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| P H Y S I C AL S T A T S : | ▸ HEIGHT : | 5'6"
▸ WEIGHT : | 138 lbs.
▸ ETHNICITY : | Cuban-American
▸ HAIR COLOR : | Brown.
▸ EYE COLOR : | Hazel.
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| PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION : | A boyish appearance doesn’t do Israel much favors in the crime-ridden city of Charity Beach. He isn’t packing much muscle on his body and is scrawny underneath baggy clothing and a spunky façade. So naturally, he usually has a few bruises and scars on his body to accompany the ashy, caramel-colored complexion of his skin, in combination with which, his face gives away his Cuban heritage. His button shaped nose is upturned, and the bridge of which is wide, resting over a thick-lipped mouth. Above his nose are neatly maintained eyebrows, even if they aren’t on speaking terms, which rest above weary eyes that look as though they are missing out on much needed sleep. His brown hair has the slightest bit of curls and waves in it and is easily styled out of his face with just a comb – although, admittedly, his hair oils fast and a long, hard day will leave him with wanting another shower. His jawline and cheekbones might be among the few things reinforcing his masculinity, even if he doesn’t grow thick facial hair.
They are both strong and pronounced, creating quite a contrast with the upper half of his face, making it easy to tell from which parent each feature came from. Speaking of his face, he tends to wear a rather dour expression. One can tell by looking at him that he is a serious individual, he’s probably quiet and it might take a bit to get him out of his shell. He looks as though he is burdened by the weight of the world and all too aware of the reality around him. A bit young for an existential crisis, don’t you think? But he also speaks with a tone of certainty, like a man on a mission who knows what he must do. This can be seen in other mannerisms, such as the notorious murder walk, or the conscious decision to avoid slouching. Each step he takes is with purpose, so even with his shorter height and lack of stature, he seems to demand a wide berth, making him feel a little taller than he really is and giving him an air of intensity whenever he enters one of his moods.
Israel doesn't look particularly well. He lacks a lot of muscle to his body, he seems like he's somewhat in a daze much of the time, there's a slight gauntness in his cheeks, and an ashy paleness to his complexion. Slight bags rest under his eyes that he can't seem to shake away. It's hard to tell whether or not he's sick or if he's on something, but he's definitely not well or is at least underfed and somewhat sleep deprived.
He has few other accessorizing features. The aforementioned scars on his body are not just from minor scrapes with thugs and whatnot, a few even came from home. Circular burn marks about the width of a cigar are here and there across the body, and most of which were on his upper left arm. Over his upper left arm is what looks like a completely solid tattoo sleeve down to his elbow. The entire arm is black, except for one portion, where the artist used the black ink to draw the outline for a renaissance-styled mermaid, swimming in the inky blackness which surrounds her. The style was like the ones you might see on an old timey map, and the idea behind the tattoo was to hide all those nasty scars away from sight. There is no intentional meaning behind the mermaid aside from looking pretty, and it’s all for the better – if he can detract as much meaning as possible from the tattoo, then there would be that much less reason to think about the reason for it being there.
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| ATTIRE : |Unfortunately, Israel only gets to wear his favorite fake leather jacket a few months out of ever year – we live in Florida, what did you expect? But he still tries to get away with wearing plain old sweatshirts, often rolled up to his elbows, or old t-shirts without any design on them from Wal-Mart. No designer clothes or anything exists in his wardrobe, but as far as pants go, he has a lot of camouflage fatigues that were hand-me-downs from his father and older sister. Being as skinny as he is they’re a little baggy on him, so you can see them poof out a bit after he secures them with a black fabric belt; and given their length, are often half tucked into black combat boots that once belonged to his older sister. Of course, some days in Florida are too hot for even that. So, when the summer days come rolling along, he of course has shorts, tank-tops, and flip flops available. He has few available accessories, except for dog tags on a chain around his neck, reading “Ashley de los Reyes.”
There are times when Israel had to hide his identity, and in those occasions, he opts for a simple grey hoodie with a similarly grey-scale shirt underneath without any unique characteristics. He would also wear a cheap pair of jeans and cheap pair of sneakers to go with it. Of course, the guise wouldn't be complete without a black bandanna covering his face just below his eyes -- with the hood of his hoodie up, of course.
