InsaneJournal

OUT OF CHARACTER:

Name: Brandi
Timezone: CST
AIM: brandied plum
E-mail: brandied . plum @ gmail . com
Availability for Playing: My schedule is very much open right now!
Previous Role-Playing Experience: Lots (and in wiki form)
Where did you find us? _kyri pimped in her CDJ. :)
Intended Journal: perkypics | ~perkypics

IN CHARACTER:

Full Name: Sally-Anne Perks
Nicknames: Sally, Sal
Gender: Female
Age/DOB/Sign: 25 / April 13, 1980 / Aries
Blood Status: Pureblood
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Occupation: Photographer for the Daily Prophet
Residence: A small cottage outside of Bath, England
Wand Type: 11 in, maple, unicorn tail hair
Played-By: Blake Lively (circa Accepted and Traveling Pants and NOT Gossip Girl; more sample icons, but ignore the Gossip Girl icons in some of those links, I won't be using those)

Appearance: Sally is tall. Quite tall, actually. She stands at 5'10", yet she loves wearing high heels when she's dressing up (though 99% of the time, she's more comfortable in trainers). She's lean and fit, thanks to years of running. Her hair is long and layered, a blonde that darkens a bit in the winter and lightens in the summer; it's usually on the wavy side unless she can be bothered to straighten it, which isn't all too often. Lotions and creams have managed to nearly eliminate the pockmarks that were left behind after her battle with dragon pox, so her skin is nearly perfectly smooth again. She has a tiny beauty mark just to the right of her nose, and a wide smile that's open and friendly and shows up at the tiniest provocation. Most comfortable in jeans or sweats, t-shirts, and trainers, she does occasionally dress up in heels and dresses, and she does occasionally have to put on a suit for work, but her favourite outfit is a pair of worn and faded jeans with holes at the knees and a well-worn Tornados t-shirt with a few holes starting to form at the seams.

Personality: Above anything else, Sally is cheerful. She is a positive, outgoing, happy person who sometimes seems to see the world through rose-colored glasses. The glass is half-full, the grass is quite green enough on this side of the fence, and it's always a beautiful day outside, whether it's sunny and bright or gloomy and stormy. She also has an overabundance of energy, with plenty not only for herself but also for at least two other quite energetic people, as well. From a young age, she could never quite hold still, and this continued throughout her life. She's never been content to just sit around and be idle and do nothing, she always has to be doing something. She loves sports of all kind, particularly Quidditch and muggle football, though she can't play Quidditch herself as she has trouble staying seated on a broomstick. She can often be found in some wide open grassy space or other, kicking around a muggle football or just running.

Sally is also a bit of a flake. She'll frequently put something down in a random place and forget where it is. She was never all too skilled at Charms in school, so accio is a bit hit-or-miss, which means that she spends lots of time digging around and looking for things. It would help somewhat if she was more organised, but it's still questionable how much that would actually help. For years, she would also forget appointments and meetings, so she has taken to writing down things on her arms to remember them. She's lost a few jobs in the past, because of her flakiness and forgetting that she had a deadline or that she had to be somewhere on time, but in recent years (since The Incident), she's become somewhat better at that, so she's managed to hold a job at the Daily Prophet as a photographer for several years now.

She is also incredibly loyal to her former house, her friends, and her family (not necessarily in that order). She would do anything including cut off one of her own limbs for them. She was always the person in the stands at the Hufflepuff quidditch matches cheering the loudest for her team, with her face all painted in black and yellow (and she would loudly cheer for any of her friends in other houses who were on their quidditch teams ... so long as they weren't playing against Hufflepuff). She even tried to get a Hufflepuff Cheerleading Team started, though she remained the Unofficial Hufflepuff Cheerleader throughout her seven years at Hogwarts. She would also be willing to completely drop everything in order to be there for a friend.

She does, however, have some of that Hufflepuffian Hard-Work Ethic that the Sorting Hat sang about, it's just kind of buried. She is willing to put the time in to do the work necessary. In school, she would try to work hard in the classes that interested her. In work, she can manage to sit down and get her work done. If it's time for her to buckle down and take something serious for a while, she'll suck it up and settle down, if only for a little while (but then she's back to bouncing off the walls and running around acting goofy again).

