Post by sepia on Sept 18, 2010 1:12:03 GMT -6
Full Name: Pelliwen Grace Archer
Nick Names: Pel, which she tries to get everyone to use.
Student or Staff: Student
House: White Ribbon House
Age: 15
Ethnicity: American
Gender: Female
Physical Description:
Pel is a solid girl, filled out with muscle and, somewhat unfortunately, fairly short, giving her a chunky appearance. With no feminine curves to speak of – and Pel not hoping that the continuation of puberty gives her some – she rather gives the impression of a tank: unyielding, most definitely not soft, and gritty. Almost entirely flat-chested (which Pel is glad for, as she is quite certain that a bust would only get in the way) she can pass herself off with reasonable ease as a boy, something she occasionally takes advantage of.
Blond hair, cut ruthlessly short to just below ear-length, and pale hazel eyes, usually looking determined or argumentative, complete the picture, as does a pointed ignorance of anything approaching attractive clothing. Her way of dressing in contrasting colours, or the dullest clothes she could find, was originally begun to annoy her parents... and then she grew fond of it, and has continued to dress eclectically (what do you mean blue and red contrast?), mixing spots and stripes and not caring at all what anyone else thinks.
Personality:
Ambitious and somewhat harsh, Pel is not at all afraid to leap for what she wants and hang onto it hard. She wants to prove to the world that she can do what everyone else can – and do it better, and she’ll overturn custom, rules and social conventions to do so. Definitely headstrong, Pel has always had a hard time listening to advice and obeying rules. She wants to make it on her own, and she’s resistant to people trying to help her, feeling that it shows that they think she’s weak, unable to act for herself. From an early age, she’s been in rebellion against her parents, and this shows in her almost every move, as she tries to push the boundaries out further and further.
She can be very abrasive to people, saying what she thinks when she thinks it, and very rarely censoring her words. If she even notices that she offends people – and frequently she doesn’t, being far too wrapped up in herself to even imagine that people might take offence at something as silly as her words – she’ll probably ignore it. She doesn’t know how to make amends for such things and, really, she doesn’t know if she wants to – if people are sensitive enough to be offended by something she’s said, then they’re probably very thin-skinned, and it’s not her fault at all. In return, she cares very little for other people’s opinions.
She has no qualms about squashing people entirely flat to get her way, but is entirely un-manipulative, not having the subtlety of character to even begin to contemplate such acts. In fact, she’s susceptible to such manipulation herself, taking most things at face-value and not looking for an underlying meaning. Hand in hand with this, she cares very little for other people’s opinions, and is about as hard-skinned as they come. Though she doesn’t go out of her way to be obnoxious to people, she can come across that way, but in fact she can be perfectly friendly... at least until you get in her way.
Loud, and frequently boisterous, Pel is not going to be happy with being ignored. Oh, no. She wants to be in the middle of everything, involved with everyone, and her sheer enthusiasm for anything at all is one of her good traits – even if it does come partly out of a desire to out-do everyone else. She always isn’t one to hide her views: if she has an opinion on something, someone is likely to hear about it, and if people disagree? Well, fine then, she doesn’t care, and she’s not going to back down from anything, either. Stubborn argument is one of her fortes, and she’ll defend her views long after she’s been proven wrong, not liking to change her mind and hating to be wrong about anything.
Essentially, she is driven by a desire to be noticeable, to really make her mark on the world, to make people sit up and take notice of the middle, oddball daughter of a businessman from New Mexico. Straightforward and direct, Pel attacks things head on, and doesn’t let annoying little things like obstacles get in her way – that proverbial brick wall is something she’ll beat quite firmly until it crumbles. Having spent almost her entire life rebelling against what is expected of her, she’s hardly going to stop now – even if there is little to rebel against, her headstrong personality is unlikely to be much changed.
Background:
Mother: Mary Archer, 41, housewife.
Father: Samson Archer, 43, runs a small insurance firm.
Elder Sister: Quiara Corner, 20, married to local businessman Harold Corner.
Younger Brother: Dylan Archer, 12.
Pel has always suffered from not fitting in to her family’s view of life. Her parents are a very traditional couple, still of the opinion that girls should grow up and be married while boys grow up and support the family. This was not what Pel wanted, and she made that clear from a very early age. While her older sister Quiara was perfectly happy to be meek and demure, and avidly looked out for a suitable man to marry, Pel preferred to be off exploring, and more than once had to be dragged out of a mud-pit and given a strict talking to.
Her parents continued to attempt – despite all odds – to raise her as they wished, to make someone a good wife. In protest at this idea, Pel hacked her hair short; frequently vanished when she was supposed to be socialising, stating quite loudly that the people her mother wanted her to meet were boring; vanished off down to the local stables at any possible opportunity, much to the disapproval of all; adamantly refused to lament the fact that she was short and stocky, unlike her sister who, though short, at least seemed to possess at least some womanly figure; and went off to explore the country around their home as frequently as possible, preferably when she was supposed to be doing something else
Riding initially started as a rebellious act, Pel acting out against her parent’s wishes by doing such an ‘unladylike’ sport, but soon she came to love horses for their own sake, and spent as much time as possible down at the stables, despite her family’s frequent attempts to stop her riding at all. She persevered, though, mainly through sheer pigheadedness, and when she was thirteen, took herself off to the local horse auctions and bought herself a horse.
This resulted in a raging argument, unsurprisingly (as well as an understanding of why she’d never, ever spent her pocket-money) Pel refusing to budge an inch despite being yelled at by her father, and pleaded with by her mother. Her frustrations with the way that her parents refused to accept that she wasn’t going to fit into their neat little mold soon boiled over, and she was yelling back just as hard. She ended up being sent to her room and denied dinner, her parents being quite traditional in how they punished their children, but she shinned down the drainpipe outside her window and escaped off to the stables.
Her parents eventually consented to the horse, mainly because Pel was paying for his bed and board entirely independently, and it was clear that even if they did lock her in her room, she was going to find a way out, probably by burning the house down or something equally drastic. Pel decided this was a victory, and managed to ignore the fact that she was now being saddled with every chore in the house, and her parents were riding her harder than ever over her grades, demanding that she get As in everything or she’d lose her horse. Apparently they’d decided that if they couldn’t directly stop Pel from riding, they’d make it as difficult as they possibly could for her.
Getting increasingly depressed and angered at her parents, Pel began to plot. And, being Pel, her plotting ended up with results, so that when she told her parents about Blue Ridge and her desire to go there, it only took two months of arguments, frosty silences and general unpleasantness to get them to agree. Rather cynically, Pel is of the opinion that they finally decided to send her off to the school because there, she was out of the way, unable to embarrass them any more by not being the perfect daughter. Still, she’s happy to be away and finally able to ride without being shouted at, her beloved horse with her – and if she feels rather a sense of abandonment from her family, and wonders if they really do care – well, she can cover that up with boisterousness and anger.
Misc.: Owns Growl, a somewhat scruffy, four-year old mongrel that she picked up (much to her parent’s displeasure) at the side of the road on her way home from school one day.
Face Claim/Playby: Allison Mack
