In-Character
Full Name: Thomas Mollet TupperNicknames: Tommy
Birthdate: June 19th, 1880
Current Age: 11 Years
Gender: Male
Occupation: First year
Reputation: 10- respectable, working class family, no scandals associated with him or any of his family members
Residence: St. Peter Port, Guernsey / Hogwarts (during term)
Hogwarts House: unknown
Wand: Poplar, 10", supple, unicorn hair
Blood Status: muggleborn
Social Class: working
Family:
Father- Thierry Le Marchant Tupper (38)
Mother- Esther Marguerite Mollet Tupper (34)
Sister- Tuppence Emilienne Tupper (12)
Brother- Timothy Le Marchant Tupper (6)
Sister- Mathilda "Tilly" Louisette Tupper (10 months)
Appearance:
At 4'6", Tommy is on the smaller side for his age, he has a light build, but, despite being a part of the working class, he is not undernourished. With the sea and their garden to feed them, and farmland nearby with fresh milk abundant in the market from the Guernsey cows, the Tupper family may not have any exotic luxuries on their plates, but they have never had to go hungry. He, like all of the Tupper children, have the rosy cheeks and clear eyes of healthy children. Tommy is right-handed with brown eyes and neat, straight hair, freshly cut by his mum in preparation for the start of school.
His clothes aren't new by any stretch of the imagination. His robes were bought secondhand and everything else from his shoes to his underwear are hand-me-downs from his older cousins, lovingly mended and maintained by his mother. The robes, though old, have been freshly re-dyed so they don't look particularly faded or frayed and his shoes have been as well- shined as possible given their ange and the amount of time they spent trodding through fish guts. Indeed, all of his clothes and potentially his hair are likely to smell a bit fishy given that his dad is a fisherman and he helps his mum to process the fish in their home. He doesn't notice the smell anymore, and it was never a problem at the parish school in St. Peter Port, but that may be different in a big place like Hogwarts.
He has his fair share of small scars, mostly on his knees and palms, the normal result of a childhood spent outdoors, plus one on his chin from a bad fall whilst climbing the kitchen table when he was too young to remember, but he doesn't mind them. He's quite good about trying to make himself look clean and put together in the morning at his mum's behest, but he's also not afraid to dive in and get dirty before the day is done.
History:
1880- Tommy is born a generally agreeable, but clingy baby into a happy, working class family with broad roots on their island home of Guernsey. His dad, Thierry, is one of the latest of countless generations of Tupper fishermen on the island and is overjoyed to have a son and brother for their young daughter, Tuppence, who is still too young to fully understand the screaming thing that is making their home loud. They live humbly in a cramped but cozy three room house (kitchen, bedroom and sitting room) that always smells a bit like fish, but stands firm against the wind and rain, overlooking the harbor where the Tupper family boat (owned jointly by Thierry and his brothers, Theo and Timothée) is docked. A shack behind the house holds old nets and the day's catch once it's been gutted and before it goes to market, and a small root cellar helps them preserve goods from their garden for the winter.
1881- As Tommy and Tuppence grow, Tuppence falls further into the role of the capable if bossy big sister. She learns to walk as he learns to crawl. She takes his rattle and he cries. She gives it back and he stops. She learns the word "no" and he stares at her, perplexed at her babbling reprimands and corrections. Tommy, for his part is happy to follow her around, first with his eyes, then, once he's mobile, with his body, giggling at her while she half-coherently chides him and getting lessons in climbing on a chair while he explores how far he can stuff his toes in his mouth. "He's only small." Their mum explains to her daughter at least a dozen times a day, "He can't do that yet." but it's no use. Their sibling dynmics have already begun to cement. Early in the year, Tommy is baptised into the C of E at the Town Church just as his sister had been the year before. His Uncle Theo and Aunt Molly become his Godfather and Godmother, an important role considering the risks that a fisherman takes out in the channel from day to day.
