Eleanor (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} thatdevilwoman) wrote,@ 2009-08-31 13:11:00 |
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| B A S I C S |
NAME Eleanor Deville |
| P H Y S I C A L S |
PB Gillian Anderson APPEARANCE Eleanor doesn't really look that intimidating. She's fairly short, not even 5'3", and for all the pointedness and higher-than-though aristocratic haughtiness in her features, she's not ugly. There's just something about her that's scary. She has a certain way of carrying herself that makes her look constantly on the warpath, and she has a tendency to make wide, dramatic gestures that sort of clear a circle around her in a crowd. Her hair is usually long and dyed vaguely blonde, although sometimes she will go red to give herself a boost of confidence; she has very bright, very striking blue eyes. She wears makeup to make her lips redder, to hide the beauty mark on her upper lip, and if she tries hard enough, well, she's pretty, even though she looks a little goofy when she smiles with her teeth. Let's not forget, also, that she's an exceptional dresser, and even though she works in Disneyland (of all places!) she never skimps on designer names. One of her most well-kept secrets is that her hair, much to her horror, is starting to go white at the temples; she always dyes it away but it still scares her. MARKS OF SIGNIFICANCE None, really. |
| P E R S O N A L I T Y |
Eleanor Deville is, to be blunt, a scary woman. A very scary woman. She doesn't even try, but everyone is terrified of her, and sometimes this gives her pause. What's so frightening about her, really? She's a nice-looking lady. Right? That's where Eleanor, unfortunately, is wrong. Physically, she's very nice, but there's a slight twistedness to her, something in how she acts, that makes her frightening. She doesn't know how to handle anyone, whether it be adults or young children; every child from an infant to a teenager who walks into her store ends up uniformly terrified of Eleanor, and the adults aren't much better. It might be how she talks--quickly, sharply, as though she has so many better things to do and won't you just move along so she can get to them? This doesn't mean, though, that she can't turn on the charm, and she really can be charming when she wants to be; she usually puts this little act of hers on when she's with customers to try and get them to buy some of the overpriced Disneyware she sells in her store. It's also not just that she's scary. She just doesn't seem to like anyone, at all, ever. And she really doesn't. She considers other adults stupid and children a waste of space; she makes friends rarely and when she does, she has difficulty trusting them at all. It takes a great deal of perseverance and sweets (the one true way to Eleanor's hearts, besides fur) to get her to trust you enough to confide in you. Even when you are on friendly terms with her, putting up with Eleanor is difficult; she only likes discussing topics she herself has an interest in and when you talk about the parts of your life or about other things that she really doesn't care about, she seems to shut down. When she's in this closed-off mode, talking to her is like trying to hold a conversation with a brick wall, but if you can manage to make her take an interest in you, oddly enough, she'll become very invested in your life, to the point of being almost obsessive. She wants to be a part of your life always, all the time; she wants to take you out to lunch and know how you are all the time and won't you come in for tea and oh, do stay a while, I love having you around. It's almost a complete 180 from her usual personality, and it can be startling for those not used to her. Eleanor also has a... Slight obsession with fur. Really, it's very slight. She doesn't own a lot of fur herself and doesn't sell the real thing in her store--really, it is Disney--but she loves fur. She likes to say in one of her very rare, very awkward joking moments that she lives for fur. She owns three fur coats (very expensive) and she never wears them outside her house, as much as she really would like to. She keeps them clean and takes them out once in a while; they're the kind of plush, beautiful furs that makes one want to bury their face in them, but Eleanor never lets anyone else touch them, or even know about them, really. Maybe it's the fact that she likes their skins better than she does anything else, but she also hates animals. Mellow creatures, like fish and things, that don't shed or bark, are fine with her, but she cannot stand dogs, cats, horses, the like, which sometimes makes working at Disneyland very uncomfortable for her. She's also retained a childishness to her, which clashes oddly with the very adult persona she usually has. She's the kind of person to sulk or pitch a fit when she doesn't get what she wants; she's pushy and somewhat demanding, much like the small children she hates so much. When things don't follow a set order or routine, or just don't go the way she wants them to, it sends her into a terrible mood; this part of her especially makes her very high-maintenance. One offense means you're blacklisted for life, essentially, unless you can bribe her or do something amazing to get back into her good graces. Also, do not, on pain of death, call her "Scully". She resents the implication that she in any way resembles that obnoxious FBI agent with the American accent (her own is very much British and maybe the only family-friendly part of her), and calling her Scully is the best way to make her hate you or get under her skin. MENTAL STABILITY It wouldn't be wise to call her sane, or really stable, but she's not quite off the deep end, although one does get the sense that a good push would do the trick. It's also possible that she has a mild form of Asperger's syndrome, although she was never diagnosed. |
| P E R S O N A L H I S T O R Y |
Eleanor Deville was born in London, in the tiny flat her parents owned at the time. Her mother had, unknowingly, been in labor all day and the contractions only really hit at about two in the morning; by that time, it wasn't safe to move her. Eleanor was born squalling and slightly premature an hour later, and it's been downhill ever since. Her parents were Norma and Frederick Deville, and they were not happy people, even before their child was born. Norma had been born into money, but threw it all away to be with Frederick, who hadn't. She resented him bitterly, blaming him for their less-than-luxurious lifestyle; Frederick became something of an absentee husband and father to keep away from his vicious wife, who took to drinking. Both Eleanor's parents, although they loved each other fiercely, were unfaithful, and arguments where vases and lamps were thrown were common in Eleanor's early life. Eleanor's one method of escape, which she practiced until she decided, at age ten, that she was far too old for it, was to hide in her mother's closet, where the last traces of Norma's wealthy life--two fur coats--were kept. She would take a Disney book--one of the large-text, lavishly illustrated ones based off of an animated film--and a torch (flashlight), and put one fur coat on the closet floor and the other one over her head, and read the book by the light. She began to associate both fur and Disney with a sense of comfort, of safety; she decided when she was six that one day she would move to America, where the real Disneyland was, and work there, no matter what. In school, Eleanor was bright and focused; she had a circle of friends, but no one stayed for long or was very close to her due to a natural unkindness inherited from her mother. She was well-known both for her tantrums (which she later learned to control, somewhat) and for the biting, cruel remarks she could toss out on a whim. It took years for her to be able to tamp down her almost violent temper. Looking back on her school years, Eleanor certainly does not remember them fondly--only as one of the loneliest, most bitter periods in her life. She was all-too-grateful when she managed to get into a good university and get out of her parents' flat. In uni, she studied fashion design and marketing, thinking that, perhaps, she might go into costume design; it wasn't until she was actually in Disneyland, CA, for the first time, that she decided she wanted to own a clothing store on Main Street instead. It wasn't her greatest ambition, but at least it meant she might work with clothes and in the place she'd sworn she'd work at since she was a little girl. For a few years she lived above her store before managing to put a down payment on one of the houses on Walt Lane. She's quite content--or as content as someone as restless and fickle as she is can be--now, running her store and trying not to scare away her customers. |
| O O C |
| thatdevilwoman</lj>mainstreet_mod |
| O T H E R |
ANYTHING ELSE TO NOTE? I will advertise this comm like there's no tomorrow, but asfl, it is win. |
| S T O R Y L I N E S |
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