.:Lane:. Valentina Mariska Rzhannikova

[Lane]

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••

Name: Valentina Mariska Rzhannikova
Alias: Lane
Nickname: English (because of her speech patterns)
Gender: Female
Age: Sixteen and a half
Birth Date: the Twenty-eighth of January

LET ME SEE YOU SMILE
••

Height: 5’3”
Weight: around 108 lbs.
Build: very slim and flexible
Eye Colour: blue/black
Hair Colour: dark brown
Avatar: ~Original Drawing~

Over all, Lane appears very, well, blank. She could be pretty, depending how your tastes went. Very pale skin, to the point of being slightly chalky but also very tightly fitted to her average, 5’4” teenage-girl framework. She doesn’t have much meat on her bones besides where it’s supposed to be, giving her a body weight of about 108 lbs. even. Her face is slightly narrow, most of the childish roundness seeming to have faded away early on. Lane’s eyes are probably the most memorable thing about her, being a very soft mix of blue-black irises framed by dark lashes and slightly drooped eyelids that make it seem as if she’s always looking up at you. Her nose has a certain pixie-like upturn that isn’t very noticeable from the front, but from the side it makes her expression seem even more upturned. Her lips are a bit small for her features, and her lower lip sticks out a bit more than it would on most, making it appear that she had a very faint natural pout. All of this is framed by a head of mid shoulder blade-length, brownish-black mess of hair that hangs wherever it so chooses to. Mostly into her face, unfortunately.

Truth be told, Lane looks just like anyone else you’d pass walking down the sidewalk. Correction, any teenager you’d pass walking down the sidewalk. Tank tops and tee-shirts are her favorite things to wear, along with a well-broken-in pair of jeans. She ALWAYS wears a large, mint-green hoodie, usually with the hood up, and whether it’s cold or not. On occasion she’ll wear a short white dress, but usually only in summer. But, no matter what she’s wearing, the one thing that never changes are her Chuck Taylors that never seem to leave her feet, unless she’s inside, at which point she’s usually barefoot.

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THE DRUGS DON'T WORK
••

Likes:

• Red fruits (and the color red in general)
  
• Small animals
  
• Books of any nature
  
• Fire
  

Dislikes:

• Alcohol
  
• Drugs of any kind
  
• Getting sick
  
• Many things that may cause general dislike of a person
  
• Doctors, hospitals, institutions, etc.
  

Fears:

• Staying at Wammy’s forever
  
• Guns
  

Strengths:

• Particularly acute eyesight
  
• Relating to others
  
• Dealing with stressful situations
  
• Planning ahead
  
• General reasoning
  

Weaknesses:

• Negativity
  
• Being doubted or overlooked
  
• Having people treat her like she isn’t needed
  

Specializations:

• Psychology and Philosophy
  
• Observation
  
• Behaviorism
  

In a nutshell she appears very shy and withdrawn, which is mostly true. On the other hand, once you start talking to her, and if you can get her to respond, she really comes out of her shell and you’ll find that in all truth she’s very kind and actually likes helping people however she can. Whenever she takes someone in as a friend she becomes eternally loyal to them and will do whatever she can to make them happy. Because of her previous case of RAD (see History) she has been through many stages of the disorder, first being completely withdrawn and then being extremely affectionate to just about anyone. Now, though she had partially returned to her withdrawn state, minus the unwillingness to communicate with others, her affection only shows through once her ice-coating is broken.

And though she often seems very sure and confident of her decisions, internally she tends to constantly contradict herself and then rethink the problem to see if the outcome is the same or different from her original theory. Often she speaks in repetition aloud, along with near refusing to use contractions("can't" or "won't" or "shouldn't", etc.) when speaking or thinking. (This is the main reason for her nickname) One other thing people often notice in her speech patterns that is closely related to her method of problem solving and general thoughts is her natural habit of using circumlocution and often making a long statement that doesn't lead to any direct conclusions but offers many different views/answers.

Lane is always very polite, minus the fact that she rarely responds to people when they first talk to her. Okay, so, maybe she’s not too polite upon first meeting. But, she usually is when being introduced to someone rather than being approached directly. Most of the time she’s quiet, and because of this you can never tell when she’s angry. Her anger is the silent type that is always expressed by being not expressed at all. She’s not much one for revenge, but, sometimes her anger gets the best of her and she does get back at whoever happens to bother her. Otherwise, she can get along with just about everyone.

TELL ME YOUR STORY
••

Family: Rudolph Rzhannikova (father)
Heritage: Lane’s mother was Russian and Latvian, and her father was mostly Irish and German, but also Ukrainian.
Hometown: She was raised in Northern Siberia in early childhood, but had also lived in Poland, Eastern Germany, Romania, Ukraine and Lithuania throughout her school age to about age 14.
Birthplace: Vorkuta, Siberia, Russia

Lane was born to a, well, dysfunctional sort of family. Her mother, who had been an aspiring actress, unfortunately ended up dying in child birth because of the fact that it was an unadvised home birth and a few unexpected complications arose. Her father never really wanted a child, but, he agreed in the beginning because Elyona (Lane’s mother) had always wanted a child, and because she just seemed so happy when they found out she was pregnant.

Rudolph (Lane’s father) was originally an insurance salesman, but after Elyona’s death, he became depressed and turned to drugs, eventually losing his previous occupation and becoming a drug trafficker to feed his addiction. Lane was left alone to care for herself. When she was very young her father would sometimes leave her with the neighbor, a teen mom that didn’t even take care of her own children. All she did was feed them now and again.

