[Application]
Self;
Name/Alias: Nako
Personal LJ: malemiko
E-mail Address: vodkaxsprite@gmail.com
AIM: supernakotaco or GrannyPinako
Other Messengers: None that I use with any regularity.
Character;
Character: Carmela Rodriguez
Fandom: Young Wizards
Character age: 18
Residence: Manhattan, East Village
Occupation: student
If [student], then specify school: NYU
Reserved Character? Yes
History;
Canon or AU? Mostly canon; AU in that she's being pulled from a few years into the future from the current end of her canon, so if her author ever gets the next book out some of her backstory may change. My plan is to retcon as much as possible.
Supernatural powers? None as such. Though she is not a wizard herself, she speaks the wizarding Speech fluently, which allows her to communicate with inanimate objects, animals, plants, that kind of thing (at least - we can assume this is true. We've only ever seen her talk to aliens, Kit's dog, etc in canon using the Speech, but since literally everything that exists speaks/understands it, it follows that she could talk to a tree if she wanted to). She also has her dissociator, which is in the history down there in better detail.
Wikipedia [or other] link to Canon Information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Wizards#Carmela_Rodriguez
http://www.youngwizards.com/ErrantryWiki/index.php/Rodriguez%2C_Carmela_E.
Anything else we should know? In the series Carmela comes from, wizards work freely among us - in our world, the one we all live in now - and we're just not aware of it. Partly this is because most people, when they see something that they can't understand or think is impossible, make up their own reasoning for it to reassure themselves. The other part of it is that a wizard's primary job is to keep the universe running smoothly: in other words, to halt entropy. What that means is that in most circumstances, normal, non-wizarding people won't even be aware that anything was ever wrong. For example, in one of the books, Carmela's brother used a spell to clean pollution out of part of a bay to keep the water clean. It's not something that your average person would even notice, and the ones who did would never think to attribute to something like magic.
Of course, there are situations in which people begin to become aware of unusual things occurring. For example, in Wizards at War, there is a threat from a dark-matter substance spreading through the universe that is slowly breaking it down - and the wizards can't figure out how to stop it. The practical effect that this has on our world is that it basically increases negativity in and between people - something which most people would never think of having eldritch causes.
This isn't the case across all of the universe, obviously. There are planets on which wizards are a perfectly normal part of everyday life. For example, there's a character named Roshaun who is a prince and a wizard on his home planet. Wizardry is tied into the royal line there, and his subjects expect him to use his wizardry to help him rule. They actively place the responsibility of the protection of the planet on him because they know he's a wizard. When characters like Carmela's brother go to those kind of planets, they're free to practice wizardy openly.
The practical upshot of all this is that Carmela's wizardry-influenced adventures are not something she discusses with anyone outside of that group of people under any circumstances. That part of her life is a secret. Also, it can be assumed from canon context that Carmela speaks four languages fluently: English, Spanish, Japanese, and the Speech.
In-Game Backstory: Carmela's life was pretty normal for a girl living a train ride away from New York City up until she was fourteen. She was never very close to her older sister, Helena, who was very studious (which Carmela was definitely not), but she always got along well with her little brother, Kit. Her main interests once she hit the age of thirteen were boys and clothes - nothing too odd for a teenager.
Then, when Carmela was fourteen, Kit came home one day and announced to the family that he was a wizard. Not a magician, an honest-to-god wizard, and it was his "job" to basically help save the world. Scratch that - not the world, the universe.
This changed things more than a little. The Rodriguez family had to adjust to knowing Kit was off on life-threatening missions in other galaxies while giving away that anything was weird - not to mention the fact that the dog got really smart and all the pieces of the entertainment system started talking to each other. Out loud. Sometimes in Japanese.
Carmela figured out that the wizardry her brother had done to make the DVD player work meant that their TV could now get satellite channels from other galaxies. Apparently, she found out, all these aliens could talk to each other through satellite chat channels, and they used the same language Kit did for his wizardry - the Speech - to do it.
