The Age of Changes

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Age:
Gender:
Human/Beastling:
Faction:
(Power?)
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Name: Bastian St. Claire
Age: 24
Gender: Male
Human/Beastling: Human
Faction:Tolerant
Bio: Bastian's upbringing was...odd. His mother was a weak woman, who was constantly leaving him places in order to go to some job or another, promising that she would be making a better life for the two of them. But she would lie. Again, and again, as week long trips would turn into months. The friends and relatives she dumped him on tolerated it for awhile, at least until he got to an age that started to tempt their daughters and irritate their sons. By fifteen, however, he was well aware his mother would never keep her promises. He'd been a quiet, smart little boy, he grew into a quiet, smart and handsome young man. But none of those made him many friends. It really shouldn't have been all that surprising then, when he found a tiny Buddhist temple nestled on some back street of the city, that he stayed with the smiling, bald man that lived there. And while it might not have stopped him from developing a more than a little jaded view of the world, it taught him to accept the fact that something made him different. When the beastlings revealed themselves, he couldn't make himself hate or fear them like the world did. Because like him, they were simply different. That much, he could understand.
Appearance:

Name: Alyce Meridian
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Human/Beastling:Human
Faction:Tolerant
Bio: People tell her she's not quite right in the head. They tell her she's stupid too. And they're right, on one account. She is well aware she's nothing close to anyone's definition of normal. But not stupid. They only say that because she won't speak to them, only smiles 'the smile' and they all give her uneasy looks and hurry away. And that's just fine. They don't like her and Alyce most definitely doesn't like them. Boring, pompous sheep-creatures. Men have done things to her. Men made her this way. In that way she's a little bit jealous of the beast-men that have surfaced. At least they're honest about being animals.
Appearance:

