#born and raised in the US to italian and spanish parents who themselves were born in argentina

[angelsdean]

sorry just thinking abt that stupid as fuck addition i responded to again and like it's just so funny bc i am italian and spanish and argentinian and US american. (with bits of french and portugese and dutch) like. does this person really have such a homogeneous ethnic and cultural background that they think it's impossible and ludicrous to identify with multiple cultures ??? WHACK !!

[rcsplendent]

☼☾  (  havana  rose  liu  ,  30  ,  she/they  ,  demi-woman  ,  grey  3  )  -  have  you  seen  ophelia  grey?    we’ve  heard  through  the  grapevine  that  they’re  witty  but  also  meticulous.  when  you  think  of  them,  you  think  of  freshwater  pearl  hairpins  keeping  waterfall  tresses  into  place,  the  whalebone  structure  of  an  emerald  green  corset,  delicate  fingertips  swiping  ruby-red  rouge  onto  freckled  cheeks  &  plush  lips. 

tws: parental death.

parallels  :  jo march  (  little women  )  ;  claire  (  the bear  )  ;  asami  (  the legend of korra  )  ;   margot tenenbaum  (  the royal tenenbaums  )  ; cinderella  (  disney  )

BASIC  INFO

FULL  NAME:  ophelia jane grey

NICKNAMES:  ' phe, ' used mostly by her loved ones.

AGE:  thirty

GENDER & PRONOUNS:  demi-woman, she/they

ORIENTATION:  bisexual & biromantic.

LANGUAGE(S)  SPOKEN:  primary  — english;  roughly conversational  —  french, spanish, italian

VOICE / ACCENT:  british accent ; soft-spoken but expressive.  bright in tonality & sometimes laced with nervous laughter. ( click for example ).

TEMPERAMENT:  sanguine

ALIGNMENT:  lawful good

ZODIAC:  scorpio sun, pisces moon, libra rising

LABEL:  the bleeding heart ;  one who is dangerously softhearted & vulnerable, despite being aware of the fact that it exposes them to anguish.

APPEARANCE  &  PERSONALITY

FACE  CLAIM:  havana rose liu

HEIGHT:  five feet, five inches

HAIR:  very long ( waist length ), light brown & wildly curly ( click for examples: one, two, three ). she likes to experiment with styling it: sometimes pulling it into a neat ponytail to keep her hands free while working, tying it into a braid, or tying it back with a ribbon.

EYES:  verdant green.

USUAL  EXPRESSION:  a wistful smile & eyes alight with curiosity. usually wearing a light amount of makeup, such as lip rouge. 

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES:  her hair, which is usually the first thing people notice about her.

POSITIVE  TRAITS:  kindhearted,  witty,  humorous,  vulnerable,  selfless,  creative,  lively

NEGATIVE  TRAITS:  softhearted,  naive,  perfectionistic,  anxious,  stubborn,  scatterbrained

THINGS  TO  KNOW

you are a being of abundance, of giving, of selflessness.

you might've inherited that from your birth parents. you don't remember them, but they were good people. your birth father was a royal english knight, and your mother a field nurse who had traveled from her homeland of china to study at the royal college of surgeons. that's how they met, actually; she patched up a wound of his on the sidelines of an intense battle, and the rest is history. they were madly in love, & the fairytale ending they had envisioned for themselves was sweet: leaving the war together, having a child. it's a shame, really, that such good people could meet such a sorrowful fate. their idealistic future was robbed from them before it could ever materialize. your father was killed in battle just before you were born, & the stress of it all was too much on your mother's body — she passed in childbirth not long after.

despite the tragedy that had struck so suddenly, there was no question in who would care for you upon their passing. your father was a grey, & his brother ( the eldest son of their generation ) and his wife had been named your godparents long before you were born. & while nobody would wish for that title to ever come in handy, upon your birth parents' passing, your uncle & aunt proved their loyalty to their loved ones & adopted you. nobody in your family has ever considered you a cousin — a grey is a grey.

you were raised as one, too. the greys have been in service to the throne for centuries, & it was expected of you to find a role to fall into, something you didn't mind in the slightest. you've always been task-oriented & having something meaninful to dedicate yourself to made perfect sense to you. becoming a lady-in-waiting was the most likely route, but you surprised your family by taking a liking to art — drawing, painting, sculpture & the like. they thought you might become a portrait artist for the royals at first. but you really found something special when, the summer of your thirteenth year, you stumbled into the chambers of the royal seamstress. you stayed there for hours, & came back the next day, & the next. eventually, you became her apprentice, & picked up the skills so quickly that you were sewing entire dresses on your own by the wintertime.

&, god, you're good at it. you have an eye for the details — emerald green jacquard against deep ruby silk linings; delicate lace at the edges of teal-blue velvet bodices; gold filagree hand-embroidered on the collars of the princes' jackets. by now, nearly all of the dresses & suits worn by the royal family have been touched by your hands, either created from scratch or edited to their liking. & you love doing it, too — not only because you get to do what you're passionate about, but you also love the mundane day-to-day of it, ushering the royals in for fittings & chatting with them about their lives. 

when queen defne arrived in england, you quickly took a liking to her, & once she married the king, you graciously accepted another role as her lady-in-waiting, happy to accompany her in all of her royal duties. you only requested one stipulation: that you would be allowed to continue your work as a dressmaker, which the royals agreed to with zero hesitance. you receive commissions from all over the world, now — it's somewhat surreal, seeing your work on so many bodies since you've arrived in france; dresses & coats you worked on ages ago reappearing on the princes & princesses who have come to the summit.

it's what fuels you, seeing your work on such proud display. being in france has allowed you more opportunity than ever to create — in the hours you're not accompanying queen defne, you're in the seamstresses' chambers, working nonstop for the guests & patrons of the summit, repairing torn skirts or creating entire garments from scratch. 

& you know, down to your bones, that this is what you're meant to do. for as long as you've known yourself, you've known that your purpose on this earth is to create. you've always felt like your soul is too big for your body — like you're bursting at the seams, overflowing with light & love & creativity. what's the use in living if you aren't meant to share in it?

HEADCANONS

tl;dr: ophelia is a dressmaker ! & she's very, very good at it. she makes almost all of the garments worn by the english royals & now that she's in france, acts as a sort of seamstress for all of the guests. 

she's a deeply creative soul — when she's not working in the seamstresses' workshop, she's probably off painting somewhere, or collecting flowers to press or turn into natural fabric dye. she also loves pottery, & has a collection of vases & pots she's made.

she is, by birth, a cousin of the greys, but her birth father passed before she was born & her mother passed in childbirth. her father's brother, the patriarch of the current generation, adopted her without question. she knows the story of her birth parents, as her adoptive parents ( her uncle especially, who grieved his brother's death deeply ) wanted her to know them as intimately as possible.

she is a lady-in-waiting to the queen alongside being a royal dressmaker.

she's a very open-hearted person, & is oftentimes too vulnerable for her own good. the kind of person who's just in love with life. y'know that quote that's like, " you'll trudge & fight & scream & cry your way through life, & then beg for seconds " ? that's her.

she tends to be a bit uncouth & rambunctious for a ~lady~. wild hair; a big, bright laugh; vulgar vocabulary ( when she's not around the queen, of course ). she's also very witty & has a very dry sense of humor.

despite being a dressmaker, she is not usually dressed very ornately — white cotton dresses & skirts with her hair unstyled n whatnot.

WANTED CONNECTIONS

new friends: !!!!! she's a lover at heart. pls !

clients: idk what else to call it, but basically just people she's making garments for ! or folks who frequently need their clothes repaired.

a lady squad: just some girlies she can hang out & do rambunctious un-ladylike things with !

a best friend: pls !!!! can be a new person that she got along with so quickly that they're basically besties now, or someone she's known since childhood. or both !!!

lichrally anything else bc i'm a plot whore thx bye !!!!

[photographypunk]

Asher Gideon Nygma-Crane

Agendered (bio-female)

Autism ADHD OCD and Tourette's 

Born in Glasgow Scotland

6’4

Eye: dark blue that lightens to ice blue then around the pupil is a greenish yellow (central heterochromia)

Hair: dark russet that is mistaken for brown or black in low light 

They often wear punk/goth attire as a civilian but also just dress weird  

They are covered in tattoos : 1. They have four bands of black on each arm and between them are crows in various stages of flying or fighting  2. have a watercolor street of Gotham with a dark figure riding a pale horse that takes up their back 3. On their right side they have a Green and purple sphinx the cat part is a tiger instead of the usual lion that even goes down that leg 4.  On their left leg their upper thigh have a crocodile with a rubber duck for Waylon a playing card and spinning coin for Harvey a jester hat for joker a spade and heart for Harley and roses for Ivy and a kangaroo for George and a Penguin for Oz they have more but those are the more distinct ones alot of the other are more superfluous 

Their bottom lip has a vertical labret and snake bites they also have angel bites they all are black rings (cause they are a dork and like the scarecrow likeness)    

Found by Jon in a warehouse at a year and a few months old after their parents (doctors) were killed for helping the wrong person. 

They are generally unsettling even as a child as they often have a blank expression that doesn't change as they get older. They take this to working in a haunted house with their friends since they were sixteen.

They didn't go to school until middle school as they mostly spoke through mimicry using other people's voices and the school saw it as them being obstinate. 

They eventually craft themselves a voice of their own with Kaz at the age of 7. It's raspy, soft, and they rarely raise their voice unless need be, and they speak with a thick Georgian drawl like Jon because they like the way he speaks. 

The know a few languages Spanish Russian French and Italian they later learn Scottish Gaelic when they learn about their birth parents. 

Harley noticed they had loose joints even at a young age and very soft skin and to help them tighten and strengthen up by teaching them aerial sports their favorite was lyra while doing that they also did gymnastics. That's where they became friends with Barbra Gordon. They also learn electro swing dancing convinced by their long time girlfriend who they met in adult Lyra classes.

How they got their powers 

When they are young they lucid dream on a regular and makes friends with nightmares and dreams. Dream of the Endless meets them and takes them to meet Darkness. Dream of the Endless knows him and his siblings are becoming corrupt and knows the Elementals will bring the apocalypse or actually help. He throws Ash to Darkness when they are 8 years old but Darkness gets Ash out and refuses to take them over.

Darkness is an elemental who is the actual Architect of the world the true creator due to them wanting to keep God and even themselves in check made the world in need of balance. Angered by that God killed Darkness and all of the other elementals. Not knowledgeable in how things are supposed to work he can only make broken copies of worlds. Dark and light was originally more of a balanced dynamic where both could actually be bad should one exist more than the other. Darkness has drifted through dark spaces in all dimensions without a body they settled into the dimension Ash reside in and stays  deep in the Dreamland. Dream takes Ash to Darkness as both a possible sacrifice and as the possible end of the world. Darkness is very old and while not aware of other worlds because all of them are pretty much rip off their work has a general knowledge of many things Asher had to construct a space in their mind so its not a constant stream of knowledge. They cannot be captured in magic circles and are not hurt by holy water they have been shot stabbed and had even been doused in gasoline and set on fire but they heal quickly. They use this ability to scare others letting them believe they have won then scaring them. They can change parts of their body into obsidian they use them to set their fear toxin on fire but also to slash and claw. They can full-bodied shape-shift often turning into a crow, barghest (black dog), and a large Maine coon like cat they can also turn into twisted versions of their alias The Crow. 

As The Crow they wear black pants a white button up black waist coat with steel toed boots black leather gloves and a black trench coat they wear a leather bandana and if their hair is long enough will braid it with leather ties but they dont really care too much about their hair.They also wear welding goggles a plague doctor like mask.

Gear:

Boots later they have plates of metal like tap shoes to also throw sparks and have rolling nano machines that can help them skid slide and even slightly glide they hate using them though cause they dont act like hockey skates 

Gloves they actually only wear them in the beginning as they later get more used to using their powers. These gloves also use nano tech with magnets that help them spin fling and bring back their large scythe.

Large scythe that can collapse into a eight inch pole their large scythe is actually more of a defense tool to keep people back and fling them and light the toxin on fire with the help of nano tech they also can make it pin people down and also trick people into trying to grab it only to be unable to move it.

Two sickles they use when they need speed and when they actually need to physically fight.

Personality: they are playful and laid back with their family and friends often wanted to help take care of Stephanie Brown and Timothy Drake who also are adopted by Jon and Ed. They are very protective of their family but also to those they see are in need of help and stands by more progressive policies. They join a protest at the young age of 14 when a young boy is shot and killed by gcpd. They love to be a problem for those in power particularly those who abuse said power. They are very self aware of their odd life and how odd it is but also find a lot of humor in their existence. They often make jokes about it saying "I don't have to grow past the emotional range of a 16 year old and can also blame my upbringing" in reality they are also very tetchy of people who assume Ed and Jon are abusive or that they forced Ash to be a Rouge. They decided to be a Rouge at the young age of 8 after they ran across a pedophile who was looking for victims at a public pool they went to and saw him watching their friends. They know that they aren't doing the right thing fully by going after these people but have a lot of anger towards these people. They are often almost immediately liked by kids and animals which they find odd but uses it to protect these beings who trust them so readily. They do commit more regular crimes like Ed and Jon but oftentimes steal to give the money or whatever they stole to those who really need it.....sometimes to their own detriment as they sometimes even give their legitimate pay away as well leaving them on a constant precipice of being kicked from their own apartment at times. They also heavily help Babs PI business also to their detriment. (They are bad with the monies lol)

Relationshsips

Ed: they are close (of course) but Ed is also very supportive in everything they want to try while also being very protective of them. He's a mother hen to Ash in particular as they are very independent and have a tendency to forget to take care of themselves. (just like Jon) They are also reckless and protective of their friends and families (like Ed) They also bond over their love of machinery and general trivia and riddles. Jon often says they are the brick walls each needed in their lives. They are also very interested in ciphers and codes and earned Ed's love to perform but are very shy and like to stay in the dark. Its why they love being a haunted house worker and often using their knowledge and body control they learned in sports to make scaring and fighting a performance in its self. He was very weary about sending Ash to school even as he knew they would have friends and that the school wasn't actually that bad with staff who tried. The elementary school had seen them as obstinate as when they went to the preschool the fact they speak in Kaz's voice instead of their own.

