Post by sansa on Jan 12, 2015 0:11:07 GMT -5
Name: Demeter
Gender: Female
Age: Adult, early 30s
Tribe: Hench
Tribe Position: Member
Family: Unsure. She was born in a shelter and adopted quickly, so she never really knew them, and certainly hasn't been able to keep in touch.
Appearance: Demeter is a shorter, curvy queen, with a trim waist and voluptuous hips. Her fur is golden yellow with touches of deeper red, a white bib, and electric black slashes all over. Black and yellow – nature's warning colors. The fur is short, spiked, and disheveled. She occasionally wears a black leather collar with impressive spikes, though she often goes without it. She has a very delicate face, with sad, guarded mahogany eyes, a straight nose, and pouted lips. [x]
Human Appearance: Rose Byrne [x] [x]
Personality: Demeter is full of contradictions. She is dependent on others, yet values her independence. She wants to be trusted and to trust others, yet constantly tests others to allay her own suspicions. She wants the protection of authority, yet she fears it. She is obedient, yet disobedient. Fearful of aggression, yet sometimes highly aggressive herself. She searches for security, yet feels insecure. She is likable and endearing, yet can be mean and hateful. She is reassured by traditional values, yet often subverts those values. She wants to escape punishment, yet often brings it on herself.
Demeter is full of such contradictions because anxiety makes her ricochet from on psychological state to another. And in response to anxiety, she looks to structures, beliefs, allies, and authorities to put her anxiety to rest. For Demeter, security comes from a rock-of-ages allegiance and an investment of herself in something outside herself which she believes will give her stability and safety. She wants to feel protected and secure by having something bigger and more powerful guiding her. The doctrines she follows are important to her, but not as important as having someone to trust and believe in.
Demeter is out of touch with the ability to make decisions and act on her own without reference to a trusted cat, an institution, or a belief system. In a sense, Demeter has difficulty trusting her own mind, her own ability to know what to do without reference to ideas that are not her own. Thus, once she has found some system of thought that seems reliable to her, she must constantly evaluate any new ideas that either contradict or alter what she has understood to be true. She is looking for something – a set of guidelines, an authority – to supply her with a direction in life, to tell her what she can and cannot do, to give her more clarity, to put limits on her. She is looking for, in a word, security.
Demeter is exceptionally puzzling because she is reactive, fluctuating from one state to another, usually opposite, state very quickly. She can be baffling and frustrating because her emotional states and attitudes can be so contradictory: she can be engaging and funny, then cranky and negative; decisive and self-assertive, then indecisive and self-doubting. While she seeks the approval of those who are important to her, she resists being in a position of inferiority. She is obedient, then openly disobedient, intentionally deviating from what the authority has told her to do. As a result, she is a very difficult cat to understand. She is often so enigmatic, even to those closest to her, that the most others can say about her is that she is easy to like but hard to get to know.
Not only is Demeter ambivalent toward others. She is ambivalent toward herself. She likes herself, and then disparages herself, feeling inferior to others. She has confidence, and then feels hopeless and defeated, as if she could not do anything without help from someone else. She'll feel weak-kneed and cowardly, then suddenly fill with rage and strike out at others. A double set of dependent and aggressive impulses operates in her, continuously interacting in various complex combinations because Demeter reacts ambivalently to not only the external authority, but to her own internal superego.
As much as possible, Demeter wants to avoid being in this anxious, ambivalent state, so she works hard to build structures into her life that gives her stability and continuity. As long as she knows the rules of the game, and has some sense that she is supported by others in her life, she can be a consistent, steady presence and accomplish a great deal. But therein lies the problem. Demeter makes her internal stability dependent on the stability of her external environment. As long as everything in her life is running reasonably well, she feels secure and is able to cope with things. As soon as problems arise, however, she is quickly thrown into a storm of confusion and emotional reactions. Her self-doubt and suspiciousness arises and she is right back in her ambivalence and unsteadiness.
The result of this is that Demeter oscillates rapidly from one emotional state to another. There is little emotional stability or interpersonal security she can call her own. She has an enormous amount of trouble with the 'doing', not only because she looks outside of herself for direction, but because the actions she takes for herself are typically indecisive and circuitous. It is impossible to understand Demeter without understanding her oscillating nature. Maintaining her sense of self requires that both sides of her psyche interact with each other. She cannot emphasize one side of herself and ignore the other – for example, she cannot become independent by supressing her dependent side. For better or worse, she is an amalgam of both sides of herself. When she is healthy, both sides work hand in hand with each other. However, as tension between her two sides increases, so does anxiety, and therein lies the source of most of her problems.
