Post by HELEN D'ARTAGNAN on May 30, 2013 15:56:56 GMT -5
Helen D'Artagnan
So what do we do now? What's next?
OOC: Julie, RPed on many years on a variety of boards, found you all through an internet search for another board
Canon: D'Artagnan
Face-claim: Danielle Panabaker
Social Status: Low class - Grew up in East New York, Brooklyn and Working to live
Occupation: Sketch artist for NYPD, Part-time College Student, Part-time Bartender, Freelance Artist
Age: 22
Appearance:
Height/Build: Helen is not someone to put a generous amount of time into her appearance on a daily basis, but she isn't necessarily one that has to in order to look good. She stands at an average height of 5'6", bust seemingly slightly smaller with long long for her height. Helen has a slim build though not without slightly toned muscle that signals the care she takes in maintaining her form.
Hair: Helen's hair is an medium blonde, turning a lighter amber in the summer and growing slightly darker in the winter. It is long, falling in layers to just below the middle of her back, not completely straight, the ends seeming to wave in the subtlest fashion. Helen rarely takes care to style her hair to accentuate any of her natural highlights or waves, leaving it be natural.
Skin: Her skin would be a porcelain if it weren't for the small scars appearing on her body, here are there, though none are on her face. On her back are a faded series of scratch marks from crawling beneath a chain link fence when she was younger and one may find a distinct scar of a bullet wound on the left side of her limber torso.
Face: Somewhat almond-shaped, captivating light-brown have a home beneath well-groomed eyebrows with a gentle arch sit, sitting below a larger than average forehead. Her nose is generally straight, just pulling slightly to the left and with a rounded, rather noticeable tip. Beneath her nose sit a pair of lips that seem to form an oval, her top lip hardly smaller than the bottom. When she smiles, Helen exposes a full set of straight teeth that fit her face. Higher cheekbones accentuate her oblong face with a squarer jaw and a rounded chin.
Clothing/General: Helen, growing up with very little money knows how to dress on a budget and still look put together. Although she doesn't quite care what other think about the way she dresses, she does dress to coordinate. Due to her upbringing, Helen is new to the way of professional and nicer dress, though she is a quick study and a thrifty shopper. For casual purposes she may be found in jeans (or shorts), a top and a hoodie. For work purposes, one can either find her in flats, fitted jeans or trousers, and a shirt/blazer combo or just a button-up. As for make-up, there is minimal, Helen usually taking to mascara and maybe a bit of neutral colored eye shadow.
Overall Personality:
Independent and Resourceful.: Helen grew up in a household where she had to fend for herself. There was rarely anyone around to take care of her. If she wanted food, she took it upon herself to get or find food. If she needed money, she could either earn it, barter for it, or steal it. Either way, anything she needed was her own responsibility, Helen asking for little in life and learning that she could survive without the help of other people.
Mistrusting and Ideals on Romance.: Helen isn't very trusting of people in general, let alone men. She grew up with no consistent male figure in her life and the ones that promised her mother consistency were all liars - bookies, dealers, or scum of that sort that would use her mother for personal game in some fashion. Men who settled down and marry with true intent are as real to her as Prince Charming. To Helen, men who seem to have romantic intentions first off are creatures of which to be extremely skeptical and mistrusting, even if they appear to be "good." Men can be fine as friends or to be used. Helen could be called a serial dater, superficial with no real intent of establishing a relationship, perhaps even perceived as fickle or a player by some. However this is okay with Helen, because at least she is not a fool.
Loyal.: Those who end up close to Helen, whether she had been keen on the idea or not in the first place, are people who she would defend until death. Those people are her family, in her eyes. Anyone that rattles or messes with the people that actually care about her and rattling with her or messing with her by association.
Hot Temper.: Being a tough girl was a necessity from where Helen comes. If you are seen as fragile, you're setting yourself up to be taken advantage of by someone else, whether that advantage be through finances or some sort of physical means. From a young age, Helen learned the lesson of flight or fight. If you back down, you're weak and then you always have to run. It's better to always be on the offensive, quick to jump at something, first to win and last to lose. It comes from her survival instinct, engrained in her by conditioning and something that seems hard for her to control in her new life.
Ambitious and Prideful.: Helen will seek out what she wants and go for it, even if it is out of her reach. She has taken to a goal-oriented lifestyle not wanting to set the bar too low for herself. The young woman can be stubborn when it comes to letting go of a goal and accepting defeat. Again, she was raised in a life where losing wasn't an option. Helen sees altering a goal as giving up, a loss, when it really isn't. It is hard from her to back down from any challenge, ready to take things head-on to prove herself.
