#not at the place that does differing degrees of Gender‚ someplace else which is less terrifying but a longer walk

[unopenablebox]

convince me not to go to the synagogue that offers three different levels of uh, gender segregated worship, just because it’s close to my apartment

[rivenstraws-a]

Mobile About

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S T A T S FULL NAME :: Emmeline Renee Marques CITIZENSHIP :: Dual American-French OCCUPATION :: (currently) Insurance Underwriter LOCATION :: Brooklyn, New York

AGE :: 32 (4/19/84) R/S STATUS :: Single GENDER :: Female H/W :: 5'10ft / 139lbs HOMETOWN :: California, US

D E E T S

Emma Marques has gone to 5 different Universities, in 5 different states, for 5 different degrees, of which she a completed a total of zero.

The oldest of the Marques household, Emma has somehow fallen rather behind in life when compared to her younger brothers, her high school classmates, Lucy from the local deli———most anyone, it seems.

Her inevitable status as a failure wasn’t always obvious. Emma was the sort of girl most folk objectively suspected would do well in life; good family, conventionally attractive, decent grades. All that. It wasn't until after she graduated that everything seemed to crack and crumble off little bite-sized pieces of her future, gaining friends and court records in all the wrong places.

To her parents' relief, at 28 years old she became engaged to a wonderful man named Micheal, who by all accounts was perfect for her and a sturdy, respectable person. It seemed as though she was finally getting her life back on the right way of things, the proper way of things, like everyone else her age had done.

Unfortunately, if one were to physiologically analyze Emma Marques, they would likely come back with one conclusive result; she is, for lack of a better term, self-destructive.

Enter Ashton. He had been a friend as far back as Emma can remember. She lost her virginity to him at the age of 15 on a rainy day after they’d both skipped school and grabbed McDonalds. While Emma has always made her feelings for him quite clear, Ashton has always insisted that a defined relationship is nothing but a prettily wrapped lie, and so the two have never been "officially" together. Their arrangement was on and off through the years until a week before Emma turned 18, where she discovered she was pregnant. Aware of Austin's tendency to feel easily trapped and of college looming right around the corner, she elected to get an abortion. She never told him. Nor did she ever tell Micheal, through-out the course of their 3-year relationship.

It was a month before her wedding to Micheal that Emma met with Ashton for the first time in years. One thing led to another. It was raining. They got McDonalds. So on and so forth.

Micheal did not forgive her. Despite this, Emma did love him, very much, and still to this day has her wedding dress hanging in the back of her closet. She knows that she's to blame for what happened——she knows. It's been mentioned to her once or twice or three times that she'll never really do better than him, and she suspects that's probably true.

Her luck with men hasn’t been all bad, though. Not if you count Chester, Emma’s Great Dane that she adopted a year after her failed engagement. Weighing in at 170 lbs, he’s no pup, but certainly has the energy of one. If there’s one thing that Emma’s been consistently dedicated to, it’s taking care of him, even if he doesn’t always choose to listen. Through every road trip and every move, every late night of tears and alcohol-induced headaches, Chester has been there with happy wags and a loving, slobbery nuzzle.  It’s quite possible that Emma would have been even more lost without him.

Currently, Emma is 32-years-old, still single, still degree-less, does not own a car and is living out of a studio apartment in the city. She has lived in a total of 9 different places, and tends to get an itch to leave for someplace new every year or two. Her father claims she’s got a flâneur soul to blame——her mother thinks she’s just running away from her problems.

It’s likely that both of them are at least partially right.

[oxfordeliterp]

CONGRATULATIONS, BETH!

You have been accepted to play the role of LUCAS LOCKWOOD with the faceclaim of SEAN TEALE. Please create your account and send it to the main in the next 24 hours. I didn’t have to finish the application to be sold, but I finished it three times and, at every reading, I found something new to love. It’s a complex one, underlining not the surface of Lucas, but what’s inside his heart and after reading everything you have chosen to fill this application with, I can honestly say that I trust you wholly with this character, for you have already made him yours. You understand Lucas on so many different layers that I couldn’t imagine anybody else even trying to play him. Are you sure you haven’t written the biography yourself? I have seen your magic in this application tonight, but what I am truly enthusiastic about is the actual roleplaying with you.

