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BACKGROUND
Ashley Michele Jemison, was born to her conservative Catholic parents, Mark and Juliana on the 21th February 1993. She arrived noisily into the world at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles at 3.33 am. Strangely enough, she was not the only person in her family to be born at this odd hour. A distant cousin, Scarlett Stratford, was also born at 3.33 in the morning a year later. Christened Ashley, for the name referred to the day Christ was born (i.e. Christmas), Ashley's name was chosen to symbolize hope, light, re-birth and the coming, or so she was told by her mother. Sometime after discovering Santa Claus (the epitome of Christmas in young Ashley's world) was nothing more than a commercial commodity used by chain store giants to lure kids into writing out extensive Christmas lists by allowing them "lap time", thus cornering innocent parents into having to purchase a multitude of unnecessary mass-produced toys, the name Ashley Jemison came instead, to symbolize revolution. Ashley was a precocious child with an enormous appetite for learning. From an early age, she displayed all the tell-tale signs of a future chatterbox in the making. Ashley started talking at 10 months old and once she started, she wouldn't shut up. She began to read at a young age, and by the time she'd progressed far enough to read children's books, she started going through them faster than water. Her mother, an English and Literature teacher at a Catholic High School in Los Angeles, encouraged Ashley's reading habit and bought her everything from the Mr. Men and Little Miss series to Richard Scary books to Enid Blyton and Puddle Lane. However, it eventually got to a point whereby Ashley was reading at least ten illustrated children's books a day and then complaining about having nothing new to read. Her mother finally put her foot down and declared it was impossible to keep up with the amount of literature her daughter was consuming, and that Ashley would simply have to re-read the books she already had as they simply couldn't buy her ten new books every day. Sulkily, Ashley complied. It is safe to say that everything on her bookshelf between the ages of 5- 12 had been read at least 58 - 500 times each. Besides reading, Ashley was also interested in plenty of 80s cartoons (why she chose the eighties, no one really knows) - especially My Little Pony, She-Ra Princess of Power, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Scooby Doo, Smurfs, Carebears, Strawberry Shortcake, Rainbow Brite, Jem and the Holograms and Lady Lovelylocks amongst others. Her ambition was to one day become She-Ra Princess of Power. Understandably, at the time, she had yet to learn that it was not possible for humans to become cartoons, even in adulthood. She also idolized Daphne from Scooby Doo and searched all over Los Angeles for a purple dress just like Daphne's (also a Locket like Megan's from My Little Ponies, but when she got one, she was disappointed that rainbows refused to burst forth when she opened it). It is possible that Ashley's obsession with hair later in life was intrinsically influenced by her passion for the Lady Lovelylocks cartoon (blast that evil Duchess Ravenwaves!!). She had a Lady Lovelylocks doll complete with Pixietails, and she would pin the colorful Pixietails to her own hair when she attended Nursery School and Kindergarten.
Three years after Ashley's birth, Mark and Juliana decided they liked the idea of another child. Unfortunately, God did not. Without the blessing of conception, husband and wife sought instead to adopt. It was thus how Ashley came to obtain a sister, Molly Hope Jemison. Ashley and Molly grew up thick as thieves, often conspiring to outwit their parents and devise ingenious ways to get around the strict rules and regulations of the Jemison household. In public, they often pretend not to like each other and conveniently, they do not look related. However, the fact that Jemison isn't a common surname frequently raises questions. Nevertheless, they have a typical sibling relationship, getting on each other's nerves frequently, but sharing a sisterly bond and love. The first movie Ashley ever cried at was Disney's "The Little Mermaid". Contrary to her parents' belief, Ashley didn't cry because she was sad. She was simply so overjoyed when Ariel and the Prince got married that she burst into happy tears. Nevertheless, it set a trend. Ever since then, Ashley has cried at every single Disney cartoon movie, sometimes throughout the whole thing (e.g. The Prince of Egypt and Brother Bear). Tears of sadness, tears of joy... Disney brings it all out for some reason that remains unfathomable to Ashley. However, she keeps rather silent about this except to her close friends. It is, after all, rather embarrassing and extremely uncool to cry at any film much less a DISNEY film. Mark and Juliana, like typical strict catholic parents, were bent on molding their daughters into good, wise, cultured and outstanding members of society. From the age of four and up, Ashley and Molly were sent for a variety of French, catechism, piano, guitar, violin, ballet, horse riding, fencing, archery, painting, sculpture and art history lessons, along with as many other educational activities Mr. and Mrs. Jemison could squeeze into weekends. Enrolled in one of the better public schools Los Angeles had to offer, anything below an "A" was considered an