Teagan Richards
| Teagan Shelley Richards | |
|---|---|
| IC Information | |
| Full Name: | Richards, Teagan Shelley |
| Gender/Sexuality: | Female/Lesbian |
| Species: | Human |
| Place of Origin: | Brooklyn, NY, USA |
| Age/Birthdate: | 29 (October 21, 1985) |
| Zodiac Sign: | Libra |
| Height: | 5'3" |
| Hair Colour: | Strawberry-blonde |
| Eye Colour: | Ocean-blue |
| Romantic Status: | Single, not looking |
| Romantic Identification: | Effectively polyamorous |
| Residence: | Studio apartment, Yuriba Art Gallery |
| Occupation: | Principal photographer, Yuriba Art Gallery |
| Preferences | |
| Likes: | Photography, writing, cool landscapes, deep-dish pizza, anything deep-fried, men's clothing, baseball, boating, wit, taking a long bath with a good novel, swearing, the New York Islanders, Scooter |
| Dislikes: | Cuddling, people who try to do her on the first date, most Eastern food, soccer, bats, dresses, the New York Rangers, people who think her swearing will scar their innocence, catty women, catgirls |
| OOC Information | |
| Source: | Original Character |
Teagan Richards is a freelance photographer originally hailing from Brooklyn. She arrived in Yuriba around 2006 and has been a fairly consistent if low-key resident since then, though she's mostly known as the principal photographer for the Yuriba Swimsuit Calendar series.
Contents |
Psychological data
Richards could easily be classed as a tomboy but prefers to think of herself as rough-around-the-edges and not especially concerned with gender labels. Outwardly she demonstrates a broad geniality and an openness to new experiences and new people. She laughs often and considers her sense of humour to be good. Though she tends to drop the occasional vulgarity into her speech, she is aware of the habit, excusing it as an artifact of her Brooklyn upbringing and striving to control it around most people. She is generally outgoing and playful, but she often demonstrates a deep-rooted sarcasm and snarkiness, and her humour is often a little cynical. Though she holds a diploma in journalism and communications she tends to be more street-smart than book-smart. Nevertheless she has her share of nerdy hobbies and is an avid reader, and when she is not out pursuing her top hobby - photography - she can often be found curled up somewhere comfortable with a good book. She tries to spend at least part of every day outdoors, lest the world pass her by, and she has cultivated a number of hobbies, including bird photography, boating, baseball, and the occasional swim. She is an avid fan of the New York Islanders.
Richards has adapted to the culture of Yuriba with some difficulty. She was raised Catholic but considers herself estranged from the church, having turned her back on the faith over their attitudes towards homosexuality, and she is generally distrustful of religions. She finds Yuriban animism obscure and overly cultlike, and she occasionally feels as though she's expected to convert. Though she is usually content with the local food, she often pines for a deep-dish pizza or something deep-fried. Richards is at her most comfortable surrounded by other normal people from Earth. She's begun to develop a prejudice against catgirls, though she does try to keep an open mind.
In most situations Richards prefers to avoid being labeled. She's effectively polyamorous but doesn't really call it that, and though she wears men's clothing to the point one could call her a transvestite and not be completely wrong, she doesn't make an issue about her gender identification. In her mind she is the way she is and she doesn't give a damn what anyone else thinks. She's irreverent much of the time, though when pushed or confronted her irreverence gives way to a fierce temper. She has been known to respond to perceived wrongs by blistering her unwitting assailant with a vicious barrage of profanities. Richards absolutely detests people who make their displeasure known subtly or through implication, and such people are likeliest to provoke her to the point of physical confrontation - and despite her size she's a tough, scrappy sort who throws a mean hook punch and gleefully fights dirty.
Romantic preferences
At a glance you could make a case for Teagan as Miyakosexual but that's not actually the case.
Richards doesn't go out of her way looking for a frolic - at least, not most of the time. At heart she's a solid, workmanlike sort who'd prefer to shoot the breeze and watch a hockey game than romp between the sheets. It takes a special sort of person to actually inspire her to acts of romance. Generally Richards responds well to being teased, and she's prone to returning it in bulk. She seems to develop chemistry with women who share her basic sense of playfulness and are willing to go back and forth with her a little. She's also quite prone to building relationships around recurring themes, though those tend to develop organically and are different with everyone she gets involved with.
