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❥ TORIS LAURINAITIS
"loyalty, fair play, hard work and tolerance"
Toris is incredibly loyal and remains steadfast with those that he cherishes, even when they treat him poorly. He is fair, but knows how to strategize to his advantage while maintaining order and not breaking the rules. If anyone knows what hard work is, it's him. Most of his life has been spent working hard to either establish himself or to help/work for others. Toris is extremely tolerant and will withstand a lot of pain and stress for others. He also fits the certain stereotypical Hufflepuff quirkiness. The guy is openly friends with a whale and an alien and treats it like the most natural thing in the world. He might look a little average on the outside, but he has his own share of eccentricities and weirdness. The house colors even go with his personality, though not necessarily with his flag and home colours. Yellow is represented as those not taken seriously and those willing to bow to others, sometimes quick to think but not so quick to judge. Black is a dual sided colour. It represents death, grief, and war, all of which he's had to go through as a country. It also has a certain professional air about it, and also strength, both of which he possesses. Black is also an absorbing colour, able to take in a lot of negative energy that others reflect, another trait that Toris possess. As just something on the side, Helga Hufflepuff specialized in cooking charms, which is a parallel in Toris's skill set.
❥ WAND
WOOD: PEAR: As The Harry Potter Wikipedia states:
"The golden-toned wood of pear produces wands of splendid magical powers, which give of their best in the hands of the warm-hearted, the generous and the wise. Possessors of pear wands are, in the experience of the learned wandmaker Garrick Ollivander, usually popular and well-respected and he never knew of single instance where a pear wand has been discovered in the possession of a Dark witch or wizard."
Lithuania is extremely nurturing and loving, selfless to a fault, and extremely intelligent in his areas of expertise. He's also popular and a well-liked guy and it's hard to find anyone that dislikes him or thinks extremely negative of him (unless you talk to Belarus). Pear wands are also extremely hardy and retain a lot of strength, as does Lithuania, as proven by his independence and with-standing the torrent of hardships he's been dealt. I found another resource that said that pear wands were also useful with healing, which accentuates Lithuania's worrying and motherly nature. It's also a wood used primarily in cooking utensils, which also can be connected to his work as a maid and his cooking skills.
CORE: UNICORN HAIR: Again, the wikipedia says:
"Unicorn hair generally produces the most consistent magic, and is least subject to fluctuations and blockages...They are the most faithful of all wands, and usually remain strongly attached to their first owner, irrespective of whether he or she was an accomplished witch or wizard.
Minor disadvantages of unicorn hair are that they do not make the most powerful wands...and that they are prone to melancholy if seriously mishandled..."
Faith and loyalty aren't unfamiliar to Lithuania, and they're big parts of his personality. He is extremely supportive of his brothers, of Poland, and of America. He also isn't the most powerful country anymore; he's actually very far from it. Considering his past and disposition, his worrisome attitude, introversion, and pessimism have all been greatly increased by his "mishandling", if you will. The magic produced by unicorn hair wands coincides with Lithuania's work ethic and task management skills. It's also worthy to note that unicorn hair is extremely valuable, and a lot of other countries value Lithuania's friendship and person highly.
STABILITY: PLIABLE: Lithuania is submissive and easily pushed around and used and he's been through his fair share of wars, abuse, and hard times. Still, he's been one of the most powerful nations in Europe and has become independent after all of his good times and bad. Lithuania isn't easily broken and his past and demeanor and the fact alone that he's still alive and standing proves that. He'll bend but he won't break.
