Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2014 12:35:21 GMT -5
MARY KATHERYN DONNELLY
CANON OR ORIGINAL: Original
AGE: Seventeen
FACE CLAIM: Sarah Greene
YEAR: Seventh
HOUSE: Gryffindor
OCCUPATION: N/A
BLOOD TYPE: Pureblood
WAND TYPE: 12 inch, Kelpie hair, Rowan
PETS: A brown and white barn can named Puck
ABILITIES: None yet
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LIKES: Cheese, books, quiet nights watching the stars from the roof, horseback riding at full gallop, hours in the garden, painting, fencing, Shakespeare, acting, treacle tarts, Kit, flying late at night, cooking, a good cuppa, kebabs, horses, musical theater, secretly loves sappy stories with happy endings, challenges, babysitting, archery, chocolate sponge, custard with the skin on
DISLIKES: Her reflection, being touched, having her future decided for her, kippers, having to lie, her mother's family, movies and stories where the “monster” dies unjustly, fires bigger than candle flames (she keeps her distance from fireplaces), greasy foods, doctors, being called Mary (by anyone other than her grandfather), pity, the sight of blood (she’ll faint), pumpkin ravioli, kidney pie, not fond of beef
BIGGEST FEAR: Being rejected by her friends and peers
PERSONALITY: ”We're lost in a masquerade.” Markie is a complicated young woman struggling to find herself while keeping up a facade at all times. On the surface, Markie is bright, confident, friendly, and very playful. She's a girl who loves a good (harmless) prank, and is known for being a clown amongst her friends; she'll do anything for a laugh, including making herself the punchline if it means making someone else smile a bit more. She has a reputation for being the fearless social butterfly that she's expected to be, but therein lies the problematic truth of the girl: a lot of what is seen is merely a reflection of what is expected of Markie. Markie finds artistic and creative outlets to keep herself sane, but despite encouraging others to open up to her with their problems, she herself is quite terrible at it.
Markie keeps far too much buried and unexpressed, a lot of the time feeling quite trapped and afraid. She genuinely loves her peers, but at all times is very afraid that they'll turn on her and vanish, leaving her very much alone. As such, she has a terrible habit of only letting people in so far and begins to feel very cornered when they get too close to her emotionally, causing her to subconsciously distance herself back to where she feels safe. She doesn’t mean to really, but is honestly that afraid of what people will think of her, both because of her appearance and then for lying about it on top. Outside of school she’s a witch under a lot of pressure to be ready to take over and run the Donnelly family business to work with both the Wizarding and Muggle communities since both make up their customers and clients, while at the same time struggling to meet the standards that her mother’s family would rather see Markie build up should she choose to climb the rungs of wizarding society under their guidance..
True to many Gryffindors, Markie is somewhat emotionally volatile, and due to keeping so much tension built up under the surface periodically she will break down and have to get it all out. Though she’s working on it, she can be quite rash in her judgment and react first without thinking of the consequences. Markie does try her best to do what’s right (or what seems right), but she’s learning still that the world is an unfair place and what’s right isn’t always what it seems. In the rare moments she drops her guard to let it all out all the walls and guards come down, and then go back up the moment she’s done as though nothing happened. Markie is a master at pretending and a good actress, and believes wholeheartedly that no matter what happens, the show must go on and she must always smile.
APPEARANCE It should be noted that Markie’s appearance, though the plainer side of pretty, is just a glamour charm, courtesy of a charmed ring. The spell is quite harmless, but on her as long as she’s wearing the ring, effectively affecting only how people see her. Everyone sees what is easiest to accept, and so nobody questions seeing a pale Irish girl with long dark hair. But that projected image really is nothing more than that. If you were to touch her skin, the real texture would be what was felt. More than a third of Markie’s body is covered in deep scar tissue from burns that left her face and body ruined and disfigured. Though her dark hair has grown back, there are large patches on the left around her ear and jaw that the scars are too deep for hair roots to come back in, and most of her left ear is gone, leaving a shriveled lower stub. The scars wrap around her neck, the left half of her face, and most of her jaw, as well as her shoulders and back, down to nearly her waist. Markie’s lower lip has very little definition and is almost flat, and the tissue pulls around the sides of her face and eye. Her overall natural appearance is painful to see and grotesque, but thankfully as long as she has her ring, typically only Markie can see the scars.
