Post by bennabun on Apr 3, 2018 22:50:16 GMT -6
⭐ PROFILE
"Think I could get an alien to join my band?"
NAME
Hope Huggins
AGE
23
GENDER
Male
BIRTH DATE
April 1st 1995
OCCUPATION
Serial Part-Timer
LIKES
- Having grown up a free-range grass-fed cage-free kind of boy, Hope's diet consists mainly of processed foods in brightly colored packaging and other things typically served alongside plastic flatware and tiny salt packets. The floor of his car is littered with old fast-food bags, and he likes it that way.
- 2007; Ratatouille was released, LOLcats were created, and "Irreplaceable" hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
- If you're in Printy County and you ever happen to chance upon a DDR machine, Hope's name can be found among the top scorers. He's never not AAA on LOVE♥SHINE.
- The pile of CDs in Hope's glovebox consists mainly of 90's-00's electropop that he refuses to stop listening to. It was a different era with a different sound.
- He doesn't typically enjoy grocery shopping since he's usually forced to do it all by himself, but since getting a Cotsco membership his trips to the store have dramatically improved.
- Shorts are clearly the superior lower-body garment. Being tall as he is, finding well-fitting pants is a fool's errand. So, he's decided instead to keep his drawers plentifully stocked with a variety of shorts in different styles.
- He loves a good 85 degree day with a slight breeze. It's just warm enough to feel the air pressing on your skin, something like a hug.
- Most people wouldn't consider TV-watching a hobby, but Hope spent most of his childhood years being raised by the Phlox Channel 5 broadcasters more than any present adult.
DISLIKES
- He has the frustrating tendency of crying easily, especially for a man. It's mortifying, but he's totally unable to control it. It's not always due to sadness, either; sometimes he cries because he just felt something too hard.
- Jeans are the worst pants to have ever been conceived of. They're crinkly and uncomfortable, and just don't have enough flexibility for all his activities.
- At 6 feet and 3 inches, Hope is sworn to do eternal battle with the backseat of the car.
- Given his diet and other usual (lack of) self-care habits, he doesn't tend to eat many vegetables. In fact, he's a miracle he's never gotten scurvy. He particularly dislikes bell peppers.
- He typically prefers to take the stairs rather than the elevator, and that's not just because his legs are so long he can leap two at a time. Hope counts himself bad with "the type of people you usually encounter in an elevator," a perception colored largely by his visits to his mother's office.
- Black SUVs only make him sad.
- As a musician, Hope considers himself appreciative of music of all types... except for polka.
- He regularly curses his inclination towards knocking his shins and knees into anything below waist-height, usually things such as furniture, some fences, and small children.
PERSONALITY
Quite possibly the most emotional young man you've ever met, both in good ways and in bad. If there is anything that can be said for Hope, it's that despite his many (many!) shortcomings, he is a genuine and powerful feeler. He wears his heart on his sleeve and isn't very capable of hiding how he feels, even in situations where it might benefit him to do so. Because of this tendency, he is quick to anger but also quick to love.
Hope is very animated and speaks with big gestures; this emotive affect makes him entertaining to watch and listen to. He also loves his friends more than life--not that he's got very many of them. He enjoys a moderate amount of popularity because of his naturally bright personal style, but wearing his uniqueness on the outside also often means it is easy for others to decide he isn't their cup of tea. Hope simply can't connect with or understand those who won't engage themselves to feel with him what he feels, but that doesn't mean he doesn't try. He demands emotion from others, and craves their investment and authenticity. In this way, Hope is also quite gullible--not in the sense that it's possible to convince him that the Easter Bunny is real, but rather in the way that he is all too trusting of those who don't have his best interests in mind. Having grown up largely without an older parental figure to protect and guide him, he is vulnerable and near effortlessly manipulated by those who would prey on his easily-won trust.
Generally, Hope carries himself in a benevolently snarky, harmlessly smug manner; he doesn't condescend to others...much. Sharp-witted, there is no end to his snappy comments. He is good-humored and can generally be found in a sparkling mood at any time of day. When unhappy, Hope turns inward on himself and self-isolates from those who would help him, preferring to spend a few days to a week alone to process his thoughts. He tends to fall silent when bothered by something, a noticeable change from his usual gregariousness. He works hard at introspection, but there are many things that bother Hope deeply inside which he isn't quite cognizant of in himself yet. He carries himself with an air of jolly confidence, yet at times this functions as a mask for low-lying feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt.
Having mostly raised himself, Hope is a cheery and sarcastic young man who still carries the rough-around-the-edges clumsiness from childhood which his peers lack. He is a bit of a smartass at times, but all in all, he did the best he could with what tools he had and became a young adult with a genuinely good (albeit melodramatic) heart.