By the time she was four years old, she had began teaching herself anything she could. Lane was, in a sense, substituting her lack of human interaction for a love of books. Anything she could find, she’d read, or at least attempt to. She and her father ended up moving around a lot to avoid begin caught by the authorities. They hadn’t settled in one place for any amount of time until they reached Germany.

After they had been living there a few years, when Lane was about 10 years old, her father was killed in a drug holdup. Because Lane was never registered with Russia, as her father considered to be 'illigitimate', or anywhere else, no one could find anything on her. Or rather, no one knew she even existed. The small girl had taken complete care of herself, and now if anyone had tried to even reach out to her, she’d throw a fit.

On one occasion it was the old woman next door who offered her to take her to a foster center. Lane threw anything she could find at the woman, even launching herself and beginning to bite and claw at her when she ran out of things to throw. Another time it was the librarian at the local library. She got hit with a stapler, along with several books. A third time, it was the mail man who ended up getting stabbed in the arm with a pen. Finally, when she was eventually taken into foster care, she had ended up burning down one of the houses she was taken into.

By this point she was nearly 12, and it was also at this time she was sent to a children’s home in the UK that specialized in helping children suffering from Reactive Attachment Disorder. Lane was diagnosed with this shortly after being finally found. As she began recovering to a certain point, they began giving her formal schooling, only to discover that her intelligence was far above that of the average student. Especially because everything she heard or saw seemed to be automatically absorbed and could be easily recalled later when prompted.

Lane was a deemed to be cured at age 13, an amazingly quick recovery that was mostly accredited to her intelligence once she seemed to begin understanding that people really wanted to help her and accept their help. Not too long later, Quillish Wammy discovered her in the same children’s home she had been staying in for nearly two years. After having to stay in the orphanage for another year to be sure of her 'mental stability', the female was brought into Wammy’s Orphanage at age 14.

More recently, Lane has become more introverted but opposingly more observant of others. She is a people-watcher, very simply. She keeps a very detailed record of everyone at Wammy's. Simple everyday reactions of every person she sees is kept stored away in the recesses of her mind and can be retrieved at an instant. This gives her seemingly inhumane knowledge. She's even often being credited with 'reading minds' because of her new-found ability to take all information from both diverse and similar scenarios and applying them to current situations to come up with what the individual will do or how they will react.
((I’ve decided to use the last bit of this section to allow Lane to speak for herself and say what she wants. And to give a good look of what’s going on in her head.))

"They are all liars. All of them. No matter what they say, it is just another string in the web. And it is constant; in both their conscious and unconscious mind. They wanted me to get better, so I did. I can lie too. And I am very, very good at it. I can control myself; much, much better than they can. I never said I was cured, they said I was. But I did not believe them. No, no, no. They said they were going to fix me. Make me all better so I can go on with life. What horrible, horrible people. They talk about me as if I am some little figurine God was playing with and accidentally dropped, causing me to shatter. No, I am not broken, I am imperfect. Right? Just like you. And everyone else. But they cannot see it that way. They treat me like I am dangerous, which I am sure that I am. Yes, I know I am unwell. I know I am messed up. And I really do not care. It does not matter. This is how I am. If I was supposed to be any way else, I would have been made like so, do you think not? No, I am sure you do not. No one ever does, do they?

If it has not become apparent, there is a chance I may be crazy. In which manner, I am unsure. I see things differently than I am sure most others do, so, either I truly am unstable, or, I just have an unusual way of looking at the world. Does it really matter in the end? Probably not. As long as it makes sense, right? People only want results; the means of getting there never matters. Then again, if people knew my real thought process and my real view on the world, well, I do not think I would be any more accepted than I am now, but, I believe there is a chance people would become angry with me and try to change me. I will never allow that to happen. Ever."
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YOU'RE GONNA GO FAR, KID
••

Name: Alex
Age: 14
Experience: 5 years or so.
Codeword: Don't look here.
Fun fact: Haha… I’m a spazz.
Sample Post: [/blockquote]

(I already did this for Eden, but, I felt like doing it again for Lane xD)
The crisp day weather always seemed to deliquesce and became nearly bone chilling at sunset. Mostly because of the lifeless winds that blew against the faces of those who dared come out after dark in late fall, just before the snow would blanket the ground. Luckily, Lane was on the inside looking out. Standing silently in front of the window that was beginning to fog over at the small area where each escaped breath brushed over the glass. Her mysterious eyes ghosted around, taking in the leaves that tumbled like small gymnasts over the ground, jumping into the air just to spin and come back to earth before continuing their dance. Her head tilted faintly as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other to find a mildly comfortable position before stilling to continue her evaluation of the outside world.

Soon, she began humming. A gentle tune that caused the fog on the cool glass to form over an even larger area as the gentle notes escaped her faintly parted lips. Her hand soon rested against the glass, a faint outline of condensation forming that left a perfectly detailed print when she pulled her hand away. She tilted her head a bit, forehead creasing a bit as her mind began wandering.

’I wonder… Why all leaves not fall off at the same time, when they are all the same color? Can all leaves be red? Or do they have to be different colors? Do they have to be yellow? Or orange? Or brown? Why can they not all be red? But, if they were all red, they would not be near as interesting. Or as pretty. Right?

Lane soon began nibbling the nail on her right index finger as her thoughts continued to roll around, forming circles that were constantly continuing. Random clues that lead nowhere, thoughts that are known to exist but unable to be found, the kind of confusion that takes genius to achieve. Yes. Lane is all of this confusion and more.

[Mello]

Accepted!