| Nov 10, 2012 23:51:13 GMT -5 |
Post by Bran "Wales" Cadwaladr on Nov 10, 2012 23:51:13 GMT -5
BRAN (WALES) CADWALADR
{Calm me with your lies—your simple tragedy. It’s all I wish to hear and you’re all I wish to be. And this is how we all fall.}
{Calm me with your lies—your simple tragedy. It’s all I wish to hear and you’re all I wish to be. And this is how we all fall.}
I Feel Like We're Summoning The Devil
Nickname/Alias: Cymru on occasion.
Gender: Male
Character Type: Country
Country or Country of Origin: Wales
Canon or Original: Original
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When I look into all of your stupid faces
I think how fun it will be to pound them into dust
Hair: Brown
Height and Weight: 176.7 cm; 10.5 st
Other Distinguishing Features: He inherited some of the unfortunate brows from… whoever they inherited them from. Although they’re not as bad as England’s, his are at least noticeably thicker than average. He also tends to wear a rather monotonous, uninterested expression whenever he’s out of his comfort zone… namely the British Isles.
Overall Appearance: These island siblings have their own distinctive traits that make them stick out. Ewan with his red hair, Erin with her green, and Arthur with his notable brows
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Man up or I'll beat you with my peace prize!
- Liquor – usually prefers his Penderyn whiskey, but is fine with anything really.
- Excess drinking. Who doesn’t in the British Isles? (And there’s a certain class of Welshman who fancies himself as a poet-drinker (the Dylan Thomas ideal.)
- Rugby (You can always get on his good side by talking about the time Llanelli beat New Zealand.)
- Sheep. (Sheep are frigging awesome.)
- ‘Poor man’s work’
- Leeks…
- Crass humor
- Healthy Welshmen really like sex…
- Likes to sing… (and it’s a terrible thing to hear. But, if you ever feel like meeting a Welshman, just burst into song. The Welshman will be the one who chimes in.)
- Music festivals
- Caws Pobi (baked cheese)
- Just cheese in general…
Dislikes:
- The English
- Exotic food: He’s typically a very bland eater and can be a bit picky with what goes into his food. e.g. “Welsh plate”
- Fatalistic stoicism (Give him a football team who actually wins matches and he won’t know what to do with himself!)
- A Welsh male voice choir is a thing of beauty and joy forever (blargh.)
- …as was the Welsh rugby team a few decades ago. (Unfortunately those days are long gone. Welsh rugby will never be the same again.)
- Giving directions (Either he doesn’t have a clue about what lies further than 100 yards away from the spot he’s standing upon, or he’s just a malicious twat who likes to point people in the wrong direction.)
Strengths:
- Proud of his separate identity from his brothers. Knows how to retain his culture. In other words, he barely tolerates being called “British.”
- Produces great music (e.g. Catatonia, Stereophonics, etc)
- Self-deprecating humor (You can’t even upset him by bringing up sheep jokes. One of his Uni newspapers is even called “The Sheepshagger.” Just don’t push it.)
- His language is a thriving one
- …with seemingly unpronounceable words. (The most famous one being: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Yes, that is the name of an actual Welsh village.)
- Tends to be quite friendly and welcoming to visitors… just as long as he’s not the one that has to do the visiting.
- Bilingual: It’s a very useful thing when you want to piss out certain brothers. It forces them to decipher, giving Bran time to hightail his arse away from their fists.
Weaknesses:
- Non-adventurous (he’s a home-body and would rather not ever leave the isles.)
- Tends to trot out the same negative stereotypes about his Irish neighbors as the others do. He loves his siblings, he really does, but he can also be explicitly critical about them.
- He’s often considered the “safe” group to take the piss out of, being the most rural of all his siblings and “out of the way.” (E.g. easily bullied)
- He often gets overlooked. (He suffers from a severe case of middle child syndrome.)
- He is extremely dependent on England in order to thrive as a nation (More specifically, militarily and economically.)
- In a sense then, he’s pretty useless on his own.
- Has a tendency to speak a bit slower than most others. (By the time a Welsh girl finishes telling you that she isn’t that sort of girl, you’ve had time to prove otherwise.)
Fears:
- Sometimes he worries over his future, though that largely depends on Arthur’s welfare. It’s frustrating that he has very little influence over his own fate. His life has basically been in the hands of his little brother for many, many decades. Not to mention… that’s just damn embarrassing to be so reliant on the youngest of the bunch.