BIOGRAPHY
- Born and raised in Phlox of Printy County; grew up in the home of his single mother, Diane Huggins (currently age 45). No siblings, but he has an aunt who lives in Larkspur.
- Attended K-12 grade school in Phlox, maintaining steady B's throughout his academic career.
- Moved out at 18 to Acacia Town; at age 23 completed a degree in Humanities at KBU.
- Returned to his suburban childhood home in Phlox immediately after graduation from KBU with intentions to look for a stable job; so far, not much has panned out.
PERSONAL HISTORY
Born an only son to a young mother still in the middle of completing her secondary education, Hope was, from infancy, something of a victim to his mother's priorities. Not that his mother would say so--in her eyes, her great love for her son existed in her diligent study, her rigorous work ethic, and, later in life, her consuming commitment to her job. She was always a dreadfully pragmatic woman; she had expected a daughter for months before Hope was born, and when a son was placed in her arms instead she decided that it would be far more expedient to use the name she'd already decided on for her girl. (It took until Hope beat up another boy in his sixth grade lunch period for the teasing to stop.) She believed that in the modern world there was plenty of room for a woman to have both a successful career and a happy child. Her mistake was in never realizing that she always failed to balance the two.
Hope enjoyed only a small amount of free time with his mother through his infant years, mostly sustained by the care of his aunt or grandmother, and as time carried on he grew into an impressively independent child. He was a latchkey kid from the time he was old enough to walk himself home from elementary and microwave his Tupperware dinner from the fridge. Adults around him, like his teachers and the nice neighborhood grandmothers, commented often that his mother must have loved him very much; after all, that was why she never came home.
But unlike his mother, Hope never quite manifested an intrinsic love for hard work. He meandered through life, hovering comfortably in the B- range in all aspects: academics, extracurriculars, status quo. It was mediocre, all of it: the suburbs, the supermarket chains, the cut-and-paste beige-bricked homes that blocked out the horizon. Quietly in the back of his mind, Hope feared that he too, a product of those suburbs, was doomed to mediocrity along with it.
He did a great many things growing up to fight off this fear. None of them seemed to stick except for a lucky afterschool guitar lesson he signed himself up for in middle school. From those days came his dream of rockstardom, punctuated by a pervading feeling of 'Well, it's better than nothing. That band has seen many changes over the years, but the one constant was Hope in the position of lead guitarist and frontman, and also Hope's inability to settle on a cool enough name. Their current moniker, only the latest in Hope's series of band names, is Popslime.
After completing grade school with an underwhelming performance that came as a surprise to no one, Hope wandered his way through a college degree which was handed to him more or less because he simply couldn't decide on anything else to do. Throughout the years, he maintained his interest in music (blessedly one of the few things Hope has ever stuck with after starting) and over time, his band enjoyed moderate success until an incident with his fellow band members happened shortly before his graduation from university. His members disbanded, leaving him neatly friendless as they happened to also be, well, his only friends. He received his diploma, packed up his room in their apartment, and promptly moved back home.
Now 23 and living at home, Hope jumps from job to job, from place to place, maintaining no schedule and no purpose. He feels that somewhere inside, he has been waiting for something, for that thing that will speak to his soul and change life as he knows it. He has been searching for a path, but so far all he's found is more and more nothing. His mother, happily working her dream job as a federal auditor, returns home on an average of approximately once per two to three months. Nowadays, she typically calls him only to tell him that she won't be coming home, that she's transferred money to his bank account, and that she loves him. Oh, and that she'd like him to make sure he calls someone about that leaky sink.
Hope's mother would have come home when she heard that the county was being invaded by aliens, but they really needed her at work. For once, Hope doesn't mind that; he's too busy dreaming of how finally everything is about to change.
EXTRAS
- Hope’s dream is to get one of the Gru to join his band, and he believes this will certainly lead them to stardom! His band is named Popslime and they play punk rock.
- He unironically wears fanny packs, and likes to keep his phone and wallet in them.
- Like her son, Hope's mother is over 6 feet tall.
- His favorite color is brown.
- He drives a white 2016 Honda Civic which his mom promised him they'd trade in for something with more leg room.
- He's been considering getting a dog, feeling that it might help to ease the deafening silence at home.
- ...Somewhat prone to getting into fistfights due to his emotional outbursts, though he's not a violent guy.
- Despite being the lead guitarist and frontman of his band, Hope has crippling stagefright and a fear of large crowds.
- He has a surprising array of different areas of knowledge, mostly due to his extensive experience working different jobs every three weeks.
- Sometimes, Hope’s mother would get her coworkers to pick him up from school when she couldn’t, so he’s wary at the sight of big shiny black cars.
COMPLICATIONS
PVP: yes!
Injury: yes!
Death: 😏