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

Name and pronouns: Beth and She/Her

Age: 25

Time-zone: EST

Activity level: I work full time on a shifting schedule, I’m the main admin and currently only admin in another RP where I have eight characters, and I try to maintain at least a weak social life so I don’t want to promise anything I can’t live up to, so I cannot promise rapid fire replies all day every day I have free time, but I intend to do replies at some point every day, and truly believe I can manage and if anything it will be easier to slip in replies for a roleplay where I only have one character and where doing replies doesn’t trigger questions and hurt feelings over why I have not done more replies. I could end up not as available as I think, every other day or so instead of every day, but I am dedicated and I have no intention of just appearing only to stay off activity check or anything of that nature. Furthermore, I vow to reply with thought and substance, fully present when I am present—but now I’ll stop before I go on and make those promises I can’t keep. Alternatively, I could just write in this section: Bitch, you know how I roll

Triggers: I can’t think of anything I react strongly enough to for it to be considered truly triggering. We all have stuff that we are less comfortable with or don’t like, but for me there’s nothing that would cause any reaction stronger than to possibly skip reading the rest of the post if I’m not involved that I can think of right now, and nothing I believe I couldn’t handle being involved in especially as most traumatic plots would have to be cleared in advance and I’d have a chance to access my comfortability (ie rape or my character discovering the body of a friend who committed suicide), but I will let you know if something arises and tag anything in the triggers tag.

IN CHARACTER INFORMATION

Desired character: Lucas Lockwood. Several areas of his background struck with me. It’s always a balance of finding a character that you can put a piece of your soul into as a way to bring them to life but not making them your physical skin to a point where it is both boring to play albeit easy to know how they will react or dangerous that you may take things said/done to or about the character too personally. Lucas, truly, is very far from me—though those are the aspects I am drawn to too and can’t wait to explore, the Casanova spirit, the tough callouses grown on the path to “cool” and enviable paragon, the fake relationship with strong frames supporting rotting guts and the mindset of what would possess one of the ten men who could have anything to persist in that arrangement when the Casanova is limiting who he can charm into his arms and bed and how openly  and the boy who for  loves love deep at heart is settling for a lack, the sexual tension with the stepsister, and the evolution to careless rich boy—but his history spoke to me until I saw him as a kindred spirit talking to me about shared experiences. I was older than Lucas was when he lost his mother, but I know that pain and the further hell of seeing a parent shattered for years and being what feels like their caregiver when they still should have been caring for you, and to have that be what feels like the expectation, damaging words of “take care of your [for me it was my mother left]”  or “you can’t be a child from now on” feeling like orders not just sentiments with some of them regretful. I’ve seen my remaining parent leave a job and collapse in—though I will defend that my mother didn’t do so to the extents I may hypothesize Mr. Lockwood did– and heard them talk about love so strong they now know why in some traditions wives throw themselves on their husband’s funeral pyres, making me wonder why love for a child wasn’t enough to live but then having the weight fall that parental love and obligation was the only thing keeping them on the earth. I’ve worn clothes until they literally fall apart and learned to cook from free food pantry items, and I’ve also experienced the recovery as life does go on and get better eventually, though there was no marrying rich or even new love besides finding new love for living and new jobs in my family’s story. My mother calls even the idea of finding someone new to love an abomination in the face of true love thirteen years after my father died and talks about him all the time,  selling the idea of consuming love and soulmates until it becomes as terrifying as it is enchanting to hear of how life shapingly wonderful being in love is and you don’t know whether to run to or run away which are conversations I am sure Lucas and his father had. I know how deliriously, desperately happy and hopeful I would be if my mother did fall in love again, the way my knees would bruise with the speed and fervency I would drop to my knees to pray it lasts, and the lengths I would go to making sure nothing interferes while trying not to show how much it means and scare the budding love away, so it is all too easy to see Lucas’s mind on the new marriage. Those are the heavy aspects and those of what first ties me to the character over the other riot Club members, but, at the core I desire Luca because I do love the easy-breezy and charming aspects and I plan on having a lot of fun with our rioting rich boys and the inter-club war. Also, come on, I saw apps for Lauren and Cordelia and there’s a good starting place.

Gender and pronouns of the character: Male, he/him

Changes: As discussed, I would like to change the faceclaim to Sean Teale.  I can think of no other changes at this time as it was already established we had the same ideas about areas of his backstory that were left more open (ie what age he was when his mother died), not that I believe I would have changed those anyway instead of adapting. Anything else that diverts from the bio would be unintentional, personal interpretation, or character growth over time and if something strikes you as off and wasn’t cleared beforehand you can approach and reproach me as it really would be misunderstanding more than likely.