Faults: Demeter's weakness is related to the fear that she will not be able to support herself. She therefore relies heavily on structures, systems, and traditions. While seeking the security of an external system or authority for guidance, she is at the same time suspicious of that authority. She worries that her support system will abandon her. This manifests in generalized paranoia, suspicion, and skepticism. She unconsciously puts her support to the test, lashing out at her leaders or loved ones.
This defensive attitude can be so ugly and opinionated that it isolates Demeter from her loved ones. She lacks confidence in her inner guidance and is often unable to make quick decisions without others' opinions. She also often finds herself proceeding with so much caution that progress is too slow or ineffective.
Describing Word: Doubting
History: There has never been much stability in Demeter's life. She was born in a shelter, where her mother and all of her littermates were adopted quickly and before her. From too young an age, she learned that the world is inherently unstable and unreliable. She was adopted after a couple of weeks, but the humans gave up and took her back when they quickly realized that they could not handle a kitten. She was in and out of the shelter for the first couple months of her life, adopted, then abandoned, over and over. Eventually, an older couple with multiple cats adopted her. They lived near the Junkyard, and she found the Jellicles and joined the tribe without much thought.
She never felt very settled with the Jellicles. It felt like a temporary home to her. She made friends easily, though, and one such friend was Macavity. His visionary ideas gave her hope and confidence that her world might eventually become stable and reliable through simple improvement. If there was ever a 'best friend' in Demeter's life, it was him. His exile from the Jellicles shook her deeply, and took the strongest sense of guidance and structure that she had. She did not, unfortunately, feel confident enough to do anything about it. Macavity hardly had anything, and the Jellicles had the leadership she craved.
It was a few years later, when she heard that Macavity had established his own tribe, that she felt comfortable seeking him out. The embers of their previous friendship sparked, and they began an affair. None of the Jellicles were aware, and when she left to live permanently with him, most of them worried that she'd been taken, or worse. For a time, her life was perfect. Macavity provided a strong authority figure and always told her what to do and how to feel. Until, one day, his 'telling her how to feel' turned physical, and it was just... too much. She ran away and returned to the only place she felt she could trust – the Jellicles.
She never told anybody the truth about her time with Macavity, about how she went and stayed willingly. The Jellicles assumed the worse, and she loved the lengths they went to in order for her to feel safe and protected. Here paranoia, though, started to get the better of her. She could have sworn she saw Macavity out of the corner of her eye everywhere she went. He would want her back, she wasn't surprised. What did surprise her was that a part of her was glad that he did.
Stability was lost when she started questioning her comfort in the Junkyard. The memory of her time with Macavity tormented her. She wanted it back, but she was terrified. She'd tried for so long to force herself to feel comfortable, to feel at home in the Junkyard with the friends she loved, but she just couldn't. Macavity was the only one who could give that to her, as far as she was concerned. Knowing where he was all the time, having him tell her what to do, what to feel, how to behave. She needed that. She needed the anxiety to end. In the end, those needs got the best of her, and she ran from the Jellicles once more. Rumpus found her, alone and confused, and helped her find her way back to Macavity.
RP Sample:
The Jellicle Junkyard was far behind her, Rumpus in front of her, and a choice to be made. The Jellicles seemed to provide everything she thought she needed. There was safety there. There were friends who cared for her and families who welcomed her with open arms. Even still... their own leader, Old Deuteronomy, was so rarely seen in the Junkyard. How was he supposed to properly rule the Tribe when he spent most of his time on some wall? And what was she meant to do? She had no duties in the Junkyard, no responsibilities to speak of.
Rumpus told her that she could be better off with Macavity. She had no reason to believe that wasn't true. Macavity had been... half a nightmare... But she knew where she stood with him. She knew her role with him. And if he truly had changed, maybe he would no longer be so physical with his demands. Pressing her lips together, she drew her gaze to Rumpus's face.
”Can you take me to him?”
Comments: I am SO sorry for such a long personality, oh my gosh. I got excited. I blame x2 for egging me on! Also, sorry if the fault section seems repetitive of the personality. Her faults are so ingrained in her personality that it's hard to separate them, it seems!
