Randolph Whateley

[TheLordOfAwesome]

Name: Randolph Whateley
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Swimming, occultism, reading, collecting Funko Pops, birdwatching

Appearance: Randolph stands at 6'7" and weighs in at 201 lbs, with spindly arms and legs. He has a lean, athletic frame due to years of swimming helping tone his body. He has short white hair which has a thinning hairline. He was born albino and has pale white skin, which is rough and scabby in places, with pink eyes characteristic with the condition. He has a narrow head with a rectangle shaped face, with huge, round, bulging eyes, oily complexion, a flat nose, small ears, thin eyebrows, and thin lips that curl downward, giving the impression that he is always frowning.

Due to his albinism, Randolph generally likes to wear outfits that cover most of his body and are dark in color to protect his skin from the sun. He'll wear these attires even in the hotter times of the year. He often wears hats to cover his head, and on clear sunny days he can often be seen carrying an umbrella. On the day of the abduction, Randolph was wearing a black long sleeve t-shirt with a black trench coat over it, khaki pants, a pair of leather gloves, a grey newsboy cap, a silver key necklace, and black tennis shoes.

Biography: Randolph was born March 15th, 2003 in Ipswich, Massachusetts to Dr. Herbert Whateley and Nathália Whateley (née Pickman). Both the Whateleys and the Pickmans are old money families, with the Whateley family in particular being able to trace back its family line all the way to the American Revolution. Herbert Whateley was an esteemed doctor of antiquity, while Nathália was an aspiring painter that was gaining renown in Essex County, Massachusetts for her colorful, dreamlike artwork. The two met during a high society charity event in April of 1997 being held in Boston and quickly hit it off. They started dating and within one year got married. Shortly after getting married, Nathália became pregnant with Randolph.

After being born it was apparent that Randolph had health issues, being born severely underweight for a newborn baby and albino. His father had an instant dislike of Randolph, calling him “hideous” and “deformed”, and largely believed without evidence that his wife had an affair to result in Randolph appearing as he did, though never said anything outright about the subject. Herbert was largely dismissive of Randolph and verbally abusive to his child, screaming at him frequently, with Nathália often fearing that one day Herbert would hurt Randolph. Herbert increasingly became maniac, erratic, and paranoid over the years — a result of undiagnosed and untreated mental issues — until suffering a psychotic break in 2006 when he attempted to kill himself by throwing himself from the roof of the family estate while screaming about seeing something he shouldn’t have. He survived his attempted suicide but was admitted to McLean Hospital to be treated for his mental issues, though by the end of the year he would pass away from complications from catching pneumonia.

The decline of her husband’s mental wellbeing, attempted suicide, and eventual death took a serious toll on Nathália, never recovering from the trauma of her husband’s absence and death. She would increasingly involve herself in Randolph’s life to a suffocating degree as she became concerned over his well being, both physically and mentally. She refused to let him attend school, instead hiring a series of private tutors to teach him the absence of a school education. Though she loved her son, she was bad at properly showing it as she was smothering and overprotective while acting coldly towards him, often verbally, mentally, and emotionally abusing him as he grew up. She would often remark that he had a “hideous face” and that he was weak and fragile, too much so to properly live outside the confines of the family’s Boston estate. This upbringing was incredibly traumatizing to Randolph and he would internalize his mother’s abuse as being factually true.

Randolph for his part was a bright child, having learned to read at age three and writing at around age six. Outside of his mother, his only point of social contact was his tutors who were generally oblivious of Randolph’s mother’s abuses towards him. With so little social contact, he grew to be rather shy and awkward around people. He was quiet and emotionally repressed, appearing stoic to everyone who did happen to interact with him. Randolph lived in a household where he had to tread carefully on psychological eggshells to try to avoid his mother’s abusive outbursts. He was often ill as a child, usually suffering mental breakdowns and panic attacks, which contributed to his mother’s decision to keep him confined to the estate grounds. He was plagued by intense nightmares that resulted in him developing insomnia. The only real solace he had as a child was his family’s library, which he would often hold up in when he could get the chance and read whatever book caught his interest. He was particularly interested in science fiction, particularly the works of Jules Verne.

Up until he was seven he was allowed to leave his house and wander the surrounding streets with some supervision, but after an incident where a dog bit him his mother refused to let him outside unless he was right by her side. The dog bite incident left him with a deep, permanent pathological fear of dogs, often having a panic attack if one were to get too close to him if he was walking down the street.

Around 2013, his mother would become increasingly unstable. The subject matter of her art style became darker and more horrific, often being deemed too graphic by critics. She grew more confrontational and aggressive towards other people, to the point where her membership to the Boston Art Club was revoked. Her coddling and nagging of her son would only serve to demoralize him as she treated him as an incompetent who couldn’t do anything without help. She would sell the family library when she felt her son spent too much time in the library. Randolph was inconsolable at the loss of the library, but after an abusive tirade from his mother he kept himself from outwardly expressing his distress. Effectively cloistered from the outside world and denied his main source of escapism, he was a depressive drone that could only muster the strength to get up out of bed and walk around and nothing else.