So she learned the Speech. Not all of it, obviously, but more than enough to be able to get by. It turned out to be extra useful when Kit and his partner Nita went on an "exchange trip" to another planet and three other (alien) wizards, Roshaun, Filif, and Sker'ret, came to stay with Nita's sister, Dairine. Carmela quickly made friends with them - well, with Filif and Sker'ret at least; Roshaun was not the friendliest person in the world. She helped Dairine take them shopping at the local mall, since none of the visitors had ever seen one before, where she gave Filif fashion advice and tried to keep Sker'ret from eating the food court's plastic trays.
She also discovered alien shopping networks, and bought herself all kinds of neat stuff, including her favorite toy: a laser dissociator, Kit called it, which looked like a cross between an eggbeater and a curling iron and also fired lasers. She actually accompanied Kit (sneakily and without his knowledge) and several other wizards on a mission to save the universe from being destroyed by dark matter. She's encountered versions of the Lone Power before, so it's safe to say she isn't exactly on his list of favorite people.
Carmela's family and friends are, above all else, the most important thing to her. Especially her family. As she sees it, nobody has the right to mess with her litte brother (except her). She worries a lot about him and his wizardry partner Nita, who she's also grown close to over the years, but at the same time she's terribly proud of him for taking on such a huge responsibility, and doing it well (not that she'd ever tell him that!). Carmela makes "friends" fairly easily - meaning, she has a lot of people she could call up and hang out with if she wanted to. As far as true friends go, though, ones she's close to that she trusts and cares about, the circle is very limited. She definitely believes in the idea of "quality over quantity" when it comes to her friendships, and if you mess with those people, watch out - she has a very wicked imagination sometimes.
It terrified Carmela when she first heard exactly what Kit's wizard's oath entailed - such as the fact that he could very easily die doing it. In retrospect, too, part of that fear was not understanding exactly where that power came from, or how exactly he was using it. Carmela has always been closer to Kit than to their older sister Helena, though, and when she asked Kit to tell her more about wizardry, he was more than happy to. Once she understood it, it was an easy step to acceptance.
When Carmela started learning more about Kit's wizardry, and finding out that you didn't have to be a wizard to be involved with people who were, it was only natural to her to want to help him out, and, by proxy, his wizarding friends.
Flilf and Sker'ret, too, were a wonderful change from most of the boys Carmela knows. They like Carmela, and not because they think she's pretty or any of that nonsense - neither of them is even humanoid! When they were on Earth she enjoyed teaching them about all of the Earth customs and culture that were so vastly different from their own, and seeing their perspective on all these things she saw as perfectly normal that they'd never even thought of before. It was something of an eye-opening experience for her.
Carmela's in the city to study foreign languages at NYU. She's told her parents that she intends to go to work for the government or possibly the UN as a translator, but what she really wants to do is work for her friend Sker'ret at the Crossings (an intergalactic train station, so to speak), as a translator for anyone that comes through the travel hub that doesn't speak the Speech. College is something that is non-negotiable in her family, and realistically, Carmela knows that the education she'll get there is something necessary. She chose NYU because it's just a short trip to get home, which was on her list of requirements for a school.
Presentation;
Third Person Sample:
"Kit, pleeeeeaaaaase?" Carmela begged, putting on her best kicked-puppy face.
"I am not installing an interdimensional doorway in the back of your closet just so you can go running off to a mall in another galaxy when you want to cut class," her brother replied from the depths of one of the boxes he was helping her unpack.
"It wouldn't be interdimensional!" she argued. "Just intergalactic."
Kit unearthed himself and leveled an exasperated expression at her. "No."
"It would be energy-efficient. I wouldn't have to buy a train ticket to get home, either. Or get you or Nita or Dair to do gatings for me."
"No." He handed her a stack of manga, which Carmela carried over to the bookshelf above the desk. "What's wrong with using the Grand Central gate, anyway?"
"Duh, Kit. Not a wizard, remember?"
He shrugged. "You've helped enough that the Powers That Be would probably give you a little leeway on that one."