❥ AU HISTORY
AGE: 16
LOCATION: Britton, England
ETHNICITY: Lithuanian
BLOOD STATUS: Muggleborn
DETAILS:
❥ SKILL SET
CARE OF MAGICAL CREATURES: ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
HISTORY OF MAGIC: ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
ANCIENT RUNES: ■ ■ ■ ■ □
POTIONS: ■ ■ ■ ■ ■
CHARMS: ■ ■ ■ ■ □
ARITHMANCY: ■ ■ ■ ■ □
ASTROLOGY: ■ ■ ■ ■ □
TRANSFIGURATION: ■ ■ ■ □ □
DUELING: ■ ■ ■ ■ □
DEFENSE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS: ■ ■ □ □ □
FLYING: ■ ■ □ □ □
DIVINATION: ■ □ □ □ □
MUGGLE STUDIES: ■ □ □ □ □
Herbology Lithuanians as a people are pretty plant conscious, especially where herbs and flowering plants are concerned. The man himself has an interesting palate that cares for things with flavor. Not to mention gardening follows a certain set of plans for each plant and the process as a whole, so this would be right up his alley.
Care Of Magical Creatures As mentioned before, Lithuania has befriended some of America's weirder pets. He's quite frequently beamed up and talked to by Tony the alien and is friends with a pet whale America owns; they're so close the poor thing misses him when he leaves it for even a moment. One of Lithuania's best known fables also contains a mystical creature, the Iron Wolf, which sports teams and military organizations are named after, even today. The Lithuanian pagan movement, known as Romuva, celebrates many creatures and beast-like deities in their feasts as well.
History Of Magic Being a country, he's gone through a lot of history. Not just his own, but pretty much everyone else's that he interacts with. It takes a lot of memory to process not just his own history, but also the history of those related to him. In all honesty, it would be embarrassing to be a country and be bad at a history course. This class also has a lot to do with reading and comprehension and dates, circling back to his intelligence, interest in literature, and skills as an assistant and lackey. His country also shares a strong connection with magic, though not the Hogwarts kind of magic; more so a paganistic, natural type of spiritualism.
Ancient Runes If anything, with his canon profiled affinity towards literature, it makes it all the more likely that this subject would not only interest him being a country with a language and knowing other languages, but as someone who enjoys reading as well, being, again, a heavily wordy course with translation work and lots of text browsing involved.
While his wand is of course suited to the subject, it is a heavy linguistic and theoretical class, which both fall into something familiar to Lithuania. Being a country and having to attend world meeting and the like, he has to be able to communicate with a lot of different countries and know a decent amount of languages. While the language and runes prove to be very Norse, the Baltic states aren't too far away from the Nordic countries and have many ties, so it makes sense that Lithuania would be at least decent in being able to converse with them, especially knowing Sweden and Finland from his encounter with them in The Violent Su-san of Northern Europe Takes a Swing AND fighting Sweden and Finland in the Polish-Swedish Wars strip, both taking place in times when runes were more apt to be used.
Not to mention, though runes and their use date back pretty far, Lithuania is older than dirt by our standards. He was certainly alive at some point in time where runes were being widely used. Runes do not play too big a key in the Baltic languages now-a-days, but I have found a website that states "The Runic alphabet was used as a formal system of writing in England, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, and the Baltic". Also, Lithuania was once a deeply pagan country before converting to Catholicism and the runes played a big part in the pagan lifestyle. So not only would they be something he'd be quite good at, but he already has first hand experience with them and would be able to pick back up on it in no time.
Potions Potions are simply instructions set out to make something, extremely like how a recipe works. His cooking has been praised by America and he's seen as one of the main cooks in the Russian household while the Soviet Union was going on. Lithuania, being extremely good at both cooking and following directions, would be wonderful at potions. It's also a game of patience, and through his many "roommates", so to say, he's learned how to be pretty patient.
Charms Charms are a big part of magic and knowing that, Lithuania would try really hard at getting them right. Practice makes perfect! He's got a drive to finish tasks set before him, especially ones with as much riding on them. Though he would take school in general seriously, much like how he takes everything seriously, he does know how to marginalize and focus on certain things. Not to mention charms are more commonly associated with housework, chores, cooking, and cleaning, all of which he does on a daily basis.
Arithmancy Working at a mainly secretarial job for most of his life, Lithuania has to be pretty good with numbers. At the same time, however, it's strongly related to the actual art of Divination, so the two things would balance each other out. At the end of the day, Lithuania would make it more about math than magic which would only win him a few points.