Name: Natalie Sorento
Age:18
Gender: Female
Human/Beastling: Beastling
Faction: Hiding (for lack of a better word)
Bio: She was never sure that this was a good idea. She's watched the world of men, the world they tried to coexist with. It was violent, full of hate and intolerance, even among their own species. How the leaders could possibly expect them to accept anotherrace that was as smart as, or smarter than their own? They offered them weapons in exchange for tolerance. It cannot possibly work. But she is the daughter of one of the very men who put this plan in motion, though still a pup, she is a weapons engineer in her own right. But the things she created were, in her mind, only for the defense of her people, to protect those who could not otherwise protect themselves. Her father told her she was naive, that she should be proud that the leaders considered her work good enough to use. Natalie cannot bring herself to agree with him.
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Name:Orion Whitecliff
Age:23
Gender:Male
Human/Beastling: Beastling
Faction:Domination
Bio: In Orion's mind, revealing their presence was something long overdue. They let the humans gain number, build their cities, sat back and watched as they destroyed the world around themselves and each other. The thing is, he never understood whythey let the population boom. True, humans breed like rabbits, but they were so frail. If they hadn't given them time to develop weapons like guns, well. It would be his people ruling the planet, not these small-minded idiots. But the leaders were scared, afraid as the population grew that they would only be overwhelmed. They let the humans develop weapons while Orion's people, blessed with the strength to destroy these people, hid from them, were distorted in their stories and made into some sort of laughable myth. Well. The time has finally come. They've emerged, though not in the way Orion would like. They shouldn't have bartered with their technology. They should have used it. Then those stupid sheep would really have a reason to fear the things that moved in the night.
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Name: Fallon Sharp
Age: 21
Gender: Male
Human/Beastling:Human
Faction: Fear
Bio: He was used to fantastical creatures being in stories. Sometimes he even used to wish they were real. And then suddenly they were. Great beast-men that were somewhat more intimidating than the stories painted them. People were scared, the weapons they brought were so much stronger than anything humans had created. He knew well enough what a normal gun did to oh-so-delicate human flesh. They were bug zappers compared to these things. Wars would be worse than ever before...and men would have even more efficient ways of hurting those weaker than them. And who said these beast-men could be believed, that their intentions were peaceful? Things weren't meant to have two forms, it wasn't natural. And no one just made weapons, handed them over to a possible enemy and just left themselves unprotected against their own technology. That was just stupid. No, he was sure there was some things they kept for themselves, the best of the best, certainly. Nothing good could come of trusting them, he's sure everyone will see that soon.
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Name: Elektra Gamet
Age: 26
Gender:Female
Human/Beastling:Human
Faction: Hunter
Bio: She makes people nervous, but that doesn't bother her too much. Elektra was raised by a father who was kind of odd himself. He didn't say much, so she's not used to conversation and social niceties anyway. Besides, making people nervous is part of the job, really. They tend to get skittish around guns, and hers is a really good one, if she does say so herself. And it keeps people out of her way, which is more than a little helpful, especially when you're paid to hunt beasts trying to be men. It's nothing personal, not really. It's not even that she likes catching them. She's just...good at it.
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Name:Casey Greene
Age:23
Gender:Female
Human/Beastling:Beastling
Faction: Coexistence
Bio: In her mind, things shouldn't be this difficult. After all, Casey has been living in the human world since she was tiny, with no one the wiser concerning her family's little 'secret'. And just because the leaders decided to go public, didn't mean they abandoned their facade abruptly. They were smart about it, garnering the opinions of their neighbors before they revealed themselves. Things worked out well, it seemed like nothing changed. Maybe they were just lucky they lived in a tolerant neighborhood. Casey heard that in some cities, admitting to be a beastling was like recreating the Holocaust. It didn't make sense. People turning on their neighbors, even though they were no different than they had been before. If not for the coming out, no one would have known they even existed. But she believes they could make this work, if people would just try.
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Name: Idrian Westmore
Age:19
Gender:Male
Human/Beastling:Beastling
Faction:Hiding
Bio:Once upon a time he might not have minded so much, living amongst humans. That was before he spent awhile in a circus though not by any of his choosing. He was young and he was stupid. And it cost him. For as cruel as his keepers were, the crowds they entertained were worse. His beast-form was too large to fit through the bars of the cage they kept him in but too small to be properly intimidating. So Idrian suffered. Until one days, a girl set him free and disappeared without giving him so much as a name. He vanished, and never looked back. And now, all that is threatened again. The life he set up afterward, the place that was safe, that was home, was being threatened again. He can't even say why; because in his mind, trying to fit in with the humans was not worth the price they paid.
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Name: Victor Gorgon
Age: 27
Gender:Male
Human/Beastling:Halfbreed
Faction: Hunter
Bio: Had his mother's people not shunned them, he supposed things might have turned out differently. But they did. Had his father's hate for the beast-men that let his wife die not festered, he might not be what he is. But it did. Had they never met, he might have a people to belong to. But they did. And so he is what he is. The half-breed son of a beastling mother and a human father. When he was young, she got sick, whether from loneliness at being isolated from her family and friends, or from some more physical disease they could not say. Human doctors asked for enormous amounts of money to tell them they didn't know what was wrong. Beastling doctors wouldn't come to see a woman who was outcasted from her clan. And so they had to watch her waste away, bit by bit, helpless to stop it. In some ways, Victor thinks he might have hated her for not letting a husband and a son be company enough. But in others, he knows he hated those who abandoned her. His father taught him how to hunt them, how to trap and frighten and kill. There was no one to temper the darkness he fostered. His father threw himself into the hunt almost with an intensity that bordered on obsession. It was as if he could think of nothing else. So it wasn't so surprising when one of the beasts they hunted killed him. His dying wish? Kill them for me. And so he does, sometimes wishing the people wouldn't pay them to. Sometimes wishing the prey would escape. But they do. And it doesn't.
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Name: Tessa Rain
Age:19
Gender: Female
Human/Beastling:Human
Faction: Fear
Bio: Her life thus far has been normal. A normal family, a normal boyfriend, and she started her first year of college. Then the world twisted, and everything changed. The beastlings emerged, more of them in her school than she would have thought. And the boy she loved was one of them. At first she thought he was joking, then she watched him shift into something out of a movie, or perhaps a nightmare. Her fear hurt him, she could see that. Then he was forced to run and when he asked her to come with him, she couldn't say yes. He disappeared and she never saw him again. And all she could think of was that she couldn't say yes.
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Name: Cassandra Lewellen
Age: 22
Gender:Female
Human/Beastling:Beastling
Faction:Domination
Bio: Their leaders caution makes her laugh. Of course, the idea that they should be pandering to humans make her kind of sick. They are weak, they are judgmental. Her people have the weapons, they have strength, and they'd certainly treat this place better than the humans have. Why in the name of the seven hells to appease them? It doesn't make any sense, but then, most things their leaders decide to do don't. She's lost too many friends to the humans to make make nice with them, they are too weak-willed for her to respect them. But one day. One day she will see them bow at her feet.
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Name: Gabriel Pilus
Age:23
Gender:Male
Human/Beastling: Beastling
Faction:Coexistence
Bio: Perhaps its foolish of him to think that humans and beastlings can get along. Certainly he knows his case is not the same for all beastlings. His family had money, and that protected them after their leaders stripped away the facade that let them hide for so long. He knows they were lucky. But in the same way he knows that the weapons they give the humans are nothing compared to what they've kept for themselves. That the leaders don't really intend to just blindly submit. Someone has to mediate between the two, or things will never be peaceful. Why shouldn't it be him? His parents are wary, of course. They hear about the hunts through their networks, see the hate in their neighbors eyes. But if it was this or hide, he'd rather be doing something useful. Even if it is naive.
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Name: Alessandra Thrace
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Human/Beastling: Beastling
Faction: Hiding
Bio: Most of her kind were raised surrounded by humans, subtly integrated into he culture so that being revealed would not be such a shock on either end. Alessandra was not. Alessandra lived with a group of others like her in the cities beneath the cities, remnants of buildings and tunnels left from when the earth shifted around the growing civilizations in the old days. They favored neither form over the other, found themselves even straddling both at once.
It hurts her to leave the middle ground between pale girl and snowy white ox. And she's never even seen a human before. They were just as much a myth to her as she was to them. And now they've been thrusted into the spotlight. Not comfortable for one so accustomed to the dark.
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Name: Charlotte Blackwood
Age: 21
Gender: Female
Human/Beastling: Human
Faction: Acceptance
Bio: When she was a little girl reading fairy tales, Charlie rooted for the dragon. Whenever Shark Week rolled around on the Discovery Channel, a little part of her always jumped at the thrill of seeing those seals get taken out. Whenever someone was singled out in high school because they were strange, she leapt to their defense, but never befriended them.
That which is unusual appeals to her. That which is dangerous calls out to her. Granted, that has altogether prevented healthy relationships from forming, even shallow friendships, but it is her nature. So when the Beastlings came forward and let themselves be known, she was ecstatic. She just wants to be able to sit down and talk to one of them. But those who made themselves public are a little swarmed by the media. And the others aren't exactly easy to pick out of a crowd if they're trying to blend in. It's frustrating. But she's persistent.
Appearance:

