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Author Topic: Marjorie Withersnap // Herbology  (Read 615 times)

Marjorie Laskos

    (01/12/2016 at 01:49)
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CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character name: Marjorie Withersnap

Previous and/or Current Character(s) if applicable: Marjorie Withersnap, Dorian Fortnum IV

Character age: 20

Character education: Hogwarts (Ravenclaw House)

Strength and weaknesses (details please): 
Dealing with the aftermath of her field accident in Tibet has set Marjorie to thinking about her strengths (but perhaps mostly her weaknesses) quite a bit.

She is driven to learn and to be the best in her field, always wanting to outdo the competition (real or imagined). She puts her whole self into projects, ideas, and endeavours.

Marjorie is also incredibly kind, and has a soft spot for tricky people and creatures. That means wanting to break through people’s emotional shells by proving she’s trustworthy. It also means she has a tendency to pick up problem plants like misbehaved fanged geraniums because she enjoys nurturing their better natures.

Trusting of those around her, Marjorie tries to see the best in people and had an inherent desire to share with the people she meets. In return, Marjorie is a good and thoughtful listener, happy to sit with someone and hear them speak.

With these strengths come their own inherent weaknesses. Because she is always throwing her whole self into the things she does, Marjorie can find herself feeling very hurt if something goes wrong and has a tendency to blame herself for mistakes.

Because she’s always trying to prove herself, she can lose sight of a project’s end-game.

Because she’s so trusting, she can come across as emotional, and she’s terrible at keeping secrets. As easy as it is to make her laugh, it’s equally easy to make her cry or to incite her ire. And she won’t hide her feelings from you.

Finally, she had a tendency to lose herself in her work, and she is perpetually late to almost everything.

Physical description: Just below average height, Marjorie stands tall and walks with purpose. Blonde waves fall about her shoulders, often slightly unruly despite her best efforts to control them. Her eyes are dark, a deep brown like forest floors (and they hide as many layers as the fall leaf cover that blankets tree roots).

Typically, you’ll find Marjorie wearing clothing built for practicality: linen or cotton trousers, sensible button downs or blouses, and sturdy shoes for hiking or walking. After spending nearly a year in the field, she’s grown used to carrying a large number of personal belonging with her, and she is almost never seen without her large, leather satchel that seems to be filled to the brim with jars for collecting samples and vials of herbal remedies.

Her frame may be small, but don’t let that fool you. Marjorie is determined and capable when it comes to physical endeavors. Whether it’s hiking in the Himalayas or transplanting unruly chomping cabbages, Marjorie isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty and put in the hard work.

She bears scars along her left arm and part of her torso from a splinching incident on her way out of the field, but she doesn’t try to hide them. Generally, Marjorie finds that people are too afraid to ask what happened and so, simply, she wears her scars.

Personality (nice, rude, funny etc. Paragraph please.):
Marjorie has a wry sense of humor, enjoying cleverness and wit in true Ravenclaw fashion. Her first inclination to all people is kindness. Those who treat her kindly in return will find Marjorie to be a fast friend, a confidant, and an ally. Those who come across as cold or gruff will likely find her to be grating as she tries to wear away at their veneer, to prove herself worthy of friendship and confidence. Those who treat her poorly will likely find themselves hearing snide remarks and on the receiving end of rude gestures; Marjorie has a low tolerance for plain meanness, and she deals with it through sarcasm (and the occasional yelling match).

Hopes and dreams. Why are you teaching at Hogwarts?:
As a student who found her calling to be unsatisfactory to her parents, Marjorie always felt like Hogwarts was as much a home as anywhere else (even if she longed to leave its walls while she was there in order to go see the world).

Now, without a true place to call home and without the promise of future field work (or the desire to go back out and explore any time soon), Marjorie is banking her hopes on finding a place back at Hogwarts. A place to ground herself after feeling adrift for nearly a year.

