Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2012 22:14:28 GMT -5
Bonnie Penelope Shepherd
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Name: Bonnie Penelope Shepherd
Nickname: Bo, Little Bo, Bo P., Bo Peep
Gender: Female
Age: 32
Sexuality: Straight
Fairytale: Little Bo Peep
Year: Agriculture Teacher
Face Claim: Shannyn Sossamon
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Personality:
First off, it should be said that Bonnie has a righteous and sincere demeanor about her, despite being a little rough around the edges. Even though she smokes pipe tobacco and drinks like a man, she’s still a bit mild-mannered in the sense that you won’t catch her being rude to people or cursing up a storm (without good reason, of course). Sympathetic to the point of being motherly, even students who have no use for farming or animals come to her. She’s generous with her love, as well as her cooking. Some of the teachers are even enthralled by her culinary skills. (Of course, she doesn’t tell them that the ‘rabbit stew’ is really raccoon, or muskrat, or squirrel. They can believe what they like.)
But make no mistake, Bo’s an observant person. There’s no pulling the wool over her eyes. Just because she lost some sheep once doesn’t mean she’s ready to do it again. Some people think that because she’s a farm girl at heart, she’s a bit lacking in the creativity and brains department. But the truth is that she’s got more than enough artistic and intellectual qualities. Who do you think dyes the sheep’s wool, come spring? Not to mention she’s ingenious when it comes to a good game of chess. Being a farmer isn’t a life of textbook scenarios; sometimes you’ve got to be innovative.
Peaceful to a fault, Bo hates conflict to the point of being over-passive. When faced with a choice of sides, she stays on neutral ground due to her indecisiveness. She may lead her sheep, and her students, but around other teachers she’s really just part of the flock. She’s always worrying- she doesn’t show it, but she worries about everything from the clouds in the sky to the dirt on the ground, and everything between. While being a worrier isn’t bad, the worst part is that her predicted outcomes are almost always pessimistic.
Appearance:
The debate every year amongst her students is always the same: on the first day, will Miss Shepherd have short hair, or long? The truth is that she doesn’t plan her haircuts- some random day she’ll just look in the mirror, not like her hair, and hack it all off, just because. Everyone can agree her eyes are almost black, and that her skin tends to lean toward the natural tan side of the scale. (She blames her homeland for that, sun was never too kind to her complexion. Genetics may have helped a bit too.) But the students all agree that when Miss Shepherd is in the classroom, she’s a classy woman.
Of course, they only get to see her as a fine lady because, well, those are school standards. When she gets out of a classroom and into the field, she’s muddy, messy, and almost always clutching a long stemmed pipe between her teeth. There’s a sort of vanilla tobacco smell about her all the time, and her students can’t seem to place it. They think it might have something to do with the sheep, but the truth is that she used it to mask the sheep odor so they don’t drop dead from the smell.
Navigating a pair of high heels took a little work at first, but Bo did it just the same. It doesn’t mean she prefers them, but again, you can only get away with so much in a classroom of princesses. After work, she’s in an oversized jacket and hiking boots with her hair up in an explosive bun- her second job needs doing.
Oh, and as for the nickname ‘Little Bo’... She stands at 5’ 5”, so whether she is tall, short, or average is up to you, and your height. But coming from a family of menfolk, it’s easy to see how she was a bit of a dwarf as a child.
History:
Bo was born into a family of shepherds, and from the day she was old enough to have cognitive functions and realized what all went on around her, she was just fine with that. She went to school and learned her reading, writing, and arithmetic. She should’ve dropped out in secondary school like all the other farm kids, to learn her father’s trade, but her mother was adamant about her getting an education. Any time the subject was brought up in a remotely negative light, she’d damn near bite someone’s head off about it. No daughter of hers was going to grow up backwards, barefoot, and dumb as a bag of hammers.
Of course, having four brothers to do the work around the farm wasn’t exactly a hindrance either. In fact, looking back, it seemed Bonnie Shepherd’s extensive schooling was more of a ploy to keep her out of the way; same with her sister, Mary. Their parents loved them, of course, but when Mary lost her favorite little lamb, and then Bo lost an entire flock, it was apparent they needed to grow up a bit before learning the trade. Bo grew into it. Mary didn’t.
