Marius Rousseau

[Marius Rousseau]

(Gaspard Ulliel)

Who is it there staring?

Name: Marius Rousseau
Age | B-day: 24 | April 6, 1851
Position: Lead Tenor
Hair: Brown, kept short
Eyes: Blue
Markings: While having no extremely visible scars, he does have a dimple on his left cheek, visible if he smiles widely or grimaces.

Learn to see, to find the man

Phobia: Losing someone else close to him; failure. He's already lost enough in his lifetime in his opinion. It's pretty self explanatory.
Habit: He tends to grab onto the material of his pants if he's nervous, though he usually catches himself. Tends to be a bit of a loner at times.
Pet Peeve: Marius is difficult to push over the edge as, despite being annoyed, he tends to stuff rather than outwardly display it. However, should he be pushed too far, he will likely blow up. Nevertheless, one thing that does make him voice his thoughts and annoyance is when people fool around during practice, making it impossible for him to focus.

Personality:
Marius can be rather unpredictable. You can come across him and find him to be perfectly agreeable and a little congenial. Then again, there are times when he rarely speaks a word to you and merely prefers to listen. Yet there are other times when his temper flares and he rants and raves about what's going on, sometimes seeming to lose control of himself completely. You have to get used to his moods, which sometimes leave a person feeling like a whirlwind just went through, resulting in rare lengthy friendships and quite a few on and off again ones. This has improved over the years, but it does still flare out from time to time.

He shows little interest in the women of the theatre or women in general. This isn't because he prefers men, for he doesn't. He definitely likes women. It's simply because he wishes to focus on his career without distractions as well as it being a defense mechanism. He doesn't want to lose anyone else, so why get close to people, especially of the opposite gender? Even with the same gender, really. Brotherly love is even something he wishes to avoid. He's a bit of a loner, and while part of it is definitely to avoid getting close to people, another part of it is because he doesn't want others to see him in his moods or at his worst. There are few exceptions to this rule as it is hard to maintain complete anonymity and seclusion in such a setting.

However, this doesn't keep him from working hard at his "job" here at the opera. He enjoys singing and dancing, and his focus is completely there when he's on the stage practicing or with a private tutor learning his part. He picks up on music quickly, resultant of his years of vocal training. He's the sort of person to sticks with what he decides to do and sees it through no matter the cost. He also tends to form strong opinions, and he's not afraid to stand up for what he believes in. A few issues in particular tend to get a rise from him.

What kind of life have you known?

Family:
Mother | Clarisse Rousseau | Deceased
Father | Baptiste Rousseau | 62 | Alive
Sister | Emeline Rousseau | Died in infancy
Aunt (paternal) | Evelyne Barclay | 24 | Alive
Uncle | Alfred Barclay | 58 | Alive
Uncle (paternal) | Jacques Rousseau | 63 | Alive

History:
Marius was born to Baptiste and Clarisse Rousseau, a young couple who were still, for all intents and purposes, in the newlywed phase of life. They treated their son like a little prince, doing for him whatever they could afford to do for him. His mother always would tuck him into bed at night and sing with him some lullaby or nursery rhyme after a prayer to God, usually one from a children's book of prayers. His memories of his mother were always of her with a smile on her face, singing and dancing as she worked, or laughing as they played together.

But then, at age nine came the hard pregnancy. The doctor ordered her on bed rest during the last few months, and of course, Marius never understood this at that point in time. Suddenly his mother wasn't playing with him, and that smile wasn't always as strong and vivid as it usually was. He was worried and scared, but he did as he was told, not wanting to make things harder on her. Soon, she gave birth to his little sister Emeline, but she bled out and died shortly after childbirth, leaving Marius and his father alone. His father's sister came to live with them for a while, still yet to be wed herself.

The days were quiet except for baby Emeline's crying, and his father was away more often for work, and the house was smileless and musicless, something that quickly put Marius ill at ease. He'd try to sing the songs his mother would, but his father would usually say he had a headache and would he please stop singing? The baby was colicky and sickly and was always crying, and try though she might, his Aunt Evelyne could not get her to calm down anymore than he or his father could.

One night he left the house while his father was trying to take care of a screaming Emeline, going out to sleep in the nearby barn. His father and aunt couldn't find him and he woke to their frantic cries. His father scolded him so harshly it left him in tears and he spent the rest of the day at a nearby creek, missing lunch and coming home late, starving. His aunt fed him a little soup and sent him straight to bed for worrying them like that.

It was only a couple months later that the baby died from the croup. Marius was sent off to live with his Uncle Jacques. He barely knew the man, and the house, void of other people besides the two of them and a maid, was hardly a proper home for a nine-year-old boy. Nevertheless, he and his uncle quickly grew close. They spent evenings singing and dancing and playing the piano, which Jacques tried to teach his nephew, but Marius was more interested in singing, so he hired him a private tutor for lessons, having nothing better for his money to go towards.

Sometime after his tenth birthday, his father came to retrieve him, and Marius left reluctantly. His uncle assured him he would visit, but a couple months went by and the boy grew restless. The home felt empty, and he and his father rarely spoke. It wasn't the same without his mother. His aunt had only recently been wed shortly after he'd come home, so she no longer was there. So, one morning after his father had left for work, the boy packed his mother's locket and Bible and left for his uncle's, getting rides on the back of carts 'til finally he was there.