Jon: They bond over their love for reading crows and love to scare the shit out of people. They are more quiet and contemplative when it comes to dealing with people. Jon does feel bad for their quieter nature but Ed often soothe him over it. Jon is also protective of thier child as well but is more willing to let them grow and change on thier own. He had hoped Ash would choose a more normal life but after a fight reconizes that Ash needs to live thier life the way they want. They often spend time together in quiet often each doing thier own thing. They both have a similar sence of humor and while once Ash is 16 darkness and Ash are esstially the same being Ash can become feral and unable to speak if hurt or if they use thier powers too much and Jon reconizes its similar to him and Scarecrow. Jon finds the fact they take a lot of insperation from him funny and flattering and teases Ed over it a little bit.

Waylon: He is uncle Waylon and Ash goes to Waylon for more normal advice. He encouges Ash to try to work through things on more normal ways. If Ed isnt around Ash goes to Waylon for emotional comfort. They have respect for Waylon for being the most stable of thier caretakers and being mentally angile to be able to have a consistant job as they struggle with trying to be a normal citizan.

Kaz: Kaz knew who Ed and Jon where as he saw them in thier Rogues costumes so he threatens them after getting back. Originally he felt like he had to protect Ash (who was two when they 'adopted' Kaz) Ash unconsiously shows the while Jon and Ed kill and hurt people they dont want to hurt the siblings. They grow close being siblings and reconizing thier life is very odd. Kaz like Ed is very protective of Ash since they have a tough time taking care of themselves. Ash is just a protective after Kaz's leg is screwed up and makes him a brace and they remind each other to use thier mobility and braces. Ash does reconize Kaz is both very capable and has his crew to back him up so tires to not worry about him too much but still does. Ash finds Kaz's ability to do close up magic very neat and picks up some of the tricks he learns but isnt as skilled as Kaz is.

Stephine: Ash does more girly things with Steph and acts as a typical older sister type helping her be confident and lets her know her feminity is valid and not weakness. Ash is slightly jelouse of Steph bcause she is actually more inclined for math and enginering and has a more natural knack for it but is also has resepect for her over it and if Ed isnt around will go to Steph for a outliers prospective on projects. Steph's persona is called Syphinx. Steph wears purple and green but wears more civillian like cloths but will sometimes when shes needed a green and purple suit and has a cane with a syphinx handle for her main weapon.

Tim: Ash and Tim both are the more quiet siblings perfering to work in the shadows and arnt concerened for praise or adoration for thier work. They can be both frusrated at each other for it but love each others very much. Tim and Ash oftentimes spends time together doing parellal play often hanging out in Ash's room and listening to music. Ash will call on Tim and Steph to help sometimes with the other variants or when their are civilians involed. Ash like with all thier other siblings is protective of Tim but has a tendecy to hover more as he is also the baby of the family. Tim will often go to Ash for emotional comfort as he doesnt want to be a burden but Ash is quick to put his fears to rest and doenst mind reminding him that Ed and Jon love him very much. Ash is happy that Tim and Steph have much more normal lives than them and Kaz as Steph and Tim may have personas they dont commit crimes and act as more typical viglianties. Tim's persona is called Magpie which was a nikename from Ed and Jon. He wears a plauge doctor like mask like Ash but often wears more punk like attire than Ashers 'suit' look.

Pets: They have a few pets including a horse named Ghost who became close after Kaz got her trust. Ruger was a Rottweiler German shepherd mix who saved them from a Jonathan Crane who got stuck in their dimension and decided to kill Ash believing they were stopping Jon continuing his work on the toxin. They fought and they both got dosed with Jon's toxin but Ash fought it and beat him up with the help of Ruger. Afterwards Ed and Jon were weary of Ruger but finally gave him a chance after Waylon pointed out he wasn't aggressive towards any of them. Nightmare is more of a sibling to them he later gains the ability to fully speak as Ash works on their powers. Ash felt bad but Nightmare wants to be there for Ash and help them in any way he can. Craw is more of Kaz buddy but he doesn't like being cooped up so oftentimes hangs out with Ash and Nightmare. Nightmare is the more serious one while Craw often acts playful and social sometimes acting more like a parrot with using his feet more often than other crows. Craw can speak fully as well but oftentimes loves to mostly mimic and speak in small sentences or one words. Later Tim and Stephine 'save' a kitten who escaped the cage he was in about to be taken into a shelter and they jokingly named him Eddie as once they get him to Ash they find the kitten is very smart and curiouse quickly even figuring out a puzzle Ash made for Craw and Nightmare. Eddie winds up staying but Ash still goes to the shelter and explains what happened and paid the dues to officially adopt him as the money goes to the animals. Eddie loves Craw and Nightmare and the crows like him back calling him little brother. Eddie is a orange tabby kitten with green eyes.

I will add more this is just what I was able to jam out send me asks or messages or whatever and I can clarify or explain better.

[priscilladavies]

PRISCILLA DAVIES ( SHE/ HER ) is a CIS WOMAN, TWENTY-SEVEN year old ART DEALER who has been living in Moorbrooke for FOUR YEARS. They were born on APRIL 17 and right now, they are currently residing in ELMSETT GREEN. It has been said that they look suspiciously like MARGOT ROBBIE and if they had to choose a song to describe themselves, they would choose PRIMADONNA by MARINA.

hey everyone! neo here and super excited to bring you my latest british mess, priscilla davies. there's more about her under the cut, never hesitate to message me for plots!

TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR: teen pregnancy, alcoholism, death, drug overdose

* A FEW FACTS ABOUT PRISCILLA

born samantha bowen to parents that moved from birmingham to london to escape their own parents because of an accidental teen pregnancy, she was raised by amateur con artists that tried to sell snake oil every way they could, learning new tricks along the way, so samantha was raised in poverty with the bare minimum to survive and parents that cared just enough to make sure their daughter went to school and had food on her table regardless if it was beans on toast instead of a proper meal almost every night.

dad left home when she was just ten years old to never be seen again leaving her mom to fend for herself and the pressure pushed her into alcoholism, leading to even worse teenage years than her childhood, with even less money and a struggling parent.

she was forced to work after school and weekends, samantha was taught all the tricks that her mom learned during all those years, only that she had been raised in that environment and she'd always been a smart child from an early age, putting her a few steps ahead - this meant more money and with that samantha hoped for a better, happier life, but the opposite happened. more money meant more to spend in alcohol and longer hours on the streets as a con-artist forced by her greedy mom.

with a passion for drawing/painting, samantha started to look past the streets of london and started to get involved with other artists and art dealers, starting from the street artists and ending up dealing with upper class people interested in her art by the time she was twenty-one, although never telling her mother about it all and pretending to be working the same old way.

at age twenty-four samantha steals the identity of an old money rich woman named priscilla davies, her most loyal art buyer and what was starting to be considered a friend, after finding her dead from a drug overdose and runs away to the US landing in moorbrooke, a place she knew priscilla didn't own anything at and thus she wouldn't get caught. she's been living as an art dealer as priscilla and an artist by her real name for the last four years and although the guilt can be too much sometimes, this is better than what she had back home.

* A FEW EXTRAS.

openly bisexual;

speaks fluent spanish, french and italian (lessons she took in the US);

has a british (londoner) accent she refuses to get rid of (adds flavour lol);

has a black cat named carvaggio;

is still getting used to everything rich even if she's been priscilla for the past four years;

* PERSONALITY.

+ confident, independent, incisive, perceptive

- cynical, devious, closed-off, stubborn.

* WANTED CONNECTIONS.

she is open to any kind of connections right now but some ideas are:

friendly.

friends / drunk friends / online friends/pen pals / former friend / new friends / artists she works with / buyers / sellers / neighbours /

romantic.

flirtationship / friends with benefits / tinder matches / exes / the big bad heartbreak / unrequited crush (can be either way) /

antagonistic.

former friends / fell for the same person & fell out of touch / frenemies / negative influence / ex affairs / ex fwbs that caught feelings (either one or both)

[x-wanderingsouls]

                                              ATLAS BRAUN (RETIRED)

Age: 35

Species: Werewolf

Affiliation: Wolf Faction

Occupation: Gets paid doing the dirty in the shadows stuffs/appears to be a ‘normal’ member of the pack however.

Relationship status: Single

Sexuality: Bisexual

FC: Dichen Lachman

About Atlas

Born in Berlin, Atlas’ parents were killed when she was one by two vampires who were definitely fucking nuts and decided they wanted to have themselves a wee baby. They named her Atlas Braun, not knowing the name her human parents had given her.

They raised her, bringing her along on their travels and began using her when the girl was five, getting her to lure in humans for their games and drank from the girl whenever they saw fit. The male was especially cruel, didn’t like how his progeny took to the girl and cared for her more.

Despite the abuse and slavery, they trained her in combat, wanting her to protect them and to show her off for what she could do because of them as well and educated Atlas to the best of their abilities while teaching her languages.

The vampires were going to turn Atlas at a suitable age, the male vampire relishing in being able to command her and his other progeny forever, and he had begun a sexual relationship with Atlas against her will when she was around the age of fifteen. Though at age twenty-five, Atlas defended her ‘father’ from a hunter when the family had come to New York as she was compelled to do, triggered her unknown werewolf curse and broke free from the compulsion. Atlas was lost in the newfound rage and everything that had happened and because it took everyone by surprise, she was able to kill her father and the woman who had been somewhat kind to her; but stood by and let the abuse happen.

On her own, Atlas began seeking out vampires to kill them, unable to lift the anger of the past twenty five years, though she sought out those that were abused like she had been. Was unaware of the factions, of the numerous species that lived in New York.

Did this for two years, living off the vampire’s money and killing vampires, continuing to get stronger but without any real purpose but remaining unseen as she had been trained. 

Was found by Gray at age twenty-seven, the silver haired wolf coming across Atlas when she had bit off more than he could chew with a much older vampire. The pair took it down and Gray introduced himself, telling Atlas of the pack, the life they had built and for some reason, Atlas trusted the man right away; she didn’t know what else to do.

Has been in the pack for seven years and quickly became the woman that wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty having lived that life almost since birth and knowing no other way. Didn’t want a ranking in the pack, just wanted to be useful and to make sure no one went through what she did.

Does the dirty jobs, the one’s Gray, August and Rob shouldn’t be seen doing or one’s they simply don’t want to. Think Tig from SOA for sure. Kills without thought unfortunately. 

Musings

Atlas has bite marks and scars that cover the entirety of her body, including her face. She also has a dragon tattoo on the side of her face as it was her ‘families’ sigil and a very large snake tattoo that goes from her shoulders and coils all around her body. Doesn’t hide her bite marks or scars but won’t go out of her way to explain them. 

Speaks English, German, Spanish, Russian and Italian fluently and is currently studying Mandarin. 

Her position with Gray isn’t advertised and she’s just seen as a regular member of the pack. Gray tells her what needs to be done, the information she needs and she carries that out, though she never speaks of it to anyone. 

Doesn’t overly advertised her training or life before the pack though if asked she won’t hide her life with the vampires. 

Doesn’t hate vampires, knows a lot of them didn’t ask for the life they have and are just trying their best. Feels torn between wolves and vampires at times, feeling comfortable around both. 

Knows its fucked up but misses her vampire parents.  

Sleeps around quite a bit and doesn’t really do drama. 

Connections

Gray – Alpha

Freya – Ex

Cassius – she’s the one that bit him, has that ongoing rivalry 

Alexia – Best friend

Neisa – sleeping with??? 

Vampires – her parents were well known so they could know her through them. 

[seirioscanis]

{ low on self-esteem, so you run on gasoline }

.

𝖖 𝖚 𝖔 𝖙 𝖊 𝖘

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” -- Albert Camus

“We are unusual, tragic, and alive.” -- Dave Eggers

“I have a very childlike rage, and a very childlike loneliness.” -- Richey Edwards

“’Are you implying that shreds of my reputation remain intact?’ Will demanded with mock horror. ‘Clearly I have been doing something wrong. Or not something wrong, as the case may be.’ He banged on the side of the carriage. ‘Thomas! We must away at once to the nearest brothel. I seek scandal and low companionship.’” -- Will Herondale, Clockwork Angel

“Many atrocities have been done in the name of the greater good.” -- Rhysand, A Court of Mist and Fury

𝖇 𝖆 𝖘 𝖎 𝖈

NAME: Sirius Orion Black NICKNAMES: Padfoot, Pads AGE: 20 BIRTHDAY: 3 November 1959 GENDER: Demiboy, not that he has the word for that PRONOUNS: he/they

𝖋 𝖆 𝖒 𝖎 𝖑 𝖞

MOTHER: Walburga Black ( 55 ) FATHER: Orion Black ( 51, deceased ) SIBLINGS: Regulus Arcturus Black ( 18, deceased )

𝖕 𝖍 𝖞 𝖘 𝖎 𝖈 𝖆 𝖑 𝖆𝖙𝖙𝖗𝖎𝖇𝖚𝖙𝖊𝖘

FACE CLAIM: Samuel Larsen BUILD: Slim and muscular HAIR: Shoulder length and thick, normally kept in a bun HAIR COLOR: Black EYE COLOR: Brown SKIN COLOR: Pale DOMINANT HAND: Right handed, teaching himself slowly to write with his left as well for the hell of it (note: the handwriting is still awful). ANOMALIES: a scar on his upper right lip, ironically a small cluster of star-shaped birthmarks on his left hip (which he hates), a few old cigarette burns on his knees SCENT: leather, old spice, barber shop hair gel, cigarette smoke, motor oil ACCENT: British ALLERGIES: slightly lactose intolerant DISORDERS: Major depression, generalized anxiety, PTSD due to childhood trauma FASHION: Punk rock baby, though probably a bit out of date compared to what muggles are wearing now. He took what he could get during school, and now there’s not enough time in the day to work, be in the Order, and go shopping. NERVOUS TICS: His body becomes more tense, and his eyes dart around the room to search for an exit (or several if possible). He also subconsciously takes a step back from whatever is making him nervous, occasionally messes with his hair to try and act casual (though he does that when he’s bored as well, so it has to be seen with one of the others to be considered a sign of his nerves). If he’s particularly high strung, he’ll lose his nerve completely and lash out, no matter if it’s good or bad for the situation at hand. QUIRKS: Like mentioned above, he messes with his hair a lot when he’s bored, usually pulling it out of its hair tie if up and vice versa if down. He paces when plotting, and purses his lips when he’s thinking considerably. When he’s particularly happy he’ll do a little jump, and he appears to be vibrating a little even afterward. When uncomfortable he’ll try to push that feeling off with either an argument or joke, again no matter whether one of those choices is the wisest at the time.

