Application for guysandolls
She always had that little drop of poison'>
PLAYER
[journal] ink_cat
[age] Nineteen; born June 1991.
[previous characters] None.
CHARACTER
[series] Sherlock Holmes (2009)
[full name] Irene Adler
[age] 32
[gender] Female
[canon point] Post movie
[reference] Wikipedia
[personality]
Irene is, above all else, passionate. She lives intensely, understands her desires and confidently seizes them. She is most certainly ahead of her time - she can tussle with the best of them, travels freely without chaperone, wears men's clothes when it suits her, and does not rely on others for her safety and comfort. Convention has never stopped her, and while she may use her male connections to secure her livelihood, she is never truly beholden to them.
The law is of almost no concern to her, but Irene is not at heart, a bad woman, merely one who knows what she wants (in general, freedom - and for a woman in Victorian Europe, the only way to gain true freedom is by amassing wealth and influence) and how to get it. Yes, she can be manipulative. She's clever, and she's beautiful, and she knows it (Conan Doyle describes her as having "“the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men,") but she is not vindictive, and gains no particular pleasure from harming others. Growing up in the theater helped her cultivate considerable charm. She is well-spoken and cultured, and is polite more often than she is not. Whether that politeness is genuine or not is entirely a different matter. She's an opportunist. In any given interaction, as casual as she may appear Irene is carefully composing her responses and weighing any information she's given for future usefulness. She as subtle in her management of people as she was in her criminal career (though in personal matters, she does appreciate a certain amount of flair. To quote Watson, "She loves an entrance, your muse.")
On the other hand, she can be willful, even stubborn. If Irene becomes irritated with someone who she considers to be of little use to her, she won't hesitate to speak sharply to them. She holds one hell of a grudge, and doesn't take well to advice, assistance, or direction ("I've never been in over my head," she brags to Sherlock during the Blackwood/Moriarity case.) As such, she's a hard woman to impress. It gets rather head-canon heavy from here on out, but bear with me. She can count on one hand the number of people she truly respects. In part, that's due to her own rather impressive intelligence and competence. In others, as in herself, she values independence, a certain unflinching approach to the world, and general keenness. Her fascination with Holmes is certainly built on the foundations of mutual respect.
Irene is not the sort of woman who values close relationships in the same way ordinary people do. Because of her manipulative nature - and because of her brilliance - she tends to have the upper hand on her friends and loved ones. Irene likes to be in control; she finds it incredibly unsettling to be at the whim of emotion, and so she avoids such entanglements if possible. In some ways, she finds caring weak - more than that, she finds it unseemly. She's the type of woman to roll her eyes at the melodramatics and bleeding hearts. But when her heart gets the better of her, and it certainly does at times, she loves fiercely, loyally, and honestly.
[orientation]
Irene is straight. What she is attracted to though, more than any particular set of people, is intelligence and charisma. I don't doubt that if she found herself drawn to a woman on those levels, she would act on her attractions.
A note on sexual affairs: In the past, Irene's used sex - or at least the promise of sex - primarily as a tool to manipulate men. In addition, in matters of gender/sexual identity, she's a surprisingly modern woman, considering her period of origin. What that means is that she has a rather pragmatic approach to the entire thing. It's useful to get people to do things for you, and it can be enjoyable. While she's not exactly a sex kitten, she has a healthy interest in sex - outside of its use as a tool, that is. She definitely exudes a certain air of sensuality but is far from brazen. She prefers the tease, the game of courtship/flirtation, and ultimately she likes to keep things between two consenting adults behind closed doors. She has no real respect for monogamy, as evidenced by her serial marriages and numerous affairs.
[appearance]
Irene is thirty-two, but she'll never admit to it - she easily passes for late twenties. She's of average height and slim frame, though she certainly has curves to her even without all the corsets. Her complexion is naturally fair, but has darkened slightly from her travels. Her eyes are a striking shade of green, and her long auburn hair is almost always arranged into a mass of curls. Irene is, on the whole, well-groomed. She tends to dress rather luxuriantly, and with a flair for fashion - even without an occasion, she prefers silk to linen and lace to cotton. If given the opportunity, she will generally dress in full period attire (bustle and all), unless she's got work to do or some trouble to get into, in which case she tends to adopt men's period clothing - trousers, suspenders, the whole nine. Her carriage is carefully controlled and graceful.
[wish]
This is difficult, only because Irene is more or less living the dream already. She's entirely independent and at least moderately wealthy. Sure, there's not a whole lot of security in it, but Irene isn't the settling-down type. That being said, there is one thing that threatens her way of life: the steady march of time. It simply won't be possible for her to retain the title of "adventuress" indefinitely - age will limit her physically, make her more conspicuous, and put a serious dent in her influence. Her wish, then, would be for a sort of "extended youth". Irene's smarter than to want eternal youth with no exit strategy. What she'd get is a compromise: an ordinary human life span - whatever she was already destined to have, say seventy-five years - but without physically aging another day. She could live her life exactly as is, unhindered by infirmity, up until the day she died.
