"Saying nothing. . .sometimes says the most."
-Emily Dickinson
Name:
"I'll introduce myself as such, if asked."
Virginia Elizabeth Hale (Nee Francis)
Nicknames:
"It really depends on the person."
Gin or Lizzie
Age:
"Younger than I feel."
27
Gender:
"Excuse me?"
Female
Role:
Female 4
Occupation:
"I try to stay out of the house when I can."
Secretary and Housewife
Height:
"I don't understand- why are you asking me this?"
5'5"
Weight:
"More of this?"
112lb
Scars:
"I can be rather clumsy, you see."
Virginia has a few scars on her body, but most of them are in places not easily seen from beneath her clothing, and nearly all of them are from her husband. If asked, she will play up the clumsy act, of course. The scars are usually small enough to hide easily, and several are on her shoulders and back.
Description:
Virginia is a slender young woman of an average height, standing at around 5'5" with a slim waist. Her skin is rather pale and contrasts with dark, curling brown hair that frames her face and always seems to be perfectly in place. Her eyes are a crystal blue and stand out in her face like little pools of ice, just below curved brown eyebrows. She is fairly pretty in a classic sort of way, but doesn't consider herself to be anything more than below average.
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
-Oscar Wilde
Dancing
Jazz
Stargazing
Children
Cursive
Romance
Reading
Dreaming
Old Photographs
Scrapbooks
Art
Birds
Scarves
Antiques
Peace
Violence
Disputes
Cats
Meddling
Fear
Chocolates
Coffee
Tight Dresses
Nosiness
Jewelry
Shoes
Perfect Order
Sunshowers
Cologne
Fire
Personality:
Virginia Hale's last name has come to define her, as she retreats further and further into herself as some sort of last ditch effort to pretend that things are not what they are, but something else entirely. Above all else, the young woman has lost the bravery of youth that allowed her to be unabashedly honest. Now, she has become the sort of person who lies through their teeth every day, finding it necessary to weave tales of her own creation, so beautifully constructed that even she seems to fall for them from time to time. Virginia's lies have come to define her, and she is now not who she is, but who she has caused others to believe she is. She spends all day telling others about how lovely her life is, making people believe that she is living the ideal life, that she is the luckiest woman in the town. People think that her home is safe and perfect, that her husband is doting and wealthy, and that she is perfectly and utterly content with where she is. The repetitiveness of these lies gives the impression of some deep set misconception within the young woman: that if she says something enough times, it will become a little bit less of a lie. However, as this is not the case, her borderline compulsive lying serves as a thin shield against reality and, eventually, against her own fears. She deceives herself more than anyone else, convincing herself that she loves her husband still, and that he never really means to hurt her. The woman's deception is the most harmful of all, because she is allowing the rot within her to spread and eat her out form the inside. If asked, she exaggerates the positives in her life, allowing others to believe the lie just as she does.
Part of what makes her stay where she is, despite the abuse she faces, is a strong insecurity that makes her almost believe that she deserves what she is getting, because she has an incredibly low sense of self worth. She seems to believe that everything happens for a reason, and this has led to a conclusion that there is something wrong with her and that, if she could only just become better, everything would stop. She is in denial of the reality, of the fact that she is in an abusive relationship, and this combination keeps her where she is, locked by a mind that tells her it is all her fault that life is turning out this way, and a society that will always favor the man over the woman. After all, in this day and age, it's a woman's place to be where her husband wants her to be and do what he wants her to do, right? Cases of abuse go unheard because it would be just as much a shame on the woman as it would on the man, and Virginia knows that. It has been impressed in her mind for so long that she simply believes that it is her job to keep everything happy, and if something goes wrong, it isn't her husband's fault. She has adopted the mindset of her generation, making her a strong sort of mouse, locked by the teachings of her mother in a cage. And if she can't get out of that cage, the self belittling only grows as she desperately tries to improve herself, only to come up short, in her own mind, every single time she tries to make strides forward. She is strong, of course, doing everything in her power to try and keep others from being hurt by her husband, and keeping herself from being pregnant to do so, but it is a quiet, strange sort of courage. Her courage is one which puts up with the bad, but does not try and escape it. Her courage is not the best sort, perhaps, but it is all that she has.