𝖑 𝖎 𝖋 𝖊 𝖘 𝖙 𝖞 𝖑 𝖊

RESIDES: Plainview Points Apartments BORN: St. Mungo’s Hospital RAISED: Grimmauld Place, London PETS: n/a

CAREER: Auror-in-Training EXPERIENCE: He was part of the Hogwarts dueling club for two years before being kicked out for unfair sportsmanship. He also got a considerate amount of training in magic from an early age thanks to his family, and his mother in particular taught him a bit of dark magic--or tried to. Not that he would use the dark magic, but if push came to shove... he has a few tricks up his sleeve (or, at the very least, the theory behind some of the darker magics). EMPLOYER: Ministry of Magic

POLITICAL AFFILIATION: Order of the Phoenix BELIEFS: Sirius, without a shadow of a doubt, believes that muggleborns and halfbloods deserve to be equal to purebloods. It took him years to believe he was allowed to have that thought process, but he grabbed onto it once he did. Despite the years of unlearning what his family tried to instill in him, it wasn’t all successful. He does still have a superiority complex, and most definitely thinks himself above squibs, muggles, house elves, and so on. It takes more effort for him to respect their opinions as equal to his own, and though he knows that’s wrong, it’s taking a lot longer than he’d like to unlearn that--if he ever can. MISDEMEANORS: Illegal animagus, chase down with James on Elvendork, driving underage on an unregistered motorcycle, his entire list of detentions at Hogwarts FELONIES: Nothing officially on record, so really he’s as innocent as it gets DRUGS: n/a SMOKES: Way too much to be healthy for his lungs ALCOHOL: Not nearly as bad as his smoking habit DIET: Generally unhealthy because he can’t be bothered to cook

LANGUAGES: English, Latin, Spanish, Italian, French, some German

PHOBIAS: Extremely loud noises, snakes, thunderstorms HOBBIES: Causing general mischief, reading what he can get his hands on, doodling (albeit a bit crudely) TRAITS: { + }: loyal, intelligent, observant, quick-witted, sociable { - }: angry, impulsive, insensitive, defiant, pessimistic 

𝖋 𝖆 𝖛 𝖔 𝖗 𝖎 𝖙 𝖊 𝖘

LOCATION: Potter Estate, Prewett Household, Hogwarts SPORTS TEAM: Tutshill Tornadoes GAME: Wizard’s Chess MUSIC: Punk Rock, Celestina Warbeck (not that he’d tell a soul) MOVIES: Has hardly seen any, but is fond of action movies FOOD: Thai BEVERAGE: Whiskey or iced tea COLOR: Dark green

𝖒 𝖆 𝖌 𝖎 𝖈

ALUMNI HOUSE: Gryffindor WAND (length, flexibility, wood, & core): 8 3/4 inches, slightly bendy, yew, rougarou hair core AMORTENTIA: honeysuckles, vanilla, cigarette smoke PATRONUS: Dog BOGGART: His parents standing over him shouting; recently with Regulus by their side asking why he had to die

𝖈 𝖍 𝖆 𝖗 𝖆 𝖈 𝖙 𝖊 𝖗

MORAL ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Good MBTI: ESTP-T MBTI ROLE: The Entrepreneur

“ ESTPs are energetic thrillseekers who are at their best when putting out fires, whether literal or metaphorical. They bring a sense of dynamic energy to their interactions with others and the world around them. They assess situations quickly and move adeptly to respond to immediate problems with practical solutions. Active and playful, ESTPs are often the life of the party and have a good sense of humor. They use their keen powers of observation to assess their audience and adapt quickly to keep interactions exciting. Although they typically appear very social, they are rarely sensitive; the ESTP prefers to keep things fast-paced and silly rather than emotional or serious. “

ENNEAGRAM: Type 8 ENNEAGRAM ROLE: The Challenger

” People of this personality type are essentially unwilling to be controlled, either by others or by their circumstances; they fully intend to be masters of their fate. Eights are strong willed, decisive, practical, tough minded and energetic. They also tend to be domineering; their unwillingness to be controlled by others frequently manifests in the need to control others instead. When healthy, this tendency is kept under check, but the tendency is always there, nevertheless, and can assume a central role in the Eight's interpersonal relationships. ”

TEMPERAMENT: Choleric

“  The choleric temperament is fundamentally ambitious and leader-like. They have a lot of aggression, energy, and/or passion, and try to instill it in others. They can dominate people of other temperaments, especially phlegmatic types. Many great charismatic military and political figures were choleric. They like to be in charge of everything. However, cholerics also tend to be either highly disorganized or highly organized. They do not have in-between setups, only one extreme to another. As well as being leader-like and assertive, cholerics also fall into deep and sudden depression. Essentially, they are very much prone to mood swings. “

WESTERN ZODIAC: Scorpio

“ Passionate, independent, and unafraid to blaze their own trail no matter what others think, Scorpios make a statement wherever they go. They love debates, aren't afraid of controversy, and won't back down from a debate. They also hate people who aren't genuine, and are all about being authentic—even if authentic isn't pretty. Because of all of these traits, a Scorpio can seem intimidating and somewhat closed off to those who don't know them well. But what people don't realize is that even though Scorpio may seem brusque, as a water sign, they also are very in tune with their emotions, and sometimes may find themselves caught up in their feelings. This leads to Scorpio's central conflict: Their feelings are what drives them and strengthens them, but their mutability can scare them and make them feel vulnerable and out of control. Because of this conflict, Scorpios, like their namesake, the scorpion, put up an outer shell and may seem prickly. But once people get beyond the shell, they find a loyal, loving person whose passion knows no bounds. Scorpio dives into all life has to offer with 110% enthusiasm. A Scorpio will be your most loyal friend, most dedicated employee—and your worst enemy, if they want to be. “

CHINESE ZODIAC: Year of the Pig 

“  Pig is mild and a lucky animal representing carefree fun, good fortune and wealth. Personality traits of the people born under the sign of the Pig are happy, easygoing, honest, trusting, educated, sincere and brave. The possible dark sides the Pig people are stubbornness, naive, over-reliant, self-indulgent, easy to anger and materialistic. They are sometimes regarded as being lazy. “

PRIMAL SIGN: Squid

“  Squids are powerful personalities that can only be ‘checked and balanced’ by themselves. They are highly capable, intelligent individuals who seem to know everything. Generally good natured, they also have a hidden inner dark side which resides deep within themselves. No one is allowed into this secret place, often not even themselves. Squids will even try to bury painful truths within themselves in order to avoid dealing with difficult emotions and situations. “

TAROT CARD: Justice, High Priestess

“ Justice and The High Priestess have in common that everything is accounted for. Justice examines everything for flaws in order to find its flawless essence. The High Priestess knows the secret of everything as it is in order to encompass everything. Justice demands of everything its true nature and essence, with nothing concealed, withheld or distorted. It tirelessly weighs and measures, satisfied with nothing less than the clear, the absolute, and the irreduceable in everything. Justice is adamant and uncompromising with its sword and scales, loud and clear in its redness, fearless and certain on its throne, guarding the entrance to the temple of the secrets of perfection. The High Priestess finds what is the same in everything, the secret unifying core hidden in the endless variation of detail. She patiently discovers in all differences what is true, original and undisturbed in everything. The High Priestess is accepting and inclusive with her scroll and cross, calm and quiet in her blueness, fearless and certain on her throne, guarding the entrance to the temple of final knowledge. Unintegrated and imperfectly realized, Justice can be given to rage and haste; it can become arrogant and hypercritical, aggrieved and vengeful, or uncertain and vacillating. The High Priestess can be a conceited know-it-all, moody and taciturn, secret and unapproachable; she can be despairing and lost, or given to excess and careless of consequences. Together, they dream of the perfect, the ultimate, and pursue it in more than one kind of undertaking. They continuously seek the truth, and in its service they are drawn to esoteric studies and unusual paths. “

TV TROPES: White Sheep, Jerk with a Heart of Gold, In the Blood, Hot-blooded, Good is Not Nice, Cultural Rebel, Badass Biker SONGS: Gasoline, Halsey; The Future Freaks Me Out, Motion City Soundtrack; This is the End (For You My Friend), Anti-Flag; Hate Conquers All, Anti-Flag; Downtempo, Scouting for Girls;

IDEOLOGIES: - Actively cuts out everyone who was part of his childhood unless they’ve somehow proven they can be trusted again; he avoids his family at all costs. - The day he found out he was lactose intolerant, however mild, was a mournful day. He sulked about Hogwarts for about a week. - Legitimately tried to swim to the bottom of the Black Lake and see the giant squid. Never succeeded. - If you bring peanut butter anywhere near him he will chuck it across the room. He hates it. - Genuinely enjoys being a dog more than a human sometimes. Yes, he’s aware of the irony.  - The only people allowed to make puns off of his name are James, Peter, Remus, Lily, and Marlene. He’ll get annoyed at anyone else who tries (also wise to avoid using the word serious around him for the above reason). - Keeps telling himself he’ll quit smoking someday. The likelihood of that actually happening is about slim to none, RIP to Sirius’ lungs.

[collapsethis]

Far Cry 5 Deputy Ask Meme

Name: Giselle Fontaine/ Kassandra Stathi

Height: 5’ 4”

Hair: Shoulder length dark brown hair

Eye Color: Gray

Skin color: Tan with freckles

Age: 28

Gender: Female, she/her pronouns

Sexuality: Bisexual

1. How did they end up at the Hope County Sheriff’s Department? How long have they worked there?

Before Hope county Giselle was apart of an underground para-military group that spanned the globe that was formed after the U.S dropped the bombs on Japan to try and slow the creation or more bombs by other governments. It was a small group at first but gained steam during the Cold War. Giselle’s parents were both agents who would go “on vacation�� for a few months in another part of the world to steal info on the nuclear programs of various countries. She joined when she was a teenager. Unfortunately, after one job she caught the attention of a serial killer who was a former agent. He kidnapped her but she escaped. Her handler in the organization decided to fake her death and move her to safe place. He sent her to Hope County because Dutch was apart of the group in his youth and is the only one who knows the truth.

2. Relationship with Pratt, Hudson, and Whitehorse?

She has a professional relationship with the others in the Sheriff’s department because she is still adjusting to her new life. She feels a bit bad about lying to them.

3. Do they have an education?

She was homeschooled by her parents both of whom were professors before joining the organization, was trained by the organization in various espionage skills and sciences, is an excellent hacker.

4. Where are they from? Did they speak a different language there?

Was born in Alabama to a Louisiana French mother with a deep southern accent and a Greek father. She knows English, Spanish,French (both the original French dialect and the Creole version spoken in the deep south) also knows Greek and a smattering of Italian from her time in the org.

5. Is there anyone outside the valley that might have come looking for them?

The serial killer that kidnapped her tried to “reclaim” her when she was in the hospital after she escaped and tried to grab her again before she “died” and came to Montana. She and Dutch are both preparing for when he finds her.

6. Did they have a religious background of any kind?

Wasn’t particularly religious, was raised on the belief that the only way for humanity to survive and thrive is to support and protect the ones that can’t protect themselves. She was raised on the idea that sometimes you have to eliminate a threat to protect others. But when she was escaping from the serial killer she had an experience that makes her believe more of what Josephs been saying than she lets on.

1. What was going through their head when the helicopter went down and during the subsequent chase?

She was thinking about how her handler told her that hope county was supposed to be calm, supposed to be her “retirement”

2. Were they afraid of Joseph and Eden’s Gate? Angry?

She wasn’t afraid so much as sad that someone who had obviously been through so much was choosing to spread that pain around instead of helping people.

3. Did they trust Dutch?

Dutch is the only one in the county that she really trusts. He was apart of the same group as her and is the only one that knows that truth about her.

4. How did they feel about their team being taken by the cult, did they count them as lost, did they want them back, did they not care?

Due to her upbringing there was no way she was going to leave them in the Seeds’ hands. She also feel responsible because with all her training she still didn’t see this coming.

5. How did they take to the idea of being part of, if not leading, the resistance?

She loves the resistance. She helps them whenever she can. She tries to turn them more towards saving other people and helping the county rather than focused on revenge on the Seeds.

6. Which companions did they recruit, and who did they travel with the most?

She travels mostly with Grace, she loves her quiet support, as Giselle tends towards rambling. She also fucking loves Boomer and takes him everywhere.

7. Did they have time to find romance amidst the chaos? How did they do it?

She doesn’t intentionally romance anyone. But, shit happens.