▼ | PERSONALITY TRAITS : | Serious | Quiet | Kind | Empathetic | Righteous | Passionate | Determined | Clever | Cynical | Insecure
He is kind of a strange character. No matter the setting, it almost seems like he never quite belongs there, or that there’s something better he could be doing with his time. His serious demeanor sets him apart in crowd almost immediately, and he moves with such purpose, it’s like he’s the hero in someone’s novel. He’s serious, quiet, and absurdly intelligent, granting him a strength that his body can’t provide. He’s a natural at chess, always strategizing, identifying patterns, and getting into people’s heads as if it was as easy as breathing air. At first, he might seem a little shy. He has a bit of a stutter, and he doesn't seem to react well to loud displays of emotion, but he seems to turn into a different person whenever he talks about something he's passionate about. He speaks with such fluidity, articulation, and certainty, with nary a stutter in his voice, that he makes you want to believe in whatever he’s saying; and depending on your tastes, the Latino accent in his voice might just be the little push of “exotic charm” that was needed to convince you. There's a peculiar sort of charisma around the boy that isn't immediately evident. Suddenly the man that didn't react well to loud displays of emotion becomes fueled by it and turns it back.
But he’s not as much of a hard-ass as you might think upon first looking at him. If you were to ask his friends, you’d find that the opposite is true. Israel’s problem is probably that he’s
too empathetic and
too compassionate. He really is a kind soul who means well, is always looking out for the little guys and underdogs of society, but he’s so aware of the hardships and societal flaws around him, it’s like he can never at peace with himself. It's obvious he has some anti-capitalistic sentiment, though he gets his lips zipped on such matters. He has such a passionate sense of right and wrong that it almost physically pains him to let something go, and he almost feels guilty whenever he catches himself relaxing or having a good time when there’s so much wrong out there not being addressed. He has become disillusioned, but he hides it in such a way that you wouldn’t see him and think “righteous anger,” you would think “depression.”
It's not impossible to get him to relax, though. He has friends around Los Costas and in other parts of Charity Beach who can get him out of his anal-retentive shell, albeit slowly. Friends like Matthew Detmer or Kashmira Sarai, the burnout and nurse respectively. Then you can see a real person hiding underneath all of his baggage, and seeing a genuine smile from him is something to behold. He's not sure what it is, but he seems to attract friends from all walks of life despite his demeanor, though he seems to spitefully set the bar above anyone with a prejudice against the disenfranchised and those who only benefit from the system. He has a rebellious streak and a problem with authority, which can only be placated by lots of work put into trust-building that is easily toppled over by a stray breeze.
Such insecurities are characterized by trust and a fear of vulnerability. A history of disorganized attachment patterns from his chaotic upbringing has created a fearful internal working model that affects his ability to seek out help and allow himself to be vulnerable around other people. He's developed a series of miscues to hide his needs from others and to own his struggles independently, or ignoring his needs altogether in favor of helping someone else. It is not hard to be his friend; it is hard, however, to get him to open up and be vulnerable around others to express his needs.
Student ⫻ Being a student isn’t really a skill, but it’s more to represent his knowledge and intelligence. He so far hasn’t settled on a major in college, but he has maintained a 4.0 GPA with just a couple classes per semester and has taken a lot of political science, philosophy, speech, and sociology courses and not only enjoyed them, but excelled. He’s also part of several clubs such as a chess club and a social awareness club, with which he plays a large part in organizing. To sum up this “skill”, Israel is intelligent, well-read, disciplined, and well-organized.
Speaking & Writing ⫻ To start, Israel is bilingual, fluent in English and Cuban Spanish, often using them interchangeably in his conversations. Aside from that, though, his ability to speak is inspiring -- sometimes. Not all the time, like in everyday conversation. He can be a little awkward and can take his time, but wait until you see him angry and passionate about something. The boy is gone and a man takes his place, and suddenly his voice has the power to move entire crowds. He is one of the lead writers for an online blog and his stories have circulated around the internet many times, having moved enough people with the written word alone. He credits this with the experiences in essay-writing from college and the experience of flowery song-writing over the years of playing music.
Cooking ⫻ Is Israel a chef? No, but he is a home cook. He had to learn how to cook for his family from an early age, and he knows how to cook a lot of classic Cuban dishes and treats like vaca frita, picodillo, pastelitos, plátanos maduros, and coladas; though his personal taste colors how much spice should be entering a dish (a lot).
Bassist & Vocals ⫻ When Israel was younger, he turned to music as an escape. With a few friends from high-school, they tried to start a punk band in one of their garages. Israel and the others were pretty good at their separate jobs, but none of them knew how to work one another to make a decent, cohesive song and the writing for said songs were terrible. Granted, this was years ago, and he only got better since those days. His practice with acoustic guitars built the foundation upon which he learned to play bass guitars.
Roller-blading ⫻ He is by no means an athlete, but everyone has at least one physical hobby they enjoy doing. He’s not exceptional at it, he can’t race or do tricks and stuff, but he can go from A to B without any problems.