appalling grade in the Jemison household. Lawyer. Doctor. CEO. Micro-biologist. Professor. Senator. These were the careers Mark and Juliana hoped their children would achieve. It is no wonder by the age of ten, both Ashley and Molly both knew they wanted none of these things. Ashley loved growing up in L.A. and the crew of friends she had. She met her best friend, Sabina Chavez, in class when she was eight, and they bonded after being sent to the back of the room frequently for talking too much. The chatterboxes became fast friends and pretty much did everything together. When Ashley was ten, she went to her first hardcore punk show. Sabina's older brother, Brady, played in a band and he took the girls along one day. They were the youngest kids in the room but Ashley fell in love with the atmosphere right away. The spirit and politics of the music were of special interest to her, and in the next few months, she spent all her free time reading about its history, borrowing Brady's records and tagging along with him and Sabina to more gigs and shows. By the time she was twelve, Ashley was a regular face at gigs around L.A, dancing and singing along and stage-diving into the crowd. While some of the older kids initially made fun of her and Sabina for being so young, they eventually grew fond of the two girls (also, Brady threatened to beat the crap out of anyone dissing his sister and Ashley). Eventually, through the tight-knit music community as well as Youth Theatres that Ashley frequently performed for, the two girls built up their own little crew of friends consisting of Eve Levine, Caroline Everhart, Iris Cariaga, Kacey Stevens, Timothy De Witt, Mika Davis, Jadden Chrystophe, Josh Farrell, Zach Simmons, Jonathan Langelier, Cam Donavan and Joel Hamlin. They often threw parties, cruised up to gigs together, stayed over at each other's homes and went on road trips (with the older kids driving). Molly, on the other hand, had picked up skateboarding and was hanging out at skate parks all day with other slacker-types and listening to pop punk music. Naturally, this did not sit well with their parents. Growing steadily out of control, a decision was made to cart the two girls off to AltamontAcademy, which they'd heard of from some distant relations. Mark and Juliana figured the boarding school environment would inject some form of discipline upon their children, as seeing all the grounding in the world wasn't helping (since Molly and Ashley had learned to shimmy down drain pipes outside their rooms in their attempts to sneak out).
Nothing could have made them happier. At their age, life without parents seemed to be a good deal. Ashley, being two years older, was sent off first, of course. It was hard leaving all her friends and the thought of not being able to go for all the amazing gigs in Los Angeles kind of sucked (as if THAT many good bands ever played in Las Vegas!). Saying goodbye to her life was also rather difficult, but at least she'd be back during summers to hang out with everyone again. Ashley quickly made friends, and Sabina back in Los Angeles was really quite jealous, and Ashley had to send her numerous emails of love to assure her that she, Sabina, was still her bestest bestest bestest friend... or something less pre-school. She also found her niche as a prominent member of the academy's Drama Club, AltamontStudent Newspaper, Newspaper, and amazingly cheerleading. Although she scored 158 on her compulsory Freshman IQ test and qualified for MENSA, she did not accept the invitation to join, finding it unsatisfying to define her self-worth by her intellect. As someone who disliked labels, MENSA was just another label to her, and like it or not, people WERE going to judge you for it. "You scored a B on your Math quiz??!??! Aren't you in MENSA???" Yeah... Ashley Jemison believed she could do without that. It was nice to know that she qualified, but it's not something
she talked about very often. Her relationships
with teachers was somewhat extreme. Teachers at the academy usually either hated Ashley or loved her to death. Those who hated her disliked her lack of discipline, her rebelliousness and her inability to accept authority when she disagreed with it. Those who loved her enjoyed her bright mind, aptitude for learning and the arts, and her active and dedicated involvement in her extra-curriculars. At school, Ashley made many friends but also several enemies. In general, her outgoing and fun-loving attitude saw her getting along with many different school mates from all walks of life. While theoretically-speaking, many girls stood for much of what Ashley was ethically against, the she wound up getting along with many of them much to the surprise of a few disbelievers. There were many rumors as to why they bonded, but the truth was, Ashley found some of the girls entertaining and amusing while Ashley provided many with an interestingly different perspective of life without causing them to lose popularity points. At the same time, Ashley also made friends with one or two computer geeks, some jocks, some goody-two-shoes, some arty farty types, some musicians, some dancers and pretty much kids from every social group you could think of. She was, above all, determined to avoid being pigeon-holed into any teen stereotype based on how she dressed or the music she listened to and other such superficial junk. If people were confused about where she fit in, that was a good thing as far as she was concerned.