Astrology Lithuania is just now starting a lot of independent astrology programs. The LFCA, or Lithuanian Federation of Collective Astrologers, was only just founded in 2005. Since astrology has a wider influence in Asian and Western cultures, the traditional astrological beliefs are not really something completely held in Lithuania, other than newspaper horoscopes. A lot of religious beliefs, though mostly centered in the Pagan movement, do hold belief in a strong bond between man and nature, which includes the stars and their alignment. Lithuania is a strongly Catholic nation, thus a strongly Catholic man, but he did used to be one of the last and greatest Pagan countries, and old beliefs do seem to stick around. There's a good balance between naturalistic and a scientific approach to astrology in the country, though there's not much going on with either, so it is something he'd be familiar with and could understand, but not his strongest subject.
Transfiguration Because this is something that is impossible and more on the actual practicing level of magic and not something knowledge based, it involves a little metaphor. Lithuania has been pretty adaptable in his situations but still sticks to a lot of old traditions. Transforming has been something that he's been pretty good at, as he's had to mold to a lot of different situations and places over the years. He's arguably spent more time out of his own country than in it, having spent a good chunk of years bouncing in between cultures and countries. Though Lithuania does have its own distinct culture and traditions, it has been influenced by a lot of larger surrounding countries. Holidays are just now becoming modernized and while it is a leader in some natural resources, it's still a country that isn't particularly well-known and completely modern yet. It's growing and changing, but it's taken it a while. Personally and as a nation, Lithuania is someone who can change and adjust, but it's not often willingly, but in the end it still happens.
Dueling As stated in the above abilities and personality section, Lithuania used to be a damn good swords men and had a lot of strength and aura on the battlefield. He's been in numerous wars that span throughout his history, most recently ones with Poland, against the Bermontians, and the Bolsheviks. In most of the wars he' fought, he's come out victorious because of sheer man and willpower. It's been a while, though, since he's fought in a war and especially one that would involve magic and not physical weapons, so it would something that would come to him with time.
Defense Against the Dark Arts He's still getting his bearings after finally gaining his independence, so he's a little rusty in this department. He's been pretty good with avoiding disaster and conflict recently, but he's still got other defense mechanisms. Poland is the one that stops Russia from messing with him most of the time, and his anxiety also plays a big part into him being unable to really defend himself anymore. He's a little mixed, but when push comes to shove, he can take care of himself with an exception.
Flying While the Lithuanian people love flying hot air balloons, Lithuania is personally a pretty nervous person, and being in a woven basket and slowly going upward is a lot different than being on a broomstick and zooming all over the place. It's suggested, though, that he has some experience with flying in planes as well to get to meetings and traveling in general but at the end of the day a broom stick and economy class seats are on two opposite ends of a spectrum.
Divination Being dense and not the most perceptive person, I find this fitting. I also found several sources that said pear wands were bad for this type of magic. Even without the wand, though, Lithuania isn't the best person to ask about other people. He could tell you up and down about certain subjects, but when it comes to perception, he's extremely jaded. Even though Belarus ignores him and despises him with her entire being, he still refuses to give up on her and calls spending several minutes around her a "date". Certain things he just can't pick up on. Concerning the future, he wouldn't be able to really make a lot of sense of it because he can't really perceive things well.
Occlumency Being submissive and easily bent kind of puts this at the bottom of the list. This isn't a class available, but it's one that exists. Due to his past, it's quite clear that Lithuania is someone that can easily be taken control of. Even though he is an intelligent person with strive in him, he's still one to bend to the wills and whims of others. It's sad to say that he's used to this kind of treatment and wouldn't think to much of his mind being pried apart even if it did happen.
Muggle Studies This goes back to the whole density thing and this is basically a class explaining why people do things. It's not something he's going to be an expert at in the least. It's also due to the fact that even though he is personified, there are just some human pleasures and doings that countries can't exactly grasp or participate in and vice versa. He's been around his people most of his life, but there's still a huge barrier between a country and it's civilians.
❥ OTHER
MIRROR OF ERISED: