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Archived Applications / Margery Thistleberry | Wizarding Anthropology
« on: 15/04/2013 at 07:41 »
Application for Salem Professor
→ CHARACTER INFORMATION.
Name: Margery Thistleberry
Age: 45
Birthplace: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Educational History: Muggle primary school on the outskirts of Minneapolis, secondary school at the Yellow Medicine School of Witchcraft, four years just for the ‘experience’ at the University of Minnesota (muggle school) no diploma, ten years moving from one dig site to another around the world as a muggle archaeologist’s ‘assistant’, five years self-study on wizarding early history, the last eight years have seen her again at dig sites studying what should soon be registered as wizarding ruins.
Magical Levels: C18 D16 T10 S18
Biography:
Margery Lillian Thistleberry was born to two noteworthy parents in that they loved their daughter and supported her eccentricities, which was more than she could say about any other adults in her life.
Born just before the turn of a century, the role of a female was complicated yet boring. Complicated because women had limitations placed on their lives that made it hard for them to succeed in certain areas, and boring because… well… there were limitations. It was difficult to grow and learn and experiment when the boys told you that you could not play with them and when the adults said that a girl could not take certain classes. Primary school was a challenge for Margery and her distant demeanor and strange way of imagining how life on the playground must have been like thirty years prior did not make thing easier for her.
It wasn’t only her odd interests and faraway imaginings that set her apart from the children in school, but the fact that she was the daughter of wizarding folk. She knew this fact for as long as she could remember and for a time it was difficult for Margie to keep such a secret. She wasn’t popping at the seams with magical tendencies, no glasses broke inexplicably, and nothing floated around her if she was angry, she only knew that her parents were special and that she too would be someday.
Such information had to be held close, and with her mind already full of strange calculations and thoughts, Margie floated through life at odds with reality. Her parents saw to it that she would at least have a fine education and a loving home so that she might not feel too lonely. Margery grew up surrounded by books, she was allowed to traveling the world with her parents and she eventually started showing tiny sign that she too had magic coursing through her veins.
But it would not be the wizarding world that she took an interest in, but the muggle one that she’d grown up in. Sure there had been limitations growing up and secrets to keep from the muggle world, but she didn’t want to abandon it entirely once she understood that she could. Instead, she took it in as if it were one big experiment and study. She furthered her education after wizarding high by attending lectures and fieldtrips held out of muggle universities. She studied the muggle culture by living it, she studied muggle history by utilizing their school system, and eventually she tried to decipher the connections between two worlds so closely ingrained and yet so completely separated.
Margery became fascinated with something that wizards took for granted at times; their origins. Muggles lived amongst wizards without knowing it and it left them with mysteries waiting to be solved, and wizards sometimes forgot just how strange it was to live amongst muggles while feeding a ruse. Just the unrealized codependence alone fascinated Marge, and so she spent a chunk of her life living and learning and making connections. Some thirteen years went by as she gained the education and skills required in her profession, but she was as much a muggle Anthropologist as she was a wizarding one, because one could not exist without the other and she as much made certain that they stayed one and the same.
The blonde has not changed much over the years; she is still the strange child that would rather dig for clues rather than jump rope, and she has few friends to speak of. No family, her parents having passed away without providing any sisters or brothers, Margery has no real excuse not to pour herself into her work. And on the subject of love... a woman with such an engrossing career as hers, developed during a time when women didn’t usually fight for education and occupation, wasn't exactly easy to approach. Marge never searched for love and no one ever asked her for it.
Would anything change now? Now that she looked toward a different sort of education, the educating of others? Will she be forced to slow down and relate to the immediate world around her, long enough to find other interests?
Only time will tell.
Strengths & Weaknesses:
She loves research, enjoys onsite research and discovery the most and has spent an inordinate amount of time alone amongst the dirt, the ruins and the broken artifacts of past civilizations. She can picture a location in its heyday, visualize people as they go about their lives and almost smell the incense and taste the flavors of the time. Unfortunately this also means that she might begin chatting with someone who isn’t actually there. She frequently becomes distracted if and when a conversation lulls and will simply walk, mumbling to herself about a promising dig-sight in India or the relation between factors found in the skulls of Neanderthals and those of the wizards in the 12th century. In other words: she’s good at what she does but the price is social awkwardness.
Hopes & Dreams:
Her hope is that whatever silly little trouble is going on in the world will cease soon, so that she might continue her research on middle Europe and the origins of wizarding man.
→ SAMPLE ROLEPLAY.
Please reply to the sample roleplay below!
Dressed in only the finest for her interview… yeah, that would be the day. The woman in all reality wore the simplest clothing and couldn’t even be bothered to tack up her dirty blonde hair. She wore little makeup on the most special of occasions and this one wasn’t notable. And her air was distracted and distant.
Margery Thistleberry didn’t always do the right thing, the appropriate thing, or the expected thing. That she had somehow made it to this interview on time was a miracle in and of itself. For that, she should be given congratulations. Marge wouldn’t accept such trifles of course, not intentionally. Her mind was too distracted by locations yet undiscovered and finding that needed studying. Her imagination was probably taking up more than seventy percent of her mind’s processing power as she envisioned cities long crumbled and tribes lost to time. To sit in a chair and be questioned about her background was almost a superfluous event, bordering on insulting, and hardly needed to be registered properly in her brain.
She was winging this one.
Salem, was that the interview she had this morning? Oh. Well then.
She gave the question some thought while she studied the man in front of her. Unfortunately he wasn’t old enough for a proper calculation on her part. It wasn’t that she was older than him and felt superior, it was just that he wasn’t already gone… it was much easier for Marge to read the mood and hopes and values of a person once they had ceased. Living people were a bit more troublesome.
He did seem a bit irked by something. Oh well, luckily she would be irking him further by spouting a history lesson, as Marge honestly didn’t know a thing about the school. Not yet. Maybe she could have some fun digging up the past… if she didn’t destroy her prospects first by staying silent now.
Sitting back in her chair she begin her mini diatribe.
“Teaching. I find that such a one sided term. I prefer discovering the truth because even the professor can learn anew from such young minds. So thirsty and intrigued by all, it’s quite refreshing, but since that doesn’t fit well on a business card, I supposed teacher and educator works…”
She was staring off as if in deep thought before she realized she had trailed off topic.
“Oh but that is why I hope to ‘teach’ here, for as much the students benefit as my own. You are hailed as having some of the brightest minds, skilled in logic and debate and what better skills to have when studying ones past and unearthing truths. Quite thrilling really...”
She was basically staying on topic, although she really had nothing to back such claims. Was Salem known for its brilliant students? She didn’t really know.
“I could go on, but tell me, in your opinion; would your student body such studies intriguing? The past has definitive ties to the future, but I find that not everyone agrees with me…”
Her attention bounced around the room taking in the man’s office. She wanted to let a picture develop in her mind about his life, his childhood, what social circles he called home… she really just wanted the interview to end soon so that she might wander, but by her estimation they could spend a good hour on this procedure. She may as well pace herself.
