[Fiona Marion Buckley]

FIONA MARION BUCKLEY
cellophane, mr. cellophane,
shoulda been my name,
mr. cellophane



H U M A N . CIVILIAN

My name is Fiona but you can call me Fi if that's got too many syllables for you to handle. I might look like I'm over thirty but I'm actually only Twenty-Eight ; hard to believe, right? Roughly, I'm 5'5" tall, last I checked, and I'd be the first to admit I'm a little on the neurotic side, but don't hold that against me. Loads have people have told me how much I resemble Sarah Chalke and i honestly wish I looked that good.

F I R S T . I M P R E S S I O N S

For anyone who happens to give Fi even the passing bit of attention that she so constantly craves - and equally fears - she looks like Bambi skittering on the ice. There's a nervous apprehension that clings to her and, the harder she tries to keep her head above water, keeps trying to laugh it away, the more apparent it becomes. People either think it's cute and adorable, or that she is to be pitied as a social failure, uncomfortable standing alongside her fellow man.

F A S H I O N . P A S S I O N

When she's at her regular job, she has a sense of business about her and it's about the only time she will wear what the girls in the office are too - namely because she has no sense of fashion to call her own and any time she's tried to make her choice in wardrobe work for her in the confines of the straight laced Simmons Building... well, it hasn't translated very well. So it's high waisted skirts and tucked in blouses, very form fitting and understandably she hates it, so she'll try to distract the attention on her mundane attire with glittering hair ornaments and silk flowers.


The rest of the time, however, Fiona needs to feel like an individual, when she was little she did it by always wearing costumes to play group, when she was in school she did it by joining the ranks of goths and 'boggers' in the year above, college it was dreadlocks. These days, she likes to think she's grown up considerably and knows how to dress like a mature adult. That's not to say she doesn't still avoid trends like the plague. Now she goes in for silky, metallic shaded blouses, chiffon dresses with bejewelled neck lines, and anything in pastilles or some variety of purple. She wouldn't look out of place in a 70's dress-up party, lets put it that way.


Free-flowing forms are noticeable common-place on her clothes racks, and that goes for trousers as much as it does tops. Fi dislikes feeling constrained and the fact she is very conscious about her weight doesn't help either. So if she has a birthday coming up and you want to get her something nice, look for busy floral patterns and hand her a bunch of bright or glittering makeup and she'll be happy as larry... if Larry is an average-weight woman that stresses when she bloats after a meal and wears an excessive amount of makeup to cover how stressed out and old she looks because how stressed out she gets. Swings and roundabouts really isn't it.


Her hair is kept simple, she has never dyed it but keeps it highlighted, though in its natural state it's pretty golden in all uses of the word. When you spend as much time worrying about every other facet of your appearance as Fi does, you learn to let your hair do what it wants when it falls into naturally bouncy curls and wave anyway, so it gets a trim to set it back on her shoulders once in a while, and a spritz with anti-frizz on the way out of the house... maybe a few slides or hair flowers for good measure.

D I M P L E S . A N D . T H I N G S

Apart from inoculation scars from her youth, a couple of 'beauty marks' here and there, and the dent further back on her scalp from her forceps birth, Fiona doesn't have anything on her. Not even any piercings. As a child, and later as an adult, she was practically phobic about pain and lasting marks thanks to having witnessed a young boy crack his skull open after a fall from the monkey bars. She has pretty much avoided any activity or scenario that will cause her any harm whatsoever.

W H Y . D I D . Y O U . D O . I T

Get real, did you not read that last paragraph?

M A N . W I T H O U T . S K I N

A lot of what people pick up from Fiona's outward, on edge behavior, actually runs very deep. Ingrained in her from youth, by an overly aggressive and jealous mother, is that at any given moment she is apt to make a fool of herself and everyone will be looking at her for exactly the wrong reasons. And then they really 'notice' her; how fat she is, bad posture, her breath, her smile, the size of her hips, how lack luster her eyes are, her 'pig-nose' and so on, and so on. With all that playing through her mind at every given social situation, it gets very hard indeed not to start showing the cracks on the outside.


