Application

Jul 06, 2012 01:44

Taken Lists )

Leave a comment

thewheelkeepson September 5 2012, 20:24:52 UTC
Your Name: Reid
Age: 20
Email: roma@bloodrites.net
Messager(s): AIM: astandardbromide
Timezone: EST

-------------------------------

Arcana: Fortune
Time Period: 2012

Name: Aibao "Abbey" Li
Gender: Female
Blood Type: A-
Birthday/Sign: December 7 / Scorpio
Age: 16
Occupation/Grade: Sophomore
Room:

PB: N/A
Appearance:
Abbey Li is a young lady of average height. She lacks muscle definition, she lacks the benefit of any particular body type--maybe she's pear shaped? Maybe? She might be slightly more gamine than not? But it's hard to settle on one word for it when her entire body is best described as "average". It's from the shoulders that she distinguishes herself; she's got an undercut, which is easily hidden by leaving the top half of her hair (worn long) down during school hours. After school hours, she will pull that up into a bun to keep it out of the way. Her hair is black, her eyes are vaguely green-brown, and her nose is slightly too sharp and flat for her face, but she is somewhat presentable. Both ears are pierced twice, but the right has an impulse-buy industrial that her parents don't know about yet.

In her uniform (of which Abbey prefers the skirted version) Abbey does not really take any ""risks"". She wears it appropriately, maybe going outside the prescribed rules on shoes, and definitely wearing more sweaters than strictly appropriate.

Which also describes her out of uniform wear. Abbey does not, as a rule, expose much skin. She likes turtlenecks, sweaters, and hoodies. On occasion she will wear a t-shirt with some memefied witticism on it, if it's particularly hot. Her jeans are usually well-taken care of, but she has one or two pairs that are worn fashionably shredded. Her prized accessories are three pairs of nebula-patterned tights. All of her everyday jewelry is star or sun or moon-patterned.

As for shoes, she owns exactly four pairs: school, sneakers, red flats, and a pair of black heels.

Reply

thewheelkeepson September 5 2012, 20:25:08 UTC
Personality:
Abbey Li's parents were doctors. Abbey's parents' parents were also doctors. Before that, her parents' parents' parents were still doctors, but in China. Abbey's brother is in med school. Abbey's sister is also in med school. Abbey is expected to become a doctor.

Abbey wants to be an astronaut.

You can sort of see the problem here.

So Abbey Li exhibits some of the expected traits of her tiger cub upbringing: She's smart (has to be, to know as much as she does about space) and she's reliable (because otherwise she gets too anxious for life) and she's anxious (having always had someone over her shoulder) and she's organized (mostly because she likes to be). And yet, she also exhibits some of the most unexpected: She's utterly unmotivated (hard to care when she knows she won't get where she wants to go) and impulsive (again: nothing she does will get her to her goal so who cares) and she's self-righteous (because of course she is).

Anyone with the depth and breadth of knowledge Abbey Li exhibits on space has got to have some kind of IQ to write home about. Abbey focuses on space with the sort of obsession one associates with complete and utter fascination: Want to know why you can't get pregnant in space? She knows. The temperature of the sun? It's about 30,000 degrees Kelvin. Did you know that a pinhole sized fragment of the sun can incinerate the average adult male (and everything else) at 160km? It can. And though her focus is obviously science-related, she exhibits a fair amount of comprehension for most classes very quickly, resulting in consternation from group members and teachers, and also anger from her parents. "If you apply yourself," they harp, "you would be like your siblings and get straight As!"

"Fuck that," says Abbey Li, because she is as unmotivated as it is possible for her to be. She just doesn't care all that much about classes because they don't lead her anywhere she wants to go; so why should she apply herself? It's not going anywhere she wants to go. Everything she does get done, gets done because it either appeals to her (science labs) or because she feels incredibly guilty about neglecting it (everything else). That is the key to getting her to do things: guilt trip her. It is the sole reason Abbey remembers to bring the snacks you wanted for DnD. It is also the sole reason why she doesn't blow off just about everything for the Leonid meteor shower. In a fight with Abbey, your absolute best weapon is "Remember that one time where you did this really shitty thing to me?" or "Remember when I did this really great thing for you?"

It does not take a master manipulator to manipulate Abbey.

And yet, for someone consumed by guilt, she is incredibly self-righteous. She is a good person--she may not be an achiever, oh no, but she is a good person. She gives five-dollar bills to homeless people and volunteers at the local science museum and if someone's being cruel to someone else tiny little Abbey will get up in their face and stomp on their feet and let them know how wrong they are. If she can do that (she who, might you be reminded, does jack-all else) then surely everyone can. Obviously. But she will also carry this too far. If she thinks your rhetoric in a class debate was harsh, you'll hear about it. If she thinks your in-joke teasing of your friend was mean, she will let you know… personally. And she is not above getting a teacher involved if she has to!

