motherless

Name: Faye Jennifer Phillips (known as 'Phil' as well as 'Faye')

Age: 30

Gender: female

Type: Select One

Appearance:

The thick, wavy hair which nowadays falls around her shoulders is naturally a light-mid brown, though Faye has been known to dye it blonde at times. Usually she ties it back most of the time in a simple updo. She's not fussy about her appearance. She only wears makeup for work, because she knows her looks can get her those extra tips that make all the difference. Appearance is part of the job, nothing more. Faye has always been a tomboy and her dress reflects that, even though she has an undeniably feminine form. She prefers to wear trousers (if she's in a skirt, there's something special happening), teamed with fitted shirts, and her dress sense is almost military-tailored at times. Although she doesn't care too much about her appearance, she naturally tends towards tight and fitted clothes that emphasise her curves - she has no wish to look 'frumpy', but if pressed she'll say the reason for her clothing tastes is simply that she finds fitted clothing more comfortable. She certainly comes across as a woman who is confident and comfortable in her body.

Personality:

A friendly woman and natural flirt, Faye takes people as she finds them. She's loud and often suffers from saying what's on her mind. Over the years, she's gotten better at keeping her opinions to herself - or at least, judging when it is wise to do so. She has a voice that carries and swears like a trooper a lot of the time. Ladylike, Faye is not. She's nice enough when she likes you, but won't hesitate to bitchslap you back in line if you put a foot wrong. In short, Faye is forthright, though her youthful lack of diplomacy has been largely hammered out of her by hard years.

At times she's quiet, like there's a part of her missing. Sometimes she'll spend hours staring into space, and during that time she's normally thinking about her daughter. Finding a way to get her daughter back - and for her daughter to want to come back to her, is a preoccupation for Faye. It's the centre of her world and she would do almost anything to be with Jenny again.

City History:

The only girl in a large family of boys (she had four brothers), Faye was a tomboy from the word go, forever the wild child, the bane of her parents lives. She was the one who would go and disappear for sometimes days on end - okay, she was always with one or more of her brothers, but in her parents eyes, she was a girl and that made it different. And the more they tried to tell her that she had to behave differently as a girl, the more she decided that she wanted to be a boy.

She never really clicked with other women - whilst she was growing up, her friends were always boys and she went out of her way to prove that she could keep up with them. If it wasn't Faye that started the fight, it was Faye that finished it - and she wasn't afraid to fight dirty either. It didn't take long for her to get a reputation as one who, if you couldn't avoid, you certainly didn't cross.

She grew up for the most part in one of the 'kind of okay' parts of town - not the slums, but not exactly a 'nice' part either. Life for her was fairly normal - her brothers were all older than her and, one by one, they all enlisted in the armed forces and went off to war. Currently, all she knows is that two of them are dead, one is listed as a POW and one is MIA. The last she heard of any of her brothers was five years ago.

Faye met Frankie when she was seventeen and a whirlwind 'romance' and unexpected pregnancy found them married soon after, much to the surprise of both of them and the insistence of their families. A little girl followed - Jenny - but the marriage could never be described as a happy one. Faye and Frankie had quite obviously never been destined for each other and Jenny was the only thing that kept the relationship together. Faye adored her little girl and the influence of motherhood calmed her down a lot, but from the get go, Jenny was a daddy's girl. Whilst Frankie treated Faye with, at best, disdain, Jenny was the apple of his eye, a spoiled little princess from the word go. All Faye's efforts at disciplining Jenny, at teaching her right from wrong, everything was undermined by her husband, who seemed to take great pleasure in undermining her at every turn, at making her into the bad guy.

As Jenny grew up, somehow she kept an image of her father as a paragon of virtue. The reality was far from it and whenever Jenny was absent, the demons were let loose. Faye knew she helped with the image - she felt that her daughter should be shielded from her father's abusive nature, from the problems inherent in the marriage and so she saved the arguments until Jenny was at school, or with friends. She didn't rise to the taunts, the comments, the put downs said so that only she could hear them when Jenny was around. She played the nice little wife. Only when Jenny was gone did Faye fight back - and she'd always been good at that. And anyone who said that she was probably as much to blame for the fights, for the arguments, for the occasional bruises wouldn't be far off the mark. At times she knew she goaded him - she knew where things would end up, and when her daughter wasn't around, there were times when Faye practically asked for it, sick of always having to play the pacifier. Who started the fights disappeared into the mists of time until they were just fighting for the sake of it, until they truly hated each other. And Faye was no shrinking violet either, she knew how to handle herself, both verbally and physically.