Ashley also made some enemies due to her blunt outspokeness that did not sit well with a select few. There were also those who did not know Ashley, but found it necessary to bitch about her due to the fact that they assumed her to be snobby (Ashley blames her association with some of the more catty girls for this, and has told them so. However, yjru tell Ashley it's her own fault because obviously, people have caught on to what they like to call Ashley's love of "noisy bad music"). In truth, Ashley tends to give the impression that she is possibly snobby due to her refusal to date boys in her school and her reluctance to make the first move with strangers. As previously mentioned, she usually stays silent unless introduced, or has good reason to introduce herself, therefore perpetuating the impression that she is somewhat arrogant. Her inability to realize this also ensures that she has yet to find cause to change. Those who know her also fail to point it out as once Ashley gets to know someone, she is friendly and sociable, thus rendering her friends rather incapable of seeing her other side. As far as her love life is concerned, Ashley has had a few boyfriends, though none lasted particularly long. She has no idea how some girls at school manage to date their boyfriends for years. If truth be told, she is slightly commitment phobic though she would never admit it. Part of her assumes that because of their age, things are never going to last forever anyway, so to avoid getting heart-broken, she tries not to get too emotionally attached. Her first boyfriend was Alex Young back in Los Angeles when she was 13. He was a bit of a slacker and wasn't too mature even though he was two years older. After he ran away from home after a ridiculously trivial quarrel with his mom and expected to be allowed to stay at Ashley's, she dumped him as she wasn't sure she wanted to date anyone so stupid. Then came Marc Verna, a fellow teen actor she met while she was working on the play, Twelfth Night, with the Los Angeles Youth Theatre. They dated all summer till she had to go back to Altamont Academy and his family moved to England. At Altamont itself, Ashley then met Jordan Ryder, the guitarist of the band, Bad Blood. They were introduced by Rachi, a mutual friend, after a Bad Blood gig at Cara Sposa. Eventually, however, dating someone who seemed to love alcohol more than he loved her did not seem particularly fun to Ashley. And so she got rid of Jordan. Back in Los Angeles, the past summer, Ashley then found a new relationship with her old friend, Timothy D Witt, who was now with the band, Damn Arms (what can she say? She likes musicians). They had a great summer romance, but when Ashley had to return to Desert Palms, she told him that long distance relationships were too hard and she just didn't do them. They're still amazing friends, though they're no longer seeing each other.
If only the male population at AA didn't consist of a bunch of poopheads.
Yes... she said poopheads. So sue her.
