OOC: Info Post
Aug. 29th, 2020 04:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mylandmyrulesNo one new, but I haven't posted this since she arrived, so...
Nell Ingram...
Short Version:
* Here pre-canon and reluctantly, though part of her will be relieved.
* Almost 17 years old now, (how did that happen?) - technically married for five years, though she's been here for the last two years with no contact back home.
* Raised in east Tennessee in what was effectively a cult, called the God's Cloud of Glory church.
* Waist length straight brown hair, generally wears skirts at least calf length with boots or leggings to cover all that skin with, and concealing shirts/sweaters or some type of t-shirt with overalls and work boots.
* Slight, but wiry, and muscular in a way that comes from hard physical labor. She is tiny, but fierce.
* Can communicate with and control the land and those things growing on it.
Canon: The Soulwood series is a spin-off from the Jane Yellowrock series. As in many urban fantasy books, it's set in a typical modern day United States which just happens to have vampires, shapeshifters, witches, and some types of fae. The general public knows about the vampires, witches and were-creatures, but there's a lot of uncertainty about which other things might be real versus legend. There is a government group called PsyLED, which is the Psychometry Law Enforcement Division of Homeland Security. They investigate and solve paranormal crimes and report to the NSA and Homeland Security. They can also be called upon by the CIA and the FBI. In canon Nell ends up working for them in one of the first units made up of all paranormal creatures.
Background: Nell grew up in east Tennessee in what was effectively a cult, called the God's Cloud of Glory church. The men have many wives and can marry girls as young as 11 or 12. When she was twelve, one of the church elders asked her father for her hand in marriage. She waited till that Sunday and told him no in front of the whole congregation, then ran out of the church. A church member named John Ingram and his terminally ill wife, Leah, found her hiding in the barn nearby. John hadn't been able to give Leah, or any of his other wives, children. The other wives had all requested and been granted divorces to marry others who could give them children, leaving Leah and John on their own. Leah suggested John marry Nell so she could serve as a nurse for Leah and a younger wife for John. They agreed not to make her perform her 'wifely duties' until she was 15. (She'll be coming to Fandom unexpectedly just before her 15th birthday, and shortly after Leah died.) Nell was told by them and absolutely believes that they rescued her from a forced marriage at 12, though we find out later that this is not exactly true.
She nursed Leah, took care of the house, learned about herbal medicines and teas, and in general became able to be almost completely self-sufficient by living off the land. John had solar panels to allow a little electricity and a water heater attached to the wood stove, but other than that it was a fairly primitive/simple lifestyle. She's very familiar with guns, can do basic handyman/woman type stuff, and can get pretty much anything to grow- but more on that later.
She and John and Leah lived on land adjacent to the cult's holdings, but not on it. Nell wouldn't have wanted to move away from the area in any case, because she had hopes that she could someday save her sisters from the cult. Beyond the basics, she is largely self-taught - teaching herself to speak better English through her interactions with people from town to whom she sells her vegetables, teas, hand creams, and other herbal things at a farmer's market. In canon she also learned all sorts of other things after John died when she was 18, because she was then able to read library books - all of which had been forbidden to her previously. (After all, wasn't the bible good enough?) She took out multiple books every week on a wide variety of subjects and she'll do the same in Fandom.
What's she like?: Nell has waist length straight brown hair and generally wears skirts at least calf length with boots or leggings to cover all that skin with, and concealing shirts/sweaters or some type of t-shirt with overalls and work boots. She is described as being slight, but wiry, and muscular in a way that comes from hard physical labor. She is tiny, but fierce, sharp-faced and lean. I can't find mention of her eye color, but I'm guessing brown or hazel.
She has been mostly alone for the past three years, interacting only with John and his wife on a regular basis, though she does sell her vegetables, teas, and various herbal remedies and creams at a local farmer's market.
She comes across as quiet and self-contained to the people she interacts with at the market. She can also be distrustful, stubborn, and prickly at times, and not always the best at socializing given the way she was brought up. When Jane Yellowrock first finds her, Nell calmly pulls a gun on her and backs her down. However, she is also smart, sassy, kind, empathetic, eager to learn, and determined to make a life for herself. In many ways her early life has left her damaged, naive, and vulnerable, but it has also made her a strong fighter and someone able to think outside the box for solutions. She will still be working her way toward discovering her inner strength when she arrives at Fandom since I'm taking her pre-canon, but she is someone who would find a way to thrive anywhere.