That's not all. As much as she shows of her insecurities involuntarily, it gets worse when she tries to connect with someone. Get her to sit down and open up and you'll get the full works. She misses the usual cue for when to shut up because she's gone to far, doesn't see her nervousness become someone else's when, in the first five minutes of conversation, they know the name of her primary school math teacher that everyone thought was a pervert that walked around looking down every blouse in the class.. apart from her's because she was a late bloomer and her mother thinks that even now she's yet to go through puberty and... you get the idea.


The only thing you could accuse the girl with the run away mouth of is being honest. She doesn't spin tales out of proportion to make herself look better, instead she hopes in earnest that if she tells her stories often enough, to a wide demographic, eventually someone out there will recognize her innate goodness and sweep her off her feet to make an even more honest woman out of her. It doesn't make her sound full of herself though, but it does make her sound desperate, which she is to a large degree, but more than that she wants a friend. And, although Fiona is frequently guilty of butting in, you'd never say she was blunt in her honesty, despite misunderstanding quite a bit about how to appropriately converse with other human beings. Hers is more of an insistent gradual interrupt of the 'Well... don't.. don't.. don't you think... I just wanted to say... that... ahem?' variety. Out and out, Fiona Buckley is a pleasant individual.


Her problem is that, straight out of the gate, she isn't a big personality and she comes across as far too keen to be part of everything that goes on. She can't 'take it or leave it' and always takes whatever she's given because she had never learned to seize what isn't offered up directly. A large part of why her relationships, platonic or otherwise, end eventually is because she lets herself get walked all over in her neediness, and happily enters relationships that are abusive, because it means more to her than it ought to when she gets included in something. She's the kind of girl you could ask to come over when it's raining, just to move buckets around when you've got a leak but need to head out. She needs a backbone transplant, stat.


Worst of all, Fiona knows about all her flaws but wraps them up in either sugar coating or denial when dealing with day to day life and saving the self-analysis for when she's watching reruns in her home all alone, spending hours a thinking about how she both draws attention to herself - for what she hopes is the right reasons - with her idea of style, and dreading it because what if, by bringing the eyes to her, she had inadvertently highlighted a disaster? And so the cycle goes on, and she'll go back out into the world thinking that the best she can do to make-up for her lack of confidence is by being over talkative, bubbly and chirpy no matter how fragile her facade. The sad truth is, Fi's real personality hides behind closed doors, panicked and lonely and forever over thinking. She's a sweet kid, but she gets on most peoples' nerves before they get half a chance to see it.


There is a determined string or two in F.B.'s heart, and she has enough courage to keep going at something in the optimistic hope it'll get her somewhere in the end. When it comes to men - or women for that matter - that doesn't seem to be the best tactic, leaving her coming off as something of a bunny boiler/stalker, but in work matters and life goals things are panning out fairly stably. She set her mind to graduate with a degree in textiles and production, has a nice little start-up sum under her belt, and can be at least a little firmly handed with the stockists. A gleaming sliver of hope for her adulthood.

S H O W . O F F

Talking a million miles an hour might not seem like the best thing in the world but if you actually manage to hit her jittery all over the place nerves you might get a rise from her. The best thing to do in that situation is to duck. No one can argue like this girl, and while she spends the rest of her time giving you the impression she's secretly a squirrel on the inside - high on crack - when she gets angry she manages to channel all that anger into her impressive vocabulary. Gird your loins, because she'll tear you a new one.


Organization is a key element of Fiona's life, not so much remembering where specifically she put things, but at the very least they'll be surrounded by a number of similar items. She likes labels. A lot. And actually has something of a collection of them in the drawer beside her button box. It has a calming effect on her to be able to sit and write labels on things, it's usually the first thing she does before even considering buying the presents to stick them on, and when she's drawing up paper patterns for clothes she likes to jot down the A-sides and B-tabs even though she's had what gets sewn on where memorized for years now.


Adaptability comes easy to Fi too, being a brat camp kid taught her to land on her feet and just get on with it. Its just unfortunate that she was always left soley in her mother's care, maybe if she'd been socialized properly as a youngster she would find it just as easy to get on around people.


Lastly, her most comprehensive skills relate to any area of textiles and garment creation. Very early on it was one of the few things she found she could bond with her Mother over, or rather, one of the few things they could sit and participate in without her Mother having a go at her for her physical attributes. What began as a hobby to while away the hours when she wasn't allowed to go out and play, is now what she is pinning - haha, geddit? - her future happiness on.

