Carmen Rosenrot

"Destiny is a thorn on her side."

- Carmen Rosenrot, box quote

Carmen Rosenrot is an all-around character reintroduced in 2016 but originating from 2013. She is a student at Ever After High, and is the daughter of Rose-Red.

''Carmen likes to think of herself as a rebel with a perfectly reasonable cause: she's tired of playing second-fiddle to her more famous cousin and wants to live her way. This dark-haired beauty is not afraid to turn heads and turn tables. Vehemently against the destiny-based ideals of Ever After, she uses her signature dry wit and pessimism to show the world - no matter how subtle or obvious she may be about it - that she's the one in charge of her life.''

Personality
If I had to sum up Carmen in a sentence, it'd probably go something like this: she's pessimistic and snarky and unsociable but somehow you'll like her.

Carmen is the daughter of Rose-Red, and she doesn't like it one bit. She hates the fact that she is playing second-fiddle to the daughter of her more famous sister Snow-White (who she and the rest of the school presume to be Apple White) which she finds unfair. Therefore, she wishes to 'flip the script' and abandon her destiny, living her life in whichever way she feels. Though she puts on a front that states that she doesn't care about her destiny and simply wants something different, she does feel genuinely upset that her mother was given the short straw (particularly in being the 'trivial sister' and having to settle for the prince's brother rather than given an opportunity to marry the prince himself) and refuses to follow her destiny for this reason, in addition to her existing frustration with the principles of Headmaster Grimm's 'enforced destiny' policy. This makes her a Rebel, though she doesn't fraternize with the 'charge' against pre-established destinies.

Having isolated herself from social situations, Carmen is nothing like her supposed cousin (I like to think she's the anti-Apple). To the world around her, she's snarky, irascible, anti-social and usually disinterested - disinterested in the ways of friendship, disinterested in romance, and particularly disinterested in what Headmaster Grimm has to say about her. She doesn't want to get 'stuck in' and doesn't care for the expectations that faculty hold of a princess. In fact, she barely considers herself to be one, despite the fact she is of royal blood. Instead, she associates blue-bloodedness with the prim-and-properness she tries to avoid on a daily basis, trading tiaras and frou-frou dresses for thorn-covered accessories and simple fashions. To many people, she can appear cold, aloof and in many cases even mean, but Carmen isn't a 'mean girl'. She just doesn't care for your problems.

Behind closed doors (in particular to her roommate Aurelia) she is friendlier and is someone you can easily have a good time with. She is humorous (albeit quite dark and disturbing humor, but it counts) and even quite likable when you get to know her. She can take a joke and will gladly annihilate the joker with a better joke of her own.

One important thing to know about Carmen is that she likes to be in control of herself; this is one of the reasons why she hates the destiny principle so much. Therefore Carmen is often inquisitive regarding her own destiny and wants to figure out the truth behind it, since it's an issue she's passionate about (no matter how much she acts like it doesn't matter to her), and in particular she thinks that her story doesn't make sense, with the seldom-recalled fact that Apple seemingly has to follow two destinies. This is a point of suspicion for Carmen, which makes her want to find out more. No matter what happens, Carmen likes to think she has the upper hand.

Interests and hobbies
Carmen is a bit of a reclusive figure, so most students have pretty much zero idea what she's getting up to.

Wild animals
Carmen is a lover of wild animals, and finds that she's happier talking to a wolf or a bear than talking to other students (it's not that she's uncomfortable talking to students, she just isn't interested in what they have to say). She uses her friendship with wild animals as a direct juxtaposition against the typical princess trope of caring for woodland creatures. On one hand, it's completely deliberate, but on the other hand, she's always liked the more rowdy creatures. I'm not kidding. She would gladly let a bear walk into her dorm and sit on her bed.

Storybook Inceptionism/Investigation
Carmen's favourite class is Storybook Inceptionism - her teacher Professor Perrault may be one of the only members of staff at EAH to not see her as just a pessimistic pain in the behind, and it also helps that it's a small class where Carmen can get away from the 'princesses' and hang out with the more interesting characters at school.

This has also given Carmen a knack for investigation, in particular finding out the truth about her destiny. Though she isn't necessarily good at finding the truth to her destiny, she has developed skills and found clues to what's really going on. In summary, she knows something's going on and she wants to find out.

The internet
Carmen isn't social in real life, but she enjoys spending time online. She keeps up with witty memes and is a frequent Tumblr user; usually you can find some sort of semi-dark, semi-humorous quote on her social media status.

Appearance
Carmen is, despite her own reluctance to emphasize this, strikingly beautiful. She stands tall at 6'3, and has a relatively slender build, despite the fact she does very little exercise.

She has beige skin and crimson-toned eyes, which are seldom seen without at least a coat of mascara. Often her stare can be quite intense, despite the fact she doesn't actually want to scare anyone (but she's happy if it keeps over-enthusiastic do-gooders out of her way). She has a relatively small nose and lips that are usually in a smirk or, if not a smirk, a 'resting bitch face'.

