Brad Poole

[blastinus]

Name: Bradley Theodore Poole
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: 12th
School: Aurora High School
Hobbies and Interests: Playing With his Younger Siblings, Web Design, Chess, and Singing

Appearance: Bradley (or Brad, as he prefers to be called) stands at 5'11" and weighs about 165 pounds. He's skinny and not very muscular, and his legs are considerably longer than his torso, giving him a gangly appearance. He's Caucasian, though he has a dark tan due to being out in the sun fairly frequently and due to his mother's Mexican heritage. His blond hair is long in the front and the back, giving him an unkempt appearance, and he doesn't make much of an effort to brush it except for pushing it out of his eyes, so he often has cowlicks on the top and the sides. He has blue eyes, and he has a squarish chin with a cleft. He's rather uncoordinated, and has a habit of tripping over stairs and carpets due to the shuffling way in which he walks.

Clothing-wise, Brad is partial to video game or pop culture T-shirts. He's got a decent variety of these, and he likes to mix it up very often, so it's rare that he'll wear the same shirt two days in a given week. Otherwise, he wears slacks or cargo shorts, depending on the weather, along with a pair of sneakers. With the amount of hair he's got, he finds it difficult to comfortably wear a cap, so he usually goes without hats. Instead of wearing a backpack, he carries his books and other supplies in a large black satchel on his shoulder, because he feels like it's easier to carry around and to use. He's encountered the typical "Man Purse" jokes because of that, not that he cares much.

Biography: Brad was born the second son to a family of six, born just a few years after one another. His father Norman is an accountant for a major firm in Seattle, and his mother Janet is an aspiring novelist who writes primarily fantasy and science fiction. His father is German in heritage, his great-grandparents having moved to America in the early 1900's, and his mother is Mexican, the daughter of an immigrant family who came to America in the 60's. His father was an only child, and both of his father's parents are dead. At the same time, his mother doesn't talk to her parents and brother much at all, having largely grown distant from them over the years. Janet's parents did not approve of their marriage because of her husband's ethnicity, and both of them refused to attend the wedding as a result. This has soured her feelings towards them, and she still doesn't like to talk about them whenever her children ask.

Brad's siblings are all over the place in terms of age. He has two sisters: Monica, age 21, and Bethany, age 11, as well as three brothers: Carl, age 16, Steven, age 13, and Jeffrey, age 8. Growing up in a large family often meant a lot of quarreling and bickering and name calling, and Brad learned how to both give and take, which led to him learning at a fairly young age how to deflect insults and criticism or take it graciously. His mother, often left alone with the children while Norman was at work, was surprised at how rarely Brad actually got to fisticuffs with his siblings, oftentimes taking their name calling in stride. As the siblings learned how to tolerate one another and even went so far as to play games with one another, Brad demonstrated a pretty sharp intellect, beating even his older sister at games like chess, checkers, and other assorted "thinking man's games."

Going into junior high and high school, Brad began to realize that his appearance and tastes made him somewhat unpopular with the main crowd, but he also began to realize that, while the criticisms stung a little, they were no different than what he'd already gone through with his siblings, so he didn't especially care what people thought of him. He was fond of using computers, and because of a nagging curiosity, he began to look into how to make websites and program in C++ and other languages. After hitting puberty, he also realized that he had a fairly nice baritone voice, and so, with encouragement from his parents, he began taking singing classes and applying for the school choir. Upon discovering that there was a Chess Club on campus, Brad also jumped at the opportunity to join that as well, and he has been actively campaigning to get more people to join, putting up papers on bulletin boards and sometimes setting up posters which he drew himself, as one can tell by how bad they look.

As far as his classes go, Brad has jumped into them with great gusto, frequently volunteering to ask questions and reading about the material far in advance. This has allowed him to get B's and A's in almost all of his courses. His best courses are science-related, and from the advance reading he's done on possible degrees, he currently wants to do a Computer Science degree. He doesn't have a job after school, though he has had a job for the last two summers at a local convenience store, so he spends a great deal of his time with his younger brothers and sister, driving them to places and running errands for his mother so she can get some peace and quiet with which to plot out her next science fiction novel. With the assistance of Carl, his sixteen-year old brother who has aspirations of wanting to be a great chef, he's even made dinner for the family on occasions. He and Carl both attend Aurora High School, but Carl likes to think of himself as a little more "normal" than his older brother, and tries to avoid him at school whenever possible, even though Brad drives him there every day.

Carl may have good reason to want to avoid his brother, though. Brad's personality is a little overwhelming, as he'll get highly energetic about anything he sets his mind to. He's also very hard to upset, waving off insults and criticism without even a quiver, and it's difficult to ruin his mood when he's feeling happy about something. Sometimes he gets a little too enthusiastic about things, like the time he saw a performer juggling steak knives when he was ten, and thought that it'd be an amazing thing to try himself, resulting in one of the knives falling point first and barely missing his toes. He's also injured himself trying skateboarding, tree climbing, baseball, and other assorted physical acts, just due to how clumsy he is, and if his mother hadn't intervened, he probably would have attempted to join the Army when he was thirteen, after he saw a recruitment ad for it.

Advantages: Brad is energetic, spirited, and unflappable. It's difficult to anger him, and he's relatively easygoing around people. He has a creative mind, and he is pretty good with computers.
Disadvantages: Brad doesn't have a lot of strength to speak of, is somewhat clumsy, and is quite impulsive, jumping into things without thinking. His straightforwardness is often unbearable, and may set people off rather than make them friendly.