[requested house]
Iki House. Irene is brilliant and accomplished. Not only is she a master thief, she's an opera star lauded across Europe and a world-traveled adventuress. Irene has proved herself a thinking - and rich - man's woman time and again.
[misc notes]
None.
SAMPLES
[sample 1#]
She had a way with handcuffs.
He'd heard that about her - it's why this particular client had come to Iki. He'd said, when they first met, that he desired the pleasure of hearing her sing. La Traviata, he said, was a particular favorite. His grandmother used to play the record when he was a boy. He said that he was drawn to her mind, her beauty, her charm. But once they had made their way to her bedroom, he quietly confided his true wishes to her. Without a word, she had tipped her head demurely, obligingly. Everyone had their quirks, and everyone had needs. Far be it for either of them to pretend otherwise.
And so she'd fastened the silver cuffs around his wrists and seated him in a chair with instructions not to move. He'd nodded and licked his lips, betraying his nerves. It was almost sweet how disingenuous he was. She didn't see enough of that - too often the men feigned bravado or detachment. It was comforting to see the nervous dance of his fingertips against cold steel, or the way his eyes shifted all over her body.
She stood back from where he was seated. Her eyes never leaving his, she slipped out the knot in the sash of her robe. She shrugged slightly, and the layers of silk fell from her body in a stream of gold. She stepped forward out of the puddle of discarded clothing, bare from her head to the tips of her toes. There was no self-consciousness in her - naked, Irene carried herself with the same poise that she exhibited when clothed. Her footsteps hardly making a sound on the floorboards, she stepped towards her client.
In a single smooth motion, she seats herself on his lap, her breasts brushing lightly against the fabric of his lapel, one arm draped languidly around his neck. The other gently loosened his top button, exposing a neat triangle of skin. Her fingers ran in light swirls over his collarbone, the hollow of his throat, the delicate pulse-point, and eventually snaked up to cradle the back of his head. As if driven to distraction, Irene regarded his mouth seriously, inches from her own. Her eyes moved up to meet his - unhurried, calm, completely in control.
"I'll do things to you you'll never forget," she said quietly, her fingers curling in his dark hair. She moved towards him, then paused, a small, crooked smile playing across her lips. "Say please," she instructed him, looking up at him coyly from beneath dark lashes.
[sample 2#]
Dear_Mun thread. If you'd like to see something else, just let me know!
PLAYER
[journal] ink_cat
[age] Nineteen; born June 1991.
[previous characters] None.
CHARACTER
[series] Sherlock Holmes (2009)
[full name] Irene Adler
[age] 32
[gender] Female
[canon point] Post movie
[reference] Wikipedia
[personality]
Irene is, above all else, passionate. She lives intensely, understands her desires and confidently seizes them. She is most certainly ahead of her time - she can tussle with the best of them, travels freely without chaperone, wears men's clothes when it suits her, and does not rely on others for her safety and comfort. Convention has never stopped her, and while she may use her male connections to secure her livelihood, she is never truly beholden to them.
The law is of almost no concern to her, but Irene is not at heart, a bad woman, merely one who knows what she wants (in general, freedom - and for a woman in Victorian Europe, the only way to gain true freedom is by amassing wealth and influence) and how to get it. Yes, she can be manipulative. She's clever, and she's beautiful, and she knows it (Conan Doyle describes her as having "“the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men,") but she is not vindictive, and gains no particular pleasure from harming others. Growing up in the theater helped her cultivate considerable charm. She is well-spoken and cultured, and is polite more often than she is not. Whether that politeness is genuine or not is entirely a different matter. She's an opportunist. In any given interaction, as casual as she may appear Irene is carefully composing her responses and weighing any information she's given for future usefulness. She as subtle in her management of people as she was in her criminal career (though in personal matters, she does appreciate a certain amount of flair. To quote Watson, "She loves an entrance, your muse.")
On the other hand, she can be willful, even stubborn. If Irene becomes irritated with someone who she considers to be of little use to her, she won't hesitate to speak sharply to them. She holds one hell of a grudge, and doesn't take well to advice, assistance, or direction ("I've never been in over my head," she brags to Sherlock during the Blackwood/Moriarity case.) As such, she's a hard woman to impress. It gets rather head-canon heavy from here on out, but bear with me. She can count on one hand the number of people she truly respects. In part, that's due to her own rather impressive intelligence and competence. In others, as in herself, she values independence, a certain unflinching approach to the world, and general keenness. Her fascination with Holmes is certainly built on the foundations of mutual respect.
Irene is not the sort of woman who values close relationships in the same way ordinary people do. Because of her manipulative nature - and because of her brilliance - she tends to have the upper hand on her friends and loved ones. Irene likes to be in control; she finds it incredibly unsettling to be at the whim of emotion, and so she avoids such entanglements if possible. In some ways, she finds caring weak - more than that, she finds it unseemly. She's the type of woman to roll her eyes at the melodramatics and bleeding hearts. But when her heart gets the better of her, and it certainly does at times, she loves fiercely, loyally, and honestly.
