Aleksandr Teräväinen Durmstrang

Name: Aleksandr Teräväinen *
School: Durmstrang
Year: 3rd Year (edited in this correction, sorry!)
Age: 14

Appearance: Sasha stands tall and lean, nearly reaching 6 foot tall and still growing. He's got pale skin that is beginning to curve sharply inwards around his bones, though he's developing a bit of muscle in his arms due to his time spent playing Quidditch. His eyes are a vibrant green that shines brightly when the light hits them just right, and radiant, flowy brown locks that twist and fall just above his eyes and around the underside of his ears. He's got a wide, toothy grin, which is masked by pink lips, which would otherwise fall into a flat line, plump only towards the front. As he ages, his jawline has found itself becoming more and more defined, cutting up through his face and ending abruptly in line with his ears.
Faceclaim: Tripp Bowers

Personality: Sasha has never liked to talk much. Living such a secluded life, as his aunt and uncle preferred to stay home and avoid the world around them, he didn't spend a lot of his early years developing social skills, aside from the few times in which he was able to slip away and play with some of the other kids in the area. This isn't to say that he doesn't enjoy being around other people, because he quite likes people, thank you, but he just hasn't learned how to interact with large groups. Not only that, but his developing teenage hormones don't help him any.

Once you get him talking, though, it's hard to get him to stop. As soon as he warms up, his mouth could go a mile a minute, so much that you could probably use him as a generator. He's a very passionate young boy, obsessing over every little thing that he can, clinging onto concepts left and right.

The young boy doesn't like his studies much, though. He figured out early on that he wasn't very good at sitting still long enough to learn things, and he got far too nervous for his own good when called upon to speak in front of the class. He'd rather be out, exploring the land or playing a game of Quidditch (now that he's in school, anyway; a younger Sasha would have taken to hockey much more), doing something that would involve getting himself dirty and, before going to school, his aunt casting a cleaning charm on him to rid him of all the dirt and other mystery substances from outside. Though shy and reserved, he was very much a young, rambunctious boy at heart, always wanting to find the time for games or adventures. Those didn't require him to sit and listen, after all.

Despite this, he did relatively well at following the rules. He wasn't rude (he was a Finn, after all), so he never dreamed of talking back to any one of his professors, but boy, did he want to. He would obey, for as long as physically possible, but one better believe that at the nearest opportunity, he was stripping himself of his uniform and throwing on shorts and a t-shirt, running outside to get a breath of fresh air as quickly as possible.

Sasha began to take an interest in the muggle punk rock scene when he hit the age of 13, after being exposed to it at school. Someone's friend-of-a-friend's cousin, or something, had discovered the culture whilst visiting America, and thus word was passed along to the circle of friends that attended Durmstrang. In a fit of teenage hormones and his quest to "find himself", Sasha began donning black jeans and new types of t-shirts, though never fully putting away his shorts, which felt almost like a staple of his personality, but he decided, going into his third year at Durmstrang, that there was a name that he wanted to make for himself, and though he didn't know what, he was going to figure it out.
History: Born in Porvoo, Finland, a town just east of Helsinki, Sasha was raised by his aunt and uncle, Oskari and Kyllikki Heikkilä, after the death of his parents in a creature-related-accident when Sasha was only two years old. After that, he was sent to live with his mother's sister and her husband.

Sasha was born as Aleksandr Eeli Sakke Teräväinen to a Finnish man, Ville Teräväinen, and to Suoma Teräväinen (née Tarasenko). Suoma was half-Russian, half-Finnish, so she elected to give Sasha a traditional Russian first name, whilst allowing for him to have Finnish secondary names. Both Ville and Suoma were Durmstrang alumni, and had a strong hope for Sasha to go on to be a great student of the school, with plans to raise him with enthusiasm about magic. Unfortunately, those plans were cut short as the couple were killed one day on the job, landing him in the care of his aunt and uncle.

Aside from that, the young boy lived a fairly normal life. Though, after he heard the story of how his parents passed, he did have initial hesitance at the thought of encountering a creature. Otherwise, he was raised similarly to how his parents would have wanted; with an excitement to learn and study magic eventually. Oskari is an avid Quidditch fan, and never having kids of his own to indulge himself in the discussion of the sport, so he instead raised Sasha with an understanding of it, with both being very big fans of the Nordic National Team, despite the resentment that Finland isn't represented.

