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 Posted: Wed Mar 01, 2017 7:53 pm
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Name: Finbar
Age: 19
Sex: Male
Sexual Orientation: Homosexual
Rank: Sailor / no craft rank
Location: Islands south of Western
Physical Description: Finbar is tall and lanky, with long arms that are good for swimming and wide shoulders. His hair is blonde and wavy and his eyes are a greeny blue.
Personality: Finbar has a quiet demeanor and a calm, unaffected personality. He rarely speaks, and may come off as simple minded to those who don't know him well, since he finds it difficult to understand what people are saying sometimes and thus often isn't good at following directions. Part of this is his own fault, though. He doesn't like dealing with people or talking to strangers, so he will just nod and agree with someone until they go away, even if he has no idea what they said. And when they come back and ask why he didn't do what they told him to, he'll just stare back with a blank look on his face, playing into this image of him.
His social circle is small and tight knit, and he remains almost completely silent around those who aren't in it. He remains indifferent to most outside influences. He cares very little about what other people think of him, particularly if negative. His response to someone giving him a hard time is to simply ignore them, either figuratively or quiet literally, walking away from people he doesn't like, or not looking at them when they're talking to him, which often got him into trouble with authority figures as a child, another reason he would sometimes play up his 'slow minded' persona. He is not skilled in social graces. He usually does either what is necessary for the job at hand, or whatever he feels like. If someone is in his way, he will unceremoniously shove them out of it, rather than politely ask them to move.
He is a little shy, finding it harder to take a compliment than an insult, but responds quickly to kindness; warming up to people sooner than you might think. He is friendly and well mannered enough once he had a good opinion of someone, and rarely forgets a person he has met before. Given his tendency to avoid people he doesn't like, first impressions matter a lot with him, and it can be difficult to change his opinion of you once it is set, for that reason. Finbar is a serious worker, enjoying the quiet solitude of the sea. He finds the job of sailing almost meditative, liking the work despite its difficulties. Once he has a clear idea of what he needs to do, he will work diligently towards that end.
History: An only child, Finbar's mother ran off with a trader headed for Northern when he was still just a toddler, leaving him to be raised by his alcoholic father, though 'raised' might be too kind a word. His father could barely take care of himself, and had nothing but disdain for his young son. He did little more than was necessary to ensure his survival, and at some point stopped even that. Finbar suffered more from neglect than abuse, though his father did fly into a temper sometimes when he was drunk. He learned quickly how to take care of himself. While his father was passed out, Finbar would have to finish the nets he was working on to pay the bills. And, when that didn't work (or when his father spent the money on wine), would sometimes resort to stealing from the local market. The islanders were private people, so no one wanted to interfere with another's affairs, but most of them knew about his situation and let him get away with it.
Despite his difficult home life, Finbar attended lessons at the Hold like any other child, where they were taught by a Harper and learned important skills for Hold life, like swimming and gutting fish. Finbar showed himself to be a particularly powerful swimmer, able to hold his breath for large periods of time. As soon as he was old enough, he started working as a diver, gathering shells to sell or trade. Spending so much time in the water, Finbar got multiple ear infections as a child, which, left untreated, gave him permanent partial hearing loss. He can still hear, but usually needs to be looking at someone to hear what they're saying, and won't notice when they speak from his left side or behind him. This only made things more difficult at home, since he would often not hear when his father would call for him, or not understand his instructions, giving him a reputation for being absent minded and slow.
The Hold's Harper and other children in his lessons were the only one to see through this, as anything that was written down he could understand with ease, and were the only ones who ever really tried to help him. One group of older children in particular took him under their wing, looking after him when he was younger, letting him tag along with them, and teaching him how to sail and fish. Finbar was never officially taken on as an apprentice, his father couldn't spare the free labor, but he soon started working on fishing ships around the island to earn some extra money. Though originally hired as a drudge due to his lack of craft training, Finbar made an adept lookout and a skilled sailor, due in large part to these impromptu lessons, so he was able to find work easily, though his wage was still less than that of someone trained in a Hall.
When a dragon clutched near their island, Finbar was too young to stand, and considered too slow-minded by most of the adult residents of the island to make a suitable candidate anyway. He attended the hatching to watch and support his friends and would visit them from time to time as weyrlings, however. Enjoying the freedom and solitude of the sea, Finbar signed up on several longer voyages across the northern and southern continents, spending several turns at sea at a time. Some time after returning he heard about the group his old friends had founded and asked to join up. He currently works as a crew member on the group's largest ship, the Derecho, specializing in defending ships on long trips from the other continents.
During the first return of thread, their ship and several others were caught out in a Fall along a popular trading route. If they didn't happen to have dragons with firestone flying with them, they surely would have been killed, giving him a new respect for dragonriders and their place on Pern. Finbar is neutral when it comes to the politics of Weyr vs. rogue thread fighting, preferring to stay out of it. But he does think more needs to be done to protect trading routes and ships at sea, if not by a Weyr then by someone.
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Posted: Wed Mar 01, 2017 8:07 pm
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Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2017 6:56 pm
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Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2017 4:17 pm
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