Name: Komiyan Lowmann
Age: 22
Gender: Male
Human/Beastling: Beastling
Faction: Coexistance
Bio: Komiyan isn't stupid. He understands that the differences between his kind and the humans will prevent easy interaction, at least initially. But he's not a coward, either. He's not afraid of the work it will take to put things in place for a long and peaceful relationship between the races. You don't grow up in the wilderness without learning how to make the difficult possible. And it will be difficult. Very difficult. Because the wilderness isn't exactly the best place to pick up the cadences of social interaction. But he's willing to try. He's willing to work. And he doesn't understand why other people seem not to be.
Appearance:

Name: Dillon Brown
Age: 24
Gender: Male
Human/Beastling: Human
Faction: Hunter
Bio: Dillon never had to do that much by way of work growing. He just oozed charisma, and the right smile in the right light at the right angle would send girls - and occasionally boys - tripping over themselves to do whatever he wanted. Dillon was smart enough to recognize this, mischevious to manipulate it. And that never really changed as he grew up, though he needed to study the art of flattery to stay on top of things.
It lets him get close to people. He's small and friendly looking, after all. At most dangerous, people might suspect him of being annoying. And that is rarely true. So no one he's paid to kill is ever quite sure why their back hurts, or why their drink tastes funny, before things go black.
Appearance:

Name: Alistair Trent
Age: 22
Gender: Male
Human/Beastling: Beastling
Faction: Domination
Bio: Alistair was the youngest of the council, the most explosive of them. The least predictable, and likely the least reliable. But he was persistent, and he was proud, and he was persuasive. And his point was valid. Why hide? Why let themselves be overrun by the pests that covered the world's surface like a plague? Survival of the fittest was the way of the world - to deny that was foolhardy.
The council could not be persuaded to attack. But he convinced them to make themselves known, spearheading the push into awareness, knowing that they would be feared. And while he plays along with the waiting game and the patient negotiations, becoming one of the most easily recognized of their kind in the process, he and others who think like him quietly feed the anger with weapons that they knows cannot truly hurt them. One day soon, the humans will panic, and they will lash out. When his kind finally take their proper place as masters, it will be in an at of self defense. And no one would know that it had been his plan all along.
Appearance:

Name: Piper Smith
Age: 21, though she looks young for her age
Gender: Female
Human/Beastling: Beastling
Faction: Domination
Bio: Piper used to like humans. She used to be friends with humans. She used to want to be able to live with them side-by-side, out in the open and unafraid. That was always a quiet hope, one resting under her skin as she went about her life pretending to be something she wasn't. Then she graduated from high school. Then she got really, really drunk. When she woke up, it was in a pool of sick and blood, her pale skin covered in bruises, cuts, and tawny fur, her fingers contorting into claws, her fangs exposed.
There was screaming. There was cursing. There was a sharp pain as something shattered across her face. Then there was just rage, and screaming, and more blood. Then silence.
They blamed their deaths and her injuries on a wild animal. They blamed her sudden withdrawal on shock and grief.
But she knows now what happens when humans are faced with soething they don't unerstand. They turn on their friends. So why wait and leave your back exposed?
Appearance:

