![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Jan. 16th, 2013 10:35 amPlayer name: Qi
Characters played: Eileen (A♣), Cadogan (10♦), Evan (4♣), Chives (5♠), Cynric (J)
Character Name: Rita James
Age: 41
Suit/Rank: 9 of Hearts
History: Rita James was born the second child of Edith and Melrose James in Rochester, New York, USA, in 1971. From a very young age, she was quite close to her brother Maximillian, two years her senior and absolutely everything a girl could ask for in a brother. He was a friend, a protector, ally in all struggles real and imaginary, a calming influence when she got too hot and a stalwart cheerleader when she felt uncertain. Two years after her came the twins, Neil and Lance, and then five years after them little baby Raymond. All in all, growing up together in Pittsford was a fairly idyllic life—never a want of companions, never a moment feeling unloved, never a care for lack of resources.
Growing up surrounded by boys made Rita seek particularly to spend time with her mother, a strong and successful woman in every aspect of life. Growing up to be like Edith was an easily picked goal: someday, Rita would have everything her mother did, from a fantastically lucrative career to a wonderfully close-knit family. When she was 16 and Max left for school, she grew even closer to her mother, nearly inseparable when time allowed.
The next year, however, was genuinely pivotal. Through some twist or turn of fate, Edith found herself in the Deck—and decided it was exactly the right challenge to expand her accounting firm. It wasn’t particularly a good time to uproot her family, the three youngest still in the midst of their required education, so she determined to strike out on her own, leaving her husband to look after the children. In all likelihood, Rita ought to have stayed as well, taken over for her mother in the house and helped her father with the twins and Ray, finished her own education and applied to continue sharpening her already quick mind at the University of Rochester.
But Edith was leaving. There was no way in hell Rita wasn’t following along.
The Deck wasn’t such a horribly odd place to get settled. The Hearts were very welcoming sorts, after all, and with a proven resource like Edith—coupled with the obvious potential for Rita to be a carbon copy of her mother—coming in, the pair of women quickly found a very comfortable home for themselves. The first year brought Rita a strong sense of stability, her first Challenge under her belt and a taste for the more medieval traditions that thrived in the Deck (knife throwing being something particularly of interest). It also brought with it an acute sense of being apart from her family. The little hole of having Max off at school grew as she also spent every day not seeing Neil, Lance and Ray. Keeping in touch was something to live for.
And then, as men always do, came Lucien Rodrick. Just a little older than Max, he took hold of a piece of herself she hadn’t been particularly aware of until he came into her life. Boys (and girls) were good to flirt with, to tease and kiss and enjoy for a moment, but Lucien was captivating. He kept coming back, and she found she kept letting him. Something about him soothed the hurt of being away from her brothers—made her feel more strongly than ever that this place she’d come to was really home after all.
18 was a blur of balancing. She Challenged again, started college correspondence courses in project accounting while actively learning at her mother’s side, fell a little more in love with Lucien. At 19, she took the bull by the horns and brought Lucien to Rochester with her on a visit, to give her father and brothers the benefit of meeting the man her mother already approved of before marrying him in the same year. Things could only get better, could only keep going up, particularly when, after three years of marriage, Rita and Lucien welcomed their daughter Riley Aemilia into the world. It was like something from a much more fantastic version of a fairy tale: she had her family, her work with her mother for the Hearts, her man and her child.
But fairy tales only end happily because they aren’t real. To this day, Rita has no real understanding of what happened in 1998 on a family trip with her three most important people—Max, Lucien and five-year-old Riley. She doesn’t even remember particularly much beyond the impressions of three faces. Lucien’s sheer panic, Riley’s absolute terror, and (absolutely worst) the stillness that used to be Max’s energetic expression when his body was discovered in the hall surrounded in blood.
She wanted to lean on Lucien, her rock, her replacement, but found him pulling back. The change staggered her, broke the easy calm she’d always modeled after her mother’s. Much though they tried to keep their daughter from seeing it, fights started. Not the usual sort that ended with them back in each other’s arms promising never to fight again, but a new, ugly brand of fighting that ended with space between them in the bed and a tightness that wasn’t eased the next morning. Within a few years, the arguments struck a chord she couldn’t ignore: that in this state, Lucien wasn’t a fit father for their daughter.