She put the last of the manga in the shelf and turned to face him, eyebrows raised in surprise. "Really?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Hmmmm." Her expression turned thoughtful. If she understood her wizarding friends, then she could use that gate to go almost anywhere. Like to visit Filif and Sker'ret. Or to any of the billions of shopping malls the universe offered. Or Ireland, which would be fun because it would scare the heck out of Ronan. Or--
"I don't like that look on your face." Kit's voice interrupted her train of thought. "You can't just use the gate to go on trips for fun, 'Mela."
"Oh, I know." At the doubtful look on Kit's face, she sighed and switched to the Speech. "I'm not going to do anything stupid," she said. "I promise." Even if it didn't have 'power' when she talked in the Speech the same way it did when Kit did it... it still was a very, very bad idea to lie in the Speech, and Carmela knew it.
"Thank you," Kit said quietly. He glanced into the box in front of him. "The rest of this is underwear and I'm not touching it. How about if I come back up here next weekend, and we'll go talk to Rhiow about getting you a pass to use the gate when you need it?"
Carmela gave a squeal of delight and launched herself across the room to hug her brother. "Thank you! You're my favorite brother in the world."
"I'm your only brother," Kit said, amused, his voice muffled by her hair. "Welcome, 'Mela."
Questions;
Set I.
Would you rather learn everything there is to know, or experience everything there is to experience? Experience everything. That's how you learn things, isn't it? By experiencing stuff? And believe me, there's a lot of stuff out there to experience.
What is your guilty pleasure? ...Movie musicals. The costumes! And everyone knows all the dance steps without anyone ever teaching 'em to them. Don't ask me to sing anything, though, you don't want to hear it, I promise. I'd say home shopping networks, but I'm not guilty about that, so I don't think it counts. Ha!
If you could have any superpower, what would it be? Teleporting would be fun. And I wouldn't have to spend money on the subway. Or talk Kit into giving me free rides.
What is your biggest pet peeve? So you know those people who clearly have no filter between brain and mouth? The ones who'll just say whatever without thinking about "Does this sound stupid?" Yeah, them.
If you could be on one TV reality show, which would it be? Oh oh! One of those ridiculous competition ones. Like The Amazing Race or something. Or one of the ones they do on, y'know, MTV or whatever, where a bunch of airheads go after some "rock star" nobody's ever heard of. That would be hysterical.
Is the glass half empty or half full? Half full! What's the point in going through life being pessimistic about everything all the time? You get out of the world what you put into it, and all that.
Do you believe in God? Not... exactly. I mean, clearly there's a higher Power out there, but I think most religions are just ways we have of dealing with it 'cause we don't get it yet.
If you were on the Titanic and there was only room for one person on your lifeboat, would you save your mother or your best friend? My mother. My best friends could definitely handle themselves on a sinking ship.
Set II.
Describe how you met your best friend. I have two. I actually met Filif and Sker'ret through that exchange program thing Kit went on with Nita. I mean, they were there to stay with Dairine, and Roshaun was there too, obviously, but they had their whole Thing going on and also? I don't know a any other tree who likes to shop as much as Filif does. Give the boy something neon, and he's happy for a week. And I still don't get what Sker' thinks is so great about my magazines, but whatever, if that's what he wants to eat I don't care. Anyway - so yeah, met them through the exchange program. I think I ended up being more useful to them for Earth culture than Dairine was. Kinda sucks that they're both so far away, but at least Sker' lives at the Crossings where he's easy to find.
Describe your first kiss. Interesting thing about thirteen-year-olds is, they're not such great kissers. Haven't had time to get the experience, y'know. Anyway, I was in... what, I guess eighth grade? And this kid Mike in my class asked me to go to a movie. His mom drove us to the theater, and then came and got us after the movie was over, and she told him to "be a gentleman" and walk me to my door. And then he kissed me when she wasn't looking and ran off! [laughs] It was very cute. He was so embarassed he didn't talk to me for a month. I think we actually went on a couple more "dates" after that. He moved away at the end of the year, though.