8. Feelings about Joseph?

She feels empathy for Joseph, for what he and his siblings have gone through, and if there’s a chance that she can redeem any of them she’ll take it. Due to her own experiances she’s 100% sure that he isn’t hearing God. She wants him to realize that and make steps to heal not only the county but him and his siblings as well.

9. Feelings about the other Seeds?

She also feels a lot of empathy for the other Seeds as well and wants to help them, in a way, atone for what they’re doing. She has already decided that she isn’t going to kill them to liberate the regions.Her parents taught her that you should always try to help even the ones who seems the worst, as they’re usually the ones that need it the most. She feels for them but she also won’t take shit either. She feels most strongly against Jacob and his “cull the weak” mentality, since it’s directly opposite what she was raised on.

10. How did they handle having to kill animals and other humans? Had they done it before?

She has had to kill people before as part of the organization, mostly as assassinations. She doesn’t like it but she is very good at it. She has a harder time with animals because she wasn’t taught how to deal with them. She got a crash course from Dutch when she got to Hope County but she’s still not as confident or comfortable killing them. She views animals as “innocents” that have no ill intentions to her and are just going with their instincts, except for turkeys, she hates turkeys.

11. Which canon ending did they choose in-game, and would you have changed the ending at all?

She’s going to do what she can to change the ending, but in game she would have chosen the resist ending.

1. Favorite weapon(s)?

Combat knife, hand gun, bow and smoke bombs. She can use rifles but she isn’t as good with them.

2. Stealth or firepower?

Stealth all the way. Until she gets spotted and then its full on Black Widow at the end of IM2 rampage.

3. How did they spend their time, when not fighting peggies?

When she’s not fighting peggies she’s working with Dutch to make a bunker for the resistance, just in case.

4. Where did they live during the events of the game?

She moves between living in Falls End and popping down to Dutch.

5. Any other facts you want to share about your Deputy!

She loved watching action and spy movies with Dutch while they heckled all the mistakes before all the shit hit the fan.

She spent so much of her time as a teenager training to join the org that she never really dated, so she’s a virgin. She’s not really bothered by this.

She has a long jagged scar on her chest, right in the middle between her breasts that goes from just above her boobs to the top part of her sternum from her time with the serial killer.

She and Dutch refer to her handler as her “Uncle” who sent her to “family friend” Dutch when her parents died.

Her parents both died in a car accident when she was 20.

Dutch and the killer were both in the org at the same time. Dutch hated him with a burning passion for no reason he could pinpoint, as such the killer is terrified of Dutch. This is why her handler sent her to Dutch.

[ginevrabarnes]

GINEVRA BARNES | 34 | FIREBENDER | ROONEY MARA | TAKEN

"Never give up without a fight."

P R O F I L E

DOB: 6th of March, 1987 OCCUPATION: Teacher of Linguitics SEXUALITY: Heterosexual FORMER HOUSE: n/a

B A C K G R O U N D

For several generations the Barnes family wasn’t quite like other people, there was something different about them, something extraordinary: they could control fire. While the family knew it was a gift, something that made them supernatural beings, they were unaware other people like them existed out there in the world. Their firebending skill was a secret they kept from the world, something that was kept within the family only. It was tradition that the parents would teach their children the ways of firebending, not just to generate fire, but also how to use the power to fight and defend themselves in a martial art style. Not everyone in the family was born with it, though, only a select few. Those who were gifted with firebending were regarded as important people within the family, and such was the case of Alphonse and his daughters.

The twins, Imogen and Ginevra were both born firebenders, something of which Alphonse was immensely proud. Unfortunately he never got to share that joy with his wife, who passed away little after childbirth. It was up to Alphonse to raise his beautiful daughters not only into skilled benders on his own but also to be both mother and father for them. The twins were determined, training hard to control their power and to become as good firebenders as they could be. During the day they led a normal life, going to school and being just like regular humans. In the afternoons they trained with their dad to continue improving with their bending and the martial art styles that allowed them to control their power better.

The absence of a mother never seemed to break down the Barnes, who led a rather happy life. That was until Imogen was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of thirteen. It was hard for Ginevra to see her sister, her best friend, wither by the hand of such a slow and painful disease. Two years later, Imogen was gone. After her twin’s death, a part of her wanted to change her appearance for good because seeing herself in a mirror was seeing her sister. So Ginevra dyed her hair black, cut it so it would no longer resemble Imogen’s long auburn waves before the chemo left her bald. She got a piercing in her nose, her lip and her eyebrow, and abandoned the lively colorful shades of her clothes that resembled Imogen’s wardrobe so much. After that, Ginevra started to distance from her father, who also ended up putting a shell between him and the rest of the world. She couldn’t blame him though, he’d lost his wife years ago and now one of his daughters had also been taken away from him.

Ginevra always had a way with words and languages, something that has always made more sense to her than numbers or science. During her high school years she adopted Spanish as a secondary language, and soon after came German. To this day, the young woman knows French as well and is starting to pick up Swedish and Italian, having mastered the other three like a native speaker. A new language is a new challenge and a new window opening to a new culture and perspective, thus widening her knowledge and understanding of people. Ginevra excelled in college and at twenty six got her PhD in Applied Linguistics. It was no wonder that such an accomplished young woman would catch the attention of headmistress Pennifold when she sought for a new Linguistics professor.

P E R S O N A L I T Y

The death of her sister represented a significant loss in her life that has shaped Ginevra’s personality in more ways than one. Most of all, it isolated her, bringing over thoughts to her that would define her character: no matter what you do, it’s your life that is the only one you have power over, there’s nothing you can do to alter someone else’s. Simply put, she started to see the world in a “every man for himself” sort of way. Ginevra is a cerebral kind of person, often pondering and wrestling with her own beliefs and struggles. Her introspective nature has made her be self-critical, being very much aware of every flaw she has, but also self-centered in a way, knowing very well what she excels at.

She’s much more of an observer, staying by the edge of things to study them and understand them, especially people. This has turned her into a highly perceptive young woman, intelligent and with a quick mind that tries to find meaning in everything she sees, reads or hears. Although she remains composed and with a rather stoic exterior most of the time, if someone pushes her buttons she explodes easily and has a tendency of being somewhat impulsive, which is a trait she wants to correct in herself to avoid acting rashly and later regret it. Ginevra has her own code, acting by what will be most beneficial for herself and not so much for “the greater good”. She’s peaceful towards everyone for the most part, but if someone wrongs her she’ll indulge in a good payback, and don’t expect her to be mindful of any later damage.

FAMILY: Alphonse Barnes (father - deceased), Cassandra Barnes (mother - deceased), Imogen Barnes (twin sister - deceased)

[noussommeslessquelettes]

Realistic ways to show a character is multilingual through dialogue (based on the things my family and I actually do):

Confusion with verb conjugation in English (almost exclusively with irregular verbs)

Purposely saying basic phrases/words in another language (hi, bye, let’s go, etc.)

Saying things in their native language with a bad English accent

Saying things in English with a bad native lx accent

Baby-speaking to animals/infants in their native lx

Mixing languages only with people who speak both languages--this could mean asking a question in one language and getting the answer in another, using one word from one language in a sentence otherwise constructed in the other, or switching languages halfway in a sentence (a notable one I used recently to my mother was “wanna дај ми?”)--done most commonly to shorten the number of syllables, and will only be used otherwise if the person doesn’t know/remember how to say it completely in one of the languages

Speaking non-English in public places with another native lx speaker as a means of privacy (also works the other way around in a native lx public place) Sidenote: this isn’t only done when discussing something private/embarrassing/etc., I do it all the time with my family simply because what I want to say is only for their ears and doesn’t matter to the other people around us

Teaching their non-native-lx-speaking friends words/phrases from their native lx (more often than not just to make fun of the pronunciation, English speakers have a surprising difficulty rolling rs lmao)

Accidentally slipping into their native lx when trying to speak another secondary language. Accidental slips into native lx from English (assuming the chara lives in an English language community) are incredibly rare, however accidentally switching between two secondary-use languages are embarrassingly common (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve slipped into Macedonian during French class, or how many times I’ve responded to my Macedonian grandmother in French)

Slips in English happen essentially in one of two scenarios. One: the speaking multilingual character is a child and “”accidentally”” slipped into another language (this happens all the time and is purposeful, but once again only younger kids do this to try and show off that they’re multilingual). And two: it’s a knee-jerk reaction, pretty much exclusively a single word/short phrase. An example that happened to me was when someone stepped into danger without realising and I accidentally yelled “watch out!” to them in the wrong language

Teaching people they’re close with sayings/turns-of-phrase in their native lx. After it’s been explained to non-speakers, they might use the phrase wherever English fails them

Trying to figure out words/phrases from a language of the same family using their language. I’m always using my French to try and decipher Spanish and Italian lol (ofc make sure the roots of the words are similar in both languages: the difference between Macedonian колена and Russian коленный is negligible, the difference between Spanish olas and French vagues is not)

Cursing, on occasion. I don’t usually curse/interject in another language unless I’m alone or I’m in my native lx mindset. So like, if I’m at home and thinking in Macedonian, I’d be most likely to interject in Macedonian, then if I’m alone (or I don’t think anyone’s listening) it’d be kind of a toss-up depending on where my head is, and if I’m around English speakers I’d likely opt for a “fuck” or “damn” rather than a “леле” or “ајајај”

Talking themselves through tasks. Ex. I always ask “кај си, кај си, кај си...” when I’m digging through my bag for my keys. Again, this is mostly just because it’s shorter to say that than “where are you, where are you, where are you...”

Tips and pointers for making the inclusion flow well with the story:

Use these indicators sparingly, especially if you’re not multilingual. People who already speak multiple languages will have a better feel for when it is/isn’t likely for language switches to happen, so my advice is that if you’re not sure, err on the side of caution, and it will be a helluva lot more realistic, as well as less of a pain for your readers to sift through.

If you need to provide translation, it’s likely that you’re overusing the non-English language. Listen, it’s great if you want to write multilingual characters speaking their native lxs, I love seeing representation of that in fiction!!! However, if I’m having to switch tabs five times a chapter to Google Translate, it’s gonna throw me out of the story. Moreover, to someone who does speak the language, it might throw them out of the story if they’re reading something that’s clearly been shoved into Google Translate and copypasted (and trust me it’s incredibly evident when something’s been Google Translated without being edited.)

Multilingual people only really speak their other languages to non-speakers they’re comfortable with. Unless I’m close to someone, I seldom ever use my other languages when speaking to them. The only times I really do is when I forget they don’t speak the language (like with my non-speaking dad bc I’m so used to talking Macedonian at home), or when I’m really struggling for a word with a close friend and only remember it in another language. I’ve seen it’s a common thing for a multilingual character to talk about non-speakers they’ve just met to their face in their language which is a thing... none of us do, honestly. There’s no point to talk to someone in our native lx if we don’t think they can speak it lmao.

Don’t be afraid to write multilingual characters who aren’t wholly/evenly fluent in their native lx. A lot of the time, people who are born and raised in English-dominant countries are a lot more fluent in English than their native lx. Really, if they character doesn’t have a non-English accent, it’s more likely than not that English is their strongest language, and given that they’d only practice their native lx at home (unless they’re taking formal classes), it’s likely they’re not as fluent as you’re imagining them. Honestly, most second-generation immigrants (or people who immigrated as infants) who speak a non-English language at home can hardly speak a phrase, and are a lot stronger at listening and understanding than speaking. In my experience, this goes especially so for non-European languages (if I were to hazard a guess this is either because of the differences between non-Euro language structure and English linguistic structure, or prejudice against languages that sound too “ethnic,” or likely a mixture of both.) However, this happens less in areas of higher concentration of a non-English (or, as is the case in Canada, non-official-language) language. For example, I live in an area with a higher Chinese population than the national average, and a lot of the second-generation children I see speak a dialect of Chinese with their parents as well as any other kids who speak it. In addition, make sure you decide how fluent the character is gonna be at the start, and make it consistent.

As with any other element of your story, if you want to do it justice you’re going to have to do a little bit of research into it. Research doesn’t have to be daunting, though: listening to songs in your target language is a great way to figure out how sentences are roughly constructed in that lx, digging up your old class notes if you have them can also do you a world of good, and there are shows like One Day at a Time (on Netflix) that provide really good insight to when and how multilingual speakers use their language. Like, I can’t force you to do extra work for your story--I mean you might not even find it worth the effort, which is fine--but if you really want it to read well then you have to research it. Hell, I wouldn’t write a story with hockey in it if I didn’t get some insight into hockey, and if I didn’t do my research then it’d be pretty clear to someone who does know hockey that I’m talking out my ass.

Aaaanyways this is mostly a personal reference but feel free to reblog/add to this if u like!

[kensingtcns-blog]

( CHARLIE HUNNAM, MALE, HE/HIM ) —— [ BENJAMIN KENSINGTON ] is a [ THIRTY-FIVE ] year old that has been part of the [ HEATHENS ] for [ FIVE ] years. They have been working as a [ GUARD ]. The people in Boulder say that [ HE ] is [ CUNNING ] but also [ RECKLESS ]. Lets see what this wasteland has in store for them.

*uberhaxornova voice* alright helLO ( watch, no one else knows who that is ) its me, ur new resident trash queen & angst n pain lover, caitlyn. i’m 23 and i live in cst so like ?? yeah hi hello how are ya’ll ?? this is my baby benjamin that’s actually ?? a hot ass mess lmao ?? under this is a basic af bullet point bio, personality traits n stats & the three headcanons!! i’m so ridiculously excited to be here as well so that made my rambling worse ?? just like it is right now jfc okay i’ll stop. anywHO i’ve got a basic af list of wanted connections for him right HERE & i'll be working on making an actual bio for him over the next few days!! if you wanna plot w this hot ass mess, just like this or hop into my IMs bc i cannot wait to plot with all ya’ll!!

