PRIDEUX, jacqueline

[Jacqueline Prideux]

jacqueline agathe prideux
twenty-three :: june eighteenth nineteen eighty-seven
florist lackey


A P P E A R A N C E

Eyes: Her eyes are a medium blue that darkens considerably at the edges of her cornea. The almond shaped orbs are framed by dark brown lashes. Her eyes tend to look dull unless she is expressing some sort of emotion, whether good or bad and often they will look more gray than blue. She wears reading glasses on occasion in the store, but will try to leave them off if she can help it. By the end of the day, they’re on for almost every order but in the morning she can get away with not wearing them. They have thick, dark frames but the prescription isn’t horribly strong.
Hair: Jacqueline’s hair falls about six inches below the tops of her shoulders and she gets it trimmed every few months to keep it there. Long enough to be long, but not annoying. The color is almost always a dirty blonde or light mousy brown. During the summer the sun’s rays will lighten the ends and almost up to her roots to a light blonde. She keeps it down for most of the day but will put it up into a loose bun when she is working on flowers or cooking herself dinner.
Height: 5’7”
Build: The woman is skinny, but not in the model-thin kind of way. She’s got a bit of curve to her. She looks… normal. For lack of a better word. She weighs between 129lbs. and 134lbs. depending on if she ran that day or ate cheesecake instead.
Style: Jacqueline has always and will always be a fan of comfort over fashion, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t like to look good. Mainly it means that she’s not going to shove her feet into stilettos just for a night when she can wear ballet flats and look just as good. Every day wear includes loose-fitting skinny jeans or opaque leggings, men’s blazers that have been taken in a bit and fitted for her, cardigans of all shapes and sizes and vintage t-shirts that are almost always a size or two too big. She calls them vintage but really she just means that they’re old. Her feet are usually in ballet flats, boots or one of her various pairs of converse. She’ll wear hats on occasion, but she’s not overly fond of them. If she needs to dress up for anything she has a few outfits that would work, but she likes to keep it casual for just about everything. She accessorizes with various things: ties, bracelets, chunky watches, scarves.
Other: While Jacqueline can be very pretty with make-up on, on the whole she is just an average looking girl. She has large, expressive eyes that rarely express anything worth knowing. A straight nose that’s just a hint wider than the average. A small mouth with full lips that are almost always stained a light shade of pink. Her chin comes down to a rounded point from a wide jaw. When you look at her, one of the first things you’ll notice is that she has three moles on her left cheek as well as a couple on her neck that look like freckles. Also that her two front teeth are larger than normal. The last of which is the reason why she generally smiles with her mouth closed.
Play By: Clémence Poésy

P E R S O N A L I T Y

Strengths: First and foremost Jacqueline has always been very loyal to those she cares about and it’s one of her more endearing qualities. She tends to stick by their sides through thick and thin, not caring much for consequences. She’s the kind of woman that will pick a side only if she has to, but when she does she doesn’t waver. She’s also never been one to break a promise, not a promise that she’s actually meant. She genuinely cares about people, even when it isn’t always that apparent. What it boils down to in the end is that people know Jac will be there for them if they ever need her to be.

Her second strength it not always so apparent. The young woman has been through a few hard knocks, granted all of her own doing, but that doesn’t make them any easier. She’s generally taken things in stride, from anger to sadness. Sure, she has a temper that can rival most red-heads. But when she finally calms down, she bears her burden with more courage and grace than she realizes she has. This has led her to be able to see goodness and beauty in a lot more places than she would have first thought she would be able to. Not everywhere of course, but in things others might take for granted. At least that is how she would like to see it.

Her third strength, counted as one despite her parents’ constant complaining, is that if she feels the need to do something. The downright need. She’ll do it. Whether it be rearranging all the furniture in her “apartment” or going to Paris and not coming home until she’s needed. She doesn’t have many dreams, and the few she does have are put on hold, but you can guarantee that when she’s able, she’ll be gone. Jac has a touch of wanderlust in her and feels compelled to travel the world with nothing but the clothes on her back. Even if she wouldn’t get far. Even if she’d run home after a week. She wants it.