Powers?: Nell has an amazing ability to communicate with and control the land and those things growing on it. She's always been able to make things grow, but tried to hide it as nothing more than a green thumb because the cult would have considered magic of any kind as proof she was a witch and then would have killed her. Jane Yellowrock assures her that she is not a witch, but possibly more like a yinehi - a Cherokee fairy or wood nymph - at least partially as she's definitely part human as well.
The timeline in the books is a little unclear (either 5 or 8 years before the first book occurred), but for my purposes, the big triggering event to the bigger awakening of her abilities comes 8 years before the first book in the series - just before she turns fifteen - when a man attacks her on her land and in the fighting she sheds some of his blood. The land seems to wake up and she feeds his life to the forest which then greatly enhances her gifts and connects her to the woods and the earth of Soulwood Farms where she lives (though we discover that she is not as tied to that land as she believed). She is able to exercise her gifts - and feel the connections to her own woods - even quite a distance away. She'll be able to feel use them and feel her own woods at Fandom too.
When she walks barefoot over an area or touches it with bare hands she can get a good idea of what the land is like - how healthy it is, if anything unusual has happened there, how well it is cared for, etc. She can make plants grow faster - and presumably die as well - if she wants them too. She has made vines spring up to capture someone she wanted stopped. She can feel the undeath of vampires - like maggots and rotting things - if she's barefoot where they have been. She is able to relax and heal herself by communing with the trees and earth - and later to heal others in that way too, though there are risks to that. She has a sense of what creatures are around if she is communing with the area. She is still learning about her abilities in canon, and is learning more about them in Fandom.
The Mun
* Mai
* On EST - mostly available late afternoons, evenings
* Teacher in a non-profit private school for kids with severe emotional and behavioral issues.
* Used to do a crazy amount of theatre - pre-Covid, obviously - in whatever spare time was left over.
* Has moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis, which is currently well-controlled, but still leaves me ridiculously fatigued much of the time.
Nell Ingram...
Short Version:
* Here pre-canon and reluctantly, though part of her will be relieved.
* Almost 17 years old now, (how did that happen?) - technically married for five years, though she's been here for the last two years with no contact back home.
* Raised in east Tennessee in what was effectively a cult, called the God's Cloud of Glory church.
* Waist length straight brown hair, generally wears skirts at least calf length with boots or leggings to cover all that skin with, and concealing shirts/sweaters or some type of t-shirt with overalls and work boots.
* Slight, but wiry, and muscular in a way that comes from hard physical labor. She is tiny, but fierce.
* Can communicate with and control the land and those things growing on it.
Canon: The Soulwood series is a spin-off from the Jane Yellowrock series. As in many urban fantasy books, it's set in a typical modern day United States which just happens to have vampires, shapeshifters, witches, and some types of fae. The general public knows about the vampires, witches and were-creatures, but there's a lot of uncertainty about which other things might be real versus legend. There is a government group called PsyLED, which is the Psychometry Law Enforcement Division of Homeland Security. They investigate and solve paranormal crimes and report to the NSA and Homeland Security. They can also be called upon by the CIA and the FBI. In canon Nell ends up working for them in one of the first units made up of all paranormal creatures.
Background: Nell grew up in east Tennessee in what was effectively a cult, called the God's Cloud of Glory church. The men have many wives and can marry girls as young as 11 or 12. When she was twelve, one of the church elders asked her father for her hand in marriage. She waited till that Sunday and told him no in front of the whole congregation, then ran out of the church. A church member named John Ingram and his terminally ill wife, Leah, found her hiding in the barn nearby. John hadn't been able to give Leah, or any of his other wives, children. The other wives had all requested and been granted divorces to marry others who could give them children, leaving Leah and John on their own. Leah suggested John marry Nell so she could serve as a nurse for Leah and a younger wife for John. They agreed not to make her perform her 'wifely duties' until she was 15. (She'll be coming to Fandom unexpectedly just before her 15th birthday, and shortly after Leah died.) Nell was told by them and absolutely believes that they rescued her from a forced marriage at 12, though we find out later that this is not exactly true.
