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Aug. 13th, 2018 07:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebadkind
oh, don't you wanna go someplace?
oh, don't you wanna be free?
oh don't you wanna a real-life romance
with a safe bet just like me?
GENERAL
Name: Francesca Shirazi Salazar
Nickname(s): Ces
Gender/Pronouns: Female | She/Her
Birthdate/Age: December 25th | 17
Grade: Senior
Sexuality:
Major Arcana: The Lovers
Minor Arcana: Wands
Concept: Day-glo babydoll ready to battle, banter, and brighten up the place.
APPEARANCE
| Height: | 5'1" | Hair Color: | Blonde (dyed) |
| Build: | Tiny & scrappy. | Eye Color: | Brown |
Francesca moves like someone that is very at ease with themselves and with their body. Her shoulders are back, her chin is up, and - more often than not - there's an absolutely unholy grin sliding its way across her face. Ces moves like a live-wire. Bounces up on her toes, claps her hands together delightedly, and crinkles her eyes when she laughs.
She'd like to think that a few undone buttons and a half-dozen neon clips really make the uniform cute - even if she really does try to wear it to regulation standards. Most of the time. Only because being frowned at in disapproval makes her feel pouty. And feeling pouty at 8 am is just a tragedy. When left to her own devices, her wardrobe choices tend to be just as eclectic as her personality. It wouldn't be at all out of place to find her wearing a worn Captain America tee with a high-waisted pencil skirt or sky-high stilettos with an old pair of her dad's co-opted garage coveralls knotted around her waist. High-heels and motor oil aren't concepts that are mutually exclusive in her mind. But no matter what she's pulling on in the morning, whether it's a mini-skirt or sweatpants, there's guaranteed to be a whole lot of color. A whole lot of bright color, if she has anything to say about it.
PB: Karrueche Tran
PERSONALITY
Likes: motorcycles, neon, lollipops, costumes, makeup, bad reality TV, glitter, feathers, frappuccinos that are mostly whipped cream, sprinkles, glow-sticks
Dislikes: waking up early, having to dry her hair, beer (god that shit tastes awful), microwaves, toaster strudel (also offensive), making her bed (what's the point if she's just going to get back in it later?), honeydew
A bright snap of color, Francesca Salazar is bubbly and enthusiastic. A perpetual good-time girl, she cheerfully talks circles around topics she wishes to avoid and sidesteps unwanted confrontation like a particularly well-choreographed dance number. She dances through life with a carefree sort of joy. She's something of a social chameleon, easily flitting between friend groups with a willful determination that others just kind of have to go along with. She's warm and openly affectionate and if she wants to be your friend, you were going to shut up and like it.
When she finds herself inclined toward something, she takes to it with with all of her insatiable curiosity and voracious appetite. Doubly so if it's something she enjoys. Ces reacts to things she finds intriguing with all the discretion of a magpie discovering something shiny. By which we mean, she is all over it like white on rice. She can, on occasion, fall into the area of curious to the point of being invasive. But she can't quite resist the urge to stick her nose into places that it doesn't belong. Consequences for actions are something that she thinks about after she's already in the middle of discovering what they are. But she never really means to get herself into quite as much trouble as she often manages. Though, to be fair, she almost always tends to get herself back out of it in the end. She's unexpectedly charming like that.
Ces has a stubborn streak a mile wide with an insistence on doing for herself, seeing for herself, and trying for herself that doesn't always result in an ideal outcome. But don't waste your breath trying to explain the concept of consequences. She probably stopped listening five minutes ago. She knows what she wants and she wants what she wants exactly how and when she wants it. Sitting still and obeying aren't exactly her forte. She'd much rather learn by making mistakes. But there are a precious few people that she'll sit on her hands for and listen to. And the school definitely knew what it was doing by placing her where they did.
She's intensely committed and fiercely protective in regard those that come to mean something to her. She was raised in a tight-knit, if somewhat unconventional family and it's ruined her for lonership permanently. (Because, honestly, being alone sucks. When you're alone, there's no one around to appreciate how awesome you are!) She tends to assimilate people that she becomes fond of like some inappropriately-affectionate Borg Empress. She bends more for people she considers hers, lets them get away with making her do things she normally wouldn't be caught dead attempting. Like, ugh. Actually studying.
Self-confidence is decidedly not something that Ces lacks in. She's very comfortable with the invasion of personal space belonging to others and possesses all of the offhand certainty of someone very comfortable with every inch of themselves. She flirts with the same ease that the average person engages in breathing and walks in to unfamiliar situations like she owns the damn place. Because flirting is fun and makes people feel good about themselves. It's practically a community service.
Ces likes boys, likes girls - likes anyone that piques her interest. She likes 'pretty' and finds something suitably pretty in most everyone. She enjoys people in increments - the curve of a wrist and the flush on high cheekbones, the swing of a ponytail and the faint impressions that bones leave from their places under skin - and in intense bursts of momentary concentration. And she's more than happy to share her appreciation in whatever way would be most appreciated.
SKILLS
Costuming : Ces has been sewing up tears in costumes since she was very young and she's damn handy at it, okay? Granted, most of the costumes she works with at home are of the tear-away and potentially made from lycra variety, but she can repair your buttons and hem your school skirts and she can bedazzle the everliving hell out of things that have no means having gemstones attached to them.
Personal Grooming : Along this same vein, Ces is always prepared for anyone's triage beauty needs. She can apply even the fluffiest of falsies in one shot and she's a wizard with clip-in hair extensions.
