Elizabeth Benoit

[zzz - Elizabeth Benoit]

Elizabeth Marie Benoit

---- THE BASICS

Character's Full Name: Desiree Elizabeth Benoit
Nicknames and Aliases: Elizabeth, Bet, Beth, Liz, Ursula
Age: 674
Species: Vampire
Played By: Reese Witherspoon
Appearance: Bet is 5’ 2” tall with fair hair and skin. She has a wide selection of clothing, and enjoys mixing and matching different pieces to create her own styles. She almost always looks at least slightly over-dressed and she likes to stand out in a crowd. She likes a clean, polished look and her favorite colors are black, red, and pink. She has a few different lapis lazuli pendants she wears, depending on the outfit she’s wearing. She loves accessories: shoes, jewelry, bags, belts, etc.
Personality: Bet’s core motivation for most of her deeds has been greed. As a human, she lived in a desperate state of poverty for most of her life and always longed for something more. This trait was enhanced when she became a vampire, and has only gotten more intense as she’s gotten older. No matter how much she has, she’s never satisfied. She’s always looking for something more.

With a natural talent for deception, Bet is a skilled actress and liar. She loves disguises and playing roles. In another life, she may have become an actress. Instead, she uses her talent to manipulate others, to come across however she chooses. She also has a knack for seduction and has a habit of using flirtation to get what she wants. She likes a bit of romance, but doesn’t get attached often. She’s one for flings and idle flirtations. However, when she does get attached it catches up with her quickly and she can get a bit possessive. When she gets heartbroken, it’s not pretty. Her reaction differs depending on the circumstance, but it puts her in a state where she’s more cutthroat and selfish than usual.

Bet is a social creature. She loves meeting new people and making useful connections. She would much rather make a friend than an enemy. She doesn’t form true loyalty easily (what vampire does?), but putting in the time and effort to earn Bet’s trust is well worth it. Those she considers loyal and trustworthy gain her loyalty in return, and all the perks that come along with it (including money, property, and protection). However, Bet does not take being thrown under the bus or double-crossed lightly. Betray her, and expect to face her wrath.

Powers and Strengths:
+ Superior strength
+ Accelerated healing
+ Compulsion (though she doesn’t like to resort to it)
+ Superhuman speed
+ Heightened senses
+ She’s in a position of wealth and has many connections
+ She’s a natural performer
+ She’s rather good with seduction… when it comes to humans, anyway
+ She’s a brilliant businesswoman
Vulnerabilities and Weaknesses:
+ Vervain
+ Witchcraft
+ Sunlight without her protective jewelry
+ Stake to the heart
+ Decapitation
+ Werewolf bite
+ Bloodlust
+ She’s not much for combat – though she’s strong, she prefers manipulation above physical violence
+ She’s never met a vampire older than herself aside from her creator, which makes her over-confident and arrogant
+ Those she considers family can always be used against her

---- HISTORY

Elizabeth Marie Benoit was born Desiree Elizabeth Benoit in January, 1337. She had a younger sister, Aimee and they grew up in France, living quietly in the country. Their family had little money. Bet was around eleven years old and her sister was seven when the Black Death swept through France. It killed Aimee and then Bet’s father, Joseph. Bet and her mother, Agnes, fled to the English countryside and lived in isolation whenever possible in hopes of riding out the plague. That was how Bet came to England. As a young woman, she moved to London, where she became a seamstress. However, she was always poor and hungry, and she ended up resorting to prostitution to make a decent living. She gave birth to three children over a ten-year period, giving them all up for adoption because she could not afford to feed them.

She was twenty-eight years old when she was made a vampire in 1365. One of her regular gentleman callers had taken quite a liking to her, and thought she’d make a lovely companion and a fierce vampire. However, Bet had an independent streak in her that only intensified when she became a vampire. Her companion quickly tired of her stubbornness and abandoned her around 1390. Bet traveled the world on her own, using her newfound abilities and her resourcefulness to achieve anything and everything she desired: money, men, property. For a time, she checked in on her children and their children, but she lost track of them over the years.

Bet settled in Venice, Italy in the early 1400s, fascinated with the state of upheaval the area seemed to be in. She traveled to other cities, never staying in a single one for more than five years to avoid attracting suspicion. It was during her time in Italy that she acquired a lapis lazuli pendant that allowed her to walk in the daylight. She was delighted, and forever in debt to the witch who aided her. She spent the 1500s traveling through Russia and then Scandinavia. She learned quite a bit about witchcraft, though she could never manage to master it.

During the mid-1600s, Bet settled in London for a time, this time living in luxury, as she’d made herself a wealthy woman by then. She let loose and focused on enjoying herself in a place where she’d once known nothing but poverty and misery. However, she became a bit careless with her abilities and caught the attention of a vampire hunter. She had to flee London and spent the rest of the century leading a nomadic lifestyle. In her travels, she learned some tid-bits about vampire hunters (through trial and error mostly, as she was being pursued and sometimes caught).