1882-1884- Time marches on and both Tupper siblings continue to grow and progress. Tommy is a happy soul who loves his little island and being near his family. Tuppence is still a bit bossy, but he doesn't mind. He's always happy to follow along with one of her whims, be it helping her to stack up old crates Dad brought home from the docks like stairs to reach the jam on the highest shelf and polish as much of it off as they can before they're caught or building a castle out of chairs and blankets to make a pirate ship like the ones in Uncle Timothée's stories. Dad and
Grand-mère teach them Guernésiais, the island Patois and Grandmere Tupper's first and only language, although their primary language at home is and remains English. Both start helping their mum at home with the parts of the family business that they can manage. They gut the fish once Mum has cut them open and sort them by size. They ride along with their aunts to the market, and, every once and awhile, after enough visits to the bathing pools in the off season with Dad and his uncles that he can stay afloat in calm waters, Tommy gets to join his them and and his cousins, Etienne and Gustave, on calm afternoons, once the catch is in for the day, to sail out a ways the channel and practice throwing out some of their smaller nets. It's just about his favorite thing in the world helping to throw handful of net over the side while his dad holds tight to the back of his shirt so that he knows he's safe. The sea is, after all a dangerous place.
1885- The sea proves its power to the Tupper family on a cold Winter's day in February. The youngest of Tommy's uncles, Timothée falls overboard trying to dislodge a stuck net during a turbulent morning on the sea. His brothers try to retrieve him, but the net tears away and takes him off with it. For weeks, four and a half year old Tommy doesn't believe that his uncle is really gone, but instead is off in adventure, like from one of his many bedtime stories for him and Tuppence. He imagines him fighting giant octopuses and sharks, riding on the backs of whales, being captured by pirates and leading their crew in a mutiny. He doesn't understand when his mum and even once his dad cry at night after he and Tuppence are in bed. He doesn't even care when Tuppence tells him that's stupid and they're just stories. He knows that she's wrong until one day in early March when the tide brings in a body, wrapped tightly in a net. He overhears the news when a neighbor comes to the door to tell his mum and tears down the path to the beach before anyone can catch him, he pushes through a sea of legs to see it. It doesn't look like Uncle Timothée, not properly, not anymore. It's a funny colour and the eyes are looking funny too, not closed, but not open, just big, dark patches like they were all painted over with a couple of crabs crawling on its arm and chest. Grand-mère is beside him in the sand, just crying and crying really loud and yelling about a baby. Before he can get any closer, Mum pushes through the crowd and pulls him away. He doesn't believe it's Uncle Timothée at first. It doesn't look like him, after all, but everyone thinks it was. So, eventually, he figures it must have been after all, but something happened to him on his adventure. The dastardly pirates shot him out of their cannon or a big squid inked him all over a squeezed him until he drowned. It was a long time until Dad and Uncle Theo took him out onto the boat again. While he was waiting, his mum's tummy started to get big and she and his dad said they were going to have a baby. Later that year, the baby was born, a brother, baby Timothy, after Uncle Timothée because he was still alive when he started growing in Mum's belly and Uncle Timothée would have loved him a lot. Tommy wondered if Grandmere had known he was there the day Uncle Timothée washed up onshore. Maybe that was the baby she had been talking about. Tommy loves being a big brother and takes it upon himself to show his little brother about the world just like Tuppence had done for him when he was little. He shows him his favorite places like the garden, the Nants' barn, and the beach.
1886-Tommy starts at the parish primary school in fall, where Tuppence had started the year before. He only cries a bit the first day being away from Mum and Timmy for so long. It helps that Tuppence is there with him. He couldn't be prouder to joining and learn his letters and proper French like her. He can already count to ten in French, to a hundred in English, and write all the English letters thanks to her tutelage the entire last term. He even meets new friends from other parts of St. Peter Port who he's never seen in Sunday School since they're Catholic. He gets in trouble sometimes for talking out of turn or telling tall tales (mostly about pirates, sea monsters, and Uncle Timotheé), but he still loves his teacher, Miss Le Grange and wins lots of class awards for spelling and penmanship.