( TW: mentions of death, cancer, alcohol & weapons. )

BIOGRAPHY

was born and raised in denver, which means he’s always had a love for colorado.

ben’s the oldest of two siblings, his sister being ten years younger than him.

raised by two v loving parents who gave the pair everything they could have every wanted.

however, his mother did from breast cancer when he was 12 and that heavily impacted his father.

causing the older male to teach ben that having feelings wasn’t a good thing and that ben should bottle up everything because he wouldn’t get hurt that way.

something that ben took to heart and kept with him all throughout school.

speaking of, ben did really well in school, graduated at the top of his class and decided he wanted to go into the medical field.

so he did, went to medical school and started learning how to become a surgeon & to his surprise, he was really frickin good at it.

& along the way, he happened to fall head over heels for another student who was there to be a registered nurse. something his father frowned upon due to what’d happened to ben’s mother, but it was something his father quickly began to accept because he saw just how good the two were for each other.

ben ended up proposing to her about a year after they started dating & she said yes so they had a small courthouse wedding surrounded by loved ones... and a few months later they found out that she was pregnant.

this drove ben to be even more dedicated to his job because he wanted to be able to raise his son like his parents had raised him.

nine months later, along came his son and ben’s world quickly started revolving around that baby.

but all of that came to a screeching halt the second the virus hit.

benjamin knew that they had to get out of a populated city, so he packed his wife, his son, his father and his sister up and they were gone by sunlight.

however, his father and sister ended up getting separated from them and he didn’t know where they could have gone, even though he searched for days to find them.

things were okay for the first few month or so, they’d taken enough food to last from their home and the store but with an infant, keeping those supplies in stock wasn’t the easiest thin in the world and soon enough, ben found himself having to go out and search for formula and things like that.

those trips usually went pretty smooth, making sure his wife and son were safe before leaving them for a few hours. however, the one time he happened to be gone longer than a few hours was the one time they weren’t safe at all.

he came back to find both of them gone, something that hit him in the chest so hard that he sat in that buildings for nearly two days just waiting and hoping they’d just moved to somewhere more safe.

but all the hoping and waiting wouldn’t make up for the fact that they’d been taken from him.

this caused him to start being reckless, to go down this dangerous path that he figured would get him killed.

but not only did he do that, he started to have to figure out how to survive on his own. he didn’t have anyone, which meant he’d have to figure out how to shoot a gun, how to hold a knife, how to protect and fend for himself.

so he did, finding guns and ammo that’d been left behind by people, practicing by lining up the numerous alcohol bottles he’d killed off days before and firing into them.

sure enough, he seemed to be a natural with that and with knives.. or a natural for violence in general. he liked the feeling, and it wasn’t something he was going to deny anymore.

& he didn’t deny it one bit. if he met people, he’d resort to violence and threats faster then he could blink an eye because he didn’t trust them, didn’t trust anyone but himself with the feelings he now kept bottled up.

fast forward to about five years later, ben runs into a group that calls themselves the heathens and they instantly catch his interest.

offering him food, water, anything that was needed and gave him purpose.. something he hadn’t had in years. not since he lost his wife and son.

he took the offer almost instantly and has been a guard for them ever since.

PERSONALITY.

hides behind a wall of sarcasm, cockiness, anger and lust.

doesn’t really care to get to know people and had a tendency to push people away before they get too close to him.

is …. stubborn as hell and refuses to ask for help with anything.

has a motorcycle and it’s his baby..

a hot mess

fluent in a lot of languages, picked them up so that he didn’t need translators at meetings with patients.

lowkey worried that people will figure out that he’s not the complete asshole role that he plays on a daily basis and is actually a very hurt person bc if people started realizing that, he’d have to start feeling again and tbh, he don’t wanna do that.

is the biggest flirt you will ever meet??

will try to either get u to drink w him or take ur alcohol.. there's a v thin line between the two options tbh.

super, super intelligent but keeps that on the dl ?

he cares… god he cares so much about people and the world but he pretends to hate everything because it’s easier than letting people in.

is a highkey hoe but he also keeps it on the dl

super into keeping fit as it’s a way to keep his mind from wandering onto subjects such as his wife and son. so he’ll like ?? find random shit to use as a homemade gym ??

still wears his wedding ring but wears it on his middle finger so that know one knows the real story behind it.

also keeps a photo of his wife at baby boy in his leather jacket.

actually super loyal and caring once you’re able to see get past his wall??which is really hard to do due to his job but if u do it he’ll cherish u.

has a bad habit of smoking so he looks for packs of cigs like ?? everywhere he goes.

is actually super open to teaching other people how to fight / use weapons because it's fun for him but acts like it'll kill him to do so.

is a burnt cupcake who has really good intentions but has horrible execution skills.

HEADCANONS

Benjamin was raised solely by his father, who taught him that most emotions were bad things to feel or to talk about. Meaning that he usually hides all other emotions other than anger and lust. Which means that most people see him as an asshole, something that Benjamin is actually fully okay with because in his mind, having people view him in that light is far easier than having to address and/or deal with his feelings. But that doesn’t mean that Benjamin is unable to feel any other emotions other than anger or lust, but he does keep a wall up around him that not a lot of people can break down. If you can break past that wall, though, you’ll find that Ben is far from the ‘asshole’ character he likes to play.

( TW: mentions of death ) Before the virus broke out, Benjamin was actually going to medical school, hoping to be one of the best surgeons in Colorado, maybe even the United States. However, the virus took his wife and son from him and it caused him to break, causing him to give up on the little bit of hope he had left and away from the 'helper’ path he’d be heading down. Instead he found himself becoming extremely reckless, loving everything about violence and danger. He started doing things that his old self would have hated and not caring about the fact that it was risky, that he could easily get hurt or lose his own life in the process. But in all honesty? He doesn’t care about his own well-being, letting the grief that still sits deep in his soul cause him to drift towards dangerous things.

( TW: mentions of weapons. ) Due to him being on his own for a few years before he found The Heathens, Benjamin had to learn how to survive in the toughest ways possible. Meaning that whenever he ran into other survivors, he rarely trusted any of them and if it came to it, he’d resort to violence to get what he needed to survive, food, weapons, whatever it was. Not to mention the fact that he had to teach himself how to use knives, guns and anything else that could have been considered a weapon, how to hunt for the food needed to survive and how to deal with the infected anytime he happened to stumble upon them. After a few years of that, though, he started figuring out that maybe the life of survival and violence was something that he was rather good at, and something he really enjoyed as well. Which was the beginning of him turning from the 'helper’ he wanted to be before the virus hit to someone who’s actually rather selfish.

STATISTICS.

full name: benjamin rhys kensington.

nickname(s): ben, benji (used by his wife mostly).

age: thirty-five.

date of birth: october 31st.

zodiac sign: scorpio.

place of birth: denver, colorado.

gender: cis-male.

sexual orientation: bisexual.

religion: n/a.

occupation: guard for the heathens.

language(s) spoken: english, french, spanish, welsh, russian, korean, japanese, italian, romanian, greek, gaelic and bulgarian.

accent: american.

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE.

face claim: charlie hunnam.

hair color: blonde.

eye color: blue.

height: 6′ 1″.

weight: 225 lbs.

build: athletic.

PERSONALITY / TRAITS.

label: the cataclysmic.

positive traits: cunning, adventurous, intelligent, charming, loyal & brave.

negative traits: reckless, hedonistic, cocky, impulsive, flirtatious & closed off.

FAMILY

father: gideon james kensington. ( undetermined. )

mother: marie ann williams-kensington. ( deceased. )

siblings: a younger sister ( undetermined. )

TESTS.

myers-briggs: estp-a

enneagram: type 8 ( the challenger. )

moral alignment: lawful evil. ( the dominator. )

temperament: choleric.

hogwarts house: slytherin.

[allaircss-a]

isn’t that ÉLODIE “ELLIE” ALLAIRE? yeah that is HER, sitting there at the RAVENCLAW table with those other SIXTH years and i think i heard sybill saying they look like FREYA MAVOR… whoever that is! when she looks into her crystal ball she sees clenched fists hidden in decaying lace sleves, blood red wine dripping from a shattered glass, split lips and bruised knuckles, bouncing on the balls of your feet ready to fight, broken china scattered on the floor with bloody foot prints, atlas crushed under the weight of the sky, & biting your tongue but the words don’t stop.  anyway i’ve heard they’re pretty DEVOTED, ARGUMENTATIVE, and IRRESPONSIBLE. apparently they’re a PUREBLOOD but i’m sure that’s not related. —— [ mhairi : gmt : 19 : she/her ]

NAME: élodie ophelia allaire NICKNAMES: ellie AGE / D.O.B.: sixteen / april 1st 1960 SPECIES: pureblooded witch GENDER / PRONOUNS: cisfemale / she/her SEXUALITY: bisexual

FACE CLAIM: freya mavor RACE/ETHNICITY: white / french & english HEIGHT: 5ft. 9in. WEIGHT: 137lbs. BUILD: tall and slender HAIR: golden curls reaching to mid-chest EYE COLOR: blue SKIN COLOR: pale with freckles DOMINANT HAND: left SCENT: chanel no.5 ACCENT: quite strongly french, slips back into her native tongue when stressed NERVOUS HABITS: combing her hands though her hair

PARENTS: henri allaire, 61, ambasador to wizarding france. desdemona mulciber, 40, socialite. SIBLINGS: half siblings christèle allaire, 35. dorothée allaire, 32. véronique allaire, 29. full siblings milène allaire, 20. lucrèce allaire, 17. éric allaire, 16. PETS: vicieux, ginger cat she adopted as a stray when she was 10. arno, tabby cat jean-luc gifted her after her parents found out about her taking muggle studies. camile, ragdoll kitten ellie rescued in paris this past summer. félix, dumbo rat ellie got in fourth year. apollon, hermès & dionysos, family owls. OTHER SIGNIFICANT FAMILY: rosine millefeuille, father’s first wife, deceased. léopold allaire, uncle, french minister of magic, 58. matthieu allaire, disowned uncle, owner of a secondhand bookshop in muggle paris, 49. brigitte bonaccord, aunt - matthieu’s wife, famous model, 51.

BORN: île de batz, brittany RAISED: paris / île de batz CURRENT RESIDENCE: french wizarding embassy / hogwarts NATIONALITY: french SPOKEN LANGUAGES: (in order of proficiency) french, english, italian, spanish, german, gobbledegook, mermish OCCUPATION: student & quidditch captain DRINK | SMOKE | DRUGS: yes, yes, occasionally RELIGION: family is not religious but ellie has recently been turning to faith, specifically catholicism like her aunt brigitte

MORAL ALIGNMENT: chaotic good MBTI: enfp ARCHETYPE: the rebel TEMPERAMENT: Sanguine WESTERN ZODIAC: aries sun, gemini moon, leo rising CHINESE ZODIAC: rat HOGWARTS HOUSE: ravenclaw TAROT CARD: strength TV TROPES: fool for love, not afraid to die, martyr without a cause, rebellious spirit, i just want to be loved TRAITS: devoted, volatile, argumentative, irresponsible, vindictive.

PATRONUS: if ellie were to attempt to cast a patronus she likely wouldn’t manage to cast a incorporeal one, however if she were to produce a corporeal partronus it would take the form of a horse. the horse represents freedom, and this is displayed in many forms. it first signals a free spirit, and someone ready to explore and feel alive. individuals with this patronus are passionate, and though that may be so, they at times may be limited in some way, and therefore their spirit is more ready to run through the fields since they cannot. the nature of the horse is also represented in these people because they do not limit themselves to the conforms of society, but rather feel they have their own path, their own destiny, and they have control over how they get there. they are strong-hearted and magnificent at best. the most common house for this patronus is hufflepuff. the most common signs are aquarius and aries. BOGGART: most of ellie’s fears are concepts that are hard if not impossible for a bogart to assume the form of but there is one that has an easy physical representation, ellie is terrified of bats. upon casting a riddikulus charm the cloud of bats changes into black satin ribbons falling through the air. SORTING: a hatstall is a sorting that lasts more than five minutes, ellie’s sorting was five minutes ten seconds. a hatstall between ravenclaw and gryffindor (although slytherin was an early possibility), it was her insatiable curiosity that won out over the bold and brash actions that she would take to find out answers. WAND: applewood, fairy wings w. unicorn hair, 11", wishy. ellie, along with the rest of her siblings, got her wand in france.

applewood wands are not made in great numbers. they are powerful and best suited to an owner of high aims and ideals, as this wood mixes poorly with dark magic. it is said that the possessor of an apple wand will be well-loved and long-lived, and i have often noticed that customers of great personal charm find their perfect match in an applewood wand. an unusual ability to converse with other magical beings in their native tongues is often found among apple wand owners, who include the celebrated author of merpeople: a comprehensive guide to their language and customs, dylan marwood.

this core makes for a light, airy wand, and is the absolute best for charms. They also signify a connection to the mystic, so these wands, despite their relative rarity, are used by nearly half of known witches and wizards with the sight. despite their astounding strength in charms, they are merely average in defense against the dark arts and transfiguration, and will often fail at hexes altogether. as such, they’re not commonly found in slytherin house, but are common in hufflepuff. ravenclaws and gryffindors may be drawn to this core, although they tend to react better to blends of fairy wings and unicorn hair.

unicorn hair generally produces the most consistent magic, and is least subject to fluctuations and blockages. wands with unicorn cores are generally the most difficult to turn to the dark arts. 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 (although the wand wood may compensate) and that they are prone to melancholy if seriously mishandled, meaning that the hair may ‘die’ and need replacing.

REPORT CARD: ellie sat ten OWLs in her fifth year, getting nine outstanding’s and one acceptable

Ancient Runes, O.