Artistic, Intuitive, Communicative.: This woman has a knack for anything that involves drawing, whether it is on paper or on the computer. She has always had a love of drawing and has honed her skill over the years, continuing to do so. In addition, Helen is communicative. When trying, she is able to communicate effectively with others, really understand what they are saying in an intuitive sense. She also has no problem being open and honest herself. However, just because she is open and honest with someone doesn't mean there is a connection there. This woman is very good at compartmentalizing. Sharing doesn't mean deep caring.
Quick-Witted and Sarcastic.: Helen has a biting sense of humor, quick with a rebuttal whenever possible. She can take a joke as well as supply one, appreciating good humor in and out of the work place. She enjoys witty banter of one-off insults.
Likes, dislikes:
Likes...
1. Coffee. Black. Plain. She grew up smelling it in her household and is not capable of waking up in the morning without her cup.
2. Running/Exercise. Although not available to her all the time when she needs it, Helen has taken more to running as a hobby to blow off steam. Running is like a drug to her, time to spend alone and get high from endorphins. It's better than the other options.
3. Making Lists. Helen loves lists. It helps her actually get things done on a daily basis, and long-term as well.
4. Drawing. The woman is talented. It can function as both a creative and emotional release.
Dislikes...
1. Weak Women/Abusive Men. Witnessing situations or hearing about them can put Helen on edge if she isn't doing her best to compartmentalize her emotions. It's one of her fears, to end up in a situation like that even though she is smarter due to witnessing it for so many years.
2. Small-talk. Who cares how the weather is unless you're going outside and it's relevant? Well, not Helen. There was meaningful things to do in life. Why would you waste your time with meaningless chit-chat with someone who probably doesn't even matter?
3. Bad manners. The simple things. Hold open the door. Chew with your mouth closed. Don't bite your nails. Despite being raised in a low-class family, her mother had these simple expectations engrained in her.
4. Hugs. It's an intimate gesture that makes her uncomfortable.
Goals:
Short term: Run a marathon, keep taking classes towards her degree
Long term: Become a detective, Get a grasp on her anger
Overall History:
Helen's mother, Louise, moved to New York City when she was just 18 years old from Burgundy, France. She had such dreams of a new place, the American dream. Loise had it set in her mind that she was going to be an actress and make her parents, simple workers in a winery, so very proud. However, Louise soon found that reason why it was called The American Dream. To her, it was unattainable. The rent in the city was outrageous and she couldn't afford to live outside if she wanted to make it. She lived in the projects of East New York, waiting tables during the day when she couldn't pick up a small acting gig (which was often) and servicing men at night, her French accent lending itself to passing herself off as upscale and having seemingly wealthy men offer her dinner before contracting her services for after the dinner, an escort of sorts.
The man who became Helen's birth father was an Englishman in town on an extended business trip. He had taken Louise out several times before all she started seeing were the walls of his bedroom and not the interiors of swanky restaurants. But she hardly slept at home and that was quite good, so Louise never complained. It beat waking up to gunshots in the middle of the night. However, when the Englishman, Lewis, left...she was left back in the projects and found out she was pregnant. Louise's acting career was clearly over, fat and pregnant. So, she turned to her other nightly job, extending her hours to entertain daytime visitors, even making trips out to them.....even while she was pregnant.
When Helen was born, her mother took care of her...to an extent. She provided for Helen minimally, as that's really all she could do. When there was extra money, she would buy extra food. Helen grew up learning to fend for herself, men in and out of the house...and a very weak and apologetic mother as a roommate, trying to encourage her to do good things with her life in between cutting drugs for whatever low-life dealer she was dating at the time. Helen had no example, only words from her mother as she grew up. Live, don't be like this, she would tell her in French as she relished when Helen would speak it back to her. In the world in which Helen grew up, this sort of relationship between mother and daughter was not so foreign. Helen took her mother for what she was, a broken woman whom Helen both pitied and somewhat despised for that adjective. Yet, with that said, Helen held respect for her mother for her intent when coming to America, for giving her life, and for not abandoning her completely and wanting more for her in the small way that she could. The result was that there relationship was emotionally complex, relatively physically distant but an unspoken connection that can hardly be explained in simple terms.
So Helen lived, she survived in a way that her mother never had to as a child. She tried in school, hid her books as necessary, and found food and money where she could...
When Helen entered high school, her mother was diagnosed with HIV, trying to seek help from the free clinic. Helen tried to help as much as she could, but they were barely surviving as it was. Her mom wasn't going to make any money like she used to. Helen adopted a job after school working at a bar (underage), somehow managing to keep it and maintain a good GPA. It was in Helen's senior year of high school that Louise, HIV was categorized as AIDS, her life not lasting long after the diagnosis.