E P I C . F A I L

When the lass come across as ditzy or forgetful, it's not far from the truth. She can organize things until the cows come home, but asking her to organize herself is another matter entirely, and one that happens to be completely out of her control. She'll tell you the same sentence in five different ways, as though purging all possible alternate realities from her system and lets not discuss what happened when she was involved in the office party committee. Oh no. We won't be doing that again; too many people died last year.


Women like Fiona attract a certain kind of opportunistic asshole and their lives are made just that little bit easier by the fact that she's a complete sucker for them. Masochistic, some would say, she will always go crawling back to a guy who spoke down to her or acted selfishly, a lot faster than she will to one who just got bored of her neediness and walked away. The old adage applies keenly to Ms. Buckley.


Keeping her cool just walking from her desk to the toilet is hard enough, anything you'd care to mention would be an apt reason for the talented seamstress to fluster herself. She'll blush at the drop of a hat, literally; 'what if someone sees how big my arse is?!' And even if she's getting into a heated argument with someone, after the first few points she's made she starts to realize she is creating a scene and everything goes to pieces.

T R I C K S . F O R . T R E A T S

Beside being a good judge at everyone's measurement except her own, our girl is pretty plain jane!

L I K E S

The color Lilac. African Violet Incense. Clouds. Mint Hot Chocolate. Fried Crumpets. Sweet Pickle. White Chocolate. Thick eyeliner. High heels. Fashion week. Fairies. Indian Head Massage. The Little Build Up Toys You Get Inside Certain Sweets. Lucky Dips. Rag Rugs. Hand-Bag-Dogs. Kindred Neurotics. Lace. Brand New Irons. The Whirr Of A Well Oiled Sew Machine. H. P. Lovecraft. Diaries. Flowery Perfume. Forget me nots.Victorian Decor. Travel Shows.

D I S L I K E S

Dandruff. Animal Hair. Obvious Make Up. Electronic Organizers. Crinkle Fabric. Wire Hangers. Unusual Odors. Tiger Lily Pollen. Dying Plants. Sick People. Reggae Music. Falling Over. Her Figure. People Who Wear What They Eat. Talk Radio. Her Handwriting. Eating In Public. Online Social Networks. The Word 'Wallet'. Plastic. Hearing Aides. Make Over/Surgery Specials.

D O W N L O W

When fastening her shoe laces she can spend a full ten minutes just making sure the bows are as close to the same size as possible. She likes patterns and symmetry and having odd shoe laces is as bad having one tassle hanging lower than the other or off-on-shoulder jumpers and t-shirts.

Fi absolutely cannot leave the house without make-up, which is a shame because she used to have beautiful, flawless skin, and probably would do again if she just went a couple of weeks without. She's gotten good at making it look natural though, you won't see the powder settled on her skin and the lotions are never allowed to leave smear marks - it's hard work to accomplish though so give her at least two hours extra to get ready than what she says she'll need.

Being particular about how her furniture is arranged is another thing. Not to OCD proportions but she is a stickler on presentation and a chair that's tucked all the way under looks a lot neater than if left standing out at an odd angle. So if she comes to your house, don't be surprised that when you come back in with the drinks you catch her in the act of fluffing your cushions or getting the drapes on one side to match the number of folds in the other.

I M M E D I A T E

Stephen && Lucy Buckley.
Fiona has never formed much of an attachment to either of her parents. Her Father was barely there growing up, and whilst she would have loved to have his attention when he was it was always bestowed on her brother instead - this was never intentional, Stephen Buckley snr just didn't know what he was supposed to do with a little girl especially when she wasn't his own.

As for her Mother, there exists an icy, formal state of affairs in any interaction between them. Lucy was cold to both her children growing up but seemed to go a step further with her eldest - Fiona - in always criticizing her or poking holes in her confidence. Fiona keeps a tight lip when in the family home these days, better for avoiding handing over ammunition to her Mother.


____ Buckley
Her older brother, well, technically only half-brother thanks to her Mother's infidelities. Their relationship is as distant as it is to her parents, but probably doesn't need to be. Fi keeps her distance from her family in general and as such keeps him at arms' length just by association, blind to every attempt he has made to reach out to her and be there for her.


