Isabelle et Violaine
Basics
Name: Isabelle Helene et Violaine
Nickname(s): She invariably introduces herself as Izzie and won't answer to Isabelle or Helene--ostensibly because she thinks those names are 'just too damn girly'. The truth, however, is that her late mother often called her Isabelle or Helene when admonishing her daughter, and to Izzie anyone else using those names to her evokes memories of her mother. She's made a point of making sure it is known that should you call her Bella or any such derivative Izzie will show you the meaning of pain. As a runaway, she used the name Jacqueline 'Jack' Patrick Page (in homage, of course, to Jimmy Patrick Page).
Age: 17, though because her eighteenth birthday is approaching she has taken to calling herself eighteen years old already.
Gender: Female, as much as some may say she has more testosterone than most guys.
Role: Student
Appearance
Izzie's appearance is clearly not one that conforms to the wiles of contemporary fashion and ideals--if anything it flies in the face of everything most girls consider 'fashionable' these days, and both her physical aspects and choice of clothes cause her to stand out quite a lot in a crowd. She stands at full height at just a little more than six feet even, and as a result towers over just about all other girls in the high school, and a fair deal of the guys as well. Her strong and firm body build is similarly atypical for a woman--lean muscles are clearly visible in her arms and abdomen, indicative of a considerable measure of upper body strength. Her skin is a pale, ivory-ish tone, with a number of scars varying in size and intensity to be found across her body; some of the more major ones include a long scar stretching from the right side of her collarbone down to just over her left breast, gained in a knife fight she got into at one point, and a small scar just along her right cheekbone.
Izzie has short, stiff faded black hair hair that has a tendency to spring up and appear wild and utterly untamed, and shadowed, heavy-lidded eyes of a very dark brown hue; dark rings are often to be found under her eyes due to her erratic and often non-existent sleeping habits. Her face possesses sharp, attractive features, with high, prominent cheekbones, a small, sloping nose, and dark, full lips, though her predilection for cigarettes, alcohol, and, on occasion, more powerful drugs has begun to have a marring effect on her face and its attractiveness. Izzie possesses a number of tattoos on her body as well as piercings (these do not necessarily match with what is in the image provided). A faint, coiling pair of cobras are tattooed running up both hands and arms, while, tattooed over the snakes on her left bicep is a large, flaming ankh; on the right bicep, an Uraeus. Across her collarbone are tattooed thorned, coiling vines; directly above them, in the centre, is a tyet, directly below her throat. On the very back of her neck, where the spine ends, the symbol of a wedja, symbolising wholeness, is found. Finally, tattooed on the back of each hand is an Eye of Horus. Her lip is pierced with a single lip ring, she has two studs pierced into her left eyebrow and a ring around the right; from each ear hangs a single ankh earring.
As said, Izzie's choice of clothing is regarded by most as outlandish and causes her to stick out like a sore thumb. Her general outfit in actuality does not vary much from day to day. She is typically to be seen in a tight sleeveless shirt, usually in a darker colour and sometimes showcasing a favourite band or group of hers, followed by a pair of regular fit jeans, typically with a number of rips or tears in them. Finally, the outfit is finished off by a pair of knee-high leather harness boots, supplemented by metal buckles on either side which cause a metallic clink as she walks. She can also be seen to don a beloved leather jacket quite often, with various pockmarks and a small tear or two here and there, as well as a number of accessories; this includes a copper bullet belt and various spiked gauntlets and wristbands. Izzie is never seen to be wearing a dress or a skirt, and one can probably assume without a shade of doubt she most likely has no interest in wearing such articles of clothing.
[font=Papyrus]History
Isabelle Helene et Violaine never knew her father--the man abandoned his mother when he discovered she was pregnant with a child, leaving the single mother to raise a child in what was most definitely not one of the better parts of the city they lived in. As a side-note, this lack of a masculine figure (her father), as most children have growing up, to influence her in her childhood caused Izzie to feel the need to adopt toughened, masculine characteristics herself, and his abandonment of her and her mother in and of itself would contribute to Izzie's later difficulties with trust and abandonment.
