I meant to do this before he was accepted, but I suppose it's better late than never. I'll try to give you the shortest version of what's in this guy's bio which can be found HERE for anyone who's curious for the whole story.

Anyway, this is Zaid McKinley. He's a 23 year old tattoo artist, working at NY Adorned in the East Village. He lives in Greenwich Village with his wife, Anya, and together they make up both halves of the premade the carl and ellie (from UP). He and Anya have been best friends since they were 10 years old. They were high school sweethearts and were married on November 11th last year. She's a chef at BUTTER.

Zaid's father is an M.D. who specializes in childhood diseases, his mother is a nurse. He has a twin sister named Zuri, who I would love to see around here eventually. He also has an older brother name Tad that was adopted. Zaid was born in Nairobi, Kenya and he lived there for the first nine years of his life. When he was a toddler, he ended up with a case of bacterial meningitis that nearly killed him. Luckily, he pulled through the sickness, but due to the intense round of antibiotics he took he lost nearly all of his hearing. He got by on sign language, lip reading, and spent lots of time with a speech therapist growing up who helped him learn to talk.

When he was 16 years old, he got cochlear implants. The hearing aids he'd had most of his life technically made it possible for him to hear sound, but the sound had no definition; he could tell that someone was talking and from which direction, but had no clue what they were saying if he wasn't facing them so he could try reading their lips. The implants opened up a whole new world for him and gave him the opportunity, after 6 years of knowing her, to really "hear" Anya's voice. Now he can hear and talk, but he has a bit of a lisp. He's not shy about it, though. He's just happy to be able to more easily communicate.

Zaid is a really laid back, friendly guy. He loves his dog, Echo, he adores his wife, and he has a passion for, not only tattoos, but all visual art. He's not a big fan of parties and prefers to hang out with friends in small groups because it's harder for him to take part in conversations in places where there's a lot of background noise. In fact, when it's just his family or Anya, he's been known to remove the external part of his implants and just revert to signing.

As for lines, as I said before I'd love to see his older adopted brother (more about him can be found in the bio) and his twin sister. He also needs things like friends and co-workers or anything else you lovely people can think to throw his way.