Arithmancy, O.

Astronomy, O.

Charms, O.

Defence Against the Dark Arts, O.

History of Magic, O.

Herbology, A.

Muggle Studies, O.

Transfiguration, O.

Potions, O.

now in her sixth year, ellie is taking seven NEWTs

Arithmancy

Astronomy

Charms

Defence Against the Dark Arts

History of Magic

Muggle Studies

Potions

BIO

born to henri allaire and his second wife, desdemona mulciber, ellie is the youngest of seven.

far from a treasured child she was instead seen as a nuisance. the sixth daughter in a family that lost patience after the second, here was another daughter to marry off, another burden not a potential heir. amplified more than it was for her sisters by her twin being the elusive and long awaited heir to the allaire fortune.

the allaire’s are a wealthy french pureblood family. originating from  île de batz in brittany, they rose to prominence in french wizarding politics with thirteen ministers of magic being an allaire and many more claiming wives or mothers holding the name. two terms ago her grand-père stepped down after a quarter of a century as minster and just last year her uncle léopold became minister.

already sidelined by her family, and the pureblood society her father favoured, for her sex, she struggled even for recognition from her parents, she wasn’t one of the treasured three daughters of a wife oh so suddenly taken by dragon pox. she did not posses the quiet manners and meek tones of her eldest sister, milène. nor did the airs of a french pureblood lady come automatically, sneer and all, as they did to lucrèce. and of course she wasn’t the long awaited heir, pride, and joy that her twin éric was.

her father met her mother, desdemona mulciber when he worked in britain for a few years as an aide to his uncle, the french wizarding ambassador at the time, but returned to france not long after the wedding.

ellie an her siblings grew up in france in the allaire’s ancestral home on île de batz only moving to the uk when she was ten when her father was made ambasador.

she carved out her own place almost by accident, learning fast the only way she was noticed was if she caused an issue. her mother and father had no time for subtlety, if she felt something she had to proclaim it, if she wanted something she had to demand it, if believed something she had to argue it.

HCS

ellie tried so hard to keep her o.w.l. choices a secret, she truly did. its not that she didn’t want to anger her parents, that was never the issue, she did that just by existing. it’s just she’d never have done anything that would infuriate them so. she lasted all of summer, a summer of lying, a summer of pretending, saying it just was arithmancy and runes. just that. never mentioning the third one. she got to school thinking she’d escaped their wrath, delaying it till fifth year. unbeknown to her, her elder sister lucrèce had written a letter to her parents, a week after hallowe’en, and they’d spent two months seething. as soon as she got home from christmas she was hit by a wave of blinding, white hot rage. that holiday marked the first her parents had used an unforgivable curse on her, but it didn’t work. they tried to get her to drop it but they only made her buckle down. she got a outstanding in muggle studies and the scars from their anger are still healing.

she’s a very volatile person, quick to anger and long to calm down holding grudges for YEARS.

her parents are both supporters of voldermort, her mother is a death eater, dark mark and all, but her father only agrees with his ideology. even with the views in wizarding france, it’s bad optics for their ambassador to get involved with uk wizarding POLITICS, but he lets her wife have her HOBBIES.

she used to be a big hopeless romantic, in someways she still is, but it’s a part of herself she’s tried to kill off in recent years. when her first serious relationship ended badly (wc!) she pinned most of the blame on him but a major reason things deteriorated was because she found herself changing into something she didn't like through mimicking him.

she’s always been fascinated with the muggle world, stemming mainly from her close relationship with her disowned uncle matthieu. he was disowned for marrying a half-veela who was also the daughter of a muggleborn brigitte bonaccord (now a famous model in the muggle world). she spends as many summers as she can in muggle paris instead of her family home on île de batz.

[london-calling-rp-blog1]

PROFILE

Character Name: Daniel Hermínio Caetano de Ventura Morgado Age: 35 Birth Date: May 5 Faceclaim: Hugo Silva Gender/Preferred Pronouns: Male, He/Him Sexual Orientation: Panromantic Occupation: Con-Artist, 1/3 Owner of a Private Club Time in London: Two Years

BIOGRAPHY

Born and raised in Lisbon, Portugal, Daniel had a rough time during his childhood and teen years between dealing with his alcoholic mother and his abusive father. Ever since he was a small child, home never felt like a safe place due to that. He often would rather spend most of his days outside than to hear his parents’ fights. With that, Daniel would explore the streets of Lisbon to one side to another, being quite pride of himself to being able to say that he knew the city like the back of his hand.

Being raised in a toxic household Daniel always got prone to getting in trouble, especially with another kids due to his aggressive behaviour. Consequently to his anger issues, this was the reason why he never had many friends of his age. As he reached his teenager years Daniel ended up meeting a lot of people in the streets, most of them being a few years older than him. Daniel made all the kind of “friends”, especially with all kind of thugs - thieves, dealers, con-artists, etc. Being someone who was already raised in a toxic environment he never saw much harm as he was used to this sort of thing already. He started smoking and ditching school and as he got encouraged to being more rebellious and aggressive than before, often getting in trouble and sometimes even stealing just to please the group he wanted to be part of and often would hang out with.

After reproving 4 times he then got to meet Nate, at the age of 18, during his second time in the 10º grade. Even though Daniels bad habits persisted and he still kept in touch with his group of friends, Nate was surely a good influence in his life – as Daniel started to grow closer to Nate he slowly started going more to school. It was not that he cared about the classes they were having or about his grades but if that meant to be about Nate more often that was good reason enough for him to bear such boredom. And though he still had anger issues to deal with he became less aggressive towards others off the bat as Nate would often push him away or make himself contain. As his friendship with Nate became stronger he would often find a bit of peace whenever he was around Nate and his family, growing found of them as if they were his own family.

Two years later and Daniels rest was soon ended at the age of 20, when his mother finally decided to leave him and his father for good, in which from then on Daniels household life only got worse to his side. Being the now the punching bag, the roots of all evil to his father’s eyes, he was now the only centre of the argumentation and abuse coming from his father. Daniel started to either arrive at school with more bruises – that often would go unnoticed, ignored due to his reputation or, when asked, he would come up to either an excuse or tell s tale to show himself off. He also would skip classes now and then, when it all felt like too much to bear.

That made Daniel close himself towards the very few people he knew and was close with. Taking all his anger on the streets to the point of spending a few nights in prison now and then, in which at this point always felt better than to set a foot in his own home.

One night, in another unfortunate event with his father, the argument between them got so heated that the later ended up damaging his sons face, leaving a nasty wound, that later would form a scar, across his left cheek down to his lips. After, and a bit out of despair, he ran to Nates house where he finally spoke about what was going on and got taken care of.

From then on Daniel refused to go back home, living in the streets for a while until he got under the wing of a former friend of his – a con-artist named Admar Madeira, who was 7 years older than Daniel was. Seeing this as a escape from his past life Daniel dropped school and started working together with Admar, learning everything Admar had to teach him about being a con-artist and pick pocketing. This included having to leave the country without any notice after a while, only leaving a written letter to Nate and his family as a goodbye but without much explanation as to what happened and where he was going.

While working under Admar, they not only ended up joining to the pair two other kids around Daniels age – Agnès Lyon, a very fierce French girl and Raumondo “Rau” Alberghi a very reserved Italian boy – as they travelled a lot around Europe. The first two years they got settled down in Portbou, Spain. They then moved to Barcelona for four years before heading to Paris, France for other four years, Rome, Italy for three years and finally being settled in London, England for two years. During all those years Daniel made a huge effort to learn the various languages from Spanish to Catalan, French, Italian and English; Portuguese and Spanish being both the languages he knows and deals better with.

As they settled in, in London, Admar decided to make a Private Club where they could deal with all the kinds of thugs and ruffians by trying to get some money down the table for themselves with gaming, as well as to get a better financial support besides the conning. With this set Admar has priority on the quotes of the club but Daniel, Agnès and Rau owns 1/3 of the business.

[geniusorinsanity]

i would like to her ur nursey family feels pls!! (i have plenty of my own & made a post but i need All the nursey content)

ahaha YOU JUST OPENED THE FLOODGATES BUDDY

Okay, so,Nursey’s birth parents:

Amal Hassan Nurse      

born in Morocco, but spent the first ten years of herlife moving all around northern Africa and the Middle East because her fatherworked as a security consultant and would spend a few years in various placesdesigning systems for different companies

speaks both dialects of Arabic fluently, but willalways prefer Moroccan, because it sounds like home to her

moved to the States when she was thirteen and her dadgot a permanent job working for a security firm in Manhattan. Grew up in theprivate school system and never left

has a BA from NYU and a JD/PhD from Columbia. Is asenior partner in an NYC firm specializing in foreign and comparative law.smarter than all of us.

Elijah Nurse

grew up in Washington, DC. As a child, was 100%convinced that his father was a spy, because he traveled all the time and nevertold him what he did.

his mother is Haitian and from a very strict family inPort au Prince. Was not a fan of Nonsense and this had a pretty significantimpact on how Elijah related to other kids

Raised speaking English and French, but never spokeFrench outside the house because he associated it with his mother scolding himor his siblings

Got his BA in economics from Georgetown and then wentto do his MBA at Columbia, which is where he met Amal

This marriage was Not a Good Idea

Very tried and true case of people who are physicallycompatible but VERY NOT COMPATIBLE IN MOST OTHER WAYS

Amal is emotive and a little scatterbrained, Elijah isstrict about routine and doesn’t communicate feelings well

Not a Good Combination

They got married anyway to piss off their parents

Don’t do that, kids.

They got divorced two years after Derek was born. Itwas not friendly. 

They agreed on split custody of the kids, Derek and hisolder sister Farah (more on Farah, Love of My Life, later). 

About two years after the divorce, Amal reconnects witha friend from college, Gabriela Torres.

“Reconnects” = They literally crash into each other inthe subway #thatNYClife

promptly has the following thought process:

“Was she always this hot?”

“Was I always this gay?”

“This explains SO MUCH.”

they get married a year later.

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT NURSEY’S STEP MAMA GABRIELA

first generation Chilean American. Both her parentswere artists who moved to go to school in California.

she’s a ~San Francisco child~ in that she is: veryqueer, unfazed by a lot of strange things happening around her, and fucking hates the cold.

her parents are a strange blend of Liberal Artist andOverprotective Catholic, in that they want her to follow her dreams but willalso guilt the fuck out her if she misses mass and/or isn’t home for Christmas.

It’s not a total surprise to them that she decides tomove to New York for college but they still guilt the fuck out of her for it.

Everyone cries, but they get over it.

goes NYU all the way through her degrees: BA in ArtHistory, PhD in Fine Arts. 

Her dream is to be a full-time painter, but she isRealistic and knows that shit is not how it works.

Gets scooped up by the curator of the gallery where she’sdoing one of her internships.

Works her way up to co-director of the gallery because#womensupportingwomen, and has her own studio on the side

Elijah also remarries, about two years after thedivorce, to a pediatrician living out in Westchester. They have two more kidsin pretty quick succession, and both Nursey and Farah try to ignore how muchmore their dad seems to be around for those kids when they’re little than heever was for them.

It doesn’t really work.

They’ve got some baggage about this.

SPEAKING OF MY BABY GIRL FARAH NURSE.

Farah is four years and five grades ahead of Nursey.

She was an Angel Baby but a Demon Toddler--Nursey beingborn flipped her back into being a reasonable child because all of a suddenthere was this Small Person Thing who was kind of interesting but also madenoise and Huh, Okay.

fiercely fiercelyfiecrely protective of her baby brother. They’ve never been in the sameschool, but she is intensely aware that he’s a soft, sensitive kid, and shewill claw someone’s eyes out if they mess with him.

really, really intomedia and how it influences people, particularly the way queer people, peopleof color, and QPOC are influenced to see themselves and develop theirself-worth based on media depictions. Starts getting into critical analysis ofart and news and movies and TV in like, eighth grade. 

Gabriela is SO PROUD.

has gone back and forth on wearing hijab a few timesthroughout her life. Talks to her mom about it a lot. Amal tells her consistently that it’s always her decision,that she can change her mind whenever she wants, and that as long as shechooses to wear it (or not) for reasons she feels okay about, she supports her.

The only time she ever feels guilty is when she thinksabout wearing it at Andover just as a fuckyou to the guys who talk about how Muslim women are Always Oppressed. Shedecides not to wear it.

follows her moms to NYU, where she meets her boyfriendRami, who’s an Arab Jew. They move in together their senior year. She is super nervous about meeting his parentsfor the first time at their house in Brooklyn. They take one look at her, tellher she’s too skinny, and attempt to adopt her.

She’s 5’11” and has never been told she’s too skinny byanyone in her life.

She wants to adopt them.

Rami’s parents have brunch with her moms every month and gossipabout when they’re going to get married.

I’m getting off-track but I love her.  

The shared custody thing goes okay for awhile--the kidsdon’t really like going out to Westchester for half the week because it makestheir commute to school so long, butit’s part of the job. Eventually, Amal gets sole custody--Elijah isn’t doingthe emotional work of parenting, and the kids aren’t happy when they’re withhim.

I also have sad headcanons about shit that went down ifyou read my fic but that’s not crucial to this family HC necessarily.

for awhile, Nursey and Farah stay in touch with Elijahfairly frequently, but he’s not big on Feelings, and they’re not big on beinggaslighted about the fact that he’s really emotionally distant and his momyells at them a lot, so as they get older they really only talk to him on theirbirthdays, Father’s Day, his birthday, and major holidays.

Amal really tries to get them to keep in touch moreoften, because she’s really close with her dad and she wants her kids to have arelationship with theirs, but like...she’s not gonna force it.

Also, like...no one fucks with her babies.

So now: the Nurse-Torres Household:

one high-powered lawyer, one artist/gallery director,one super-analytical and overprotective child, and one sensitive,clumsy-as-fuck baby hockey player.

