Post by Belgium on Nov 17, 2010 22:04:16 GMT -5
Nation: Kingdom of Belgium
Name: Celia Verstraeten
Gender: Female
Appearance of Age: Late twenties
Hair Color: Golden blonde
Eye Color: Green
Height: 5’5
Weight: 132
Appearance: Celia is a nice-looking woman with a heart-shaped face and a slim frame. She has bright, expressive eyes and lips normally upturned in a small, playful smirk. Her overall appearance is one of girlish charm, with her subdued curves, lithe limbs and mid-sized bust.
Personality: Celia is, put most simply, a people-person. Having had her country traded like currency from one conqueror to the next for much of history, having others around her to affirm her identity as an individual is very important to her. She loves attending social events, chatting, dancing, and flirting, and passes easily from one romantic tryst to another without leaving behind any hard feelings. She is friendly and good-natured, with an infectious smile, a confident honesty and a sly, teasing sensuality, capable of wearing away at others’ qualms and defenses and endearing herself to them.
She rarely lets anything make her truly angry. Anger never accomplished anything for her, never tore her out of the grasp of captors or won her any political favors, so she avoids getting riled up about problems. Her reaction to bad news is at most frustration or weary sadness, and she frequently meets mistreatment with a steady, obstinate rebelliousness rather than any quick and violent action. She has frequently put herself at odds with popular fashion and etiquette to achieve this end—adopting loose, revealing modes of dress, refusing to use formal titles, even making flirtatious advances on the nations that have ruled her to demonstrate how she considered them no better than her. Even in modern times, she has been known to do or say things merely to shock others and show how little deference she has for conformity. She is more concerned about her own comfort and happiness than popular opinion, provided she can act without inviting excessive conflict.
This is not to say that she doesn’t follow any traditional morals or standards. Though she generally savors touch, she avoids sex, and has enjoyed leading lovers to the brink of it and then backing off. As much as she will tease and flirt, she wishes someday to have a long-term, stable relationship with someone who will respect her identity and worth.
Due to inexperience, she is not the best at political debate and logical argument. She tends to get caught up in the immediate human factors at stake and has more success routing her appeals to emotion rather than reason. Making decisions that might harm or disadvantage groups of people are difficult for her. Being this way, she usually has subordinates manage much of her country’s government, rather than managing most of its affairs herself. She is devoted to her people and frequently shares parties and holidays with them, but knows and tries to avoid situations that place too much responsibility on her.
Likes:
+ People (she craves attention, physical contact and talk. Being around others, especially large groups, is very thrilling and rewarding for her.)
+ Parties and social events
+ Music (my headcanon is that, like many higher-class women, she learned to play an instrument for the sake of impressing others and having fun with them. She plays the clarinet and enjoys upbeat music, particularly music meant for dancing.)
+ Dramas (she likes reading stories or watching shows involving social conflict and romantic mishaps. It can be a bit of an escapist thing for her when she’s lonely.)
+ Pastries and sweets
+ Beer and wine (she actually has developed a high alcohol tolerance, as not all the parties she attends are the most tame of events.)
Dislikes:
- Being alone
- Being disrespected or ignored (especially by very arrogant people—she is filled with the urge to really embarrass/knock them down a notch.)
- Being manipulated or controlled (feeling as though her fate is out of her hands is quite frightening to her. She has to exercise some control over the politics occurring around her, even if it’s only by being generally rebellious and obstructive.)
- Strict rules/formality (she finds such things stifling.)
- Warfare (the thought of the lives lost really pains her. Her country has been a victim far too many times for her to approve of it.)
Fears:
~ Being abandoned. Her greatest fear is probably that her charisma and beauty will fail her, or that she will otherwise do something that will make her friends and companions turn away from her. Since, in spite of her blatant confidence, she relies on others quite a bit for her sense of worth, the notion of losing their support is deeply jarring to her.
~ Related to the above: being unloved. Though romance for pleasure is nice, she needs to have some relationships that are more meaningful, so that she won’t feel like an object.
~ Having her country pushed around or used by other nations. Having lived through that before, she is determined not to let Belgium get taken advantage again, whether through her own failures or the shortcomings of her subordinates.
~ Specifically, decay. Rot, especially rotted meat, tends to put her in mind of war and devastation and make her anxious.
Strengths:
+ Her attractiveness. She’s both physically pretty and naturally friendly and approachable, making it very easy for her to get along with others.
