FT: Irma Perkins, the Eponymous Heroine of Thumbelina
irma perkins
GENRE: Original interpretation of fairy tales; in specific for this, an old Danish piece of folklore.
ARCHETYPE: Self-destructive ice queen slut, maybe. Irma is fucking hard to describe.
REPRESENTATIVE JOURNAL ENTRIES: ONE
REPRESENTATIVE ROLEPLAY LOGS: Forthcoming!
PERSPECTIVE ESSAYS: Forthcoming!
NAME: Irma Elizabeth Perkins
DATE OF BIRTH, AGE: 28 December 1985, 22 as of 11 March 2008
AFFILIATIONS: Pentamerone, her business, herself.
PROFESSION:Clerk and co-owner at The Frogging Pond, a knitting cafe in Greenwitch Village that specializes in being a luxe yarn hoarder by day and a bistro-patisserie by night. More about the Pond, as Irma calls it, is discussed later, but suffice it to say, Irma does anything and everything that the young shop needs her to do.
PERSONALITY: It would be easy enough to say that Irma Perkins has a sizeable Napoleonic complex and leave it at that. But that's making things easy, which is something that Irma is not in both literal and figurative context. Her relationship with her height, however, explains her initial impression in a rather indirect way. For the most part, she's very neutral when around people; it would be wrong to say that she's shy, because she deals with customer service constantly, but the distrust she places in people and how they react to everything means that Irma purposefully puts a neat wall between the audience and herself. She's blandly polite to most members on the Compendiums to the point of apathy, and the type that only smiles when smiled upon from afar. She went through seven years of trying too hard and learning too much to be bothered now with the inticracies of social engagement, because frankly? Humanity hasn't proven itself to be much of a commodity to go the extra mile for, and Irma's done wasting her time trying to see if people will suddenly change en masse and prove her incorrect.
If there's anything Indiana taught her, it was the utter and total base cruelty of people. Irma's a firm believer in humanity's sheep mindset, mostly out of an explosive amount of first-hand experience courtesy of high school bullies and the rest of the playground. When she's benevolent, she reminds herself that people can't help it; we're all programmed genetically to desire the most physically advantageous mate, of course, what with wanting to propogate the species into the next millenium and so on. But most of the time, she's pretty sure that humanity is a cesspool of idiocy from which she should only comment on from afar, preferably with a particularly bristling harpoon laced with arsenic and acid. It makes her feel better, you know.
Yet, as with most, the most foulest of personality traits usually lie rooted in some semblance of insecurities. There's the height thing, of course, and any comments concerning Irma Bonaparte conquering her own domain for the safety of self would probably be perfectly apt, but it's really just a superficial face for the knot of issues in that little heart of hers. She came from a place where everybody knows your business and everyone faults you for not being from the ultimate Christian nuclear family, whether they admit it in plain terms or otherwise. She's the unwhispered crack baby, the product of some prom night gone horrifically wrong, and although teen pregnancy is not seen in nearly the harshest light in today's society as it once was, living with an old woman whose firm belief in Jesus was strict and more than a little antagonistic means that the whole entire "product of union out of wedlock" thing was a bit of a struggle for Irma to come to grips with in her household. And so she weaves in between feeling like a genetic reject, an emotional reject, and a spiritual reject (for if you think that Irma doesn't feel as if the whole entire atheism thing wasn't caused by a total abandonment of God, you're wrong); such a potent cocktail means one's destined to feel just a little antagonistic, no?
But Irma, in part, is pretty much determined not to be as much of a utter and complete mental and empathetic failure that the rest of humanity's been to her. In fact, Irma's determined to not let a lot of things happen to her without her consent, which leads to the fact that she's pretty much one step away from being a genuine, textbook obsessive-compulsive control freak. It works in her favor at The Frogging Pond; her demand for a strict order means that the tiny shop, which would otherwise be totally overwhelmed with the contents that Norma and Irma order, is easily navigable. Her room suffers from the same need for order, and let's not even get into her cleaning regimens. But in terms of control, where it really becomes evident is in her personal life. Save for Norma, whose kindness in other realms has softened Irma enough so that she'll generally accept the woman's meddling ways re: her love life, Irma is pretty much determined that no one person will ever make decisions for her ever. A childhood of tight reins and learning that she's a reincarnation tweaks the part of her that revels in free choice and independent action, so she frequently acts out in the way she sees most fit. This, not Irma's intelligence, explains her lack of ability to cope with higher education; tell her what to do? She'll tell you what to do, fucktard, and it'll involve barbs and dildoes. Needless to say, bossy individuals do not a friend of Irma's make.
