Bell, Justine

Name: Justine Bell
Age: 27
Group: Hunter

Appearance: Justine is slightly above average in height for a female, standing at 5'10". She has a runner's build, slender but athletic. Her hair is long and black, falling to mid back, and generally kept in a ponytail while on duty to make sure it stays out of her face. Though she's a very pretty woman, she tends to eschew makeup for the sake of practicality, and she can usually be found wearing jeans, plain shirts, and boots.

Personality:
Justine is a combination of the sanguine and the phlegmatic; she plays an odd mixture of wearing her heart on her sleeve and holding her cards close to the chest. She is friendly and outgoing, even verging on chatty. Just don't ask her to talk about her family or her personal life, since she'll deflect you unless she's drunk or she considers you to be a close and trustworthy friend. Still, she is honest and approachable, and since she's as tight-lipped with other people's secrets as she is with her own, she makes a great listener and confidante.

Her ambition and confidence tend to make her very competitive, but all that usually means is that she works extra hard to be at the top of her game. She's always in it to win it, whether you realize it or not. This comes in handy in the hunting arena, where having even the slightest edge over a monster can mean the difference between life and death. When it comes to giving her opinions, Justine does so rather bluntly, feeling that it's better to cut to the heart of the matter instead of tiptoeing around it. It's not that she's out to hurt anyone's feelings; she just thinks it's better to rip the bandaid off quickly so everyone can move on and deal with what needs to be dealt with.

She is fairly easygoing and loves to laugh and joke around, but it bears to keep in mind that there are a few issues that set her off. Aside from those, there is a threshold past which she ought not to to be pushed. Justine doesn't forget when someone abuses her kindness or otherwise slights, betrays, or abandons her. On the flip-side of that coin, she is staunchly loyal to those who have helped her and earned her trust and friendship. Good friends are hard to come by, she's learned. She would drive from New York to California to help a friend in need, even if she had nothing to gain from doing so.

History:
Born on an army base on a balmy day in July, Justine and her big brother, Spencer, grew up on the move. Her father, Glenn, was on active duty in the army, and as such the family frequently had to pick up and relocate, meaning the kids never really got to develop any roots of their own. Rather than putting too much effort into forming friendships at the schools they attended, Justine and Spencer became closer to each other, and were best friends and confidantes throughout their early years. That isn't to say they didn't have other friends, but few they stayed in contact with after each move. Justine was also an unabashed daddy's girl; the two of them would spend as much time together as they could between work and school. He called her his "little deputy."

Life for the Bell family took a turn for the worst when war was declared in the Middle East. Glenn was deployed to Iraq shortly thereafter. The months that followed were a sick waiting game for all of them, anxiously watching the news in the evenings and praying every night that their father would return home. As it turns out, sometimes the answer to prayers is "no."

The news of Glenn's death devastated his family. Justine was only nine years old. In the aftermath, Joyce found herself unable to care for her own emotional needs as well as those of her children. Rather than leaving them to their own devices under her absent watch, she chose to send them to separate Catholic boarding schools. Justine and Spencer railed against the decision, not wanting to be separated one from the other, but their protests were in vain; within a few weeks, they had been bundled up and shipped away. Suffice to say, Justine didn't handle the change very well. Slow to adjust to her new environment, her grief at the loss of her father and the separation from her brother manifested itself in the form of rebellious behavior and a sassy mouth. Although she had mostly calmed down by the time she turned sixteen, she still wound up getting expelled. The reason? After fooling around with a boy from her academy's sister school, she was confronted by the nuns and told to repent. Turns out her boy had come down with a case of guilty conscience and wound up confessing, ratting her out in the process. Justine's refusal to repent resulted in her expulsion from the school.

It's safe to say she wasn't heartbroken over the ordeal, though her mother was scandalized. Justine earned her diploma from a nearby high school and moved on to get an associates degree in criminal justice administration before eventually becoming the sheriff of a small town in middle-of-nowhere, Colorado, just west of Kansas on the bank of the Smoky Hill River. She kind of liked the quiet, even though she was a million zillion miles (or two hours, if you sped a little) from anything really interesting. Spencer got married and came to visit occasionally, but relations with her mother never really recovered like she might have hoped. In the following years, Justine met and settled down with a nice young man, Joshua Harper. His family owned the local hardware store, and she always joked that one of the main reasons she dated Josh was because she got "free screws" whenever she needed them.

