Tl;dr:
» Not terribly bright
» "In it for a good time"
» Controlling
» Baseline manipulative
» Endless energy
» Loves to push buttons
» Memes, etc.
» » If you need to get Casey under control, contact Cricket Quayle immediately. « «
If you were to meet Casey Patterson at a party you might think "Hey! Check out this kid! He's friendly, he's social, he oozes confidence — and he's handsome to boot!" While these things are at times technically true, your opinion is likely to change after spending a couple of days at a campsite with Casey.

Casey's sense of self-worth is directly related to the control he has over his present situation — and his self-worth is very important to him. If he feels like he could manipulate those around him it at a moment's notice, he becomes confident, sociable, boisterous, and even charming (if it gets him something). A non-threatened Casey is a happy Casey. If he thinks his control might be slipping, however, he'll try to take charge of it by any means necessary.

Usually this means Casey will push someone's buttons until they're just about to reach their breaking point — a power-play he's particularly good at, and even seems to take joy in. Whether by innuendo or explicit insults, he's satisfied as soon as he can see he's gotten under somebody's skin and could push them too far... not that he ever does, of course.

He will immediately try to deflect negative attention placed on him to someone else, usually by whipping out an oh-so-convenient piece of gossip he'd stored away or by pointing out an insecurity. Casey considers the act of ruining that person's day (or week, or month) to be inconsequential when faced with himself becoming the social pariah.

Finally, Casey is also never wrong. If such an unbelievable thing is ever suggested, he tries to twist the facts of the story until he becomes the pitiable victim, worthy of sympathy and friendship. This is not to say Casey is a master manipulator, however, he has few qualms with throwing somebody else under the bus to save his own skin.

As soon as buttons have been pushed, attention has been deflected, and the situation is once again under Casey's control, he will go right back to being that "friendly, confident guy" as though nothing was amiss and nothing that he did was strictly wrong. Oh, that guy didn't want his bad breakup mentioned in public? Well, then he shouldn't have been crying in the library! Casey made that girl angry because he pointed out how terrible she is at Hermeticism? Well, then she shouldn't take classes she can't handle! And besides, he was just joking, it was all in good fun! Tell you what — let's play a round a beer pong, and he might even let you win.

Casey has the potential to be a truly awful person. He could be a soulless hedge fund manager, a filthy rich lawyer for the most of vile people, or a successful drug lord with small armies of minions. Except, Casey... is a dumbass. Casey, given the choice between advancing through the rungs of society and going to a really sweet party, will always choose the latter. He likes things the way they are and doesn't really see beyond high school — and even if he did, he'll never possess the intellect to truly manipulate those around him to his advantage. Right now he's just trying to have a good time, and he's succeeding.

- Mother: Amélie Patterson née Perry, 52. Muggleborn. Ilvermorny (Thunderbird) alum. From Queens, NYC. Queens School of Magic alum. Chief Artificist and Co-Founder of Regal Eagle Collective (producers of custom-made Quodpot brooms). Amélie has a "suck it up and get it done" approach to working, wish a dash of "no whining." She's practical, creative, and takes little flack from her many unruly children.
- Father: Dara Patterson, 55. Halfblood. From Cork, Ireland. Hogwarts (Ravenclaw) alum. Chief Operations Officer and Co-Founder of Regal Eagle Collective. The face of the Regal Eagle operation, Dara is friendly and outgoing — if he sometimes seems a bit disheveled. He chainsmokes.
- Grandfather: Niall "Gramps" Patterson, 74. Halfblood. Retired (magical) museum curator. From Cork, Ireland. Moved in with the Pattersons after Jude was born, acted as house-grandpa/nanny while all kids grow up. Gets Casey more than his parents and often works as their translator/mediator to the teenage mind. (Yes, actually.) Casey acts out less around Niall than he does around his parents.

Siblings:
- Shelby, 20. Figuring out life, interning at MACUSA. Bossypants.
- Jude, 19. Figuring out life, trying to go Full Muggle by living with parents and working at a Starbucks. Junior undersecretary to bossypants. Reformed beefcake.
- Marie, 15. Coppertale Freshman. Casey will begrudgingly admit that he likes her well enough, but she is under strict instructions to "stay out of his way" and "be cool." (Marie rolled her eyes.) She's a damn sight smarter than Casey but is just as suggestible as her older brother. She aspires to be a Mean Girl. Casey often throws her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carries her around.
- Cody, 13. Lake Union Preparatory. Twerp.

Amélie Perry was the child of Haitian immigrants and grew up in the New York City borough of Queens. She was feisty, stubborn, and bright; used to not taking ‘no' for an answer and finding creative means to achieve her goals, she eventually became an Artificist for a notable broom company in her hometown.

Dara Patterson was a Manager of Innovation for the Nimbus Broom Corporation when they offered him a promotion to Director of Innovation and a transfer to their fledgling Manhattan office. He was told that it was the dawn of a new age: Muggle technology would integrate seamlessly with top-of-the-line wizards' brooms to make the best darn broom anybody's ever seen. (Except that he was in London at the time so he recounts it as 'A jolly good broom.') What a daring concept! Why, of course Dara would love to go to America! How very exciting!