1887-1889- Time goes by and life marches on for Tommy, his parents and his siblings. Everything is mostly cheerful and mostly normal except for a few odd things that start happening. One day, while taking Timmy on an adventure while Tuppence is off playing with a school friend, Tommy climbs a tree with Timmy and sits him on a branch next to him, careful to hold his shirt to help him balance. He only lets go for a second to grab an apple for them to share, but it's long enough for little Timmy to topple off of the branch toward the ground and a lot of hard branches in between. Tommy's heart nearly stops. He reaches out for his little brother, but he isn't quick enough. For just a moment, he's sure that's it. His little, two year old brother is going to break his crown like Jack and Jill. He'll be dead and it'll be all his fault, but instead of crashing his way down, much to Tommy's surprise, Timmy just bounces, almostly like there was an invisible ball around him, *bounce* he springs off one branch *bounce* he springs off another, giggling and giggling until he finally hits the grass and bounces a little more before landing safe and sound on his bottom. Mum just thinks that he's telling stories, but it's really, really true. What's more, when he comes along with Dad, Uncle Theo, Etienne and Gustave on the boat, a funny thing starts to happen. First, lots of fish start coming to the boat. Every time he's there, they have a great catch. Dad jokes that he must be good luck and, at first, he thinks it's just luck too. But, then, he decides to test it out. When he wishes, just closes his eyes and really wishes hard, the fish start coming to him. Sometimes, some of them even jump onto the boat. Dad still says it's just luck, but Tommy knows better. He's sure it's Uncle Timothée. That God let him be a guardian angel for him and do things good for all of them as long as he wished hard enough. Tuppence calls him silly, but he doesn't care. He believes and, once he's old enough to understand, Timmy does too. Tommy tries to teach him how to close his eyes and wish really hard to make it happen, but it never seems to work, maybe because Timmy wasn't born in time to actually meet Uncle Timothée or maybe he was still just too little.
1890- Surprise! Mrs. Tupper falls pregnant again quite by accident and, near the end of the year, Tommy, Tuppence and Timmy get a little sister, Matilda (Tilly for short). A cheerful and friendly baby, little Tilly is the apple of all her siblings' eyes, especially Tuppence to proclaims loudly to anyone who's willing to listen that it's about tine they had another girl in the family. The family bed is getting awfully crowded, so Mum makes another mattress for Tommy and Tuppence in the sitting room, near tge door to kitchen where to stove is to keep it warm in Winter. Timmy wants to sleep there too, but he isn't allowed. Tommy sneaks him in there at night sometimes anyway when Tuppence is pretending to be asleep so she won't get in trouble for it. Mum and Dad are never too cross about it anyway. They can never keep themselves from smiling at least with their eyes when they're chiding the two boys for it. He tries to sneak baby Tilly over there too sometimes, convinced that she wants to join them, but she always ends up getting hungry in the night and start crying, so he eventually gives up.
1891 In June, on his eleventh birthday, Tommy gets a visit from an odd stranger who gives him, Dad and Mum a letter saying that he is a wizard and has been accepted into a school of magic. At first, Tommy doesn't believe them. He's getting teady to move on to the secondary school on the island, not with Tuppence because she's at the girls' school, but nearby. Besides, he knows why he can do the things he does, Uncle Timothée. Dad and Mum don't believe it either, not until the stranger makes all the plates dance out of the cupboard and twirl around the room. It takes Dad and Mum a long time to decide, but, in the end, they decide to let him go and write to the school to accept the spot. Tommy doesn't know how to feel about it all. The school is in Scotland, which seems really far and he won't get to visit home until Christmas and they won't get any French at the school, so he might forget the past tenses. But, being a wizard sounds amazing and he knows that if it was Uncle Timothée getting invited, he would do it. Tuppence wants to take his place, but Dad says she isn't allowed because she doesn't have magic. In the end, he promised to try, at least for a year, and, if he didn't like it, he could go to the secondary school on the island next year since that was free anyhow. In September, he says goodbye to Mum, Tuppence (who is still a bit cross), Timmy and baby Tilly, with the boat and the train with Dad to London, and boards the Hogwarts Express: his first big adventure all alone as a wizard.
