about lucille

[lucillefer]

GENERAL

Name: Lucille Eleanor Simon.
Nickname(s): Lucy. Her family calls her Lulu. Don't call her Lulu. Online, Lucille also sometimes goes by LES(S), the name of her "solo act" "musical project."
Gender/Pronouns: She/her/hers.
Birthdate/Age: December 27. 18. [Double Capricorn, Scorpio Ascendant]
Grade: Senior.
Sexuality: Bisexual and not particularly choosy, though the vast majority of her experiences have been with girls.

Major Arcana: [XV] The Devil.
Minor Arcana: Coins.

Concept: Sullen devil's pupil is at her lightest while facing shadows.

APPEARANCE

Height:	5'4"	Hair Color:	Bleach blonde; naturally brown
Build:	Thin; unathletic	Eye Color:	Hazel

Lucy curates a very. definite. look., which purposefully strikes you long before the more subtle (and honest) details of her appearance.

She has a heart-shaped, rather innocent looking face, harshened by dark kohl-lined eyes and a bleached-out bob, often only half styled. Her wardrobe is black on black, veering between a carefully orchestrated Goth femme feel and a collection of thrifted grunge garbage she wears while in low moods. Lucy wants you to know that she's very alternative, and possibly a witch. She smells like niche perfume and old incense. She clomps around in Doc Martens and boxy black heels. She wears ribbons around her neck, like in that ghost story where the girl's head falls off in front of her boyfriend. The vast majority of her jackets and bags and other accessories are covered in patches save for one treasured vintage leather bomber.

That said, she's... truly not an imposing figure, under everything. Lucille is scrawny and bony to start with, and, as she doesn't particularly care for herself in general, often comes across diminutive and a little bruised. She could use a little more time in the sun, or maybe eat a vegetable or two.

Notably, she draws and writes on her hands a lot, and often wears a collection of bangles that make noise when she moves. She considers the school uniform child cruelty, which necessitates attempts to "personalize" it wherever possible. This doesn't always fly, obviously.

PB: Emily Browning.

PERSONALITY

Likes: antiques, old books, weird lit, 18th/19th century literature, nightlife, music, ancient history, ancient languages, horror movies, gore, witchcraft, getting fucked up, thrifting, data science, birds, arthouse films, outsider and performance art, printing, sketching, creepy internet bullshit, the occult.

Dislikes: most people, exercise, spicy food, curfew, boredom, long car rides, the sun, hot weather, earnest adults, sitcoms, authority figures, homework, politics, her uniform, what she deems "kitsch," musicals, most modern theater in fact, inaccurate historical details in movies.

---

+ clever
+ individualistic
+ observant
+ articulate
+ calm
+ brave
= hedonistic
= obsessive
= strong-willed
= self-indulgent
= detached
- sullen
- dishonest
- irreverent
- destructive
- resentful

Lucy is a coin with two sides.

On the one hand, she's a bright, interesting girl, unafraid to forge her own path, cool and collected in the face of stress and danger, with a sharp eye and a steady hand. On the other, she's a self-hating, misanthropic and miserable loner, often unwilling to change or collaborate, and detached enough to think of acting out and messing things up as a reasonable means of self-expression. Speaking in stereotypes: she's the bookish tortured soul living in the library with her diverse yet secret passions, and a self-possessed leather-clad "bad girl" who wants to watch the world burn. You win some, you lose some.

Lucille is the kind of person whose best qualities are direct reflections of her worst: to be strong-willed is to be brave is to be stubborn, to be an individual is to be irreverent and disdaining of others, and to be calm is to be numb is to be quietly sullen in a corner of the classroom, disengaged from her peers. Lucille's greatest bravery (and maybe her best quality) is her confidence and willingness to stand out and make her own choices -- but as she yearns to be her own person, scoffing at society's "boxes" and "plans," she doesn't often realize that the person she stereotypes most viciously is herself.

Lucy can be said to be both self-indulgent and somewhat strangely ascetic. While she rarely tells herself no -- and knows no obsession she will not follow to the ends of the earth -- she isn't often honest with herself or others about her feelings, particularly joy and passion. Lucille is uncomfortable with overt displays of earnestness or enjoyment, despite an obvious tendency toward hedonistic and intellectual excess. She isolates herself in the curation of her own image because it strikes her as more comfortable than learning to share or showing vulnerability. When the music isn't exactly right, she's never going to dance, even if she desperately wants to. She's happy to share a bottle of something with you at a party, but she'd feel weird sitting down over a meal together.

Although Lucille could never be said to be exactly friendly, open, or warm, there is often a part of her that truly sympathizes for other people more than she ever shows. Deep down, she's too observant not to understand how they feel a lot of the time. That said, Lucy is too resentful of being unable to accept the understanding of others herself to ever be a shoulder to cry on. This sense of general disdain keeps her at an arm's length from other people most of the time. She does enjoy getting physical and going on adventures, and can be a little intense about her true friendships and romantic attachments, but it takes her a longer time than most to open up, be vulnerable, and show her true heart to anyone -- and when she closes, the door slams and locks hard, though she's definitely staring intently at you through the peephole. She obsesses over emotional slights for a long time.

