Post by eden menendez on May 29, 2008 16:20:04 GMT -5
and you are?[/font] 51 therebutnotneeded
your name: jac
age: eighteen
years of rping: two and a half
how'd you find us? mammoth academyEDEN HOPE MENENDEZ
full name: Eden Hope Menendez
nicknames: Just Eden
age: Nineteen
birthdate: April third
gender: Female
sexuality: Heterosexual
wealth status: Upper Middle-Class
social standing: Citizen
let's get physical,
height: 5'3"
weight: 112 lbs
hair color: Brown
eye color: Brown
tattoos/piercings: She has her ears pierced once. Nothing out of the ordinary.
portrayed by: Rachel Bilson
physical appearance in depth:Ten and a half years masking her insecurity has gotten her quite good at it. Whether Eden is absolutely stunning or none more attractive than a piece of chewing gum on the underside of a school desk, one thing about her is undeniable, and that is that she is clearly looking for your attention. Carrying herself so much taller than her five feet, three inches, she walks with a commanding grace that ensures everybody is aware of her presence. She has spent the better part of her life developing a reputation for herself that she has every will to keep intact. With instinctively good posture and a practice-perfected glare, it is her intention to make sure you know that she means business.
Were it not for this unmistakable self-confidence and bold, yet almost desperate, imposition, there is very little that defines Eden, or separates her from any other face in the crowd, and she knows this. She feels that she has to demand attention from those surrounding her because she doesn't think they'll give it to her if she doesn't. With dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, and an unremarkable frame, her presentation of herself is her only hope of drawing eyes to her, and she knows it. When you've only got one weapon, you've got to be really, really good with it, right? So when she's in a good mood, she floats when she walks, and when she's angry, she stomps. Either way, she tends to end up as the center of attention, which is exactly the idea.
As for style, she likes to wear things that give the illusion that she doesn't care what you think. Except, she does care what you think, even besides the fact that she cares whether or not you think she cares what you think, so she still likes to wear things that look good on her every once in a while. Of course, easy to put on trumps good-looking. Jeans are some of her favourite things in the world, for no reason other than the fact that they're easy to put on. There's no point in going through a puzzle of laces and buttons and hooks just to put on a pair of pants or a shirt, right? No. Of course there isn't. That's why Eden pays very little attention to trends. Other people can keep their leggings and ballet flats. She'll be just fine with a baggy sweater, a pair of jeans and some good old fashioned running shoes. Why complicate?
and i'll get to know you,
likes:
- writing,
- food,
- alcohol,
- belittling people,
- being intimidating,
- being imposing,
- being feared,
- being loved,
- being hated,
- being wanted,
- being admired,
- birthdays,
- parties,
- birthday parties,
- chocolate,
- cake,
- chocolate cake,
- pretty much any dessert,
- music,
- old music,
- Billy Joel,
- Elton John,
- Queen,
- The Eagles,
- Simon and Garfunkel,
- plays,
- musicals,
- rock operas,
- Anthony Rapp,
- Adam Pascal,
- feeling important,
- colourful things,
- pretty things,
- flowers,
- acting,
- being happy.
dislikes:
- parsnips,
- sweet potatoes,
- being belittled,
- being intimidated,
- being afraid,
- sappy things,
- sob stories,
- fake chocolate,
- fake sugar,
- bad music,
- rap,
- bad movies,
- Daniel Radcliffe,
- feeling unimportant,
- being bored,
- boring things,
- ugly things,
- dandelions,
- physical pain,
- emotional pain,
- being sad (weak).
personality:Eden's personality is complex, to say the least. Anyone who didn't know her well would say that she was a cold, heartless, unsympathetic bitch, and they wouldn't be entirely wrong. That is the persona that she has created for herself, and she is perfectly happy with it, but it's not completely true to her own personality. In short, Eden Menendez is a coward. Her strong, unfeeling character is a porcelain mask behind which she has hidden from a rather young age, and which she sprouted as a side-effect to her own self-pity. Somewhere along her life's pathway, Eden decided that she was smarter than other people- but she wasn't the only one. Teachers and adults around her, and even her fellow students, all recognized her intelligence, so she started to do everything in her power to make sure everybody knew that she knew that she was better than them. That was what triggered her downward spiral into falsehood.
Eventually, once her friends got sick of being told they were stupid, they decided that they really didn't like Eden very much. And when she realized why there were fewer and fewer people who enjoyed her company, she started to think about what she had done to make people take this sort of disliking to her. She soon established that she was being mean to them, but she didn't really care. The way she saw it was that they weren't actually upset that she was arguing with them and insulting them and just generally being a bitch. They were upset that she could be such a horrible person, and still be right. As far as she was concerned, whether she was being arrogant and sarcastic and intolerant or not, she was still better than them, and they just couldn't deal with that. Boo freakin' hoo. She wasn't about to go and make that her problem.