In her day to day life Jacqueline is generally easy-going. She takes her tasks in stride. She treats everyone with the same amount of courtesy that she would expect to be shown. She was brought up with a certain level of manners and to treat everyone with a bit of respect if you wanted any in return. Sure, there are the occasional people who seem to rub her the wrong way and she’ll be a little more polite than respectful, but she’s never jump straight to disliking someone. If anything indifference is better. She is also a product of being raised in a small town where most people know everyone’s business. Especially those who talk to her family. This means that the woman is generally a bit friendlier and prone to using nicknames than she probably would be elsewhere.
Weaknesses: Despite being listed as a strength, many consider the woman’s impulsive nature and willingness to follow through a bad thing. It easy to agree with them as well, seeing as a lot of times when she is set on a path she doesn’t think about others around her. It can lead to her being inconsiderate of those she cares about, even without meaning to. She has more often than she realized hurt other’s because she thought she was doing the right thing, or what she needed to do. Sometimes this bothers her, others it doesn’t as much as it probably should have. Either way, she has been known to put herself above others when not always necessary.

Something that Jacqueline considers a weakness, though far from her greatest, is her lack of education. She has common sense and a basic knowledge with books, but her education didn’t go past the collège level of secondary school. Something that is consonantly reminded to her by her mother. It probably wouldn’t be so bad if Clementine hadn’t been such an educated woman, nor had such high hopes for her eldest. Jac isn’t so sure she even wants to go back to school seeing as how nothing she’s wanted to do thus far has needed it. She considers it on occasion though.

Another weakness Jacqueline carries is that she is stubborn, overly so. This can help her in several situations where she’s needed to take a stand and not waver. However, it also means that she’s not willing to take into consideration the fact that she might be wrong on something. It takes her long enough to make up her mind on choices, so when she finally gets around to it she sticks by them. If someone tries to hard to push her, they’ll usually find themselves on the receiving end of her temper. Flare ups can be few and far between or cause by added stress. Any way they come out, they aren’t fun in the least for anyone involved.

Despite being generally friendly, when Jac does find reason to dislike someone… she really dislikes them. She’ll ignore them in front of mutual friends, but doesn’t feel the need to try when the other person won’t either. Part of what that amounts to is a lot of snark. If she’s lucky in her head, if she’s not around mildly sympathetic company. Sure, she’s also been known to use it on occasion to get a laugh. But she only feels it coming out when she’s around people she doesn’t want to be. Thankfully, in a town like Sanglignée she has yet to find one.

