Arceneaux, Lydia {WIP}

NAME:
Lydia Beth Arceneaux

AGE:
26

GENDER:
Female

NATIONALITY:
Creole Armerican (Black, Spanish, and French roots)

BIRTHPLACE:
Lockport, Louisiana

BIRTHDATE:
June 21, 1987

PICTURE:

Spoiler:

PERSONAL DETAILS

DESCRIPTION:
At a glance, it's hard to say exactly what Lydia is with any pinpoint accuracy; she's exotic and looks out of place in DC (and most of America). Her light nutmeg-brown skin is even with no roughness; Lydia a devout fan of moisturizers and oil baths; too light in hue to say she's black but people guessing she could be Spanish or Italian easily. Her thin, elegant nose and dainty build look distinctly French, while her thick brown-black hair is so wild with untamed curls that she could pass for a Spanish Gitana. Lydia's lips are thicker, and her cheeks more prominant in her heart-shaped face, but what always stands out most are the burning green eyes that don't seem to belong to her at all. They're a deep forest green that always seems lush and wet, constantly watching everything around her with an awareness that tends to startle people.

Lydia posesses the same kind of rare beauty a black tiger does: she's graceful, beautiful, slightly otherwordly, and even when sitting calmly she carries an aura that clearly states she could easily be very, very dangerous to your health. Lydia's posture is immaculate, and at 5'7" with her lean build she looks easily like she could be blown over by a hard gust of wind except for the aura and attitude she carries that almost dares the wind to even try.

From day to day, Lydia's clothes, while ordinary, seem carefully put together with a slight hint of theatricality. She likes to mix bright colors with natural earth-tones, favoring bright scarves and lots of jewelry at once while she's in the shop. Atmosphere is a large part of business, and Lydia knows this; she's aware there are a handful of Pagan and Occultist shops in and around DC, and people who go in them have certain expectations. Lydia meets these and surpasses them, keeping tinsel and feathers in her hair one month and braiding in beads made from bones the next, or wearing earrings that you're almost certain are a real human's finger bones but you're too afraid she'll say yes if you ask. Lydia moves with an almost predatory grace as though she considers every step and gesture before she acts on them, even for something as simple as stirring her tea. Off hours, however, she dresses as one might call "more normally," often pairing trendy skirts and lacey blouses with denim jackets or just living in casual jeans as she tones down how much jewelry she's covered in. Even her hair becomes seemingly more tamed when it's pulled back, leaving her looking almost like an entirely different, trendy woman of the city with a very heavy Looziana drawl to pair with her Cajun Creole accent.

PERSONALITY:
The modest neon sign on the shop's window advertises psychic readings in swirly pink and blue font, making it easy for passers-by to simply say that Lydia's just another charlatan out to make a quick dime on poor suckers who have cash to lose. This assumption, however, couldn't be farther from the truth and all of Lydia's devoted clients will attest to it. They say she's "gifted" or "touched" in her ability to commune with the spirits or the way her readings tend to be so chillingly spot-on. Though a small handful of how she acts, dresses, and what she says is merely frosting to keep clients in the right state of mind while in her shop, Lydia truly is dedicated and keen with a knack for listening and reading between the lines. She is a woman who was born and raised to a family where this was normal, and "keeps one foot on either side," remaining constantly in touch with her intuition.

In front of clients, she's poised and graceful, likened to a predatory cat watching and waiting, knowing the longer she does this the more her prey will squirm. Her smile is slow and she remains thoughtful, pondering each card and rune as she turns them. Lydia is devoted to her craft, and does not make her money simply telling people what they want to hear; she gives them the truth, and it's up to them to put it to good use. Being that she grew up in a family full of psychics, Lydia is very patient and tends to feel very deeply since she can easily make that connection, which can be a very bad thing if she gets lazy about keeping up her walls. Clients see her as nearly disconnected, and she is, but out of necessity- if Lydia were to let herself feel and hear everything that came so naturally, she knows she would go mad.

She's a woman who knows there's more to the world than what is seen, and that once you have seen what's really there, there is little that can undo it in your soul. Like tangled strings, Lydia sorts the mess of thoughts and feelings in each room when she's with people, working constantly to keep herself seperated from everyone else so she doesn't get lost. At all times, she feels she must stay in control. When clients leave and she locks up for the night, Lydia almost always lets out the relieved breath she'd been holding, her smile warming up to something friendlier as she turns the lights up all the way and snuffs the candles. When nobody's around, Lydia can relax and let her mind reach out and stretch to wherever it wants to go rather than trying to force itself somewhere specific. With Cupiditas around and always making commentary, it's hard for her not to crack up in front of clients who can't hear him, so when they leave she's finally able to laugh with the demon about stupid things.