Personality:
Tommy strikes an odd balance between confidence and anxiety. Having grown up in the relatively small town of St. Peter Port (which was simultaneously the largest town he had ever known until about a month before he boarded the Hogwarts Express for the first time in September), he there was always plenty of room to explore and inspire his imagination. With his dad, uncles, and cousins at his side, he's never been shy about diving in to new challenges, sailing away from the island's shores, striving for a bigger catch. He can talk to anyone and tells long-winded, enthusiastic stories about sea monsters (which he had mostly accepted were just made up until he found out wizards were real) or the most daring of adventures on the fishing boat and is quick to trust, but also has never spent so much as a single night without at least one of his family members and gets quite nervous when he's out in the world without someone familiar. The only people he's ever met who haven't known him at least since he started primary school are the wealthy visitors from the mainland or the continent who come over on the ferry during the summer to summer at the Guernsey beaches or see the island wildlife, like the puffins, so Hogwarts will be a lot for him.
That's not to say that he isn't excited. He loves to learn and show what he can do. He would rather do things than read about them, but he will read about them too, as dilligently as he can if that's what will make the teacher happy. He's very motivated by the idea of doing the right thing and has a strong sense of morality, but that doesn't mean that he might not bend the rules at times if he thinks it's harmless enough. That said, he would be devastated if he ever lost points for his house. He wants to help people, not hurt them and that's what he plans to do with his magic too once he's old enough. As far as he is concerned, that's the difference between good magic and devil magic, which his Mum was a bit worried this all might be when they first found out about it. As long as he only uses it for good, he can still walk into the Town Church back home any day once he gets back with his head held high. His dad even said so.
Other:
-Still hasn't entiely outgrown the notion that his uncle was squeezed to death fighting a giant squid. He knows it's irrational, but he may or may not be nervous about the squid in the Black Lake because of it, but also drawn to it because the water reminds him of home.
- Has occasional night terrors about his uncle's death/corpse
-Speaks English and Guernésiais fluently, and is conversant in standard French.
Sample Roleplay Post:
It all seemed impossibly big and busy and loud to Tommy, the train Station, all of London, really, but the train station especially. He held tight to Dad's hand as they pushed through the crowd. If he had been looking forward, he might have noticed the sea of dresses, jackets, and waistcoats all around him, rushing to get where they needed to go. But, instead, his eyes were locked upward at the ceiling, which was so far away, it almost looked like it could be the sky, but just a big criss cross of metal and glass. Faces, or really chins, zipped past him left and right, ladies chins, men's chins, fat chins, thin chins, bearded chins, smooth chins, sharp chins and round chins. He could hardly believe there were so many chins in the world and here they were, all in one room, all going past him.
"Dad" he piped up nervously, focusing in on the chin he knew best, "D'you think anyone else here is going to the school too? Everyone seems old so far." None of them were wearing the robes either, the sort that they'd bought in that odd sort of shop in that odd sort of street. But, he wasn't either, just then, was he? He didn't think it was allowed until after you were on the train.
Dad just looked down at him and smiled, which made him feel a bit better about it already even if it also made him a bit silly for asking "Of course they are." his voice boomed back down clear as ever, even though it was so loud. "Bound to be more of 'em when we get to the platform. Or d'you think they sent the whole train just for you?" It was silly, so silly that a laugh bubbled up out of Tommy's throat at the thought, even though the idea of getting to the platform, the place where he'd have to say goodbye to Dad, made him feel like he was gling to be sick. No, of course not. A whole train just for him? It's not like he was a prince or something. Being a wizard was grand enough!
Out-of-Character
Name: AddieAge: 31
Contact: If any: Discord: AddieB#9701
Other Characters: not at the moment
How did you hear about us?: ages ago on the rpg-d if memory serves
