#so the fact that she's asking for this without specific guidances is adding insult to injury

[thatscarletflycatcher]

I have been trying for days to find a topic for the "paper" I need to turn in for this Philosophy of History course on Friday, and I got nothing.

I so intensely dislike this subject you cannot imagine.

[bittermurmurings-a]

Angelique Latendresse

Born: ca. 1561-1562  Orléans, France

Edward could never find an official birth record for his wife. That should’ve been the first big red flag to cast doubt her shady backstory.

People did not keeps records of everything as they do nowadays, so Angelique can not be certain of her exact birthdate, but knows that she was a young infant was the French Wars of Religion, and her birth city of Orléans was taken over by the Protestants. Her family was slowly wiped out by the wars and the fanatic- fueled massacres that took place over the next few decades, leaving her without any surviving family except herself. She was found wandering the streets, a desolate and alone young child with her older and younger siblings by some friendly nuns, and they were all taken to a local orphanage.

They all met various demises eventually, her youngest and dearest to her sister dying the last in childbirth after having a son, but they all perished. Only Angelique reached the old age of 35.

She missed her family, but she didn’t need them. Besides, she had the fortune of being adopted out by a local apothecary couple with no children of their own, and was raised the arts and ways of magic and rituals. She might’ve grown up to be a good person if she wasn’t so power hungry, her desire to control wars, famine, disease and even human life was a strong call to her. Perhaps it was because of the own lack of control in her life and society, of how her own family died around her beyond her control, but Angelique wasn’t sated with being used as a puppet on a string.

She wasn’t a piece of imported exotic china, to be used for special occasions and then put up on a shelf.

She found out just how unwillingly to be toyed with when she got married in young love to a man who promised her the world while they courted, then smashed it underfoot and took it away from her as soon as their honeymoon was over. Angelique may had been young, but she was far from stupid, and one evening while she was considering what to do, her husband came in angry about something, and instead of just the harsh and demeaning words directed at her, he hit her. just once. But it was enough.

She’s not sure exactly how she decided on the specific course of action she took was best, but she remembers every detail of how she elatedly murdered her husband, first she hit him upside the head and tied him to a chair, and then spent the next several hours torturing him. She didn’t mean to actually kill him, but before she knew it, he was dead. Weak mortal scum. She left his body outside for the crows to eat in one of their farming fields, not exactly sure what to do with him, but knowing that he didn’t deserve a proper burial, when her thoughts on what she’d just done was interrupted by a visitor.

An old hag she would come to respect greatly and live under her guidance and become what she most wanted to be: powerful.

The old hag took her parents magic and twisted it into something cruel and destructive, and she found out that she was good at what she did; really good, better than her other pupils in dark arts that the old hag had fostered. Before long, she was creating darkness and destruction across the landscape, and that was the beginning of her darkness, her evilness taking deep root in her soul, and her knowledge of other being and realms was taught to her in secret by the old hag, being as she was the brightest and evilest of them all.

She spent the next ten years or so becoming more powerful and knowledgeable, and her any who daren’t not to acknowledged with respect would fall to bad luck, and those who insulted her ended up in ruin, no matter who it was. She loved to mess with a small village, make them think they were seeing demons and go wild to try and get rid out the source, when it was all Angelique playing with shadows and illusions. Her fun came to end one evening when she was accidentally spotted, and the town set upon her so fast that she barely had time to run, and she was assaulted with sticks, stones, pitchforks, anything they could throw at her, and she was shot once in her shoulder before falling to the ground in pain.

Her mind is hazy for a few moments, and the next thing she clearly sees is a man shouting at her, and holding a torch. For the first time in her life, she felt fear for her life. He spoke at length about how she was a witch and how she was going to Hell, and it gave her enough time to consider how to escape, and she had managed her bonds loose enough to where she could wiggle herself free and lob her curses at them-

but not before she was set ablaze.

It was her own rage and fury that kept her from rolling on the ground, spewing deadly curses and hexes at everyone in sight, not sparing anyone. She eventually collapsed again, this time a burnt and charred mass of melted flesh and flaky bone, unsalvageable even with today’s medicine, just after the old hag arrived, hearing Angelique’s screams from her own hovel.

Nearly everyone in the village was in some state of dying or death, by Angelique’s hands, and the old hag’s old and twist heart beat a few times at Angelique’s doing and suffering. She leaned down and pressed a kiss to Angelique’s forehead, and asked her if she wanted to continue living on earth or pass into the next life.

She choose the former.

The old hag does some lengthy and confusing chanting, and Angelique’s body is made anew, made new skin on her surface, restored to her beautiful and youthful self, strong and impervious to everything.

But, on the inside, she’s as fragile as a porcelain doll. Her one weakness. 

