Christia Lafayette

[Christia Lafayette]

CHRISTIA ISABELLE LAFAYETTE

....the mask

Your Name: Alex
Where did you find us?: Affiliate on the Menagerie
How long have you been roleplaying?: Five or six years
Password: admin edit

...basic character information

Birth Name: Christia Isabelle Lafayette
Nickname: Chris, Chrissy, Cissy
Gender: Female
Age: 17
Grade: 11
Birth date: May 8
Program: Bachelor of the Arts
Major: Dance
Major Explanation: Chris has always loved dance. She loves being able to express herself through beauty. As a lion shape-shifter, she has amazing, catlike grace, even in her human form, which makes dancing come easy to her.
Animal Identity: Lion

...personality

Likes:

• Motorcycles
  
• Swimming
  
• Night
  
• Dancing
  
• Fighting
  
• Partying
  
• Meat
  
• Nature
  
• Coffee
  
• Hard liquor (Vodka, Seagrams 7)
  

Dislikes:

• Rules
  
• Apples
  
• People who can't sing, but do so anyways
  
• Guys with too much muscle
  
• Heavy clothes
  
• Turtle-necks
  
• Snitches
  
• People without a back bone
  
• Wine
  
• Insects
  

Fears:

• Smal spaces
  
• Fire
  
• Her father
  

Strengths:

• Witty
  
• Smart
  
• Dancing
  

Weaknesses:

• Short tempered
  
• Overly flirtatious
  
• Stubborn
  

Overall:

• **Bold: not hesitating to break the rules of propriety; forward; impudent. Chris doesn't care about rules, unwritten rules, or traditions. If she wants to do something, she will, and if she has something on her mind, it's a good bet that she'll say it, no matter how improper or rude the act or words are.
  
• **Clever: superficially skillful, witty, or original in character or construction; facile. When Chris wants something, she can usually figure out a way to get it. She is good at figuring out ways around rules, or solving problems in a way that benefits her. Though she generally uses her mind for selfish purposes, she is a very clever young woman none-the-less.
  
• **Confident: sure of oneself; having no uncertainty about one's own abilities, correctness, successfulness, etc. Not necessarily arrogant, Chris knows what she can and can't do. When she does something she knows she's good at, she is very confident in her abilities, and even if she isn't very good at something, she stands tall and isn't afraid to do badly.
  
• Cynical: distrusting or disparaging the motives of others. Blossoming from her father's abuse, and growing with her brother's abandonment, Chris doesn't trust people. She thinks the worst of their intentions, and believes in 'guilty until proven innocent' rather than the other way around. She is under the impression that there is more evil than good in the world.
  
• **Determined: resolute; staunch. Once Chris has it in her mind to do something, she will find some way to do it. She is very determined, and refuses to accept that there isn't always a way to do something. Just because she can't see the way, doesn't mean there isn't one, and Chris will find it no matter what.
  
• **Independent: not influenced or controlled by others in matters of opinion, conduct, etc.; thinking or acting for oneself. Chris likes doing everything for herself. She doesn't let other people's opinions influence her own, and she does what she wants, weather others find it proper or not. Unlike women who like a chivalrous man, she hates it when men pull out her chair or hold the door for her, it just seems demeaning, saying that men are better than women.
  
• Intelligent: having good understanding or a high mental capacity; quick to comprehend, as persons or animals. Though Chris is not doing well in school, this is not due to a lack of intelligence. She is actually very smart, and can figure things out and put things together rather quickly. She is aware of her surroundings, and has an almost photographic memory. Her bad grades are a result of a lack of trying.
  
• Moody: expressing or exhibiting sharply varying moods; temperamental. Not to the extreme of being bi-polar, Chris does have many different moods, and they can change rather quickly. The slightest thing can make her angry, but then the next day the same thing may not bother her at all. She can go from being extremely hyper or happy to being sad or angry, simply because of a depressing thought (mostly thoughts about her father).
  
• Restless: characterized by or showing inability to remain at rest or calm. Chris has a hard time sitting still. She always has to be doing something. In class, when she's forced to sit in a desk for an hour straight, she shakes her knee, or taps the desk with her nails, or braids and un-braids her hair. Outside of class, she is always moving, rarely found sitting down doing nothing.
  
• **Stubborn: fixed or set in purpose or opinion. Once Chris has an opinion on something, it is nearly impossible to change her mind. If she does research on her own (which is doubtful), she might reconsider, but if someone tries to change her mind, she only becomes more resolute in her opinion or decision.
  