Her last weakness is her looks. Yes, she’s not drop dead gorgeous to the world standards. At least, she doesn’t think she is. She finds herself to by quite pretty. Enough so that she has a rather high opinion of herself in that regard. It can either come out as a remark or an extra minute spent standing in front of the mirror. It’s part of the reason she’s rather reluctant to put on her reading glasses despite needing them to… read. They don’t give her a looks she likes and she would rather suffer that small bit for a little while.
Likes: glasses of chilled wine, good conversation, laughing at dumb jokes, sitting out on a porch in the evening, the smell of salt water, walls covered in pictures, the colors of the sky during a sunset, developing film from abandoned cameras, good meals with good friends
Dislikes: stepping on something squishy, gooey or wet, anti-smoking advertisements, the last few swigs of a beer, broken spines on books, most technology (she has a laptop, but she barely knows how to turn it on), letting the dishes sit in the sink, doing the dishes, watching movies more than once, when it’s too hot for a blanket but too cold without
Habits: smokes on occasion. She started when she was in Paris and was made to quit when she returned to Sanglignée. She still has a few cigarettes a month, though never at home and usually just when she’s out enjoying the night with a few friends. disorganized. If you asked her to find something, she could produce it in less than thirty seconds … However. Jac’s “apartment” is a complete mess and there are generally clothes strewn everywhere, books on the floor, and her bed is rarely [if ever] made. Not that it matters, no one goes up there anyway. swears under her breath when things go wrong. What language it’s in depends heavily on the language she was using before the thing happened. But she tends to let out streams of curse words under her breath when she doesn’t like what’s going on or she messes something up. generally late. It’s to the point where her family and friends have had to learn to tell her earlier times. Sometimes ten minutes, sometimes an hour. Depends on where she’s going and how long it will take her to get ready. runs two to three times a week in the evenings. She’s not sure when or why it started, she just remembers running in the evenings for the last several months. Sometimes when she’s had a particularly stressful day, others because she ate an extra slice of pizza and she feels guilty. uses French about 70% of the time. She speaks it at home and usually in the store, unless the other person doesn’t know any. At that point she’ll switch to English, but she’s not nearly as comfortable and her accent is incredibly heavy. speaks using her hands. While she probably has done it all her life, she’s taken to using charades to get her point across at times. Other than that, she has been known to make gestures while she is talking to people.
Biggest Secret: Isn’t that kind of the point of being secret, you don’t tell people? Anywho. Her secret is that she’s a lot better at understanding English than she lets on. She’s far from fluent, mind you. But she also can get the gist of most conversations she’s in or overhears. After five and a half years of dealing with tourists in a large city she adopted the “if you’re going to come to my country, try to learn my language” philosophy that she’s heard some people shouting about.
Most Prized Possession: Jacqueline has had a Polaroid camera ever since her early to mid-teens. She takes great joy in snapping pictures of people she meets in the store, or just out on the streets. She’ll also take pictures of places or scenes that she finds particularly pleasing or meaningful. She’s not sure what matters to her more however, the camera itself or the pictures that come out of it. Each of which she writes the date and time on before hanging them on the walls of her “apartment”. She’s almost filled up an entire wall.
Reputation: Her mother likes to call her “fille rebelle", something Jac herself finds mildly amusing considering her sister’s behavior and the fact that they don’t know about hers. People that know her through her parents will think that she’s the wayward daughter come home… even after being home for half a year. She’s not sure she’ll ever live her stint in Paris down. Coming into the store, Jacqueline is helpful to everyone and knowledgeable about the business and plants in general. She’ll smile with customers and joke around a bit. But past being polite, she’s just another person working in the store. To her friends she would be someone to have fun with who’ll just sit back and relax. She doesn’t need to be going all the time. She’s also a good shoulder to cry on if you either want advice, an ear, or someone to stick up for you with words and on rare occasions a shove or two.

T A I N T E D

Ability: Deflection. Jacqueline’s power is still in its raw state. She’s never had some big event to tell her that she’s anything more than human. Since she doesn’t realize she’s tainted, she’s never trained her ability. Currently it’s little more than a reflex, used without knowledge and only on rare occasions.
Beliefs: While she knows that there are untainted and tainted she doesn’t really mix herself in with either of them. Her family has been settled in the small town since her great grandparents moved the family there and started a business. The gift tends to skip a minimum of two generations in her family, and only affects one or two children in that generation. On top of that, they’ve always been gifts that made the Prideux family able to blend in with the small town. Jacqueline is generally neutral on the whole issue, but if forced to choose sides she’d weigh her options. She’d rather just work in her family’s store and let the “big kids” sort everything out on their own. As far as she sees it, it’s not her problem and she’s not going to get herself hurt or killed for someone else’s beliefs.

B A C K G R O U N D

Place of Birth: Sanglignée, France
Family:
Father: Gérard Philippe Prideux – 62 Florist
Mother: Clementine Agathe Prideux (nee. Girard) – 57 teacher
Sister: Adelaide Lucie Prideux – 19
Others of Note:
Nona Byrne – ex-girlfriend and best friend, even if through postcards.
Pet(s): none.
History: My Mama and Papa were always the kind of people that you would look at and think “I want to be them when I grow old”. They were perfect for each other, are perfect. They knew ever since the beginning. My mother worked in Marseille after she graduated university until she was almost thirty years old. She moved to Sanglignée after that to teach at the collège level. She was very smart, but that is where she had most of her education. After she moved here, she began to go to the flower shop that was in town to get fresh flowers for her apartment. She went at least every two week. My father, whose family own the store, started to notice that she came in often and thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Because of this, he always made sure to be working when he thought she would need more flowers. It took him a year to work up the courage to ask her on a first date, a few month after that to ask for a first kiss. The rest is history. They were married when my mother was thirty-three years old, and papa was already thirty-eight.