+ Her confidence. It’s difficult to actually embarrass her or make her awkward because she’s well-used to doing fairly outrageous things with the intent to shock. The face she shows the public is pretty much who she truly is.
+ Her stubbornness/persistence. Even though Belgium was a pawn in the hands of other great powers for so long, she worked to retain her individuality and sense of self and managed to keep it.
+ Her tact. Due to her surrounding herself by people, she’s actually learned to be fairly tactful and manipulative over the years in order to get things she wants.
+ Her optimism. She’s able to draw hope from the smallest of victories and thus sustain herself well through troubled times.
Weaknesses:
- She’s not very good at dealing with formal proceedings or along formal guidelines. Maintaining a detachment or reserve, something often necessary for political meetings, is difficult for her. She tends to get her feelings wrapped up in her politics and keenly suffer upon hearing of the suffering of her people.
- Along the same lines, she’s not the best at expressing herself in writing. Though she can wax eloquently in personal/romantic letters, she often has to write and rewrite official correspondence before she’s sure she’s gotten her viewpoint through the formal language.
- She can fall into the trap of thinking too well of people and thus having cruel actions of theirs catch her by surprise. While she’s good at avoiding forming lasting attachments to questionable individuals, she still has occasionally gotten emotionally involved with people that have then defied her expectations in a negative way.
- Due to the fact that she wants little or nothing to do with war, she’s not very physically strong and she doesn’t really know how to use any weapons.
History:
Belgium was born in a province of Rome around 51 BC. After Rome’s death in the fifth century, she came under the care of France, who introduced her to Christianity. Her lands changed hands quite a bit in the following years, from France to the Holy Roman Empire and to a sort of local rule as the region split into feudal states. All of this happened during her childhood, before she had any real involvement with the affairs of her country.
In 1433 her lands passed to the Burgundian line of dukes, who after a few generations intermarried with the Habsburgs. During the 15th and 16th centuries (Belgium’s early to mid-teens) her cities became centers of art and trade, lively places that fostered her social demeanor.
In 1549, Spain created his own administrative district under the Holy Roman Empire. Belgium and her brother Netherlands thereby came under his direct control, after having been allowed to manage their own lands with relative freedom. Spain’s taking power out of their hands, as well as his strong Catholic faith and disdain towards Protestantism, deeply upset Netherlands, who not only longed for his old political freedom and formerly low taxes, but who had been becoming interested in Calvinist Protestantism. In spite of his sister’s desire for unity, prompted by Spain’s strict new heresy laws, Netherlands began a revolt that turned into the Eighty Years’ War. After much tribulation, he managed to win his independence from Spain, while Belgium remained under Spain’s rule. She stayed a possession of Spain, on uneasy terms with her independent and ambitious brother, until the War of Spanish Succession, fought to prevent France from cashing out on a claim in Spain’s royal lineage and taking control after the death of one of Spain’s heirless kings, brought her under the rule of Austria in 1713.
Austria managed Belgium primarily to keep her lands as a buffer against France. Belgium, now a young woman, began to seriously consider her people’s calls for independence, unofficially supporting a short-lived revolt in 1789 and the creation of the United States of Belgium in 1790. Austria quickly crushed this revolt, but it offered Belgium and her people the idea that independence for them might be possible in the future.
In 1794 a newly energized France, filled with the zeal of his revolutionaries, invaded and annexed Belgium’s lands. Belgium struggled to maintain some sense of stability while France repressed Catholicism, initiated heavy taxes and forbid the use of Dutch as an official language. A revolt raged in 1798 against the French but lasted only briefly. French rule only ended in 1814, with the French Empire falling in 1815 when France was defeated by the other great powers, including Britain, Prussia and the Netherlands.
At the end of the war, Austria, Britain, Prussia and Russia thought it best to place Belgium beneath the authority of the Netherlands, thus creating the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Confronted with the harsh and discriminatory rule of a brother used to complete authority and prosperity, Belgium became unable to tolerate her situation. When a riot broke out, Belgium joined the crowd, marching the streets and taking over government buildings. Netherlands, incensed, met the rebels with force, but received no help from the other powers, who all had their own internal affairs to deal with. In 1839, he, as well as the nations that had originally placed her under his rule, recognized her independence.