The house that he grew up in was small, with a bight red exterior to match the vivid houses that made up Porvoo. The town sits along the water, being on the coast of Finland, and the winter months are just as cold and damning as the tales of the ones that come out of Helsinki (which Sasha has never been to, despite his desire). The winter months, before starting school, were filled with hockey and snow. Sasha, having once longed to play for the Porvoo Hunters (prior to experiencing the glory that was Quidditch), was deeply saddened by the firm "no" that he received from his uncle, who explained that any accidental magical mishaps were too much to worry about. It was, to them, a risk to introduce the young boy to the muggle world at this time, especially knowing that he would eventually need to leave for school.
Is your character a Quidditch player?: Yes!

*Sasha is the small name for Aleksandr/Alexander in Russian; because I already have a character named Alexx, in order to make the distinct difference between the two, he will be going by Sasha

Approved

Character: Aleksandr Teräväinen
Stats:
9 STR | 9 STA | 4 ARC | 10 ACC | 4 WIS | 9 EVA [46 stat points +1 from Quidditch win]
Broom: Moontrimmer
Quidditch Role: [in order of priority] 1. Beater 2. Keeper

5/23 - unable to maintain Quidditch role because player character is a Quidditch Player.

ABILITIES:

Year One: Evasive Maneuvers

Reducio

Sasha was fast. He had to be. Sasha wasn't always as big as he was, he just got really lucky as puberty hit, but before that he was short and skinny, which made him an easy target when playing hockey (his first sport). So, he learned how to be quick. They say that with natural athletes, there's just something in them that makes them good at everything they try. Well, that was Sasha. He was good at everything. But for some reason, for a very long time, he just couldn't get his speed up to par.

His uncle, Oskari, took notice in this very early on. While Oskari never approved of Sasha playing muggle sports and indulging himself in those things, he was seeing the mental toll that it was taking on his nephew as time went on. Conflicted between hoping that Sasha would take it as a sign to leave the game and begin focusing on his future as a wizard, or entertaining him for a little while and letting the harsh reality hit him one day, Osakri decided on the latter, busting out his skates (which were outdated and collecting dust) and taking Sasha out to the rink.

After rigorous hours, varying situations each time, Sasha was finally faster than his uncle. Oskari was relatively young, considering that Kyllikki was younger than his mother and therefore Oskari had been slightly younger than his father, so it was easier for him to be faster than the young boy. But Sasha proved that he had the strength and determination to push on, putting the time and effort into learning.

He applied the knowledge that he had learned every time he played the game. Since that day, he had come out of situations unscathed; not a scratch on him. He was always sore, that was a given, but he wasn't getting checked into the boards anymore, and his opponents were finding it harder and harder to trip him. Though fighting wasn't technically allowed, sometimes some of the other boys decided justice was needing served, and sometimes Sasha just so happened to be right there when it happened. Despite the boy obviously not being a great fighter at first, what he had on his side was his ability to dodge seemingly ever punch. As he got older, a lot of his teammates began asking him how it was that he hadn't lost any teeth, broken a nose, why he wasn't injury-stricken at least once in a season unlike the rest of them. Truthfully, he told them that he just worked on evading everything to the best of his ability, or that maybe being skinny had something to do with it.

When he began playing Quidditch, everything stuck with him. Unlike in hockey, where you may have an enforcer or two on your team (though they were mostly going out of style, thanks Ken Dryden), there were people actually aiming to hurt you. Sasha figured this was due to cultural differences; wizards could heal bones a lot faster than muggles could, so who cared if someone took a metal fucking ball to the ribs. Right?

Sasha. Sasha cared. He cared a lot because that hurt.

The first time he took a bludger to the ribs, his first thought, respectively, was "oh what the fuck." He was hurt, sure, but also annoyed. Brooms were- well, they were different compared to skates. They required a different type of control that Sasha, a first year at the time, was still adjusting to. He wasn't awful, as the boy had gone to show that he was a natural athlete and could pick up almost anything after a bit of training, but he needed to get out of his head. His next game, he didn't make the same mistake.

No matter how hard his opponents would try, be it practice or a real game, it proved hard to truly harm the raven-haired boy. His teammates would just laugh, shaking their head as they watched any beater wind their bat up, preparing to aim the whirling ball in his direction, and Sasha would just run his uncle's training through his head as he twisted himself out of the way, refusing to get hit again (because it hurt!).

