Wicker Park

[falsepretences]

basics :

Name: Jordan Anthony Novak
Nicknames:
Birthday & Age: November 17, 1986/26
Occupation: Law Student

details :

Undergraduate School: Duke University, Major in Cultural Anthropology, Minor in Political Science and Literature, Class of 2008
Graduate School: University of Chicago Law School, Rising Second Year
Relations: Family Tree
Romance: Heterosexual, currently not in a relationship

appearance :

PB: Ed Westwick
Notable Features: Two inch scar on his collarbone. Clear skin, a mischievous-looking grin, dark brown eyes.

Detailed Description: Jordan stands an inch taller than his brother at 6'0, but while Hadyn is something of a beanpole, inheriting their mother's very slim build, Jordan is built more like their father. He's not bulky by any means and appears to be very lean, but he's definitely firmly muscled. At first appearance he appears unscarred, but there's a few across his body. Some are jagged scrapes from basketball accidents, but a few - notably a long one just below his collarbone - are from fights with his father. He has no tattoos.

When he grows up, Jordan will be the kind of man who is almost always in some kind of suit, but at the moment he dresses in a fairly preppy style. When not in uniform, he wears jeans or chinos, often with button-down shirts or henleys. He likes boots and beat up sneakers, and is almost never without one of his beloved fedoras and sometimes a scarf.

personality :

Seemingly warm and charming - though with an undeniably sarcastic air - Jordan is nonetheless a ruthless young man, willing to do what's necessary to get what he wants. Intensely goal-oriented, very little with distract him from achieving what he desires, and he's fiercely loyal to his family and his family goals. Jordan might sardonically refer to himself as a good soldier, but what he truly is is a good officer. His father mapped out a plan for his life, and up until now, he's been following it.

He doesn't have a very good relationship with his father these days; in his younger years, he idolized the man, but watching the way Dwayne treated Hadyn showed him that he wasn't treated much better. It was not until college, though, in a psychology course that he realized that he and Hadyn had both been abused.

He's easily frustrated and disappointed, and while he's learned to hide his emotions, he doesn't handle it well when he's thwarted - whether he's been passed over for captain of the vasketball team, his father denies him something he wants, or he's refused by a girl he wants. He has a fierce, vicious, violent temper, and as a result can be something of a bully, particularly towards his younger brother; in part this is because he always felt less was expected of Hadyn. His father does favor Jordan, but that, after all comes with it's own challenges. He must be perfect.

This leads to Jordan subjecting himself to a rigorous schedule. He wasn't good enough to play Duke basketball, but his undergraduate years were full of difficult classes and leadership in extracurriculars, particularly political organizations. He's so driven that he comes off as cold and ruthless much of the time, and as a result, has some difficult making close friends.

Still, despite the cold and hard aspects of his personality, there's more to him than that. He's deeply loyal - to his brother in particular, but also to his friends. He can be very helpful, and while sometimes it's to further his own ends, it often is actually out of the goodness of his heart. You wouldn't ever say that Jordan is sweet, but he can be very nice, and frequently is.

history:

Jordan was born on November 17, 1986 the eldest son of Dwayne and Laureline Novak. At the time of his birth his parents were rising stares in the legal field, where his father would eventually become a leading partner. His mother eventually 'retired', though it was more than Dwayne ran her out in an effort to keep her home and under his thumb. It did him little good.

Jordan, even more than his younger brother Hadyn, was expected to be a perfect reflection of his high achieving parents. It was a privileged, but not easy childhood, and he learned his perfectionism early. From the time he entered school, he was top of the class, a star athlete, a charming and popular classmate. It was not always enough, and any minor slip from grace often resulted in harsh punishment - verbal and emotional from Laureline, and increasingly, physical from Dwayne. Jordan was careful to keep it a secret from Hadyn as much as he could.

He was seventeen the year that Dwayne fully turned on his younger brother, and away from home when the Incident (as he would come to refer to it) occurred. No one ever told him what happened to Hadyn, or what exactly happened between Dwayne and Georgios Kattalakis, but Jordan had enough experience with his father's temper to guess some of it. It was a few years before Hadyn told him the rest: that he was Georgios' son, and that Georgios had placed him under protection from both Dwayne and Laureline.

It was this revelation, combined with an epiphany he received in a psychology class at Duke, that sent Jordan's future on a different course. Duke had been his father's choice of schools, as had Jordan's major in Economics; his sophomore year, he abruptly abandoned that course of action, changing his degree program to Cultural Anthropology and adding minors in Political Science and Literature. No amount of screaming and fights with his parents changed his mind, and they weren't willing to go to the point of refusing to pay for his education. Besides, as long as he entered law school - at Harvard - after college, the undergraduate major hardly mattered.

Jordan wisely kept silent on his post-college plans, but after he graduated summa cum laude from Duke, he announced that he'd accepted an internship with a think tank in D.C.; after that, he took another at a non-profit before finally entering law school at the University of Chicago.

He recently completed his first year, and is gearing up for his second in pursuit of a law career that infuriates Dwayne Novak: public interest law.