When he was twelve his mother suffered a psychotic break and was committed to McLean Hospital and would remain there for the next four months until she suffered a fatal stroke. Without his mother to watch over him, Randolph was placed in the custody of his paternal grandfather, Obed Whateley, who lived in nearby Salem. Obed was a reclusive man who kept to his estate with only the company of his being his butler/caretaker, Ludwig Marsh, and the estate’s groundskeeper, Titus Gilman. Obed was a kind if eccentric guardian to Randolph, but still one that was significantly more stable in raising him compared to Randolph’s mother. Under Obed, Randolph had significantly more freedom than he ever had in his life and was allowed to even go out into town, though with Titus as company so nothing happened to him, but rarely did so due to developing a moderate case of agoraphobia due to his mother’s upbringing. Despite the better home environment, Randolph still remained a generous anxious and depressive person, and for the first few months his nightmares increased in frequency and intensity.

During the time he began living with his grandfather, Randolph took to holding up within the estate’s personal library. Among the various books owned by Obed is a rather large collection of occultic texts, purchased over the course of the elder Whateley’s life. Randolph took a keen interest in the books and quickly consumed their contents and learned everything he could on witchcraft and the occult from them. He soon moved to practicing what he learned, taking a particular interest in performing rituals. One instance of him practicing what he learned was his attempt that augury, a form of divination that is performed by watching the movements of birds. On the times he managed to work through his agoraphobia, he would go to parks and the Salem Woods to watch the birds. While he never quite got into augury like some other occultic practices, he developed a deep love for birdwatching and continues to be an active birder to this day.

Another interest he developed after moving in with his grandfather was swimming. His grandfather had a pool added to the estate several years back, which remained largely unused. While Randolph never learned to swim from his mother, he took to practicing in his grandfather’s pool. He proved to be a natural at swimming and quickly got the hang of it and endeavored to try and swim everyday to improve. Randolph loves to swim and uses it as both a means of exercise and relaxation. Given his albinism, he often resolves to swim when the sun isn’t heavily present, so he typically swims either under heavy cloud coverage or at night.

On his thirteenth birthday, Randolph’s grandfather offered to buy him a pet, allowing his grandson to choose what kind he wanted. Randolph asked for a goat. Within a week his grandfather acquired the requested pet, giving Randolph a black female African Pygmy kid. Randolph quickly bonded with the goat, naming her Helen, and treating her as his best friend and personal familiar for his witchcraft. He was borderline inseparable from his new pet, walking and showing her affection wherever he could. Helen would draw some ire from the groundskeeper Titus when she would snack on the flowers and other plants he maintained, but would relent when Randolph promised to do better at keeping an eye on Helen.

When the subject of Randolph’s education came up, his grandfather chose that instead of hiring private tutors for Randolph, he instead chose to enroll him into a local high school, John Endecott Memorial Academy. Going to school was an overwhelming experience for Randolph, in part due to his agoraphobia but largely because he had very little in the way of socializing with children his age and his appearance and mannerisms were more than a little off putting to those who interacted with him. He was stoic, talked in a slow, terse manner with a rather verbose vocabulary and prose that he picked up from reading some of the older books in his grandfather’s library, never really understanding why that might be unusual. Others tended to avoid him, or worse, bully him for these differences and cause him a great amount of distress, sending him into long periods of chronic depression. It was a frequent occurrence for him to suffer a nervous breakdown while at school, resulting in more than one trip to the school counselor's office. He still did the best he could while at school, putting a significant amount of focus in his school work. He did exceptionally well in the sciences and was moderately successful when it came to English class and PE, but the subject he always consistently struggled with throughout high school was Math.

He would make a few positive social connections with his fellow students, earning him a few friends. While normally he would spend his time at school away from others, preferring to hold up in the library during the lunch period or afterschool, he would occasionally latch on to his friends for company. He typically befriended people who were considered outcasts like himself or the occasional person who shared his interests, or more rarely, befriend people who were just nice to him. He would develop some romantic feelings for these people, some more than others, but unaccustomed to manners of romance and sexuality, Randolph was largely confused and unsure how to approach others with these feelings. As such he largely keeps them to himself and only those he feels a deep amount of trust does he tell them about these feelings. Of course, more often than not this most trusted person to talk to was his pet goat, Helen.

Sophomore year, on a day where he got his agoraphobia under control for an extended period of time, Randolph went to the Salem Mall on a whim to look and see if he could acquire some occultic items for his own purposes. On this trip he first learned of Funko Pops and was immediately intrigued by the little collectables. While he had no interest in the fandoms and series that the Funko Pops were based on, he loved the designs of them. He began to collect them, spending a large amount of money on this new hobby to build his collection. Overtime, his Funko Pop collection would take up the most space in his bedroom, with his most prized addition being the Nerd Cthulhu Funko Pop.

Not much had changed during his Junior year, especially when a government mandated quarantine was put into effect. Not being much for socialization and going outside his home at the best of times, he was more than happy to remain within the confines of his home, spending his time on his hobbies and with Helen. Though he missed some of the people he befriended, he never made any attempts to reach out, with the closest he had to doing so were over the class Zoom calls. With this new free time he did start looking into what he wanted to do after he graduated and soon decided that he wanted to become a veterinarian as a career. He always loved animals, especially those with hooves or wings, so to him it seemed a natural choice. While unsure what school he intends to go to, he knows he needs a degree in veterinary medicine. He also knows he needs to work on his fear of dogs if he is ever able to make it that far.

