Renata Quincey Valentine*

[Lord_Shadow*]

Name: Renata Quincey Valentine
Gender: Female
Age: 17
Grade: 12
School: Aurora High School
Hobbies and Interests: Music, Singing, Songwriting, Dancing, Mimicry, Adventuring

Appearance: Renata stands at 5' 6", weighs in at 120 lbs, with lightly flushed white skin, brown eyes, and lighter black hair. Her facial features are average enough that nothing really stands out. She wears corrective lenses for farsightedness, but usually prefers to forgo glasses in favor of contacts, though she has both if needed. Still, if her contacts are unavailable for whatever reason, she prefers to go without glasses anyway. Her arms and legs are slightly longer than average for her build, but it's not enough of a difference to affect her center of gravity or movement. Renata likes dying her hair various colors, mostly dark with the occasional light color thrown in. She likewise paints her fingernails varying colors as well.

Her clothing style can be considered 'cute', if one shares her taste. Much as her music tastes, her clothing tastes are varied and many. She often wears no fewer than 3 layers of clothing, gloves, boots, long socks, and at least 2 belts. Renata also has a preference for neck-wear, from necklaces to bands to 'collars' complete with straps. (She insists they aren't. Her reasoning: no leash, no collar.) She also wears a ring on every finger if at all possible, though the impracticality of such practices leaves her with around 3 on each hand at best.

Biography: Born just outside Rouen, France to Evelyn Leblanc, the younger and more adventurous of identical twin sisters, Renata was a handful straight from birth. The child would explore anywhere she could get, examine every object she could get her hands on, and follow anything that caught her fancy. She, her mother, and her father lived a happy and almost idyllic life together in France. But as she grew from baby to toddler, the stresses between her parents surfaced and boiled. Their incompatibilities apparent, they split. Her father returned to England and his music. Her mother took her and returned back to their extended family in America. Renata was 5 years old when she left the area near Rouen and came to Seattle.

Despite being born in France and learning French as her first language, not much of it stuck with Renata. She learned and kept English far more, though she occasionally peppers her speech with what little French she remembers to keep an exotic flare to her. She and her mother were taken in by her mother's sister and their family. Renata grew up considering Seattle her home-away-from-her-real-home, but home nonetheless. She did promise herself she'd see France again someday. Her adventurous nature stuck with her through childhood, exploring everywhere she could with her friends and family. She also started mimicking the speech of near everyone who talked to her. But mimicry wasn't the end of her vocal talents. She started humming and singing along to any tune she heard. The girl loved music with a passion seen elsewhere only in her father.

Though she didn't much know him, Renata ended up being almost exactly like him. Her taste in music varied, and the genres and styles she liked were as numerous as the songs she sung. At her insistence, her mother brought her to a vocal coach to teach her how to sing better. Her natural vocal talent and sweet sounding voice combined with her training to give her a pretty impressive singing voice for a girl her age. It also helped her mimicry, which she still kept up, sound more like the people she was mimicking. But Renata didn't stop with simply singing. She delved in writing music and songs as well as dancing. She wasn't as good at any of those as she was singing, but she loved it nonetheless.

Her interactions with others were spotty at first. Along with an adventurous nature, Renata had an air of self-confidence bordering on narcissism. She loved making a grand display of herself with her talents, drawing attention whenever she could. She acted as foreign and exotic as possible almost to the point of ridiculousness. Though she isn't antagonistic to anyone, her egocentrism was a bit much for most people. Though, she did turn it down a bit whenever she was around her cousin. As she grew and developed, she did change her perception of people. She remained as egocentric as ever, but expanded that egocentrism bubble of though to include her friends as well as her cousin. Still, outsiders opinions and thoughts aren't as important to her as her friends'.

In school, she didn't put as much effort into things as she does in music. As such, she stood on the verge of failing several classes. While she had the ability to do well, she lacked the motivation. Her laziness in that regard caused her mother no end of headaches. Casually blowing off the suggestions and pleas of teachers and family, Renata did the bare minimum to get by and then only if she was going to fail for sure. She just wasn't interested in schoolwork or activities. She was interested, however, in forming her own band. But apart from music and friends, nothing really caught Renata's interest or attention. Nearly everything that could help her later on in life, she considered boring. Naturally, this left a bit behind in knowledge compared to her peers.

And of course, the changes that come to all growing children came to Renata as well. But, while her classmates became interested in each other and dealt with the nature of their sexuality, Renata's mind was made up. She was infatuated with her cousin Seth, that was that, and no amount of social disapproval or advances by her peers would change her mind. She wanted what she wanted, taboos and problems inherent be damned. Of course, she never said so aloud, but her actions and demeanor were obvious to anyone paying attention. All in all, Renata was not the most thoughtful girl, and her thoughtlessness made itself most apparent in that decision. She would find a way to have him, no matter what.

The feelings stemmed from all the time they spent together as children, growing up side by side. As little kids they were the closest of friends, and almost inseparable. Though a year younger than him, Renata felt like he really understood her. Although the two of them have vastly different interests, their personalities mesh well together. He helped reign in more of her outlandish nature, while she opened him up to entirely different worlds with her adventuring. What also helped her growing infatuation along was his insistence of treating her with the utmost respect and honor no matter what. His almost knightly chivalric ideology had him defending her from any threat and comforting her when she needed it. The boy treated her more like a sister than a cousin, letting her depend on him for anything. And she took that dependence factor to it's logical conclusion, convincing herself they were destined to be together.

Of course, it wasn't just him this infatuation of hers changed her social dealings with. She was always very protective of him, and very jealous of anyone or anything that drew his attention away from her. Even among their mutual friends she was quite cold, mean, and sometimes outright vicious to anyone she perceived to be getting between them. This was much more apparent to other girls, as anyone with even the slightest hint of interest in Seth would find themselves dealing with a very angry and vengeful Renata. Coupled with his apparent obliviousness to the obviousness of her feelings, and his protection of her, not much was ever able to part them for any significant amount of time. Their parents were likewise oblivious at first, seeing it at little more than them just continuing to be close friends into adulthood. But as time passed their parents realized what was going on, and they wanted it to stop. So after a stern talking to by her mother and some very clear warnings from her aunt and uncle, Renata promised to stop. So she did, at least whenever they were around. She quickly learned to pretend not to care around them, and with Seth never seeming to get it, that enabled her to keep it under wraps for much longer than before. But what she did not know was that it was not so much that Seth didn't know about her feelings. It was more like he ignored the evidence and went on acting as though it wasn't real. He did so in order to calmly and safely let her know what she wanted wouldn't happen. But his enforced ignoring of her feelings did nothing to deter her.

Advantages: She doesn't have much going for her, but the mimicry could provide a distraction. Not an altogether useful one, but a distraction is a distraction. Also, her adventurous nature has left her a bit fearless. And fearlessness in the face of danger will certainly prove useful.
Disadvantages: Egocentrism is never an advantage. Ignoring the advice and warnings of others in favor of doing her thing will most assuredly cause her no end of trouble. And her laziness in everything but her interest groups won't help her accomplish anything, that's for sure.