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BIO
Basics
full name: Chiwon Ha (하치원). For a large part of his childhood, he went by Charlie, but he dropped that name when he turned 18, and exclusively goes by Chiwon now.
nickname(s): N/A
gender | pronouns: male, he/him
date of birth | age: May 30 / Gemini / 20
place of birth | hometown: Born in Seoul, South Korea, and moved to Los Angeles, USA when he was a child.
arcana: The Devil
concept: Fickle son of Hollywood fills the emptiness by chasing the next thrill.
Appearance
Keywords: "mirror-obsessed" and "money." Type of guy who spends a lot of time and effort on his grooming, just so he can look like a very expensive version of a normal dude. His hair is always impeccable, his face is always cleanly shaved, and his cologne is tastefully applied and $200 per bottle. His clothes, down to the T-shirts and jeans, are all designer brands and custom-tailored. Despite Chiwon's flamboyant personality, he doesn't really look all that flashy in his day-to-day, but he will turn it up for special events by introducing more colour or eye-catching accessories. Still, Chiwon doesn't need to dress brightly to grab attention—he's always in motion, pacing around and messing with objects and using big hand gestures when he talks.
Tattoos, from biggest to smallest: a rose on the back of his left shoulder, ouroboros snake on the inside of his right forearm, the Roman numerals "XV" on his ribs on the left side (most recent tattoo), initials "J.W." behind his right ear (for an ex he hasn't spoken to in two years). None of these carry any special emotional significance for him, not even the initials. It was just something to do.
pb: Woo Dohwan
Tattoos, from biggest to smallest: a rose on the back of his left shoulder, ouroboros snake on the inside of his right forearm, the Roman numerals "XV" on his ribs on the left side (most recent tattoo), initials "J.W." behind his right ear (for an ex he hasn't spoken to in two years). None of these carry any special emotional significance for him, not even the initials. It was just something to do.
pb: Woo Dohwan
Personality
Chiwon somehow always comes off as over-the-top and insincere, even after you get to know him better and might realize that he means it most of the time. When he talks about how beautiful and desirable he is? When he laments how misunderstood he is by everyone around him? When he tells you that you are the most talented and awe-inspiring person he's ever met? When he says this is absolutely worst day anyone has ever suffered in the history of the world? He's being genuine, but everything he says is also translated through a filter in which he's the central player of a heart-stirring drama. Of course everything that happens to him is important.
Chiwon is fearlessly extroverted. He's rarely afraid to tell people what he's thinking, even if you happen to be a total stranger and the thing he wants to say is how your top doesn't match your pants. Despite his occasional rudeness, Chiwon doesn't want to alienate anyone. He finds other people fascinating, and loves to ask people questions about themselves and listen to them talk about whatever weird hobbies they have. It can be flattering to be subject to his attention, but longtime acquaintances might find it tiring after awhile, if they get the sense that Chiwon sees them more like interesting characters than actual people. To Chiwon, everyone in his story needs to be larger than life.
In quiet moments, Chiwon wonders what lies beneath the performance he's crafted over the years—which is maybe why he never lets himself be quiet, or alone, or bored. He's young! He's hot! He doesn't need any self-awareness! He doesn't have to examine the fear that he might secretly be just an empty, tiresome person so long as he's pursuing his latest crush or enjoying some high adrenaline activity. He's impulsive and self-indulgent, always jumping on whatever shiny new thing that catches his attention, and just as quickly getting bored of it as soon as something even shinier comes along. He's curious, but he's never had a relationship that lasted longer than a few months, or kept up a hobby for longer than a year.
Fighting Shadows is just one more fleeting fancy. Except that this is deeply dangerous, and he's signed a contract to do this, and he's now answerable to a squad of people who expect Chiwon to be dependable and hard-working and a whole list of words he's never kept long in his vocabulary. A lesser man might find himself terrified and in over his head, but Chiwon has spent his whole life faking confidence so well that he wears it like a second skin. He's got this.
School Life
grade: Freshman
major: Undeclared, but considering Visual Arts (cinematography)
minor: N/A
classes: 4
core class: Arts (Performing)
activities: Swim Team. Dance Club. Student paper (movie reviews in which he tears apart every mainstream film released in the last decade). He's tried almost every club on campus at one point or another, but these are the only ones he's attended consistently.