The Kingdom of Belgium was officially neutral under the independence treaty, with Britain guaranteed to assist if her nation was attacked. Thus, when Germany, nearly a century later, invaded Belgium at the start of WWI, Britain engaged Germany in warfare. Some of the greatest casualties of the war occurred in Belgium’s lands, prompting her fear of decay. She suffered deeply as the result of the unrest and violence following the war as well.
She declared her nation neutral again afterwards, but that did not prevent another invasion and occupation by Germany at the start of WWII. She was forced into exile with her government until her nation was liberated by the Allies in 1944. After the war her nation benefited from funding from America and membership in alliances with other nations, including the United Nations and NATO.
Allies: England, South Italy, Spain, Prussia, Austria, the Nordics, Netherlands (currently)
Enemies: France, Germany, Netherlands (historically)
Sample Post: (from the start of Belgium’s revolution—Vincent is my name for Netherlands, though any joining Netherlands should feel free to make up a name for themselves if they’d like. XD)
She never liked to invite this sort of thing. She never was one that could seem a natural part of the scene, like Vincent with his staid face and stony gaze, bolting down streets with a rifle in hand and sword blood-encrusted at his belt. She was more a woman of parties, swishing petticoats and the clink of glasses, fingers tracing Francis’ spine or lips brushing Antonio’s neck with whispered requests.
She was more a lover, a sweetheart, but sometimes, she supposed, one needed to hate and be bitter.
So it was that she found herself passing through the bashed-in door, boots thudding down the corridor that flickered like hazy hell in the torchlight. So it was that she let the tide of the crowd carry her, swarming through the rooms, shattering glass and snapping furniture and pushing, up and up the curved stairway until she was there.
The guards were there as they battered the lock open, as she stopped and the crowd swarmed around her, a parting sea. They raised their rifles but she held out a hand and shouted, and somehow, somehow in the liquid madness and the fury that brought both sides to an abrupt stop. The forces—commoners with guns, blades, whatever blunt objects they could find—guards in fine uniform wielding polished barrels—they stopped inches from each other, the room crackling with tight loathing.
She knew she was never one for this and she saw the surprise and the betrayal furrow his brow, saw him glance at where her gown had torn in the confusion and at her sweat-soaked, scraggly curls, but all the same she straightened and boldly said, “Hello, brother.”
I’m done with you.
Did you read the rules? As surely as Gilbert has a fetish for eating awesome pancakes with sexy chicks.
Name: Celia Verstraeten
Gender: Female
Appearance of Age: Late twenties
Hair Color: Golden blonde
Eye Color: Green
Height: 5’5
Weight: 132
Appearance: Celia is a nice-looking woman with a heart-shaped face and a slim frame. She has bright, expressive eyes and lips normally upturned in a small, playful smirk. Her overall appearance is one of girlish charm, with her subdued curves, lithe limbs and mid-sized bust.
Personality: Celia is, put most simply, a people-person. Having had her country traded like currency from one conqueror to the next for much of history, having others around her to affirm her identity as an individual is very important to her. She loves attending social events, chatting, dancing, and flirting, and passes easily from one romantic tryst to another without leaving behind any hard feelings. She is friendly and good-natured, with an infectious smile, a confident honesty and a sly, teasing sensuality, capable of wearing away at others’ qualms and defenses and endearing herself to them.
She rarely lets anything make her truly angry. Anger never accomplished anything for her, never tore her out of the grasp of captors or won her any political favors, so she avoids getting riled up about problems. Her reaction to bad news is at most frustration or weary sadness, and she frequently meets mistreatment with a steady, obstinate rebelliousness rather than any quick and violent action. She has frequently put herself at odds with popular fashion and etiquette to achieve this end—adopting loose, revealing modes of dress, refusing to use formal titles, even making flirtatious advances on the nations that have ruled her to demonstrate how she considered them no better than her. Even in modern times, she has been known to do or say things merely to shock others and show how little deference she has for conformity. She is more concerned about her own comfort and happiness than popular opinion, provided she can act without inviting excessive conflict.
This is not to say that she doesn’t follow any traditional morals or standards. Though she generally savors touch, she avoids sex, and has enjoyed leading lovers to the brink of it and then backing off. As much as she will tease and flirt, she wishes someday to have a long-term, stable relationship with someone who will respect her identity and worth.
Due to inexperience, she is not the best at political debate and logical argument. She tends to get caught up in the immediate human factors at stake and has more success routing her appeals to emotion rather than reason. Making decisions that might harm or disadvantage groups of people are difficult for her. Being this way, she usually has subordinates manage much of her country’s government, rather than managing most of its affairs herself. She is devoted to her people and frequently shares parties and holidays with them, but knows and tries to avoid situations that place too much responsibility on her.