As someone who values knowledge and learning, teaching seems like a good fit; she loves sharing what she knows, and her enthusiasm for her work can be infectious to those around her. She hopes that this will come across to students as well, and that she can help educate young minds before they go out into the world. 

Biography (500 words minimum. There is never such a thing as too much.):
Like many only-children raised by loving and supportive parents, Marjorie Withersnap always grew up thinking she was exceptional. Her mother, a lovely witch who has published several very successful cookbooks in her younger years, and her father, an editor for a publishing company of many spellbooks, always told her that she was exceptional, a special child unlike the masses of other children. And so she had grown up believing it.

In her early years at Hogwarts, Marjorie flourished. She rose to the top in many of her classes, developed fast friendships with her dorm mates in Ravenclaw, and organized a rather rambunctious cheering section for the Ravenclaw quidditch team complete with short-lived charmed paper ravens that would dive at the opposing team’s fans when whenever anyone scored.

Things began to shift in Marjorie’s fourth year of school. Each year had been very much the same. The girls in her dorm hadn't changed, she continued to excel in her classes, and the Ravenclaw quidditch cheer section continued to gain school notoriety for its various obnoxious charms used during events. All in all, everything was just moving along, rather dully. It felt rather unexceptional.

Due to a schedule mix up, Marjorie found herself in an intermediate Herbology course, a subject she'd avoided as a soft-magical discipline that held little interest. Frantic owls were sent to her father, trying to get out of the class, but to no avail. Two weeks into the class, however, her opinion changed. Researchers were out in the world looking for new plants and cures, witches and wizards were experimenting with new potions, and the medical field was making leaps and bounds. It was a would undiscovered, a subject full of unknowns, a true challenge. It was a world of adventure that waited, pulsing, for Marjorie to jump in. It was exactly what Marjorie had been missing while living in the status quo of her very ordinary life.

Over the next year, many of Marjorie's friendships fell away, the cheering section dissolved, and she threw herself into the study of herbology with laser focus. She regretted none of it, and graduated quietly along with her class sans her early popularity but with a true sense of purpose.

With the help of her former professors, Marjorie secured an internship with St. Mungo’s in their research division. Though the work was exciting at first, the initial shine wore and after six months she found herself longing for more than the inside of an apothecary and a laboratory full of bubbling potions.

When the field research position with the Ministry opened, Marjorie lept at the opportunity to leave the lab and see the world. St. Mungo’s was happy enough to support the bored, cooped up young woman in her pursuit of adventure, and the Ministry scooped her up in her zeal and passion for discovery.

Gunter had not been what she was bargaining for in a partner. He was a bit older, in his mid 30s, gruff and bearing scars from excursions gone awry. He came across as knotted and tough, unfriendly and cold. But in their first months traveling together through Bhutan and their treks into deep damp jungles, Marjorie developed an unparalleled respect for him. In the next months after that, the respect grew deeper and blossomed into a gentle, unexpected romance.

The duration of their trip was to be two years, at which point they would return to the ministry for their next assignment. Not wanting to jeopardize their careers, they kept their fledgling romance a secret and continued their work, lit by love and passion and discovery.

At the 10 month mark into their trip, things went terribly askew. Though they were studying gillyweed, they trekked through a venomous tentacula stranglehold; it was dangerous business, but together they'd been able to watch one another's backs and stay safe, up until that particular day. The jungles of Tibet were filled with all manner of extraordinary beasts, but the flesh eating slugs were perhaps the most irritating. The Tibetan slugs, at least, made a high pitched whine right before they excreted, giving a warning that danger was imminent, and it felt like their whole morning had been filled with whining and ducking to avoid the slug spray.

So focused was she on the slugs (and daydreaming of returning to London on Gunter’s arm, of the things she would say to her parents in defense of their love, of the potential future the two had together) that she missed the distinctive rustling of the tentacula until its vines were nearly upon her. Before she realized what had happening, Gunter yelled and tackled her to the side. She hit the ground hard, and her vision faded to black.