These are probably all symptoms of an impulsive personality. Abbey doesn't think before she does things! She never has and she probably never will unless made to learn. It just doesn't occur to her to stop and think, oh, well. I better not goalie kick this ball into someone's face for insulting Susy Q. She just goalie kicks the ball into someone's face for telling Susy Q her hair looked like crap. She does not stop to think that her mother will have a heart attack if Abbey gets an undercut and dyes half her hair blue. She just gets an undercut, dyes half her head blue, and then is shocked and appalled when her mom has a heart attack and her dad gets pissed. Which just feeds into her guilt complexes.

And so it goes!

Reply

thewheelkeepson September 5 2012, 20:26:12 UTC
History:
Born to the children of doctors, who were also children of doctors, who were also children of doctors, Aibao "Abbey" Li was always going to be a doctor. But while her elder siblings (five and seven years older than she, respectively) enjoyed playing with their doctor kits and accompanying their parents to work, Abbey hated it. Hated it. And so she drifted through life, learning the piano and dancing ballet and playing soccer, until at the ripe old age of nine she chanced upon a PBS replay of Carl Sagan's Cosmos. She. Was. Fascinated. And for her next birthday, she asked for Cosmos--the entire run.

She got a violin. (And lessons!)

So what astronomical knowledge she acquired was on the "down low". She accumulated an encyclopedic knowledge of when, exactly, PBS would air Cosmos, when NPR was going to be featuring talks with astronauts or scientists--she wasn't allowed to watch anything not educational, everything was limited to what would improve Abbey as a child and a future professional, but she could argue: It's on PBS! It's fine. It's on NPR! I promise it's okay! And her parents, usually, would let it be.

A particular influence was her middle school science teacher. Mr. Middlesex had a degree in astronomy, but taught the Gifted science classes at the school simply for love of kids; he also ran the Science Olympiad, a team which Abbey was obliged to join by her parents (who had already begun asking if she didn't appreciate them, because if she did, she'd pay more attention in school). And the moment he listed Cosmos as one of his favorite TV series of all time, she knew she just had to impress him. So she did. Middle school was a high time in the life of Abbey Li; her grades went up high enough for her to compete in each of the ten Olympiad events, pleasing her parents to no end. She medaled in every single competition she was in, and won Decathlon Gold in eighth grade. But her joy in life wasn't in the medals, or in the recognition, although that was nice. It was in picking Mr. Middlesex's brain for facts about astronomy she currently had no way of otherwise learning. He sent her home with suggestions for different camps she might try; Abbey, who had always attended math camp, found herself attending a generalized science camp once for a whole summer. (It was the best summer ever.)

(CONT. BECAUSE I'M A LOSER)

Reply

thewheelkeepson September 5 2012, 20:26:31 UTC
All good things had to come to an end, though, and one of them was the Science Decathlon and her time in middle school. With a heavy heart, she bid farewell to Mr. Middlesex and Cosmos after-school, and proceeded to Adessi. Her mother and father had met there, her elder siblings had attended as well, and now it was her turn. For the first few weeks, Abbey languished; she was unfamiliar with the expectations of dorm life, uncertain of how to proceed without a parent or sibling haranguing her. When she realized her time, and her space, was now her own…

Well.

She accumulated space memorabilia like it was going out of style. Her parents provided an allowance for room decorations: She bought a log scale chart of the world and a subway map-esque rendition of the Milky Way. She got glow-in-the-dark stars and stuck them to her ceiling in the shapes of constellations. She bought a subscription to Astronomy Now and Sky and Telescope. She bought a calendar with the lists of major astronomy events and she stuck it on her wall and she held to it like her personal life depended on it because she'd never been allowed to before.

Her parents commented on it when they came to pick her up for Christmas. Of course they were disappointed, but for once, it seemed to roll off her back. For once--for once--she could learn as much about space as she wanted and she wasn't going to deny herself that chance just to please her parents. Which made her think: what else was she doing just because?

She rebelled, and hard. They came back with a guilt trip that slapped her back, and that she's still recovering from, based on her mother's health, which became poor around Christmas break when she had a heart attack; how could you do this to your mother, you know she's unwell, how can you want to do something when we've already given you so much!

Abbey has not been pressing herself to succeed much lately, having been reminded that she can daydream all she wants, but space is not something in her reach.

Weapon: Soccer ball (Meteor hammer)
Stats: Luck, Strength, Vitality, Agility, Magic
Persona: Urania (Theia)
Strength: Electricity (Nuclear)
Weakness: Strike physical
Primary Skillset: Electric (Nuclear)
Secondary Skillset: Fire

Other: Orange you glad I didn't say banana
I worked on this for knights and daze

Reply

velvetmods September 7 2012, 03:05:57 UTC
Approved! Feel free to friend add other characters, the mod journal, the logs and ooc journal, and add social link/profile/CR posts in your character's journal.

Reply


Leave a comment

Up