At her best, though, Lucy is a lot of fun. She possesses some fun creativity and weird, esoteric knowledge, and she can laugh at anything -- few things are "sacred," and despite taking herself too seriously she can handle a joke or wayward comment. (It's not like she hasn't been hearing them her entire life, and maybe even kind of finds them validating). Truthfully, Lucy is not often afraid or concerned about much. She thrives on change and pulling things apart. She may not always tell you the exact truth, but it's fairly easy to see where she stands. When she does make an effort, it's a thorough and intense one, and maybe more than you actually expected.

SKILLS

ART: Lucy keeps a semi-daily visual journal that illustrates various feelings, experiences, or simply what she's been reading lately. Entries utilize skill in lettering, collage, sketching and occasionally ink coloring. She also likes to learn about print-making, though most of her attempts have been clumsy so far.

MUSIC: Lucy's played guitar+bass since sometime in middle school, and owns some simple noise-making modular pieces and music software programs. She has talent, and you can listen to her noodling without wanting to scream. Mostly. Her solo act "band," LES(S), might be a different story. LES(S) is Lucille's "private" angst void, and mostly sounds like Kate Bush fighting The Soft Moon to death in a coffin (or is that a washing machine?). Plus Kraftwerk-style drums. And maybe some extra ambient drone. And bird song samples. (It... tends to be derivative of whatever she's been listening to lately, something she always adamantly denies to herself).

• Lucy also plays in a band with some schoolmates. It's... fun? Less fun than the project she's rekindled with her ex-girlfriend, Pearl.


• Vocal reference... I'm recalculating~


• Working list of icly referenced instruments: one


• two

ANCIENT LANGUAGES & HISTORY: Lucy's father is a professor with academic focus in ancient art and archaeology, particularly late Roman and Greek. She's been exposed to this all of her life, and has basic-to-middling reading and translation proficiency in both old languages. (Her ancient Greek is definitely worse, but who could honestly tell?) She also knows more than your average goth about Roman and Greek history and mythology. Are these skills? It depends on who you ask, but Lucille certainly seems to think so.

WRITING & EDITING: She may struggle to keep sarcasm out of her academic papers, but Lucy expresses herself well in writing when she wants to, especially reports and persuasive or opinion pieces. She's talented at stitching together arguments with research, and has a good eye for details and gaps.

CODING AND DATA VISUALIZATION: Lucille has some proficiency/limited experience (Python, SQL, R). She knows enough to be of use on basic projects, particularly related to digital humanities or data analysis. Brushing up these skills is something she finds soothing. That said, she hasn't progressed as far as she might have because she hates asking for help.

OCCULT STUDIES: Lucille is truly living up to her true stereotypical potential. Though she feigns skepticism and considers all this a "guilty pleasure," it's a current pet guilty pleasure, which means she sometimes reads a little too much about chaos magick and thelema and sigil-making and demons for it to be entirely a joke. Whatever!!! Don't bother her!!

HISTORY

Family:

• Caleb Simon, father. Caleb is a Classics professor at Cornell University (classical art/archaeology). He and Lucille have a mostly positive relationship, in that he's fairly hands-off and tends only to bother her with reading recommendations. In the past they did have their "disagreements," but Finchwood has put an ending to that for the time being.
  
• Harriet Simon, mother. Published author (twice over: a book about cake recipes and cultural history, and a fiction novel about a chef). Does some cooking and baking classes on the side. Harriet and Lucille are not often "friends" -- their personalities absolutely clash, and Harriet dislikes conflict -- but mom is an encouraging presence from afar when she isn't bugging Lucille to "engage with life" more earnestly.
  
  
• Patrick Simon, grandfather. Grumpy old retired professor. Lucille loves him.
  

Hometown: Ithaca, NY.

Neither of Lucy's parents had ever intended to have children. She was an accident -- an unhappy one, at first, but all at once very anticipated. The couple sent out announcements. They settled down. They planned. They bought a little house. Ithaca is a picturesque place to raise a little baby, as a professor seeking tenure and a cook writing a novel. Even if the baby constantly pierces your postcard view with her screaming.

Lucille was a sickly, fussy infant, and grew into a sickly, fussy child. Though beloved, bookish, quiet, and sweet with relatives, Lucy was difficult in that she was... difficult. She had her obsessions, for one, and a discomfort with strangers that made schooling uncomfortable for a long time. Lucille never seemed to want to make friends, save for the one or two every year that shared similar fixations: animals, reading, scary stories. The start of a school year might seem promising here or there, but by Christmas Lucy had always gotten over her intimidation and gained a habit of talking back -- lucidly, yeah, erudite for an elementary schooler, but ultimately inappropriate.