Skills
languages: Fluent in English and Korean. Knows enough words/phrases in various European languages (French, Italian, Spanish, German, Russian) to come across as annoying and pretentious when he dots his speech with "mon cheri" and "liebchen", but can't actually claim fluency in any of them.
impressions: Killer at accents. Despite his love of the stage, Chiwon's not much of an actor, as he can only really play "himself" in any role. However, he gets along by being excellent at imitating other people, down to their speech patterns and mannerisms.
video editing: Chiwon learned how to edit videos as a teen, just to polish up Tiktoks and goofy Youtube skits, and developed a good set of basic skills. Recently, he's decided to get more serious about it so he can edit full-fledged movies, and can often be found filming innocuous day-to-day events so he can stitch the footage together later. His preferences currently run along the lines of documentaries or very serious arthouse-type flicks. He is not into splatter gore, he is an artist.
drawing: He's taken various art classes and is moderately talented at drawing, mostly storyboards and sketchy portraits of his latest crush. Almost all of his art is rough-looking pencil drawings.
swimming: Chiwon was part of the swim team in high school, and kept it up while he was traveling (in the pools of five-star hotels, naturally). He's never been very ambitious, and is happy to perform in the middle of competitive swim programs.
History
history
CHILDHOOD. Ha Yeongja was an acclaimed South Korean actress until a scandal tanked her career: she had a child out of wedlock, and refused to name the father. Forced to retreat from public life, she focused on raising her son, Chiwon, instead. A few years later, Yeongja received a message urging her out of retirement: Michael St. Clair, American film director and her #1 admirer, begging her to star in his next movie. Yeongja left Chiwon in the care of her parents in Daegu, and accepted the opportunity. One movie turned into two, then turned into a whole series as Yeongja became Michael St. Clair's muse... and eventually, his wife. Chiwon was seven years old when he and his mother permanently packed up to move to America. He was given the name "Charlie" to make the transition easier.
"Easier" is relative. Dropped into a new country, new language, new culture and new family all at once, Chiwon struggled to adjust. He now lived in an upscale home in Los Angeles, with all the toys he could ask for, and the very best tutors for English and school—but to his parents, he was an afterthought. Yeongja was happy to have her son near her again and Michael was a kind enough stepfather, but they both cared more about creating art than having a conventional family.
So, Chiwon found a way to command people's attention: first by acting out and throwing temper tantrums (mediocre results), and then by transforming himself into the sort of precocious child you only found on TV. Chiwon listened carefully to conversations he wasn't meant to hear, and watched movies that were too old for him. He studied the people in movies—their cadence, their gestures, their witty rejoinders—and learned to imitate without completely understanding. He put aside Ha Chiwon—a sheltered child raised by doting grandparents—and became Charlie Ha, a character in every sense of the word. Children his age thought he was weird, but at the frequent artist's parties that his parents held, Charlie and his dead-on Brando impressions were a hit.
TEEN YEARS. By his teens, he'd perfected this persona. He'd trained the accent out of his voice, and outfitted his whole wardrobe with the most fashionable items that his family's money could buy. If he still seemed disingenuous and obnoxious, he made up for it with sheer gregariousness, always willing to chat up a stranger to make a new friend. He coasted through his school years, scoring average grades while throwing himself into extracurriculars. As much as his mother would've liked him to try harder at school, Chiwon had an artist's disposition. Unfortunately, his preferred medium was social media, where he wrote thousands of faux-clever tweets and posted memes and skits he'd created in Photoshop or Final Cut Pro.
At 14, he got his first girlfriend. At 15, he got his first boyfriend. At 16, he went modestly viral as Charlie St. Clair (the name he used for his public socials) for dunking on his stepfather's movies ("lol even Michael St. Clair's kid thinks he's a hack"), and maintained his popularity by being a handsome boy who posted a lot about "staying true to yourself" and other trite messages for teens. When he graduated from high school, he made a big deal about being proud of his Korean heritage and reclaiming his birth name, Chiwon Ha. (His mother had always called him Chiwon, while the rest of his family, his friends and the world at large had called him Charlie.) As expected, this earned him another wave of approval.