When there's nobody else around to worry about, Lydia is free to be herself and goof off in ways that don't match her shop at all, dancing around to Lady Gaga as she mixes batches of van van oil or grinds dove's blood for bottles of ink. Off-hours, she's bouncy, playful, and loves going to the little towns to find nice antiques. Lydia loves the flavor and true variety that life brings, and is unafraid to dip her hands right in and get messy, and even though a lot of people are stupid and annoy her, there are some that are just really fun to mess with which make the day better. She's not a mean-spirited woman by any means, but Lydia does love a good joke; Cupiditas has spent Lydia's whole life with her, constantly making terrible jokes and snarky remarks. If she hadn't learned to laugh by now, Lydia's sure that he would have found some way to make her explode. Although she often feels that she is something apart from the world entirely, she is thankful that she is a part of the world.

DEMON PERSONALITY:
Dark. Ominous, Fierce. Dangerous. Sadistic. These are a few words that most would use to describe demons that would only make Cupiditas laugh. Even before becoming involved with the Arceneaux family, he was an easy-going demon, far more interested in human festivals and having a good time than doing anything truly malicious, and depending on his company he may joke that he'd be happier at Mardi Gras than helping overthrow Heaven. And he'd mean it. Anywhere a good time can be found is what attracts this oddball demon, his greatest pleasures being sex, alcohol, loud music, and the delicious feelings of humans when they're lost in their good time. Cupiditas is quite the merry prankster and is often cracking jokes and snarky remarks, fully aware that only Lydia can hear him for the most part and finds it to be a great challenge as he makes funnier and funnier remarks while Lydia does her best to keep a straight face in front of clients.

Knowing that atmosphere is a large part of what keeps Lydia's business going, Cupiditas is glad to help with clients, giving a little nudge here and there; a little table-thumping, playing with the candle flames, and a well-placed moan go a long way to keeping clients paying attention, and they work surprisingly well on those annoying people that knock on the door at 5a.m. to ask if you've found Jesus. Even Lydia can't deny how funny it is when he scares people senseless like that. He isn't out to hurt anyone at all, though, and really just likes a good time. He personally likes kids the best, not because they're easy prey, but because they instinctively also know how to have a good time and turn anything into a party.

While it would be easy to say that Cupiditas is a rather lazy demon given his generations with the Varceneaux family as their amalgam, he personally enjoys the work he does with them, seeing it as the best working vacation ever. He's not in Hell, he's not out actively seeking to destroy things he enjoys, and the family has brought him plenty of things to keep him happy as they work their magic through him. He and Lydia both know she could ask for and tap into more power if she wanted to, but since she doesn't Cupiditas doesn't try to force it on her or drive her nuts about it. He genuinely likes her, and she does a good job getting him what he needs, so to Cupiditas it all works out evenly.

HISTORY:
A room with high shelves nearly up to the ceiling, stocked from end to end with large jars of herbs, spices, and things it's best not to ask. Intricately sculpted candles of a man and woman dancing. Little bottles of deep red ink labeled Dove's Blood and Dragon's Blood respectively. Lydia's first memories since the day her mother brought her home had been of her grandmother's shop. The shop had been outfitted into the family garage and was where Lydia, like every child in her family since they'd bought that house, had grown up. That old house on the bayou was big; it had started as a single-room shack built on pier and beam, right on the water's edge and grown over the years, room by room. Everybody added something to it, and by the time Lydia had come into the world the Arceneaux family had been settled there for generations.

It was never lonely in the multi-generational house of Arceneaux, at least not in the way of ever having company. The hard part was finding time alone. Lydia never minded so much except that it was something about the way the kids in school looked at her, treated her and her sister both. They were different and got hell for it. In such a little town where everyone knew everyone, it was hard for the other kids not to know that the Arceneaux girls were just like everyone else in their family and played with poppets like dollies. There was a great hypocrisy in Lockport; they all knew the Arceneaux's followed the path and practiced things that the people would all talk about in hushed voices and scoff at amongst their friends, but it was astounding how many of those same people had all come into that little garage-store to ask for Meemaw's help. As a child, this made no sense to Lydia, but over the years she learned that it was just how people were. Even if their problems were entirely stupid and could be solved by themselves, there was something more concrete about asking a woman who could commune with spirits to answer the obvious.

