#* intros

Basics.

it became very obvious from day one that the usual specter of a man having a son was not in the cards for the fussy, bumbling child rafe turned out to be. what might have usually sparked pride and excitement was only shrouded in frustration and an ocean full of disappointments as the baby with no idea what was expected of him fell short, time and time again. why was he taking so long to crawl? to walk and why wasn't his first word a mash of sounds resembling something like baba?

and so a precedent was set that Rafe stuck to, only realizing when it was far to late to correct course. his early years were spent fighting for attention in all the wrong ways until eventually it was simply what he was known for - what he was good at. defiance, rebellion, a feisty temper with a knives edge. it only seemed to further drive the wedge between him and his parents. his mother, able to do little more than watch as her husband shunned their first born in favor of those that came after him.

by the time he was fifteen, rafe held a rap sheet longer than most, and was only free of the fate of juvenile detention because the robbery that placed him in front of the judge that night clung to the coat tails of his mothers death. a head on collision that killed her and her brother instantly. the same collision that then drove his father to the bottom of the bottle. disappointment was one thing, but now, jun hie liu was downright nasty.

and so began rafe's separation from what could only be called a family for formalities sake. with a slew of contacts at his disposal after his years as a young teenager offered him a foothold in a world that too few truly see into and within a year, several shanghai king pins began to seek him out for particular jobs, offering his name to crews looking for a specialist. it wasn't exactly what he'd call himself, most of the time, rafe had no clue what he was doing, but inevitably, it was working. word spread through china, and then even further, until he had a hand in more heists and robberies than he knew what to do with. the fitter, his name whispered to those looking for a man to fit in anywhere, and everywhere, all at once.

when he landed on turkish soil, it became more than obvious to him that he'd found somewhere to lay roots; or rather, a place to call ground zero for everything that followed. he took his time, choosing to spend the first few years flying beneath any sort of radar; many believing that someone had caught up to the fitter and he'd faced the consequences of some senseless lift - and when he resurfaced, it was tied to kurtlar.

notes: tldr he's been doing crims since he was very young, street shit to begin with, until his little street rat tendencies became a sought after trait for the big jobs. until he landed with kurtlar he was kind of the highest bidder type of guy; he loves to play people against each other for a higher pay day. when he was 29, the law caught up with him and he was sentenced to 15 years, was released after 8 and has been in LA ever since, still tied to the kurtlar.

Reflection.

face claim: lewis tan hair color: brunette eye color: hazel height: 6'2 scars: its probably better to ask what body parts of his arent scarred in some way or another. most prominent is a few healed over bullet holes in his shoulder, a stab around in his abdoment, and what looks to be healed road rash along the right side of his back tattoos: we're clean skinned baby.

Personality.

Basics.

> born first to a doting, loving couple, Elaine and Rocco Cooper would welcome another six kids before they decided their family was complete. Never on losing sight of the little people they were raising or fostering a warm and welcome home - Nate never needed anything.

> very quickly Nate took on the role of older brother with a certain ease that was almost comical. It was as if he'd been born for it. Born to help guide and nurture the myriad of siblings that came after him.

> with the whole world at his fingertips, Nate couldn't see beyond Los Angeles. It was his home - his family was here. He couldn't havr thought to ask for anything more. An endearing concept, if so many didn't think that he was boxing himself in. He was bright, confident and had the whole world at his fingertips - and yet, Nate never felt the desire for more.

> staying, when he could have experienced it all, made all the sense in the world when he met Evelyn and within the year announced they were expecting. Two people had never been made more perfect for each other than Nate and Evelyn, and the prospect of a child between them promised an ever after that most people might have dreamed of.

> but Los Angeles holds just as many nightmares as it does dreams, and two weeks before Evelyn was due to give birth, both she and Nate's mother were collateral in a driveby shooting. By the time first responders arrived, they were gone, their unborn child with them.

> the trauma drove him to drink, fight and gamble. The well rounded, reliable man he was buried beneath the horrific weight of grief and loss. He racked UK thousands in debt, running loan sharks in circles until half the city knew his days were numbered but when Enzo Barone plucked the twenty two year old from the streets and pointed him towards the light - a promise of purpose. It was difficult not to cling to it.