PERSONALITY
Ashley Jemison is the living embodiment of a walking, talking and breathing contradiction. Impulsive, spontaneous, free-spirited and original, she is in equal parts level-headed, practical, down to earth and intrinsically aware of the socio-political norm she strives to fight against. A revolutionary spirit, Ashley is quite the anti-authoritarian rebel at heart in stereotypical teen angst fashion. However, her practical side keeps her in check, reminding her that her long-term goals include procuring a Double-Degree in Drama and Political Science, something one cannot achieve by getting kicked out of school. However, unlike most other teenagers who bear the same rebellious frame of mind, Ashley has the politics to back up her sentiments. While many students will simply tell you, "Fuck the school! Fuck the government!" Ashley will instead, tell you exactly why. Also, unlike many rebels of her generation, Ashley genuinely enjoys studying. She hates school due to the hierachial imbalance she perceives and numerous flaws apparent in the American education system. However, her punk politics are balanced out by an intense desire to learn as much as she possibly can, in order to be level, if not better learned and better read than the bourgeois and upper rungs of the societal high ladder that set the socio-political standards of their nation. It is through these means that she hopes to fight the system from within. Despite her strong political views, however, Ashley neither preaches nor shares her lengthy notions and theories unless actually asked. Few except her close friends are even aware of her political sentiments and views on society, thus often shocking or astounding anyone who attempts to strike up any deep and meaningful with her. An intelligent girl, Ashley does well in her school subjects without very much effort. She spends most of her learning time instead, picking up subjects of interests that lie outside of the school curriculum. She is rather artistic, and enjoys dabbling in performance, visual and graphic art. Ashley is also obsessed with documenting life. Never without a camera, diary and pen, she is constantly found taking pictures and polaroids at random, and scribbling random thoughts into her diary. Perhaps, this can be attributed to her second obsession:
IMMORTALITY.
Fascinated by the idea, Ashley spends hours in the library researching various figures throughout history, absorbing every detail of what makes them immortal. It is not exactly fame she is after. Rather, Ashley wants to make a mark so deep that a thousand years down the road, people will know her life, and know that she existed. What she's interested in is legacy. Over-ambitious? Probably. But you know what they say... aim for the stars and you might touch the clouds. Socially, won’t allow herself to be classified into any of the predominant stereotypical teen social groups, Ashley is what you would call a "floater". Associating with various members of almost every social group on campus, Ashley is genuinely interested in her friends, even when they share absolutely nothing in common. It is from this pool of preps, rockers, jocks, cheerleaders, geeks, skaters, techno-whizzes, literary-types, multiple social misfits and more (including the homeless man in the Park and 12 year old peasant girl in Tibet she sends stamps to on a regular basis so the kid can write letters to her) that Ashley hopes to learn about people, the world and life itself. That, however, is not to say that she likes EVERYBODY. Being rather anti-authoritarian, Ashley has a problem with being ordered around. Bossy people tend to get on her nerves, especially those on a perpetual power trip. Emo pseudo-punk scene kids also annoy her because as far as she's concerned, they've taken one of the last few bourgeois-free music movements and turned it into everything it used to stand against. In her opinion, punk was (and is) meant to symbolize the direct opposite of the bourgeois and the mainstream. Now, it IS the mainstream. She finds this to be a sad state of affairs and cringes every time Good Charlotte, New Found Glory, Yellowcard or any of the other lame new "punk" bands blares from someone else's speakers or MTV. Ashley also finds herself terribly irritated by people who whine too much, copycats with no originality (especially if she is the one being copied), people who announce they are going to commit suicide or cut themselves and people who obsess about their weight. Whining is tiresome. Ashley doesn't want to hear people moaning about every little trivial matter in life that happened to them. In her opinion (you might have noticed, she has many), she has better things to do than go "Awwww" every time someone complains about having to tidy their room or whines about something trivial their parents did etc. Whining and excessive complaining is SO unattractive and self-indulgent. She wishes that every time someone did it, the stars in the sky would spell out "No one cares. Get over it." Or, you know... if it was day time, one of those sky-writing planes would be keen. Copycats are the worst breed of cat. Ashley HATES being ripped off and will not react pleasantly
if you do. She is especially protective
over her fashion style, writing, hair, graphics and photography and will bitch out anyone who tries to copy these. As for kids who announce they are going to commit suicide of cut themselves, Ashley would like to say, "Do the world a favour and do it already." The minute someone ANNOUNCES their plans to do either, Ashley is likely to assume that the person is merely a lame attention-seeker who is all talk and no action. After all, if they truly wanted to die, they would have jumped already. If they wanted to cut themselves, they would be off slashing in some miserable bathroom like a goth and trying to hide it instead of announcing it like a loudspeaker. Finally, people who complain about their weight continually exhaust Ashley and make her want to fall asleep standing up. There is NOTHING more boring than talking about your weight. As such, she believes that the people who obsess about it to her are insufferably dull.