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MOTHER: Felicity Brennan-Donnelly, deceased
FATHER: Emmet Donnelly, 43 years old. He's a tall, very sweet and hardworking Hufflepuff who runs the Donnelly family herb farm with his older sister, Elizabeth. Emmet is the business-front of the company, managing deals with Muggle shops to carry their dried herbs and plants, and magic shops that work with him to keep a good supply. Emmet is very patient and mild, often has his nose in the financial pages of the paper, and gets so busy that he can look rather scruffy unless his sister reminds him that he looks like a shaggy bear instead of a presentable gentleman.
SIBLINGS: None
HISTORY: Cross-class marriages can either bring families together or drive them further apart, even amongst wizards. When the only daughter of a prominent wizarding family married into a much poorer one, despite the protests of her family, a rift began and was sown with resentment. Mary Katheryn was the single child of that union, and lived for many years quite carelessly with one foot in both worlds. Her father, Emmet, was the business front to a family farm that provided herbs and magical plants to both the Wizarding and Muggle communities. Though the Donnelly family farm was independently wealthy in their own right through the relentless hard work of Emmet and his sister Elizabeth, they were seen as several steps below the Brennan family name his wife belonged to. In the presence of Felicity, the Brennan family at least tolerated the rambunctious girl, even though they often insisted Felicity should leave Emmet and she and Markie live in the family manor with them. But business was good, the little family alternating between residences in both circles dependent on the season. Markie was raised as a witch and knew to keep it secret from the Muggles, but at the time simply thought it was grand fun to declare she was a witch when those around her were playing pretend. That was where Markie found her safety zone of playing pretend and theater, because you could be anyone and anything, and nobody would have any reason to doubt it since it only applied right then.
Markie had just turned 9 the summer of the fire. They were staying in Kilquade in a rented summer flat for business. Emmet was out that evening, closing some deals with Muggle brokers, and Felicity had gone to the corner Sainsbury’s. It was just a few minutes and surely nothing could happen in such a short time. Markie was alone in her room playing with her dolls when she smelled something burning, at first chalking it up to candles in the den and nothing more. But the smell lingered and intensified, and by the time the girl saw tendrils of smoke coming under the cracks in her door the fire had spread across the flat, greedily eating up the old furniture and dry wallpaper and plaster. She shut her door and ran to the far wall, trying to distance herself from the flames as they consumed her bedroom door. The flat was on the third floor, and the child knew she could die from trying to jump from the window. Without a wand or broom the child did the only thing she could think to do and hid under and duvet as she screamed for her mother. Markie remembers it getting hot and the air being naught but smoke and the intense pain that consumed her body before it all went away. What she doesn’t remember is Felicity running into the burning flat and searching for her girl, or both of them being saved by firemen or the ambulance.
It was days in ICU before Markie woke up, bandaged, unable to talk much, and in more pain than her little body knew how to cope with. Emmet was there by her side, distressed but happy his girl had come to. There hadn’t been time to get her to healers, and the damage was so severe that he’d nearly lost hope that she could be saved. It was in that painful bed and wrapped like a mummy that Markie learned her mum wouldn’t be there to see her in the hospital or when she left it, or ever again, Felicity surrendering to smoke inhalation. Markie was still in the hospital when her family had held the funeral, the little girl wrapped in bandages all over with tubes and wires poked into her body, every breath causing pain as she watched the clock, knowing dirt was covering her mother. It was months before Markie was discharged and rehabilitated enough to walk and move around, but the happy little girl had changed, struggling through every day activities to bite down the pain and do her best not to look in the mirror. To her, she looked like the monsters she saw in stories, and found that the world was a lonely place for monsters as other children didn’t want to play with her anymore. They’d stare and snigger, tease and throw stones at the girl who looked different from them now.