> over the years, Enzo became the epitome of an older brother/father figure to Nate. Where he'd lost touch with his own family, The Family grew to take their place. His love and loyalty as they helped to open his eyes to a life that wasn't yet over. And it wasn't, by far.

> Eventually, it was impossible to find one without the other. Enzo didn't do business without Nate within eyesight. They'd long since discovered that Nate was often first to spot things that weren't right - a gut instinct that proved worth honing as the years passed.

> A decade slipped by and it became necessary to guard a great many more of the Family members, and despite his own reluctance, Enzo requested that Nate take more birdeye view of his position. Instead of offering his expertise to only the protection of the Don himself, he became the overseer of the Family and their Security team. The lives and wellbeing of The Family as a whole now entrusted to him.

> the recent discovery of the board members all dead, and Enzo himself missing, Nate is expecting the weight of the world to come down on him.

Reflection.

face claim:  jon bernthal hair color:  brunette/black eye color: brown height:  6'3 scars:  too many to count honestly

Personality.

Basics.

> born to a militant and law abiding family in Chicago, it was a shock to everyone to find out that Jack wouldn't be following their footsteps. She thought it was too self righteous to stand for the good that simply rot from the inside.

> an absolute force of nature, even from a young age, it was clear that whatever she wanted, she'd simply take. And that was the steep curve that Jack Taylor was formed upon. Quickly, her no bullshit nature saw her as the loud mouth, abrasive girl who simply wanted attention but as she matured it became very obvious that she didn't need anything from anyone and that it was ingrained in who she was. Cold, unfeeling and callous, Jack shrouded the reputation of her family for a fight.

> A scrap here and there became a gateway to the underground of Chicago and it was here, at the age of fifteen, on a cold winter night that Jack fought her first illegal fight. She was scrappy, dirty and out for blood. She lost, however after holding her own for four minutes and thirty seven seconds, she'd gained all the attention she needed. Slowly but surely, the scrappy teenager amassed a sort of following until she was picked out do the bloody line up of winners one night by a man who said he'd make her great.

> and great she became. She had the speed and the determination to feel bloodied flesh and bone beneath her fists, and now she had a man willing to teach her everything he knew about fighting. Each style posed a new difficulty, but by the age of nineteen, Jack secured a lightweight championship in boxing and a place in mixed marital arts up and comers.

> but she'd had a taste of blood, and fighting simply wasn't enough. Built with balls of steel, Jack approached the patriarch of one of the deadliest underground criminal gangs in Chicago and offered herself to the devil. Jack took her first like two weeks shy of her twentieth birthday. And the number of bodies quickly grew.

> with her profiency with using her body as a weapon, and pairing it with the tools the criminal world could give her, Jack became Chicago's living nightmare. Within two years, she carved out fear in a city that already knew the worst of criminals and held it with an iron fist. So much so, that when the man calling the shots thought to try and put a hit out on her - afraid that she'd take everything from him - she did exactly that and took him out, watching as the empire he held, crumbled without him.

> mere months later, she was approached with a contract by the nightshades. It was a choice that saw Jack never looking back as she stepped into the mantle of assassin for the dangerous and reasonably unheard of criminal organisation.

> for fifteen years, she took lives and trained killers under the figurehead of the nightshades maintaining a hold on the reputation she carried. Eventually, however, her proficiency with the firearms and weaponry the organization dealt in made her an obvious choice to take the role of weapons dealer. A decision that Jack accepted, however reluctantly, with the promise that she could still step back into the shadows as an assassin when the need - or desire - arose. She was an asset - not a pawn.

> within the first two years of coming to Los Angeles, Jack bought and renovated a building in the less than sparkling districts of LA and created a well renowned boxing and martial arts gym called K.O. She still fights professionally on occasion as well as coaches. It's not unheard of to see her attend and fight at the Slaughterhouse.