There wasn't a one of them, Meemaw explained, back since the beginning, that hadn't practiced and offered sacrifices to Danballa, the highest of the Voodoo gods. They each had a special gift to use, Lydia had been told, and to not use it was to insult. Even as a toddler, Lydia's gifts for recalling memories of things that existed before she did or seeing little glimpses of the future made themselves quite evident, the little girl often commenting about a scrape on the knee before someone fell, or asking why Great Grandaddy liked to stand and pace in the same place so often. The thoughts and feelings of those around her were one with Lydia, leaving the child often distraught as she found it difficult to sit in crowded rooms and know what feelings were hers and what were someone else's. Everyone was so loud that she thought she'd go mad. The day Meemaw took her out fo school for a few days to start showing the child how to put up small walls and blockers was the greatest week ever, and the one that seeemd to cement in Lydia's growing mind that this was where the path of ther life would lead her.

Years crept by down in Lockport, Lydia and Caroline attending school all day and coming home to learn from Meemaw what everyone in the family held to. Instructions for sacrificing chickens and letting the blood drain went hand in hand with demonstrations of how to simply kill and drain a chicken meant for dinner. More and more Lydia and Caroline became involved, Meemaw attesting that one of the girls would be the family's next to inherit, despite their cousins being older. Nothing was thought of it by Lydia at the time, especially since more and more she saw not everyone wanted to hold as tightly to the family power as much as others did, namely her parents. Her mother, Gina, practiced more casually, despite Meemaw constantly telling her she needed to put more effort into maintaining the bonds and rules of the family so that she could inherit next. Lydia's father, however, was a good anesthitician, and saw most of what his wife's family held to as supersition and hocus pocus. He minded himself and was wary, but he had bigger and better plans for his family than being trapped in the little backwater town forever and just working out of the local clinic.

There was a great amount of confusion the day Lydia and Caroline came home and found their bedroom ebing packed up into boxes and suitcases. Daddy had gotten a job offer from one of the big hospitals all the way up in Shreveport, and they were leaving right away. It'd be good for them, he promised. They'd make new friends and go to better schools, get to see more of the state and even be closer to his family back in Tyler. Lydia wasn't exactly thrilled to move, but being 9, didn't have much of a say in the matter. The night before they left, she couldn't sleep, and on tiptopes she moved through the house to try and get a cup of water while nobody else was awake. As she stood in the dark kitchen, Lydia felt the back of her neck prickle, like someone was watching her, even though she knew everyone else was asleep. Succumbing to curiosity, she looked around, only to find something of Meemaw's sitting on the counter, almost as if it was looking at her. She was pretty sure it hadn't been there a moment ago. It was a shrunken head that she always saw Meemaw keeping around her, and usually she took it to bed to keep it near, so it struck Lydia as odd that Meemaw had left it downstairs.

His eyes and mouth were sewn shut, and yet it seemed to be staring right at her with a smile that didn't move. She'd seen the little head a hundred times before, and yet, alone, it was entirely new. The thoughts of others had been quiet for Lydia since she'd learned to put up walls, so in the still of the night as she head a thought enter her mind that wasn't her own, she was more than a little startled. Don't worry- you'll be back. The thought came from the little head, but how could that be? It was just an old shrunken head.

Passing the thought off as just being too sleepy, Lydia thought little of it, not knowing that that wouldn't be the first time the little shrunken head would speak to her. The next morning as the car was packed, the sullen girl watched curiously as Meemaw gave the shrunken head to her mother. Lydia didn't mean to eavesdrop, especially since at the time she didn't understand what Meemaw was talking about. She told her mother Cupiditas was choosing to go with her, but as such, she needed to uphold the family promise and keep him happy.

Prmoises meant everything, Lydia had been taught. You make them and the universe hears them, and not upholdng them can have dire consequences. But as much as Meemaw had taught her granddaughter, any mention of the family promise that tied to the little head had always been passed off as something that she'd be told when she was older and could understand. She was quiet the whole ride, the girl's thoughts wandering far as she could only wonder if her sleepy thought from last night would come true.

Shreveport was just as her daddy said it would be; bigger, nicer schools, new friends, and Sweep The Swamp Pizza was a nice treat. Lydia and Caroline adjusted quickly, and never saw daddy happier than working at a bigger hospital, but something was amiss; since moving there and distancing themselves from Meemaw and the shop, their mother stopped in the once-daily practices. She didn't do as many card readings, and slowly stopped selling the favors their family was known for so well. Daddy didn't want that in the house anymore. The fights began.

A strange, dark feeling began to fill the corners of the house, but try as she might, Lydia couldn't really explain them or tell where they were coming from. All she knew was that the fights between her parents were getting worse, Mama upset that she was giving up family traditions for her husband, Daddy upset since they were just superstitions and there was no such thing as demons and magic and curses. Ominous whispers moved through the shadows of the house- Daddy stopped sleeping. Mama started sleeping in another room, and Lydia kept hearing something she couldn't identify. Mama kept carrying the little head with her, everywhere, as the fights got worse, Mama insisting that she needed to do something to keep him happy or there would be consequences.