On his first day in the Nimbus office, he was introduced to Amélie Perry — the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen and a gifted Artificist to boot. Then, he was told to give Amélie the boot. He was bewildered! He'd just arrived, and now he had to lay somebody off? Well, yes, his new underlings informed him; this is part of a Director's job. And so Dara, convinced he'd just met the love of his life, was forced to expel her from his life with an hour to pack up her belongings and a security detail to escort her out.

Amélie, meanwhile, had plans. Big ones.

They didn't meet again for a year. Dara downsized the Nimbus New York headquarters and transferred again to Seattle, Washington, to head up their research division (which is what he actually expected to be doing across the Atlantic). Disillusioned by declining Nimbus sales in the States, Dara dove into research about what American witches and wizards needed in a broom. He came up with... Amélie Perry, who had been trying to create a Quodpot-specific broom but had no funding to support the project. The board was unimpressed with Dara's vision, and when a new Vice-President of Innovation was appointed and transferred to the Seattle office, they told him that he had an hour to pack his belongings.

Well, then! Dara approached Amélie and told her they should start their own party; Amélie said she already had. They pooled their savings together and co-founded the Regal Eagle Collective, a broom company that specializes in custom-made brooms for professional Quodpot players. Along the way, they also fell in awkward, office-romance-love, which become actual love, which became an actual marriage.

After a few years of ramen and struggle, Regal Eagle had a big professional league sponsorship break and became a staple for Quodpot circles and their brooms are sought after — in short, Dara and Amélie made bank. They welcomed their first child (Shelby) that year, and two new bodies in the house arrived the following year: Jude, a son, and Niall, Dara's father and a recent widower who needed a change of pace.

To summarize: First came business, then came marriage, then came Grandpa pushing a baby carriage.

Niall acted as a ‘house-grandpa' for Casey's entire childhood. He helped Casey's parents wrangle all five children around their busy work schedules, simultaneously playing the roles of nanny, cook, and babysitter. He enjoyed being surrounded by children again and taking care of him, and he's as much a parent to Casey as Dara and Amélie are.

Casey grew up in an upper middle class house in an upper middle class neighbourhood. His parents had steady and generous incomes, but they also prioritized saving for their five children's educations and extracurriculars. He had alright relationships with his siblings: there were enough of them to always have somebody to play with, somebody to fight with, and somebody to defend him. As the middle child of five, Casey sometimes became preoccupied with refereeing all of his siblings — not necessarily to keep the peace, but to keep the situation one that he enjoys.

Dara and Amélie figured that his controlling nature was a way of dispelling pent-up energy, so they put him in gymnastics classes as a young child. Gymnastics led Casey to dancing, and to contemporary dance.

Casey attended Lake Union Preparatory until he entered Gooseberry. He was a mediocre student at best who preferred hands-on assignments, and spent his book-heavy classes poking people in the back of the head and insisting that it wasn't him. To put it bluntly, Casey was a bully. He wasn't a cunning bully, or a vengeful bully, but he was an energetic boy with a sense of humour that bordered on "unkind." This was simply one of the only ways he knew how to have fun.

His parents were the ones to seek out Gooseberry. They thought that an alternative school could provide him with more opportunities to work on dance and, quite frankly, to tire himself out. Maybe a new batch of victims potential friends would help him find other ways to spend his time and interact with his peers. Maybe an alternative school would be a good thing.

The alternative school was a good idea. Casey began his freshman year by trying to carve out his territory and establish himself as the alpha male; he hadn't been the alpha at Lake Union, but his new classmates hadn't known that.

Casey's bid for presidency didn't last long. Six months and a couple of fist-fights later, he began to defer to dormmate Sylvester Stoker in all manners power. Casey failed hard, and he failed fast. He isn't quite okay with this setup, and tries to push Sy's buttons whenever he starts to feel hurt. By, like, anything.

In November of his freshman year, before he fell down the food chain, he had attempted to bully some "nerds" in his year a few too many times for a few too many pointless reasons (BEANBAGS? HA HA HA WHAT THE FUCK MAN HOW'S ALWAYS BEING A VIRGIN FOREVER WORKING OUT FOR YOU) and was given a creative punishment: to attend LARP and Gaming for either two months each, or until the staff supervisor for each club decides that Casey is actively participating in the activities, whichever comes first. He had to do the full two months of LARP, but was released from Gaming after three weeks. He came back for the fourth week, and the fifth.

Although Casey's controlling nature keeps him from being a Good Sport, he l.o.v.e.s. being a Dungeon Master for the D&D side of Gaming. Instead of demanding the players fit into the plots he devises (which he did try to do at first), he loves the challenge of working a campaign around the characters and their improvised actions and desires.

Casey was a Cheer reserve in Freshman year and full squad member in Sophomore, and he's gunning for captain next year. He's also participated in Rafael's barre classes since they began at the end of his first year, and although he had previously dismissed male ballerinas as "dweebs," he's become quite the enthusiastic student. Cheer and barre supplement his own private workouts (focused on dance), and his Cheer routine suggestions (besides "how about we do this shirtless") are often to incorporate both styles of dance with the traditional jumps and flips.