shoot you in the head is my rob zombie cover band (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} zombiephile) wrote,@ 2008-06-18 11:05:00 |
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| Entry tags: | application: completed, game: bollocks |
Miriam Strout for ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
_bollocks_
Name: Brandi Age: 24 Email: garnet.sunrise@gmail.com IM Contact: brandied plum Past Experience: Complete listing of past and present characters Activity/Schedule: Now that I am done with my class until August, I have plenty of free time to play, except for the odd ushering gigs now and then. What is the answer to Rule of Thumb? When in doubt, What plots would you like to explore in this game? Or are there any plots you would like to introduce into the game? Miriam says that she would like to lead a rebellion against uniforms (a very peaceful rebellion, that is; mostly just gathering together a large group of students who all refuse to wear their uniforms to class). And at some point, she should probably discover that she likes healing people and, hey, being a healer is a totally awesome career move and she can still be all rebellious and stuff outside of work (if she still wants to be rebellious, that is). Identity Full Name: Miriam Irene Strout Date of Birth/Age: November 6, 1959 / 15 Wand: 10 in, black walnut, phoenix feather. Phoenix feather is said to be very magical, and Phoenix's fire matches well to Miriam's fiery personality; the rebirth of a Phoenix also ties in, somewhat, to Miriam's future as a healer (though she doesn't know that yet). Black Walnut is known for its protective nature which makes it perfect for security against the dark arts; additionally, Miriam was born under the walnut tree (metaphorically, not literally), which connects her more to walnut than any other wand wood. [source: wand core, wand wood, birthday tree] House: Ravenclaw Bloodline: Half-blood School Activities: While not specifically a member of either the Chess, Dueling, or Gobstones Clubs, she does sometimes show up if the fancy strikes her. Appearance Height: 5'1" Weight: 110 lbs Eyes/Hair/Facial Features: Brown eyes, brown hair, and a constant devil-may-care grin on her face. Miriam loves hair colour charms, so she often changes the colour of the streaks in her hair, depending on her mood. Style/Composure: Miriam is a bit on the rebellious side, hence the streaks in her hair. She's tried to get away with going to classes in her own clothes, as opposed to the uniform, but for the most part she's given up on losing her house points for it. She just needs to get together a big enough group to protest the uniforms. Outside of classes, she is fond of torn jeans, combat boots, and brightly-coloured tops. With jewellery, she loves big hoop earrings and plastic, brightly-coloured bangles and necklaces. She wants to get her nose and navel pierced, and possibly her tongue, too. PB: Jessica Fox (icons) Personality (A minimum of one paragraph for each portion is required. The longer the answer, the better your application will be received.) Strengths: Miriam has heart. That is probably her biggest strength; everything she does, she throws her whole self into it, she doesn't do a half-hearted, half-arsed attempt at anything. It is remarkably hard to discourage her from doing something if she really wants to do it: once she sinks her teeth into something, she is like a dog with a particularly juicy bone. With regards to academics, Miriam is quite skilled at Charms, thanks to all of her extra-curricular studying (okay, lots of practice at hair charms, but that still counts), but with regards to her other classes, she manages fairly decent grades. She refuses to fail any class, even the utterly boring History of Magic, because failure just isn't an option (she hopes that getting good grades will get her father to notice her). Other than Charms, however, there are not any particular classes that Miriam is exceptionally good or exceptionally bad at, she mostly approaches all classes as equals. She is very strong-willed and not easily led. She has to see something with her own eyes to believe it, and any attempts to get her to do something she doesn't want to with the argument "everyone else is doing it" will just get a laugh from her: she's a rebel for a reason, she doesn't particularly want to do what "everyone else" is doing. If "everyone else" wants to jump off the Astronomy tower, then good for them. Miriam will be down at the bottom, trying to calculate how much the jumper's weight, clothing (skirts vs. pants), and jump style (cannonball, dive, spread eagle, etc) affects how fast they fall. Weaknesses: Miriam doesn't know what she wants to do with her life, so as a result, she bounces around from interest to interest, trying to find something that resonates with her. As such, she will have spurts of manic interest in some subject or something, only for it to eventually wane (each interest lasts a different amount of time, mostly depending on how much information there is on the subject for her to absorb, plus some things just don't hold her interest for very long) and then she promptly forgets nearly everything she's just spent so much time learning. This is considered a weakness because her new obsessions take over her time, and she often spends more time finding and reading every book ever written on the subject than she does on her assignments for her classes. While Miriam understands why rules are important, that does not stop her from occasionally breaking them, but only if she finds them to be stupid rules. For example, the school's uniform: does it matter what clothes she is wearing under her robes? Why wear the same thing as everyone else when she could wear her own clothes and be more comfortable? Because she would be more comfortable in her own clothes, logically she would be able to pay better attention in class (that's her argument for why the school shouldn't have uniforms, anyway). Overall Psyche: Most of Miriam's rebelliousness stems from the fact that she doesn't know what she wants to do with her life. The fact that she's only fifteen and that other teenagers don't know what they want to do with their lives, either, doesn't reassure