But Markie smiled, and did her best to pretend she was happy, if only for her father’s sake to try and help him smile again. Felicity had taken a large part of the wizard’s heart and soul with him to her grave, and Markie promised she would be strong for them both in hopes of helping Emmet keep going. Underneath her smile, Markie withdrew, no longer asking to go play and no longer wanting to go outside to the parks she loved. Surrendering to not knowing what else to do, Emmet sent his girl to her mother’s family for a few weeks as he prepared to move them to the Donnelly farm. Her cousins teased while her uncles tutted and blamed the whole affair on Emmet, their pitying tones and sugar-coated niceness grating on the child’s nerves. It wasn’t until she’d finally had enough that the first break came, Markie hiding in one of the manor’s many dark and dusty rooms to cry her heart out, away from where everyone could see. She had missed the funeral and not cried for the loss of Felicity, the loss of her friends, or any of the million frustrations that ate at her young mind. Markie hadn’t heard her grandfather come in until he was scooping her off the floor, and not until she’d gotten it all out that the old wizard set her down to straighten her out. The rest of the family would disagree, he’d told her, but he saw her as the best of both families and made of stronger stuff because of it. He presented Markie with a little silver ring that had been her mother’s, and charmed it. “Beauty may, beauty might, keep the scars out of sight.” The ring had been a treasure when Felicity was young and would now help all that was left of his daughter be less afraid to face a world that would judge first on what they saw before who and what someone was capable of. He warned her not to rely solely on her charm because all spells could be countered and broken, but helping her fit in would help her build up the strength she’d need for a world where even bigger problems would drag you down given the chance.
When Markie was sent home to her father in County Wicklow, the girl’s smile was painted on brighter than ever as all visible traces of her deformities had vanished under the care of the glamour. The Donnelly family farm was wide, and the home nestled into a large hill that was much bigger on the inside. Markie did what she could to learn and stay out from underfoot of her father and Aunt Liz, but stayed mostly away from anyone until she went to town and met her nearest neighbor and her son who was the same age. Kit was a Muggle and lived alone with his mother who ran the pub, and despite Markie’s best efforts to deter the boy, Kit invaded Markie’s life with the tenacity of a summer gale. Without ever meaning to, he became her best friend and anchor, and soon anywhere Markie went Kit followed. He found out she was a witch quite by accident, but it only added to how much he thought of Markie as they grew. Even as she left to begin attending Hogwarts during the semesters, Kit waited patiently each term for her to come home and visit, eventually learning to send messages through her owl regularly to keep tabs on her.
It's such a strange thing to feel more at home in agiant boarding school with such a history than at one's own home, but for Markie Hogwarts was the the only place she'd consistently been, even though Emmet never left the family home in Wicklow after Felicity's death. It was sort of a place Markie could gather her mind and expand without quite so many expectations; at Hogwarts she didn't have to overhear the arguments from her father and her uncles about what was "best" for her without ever asking what she wanted, and she didn't have to worry quite so much about being able to fit seamlessly in with two worlds that existed quite separately from each other. To her, it was almost funny how little school would have to do with life when it started at last; Muggle Studies she could sleep through and still tutor, and yet she drifts through her classes wondering how much she'll actually use. Hogwarts taught so little she she'd use on the farm, and yet if she chose to live with her mother's family, she'd have to learn from the bottom how to be a proper young witch as a part of higher society. At school, Markie could simply be, even though the massive amounts of students everywhere more or less ensured that one was never totally alone, no matter how hard you tried. Knowing the family business that was waiting at home for her, Markie learned to excell in potions and herbology, and found peace in spending hours in the school nursery. It was easier to be among the plants than the people, but plants were non-judgemental, and her future.
But people change as they grow, and more and more Markie finds herself more torn about where she is happier, and despite her cheeriness often finds herself alone to think and loses herself in her paintings that slowly she is learning to bring to life, the forest and lake among her favourite subjects to paint at odd hours when she can't sleep. Her feelings teeter back and forth between homesick and never wanting to go back, and the only thing that seems to remain steady are her letters to and from Kit, though even he is kept at a safe distance from Markie’s heart, never knowing about the charm his best friend wears or ever seeing her as she truly is, and she prefers it that way. Now almost a woman Markie is in her seventh year at Hogwarts and studying doubly hard at her lessons there and Muggle books to help run the business she will inevitably take control of, whether she wishes to or not.
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HEY MY NAME IS Sannie, AND I ALSO PLAY no one else yet. I FOUND THE SITE THROUGH Deus Mortuus
TEMPLATE BY ELIZA @ SHADOWPLAY & RCR