The old hag nurses her back to health, and praises her for her efforts, but also reminds her to not get greedy, and to know when to leave a situation  when it gets too much. And she takes her lessons wisely, soaking up all the next knowledge and experiences she could, all the while, she slowly spreads out her influence and mischief, expanding far beyond her birth city, and starts to travel first around France, then Europe to spread her tainted porcelain touch to all those who displeased her.

When colonies start forming in the new world, large enough to attract all sorts of people with the bounties of gold and new crops coming back to the old world, Angelique saw a chance to spread her darkness even further, and even moreso in a fledgling group of half- starving colonies. She wished her final goodbyes to the old hag, who was now even older and nearing the end of her own heavily extended life, and departed for the new world.

And it was just as open for the taking as she thought.

She corrupted and messed with many people, and she was beside herself with pride and accomplishment. In fact, she was so happy, she fell in love again with a dashing young indentured servant, who his former master she killed when he refused to allow them to marry. He turned out to be nicer than her first husband, and she stayed with this one for over a year, surprisingly happily married. Too bad he was so dashing that other women wanted him too, and he fell prey to their advances. She ended up personally killing him and the harlot she caught him in bed with, killing them slowly for hours, loving their delicious screams ad pain as they slowly suffered.

Though, this husband gave her more than just happiness. He also gave her a child, one that resided within her belly as she killed her unfaithful husband and his lover. She gave birth 8 months later to a girl that she named Mourning. Angelique tried to raise her herself on her own, but found that motherhood wasn’t exactly her calling, so she gave up her daughter to various neighbors, all of whom gave her back after she was reported doing strange things. Mourning was bounced inbetween foster families and her mother throughout her childhood, but she always felt a connection to her mother. Not that she loved her terribly, but if she was in serious trouble, she could feel her mother’s presence and strength within her.

Angelique took part in the Salem Witch Trials, using her influence to rise their already existent hysteria to new extent, and causing little events to spur them on. But, after that, Angelique found it harder to easily manipulate and fool people into believing witchcraft and that they were being cursed by an unknown force. Years went on, and Angelique returned to the old world for several decades at a time, still leaving her mark on backwards villages and countries that had yet to be modernized, though when the great civil war took place in America, she found the large amount of lives lost to be too enticing to ignore. She even had another lover, this time eloping and having another girl, naming this one Judith and the child met the same fate as her centuries older sibling.

She found America to be quite... appealing to her tastes.

Of course, she returned to Europe and Asia for the first and second World Wars, and enjoyed her stay there, but America was like a large playground for her, a melting cauldron of a country that she could toy with, all with the modern conveniences the 21st century had to offer. especially one Edward Park. 

Maybe it was the wealth and power that he had that attracted her to him, or maybe his same independence streak that matches hers, but she fell in love with him, his wealth and his power. Their marriage was brief but actually quite happy, and she was not exactly upset when she gave birth to another child, a son named Zorobel. But, she was upset when Edward found out her dark secrets and threw her out, and she left for the more tropical regions to escape her little family.

For as happy as she was, she didn’t really miss her ex- husband and son enough to go back. she new she had to let the heat on her die down. maybe one day she’ll go back, maybe when Zorobel is older and he can understand that Mommy was nearly 500 years old and was an evil witch that sometimes did business with an eldritch abomination. She would like to see her baby boy grow up to be a witch like her.

[thisloveforyourmom]

also, while we’re on the subject of ‘infantilizing women in kpop’ we really need to address the drastic age differences between artists in the same groups? which isn’t an issue until you start adding love, sex, and romance into your performances. i could see a good way to handle this being to subunit the younger/older members and to kind of regulate music being made that way, but like. ok so.

yeojin of loona was 14 when she debuted, and 16 now. they handled her debut really nicely - her song is about experimenting with crushes and how she doesn’t really feel a need to kiss people right away or do heavily romantic stuff (it’s called “Kiss Later!” and very much deals with, well, a 14 year old discovering that her heart is beating a little faster and that she doesn’t really know what that means yet.) she wasn’t put in a subunit, so she wasn’t singing mature love songs with 20+ year olds until loona debuted when she was sixteen, and by then she had a few people her age – olivia and go won – to spend time with and relate to. readmore for length.