Virginia is not a stupid woman, despite what some may think of her for staying in her marriage. In fact, she is a very intelligent one, though years have caused her to suppress her own intelligence and make herself small, because that is what she thought was wanted of her. She wants, above all else, to be accepted and to have some sort of place in the world. So she becomes what she believes is wanted of her, trying to make herself in the image of others. She belittles herself into this reserved but cheerful woman who seems to have no cares other than keeping everything in perfect condition. When the girl was younger, she was outspoken and loud, but that has faded away into a more quiet, more cautious nature, created so that she can cope with the position she is in. Still, she remains kind, the sort of person who will give money to others who need it, take over shifts, bring flowers to the sick, or take in someone who has nowhere else to go. This kindness provides her some sort of outlet through which she can busy herself, and she is excessively active in charities and other nonprofits. While it is, for the most part, genuine, she does use the kind acts as a way to cloak herself and distract herself from any worries she might have. This makes her view herself as selfish, and causes Virginia to work even harder.
Dishonest || Insecure || Desperate || Strong || Reserved || False Cheer || Idealist || In Denial || Kind || Submissive || Intelligent
Relationships:
Virginia has never really been the sort to cheat or anything like that, probably because she is too kind, or perhaps too submissive, to do so. As it stands, she is married to Quentin Hale (Male 4) and, despite the occasional bouts of violence, seems to have no intentions of leaving him. Rather, she appears to love him, though it is somewhat strained for obvious reasons. She had only ever had feelings for one man before she was with him, but those feelings are faded and, anyway, she would never act upon them now even if they weren't gone.
Background:
Betty Jones was raised in a quiet home without a father or a mother- rather, she was raised by her aunt and uncle, the last remaining relatives that the young girl had after her father had died in a mining accident and her mother, overcome with grief, had killed herself. She was lucky that those relatives were willing to take her in, especially as they already had children of their own and were struggling to get by. Her childhood was a rather picturesque one, if only because her aunt and uncles were farmers and the land they owned was beautiful, even if they faced relatively hard times. Farmers had continued to face relatively poor conditions for years, after all. She helped to raise her cousins, who were all younger than her, and seemed to fall into this role of domesticity, as was expected of women of the era. She cooked, cleaned, and helped her aunt in all that was necessary. When the farm began to sink under even further, she was sent to work at a Textile mill to send money back to help the family. She was still an adolescent at the time, but it was simply expected of her to help the family who took her in, and so she did. When she was 20, in 1917, she met a young man who worked in a factory down the road from the textile mill. They somehow hit it off and were married rather quickly- within a year, in fact. In 1919, they had their first child: Virginia Francis, daughter of Betty and Jeremy Francis. It wasn't long, perhaps two years after Virginia's birth, that Jeremy began to turn bitter. He had lost his job at the car factory, leaving his wife as the sole bread winner of the family, and this seemed to frustrate him. He took to the drink, frequenting illegal establishments, and soon the drinking gave him heavy fists.
Thus, Virginia was raised in a household of abuse. She, herself, was only ever hurt by her father once, when she was thirteen and dropped a dish. But the child is never unharmed when they watch their father verbally and physically attack their mother, and watch how people willingly turn a blind eye to the matter. She was often used against her mother, in fact, her father screaming at Betty and telling Virginia how filthy, selfish, and terrible her mother was. Growing up in such a household made her accustomed to seeing abuse, especially as it had happened to early on, and it only grew worse in the 1930s, when the Great Depression began. Her family was hit hard, then, and though her mother kept her job, it was with severe pay cuts and lengthened hours, leaving Virginia at home with her father, who was becoming increasingly angry as time went by. She and her mother barely scraped by, as her father's drinking habit had not left when the money to support it had, but they somehow managed. They remained under the shadow of Jeremy, though Virginia never fully realized it until he was gone, because she had known no other life. This was her normal, and she quietly believed that it was the normal everywhere.
