Post by scout houghton dallas villiers on Dec 18, 2013 19:02:09 GMT -5
SCOUT HOUGHTON DALLAS VILLIERS
FULL NAME: Scout Houghton Dallas Villiers.
NICKNAMES: Her “family” dubbed her Baby Seal for a while.
AGE: twenty.
SEXUALITY: straight.
STATUS: single
GROUP: student
GRADE: sophomore
MAJOR: Art studies
JOB OCCUPATION: Bakery Assistant.
HAIR: Naturally, she’s blonde, but Scout has played with hair dyes and colours since she was barely a teenager. It’s impossible to predict what colour she’ll be next. She prefers to keep it long and straight, but often likes a break in the routine. If it’s up, it’s usually a cute bun adorned with some adorable accessory she’s found or made.
EYES: brown.
SCARS/BIRTHMARKS: She has one just behind her left ear, hidden mostly by her hair. It’s from her ventricular shunt but no one can really tell unless she shows it..
TATTOOS: The word “baby seal” in elegant calligraphy on her left wrist. It’s a reminder of the act she had just a few short years ago. She also has a circus themed piece started on her right thigh, but it’s only had a couple of sittings and her final design has a lot more detail, colour and scripture to add to it! It’ll take some time to get that one perfected, but Scout sees it as being totally worth the pain, time and cost, since it is basically going to symbolise her life..
PIERCINGS: Ears once, left rook, left helix, right tragus, right conch!..
PLAY-BY: Charlavail Effron!
LIKES: art, the circus, having a steady home, music boxes, vintage posters, seeing her family, being covered in paint, cake icing, thunderstorms, travelling, photographs, hair dye, toffee popcorn, corde lisse, being outside, camping, custard tarts, hearing other languages, meeting new people, stories, camp fires, train journeys, Moulin Rouge, hats, flowers, her job, chalk, physical “tricks”, Spanish Web, bright designs, skulls, festivals, Frappuccinos, umbrellas, art galleries, food in general...
DISLIKES: spending time in hospital, when her bag rattles, getting sunburnt, pins and needles, people being cruel, criticism of her family/friends/history, celebrity gossip, most television, unnecessary crudeness, not being able to do any training (even though she doesn’t actually need to), migraines/headaches, paintbrushes being ruined, excuses, closed mindedness, missing her “home”, being yelled at, upsetting people, plain yoghurt, arrogance, being underestimated, fog, her eyes acting up.
FEARS: permanent blindness, being mugged, octopus/octopi (specifically giant octopi).
SECRETS: Scout often doesn’t mention that she came to New York and to college because she wanted to make the most of her artistic talent. She thinks sometimes that one day she won’t have that gift anymore and so needs to chase those dreams while she still can. It’s mainly her fear of going blind that puts the thought into her head, but Scout tries to convince herself otherwise, since she doesn’t want fear to guide her life...
PERSONALITY: Scout is a happy-go-lucky kind of girl, who tries not to let any problems get the better of her light hearted nature. She’s undeniably free-spirited and doesn’t let life keep her down; if she feels trapped or bored then she’ll quickly abandon her things to move on to something else. She’s innocent to city life, having spent her life constantly travelling in the same lax and characterised society. Her naivety might lead others to take advantage of her, but Scout is trusting and doesn’t believe people would do that to her. With the lifestyle that came with her childhood, she’s creative to the core, with a vivid imagination that rarely slows down for a moment. Quirky with some curious habits, Scout often finds herself needing to explain parts of her life to others. She doesn’t mind that, though; she enjoys hearing and sharing stories and getting to know people better. Scout might not look it, but she’s strong, both physically and mentally. She’s had to put up with a lot over the years and with her first plan for her future, it was a necessity to be in tip-top shape! She wears her heart on her sleeve, ruled by her emotions, Scout can sometimes make silly mistakes because of her feelings, but she will always trust in them rather than the voices of doubt that she seems to think accompany logic. She’s not an angry girl by nature, but if you push the right buttons then you end up with an exploding pocket-sized artist on your hands with plenty of opinions to share, even if they don’t make much sense! A romantic dreamer, Scout almost lives permanently in the clouds with her thoughts often getting ahead of her, building her hopes up and leaving her prone to disappointment. Still, she tries to remain optimistic, no matter how many times she’s knocked to the ground!
MOTHER: Alana Nicole Villiers, 45.
FATHER: Jason Mathias Villiers, 47.
SIBLINGS: Brooklyn Leonardo Jacob Villiers, 22.
OTHERS: Lucile Juliette Noble, 28.
PETS: Punch & Judy, Lionhead Rabbits
HOMETOWN: Scout was born in Elyria, Ohio, but she’s never had a city or town to call home before New York..
