Melody Rivers
Dec 1, 2013 16:00:37 GMT -5
Post by Melody Rivers on Dec 1, 2013 16:00:37 GMT -5
The Basics
Name: Melody Rivers (born Melanie Elizabeth Keating)
Nicknames: Miss Rivers, Mel
Age: 30
Orientation: Heterosexual with slight bisexual tendencies
Desired Rank/Job: Staff: drama and dance instructor (she also choreographs shows at La Maison Magnifique)
Powers: Animal Summoning: Melody is capable of ‘summoning’ nearby animals through her voice. She cannot communicate with them, but rather her voice becomes a sort of homing beacon for nearby animals as something they are particularly attracted to (like moths drawn to a lightbulb). The power is not very strong; she must be close to the animal (for instance, ten or twenty feet away) to be able to summon it. So the power works best when she’s very close to animals, for instance at the park or in the woods. It also works best on very small animals – like squirrels and other rodents – and does not work particularly well on larger animals, like deer. Side effects include losing her voice (which, as someone who sings and teaches for a living, is something that is very risky for her) and having her voice occasionally summon animals when she doesn’t want it to.
Play By: Lady Gaga (Stefani Germanotta)
The Details
Hair Color: Blonde
Eye Color: Brown
Any Piercings? Earlobes
Any Tattoos? She has the words “looking good and feeling fine” tattooed onto her left upper arm.
Any Scars? No
General Appearance: Melody is of average height for a woman, standing at 5’7”. She has long blonde hair (dirty blonde naturally, though she occasionally bleaches it because she likes the color to be uniform) which, when kept long and straight, falls just past her shoulders; occasionally she curls it for a performance or just to change things up. She is of slim-to-athletic stature due to frequent dancing, which is good aerobic exercise, and because she generally watches what she eats. Her skin is somewhat on the paler side: she wishes she were more tan, but there isn't much tanning to be done at a landlocked town in Vermont, and she doesn't believe in fake tanning for health purposes.
In terms of her style, Melody likes to dress nicely and look good: she spends a large portion of her paychecks on clothing, shoes, and accessories. Fortunately for her, two paychecks (from her staff position at Hammel and work at La Maison Magnifique) means she can afford to drop a prety penny or two on a nice outfit. Versace is a favorite, but anything glamorous is on her wishlist. Essentially, she has an upper-class wardrobe on a middle-class budget. She can often be found wearing beautiful dresses and flashy jewelry, even just to go grocery shopping. She believes very strongly in putting effort into her appearance, which is why you would rarely see her without makeup and never see her in a tee shirt and jeans.
Personality: Melody is generally a nice person; her students have come to know her as someone who always has something encouraging to say and who is capable of giving constructive criticism without coming across as disparaging. She likes to laugh: she isn’t very witty herself, but she enjoys making little jokes and certainly gets a kick out of funny people. Then again, she also knows when to get serious, whether it’s because she’s in character or because it’s time to get serious as dance instructor. She also gets very serious, even introspective, when she talks about her work in the performing arts: it’s what she’s good at, and she tries to communicate that and can become somewhat earnest in doing so. She occasionally puts on the airs of the elite (think the stereotypical upper-class, nose-in-the-air sense of self-worth), especially when she goes clothes shopping, but in reality she is usually more down-to-earth than that. She's an actress, though, so she will occasionally play the part of the true high-class fashionista she longs to be. Ever since meeting Cynthia DeMato, who familiarized her with fashion and such fashion icons as Donatella Versace, Melody has been very interested in this subject. She considers fashion not only to be part of her job as performer, but also a way to transform into someone glamorous, as well as an opportunity to show off a bit of her body, which she has worked hard to maintain.
Melody believes very strongly in the importance of giving respect. Her conviction is that all people deserve respect solely for being people: we are all human, she believes, and we must be kind to one another. She is known to get a bit angry when she feels that she or someone else is being disrespected. Whether it’s because of little things like someone not holding the door for her, or bigger things like watching one of the workers at the House get disrespected or accosted by a customer, she has been known to lose her temper when she feels that someone is being belittled. She can become very fiery when necessary, though she greatly prefers for everyone to get along. In her college years, while working as a dancer at the House, she learned on a few occasions what it was like to be disrespected or made to believe she wasn’t important, and that has fueled her passion for treating all people with kindness.
Perhaps hypocritically, Melody sometimes thinks differently of people if she sees them dressed poorly or if they are not well-groomed: while she understands that not everyone can afford very nice clothing, she also believes very strongly in practicing good hygiene and just generally looking good, and it bothers her when people don't put any effort into the way they look like she has. She is unsure of why she has this great interest in material possession and appearance in others: perhaps it is because so many of her role models, including Madame Cynthia DeMato and Donatella Versace, have the same passions (and a lot more money to pursue them with).
Your Vices
Likes: Dancing, fashion, shopping, interior decorating, singing, the holidays, music, theatre, fine dining, teaching, coming up with new expressions (her new favorite is "that's posh")
Dislikes: Rude people, rain, bugs, losing her voice because of her power, being too hot or too cold, when the drycleaner loses one of her dresses (it’s happened twice…)
Strengths: She is a very good dancer, hence why she is choreographer at La Maison Magnifique and dance instructor at Hammel. She is also a good actress and singer and knows a lot about fashion. Lastly, she mixes a really good drink.
Weaknesses: She is not book smart (math, science, history, etc). She is often self-conscious about this when surrounded by those who are because she feels as though academic pursuits are perhaps more important to society than what she does. She also has very little self-control in terms of her finances; she’s been known to charge more to her credit card than is financially healthy.