Likes:
+ People (she craves attention, physical contact and talk. Being around others, especially large groups, is very thrilling and rewarding for her.)
+ Parties and social events
+ Music (my headcanon is that, like many higher-class women, she learned to play an instrument for the sake of impressing others and having fun with them. She plays the clarinet and enjoys upbeat music, particularly music meant for dancing.)
+ Dramas (she likes reading stories or watching shows involving social conflict and romantic mishaps. It can be a bit of an escapist thing for her when she’s lonely.)
+ Pastries and sweets
+ Beer and wine (she actually has developed a high alcohol tolerance, as not all the parties she attends are the most tame of events.)
Dislikes:
- Being alone
- Being disrespected or ignored (especially by very arrogant people—she is filled with the urge to really embarrass/knock them down a notch.)
- Being manipulated or controlled (feeling as though her fate is out of her hands is quite frightening to her. She has to exercise some control over the politics occurring around her, even if it’s only by being generally rebellious and obstructive.)
- Strict rules/formality (she finds such things stifling.)
- Warfare (the thought of the lives lost really pains her. Her country has been a victim far too many times for her to approve of it.)
Fears:
~ Being abandoned. Her greatest fear is probably that her charisma and beauty will fail her, or that she will otherwise do something that will make her friends and companions turn away from her. Since, in spite of her blatant confidence, she relies on others quite a bit for her sense of worth, the notion of losing their support is deeply jarring to her.
~ Related to the above: being unloved. Though romance for pleasure is nice, she needs to have some relationships that are more meaningful, so that she won’t feel like an object.
~ Having her country pushed around or used by other nations. Having lived through that before, she is determined not to let Belgium get taken advantage again, whether through her own failures or the shortcomings of her subordinates.
~ Specifically, decay. Rot, especially rotted meat, tends to put her in mind of war and devastation and make her anxious.
Strengths:
+ Her attractiveness. She’s both physically pretty and naturally friendly and approachable, making it very easy for her to get along with others.
+ Her confidence. It’s difficult to actually embarrass her or make her awkward because she’s well-used to doing fairly outrageous things with the intent to shock. The face she shows the public is pretty much who she truly is.
+ Her stubbornness/persistence. Even though Belgium was a pawn in the hands of other great powers for so long, she worked to retain her individuality and sense of self and managed to keep it.
+ Her tact. Due to her surrounding herself by people, she’s actually learned to be fairly tactful and manipulative over the years in order to get things she wants.
+ Her optimism. She’s able to draw hope from the smallest of victories and thus sustain herself well through troubled times.
Weaknesses:
- She’s not very good at dealing with formal proceedings or along formal guidelines. Maintaining a detachment or reserve, something often necessary for political meetings, is difficult for her. She tends to get her feelings wrapped up in her politics and keenly suffer upon hearing of the suffering of her people.
- Along the same lines, she’s not the best at expressing herself in writing. Though she can wax eloquently in personal/romantic letters, she often has to write and rewrite official correspondence before she’s sure she’s gotten her viewpoint through the formal language.
- She can fall into the trap of thinking too well of people and thus having cruel actions of theirs catch her by surprise. While she’s good at avoiding forming lasting attachments to questionable individuals, she still has occasionally gotten emotionally involved with people that have then defied her expectations in a negative way.
- Due to the fact that she wants little or nothing to do with war, she’s not very physically strong and she doesn’t really know how to use any weapons.
History:
Belgium was born in a province of Rome around 51 BC. After Rome’s death in the fifth century, she came under the care of France, who introduced her to Christianity. Her lands changed hands quite a bit in the following years, from France to the Holy Roman Empire and to a sort of local rule as the region split into feudal states. All of this happened during her childhood, before she had any real involvement with the affairs of her country.
In 1433 her lands passed to the Burgundian line of dukes, who after a few generations intermarried with the Habsburgs. During the 15th and 16th centuries (Belgium’s early to mid-teens) her cities became centers of art and trade, lively places that fostered her social demeanor.
