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Welcome to Bennington County, where Vermont begins.


We get a lot of visitors around here. Unfortunately, most folks don't come for the beautiful scenery, the friendly people or the great local cuisine. For decades now we've had people comin' up here and poking their noses into things that ought to be left in the past where they belong. So you understand if we're a little suspicious of strangers who claim to be just passin' through. Maybe if you stick around a while and introduce yourself, the good people of Bennington'll be a little more likely to open up to you a bit.


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Merit Brannen
Topic Started: May 21, 2014, 11:30 am (13 Views)
Merit Brannen
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Merit Brannen is the only child of Martin J. Brannen, Esq. and an unnamed, unknown woman whom she never met. A born and bred Benningtonite himself, Martin Brannen is one of the few who got out of his small hometown. He went away to college, and then to graduate school, and settled down somewhere far from Bennington...only to return fifteen years after he left, with a motherless baby in tow. Though they welcomed their prodigal back with open arms, the people of Bennington have generally always been reserved toward his only child. It's nowhere near the level of hostility they direct at outsiders, mind, just a healthy dose of caution and distance. As a result, Merit has grown up feeling at odds with her surroundings; she's never quite felt at home in Bennington, though it's the only hometown she's ever known.

Whether because of that sense of square-peg-in-round-hole, or because of some natural contrariness inherited from the woman whose absence is so constant it is barely even felt any longer, Merit tends to get along best with the misfits and rabble element of the town. She also gets along better with older people than she does with her own peers. Though not overly prone to socializing, she does have a circle of friends and acquaintances that includes the Kendall sisters, her father, the guys at work who run the printing press, and a few of the less-savory types who live in and out of local motels, depending on whether or not they're going to their Heroin Addicts Anonymous meetings at the Bennington Turning Point Center. Beyond that, she's friendly to everyone, but she also has a biting sense of obvious derision for authority figures and "the establishment," especially if she feels they're abusing their power, or enjoying it too much.

People have often commented that Merit must look like her mother, because she bears no resemblance whatsoever to Martin. In contrast to her father's dark, heavy features, she is fair-skinned and fine-boned, with light red hair that falls just past her shoulders and pale blue eyes. Her face is heart shaped and flat, with small features, low cheekbones, a high forehead, and a blunt little chin. An avid love of hiking, climbing, and walking--she walks the eleven minutes to work every morning, no matter how horrible the weather--has made her already petite frame slender and strong, light-limbed and sure-footed. She dresses practically and simply, in clothes that suit the weather and allow for movement and comfort on the job. This almost invariably involves jeans or pants, a simple shirt, and a sweater or jacket with sneakers or boots, though more layers are usually necessary in fall and winter.

Merit works as a staff reporter at the Bennington Banner, covering mostly entertainment and human interest stories, though she continually vies for a spot on local news and tends to investigate things that pique her curiosity, whether they were assigned to her or not. Her editor keeps her on as tight a leash as he can manage, and bemoans the fact that she's such an incurable idealist. She believes everything she learned in college about the importance of civic journalism as the fifth, "watchdog" estate. She still thinks the pen is mightier than the sword and that one person can change the world. Despite her bright-eyed and bushy-tailed notions, she'll do just about anything to get to the truth if she decides it's more important than whatever rules or laws she'll have to break in the process. Her unconventional methods have nearly gotten her fired more than once, and she's barely been at the Banner more than a year.

She rents the upstairs portion of a little yellow split-level on Gage Street from two sisters, Geneva and Rhea Kendall. She shares the kitchen downstairs with them both, along with their yappy little dog, Baudelaire. On the weekends, she drives the sisters into town in their car and gets her own shopping done while helping them with theirs. She could afford a better living arrangement and a car of her own, but she enjoys the company of the Kendall sisters more than she would enjoy a silent, empty apartment all to herself, and doesn't see the point of sinking a ton of money into buying, storing, and keeping up a car she'll hardly ever use. On the rare occasion she does need to venture further than her legs will carry her, the sisters never mind lending her their ancient station wagon.

When she's in the middle of a story, she's indivertible. During her little downtime, however, she likes to decompress by enjoying the outdoors or reading...mostly true crime novels and mysteries. The surfaces of the sparse furniture of the small, white-walled bedroom she inhabits are almost always covered in stacks of paperbacks she's borrowed from the library, tucked in among her interview transcriptions, notebooks, tattered AP style guide, and endless post-its. She's a neat person, other than the clutter wrought by her tendency to bring her work home with her.
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