( mason gooding, cis male, he/him ) have you met Chester D'Aramitz yet? you know, the 23 year old undergraduate student. i think they’re a senior majoring in art. ring a bell yet? every time i walk past their dorm i hear am i dreaming by metro boomin blasting through the door. everyone who meets them say they’re golden-hearted but can also be a little blundering. guess when you meet them you’ll figure that out yourself.
sports/clubs: ice hockey (center), art & media club, lgbt+ club
Brief Biography:
Chester D'Aramitz was born in Martinique, one of the larger islands of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. His mother had lived there for most of her childhood, before spending some of her adult life in France (though technically, Martinique is still a Departement of France) where she met Kristopher D'Aramitz, a baker. While it may seem a humble occupation, Kristopher took the craft very seriously, having been a baker's apprentice for many years. The two married and moved to Martinique, where Kristopher started his very first, very own boulangerie.
Chester was born five years into their marriage, and when he was only four years old, the family packed their bags and made the drastic decision to move to Montreal, in Quebec, Canada. Marie-Josephine had some family there already, who had offered to help watch Chester while she attended classes at a local college. It took a while, but Kristopher managed to open a new boulangerie, which over time knew great success. In effect, Kristopher became, in addition to being a baker, a veritable business-man, as well.
The move occurred during a crucial period of childhood development for Chester. The instability was expounded upon by his mother and father's respective self-improvement pursuits. His mother and aunt thought it would be beneficial to find an activity for Chester-- a way for him to make friends, occupy his time, and perhaps even channel any negative feelings into something productive. So, he began ice skating lessons.
Skating lessons were expensive. They kept the cost down by only sending D'Aramitz to group classes and opting out of private lessons. Kristopher worked hard to make his business a success. Marie-Josephine studied hard at school. And Chester began to carve his life into the ice.
After a while, it became evident that skating wasn't a temporary thing, but rather a major investment. Uninterested in other ice-based sports, Chester joined a peewee hockey team. During the small mock-tournaments that the club put on for the younger students, it was clear that Chester (or Chess, as his teammates began to call him, because that's how they said he played the rink-- like a Chess board) was an up-and-coming force to be reckoned with. The older and better that Chester got, the more costs mounted. Between private lessons, club dues, equipment, clothes, and tournaments, Kristopher basically had no choice but to expand his baking business by opening more stores to fund it all.
Chester fell in love with the sport more than anything, and he knew, given that his other club members were considerably more well-off than his own family, the only way that he could convince his parents to allow him to stay in the club was to be better than everyone else. For Chester, being in the rink was like being on another planet; All the worries, all the oddities of being in a weird place, having to put up with being picked on by his older cousins, all of that faded into nothing. On the court, it was just him. Hockey was like the Way, or the Tao, for Chester, he just existed in the rink.
Chester became good friends with the other kids in the club, as his parents had hoped. Of course, it was easy to think, from his perspective, that everything was fine; How could he, at that age, empathize or imagine that anyone would be jealous of him? Or even resentful toward him? Being at the top of the pack meant that Chester was somewhat blind to the negative attitudes that some may hold.
Things really took off when Chess hit high school age. Chester maintained a steady C average, spending most of his time absorbed in hockey, though he tended to coast through on his sheer talent. At this point, he would travel for tournaments and return with sparkling trophies under his arm. However, despite having many shallow acquaintances, he felt very alone. He found solace in another hidden talent of his: art. Chester documented almost his entire youth through sketching it into graphic novel panels.
One year, after taking home the championship trophy, Chess was scouted and invited to come to the United States to try out a club league in Minnesota. The best academy for up-and-coming hockey champions, they said. His parents were skeptical, but agreed. In the end, Chess hated it; for the first time, he was being challenged at a level that he wasn't sure he was ready for, and all of his peers, rather than just a select few, were competitive, arrogant, and blood-thirsty.
According to Junior Rankings, Chester was one of the best players in Canada, by the end of his High School years. It remained to be seen, except for his stint in Minnesota, how Chess stacked up to international players. This would change when Chester accepted admission to Radcliffe. His first year as a University D-1 athlete was an absolute polar plunge of a wake up call. Hard work triumphs over talent, and Chess realized he would need to focus more than ever on the sport if he had any chance of turning pro, which is what he wants most in the world.
Quick Facts:
Nicknames: Chess
Sexuality: Bisexual, biromantic
Nationality/Ethnicity: French/French Canadian, Mixed-race
Languages spoken: French, English
Star Sign: Leo
Stature: 6'3", athletic, less than sure-footed off the ice
Tattoos/Identifiable marks: None
Allergies/Ailments: Shellfish allergy
Occupation: Student athlete
Personality: Very easy-going, and a loyal friend, though can also be full of himself and over-confident. Those who don't mind having their ear talked-off would probably get along with him well, and if one could see past the brazen and shameless exterior, one would understand that Chess seeks desperately the same kind of understanding from others that he affords to just about anyone.
Pets: None (no time to take care of them).
Likes: Hockey, running, dancing, music, poetry
Dislikes: Heat and humidity, unwarranted hostility, sitting still, and shrimp