[orientation]
Irene is straight. What she is attracted to though, more than any particular set of people, is intelligence and charisma. I don't doubt that if she found herself drawn to a woman on those levels, she would act on her attractions.
A note on sexual affairs: In the past, Irene's used sex - or at least the promise of sex - primarily as a tool to manipulate men. In addition, in matters of gender/sexual identity, she's a surprisingly modern woman, considering her period of origin. What that means is that she has a rather pragmatic approach to the entire thing. It's useful to get people to do things for you, and it can be enjoyable. While she's not exactly a sex kitten, she has a healthy interest in sex - outside of its use as a tool, that is. She definitely exudes a certain air of sensuality but is far from brazen. She prefers the tease, the game of courtship/flirtation, and ultimately she likes to keep things between two consenting adults behind closed doors. She has no real respect for monogamy, as evidenced by her serial marriages and numerous affairs.
[appearance]
Irene is thirty-two, but she'll never admit to it - she easily passes for late twenties. She's of average height and slim frame, though she certainly has curves to her even without all the corsets. Her complexion is naturally fair, but has darkened slightly from her travels. Her eyes are a striking shade of green, and her long auburn hair is almost always arranged into a mass of curls. Irene is, on the whole, well-groomed. She tends to dress rather luxuriantly, and with a flair for fashion - even without an occasion, she prefers silk to linen and lace to cotton. If given the opportunity, she will generally dress in full period attire (bustle and all), unless she's got work to do or some trouble to get into, in which case she tends to adopt men's period clothing - trousers, suspenders, the whole nine. Her carriage is carefully controlled and graceful.
[wish]
This is difficult, only because Irene is more or less living the dream already. She's entirely independent and at least moderately wealthy. Sure, there's not a whole lot of security in it, but Irene isn't the settling-down type. That being said, there is one thing that threatens her way of life: the steady march of time. It simply won't be possible for her to retain the title of "adventuress" indefinitely - age will limit her physically, make her more conspicuous, and put a serious dent in her influence. Her wish, then, would be for a sort of "extended youth". Irene's smarter than to want eternal youth with no exit strategy. What she'd get is a compromise: an ordinary human life span - whatever she was already destined to have, say seventy-five years - but without physically aging another day. She could live her life exactly as is, unhindered by infirmity, up until the day she died.
[requested house]
Iki House. Irene is brilliant and accomplished. Not only is she a master thief, she's an opera star lauded across Europe and a world-traveled adventuress. Irene has proved herself a thinking - and rich - man's woman time and again.
[misc notes]
None.
SAMPLES
[sample 1#]
She had a way with handcuffs.
He'd heard that about her - it's why this particular client had come to Iki. He'd said, when they first met, that he desired the pleasure of hearing her sing. La Traviata, he said, was a particular favorite. His grandmother used to play the record when he was a boy. He said that he was drawn to her mind, her beauty, her charm. But once they had made their way to her bedroom, he quietly confided his true wishes to her. Without a word, she had tipped her head demurely, obligingly. Everyone had their quirks, and everyone had needs. Far be it for either of them to pretend otherwise.
And so she'd fastened the silver cuffs around his wrists and seated him in a chair with instructions not to move. He'd nodded and licked his lips, betraying his nerves. It was almost sweet how disingenuous he was. She didn't see enough of that - too often the men feigned bravado or detachment. It was comforting to see the nervous dance of his fingertips against cold steel, or the way his eyes shifted all over her body.
She stood back from where he was seated. Her eyes never leaving his, she slipped out the knot in the sash of her robe. She shrugged slightly, and the layers of silk fell from her body in a stream of gold. She stepped forward out of the puddle of discarded clothing, bare from her head to the tips of her toes. There was no self-consciousness in her - naked, Irene carried herself with the same poise that she exhibited when clothed. Her footsteps hardly making a sound on the floorboards, she stepped towards her client.
In a single smooth motion, she seats herself on his lap, her breasts brushing lightly against the fabric of his lapel, one arm draped languidly around his neck. The other gently loosened his top button, exposing a neat triangle of skin. Her fingers ran in light swirls over his collarbone, the hollow of his throat, the delicate pulse-point, and eventually snaked up to cradle the back of his head. As if driven to distraction, Irene regarded his mouth seriously, inches from her own. Her eyes moved up to meet his - unhurried, calm, completely in control.
"I'll do things to you you'll never forget," she said quietly, her fingers curling in his dark hair. She moved towards him, then paused, a small, crooked smile playing across her lips. "Say please," she instructed him, looking up at him coyly from beneath dark lashes.
[sample 2#]
Dear_Mun thread. If you'd like to see something else, just let me know!