- Despite how strange it may sound, Bran still feels protective of his siblings despite everything that has happened between them. Hell, he loves them, even. And with that he secretly worries for their wellbeing just as much as he would worry about his.
Secrets:
- The Great Welsh Conspiracy: Take a group of 10 people anywhere in Canada, and at least one of them either has Welsh heritage, or knows more than one Welshman. They’re quiet, but they’re there. And they’re out to take over. Beware… the Welsh…
- Is actually fiercely protective of his family no matter how horribly they all treat each other…
- Looks up to Scotland in some ways… but he won’t admit to it.
- Has an extremely complicated, love-hate relationship with Arthur. His hatred stems from just about anything that historically happened between them, but he will also forever have a small, tender spot in his heart for him. He will never forget the little brother that he knew back when they were all wild and young before outside invasions.
Any Quirks/Habits: He shares the infamous temper of the British Isle nations, but he also has a slightly longer fuse. But there are certain topics that will make it flare… such as bringing up a certain fact about his rugby teams… There is a lovely saying: “The Welsh are a people who will only interrupt their angelic singing to beat the living shit out of you. Then they will resume singing.” Though, of course, P.J. O’Rourke wrote that Welsh singing sounded like men jumping off chairs into a bathtub full of frogs.
Overall Personality: Being the most rural of all his siblings, Wales tends to be the one that’s one of the more approachable of the bunch. He prefers to do things a big slower and likes being left alone for the most part, but does occasionally enjoy company (if they visit him). Wales likes to stay comfortably at home and is not the adventurous or the ambitious sort. Contrary to his younger years where he was a bit rougher around the edges and far more defiant, Wales eventually became something akin to a doormat
Aside from that, he can be a bit of a snarky fellow if he feels comfortable enough to let his true self shine through. He’s generally easy to get along with… if you refrain from insulting his family members, that is. Overall, though he’s good-hearted. Of course, he has his moments were he can be a mischievous little imp as well. If he doesn’t like you, then he won’t say it to your face. He tends to be a bit passive aggressive. If you’re perceptive enough… then you will know that Wales doesn’t exactly like you all that much. Being a little more passive than his brothers however, does not negate how loud he can be after taking a few shots. He still loves to visit the pubs. And he still loves to drink and have a good time. He just needs to be comfortable with his company.
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I'm the hero!
Continuous settlement of Wales by human beings began with the end of the latest Ice Age in about 9,000 BC. The melting of the ice cap caused sea levels to rise. Britain became an island and by about 5000 BC Wales had attained roughly the shape it has today. As the temperature rose, the country became covered by a thick canopy of trees, the environment of the sparse Middle Stone Age or Mesolithic communities which inhabited Wales in the millennia following the retreat of the ice. The Mesolithic communities lived by hunting and gathering, but from about 4000 BC there is increasing evidence of the existence in Wales of communities sustained by agriculture. These were the communities created by New Stone Age or Neolithic peoples who hacked out clearings for their crops using stone tools.
The most striking monuments of the Neolithic era are the stone chambered tombs or cromlechi. They are proof that Neolithic Wales had a fairly populous society with a considerable degree of organisation. The distribution of the tombs suggests close contact along the western sea routes with Ireland, Brittany and Spain. The most remarkable of the chambered tombs of Wales is Barclodiad y Gawres (the apronful of the giantess) in Anglesey. Several stones within it are decorated with spirals, chevrons and lozenges, the earliest examples of art in Wales.
The earliest iron object discovered in Wales is a sword made in about 600 BC which had been thrown into the waters of Llyn Fawr above the Rhondda. Iron ore is the most common of the earth's ores and, once the process of smelting the ore was discovered, an almost inexhaustible source for the making of tools, weapons and equipment was available. The most characteristic construction of the Iron Age was the hill fort, of which Wales has over six hundred. Some of the largest of them contained streets of houses, proof that in the later prehistoric centuries the economy of some parts of Wales was capable of sustaining communities that bordered upon being urban.
Between AD 650 and 750, Britain's lowland zone became firmly English. Even in southern Scotland, most of the Brythonic or Welsh kingdoms came under English or Anglian control. Yet before that happened, those kingdoms produced the first surviving body of literature in the Welsh language, in particular the Gododdin of Aneirin. The English advance pressed particularly hard on Powys. The Heledd poems are a magnificent lament on that kingdom's misfortunes. On reaching the Welsh mountains, English expansion became a spent force, a fact which Offa, King of Mercia, recognized. There is evidence that, in about 780, he ordered the building of a dyke from sea to sea. Offa's Dyke, the most remarkable monument constructed in Britain in the second half of the first Christian millennium, went a long way in defining the territory of Wales.