Growing up in this area was not an easy feat for Isabelle, nor was raising a good child in this area an easy feat for her mother, who did her best to raise her daughter 'properly'. In a neighbourhood where gang violence, drugs, and murder was the norm, however, it proved an increasingly Herculean task--Izzie learnt very quickly to toughen up and stay sharp from a young age. At this time, she already exhibited the characteristics of her older persona--her standoffish, aloof reservedness and unfriendliness won her few friends as a child, and those who did manage to befriend her were almost invariably boys. This too led to her rejection of feminine qualities as 'weak' and useless, exhibiting even at this young age traits characteristic of a tomboy. She was also noted as often getting into fights with other kids in her youth, often because they made fun of her for her lower-class upbringing, her masculine personality, and social ineptitude (or rather, absolute lack of desire to socialise). Her quickness to resort to violence to deal with a problem or a perceived insult would only become more apparent as she grew up.
As she went through the years of her adolescence, Izzie was witness to many people simply disappearing from her life, one way or another. When she was only eight years old, her only friend at the time disappeared, and she never found out the true reason--that he had been killed in the midst of a drive-by shooting between two local gangs. Such patterns repeated themselves as she matured--friends and loved ones disappeared, moved on, departed, leaving her behind. Each time her connection to someone was so quickly removed, it brought about pain and sadness, causing Izzie to eventually come to the conclusion that in order to avoid such pain she had to ensure she never made such connections in the first place. From that time on, she became even more reserved than ever, reacting with hostility and rejection to attempts to interact with her from just about anyone. As a result of her self-imposed lack of contact with others, Izzie began to use cigarettes, easily accessible to a young teenager in that area, to relieve stress and anger, progressively getting into other drugs such as alcohol when cigarettes began to lose their effectiveness. Drugs would continue to play a significant role in her life from then on, as she eventually was never to be found without a pack or two of cigarettes on her at any given time.
There was one connection, however, that she could never have removed--the one she had with her mother. Izzie's mother understood the aggressive, solitary young girl more than anyone else could have hoped to, able to read Izzie like an open book no matter how hard Izzie tried to keep her feelings buried deep under a mask of utter indifference to life and others. She knew how to deal with Izzie when, in a common occurrence, the headstrong girl lost her rather short-fused temper, or when her inability to deal with her own self-imposed loneliness and desolation caused her to become depressed. In many ways Izzie's only lifelong friend was her own mother.
In the end, even she departed. When Isabelle, aged fifteen, discovered her mother's death, the causes of which she never learnt, it devastated her more than anything previously. She fled when it became apparent the authorities intended to place her in a foster home, still in shock over the death of her mother but determined not to be given to a 'new family'. Working as a garage mechanic and laying low in the slums, she thought she would have been able to evade the authorities, but a few months later she was found. Rather than force her into the foster programme, where she would certainly have attempted to escape again, she was offered a deal--at sixteen, she was technically of age where she could be 'emancipated'--allowed to live without a legal guardian. She was given the option of being allowed to live alone with government care--as long as she attended local Shydelther High School, an idea she did not take well to. However, the alternative was the foster programme, or worse, a correctional centre, so grudgingly Izzie chose the former, and was enrolled in Shydelther and given a nearby apartment to live in.
Even now, at Shydelther, she has become no more approachable than she was before. Izzie remains an outcast, as no one is really willing to endure her scathing hostility in order to befriend her. She cuts classes often, sometimes because she dislikes the class or doesn't feel like attending, or because she wants to have a smoke or a drink. The popular kids don't mess with her all that much, not altogether concerned with, as they say behind her back, an 'antisocial bitch'. In her time at Shydelther, however, Izzie has noticed that she wasn't the only social outcast--a trait that Maxwell Brightman seemed to share, if for different reasons entirely. She keeps her distance from him, still afraid to recreate the connections with others she used to have, but in actuality he's the only person at the school whom she does not dislike and, if he were to even talk to her, as he has yet to do so, the only person she wouldn't immediately turn away.