When she awoke, uncertain of how much time had passed, she propped herself up and found that Gunter was nearly wrapped in the spiny, poisonous leaves. In what felt like her last moment of clarity, she cast a spell to sever the leaves, threw herself onto Gunter, and apparated to St. Mungo’s.

They had barely arrived in time. Gunter was barely alive, and she had splinched part of her arm and leg in the process. Her love was on the precipice of death, and she was at fault.

The return to London was difficult, a transition from lush jungles and isolation to bustling streets and noise. Her parents, who had disapproved of her travelling the world in the first place, were unsurprised (but still disappointed) at the mess she’d made of things. The Ministry placed her on administrative leave, but not before taking her research and field notes for their use.

10 months in the jungle, and the only thing she had to show for it was a delicate psyche and scars from being splinched.

Moira, her cousin, was kind enough to take her in. But the two fought tooth and nail for months, living in a tense state of one upmanship and subtle jabs. Aimless, unemployed, and feeling alone, Marjorie worked to make connections to bring her back to the world.


SAMPLE ROLEPLAY
(Please respond to to this in third person past tense. Do not write the other characters' reactions. Only your own.)

It was the largest office in Hogwarts and, perhaps to students and newcomers, the most intimidating. The shelves were filled with various odds and ends, with a place of honor for the Sorting Hat, and the walls held all the portraits of past Headmasters and Headmistresses.

In the middle of the room sat a large desk. Everything was in order, for the current occupant had always despised a messy desk. It was the sign of a messy mind, and she had always favored neatness.

A clock sat on the desk, which currently showed the time to be 2:05. The meeting was supposed to begin at 2:00 precisely.

Along with order, Anneka valued punctuality. She was a very busy woman these days. Even during the summer, she had a number of matters to attend to. Interviewing and hiring staff was only of those matters. The newest potential member of her staff wasn't making a good impression.

She paced the room, black heels clicking against the stone floor. When the door finally opened, Anneka turned, her expression reminiscent of a Russian winter. "You are late."

Explain yourself was what her face said.

Roleplay Response:

Taking long strides down the hallway toward the Headmistress’s offices, Marjorie tried to strike the delicate balance between walking quickly enough to keep the seconds on the clock from pushing her into further lateness and keeping herself from running so that she wouldn’t be out of breath upon her arrival.

Running late. Always.

It was her own fault this time. More and more, she found herself regretting the purchase of that pesky fanged geranium. It was supposed to be getting past its biting phase, growing out of adolescence and developing a more mature sensibility. At least, that’s what the book she had purchased on it had assured her. And, for a moment, Marjorie had thought that plant was right on target.

But then, moments before she needed to leave, the blasted plant attacked the flitterbloom and mayhem broke loose.

Perhaps it was time to keep fewer plants in her small apartment, she resolved as she approached the office.

Turning the knob to Anneka’s office, Marjorie realized that this was, perhap, her first occasion for going there. In school, she had never been a troublemaker, had never had reason to find herself called to the headmistress’s office. The halls were familiar enough, but the knob under palm felt foreign.

She did know, however, that the woman in the room before her valued timeliness. And she also knew that she was very much not on time.

Turning the handle and entering the room, Marjorie worked to keep a bright smile on her face even as she caught sight of the woman’s dour expression. She ran a hand through her blonde waves, pushing them over her shoulder.

“I’m so sorry that I’m late,” Marjorie began, a bit of color rising to her cheeks. “I’ve taken on a few troublesome plants from a nursery in Hogsmeade that caused a bit of a kerfuffle right as I was leaving.”

Marjorie took a deep breath and steeled herself, hoping a bit of boldness might warm over the woman sitting behind the desk. “I supposed it’s time to relocate some of the plants, really. I’m hopeful that the greenhouses here would do nicely.”


can we go back to the world we had?
it's the world we've been dreaming of

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