Rhodri won the epithet Mawr (the Great) largely because of his victory over the Vikings in 856. The Vikings began attacking the coasts of Britain and Ireland in the 780s. Their attacks on rich and defenceless monasteries help to explain the decline in the vitality of the 'Celtic' Church. In Wales, there is little evidence of Viking settlements, although some places, among them Anglesey, Swansea and Fishguard, were given Scandinavian names. In England, Scotland and Ireland, the Vikings established settlements and even kingdoms. They would, from the 780s until 1100, be a significant factor in the politics of all four countries.
The present tendency is to believe that the British Christianity of the Empire survived in south-east Wales, the only part of the Roman province of Britannia not overrun by people from beyond the imperial frontier. It is there that we locate Dyfrig, the first of the 'saints' of the Celtic church. The center of his monastery or clas was at Henllan (Hentland on Wye, now in Herefordshire). Any dates in this period are tentative, but Dyfrig probably lived from about AD 425 to 505. The Welsh climate deteriorated after 1300. Wet summers, disease among domestic animals and soil exhaustion caused agricultural problems. By 1320, the population was in decline and would not return to the level of 1300 for another 250 years. Then in 1349, appalling disaster struck. The Black Death - the plague carried by rat fleas - killed perhaps a third of the population. The epidemic struck again in 1361 and 1369.
In 1750, Wales was still an overwhelmingly rural country. Its population of about 500,000 was, however, gaining an expanding industrial base. In the early 18th century, the industries established during the reign of Elizabeth I experienced a new vigor. Iron-making in Pontypool and Bersham, lead and silver mining in Flintshire and Cardiganshire, copper smelting in Neath and Swansea and coalmining in west Glamorgan and Flintshire increased substantially. Nevertheless, they remained marginal in comparison with the agricultural economy. That economy was also developing, with the adoption of crop rotation, the use of lime, the enclosure of waste land and the development of proto-industrial production, especially in the woolen industry.
By 1851, however, two thirds of the families of Wales were supported by activities other than agriculture, which meant that, after the English, the Welsh were the world's second industrial nation. The growth in heavy industry was fuelled by the wars - the Seven Years' War (1756-63), the American War of Independence (1775-83) and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793-1802, 1803-15). It was north-east Wales which developed the greatest range of industries. By the late 18th century there were 19 metalworks at Holywell and 14 potteries at Buckley; Holywell and Mold had cotton mills; lead and coal mines proliferated. Bersham, where the Wilkinson family was pioneers in the use of coke rather than charcoal in the smelting of iron, was one of Europe's leading ironworks.
In 1850 there were very few Welsh national institutions. Although the Calvinistic Methodists were organized upon all-Wales lines, the Established Church consisted of four westerly bishoprics of the archdiocese of Canterbury, with the Congregationalists and Baptists having virtually no central organization.
The Welsh court system - the Courts of Great Session - was abolished in 1830, making the legal and administrative structure of Wales identical to that of England. Apart from the Cymmrodorion Society, revived in 1820, and the Cambrian Archaeological Society, founded in 1847, there were no cultural or educational organizations at a national level, nor did the country have any economic or professional associations which recognized its unity. The United Kingdom was believed to consist of three kingdoms: England (including the principality of Wales), Scotland and Ireland - a belief encapsulated in the union flag and the royal standard. Any suggestion that the United Kingdom consists of four nations, and that the Welsh should therefore be considered to be on par with the other nationalities of the kingdom, would have found very few advocates. One of the major achievements of Welsh patriots over the following century was their success in ensuring that the concept of the four nations replaced that of the three kingdoms.
By the outbreak of the First World War recognition of Wales had made considerable progress. The most significant developments occurred in the fields of education and culture. The Welsh language won a limited role in schools in 1889. The founding of the University College of Wales at Aberystwyth in 1872, and of colleges at Cardiff and Bangor in the 1880s, led in 1893 to the establishment of the University of Wales. The National Library and the National Museum receive royal charters in 1907. J. E. Lloyd placed Welsh medieval history on a sound academic footing in 1911, and John Morris-Jones did the same for the Welsh language in 1913.
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You've got it backwards! Backwards!
Hurry up and throw it! If you don't hurry up and throw it, you'll go "boom"!
It’s meeee. =3
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I Summon thee from far away lands, come forth!
You called?
Timezone: Eastern
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