Mackenzie "Kendi" Scarlett Bell

[kendi]

THERE'S A STORM
ON THE STREETS
B U T Y O U S T I L L D O N ' T RUN
W A T C H I N G A N D W A I T I N G
F O R T H E R A I N T O C O M E


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water grey, through the windows, up the stairs
chilling rain, like an ocean, everywhere
don’t want to reach for me do you?
i mean nothing to you

NAME|| Mackenzie Scarlett Bell
NICKNAMES|| Kendi – she’ll answer to others, but she insists on this one over “Mackenzie”
AGE/BIRTHDAY|| Twenty-eight; October 2oth, 1985
GENDER/ORIENTATION|| Female; heteromantic/demisexual
SPECIES|| Human
CANON|| No


FACE CLAIM|| Alona Tal
HAIR COLOR|| Blonde
EYE COLOR|| Brown
ANIMAL COLOR|| N/A
BLOOD DIET|| N/A
BUILD||

Kendi is on the short side of the spectrum at 5’4”, and is rather petite in every other way as well. She is rather thin (to the point where often times people will ask her if she’s eating as much as she should), but she did luck out with “curves” in some of the right places (butt and breasts, to be honest) that she knows how to play up.

STYLE||

Kendi has a very conservative and comfortable style. While she certainly knows how to dress well, she avoids dipping necklines and rising skirts. She is most comfortable in jeans and t-shirts or hoodies, although she often dresses up for her work and social events with clothing like slacks and nice tops. She is also a bit of a jewelry nut, and always has at least one necklace, bracelet, and/or ring on (but for some reason she avoids earrings like no tomorrow).

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES||

Kendi has a floral tattoo on her right foot/ankle, but has little else that draws particular attention to her.

PERSONALITY||

Kendi is a rather reserved person; she keeps a lot of things to herself. She’s polite and rather friendly, though – it’s just a shallow friendship more than anything else. Really, Kendi likes being by herself and spending time reading or staying home with her daughter – who she is entirely devoted to. Actually, a lot of Kendi’s friends swear that she doesn’t do a single thing in her life that isn’t centered around little Bea. She works so she can support the girl right, she goes to PTA meetings and fundraises like crazy, and although she can’t afford to doesn’t spoil her daughter, she makes people wonder sometimes.

LIKES/STRENGTHS|| (optional)
DISLIKES/WEAKNESSES|| (optional)
SECRETS/FEARS|| (optional)
SKILLS|| Extremely organized; very skilled at compartmentalizing


OCCUPATION|| Secretary for Mystic Falls PD
FAMILY||

Liam Montgomery Stines, father, life in prison;
Sophia Amber Stines (nee Oliver), mother, deceased;
Angela “Angie” Laine Stines (last name has likely changed), twin sister, location/situation unknown;
Beckett “Bea” Nora Bell, daughter, eleven
Bailey, bernese mountain dog puppy

HOMETOWN|| Redding, CA
HISTORY||

To the world around them, Liam and Sophia Stines were the perfect young couple: madly in love and settling into life as parents-to-be without a single sign of trouble. Unfortunately, their relationship had never been quite the simple – they were just good at masking it. However, the couple was probably at their happiest when their twins Angela and Mackenzie were born. Despite the fact that they had to deal with all of the problems that can accompany new children in a household – especially twins – things went reasonably well for them. Liam earned a well-timed promotion at his job, Sophia settled easily into motherhood and a life reminiscent of a 1950’s housewife, and their daughters were healthy little bundles of energy.

Things didn’t stay so pleasant for very long…

Liam was – and always had been – a harsh man. And when Sophia was too busy with their children to “properly” please him as a good wife should, he reacted in what he thought was a perfectly reasonable way, even if society nowadays would have hated him for it. He never beat her too severely – usually just a smack or two to knock some sense into her, or far more subtle verbal abuse that Sophia never fought back against. After all, theirs was supposedly a perfect marriage – if something was wrong, it had to be on her end, right?

Thankfully, little Angie and Kendi (who earned her nickname while the twins were learning to speak and her sister couldn’t pronounce her name) escaped their father’s attention well throughout their childhood. They did learn to keep out of his way at an early age, but while he disciplined his wife as he saw fit, Liam swore that it was Sophia’s job to deal with the children. That was the separation of men’s and women’s work, after all. He probably would have been more involved in their lives if they had been sons, but they weren’t, so besides bringing home the bacon and getting them into school or properly in bed when they should be (etc.), Liam left them alone.