It didn’t take much longer for me to come into the world, I think just over a year. It was good though because she was getting older… like she reminds me all the time and I am only twenty-three. But I wasn’t a good baby. I cry a lot, throw tantrums. I don’t know why I was such an unhappy baby. I had what I needed and my parents were very loving. So they also remind me. But all in all, a very nice childhood. My sister was born when I was about four years. She was a boring baby, she cried too. I don’t know. I think that was when I started going to help my father in the store a lot more, because I didn’t want to be around all of that noise. Yes, I realize the small bit of hypocriticalness there. He taught me all about the different flower and how to arrange them to make a nice bouquet. How to make orders and how to cut the flower to make it stay fresh the longer. I learn a lot from him and it was very nice.

When I was around seven years, my mother started to home-school me. She was already at home with two children and since she was a professor, it wasn’t that hard to ask permission. I didn’t like learning, but I did well enough. I think that was because I was a one-on-one student. When my sister was old enough, we were both taught. But it was still a lot more than what the school could give. I think part of the reason also was that my family was responsible for the flowers shop. My father’s brothers and sisters moved away, and left him, the oldest, to take care. We could all help in the store and still learn our lessons. It was easy for us and he only had to have one other employee that way. I stopped learning after I was sixteen. I went through the collège level and stop. My mother wanted me to go to a public school to finish but I didn’t want to. I told her if anything, I could just come back to it and take it later. I still don’t know if I want to.

I spend the next two and a half years working in the shop. I did everything that my father asked. Took orders, made delivery, kept the shop clean. It was all I did. I had some friends, but it never seemed like enough, you know? As a teenager you don’t think to see yourself as an old woman already. That was what I had become. I was my father’s right hand person; we didn’t even have an extra employee in the shop anymore. It all got to be too much. I didn’t want that life. Where was the fun I was supposed to be having? So I took my bag and I pack what I could carry in one large suitcase and I left in the middle of afternoon on Thursday in middle of March. I remember because my father had just gotten the order for Sunday church and I told him I couldn’t help him because I was leaving. I was seventeen years old. I left and I didn’t turn back. Not for five and a half years.

To be honest, I hadn’t really thought where to go before I left. I had a bus ticket to Paris and that was it. Lucky for me I remember that I had cousins in the city and they let me crash on their couch. It was three cousins, all boys. I lived out of my suitcase while looking for a job I could be good at. Of course, I lie. That did not help me. My first job was for some office, I don’t remember, but I only work there three days before they fire me. I couldn’t use a computer or type fast at all. Apparently that was a part of the job. The only thing I knew about computers was that my parents had one in the kitchen to pay the bills. Three weeks after that I had my first real job as a café worker. It was nice; I got all the coffee I could drink and nice tips. The only problem came when there were customers who would yell at me for getting their order wrong. It wasn’t my fault they didn’t know how to order. They would yell, I would yell back. I only lasted three and half month. But whatever.

After that I spend two and a half weeks as a tour guide. Apparently you are not supposed to guide them if you do not speak good English… also if you don’t like tourist. They didn’t tell me I would be leading around Americans and such people. After that I work for a pet store for about two months. I was doing okay at the store but there is only so long you can clean the poop from the cage before you just have to leave. It was smelly and they never stop the pooping. I spend the rest of the November unemployed and found a Christmas tree place just before December and they hired me for the first. So I work all that month helping people pick out their tree and taking their money. It was a good job and I did it every December I was there actually.

The next January I was looking for more work when I found an advertisement to be model. I didn’t think much of it, but I took the number anyway. Just in case. Turns out it was a very handsome man looking for model to paint nudes from. I probably would have said no… but he offer a lot of money and I needed to pay rent… and to eat. He made thousands off each painting and generally they could not see my face. I had nothing to lose. It was three months of getting paid and being professional before it turned into something more. At first everything was wonderful. I moved in with him and we spend our days relaxing. He would paint for a long time during the day and I would just… sit there. I still went back to the Christmas trees to work, but I did that for the fun. I didn’t need to. I thought we were in love; we were lovers at any rate. That was until the February of the next year. I found out he had replaced me. Some younger woman. I didn’t care, much. Until I found out he was also sleeping with her.