Fears: Melody fears very little; if anything, she fears that things will change and she will no longer be able to live the life that she loves of teaching the next generation of meta actors and dancers. Additionally, after being on the bottom rungs at the House and being subject to some very uncomfortable interactions with customers, she does occasionally fear men she thinks of as seedy or whose intentions seem less than beneficent; Cynthia, her boss and a woman who hates many men, certainly hasn't helped Melody in this regard.
Secret: She got a nose job while in college. She’d always hated her nose, thinking it was too bulbous for her face. Now she thinks it’s a little too narrow, but what could you do? She wanted to do this sooner, but while studying at Hammel she knew she wouldn’t be able to hide it from her peers while it healed.
Family Ties
Father: Joseph Keating, 56, accountant
Mother: Maria Silverman Keating, 53, unemployed
Siblings: None
Any Other Important People: Cynthia DeMato, who gave her a new creative outlet when she hired her as a dancer, and later promoted her to choreographer last year during her overhaul of the club. They have been close friends and confidantes ever since.
History
Melanie Elizabeth Keating was born in 1983 in Chicago, Illinois, to Joseph Keating and his wife, Maria Silverman Keating. Melanie’s childhood was fairly uneventful; she attended preschool, elementary school, then middle school while her father worked and her mother tended the home. Theirs was a loving family but ultimately not noteworthy. The manifestation of Melanie’s powers was similarly uneventful: the family was in the park around the time of her twelfth birthday, and Melanie was hanging out down by the pond with some of her friends while her parents sat at a picnic table further up. While Melanie was talking and laughing, a mother duck and her ducklings swam up to her and started quacking at her rather enthusiastically. Melanie thought nothing of this, and her friends got a kick out of it when she walked away and the ducks continued to follow her in a line, even as she yelled at them to shoo. Everyone present thought this was hilarious but assumed it was just some sort of funny coincidence. And when Melanie lost her voice later that night, her mother just assumed she was coming down with a cold. A week later, though, some recruiters from the Hammel Institute showed up at the Keatings’ townhouse to inform them that this was no accident.
Melanie’s years at Hammel were like most students’ experiences there: it took her a few months to get over her initial homesickness, but once she was settled in, she became more interested in her training. Her power of vocal animal summoning never became very strong, but she is now capable of doing so without too great a risk of its side effects. It was during her time at Hammel that she became interested in the performing arts; she had seen a few local shows while still living in Chicago, but it wasn’t until taking a theatre class at Hammel that she thought about trying it herself. She found that she had a natural talent for singing, dancing, and acting, and starred in a few of the school productions.
Shortly after she turned eighteen, during what would end up being her final year at Hammel, Melanie discovered the local burlesque house, La Maison Magnifique. She auditioned and was accepted to become one of the dancers. This was a very exciting time for Melanie, who up until then did not think she could make any sort of career out of her knack for performing. But Cynthia DeMato – who had taken over ownership of the club five years earlier – believed she had talent that could take her places. It was also Cynthia who introduced her to high fashion, a passion she holds to this day. However, while working at the House, she ran into some seedy characters in the form of drunk customers who frequented the House late at night, and some of them were very disrespectful to her. She never forgot those unfortunate run-ins.
After graduating from Hammel, she continued performing at the House while attending the local community college. She never liked school very much, so she considered receiving a Bachelor’s degree just a necessity in life and not something she was very interested in. Having graduated from college at age twenty-two, Melanie took up full residency in Pilot Ridge, becoming one of the House’s longest-performing and most esteemed performers. She soon thereafter changed her legal name from Melanie Keating to Melody Rivers, which had been her stage name for a year or so.
Eventually becoming antsy and financially unstable – as she only had work three nights a week – she began seeking another job, ultimately finding it back at Hammel when given the opportunity to become the new drama and dance instructor. She found she loved teaching the next generation of meta actors and dancers, instructing courses and directing the school plays. She has now been teaching for five years, from age 25 to 30. Last year, Cynthia – seeing how she brought passion and enthusiasm to her teaching gig - promoted Melody to House choreographer. She continues to work those two jobs – dance instructor at Hammel and choreographer at the House – to this day.
Roleplay Example
Tanner was catching his breath as he opened the door into McDonald's. Today really hadn't been his day: he'd gotten caught up in rehearsals over at the House, which hadn't gone terribly smoothly, and in fact had been so busy that he hadn't gotten a chance to eat lunch. Now it was dinner time and he was starving, too hungry to wait until he got home to make something for himself. So with a fast food joint on his route home anyway, he decided to stop in for a burger to gorge himself on as he tried to forget about the past several hours.
Of course, had he known just how crowded this place was going to be, he probably wouldn't have bothered.
The restaurant was packed. Evidently some local football team - Pilot Ridge has a football team? - had just finished a game, and one of the mothers was buying dinner for all of them. That meant Tanner had to wait in line while this woman ordered thirty separate meals. He was already in a bit of a mood, and this was just exacerbating the situation. The pyrokinetic was about to turn around and head home after fifteen minutes of waiting when it was finally his turn at the counter.
He placed his order, handed over his money, and took his number. Thirty-two. Okay, that wasn't so bad. I mean, it wasn't like they were starting at-
"Number one," came a muffled voice over the microphone. "Number one, your order is ready. Number one?"
Tanner released a sigh at hurricane-level force as he turned away from the counter; this was obviously going to be a bit of a wait. But he'd already paid, so he had to just suffer through it. Finding most of the tables occupied with teenagers in football uniforms, he ultimately found a booth with an empty seat. There was a time when he would've opted to just stand, but he was far too tired to worry about bothering anybody.
"Uh, this seat taken?" He asked somewhat meekly as he approached the booth. He could only hope it wasn't, since he really wanted to get off his feet.
What About You?
Name: Alex
Age: 23
Experience: Just over ten years
How Did You Find Us? I no longer remember! The topsites, I think??
Ready To Play? Very much so!