HISTORY: Jason and Alana had lived a life of the unconventional. Jason had spent his whole life travelling and perfecting his act and Alana was an acrobat who joined the troop when she ought to have been considering colleges. Running away with the circus sounded like a romantic idea that quickly became a reality for the pair. Alana was quickly welcomed into the travelling family and Jason has been raised on the road, finally stepping up to the plate as a fire eater. Their romance resulted in a quick marriage during an out-of-season break period and then they had their two children; Brooklyn and Scout.
Alana’s parents expected her to leave the circus, find a house, a real job and settle down, but after hearing the stories of Jason’s own childhood and watching the other acts’ kids running around the sites she couldn’t bring herself to deny her own children the chance to see the world from the magic of The Big Top. Her parents kept expressing their concerns and criticisms, but she was determined, and both Brooklyn and Scout spent their youth travelling with the circus.
During the day, whether they were travelling or setting up, one of the performers would wrangle the children together for “school”, but it was hardly the normal sitting. There would be an average of thirty of them sitting in a quiet tent on the site and the qualified teacher would go through the usual, conventional lessons before throwing something extra in about the circus or the acts. He found it kept the kids focused on the mundane stuff like maths, rather than trying to crawl back outside to see what the laughter or the yelling was about. The teacher was actually one of the men on stilts who walked around outside, but he had gone to college to appease his parents’ wishes. It was only after a darker time in his life did he wind up travelling with the circus with the original intention of just being a teacher, but no one can stay with the circus and not get caught up in the magic of it all!
When Scout wasn’t in class, she had hours to follow around some of the acts, help out where she could and even practice some little tricks herself; there wasn’t a kid in the “family” who couldn’t juggle! She might not have had a stable home; living out of train compartments or trailers was hardly a fancy life, but she had a family in most of the performers. Some came and went over the years, but the dynamic always stayed the same and there were people, like her parents, who said the circus was in their blood. They were all there for each other, no matter what, and everyone joked around and including the children as much as possible. Scout got her first taste of the Big Top when she was just eight, dressing in a pretty costume and taking part in the parade with a simple baton twirling trick her aunt had taught her. All of them did something and while most of the time those little tricks were rarely extended and developed, it gave the children something to do, rather than leaving them whining about not being allowed to join in with their parents!
Scout’s own passion came with the aerial acts. With her mother’s permission, she was allowed to learn a few little tricks when she was eight, but obviously she was barely off the ground and there was never any real danger. As she got older, she got to be more daring and learn more things. Scout had every intention of staying with the circus just like her parents had done. Brooklyn also wanted to stay with the family and the life they had grown up with, already well on his way to mastering a trapeze act! Scout spent her available time on the ropes and silks, twisting and training with the performers whenever she could. She was close with a Spanish woman, Lucille, who had joined the circus when Scout had been ten and who had offered to take Scout and train her in the art of the Spanish Web and Corde Lisse, which were her own acts. She had been raised in a European circus and had moved when she met her fiancé during a winter cruise act. She showed Scout how to work with the tricks, expanded on the simple things the tiny girl already knew and incorporated it all into a simple act for Scout to keep practicing.
At fourteen, she took to the Big Top with her first ever performance. Lucille watched from the side, almost as proud as Scout’s parents at the little girl. After that, whenever Scout wasn’t daydreaming her way through class, she was training, perfecting and improving her skills. She wanted to be able to do all the things Lucille could do in the air and was willing to put in all the work required of her. Her mother gave her the nickname “Baby Seal” since everyone called Lucille “Ceal”, and Scout was essentially a miniature version of the woman when it came to the act. When she was old enough, they even got the tattoos inked on their skin as an inside joke and tribute to the time they spent together. They perfected a little duet act, too. Lucille would start off solo and then Scout would tumble in and copy the woman at first with a delay, then simultaneously and end up ahead of her in a rather comical overtake that they had to sort of imply how fast Scout was learning.
During her teenage years, Scout certainly stood out from a crowd. She loved to play with the hair dyes she could find and she was the girl plastering the posters around the city when the circus rolled into town, usually singing and dancing as she did it. She still kept on with her home schooling, but her talent came with art. It had started about the same time as she found her love for flying. She helped the workers fix up damaged posters or displays that got chipped on the travels or just showed signs of wear and tear. Scout was fifteen when she sat up one night after an adrenaline rush gave her the energy and she painted an entire colourful mural on the side of one of the stands inside the Big Top. After that, she was allowed to spend time painting other things, like the trailers and the containers. She found it soothing and gave her a break from training when her body cried out for it or Lucille was having a date with her husband.
When Scout was sixteen, she took ill. She had complained of headaches for over a year, but since she had glasses already and with her busy lifestyle, the doctors just shrugged it off as hormone imbalances and stress. It was only after she panicked during a session on the ropes that her family realised more was at play. Scout had been working on a new routine, when suddenly she had completely lost her vision. She had fallen, luckily not far, and her vision had returned after a few minutes. This time, in the ER, it was discovered that there was a pressure behind her eyes, pushing down on the optic nerve and causing the headaches. They referred her for more tests and treatments and everyone feared the worst. The family stayed in Phoenix where the circus had been at the time of Scout’s fall. She was diagnosed with pseudotumor cerebri, which only sounded terrifying. The doctor explained that the greatest threat would be to Scout’s eyesight, which had rapidly deteriorated to the point where she was feeling around for things. Luckily, it was treatable. They drained away the pressure and started her on a cocktail of medications that ought to have kept the problem at bay.