George Wainscot.
Fiona's biological Father. Lord knows why her parents stayed together after that little scandal did the rounds in the Army camp, but they did never the less. George visited Fiona whenever he could, pretending to be her Uncle until the day Stephen Buckley returned early. He hadn't known about the visits up until that point, had believed Lucy when she promised all ties had been cut. Fiona herself didn't find out that George was her real Father until Christmas Day when she was 23, hell had broken loose and harsh words exchanged and, without thinking, all had been revealed.

S I G N I F I C A N T

Andrew Hitchin.
Shamefully, this little pervert was her first kiss, amidst other things. He was older than her by a couple of years and encouraged the occasional game of 'doctor', which, in her innocence, she was only too happy to oblige. Needless to say, when her Mother came to find her one day she was none too pleased and the road toward full on verbal abuse from her Mother was fast forwarded.


Tobias Moore
Not everyone out there is a completely disinterested bastard, and it is starting to feel like Fiona has found something of a friend in the quiet and slightly disheveled librarian. Well, the guy can't help but have a little insight, being a telepath and all. Fi is quite taken by him, more because of his willingness to let her bend his ear than a phsyical attraction, but she's well known for getting her emotions confused in any event.


Mr. Mark Murton.
Hitchin was just the first of many older men that Fiona would go on to become involved with. Perhaps born of a need to replace an important male influence in her life after the absenteeism of her Father, or, more innocent still, a mess like Fi needs someone with strength and maturity enough for both of them. Mr. Mark Murton was a school teacher and she liked to refer to him formerly, always, and eventually that was not the only thing that he had had his fill of. Engaged at one point, he called off the ceremony to give them chance to try to piece it back together, but what grip she'd been able to hold onto slipped entirely and he left. It wasn't necessary for him to tell her it was all her fault, she'd readily assumed the responsibility.

T H I N G S . I V E . S E E N

What you'd call an army brat, wherever her Father was shipped off to, his wife and child were in tow, always living within the barracks, and never in the same country for more than 6 months. She got to see most of Europe and picked up a fancy for their bright, vibrant colours and fashions, but never the language. Her Mother was something of a biggot and refused to let little Fiona go out and play; after the age of 4 she was also home tutored, thus cutting out any chance at building social skills.


To pass the time Fiona would invent stories and make costumes to dress up her dolls, she would make intricate, introverted worlds where she was popular and witty and sought after by all. Her Mother often left her to it, stealing herself away into her bedroom with the scotch and Elvis Presley only to emerge several hours later with a sore head and a grudge to hold against her pretty blond daughter. Fiona Buckley grew up thinking herself fat, ugly and not worthwhile and her Mother led her to believe that she was an accident - it'd be all, well, mostly hugs and apologies when Lucy sobered up, but it would never undo the damage.


Years flitted by and Fiona tried to find ways to appease her Mother. Sewing being one of Lucy's pastimes when the drink cabinet ran dry, Fiona took it up too. They wouldn't talk, except when Mother was handing out corrections, but at least they weren't as spiteful as usual. Learning to associate needlepoint and bejeweling with an easy life, Fi grew to appreciate the craft on a genuine level and gradually took it up when it was time for her to end home tutoring and go to college. From there on she excelled, there wasn't much in the way of distraction in Further Education, not when you couldn't make friends or get boyfriends. So she got her head down, finished top of her class and went off to University.


During the Summer holidays between College and Uni she had taken her first job and learned to at least fake enough people skills to get by. It was around this time she met Mark, just before going back to University and then, over the next two years, things that had seemed to be going so well, were given just enough time to turn sharply sour. She got her masters but had few ideas to do anything with it other than to continue as a hobby. Ultimately she fell back into temporary work as she had done between terms of education, hopping job to job because, when the probationary period came up, her face just didn't seem to fit. She wasn't a 'team player'.

H E R E . A N D . N O W

These days Fi is at her wits' end, the thin threads holding her sanity together are near breaking. She reaches out to everyone but there's always a gap left between them. Her latest designs on opening her own shop are, at their heart, a means by which she can make people come to her for once. She knows her outfits are to die for and specializing in lingerie and bridal wear will make her just that little more sought after. Or so she dreams, anyway.

As far as money making goes, she is in her longest position ever as a secretary within the Simmons Building. She's barely acknowledged but likes to fantasize that she's the office gossip, assigning herself a role that bares a halo of glamour thanks to the ridiculous soaps and rom-coms she so tragically adores.