When she was twenty-five, Josh proposed and the two began to plan for their wedding. They even bought a dog together: a Belgian Shepherd they named Duchess. Justine's life was panning out as she'd hoped it would, but like all good things, it wasn't meant to last. A rash of killings broke out. In the span of two months, the bodies of six males, ranging in age from twelve to sixty-eight, washed up on the bank of the river. Apart from their gender, the thing each of them had in common was the fact that their bodies were ripped to shreds as if they'd been eaten by a wild animal, barring their hearts and livers. It was the most bizarre thing anyone had ever heard; the bite marks on the bodies didn't match up with those of any local wildlife.

She is currently investigating the killings, though she's becoming more and more preoccupied as her boyfriend has now been missing for two full days.

Strengths: Justine is smart, but more than that, she's observant and quick on her toes, able to improvise and not lose her cool in compromising situations. She's a caring and loyal individual who, through a combination of good looks, good humor, and a generally easygoing personality, engenders the trust and friendship of most that she meets.

Her experience with law enforcement has made her tough. Having spent a number of years on the police force, she's a good shot and a skilled fighter. While she prefers to use a gun when she can, she has the strength and stamina to bring a fight up close and personal if she has to.
Weaknesses: Her impulsive behavior has gotten her into trouble a few times. She has unresolved emotional issues surrounding the death of her father (and what she perceives as her mother's subsequent mishandling of her and her brother) and refuses to deal with the pain (like that's not gonna blow up in her face eventually).

Also, she's allergic to bees and has to keep a few epi-pens handy in case she gets stung. Can't be too careful.
Likes: Folk music, Thai food, tea, old "B" creature features and romcoms, dance (line, Latin, Swing, and so on), dogs, pre-Raphaelite and Art Deco paintings, fantasy and sci-fi literature.
Dislikes: Pretty much anything with more than six legs (also bees), lies and deception, overcooked food, coffee that isn't a frappuccino, heavy metal, war movies, bad breath/poor oral hygiene.

-- OUT OF CHARACTER --

Name/Alias: Jellybean
How you found us: RPGD
How long you have been rping for: 16 years, roughly
Other characters here: None
Anything else: I am the egg man, I am the walrus

RP Sample: Something was rotten in the state of Denmark. That is to say, in the town of Denmark.

Denmark, Colorado was a little township nestled on the south bank of the Smoky Hill River, just west of the Kansas border. A two hour drive from anything that could really be considered "civilization," most of the people fared well enough with the small local businesses and occasional trips to the nearest big city. It averaged anywhere from the five to six hundred citizens, depending on the season and the mortality rate.

Actually, the town's mortality rate had been something of a concern for its sheriff as of late. Not only the rate of death, but the manner of death, and the bodies that had been turning up. Men were waship up dead, disemboweled and shredded to pieces save for their hearts and livers.

Sheriff Justine Bell frowned deeply as she looked down at the newest autopsy report to hit her desk. This was the sixth one. She'd seen the body firsthand after a father and son on a fishing trip had discovered it, and the photos stapled to the document really didn't do justice to the grisly mess of that scene. The man had washed up on the river bank not a full day prior, his torso practically picked clean and the meat stripped from his bones.

Justine was doing what she could to keep the people of the town from panicking, but there was no way to keep them from talking, speculating as to the nature of the animal that was literally devouring their friends and neighbors. The night before she'd overheard a group of men at the diner debating over whether it was a mountain lion or a bear. Another man had suggested a pack of wolves was dong it.

She didn't think it was any of those things; the bite marks were all wrong for any of the local wildlife, but that left her with more questions than answers. Whatever it was, she had to figure out soon, or it was only a matter of time before another corpse floated up onto the riverbank.