Eventually, though, she knew she had to get out of there, and that she had to leave start again. She'd tried to leave him before, when Jenny was small, but he'd followed her, convinced her to come home - and they'd both been raised to firmly believe that marriage was very definitely for life. She'd returned.

But, eventually, she realised that that may just end up being the case - that one of these days, in one of their fights, he was going to end up killing her. She had to go before it was too late. The plan was for them to leave without saying goodbye. Just one day, whilst Frankie was at work, just to go. Faye had it all planned.

The only thing she didn't have planned was Jenny refusing to leave. When she gave her daughter the news, Jenny freaked, telling Frankie that Faye was trying to take her away, clinging to her father, demanding that she remain here, that she wouldn't leave him. Frankie couldn't have been happier, taking almost malicious joy in kicking Faye out on the street, telling her to leave - without Jenny.

In the end, Faye did leave - telling her daughter that she would always have a home, if she wanted one. Leaving Jenny with her address, so she would know where to go. Jenny wasn't even interested in discussing it.

Frankie hasn't allowed Faye to see Jenny since that day. Sometimes, Jenny catches a glimpse of her daughter across the street, or in the city. Sometimes she hangs around outside her old home, attempting to catch that glimpse. She writes to her daughter often, but she never gets replies - she doesn't know whether it's because Jenny doesn't write, or whether Frankie won't let her.

After she left, for a few weeks, Faye didn't know what to do with herself, but eventually she found a job at Babylon. She'd been desperate when she'd first walked into the whorehouse, thinking of the things she might have to do. She still doesn't know whether the owner took pity on her, or whether there really was a job opening, but when she left that day, it was having been offered a job working behind the bar, keeping the patrons happy from a strictly vertical position. Whilst the establishment wasn't exactly respectable, the job was and she's been working there ever since, around two years now. And in that time, she's really seen some changes, the biggest one being, of course, the O'Malleys taking over, and the death of the former proprietor. Faye didn't have a hand in that at all, she didn't know anything about it until the news came through and she was horrified and upset to hear it. But she kept working there - until the day it closed. Since then, she's been moving from job to job, nothing lasting very long, feeling like she's being blown about in the wind, looking for a place to take root again.

Special Skills and Abilities:

Very good in a fist fight or bar brawl - but she fights dirty. She will use any and all advantages she has.

Weaknesses:

She has a short fuse and can go from 0-bitch in less than a second if someone steps out of line. This has got her into more than a few fights and she still carries a scar on her upper right arm from where she was bottled as a teenager in a fight with another girl. She's used to defending herself and resorts to physical violence fairly quickly if people don't back off. It's nothing personal, she's just found that breaking someone's nose wins fights quicker than arguing semantics.

She's also not great with authority - she decides who she will let control her and set rules for her. Just because some guy has a badge, in her mind, doesn't automatically mean they get her obedience or her respect. That has to be earned. Likewise, she isn't going to be swayed by someone who likes to throw their weight around. In fact, she can be pretty bullheaded about that kind of thing. Unless approached in the right way, Faye will dig her heels in and bite her own nose off to spite her face.

She terrified of heights, though she tries not to let on about this. She gets scared even standing at the top of a step-ladder. Doesn't mean she won't do it if it can't be avoided, but she'll be sweating until she hits ground level once more.

Faye's biggest weakness is her daughter. She hasn't really seen the girl for two years now, but if she got the chance to get the girl back, she'd do almost anything for that. She'd also do almost anything to protect her, even if it was from a distance.

Strengths:

She's not afraid to stand up for herself and she doesn't back away from a challenge. When she sets her mind to something, she will achieve it, come hell or high water.

Family or Connections:

Family: Ex-husband, Frankie; daughter (12), Jenny

Connections: Anyone who has worked at Babylon, patrons of Babylon, some members of the O'Malleys

Residence:

A basement apartment in the Sprawl.

Career:

Between jobs

PB: to be chosen