They called the divorce amicable. Rita called herself over him. People used to call the world flat.
The world collapsed slightly, but there’s absolutely no keeping a James woman down. With her mother’s support—as well as pulling herself more tightly into her younger brothers’ lives—Rita applied herself with even more ferocity to the work of being herself. She was a fantastic Heart, moving rather swiftly up to Eight. She was a fantastic mother, pulling her beautiful little daughter out of herself and into a completely fantastic tomboy infused with the James spirit. She was a fantastic sister, smiling and feeling something completely joyful as Neil, Lance and Ray all found their own happiness. And, when ten years after Max’s death she learned Lucien was remarrying someone barely older than their daughter, she was a fantastic sight to see making her final challenge to Nine.
Personality: James women are often called ‘strong,’ as well as quite a few much less flattering things. She personally prefers ‘capable’ over anything else. Rita is nothing if not capable, strong, and just a touch of something less than polite to call a person.
Most of the time, her opinions come out without finesse or the benefit of polishing. In the office, sure, she manages professional well enough, but when she’s completely at ease, opinions come fast and blunt. There’s no time for mincing words, after all. Life’s short and fast and not guaranteed to be the same tomorrow.
There’s definitely been her fair share of bitterness since the divorce. Losing Lucien on the heels of the loss of her brother hit hard and certainly left some snappishness she can’t avoid letting show. For the most part, knowing that living well is the best revenge, she shoves it down and actively goes for being the same sparkling smartass she always used to be, but now and then it can’t be avoided coming through.
For all that she’s a bit direct and rough around the edges, Rita’s also a very soft woman in certain moments. She’s incredibly family-oriented, and tends to blossom a little bit into a happier self when with her daughter or her brothers. Her brand of caring is, yes, a little forceful and sometimes a bit sharp, but it comes from a place of loving too hard to let go.
Appearance: When most people think of Rita James, they think of her startling features and her provocatively sharp dress.
Of about average height and just slightly underweight, Rita is most striking in her incredibly pale skin and dark features. She tends to highlight them with rather dramatic makeup—strikingly red lips and dusky eyes, her dark hair often done up elaborately only for the pleasure of effect when she lets it down. Most of the time, she can be found smiling, fierce and just a little hard at the edges, although her daughter does light up her eyes properly even now.
For the most part, the one thing that matters to her is that she never looks anything less than on point. She dresses neatly, if creatively (and, to be honest, more often than not a little scandalously), does her makeup to a T in the morning, and walks with the confidence of the bombshell she used to be and still rather is. No one is going to see any cracks that aren’t there, no matter how hard they look.
Character PB: Dita Von Teese
Writing sample: She crosses her legs. Uncrosses them and recrosses them at the ankle instead, fingers smoothing calmly over her skirt to keep it riding low. There’s no urgency to the motion, simply a gentle ebbing along like the moon’s pulling her fingers and toes.
She’s not uncertain of herself. She’s not worried that today won’t go well. She’s not even concerned to be kept waiting another few minutes past the scheduled appointment time.
Rita James doesn’t really do ‘uncertain,’ ‘worried’ and ‘concerned’ about little things like a multimillion dollar contract under renegotiation.
Instead she nudges down gently at the hem of her skirt, purses her lips just slightly and lifts a hand with delicate precision to smooth down a strand of hair that’s already in perfect place for the chance to arch her neck slightly as the door opens and the client appears. That’s all it takes, after all, to get to yes—the curve of a neck, the red of lips, the white of teeth in a smile.
{And voicetest here.}
Why this Suit? When Edith came to the Deck, she settled on the Hearts as a good starting place to build her influence. Naturally Rita—following her mother to begin with—settled there as well. Nothing in her life has ever compelled her to move away from the safety of this base at her mother’s side.