My. Loves.

there are a Lot of Languages in this House

Amal teaches the kids Moroccan Arabic literally as soonas the divorce is finalized--Elijah didn’t want her to teach them while theywere married because he didn’t like them having a language with her he didn’tknow, but NOPE.

Nursey soaks it up like a sponge. Farah’s seven so shehas a little more trouble, but like fuck is she going to let her baby brotherbe better than her at something so 

Gabriela laments thefact that her step-children speak fluent Spanish but their accents are afucking mess because the nannies they learned from were from Guatemala, thenSpain, then Argentina

Other languages spoken, scattered across multiplepeople, in varying degrees of fluency: French, Portuguese, Mandarin, Italian,Latin, Haryanvi, Hebrew.

family dinners are mandatory--anyone who’s home musteat together, sitting down, at the table, without electronics.

Nursey refuses to come to dinner for a week after Farahleaves for Andover because it won’t be The Same

there’s a Lot of physical affection: hugs, cuddles,forehead kisses, hair-playing, etc. Lots of wrestling between Farah and Nursey.Nursey usually loses.

Nursey always loses.

:(

once both kids are at college, there are regularlyscheduled Family Google Hangouts

Also mandatory

Basically family dinner

Nursey does it in the Haus once and everyone freaks outat how hot everyone in his family is

he’s Aware, thanks dudes

This is four full pages long in a google doc and I needto stop but basically: Nursey has a really complicated and strainedrelationship with his dad, and he misses his half-sisters sometimes, but he’s so so so loved by his moms and hissister and he’s so supported and he loves them so much and i have about amillion feels and i could go on forever please stop me.

also it’s not a family member but their next doorneighbor has a pit bull named Lupe who loves Nursey and every time he comeshome he takes it for a walk in central park and he wants a dog so much and he’s counting the minutesuntil he can get one

thank you for your time.

i’m crying now.

[jakehglover]

Is This the World’s Best Way to Raise Pork?

By Dr. Mercola

Will Harris III, owner of White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia, says the hogs that forage on his vast Georgia farm are also loose to forage in the woods behind it. He says they not only fill a unique position on his farm’s operation, they also have a unique impact on the land.

Harris, a fourth-generation farmer with a University of Georgia agricultural degree, once adhered to his family’s monoculture tradition, complete with the lack of diversity, and with the use of antibiotics, hormones and chemical weed killer system of farming adopted by the majority of the U.S. Then, 40 years into it, he went certified organic instead. Permaculture Voices says "beyond organic" farming operations "celebrate polyculture and close the loop on sustainability."1

It wasn't long before he established the largest comparable enterprise in the Southeast. Among other ingenious, highly effective farming methods, he allowed his cattle to graze native grasses, brought in sheep to eat the plants the cattle wouldn't, chickens to scratch up dung dropped by the cattle and sheep, and goats and pigs to clear up the leftovers and undergrowth.

Hogs may serve to clear up the scrublands around the farm, Harris says, but one of the greatest examples of symbiosis he's ever seen was when he put his baby goats in the forest with the hogs. In a matter of weeks, the goats looked great — better than any other goats he ever had. He researched extensively until he observed that the goats were eating plants the other animals weren't interested in.

Goats often have "barberpole" worms — parasites — which pass through the goats' systems through their feces and pupate in the earth. When the goats graze the grass, they reinfect themselves. The hogs ate the goat feces, which provide an interesting set of nutrients, but more importantly, they break the life cycle of the barberpole worms, which prevents the goats from picking up the parasites again. In the video above, Harris observes:

"It's a great example of heterosis, it's a great example of why nature abhors monoculture. In a factory farm, you would just have goats, or you would just have pigs. You would not enjoy that symbiosis that nature has given us."2

Making Iberian Ham

One of Harris' next projects at White Oak involved the prospect of importing pigs from Iberia, the peninsula that comprises Spain and Portugal, to create a just-as-delectable ham as the celebrated jamón ibérico de bellota — the highest grade of free-range, acorn-fed, dry-aged Spanish ham — a delicacy described as "transcendent."

He wasn't sure yet whether the pigs would thrive in Georgia's heat, being used to a dry climate and high elevation rather than the South's humidity and low elevation, so there was trepidation about how the porcine beasts would thrive, especially given a new set of pathogens they had no resistance to.

Harris staked his reputation on importing the pigs to Georgia and feeding them the same diet of bellotas, or acorns, they'd foraged on in their native Iberia, where the pigs dubbed "olive trees on legs" had been part of the landscape, literally since the Romans. He would produce the same sweet, dark red, melt-in-your-mouth ham that can cost pork enthusiasts $1,000 for a single leg.

"Harris was wagering hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a good portion of White Oak Pastures' reputation, on a long-odds bet that his foreign pigs could do at least as well in exile as they ever had at home, and make a product at least as delicious. And maybe more …

The fat is the secret to the ham's quality, and the acorns are the genesis of the fat. The nuts — technically, fruits — from the oak species that grow in southwest Europe are low in carbohydrates and high in oleic acid, the same monounsaturated fat that makes olive oil healthy."3

Rather than being pale pink and plump or pale with black spots, Eater.com describes the Iberian pata negra, or "black footed" pigsas "lean and compact, long-snouted and quick," with a black bristly fringe between their ears, but each representing a rare delicacy for pork lovers.

Interestingly, when Iberian pigs were bred with industrial-strength European hog breeds in the 20th century, housed indoors and fed a commercial diet, it didn't take long for the quality of the pork to suffer. In fact, Spanish officials were forced to enact controls to monitor and label quality. Among several grades rated in terms of quality, the highest came from the old method of pigs raised first on grass, then acorns exclusively.

After the financial crash in 2008, which devastated Spain, only a 12 percent-per-year average of the 3 million pigs raised for Iberian ham produced what was designated as bellota-grade, prompting expert ham producers to ask their government to sanction the export of Iberian pigs. It was a first, and there was no "protected designation of origin" label other foods had been given (such as Italy's Parmigiano-Reggiano).

Spanish Investors Tap Iberian Ham Production in the U.S.

One of the problems with Iberian ham, from the perspective of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), was a concern about Spanish slaughterhouse regulations (or possible lack thereof) and the potential for pig diseases. Iberian ham also didn't (yet) have much renown except among international travelers and culinary experts.

Then Jaime and Kurt Oriol, a father-son team from Southwestern Spain, intrigued by both the prospects and the opportunity, began visiting farms in the Midwest and Texas. Someone suggested White Oak Pastures and, after meeting Harris, they canceled the rest of their tour. As the saying goes, they made him an offer his sense of adventure couldn't refuse. Their proposal:

"The vision the Oriols unrolled for Harris was simple, if not easy: They would bring pure ibérico breeding stock from Spain, and Harris would raise them, with the two families splitting the ownership, the expenses and the proceeds. The goal would be to produce jamón ibérico — or at least as close to the original as they could get."4

Harris' hog operation had only been going for a few years when the Orioles contacted him, and he relished the challenge, quipping, "These pigs were an attractive proposition. I didn't have as many hogs as I needed. And raising them is a kind of sexy and challenging thing to do."5

The Oriol-Harris collaboration that resulted in Iberian Pastures in early-January 2015 was followed by months of quarantines on both continents. Then, 24 young, unbred female Iberian pigs and six boars shipped to south Georgia were given the run of a 50-year-old pecan grove. Eater.com notes:

"It was going to be challenging, for sure. Georgia is nothing like the pigs' ancestral home. The dehesa is shallow-soiled and suffers hard droughts. White Oak is almost always humid; it lies on a coastal plain so rich that, 1,000 years before Europeans arrived, indigenous Americans built one of the oldest and largest mound-city settlements in the southeastern U.S. there. Even the oaks are different, water oaks and live oaks instead of the holm oaks and cork oaks in Spain."6

The worry was that such variances could alter the taste of the newly displaced Iberian pigs' meat, as acorn fats and flavor are essential to the jamón ibérico flavor profile. Southern acorns have different fatty acids, aren't as sweet and contain bitter toxins. Looking for a tasty, abundant and nutritious alternative to the Iberian bellotas, Harris found it 12 miles distant in Blakely, Georgia, where it's "all about the peanuts."7

America's Answer to Jamón Ibérico: Country Ham

Country ham production is similar to that used in Spain, starting with carving the back legs, the use of salt to draw out moisture and hanging up the end result for the perfect melding of cool air, enzymes, age and wood smoke. Accordingly, the next, all-important challenge was to find a place to cure the ham they hoped would rival the best jamón ibérico and they found the perfect operation in Iowa — perfect for one simple reason:

"Spanish hams are never smoked — which meant the great American curing houses, and the ham masters who run them, would not be able to produce White Oak's jamón. Nor would White Oak be able to build a curing house of its own: Iberian hams age, instead of rot, in the cool and dry climate of southwestern Spain, and southern Georgia is seldom dry or cool."

Herb and Kathy Eckhouse, owners of La Quercia in Des Moines are noted for making prosciutto using meat from American pigs, but by means of Italian curing techniques. Iberian Pastures slaughtered the first batch of pigs in 2017, after their Iberian-born parents arrived and were mated just two years prior. According to Eckhouse:

"Grapes from all over the world are being grown in the United States. Are they the same as the wines that are made in Bordeaux, or Tuscany? No, they're not. Are they delicious? Yes, they are. We don't expect (our ham) to be the same, or even want it to be the same, but we expect it to be delicious. We want to develop an American tradition."

While the prospect of the pig importing enterprise was certainly not guaranteed, what with being transplanted to an ecosystem vastly different from any had experienced for millennia, the Iberian pigs thrived at White Oak Pastures. Harris was pleased to report they hadn’t lost even one pig. Before long, word regarding the Iberian Pastures “experiment” at White Oaks started circulating among the food industry.

Small amounts of uncured meat that appeared for sale on the company website were quickly snatched up. With availability by the summer of 2019, Harris's daughter, Jenni, traveled around offering samples of the succulent pork to high-end chefs — high end because potential pricing for the hams could be around $1,500 apiece. Exceeding their highest hopes, the finished product, Eater.com relates, was delicious:

"It was charred outside, dark red and juicy within, and marbled so finely that almost no fat was visible. It tasted more like a grass-fed steak than like the lean white meat of commodity pork — like an animal that had enjoyed its life outdoors, chewy and tender and tasting of fresh herbs and blood. It offered a palatable confirmation of how well these foreign pigs had done in their new home, and a promise of what they might become."

It's Not Just About the Meat — It's About the Soil

NPR recently published an article about a growing "grass-roots movement" to keep more roots in the soil. While that may sound counterintuitive, it really is about the roots, but the goal is to "promote healthy soil that's full of life." It's a healthy endeavor: One farmer commented that in some areas, dirt doesn't even smell like dirt anymore. There's hope, though.

The concept that soil can be healthy is not just among organic farmers and agricultural fringe groups. The movement as well as the debate seems to be an emerging narrative in farm periodicals, trickling down to small farmers across the U.S. Food companies are talking about a new eco-label to go alongside "organic" and "fair trade." There's a hope that "regenerative agriculture" — building healthy soil — will become the new normal.

There's a caveat, though. The author notes "There's no universally accepted measure of soil health, nor a clear definition of regenerative farming." Each farmer approaches it individually, like Del Ficke of Pleasant Dale, Nebraska, who says he recalls the moment he "heard a call from God to farm in a different way, one that felt closer to the native prairie that used to flourish in eastern Nebraska."8

In essence, an almost tangible appeal to leave the so-called technological, "modern" approach to farming resonated with Ficke, who emphasizes that the soil as we once knew it is "endangered" and that we're running out of time to remedy it. "Tillage," he stresses, "is the most destructive thing in agriculture." NPR notes:

"That's not even controversial anymore. Many farmers have adopted 'no-till' farming, recognizing its environmental benefits. But (after) Ficke … harvests his corn or soybeans, he plants something else on those fields right away — often a mixture of grasses and legumes like cowpeas. On some of that land, he keeps those 'cover crops' growing right on through the next summer, instead of conventional crops like corn. His cattle graze on those fields the way bison once grazed on the prairie."9

In this way, decaying roots, as well as manure and urine from grazing cattle in resting soil, are enriched, growing darker, more fertile and "chock-full of microbes and fungi." The difference today is that, while this isn't new information, the possibility that the soil really can be amended naturally is. As a result, what was scoffed at by investors in the latest chemical-driven farming methods a mere five years ago seems to be taking root.

Is Plant Diversity the Key to Soil Health?

Download Interview Transcript

Gabe Brown of Bismarck, North Dakota, contends that "tillage destroys carbon, soil life, structure, infiltration and water holding capacity." Graze Online10 quotes the essence of Brown's farming philosophy: that "no planted crop will build soil health as quickly and completely as a well-managed and very diverse perennial pasture."

Brown's response to his conviction is to load the seed boxes on his no-till drill with 15 to 25 species at a time. His crop diversity ranges from warm and cool season grasses to broadleaf crops; buckwheat to barley; turnips to triticale.

"The crop ground here is seeded to cover crops during the course of the growing season … the goal here is to keep the ground covered and a living root in the soil as much of the year as possible, often with highly diverse 'cocktail' mixes of forages … all for the purpose of providing good forage yields while also building soils."11

Brown also maintains that "mob grazing" is another facet of the operation. He keeps a ratio density of about 685,000 pounds of beef cattle per acre to graze — and meanwhile, trample — about 60 percent of the forage lands, and provide natural fertilizer and other benefits to the soil.

Like Harris’ operation, the cattle and plant diversity are symbiotic with the richness of the soil. In addition, Brown quit using commercial fertilizers in 2008 and insecticides or fungicides about 20 years ago. His plan for 2013 was to eliminate the use of herbicides, trusting the plant diversity and cattle grazing to “do their thing.” The American Society of Agronomy reported12 that plant roots serve a much greater purpose than many people imagine in regard to nutrition and soil health.