Advantages: Randolph has few social connections, thus will likely not be too bogged down by a conflict with his fellow students. He is rather fit from years of swimming to help tone his body. Randolph is also rather smart, having picked up a lot of knowledge on nature from his love reading, animals, and birdwatching.
Disadvantages: Randolph is a very off putting person, and most people would likely not align themselves with him unless they already knew him. His mental issues will likely affect his performance negatively.

[backslash]

Hello there, I will be critiquing Randolph today. Randolph is currently DENIED and as the profile currently stands, he needs some significant revision in order to be appropriate for SOTF.

I'm going to outline the biggest issue right off before getting into the smaller details: the treatment of things like Randolph's albinism and the topic of mental illness in this profile do not give the impression that these things were well-researched. These are real health issues that affect real people, and we want to see them being treated with the sensitivity and care that they deserve. They've been included to make Randolph seem weird and off-putting, and to give his parents an excuse to be abusive towards him, without touching on a lot of the more realistic consequences that having these things be part of someone's life would have. I'm going to tell you right now that I would prefer to see these things removed entirely before I consider Randolph for approval.

I would like to know where Randolph's grandfather or other relatives were during his early childhood, why none of them ever came around to see Randolph or comment on his parents' extremely obvious abuse and mental illness, or why none of his personal tutors ever did the same or tried to contact social services on his behalf given how blatantly terrible his parents' treatment of him was and the obvious effects it was having on Randolph himself. Again, I don't see the very serious topic of child abuse and its long-term effects on the victim being addressed properly here.

As a side note, H.P. Lovecraft's works exist in the SOTF universe, and much like in real life, they're easily accessible in the public domain. I strongly recommend changing some of the names of Randolph's relatives and other notable figures in his life, because it's really improbable that every single one of them has a name that's a mishmash of well-known Lovecraft characters.

Did Randolph's grandfather ever consider getting him psychological help, between the abuse he suffered and the clear history of mental illness in the family, not to mention his agoraphobia? Was he not concerned at all that this disturbed child decided to start practicing witchcraft in his home? Did he do anything to promote Randolph forming any connections with children his age, encourage any sort of social activities, etc. besides just sending him out to the park with an adult for supervision?

On the topic of Randolph's interest in occultism, there's no explanation of why he got interested in that particular topic, nor a description of what "rituals" he is interested in besides augury, which you state he doesn't actually do very much. Does his grandfather do anything involving the occult, or does he just have reading material on the subject?

His interest in birdwatching is also not developed. It only gets mentioned in the bio itself in relation to practicing augury.

What was Randolph doing for school between age 12 when he went to live with his grandfather and age 14/15 when he would have started high school? Why did his grandfather chose to enroll him in JEM instead of a private school or continuing homeschooling? Did he talk to the administration at all for getting any accommodations for Randolph considering his mental issues and severe social stunting?

When Randolph was experiencing bullying severe enough to cause him a nervous breakdown, did his grandfather consider taking that up with the administration, or even pulling him out of school? A nervous or mental breakdown, while a non-medical term, is generally defined as a period of stress so severe that the person is unable to complete normal day-to-day activities, so if this was something that happened even once, it would have been severe enough to probably keep Randolph out of school and for someone whether teachers, counselors, or relatives, to consider getting him some kind of help.

Overall, Randolph does not feel like a student who would even be able to attend a public high school regularly enough to get good grades and be on track to graduate. Given his severe, untreated, and apparently undiagnosed mental issues, I don't think he would be able to make it to his senior year without some significant accommodations, which he currently doesn't have. It goes against logic that with all of these things combined, nobody would suggest that the best thing for him would probably be continued homeschooling and significant therapy.

The names of school years and subjects don't need to be capitalized unless it's a language like English.

Randolph is a very off putting person, and most people would likely not align themselves with him unless they already knew him.

I don't actually see this coming through in the bio. He looks unusual and is very shy and anxious; he doesn't seem to display any particularly weird mannerisms besides having unusual interests (which as far as I can tell, he doesn't advertise) and since he has a few friends and otherwise keeps to himself, I can only see people finding him off-putting on appearance alone. I don't think that someone looking different would be enough for most people to decide he's not worth allying with in a life-or-death situation.

That's what I have on this first pass. With these notes, I hope you can see what I mean with the major issues I've outlined and that you'll reconsider whether these elements are really necessary to the character, because to be blunt, they aren't being handled very well and I think that you are setting yourself up for an unnecessary amount of work by including them. I think that you can achieve the core idea of the character by nixing the sensational details and focusing on his interests and personality.

Let me know if you have any questions, and post in here once you've made those adjustments so that I can give Randolph a second look.

[MK Kilmarnock]

This character biography has had no alterations for more than two weeks and has been put in the abandoned characters forum. This profile is eligible for resubmission by the handler upon alterations requested by the staff.