The night Daddy threatened to take the little head and burn it, Lydia was awake, watching with Caroline through a crack in the door. They were both screaming. A few dishes broke. But there were words the girls heard that could not be taken away- words were powerful things and brought changes. They knew that. But when their mother screamed "I hope I never see you again," something happened. Someone answered. The dark voice Lydia heard through the house said 'So be it.' But nobody else seemed to have heard it- not Mama or Caroline. Doors slammed shut, the car ignition started, and then-- silence. Mama crying.

The house was quiet in the morning. Mama said they didn't have to go to school today, it was Friday anyway. Daddy hadn't come back. A few calls were made, but nobody had heard from him. Nobody had seen him until late that night when the state trooper came knocking at the door. He'd found their daddy, he said. He needed Mama to come with him to identify him for sure, but they'd found him and the station wagon in the Red River. He must have swerved or lost control somehow and went over the side of the road into the river and couldn't get out.

If Lydia had to pinpont any moment in her life that defined where her road was heading, she would say it was after her father's funeral. Her mother became more withdrawn, screaming and begging the darkness to bring her husband back. She didn't mean what she said. She loved him and missed him, and wanted her husband back. But whas was done was done. Mama stopped going to work, and mostly stopped everything else. At 10, Lydia could see it- her mother was waiting to die. And then it happened- the house was packed up again, and Mama said they were leaving. Meemaw was sending someone to come get the girls and help them move. But something told Lydia Mama was staying. She'd seen it in her dreams and in the reflections of the wash water in the sink.

They came home after school to find the front door of the house locked and all their boxes and bags in the carport, waiting. But Mama wasn't there. Hand in hand, Caroline and Lydia waited for Uncle Jerome, but as he pulled up and their mother still was nowhere to be found, Jerome looked at Lydia. "She's staying here," Lydia said quietly, almost half-asleep. "She's asleep in the kitchen." The kitchen window was broken in as Jerome burst into the house, and just as Lydia had said, his sister was in the kitchen. The smell of the oven gas was noxious, but even as it cleared out and the EMT's arrived, she didn't wake up. And then just as the voice had whispered to Lydia months ago, she was back where she'd come from.

Back under Meemaw's roof, Caroline and Lydia grieved, adjusted, and grew. They picked up where lessons had left off, but Meemaw found it was Lydia who took them more seriously as Caroline started pushing herself away more and more. The rift grew into their teens as they prepared for collge. Lydia wanted into the medical field like Daddy, and was convinced that what had happened to him was just an accident. Lydia, oddly enough, wanted to go for a business major so that she could run the shop herself successfully. Lydia had spent years learning how to block out other thoughts and feelings that weren't her own, except for one- the little thoughts and whispers that came from the little head. She'd learned to stop fearing it, often spending nights up late to ask it questions and further her knowledge and skill.

As Lydia packed up to leave for Austin State University in Nacogdoches (Nack-a-nowhere)


FACTION:
Lydia follows her Great-Grandmother's example and gives service to all but loyalty to none.

SKILLS:
-Lydia's strongest talent lies in her natural abilities of pre and post-cognition, most often through scrying and reading tea leaves. Her post-cognition can be inconvenient as a touch-see (she touches objevts and places to see what happened), it is harmless and cannot be changed. Lydia warns clients that all pre-cognitive visions are not definite, however; there are many paths and changing one can change the result. She can warn them of what she sees, and they're welcome to try and change it, but Lydia doesn't know what is set in stone.
-

DEMON SKILLS:
Enter a list of three or more skills your character possesses when they’re possessed by their bonded demon. Delete if your character hasn’t yet bonded with a demon.

WEAKNESSES:
Enter a list of three or more weaknesses.

COLOURS:
English(#99CCFF)
Creole French(#9999FF)

TRIVIA:

- Lydia keeps a black cat named Le Mange Lumiere, meaning Eater of Light
- She loves barbecue of any kind, including foreign barbecue. Cambodian and Mongolian are incredibly tasty.
- Very weird sandwiches that seem to host everything that shouldn't go together are normal.
- Cupiditas is essentially bound to the shrunken head, and though he teases Lydia about either inviting him into her or making some deal to set him free, they both know she can't and that he wouldn't leave her anyway.
- Her store, Black Star Occult is located in southern DC, nearer to the suburbs and away from the tourists. This is safer as a locale since tourists annoy her and the people who find her either know her, were referred to her, or were meant to find her.

USER DETAILS

ALIAS:


OTHER CHARACTERS:
None

ROLEPLAY HISTORY:
Way more than 10 years

FACECLAIM:

Code:

[b]ARTIST/SERIES[/b] :: [b]CHARACTER[/b]

CUSTOM RANK:
Swamp Witch

Archive date is August 2nd.