When Virginia was twenty years old, it was 1939, and the United States was finally beginning to exit the Depression which had gripped them for a decade. This was good, for her family had been forced, two years prior, to move into a Hooverville under a crowded bridge. Things seemed to be turning around, somewhat, but perhaps the most crucial event happened towards the end of that year- her father died of alcohol poisoning. Virginia was crushed, for she never had quite understood the extent of his cruelty, but she and her mother began to lead a better life. She and her mother both held jobs at a local factory, but Virginia been taking classes and was able to advance to secretary of the building's manager. As it happened, this position is what led her to meet Mr. Quentin Hale, whose family owned the factory. In a story that seemed like a fairy tale, the two fell hopelessly in love, rarely apart from each other. It seemed like a dream, and many of the other townsfolk agreed that it certainly seemed to good to be true- most believed that it was destined to end badly. But Virginia was, and still is, an idealist and optimist, and she thought otherwise. The two rushed into marriage, swept up by their own feelings. When the Late Mr. Hale fell ill, a sad occasion for both Quentin and Virginia, as the latter had gotten along well with Mr. Hale -perhaps due to similar backgrounds of poverty-, Quentin stayed to take care of him while other young men left to fight for a war which had brought out a great amount of patriotism in every citizen.
Though she loved her country and prayed for its success, Virginia was secretly happy that her husband had decided not to go to war, for she would have feared losing him otherwise. Still, he began to overwork himself at Hale Industries, and seemed increasingly tense and stressed as the years passed. Virginia was concerned, but her pleads that he not push himself too far went unheard. It wasn't long before he began to hit her, just as her father had hit her mother. And just as it had been with her mother and father, the fact that this happened was not brought to light outside of the home. She thought it a norm, after all, and began to find reasons to blame herself for the abuse, because she couldn't quite bare the complete shattering of the beautiful life she had created. She returned to a job as a secretary, still, to remain out of the house more, and has been taking measures to avoid being impregnated. She may have been raised in a house of abuse, but she was terrified of the same thing happening to her son or daughter- terrified that Quentin would hurt them as well. And so we reach this point, in which she pretends that all is well while avoiding having the children she's always wanted, while taking the blows of the husband she thought she knew, and while being afraid in her own home.
Theme Songs:
[Verse 1:]
Dig up her bones but leave the soul alone
Boy with a broken soul
Heart with a gaping hole
Dark twisted fantasy turned to reality
Kissing death and losing my breath
Midnight hours cobble street passages
Forgotten savages, forgotten savages
[Hook:]
Dig up her bones but leave the soul alone
Let her find a way to a better place
Broken dreams and silent screams
Empty churches with soulless curses
We found a way to escape the day
[Verse 2:]
Dig up her bones but leave the soul alone
Lost in the pages of self made cages
Life slips away and the ghosts come to play
These are hard times
These are hard times for dreamers
And love lost believers
[Hook]
[Verse 3:]
Candybar creep show
My highs hit a new low
Marinate in misery
Like a girl of only 17
Man made madness
And the romance of sadness
A beautiful dance that happened by chance
Happened by chance, happened by chance
[Hook]
The paths have been crossed
The crumbs are gone and the way, and the way is lost
Melancholy phantoms eye our skins
Poison apples falling with the wind
Hear the sigh of the trees
Those who enter here never leave
And the rangers stream out of their cabins
They are the hunters
We are the rabbits
Maybe we don't want to be found
Maybe we don't want to be found
Further in and on we go
Sightless creatures tugging at our clothes
Cutting through the twilight, sword in hand
Strangers once united against the land
At the sound of the bells
they're pulling paper lanterns from their shelves
The rangers stream out of their cabins
They are the hunters and we are the rabbits
Maybe we don't want to be found
Maybe we don't want you tracking us down
The rangers stream out of their cabins
Raising their muskets
Flashing their badges
Maybe we don't want to be found
Maybe we don't want to be found
They keep hiding a quiet like
They'll keep sneaking
But they won't find us
They'll keep living a quiet life
You and I
You and I
The ranger scream out of their cabins
They are the hunters,
We are the rabbits
Maybe we don't want to be found
Maybe we don't want you tracking us down
The rangers stream out of their cabins
Raising their muskets,
Flashing their badges
Maybe we don't want to be found
Maybe we don't want to be found