• Tolerant: inclined or disposed to tolerate; showing tolerance; forbearing. Chris tends to be very tolerant of other people's beliefs. As long as people don't try to make her believe the same thing, she doesn't care what God they pray to or which president they support. However, if anyone tries to push their opinions onto her, she can get very angry, and has been known to start fights for it.
  
• Gregarious: ond of the company of others; sociable. Chris loves being around people. She surrounds herself with friends, and always has the most fun when other people are around. She loves to party for that very reason: there are tons of people around, having fun, being idiots.
  
  

...appearance

x x

Celebrity Play By: Jessica Stam
Appearance:
Chris is rather short, standing at a mere five feet two and a half inches. She actually doesn't mind her height. Though she can't reach things on high shelves, and she has the disadvantage in a fight, people tend to underestimate her. Her small bones and structure enable her to move quickly, and dodge hits. She keeps in shape, and is slim, with well defined muscles, weighing one hundred and three pounds. She has small extremities to match her small body, with slim, bony fingers. Oddly, her second toe on her right foot only is longer than her big toe, and on her left they are the same size.

A few times, Chris has dyed her hair. She's rather fond of red. However, her natural, and current, hair color is blonde, with a few natural darklights here and there. When she doesn't do anything to it, her hair falls in soft waves to her mid back. It is cut in subtle layers, and she parts it in the middle. Her eyes are by far her favorite feature. They change color, subtly. Mostly, they are a light blue, but will sometimes change to blue gray, or a pure gray. She loves how unique they are, and is extremely happy she has perfect 20/20 vision, so she doesn't have to wear glasses, which would hide her eyes.

Several scars litter Chris' body, mostly from being beaten by her father, though there are a few from accidents or fights. There is a jagged scar about an inch and a half long on her right hip from being thrown into the corner of her living room coffee table. Chris was nine when that happened, and Asher had to change the gauze every few minutes as they soaked up the blood. Over her ribs, just under her right breast, is a little path of irregular skin; a scar from when Jean broke her ribs. One of them broke the skin. A couple years ago, Chris got a tattoo of vines wrapping around her left ankle, and a small lioness on the back of her neck. Both of her ears are pierced, twice in the lobes and once in the cartilage.

In animal form, Chris is a golden lioness of average stature. The fur around her nose and eyes is a darker gold, as is a horizontal strip on her withers, and a large patch of fur on her rump. Under her chin and her stomach are lighter, almost white. The white fur extends to her back legs, where there are light yellow spots. Her tail is the most consistent part of her body. It is a solid, light yellow. [/size]

...history

Parents:
Mother: Marie Isabelle Lafayette ;; Deceased
Father: Jean Pierre Lafayette ;; 55 ;; lawyer
Siblings:
Jean Pierre Lafayette Jr. ;; 24 ;; Photographer
Henry Jean Lafayette ;; 22 ;; Unknown
George Adrien Lafayette ;; Deceased
Asher Claude Lafayette ;; 19 ;; Journalist

Marie Isabelle Johnson was a small-town girl from Oklahoma, who took a senior, after graduation trip to France. There, she met Jean Pierre, a sexy Frenchman for whom she immediately fell in love with. She went home with her class, packed, and came back to France. Within the next two months they were engaged, and six months later they were married, Marie already pregnant with their first child. The couple had four children in the first six years of marriage, Marie insistent that they have a girl. That dream was not to come true, it seemed, as the doctor told them after Asher was born that there had been a complication with birth, and she could have no more children.

A year later, Marie miraculously turned up pregnant. When the baby girl was born completely healthy, the very religious Marie insisted on naming her in the name of Christ, coming up with Christia Isabelle. Though Jean was not as religious, he liked how the name sounded, and agreed. The family's good luck wasn't to last, however. Marie was diagnosed with lung cancer not three months after Christia's birth. She died on her daughters first birthday, leaving Jean to take care of five children.

Grieving from the loss of his wife, Jean moved him and the children to America. The three eldest children, Jean Pierre Jr., Henry, and George had to learn English as a second language. Asher knew some French, but it was easier for him to learn the new language than the other three, and Chris, who had just started speaking, had no trouble picking up English. Jean had learned English in school, and though he had some minor issues, blended into society rather nicely.