Irma does have friends though (never judge the individual from the herd, as it were), fucked up and disenfranchised as she is. In fact, get beyond all that indifference, and she can be downright sweet and affectionate. Irma's basic being has always been that of loving, and her essential self is easily shown at The Pond. There, it's hard-pressed for anyone to see her doing anything but smiling and painfully at the ready for assistance. She'll sit with a customer for hours if that's what they need in order to learn the knit stitch, and she'll go the extra mile for someone who needs a replacement yarn for a certain project. She feels that within her little store, it's the utopia that she wished could exist everywhere; people are nice and cooperate without a hitch, and there's a general sense of cameraderie that Irma's never known beyond that in a group of knitters. From the perspective of appearances, of course, Irma looks to be this kind of person; she's a pretty enough girl, of course, and manages to still have an initial air of innocence and sweetness that is probably hard to reconcile when seen at the bar to smoke a pack and stare down the idiots while nursing a whiskey on the rocks. Irma knows most of her knitting friends, much as she adores them, would have issue with this, and so she is just as quick to open up (albeit in an infinitely more bastardized way) to a series of drinking friends she's accumulated over the years. In this group, it's all about cutting the man down and sharing in a general hatred, and Irma's tongue is as sharp as it is jaded with these clusters of people. Friendship with Irma is a bizarre state, really, as you're never quite sure what you'll get.
The same leads for love. Irma's pretty damn sure she's never really been in love with anyone, although she did love Nana despite the woman's excellent ability to bestow complex after complex on her person. Part of the reason she tolerates Norma's constant blind dates is the fact that she's pretty sure that, if nothing else, she'll probably get a quick fuck at the end before she severs any contact with the creepy forty-somethings that Norma thinks is a "good idea" to pair with her "emotionally mature" roommate. But otherwise, she's pretty sure that there isn't another person in the world that has the utter fucking patience that she knows she requires. There's no one who would understand her need to be as unbridled as possible or the seething venom she can summon at the very idea of people being their fucking inspid selves, and this isn't something that particularly bothers her, but nor does it endear her to the idea of being in a stable, monogamous relationship. Way Irma sees it, if everybody's just going to fuck everybody else over, she might as well stay as unencumbered as possible, thanks. Norma, of course, thinks otherwise; eventually, Irma's sure it'll sink into her brain. She hopes.
LIKES: Djarum Blacks, Grey Goose, Jack Daniels, coffee at 3 am, felting Cascade 220, Addi Turbos, Clyde (the cello, dipshit), classic James Bond, making fun of classic movies that aren't James Bond, throwing pottery, waking up early, staying up late, burning the candles at both ends if she wants to, the Pond, stilettos, ridiculously hot underwear, anyone with two knitting needles in their hand and a willingness to learn, learning on her own terms, sunshine, napping in a patch of sun, old Nana quilts, entreprenurialism, planning out her first tattoo.
DISLIKES: Indiana, fucking people, looking too fucking cute, the memory of her parents, strangers seeing her in flats, frogging a piece, idiots working in her shop, no adherence to shop rules, the type of movie that's nominated for "Best Picture" at the Oscars, nosy fuckers, being bossed around, being forced to do anything not of her own volition, lectures on addiction, authority, crowds, mass mentality, hangovers.
HISTORY: Irma Perkins doesn't know, for better or for worse, who her real parents are. She insists that it's for the better that way; after all, her mom's probably just some high school slut who was too retarded to get her fucktard of a father to wrap it before he tapped it, and that's why she's here. There's no romanticizing about it; even when she was younger, she'd tell peers that her mama didn't want to or couldn't raise her and so she was taken to Nana. Nana had a name, of course: Ruth-Ellen Perkins, head crone at Grace Baptist Church (one of two churches in West Bayden Springs, mind you, and both of them Baptist) and permanent spinster who had grown to her advanced age within the borders of Orange County, Indiana without the knowledge of a touch of a man. If she was Catholic, she would've been a nun, but as she was Baptist, she was an adoptive mother at 73. From the moment when Ruth-Ellen picked up the tiny child in her hands and cried that she would be named Irma, our heroine had little chance for a life of normalcy.
