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Wade, Nathaniel; Empath
Topic Started: May 10 2008, 11:27 PM (81 Views)
Nathaniel Wade

Name: Nathaniel Leander Wade
Age: 28
Gender: Debatable.
Hometown: Jersey City, New Jersey.
Ability: Empathy.
Level: 8

Physical Appearance: Nathaniel's a bit under average height at 5'7'' and of slender build, weighing in at 140 lbs. His hair's short, very curly, and a nondescript sort of light brown. (It's one of the few nondescript things about his appearance. If I had to pick one word to describe Nathaniel's look, loud would be, if not my first choice, then definitely in the top 5.) He's oval-faced, with a small, full mouth; thick eyebrows; and defined cheek-bones. He's got green eyes and thin, light eyelashes. His good-looks lean towards the feminine side, even before his clothes and make-up get involved.

Nathaniel sews his own clothes. He learned to mostly as a matter of self-defense: he didn't care for the clothes in the boys' department and none of the girls' clothes fit him properly. Nathaniel's style is unique and (as previously stated) loud - unfortunately so. For example, he's got no problem with matching zebra striped pants up with a fringed vest and sequined neckerchief. He's done it on multiple occasions. He's got a particular fondness for obnoxious patterns, bright colors, and anything that glitters. He's a bit of a fashion magpie, that way.

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Picture Base: Joachim Gram.

Personality Description: While Nathaniel isn't exactly over-the-top, he's obvious enough, in his way - even without the way he dresses be a big ol' tip-off. Outside of work, his default setting tends to be flirtatious; he's the sort of person who's always either falling in love or looking to fall in love. He's soft-spoken and his mannerisms are gentle. He's not, by nature, a belligerent person; when he's confronted with the belligerence of others, he'll become more flamboyant in response instead of, say, argumentative or standoffish. He calls everyone, from gas station attendants to his sister, by pet names; honey or sweetheart or my dear.

Nathaniel has a generally sunny disposition. He's come to terms with the mixed-up nature of humanity, its many contradictions and imbalances, how a person can be kind in one moment and irrationally cruel in the next, depending on which of their triggers are pulled. He's had a good deal of personal experience with the latter; he's just had equal experience with passionate and accepting people, the sort who work to change the world. So while he doesn't ignore the uglier parts of human nature (he hardly could, his job being what it is), he also doesn't let it weigh too heavily on himself. Verbal insults, for one, tend to roll right off his back (though he will get a mite tetchy on his sister's behalf). He's got a good deal of personal poise.

Nathaniel's job requires that he take a certain amount of care with people; he never quite shakes the habit outside of work, and he can be unintentionally condescending. When he's humoring or just tolerating someone, especially someone he doesn't care for, it's obvious (and involves a lot of if you say so and oh, of course, my dear, with accompanying eye-rolling and exasperated sighing). He's also something of a mother hen, and he's got hovering and fretting down to an art. He can also be pretty fussy about his appearance; he was vain enough to pick up sewing as a matter of self-defense, and he hasn't lost that vanity or the fastidiousness that had him carrying around hand-sanitizer even as a teenager. One look in Nathaniel's office or flat would be enough for a person to realize what a neat freak he can be: everything is arranged at right angles, and Nathaniel pouts when people don't take their shoes off at the front door.

His intelligence is above average, and he's got curiosity in spades. He likes to know why it is that people do what they do, how they think and what makes them tick - which helped to influence both the degrees he earned and the jobs he took once he graduated, aside from his genuinely wanting to help people.

Strengths: Generally sunny disposition. Possesses a good deal of personal poise. Intelligent and curious. Passionate. The sort of person who's always either falling in love or looking to fall in love. Activist. Good-looking.
Weaknesses: Unintentionally condescending. A bit of a neat freak with a tendency towards compulsion. Vain. Has a tendency to hover and fret which can be either endearing or really annoying, depending on the person.

Likes: Sewing. Obnoxious patterns, bright colors, and anything that glitters. Dance and theatre. Back-stage work; costuming. Rallies, marches, and other activist-type things. His jobs. Spicy food. Black and white movies and silent film; drive-in theaters. Cleanliness.
Dislikes: Bigotry and social injustice. (Then again, who doesn't? Besides, uh, bigots and the socially unjust. Yes.) Most mass-produced clothes. Most mass-produced music, for that matter. Obnoxiously loud people. Oatmeal and other bland food. Messiness.

Hobbies or Talents: Nathaniel's been known to participate in community theatre, especially when musicals are involved; he's a decent enough actor and a better dancer, but he's never going to be good enough to support himself on theatre or dance alone. Also, he's an activist. I wonder how many times I'll manage to use that word in this profile. (Activist activist activist.)

Profession: Social worker. He works domestic cases in the Cascia community as well as counseling prospective and advancing students at St. Rita's: students who wish to continue studies there past level 2 are required to consult with him, first; he's just there to weed out the ones who'd use their powers for evil/morally ambiguous reasons.

History: Margaret Wade - an HIV case worker, employed by a free clinic in Jersey City, as well as an activist and clairvoyant - gave birth to Nathaniel Wade on June 25, 1979. Margaret was the sort of girl who trusted people, indiscriminately, and never bartered away an ounce of childhood's optimism - which made her a prime candidate for single parenthood, living as she did in a district of Jersey City where not all the boys where good folk, where some of them were, in fact, perfectly willing to take advantage of a girl, then cut and run. Margaret was unlucky enough to get herself entangled with one of those boys, though she still considers the end result a stroke of extremely good luck.

