Putting forth my application. Tell me what you think!
Name: Tate Merritt-Lynwood
Age: 23
Gender: Female
Allegiance: The British Crown
Allegiance Faction: The Royal Navy
Role: Junior post-captain, tactician and member of staff of the British West Indies station
Personality: The best word that can describe Tate is… “stoic.” She has an unflinchingly calm demeanor, often betraying no emotion in even the most dire of situations. She is a master of masking emotion, and is not somebody you’d like to play poker with.
Her stoicism is not a trait that she was born with. Tate values security above all else, and in this regard her behavior can be seen as a defense mechanism against letting slip undesirable comments or reactions that would lead her to feel insecure.
It is this security complex that drives her interest in strategies and tactics. If through careful reasoning she knows as a certainty all the outcomes of an action or lack thereof, there would be little reason for her to worry. If there is a fluke in a plan or situation, Tate would always have a backup of a backup- she would have a contingency plan thought out for nearly everything days in advance.
The feeling of being in control is something she strives nothing less for, and being in a leadership role comes naturally to her. While this is the case, she is hardly an inspiring leader; her strength comes not from charisma, but the reassurance of absolute certainty.
Although these qualities make her appear tomboyish and self-centered, she can be endearing and kind in her own unique sort of way. While she keeps a professional distance among most, she is not afraid to get intimate with trustworthy and wholesome individuals.
Enhanced Ability: Perception and critical awareness. Tate’s talent is her ability to quickly take note of everything around her and make sense of the situation. For example, in a hypothetical engagement with an enemy, she would be likely to hold the weather gauge, or at the very minimum prevent the enemy from possessing it and obtaining a significantly advantageous position against her.
Biography:
Tate was born to the distinguished Merritt-Lynwood family, a house of minor nobility in Britain. Her family had deep roots in naval lineage; her father was Viscount Neville Merritt-Lynwood, a retired but distinguished vice admiral of the Royal Navy, and his father and the father of his father were both successful captains of a frigate and a ship-of-the-line, respectively. Tate was the second-youngest out of four children, with an elder brother and sister, and a younger sister. As the middle child of four children, she initially received little attention from her parents until it was realized that their only son and Tate’s elder brother was a wholly incompetent seaman that would never make it past the rank of midshipman. At age ten, Tate witnessed her brother return home a disgraced man that had lost his commission in the Royal Navy.
This did not sit well with her father. Furious, her brother was kicked out of the household and disowned. He spent months spiraling into despair at the besmirching of the family name and began to drink heavily to drown his sorrows, often taking out his anger on his own family, for there was nobody else to take the mantle. Being only ten and with her family falling apart all around her, Tate shut herself in the family library and turned to books as an escape. It was because of this that her father discovered her by chance reading a book on naval tactics during one of his usual tirades. Something finally clicked in his head; there [is]was[/s] somebody competent and motivated enough to carry the family tradition after all. Finally coming to terms with the situation, he offered to take Tate under his wing as his protégée, no matter the social barriers it would take to get her into the Navy, a proposal that she gladly accepted.
Against odds (and with lots of ‘donation’ money), Tate was made midshipman at age 14 and served on the
HMS Magnificent for a little under a year. She took and failed the lieutenant examination a year later, but was able to pass and was promoted to lieutenant the year after, a feat for somebody at that age. The examination marked her last post to a ship in several years, as she was appointed to a post at the Admiralty as an assistant to a Sea Lord, where her abilities would be best suited. At the admiralty, she aided in court-martial investigations and provided advice, where she gained her reputation for her cool demeanor and hard work.
Her post at the admiralty was a prosperous one, and she was promoted to commander and offered a command of a small frigate, which she declined in favor of continuing work in London. It was not until she was 22 and was promoted to post-captain that she resigned her post at the Admiralty and was offered a post as a member of staff for the Admiral of the British West Indies, where the British garrison continued to be plagued by the constant threat of pirates and privateers. Finding it an interesting situation to try and help solve, she accepted the commission, boarding the
HMS Lyme, a 28-gun frigate bound for the Caribbean station. It never made it to its destination.
Likes: Trustworthy individuals, honor, tea, good food, chess, reading, theorycrafting
Dislikes: Pirates, cramped quarters, loud noises, disrespect
Family:
Neville Merritt-Lynwood, 1st Viscount Lynwood, father
Marie Merritt-Lynwood, mother
Henry Merritt-Lynwood, brother
Luce Merritt-Lynwood, sister
Clare Cavendish, sister
Weapons: Tate wields a smallsword, a lightweight blade not dissimilar from a rapier, made to parry the very model it was designed from. Her particular sword is silver-hilted with an intricate embossed design.
Miscellaneous: TBA