One of Irma's first memories involves the three primary realities of her childhood: Jesus, crafts, and denial. It was after Sunday School when she was five, and as the pastor was greeting the families as they left, one of the ushers pointed out a sign-up sheet for Little League basketball. Thrilled at the prospect of joining in on Indiana's favorite pasttime, she begged Nana, who complained, insisted she was setting herself up to failure, and ultimately caved. At the try-outs, the coaches let her through a few rounds, but ultimately said for the first time what she would hear for the rest of her life: with her height, it's simply not feasable for her to be a contributing member to the team. It was a strange lesson for a five-year-old to follow, insistence that she should try next year after her "growth spurt" aside, but Nana summarized it pretty quick: you should've just sat at home, read the Book of Matthew, and knit a potholder in order to save yourself the trouble. So, for a little while, she did.
Elementary school proved to be a nightmare. Between having a withered old lady for her representative at P.T.O. meetings, being the shortest damn student every time, finding out that she actually was fail at hoops, coming to school in Goodwill hand-me-downs and lumpy handknit sweaters, and possessing such a lovely name, Irma found that she was soon the butt of jokes on the playground - and in the classroom, in the bathroom, on the bus, and almost anywhere a classmate could be encountered. As West Baden Springs is a remarkably small town, this meant Irma had little respite; even when her tormentors' mothers were present, the constant murmur of "you should be nice, you don't know if she's a dwarf" was too much, even for a little girl like her. She had a few friends, sure; mainly, those in books and in her vivid imagination as she'd learn new knitting techniques on long Sunday afternoons, but there were even a few from Sunday School and her neighborhood that made school not as awful as it could have been. Still, she'd go to bed every night praying to be taller, and she'd constantly wake up disappointed.
Middle and high school meant apathy, both on Irma's part as well as the rest of the student populace. The older everyone became, the more they realized that living in such a small town (and, therefore, school district) meant that you were always seen and heard by all sorts of people, and so everyone pretended that Irma Perkins wasn't a crack baby raised by the resident Bible thumper and she finally found a semblance of peace and normalcy. Something else she found was cello; Irma, for the record, was never a virtuoso, but her utter love and enthusiasm for the music (paired by an early affection of classical music, which is quite possibly one of the few good things Ruth-Ellen Perkins ever gave to her) meant that Irma was collecting ISSMA medals left and right. She also thrived in art classes, being a decent draftsperson but really excelling in sculptural and other hands-on activities as a testament to Nana's early introduction to crafts. But other than that, Irma never really did care for school much; classes were boring, and so she'd phase out to let her mind wander through a rather vivid set of daydreams. These were all well and good, of course, except most involved a bunch of incongruous events. Toads, for instance, were a popular motif in a few, as were moles, birds, and the occasional mouse, but the settings always varied. They would come at such vivid and frequent intervals that, soon, people would comment about how Irma Perkins missed a class or three because she just... phased out. Those familiar to Taledom would know what was happening, but to the small town of West Baden Springs, it only meant that either Irma Perkins was branding herself as more of an outsider or needed some serious medical help. Irma, who by this point only prayed with sincerity once every few months and always on the subject of God helping her to pay attention to the fucking bell, was inclined to agree.
So, when the Scandanavian Librarian showed up on the Perkins' front porch, it was the beginning of a semblance of relief. The Librarian was wise enough to say that he was a representative for a national university scholarship program; after all, Ruth-Ellen had decided a long time ago that if Irma was going to be able to get her Mrs. degree, it'd have to be at that damn college, and so she was happy to oblige. As for Irma, she was just happy for answers. The fantasizing in class, of course, was manifestation, but there were no pills that came with being a Tale, and the Librarian could only offer the small piece of advice that she keep her wits about her and not drift off in class as she needed to. The end of the meeting was bittersweet; on one hand, Irma had answers and proof that there were others like her, albeit not all with nearly as much of the short stick (pardon the pun) with what their tales gave them. Furthermore, all the reincarnation stuff was more than enough proof to her that all this Jesus shit was just that - utter and complete shit. But on the other hand, it was thanks to Thumbelina that she was the supreme midget, so for a while, she just locked up the Compendium and tried to get good portfolio grades in hopes she could just get out of the goddamn town. She made a point to read versions of the story at the local library, of course, and once that happened, Irma started to draw parallels to Thumbelina and her life. Randomly adopted by some old lady? Well, that was close, but little did Irma know that things were to get a little closer.
