LANCING, damian

[Damian Lancing]

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*DAMIAN matthais LANCING,
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basics

full name. Damian Matthais Lancing
nick names. N/A
age and birthday. 28, April 20
gender. male
sexual orientation. heterosexual
occupation. Rowanoak University NCAA equestrian team coach, co-manager of Ridgefield Stables, ex-professional horse trainer and rider
character group. Adult

appearance

height. 5'11"
weight. 160 lbs
appearance. At nearly six feet tall, Damian is of average height, and though his weight, like anyone’s, fluctuates, he’s of average weight too. His skin tone is nothing to really think too much about. Due to his job he does spend a good deal out time out in the sun however and this gives his skin a nice healthy tan, depending on the season of course. His face is symmetrical, though if one really looks at it they can tell that it may not be completely proportionate. His eyes are a little small for his face and his eyebrows go far to the side, past the corners of his eyes. His eyebrows also come out over his eyes, but this gives him a mysterious look, and makes him look quite intimidating when he wants to, which can help with his job and with women because, for some reason, women seem to like that mysterious quality in men. His nose and ears are fairly large and while normally an upper lip is the larger than the upper, his are nearly the same size. These disproportionate spots, however, are usually not noticed unless they are looked for and therefore not something that takes away from his normally considered good looks.

Damian’s eyes are a nice shade of blue and do not change color whatsoever with clothing or season. As of right now Damian usually lacks dark circles under his eyes or bloodshot sclera due to getting a good amount of sleep for what his body is used to and not physically exerting himself too much, but that comes with the territory when you have a useless leg and it takes away all you have ever wanted to do with your life. His teeth are mostly white, though slightly off from coffee stains. Damian’s hair is dark brown in color and of a decent length, though he doesn’t do anything with it. He showers at night and then sleeps on it wet and this often causes his hair to stand up straight, though he doesn’t care too much about that either. His hair line is still nice and forward on his forehead, which is something he was always worried about because baldness does run in his family, but it seemed to at least skip his generation. Though he tries to stay clean shaven he tends to get lazy when it comes to shaving daily so he usually has anywhere from a smooth face to a couple days worth of growth.

Now, you are all probably wonder what was meant when it was mentioned that Damian has a useless leg. He does, in fact, get very little use out of his right leg due to an injury that happened a few years ago. The muscles and nerves in his legs were severed and leave him unable to bend his knee very far at all, making him walk with a limp even over short distances. If you ever get a chance to look at his leg, which very few do, there is a bad scar up and down his thigh, a part of it from the original injury and a part of it from the surgery to try and prepare the injury. The leg is also very weak looking compared to the opposite leg, having lost a good deal of the muscle it once had from horseback riding to not being used for even as much as standing.

This one leg, though, is the only part of Damian that is lacking any muscle. He is a strong, and flexible if you must know, guy and even with his injury still walks good distances and does a large amount of work around the barn, carrying hay bales and moving jump equipment. His arms and chest, from all this work, always ripple with muscle that can be seen through his shirt if it is wet with sweat, but he will never, or at least rarely, go shirtless due to the fact that he works with many girls younger than he. For the lucky few who do see him shirtless he has six pack abs and a defined chest with muscled arms and shoulders, especially if you look from the back. His strength and muscling is also apparent when one sees the thickness of his neck

Damian always wears long pants to cover his bad leg, but will either wear short or long sleeves depending on the weather. If it’s really cold you will always see him bundled up since he does dislike cold on any given day and sees no reason to be cold if it is in his power to stop it. This often includes a trench coat of some type. He does rarely dress up and is more often than not just seen in simple jeans and a t-shirt. He does usually have a fairly masculine look when it comes to his clothing and won’t willingly wear pink or anything like that, but hey, he is also a nice enough guy so it is possible to get him to change his mind.
play by. Misha Collins

personality

likes. *Natural Horsemanship
*Horseback Riding
*Late Nights
*Alcohol (secretly)
*His Dog
*Quick and lasting decisions
dislikes. *His Injury
*Students who think they know more than he does
*Early Mornings
*Unwilling Horses
*Not being able to get weight on horses
*People who go overboard with training aids
*Rope halters (just a personal thing)
personality. Some people may call Damian rash, however, he prefers quick to think. When he decides upon something there is no going back, which has worked well for him in his life. He will never spend large amounts of time pondering over a decision because he figures that, if it was a good idea at the time, it will always be a good idea. Sure, this philosophy has gotten him into trouble in the past, but never enough trouble to make him change his way of thinking. When it comes to horses, the whole “quick on his feet” thing won him many competitions in his pre-injury days and now he never sits to ponder about rather he wants to buy a horse or accept a student into the program. He makes a decision and never looks back, which is a nice quality to have for someone who keeps himself so busy.