It got bad after that. We started to fight a lot. I would go out and not come back for days. I would find tourists to show around the city and sleep with. Not the smartest idea, but it was the only one I could think to make him mad or jealous. It worked, at first. Our make-ups were almost as terrible as our fights. Eventually even that wore thin. I started hanging in the bars and made some not so nice friends. The kind of people that slept with tourists just to take their money and some valuables. You could show them around the city and the night before they leave take their things. They would not notice till they were halfway home. Even then they could not be sure if they just left it. It wasn’t hard to talk me into it. I needed money to spend and it wasn’t like they were going to use it in France anymore. That lasted until the spring was over. Not that spring, the next year. I don’t know why I stayed so long with him. Maybe I thought he would want me back if I just try hard enough. He never did and in July of 2008 I moved back in with my cousins, who had gained two new roommates. I didn’t stop with the tourists though. It was too easy to steal from them by then, and I like the… thrill? Maybe that was it.

I had a job as a waitress not a week later. Three months of getting food and wine for customers who did not appreciate it. I showed up late enough times and they fire me. It was fine, I didn’t care. It was shitty job anyway. The next January… I remember walking dogs. Apparently they do not like you to lose them. I last almost two months there. I spent almost a month after that unemployed but I never lacked for money. Before you ask, yes I was safe. The whole time, all the times. I even got tested. I’m not stupid. I got lucky that March. At the end I was hired to work at a hotel. A nice, big tourist hotel with lots of rooms as a maid. It wasn’t the most fun thing, but I could go to work during the day and do what I pleased at night. I was fired at the middle of November. Apparently there were charges pressed against me for missing items. They were dropped soon after, and it didn’t go on any sort of record.

At the beginning of last year I started working for a bar. It was a nice place, served many different kinds of drink to all sorts of patrons. I didn’t think it would last, just like any other job. The only thing different was that I met Nona. She started to come in and order drinks. Then one night in February I think, I saw her outside the door after closing. I asked her if she had a place to go and she couldn’t really answer me so I told her I had a couch, and she was coming home with me. I didn’t really give her a choice. It was tense that first week, especially that first night. My cousins were not so happy with me bringing another person into our crowded apartment. I told them, if they want her to go, I would go. Then they would no longer have my part of the rent. It was enough to quiet them. I’m pretty sure Nona doesn’t know that though, she was terrible at French back then.

A month later we had to kick out one of the boys living in the apartment, he… was not so much with the cleaning up. The fact that he didn’t pay his share of the rent tipped everyone over. I had already wanted him gone because he was my roommate and I didn’t want him there. I could see him looking at me some nights in not so platonic a manner. It was disgusting. After that Nona and I lived in the same room. We shared a lot of things, mainly because it was small and neither of us had too much. Well, she didn’t have much. I had enough to fill a small room.

I remember vague what happened one night. It was April I think? It was a night off and we went to go dance or something. We had some drink, we were dancing, and we saw some boys. Instead of going to them, we decided to have a little bit of fun. We ended up dancing and making out on the floor for a good couple minutes. The men were shocked of course. I think we were a bit more so. I don’t remember how much longer after that it took for us to be in a relationship. It started as innocently … well, not so innocent climbing into each other’s beds and just went on from there. I don’t think either of use really expected much of anything. We just liked to be in each other’s company. It was nice not to be alone.

Life went on much the same until the end of October. My mother called, Papa had a heart attack. It wasn’t too bad, but he needed to start taking things easier. I had thanked her for telling me and wished him well. I remember that. A few days later she call again and ask me to come home. No one could run the shop and they needed me. My sister was planning to go to university and she couldn’t be responsible. I was the only one who could take on the responsibility. Never say my mother does not know guilt and how to use it. I put in my notice to my job, packed my things and asked Nona to come with me. She wasn’t ready of course, neither was I. I left in the middle of November and came home to run the shop.
Present: Currently Jacqueline spends her days tending to the shop. Her free time is usually spent taking pictures with her Polaroid, sitting in cafés with books, or hanging out with a few friends. She goes to the Sticks every Sunday for Sheppard’s Pie. She lives above her parents’ garage, but is self-sufficient. She works for docked pay so that she doesn’t have to pay rent or utilities. She gets enough for pocket money and food.
Future: The woman doesn’t think too much about the future, she’s living for the right now and making it through one day at a time.