The soil around a plant’s roots is referred to as the rhizosphere. You can’t see it, but the chemical compounds called exudates are quite different from ordinary soil. At the University of Aberdeen, Paul Hallett and colleagues found that rhizosphere phytochemicals are excreted, somewhat like gastric juices, to “liberate” soil nutrients as an important component of soil microbiome. According to Science Daily:

"Exudates also have an important role in holding soil together. Roots and fungi that live in the soil hold together larger clumps of soil, but exudates work on the micro level. Like glue, they hold together soil particles in important mechanical networks. Soil scientists call these soil networks aggregates."13

However, “Whereas the binding effects of roots and fungal networks are usually long-term, exudates' influence on the soil can be fleeting; root exudates don’t have a long-term effect, and the type of soil, whether clay, loam or sand, for instance, can vary."14 As for Brown’s farming, his experimentation took a few hits over a few seasons, but he’s convinced that “failure” is the only way to push the envelope, thereby putting the “tried” into the “true.

He's convinced, as surrounding farmers who once speculated over the sustainability of his methods have become convinced, that it's worth it in the long run. Jay Fuhrer of Burleigh County, North Dakota's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) observed that many of the area's farmers have modified their methods, at least on portions of their land, in that way "taking important steps toward improving soil health and moisture retention in precipitation-challenged central North Dakota."15

Agricultural Scientists Have Been Doing Their Homework, Too

In 2017, the journal Environmental Science & Technology published a study16 making the case for recycling livestock manure as at least a partial substitute for synthetic fertilization, in part to alleviate environmental degradation due to the effects of nitrogen. That in turn might affect food security and soil greenhouse gas emissions. The researchers explored its effect on crop productivity, yield and use efficiency, as well as:

"Reactive (nitrogen) losses (ammonia emission, nitrogen leaching and runoff), (methane, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide) emissions and soil organic carbon sequestration in agroecosystems … We conducted a global meta-analysis of 141 studies and found that substituting livestock manure for synthetic (nitrogen) fertilizer significantly increased crop yield by 4.4 percent and significantly decreased reactive nitrogen losses."17

Testing in different soil types, including paddy fields and hill areas, the scientists found that using "real" manure decreased ammonia emissions by 26.8 percent; nitrogen leaching by 28.9 percent and nitrogen runoff by 26.2 percent. The property or viability of the soil organic carbon, or SOC, was also "significantly increased." The upshot: Recycling livestock manure in agroecosystems was recommended, as it improves crop productivity, reduces reactive nitrogen pollution and increases the viability of the soil.

NPR notes that when carbon is replaced in the soil, the effects of reduced fertilizer reduce erosion, and soil with decaying roots and accompanying microbes soak up water like a sponge, so plant nutrients perpetuate themselves naturally. However, while these facts may be acknowledged across the board, getting farmers in place economically to "reverse the bus," as it were, is one of the biggest hurdles in the entire farming industry.

"That's the catch. Planting those additional soil-building cover crops costs money up-front … and it takes years to see the benefits. This is the main reason why only 5 or 10 percent of farmers in Iowa are really doing it."18

Yes, avant-garde farmers and their talk of helping the environment by regenerating the soil naturally may have been regarded skeptically by their neighbors at first, but now some of the most influential voices in the industry have been taking the conversation seriously, including Monsanto, General Mills and Walmart, according to NPR, and more than one prestigious environmental organization.

There's a little healthy skepticism regarding the underlying motives behind big money backing endeavors toward soil health. For his part, Ficke doesn't necessarily trust that the enthusiasm is genuine. There's just too much money on the line. As Permaculture Voices notes: "Converting a conventional operation requires a lot of commitment and determination on behalf of the decision maker. In corporate industrial farming operations that can be tough due to the bureaucracy of power."19

Then there's the question of the best soil for different areas and what "regenerative farming" means from region to region. There's still a lot of speculation and, understandably, trepidation; farmers et al. have poured what may amount to billions of dollars into equipment, materials and supplies, with the threat that the inertia-driven farming philosophies would come to a screeching halt.

Still, for the farmers who put their lives and livelihoods on the line to determine for themselves — and for others looking on — all are convinced it's worth it, not only for the conjecture of symbiosis but for the sake of soil health, which one way or another affects all of us. But it's not just for huge farming operations consisting of hundreds of acres. You can enrich the soil in your own backyard garden.

Try planting cover crops in between the harvesting of your tomatoes, cucumbers, broccoli and beets.

Your current lawn and ornamental plants could be transitioned to become more vegetables and other edibles.

Even if you have only a patio, porch or flower pot, you can grow sprouts, herbs, vegetables and even fruit trees, according to Rodale's Organic Life.20

Eating foods that are grown organically and with nutritionally charged roots is not just a good idea. Changing the toxic agricultural systems that have been set up and locked in place to grow "bigger and better" crops is crucial to the health and survival of future generations, not only in the U.S., but the world.

from HealthyLife via Jake Glover on Inoreader https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/04/30/best-way-to-raise-pork.aspx

[multiracialmedia-blog]

Multiracial Media Profile: Sarah Ratliff

Hi! My name is Sarah Ratliff and I founded Multiracial Media with a man named Alex Barnett. We began the site in March 2016. Starting today we are launching a new feature on Multiracial Media called the Multiracial Media Profiles. Quick Q&As about people in the Multiracial Community. I’ll start but below will be a link to a form so you can fill it out and others can learn more about you.

The Multiracial Media Profiles is open to all within the Multiracial Community: Meaning a Biracial / Multiracial / Mixed Race person and/or parents / guardians of Multiracial kids.

So below is me: Sarah Ratliff in a Multiracial Nutshell.

Please tell us your name: Sarah Ratliff

Please tell us your age (if you’d like): I am 50.

Where do you live? (City, State, Country): I live in Utuado, Puerto Rico. Utuado is in the interior of the island about 2.5 hours from the capital city of San Juan. I was born in the Netherlands (Holland), have lived in Nigeria, France and four U.S. states and the capital of Washington, D.C. I grew up in New York City.

And Now for the Really Personal Information About Sarah Ratliff

Did you grow up in a Multiracial family? If so, please tell us about that. I did. Both my parents are deceased now, but my mother was Black and Japanese and my father was German, Dutch and Irish. I recently did my DNA test and learned I have 15 ethnicities. They are: Benin/Togo, Nigerian, Cameroon/the Congolese, Mandinka (from Mali), Bantu/South African and that I also have English, French, Greek, Italian, Iberian and Finish in me. (Some are obviously greater percentages than others.)

My parents, circa 1986.

I have two brothers. One is a dark caramel complexion who can easily (and did) grow out an afro and the other is a shade or two darker than I am with long slightly wavy hair. I don’t have any recent photos of us but this from when my oldest was 14, my middle was 13 and I was 10—before my hair went boing!

If you’re in a Multiracial family or relationship currently, please tell us about that (and if that differs from the family setting in which you grew up, please do tell us about those differences). It depends on your perspective. I am married to a monoracial person (meaning that he is one race). My husband is African American. He grew up with two Black parents but like most Black people in the United States, he is actually Multiracial, due to miscegenation because slaves were routinely raped by their slave owners. This is evident in his medium brown complexion. I consider us to be in a Multiracial relationship. Others may not agree.

Paul and Sarah Ratliff in St. Thomas, April 2017. Photo credit: Toes in the Sand Photography.

Have you ever experienced racism directed at you or a family member (or relationship partner)? If you’re comfortable doing so, please tell us about that. Rarely have I / do I presently experience(d) racism directed at me. I am very light complected and in the U.S. I moved through the world as either a White or a Hispanic woman (this is what most people assume I am). My oldest brother has experienced racism directed him. My parents received some horrific racism directed at them. They were married in 1960 before it was legal throughout the United States for them to be married. My father received a lot of negative comments from former co-workers and friends. However, the worst racism they received was from his own father, who disowned my father for marrying my mother. I never met his parents.

My husband has been on the receiving end of racism too many times to count.

Since we’ve been living in Puerto Rico, it’s dramatically reduced. We both look Puerto Rican and so people assume that’s what we are. Depending on where we are on the island, reactions to my husband can range from curious to somewhat hostile. When I say depending, it’s dependent upon whether there is a light, medium or heavy concentration of dark complected / Black Puerto Ricans or not. The interior of the island, in particular the mountain region where we live, doesn’t have too many Black people. The coastal areas have many more because that’s where slaves were mostly lived.

In your job/career, do you work on issues relating to the Multiracial community or the Multiracial experience? If so, please tell us about that. If you have samples of such work that you’d like to share (jpegs, links to video or music, etc.), please do send along. I am an activist and a writer and most of my writing is advocacy related. I co-authored a book called Being Biracial: Where Our Secret Worlds Collide.

Being Biracial: Where Our Secret Worlds Collide

Good, bad, ugly and illuminating—everyone has an opinion on race. As Biracial people continue trending, the discussion is no longer about a singular topic, but is more like playing a game of multi-level chess. The anthology, Being Biracial: Where Our Secret Worlds Collide, cites the experiences of twenty-four mixed-race authors and parents of multiracial children of all ages and backgrounds, from all over the world. It blends positivity, negativity, humor, pathos and realism in an enlightening exploration of what it means to be more than one ethnicity.

My co-author is White and she’s married to a Black man. Together they are raising three Biracial children in England. Being Biracial, as we affectionately call it, is on sale exclusively through Amazon in the U.S. and in the UK it is on Amazon and in Waterstone’s.

My writing can be seen on my personal website. I am also one of the two founders and publishers of Multiracial Media.

What do you think are the biggest misapprehensions or misunderstandings that people have about Multiracial people and/or Multiracial families/relationships? How much time do you have? Sarcasm aside, I’ll make a list.

That we (Multiracial / Biracial people) are stuck up and think we’re better than people who are one race. Get to know us; we don’t bite and there are jerks as well as nice people among us.

That Multiracial / Biracial people are healthier and/or more beautiful. People, we’re not dogs. Our parents weren’t / aren’t breeders who looked for the best traits in each other so they could make a master race of genetically superior kids. Shocking though it may seem, our parents—like yours—fell in love and wanted to make a family.

That our parents didn’t think about the implications of having Biracial / Multiracial children. Quite the contrary, they spent long hours talking ad nauseam about it. They stayed up late and worried how society, their families, the cops, the schools, the neighbors, their coworkers, etc. would react to their kids. Parents of Multiracial and Biracial kids are continually shocked when people treat their kids like they’re normal. That we know we’re all normal isn’t the issue.

That our musical taste, interest in art and other forms of culture, sense of style, the way we talk, etc. are tied to being Multiracial. I don’t love rock, disco, funk, hip hop, jazz, salsa, classical, reggae, etc. because I am three races and 15 ethnicities. I like those genres because I have eclectic taste. And guess what? I know monoracial people whose musical tastes are similar to mine. I know people of all races who dress the way they want to dress not because they’re Biracial but because it’s what appeals to them. I know … shocking!

That I don’t wear makeup because I think because I am Multiracial I am prettier than monoracial people. I don’t wear makeup because I feel it’s artificial and I want people knowing what I look like.

That we like complete strangers touching our hair or asking questions about. People, please! Again, we’re not dogs, dolls or some science experiment.

That we’re exotic. Lord, if I hear one more person call me exotic, I might actually scream. We’re not dolls. We’re people, just like you. Please stop fetishizing us!

That we only have Multiracial friends. I have friends from all over the world—most of them are one race.

That we have or don’t have a “type.” I have dated men from various monoethnic groups as well as a few Multiracial men. I am interested in someone for what’s going on in their brains and hearts, and they may or may not correspond to his race / ethnicity. I have known Multiracial people only date… Like you, we’re all different and you can’t shove us in a box.

That our parents had children with each other to be different or unique. Going back to the second bullet, my parents were actually pretty reluctant to get involved with each other. They met over the phone and my father had no idea my mother was a woman of color. They broke up over it several times. They were together during the Civil Rights Movement and at a time when it was illegal for them to marry in many states. They really didn’t want to bring any personal, societal or legal trouble on themselves.

There are many others, but I think those could be the highlights.

Do you have a favorite Multiracial celebrity or celebrity Multiracial family/couple? If so, why? 

I have a several celebrity crushes and some of them are from “back in the day.”

Ed Norton (he’s White, I think of Irish descent)

Nicholas Turturro (he’s Italian)

Henry Simmons (he’s Black)

Daniel Sunjata (he’s Biracial)

Erik Palladino (I think he’s Italian)

Esai Morales (he’s Puerto Rican)

Jimmy Smits (he’s Surinamese and Puerto Rican)

Michael DeLorenzo (he’s half Puerto Rican and half Italian)

Malik Yoba (he’s Black)

Eriq La Salle (he’s Black)

Mark Consuelos (he’s half Italian and half Mexican)

Wentworth Miller (he’s both Biracial and gay, but I think he’s fine)

LL Cool J (he’s Black)

I am not noticing a pattern here. 🙂

That’s me: Sarah Ratliff in a Multiracial nutshell.

To Reach Sarah Ratliff on the ‘Net

Sarah Ratliff’s personal website

Sarah Ratliff’s content marketing agency website 

Sarah Ratliff’s co-authored book, Being Biracial: Where Our Secret Worlds Collide

Sarah Ratliff’s eco-organic farm website in English

Sarah Ratliff’s eco-organic farm website in Spanish 

Sarah Ratliff on Facebook

Sarah Ratliff on Twitter

Here’s the link if you’d like to create your own profile for us: Multiracial Media Profile.

Multiracial Media Profile: Sarah Ratliff if you want to check out other voices of the Multiracial Community click here Multiracial Media