Post by sepia on Jul 2, 2010 1:35:01 GMT -6
Full Name: Llewellyn Coram Anwell
Nick Names: Lee – which he likes to be called by all the time, as most people butcher his full name.
Student or Staff: Staff – Stable Assistant
Age: 17
Ethnicity: Welsh
Gender: Male
Physical Description: Lean and lanky, Lee is light enough to be able to ride the larger ponies, yet tall enough to be able to ride horses with similar ease, something he has always been grateful for. Though he looks skinny, most of what is on his bones is muscle, and he has a wiry strength about him that his appearance belies.
His hair is very dark brown, and floppy, always falling across his forehead into his eyes, which are a shade of very dark grey as to almost be black, and usually very serious. His eyes are probably the most striking feature about his face, as they are very piercing and Lee has no qualms about focusing intently upon a person.
Personality: In a few words: intense, focused and serious.
Always rather obsessive, this trait has only become worse since his father’s death, and he’s now the sort of person who’ll complete something, or die trying. And he means that perfectly literally. He doesn’t go in for half-measures at all, and pushes himself incredibly hard, and now that he has fixated upon Impressing, is not going to let anything distract him from that goal. Thus, he now very rarely – if ever – allows himself to have fun, and is quite rapidly in danger of approaching a burnout if someone doesn’t get him to realise that relaxing wouldn’t be the end of the world.
He’s also a perfectionist, fiddling with things long after most people have decided they’re finished, and doesn’t take very kindly to people pointing out that he’s fussing unnecessarily. This ties in with the high standards he holds himself to, continually nudging the bar of achievement higher and higher, in an attempt to prove himself the best he can. This isn’t through egotism, or anything, no. He just wants to do the very best that he can, and doesn’t care if he gets no recognition for it
This perfectionism and drive to be as good as he can be leads to his being both organised, and, usually, good at what he turns his hand to doing. Intelligent, too, Lee has a mind that is quick at fitting facts together and seeing connections, and has quite a flair for mathematics. He has a brilliant memory, and is a goldmine of trivial, but vaguely useful, facts. Once he’s decided on something, it’ll take galeforce winds and a large tsunami to change his mind, and he has absolutely no problem with believing in something even if everyone around him thinks he’s an idiot for doing so. Very strong-willed, he’s not going to let anything get in his way, and knows precisely what he wants to do with his life, and how.
Though he’s never been the best at connecting with people, and isn’t big on the whole idea of ‘opening up’, he can manage polite, casual conversation, but is inclined to clam up whenever anything gets at all personal, and as at the moment he is denying himself anything remotely frivolous, he’s unlikely to get relationships to go too far. People do often find him rather intimidating, though, mostly because of the way he utterly refuses to let up. It’s not that he’s unfriendly, per say, indeed, he can be friendly, especially if the topic of conversation is horses, he just happens to be intense, and finds it difficult to open up to people.
Once you do manage to befriend him, though – and, believe me, that’ll be a very difficult task – he’ll be your friend for life. If someone gains his respect and friendship, he’ll be incredibly loyal, and will have their back through anything. It cannot be said, after all, that Lee is a coward: he will stand up for what he believes in and will similarly stand up for whatever his friends believe in, too.
He has always found horses to be far easier to get along with than people, and indeed has quite a gift with them. Not that he’s one of those who claim to be able to understand everything a horse ‘says’ to them, but he’s certainly good with the animals, often understanding before other people does what makes them tick, and what is making them react in a certain way, something that is proving very useful in his new job.
Lee has always felt the need to rather hide his emotions, and so has almost perfected the calm, ‘poker-face’ that he so often wears. Part of this is his dislike of letting anyone know what’s going on inside his head – incredibly self-possessed, Lee will always prefer to figure things out for himself rather than allowing outside intervention.
Background:
Mother; Aderyn Anwell, nee Jones, 40, housewife.
Father; Cadogan Anwell, horse trainer, now deceased.
Younger brother; Iestyn Anwell, 13.
Aunt (father’s side): MargaretBlackhorn, 39, tack-shop owner.
Uncle: Samuel Blackhorn, 41, horse trainer.
Though both his parents are Welsh, and he was born in Cardiff, Lee has lived most of his 17 years in the US, in varying states and cities. His father was a horse-trainer, and so his family moved around as he worked in different barns and stables around the country, getting quite the reputation for being good with difficult horses.
The four of them were happy, even if their lives were rather disrupted, and Lee knew from an early age that he wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father and uncle, and work closely with horses. To that end, he was up on a horse by the time he was two, and taking riding lessons by four, every spare minute of his being spent down at whichever stables hi father was working at at the time. He also managed to be a good student, however, frequently working on assignments sitting in a tack-room between rides, his natural intelligence serving him very well.
But then, when Lee was 16, tragedy, as it is wont to do, struck, in the form of Lee’s father being thrown from the back of a horse he was working with into a fence, breaking his neck. His death threw the family into disarray, especially as he had been the primary income-earner of the family. Lee dropped out of school through necessity – and then things just got worse, as Lee’s mother now had a fierce hatred of horses, and forbade Lee to ever ride again.
The pair soon fell to massive arguments, grief wearing both of them thin, as Lee tried to convince his mother that working with horses was what he really wanted to do, while his mother only got stronger in her convictions to never let another member of her family anywhere near a horse. Both of them found work, trying to earn enough to keep the family afloat, and the arguments continued until, finally, Lee had enough and left, going to live with his aunt and uncle, who lived in the small town of Blue Ridge.
One of the main reasons for his leaving was the effect the constant bickering and bitterness between he and his mother was having on his younger brother. The formerly bright, enthusiastic teen became more withdrawn after the death of his father, and the inability of his mother and elder brother to get along any longer only worsened matters.
Once with his aunt and uncle, Lee heard of the possibility of gaining a job at Blue Ridge Riding Academy, and so applied, finally gaining his ambition of working closely with horses. He hasn’t been able to return to school, still having to earn enough money to significantly help his family – most of his wages he sends back to his mother and younger brother, despite not having talked to his mother since he left home. He doesn’t feel that, right now, they’ll manage to have a conversation without screaming at each other, and so doesn’t have the heart to try. He keeps in contact with his brother, though, and is pleased to see that Iestyn seems to be regaining much of his spunk again, now that arguments no longer tar apart his house.
Lee, for his part, is greatly enjoying working at Blue Ridge, though he often wishes that his life was the way it was before, in the days before everything fell apart. Still, being a practical, pragmatic chap, he doesn’t dwell very much, instead throwing himself into his work with passion and drive.
Misc.: He owns an English Setter, Owain, and a mix-breed tortoiseshell cat, Megan.
Owain
Megan
Face Claim/Playby: Richard Fleeshman
Threads:
Lee's Mail
New Place, New Life
Is that you, boss?
Buzzing Around
Shattered Silence
Routine As Usual
Early Birds
Burning the midnight oil
Freedom
...When you just can't fall back to sleep
On a knife's edge (Continuation of 'Burning the midnight oil')