Gender: Female
Age: Adult, early 30s
Tribe: Hench
Tribe Position: Member
Family: Unsure. She was born in a shelter and adopted quickly, so she never really knew them, and certainly hasn't been able to keep in touch.
Appearance: Demeter is a shorter, curvy queen, with a trim waist and voluptuous hips. Her fur is golden yellow with touches of deeper red, a white bib, and electric black slashes all over. Black and yellow – nature's warning colors. The fur is short, spiked, and disheveled. She occasionally wears a black leather collar with impressive spikes, though she often goes without it. She has a very delicate face, with sad, guarded mahogany eyes, a straight nose, and pouted lips. [x]
Human Appearance: Rose Byrne [x] [x]
Personality: Demeter is full of contradictions. She is dependent on others, yet values her independence. She wants to be trusted and to trust others, yet constantly tests others to allay her own suspicions. She wants the protection of authority, yet she fears it. She is obedient, yet disobedient. Fearful of aggression, yet sometimes highly aggressive herself. She searches for security, yet feels insecure. She is likable and endearing, yet can be mean and hateful. She is reassured by traditional values, yet often subverts those values. She wants to escape punishment, yet often brings it on herself.
Demeter is full of such contradictions because anxiety makes her ricochet from on psychological state to another. And in response to anxiety, she looks to structures, beliefs, allies, and authorities to put her anxiety to rest. For Demeter, security comes from a rock-of-ages allegiance and an investment of herself in something outside herself which she believes will give her stability and safety. She wants to feel protected and secure by having something bigger and more powerful guiding her. The doctrines she follows are important to her, but not as important as having someone to trust and believe in.
Demeter is out of touch with the ability to make decisions and act on her own without reference to a trusted cat, an institution, or a belief system. In a sense, Demeter has difficulty trusting her own mind, her own ability to know what to do without reference to ideas that are not her own. Thus, once she has found some system of thought that seems reliable to her, she must constantly evaluate any new ideas that either contradict or alter what she has understood to be true. She is looking for something – a set of guidelines, an authority – to supply her with a direction in life, to tell her what she can and cannot do, to give her more clarity, to put limits on her. She is looking for, in a word, security.
Demeter is exceptionally puzzling because she is reactive, fluctuating from one state to another, usually opposite, state very quickly. She can be baffling and frustrating because her emotional states and attitudes can be so contradictory: she can be engaging and funny, then cranky and negative; decisive and self-assertive, then indecisive and self-doubting. While she seeks the approval of those who are important to her, she resists being in a position of inferiority. She is obedient, then openly disobedient, intentionally deviating from what the authority has told her to do. As a result, she is a very difficult cat to understand. She is often so enigmatic, even to those closest to her, that the most others can say about her is that she is easy to like but hard to get to know.
Not only is Demeter ambivalent toward others. She is ambivalent toward herself. She likes herself, and then disparages herself, feeling inferior to others. She has confidence, and then feels hopeless and defeated, as if she could not do anything without help from someone else. She'll feel weak-kneed and cowardly, then suddenly fill with rage and strike out at others. A double set of dependent and aggressive impulses operates in her, continuously interacting in various complex combinations because Demeter reacts ambivalently to not only the external authority, but to her own internal superego.
As much as possible, Demeter wants to avoid being in this anxious, ambivalent state, so she works hard to build structures into her life that gives her stability and continuity. As long as she knows the rules of the game, and has some sense that she is supported by others in her life, she can be a consistent, steady presence and accomplish a great deal. But therein lies the problem. Demeter makes her internal stability dependent on the stability of her external environment. As long as everything in her life is running reasonably well, she feels secure and is able to cope with things. As soon as problems arise, however, she is quickly thrown into a storm of confusion and emotional reactions. Her self-doubt and suspiciousness arises and she is right back in her ambivalence and unsteadiness.
The result of this is that Demeter oscillates rapidly from one emotional state to another. There is little emotional stability or interpersonal security she can call her own. She has an enormous amount of trouble with the 'doing', not only because she looks outside of herself for direction, but because the actions she takes for herself are typically indecisive and circuitous. It is impossible to understand Demeter without understanding her oscillating nature. Maintaining her sense of self requires that both sides of her psyche interact with each other. She cannot emphasize one side of herself and ignore the other – for example, she cannot become independent by supressing her dependent side. For better or worse, she is an amalgam of both sides of herself. When she is healthy, both sides work hand in hand with each other. However, as tension between her two sides increases, so does anxiety, and therein lies the source of most of her problems.