Margaret returned to her work shortly after Nathaniel's birth, and, during her shifts at the clinic, Nathaniel stayed either with his aunt Helen and her girlfriend, Sophia; or with his mother's new boyfriend, Bariş - a hippy, vegan, activist type who actually stuck around. In fact, Bariş did such a good job of sticking around that Margaret was pregnant again - this time with a girl - only a year after Nathaniel was born; Nathaniel's half-sister, Havva Wade-Kaspar was born on April 5, 1981.

Had he been born to another family, one not so happily embedded in the queer counter-culture, Nathaniel's childhood and adolescence might have involved a good deal more angst along with his self-realization; as it was, Margaret subscribed to the "let your child be who they are" school of parenting. (Bariş further subscribed to the "teach your child to fight dirty so they can be who they are, more safely" school of parenting.) So for Nathaniel it wasn't so much a process of self-realization as it was, simply, a state-of-being. He took an interest in his mother's make-up and never lost it, started playing dress-up and never really stopped, carried about baby dolls and then a baby sister, begged for dance lessons until he finally got them, and took an interest in boys once he was old enough to take any interest in either sex. (Basically, yes, he's a textbook case of transgendered. I shall pause now so that the total lack of shock may register.)

Both Nathaniel and Havva were, thus, spared ever feeling like foreigners to their own family and were introduced, early on, to a network outside of their family - family friends, the men and women whose cases their mother worked, activists and political dissenters - who were nothing if not outside the social norm. Nathaniel still had to cope with the pig-pigheadedness and intolerance of people outside that network, of course, but he always had a pretty wide safety net to fall back on.

He did well in school, took an increasing interest in dance and theater, and attended every gay pride and rights rally to which he could reasonably walk, bike, or hitchhike, whether in Jersey or New York City. He spring-boarded from an (admittedly selfish) interest in queer activism to an interest in politics and social justice, in general: in short, by high school, he'd become every bit the activist his parents - and the proverbial village - had raised him to be.

He hit something of an emotional rough patch when his power made itself known: like an electrical circuit that no one realizes is conducting, Nathaniel began to both receive and to transmit a jumbled mess of emotions. The effects were sporadic and struck most often when Nathaniel was either studying or dancing - two times at which he achieved a strong enough focus to unwittingly tap into his power - which was often enough to be suspicious. His decision to attend the University of Cascia was strongly influenced by his desire to join St. Rita's Institute - with which both his mother and his auntie Sophia were familiar - as well and get his power under control.

Nathaniel's first degree was in psychology - he pursued dance and theater through groups outside of the school but didn't take either on as coursework. After receiving his bachelor's and reaching level 5 in his studies at St. Rita's, Nathaniel took a year off and scampered to Brazil, where he joined an environmental action group that ran camps in the forests. His job was to teach any camp attendees, no matter their age or nationality, how to climb up trees and throw rocks at bulldozers. He was surprisingly good at it, all things considered. He returned to Cascia to complete a master's degree in social work and to study at St. Rita's through level 8. He now holds both a community job as a social worker and another with St. Rita's, counseling students.

RP sample:

Regulus sat at the long kitchen table in Grimmauld Place, his chin propped up on one palm – elbows on the table, though he was too distracted to notice and berate himself for such – listening intently to a broadcast on the Wizarding Wireless. Not a news broadcast, certainly. He could hardly be bothered with them, when what was actually worth knowing about, these days, (and what usually didn’t get broadcast) he already knew. Oftentimes, he’d have been involved with it, firsthand. Or second hand, at the least, through one of his relations.

The point being that Regulus – unlike the other, poorly-informed wizards and witches of England – didn’t hang on the Ministry’s trite reassurances and political drivel. No, his preferred form of drivel had nothing to do with politics.

“I can’t believe this.” Regulus hissed – his outburst punctuated by the narrator’s announcement of a commercial break, transitioning to a jingle for Lady Tugwood’s Beautification and Betterment Potions (oh, and now he’d be humming that all day, as well). He twisted around in his chair - to face Kreacher and the table where he was busily preparing tea – and said again, but louder, “I can’t believe this.”

Obligingly – Regulus was particularly fond of just how obliging Kreacher was, around him; he’d always been downright belligerent, around Sirius – Kreacher turned towards him and said, “What can’t Master Regulus believe?”

“I can not believe,” Regulus said, “that Joscelind’s baby’s father is a muggle-born.” He slapped his hands down on the table, forcefully. “As if any pureblood in their right mind would sleep with a muggle-born and not,” he stumbled slightly over the words, but forged on, “take precautions.”

He paused – long enough that Kreacher looked to be readying a hearty agreement – before adding, musingly, “Unless she’s not in her right mind. Oh,” and settling back down to listen, again, because the situation could, perhaps, be redeemed.

He heard, faintly, as someone knocked on the front door, then, more distinctly, as Kreacher called from the front hall (it was a testament to his distraction that he’d never even noticed Kreacher leave the room), “Master Regulus! Master Cassius is here to be seeing you!”

Had it been almost anyone else, Regulus would have called back, “Not now, Kreacher, I’m very busy.” (One of the benefits of being the Black family’s heir was, after all, turning away visitors and would-be petitioners for whatever reason he liked, petty or not.) As it was, he only made one, discontented noise before turning off the Wireless and making his way out to the front foyer.

He smiled, catching sight of his friend, and said (a touch archly, but he thought he’d earned that much), “Cassius. Finally decided to visit again, have you?”

Then – because Regulus never had been able to stay mad at Cassius for long – he clasped one of Cassius’ wrists in his hands and tugged him inside, pausing only long enough to tell Kreacher, “We’ll take tea in the parlor,” before continuing on down the hall.

“So tell me,” he said, turning to face Cassius, “what’s kept you away. Bear in mind that I can always drag it out of you.” He smiled, brightly. “I’ve been learning charms for that, you know.”
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Schuyler Montgomery
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The All-Knowing Jackster
Welcome to Isla de Cascia, Curly.
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