Traits:

For someone with humble beginnings, Lucas lacks the social consciousness or sense of social responsibility one might expect –to a degree at least. He may furrow his brow occasionally and discuss heavy world issues with intelligence, but only until the next opportunity to change the subject comes up. Problems bore and choke him and he’s gagged enough on dust. He will fold his biggest bill and put it in a busker’s container or the homeless man’s cup with compassion but these are the same close to empty gestures of anyone with periodic guilt for having when there are have-nots and he’ll join the jeering too if anyone says they are where they are only through fault of their own, without correcting that it’s often more complicated. He not only doesn’t read evil intent into casual comments such as assumptions he’s good at football, but would defend there would be nothing wrong in it if these were in fact based in the shade of his skin rather than the facts that he has a footballers’ build and stance and is known to be athletic and competitive, or that he made a comment about playing in lower school one time. Not everything is racist, or everything is and it’s too exhausting to pay attention to all of it and not worth it if it’s not harmful. Nobody’s calling him any slurs, or the one time they did it seemed affectionate (And it was the wrong one, which made it funnier instead of more offensive, assuming his mother had been Sicilian not Spanish with family  roots in…he isn’t even sure where. Someplace tropical, but God forsaken and constantly destroyed by hurricanes instead of fashionable, he’d say, getting the vibe part right and part very wrong and terribly offensive to any kin he could have tracked down on that side). He fired back just as quickly with a term of his own that could have gotten him in serious trouble in school, beaten up, or professionally blacklisted if said in the wrong setting to the wrong person, because he was lacking filter and sensitivity that day, but it was just jokes, just how the boys talk—and he loves his boys more than his own life that he’d dispose for any of them not realizing that claiming and feeling so he’s fallen into the love trap just like any romantic even if it’s a different genus of love.

It’s just like they can call each other every slang or synonym for homosexual in the book as insult with only the oversensitive in his estimation calling it hate speak, though they hardly do call each other that way anymore when it’s an outdated fashion. It’s more designer edgy—again, his estimation and his personality that all is aesthetic–to embrace yourself and your peers as any identity but straight and to wave your hands vaguely, spreading the smoke from your lit cigarette you openly mock as phallic as if anyone thinks Freud is more than a joke anymore as you slouch and sit with legs spread because careless is a fashion too, and talk about how you don’t see gender really and sexuality is a spectrum (as you, and only you out of millions who have said the exact same thing) understand truly. You say you don’t like to label or limit yourself and make eye contact with either the prettiest thing in the room or the one you want to exert dominance over because, gay, straight, pan, bi, demi, or any other either of you might be, if they look away first you’ve gained power. It’s a game. Lucas takes everything that makes up behavior lightly as a game that he’s childishly pleased to have learned all the rules of young—not that he shows how pleased, cool cucumber he must play.

Lucas is close to truly soulless, not mourning the morals he doesn’t adhere to like Nicholas secretly does, and not aware that he is miserable, self-hating, or even much miserable at all like Miles seems to be. He is content with what he’s sold, even content in not feeling the warmth of falling in love except in tastes that last for hours or nights or linger in generalities of finding everyone has something lovable. He’s a light spirit and adaptable in the extreme to the point he would seem weak willed and desperate to fit any mold to be liked if he were less shining and a touch more pathetic. He doesn’t see it as selling out or hiding a “real him” but that he’s gone and found his days in the sun and is enjoying them just as his father went and found new life.

I have hardly gone into the traits that make him up, though I’ve touched on some that weren’t borrowed explicitly from the bio to give you a better idea that I am immersing in and creating a character that is truly mine instead of just parroting. This was supposed to just be a beginning but I have talked too long (as I could truly talk about Lucas all day) and I will spare you further reading unless you want me to return to this section.

Extras:

First off, Lucas’s major course.  I would have him go for a MEng in Engineering Science, which may seem weight-y and cerebral for Lucas, but I feel like it is befitting for:

Someone who grew up in thin times where handymen and other technicians like plumbers and electricians couldn’t be afforded and would be trying to fix things as they broke, far beyond his usual expected level sometimes as a child, and tinker until they worked—even if his father when he could be stirred did most of it and Lucas was just observing. You spend enough time trying to look at everything and figure out how it goes together and comes apart and how to keep it working, and you either get frustrated and resentful or develop talents and fascinations

Engineers are both respected and always in demand, and Lucas wants to be secure in life even if he one day never sees a dime of the McQueen money that is now the merged family bankroll. He doesn’t have the obsession with a certain style of life that Nicholas does. He could give up the designers that he only memorizes to fit in and because they mean something to others (and, on the other hand, only feigns ignorance of sometimes to bait Cordelia or make her eyes widen). He could leave opulent houses and once in a lifetime vacations that happen multiple times a year. He doesn’t need fine food and drink, but he does need to know there will always be a full table, a roof, and clothes on back no matter what fate throws, and he’ll develop talents that aren’t easy to learn and study advanced maths few want to approach to make himself indispensable even if he’s gone from top to middle of the class as to truly excel at his chosen course it requires dedication he has in spirit but not always in practice as there are so many things to commit time to instead of living in a mechanics or robotics lab or scribbling in a notebook or entering equations in a laptop every waking moment.

