WELCOME!

BIOGRAPHY “Have you ever heard of selective mutism?” At the time, no, he hadn’t. But now, selective mutism was a term Emile was very familiar with. Imagine spending the majority of your life adrift. No, not really adrift. He was very much anchored to Asteria Falls, but less figuratively he and his family literally lived in one of Asteria Falls’ lakes, as one would expect from merfolk. Being on land was different for him. Emile was anxious there; off balance and awkward. He was very much always the kid to hide behind his parents’ legs or the collars of his own sweaters. Where his brothers were eager to get out there and explore another world where their fins were replaced with feet, Emile wanted nothing more than to retreat to his watery bed. This anxiety he harbored has carried with him to adulthood. His parents wanted the best for their children, all three of them. They sent them off to school, despite living in a lake, and even rented an apartment so their children had somewhere to invite friends over and do their homework. It wasn’t exactly functional, but it was their variety of dysfunction that proved they were so loving to one another. Emile’s parents adored their children. When two of three boys came out as gay, they didn’t so much as bat an eye. They were accepting through and through. But Emile couldn’t shake his anxieties as most with anxiety cannot. It sculpted him into a taciturn individual. Now, despite years of therapy that he still attends, he’s still a man of few words and many anxieties. His brothers have moved from Asteria Falls, but he still resides, living in the water and his own apartment now, where he carries out the tradition of keeping his things while he lives his live elsewhere.

MOTHER:

mother name/fc

alive(age)/deceased(how long ago and at what age?) 

your charas relationship?

FATHER:

father name/fc

alive(age)/deceased(how long ago and at what age?) 

your charas relationship?

SIBLINGS (if applicable):

names/FC

alive (age) / deceased (how long ago and at what age?)

optional

grandparents

aunt/uncles/cousins

Some are born with a silver spoon in their mouth, but Kasim? Kasim was born to a mother and father who couldn’t have loved each other less. He came out fighting and only learned from the best from there on out. His parents would fight constantly. Sometimes their screaming matches would go on for hours. He couldn’t understand why they stuck together. He figured it was too much paperwork, because it certainly wasn’t for love. The tension in that household bred a son who sought attention by the worst means possible. Kasim started scraping on the playground as early as third grade. He smoked at age eleven and started drinking by fifteen. He was always a “problem” in the eyes of his father at very least. His father seemed to despise him, pushing him to his absolute limit, and then some. As he grew, his mother wasn’t the only target of his father’s rage. His mother saw past his actions and loved him despite them. She was his saving grace in the darker periods of his youth.

When he was sixteen, however, enough was enough and Kasim’s mother walked out on he and his father without a word. Kasim decided then it was best he did the same. Old enough to be legally emancipated, he petitioned the court and was granted his freedom from his father. That same day, he left much in the same fashion as his mother, without a word. He had no money and no plan and nowhere to go. So he packed what he could in the trunk of his car and vanished as far as anyone else was concerned. He’s lived just about anywhere you can think of, constantly chasing new horizons. Or at least he was.

Never making quite enough to scrape by, he clung by the skin of his teeth to finding a reason to keep going. He’s quite the impulse spender, never having had a parent really there to tell him “no” from time to time. He’s got a long running hobby of dabbling with drugs and drink, so he’s never been great at getting or keeping jobs or getting or keeping money. He’s managed to find a job here and there, however.

Working odd jobs has become his specialty, and he never sticks with one for too long. He’s always restless and never wants to stay in one spot for too long. When he did have a job for a brief time in northern California, he was a barista at the local dive bar. Walking home one night from work, he was exhausted, focused only on getting back to his car and going the fuck to sleep. He needed to move his car from a loading zone before he got another ticket. Half asleep and focused on his phone, he never saw the massive dog that ran out in front of his car until the very last second.

Slamming on the brakes, Kasim silently prayed to whoever was listening that he not hit the thing and ruin his car, but fate wasn’t on his side. Or maybe this was what was in the cards for him all along. After colliding with the animal, he dashed out to see if it survived, cursing under his breath. The dog was massive and, to him, looked like some kind of wolfy-husky thing. Its breathing laboured, he reached out to stroke it, thinking it was taking its last breaths. In return, the beast lashed out and bit Kasim’s arm, shaking it to and fro. He had to kick the dog to get his arm free, and the dog rose to its feet and dashed off, limping. Knowing he didn’t have health insurance, Kasim crawled back into his car and did his best to bandage it up. It didn’t heal quite right, leaving him with a wicked scar some weeks later.

Kasim thought it was just bad luck and a run in with the wrong dog until the next full moon. It was as cliche as it could get, but it was the unknown to Kasim. That first shift was nearly five years before the winds of fortune brought him into Asteria Falls. While somewhere in between northern California and southern Oregon, he’d heard of some place he could find sanctuary and others like him if he so chose to seek it out. Slowly, he trekked north, looking to find somewhere he fit in. He rolled in and has been there for a few days at most at this point, still living out of his car and still doing his absolute best to scrape by. For now, he’s here to stay. Finally, those horizons he’s been chasing seem to have led him here.

PERSONALITY:

• He isn’t necessarily combative, but for sure an instigator. If he smells a fight coming, even if he thinks he’ll lose, he likes to provoke to get his adrenaline up.

• Kasim is a truly loving and caring person somewhere under all the vague aggression and standoffishness. He’s jaded from his parents treatment and not exactly keen on making friends or lovers, but he’s loyal once he’s made them.

• He has a definite drive for pleasure, always seeking out another lay or another high. He’s self indulgent in that way, and definitely impulsive. He likes to get things sent to his P.O. box that he’ll never use, like ladybug farms and books on how to craft with cat hair. His trunk has become half a wardrobe, and half a random storage unit because of that.