[WC: 713]

Year Two: Charmer

Reducio

Sasha was charming in a weird way. He had that teenager awkwardness about him, shuffling around when he had to stand still for too long, pushing his hands in and out of his pockets, his pants falling at weird lengths over his legs, never seeming to be able to handle his growth spurts. His hair seemed to always be unkempt and his smile was often a little cheesy, but something about the boy just charmed those around him.

Perhaps it was his way with words (which were usually bad jokes or poor attempts to lighten the mood), or maybe it was because he happened to actually look halfway decent if you looked past the everything about him. But ever since he was a little boy, people seemed to be taken by Sasha, and that only increased as he got older. His lack of close friends were not because he couldn't get any, but it was because he preferred to keep an inner circle of people he was comfortable with. Though people tried to put him there, Sasha didn't like to be the center of attention much, and somehow that made people like him more.

There were ultimately a lot of good qualities about Sasha. His laugh, he smile (however cheesy), his kindness. He didn't like to believe he had a "way with words", because if anyone knew that he was an awkward teenage boy, it was him. And he was far too humble to ever admit that people were actually looking at him the way that he thought they were, that people always seemed to smile a little brighter when he spoke, even if what he said was actually nothing interesting. Elias once told him that he was the epitome of "head empty, no thoughts"; whatever that meant. He wasn't smart. He was, again by the words of Elias, a "himbo".

For some reason, people seemed to like "himbos". He never really figured out what that was or what it meant, he was told it was just a dumb, good-looking, kindhearted jock, but he didn't know why so many people felt the need to find a word for it. Still, he was flattered if anything, because at least he was making people happy? Even the guys, not just the girls, would find themselves tonguetied around him, blushing, fishing for more things. But Sasha was an open book, everything he had to give was extremely obvious.

[WC: 405]

Year Three: Obnoxiously Strong

Reducio

Over the summer, Sasha decided that it was time to start growing up, and in more ways than one. His Quidditch career was progressing, and he was thinking that this might be his future. He sat on this thought for a while, because he would have much rather gone out into the muggle world and played hockey all his life, but his chances of making it to the NHL were basically 0 given that all of these years he should have spent training he was at "some boarding school that is like, super exclusive or whatever", that also just so happened to not have a hockey team. That tied in with the fact that Sasha was, well, himself, and by that one would mean he wasn't smart or good at anything other than athletics, he had one option: Quidditch.

Quidditch, like any other sport, required strength. Just because the kids who played it were magical, that didn't mean that they just miraculously got away without any training or actual abilities. You could always tell who was more passionate than others judging by who actually went out and put in the extra work when they didn't "need" to. Most people would think that anyone who played any sport would be doing this, but that wasn't always the case. Some people just thought that it was a fun, or it was just a hobby, so outside of team practices and games, they weren't really going out of their way to put in the extra work.

But Sasha? Sasha was.

He had always been that way. He didn't focus on anything for too long, always getting bored or fidgety, but he managed to stick to a real workout routine and accomplished a lot of things through it. Over the summer, if he wasn't spending leisure time at the rink or in the streets, he was lifting weights in his room, or doing some extra labor for his uncle by chopping wood or helping him work on projects (Sasha wasn't good at fixing things, but it was the thought that counts). All day, everyday, he had something going on to help him build up his muscle mass.

One of the things that really bugged him was when he heard about pros who were casually doing 500 pushups, and then Sasha would wonder why he wasn't doing 500 pushups. Well, his 13-year-old self couldn't. Not now, anyway, but he would get there. It was little goals like that which keeps him going. 500 pushups, lift these weights, one mile in 7 minutes, stuff like that. Once one thing was off the list, another thing took its place. He didn't want to be a bodybuilder or anything like that, but with more strength came more power behind his actions, and Sasha had to be the best if he was serious about this.

As his mind drifted to professional Quidditch teams, ones he might want to be taken by, Sasha found himself more than a little offended that Finland wasn't invited to be a part of the "Nordic National Team". Aside from just not having a regional team, Finland wasn't even invited to be a part of the Nordics? His anger over this issue fueled him, as he also swore to form his own national team and totally dominate everyone else. Sasha wasn't often angry, but this was just downright offensive.

[WC: 566]