By the early 1700s, Bet had managed to shake her pursuer and she traveled to America. She spent some time in the colonial South. However, she soon grew bored of the lifestyle and set off to travel again. She couldn’t seem to settle anywhere until the Industrial Revolution. She became fascinated by the new developments in Britain, and as factories popped up in new places, she followed along with them. She even spent some time working in various textile mills. She was always interested in clothing and fashion, and she enjoyed learning about the new innovations in the field of textiles. Throughout the 1800s, Bet’s life consisted of travel, research into business ventures, and, oddly enough, dress making.

Bet returned to America in the early 1900s. She resumed her previous pattern, settling in one place for five years or so before moving onto another. The 1920s brought her to New Orleans, where she stayed until the Great Depression rolled around and she began traveling again. She enjoyed the mid-to-late 1900s possibly more than any other era. With the rise of Feminism, she found it easier to enter the workplace and actually try her hand at business that didn’t involve prostitution. By the 1980s, she had established her own clothing line called D.E.B.

The twenty-first century has brought a lot of innovations and opportunities into Bet’s life. Her business has expanded to include make-up, fragrances, and accessories. She travels frequently, and buys and sells weapons and supplies for supernaturals. She goes by the name Elizabeth Marie Benoit legally, claiming to be her own daughter.

---- ROLE PLAY SAMPLE

The twenty-first century had seen many innovations. There were telephones that could fit into a small coat pocket, play music, provide entertaining games, and allow for constant social interaction with the entire world. There were vehicles that allowed a person to travel at remarkable speed from one point to another, some of which ran on electricity. Bet could press a button on a little machine in her kitchen and wake up to a fresh cappuccino in the morning. She could record any television program she desired and watch anything she wished at her leisure from a laptop on a private jet across the world.

All these remarkable devices and abilities existed, and Bet had survived long enough to see and utilize them. However, as she sat in an unbelievably comfortable massage chair at a small salon, her favorite invention by far was the bubbling foot spa her feet were soaking in. Even a vampire’s feet couldn’t withstand being constantly jammed into stilettos and high-heeled boots without needing a bit of TLC once in a while. Her feet had been aching when she arrived, and fifteen minutes of soaking in this contraption had soothed and relaxed them wonderfully.

Show me your teeth
(Show me your teeth)
Show me your teeth
(Show me your teeth)

Bet groaned in annoyance as her Blackberry belted Lady Gaga from where it was buried in her purse. She sat up from her chair, a few strands of her long blond hair falling out of the loose ponytail she’d shoved it into. She picked her purse up from the floor and set it on her lap, digging through it in frustration until she pulled out her phone. It was one of her assistants. She answered it, hoping there wasn’t some kind of crisis, but knowing there had to be for Michelle to dare interrupt her on her day off.

“This better be good, Michelle.”

There was an edge to her voice as she sat back in her chair. There was a pause on Michelle’s end and Bet sighed.

“What is it?”

“Sorry to bother you,” Michelle said quickly. “I know you’re at the spa. It’s the samples for your new winter collection.”

Bet felt her jaw tighten.

“What about them?”

“I think there must have been a miscommunication,” Michelle said. “The fabrics are all wrong, and some of the colors… Well, you’ll probably have to look at them yourself when you get back…”

Bet gripped an arm of the chair with her free hand. What kind of miscommunication could there possibly have been that ended in such disastrous results?

“Whatever it is, I’ll deal with it later,” she said. “Did you speak to Robert about the new fragrance?”

“I did, and he said that…”

“Nevermind. I shouldn’t have asked,” Bet said quickly. “I’m supposed to be ignoring work today.”

She smiled at the pedicurist who approached.

“Listen, Michelle, I’ll call you back.”

She ended the call before Michelle could throw anything else at her and tossed her phone in her purse, setting the bag down on the floor. She was in the middle of her foot massage when the phone rang again. This time it was Robert calling to ask her opinion of the new fragrance, which she hadn’t had a chance to sample yet. She was having her toenails painted when Ellen called about having to reschedule a photoshoot. Bet left the salon feeling less relaxed than when she went in. She was sitting in the driver’s seat of her convertible when her phone rang again. She wasn’t happy to be answering it.

“Whoever this is and whatever you want, this is a bad time and I am not in the mood.”

There was a slight pause and Bet took the opportunity to slide her key into the ignition and start the car.

“Is that how you greet an old friend, Desiree?”

Her hand froze, hovering over the shifter and every fiber of her being tensed at the voice on the other end of the phone. Her first thought was to hang up, but she quickly decided against it. That would only irritate him, and that was never wise. She swallowed and gripped the steering wheel with her free hand.

“What do you want?”

That was still a rude response, but it was direct and to-the-point. It was also better than hanging up and ignoring him. One thing she’d learned about her maker, if nothing else, was that ignoring him was a surefire way to attract his full attention. That was the last thing she wanted.

---- THE PLAYER

Alias: admin/caro/bet
RP Experience: advanced
Contact: PM, YIM: mellowmarsh21, MSN: [e-mail]