O U T O F C H A R A C T E R

Name: anna.
Age: old enough.
Gender: estrogen.
Location: eastern.
RP Experience: a while.
Other Characters: idek, maybe.
RP Sample: It wasn’t a surprise that Verity Burton had been having… broom issues over the last month or so. Ever since her own had been unceremoniously smashed, she couldn’t seem to catch a break. She had tried, painfully, to go through each of the school brooms to find a suitable replacement. None of them had worked of course, and she was left in a worse situation than she had been originally. Her second idea had backfired in more ways than one. The Slytherin’s broom she had borrowed not only had thrown her off several times in just one afternoon, but after her fight with him the very next morning she had sent it back (almost in pieces) tired of looking at it. What this had gotten her, the afternoon before the match, was a date with a recently purchased broom. One that hadn’t quite thrown her off yet, but she couldn’t find herself being able to get the hang of either.

She tried not to huff as she let her legs carry her to the pitch, determined that this afternoon she was going to get on her broom and fly it without being the least bit shaky. All week in practice she had noticed Caspian’s exasperated sighs. If she couldn’t fly properly during the most important game of the season, was there even a point to her showing up at all? The chasers could probably defend the goals and score enough points to win without her bumbling about and getting in the way. It hurt to think that way but it was also exactly why she felt the urge, nay the downright need, to fly. She had to fix what was wrong with her before the game tomorrow. There was no other option.

When she arrived at the pitch, Verity immediately headed for the center goal nearest her and paused long enough to drop her broom lightly beside it. She inhaled deeply through her nose, taking in the scent of the grass in the late-afternoon sun. One more game and they were done for the season. She had mixed feelings about that thought. The idea of being able to relax, even a little, the rest of the year was a welcome one… but she missed the sport every year after it was done for the season. She stretched lightly for a few minutes before stepping back a few paces and picking the broom up again. Verity looked it over, her gaze taking in every small imperfection. It was no doubt newer than her old broom and a good deal faster. But that was also the reason she was out here in the first place. She needed to get control of it.

Verity started to run a few steps before throwing her leg over the broom and kicking off with the one that was nearest the ground. She soared at least twenty feet into the air, her ponytail whipping back and forth, before she stopped ascending. The girl sat there for a moment, looking around the pitch. She was no longer quite sure what to… do once she had gotten here. Sure, fly around in circles. But anyone could do that. How exactly did you prepare yourself for a quidditch game on a better broom? That was the thing. You couldn’t, not really. No matter what she did out here there would be something waiting in the wings to catch her off-guard come tomorrow.

The girl inhaled deeply, her body teetering slightly as she raised her arms up, folded her fingers together and placed them on top of her head. Her breath came out in a rush, hands still on top of her head and her brow pushed together just enough to be able to tell. She was thinking. Not exactly something one did on a broom twenty feet in the air, unless of course you were a quidditch player. All the teams’ players seemed to enjoy flying a little bit more than your average student. Then again, that was a good thing. Let’s see, she could just fly round in circles, pushing the broom to its max speed. Or she could pretend that there were a bunch of obstacles out on the pitch to duck and weave around, making as many sharp turns as necessary. Neither of those were really game preparation, considering that unless someone was bearing down on her with a quaffle she stayed relatively still.

Verity let out a small sigh as her hands dropped from her head and back to their normal places on her broom handle. She looked down at them for a long moment, not even sure if she was really thinking about quidditch anymore. Maybe she had just come out here to fly and take her mind off things. It wasn’t all that uncommon for her; she spent most of her free time at the pitch. Even now, when they weren’t in the middle of a season. But what was she even supposed to be thinking about. Everything was okay now, right? It had been for almost a week. Everything was okay. She picked up her gaze, leaning forward as she headed for the goals on the opposite end of the field. Once there she made the tightest turn around the center goal that she could before heading straight back, leaned over her broom as far as she could to push herself faster.