[---] application


OOC Information
Name: Esh!
Email: darlingkillthelights@gmail.com
AIM/MSN: so ostrichized @ AIM
Time Zone: CST
Previous Experience: wuTs a IJ?????1/!??1

IC Information
Name: Herman Theodore "Herms/Hermes" Wintringham
Former House: Ravenclaw, 1980-1987
Age: 27
Birthday: April 22nd, 1969
PB Choice: Pete Doherty

Wand: 11", Willow, unicorn hair core, very bendy.
Bloodline: Mostly Pureish. The Wintringham family stumbled a bit down the line, but not enough to be notable.
Family Members: Isaiah "Izzy" Wintringham (father), Kirstie Wintringham, née MacAuley (mother), Gavin & Grant (twin brothers, younger), Edeen (younger sister)
Owl/Pets/Familiars: An abnormal white bird of indistinct origin named Faing and a pet tarantula named Colin.
Place of Birth/Current Residence: Born in Cambridge, not that you'd be able to tell by his accent. / Technically lives in a studio flat in London but usually spends his time at other people's flats, on their porches or in hotels.

Patronus: A somewhat smaller than natural leopard.
Boggart: Himself, tied to a chair and stuck with a thousand pins and needles.
Mirror of Erised: Himself, drinking absinthe and smoking a long cigarette with someone wonderful and lovely and not necessarily 'his' in any distinction of the word, just not someone else's. Or, rather, himself in love.

Political View: Herms knows what's going on, he just doesn't bother himself with it. He's politically minded and culturally popular enough to be an influential activist, but he's far too passive-aggressive for anything like that.
Allegiance: If he was forced to choose, he would side with the Order and their lot, but since he hasn't been forced yet he remains neutral.
Sexuality: Herms knows that he's homosexual, but the general public is a bit baffled by Herms' sexuality. He publicly claims heterosexuality but has no problems being identified as bisexual and occasionally refers to himself as such, when he's not thinking -- not to mention the fact that he pays no attention to personal boundaries and is constantly... affectionate with other members of the band. It's a bit of a mess, actually. Herms is reluctant to out and say he's queer in any exact terms, preferring to let people believe as they believe.

Personality: Herms is one of few people who can honestly say that they've never grown up -- not all that surprising for a rock star, really. Unlike most, however, Herms ' lack of maturity doesn't stem from the selfishness and destructive nature of children but from the lighter qualities they have; innocence, naiveté, curiosity and a queer sort of unreal quality. It's been described as "a peculiar softness", "childlike wonder" and "enigmatic quirkiness" (all quotes courtesy of Witch Weekly); mostly it's a combination of cowardice, gillyweed, and the fact that Herms has been living in his own little bubble for the past 27 years and doesn't plan on changing that anytime soon.

Herms is absentminded to a fault and easily distracted. He is quite possibly the worst person to ask if one wants a reminder to do something important; Herms has a memory to put goldfish to shame, only remembering where his stash is and how to tie his shoes (and even that last one is a bit shaky). He isn't stupid, though; being from a family of intellectuals, Herms was raised in a household where large and impressive vocabulary words were flung around carelessly, and happens to speak like someone who knows what he's talking about. He also pursues fleeting obsessions regularly, which are, occasionally, academic in nature, giving him the kind of knowledge on useless items that well-learned people have and leading people to think he's well-learned. And he's a former Ravenclaw, of course. Which helps.

Living in his own world, Herms lives by his own rules; he has his own peculiar vocabulary that is, at times, only vaguely recognizable as English (though that may be the fault of his ridiculously strong Glaswegian accent), full of portmanteaus, colloquialisms and filler words. He pays little to no attention to social conventions, prone to asking inappropriate questions and invading the personal space of others. Though he certainly has the money to live in a proper place, Herms prefers to sleep wherever he gets tired -- usually at someone's house or on the street, though he's lately started to stay in hotels due to the urging of others that he not sleep on stranger's porches. Though his strange behavior has often led to him being berated by his parents, classmates, teachers, bandmates and press, Herms is a generally passive person, and doesn't react very strongly to external stimuli. H isn't easily shaken or bothered, due entirely to his nature and not to any active attempt to exercise control over his emotions.

History: Izzy and Kirstie welcomed Herman Theodore Wintringham a bit grudgingly, seeing as Kirstie going into labor had caused them to miss the last Portkey back to Glasgow from Cambridge where they were visiting Izzy's great-aunt. They warmed up to the boy quickly, however, and it was a wonderful and loving marriage and family and what-have-you until Gavin and Grant were born and they forgot about their first play-thing entirely.