How did you hear about us? Once there were dinosaurs.
Characters played: Eileen (A♣), Cadogan (10♦), Evan (4♣), Chives (5♠), Cynric (J)
Character Name: Rita James
Age: 41
Suit/Rank: 9 of Hearts
History: Rita James was born the second child of Edith and Melrose James in Rochester, New York, USA, in 1971. From a very young age, she was quite close to her brother Maximillian, two years her senior and absolutely everything a girl could ask for in a brother. He was a friend, a protector, ally in all struggles real and imaginary, a calming influence when she got too hot and a stalwart cheerleader when she felt uncertain. Two years after her came the twins, Neil and Lance, and then five years after them little baby Raymond. All in all, growing up together in Pittsford was a fairly idyllic life—never a want of companions, never a moment feeling unloved, never a care for lack of resources.
Growing up surrounded by boys made Rita seek particularly to spend time with her mother, a strong and successful woman in every aspect of life. Growing up to be like Edith was an easily picked goal: someday, Rita would have everything her mother did, from a fantastically lucrative career to a wonderfully close-knit family. When she was 16 and Max left for school, she grew even closer to her mother, nearly inseparable when time allowed.
The next year, however, was genuinely pivotal. Through some twist or turn of fate, Edith found herself in the Deck—and decided it was exactly the right challenge to expand her accounting firm. It wasn’t particularly a good time to uproot her family, the three youngest still in the midst of their required education, so she determined to strike out on her own, leaving her husband to look after the children. In all likelihood, Rita ought to have stayed as well, taken over for her mother in the house and helped her father with the twins and Ray, finished her own education and applied to continue sharpening her already quick mind at the University of Rochester.
But Edith was leaving. There was no way in hell Rita wasn’t following along.
The Deck wasn’t such a horribly odd place to get settled. The Hearts were very welcoming sorts, after all, and with a proven resource like Edith—coupled with the obvious potential for Rita to be a carbon copy of her mother—coming in, the pair of women quickly found a very comfortable home for themselves. The first year brought Rita a strong sense of stability, her first Challenge under her belt and a taste for the more medieval traditions that thrived in the Deck (knife throwing being something particularly of interest). It also brought with it an acute sense of being apart from her family. The little hole of having Max off at school grew as she also spent every day not seeing Neil, Lance and Ray. Keeping in touch was something to live for.
And then, as men always do, came Lucien Rodrick. Just a little older than Max, he took hold of a piece of herself she hadn’t been particularly aware of until he came into her life. Boys (and girls) were good to flirt with, to tease and kiss and enjoy for a moment, but Lucien was captivating. He kept coming back, and she found she kept letting him. Something about him soothed the hurt of being away from her brothers—made her feel more strongly than ever that this place she’d come to was really home after all.
18 was a blur of balancing. She Challenged again, started college correspondence courses in project accounting while actively learning at her mother’s side, fell a little more in love with Lucien. At 19, she took the bull by the horns and brought Lucien to Rochester with her on a visit, to give her father and brothers the benefit of meeting the man her mother already approved of before marrying him in the same year. Things could only get better, could only keep going up, particularly when, after three years of marriage, Rita and Lucien welcomed their daughter Riley Aemilia into the world. It was like something from a much more fantastic version of a fairy tale: she had her family, her work with her mother for the Hearts, her man and her child.
But fairy tales only end happily because they aren’t real. To this day, Rita has no real understanding of what happened in 1998 on a family trip with her three most important people—Max, Lucien and five-year-old Riley. She doesn’t even remember particularly much beyond the impressions of three faces. Lucien’s sheer panic, Riley’s absolute terror, and (absolutely worst) the stillness that used to be Max’s energetic expression when his body was discovered in the hall surrounded in blood.
She wanted to lean on Lucien, her rock, her replacement, but found him pulling back. The change staggered her, broke the easy calm she’d always modeled after her mother’s. Much though they tried to keep their daughter from seeing it, fights started. Not the usual sort that ended with them back in each other’s arms promising never to fight again, but a new, ugly brand of fighting that ended with space between them in the bed and a tightness that wasn’t eased the next morning. Within a few years, the arguments struck a chord she couldn’t ignore: that in this state, Lucien wasn’t a fit father for their daughter.
