OOC
GAME: Kingdom University
DESCRIPTION: Disney archetypes attending university.
DATE: June 2008
PB: Evan Rachel Wood
JOURNAL: quellebimbette
CONCEPT: v2.0 of Louise. What can I say — my crazy histrionic blonde was just way too much fun to play.
IC
DISNEY CHARACTER: Bimbette #1 (BEAUTY & THE BEAST)
NAME: Louise Perrault
AGE / BIRTHDATE: 18 / December 15, 1989
SEXUALITY: Heterosexual
BIRTHPLACE: Berlin, Germany
YEAR: Sophomore → (ROY O. DISNEY COLLEGE OF FINE & APPLIED ARTS)
MAJOR: Fine Arts
EXTRACURRICULARS: An extremely loyal member of Delta Zeta, many of Louise's social connections were obtained through her sorority. She's also a contributing member of the Art Society and Film Society—people who know her as an artist often hate her for her pretentious empty snobbery, but people who know her as a movie aficionado might be shocked by the fact that there's some substance in that blonde skull after all. She also tried cheerleading as a freshman, but wasn't a success at it—since then, she's settled upon playing tennis weekly as her foremost form of exercise, and she's actually a surprisingly talented player within the club.
CURRENT RESIDENCE: Room 206 at the Delta Zeta house!
APPEARANCE: With a French-American father and a German mother, Louise is a melting pot of European characteristics and genes, and likes to think of herself as a posterchild for Aryan good looks. Her eyes are a light blue, her body skinnier than curvaceous, and her hair blonde—and even if her ideal pale blonde is a product of chemicals and bleach, well that's hardly a problem! it's why dye was invented! Additionally, she's usually a few months younger than most of her academic peers in school and university; it's resulted in continually trying to dress older and look older. Looking extremely similar to her older sister didn't help to quell that tendency, either; it's sort of been Lou's nefarious plan to be mistaken for Lil at some point in their lives, instead of just "oh, hey, that's Lil's little sister."
PLAYED BY: Evan Rachel Wood
PERSONALITY:
Growing up in the shadow of an older sister has made Louise—or Lou, as she's known amongst her circles of friendly boys and precarious female frenemies—into a ferociously standoffish and temperamental young woman. She's a creature of temper and anger, a firecracker personality and fluctuating moodswings: at her worst, she can be the textbook definition of histrionic personality disorder, drawing attention and indulging in excessive theatrics when it suits her purposes. But at her best, she's a fast conversationalist, a witty flirt, an entertaining friend, and absolutely desperate for your respect and esteem if she feels you're a person worth being respected by. Above all things, Louise is determined on—and addicted to—being the center of attention. Throughout her life, she could feel herself slipping into the faceless crowds of pretty blondes with a penchant for shopping and miniskirts; she knows she's comfortable with this lifestyle, of course, but that doesn't mean she can't want some separate identity too! She wants to be memorable; she wants to be Louise, not just Bimbette #1 Preppy Sorority Girl #27.
To her credit, she's not very interested in behaving like something she's not. Lou is very straight-forward, very honest, and if she has a problem with you, will more than likely confront you rather than resorting to stabs in the back. She also only throws up the simpering, sycophantic facade around people she hopelessly respects and idolises—but unluckily for her, Lou has a tendency to fall briefly but powerfully into infatuation when certain boys come along. She's a sly and cunning valley girl if ever there was one, however; she calculates social situations with panache, pitching in well-timed dramatic histrionics and temper tantrums in order to get what she wants. During childhood, getting angry always seemed the best way to deflect her parents' attention away from her sister—but somehow, young Lou just never considered aiming for Lillian Perrault's academic success instead.
When her temper's riled up, Louise is all huster, bluster, and shrieking capital letters—but it's all show. She does throw up a big outcry, but the moment the other party puts their foot down and makes a final stand, the woman will, frankly, crumple. She backs down and folds in on herself. All of her temper, the stubborn set of her jaw, her fuming and controlling side—it's only an attempt to get honest-to-god attention, rather than getting her way. She likes being looked at and fawned over, but not necessarily being right. In fact, were the metaphorical Gaston to pick her up, say that her silly little female mind has got everything all wrong and he'll handle all the important decisions from now on, thank you very much—she wouldn't really mind. The woman is seemingly allergic to responsibility, flighty in her loyalties, and has a chronic history of never putting her foot down. She often defers decisions to others and puts up that brave front in order to conceal the fact that she's all talk and no walk: Lou cannot back up her dominant personality, for all she wishes that she could. She might pretend to be a hardass cutthroat bitch, but she cried at Pride & Prejudice like any other girl. Her hopeless romanticism and occasional true devotion to the male gender is actually her Redeeming Quality #12, along with a fond and genuine attachment to Audrey Hepburn films.