Sally tends to hide her negative emotions. If she feels happy, the whole world knows it. If she was in love, she might quite literally climb onto a roof and yell it for the world to hear. But if something upsets or hurts her, she bottles it up and buries it down deep inside, trying to cover it up with smiles and sunshine because maybe then that will make everything okay. She just cannot manage to let her hurt and sad feelings out. But if something hits her really hard, like when her beloved brother was found out to be a Death Eater or The Incident, she loses herself and her way a little. She feels as though her world is flipped upside-down, and she can't find her way back up. She either retreats into herself and waits for the bad feelings to go away, or she tries to outrun them and leave them behind.

History:

Father: Jack Perks (pureblood, Gryffindor alum, 1965); Quidditch commentator
Mother: Lauren Perks née Higgs (pureblood, Hufflepuff alum, 1965); magical-book binder
Brother: Arthur Perks (b. 30 September, 1970, Gryffindor alum, 1989); Auror
Brother: Michael Perks (b. 10 January, 1973, Ravenclaw alum, 1991); Auror
Brother: Jonathan Perks (b. 15 October, 1977, Slytherin alum, 1996); Death Eater (in Azkaban)
Brother: Nicholas Perks (b. 30 November, 1984, Ravenclaw alum, 2003); intern at Whizzhard books
Sister: Elizabeth Perks (b. 3 July, 1987, Hufflepuff alum, 2005); waitress

Born on 13 April, 1980, Sally-Anne Perks is a middle child. Not the middle child, as she shares that position with her brother Jonathan. She has three older brothers (Arthur, Michael, and Jonathan), a younger brother (Nicholas), and a younger sister (Elizabeth). Yes, Sally is aware that her family is quite large, but she loves her big family and couldn't imagine a life without her siblings around. Arthur and Michael were so much older than Sally and the other three, though, that she tends to be closer to Jonathan, Nicholas, and Elizabeth, though Jonathan was always her best friend.

Even though money was tight, there was no shortage of love in the Perks household. Dad Jack was a Quidditch commentator and mum Lauren worked as a magical-book binder, so while they weren't exactly rolling in the money, they were still able to make ends meet with some money left over. Schoolbooks were often recycled down for the younger siblings, but all that really meant to Sally was that she felt closer to her older brothers by using the same schoolbooks that they had used, seeing their little doodles and notes in the margins.

The Perks children were sorted into widely varied houses, though each was a perfect fit for that particular child. Noble and brave Arthur went into Gryffindor, bookish and curious Michael into Ravenclaw, quiet and cunning Jonathan into Slytherin, loyal and friendly Sally into Hufflepuff, know-it-all Nicholas into Ravenclaw, and earthy and motherly Elizabeth into Hufflepuff. Sally was only ever in school with Jonathan and Nicholas: Michael graduated right before Sally started, and Elizabeth didn't start school until after the war, right after the end of Sally's last year. The different houses that Sally, Jonathan, and Nicholas were in made it hard for the three of them to spend time together, but they tried to visit as much as they could, sometimes eating a meal together at one of their houes tables.

But Sally made herself at home in Hufflepuff right away. She made friends with her roommates, and she became the biggest fan of Hufflepuff Quidditch that the school had ever seen. Her father had instilled in all of his children a love of the sport, but Sally couldn't play it to save her life. So she contented herself with watching the game and being the biggest fan that she could be. She really got into it, too: painting her face in yellow and black, making banners, and cheering until her throat was raw. In her third year, she even tried to get some of the other girls interested in starting up a Hufflepuff Cheerleading Team, but she couldn't get enough interest. She continued trying every year after that, even in her seventh year because she felt that cheerleaders were exactly what the school needed in the brewing war.

At the tail end of Christmas break in her fifth year, Sally was stricken with dragon pox. After a lengthy stay in St Mungo's, she was permitted to return home, but she was not allowed to return to school to finish up her fifth year. She missed taking the O.W.L.s with her yearmates, but her parents petitioned the Ministry of Magic and got special permission for her to take the exams over the summer. She had kept up with her work while she was sick, simply because she didn't have anything else to do, so she passed her exams more-or-less easily.

As she had recovered and had been given clearance by the hospital to return to school, Sally rejoined her friends in their sixth year. Sally was shaken by the death of Professor Dumbledore at the end of the school year, as well as the small battle that had raged inside the school (in which she hadn't taken part, as Defense and Charms were not her strong suits, and she would have been more of a hinderance than a help, so she stayed in the Hufflepuff Common Room and tried to keep the younger years calm and safe). After a summer of pushing away those feelings of fear into the deepest recesses of her mind, Sally returned for an eventful seventh year, with the Professors Carrow ruling the school. Sally struggled to hide her fear for her brothers' safety, as they were now both Aurors, by concentrating on her classes and on quidditch and trying once again to get a cheerleading team started. She strove to keep morale and moods high in Hufflepuff and among her friends outside the house, because they all needed that more than ever.