His motivations weren't totally cynical, but Chiwon had learned by this time to do nothing if it didn't earn him attention. Still, maybe it was finally time to figure out who he really was under all the superficial charm and Snapchat filters. If Charlie had been a character he'd played for 10 years, then who was Chiwon? Publicly, he'd never demonstrated anything less than total confidence in himself. If ever he confessed to moments of vulnerability, it was to show he was relatable and capable of human empathy, not an actual crack in his carefully built persona.
What's a rich kid to do? Chiwon told his parents that he couldn't create authentic art without "experiencing the world", so he ordered some fancy luggage and left for a gap year in Europe.
TRAVELING. His only plan was this: say yes to every opportunity that comes up. As a young man who could book five-star hotels and eat at gourmet restaurants, Chiwon didn't exactly encounter many character-building moments as he hopped around Europe, letting whim dictate where he went next. He went to underground clubs and unusual art exhibits; he had short-lived love affairs with people he never wanted to talk to again; he indulged in drugs and drink and delicacies that skirted the line of legality. When he got bored of Europe, he went to Asia, and the experience of being around so many people who looked like him but were no longer the least bit relatable to him was... uncomfortable. Chiwon decided that self-discovery was overrated, and mostly stuck to Europe after that.
In his second year of travel ("sorry, eomma, I'm still having a good time here"), Chiwon met Anna Dolling, a 24-year-old German heiress with expensive tastes and an ambition to open a chain of private clubs for artists. She was beautiful and well-connected and, like Chiwon, she was always searching for the next exciting new experience. He fell madly in love with her, and Anna had no scruples about letting a wealthy 19-year-old foot the bill for their adventures. A mere two months later, authorities apprehended Anna while she was staying at a French hotel with Chiwon. He learned that Anna Dolling was a con artist who'd lied about her trust fund and swindled tens of thousands of dollars out of clueless elites... including Chiwon.
ENROLLMENT AT HOPESTILL. Chiwon's parents were none too pleased with this scandal, and forced him to return home and keep his head down. Chiwon lasted two weeks before he grew restless again, and so his mother pointedly suggested that he could go back to school if he was so desperate for freedom. He applied last minute to a bunch of colleges, and ended up at Hopestill, which had a) decent arts programs and b) considerable distance from any parental oversight.
Despite Chiwon's lack of ambition, school proved to be a grounding influence on him. He threw himself into joining new clubs and making new friends, and when he finally got bored of that, he realized his classes weren't too bad either. Just before winter break, he made up his mind to pursue the family business—movie-making—and begged for nice equipment for Christmas. (He was financially cut off after the whole "gave thousands of dollars to a con artist" thing, but his mother indulged him here.) When the dreams came to him, Chiwon approached the Velvet Room like he did with everything else in his life: say yes. He'd only passingly paid attention to the reports of Apathy Syndrome in town. He didn't know anything about Shadows, or other worlds, or why someone would have yellow eyes. But yes, he'll sign the contract. Why not?
CHILDHOOD. Ha Yeongja was an acclaimed South Korean actress until a scandal tanked her career: she had a child out of wedlock, and refused to name the father. Forced to retreat from public life, she focused on raising her son, Chiwon, instead. A few years later, Yeongja received a message urging her out of retirement: Michael St. Clair, American film director and her #1 admirer, begging her to star in his next movie. Yeongja left Chiwon in the care of her parents in Daegu, and accepted the opportunity. One movie turned into two, then turned into a whole series as Yeongja became Michael St. Clair's muse... and eventually, his wife. Chiwon was seven years old when he and his mother permanently packed up to move to America. He was given the name "Charlie" to make the transition easier.
"Easier" is relative. Dropped into a new country, new language, new culture and new family all at once, Chiwon struggled to adjust. He now lived in an upscale home in Los Angeles, with all the toys he could ask for, and the very best tutors for English and school—but to his parents, he was an afterthought. Yeongja was happy to have her son near her again and Michael was a kind enough stepfather, but they both cared more about creating art than having a conventional family.
So, Chiwon found a way to command people's attention: first by acting out and throwing temper tantrums (mediocre results), and then by transforming himself into the sort of precocious child you only found on TV. Chiwon listened carefully to conversations he wasn't meant to hear, and watched movies that were too old for him. He studied the people in movies—their cadence, their gestures, their witty rejoinders—and learned to imitate without completely understanding. He put aside Ha Chiwon—a sheltered child raised by doting grandparents—and became Charlie Ha, a character in every sense of the word. Children his age thought he was weird, but at the frequent artist's parties that his parents held, Charlie and his dead-on Brando impressions were a hit.