And also, the song is "Hard to Live in the City" by Albert Hammond, Jr. :D
Name/Alias: Nako
Personal LJ: malemiko
E-mail Address: vodkaxsprite@gmail.com
AIM: supernakotaco or GrannyPinako
Other Messengers: None that I use with any regularity.
Character;
Character: Carmela Rodriguez
Fandom: Young Wizards
Character age: 18
Residence: Manhattan, East Village
Occupation: student
If [student], then specify school: NYU
Reserved Character? Yes
History;
Canon or AU? Mostly canon; AU in that she's being pulled from a few years into the future from the current end of her canon, so if her author ever gets the next book out some of her backstory may change. My plan is to retcon as much as possible.
Supernatural powers? None as such. Though she is not a wizard herself, she speaks the wizarding Speech fluently, which allows her to communicate with inanimate objects, animals, plants, that kind of thing (at least - we can assume this is true. We've only ever seen her talk to aliens, Kit's dog, etc in canon using the Speech, but since literally everything that exists speaks/understands it, it follows that she could talk to a tree if she wanted to). She also has her dissociator, which is in the history down there in better detail.
Wikipedia [or other] link to Canon Information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Wizards#Carmela_Rodriguez
http://www.youngwizards.com/ErrantryWiki/index.php/Rodriguez%2C_Carmela_E.
Anything else we should know? In the series Carmela comes from, wizards work freely among us - in our world, the one we all live in now - and we're just not aware of it. Partly this is because most people, when they see something that they can't understand or think is impossible, make up their own reasoning for it to reassure themselves. The other part of it is that a wizard's primary job is to keep the universe running smoothly: in other words, to halt entropy. What that means is that in most circumstances, normal, non-wizarding people won't even be aware that anything was ever wrong. For example, in one of the books, Carmela's brother used a spell to clean pollution out of part of a bay to keep the water clean. It's not something that your average person would even notice, and the ones who did would never think to attribute to something like magic.
Of course, there are situations in which people begin to become aware of unusual things occurring. For example, in Wizards at War, there is a threat from a dark-matter substance spreading through the universe that is slowly breaking it down - and the wizards can't figure out how to stop it. The practical effect that this has on our world is that it basically increases negativity in and between people - something which most people would never think of having eldritch causes.
This isn't the case across all of the universe, obviously. There are planets on which wizards are a perfectly normal part of everyday life. For example, there's a character named Roshaun who is a prince and a wizard on his home planet. Wizardry is tied into the royal line there, and his subjects expect him to use his wizardry to help him rule. They actively place the responsibility of the protection of the planet on him because they know he's a wizard. When characters like Carmela's brother go to those kind of planets, they're free to practice wizardy openly.
The practical upshot of all this is that Carmela's wizardry-influenced adventures are not something she discusses with anyone outside of that group of people under any circumstances. That part of her life is a secret. Also, it can be assumed from canon context that Carmela speaks four languages fluently: English, Spanish, Japanese, and the Speech.
In-Game Backstory: Carmela's life was pretty normal for a girl living a train ride away from New York City up until she was fourteen. She was never very close to her older sister, Helena, who was very studious (which Carmela was definitely not), but she always got along well with her little brother, Kit. Her main interests once she hit the age of thirteen were boys and clothes - nothing too odd for a teenager.
Then, when Carmela was fourteen, Kit came home one day and announced to the family that he was a wizard. Not a magician, an honest-to-god wizard, and it was his "job" to basically help save the world. Scratch that - not the world, the universe.
This changed things more than a little. The Rodriguez family had to adjust to knowing Kit was off on life-threatening missions in other galaxies while giving away that anything was weird - not to mention the fact that the dog got really smart and all the pieces of the entertainment system started talking to each other. Out loud. Sometimes in Japanese.
Carmela figured out that the wizardry her brother had done to make the DVD player work meant that their TV could now get satellite channels from other galaxies. Apparently, she found out, all these aliens could talk to each other through satellite chat channels, and they used the same language Kit did for his wizardry - the Speech - to do it.