Damian does whatever he can to keep his mind off his leg. This, though, is rather difficult as walking is something someone who works around a stable must to throughout most of their day and the limp, though better some days than others, never goes away. To remedy this, however, he just keeps himself busy, always trying to find something to do. Rather its paper work, helping a student, doing what he can around the barn or going to look at horses he will find a way to keep himself from getting too bored. He’s even to the point that he will go to his AA meetings more than once a week just to make sure he doesn’t have a night home alone and therefore sitting there and grieving over why he can’t be out doing something that night, why he can’t be riding and why he doesn’t have a loving wife in his arms. Over the last two years he has found that, simply put, idol hands are the devil’s handy work, and his devil is the bottle, which he is determined to stay away from.

It is also hard to make Damian forget something he has set his mind to. Stubborn, some may say, he calls himself determined. If he starts something he wants to finish it, but once he does finish it he quickly loses interest, at least for the time being. This came in handy before as a horse trainer and now as an instructor. However, it can also be fairly annoying, and this is something he’s aware of. His determination also extends to his thoughts about his injury. While, technically, he could be called handicapped, he refuses to ever allow anyone to use that term and tries to go about his day to make the people who don’t know him believe that the limp is caused by nothing but a sprained ankle. He will never accept help, even to get into his large truck and flat out refuses to ever use anything like a wheelchair or even a parking sticker. He feels he had been weak, leaning on alcohol, and is not determined to be what he calls strong, and what others may call foolish, in order to counteract that.

When it comes to women, Damian does enjoy their company but right now he is looking to settle down. He knows he’s getting up there in age and he was ready to get married three years ago. He is no longer grieving over Missy and is ready to get back out and find the right woman for him. That being said, he’s also not looking too hard due to his past and his constant need to stay busy and active. Not to mention, he doesn’t think the limp is so attractive. In the moment, Damian also doesn’t have too much he can call friends. Sure, he hangs out with certain people and he’s rarely lonely due to constantly being at the barn but he feels he has no one to talk to, unless she wants to call his sponsor, but they live quite a ways away now that Damian moved back to Kentucky. Once again, it’s not that he doesn’t want friends, in fact, he yearns for someone to talk to, but the fact of the matter is he knows he has skeletons in the closet and has his defenses up to keep them there.

While he would deny it, Damian is secretive to a fault. He tries to keep things quiet for as long as he can, and often this causes things to blow up in his face because no one likes being lied to. It takes him a while to open up to people and while he will admit to a mistake in his work, he would never admit to a mistake in his life until he knows you extremely well. Damian is also what some people may call bossy, which isn’t a half bad trait for a riding instructor, as well as his willingness to tell anyone what they are doing wrong and why they are wrong. Luckily, though, he also knows how to turn it all on and off to avoid too much trouble, especially in relationships.

history

hometown. Near Lexington, Kentucky
family. Dianna Lancing (Holden) - mother
Joshua Lancing - father
Meghan Oswold (Lancing) - older sister
Jennifer Lancing - younger sister
pets. Bourbon, 2, 3
financial need. N/A
history. Damian Lancing’s life was fairly uneventful up until after college, more or less. He was born the second of three children, the other two his sisters, making him the only boy in the family. This was also more or less uneventful in his life. His father had never been excited to see his son run on a football field, he really just wanted all of his children to be happy and healthy, and that they were. While the Lancing parents were strict, they were fair and not overbearing. They allowed their kids freedom while still being their parents and not their friends. All three of the kids got good grades all throughout high school and the family was happy and healthy. Sure there were some pains when his maternal grandmother passed and his parents were separated not long after for about a month, but that was as long as it lasted and now his parents are happily married and all three children are out of the house and starting their own lives.

While the three children grew up they all tried many different sports and activities. Damian himself tried out football, baseball and a whole scheme of martial arts but after going to his older sister’s riding lesson he never looked back. From the age of ten Damian spent a good portion of his time on top of a horse. When he was sixteen, after saving up for a year, he bought his first horse, which his parents agreed to pay upkeep for if he could buy the horse himself. The gelding he bought was an older quarter horse, but a great horse and the two got along well. Damian showed extensively in hunt seat for since he had been riding and when college came around he knew what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He filled out an application to Rowanoak University and sent them his riding video and sat around and waited. He also applied to a few more school with a men’s NCAA equestrian team, but those are few and far between and Rowanoak was the only one in state so his parents wouldn’t have to over extend themselves to pay for his college, as they agreed they would do, for the first four years.

After long last, Damian’s acceptance letter came in and he was ecstatic, even though he only made the practice team, but what could he expect? He had only been riding for eight years; most people who came into school had been riding before they could walk. He left for Rowanoak, after selling his quarter horse to a young girl at the barn who had fallen in love with his buckskin coloring. Sure, he missed the gelding, who wouldn’t, but he also knew it would be best for him, and what he hoped to be his future career, if he got away from his one horse streak and had the ability to lease some of the school’s amazing horses. He still keep up with the girl and his first equine, though, she still has him and uses him as a trail horse, which always brings a smile to Damian’s face.