Name: Claire Mullen
Age: 25
Gender: Female
Human/Beastling: Human
Faction: Hunter
Bio: Claire has never been good at handling fear. She experienced so much of it in her childhod, dealing with an abusive mother hopping in and out of rehab for this addiction or that, that she learned to channel it into anger, hating that period of vulnerability. She taught herself how to protect herself with anything and everything, hiding behind leather, steel, and gunsmoke to make herself feel safe.
No one pays her to hunt the abonimations that surfaced. She does it for her own safety. She kills them because they cannot frighten her when they are dead. And so her anger does not rule her quite so constantly. Blood washes away the memories. Blood and crack and booze.
She doesn't even see that she's turning into her mother.
Appearance:

Name: Jackson Schneider
Age: 20
Gender: Male
Human/Beastling: Human, for all intents and purposes
Faction: Coexistance
Bio: Jackson has always known about the beastlings. His father didn't when he married one of them, but the first of the two children turning into a hawk one day and not being able to change back was a bit of a giveaway. The man was shocked, furious at his wife's deception and horrified at what had happened to his little girl, who had only been four years old at the time. He almost left her. But a month away from her and his now avian daughter just proved to him that he loved them too much to leave, despite everything. Besides, she had already been pregnant with their second child when it had happened, and he wasn't going to abandon two children.
Jackson only learned of this when he was old enough tou nderstand, though there had never been any doubt that the hawk that stayed around of her own volition was family. It didn't need to make sense - he just knew it, in that way that only children can really know anything.
He has never been able to shift, shut off from that part of his heritage. But he hopes that the publicity of his mother's kind, and the technology they bring, will be able to change that. That they can fix his sister. Even briefly.
He just wants to be able to talk to his own blood.
Apperance:

Name: Elaine Strong
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Human/Beastling: Beastling
Faction: Coexistance
Bio: The way Elaine sees it, this doesn't need to be a big deal. Her people, after all, aren't all that different from the humans. She wouldn't even go so far as to call them different races. Just...cousins. And while families fight, they always come together in the end, when it's truly important. All of this buzz, she is sure, will blow over, and things will be fine. She will be able to resume her life as it always has been. She'll still be able to finish college, still start a career. Maybe even one day start a family.
Coming out doesn't have to change things. Does it?
Apperance:

Name: Abel Magnus
Age: 20
Gender: Male
Human/Beastling: Beastling
Faction: Hiding
Bio: This is a bad idea. Every fiber of his body screams it. They shouldn't be doing this, not now, not like this. Not when they are so few compared to so many of them. Not bearing weapons. This can't possibly lead to acceptance. It's inviting manipulations. It's inviting study. It's inviting slavery.
The humans seem to have few qualms about enslaving their own children, after all. He's seen that with his own eyes, felt that pain, that terror, for himself. He'd been an orphan, and the ring had found him while he'd been out foraging for food. If he'd tried to change, they probably would have killed him. So he hid what he was, played the human child. He hid until he could run, then kept on running and kept on hiding.
He's been hiding since. And he doesn't want to stop.
Appearance:

Name: Olivia Bishop
Age: 23
Gender: Female
Human/Beastling: Human
Faction: Wavering
Bio: Olivia's opinions and views have always been clear-cut. Always. She followed her gut, and it never lead her astray. It lead her through life in a less than sterling neightborhood, got her a job that required no education bt provided enough money to live on without being illegal or taking her clothes off. It pushes her out of bars moments before things get violent. In short: her gut is good.
But right now, it feels like she's got a bad case of indigestion. Her gut can't make up its mind. On the one hand, these people are terrifying and unnatural. On the other, they seem to have good intentions, and have apparently always been there without killing everyone on a whim. This really doesn't change anything. So she doesn't know. She just doesn't know.
It's up to them to convince her one way or the other, it seems
Appearance:

Name: Alvin Creed
Age: 21
Gender: Male
Human/Beastling: Human
Faction: Uncomfortable
Bio: Alvin has always know that there were things in the world that couldn't be explained. He was fine with that. And then they got up and started walking around out of what might as well have been nowhere. It was a lovely boost to his confidence after years of mocking the world of organized religion, to see these things they couldn't explain crawling out of the woodwork. But jeez. That shit is weird.
It feels like he's walked in on his parents having sex - and yes, that's a feeling he knows from experience - but on a global scale. It's natural and it makes sense, but ugh. Not really something he wanted to see.
So yeah. He's a little weirded out.
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