but like, the thing is that vivi, the oldest member, is 24 right now while yeojin is sixteen. and most of yeojin’s groupmates are older than 20. they can’t bring down every song to the level of a sixteen year old, so you have yeojin performing songs like heat, which doesn’t have overtly sexual lyrics but is quite obviously still an extremely sexy song. ffs it’s titled HEAT and it ISNT about summer

and this is typical of pretty much all kpop girlgroups. the maknae is sometimes 5+ years younger than the oldest member of the group, so you get things like the Fact in Star host asking Yeojin to attempt a ‘sexy’ dance at 15 and then laughing when she (understandably) didn’t really know how, or felt weird about doing it in front of thousands, on her own. you get fromis9′s maknae, who was in seventh grade at the time, being hit with a sexy song in the middle of a dance-off and so she steps out as the captions poke fun at how ‘a 7th grader doesn’t understand sexy’. which she doesn’t, and right then in that moment, she has the freedom to not be sexy and let her older bandmates take over. 

but things like yeojin’s ‘kiss later’ feel kind of cheap when you have yeojin on stage performing ‘heat’ no problem. there’s the same age gap in red velvet, with Yeri and Irene, and the girls cover yeri’s ears in the “Bad Boy” music video...while she performs and sings it live no issue (she’s 20. she Should be able to do that.)

anyway, this is the flip side of how older women get de-aged in order to cater to things like Dumb Dumb and Hi High. teen girls get to have those songs, but then have to age UP to perform things like Bad Boy and Heat. like, the whole structure of having the maknae – specifically in the band to kind of be childish and give the audience that innocent vibe – is really complex, given that teens also shouldn’t be totally without guidance and role models in that industry, but also they (and their older members) don’t need to be placed on the same level when it comes to sexual and emotional maturity. it’s insulting at best and damaging at worst.

[allrenainfo-blog]

connections.

F a m i l i a l/F a m i l i a l Like

N I A LOVELIS 👭

What bond is as strong as that of sisters? Rena would happily say not a single one in the world, when asked about her older sibling. She very much so, places the science of success in any of her personal, or public endeavors, in the hands of her older sister. Although the two are most often pushing each others buttons, cracking jokes and arguing over who’s going to pay for coffee; on a rare occasion, you’ll find them being sincerely sweet to one another and offering support.

“My sweet, devoted counterpart, we catch each other shooting stars. However close, however far. Whatever’s mine is ours”

M A T T H E W MUSTO

Bear has been like a brother to Rena every since they met in group therapy a few years ago. He knows her well, and she returns that favor. Other than Nia, he was the first person that Rena ever really felt loved and supported her, for whatever she was on any given day. However, he was a horrible influence on her early on in their relationship. He introduced her to drugs, and although Bear isn’t solely responsible for getting Rena into drinking, he was the first falling pebble before the avalanche. During Bear’s own brush with death, and faced with the possibility of losing each other, the two slept together; (This may have caused a relationship that Rena was in at the time to fall apart.) After he came out of it all alright, their own relationship returned to the way it’d been before. However, Rena will no longer drink with him. These days, she’s lying to him more often than not. When it comes down to who’s unhealthy, they could bicker for hours. Regardless, they’ll never give up on each other.  

“I want you to stop insisting that I’m not a lost cause, ‘cause I’ve been through a lot. Really all I’ve got, is just to stay pissed off. If that’s alright by you”

P l a t o n i c

A S H L E Y FRANGIPANE

Be it a girl’s night out, or an early breakfast date, Ashley is who Rena calls. They first met while Hey Violet was touring with 5 Seconds of Summer. Admittedly, Rena swore the meeting was a cruel joke the guys were playing, but was pleasantly surprised in the long run. Always the supportive, but honest one, Ashley is the best friend that Rena needed when she was much younger. There’s a love she has for Ashley, that lingers in the vein of great admiration. Rena has never had to ask herself if she could trust this relationship, it just came naturally.

“So, when you’re caught in the landslide, I’ll be there for you. I’ll be there for you. And in the rain, give you sunshine.

A S H T O N IRWIN

Rena has been friends with Ashton for quite a few years now, and knows almost everything about him. They share and confided in each other avidly, without feeling judged. From day one they’ve had a connection that Rena has never really been able to establish with anyone else. After the tour kickoff party at the Nokia club however, things got a little close to going too far between the two. They’ve resolved to never speaking about it- without speaking about it. The situation may have Rena silently questioning what her feelings toward Ashton have been all this time. Still, he’s the only person in her life that she’s ever been entirely honest with. Excluding their current situation, of course.

“Sweet creature, wherever I go, you bring me home- When I run out of road, you bring me home.”

D A V I D SCHMITT

Rena and David first met at a party a couple years back, and he took no time before attempting to hit on her; only to find out she was just seventeen. However, now that she’s well into an age that won’t get him arrested, he’s taking no prisoners. It isn’t something that Rena actually minds, in fact it’s a large part of their interaction. Their friendships consists of drinking themselves into a zombie-like drag, her insulting him and his going on about how great he is at, well, everything. Although Dave is mostly harmless in Rena’s eyes, he’s played a large part in exposing her to a few scenes that she never should have been apart of.