Well, perhaps that's not exactly as it went, but it might as well have been. As the years went on, Herms learned that because he was not a twin like Gavin and Grant nor a girl like Edeen he was no longer interesting in his family of six, which gave him the time he needed to chase childish past-times and fantasies. Unfortunately, these never really went away, and at the age of 14 Herms was still experimenting with wearing ribbons in his hair and had an ever-growing collection of polished Knuts stacked on his bedroom floor making a fair mountain around his bed. The only of these obsessions to pay off was the lute, and lucky it did, as Herms was really only good at Charms, Care of Magical Creatures and Divination as a student, none of which led to the Prestigious and Wonderful careers his father had hoped he might have.

It didn't seem all that beneficial at the time, actually, which led to massive amounts of discouragement from his family to pursue it and eventually created a rift between Herms and his parents -- one that hasn't ever quite healed -- and prompted Herms to "take off for a bit." Or, rather, wander a bit aimlessly around Europe for a year and a half and return with a broken arm and absolutely no money. Gavin, the only family member that really paid Herms any mind, offered to let Herms crash at his flat for a bit but eventually kicked him out after Herms failed to get a job. Grant, who had been guilted regularly by Gavin for not helping their older brother out, offered Herms a place to stay, but that fell out after a few months. Herms played lute on the street to make enough money for food and was picked up by an old school-mate two weeks after Grant decided to stop putting up with him, and Herms' habit of living in other people's clothes became a full-blown hobby, taking him from Glasgow to Edinburgh to some god-awful village in Fife and, eventually, London. It was a bit hellish, of course, but Herms wasn't really ever bothered by that sort of thing; as long as he had something to eat, no matter how old, and somewhere to sleep, no matter how hard, he was fine with the way things were going.

After picking up and being fired from/quitting/not showing up to several jobs over the next few years, Herms' weird lute-fancying finally paid off. Having been kicked out of his latest place to stay, Herms started busking again, waiting patiently for his pockets to go completely empty or someone else to take pity or interest in him and offer him a place to stay. And, as unfailingly as always, that's exactly what happened, this time in the form of some odd bloke who heard him playing lute and asked him to meet some of his mates. The lute had fallen out of fashion sometime around 1901, and Herms thought that the bloke was at the very least a bit of a radge, but he was in no position to protest. He liked the sound they were making and could use the new social circle, expecting he might get a few months of entertainment, free booze and a place to stay.

What he didn't expect was to suddenly have more money than he knew what to do with and the kind of fame and recognition that even he'd never dreamed of, fantastical as his imagination was. His family reacted with outright disbelief, including Gavin, the only of them who thought that Herms might ever make something of himself. The Weird Sisters were household names, and Herms Wintringham by association. It was... mostly brilliant.

It wasn't the media that bothered him in any specific terms; he liked talking to them, actually, even when they were being invasive and rude, as Herms was often invasive and rude and almost felt a bit at home when asked about the particulars of his relationship with the band or the lives he and the rest of the octet led. The only real problem was the fact that there were suddenly people hitting on him, buying him drinks, accosting him on the streets, telling him what they thought of his music, flipping him the bird, asking him for Kirley's address.

It wasn't fun to nap on the comfortable couches in downtown cafés anymore, since he could hardly get any sleep, was constantly given coffee and had any given number of people taking pictures to send in to Witch Weekly or the Daily Prophet or what-have-you. Busking was entirely out of the question. He had a steady place to stay and a steady income, groupies out the ears and enough gilly to last him the rest of his life, but against all reason Herms felt bored. At one point during the peak of the Weird Sister's fame, Herms dropped off the face of the earth for a bit, causing not only a media panic but panic in his friends and bandmates, as no one had been informed beforehand that he would be checking out. He returned three weeks later as if nothing had changed, stoutly refusing to say anything about the disappearance aside from the fact that he had been under a Glamour Charm and had enjoyed himself thoroughly.

Things have arguably calmed down since (to the point that Witch Weekly has stopped spewing rumours that Herms has been threatening to run off again), and Herms figures things are going well enough for him now. At the very least he's not constantly bothered in public.

First-Person Sample: omg ilu guise
Third-Person Sample: you guise love me too right!?

Hey, Gomer Pyle!: I think you mean Barney Fife...?