.

--- --- ---
That was the lie.

This is the truth.
--- --- ---

Elisabeta had gotten a job as a receptionist for a sleazy magazine in downtown London. The pay was shit, her boss was an ass, but it didn’t matter because they let her bring Lyle in with her every day. It saved her considerably on day care costs. They lived in a tiny, roach filled apartment in a not-so-good side of town. It was adorned mostly with pictures of Lyle, a few pictures of Elisabeta with her friends from college or at a concert or with her old family sprinkled in for nostalgia’s sake (she hadn’t heard from neither her friends nor family since Lyle’s birth). There was a pickle jar on top of the fridge that she threw her extra coins in, the start of savings for Lyle to go to college. She wanted him to make a life for himself that she never could have, and she was learning every day to stop blaming him for that.

Charles Williams ended up being the junkie who had broken into their apartment and had stolen their savings. All three thousand pounds of it. It was hardly what Elisabeta would call a stroke of luck.
--- --- ---
This is the cause:

Their savings gone, there was no money to pay the rent.

This is the effect:

Lyle and Elisabeta spent a year living on the streets.

--- --- ---
These are the important facts:

Lyle was fed, watered, bathed and clothed.

It wasn’t consistent, but it was often enough that it was hardly considered neglect.

Elisabeta remained cheerfully optimistic the whole time around Lyle.

She always waited to cry after he had fallen asleep.

--- --- ---
These are the details:

There was a particular alley way that had been exceedingly kind to them. It was behind an Italian restaurant that threw away far too much bread at the end of the night. She made sure that Lyle had his fill and that none of the pieces he ate were molding. There was a garage there, the door opened just enough for them to squeeze beneath, and they slept curled up in the corner. She always made sure they woke up in enough time to leave silently before anyone could notice their presence at all. Every Tuesday they would go to the soup kitchen, where Lyle would eat both of their bowls. Elisabeta had begged the workers to never call child’s services; Lyle was all she had left, didn’t they understand?

Elisabeta was determinedly optimistic and friendly about the whole affair. She made it all seem like a large adventure to her toddler son, who was only too happy to play along. Dumpster diving was turned into searching for buried pirate treasure; they were secret government agents when they crawled into their garage space; they would imagine different kinds of food that their bread could possibly be.

One night, Lyle imagined it so hard that the bread became the delicious slice of pizza he had been thinking about. His mother promptly fainted.

--- --- ---
This is a lie:

Lyle’s mother was a muggle.

This is the truth:

Lyle’s mother was the daughter of two squibs. She just hadn’t known that there was the possibility of magic in her blood.

--- --- ---
This is the truth: Lyle and his mother were found out by the little Italian restaurant. The owner, a delightful man named Thomas Wilson, took them in. He fed Lyle all the pizza he could eat and treated Elisabeta to the most delicious Italian dishes his chef could dream up and create. He promised Elisabeta a job as an assistant chef – she knew how to chop vegetables, and that was enough to start – and he turned one of the utility closets into a small bedroom.

This is the lie: Thomas and Elisabeta fell in love, got married, and lived happily ever after.
--- --- ---
This is the cause:

Elisabeta was a natural talent at cooking.

This is the effect:

Elisabeta became a world-class chef.

This is the effect of the effect:

She was able to open her own restaurant when Lyle was thirteen, in the theatre district of London. She named it after her son.

--- --- ---
This is the truth:

There are a lot of gay people in the theatre business.

This is the lie:

That made it easier for Elisabeta to accept her son’s sexuality.
--- --- ---
This is the cause:

Lyle Malarkey has not had the easiest of lives.

This is the effect:

Lyle Malarkey is a stronger person because of it.
--- --- ---
These are the important facts:

Lyle is in his sixth year at Hogwarts.

Lyle is openly gay.

Lyle’s mother is slowly accepting her son’s sexuality, even though she’s still working on this whole “her son’s a wizard” thing.

Lyle recently came into some money after the successful open of his mother’s restaurant; he doesn’t quite know what to do with it.

Lyle is okay with all of these things.

--- --- ---

There are no details as of yet; Lyle’s still living his life in those moments, and he’s living life so fast it’s hard to keep up.






Sample Post: {four or more paragraphs}

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{ C O N T R A C T }

I solemnly swear that I, kiara, 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.

icon credit

[Marlene McKinnon]

fine, accepted