In retrospect, the story was pretty funny in a Kevin Smith kind of way. Senior prom, and everybody was scrambling for dates. Irma, of course, wasn't exactly attracting a large amount of suitors, but neither was long-time next-door neighbor and pimple-faced tuba player Thomas Schumacher. Mrs. Schumacher was a close friend of Nana's, since with her being equally obese and riddled with adult acne as her son, she actually had some semblance of empathy in her heart - or, as the cynic would say, knew that she was a beggar and could not be choosy. At any rate, it was the first of Irma's blind dates, and as far as blind dates go (for she has, sadly, become a bit of a connoisseur), it was actually one of her more successful. Tom was pretty nice to her for most of it, what with treating her to a free steak dinner at the the nicest restaurant in town and even being a decent dancer, but Irma's unfortunate destiny lie in the fact that Tom had recently seen American Pie and thus was destined for one of the most awkward sexual advances she ever endured (and, considering her later years, it's certainly an impressive distinction to hold). The two broke it off with minimal sweat and swearing that one was a sweaty pig and the other was a frigid bitch, but it was further incentive for Irma to believe that going to Rhode Island for college versus a typical Hoosier reflex of staying in-state was the right thing to do. Later, she realized - and aptly termed - that in the back seat of that 1987 Volvo, she had had her Toad Moment.
Attendance at the Rhode Island School of Design was, if we're going to be honest here, pretty worthless. Well, Irma would have to amend that; really escaping from her rigid, Jesus-centric home life and finding out about the wonders of cheap alcohol and clove cigarettes was possibly the best thing that ever happened to her. But even if it was a school that could exploit her home grown love and skills as a seasoned knitter and seamstress in an academic environment, it was just that: an academic environment. A few design classes in and she felt an ache of dissatisfaction, but at the time, Irma thought it was fault of Providence. Sure, she liked her new friends, but by the end of the year, she had transfered to Parson's The New School of Design with hopes for fashion design to catch her eye instead of textiles. Of course, it didn't; instead, she found herself most happy at her part-time job at a small exotic yarn shop (named, aptly, Purl) in Tribeca than she ever did in classes. So, she dropped out in the middle of second semester, much to the utter horror of Nana. It was, incidently, the beginning of the old woman's spiral into confronting mortality, and it was the last time that Irma ever intended to step foot on Indiana soil ever again. She was grief-stricken, of course, but years of bullying, a struggle for independence, and religious estrangement meant that it was very much an inner struggle. There haven't really been tears with Nana yet, which say something as to how Irma's been dealing with it; about the only way she acknowledges that she once lived with an old woman in a ramshackle Victorian in the Midwest is that she signed the papers that verified that she was the sole recipient of anything that old woman ever owned.
When she came back to New York, the warm inhabitants of Purl were there to welcome her back. One of her closer coworkers, a middle-aged woman named Norma, started to talk one day over a cup of coffee about the prospect of her own yarn shop with a little cafe on the side. Irma was all ears; she enjoyed the inner workings of running the shop, awkward blend of Tribecans aside, and was liking Norma's idea. Of course, there was always a bit of a stipulation; "If I only had the money to buy a morgage," and that was when karma finally looked upon Irma Perkins and said, "Here, have a fucking break." The money was in her accounts, and Irma was adamant about going in as partner. She was a college drop-out, sure, but it wasn't because of her work ethic; Norma knew that she loved yarn and she knew it like most people know history dates or chemistry equations. Not that Norma really doubted; she was a cheerful and hopeful in humanity like that, and so the two of them went into business. That was a year ago; now, Irma has a bit of a niche in New York's busy commotion, as The Frogging Pond's host of regulars and visitors alike are the kind of people that Irma can really like and truly relate with. It seems that the only stipulation, other than sharing her apartment with an unabashed cat woman, is that when Irma's not doing shop stuff, she's suffering through Norma's hopeless string of blind dates. Irma's sure it has something to do with the fact that Norma probably sees a little bit of herself in Irma, blah blah blah, but it's enough that Irma's this close to escaping to the Pentamerone whenever she has a "date" in order to escape the horror of a line of men thirty years her senior.
That's almost, though. After all, looking at that bunch of fuckwits through her Compendium, Irma's positive that's a fucking trainwreck waiting to happen.
GAME(S) PLAYED: fairlytales
STATUS: Active
PLAYED-BY: Amber Tamblyn