After all, she wasn't doing anybody any favours by pretending they were good at something that they were actually horrible at, or not bothering to tell them that double negatives were gramatically incorrect, or that they should quit beating around the bush and just get to the point already. What, exactly, did they have to gain from that? The belief that Eden is a nice, helpful person? Please. She got over the little speedbump of righteousness early on in life, so she didn't have to spend the rest of her days wondering if she was actually a good person or not. It's much easier to just assume that you aren't and become comfortable with this assumtion, rather than trying to justify your actions in order to prove that you are. Waste of time, if you ask her.
And if this whole 'no-nonsense' attitude and self-pleasing lack of interest in the well-being of others had worked out for her, she'd probably be less of a wreck at this point in her life. You see, truth be told, Eden really is a good person, no matter how much she tries to show only the bad sides of herself. She's thoughtless and she's rude and she's snide and she's proud, but she feels guilt. She always has. She'll insult you to no end if she feels you deserve it, and she'll laugh in your face if you try to argue with her, but then when she goes home at night, she'll think about what she did and wonder why she's always so mean to people, and eventually come to the conclusion that it's because she simply hates being told what to do. She refuses to let her life be controlled by anybody else, the way it was in her childhood, so she makes up for her time not standing up for herself, by trying to completely detach herself from other people in the hopes that this will prevent her from ever having to obey them, with a sneering lack of respect for rules and expectations. This also didn't work out very well for her.
Because despite everything she would like you to believe, she really does like people. And when she likes any particular person, she can actually get along with them relatively well. It's just that she tends to look at the bad parts of people first, and is cruelly judgemental, so the people that she likes are not especially large in number. Still, when she does find one, she lets herself show an emotion that some people who she doesn't like, or who don't know her very well, don't realize she is capable of experiencing- happiness. Despite all of her emotional issues, Eden is completely carefree and insanely bouncy when she is with somebody that she enjoys being with. But whether it's anger, sadness or joy that she is feeling, one thing is for certain; Eden Menendez is hysterical.
When she's angry, she screams and yells and throws things and jumps around and lashes out with her hands and feet. When she's sad (although she tries only to allow this to happen to her in the confines of her own room where nobody can see her pathetic weakness), she cries like you've never seen anybody cry before. When she's cheerful, she jumps around, screaming and bouncing and laughing and loving. The only time that she is calm is when she's being mean. Not when she's truly angry at somebody, but when she's just being mean. Insulting somebody who really didn't do anything to her, but she feels that she needs to insult because it makes her feel better about herself. She is never more stoic than when she's crafting ideas for cruel and clever attacks to the ego of another person.
But the most important, and perhaps the worst, facet of Eden's personality is the fact that she understands herself perfectly. She knows that she is in layers: Layer one being the facade that she puts on to protect herself from emotional attack, layer two being the way she acts with her friends, and layer three being the one that she tries desperately hard to make disappear. She also understands that occasionally, layer three seeps through the weaker points in layers one and two (such as being sincerely complimented, or feeling attracted to somebody), making for quite a spectacle of undesired feelings. She knows how horrible she is to people, and she knows perfectly well that she could easily be a nicer person, but she doesn't do it. Because somehow, in some way that defies all reasonable logic, Eden is perfectly comfortable with who she is. Very few other people are happy with her, but she has no problem with herself, so long as all of her layers stay exactly where they are supposed to be.
a little bit better,
history in depth:Eden Menendez came into the world in the usual way. So did Serena, her twin sister, but she didn't stay there nearly as long. To put it quite simply, Serena Faith Menendez had trouble breathing when she was born, and she didn't make it. That's it, that's all, and there's no need to go into any more detail than that. Her mother probably cried a lot, and it's easy to imagine Nicholas sitting there in a state of shock- but Eden doesn't pretend to miss her sister. She doesn't try to make people think she's tremendously affected by the death of her twin, and she certainly doesn't blame herself for it. She was eleven hours old. She didn't know what was going on, and even now that she does, it's hard to really care that much about something that you don't remember. She's upset the same way any other person would be upset if they found out about the death of a complete stranger. It's unfortunate that a life had to be lost, and it's a shame that people who loved them will have to deal with it, but it doesn't affect you directly- the same way Serena's death has never affected Eden directly.
