#bridgemonttask002

[leahbelfer-blog]

BRIDGEMONTTASK 002; 

I’ve finally finished Leah’s about page. It’s a pretty terrible because Tumblr was being frustrating and deleting things, so I apologize if her bio seems a bit jumpy BUT at least it’s something right now.

HERE IT IS

I’m gonna be working on a connections page, so feel free at come @ me with any ideas.

[archiefm]

BRIDGEMONT TASK OO2; biography

Born in Quigley’s pub on the backstreets of sunny Dublin, young Finnegan O'Callaghan was thrown kicking and screaming into the rowdy suburbs of Irish drinking culture. The son of a landlord and a fishwife, he never had much in the way of earnings, but there was never a dull moment in his lively estate, where ASBO’s thrived, but community spirit conquered. At school, Finn was pegged as lazy and unmotivated, though truly his dyslexia made it hard for the boy to learn in the same environment of his peers and only made him more closed-off in class. Struggling with anger management, Finn moved from school to school, unable to fit the cookie-cutter mould that school enforced on him, though whilst academic studies were of little interest to the boy, he soon found his true passions lay in recreational activities. Immersed into the joys of sport from as young as four, Finn was an ardent Munster fan and anticipated nothing more than the day he could finally fit into his brother’s old pair of Rugby boots.

His calling finally came unexpectedly, not in the form of rugger, but through dance. To learn to express himself in a non-academic way, he began tap dancing, finding therapy in the beat of his soles against the cracked kitchen tiles (much to his mother’s dismay). It wasn’t a conscious choice, Finn just realised one day that dance was something that made him feel. A king of the streets, Finn made his fortune on those cobbled pavements – dancing and drawing to earn his keep. By default, Finn became a street artist, each penny he earned from his chalk drawings saved in a jam jar towards buying his first pair of tap shoes. Though many of his less-than-amiable neighbours called him a Nancy and a Gaybo, Finn refused to quit at his somewhat ‘unconventional’ hobby, for the young scrapper found energy, life, and released anger through the rhythm of tap. Soon he branched out into street dance, hip hop, break dancing, lyrical, his days spent smacking his scuffed feet against the broken patio into the night.

When he was thirteen he took up boxing and as expected, his newfound ‘macho’ pastime conflicted with his dancing. The boxers called him ‘soft’; the dancers called him ‘inelegant’. He felt like two different people; having to choose between interests was like being handed a knife and asked to which half of himself he wished to cut away. He couldn’t afford professional training in dance, with most schools based in England and limited scholarships available. Instead, he made the street his studio, racking up a small fanbase on YouTube. When he was fifteen he made his debut in Billy Eliot at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin. Enter Stage Right Nina De Souza, talented, beautiful and Italian; ballet dancer, operatic singer, genius whiz kid, and spoiled brat. She was selfish, conceited, hell bent on getting her own way, and every director’s nightmare. Finn fell for her like a house of cards. He’d always had a soft spot for girls who meant trouble. And so their hellish courtship began.

By the time they were seventeen, the two young swans had danced in every playhouse across the Republic. They were known in theatres across the country for their tempestuous personalities, their raging arguments with one another, their tendency to drop out of shows altogether without any notice, yet the money kept rolling in and the audiences continued to grow. For three years, their families continued to put up with their hysterical fights followed by passionate reconciliations. He was too possessive, and she was too wild. Their car crash of a relationship finally came to a catastrophic halt when Nina broke off the whole affair and returned to Italy with her family. For months Finn tried to contact her, yet his phone calls, texts, Facebook messages were always ignored, until finally he was driven to drastic measures and used his savings to get a plane to her home town. When Finn turned up uninvited at Nina’s house she freaked out – and rightly so – she contacted her agent, accused him of stalking her, and had a restraining order placed against him. Finn was arrested, held in a station overnight, and charged with harassment before he was allowed to return to Dublin.

After the incident with Nina, Finn lost the fight in his eyes. He became far more hostile far more likely to retaliate with his fists and picked fights not for the thrill of feeling his own fists pummel another into a wall, but for the sensation of his own brittle bones cracking. He dropped his tap shoes in a dumpster, stopped talking to his friends, followed his father’s advice and went back to school to complete his Leaving Certificate. A few short months later, and Finn was packing his bags, saying his bittersweet goodbyes, and travelling half-way across the globe to be as far away as possible from his past self, his mess of a life, and most of all Nina. It seemed somehow ironic that the boy who had been cautioned by the Garda so much during his youth for spray painting, busking without a licence, and raucous parties would become the grumpy, aloof overseas student studying a degree in Forensic Science; that his once reckless spirit could be crushed so easily.

Of all things that Finn could be called, straightforward would never be one of them. Ever since his first days in Bridgemont, the boy was pegged as hostile, hot-headed, cynical, rude. He seemed to spend more time in his thoughts than engaging in conversation. Like a ticking time-bomb, Finn’s anger was of the calm kind, liable to explode without a moment’s noticed. His unpredictable personality make him something of an enigma to those who aren’t amiable with the lad, though hostile as he may appear, he harvests a good heart. Loyalty lies at the centre of his affections, and whilst his friends are few in number, he makes a lifelong partner. Somewhere within Finn, there’s still some fight left, but mostly he has recognised that his hedonistic lifestyle did little to leave him fulfilled – mostly, it just emptied him out – and over his three years at university has resigned himself to a nihilistic predicament and a cynical disposition.

[bridgemontrpg-blog]

BRIDGEMONT TASK 002; delve a little deeper

Write your character a biography, as you would in a full app roleplay. Keeping this biography will also be very helpful for your muse when plotting. Having something to link to is so very useful. If you don’t want to write a biography or you don’t know where to start, try something like this:

Create a character timeline. Start from birth and continue through significant events in your character’s life. Write dates and whatnot. This task will help you sort out your muse’s backstory and really delve deep into who they are. 

If you’d like, after you’ve completed the timeline, you’re more than welcome to write your biography, too. 

Have fun getting to know your character! And don’t forget to post your links to your bios in the #BRIDGEMONT:TASK tag and the #BRIDGEMONTTASK002 tag.

Also, remember, these are never mandatory and can be done at any time!