When the final battle occurred, Sally once again stayed out of it. She helped to get the younger students out of the school, then followed with them. She felt no guilt over leaving instead of staying and fighting: she would likely have only gotten herself and others killed if she had stayed and tried to fight. So instead, she left and waited for word from friends, waited for the end.

The end was victory, but it was a bittersweet victory for Sally. One of the Death Eaters who was captured during the battle was found to be her beloved brother Jonathan. After he had finished school in 1996, he had ended up joining up with the Death Eaters. Sally felt betrayed and confused, unable to connect the brother that she loved, her best friend, with the murderous Death Eaters. Denial became her new friend as she took the N.E.W.T.s that summer and began searching for jobs as a photographer, a passion she'd cultivated for years. She became very skilled at avoiding any questions about her brother, any speculation that other members of the family might also be connected with the Death Eaters. She convinced herself that Jonathan was simply away on a very long vacation and that was why she hadn't seen him.

In late 2003, after Sally had managed to get herself a job as a photographer for a muggle newspaper, she met Nathan. Nathan was a muggle and a reporter for the paper, and Sally was frequently his photographer on assignments. Sparks constantly flew between the two of them, and one night after a few celebratory drinks following a particularly juicy scoop they'd gotten together, they gave in to their feelings. A couple months later, Sally was hospitalised for a week when the pregnancy that had resulted from that night abruptly ended in a miscarriage. Sally won't ever speak of that time, she only ever refers to it as The Incident (even to herself) and leaves it at that. But her relationship with Nathan shattered, and she quit her job at the paper and has not seen or spoken with Nathan since. Hardly anybody even knew that she'd been pregnant.

After The Incident, Sally got a job as a photographer for the Daily Prophet in about June 2004, and she pushed her horrible feelings of hurt and sadness from The Incident deep down inside, letting them take up residence beside the feelings of betrayal from her brother's arrest. She maintained nothing more or less than professional relationships with her coworkers at the Prophet, and she also began staying home more in the evenings instead of going out, or going for long runs by herself, pushing herself to go farther and faster until the only thoughts in her mind are on running.

Connections:

• Good friends with Morag MacDougal
  
• BFFs with Hannah Abbott
  
• Cousin to Terrence Higgs

SAMPLES:

First Person: I love the Christmas season. Everything is decorated so pretty, with tinsel and lights and holly and mistletoe and everything everywhere. And the snow. I think I love running when it's snowing lightly. It actually snowed quite a bit out here. I might build a snowman out front in the yard. And I don't care if it's juvenile, I want to have a snowball fight. Any takers? Hannah, Morag, that's not a question for either of you, you're coming whether you like it or not. It'll be fun, I promise. Then once we've thoroughly frozen ourselves, we can make hot cocoa and amuse ourselves with watching Dog play in the snow.

Third Person: Sally stood in the entryway of her little cottage, dressed warmly but still allowing for freedom of movement. She was stretching out her long legs to go for a run, and with it being cold outside, she wanted to be sure that she wouldn't freeze, but she also couldn't bundle up in anything too heavy or constricting, or she'd never be able to move, much less keep up with the yellow lab that pranced excitedly in circles around her as she stretched. Dog was looking forward to the run nearly as much as Sally was.

As soon as she was done stretching, Sally braced herself for the cold and opened the door, ushering her dog out ahead of her before stepping out and locking the door behind her. Keeping her wand accessible just in case, she whistled to Dog and took off at a brisk pace. The cold stung her unprotected face at first, but she knew it wouldn't be long before her face was too numb to feel anything. And besides, once she got moving, the exercise would keep her warm enough. Dog kept up with her easily, and she knew that she could push herself and her dog would still keep up and stay at her side, so she wasn't worried about him.

As her body fell into the rhythm of her run, she slowly emptied her mind. The cold wasn't a bother. She wasn't breathing hard yet, but knew it was only a matter of time before she wouldn't even be able to talk while running. Unfortunately, it was taking longer than usual to really empty out her mind, she kept thinking about things like that she should be getting ready for her baby's second Christmas. She shook her head to try to dislodge that thought, then picked up the speed of her running, feeling the burn in her legs. These were not thoughts that she wanted on her run. Instead, she would think of the Prophet's upcoming Christmas party. Parties were always fun, after all. Yes, she would think about the party, about going out and having fun with Hannah and Morag, about Christmas shopping. No use thinking about babies that didn't exist.