“Would you believe me if I said I was drunk? Maybe I want you to want me, but only tonight.”

H A Y L E Y WILLIAMS

An idol of her’s since she was very young, Rena never expected to actually rub elbows with Hayley. Since that faithful day however, they’ve gotten very close. Rena sees Hayley as a motherly, or sisterly guidance that she lacked for a very long time. Their relationship is most often Hayley trying to steer Rena in a better direction- even if she only says it in so many words. Rena however, can’t always be trusted to follow the advice that’s being presented to her. Regardless of what option she choices, she realizes that Hayley is always there and ready to soothe her, if the situation should arise.  Rena may be a few years younger, but she cares very deeply for Hayley and is constantly trying to support her just the same. However, she’s finding it isn’t always too well accepted.

“I know you’re lost and drifting, but the clouds are lifting. Don’t give up, you have somewhere to turn. I’ll be your candle on the water, til’ every wave is warm and bright”

K Y L I E JENNER

After hanging around the launch party of Kylie’s Cosmetics, Rena just so happened to be picked out of the crowd by Kylie herself, to have her makeup done. At first she was too nervous to go along with it, but Kylie coaxed her into it. After that, the rest is practically history. They got along incredibly well, and can sometimes be found doing each others makeup, or eating at some fast food joint. However, their emotional connection is almost non-existent, because Rena never opens up to Kylie. This is mistly for fear of being dismissed or disliked. Over time, Rena’s realized Kylie hasn’t exactly ever opened up to her either.

“’Cause somedays I’m drinking coffee with my friends; I’ve got stitches in my sides from all the laughs. Other days I can’t stitch together, the words to say, I’m not any better than I’ve been.”

L U K E HEMMINGS

Luke is kind of like that one mom friend that is always too up in your business, but Rena adores him just the same. He’s been making her laugh form the very beginning. His interest in her life, and hers in his, is one of the main components of why they get along so well. Not to mention, he’s often linking her to the best parts of the internet. Part of their relationship may or may not be based on his bulldog, Petunia. Rena appreciates that Luke can almost never be serious, as she often needs a little sunshine in her life. Not to mention, he’s always got  her back, and a few words of encouragement to spill into her ear. It does concern Rena though, that he often won’t open up to her.

“’Cause I believe we gotta be good for something. I believe that the moment will come. But, if we die and find out it was all for nothing, least we know youth wasn’t wasted on us”

B u s i n e s s Related

Z A C K HANSEN

Rena’s relationship with Zack started out very much as a business deal of sorts. She had met him in passing, shortly after Cherri Bomb ended. Before long he’d taken her under his wing. She’s learned a lot from him about navigating the music industry, so to speak. Overtime however, they’ve also developed quite a strong friendship. In fact, she would appear to be like his little sister to anyone on the outside, looking in. They spend a lot of time teasing each other, and Rena’s favorite past time is playing small, barely noticeable pranks on him.

If you’ve got a lyric that’ll fit these two, send it my way~!

R o m a n t i c

C H R I S S Y COSTANZA

Chrissy was Rena’s first relationship with a woman, as well as her first experience with exploring any attraction she may have felt towards her own sex. However, the relationship consisted mostly of them arguing. Usually, about if Rena would ever come out, or be comfortable with making their relationship public. Soon, their bond crumbled completely. Rena, who can sometimes be unconcerned about the way her actions affect others, made the mistake of sleeping with some else (Mat,) before their relationship had actually ended. Shortly after that occurrence however,, Rena called off the romance and stopped speaking to Chrissy. There isn’t necessarily any bad blood, but the two are on very strange terms. Rena would like to be friends with Chrissy, but feels as if the other woman still isn’t over her, or  what happened between them.

“You’re really sweet and I don’t want to be rude; This is me breaking up with you. I’m young, and I want to try someone new. This is me, breaking up with you”

J E N N A MCDOUGALL

When Rena was just realizing her attraction to the same sex, she found herself a little smitten with Jenna. For awhile she kept it to herself, unsure of what it actually met. If the feeling was just a fluke, she certainty didn’t want to act on it. After all, she’d never really felt it before- or, had never really payed it any attention. After awhile however, she admitted to Jenna her crush. She was quickly shot down. Rena was left a bit hurt and confused, but got her barrings back fairly quickly. She considers herself good friends with Jenna now. However, she has no clue of the girl’s feelings toward their past situation.

“I’m moving on. You can have my past, I’ll never get that back. I’m moving on, ‘cause those days are gone”

This list is subject to alteration at any time! If there’s something you feel should be added to a specific connection, just let me know. Also, feel free to suggest a lyric/change in lyric, if our connection either doesn’t have one, or you feel there may be one that is better suited~