Ashley goes to a lot of local and inter-state gigs and shows featuring bands from the more underground hardcore punk genre of music that attracts a small but fiercely loyal following. However, she appreciates many different genres and has extremely eccelectic taste in music. She finds it hard to believe that there are kids narrow-minded enough to enjoy only one single genre and dismiss all others. She is convinced these people cannot be true lovers of music and are either simply jumping on a bandwagon, or are absolutely close-minded, ignorant and clueless. In her opinion, good music is good music, whether it's by a Death Metal band or Mozart. As someone well-read, street-wise and opinionated, Ashley can often be a bit of a know-it-all. She most certainly does not raise her hand to answer every question in class, but she often contributes more than the average student when it comes to class discussions, unless it's Math in which she's just... atrocious at. As such, she finds it wiser to keep her mouth shut than to flaunt her lack of knowledge about trigonometry and calculus. However, in all other matters, if Ashley feels that someone is being ignorant or mind-numbingly stupid, she will seldom hesitate to point this out. This might annoy more sensitive people as Ashley is rather blunt with her comments without meaning to be. She can also come across as rather condescending to repeat offenders who display excessive amounts of ignorance or foolishness. The fact is, Ashley will never believe she is wrong unless proven (without a shadow of a doubt) that she is. This has less to do with arrogance and more to do with her inability to trust most other people, in particular, with regards to their instinct, judgement and ethical/ideological opinions. And so, she will hang on to her own theories and ideas with the stubborness of a bull until someone manages to present her UNDISPUTABLE proof otherwise, in an educated, logical and intelligent manner (she is, after all, a perfectionist). Ashley is also prone to being highly irresponsible. When it comes to things she loves, she is constantly on the ball with the sharpness of a knife and the speed of lightning. However, when it comes to things she finds dreary such as bills, homework, money and punctuality, she is a hopeless case.
Ashley is the sort of girl who receives her cell phone bill and chucks it in her drawer so she won't have to look at it. She then forgets about the bill till her phone line gets cut and she needs to cough up the cash. This happens periodically every three months. She receives bills, she forgets about bills, phone line gets cut after three months, she pays bill. she receives more bills, she forgets about those bills, phone line gets cut again, she pays up again... And the cycle continues. As for punctuality, she is never early despite having not one, not two, not three, but FIVE alarm clocks. A heavy sleeper, she often sleeps her way through all five of them and then questions why they didn't ring. What some people don't know is that Ashley suffers from Dyscalculia. It is a lesser known learning disability similar to Dyslexia, but with numbers. Dyscalculia’s often have above-average to high levels of intelligence, excellent linguistic, creative and artistic skills and brilliant, photographic memories. However, their minds are simply unable to process long number sequences or hold on to complex mathematical formulae. Upon explaining a mathematical concept or equation to the dyscalculiac, they are usually able to comprehend it right away and understand the principles without any problem. But by the next day, their brains would have chucked the entire formula out and it's quite as if they'd never heard of the concept in their lives. This is surprising to many of their friends, as they usually have fantastic memories when it comes to everything else. The ONE thing in Math that many dyscalculiacs (including Ashley) excel in is Geometry, due to its graphical nature and lack of long number sequences. Ashley has never gotten a single geometry sum wrong throughout High School. However, she pretty much sucks at everything else. Thankfully, due to her diagnosed Dyscalculia, she gets exemptions from many Math tests and extensions on homework assignments. In addition, her Math grades do not affect her GPA and National Honor Society standing, and she gets an extra hour for the Math section of the SATs. Overall, Ashley is an outgoing, talkative and bright-spirited girl who gets along with most people due to her genuine interest in their differing lives and her fun-loving attitude to life. Nevertheless, she can come across as being slightly cold or snobby to those who don't know her as she isn't the sort to be exceptionally friendly to strangers. Unless a proper introduction has been conducted, she is generally reluctant to make friendly contact beyond small talk (e.g. "What's the time?"). She is also not the sort to go around introducing herself to all and sundry, and only makes the effort to do so if she has due reason. While Ashley isn't exactly arrogant, she feels rather uncomfortable around strangers and finds it difficult to initiate contact unless she feels she has a ashid reason to do so. Once properly introduced, however, Ashley will generally adopt a friendlier demeanor unless put off by the other person for whatever reason.
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