Despite this minor setback for her parents, Eden's childhood was fairly normal- even, maybe, pleasant. Money was never an issue, there was no abuse or dysfunction, and there was really no particular reason for her to feel the need to rebel. And in her early years, she didn't see any reason for it either. Sometimes you just don't know where they go wrong. But then, sometimes you know exactly where they go wrong. Eden, for instance, went wrong when she decided that she was too good for "these people".
She was in grade six when she met Mr. Rowe. Her english teacher was being switched to ESL, so they hired a replacement for her. This teacher was the kind of teacher that you actually wanted to listen to, and wanted to obey, because he was so nice that you felt like you owed it to him. Even before this, Eden had loved creative writing. It was something that she really enjoyed, and she was quite proud of her work, but she didn't think she would ever be really, truly good at it. Mr. Rowe disagreed. He decided that she was very talented and, with some work, she could be an exceptionally good writer. She was somewhat surprised, but she followed his instructions and developed her skills and soon, she was completely convinced that she was amazing. And she made no attempt at hiding this. He provided a constant supply of praise to support her ever-growing ego, as she used her eloquency and general intelligence to belittle her "inferior" peers.
This arrogance was always there, but his intriguing philosophies and promotion of her argumentative desire to better herself seemed to coax it out of her- much like her interaction with other children coaxed out her stubborn aspiration of independence. After a certain number of years conversing with other people of her age on a regular basis, she deduced that other people's parents gave them a lot more freedom and priveleges than she got, and she simply didn't understand that. It wasn't until grade seven that, by using what she professed to be logic, she determined that commands and restrictions were only as good as the strength, or lack thereof, of her will to obey them. So she decided that she just wouldn't listen anymore. What was anybody going to do about it?
As it turned out, they found it strange that she suddenly felt the need to rebel against her superiors even for the simplest and most trivial of things. At home, her parents thought there was something going on at school that was making her angry enough to say and do such things, and act the way she did. At school, her teachers thought there must be something happening at home that was influencing her behaviour. There wasn't. Eden was just taking what she believed she deserved, because nobody had thought it would be a good idea to give it to her.
"Eden, can you take this steak down to the freezer?" her mother asked in the same degrading tone as she always used when she asked her daughter to do stupid things like that. She said it as if she, herself, was above walking down to the basement to put meat in the freezer. Idiot. Eden Menendez was a gifted child, and she was clearly busy. Why couldn't she just put the stupid groceries away herself, for God's sake?
"Yep," she replied in a defiant monotone, not bothering to pry her eyes away from her computer screen to give her mother dearest the privelege of her attention. She was busy, writing, but Lacey clearly hadn't noticed that yet, because if she had, she would have respected Eden's obvious desire to go about her business in peace. Or, maybe she wouldn't have. One never knows with that woman.
"Here," said her mother, clearly having assumed that her daughter had volunteered to put away the dead cow that was now being thrust at her briefly before placed on her computer desk. The woman stood there silently, as if waiting for a sign that the young teenager had understood that she wanted the meat put away now. Such a sign was not granted. Eden continued to type. "Now."
"What?" asked the girl, finally turning away from her monitor to look up at her with falsely questioning eyes. She had obviously understood that her mother had meant to tell her to put the steak into the freezer, but she hadn't told her to do so. She had asked if she could. Clearly, since Eden was not physically or mentally disabled, she was perfectly capable of bringing a package of steak from upstairs at her computer desk to downstairs in their gargantuan freezer. But she didn't want to, (and that was a question that Lacey had not bothered to ask) and she did not feel that there was any reason for her to do it instead of her mother. After all, she was the one that was busy.
She could have easily gone on with this sneering disregard for any sort of hierarchy for her whole life- but somewhere, deep down, there was a good person with a conscience hiding inside the cruel, hard shell of superiority that Eden wore. She didn't so much feel badly for the people that she was unkind to, but she didn't like the way that she, herself, was acting. It really had nothing to do with how she was making other people feel. It was just the way that she was behaving that bothered her. The only thing that she found could successfully numb her self-inflicted pain, was alcohol. All through high school, she had a drinking problem. She didn't drink all of the time, but most of her drinking she tended to do alone, sitting at bars and wallowing in her own self-pity, as if she was the victim in the whole ordeal of her life.