TEEN YEARS. By his teens, he'd perfected this persona. He'd trained the accent out of his voice, and outfitted his whole wardrobe with the most fashionable items that his family's money could buy. If he still seemed disingenuous and obnoxious, he made up for it with sheer gregariousness, always willing to chat up a stranger to make a new friend. He coasted through his school years, scoring average grades while throwing himself into extracurriculars. As much as his mother would've liked him to try harder at school, Chiwon had an artist's disposition. Unfortunately, his preferred medium was social media, where he wrote thousands of faux-clever tweets and posted memes and skits he'd created in Photoshop or Final Cut Pro.
At 14, he got his first girlfriend. At 15, he got his first boyfriend. At 16, he went modestly viral as Charlie St. Clair (the name he used for his public socials) for dunking on his stepfather's movies ("lol even Michael St. Clair's kid thinks he's a hack"), and maintained his popularity by being a handsome boy who posted a lot about "staying true to yourself" and other trite messages for teens. When he graduated from high school, he made a big deal about being proud of his Korean heritage and reclaiming his birth name, Chiwon Ha. (His mother had always called him Chiwon, while the rest of his family, his friends and the world at large had called him Charlie.) As expected, this earned him another wave of approval.
His motivations weren't totally cynical, but Chiwon had learned by this time to do nothing if it didn't earn him attention. Still, maybe it was finally time to figure out who he really was under all the superficial charm and Snapchat filters. If Charlie had been a character he'd played for 10 years, then who was Chiwon? Publicly, he'd never demonstrated anything less than total confidence in himself. If ever he confessed to moments of vulnerability, it was to show he was relatable and capable of human empathy, not an actual crack in his carefully built persona.
What's a rich kid to do? Chiwon told his parents that he couldn't create authentic art without "experiencing the world", so he ordered some fancy luggage and left for a gap year in Europe.
TRAVELING. His only plan was this: say yes to every opportunity that comes up. As a young man who could book five-star hotels and eat at gourmet restaurants, Chiwon didn't exactly encounter many character-building moments as he hopped around Europe, letting whim dictate where he went next. He went to underground clubs and unusual art exhibits; he had short-lived love affairs with people he never wanted to talk to again; he indulged in drugs and drink and delicacies that skirted the line of legality. When he got bored of Europe, he went to Asia, and the experience of being around so many people who looked like him but were no longer the least bit relatable to him was... uncomfortable. Chiwon decided that self-discovery was overrated, and mostly stuck to Europe after that.
In his second year of travel ("sorry, eomma, I'm still having a good time here"), Chiwon met Anna Dolling, a 24-year-old German heiress with expensive tastes and an ambition to open a chain of private clubs for artists. She was beautiful and well-connected and, like Chiwon, she was always searching for the next exciting new experience. He fell madly in love with her, and Anna had no scruples about letting a wealthy 19-year-old foot the bill for their adventures. A mere two months later, authorities apprehended Anna while she was staying at a French hotel with Chiwon. He learned that Anna Dolling was a con artist who'd lied about her trust fund and swindled tens of thousands of dollars out of clueless elites... including Chiwon.
ENROLLMENT AT HOPESTILL. Chiwon's parents were none too pleased with this scandal, and forced him to return home and keep his head down. Chiwon lasted two weeks before he grew restless again, and so his mother pointedly suggested that he could go back to school if he was so desperate for freedom. He applied last minute to a bunch of colleges, and ended up at Hopestill, which had a) decent arts programs and b) considerable distance from any parental oversight.
Despite Chiwon's lack of ambition, school proved to be a grounding influence on him. He threw himself into joining new clubs and making new friends, and when he finally got bored of that, he realized his classes weren't too bad either. Just before winter break, he made up his mind to pursue the family business—movie-making—and begged for nice equipment for Christmas. (He was financially cut off after the whole "gave thousands of dollars to a con artist" thing, but his mother indulged him here.) When the dreams came to him, Chiwon approached the Velvet Room like he did with everything else in his life: say yes. He'd only passingly paid attention to the reports of Apathy Syndrome in town. He didn't know anything about Shadows, or other worlds, or why someone would have yellow eyes. But yes, he'll sign the contract. Why not?
OOC