You can call me Boss Lady Lexxi and I'm in the GMT time zone. You guys suckered me in with teh smexxxi application form and I guess I'll be sticking around to post , dance and frolick many times per week. Tell you something though, where are all the mother truckin' shifter canons?!

` just don't forget me

R P . SA M P L E

Having no one to answer to apart from yourself and the occasional distraught local did, unquestionably, have its advantages. Pen fancied that she had never been so free as when the waters had gushed forth and wiped the slate clean, not that she felt that it was justified by any means - but what a way to start afresh! - , she was making the most of it and for someone like Penny that happened to be quite a substantial sum most of the time. The wealth of living at her finger tips, where when she’d gone hurtling towards her sixteenth her main concern had been having to surrender her weekends to learn the value of earning a crust. Painfully aware that in another branch of reality, one in which her parents had returned as they were meant to, she would not have been left at the boarding school to put up with mediocrity, and would have been back at their commune if not starting a new religion. The mundane was not part of the Porcelaine lifestyle, and the current reality allowed her to feast on that facet of her personality as much as she pleased.

So today was a day on indulgence, she was out and about looking to pick up a story or two; and Penny’s retellings were always told from the perspective of the one who had done the experiencing. The tales she was hunting today were those of long travelled objects as old things could have the most interesting of stories to retell, and they could recount in an instant something the could rewind and embellish for several hour’s worth of entertainment. Right now the plethora of individuals drifting through the streets held her imagination enough, so she had buried her hands deep into her pockets until a likely object caught her eye, digits toying with the spool of thread and collection of pebbles from various beaches on her right side.

Skipping past a clutch of what she could only deem to be Pirates, in a bat of her lashes she could see that the confidence trickster in the middle, flirting her finds for a decent price, much in difference to her bright and self-assured smile, was flaring in the pale yellow shades of anxiety. How wonderful, she thought.

Settling into her surroundings quite nicely now, she felt prepared to start shopping for memories, the almost matt hued eyes of hers roaming the stalls, quite surprised to see a fruit stall and a smile instantly sprang onto her already fairly illuminated face. Reaching out, observing the general etiquette of keeping her hands where the merchant could see them at all times, the fruit told her it had come from an underground farm, it’s skin prickled with toxins meant for the the bacteria that had become so rife in the air these days – I need a good wash, it said to her, but don’t be dettered. She missed fresh so dearly, something that had grown from the soil, healthy and natural, she’s pretty sure the ‘manufactured’ variety, as she called it, didn’t taste differently, but her mind and taste buds were always going to be biased – she was raised to think au natural.

Shrugging her shoulders, she asked for a watermelon, a few limes, granny smiths and a cucumber, trading a crucifix necklace, a pack of batteries and a pocket torch for the array of emerald groceries, loving the expression of bewilderment on the stall holder’s face. During the exchange, her hand briefly brushed the bloated woman’s wedding band, and Zebra had only a moment in which to take a breath and brace herself. Hazy at the edges, she could never the less see the splendour of the day and a magnificent peach wedding dress embossed with lace, then a lifetime of happiness only mildly touched with arguments, the flashing images came to a sorrowful and abrupt ending, doused in the crashing of murky waves. She hated that, wedding bands were the worst, she should have been paying attention. Breathing deep, she sank to her knees, spluttering and her eyes puffed up with tears. The old woman came bounding to the rescue, the offending ring almost pressing again to Penny’s bare skin.

”No don’t! No... I mean.. I’m ok Lucy, don’t.” Being called by her name seemed to throw the woman back for a moment, giving Penny the air she needed. Gathering herself up after a moment, ignoring the stares she’d gotten – convinced they only looked to see if she was worth mugging – she turned her sore looking eyes to Lucy again, reaching out and touching her hand without the ring. Swallowing a lump in her throat, she made her face somber, weighted with meaning as she leaned in.
”Edmond reached the other side, don’t worry.” offering a smile of reassurance, she went to leave, searching the ground for her bags of fruit, only to find Lucy beating her to it, adding a bunch of grapes to Penny’s collection of green.
”Thankyou.”

Well, not everyone was out to rob you blind after all, and we could all do with a little more joy in our lives.

[lexxibeth]

. C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S .
guess that means they like you

You've made the ranks as a human, love, very well done indeed.
So what're you waiting for? Get to the good stuff already and go rip
some throats out!

.. or post your plot page if you're into that kind of thing.