Reflection.

face claim: Crystal Reed hair color: Brunette eye color: Brown height: 5’9 scars: a hairline scar from her right ear down to her collarbone, two bullet wound scars just below her navel, a jagged scar from a knife wound in her left thigh, one across the palm of her hand, scar from a split eyebrow just above her left brow tattoos: only a single straight line from her hairline to the small of her back slightly off centre to the right of her spine.

Personality.

name: P. M. Priya (Priya Rama)

age: 26 years old

parents: Mowgli

homeland: The Jungle

gender: Cis Woman

sexuality: Bisexual, Aromantic

PINTEREST HERE.

Miss Priya Rama was never meant to have a social season.

It had never been customary for the young ladies (or gentlemen) from The Jungle to learn the ways of society. Some might go so far as to say it was unnecessary when so few found their way out of The Jungle and into the ‘Ton in the first place. Dancing the quadrille, playing the pianoforte, and learning to host elaborate dinner parties were frivolous matters, part of a different world. And for Priya, any knowledge of that other world had begun to fade the minute her mother, Shanti, left.

Miss Shanti, a young woman who was a proper Member of Society, met Mowgli when they were but children. Her family had taken a voyage together when their ship lost its way. They were quickly taken in by the village on the outskirts of The Jungle, and they lived there for weeks until their rescue ship was able to reach them.

The second time Shanti’s family came to the village, two years later, it was on purpose. A short stop, only for a few days, and with a few gifts in tow - parasols, fine silks, unique foods from elsewhere, and book after book served as tokens of gratitude.

Shanti’s third visit was six years later, for just under a year.

It was a purposeful escape, with villainy still afoot across several lands. It was also purposeful in that Shanti was soon expected to find a husband. Her parents had not noticed her escape until it was too late for anything to be done.

Shanti and Mowgli were childhood loves who never married.

By the time Priya was born, eleven months after Shanti’s final arrival in the village, her parents had finally managed to track her down.

She was there. And then she wasn’t.

Priya was raised by her father, other members of the village, and the animals in the nearby Jungle. She grew up with a deep appreciation for the nature that surrounded her and never felt that her life was at all lacking. And she had been fully prepared to live out the rest of her days as a perfectly content villager.

But then a letter arrived.

Twenty-six years of life, and it was the first letter she had ever received from her grandparents.

It had been an invitation to spend the summer with them, to get to know both them and her mother (and her husband and children) on their estate. And with it came the offer, if her schooling was sufficient enough for “their standards,” to function as a governess for the youngest of her half-siblings.

She said no.

Her father insisted she say yes.

Back and forth they went until Mowgli’s urging towards adventure finally pushed Priya over the edge.

That was a month ago. Since then she has been shoved into more sparkly dresses than she can fathom, questioned about every book she has ever read and every language she has ever even somewhat attempted to learn. As a governess, it has been determined that she will suit. As a member of the family?

To the public, Priya has been presented as a distant relative of the family. Her status as Shanti’s child, as it turns out, is a secret even to the other members of her immediate family (the husband and children line in the letter had been misleading, to say the least). And truthfully, her season is more of a formality than anything else.

Priya wasn’t quite sure what she was expecting when she boarded the ship that brought her into Auradon Proper, but nothing that has transpired thus far has lived up to expectations.

She has not gotten to know her mother, has not gotten an answer for why she left and never returned, and has not felt like a member of the family for one moment. Add on top of that the fact that it feels as though she is floundering in the public eye and Priya has had just about enough of her life in Auradon. She is on the precipice of turning seven and twenty - it is far too late for her to change her ways or her thinking about her family.

name: Eloise Potts

age: 20 years old

parents: Mrs. Potts

homeland: Auradon

gender: Cis Female

sexuality: Demisexual

HEADCANONS - sibling death tw

Eloise Potts has always been a dreamer, but a schemer? Not so much. Growing up around the castle, she used to dream that she was in Emma’s shoes - a princess (or at least another form of royalty). She used to wish upon stars that she could go to Emma’s classes, learn languages like her, take a peek into her books. And while Emma’s parents sometimes allowed those things, for the most part Eloise was left to her own devices. At no point in her childhood did Eloise try and change her fate. She was the daughter of the head housekeeper. She was the help.