His uncle was pleased to see him, of course, but he promptly sent out word to his father, who was understandably worried. Marius threw a fit when his father came to get him, and in the end Baptiste allowed him to stay with his brother on the condition that he would come home to visit for a month every once in a while. Singing lessons were resumed, though once puberty hit, things began to become difficult for Marius, having to get used to his new voice and how to control it. The squeaking resulted in laughter from the tutor's daughter, whom he sometimes brought along.

The years went by and Marius grew older, learning to appreciate Paris and its opera, which he and his uncle frequented. He was saddened when the whole place burned, having had aspirations to one day sing at the place himself. The reconstruction provided this opportunity, which he seized quickly with his uncle's full blessing.

Whose is that face in the mask?

Name: Jen
Experience: 5 years, 10 mos.
Contact: PM, AIM, YIM
Other Characters: Cristophe D'Anjou

RP Sample:
The cool summer night was a welcome one to Lance as he walked through the dusty streets of Hogsmeade. The breeze was enjoyable, especially considering that he was wearing a stiff, white button-up with a pair of black slacks and some casual dress shoes. He had come to Hogsmeade during the later hours of the day when most businesses were about to close, but that had worked out fine. He'd only wanted to pick up the robes he'd ordered the last time he was here on Monday, the twelfth of July, which was now five days ago. They had been ready sooner, but when he had received the owl a couple days ago, Thursday, he hadn't wanted to come. It simply hadn't been convenient, not when his father was home and teaching him a few tricks of the trade.

In his hands, naturally, was the brown paper package with a rope tie around it to hold it closed as he wandered around Hogsmeade. He had no desire to go home, and he had spent the last few hours in the Hog's Head, drinking, though definitely lightly. He thought anyone who would drink heavily enough to get drunk were all idiots. He just drank enough to get a buzz but never enough to lower his inhibitions to the point where he held no control over his actions. That was ridiculous and unbecoming, especially for an Ulrich.

His strides were long and he was silent. There was nothing much to say or think about right now. He'd bought his things for school, which was starting in a few weeks, and he now had his tailored robes, so he was set. There was no concern in that aspect of his life. His home life was rather dull, so what had he to think of in that regard? His foot happened to fall on a twig as he walked, causing it to snap, and he looked down, pausing and removing his foot from the thing, which he looked at distastefully. It had interrupted his cadence--not that that had really been important or anything, but all the same. He preferred keeping a constant pace, uninterrupted.

It was a few moments later that he came upon the Shrieking Shack, and he paused, his lit wand pointed towards it. In a few short weeks after the school year began, he'd soon have to watch the third years and even some in his year daring each other to go into the place, "the most haunted house in Great Britain." He rolled his eyes. He had been dared once, and being the way that he is, he had accepted it, thinking it rather ridiculous. He'd walked in, walked through the place, and he'd come back out a few minutes later, unharmed. Naturally, it hadn't been night since it was only a Hogsmeade trip that the school had taken, but all the same. He could have had fun with the idiots who had dared him, but he'd decided not to do so.

He looked up as he heard the sound of a girl's voice being carried by the wind somewhere in the distance, and he approached quietly, curious to hear what it was she was saying. "...Nothing is fair and nothing is just. It's all a bunch of lies created by the leader, the Lord, all a bunch of lies. His minions are under false accusation. They follow their orders yet they are nothing but puppets and Trevor is the puppeteer. How foolish they are to put their faith in a single man. A single person who, with a word alone, can destroy their very beings. How very foolish indeed."

He rose a jagged brow. Did he have a traitor on his hands? How very interesting. He whispered, "Nox," as he listened to the girl's monologue, seeing her silhouette on the fence about five yards from where he stood behind her, not wishing her to realize he was there so he could listen to her thoughts. As she finished, he took long strides towards her, turning so he was leaning on the fence facing away from the Shrieking Shack, his arms crossed and his head turned towards the girl he now recognized as a Hufflepuff in his year. They'd had little to do with each other before (probably because Lance wanted nothing to do with someone with bright pink hair when others could be watching), but now? No one was around, and he was intrigued by what she said.

"Foolish?" he said in the silence that ensued what she had spoken. He began to approach her before stopping and leaning against the fence. "No, I'm afraid it is you who are foolish. 'Puppets'? And Williams, 'the puppeteer'?" He rose a brow. "Honestly, you do realize that these people have their own free will still intact, don't you? They do it because they believe it is right. If they didn't believe it was right, they wouldn't do it, and there would be no one to side with Lord Williams to punish them, therefore destroying the government the man's established."

He paused, but he wasn't done. Should she have tried to speak, he would have cut her off, the pause very brief. "No, mädchen, it is just because the people deem it so and allow it to go on. According to the order that the people have established as the common law, things are how they should be. Anything less would fail to be just in accordance with how we are now governed." He looked at her rather dully, little to no emotion behind his words in most places, almost as though reciting facts he'd read in a book, but he believed them. He just wasn't one to be overly enthusiastic or expressive in the way he spoke unless angered.

He was slightly miffed about her words about how things were, but he wasn't to the point of yelling or screaming...yet. He didn't plan to get that way, but should it happen, it would happen. He didn't take well to not being agreed with, no matter how big or small the issue, and this one was rather large.