Carmen has dark hair on the crossroads between auburn and brown. Her hair isn't thick and is usually worn in a loose ponytail down the side of her face, but she knows ways to make it look nice. She always styles her hair by herself, as she doesn't want to get involved in the 'social shenanigans' of the Tower Salon. To be fair, she's quite good at doing her hair.

How the Story Goes
Here's a summary of how the story goes, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Snow-White and Rose-Red are two little girls living with their mother, a poor widow, in a small cottage by the woods. Fair-haired Snow-White is quiet and shy and prefers to spend her time indoors, doing housework and reading. Dark-haired Rose-Red is outspoken, lively and cheerful, and prefers to be outside. They are both very good little girls who love each other and their mother dearly, and their mother is very fond of them as well.

One winter night, there is a knock at the door. Rose Red opens the door to find a bear. At first, she is terrified, but the bear tells her not to be afraid. "I'm half frozen and I merely want to warm up a little at your place," he says. They let the bear in, and he lies down in front of the fire. Snow-White and Rose-Red beat the snow off the bear, and they quickly become quite friendly with him. They play with the bear and roll him around playfully. They let the bear spend the night in front of the fire. In the morning, he leaves trotting out into the woods. The bear comes back every night for the rest of that winter and the family grows used to him.

When summer comes, the bear tells them that he must go away for a while to guard his treasure from a wicked dwarf. During the summer, when the girls are walking through the forest, they find a dwarf whose beard is stuck in a tree. The girls rescue him by cutting his beard free, but the dwarf is ungrateful and yells at them for cutting his beautiful beard. The girls encounter the dwarf several times that summer, rescue him from some peril each time and the dwarf is ungrateful each time.

Then one day, they meet the dwarf once again. This time, he is terrified because the bear is about to kill him. The dwarf pleads with the bear and begs it to eat the girls. Instead, the bear pays no heed and kills the dwarf with one swipe of his paw. Instantly, the bear turns into a prince. The dwarf had previously put a spell on the prince by stealing his precious stones and turning him into a bear. The curse is broken with the death of the dwarf. Snow-White marries the prince and Rose-Red marries the prince's brother.

How does Carmen come into it?
As much as Carmen doesn't care about following her future destiny, she still isn't very happy about the fact that her mother had to settle with the prince's brother. "Maybe there should have been a contest, or at least drawing straws or some s**t like that?" in her own words. Even though Rose-Red herself isn't too bothered about this, Carmen is still pretty ticked off about it.

The other big thing is the presence of Snow-White. The assumption is that Apple White is Carmen's cousin, though there is no real thought put into the fact that Apple now seemingly has a second destiny. This is where things get interesting - Apple isn't Carmen's real cousin, but none of the students know that, not even Carmen. In fact, her real cousin is locked in the Vault of Lost Tales oblivious to the knowledge of Carmen or any of the students. It is only after the events of Thronecoming when Giles Grimm is freed that rumors start to emerge about this 'true cousin'. For now, Carmen seems to hold Apple to a degree responsible for at least part of her malcontent nature.

Class-ic Schedule
As she is technically a princess, Carmen is allocated the more traditionally 'princessy' classes, much to her chagrin.
 * First Period - Science and Sorcery. An adequately likable start to the day in Carmen's opinion. She gets to exercise some creativity and have a little fun.
 * Second Period - Damsel-In-Distressing. Carmen does not like this subject at all. As a person who enjoys doing things herself, making her own way forward and having sole dibs on her future, it's not surprising to hear that this is not Carmen's cup of tea.
 * Third Period - Debate. On one hand, Carmen will argue the castle down. On the other hand, the topics that are discussed in Debate class often revolve around formulaic and destiny-related subjects, which Carmen doesn't want to get involved with and doesn't care for. She prefers to challenge students on her own terms and on the subjects that matter.
 * Fourth Period - Crownculus. It's okay. She isn't bad at it. She can do it quite competently. It's not something she raves about, but it's okay.
 * Fifth Period - Princessology.  *sigh* .
 * Sixth Period - Storybook Inceptionism, Carmen's favourite. She thinks that being put in this class was a mistake on the school's part, but it's the best mistake they've ever made as far as she's concerned. Delving into the ways that fairytales were developed is something that fascinates Carmen, and certainly adds another prong to the destiny argument.

Trivia

 * Carmen's name was derived from the word 'carmine' which is a shade of red, whereas Rosenrot is the original German name for Rose-Red.
 * Carmen originates from 2013, when she was created on the wiki in that year. Sometime in 2016 her page (along with all of Breannamation's other content) was deleted until in 2017 Breannamation returned to the wiki, as did Carmen.
 * More trivia to be added soon...

Quotes
Coming soon...