They called the divorce amicable. Rita called herself over him. People used to call the world flat.
The world collapsed slightly, but there’s absolutely no keeping a James woman down. With her mother’s support—as well as pulling herself more tightly into her younger brothers’ lives—Rita applied herself with even more ferocity to the work of being herself. She was a fantastic Heart, moving rather swiftly up to Eight. She was a fantastic mother, pulling her beautiful little daughter out of herself and into a completely fantastic tomboy infused with the James spirit. She was a fantastic sister, smiling and feeling something completely joyful as Neil, Lance and Ray all found their own happiness. And, when ten years after Max’s death she learned Lucien was remarrying someone barely older than their daughter, she was a fantastic sight to see making her final challenge to Nine.
Personality: James women are often called ‘strong,’ as well as quite a few much less flattering things. She personally prefers ‘capable’ over anything else. Rita is nothing if not capable, strong, and just a touch of something less than polite to call a person.
Most of the time, her opinions come out without finesse or the benefit of polishing. In the office, sure, she manages professional well enough, but when she’s completely at ease, opinions come fast and blunt. There’s no time for mincing words, after all. Life’s short and fast and not guaranteed to be the same tomorrow.
There’s definitely been her fair share of bitterness since the divorce. Losing Lucien on the heels of the loss of her brother hit hard and certainly left some snappishness she can’t avoid letting show. For the most part, knowing that living well is the best revenge, she shoves it down and actively goes for being the same sparkling smartass she always used to be, but now and then it can’t be avoided coming through.
For all that she’s a bit direct and rough around the edges, Rita’s also a very soft woman in certain moments. She’s incredibly family-oriented, and tends to blossom a little bit into a happier self when with her daughter or her brothers. Her brand of caring is, yes, a little forceful and sometimes a bit sharp, but it comes from a place of loving too hard to let go.
Appearance: When most people think of Rita James, they think of her startling features and her provocatively sharp dress.
Of about average height and just slightly underweight, Rita is most striking in her incredibly pale skin and dark features. She tends to highlight them with rather dramatic makeup—strikingly red lips and dusky eyes, her dark hair often done up elaborately only for the pleasure of effect when she lets it down. Most of the time, she can be found smiling, fierce and just a little hard at the edges, although her daughter does light up her eyes properly even now.
For the most part, the one thing that matters to her is that she never looks anything less than on point. She dresses neatly, if creatively (and, to be honest, more often than not a little scandalously), does her makeup to a T in the morning, and walks with the confidence of the bombshell she used to be and still rather is. No one is going to see any cracks that aren’t there, no matter how hard they look.
Character PB: Dita Von Teese
Writing sample: She crosses her legs. Uncrosses them and recrosses them at the ankle instead, fingers smoothing calmly over her skirt to keep it riding low. There’s no urgency to the motion, simply a gentle ebbing along like the moon’s pulling her fingers and toes.
She’s not uncertain of herself. She’s not worried that today won’t go well. She’s not even concerned to be kept waiting another few minutes past the scheduled appointment time.
Rita James doesn’t really do ‘uncertain,’ ‘worried’ and ‘concerned’ about little things like a multimillion dollar contract under renegotiation.
Instead she nudges down gently at the hem of her skirt, purses her lips just slightly and lifts a hand with delicate precision to smooth down a strand of hair that’s already in perfect place for the chance to arch her neck slightly as the door opens and the client appears. That’s all it takes, after all, to get to yes—the curve of a neck, the red of lips, the white of teeth in a smile.
{And voicetest here.}
Why this Suit? When Edith came to the Deck, she settled on the Hearts as a good starting place to build her influence. Naturally Rita—following her mother to begin with—settled there as well. Nothing in her life has ever compelled her to move away from the safety of this base at her mother’s side.
How did you hear about us? Once there were dinosaurs.