Escaping to a new country didn't lessen the pain of losing his wife, and instead Jean turned to alcohol. At first it was just a drink here and there, but then one night he got completely smashed, and hit Jean Jr. From then on things only spiraled downwards, the other boys being beaten from time-to-time for not doing what they were supposed to. He became a full-blown alcoholic, though no one outside of the home noticed. Though Chris grew up around the violence, she was never touched herself, until the age of six, when Jean finally snapped at her. She was crying because he had been hitting Asher, to whom Chris was very close to, and wouldn't stop, so Jean hit her. At the time, it only made her cry harder, but eventually she learned that that only made him more angry.

It was around this time that Jean locked Jean Jr. in the basement. He didn't tell any of the children why, only that they were to stay away from the basement. Chris woke up to screaming, and a loud banging noise, but that wasn't all that odd. She snuck into Asher's room and curled up next to him, unaware that Jean Jr. was shifting for the first time. Two days later, Jean Jr. was let out, but had been forbidden to tell his siblings what had happened to him. There was a change in him, but Chris was too little to understand what. The next year he was sent to Shifter Academy, though Chris only knew that it was some boarding school in Hawaii.

Two years later, Henry went through the same ordeal: he was locked in the basement, until Chris heard screaming and banging, and she once again crawled into the bed with Asher. Despite growing older, she never felt too old to turn to Asher for comfort. He, too, was sent to the elusive boarding school. George shifted earlier than Jean anticipated, at the age of twelve, and only a year after Henry. He killed two people who happened to be around when it happened. George was severely beaten, and he became withdrawn, though he never told his siblings what happened.

He was to be sent to the Shifter Academy a year later, when he was starting seventh grade. George killed himself a week before he was to leave, however. Though she had never been as close to George as she was to her other siblings, the loss was painful, and as much as she wanted to, she never shed a tear. George's death only made Jean angrier, sending him into a rage. He beat Jean Jr. bad enough to need medical attention. Afraid the four remaining siblings would be separated by child services, he said that he had gotten into a fight, leaving their father out of it.

From this point on, Chris tried to stay away from the house as much as possible. She would follow her brothers around to hang out with their friends, and soon became 'one of the boys'. A year after George's death, Jean began locking Asher up. Despite his orders to stay away from the basement, Chris would sit at the door and talk to Asher. In broad daylight, while she was sitting there talking to him, Asher started to groan in pain, then there was the familiar banging. She was terrified of what had happened, but Jean came home and she ran to her room, more afraid of Jean catching her defying his orders.

When Asher was let out, he told Chris what happened. At first she didn't believe him, thinking he must be kidding. Finally, though, she came to accept that her family was different. It was just another secret she had to keep. She did, however, fear what would happen when she started to shift. She didn't want to be locked up like her brothers. She didn't want to shift at all. She didn't want to be different.

Only a month later, Jean Jr. turned eighteen, and moved out, getting an apartment two blocks away. He wanted to be away from his father's abuse, but kept close in order to help out the other three. Or, as it turned out, two children. Henry, the second eldest son, and sixteen at the time, ran away no more than a week after Jean Jr. left. Eleven year old Christia was furious with her brother for leaving, and causing even more trouble, as Henry's disappearance caused Jean to once again become enraged with his children. It was Chris who suffered his wrath this time, spending some time in the hospital with broken arm and several fractured ribs.

That year Asher went away to Shifter Academy. This time, it was only Asher, and Chris knew what was going on. She felt so alone, being the only kid left at home, and the only one for Jean to take his anger out on. When Jean Jr. wasn't working, Chris would go over to his apartment. Much of the time she'd hang out there anyways, whether he was there or not. When Asher came back in the summer, Chris refused to leave his side. A few weeks after Asher returned, twelve year old Christia lost her virginity. They were at a party, it was late, and both she and Asher were drunk, one thing led to another, and she woke up in the morning naked next to her brother, with mostly complete memories of the night before. Instead of freaking out, the experience only brought her and her brother closer,

Asher had to leave again in the fall, and Chris dealt with it, as she had the past year. Jean started locking her up at the end of the school year, telling the school that she was sick. Chris hated being locked up in the basement. She had no one to talk to, and thought she was going to go crazy. Still, she dared not cry or beg to be let out, knowing it would only make Jean angry. Finally, she heard a loud pop and felt excruciating pain at the same time. As her bones slid into place and her body changed, she kept her screams as muffled as she could, but she couldn't keep from screaming.