▼ | BACK STORY : | Israel is a first generation American born to father Matías de los Reyes and mother Loraine in Miami, Florida with his four-year older sister Ashley. His grandparents carried his father away from the violence of the Cuban revolution of the '50s and were promptly sequestered off into ghettos and pocket communities. So, Israel grew up in a Miami-Dade neighborhood essentially known as "Little Cuba." His grandfather, not born on American soil and too old to serve, started the trend of sending his child into military service when he was old enough to solidify his newfound American identity with the promise of citizenship. Israel's was likely a charmer when he met Loraine, but that wasn't the man that Ashley and Israel got to know while growing up. Strict and regimented, it was clear that his mind was shaped by the harsh urban environment he was surrounded by in his youth, years of prejudice, and the strict rigidity the military disciplined him with. You fell in line for your own good, and punishment would condition you if you didn't comply. He saw it as tough love, believing that whatever he did to them now was nothing compared to how the world would treat them for being different. The kids saw it as abuse, and rightly so when they saw how he treated their mother, and when he extinguished his cigars on their skin for speaking out against it. Before long, that anger turned to fear.
Between his father and the courtesy of the streets, he quickly learned how the world worked. As a Latino, he learned that even the most dangerous parts of Little Cuba were one of the safest places in Miami for him to be. Sure, there was a drug problem, a gang problem, and the cops treated everyone in the area with spite – but they trusted you even less if you were lurking around white suburban neighborhoods. You’d get stopped just to be asked inane questions like, “How you doin’ today?” or “Nice neighborhood, huh?” after passing a train of old white ladies walking their Pomeranians along the sidewalk in their sweats first thing in the morning, clutching their pearls at the sight of the brown-skinned kid who didn’t belong. If they had a bad day or feeling particularly ballsy, they just come out say what was really on their mind. “What are you doing here?”
Those were white neighborhoods meant for white people – not him, even if cutting through was the shortest route to the bus stop. The buses didn’t stop in Little Cuba. Sure, some of them were nice, even if they were curious about “you exotic types.” It made him realize why, exactly, so many Latinos and African-Americans were forced to live in ghettos and dirty, underfunded neighborhoods. Then, when he learned to ask questions, learned that most of his neighbors didn’t have glamorous jobs – if any job – that could pay enough to live a gated community. They were line cooks, dish washers, garbage men, janitors, and farm hands if they were lucky – selling drugs, stealing, conning, or begging if they weren’t – and forced to live in squalor and weren’t being provided with the means to escape. It created a disassociation between culturally instilled goals and institutionally provided means of realization. How was he ever going to achieve the so called “American Dream” if the very society that peddled it regularly denied his community of the opportunity?
To pile on additional complications, there was the metahuman problem. Stress had a correlation with the realization of powers, so Little Cuba had quite a few meta-humans in the community, those Israel’s family seemed to have little or no potential for it. As far as Israel was concerned, that just meant even more reason for police cars to patrol their neighborhood. The creation of FAMA presented some hope for good treatment and proper care for unfortunate metahumans, and at first that was true. Then those hopes were dashed when the slightest signs of “a rogue metahuman” were met with what was basically a superpowered SWAT team. No, a cop could go rogue, a spy could go rogue. Going rogue meant joining an organization and betraying them or acting on your own. The metahumans? They never asked for their condition.
He was disillusioned with his environment from an early age, but he still had the problem of his father and escaping his wrath to worry about. Ashley was tougher and spunkier than he was, always fought back, and would probably sound like a bitch if you ever heard her screaming; but it was for good reason. She was his primary defense, since their mother quaked in her slippers whenever their father so much as looked in the direction of a beer can. He hated seeing Ashley get hurt on his behalf, so ever the clever little snot that he is today, he learned how to avoid the worst off their father's discipline when he wasn't submitting to the everyday admonishment. He learned how to talk to him to appease him, meet his needs, and create compromises even if he still lived in fear of his authority. Israel learned that he couldn't truly rely on either of his parents to meet his needs, so he (along with Ashley, after some convincing) just tried to make sure that they were both happy every day by cooking their meals and cleaning the house, then getting the heck out of dodge whenever they had the time. He spent most of his time outside of home, going to school and traversing the city with Ashley and their shared friends, only coming home in time to cook dinner before heading out again, returning home only when their father went to bed.