Personality
Izzie comes off quite simply as a very headstrong, aggressive, and solitary woman. She seems utterly averse to any form of human contact from just about anyone, brutally rejecting attempts to gain her friendship. Even after a few days into her tenure at Shydelther high school she had gained her reputation as a violent-tempered punk (or, whenever people are absolutely positive she cannot hear, some use the term 'bitch'), and the other students keep their distance, as does Izzie from them. She's gotten into a couple of fights already, usually because of a perceived insult or offence; her quickness to turn a verbal altercation physical is one of her defining traits and one of her less than desirable characteristics. She makes it quite apparent that she absolutely hates being at this school, often blatantly disobeying teachers just for the hell of it, and reacts with utter hostility and antagonism to attempts to exercise any authority over her whatsoever. She has a clear predilection for things stereotypical of a punk--muscle cars, loud music, profanity (which she uses...a lot), cigarettes and alcohol, such things appeal greatly to her.
The fact of the matter is that Izzie at her core is a conflicted, lonely, and pained person. She doesn't know what she's supposed to do with her life, having unconsciously resigned herself to an empty, hollow existence because she feels that she'll never be able to do anything with herself. Izzie is plagued with fears, sorrows, despairs and anger exacerbated by her use of cigarettes and detachment from others. They have festered within her, as she has never truly had an outlet for them, refusing to grant her peace and calm for a moment.
Within Izzie is a conflict rooted in the basis of her own human nature versus the brand of logic her perception life has taught her to think in. She has come to fear betrayal, abandonment, being left behind by those she loves, and has therefore come to the conclusion that to avoid such pain she must unconsciously shut all others away, avoid connections with other people for fear of the ease with which such connections are shattered and the pain and grief it causes. She equates trust with suffering and betrayal, friendliness with ill intent and suspicion, kindness with ulterior motives. And yet this all clashes with the fact that she is still as human as anyone else--and still has that ingrained need for human companionship, love, and friendship that no person can truly live on without. Isabelle yearns for these things, for love and friendship, even as the thought of venturing again and leaving herself vulnerable terrifies her. In short, a boatload of trust and abandonment issues under a layer of anger and sorrow, all painted over with a nice dosage of stubborn, headstrong standoffishness and social ineptitude. Clearly, a pleasant young lady all round.
Quirks
Izzie loves music--in particular, hard rock and heavy metal; the fast, aggressive beats, abrasive vocals, and heavy, distorted guitars have always appealed to her as a way to relieve stress without violence or drugs (which are the other two, rather less effective ways she tends to deal with stress). She's run into trouble with teachers quite a few times when she refused to remove the headphones to her music player in class. She can go from classic rock legends like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath to heavy metal staples such as Judas Priest and Motörhead, to the many-layered, complex riffs of Death and Atheist--she even listens to some jazz when she's in the rare mood for something a bit calmer and peaceful. She has a very secret desire to learn how to play guitar, but doesn't think she'd ever be any good at it; sometimes, however, when she's absolutely positive that she is alone, she sings along to her favourite songs. Izzie hates liars, traitors, and backstabbers with a passion, as well as lecherous flirts, 'pompous assholes and ignorant idiots', and women who degrade themselves for men. She has a tendency to start biting her lip when she gets bored, though it is often taken as a sign of trepidation instead. She goes nowhere without a pack or two of cigarettes on her person, as well as a pocket switchblade (they were practically a necessity in her neighbourhood when she was a teenager) and a wallet with a spare bit of change, never that much, her ID, and a picture of her when she was about ten years old, though it's almost impossible to see the resemblance now; obviously, she lacks the tattoos and piercings she now sports, with far less signs of wear and drug use apparent on her countenance, longer hair, and, most noticeably, she has a strangely innocent, happy smile in lieu of the bitter glare she now tends to wear.