She gets an absolute thrill off power and feeling high and mighty, and she fights to experience that feeling as much as possible. This isn't to say that she spends every waking moment trying to cut others down. No, she's perfectly capable of showing loyalty and sticking her neck out for others—it's the pack mentality of the bimbette and sorority girl, after all, ~*~we ride together we die together~*~—but she tries to keep the number of people on that self-sacrifical list very, very low. People must earn her loyalty!
When it comes to men, Lou will strut her European connection as much as she can—for good reason, too, since the exotique! angle has gotten her laid more often than not. She likes affecting worldliness, referencing her past jaunts in various countries, obsessively following new fashion trends, airkisses, clubbing, and avant-garde art—in short, she seems fairly doomed to growing up into prime eurotrash.
LIKES: Reality shows, of which she possesses shameful addictions to the following: Top Model, Project Runway, Survivor, The Bachelor, The Simple Life, MILF Island, but not Big Brother, thank you. Eurovision. Tennis, but more playing than watching. Audrey Hepburn. Marilyn Monroe, who is her idol forever. Miniskirts which aren't too mini. Cute boys with cuter accents who know art and film. But even moreso, buff jocks with tousled hair, impeccable sports records, and reeking of social popularity. Gossip blogs: Perez Hilton and ohnotheydidnt. European Vogue.
DISLIKES: Mouth-breathers ughhhh. Fake tans. People pointing out her accent without saying it's awesome. People impeding her PROGRESS, okay. People dissing her art. Desperate guys. When hard-to-get guys don't give her the time of day but she's head-over-heels for them. Being ignored by her parents. Lil being all stupid and professional and married and successful.
HISTORY: Diplomat brats to the core, Louise—and her elder sister by two years, Lillian—grew up following their mother's apronstrings and their father's coattails around the world, shuttling locations every four years. Their father, Reuben, was and is a French ambassador, whilst his German-born wife, Christine, fulfilled the role of modern housewife—playing bridge, and attending lunches and soirees with the other ambassadors' wives pretty much all week. Consequently, the girls had a German mothertongue, rusty French fathertongue, and an English accented from years of international schooling and foreign countries; a good few of her childhood years were spent in Germany and Lou is most comfortable with that language, but paranoid about her English. Her grammar does slip occasionally, she often forgets words, and her vocabulary simply isn't as extensive as a native speaker—but she's sort of comfortable with it as long as people don't openly remark upon her awkward speech.
When it comes to schooling, Lou always found herself entering schools in Lillian's wake, condemned to being the little sister and little more than a pale clone of Lil's stunning looks and intellectual prowess. It would be the main driving force behind her acting out in the following years; after all, one too many occasions of "Why can't you be more like Lillian?" played havoc on the self-esteem, and eventually Lou became more than a little narcissistic, selfish, and histrionic to deal with it. The ever-shifting melting pot of international schools made Louise open-minded and tolerant, but socially irresponsible, lax in morals, and indifferent to loss of friends. Their father was a domineering but perennially absent figure; he made all of the important decisions in the family from afar, whilst their mother was a reed bowing in the wind to his authority. It's led to Louise straining somewhat to get their focus and to obtain her father's respect and, subconsciously, approving of men as a dominant Alpha Male (TM) type. In her childhood, Louise was the type to get ridiculously obsessed with boy idol after boy idol: there were posters all over her walls, memberships to fan clubs, and stacks upon stacks of fashion magazines. To this day, she still stays plugged in to celebrity news and makes her bedroom look decidedly girly-vintage.
The family finally hit American shores in time for the girls to start heading off to university. Since they were based in Florida at the time, Lou made the decision for herself easy by choosing Kingdom U. After an experimental first year, she's already decided to major in visual art—ever since, she's become rather snobby and annoying about it. ("OBVIOUSLY you just don't UNDERSTAND my art. It has a STATEMENT, okay.") Astonishingly enough, however, she's actually moderately successful with it—she's had some pieces displayed at a local coffee shop in the city. The art is her way of trying not to be the typical blonde airhead, but really, the stereotype still shows: Lou still possesses a delicate sensibillity, a vicious preoccupation with her own looks and with maintaining her position at the top of the pecking order, an incessant fascination with jocks, and an aversion to any sort of hard work. In fact, she would have fit in extremely well with the indolent luxury of Austenian times: ruthless socialites aiming to marry big and nothing else.
In her spare time, she holds down a cashier job at the Virgin Megastore to rustle up some spare cash. She could live off her parents' wallets with ease, but as well as being soft on his girls, Reuben still encourages fiscal responsibility—so yes, she works at the megastore, usually lounging at her check-out desk with her feet up and popping her bubblegum.
NOTES
- Girly vintage bedroom, à la this: http://community.livejournal.com/ourbedrooms/1151706.html#cutid1