For a more fun and light extra, I made a text post meme post—on a blog not related to this RP because , though I know mock blogs are a thing, my own superstition is it’s tempting fate to make a character blog in advance unless instructed to. I could defend every quote I chose if asked, including why “having no fucks left to give” and “I cannot stop caring” are not as contradictory as they would seem at first brush, but, as you wrote the character, I am sure you can see where I drew influences from and if I am taking away the right bits.

http://the-dark-marks.tumblr.com/private/160156220833/tumblr_op8d47IkaB1ttdq0w

Headcanons and other extras will come through the days that come if I am to be accepted. Everything from here on out is an “extra” technically as we get chances to prove we can take the characters beyond the bios and add layers.

PARA SAMPLE

Lucas had taught himself to tie a tie from a youtube video in his room at eleven when some friend’s concerned parents compelled him into going to church services with them, pulling the trick by making it into a gateway to a whole day of plan, the family in question always having some adventure planned that they left for via a Sunday drive tradition straight  from church. He knew it was all part trick, no reason they couldn’t double back and pick him up after services as he stood waiting in street clothes and they too had a chance to go home and change instead of awkwardly packing extra outfits if warranted and changing in the church bathroom.  He didn’t even mind. They weren’t even trying to “save” him. They just thought he needed “proper influences” in his life like they could see through the windows of his house, though Mr. Lockwood could put on a face of the best of them and act the dear and doting, constantly cheerful jokester matured into cool dad that still had boundaries even though it took more to get to them that Lucas remembered from his early childhood. He slayed at parent and teacher nights.

So Lucas learned to tie a tie, the same tie that went with the same dusty and too short in the arms and legs by then suit he’d worn to his mother’s funeral a few years before, because he didn’t know how fancy this church was and he didn’t own a button down that wasn’t short sleeves anyway at the time and it was winter, so suit with suit jacket it was. He couldn’t ask his father that day, not only because he didn’t know how to explain that he had nothing else to wear and not make his father feel guilty if he laughed at the suit and asked the question the one who bought the clothes they both dressed in should already know the answer to. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to answer why he was going to church in monkey clothes (Ah, how funny to think how many times a year the Lockwood patriarch would be wearing true monkey suits to lofty events, parading tuxedos with pride and beaming over cufflinks in not too many years, though the beaming was for who had bought him the cufflinks and helped him pick the suit) just for the sake of a day on the pier and the beach after, why the other family wanted to drag him about so, when it was because they thought Lucas would be better imitating any of the upstanding kind of men you met in such a building or absorbing some good advice from scripture rather than listening to his father. It was because it was almost the anniversary of when his mother died again and Dad was locked in his room the past two days listening to their song.

He’d done a not bad job on the tie, but his father had caught him on his way out and, after a confused look  that read startled to even see him in the house and not remembering that it wasn’t yesterday Lucas’ friend’s family was picking him up and today they were returning him much less that there was something planned that needed a suit, and following this with an obvious reassembling of expression that said he was going to pretend to be all knowing so he didn’t look like a bad father,  adjusted it for him, giving him advice on how to make a straighter, surer not and have the tie lay better next time.

Practice and fatherly advice and Lucas got quite good at ties over the years. He added more and more styles of knotting  to his repertoire over the years as he added more ties of finer materials and had more occasion to wear them,  though he faltered on purpose at the first few events with the McQueens to feel that motherly touch of his father’s new wife that fulfilled a craving he’d shut himself off from having almost ten years before meeting her or to smirk at Cordelia and gaze into her eyes trying to decide whether it was amusement or disdain in them as she rebuked his uselessness and he felt her fingers dancing around his collar. Oxford and his mates taught him yet more and what styles suited what, well, suits and days until he could have written his own books on customs and etiquette just related to the silly bits of silk, and the only time now he felt at loss was when the question became what tie to wear in what style to Elizabeth Pemberly’s funeral and how to not make it feel like his own noose when he gazed on another coffin.