Hi, guys. I'm new to the Crack Den, and roleplaying in general.

My character's name is James Gomez. Here is his story:
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Intelligent, but naïve. Passionate. At times, he can draw a line too sharply between right and wrong. But he’s quite the thinker. Wants to save the world.

He is the child of an Afro-Colombian lawyer and an Indo-Colombian pharmacist. He was born two years after his parents emigrated from Colombia. His father, in an attempt to ease his children’s assimilation, changed the children’s first names and forced them to speak English at all times. However, James’s mother wanted to be sure they remained proud of their roots and, in secret, would teach and converse with James and his sister Lilian in Spanish. This was a serious point of contention between James’s parents, they argued constantly over how the children should be raised. This also remained an undercurrent in the interactions of father and offspring. Because of that, James and his sister maintained a strained relationship with their father.

From an outsider’s perspective, James would seem the perfect student and son. He maintained a 3.8 GPA and was the head of several honors societies through high school and college. He was a prominent member of the swim team in both high school and college; he was popular, liked by students and staff, and his parents adored him. What they did not know, however, was that he was gay. And further, in high school, he began a relationship with a boy named Jayden, from a not-so esteemed part of their city. Jayden was bright, and quite the looker, but had a get-rich-or-die trying mentality. Traditional avenues to make money didn’t work for him, he’d often say. “The road ain’t full of no yellow bricks for black and brown boys. That shit is just that—shit.”

This boy had a profound effect on James. He witnessed things he never thought he’d see—a woman raped by several men in broad daylight; a man have an overdose in broad daylight and broad of several officers, who did nothing; and an entire underworld sale of armed weaponry. Once, to support his boyfriend, he carried a couple of dime bags of marijuana for his boyfriend during his senior year of college. He got arrested, his father caught wind of what had happened, and he was subsequently kicked out, despite pleas from both parents. He spent the remainder of his time with Jayden, alternating between the worlds of privilege and poverty. It instilled in him a desire toward social justice. Originally planning to become a psychiatrist, he instead set his sights toward social work.

James is now 23 years old. Fresh from Columbia University (where he’d received a full-ride, thus allowing him freedom from his father) with degrees in Social Work and Sociology, he now seeks to save the world to which the man he once loved had introduced him. Though they were no longer together, he would never forget him. Exposure to other queer people in college had further his activism—James wanted to work with people of colors and gays and lesbians, in addition to his general work with working-class individuals. He decided to move to Crack Den, against the wishes of his family. His father refuses to give him any money, and forbids the same of his mother. His sister resents him for letting a man interfere with his family. So he must endure the hard knocks that Crack Den will surely offer alone.

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Suggestions on how best to get started in the Crack Den are welcomed and highly appreciated. 🙂