The family caught up to their home and Scout was welcomed back as though she had been off on some grand quest. Things seemed good, but by the time her seventeenth birthday rolled around, she had stopped at four more hospitals along the way to have more pressure drained away and her eyesight corrected again. Her vision distortions were temporary each time, but the threat of permanence still lingered. She did find herself wearing her glasses more, only switching to contacts for when she was performing or training. Finally, her parents asked for more solutions. The cost was getting ridiculous and Scout’s life was constantly thrown out of sync by the bursting headaches and vision loss. The doctor recommended a ventricular shunt to act as a permanent solution, but he reminded the family that there would always be the threat of something going wrong and Scout needing to spend some time in hospital. Still, Scout said it was better than the current treatment plan and asked her parents to let the doctors go ahead with the shunt operation.
Scout took the whole thing in her stride with a smile. The hospital was a little confused by the colourful characters and the young girl’s quirky attitude, but everything went well. After a period of rest, Scout was allowed to return to her training and her aerial act with only one small stint in hospital over the winter of her eighteenth year. It had been to remove a blockage in the shunt, a couple of days of bed read and she had felt great again. The circus was getting ready for its next generation of performers as the older members considered less physical roles and everyone expected Scout to be up there, performing and travelling throughout her own life, too.
She wanted it, she really did, but things kept her awake at night; thoughts she couldn’t quash. When things had been bad and Scout had been upset about her problems, Lucille had joked that she could do her act with her eyes closed and Scout knew the woman was right. Most of the time she did have her eyes closed and the vision loss wasn’t really a threat to her performance…but that didn’t mean that Scout accepted the idea of potentially going blind. The blind-spot of her left eye already ruled her out of a driving licence if she ever wanted one; the field was too large for her to be considered safe on the road. There was a lot she wanted to do with her life, but had never really considered until it had been thrown in front of her life this. She had travelled her whole life, seen wonderful things and met crazy people who held a special place in her heart, but she wanted to know what else was out there. She had another passion in her art, one that could die out if she lost her vision. Plus, the circus would always be her home and there would always be a place there for her if she ever wanted it; even if it was just painting faces.
She told her parents and Brooklyn first, giving them a list of things she wanted to accomplish in her life. One of those things was college. She knew there was work to be done to get a place, but Scout wanted a taste of those years after hearing stories from other people. She ended up with a late acceptance to NYU to study art, some of her circus murals closing the deal for her. New York would be the first address she wrote down on anything and when the Big Top headed out that way they helped her find an apartment and decorated it for her. Everyone gave her a bit of their life to remind her of them all. They even painted the place like the Big Top to make her feel at home, and left walls for her to continue with her murals. Ridiculous photos, headdresses and props became sentimental décor and Lucille even had a much smaller version of Scout’s ropes installed in the spacious loft apartment to “keep her form” as she joked. It had been meant as a joke, but Scout often wrapped herself up in them to unwind or to move from floor to floor.
She missed the circus when they left and Brooklyn gave her two pet rabbits to keep her company. Punch and Judy lacked the animation she was used to, but they were cute and comforting when she needed them to be. Her apartment looked like some chaotic place to anyone else, but Scout actually found serenity in the cluttered vanity that had more face paint and costume make-up in the drawers than anyone even needed. She loved waking up under The Big Top, despite living in the city and the colourful apartment and themed cubby’s helped stop the homesickness setting in.
Whenever the circus came back through the state, Scout dropped everything to head back out there and, if she could, took to the silks to perform with Lucille again. During the summer she practically ran to meet up with her family and spend a month or two travelling, catching up and performing. Her heart still belonged to the circus, but she knew that she had other things to do with her life. She never lost her eccentrics, even when people criticised or insulted her lifestyle. Scout will never be the kind of girl to favour routines and 9-5 positions; her heart is much too accustomed to a free lifestyle for that. She loved catching people off guard with silly little circus tricks that she had picked up in her youth and held onto. Even if they hadn’t been part of her act, some of the little things were great ice breakers or helped calm children down when they were screaming in the grocery line.
A sophomore now, Scout is still trying to decide if having roots and a fixed address is all it’s cracked up to be. She’s still as free-spirited as ever, often toeing along the line of theatrical when everyone else is being serious. There’s a lot to learn, a lot of decisions to throw at her and probably mistakes to be made, but Scout won’t regret this choice, regardless of where she ends up in life; be it with a white fence and a “normal” job or travelling on the road again.
YOUR ALIAS: KIM.
RULE WORDS: kidnappedbykim.
WHERE YOU FOUND US: In the night sky.
SAMPLE:Pssh!