When she graduated from high school, she attended university, majoring in creative writing and minoring in literature and theater, and is currently in her third year, having skipped grade three. She claims to have recovered from her alcoholism, but it's no secret that she does still enjoy the occasional glass. On the bright side, now it's legal.
addictions: Alcohol
criminal record: Uncannily clean
aspirations: If possible, Eden would like to completely conceal her "real" self from the public eye and hide the fact that she's susceptible to emotional pain, get over her paranoia and alcoholism, and become a writer.
than before,
the family:
the mother,
[/center]
"I honestly have no idea what the hell is going on with this woman. I think she's having some sort of screwed up mental side-effect to menopause or something, that makes it like she's PMSing all of the time- except ten times worse. I just don't understand what goes through her head most of the time. I guess it might just be that she takes it hard that my dad is always away, but for God's sake, I wish she'd just admit that something's wrong. Does she think I never noticed that we went through more bottles of wine when there was only one person drinking it? I don't know. I guess she's just got it in her head that I need psychiatric help or something, because she used to freak out whenever I even thought about lighting a candle, or going to a party. She was always afraid that I was going to burn the house down or pull a gun on somebody. And people say that I'm paranoid? I don't know. Maybe it's heretitary. Whatever it is, I just hope she gets the fuck over it before she ends up in an asylum."
[/ul]
the father,[/font] 54 gonebutnotmissed
"Son of a bitch. I guess it was when I was twelve that he first decided I'd made it my mission in life to hurt my mother's feelings. What does he know? He spends more time in Rwanda or Afghanistan than he does at home, so how the hell can he even begin to know what goes on? Mom and I were so much better off when he was out of the country. It's not even just that he's a violent, angry bastard. My mom was always so much more irritable when he was at home. He can just stay in the Ukraine for the rest of his life, for all I care. As far as I'm concerned, moving away from home was the best thing I've ever done. My parents are freakin' annoying."
[/ul]
pets: Elton (John) is a cross between a pomeranian and a teacup poodle, making him a pomapoo.
anything else: None
She was surprised at how well he was taking this. If somebody had asked her that kind of question, put her on the spot like that, she would have flipped out. She would have laid out several scenarios and possible answers that she could give to the question, all of them, of course, ending badly. Because that was just the way she was. She would look at what she thought to be all of her options, but she would only see the bad options. She didn't believe it to be possible for somebody to answer that kind of question correctly, and certainly not for somebody to answer it correctly, without hesitation, smoothly, calmly, and perfectly the way Mikah did. But she had been wrong before, and she had definitely been wrong this time, because she honestly could not imagine answering that horrible, thoughtless question well. She couldn't imagine it, but she had just witnessed it, so she didn't have to.
Most people liked it when people were nice to them, when they were genuinely kind, sympathetic or supportive of them, but not Nikki. She truly and honestly hated it when people were sweet to her. She hated it because it scared the crap out of her, the way it scared the crap out of her that Mikah was so perfect, but had still just admitted to being on a date with her, the most flawed person in the world. She hated being afraid, so she hated things that scared her, and good people, being good to her, terrified her. And they terrified her because she didn't think she deserved to have people be good to her the way that Mikah was always so good to her. It just wasn't fair. She was a bitch. She was. She was a bitch, and a horrible, horrible person, yet people still liked her, and although she pretended that there must be something about her that was good, or else people wouldn't like her, but in the end she just admitted that those people who liked her had absolutely no reason to do so, and it actually upset her that they did. People should only get what they deserve. You reap what you sew. But Nikki didn't. People gave her more respect, showed her more kindness, and were just better people than she could ever possibly deserve to associate with, and that bothered her. It made her want to cry, because it scared her, because she strongly believed in karma. Because one day, all of these people were going to realize what she already knew, that she didn't deserve to be treated the way they treated her, and they would just leave her alone, and she didn't think she would be able to handle that. Better to start with nothing than to have everything taken away from her. Still, perfect people like Mikah refused to leave her alone, and the last thing she wanted was for Mikah to leave her alone, but it still scared the hell out of her that he also didn't seem to want to leave her. That was just not normal. So when she heard his soothing voice telling her reassuring words, and she felt his hand on hers, it scared her, and her throat closed up and she jerked her hand towards her and away from him- she stopped herself before she could pull it away completely, but it was noticeable, and she was afraid that he would take it to mean that she didn't like what he was doing and saying. God, life would have been so much easier if everybody just treated her like the bitch she was. Everything would make sense if everybody would just acknowledge the fact that she was horrible and undeserving of the attention that everybody gave her.