her. She has nothing to focus her energies on, so she finds herself bouncing from interest to interest, trying to find what's right for her, instead of just doing what other people think is best for her. The other aspect that feeds into her rebelliousness is the lack of real, personalized attention that she gets from her parents. Her father all but ignores her in favour of his studies, and her mother treats her exactly the same way that she treats Rebecca, and that is like the girls are little dolls for her to dress up and play with whenever it suits her. Her rebelliousness and acting out are her attempts to get attention. She wants to be noticed. She is loud, she is sarcastic, she is mischevious, and she can be really creative with ways to get into trouble, when she wants to be. Her trouble-making, however, is usually limited to things that would only get her (or other willing participants) into trouble, and things that do not harm others (for example, she might decide to go swimming with the Giant Squid -- with or without clothing --, but she wouldn't throw anybody else into the lake or anything that would hurt them). Any protest she might participate in (like her yearly protests against the uniform) is peaceful. She might cast charms on the suits of armour around school to cause them to belch whenever anyone walks by, but she wouldn't charm them to do anything scary or harmful to passersby. Sexuality: Straight Family Parents: William Jacob Strout (Ravenclaw, 1948 - 1955; half-blood; historian) and Abigail Beatrice Miller (Ravenclaw, 1949 - 1956; muggleborn; Assistant to the Head of the Department of Magical Transportation): DIVORCED since 1962 Siblings: Rebecca Laura Strout (b. June 16, 1957; Hufflepuff, 1968 - 1975; intern at the Daily Prophet) Home life/Family relations: Dad, William, lives in a quaint little cottage on the northeastern coast of England, which has been in the family for generations. The house is full of books and scrolls in all manner of arcane languages, most of which are "DO NOT TOUCH OR DAD WILL KILL YOU." Both girls have their own rooms at the cottage, and since their father's nose is always buried in some archaeic tome down in his study, they are generally free to do whatever they wish. Whenever she is staying with her father, Miriam likes to spend hours wandering around outside (whatever she's doing while wandering depends on her obsession of the moment, whether it is observing wildlife, picking flowers to decorate the cottage, or contemplating rock climbing). In all, though, Miriam is more or less ignored when at the cottage, no matter what she does (unless she messes up her dad's books or scolls, and even she doesn't have that big of a deathwish). Mum, Abigail, lives in a small house in muggle London. As such, very little magic is done around the Miller household, and that which is done is done inside, away from the prying eyes of the neighbours. Of course, Miriam can't use her magic at home anyway, but as a result, the girls spent a bit more time at their father's when they were growing up, where there was more freedom for the little "accidents" that occur around young witches. When Miriam and Laura are at their mum's home, however, Abigail tries vainly to be Mum of the Year. She tries to get the girls together for family supper, she takes them out for shopping and beauty-type stuff (mani-pedis, facials, etc), she tries to find out everything there is possibly to know about her daughters' lives. Rebecca soaks up the attention from their mum, so she's more or less the favoured one in that household, while Miriam prefers the solitude and quiet (and freedom to be a bit mischevious) of her father's house. Overall, things in the two households are far more peaceful than they were before the divorce. William and Abigail are just two people who really had no business being married. They agree that they made two lovely daughters together, but that's about the only thing that they can ever agree on, besides the decision to send the girls to Hogwarts. They fight over everything else, from money (both wants to pay entirely for the girls' school supplies and provide them with all the pocket money that they would want, which often results in both girls getting extra pocket money because they get some from both parents) to custody (both wants full custody of both girls, but custody is shared between the two of them, with the girls moving between the homes on a biweekly basis during the summer hols from school (winter hols are split on a weekly basis, because they are so short, and Christmas day itself is split between the two houses, with Christmas Eve custody switching yearly -- yes, William and Abigail were this picky during the custody battle). With regards to her sister, Miriam loves Rebecca, but she thinks that she is just a bit too flighty and vain. Miriam is frequently making sarcastic comments about her sister, but if anyone else dares to speak ill of Rebecca, Miriam won't stand for it -- she's her sister, she's the only one allowed to say anything bad about her! Character History: William Strout and Abigail Miller went to school together, Abigail a year behind William in the same house (Ravenclaw). They did not particularly get along; in fact, they tended to fight more than anything else. Surprising themselves and all of their friends, they fell suddenly in love in William's seventh year. They still fought, but their fights were usually ended when one decided to end it by kissing the other. Their year apart tempered their love some, but they wound up together again after Abigail finished school, ultimately eloping that September. A scant nine months later, daughter Rebecca was born in 1957, followed just over two years later by a second daughter, Miriam, in 1959. Wiliam and Abigail were still fighting the whole time, and after Miriam was born, they were fighting nearly constantly (in fact, their fights were only briefly broken up by make-up sessions, or when William was at work -- Abigail stayed home to take care of the girls). By the time Miriam was two, they'd had enough and they divorced in early 1962. The custody battle over the girls was dirty and drawn-out, full of more arguments between the parents. At first, William was given sole custody