Faults: Demeter's weakness is related to the fear that she will not be able to support herself. She therefore relies heavily on structures, systems, and traditions. While seeking the security of an external system or authority for guidance, she is at the same time suspicious of that authority. She worries that her support system will abandon her. This manifests in generalized paranoia, suspicion, and skepticism. She unconsciously puts her support to the test, lashing out at her leaders or loved ones.
This defensive attitude can be so ugly and opinionated that it isolates Demeter from her loved ones. She lacks confidence in her inner guidance and is often unable to make quick decisions without others' opinions. She also often finds herself proceeding with so much caution that progress is too slow or ineffective.
Describing Word: Doubting
History: There has never been much stability in Demeter's life. She was born in a shelter, where her mother and all of her littermates were adopted quickly and before her. From too young an age, she learned that the world is inherently unstable and unreliable. She was adopted after a couple of weeks, but the humans gave up and took her back when they quickly realized that they could not handle a kitten. She was in and out of the shelter for the first couple months of her life, adopted, then abandoned, over and over. Eventually, an older couple with multiple cats adopted her. They lived near the Junkyard, and she found the Jellicles and joined the tribe without much thought.
She never felt very settled with the Jellicles. It felt like a temporary home to her. She made friends easily, though, and one such friend was Macavity. His visionary ideas gave her hope and confidence that her world might eventually become stable and reliable through simple improvement. If there was ever a 'best friend' in Demeter's life, it was him. His exile from the Jellicles shook her deeply, and took the strongest sense of guidance and structure that she had. She did not, unfortunately, feel confident enough to do anything about it. Macavity hardly had anything, and the Jellicles had the leadership she craved.
It was a few years later, when she heard that Macavity had established his own tribe, that she felt comfortable seeking him out. The embers of their previous friendship sparked, and they began an affair. None of the Jellicles were aware, and when she left to live permanently with him, most of them worried that she'd been taken, or worse. For a time, her life was perfect. Macavity provided a strong authority figure and always told her what to do and how to feel. Until, one day, his 'telling her how to feel' turned physical, and it was just... too much. She ran away and returned to the only place she felt she could trust – the Jellicles.
She never told anybody the truth about her time with Macavity, about how she went and stayed willingly. The Jellicles assumed the worse, and she loved the lengths they went to in order for her to feel safe and protected. Here paranoia, though, started to get the better of her. She could have sworn she saw Macavity out of the corner of her eye everywhere she went. He would want her back, she wasn't surprised. What did surprise her was that a part of her was glad that he did.
Stability was lost when she started questioning her comfort in the Junkyard. The memory of her time with Macavity tormented her. She wanted it back, but she was terrified. She'd tried for so long to force herself to feel comfortable, to feel at home in the Junkyard with the friends she loved, but she just couldn't. Macavity was the only one who could give that to her, as far as she was concerned. Knowing where he was all the time, having him tell her what to do, what to feel, how to behave. She needed that. She needed the anxiety to end. In the end, those needs got the best of her, and she ran from the Jellicles once more. Rumpus found her, alone and confused, and helped her find her way back to Macavity.
RP Sample:
The Jellicle Junkyard was far behind her, Rumpus in front of her, and a choice to be made. The Jellicles seemed to provide everything she thought she needed. There was safety there. There were friends who cared for her and families who welcomed her with open arms. Even still... their own leader, Old Deuteronomy, was so rarely seen in the Junkyard. How was he supposed to properly rule the Tribe when he spent most of his time on some wall? And what was she meant to do? She had no duties in the Junkyard, no responsibilities to speak of.
Rumpus told her that she could be better off with Macavity. She had no reason to believe that wasn't true. Macavity had been... half a nightmare... But she knew where she stood with him. She knew her role with him. And if he truly had changed, maybe he would no longer be so physical with his demands. Pressing her lips together, she drew her gaze to Rumpus's face.
”Can you take me to him?”
Comments: I am SO sorry for such a long personality, oh my gosh. I got excited. I blame x2 for egging me on! Also, sorry if the fault section seems repetitive of the personality. Her faults are so ingrained in her personality that it's hard to separate them, it seems!