Although they were born on American soil and were now rightly U.S. citizens, Israel was fourteen when Ashley joined the military and left for basic training. It was her way of getting the hell out of dodge since she didn’t have the means of getting her own place with a shitty kitchen job. Still, that also meant that the buffer of his older sister was now gone, making Israel the sole focus of his father's temper, fear, and discipline. Not long after Ashley left, his father lost his job, then decided that it was time to get up and leave. Israel saw it as him leaving while Ashley was away and became heartbroken at the idea of never seeing his sister again; but not wanting to invoke his wrath, he said nothing about it. His father settled on Charity Beach, which was only a few miles away from Tampa. Lo and behold, south Charity Beach had its very own Little Cuba: Los Costas, as dirty and neglected as their old home. South of Los Costas was the industrial district, where Israel’s father would find his new job and be kept away from home with his murderous hours and extensive overtime. Ashley had no home to return to when she came back from basic training.
With no more friends and no more sister, it was around this time when Israel turned to music as a coping mechanism, as it made him feel less alone in his struggles. Favorite bands in his playlist were punk and grunge bands and rap groups that were rebellious in nature, spat in the face of shitty families, and in the face of society of general. Rage Against the Machine, Soundgarden, Beastie Boys, Anti-Flag, et cetera. When he was finally admitted into his new school, he immediately joined band and took up guitar. His spent most of his time after school practicing with the school-supplied instruments (which he wasn’t allowed to leave the room with, but whatever), until he moved on with bass. He preferred the low notes, power, and simple style it had over the sometimes-complicated rhythms of the acoustic. He was 15 years old when he and two other boys and a girl reached out to him to join their band, since they couldn’t find a bassist anywhere else. So, he accepted the offer, went to their house, and rocked out in their garage.
They were pretty shitty.
One dramatic, yet anti-climatic breakup later, or a year later for a more chronological sense of time, Israel was 16 and received an unexpected visit from Ashley. Well, mostly unexpected – Israel was the only one attempting to correspond with her, and the letters managed to reach her within the Navy, and the contents of which detailed where they were now living. When she was allowed shore leave, Ashley visited Charity Beach to see him, but and ended up renting a new shitty apartment on the other side of Los Costas, where Israel would then regularly visit. That is, until the harassment he’d receive on one of the streets to get there escalated into violence, and one or two street beating later, he stopped visiting his sister’s apartment. It became too dangerous.
Fast-forwarding a few years, Israel graduated high-school with high grades and praises despite his home life. College was never an expectation in his life, instead was long disillusioned by the prospect of forever being trapped as nothing more than a line cook or a factory worker, but the counselor of his new high school told him that between the monetary benefit received from living within a sponsored school district, the financial aid that he would get from his living situation, and the scholarships that his grades would inevitably reap, he should be able to afford enrolling himself in courses with nothing more than a part time job. With his counselor’s words of hope encouraging a dream he never thought possible before, he became motivated, and there was little doubt in his mind what he wanted to do. He wanted to fix the system. He wanted to make things better for the people within his community. He’d have to get his general education requirements out of the way, but he already knew what courses he wanted to take: political sciences, philosophy, law, sociology – he wanted to fuel his passions. He wanted to be politically active and educated.
Then, of course, the money never came. The sponsorship money did, for what it was worth – one or two textbooks – and financial aid was like pocket change. For some reason, he didn’t get scholarships. Sure, one or two said they would, or that they might, but then they didn’t. Suddenly, Israel had to work his ass off full-time in a kitchen to pay for part-time college after taking out a loan. He only took one semester, passed with a hard-earn 4.0 by the skin of his teeth, then didn’t even bother signing up for the next semester so that he could accumulate enough funds without fucking himself over too much with more loans. He couldn’t keep this sort of practice up for very long. If he couldn’t go to school, right away, then instead he became politically active in a different way. He did his research, figured out who he likes, and helped them campaign. Attended rallies and marches. He wanted to give a damn about something larger than himself. There had to be an important cause larger than himself worth looking up to.
Of course, the politicians he rallied behind never kept their word. The minority vote was just a tool to propel themselves. Sometimes they didn’t even get that far – sometimes their corruption or sex abuse scandals would reach them before then. Was there nobody he could trust? His disillusionment with the establishment was reinforced.
Then, at the age of 19, his father went to prison. Apparently, a neighbor heard noise coming from his own apartment while Israel was out – bastard was hitting his own wife – and papa was arrested for domestic abuse. Of course, after answering the call, they decided to also bring a K9 unit with them. Harassing Los Costas and milking them for arrests was apparently too good a chance to pass up, and wouldn’t you know it, they found drugs. A different neighbor was busted for marijuana and opiates, and then when pressed for answers, it turns out that Israel’s dad would pick up more than 20 grams of marijuana care packages from the docks on his way home from work. He was getting payed as a runner! In addition to domestic battery, he was to be tried for drug possession, and since he was in possession of more than 20 grams he was now considered a felon. A different neighbor with good intentions tried to approach and deescalate a situation when the police exhibited an excessive use of force in their arrests, then he was accused of obstructing justice and was subsequently tackled and put into a strangling choke-hold while they cuffed him.