because Abigail was unemployed and he was a paid researcher; after she secured a low-level Ministry job, she petitioned for custody. After two years of fighting over custody of the girls, it was finally split evenly between William and Abigail, with conditions drawn into it to cover the years that the girls would be students at Hogwarts, so that their barristers did not need to go through the whole mess again in just a few years' time (dealing with those two would be enough to send even the most calm and collected barrister into an early retirement). Miriam was five when the custody battle between her parents was finally settled, but she felt anything but settled afterwards. She was bounced from house to house on a monthly basis, but at least she was able to attend the same primary school (a small primary school for young witches and wizards) regardless of where she was living for the month, thanks to her parents being able to apparate or use the floo to get the girls to school. The only real benefit that Miriam saw to the two houses was that she pretty much got two of everything, so there was little that she had to bring between the houses. William was always engaged in his research and studies whenever the girls were with him, and Abigail climbed the ministry ranks until she was made assistant to the Head of the Department of Magical Transportation, so she was steadily having less time to devote to the girls when they were with her. While Rebecca seemed to do just fine with the little bits of attention that she got from their parents, Miriam found herself doing whatever she could to get her parents to pay attention to her. Rebecca was often the only one who noticed her, though. When Rebecca went off to Hogwarts in 1968, Miriam felt even more alone, and her acting out increased, but she still wasn't getting the attention that she wanted from her parents. Finally, in 1971, Miriam joined her sister at Hogwarts. While Rebecca had been sorted into Hufflepuff, Miriam was sent to Ravenclaw, so even though they were at the same school, Miriam still couldn't see Rebecca very much. However, she found that it was easier to demand attention at school than it was at either home, so she didn't miss her sister as much as she had thought she would. Miriam's first two years passed fairly uneventfully, but it was the end of her second year and the start of her third year that triggered her wild attempts to find her passion: she had to start choosing "elective" classes, classes beyond those that she had already taken for two years. The fact that she could not simply sign up for all of the classes irritated her. What if one of the two classes that she could not sign up for were exactly what her thing was? Rebecca tried to ease her sister's mind by pointing out that if the classes weren't interesting enough that Miriam would want to sign up for them, then surely they weren't the right ones for her anyway. Miriam's problem, however, was that none of the classes seemed any more or less interesting than the others. All held boundless possibilities, and she hated having to choose. But choose she did, though quite unwillingly, as she would have preferred to take all five. Ultimately, she decided against Divination and Ancient Runes, but she still regrets the decision, wishing that she could have added those classes anyway, at least for the experience. Now in her fifth year, with the O.W.L.s looming ahead, knowing that she can expect a discussion with Professor Flitwick regarding her thoughts for a future career, Miriam is as unsure as ever about her future (and wishes that she hadn't discredited Divination, perhaps it could have shown her what her future held, career-wise), still unable to find her niche, the thing she would want to spend the rest of her life doing. (I cannot stress enough how important this part is to the overall application. No, I cannot accept old entries from old games or anything copy/pasted from old applications. I would appreciate a new, fresh sample of your writing style IN the character you are applying for. Because I want fresh samples, I will not put a requirement on length. But know this: the longer the sample, the better I can get a feel for your grasp of the character in question. Show me what you’ve got!) First Person Journal Entry: I bet you have all been thinking to yourselves that it is far too quiet and boring on the journals, but you just couldn't figure out what it was that was missing from your lives. Well, you don't have to worry for even a moment longer, because I am here to fill that boring void in your lives! I have no excuse for not writing in here before, even though I have heard all about these journals by now, except that I just didn't want to. But, well, curiosity finally got to me and I just couldn't resist checking it out finally, so here I am! Being bored is no longer an acceptable excuse for anything, I will make sure of that. I have once again been denied in my petition to add Ancient Runes and Divination to my class schedules, because the professors have decided that no more than ten classes can be taken, which is utter rubbish because surely I am not the only one in the entire school who wants to take all twelve classes. I have had to resort to studying them on my own, which just isn't the same as taking a class on the subject, you know. Oh, and Rebecca wants me to pass on a message from her. Third Person Narrative: Miriam picked a piece of lint off her t-shirt, then smoothed the shirt flat. Checklist time. Torn and faded jeans? Check. Led Zeppelin t-shirt? Check. Boots? Check. Uniform and robe? Buried in her trunk. She was ready for class. It was long enough into the school year for her annual protest against the uniforms. Hopefully others had gotten the memo and would be wearing their own clothes to class, too, instead of uniforms. If not, then it would just be her again this year. She was fine with being the only one, but a protest makes more of an impact if there are more people involved. Slinging her tan corduroy bag -- which was already packed with the books and such that she would need for class this morning -- over her shoulder, Miriam headed downstairs to the Ravenclaw common room, her boots clunking loudly on the stairs. |