Kendi herself grew up as the quieter child by far. That isn’t to say she didn’t have her fair share of trouble – because she definitely did – but Angie always seemed to outshine her in some way. For the other twin, their lives were a constant (friendly) competition, even for attracting punishments and trouble. This meant that, usually, Kendi went relatively unnoticed – at home, at school as they started attending, and everywhere else. Thankfully, she didn’t really mind. She liked the lack of attention, as well as the stereotype of the “good child” because it meant she was given more opportunities to go out and do what she wanted (especially as the twins went through middle school and started high school).

In school, the twins stuck close together – and in the end didn’t have very many close friends. While Angie went out of her way to be social and get involved in almost everything she could, Kendi was content to live in her shadow, get through her classes (with an average amount of effort), and move on with her life. She didn’t let on to anyone that she had ambitions for her life, but the young girl dreamed of moving out, getting to some big city, and becoming a prominent lawyer.

It was Kendi’s sophomore year of high school that sparked the drastic change in her life. Basically: she was noticed. You see, Kendi could be relatively friendly and she had never had any enemies or anything like that through her life, and she had definitely had a crush or two through her years, but she had been far too shy to act on those impulses. Besides, Angie’s outgoing attitude drew the attention her way, so even if someone had felt that way toward Kendi, they usually didn’t go through with it either. That is, until she met Blake.

It was all a little cliché at first. He was a new student that year, and they met because they were assigned seats next to each other. Kendi noticed that he was cute and friendly, and left it at that. Blake, on the other hand, asked her out a month into the school year. Shocked, flustered, pleased, and nervous, Kendi managed out a yes before rushing out of the classroom and hunting down her sister to spazz out about the whole thing. It gave Angie a good laugh, that was for sure.

Kendi spent the next few days obsessing about what to wear and how to act – things she never really paid much attention to before. But, after all of her worry and stress, the little night out bowling that she and Blake went on for their first date went extremely well – she even surprised herself by kissing his cheek when he (actually, his mom, since he couldn’t drive just yet) dropped her off.

The poor girl was giddy and in love, in the way that only that “first love” is.

Thankfully, she settled into the relationship rather well. They didn’t exactly date as people older than her would have called it, but they hung out whenever they could during the school day, and occasionally they went out and did something fun on the weekend. Kendi told him everything – about her dreams and plans for the future, about her family life (except the fact that her father’s “discipline” had been getting gradually worse, along with his drinking), about far more than she had ever told anyone about – even Angie. He listened, laughed, sympathized, encouraged – he did everything right in her eyes. Kendi was in heaven.

So when, one night they had somehow ended up alone at his house (Kendi unaware that he had planned it just so, and that his parents were as oblivious as she was) and one thing led to another, and he asked (like the gentleman she had simplified him into) to take their relationship another step further, Kendi didn’t hesitate to say yes. Unfortunately, the young high school couple had the luck that first-and-one-time smokers who get lung cancer had. Suffice to say, they were not prepared in the least for the pregnancy scare that followed – especially when it ended up being far more than a scare.

No one involved was particularly happy about the development. The only one who showed any support for Kendi was her sister, and even Angie looked as terrified at the prospect of being an aunt, as Kendi felt about being a mom. And when she went to tell her own parents… it went over even worse. Her mother lectured her, shocked and upset, but her father… Liam sat through the entire thing stone-faced and silent. He didn’t say a word to any of the women in his life, and as soon as Sophia’s rant was over and Angie was consoling her sobbing, tear-stained sister, he stood up and left.

He didn’t come back until the early morning the next day, when the twins were getting ready to leave for school and Sophia was (nervously – for she knew it was never good when Liam left) preparing a breakfast for her husband. He was as drunk as his family had ever seen him, and as he confronted the three of them (trapped in the kitchen as the girls were about to walk out the door), he ranted and raved about how horribly Sophia had raised their children. He shouted about Angie’s little rebellions and how she would never be a real lady – and he all but screamed about Kendi’s pregnancy. However, he seemed targeted solely on Sophia throughout his entire tirade, even with all three of them cowering from him.