All in all, it wasn't bad. 'Being a Shepherd', her father would often tell her as she held a ram’s head still while they sheared it, 'is not a bad life. I'm a shepherd, your grandfather was a shepherd, and your great grandfather was a shepherd... Your great, great grandfather? Well, he was a shoemaker. But! HIS father was a shepherd, and so was his brother, who raised your great grandfather, so, really, he doesn't count. Anyway. Let me tell you, we shepherds have the most interesting lives out of anybody else around. We take care of animals that make clothes that make people look good, and people like us for taking care of animals that make them clothes that make them look good, and we like them for liking us for taking care of animals that make them clothes that make them look good, and they like us for liking them for liking us for taking care of animals that make them clothes that make them look good; because let's face it, nobody wants to walk around staring at ugly people all day. It's common sense.'
She always got a kick out of that, once she managed to follow the train of thought.
But one day she finally graduated from her tiny little school in the middle of nowhere, and she was told to go off on her own and make her way in the world, which really meant finding a husband with a nice acre of land and some decent skills. And she did just that... Minus the husband part.
Some people called her crazy, fixing up an old farmhouse and running a flock all on her own, especially in the location she found, right on the edge of the forest. There were all sorts going in and out- witches, wizards, fae. And she didn’t mind it, just as long as they kept away from her sheep.
The smoking habit developed when she was a bit younger, still. She had started enrolling up in the college, and had hired on a farmhand. He was an old man down on his luck, a decent sort, and he had a terrible tobacco addiction. Soon, she developed a taste for it too. There were nights when the sheep would lay in the fields, the stars would shine in a violet purple sky, and they’d stand on the back porch to watch the eternal sunset on the horizon- they lived far north, where she was from.
It was a few years back when Bo got the nerve to make a choice of her own and sell her farm to her friend, striking out again for greener pastures. Tintagel was what she got. She knew that her degree in education would be worth something, eventually.
While she found it a bit awkward settling in at first, she grew into it, and when she grew into it, she started expanding. Now she has another farm- slightly smaller, but still a farm nonetheless, with a flock and a dog and a back porch to watch the sunset off of.
And that’s all she’s ever really needed.
Other: Dreams do come true, and sheep do get found.
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Sample Post:
Most teachers came into school dead tired at 7 AM, but Bo always showed up all chipper and bright, a bounce in her step as she made her way to her classroom. Those who didn’t know her couldn’t understand how she had so much energy- which was near everybody, because they honestly had better things to worry about instead of the strange teacher that somehow managed to get Jack to understand that beans weren’t always magic, and that owning a cow was much more economically sound.
If they had bothered to ask, they would have had a simple answer- her day started at four A.M. each morning. Rain or shine, she was up and out of the house at four thirty, her trusty wolfhound loping alongside as they let out the sheep, observed them, tended to the sick ones, herded them, and took a smoke break until her farmer’s hand showed up to take over the hook and lantern. Then she got undressed, showered, got dressed again, took another smoke, and headed off to the academy, a totally different person then who she started out as only a few hours before.
When the students trickled in, she always had a watchful eye on her hall, like a hawk. No sort of misbehavior escaped her watchful eyes, and again, people wondered how she managed it.
Her college professor once asked her how come she wanted to teach. Her reply: “Well, it’s a bit like keeping sheep.” And she left it at that. It was a bit more complicated, obviously, but not by much. It was more like watching wolves and sheep- sometimes literally, with the former- and she just had to make sure, by the end of the day, both parties were smarter and no one had been eaten.
Bo always felt bad for the teachers who taught hard subjects, like math or science. Agriculture always came so easy to her, because she was raised in it. Were they raised the same way, with test tubes and multiplication as their daily joys? Highly unlikely. She was raised herding sheep, planting her mother’s backyard garden, bartering wool, and fixing up the homestead. That’s why she could teach it, because she wasn’t teaching from a book, for the most part. She was teaching from experience. True, the book helped, but only a little.
The halls slowly emptied, and she was about to go into her classroom when she spotted a head of hair that was unaccounted for- a lost sheep. Er, student. Same thing, really. “You lost?” She called down the hall, eyebrows raised.
