InsaneJournal

NAME: Stella Marie Cooper

DOB/AGE: April 2, 1839 (28)

SEXUAL PREFERENCE: heterosexual

ETHNIC BACKGROUND: mixed English and French

OCCUPATION: saloon dancer (also singer and waitress, when needed)

FAMILY: mother, Rosalind Devereaux Cooper; father, James Cooper; elder brother Jacob Cooper, married with one young son.

CURRENT RESIDENCE: renting a room above The Heel Kicker in New Shelby

APPEARANCE:
Slightly taller than average at 5'6", Stella has a slender, athletic build, which she can attribute to her dancing. She has red hair, which lightens to strawberry-blond in the summer, and striking hazel eyes. Her mouth is a bit too wide for conventional beauty, but she's definitely eye-catching, especially when she dresses in her brightly colored costumes while performing. When out in public, she tends to dress quite a bit more demurely, and can pass for a proper young lady if she really puts her mind to it -- and if she can manage to keep her mouth shut.

PERSONALITY:
Stella is a firecracker, plain and simple. She says what she means and damn the consequences. It's not that she lacks tact, it's that she really doesn't much care for the passive, docile role most women are forced into just to be considered 'proper'. Despite all this, she's generally a friendly sort, not opposed to flirting a bit with the saloon customers, as long as they keep their hands to themselves. She's quick witted and clever, with a wry sense of humor that runs toward sarcasm and mischief, and she rarely passes up an opportunity to cause a bit of harmless excitement. Although Stella is hardly a proper lady, she does have a deeply buried softer side, including a love for pretty clothes and jewelry that she rarely allows herself to indulge.

SPECIAL SKILLS/WEAPONS:
Stella is an accomplished dancer, although she generally prefers couples dancing to stage work. There isn't much need for that in her line of work, unfortunately, so she's soaked up performance dancing like a sponge. She has quite a good singing voice, although she has to be coaxed a bit into displaying that particular gift. Considering her work environment, she's learned a thing or two about self-defense, mostly to fend off men who get a little too familiar -- she'd never be able to take a man in a fight, but she can hold a drunken admirer off long enough to remove herself from the situation. She's also taught herself how to use a gun, with admirable success, and sometimes carries a small Remington derringer on her person.

WEAKNESSES:
Stella's got a bit of a temper, and can be stubborn and obstinate to a fault, as well as having a penchant for holding grudges. She's also a little pushy, and has been known to stick her nose in where it's neither needed nor wanted. Although she'd never admit it, she's afraid of failure, of not being able to take care of herself, of being seen as weak -- which is why she's so stubborn about standing on her own two feet.

HISTORY :
Born to a banker and his wife in April of 1839, Stella Cooper was a handful from the start. Her mother often told her that she was a stubborn and willful infant, so she was destined to grow into a stubborn and willful young woman -- affectionately, of course, as Rosalind Cooper never thought ill of her daughter's spirit. She encouraged Stella to be her own woman, to hold her head up and speak her mind, and not to let anyone make her feel like less of a woman because of it.

Stella's mother had a great love of dancing, from her days as a young debutante back east, and she passed that on to her daughter. Stella's earliest memories are of dancing with her father, her feet precariously balanced on his, while her mother clapped the beat with her hands. She learned every dance her mother could teach her: waltzes and gavottes and minuets, jigs and reels, until she could do them in her sleep. And when her mother couldn't teach her any more, Stella would watch the local dance hall girls at festivals and emulate them.

Unfortunately, Rosalind sickened in the summer of Stella's seventeenth year, and by the time winter blew in, she was gone. Stella's father James became more distant and short tempered, and her elder brother Jacob started to bear more of the responsibilities around the house. Left to her own devices and missing her mother, Stella began to sneak out to the local dance hall to watch the performances, and she eventually coerced one of the girls, a young woman named Evelyn Abbott, to teach her what she could. Within the year, Stella was performing herself, making a small wage of her own that she squirreled away secretly.

James found out about Stella's dancing when she was twenty, and he strongly disapproved. Respectable young women her age were better suited grooming themselves for suitable husbands, in his opinion, not carousing in the dance hall for everyone to see. He came perilously close to throwing Stella out, but she offered up a portion of her wages to supplement the family income, and he grudgingly allowed her to continue dancing.

By the time James Cooper died in 1862, Stella was twenty-three and unmarried, something her father had never let her forget. He left everything to Jacob, with instructions to 'take care of your sister, until she sees reason and settles down with a good man'. Stella was furious, and since Jacob was newly married and obviously displeased with the idea of either supporting her or having her move in with him and his young wife, Stella told him not to bother and struck out on her own.

She took odd jobs when her dancing couldn't pay the bills, as a waitress or saloon girl or whatever was needed -- although she never could quite stomach the idea of prostitution. Stella doesn't think of herself as a prude, and she's perfectly capable of respecting such a woman in spite of her profession, but she can't see any eventuality in which she'd be willing to sell her own body for sex with a perfect stranger. There are too many girlish dreams buried deep within her soul for her to consider that a possibility, although she does her best to keep such things from interfering with her basic practicality.

Stella's wanderings brought her to New Shelby not long after the new saloon and dance hall was opened, and she quickly found herself in the employ of Mr. Barnum Dagfinn at The Heel Kicker. She's settled in quite nicely, although the boarding house she calls home isn't the most comfortable of lodgings, and enjoys her new arrangements quite well. She works most nights at the saloon, either dancing or serving drinks, and occasionally -- occasionally -- is coerced into singing, a talent that she's rarely convinced to share with the public, as she considers her voice inferior to her dancing.

She still hears from her brother now and again; Jacob eventually settled in his own home in Colorado, with his wife and their three-year-old son, and he remembers to write to his sister and check up on her -- out of respect for their father -- once a year, at least. He's despaired of Stella ever abiding by their father's wishes and settling down with a 'respectable' young man, but then again, he gave up trying to argue with her years ago -- and it's the one thing Stella is grateful for with her brother.

MUN: Stacey
PB: Jaime Ray Newman

See Stella's in-game
TIMELINE

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Random facts about Stella:

• Stella's parents had a very happy marriage; her father was devastated by her mother's death, and he withdrew into himself after she was gone, pulling away from his children. As a young girl, Stella had always hoped she might find the same kind of relationship herself, but she's all but given up on that, especially after seeing what the loss of her mother did to her father.

• Considering her occupation, Stella is surprisingly well-spoken. Her mother was a bit of a society belle from Maryland before she met and married James Cooper, so she managed to drill that much into her daughter's head, at least, even if the demure attitudes didn't quite take hold.

More to come...