Unfortunately, just as the man was winding down from his long and coarse spiel, Angie stood up to him – something even she had never done before. And, for the first time in his life, Liam smacked his daughter across the face as he had done to her mother – except this time the force nearly threw her into the kitchen counter. The spectacle set Sophia off, and the woman who had taken her husband’s abuse for so long attacked him. He hardly reacted besides to turn his hands toward her, and start beating her instead. His daughters screamed at them both, begged them to stop – and Angie finally managed a panicked call to the police.

However, despite the fact that they arrived quickly, arrested Liam, and rushed Sophia to the hospital, she ended up dying of internal injuries. To say the family was shocked and shattered would have been an understatement.

Liam was charged with manslaughter and convicted, Angie and Kendi were put into the state’s care because neither one of them counted as a legal adult yet, and Kendi was sent off to some special rehab-hospital for the duration of her pregnancy while Angie was put into the foster system. They were completely cut off from each other, and from their old lives. Kendi was alone – without Angie, without Blake, without her mother – and she fell into a massive depression. It lasted in its worst stages until her daughter was born. That was a major wake-up call for her, especially when the hospital nearly forced her to give up her daughter for adoption. Despite the fact that that was the far more reasonable option, Kendi refused, and left the hospital as soon as it was allowed. She took on what had been Blake’s last name (not wanting to be associated with her father any longer), and moved to a small town on the other side of the country.

It was a struggle – she wouldn’t deny that – but Kendi managed to find a place to stay and a job to support herself and little Bea. Slowly but surely, as the years passed, she settled into her new life and left most of her past behind her. As she embraced it – and the role of motherhood – her depression slowly faded as well. She started to enjoy her life and career, even if she only worked simple jobs and secretary positions. She got herself her official high school diploma (since she had never finished school), did a bit of community college work, and earned herself a job with the police department. It wasn’t exactly the lawyer position she had dreamed of, but it worked for her, and Kendi has enjoyed it these past few years.

BEHIND THE SCENES|| Jelly
OTHER CHARACTERS|| Clementine Louise Mudgett, Niklaus “Klaus” Freiherr, Matthew Ian Thomas
CONTACT|| PM or [e-mail]
RP SAMPLE||

Unlike Katherine, Klaus was keeping a rather low profile at the moment – while he didn’t see many of the residents of Mystic Falls as a threat in any way, he didn’t quite want to let them know he was strolling through their quaint little town again. Not right away, at least. Fortunately, he and Damon had been gone traveling for long enough that no one seemed to be on high alert for him, and despite his (handsome) recognizable face, he saw no one that knew him. Not as more than “that British-sounding guy” at least.

But he had chosen to head out to the Grill tonight – because why not? He fancied a drink in the familiar public space, and he wasn’t all that worried about seeing anyone. It was a week night – and like good little students, most of the still-stuck-in-highschool “enemies” he might have had were nowhere to be found. He had taken the chance to make sure Matt and Jeremy weren’t working that night either, but he likely could have compelled either of them if he absolutely needed to.

However, the one person that Klaus was not expecting to see was exactly who his eyes landed on when he slipped in through the front entrance. For a very brief moment, he guessed that it was Elena – which was far less surprising – but unlike so many of the easily-fooled residents of Mystic Falls, he could tell quickly just who this was. Expectedly, his mood darkened considerably.

But, of course, Klaus had never been one to let something like that stop him from acting, right? Right. Instead, he plastered his most charming grin on his lips, and made his way to the bar stool beside Katherine. He made himself comfortable and ordered a scotch, waiting until it arrived and he took a sample sip before he finally turned his attention in the vampire’s direction. She was lucky they were in such a social setting – for now. The thing was, Klaus didn’t have any qualms against following her out into the night, or wherever else he might have to go.

“Well well, look what the cat dragged in. I didn’t think you would be showing your face around here for the next hundred years or so. But then again, you have a very… unique sense of self-preservation.”

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N O W T H E R E ' S N O W A Y B A C K
F R O M T H E T H I N G S Y O U ' V E D O N E
I K N O W I T ' S T O O L A T E
TO STOP THE SETTING SUN

[Jelly]

Accepted!

(Shhh)