She never quite responded to teachers as authority figures -- often urging them to call her parents instead when trouble arose -- and happily received punishments, especially ones that kept her indoors and off the playground. Caleb and Harriet were always hesitant to call her a "problem child," however, despite recommendations for counseling or the disturbed hisses of other classroom parents. To them, Lucy was just spirited, precocious. She showed interest in her father's studies, helped her mother in the kitchen, and yes, occasionally mouthed off or locked herself in her room during screaming fits, but such is growing up. At least she was a voracious reader.

___

Middle school is when Lucy's behavior became a little less acceptable. Despite being happy to study with Caleb, attend academic talks outside of class, spend afternoons in the public library, or edit mom's latest work, Lucy wasn't exactly a "good" girl, and this was apparent by the start of seventh grade. There were constant detentions and concerned notes or phone calls from teachers -- and worst of all, talks of Lucille not "meeting up to her own potential." This to Caleb was the most disturbing of her misbehavior; he could tolerate the shoplifting incidents, cursing, and too-early sneaking out (despite assuming he had a few more years before this became an issue). He could not tolerate Lucy being mediocre on purpose when she could be brilliant and was worth so much more.

There was push and pull between them for some time, with mother caught in the middle, until Lucy ran off with her best friend and an older boy for a weekend, coming home still wobbly drunk and having lost her backpack (including a laptop and expensive school books). She was subsequently grounded for the majority of her eighth grade year and sent to counseling. This was to good and bad effect. Positively, Lucy spent much more time to herself, developing interests and talents on her own time, and a more developed sense of personal responsibility. Negatively, she figured out what her father wanted to see more of, and began strategically showing it to him until he trusted her enough to leave her alone again. (Also, she reasoned, the main thing was that she could still do what she really wanted. If she did okay enough to fly under the radar, no one would care to monitor her flight whatsoever.)

The start of highschool brought back some scrutiny, of course -- it was a new chapter, presumably more difficult, with Lucille a little older and with more access to "dangerous" choices.

She rode it out. She did really well, actually, as a demonstration of trustworthiness, though privately she was worse than ever: a deliberately weird loner with reputation for meanness that went back years, and a vast gulf of numbness that required more and more to fill as time went by. But such is being a teenager, maybe. Whatever. In the end both parents had to reconcile with her character, and Caleb decided that there was only so much he could do. Lucy might not be especially honest, kind or gracious to anyone outside her family, she might not have a lot of friends, and she might have definitely started smoking cigarettes despite a lack of proof, but she was at least very confident, well-read and good at Latin. The musical sounds that came from behind her locked door, too, were almost becoming listenable.

___

The Simon family was ultimately referred to Finchwood Academy by Lucy's therapist. It was just the thing -- a chance for Lucille to start over, in a place where more independence and guided instruction might be just the thing to settle her down, but also not too far away, but also more challenging, less likely to bore. Something for the parents to point to and feel good about: a prestigious new school with a growing reputation. Something to give Lucy an appreciation for hard work, keep her out of trouble. Possibly even more of an in for college, too, paired with a newly tenured father and so many diverse "gifts."

Lucille didn't much care for the idea one way or another, but she saw the chance to change her life, and once the truth was revealed there was no way she'd return to her old one. Not even for the summer. She stayed, stretching herself thin to assist with managing Shadows the entirety of break, and got a lot of sleepless nights, stress headaches, and material for songs and art from it. Like, a whole little Moleskine's worth.

In truth, even if there will always be a part of her that bucks at being given orders, Lucy kind of... enjoys fighting. It's way more interesting than anything else she could be socially obligated into doing right now just because she's a teenager, and playing Support is probably the most helpful thing she's ever purposefully taken on. Maybe it's good for her.

COMBAT

Persona: Yeialel. [x, x]
Element: Stone.

Battle stats.

ACADEMICS

Core Classes: English*, Mathematics*, Science, Social Studies, Training.

Elective Classes: Art, Computer Science, and Support.

Clubs: Print.

General Performance: Lucy would be a great student if she applied herself. Despite her honors courses, however, she doesn't.

She skates by, not exactly struggling, and not exactly working very hard. Now and then an assignment will come along that really piques her interest, or she'll accidentally show too much purposeful effort or promise, but for the most part Lucy is not a star pupil. At this point in life she doesn't care to be, though perhaps in college. Who really cares about high school, actually? No one even enjoys high school. She just has to pass.

Her best classes by far are English and Computer Science, even if she doesn't exactly "participate actively" in either of them (she has good attendance and doesn't suck, what more do you want?). Lucy writes and reads a lot outside of class -- material that would be considered "advanced" or "esoteric" by most standards -- and ties this together with coding, dabbling in open source projects, etc. She'd make a good digital humanities researcher. At the end of the day, though, she considers class for "amateurs," often hates seeing other people enjoy the things she enjoys, and is above all very particular about keeping her self to herself. It's for this reason she's never tried out for Music Class or taken Philosophy, despite interest.

Art class, however, is different. Lucy genuinely enjoys art class. It's a rare happy place, though it isn't often she desires to show anyone her private, "real" work.

OOC

Player: Kay
Email: lifesizeghosts@gmail.com
CDJ: n/a
Other Contact: Contact post here or at spicecake ♥
Time Zone: Pacific