She nursed Leah, took care of the house, learned about herbal medicines and teas, and in general became able to be almost completely self-sufficient by living off the land. John had solar panels to allow a little electricity and a water heater attached to the wood stove, but other than that it was a fairly primitive/simple lifestyle. She's very familiar with guns, can do basic handyman/woman type stuff, and can get pretty much anything to grow- but more on that later.
She and John and Leah lived on land adjacent to the cult's holdings, but not on it. Nell wouldn't have wanted to move away from the area in any case, because she had hopes that she could someday save her sisters from the cult. Beyond the basics, she is largely self-taught - teaching herself to speak better English through her interactions with people from town to whom she sells her vegetables, teas, hand creams, and other herbal things at a farmer's market. In canon she also learned all sorts of other things after John died when she was 18, because she was then able to read library books - all of which had been forbidden to her previously. (After all, wasn't the bible good enough?) She took out multiple books every week on a wide variety of subjects and she'll do the same in Fandom.
What's she like?: Nell has waist length straight brown hair and generally wears skirts at least calf length with boots or leggings to cover all that skin with, and concealing shirts/sweaters or some type of t-shirt with overalls and work boots. She is described as being slight, but wiry, and muscular in a way that comes from hard physical labor. She is tiny, but fierce, sharp-faced and lean. I can't find mention of her eye color, but I'm guessing brown or hazel.
She has been mostly alone for the past three years, interacting only with John and his wife on a regular basis, though she does sell her vegetables, teas, and various herbal remedies and creams at a local farmer's market.
She comes across as quiet and self-contained to the people she interacts with at the market. She can also be distrustful, stubborn, and prickly at times, and not always the best at socializing given the way she was brought up. When Jane Yellowrock first finds her, Nell calmly pulls a gun on her and backs her down. However, she is also smart, sassy, kind, empathetic, eager to learn, and determined to make a life for herself. In many ways her early life has left her damaged, naive, and vulnerable, but it has also made her a strong fighter and someone able to think outside the box for solutions. She will still be working her way toward discovering her inner strength when she arrives at Fandom since I'm taking her pre-canon, but she is someone who would find a way to thrive anywhere.
Powers?: Nell has an amazing ability to communicate with and control the land and those things growing on it. She's always been able to make things grow, but tried to hide it as nothing more than a green thumb because the cult would have considered magic of any kind as proof she was a witch and then would have killed her. Jane Yellowrock assures her that she is not a witch, but possibly more like a yinehi - a Cherokee fairy or wood nymph - at least partially as she's definitely part human as well.
The timeline in the books is a little unclear (either 5 or 8 years before the first book occurred), but for my purposes, the big triggering event to the bigger awakening of her abilities comes 8 years before the first book in the series - just before she turns fifteen - when a man attacks her on her land and in the fighting she sheds some of his blood. The land seems to wake up and she feeds his life to the forest which then greatly enhances her gifts and connects her to the woods and the earth of Soulwood Farms where she lives (though we discover that she is not as tied to that land as she believed). She is able to exercise her gifts - and feel the connections to her own woods - even quite a distance away. She'll be able to feel use them and feel her own woods at Fandom too.
When she walks barefoot over an area or touches it with bare hands she can get a good idea of what the land is like - how healthy it is, if anything unusual has happened there, how well it is cared for, etc. She can make plants grow faster - and presumably die as well - if she wants them too. She has made vines spring up to capture someone she wanted stopped. She can feel the undeath of vampires - like maggots and rotting things - if she's barefoot where they have been. She is able to relax and heal herself by communing with the trees and earth - and later to heal others in that way too, though there are risks to that. She has a sense of what creatures are around if she is communing with the area. She is still learning about her abilities in canon, and is learning more about them in Fandom.
The Mun
* Mai
* On EST - mostly available late afternoons, evenings
* Teacher in a non-profit private school for kids with severe emotional and behavioral issues.
* Used to do a crazy amount of theatre - pre-Covid, obviously - in whatever spare time was left over.
* Has moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis, which is currently well-controlled, but still leaves me ridiculously fatigued much of the time.