Despite Richards' talents as a photographer, she usually finds it a turnoff when someone she's photographing gets aroused by it. It's different with people she's friends with, but for the most part, she takes the photos because it's her job, and having it suddenly double back into a sexual situation stymies her work ethic and leaves her frustrated at having her hobby sexualized against her will.
Hobbies, skills and employment
Photography has been Teagan's passion for a long time. She's a master of the craft and would likely have taken a job with a major daily newspaper by this point, given her level of talent, if Yuriba had not intervened. She owns several cameras and has converted part of her apartment into a darkroom, with another one housed in the studio at the Yuriba Art Gallery, where she's employed as the principal photographer for the Yuriba Swimsuit Calendar line and the associated Yuriba Pinup Series.
Relationships
- Rae-Anne Anderson: Rae has become Teagan's boss in terms of the swimsuit calendars. At times Teagan rolls her eyes at Rae's tendency to be impulsive, bitch someone out or wear little, but most of the time she finds her easygoing and relateable, and the two share a good working relationship that you'll never actually see because their player doesn't care to RP between two alts very often.
- Liena: The spunky young nudist continually tried to encourage Teagan to take her clothes off, but Teagan tends to instead dig in her heels and try to rein Liena in. She tolerates the girl because she's sweet and simple, and she feels oddly obligated to try and take her by the hand and do things to make her not come on too strong anymore.
- Madeline Lane: They don't cross paths a lot anymore, but Teagan took an instant liking to Madeline. She finds she's someone she can shoot the shit with without having to worry about people lecturing her about dropping an F-bomb now and then.
- Rho Grey: If only Teagan saw Rho more. Normally someone as verbose as the firebird wouldn't be Teagan's type, but she finds an odd chemistry there that draws her to Rho magnetically. Their encounters usually end in kissing and an exchange of double entendres. That said, those encounters are depressingly few.
- Scooter: Teagan's rough collie. She's as much a friend as any human.
List of ex-love interests
There are a surprising number of these.
- Miyako Tanaka: Teagan has counted Miyako as her on-again-off-again love interest since 2008. The two share a relationship characterized by an intense chemistry that tends to lead the two to hit each other with a constant barrage of subtle flirtation. Though they'd gone as far as getting engaged, Teagan abruptly broke off the relationship and moved out of Miyako's house in early 2014, opting to go it alone.
- Nadia Marchand: For a time there was nobody more special to Teagan than this girl. She grew very close to the French lass in 2008 and 2009, the two developing a thoughtful, teasing relationship based on the little things. In many ways they had the same thing Teagan and Miyako do. Nadia's departure from Yuriba was one of the hardest things Teagan has had to cope with in Yuriba thus far.
- Salome Highscribe: This flirtatious, unpredictable elven witch lived with Teagan for a time. The two spent a lot of time teasing each other and a lot of time doing more than that. Teagan credits her time with Salome as some of the most interesting time she's spent on the island, and she mourned the elf's departure greatly.
- Merin Drazin: Believe it or not. The two had a bit of a thing going on in 2010 or thereabouts but it never progressed much further, and the two have since lost contact.
History
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Teagan Richards is the daughter of striving businessman Pat Antonelli and restaurant assistant manager Kathleen Richards. Though she's mostly Irish, from her father's side she's a quarter Italian. Shortly before she was born, her father ran out on her mother, leaving Kathleen to raise her daughter alone on a modest wage in a small apartment in the Big Apple. Teagan was joined three years later by a younger brother named Darren, as her mother married another man, a toy store owner by the name of Steve Mazzioni. For a time she was known as Teagan Mazzioni accordingly.