The four years of college were also fairly uneventful. Damian worked his way from practice level to varsity by the end of his sophomore year. He also worked his way through a few girls and a few friends but all in all it was a successful college experience and when Damian got out he managed to find himself a position as an assistant trainer at a show jumping barn and once again, there was no looking back. He worked hard for a year while keeping his own riding skills up by exercising the horses and one rider’s tragedy, falling and a broken arm, was Damian’s one chance and he took it and ran. He rode the mare in her upcoming competition and won, by the skin of his teeth mind you, almost falling himself, but that doesn’t matter in jumpers and he walked away with a gold medal and grinning ear to ear.

It was after that that Damian started getting a couple calls to ride a few horses he and there, and he took all of them in order to get the money while he had also started to train a few horses on the side, both for hunter and jumpers and soon that was his sole income and he was living a comfortable life style. He also had a beautiful, smart and intelligent girl on his arm through all of this, Missy Brandwine, a fellow rider, who he was engaged to and trying to plan her the perfect wedding. His perfect little world, however, came crashing down during one competition, his first at grand prix level and excited hardly described how he felt over the whole thing. As he rode his course everything went well, but he all fell apart when the jump off came about. He cut a turn too sharply to try and cut down on time and when they jumped they were nearly sideways and Damian simply couldn’t hold his seat. The next thing he knew his horse was landing without him and he had fallen onto the jump, crashing all the poles down and bending his leg in a way he knew it wasn’t supposed to bend and not long later, he had blacked out.

When Damian woke up he was in the hospital, hooked to an IV and his leg screaming at him in pain. His femur had broken and punctured through his skin, severing nerves and muscle along the way. The mare, on the other hand, was perfectly fine, uninjured and was back in competition in a couple months. Damian was told that it was doubtful his leg would ever fully heal, or even heal to the extent that he would be able to ride on it and this was when his downward spiral started. Once out of the hospital he did nothing but sit at home and drink. He had lost his job, livelihood and passion all in one horrible accident and was no longer sure how to run his life, and this made him lose his fiancée as well. Missy left not long after the accident. She couldn’t be with an alcoholic, she told him, but he denied he was and she left, never to speak to him again. He sold her engagement ring back and used the money to buy even more booze.

The accident occurred when Damian was twenty-five and he spent a year doing nothing with his life but drinking. His family tried to help him; he slammed the door in their faces and continued his way of living. He was evicted from his apartment and had to move into a horrible park of town, which his family still had to pay for because his insurance was starting to run dry. For some time he looked like he was going to kill himself with no reason to live until one day he had the television on. He was channel flipping when he heard the word “bourbon” and went back to see what was on, hoping there was some sort of sale. Instead, it was the news while they were speaking of a dog. He watched the commercial and something pulled him in and the next thing he knew he was, drunkenly, walking over to the shelter where they said the dog was kept. What was so special about the dog? She had three legs. There had been something about how, due to cruel treatment the leg was not savable when she was finally brought into the shelter, however, the dog was still happy-go-lucky and acted as if she hardly cared that she didn’t have her fourth leg.

After meeting with the dog Damian was nearly sober when he filled out a form to adopt her and, on his way home saw something for the first time that he had seen every day since he had been living in the neighbor, a sign for an alcoholics anonymous meeting and, even to his own shock, he found himself sitting in the back of the room and looking in, and once again, there was no turning back. By some form of a miracle, out of all the people who wanted to adopt Bourbon they chose Damian, probably because they saw he needed her as much as she needed an owner. And the same day he got the phone call he went and got all the stuff the dog would need, went to pick up the dog and went back to his AA meeting, now sober since the day he had seen his new German shepherd, or shepherd cross, whichever one she was.

Now, after a year in the bottle, Damian finally started to pull his life back together. He threw out all his alcohol, with the help of his sponsor, and started to send out job applications, including one back to his alma mater, seeing they needed a new coach for the equestrian team. Seeing as they had no idea about his alcohol problem they hired him in a second and off he went, back to Kentucky. For some time he lived, with his dog, in an apartment but after six months of coaching the team he was offered a position as the Ridgefield Stable’s jumpers coach, which he took, but neither job paid all too well so soon after, to avoid losing him at the stable, they offered him a job as co-manager, which he also took.