Back to Matías, because he was of course a minority (Israel figured), he was given the maximum sentence of 6 years in prison. Now with the supply of marijuana, opiates, and other self-medicating substances gone dry, another neighbor shot and killed the neighbor who originally made the call in the first place. Such was the way of Los Costas.
He never did visit his father while he was in prison.
The chaotic chain of events is what eventually led him to following an online blog called the Sunshine Manifest, whenever he had time to visit the Charity Beach Library in the Jackson Row and use their computers. It was a social justice blog of anarchists counting the injustices throughout the state of Florida. They also coordinated events like rallies and marches throughout the state. Through it, he no longer felt alone in his anger and rage, and yet it only seemed to stoke it. The problems he was seeing was systematic. It was everywhere. The system deliberately placed minorities into disenfranchised neighborhoods and taken advantage of, then farmed for money by being put into privately owned prison complexes. So, he took up writing and submitted his own entries and articles to the blog for them to publish. It was entirely voluntary, he wasn’t getting payed for it – but it was cathartic for him to share his story and get his anger off his chest. But he was smart about it and remained entirely anonymous. Placeholders names were used in place of real names, and the only indication of his identity was the fact he lived in Charity Beach and his username “MadCaridad.” It was simple. He felt mad, and caridad was Spanish for charity.
The article he wrote and the phrase “ain’t no charity in Charity Beach” quickly circulated. It encouraged him to write some more.
If you were wondering what was going on with Ashley this whole time, there’s a reason for that. Israel wondered the same thing. It’s like she isolated herself from her family and became distant. Fast-forwarding to the next year, he learned in the news about a gang called The Boyz clashing with the police. After the shootout, the media came out with a body count. He didn’t care about most of them. But seeing the name Ashley de los Reyes broke his heart, completely and utterly. He also felt angry. And confused. He couldn’t bring himself to believe that she would resort to getting into bed with a gang. Had she really been so desperate? Why was he blind to her struggles? Was he too distracted with his own? He has been desensitized to a lot in his life. He has lost friends, family, and neighbors, but this one really rocked the boat. It threw him into a depression for a little while, and when he finally came out of it, it fueled his writing. Suddenly everyone knew the story of an anonymous 20-year-old boy who lost his loving older sister to gang violence. It wasn’t long after that did he become a top contributor, and soon, received the offer to become one of the admins.
Before long, he was one of a few people coordinating and organizing protests of his own in the Charity Beach area. Turn-out started off slow, but word spreads quickly. In fact, his own neighborhood in Los Costas began to change. When word of the protests reached them, when Israel’s own words reached them, it united their anger, fear, and dissatisfaction and pointed it toward a direction. His immediate neighborhood became a real community trying uplift one another and be brave in the face of prejudice and oppression. He was making a real difference. This was a cause greater than himself. That’s what he did for the next few years. He worked and pretended he was a normal young adult like everyone else – and then he had his secret identity, MadCaridad, dressed in an inconspicuous grey hoodie, jeans, and a black bandana covering his face just below his eyes, and shouting angrily into a crowd of people as angry as he was.
He wasn’t supposed to be anybody important. That was the point. He could be anybody. Anybody could step up and be a leader if they were passionate. Then, when he riled up the people enough, he’d disappear into the crowd and let them do as they wish. If they wanted to toss trash cans, light torches, or burn a cop car, it didn’t matter to him if it got them the attention they wanted. It didn’t matter to him if it got the message across that they were tired being treated like shit by the system. If change didn’t happen, the protests will only escalate. They’ll become marches, the marches will become riots, and the riots will become anarchy. The big man in charge will have to see that there’d be no controlling them any longer if they wanted to avoid the threat to their carefully constructed and fragile social order. His most impactful protest, the one that followed the inauguration of President Trump, came damn close.
Now 25 years old, Israel continues to work, he went back to school last year to take a few classes, and now has five years of experience organizing events and public speaking. Not just for the Sunshine Manifest either, his politics and speech courses and the student government club have encouraged him to become involved in local politics too. Economics has proved an interesting course with its in-depth description of capitalism and other economic systems and their respective criticisms. He has made a little reputation for himself as a hard-working, kind, and empathetic individual in his community, living with and taking care of his mom, even if he was a bit serious and jaded. Despite that, no one could argue against him caring more about the people around him than anybody. This was for the best. The less they knew about the truth, the better.