Mechanics : In sharp contrast, Ces knows how to replace a tire and change oil and bleed brakes. She also does one helluva wax job. Oh! And she can hotwire one too. But she's not supposed to talk about that one.
Spanish : She's fluent, but it's mostly something she breaks out when home with her father.
HISTORY
Family:
Yasmin Shirazi | (Adoptive) Mother | Emergency Physician
Yasmin Shirazi is whip-smart and shamelessly funny. She goes for what she wants and has the sort of confidence that really gets a person places in life. Ces is still, to this day, insanely grateful to have been chosen by her.
Alejandro Salazar | (Adoptive) Father | Mechanic
A soft-spoken and dedicated man, Alejandro works hard. He's definitely made mistakes, but he owns up to them and is Ces' personal view of what a person is supposed to be. She's pretty sure that he personally hung the moon.
Monica Lyons | Auntie | Bar/Strip-Club Owner
Tall and curvy and commanding, Ces' Auntie Mo is a force to be reckoned with. More a third parent than anything else - even if no one's precisely certain of the exact nature of the relationship between the three of her authority figures.
Hometown: Las Vegas, Nevada
With medical school and the right side of thirty already in the rear-view mirror, Yasmin Shirazi had wanted a child far more than she wanted to wait around for true love. So when she heard about a young girl who was planning on giving up her child for adoption, she didn't think too hard before making an offer for room and board, medical expenses, and a closed adoption.
The whole thing went remarkably well, all things considered. The baby was born early Christmas morning, hale and healthy and with a considerable lung capacity. Her mother was ecstatic and deafened and utterly charmed. For a while it was just the two of them - and it was good.
It was at 3 o'clock in the morning, on the side of a dirt road (Which sounds way more like the beginning of a slasher film warning against the hazards of hitchhiking than it really was.) that Yasmin met Alejandro Salazar. In that her car broke down, she called for a tow and he, well, towed. Yasmin flirted outrageously and things proceeded from there. Alejo was likewise single and came into the relationship three-days onto the job and with a parole officer he had to report back to for the next year. Apparently it was a match made in 'people who generally find explaining their current status to be incredibly awkward' heaven. They married when Ces was four-years-old. And she was officially adopted a year later. Since then, her parents have continued to live in something remarkably close to domestic bliss. (No really. They're disgusting.)
Francesca was a rambunctious little beast, outspoken and curious, most often found following Alejandro around the garage with grease on her face and tools tucked into her Batman utility belt. Until having a child underfoot became a (understandable) problem with his boss. But Alejo needed the job for his parole, Francesca probably shouldn't have been playing underneath heavy metallic death-traps in the first place, and Yasmin had just been promoted and was stuck on the same shift. Which is where Monica came in.
Monica Lyons was one of Alejandro's oldest friends and Monica owned a bar called Monster that was right off the Strip. And, best of all, Monica happened to love children. She didn't have any of her own, but she was more than happy to ruffle the top of Ces' little head and let her trail along after her like a little shadow general. Her father would drop her off, she'd follow Auntie Mo and "her girls" around for a few hours, and then her mother would eventually swing around to pick her up. And the longer this arrangement went on, the more Monica was around the house. Until, eventually, Mo was always around the house.
Despite what other people might think about the whole thing, Francesca grew up in a manner that she considers completely normal. She had a good home and there was always someone there for her. She parents who loved her - who chose to love her. Maybe she had an extra one, sure. But that just meant that more people loved her, and there wasn't a single thing wrong with that. And maybe she sat down for her Rice Krispies next to the occasional half-dressed woman (or man) and she learned how to do her makeup from several drag performers, but it was pretty damn normal nevertheless.
In school, she did well in academically, but she was definitely the sort of child that was on a first-name basis with all of her former principals. (She still sends them fruit baskets. Lest they forget her.) She never failed. She just stood out. Usually for falling asleep during Social Studies. Or starting a very involved line of active participation hair-braiding straight up the middle row of math class. She was chipper and bright and easy to like, but she was notoriously difficult to convince of the importance of learning the Pythagorean theorem.
Finchwood didn't particularly appeal to her at first - a fancy boarding school with carefully curated professors and perfectly pressed uniforms. She could learn the same exact things right where she was and not have to wear the same boring thing every day. But then people in her classes started whispering that it was strange - even if none of them seemed to know exactly how - and that's when Ces started to pay attention. Because, well, a uniform might be worth the trouble if she got to see something new. Something strange. And going to a school near a beach was nothing to frown at either.
And even if the kind of strange that Finchwood turned out to be wasn't exactly what she had imagined, it was interesting all on it's own. She wasn't immune to being told that she was special. And her parents liked the usual, boring, carefully curated professors and perfectly pressed uniforms stuff. It's dangerous and maybe a little frightening, but she's more than willing to put in the work if it means that she gets to have an end result that's nine-feet tall and made from magic. She's even willing to do her English papers nowadays, if it means that she gets to do something exciting too.
COMBAT
ACADEMICS
Core Classes: English, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Training
Elective Classes: Art, Life Skills, Shop
Clubs: Drama (Costuming!) And she sits on the sidelines and yells encouraging things at the kids in Athletics?
General Performance: Ces would be a better student if she applied herself. She's well-spoken and witty - clearly sharp and often clever. It's just that, if left to her own devices, she won't bother studying. She'll follow along and do it if someone really wants her to - but she does fine anyway! So it's fine. And she's doing much better than she'd done at school before this. She pays attention in class and she usually does her homework. It's just the studying part that bores her. She tends to average out as a B student all the same - her electives help out her overall average due to her personal desire to be there - but she could definitely do more if she actually wanted to.
OOC
