Jazminka Merlot

Jazminka Merlot is a female survivor played by Chika. She was accepted on 1/20/2017 and is currently alive and active on the server.

Description
Jazminka has a beautiful olive skin tone, with round, dark russet brown eyes and a dimpled smile. She is a tiny little woman, 5 foot tall and a whopping 108 lbs. Though slim, she does have wide-set hips that reflect her mostly Mediterranean heritage. Naturally, her hair is an espresso brown, though she tends to dye it shades of maroon or mulberry.

She's rather meticulous about keeping her eyebrows sculpted, and isn't one to leave the house without doing her makeup. Her favorite colors, red and purple, make up a vast majority of her wardrobe. Outfits are accented with a black pair of combat boots or flashy heels, depending on where she's heading. A big fan of gaudy costume jewelry, she'll frequently be wearing something eye-catching, but only if it compliments her current attire. If the weather's hot, she isn't shy about showing off her body - booty shorts and short skirts bring about better tips, anyway.

Personality
Jazminka is fiery and has a bit of a mouth to her, and isn't afraid to put someone in their place when they piss her off. Although she isn't usually one to start a fight, she surely won't back down from a challenge. Like a cornered chihuahua, she is downright feisty despite her diminutive size, and this helps her keeps her patrons in check when they get too grabby.

First impression, she generally comes off as friendly, though sometimes she's a little straight-forward and blunt with her honesty. Once someone gets her talking, she'll rattle on and on, and her hands move almost as much as her mouth. Jazminka encourages her patrons to spill about their personal lives as they pound down drinks at the bar - partially because she wants in on the latest gossip, but also because she sees herself as some sort of therapist who both prescribes and provides the alcohol.

Jaz is a bit more liberal in comparison to a lot of townsfolk - possibly having to do with her generation being all about the internet and such. She likes the taste of her own medicine, and regularly drinks while off the clock - though isn't one to just go off with a stranger, despite her sometimes flirtatious nature and sultry undertones.

Biography
Milovan and Diana Merlot were high school sweethearts from the get-go. They married in their early twenties, when Diana found out she was pregnant with their first child, Donatello, Dante for short. At the time, they were living up in Cincinnati, but decided to move to Elizabethtown to chase Diana's dream - running her own pizzeria. Rising Phoenix Pizzeria is their livelihood, both working long hours to pay the bills. Diana's parents, Fernanda and Alonzo Santoro, moved in with them to help raise Dante, and soon Vira, who was born 3 years later. Four years after that, Jazminka was born on April 16th, 1994, the third and youngest child of the Merlot family.

Little Jazmin was a stubborn child from the start, very argumentative and always questioning "Why?". Frequently, she'd be getting into her mother's makeup, playing dress-up in clothes three times her size and chewing up the coffee beans to spit the grounds like tobacco into a spittoon. She wasn't exactly a bad kid, just lively and spirited. She also enjoyed grossing out her grandmother by hyper-extending her elbows to walk around like a gorilla.

Grandma Fernanda decided to help harness all that energy by bringing her into the kitchen to help her cook. Making home-made meatballs was always her favorite, the squishing and rolling reminded her of play dough. They'd layer lasagna together - (which was usually spinach, pork or chicken being Jazminka had a hard time digesting beef), knead and roll out pizza dough, and when she was extra good - the reward was "stinky cheese", better known as Pecorino Romano.

Minus a few minor scuffles and detentions, Jazminka was a relatively good kid who maintained a B average in high school. She attended EHS (Elizabethtown High School) for all four years. Cheerleading took up a lot of her time that wasn't dedicated to helping her parents out at the Pizzeria. Relatively popular due to her good looks and being on the pom squad, her social life was always buzzing, and attending drunken weekend parties was something she did fairly often. Even at that age, Jazminka was usually the one mixing the drinks - if your last name spells out booze, you may as well be the one handing out the beverages.

Speaking of popularity, Jaz had her fair share of suitors; most of them turned down. She had a reputation for being a heart breaker simply for being adamant about the word "no". The first guy she dated, Bruno Wright, was for 2 months while she was a freshman - he was a bit pushy to get her into the sack, and she dropped the relationship like a hot coal. Her second boyfriend, Timothy Jenkins, she dated from early sophomore year to the start of her junior year, when he went off to college out in Louisville. They decided it'd be best to break it off instead of trying to maintain a long-distance relationship, much to Jazminka's dismay. They still keep in contact over Skype, though he has since moved on and started dating someone else.

Later into her junior year, Grandpa Alonzo passed away due to Alzheimer's and other complications tied into old age. Five months later, Grandma Fernanda passed away as well, possibly due to a broken heart. The losses hit the family hard, but they used their grief to push forward and keep on keeping on, for the most part. During these broken times, Vira, Jazminka's older sister, wound up in a rather abusive relationship with some asshole named Joseph Bellow. The chaotic downward spiral that was their love-life eventually boiled over to the point where Dante's favorite baseball bat took a few teeth and broke some of Joseph's bones. Dante is currently serving time behind bars for aggravated assault, and may be released in 2021 if his behavior is good.

Despite the correlation with the violent crime, Phoenix Rising Pizzeria continued to do well, though having to work overtime to help cover Dante's shifts put a real fine damper on Jazminka's social life. Cheerleading was still one of her top priorities and enjoyments, but senior year was much less party time and much more pizza time.

Not too long after graduation, Jaz decided to call it quits, having the itch to get out on her own and make something of herself. She didn't hop-skip into college, rather, she took her savings and moved out to West Point. The rent was cheap, and it was closer to Louisville, so she considered it a good place to go to strike out on her own. Of course, wound up working with pizza again over at Pizza Whirled. Moving away from home, only to wind up back into the pizza business. She traded driving to work for riding a bike to save on gas, but being she took up smoking, it resulted in not saving much money at all.

To combat the loneliness of living by herself, Jazminka adopted a golden retriever puppy who she affectionately named Mr. Peanutbutter, after a character from BoJack Horseman. Mr. Peanutbutter, or sometimes called Peanut for short, is a happy, affectionate dog who spends his days lounging on the couch and providing all the snuggles he can muster. The other loves of her life is are pet turtle, appropriately named Michelangelo, and a potted grape vine she purchased from a farmer's market.

The first thing Jaz did when she turned 20 was get her bartenders license, and then burst through the doors of The Drake like she owned the place. Tom Spencer hired her on after she whipped through the interview, and has since been working as the barback, and bartending when Tom isn't on the clock. She's been working there now 2 1/2 years, and has gotten to know the regulars on a first name basis.