Eloise is the baby of the family by seventeen years. She had an older brother named Charles, known by many as Chip. He sacrificed himself at age 12, during the Cauldron War. It was absolutely devastating for everyone, and the trauma of it is still felt in the family to this day. Eloise never met Chip (he passed long before she was born), but through others’ stories she feels like she knew him.

Without any siblings, her only company as a child was the other children of the servants. She was a little bit of an odd duck back then, but it’s translated now into Anxiety™. She tends to second guess herself/her actions.

You’d think that Beatrice was meant to be Eloise’s chaperone with how much the two of them were together, but Eloise isn’t out in society. By simple way of tradition, it was never an option for her. Instead, she’s followed in her mother’s footsteps and become a maid.

Eloise truly does love her mother, but sometimes she wishes that she’d been bold enough to try and find another path. She wants... much more than her provincial life.

She knows that a prince isn’t about to sweep her off her feet and catapult her into the life she always dreamed of, that to change her fate she’d need to put in some hard work, but sometimes she allows herself to entertain the thought that it could happen. One day someone could say she’s beautiful, that they see her. That she exists.

Eloise’s biggest dream, however, revolves around school. She’s always loved learning, but has had to teach herself most things. There’s only so much trapping oneself in Belle’s library can do for a person. She’s considered pretending to be male and sneaking in, but that would require garments that she does not have, a boldness that she is not even sure she possesses, and a solid ability to lie (thus far a skill that has gone largely untested). Women aren’t allowed to pursue university in Auradon, and Eloise doubts that they would make an exception for a woman of lower breeding, but she has started to allocate some of her wages towards a fund for it just in case.

Eloise is generally very nice and she is always proper, but if you catch her on a bad day... she can be a little snippy. She doesn’t always handle stressful situations well.

CURRENT CONNECTIONS

name: Alina Vladimirovna

age: 31 years old

parents: Vlad and Sophie

homeland: Auradon

gender: Cis female

sexuality: Heterosexual

HEADCANONS

Alina was born before the creation of the Shadow Realm, years before Anastasia was reunited with her family. She was the by-product of a passionate love affair between her mother and father, and though their marriage came later, for a while it did make her somewhat of a controversial figure.

Alina used to be a ballerina - and a good one too. She trained almost all her life for it, having discovered her love of dance at a young age. Her parents, wanting her to be a card-carrying Member of Society after the Cauldron War, had always been a little hesitant about their daughter being so determined to pursue a profession. However, she very quickly became their shining star.

Until she wasn’t. The tale of her ballet downfall is truly everyone involved’s best kept secret. One minute she was preparing to dance the principal track and the next she was back in her childhood home, desperately searching for a job.

The story, like most at the time, has to do with a man. And also blackmail. With her father at that point facing some financial trouble due to his love of the finer things in life, Alina had taken a chance by putting her family before her career. The owner of the opera house only paid her off once before he found out exactly who was blackmailing him. Her things were packed up the next day and delivered to her home before she even awoke. Rumor has it that she was injured (more gossipy rumors insisted she was with child).

Once upon a time Alina was part of the social season. She was pretty and well-liked, but incredibly picky. The only man she took an interest in turned out to be part of an arranged marriage. Not too long after his engagement announcement was made, she started to go to marriage mart events less and less. A full dance card isn’t fun if you aren’t actually enjoying the company, and Alina has always felt the need to spend her time on Earth well. It’s been years since then.

Now, Alina is a chaperone-for-hire. It’s a decent job for a spinster, especially since you still get to know everything that’s going on. As a chaperone, you also overhear a lot of things that you’re not meant to acknowledge.

Alina does acknowledge them. She is involved in a lot of shady stuff, including but not limited to art forgery, light spying, blackmail, etc. She uses her position for personal benefit but also, in her mind, for the greater good. It’s never caused anyone actual harm. It’s just business.

She is the embodiment of gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss.

CURRENT CONNECTIONS

Alasdair Litel - hookup. Now that she’s a spinster, no one really cares about what she gets up to. Love isn’t in the cards, so... why not?