So she learned the Speech. Not all of it, obviously, but more than enough to be able to get by. It turned out to be extra useful when Kit and his partner Nita went on an "exchange trip" to another planet and three other (alien) wizards, Roshaun, Filif, and Sker'ret, came to stay with Nita's sister, Dairine. Carmela quickly made friends with them - well, with Filif and Sker'ret at least; Roshaun was not the friendliest person in the world. She helped Dairine take them shopping at the local mall, since none of the visitors had ever seen one before, where she gave Filif fashion advice and tried to keep Sker'ret from eating the food court's plastic trays.
She also discovered alien shopping networks, and bought herself all kinds of neat stuff, including her favorite toy: a laser dissociator, Kit called it, which looked like a cross between an eggbeater and a curling iron and also fired lasers. She actually accompanied Kit (sneakily and without his knowledge) and several other wizards on a mission to save the universe from being destroyed by dark matter. She's encountered versions of the Lone Power before, so it's safe to say she isn't exactly on his list of favorite people.
Carmela's family and friends are, above all else, the most important thing to her. Especially her family. As she sees it, nobody has the right to mess with her litte brother (except her). She worries a lot about him and his wizardry partner Nita, who she's also grown close to over the years, but at the same time she's terribly proud of him for taking on such a huge responsibility, and doing it well (not that she'd ever tell him that!). Carmela makes "friends" fairly easily - meaning, she has a lot of people she could call up and hang out with if she wanted to. As far as true friends go, though, ones she's close to that she trusts and cares about, the circle is very limited. She definitely believes in the idea of "quality over quantity" when it comes to her friendships, and if you mess with those people, watch out - she has a very wicked imagination sometimes.
It terrified Carmela when she first heard exactly what Kit's wizard's oath entailed - such as the fact that he could very easily die doing it. In retrospect, too, part of that fear was not understanding exactly where that power came from, or how exactly he was using it. Carmela has always been closer to Kit than to their older sister Helena, though, and when she asked Kit to tell her more about wizardry, he was more than happy to. Once she understood it, it was an easy step to acceptance.
When Carmela started learning more about Kit's wizardry, and finding out that you didn't have to be a wizard to be involved with people who were, it was only natural to her to want to help him out, and, by proxy, his wizarding friends.
Flilf and Sker'ret, too, were a wonderful change from most of the boys Carmela knows. They like Carmela, and not because they think she's pretty or any of that nonsense - neither of them is even humanoid! When they were on Earth she enjoyed teaching them about all of the Earth customs and culture that were so vastly different from their own, and seeing their perspective on all these things she saw as perfectly normal that they'd never even thought of before. It was something of an eye-opening experience for her.
Carmela's in the city to study foreign languages at NYU. She's told her parents that she intends to go to work for the government or possibly the UN as a translator, but what she really wants to do is work for her friend Sker'ret at the Crossings (an intergalactic train station, so to speak), as a translator for anyone that comes through the travel hub that doesn't speak the Speech. College is something that is non-negotiable in her family, and realistically, Carmela knows that the education she'll get there is something necessary. She chose NYU because it's just a short trip to get home, which was on her list of requirements for a school.
Presentation;
Third Person Sample:
"Kit, pleeeeeaaaaase?" Carmela begged, putting on her best kicked-puppy face.
"I am not installing an interdimensional doorway in the back of your closet just so you can go running off to a mall in another galaxy when you want to cut class," her brother replied from the depths of one of the boxes he was helping her unpack.
"It wouldn't be interdimensional!" she argued. "Just intergalactic."
Kit unearthed himself and leveled an exasperated expression at her. "No."
"It would be energy-efficient. I wouldn't have to buy a train ticket to get home, either. Or get you or Nita or Dair to do gatings for me."
"No." He handed her a stack of manga, which Carmela carried over to the bookshelf above the desk. "What's wrong with using the Grand Central gate, anyway?"
"Duh, Kit. Not a wizard, remember?"
He shrugged. "You've helped enough that the Powers That Be would probably give you a little leeway on that one."