Her childhood saw her bounce between three or four public schools. Her academic performance was barely above average, and she'd often end up serving detention time for decking her fellow students. As a young girl she was something of a tomboy, protective of her younger brother to a fault. Though she did a lot of reading she was also fairly aggressive, largely because she hated her stepfather, knowing full well that he wasn't her real father. Her relationship with him was distant and strained, and she began to take on a few tomboyish traits, subconsciously asserting herself as the man of the house in lieu of a decent dad. Throughout her childhood the two argued almost constantly, and on a few occasions she earned herself a good smack or two. The tension between Teagan and her stepfather ruined her family life; her brother became introverted and retiring, seeking to get away from it all, while her mother stressed constantly over the fighting. As she matured Teagan did mellow somewhat, applying herself more to her studies, but she began using her mother's maiden name of Richards from the age of twelve to draw a perpetual line between herself and the Mazzioni clan.
In her teenage years she began to cultivate photography as a hobby, often running around New York taking dramatic street pictures, which she'd fill countless photo albums with. Her photography took off when she was seventeen. After working for three years at a local McDonald's, which she hated more than anything, on top of paper routes, she saved up enough cash to buy her first car. The old fourth-generation Honda Civic carried her throughout New York City and even beyond. Among her most precious memories comes from a photography trip she took with good friend Jody Parri to Washington, D.C., which she's immortalized in an album - though she mostly remembers the two of them having awkward sex in a hotel room.
Speaking of which, around the age of seventeen she realized she was a lesbian. The D.C. trip pretty well sealed it. Oddly enough her family didn't really mind, largely because they'd all guessed it already. Nor did many people around her care. New York isn't exactly Mississippi, after all.
Pursuing her interest in photography, Teagan made the natural jump into journalism and studied for three years at a local community college, developing skills across the gamut of journalistic careers to complement her skill with a camera. She graduated with honours and spent some time volunteering for a local paper before signing on with a travel magazine. Her travels took her all across the US and beyond, including memorable trips to Indonesia, Greece, Cambodia, and other nations. It also led her to Yuriba when she fell asleep on a plane. She woke up with her dog, Scooter, and herself surrounded by her belongings in a loose spiral on the beach.
Yuriba
Teagan's early time in Yuriba was relatively unremarkable. Establishing a small home for herself, she dabbled briefly in a teasing relationship with Coral before eventually going her own way. Most of her time was spent poring the island in search of landscape photography.
Her first serious relationship was with Nadia Marchand, with whom she developed rapid chemistry. The two came to refer to each other teasingly as "Frenchie" and "Yorkie" as a dig at their respective backgrounds, slipping easily into a teasing, flirty relationship that kept Teagan pinned to the island. For a time she had high hopes that the relationship would lead somewhere but was left deflated when Nadia vanished from the island. Around the same time she crossed paths with the local entrepreneur, Miyako Tanaka. The two established a friendship quickly, but it began to go further after Teagan accompanied Miyako to a photo shoot with a local publisher, Yue Yan. The two exchanged whispers through it before gallivanting back to Tanaka's business to talk things out in greater depth. The exchange kickstarted her most enduring relationship on the island, though it was somewhat on-again-off-again to begin with.
Around 2009 Teagan was contracted by Rae-Anne Anderson as the primary photographer for the Yuriba Swimsuit Calendar. She has shot every calendar since, save a few shoots where she deferred to Rae due to scheduling difficulties or conflicts of interest.
Also around that time Teagan began entertaining Salome Highscribe as a housemate. Though she found a certain joy in the flirty nature of the elf, she was once again left disappointed when Salome left Yuriba. The same year she struck up a relationship with the blue fae, Merin Drazin. Though the two started off quickly, once again it never went anywhere, continuing the pattern of Teagan having absolutely no luck with women other than Miyako.
By 2011 she'd crossed paths with the young nudist, Liena. With her relationship with Miyako at this point well and rekindled, Teagan chose not to pursue the naked girl but did take pity on her and tried to give her some sage advice. She is not sure if it took since the girl she dubbed "roasted tits" seems to have also vanished from the island as of 2012. Later that year, she and Miyako caused a bit of a stir when they left a camera running following their calendar shoot. The two both shrugged and decided to put the resulting sex tape up for auction.
As of 2014, Teagan abruptly broke off her relationship with Miyako and moved into Rae's old studio apartment at the Yuriba Art Gallery, where she has taken on the role of principal photographer.