At first, she couldn't think straight. The pain began to subside, leaving only a dull ache, but her thoughts were scramble. Nothing was clear, but she had the intense urge to kill. Chris wanted nothing more than to pounce, and sink her claws and fangs into something warm and bloody. She wanted to taste blood, a taste she had never experienced, and yet she wanted it. All thoughts of her father were gone, and she roared her displeasure to the world. The hours wore on, and she finally started to think more like a human. First, thoughts of Asher crept into her mind, then came thoughts of her father, and what he would do to her if she made him unhappy. That, more than anything, brought her back. She slid back into her human form and waited, shaking in a corner, for Jean to unlock the door.

Chris ran to Jean Jr.'s apartment and clung to her eldest brother. They talked through it, and as much as she felt like crying, she couldn't. He kept telling her it was okay, if she needed to cry she could, but he didn't understand. She couldn't. Asher came back only weeks later, and Chris couldn't have been happier to see him. That fall, she went to school with him. For once, she could relax, she wouldn't be seeing her father for a very long time.

At first, Chris didn't know what she wanted to major in. But in time, she decided to major in dance. She had always enjoyed dancing, whether it was in her room, or at a party, and it was a better way of expressing herself than sex. A little less self destructive, and there was no chance of her getting pregnant with dance. She stopped sleeping with Asher, for the most part, but they stayed close. Now she is a junior at the academy, and this is the first year she'll be without Asher, as he just graduated.

...connecting human to animal

• Chris' blonde hair matches the lighter yellow color of her fur as a lion
  
• Lions are the most social of all wild cats, and Chris is a very social person
  
• Chris shares a sort of pride mentality, and is very close to her family, which now only consists of Jean Jr. and Asher
  
• Chris is determined and patient, as are the lioness of a pride. The lionesses are the ones to go out and hunt, which may take a couple days to stalk and kill their pray
  
• Lions are most active at night, and Chris prefers night over day

...literacy

RP Sample[/i]
Teagan actually didn't like coffee. The bitter flavor was just awful, she couldn't imagine why people liked to drink it. Even when it was diluted with milk and sugar and caramel and chocolate and whatever else they put in those spiffy drinks, Teagan could still taste the coffee. That didn't keep her from having a probably unhealthy love for Starbucks. Their chai tea was the best she'd ever had, although that wasn't saying much. She hadn't tried very many different chai teas, but she didn't really have a wish to do so. The Starbucks was close enough to the college that it was easy to walk there. The staff knew her order by heart, and often they'd have her tea ready by the time she was finished paying. And, of course, she had a Starbucks gold card that she never let run out of money.

Today found Teagan sitting at a small table, Chai tea in one hand and a book in the other. She didn't normally hang around the Starbucks after getting her drink, but she hadn't really wanted to go back to her dorm. She'd been cooped up for too long, doing homework, and going over and over her latest script. Acting was her passion, there was no doubt about it. Hell, she was at a college of the arts for acting. Still, memorizing lines was tedious. Today she had no classes, and wasn't working until six, so she was going to take a break from homework and scripts and any other responsibilities she might have. For now, that meant relaxing and reading a book while she enjoyed her hot beverage.

She hadn't even bothered with her looks that morning. Her hair was pulled up in a sloppy pony tail, and she'd only bothered to put on base. Normally, she didn't wear a lot of makeup, but she did wear eyeliner and mascara, and occasionally lipgloss. Under her favorite black zip-up hoodie was an old purple off-the-shoulder t-shirt. She hadn't been looked at it before slipping it on. Josh had given it to her on her seventeenth birthday. It was old and faded, but she couldn't bring herself to throw it away. This was the first time she'd worn it since Josh died, but she'd decided to make herself keep it on, instead of changing like she'd wanted. Her black converse were only slightly newer than the shirt, but they were so comfortable she hadn't gotten rid of them yet.

A few people snickered softly, making Teagan look up. Everyone was staring at a young man waiting in line. He had hair like Justin Beiber and a lip ring, but that wasn't what was so weird. He was doing the Time Warp, in the middle of Starbucks. That took guts. Teagan was an actress, but she didn't think she'd have the courage to do that. Now, back at the dorm, or at a party, that was a different story. Not that she'd been to any parties recently. She watched the young man, thinking there was something familiar about him, but when she couldn't put her finger on it, she went back to reading. After a sip of her tea, she was startled by a voice which caused her to set the cup down and look up. It was the guy who'd been dancing a few minutes earlier. Now she recognized him. It was the 'not-twin Teagan' that jogged her memory, and she smiled, laughing softly. "I don't know what you're talking about." She joked, before nodding, "You must be Fox, who I talked to instead of memorizing my script."[/size]
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