Now Damian is sober and busy, but happy. Sure, he’d still counting every day he goes without a drink and it still calls to him, but he’s finding it easier as the days go on. He’s back around horses and even though he can’t ride and now walks with a limp, he’s finding it easier to keep going. His three jobs are keeping him busy, but not too busy to enjoy his life because, hell, he just keeps the book and watches people ride, he doesn’t do much for fun at the time because he can’t ride and he has to stay away from anywhere with alcohol, and he knows it too. He’s not as happy as he was before the accident, and he’s not expecting to ever be that happy again, however, he now at least has a few reasons for living.

behind the character

name. Legaleen
age. 19 Years
expirence. 7 Years... or something like that
time zone. Central US
contact. AIM - legaleen
MSN - [e-mail]
e-mail - [e-mail]
sample.

Damian, as every morning, woke up to a cold, wet nose in his ear. He pushed Bourbon’s head away and turned over, unwilling to get up to face the day. He never had to get up too early unless the day held a show, which was one nice thing about working with most college students, he was never expected to be up early either. After about five more minutes and a park from his dog he finally groaned and dragged himself out of bed. Having showered the night before, Damian quickly ran a comb through his now very messy hair, though it did very little, before pulling on a pair of jeans and a long sleeved shirt. Before he left the house, however, he made himself a large cup of coffee, fed Bourbon and ate a quick breakfast of cereal himself. He then made sure his wallet had a good amount of money in it for lunch with the new students, it would be something cheap of course, some sort of fast food, Subway seemed to be a favorite, just to talk about everything and make sure they all knew how the program worked and to help them pick out their leased horse.

After making sure everything was done he left the house with Bourbon. The stable was only about a mile away from his house, but it was cold outside, hence the trench coat he had covering his body, and on his leg he couldn’t really walk that far without regretting it the rest of the day. He climbed into his truck after allowing Bourbon to jump in as well before making his way over to Ridgefield for the day, it now being nearly ten in the morning. The drive was uneventful, as it always was, unless a dear hopped in the way out of the wood and upon arriving to the barn he parked the truck in the space everyone who knew the barn knew was his. He got out of the truck, held the door for Bourbon to hop out as well before slamming it behind them, not even bothering to lock the door. He had students that needed to get into his truck too often to have to deal with keys.

The first thing he did was check his office to make sure everything was in order. Seeing nothing but a note mentioning something being done about a bale of moldy hay, which he left on the desk so he would remember to put it in the books he left the office again to make his rounds about the stable. He waved hello to everyone that was already there to care for their horses, allowing his dog to go up to each of them to get a pet on the head, everyone currently there knowing both about his limp and his dog’s three legs. He checked on his personal horses and took each of them to a stall before choosing who else he wanted to be ready for lessons later that day. Once he was done doing that his left leg was screaming at him to stop walking but before he went into his office to do some paperwork he put the names of the horses being the students were to use for lessons up on the whiteboard as follows.

Mack – dappled
Squire – chest. tobno.
Fairy – chest. wide stripe
Molten – chest. 4 socks
Handsome – bay arab
Splash – chest. white face

Of course the old students knew which stall was for which team-used horse and what each of them looked like, but the new ones coming at the same time would need to find them in the barn and Damian hoped he quick description of each would be enough to allow people to find the right horse and hop on. At the beginning of the semester Damian always cut practices down to get new students used to the system and be able to work one-on-one with each of the students.

After he was finished with that he went back to his office and did that paper work he had planned to do. He left the door open and a few people stopped back to say hello and ask a couple questions. He had a student who recently broke her ankle stop by to give him an update and a boarder whose horse had a bowed tendon also stop by to do the same. It was nice to hear from people, especially when he felt trapped in his office due to his leg. Though his injury still bothered him and he would always wish it would not have happened, he had learned to live with the fact and now had a good life going for him. He enjoyed his life and though he, like all people, had his wishes, he was dealing with it and learning how to get out more without turning back to drink.

At one in the afternoon exactly Damian got up and left the office, followed by Bourbon, of course. He went to the indoor arena, where he pulled off his trench coat to reveal another jacket, this one not quite as thick. The indoor arena was heated, but only to fifty degrees, at the highest, so it wasn’t too warm for the horses but warm enough for the people to be decently comfortable while riding. The old students were told to be there at 12:30 and be on and warming up by one while the new students were told to be on by 1:30 so he had a little time before he’d have to talk to anyone new. Damian made his way to the middle of the arena and sat on the mounting block, watching the students go around in circles around him, each doing their own thing on the horse they chose to ride from his list, his jealousy raging inside him. It was no secret he wanted to get back on a horse, but it was also no secret that he would never be able to ride again if he wanted to maintain any use of his leg at all. There were many rumors going around school as to how he hurt his leg and why he never rode himself, but if people would ever ask him he would tell the truth about it. It wasn’t exactly a secret, by all means.

((drop whoever on him, a new student, a student riding, a student not in this practice but coming by to say hi, whatever you want))

made by
CC! of CAUTION 2.0 <3
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