She put the last of the manga in the shelf and turned to face him, eyebrows raised in surprise. "Really?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Hmmmm." Her expression turned thoughtful. If she understood her wizarding friends, then she could use that gate to go almost anywhere. Like to visit Filif and Sker'ret. Or to any of the billions of shopping malls the universe offered. Or Ireland, which would be fun because it would scare the heck out of Ronan. Or--
"I don't like that look on your face." Kit's voice interrupted her train of thought. "You can't just use the gate to go on trips for fun, 'Mela."
"Oh, I know." At the doubtful look on Kit's face, she sighed and switched to the Speech. "I'm not going to do anything stupid," she said. "I promise." Even if it didn't have 'power' when she talked in the Speech the same way it did when Kit did it... it still was a very, very bad idea to lie in the Speech, and Carmela knew it.
"Thank you," Kit said quietly. He glanced into the box in front of him. "The rest of this is underwear and I'm not touching it. How about if I come back up here next weekend, and we'll go talk to Rhiow about getting you a pass to use the gate when you need it?"
Carmela gave a squeal of delight and launched herself across the room to hug her brother. "Thank you! You're my favorite brother in the world."
"I'm your only brother," Kit said, amused, his voice muffled by her hair. "Welcome, 'Mela."
Questions;
Set I.
Would you rather learn everything there is to know, or experience everything there is to experience? Experience everything. That's how you learn things, isn't it? By experiencing stuff? And believe me, there's a lot of stuff out there to experience.
What is your guilty pleasure? ...Movie musicals. The costumes! And everyone knows all the dance steps without anyone ever teaching 'em to them. Don't ask me to sing anything, though, you don't want to hear it, I promise. I'd say home shopping networks, but I'm not guilty about that, so I don't think it counts. Ha!
If you could have any superpower, what would it be? Teleporting would be fun. And I wouldn't have to spend money on the subway. Or talk Kit into giving me free rides.
What is your biggest pet peeve? So you know those people who clearly have no filter between brain and mouth? The ones who'll just say whatever without thinking about "Does this sound stupid?" Yeah, them.
If you could be on one TV reality show, which would it be? Oh oh! One of those ridiculous competition ones. Like The Amazing Race or something. Or one of the ones they do on, y'know, MTV or whatever, where a bunch of airheads go after some "rock star" nobody's ever heard of. That would be hysterical.
Is the glass half empty or half full? Half full! What's the point in going through life being pessimistic about everything all the time? You get out of the world what you put into it, and all that.
Do you believe in God? Not... exactly. I mean, clearly there's a higher Power out there, but I think most religions are just ways we have of dealing with it 'cause we don't get it yet.
If you were on the Titanic and there was only room for one person on your lifeboat, would you save your mother or your best friend? My mother. My best friends could definitely handle themselves on a sinking ship.
Set II.
Describe how you met your best friend. I have two. I actually met Filif and Sker'ret through that exchange program thing Kit went on with Nita. I mean, they were there to stay with Dairine, and Roshaun was there too, obviously, but they had their whole Thing going on and also? I don't know a any other tree who likes to shop as much as Filif does. Give the boy something neon, and he's happy for a week. And I still don't get what Sker' thinks is so great about my magazines, but whatever, if that's what he wants to eat I don't care. Anyway - so yeah, met them through the exchange program. I think I ended up being more useful to them for Earth culture than Dairine was. Kinda sucks that they're both so far away, but at least Sker' lives at the Crossings where he's easy to find.
Describe your first kiss. Interesting thing about thirteen-year-olds is, they're not such great kissers. Haven't had time to get the experience, y'know. Anyway, I was in... what, I guess eighth grade? And this kid Mike in my class asked me to go to a movie. His mom drove us to the theater, and then came and got us after the movie was over, and she told him to "be a gentleman" and walk me to my door. And then he kissed me when she wasn't looking and ran off! [laughs] It was very cute. He was so embarassed he didn't talk to me for a month. I think we actually went on a couple more "dates" after that. He moved away at the end of the year, though.
And also, the song is "Hard to Live in the City" by Albert Hammond, Jr. :D