Helen handled her grief towards the end of high school when she got caught up in a bad crowd - a gang, to be exact. Throughout most of high school she had managed to stay away from drugs for the most part other cigarettes when they were offered or the occasional hit of this or that due to a social situation. Tagging and graffiti were her specialties. Sure, it was associated with a gang, but it was more interesting and exciting than what she was learning in art class. Maybe it was foreshadowing when they gave her a glock to start carrying around? Ya think?
It was towards the end of high school that Helen was tagging over in another gang's territory. She got shot in the side in her escape, going to the hospital for the wound. Helen knew she wasn't supposed to talk to the police. If she snitched...well, that just wouldn't end up well. At least she was smart enough to ditch the glock before she ended up at the hospital. It was at this point that Helen got involved with the NYPD in their youth outreach for gang violence, although she was an adult by this point. Helen was introduced to a new world...of new people and new possibilities through her artistic talent and with the words her mother always used to say in the back of her head. Live, don't be like this...
The opportunity to be involved with the youth outreach in NYPD connecting her with a lot of goal-oriented people and self-made people who encouraged her to believe in herself and hold herself to a higher standard. The counselors in the program saw Helen's fondness for tagging and graffiti as her creativity that needed to be harnessed in the right way. They helped Helen obtain access to some free art lessons which were nothing like what she had experienced in high school art class (when she used to attend). It was through her involvement with the NYPD outreach while simultaneously taking these art lessons that made Helen truly realize what she wanted to do with her life; she wanted to draw. Helen secured a job bartending in order to save up enough money to apply to NYU in order to take part-time classes to obtain degrees in both Art History and Psychology, minoring in French as a way to honor her mothers memory and dreams for her. She even received a partial scholarship due to financial need, though the bills of living in the city (now out of the women's shelter that she had been in since her mom's passing) were hefty as Helen was determined not to end up back in the projects and risk her future.
It was after she had started taking the classes at NYU that she found the opportunity to work as a Sketch Artist for the NYPD truly appealing, applying and earning a position. Perhaps, someday, she would even become more than that. Of course, there was only a certain amount of goals that belonged on a list at one time...
Most Influential Event: Her mother's death
Sample Writing:
Today was an awful day. Her morning Communications course had ended earlier the previous night, meaning that Helen got an extra hour of sleep. She had a good, healthy breakfast of one egg scrambled and kale with a glass of tomato juice and some blackberries on the side. Helen stopped by the better bagel shop than the one of the corner and picked up a bagel sandwich and chips for her lunch as well as an excellent cup of coffee. She made it to work on time, had a steady work day and witty banter with a few colleagues. After work, she managed to not even almost get hit by a crazy city driver or taxi and her class that night was cancelled. Today was an awful day.
That was Helen's thought as she laced up her running shoes and put her earbuds into her ears, immediately scrolling to The Script on her iPod. Depressing, yet motivating running music. That was how Helen was going to function today, on the day of her mother's anniversary. The day had actually been great, Helen not even realizing the numerical date's significance until she was filling out some paperwork in the afternoon, managing to spill her afternoon cup of coffee clear across the table. Of course she caught flack for it and normally Helen would have been a good sport, but she ended up irritatedly throwing the mug into a trashcan and storming off to the bathroom to secure some paper towels, taking a moment to kick a stall in anger at herself. She was living, just like her mom said to do. But, Helen wasn't meant to forget her mother or her past. She was supposed to live in spite of it. Instead of crying about it, Helen's feet pounded the New York City pavement, headed toward Central Park. Productive feelings. She turned up the music, and kept looking straight ahead...
Note: So capable of better writing...I'm never museful for application posts! Forgive me!
That was Helen's thought as she laced up her running shoes and put her earbuds into her ears, immediately scrolling to The Script on her iPod. Depressing, yet motivating running music. That was how Helen was going to function today, on the day of her mother's anniversary. The day had actually been great, Helen not even realizing the numerical date's significance until she was filling out some paperwork in the afternoon, managing to spill her afternoon cup of coffee clear across the table. Of course she caught flack for it and normally Helen would have been a good sport, but she ended up irritatedly throwing the mug into a trashcan and storming off to the bathroom to secure some paper towels, taking a moment to kick a stall in anger at herself. She was living, just like her mom said to do. But, Helen wasn't meant to forget her mother or her past. She was supposed to live in spite of it. Instead of crying about it, Helen's feet pounded the New York City pavement, headed toward Central Park. Productive feelings. She turned up the music, and kept looking straight ahead...
Note: So capable of better writing...I'm never museful for application posts! Forgive me!
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