In 1549, Spain created his own administrative district under the Holy Roman Empire. Belgium and her brother Netherlands thereby came under his direct control, after having been allowed to manage their own lands with relative freedom. Spain’s taking power out of their hands, as well as his strong Catholic faith and disdain towards Protestantism, deeply upset Netherlands, who not only longed for his old political freedom and formerly low taxes, but who had been becoming interested in Calvinist Protestantism. In spite of his sister’s desire for unity, prompted by Spain’s strict new heresy laws, Netherlands began a revolt that turned into the Eighty Years’ War. After much tribulation, he managed to win his independence from Spain, while Belgium remained under Spain’s rule. She stayed a possession of Spain, on uneasy terms with her independent and ambitious brother, until the War of Spanish Succession, fought to prevent France from cashing out on a claim in Spain’s royal lineage and taking control after the death of one of Spain’s heirless kings, brought her under the rule of Austria in 1713.
Austria managed Belgium primarily to keep her lands as a buffer against France. Belgium, now a young woman, began to seriously consider her people’s calls for independence, unofficially supporting a short-lived revolt in 1789 and the creation of the United States of Belgium in 1790. Austria quickly crushed this revolt, but it offered Belgium and her people the idea that independence for them might be possible in the future.
In 1794 a newly energized France, filled with the zeal of his revolutionaries, invaded and annexed Belgium’s lands. Belgium struggled to maintain some sense of stability while France repressed Catholicism, initiated heavy taxes and forbid the use of Dutch as an official language. A revolt raged in 1798 against the French but lasted only briefly. French rule only ended in 1814, with the French Empire falling in 1815 when France was defeated by the other great powers, including Britain, Prussia and the Netherlands.
At the end of the war, Austria, Britain, Prussia and Russia thought it best to place Belgium beneath the authority of the Netherlands, thus creating the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Confronted with the harsh and discriminatory rule of a brother used to complete authority and prosperity, Belgium became unable to tolerate her situation. When a riot broke out, Belgium joined the crowd, marching the streets and taking over government buildings. Netherlands, incensed, met the rebels with force, but received no help from the other powers, who all had their own internal affairs to deal with. In 1839, he, as well as the nations that had originally placed her under his rule, recognized her independence.
The Kingdom of Belgium was officially neutral under the independence treaty, with Britain guaranteed to assist if her nation was attacked. Thus, when Germany, nearly a century later, invaded Belgium at the start of WWI, Britain engaged Germany in warfare. Some of the greatest casualties of the war occurred in Belgium’s lands, prompting her fear of decay. She suffered deeply as the result of the unrest and violence following the war as well.
She declared her nation neutral again afterwards, but that did not prevent another invasion and occupation by Germany at the start of WWII. She was forced into exile with her government until her nation was liberated by the Allies in 1944. After the war her nation benefited from funding from America and membership in alliances with other nations, including the United Nations and NATO.
Allies: England, South Italy, Spain, Prussia, Austria, the Nordics, Netherlands (currently)
Enemies: France, Germany, Netherlands (historically)
Sample Post: (from the start of Belgium’s revolution—Vincent is my name for Netherlands, though any joining Netherlands should feel free to make up a name for themselves if they’d like. XD)
She never liked to invite this sort of thing. She never was one that could seem a natural part of the scene, like Vincent with his staid face and stony gaze, bolting down streets with a rifle in hand and sword blood-encrusted at his belt. She was more a woman of parties, swishing petticoats and the clink of glasses, fingers tracing Francis’ spine or lips brushing Antonio’s neck with whispered requests.
She was more a lover, a sweetheart, but sometimes, she supposed, one needed to hate and be bitter.
So it was that she found herself passing through the bashed-in door, boots thudding down the corridor that flickered like hazy hell in the torchlight. So it was that she let the tide of the crowd carry her, swarming through the rooms, shattering glass and snapping furniture and pushing, up and up the curved stairway until she was there.
The guards were there as they battered the lock open, as she stopped and the crowd swarmed around her, a parting sea. They raised their rifles but she held out a hand and shouted, and somehow, somehow in the liquid madness and the fury that brought both sides to an abrupt stop. The forces—commoners with guns, blades, whatever blunt objects they could find—guards in fine uniform wielding polished barrels—they stopped inches from each other, the room crackling with tight loathing.
She knew she was never one for this and she saw the surprise and the betrayal furrow his brow, saw him glance at where her gown had torn in the confusion and at her sweat-soaked, scraggly curls, but all the same she straightened and boldly said, “Hello, brother.”
I’m done with you.
Did you read the rules? As surely as Gilbert has a fetish for eating awesome pancakes with sexy chicks.