Then she started to wonder whether she should or should not put her money away. She hated it when other people had to pay for her. It made her feel bad about costing them money, and self-conscious about how much money she was costing them. When she bought herself food, she bought a lot of food, because she didn't care if people thought she ate too much. In fact, she made sure that everybody knew that she ate a lot, because even if they thought that she ate too much, nobody was going to seriously and honestly call her fat. But if they thought that she didn't eat enough, they might think that that was why she wasn't fat. So she didn't try to hide the fact that she ate more than most people did. But she didn't want anybody else to have to pay for her food, because she would be costing them way more money than she was comfortable making them spend on her. After all, Mikah shouldn't have to pay for her fast metabolism and defiance for modern society.Not to mention the fact that if she put her money away, she'd have to take her hand away from Mikah's. But if she insisted on paying for her own food, then he would think that she didn't want it to be a date, because he had told her that if it was a date then she couldn't pay. And she wanted it to be a date, but she didn't want for him to pay for her. It was uncomfortable and rude to make somebody else pay for her meals. But she didn't want him to think that she wasn't madly in love with him didn't like him. She had no idea what to do, which was starting to become a trend with this date, but was still a new experience for her, because she always had a smooth, controlled way of going about things. She was always either calm and collected or wild and crazy, but she was never awkward. Not even around the man that she wanted to be with forever Mikah. And really, by now, she should have just been accepting that it was a date, accepting that they both wanted it to be a date, and just going about it the way that she would have gone about any other date. But for some reason, even without the additional awkwardness of not knowing whether they both wanted it or not, she was still scared. Maybe it was because Mikah was perfect and that scared the shit out of her, or maybe it was because she wasn't sure if she was ready to be in a relationship that involved demonstrating the new, intense feelings that she felt for him. Because she never had before. She had been in relationships, but she had never felt the same way about any other guy as she felt about Mikah Savage, and that also scared her. What did it mean? And it was one thing for him to want to be on a date with her, but did he have those same feelings for her? Knowing Mikah, it meant unfortunately little for him to be okay with the fact that this had turned into a date. They had both been on millions of dates before, and they both knew that, so maybe that meant that this one wasn't as different to him as it was to her. Because even though he seemed to want to be on a date with her, he was a lot more comfortable with it than she was, and that might just have been because he was just a generally less awkward person than she was, but it also might have been because he didn't see as much reason to be awkward as she did, and that also scared her. Nikki Redmond was scared of a lot more things than she prefered that people knew, and most of them involved Mikah in one way or another.
Most people liked it when people were nice to them, when they were genuinely kind, sympathetic or supportive of them, but not Nikki. She truly and honestly hated it when people were sweet to her. She hated it because it scared the crap out of her, the way it scared the crap out of her that Mikah was so perfect, but had still just admitted to being on a date with her, the most flawed person in the world. She hated being afraid, so she hated things that scared her, and good people, being good to her, terrified her. And they terrified her because she didn't think she deserved to have people be good to her the way that Mikah was always so good to her. It just wasn't fair. She was a bitch. She was. She was a bitch, and a horrible, horrible person, yet people still liked her, and although she pretended that there must be something about her that was good, or else people wouldn't like her, but in the end she just admitted that those people who liked her had absolutely no reason to do so, and it actually upset her that they did. People should only get what they deserve. You reap what you sew. But Nikki didn't. People gave her more respect, showed her more kindness, and were just better people than she could ever possibly deserve to associate with, and that bothered her. It made her want to cry, because it scared her, because she strongly believed in karma. Because one day, all of these people were going to realize what she already knew, that she didn't deserve to be treated the way they treated her, and they would just leave her alone, and she didn't think she would be able to handle that. Better to start with nothing than to have everything taken away from her. Still, perfect people like Mikah refused to leave her alone, and the last thing she wanted was for Mikah to leave her alone, but it still scared the hell out of her that he also didn't seem to want to leave her. That was just not normal. So when she heard his soothing voice telling her reassuring words, and she felt his hand on hers, it scared her, and her throat closed up and she jerked her hand towards her and away from him- she stopped herself before she could pull it away completely, but it was noticeable, and she was afraid that he would take it to mean that she didn't like what he was doing and saying. God, life would have been so much easier if everybody just treated her like the bitch she was. Everything would make sense if everybody would just acknowledge the fact that she was horrible and undeserving of the attention that everybody gave her.
Then she started to wonder whether she should or should not put her money away. She hated it when other people had to pay for her. It made her feel bad about costing them money, and self-conscious about how much money she was costing them. When she bought herself food, she bought a lot of food, because she didn't care if people thought she ate too much. In fact, she made sure that everybody knew that she ate a lot, because even if they thought that she ate too much, nobody was going to seriously and honestly call her fat. But if they thought that she didn't eat enough, they might think that that was why she wasn't fat. So she didn't try to hide the fact that she ate more than most people did. But she didn't want anybody else to have to pay for her food, because she would be costing them way more money than she was comfortable making them spend on her. After all, Mikah shouldn't have to pay for her fast metabolism and defiance for modern society.
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