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[gwenniepop]

GENERAL

NAME: Gweneth Popplestone
NICKNAMES: Gwen is pretty much it
AGE/DOB: 17/March 17, 1997
BLOOD STATUS: Half-blood
GENDER/PRONOUNS: Female; she/her
SEXUALITY: Heterosexual. Although Gwen did have an experience kissing a female cabinmate, she doesn't have any attraction towards other girls.
HOMETOWN: Asheville, North Carolina

CONCEPT: Practical farm girl balances Quidditch training with secret penchant for the Sight.

PHYSICAL

APPEARANCE: Gwen is a fresh-faced southern girl through and through. She almost exclusively wears jeans and sweaters, and is always wearing way too light of a jacket when it’s cold out (they might be big mountains but they don't know bitter cold). She prefers vintage clothing over anything, and has a couple hoodies and a military jacket she wears all the time. Her hair is long and curls naturally.

Ironically, in uniform she almost always wears the skirt version with stockings, since she dislikes the formal pants. Her uniform is almost good to go, so close really, except for a missed button, an uneven sock, perhaps something isn’t tied right….hard to put a finger on. She doesn't usually accessorize her uniform except for maybe a plain bracelet or similar. She does not wear a lot of jewelry, only necklaces now and then. She does wear a gold Snitch pin that Webster gave her.

HEIGHT: 5’ 9”, Gwen is tall for her age, or really any age.

PB: Skylar Samuels

PERSONALITY

LIKES: Horses, building things, astronomy, tea, books, Quidditch, talking, sunrises, honey, camping, fish, metalworking, chess, adventure movies, traveling.

DISLIKES: Anything with peanuts, trains, swimming (she is very Not Good at it), coffee (tastes horrible), cars (would prefer to either fly, floo, or portkey wherever she can), deep water, people who can't say what they mean, horror movies.

PERSONALITY:

When it comes to personifying a House mascot, Gwen pretty much takes the cake. From the moment she stepped onto campus as a freshman, she has tried to be the most easygoing and friendly Fish around. Nothing makes Gwen happier than harmony among her friends; her fellow Ribbonfin students are her family as far as she is concerned. Always ready to step in and ease a confrontation with a well-placed soothing comment or a leavening joke, she’s a diplomat above all else. To her classmates, she seems fearless, and to a degree she is; nothing is so intimidating that Gwennie won’t face it down for the love of her people. At the same time, Gwen often goes to bat when her friends don’t need it; she’s not skilled at the nuances of reading others and will rise to a defense that is not necessary. Some appreciate the effort, but some do not.

Of course, the alternate side to being so strident is a stubborn streak a mile wide and a latent anger issue that can rise up and burn the unwary. Whenever it happens, Gwen is apologetic and ashamed afterwards; she tries to remember that she’s a fish, cool and calm and unbothered. Still, frustrate her to the point of tears and suddenly that fish will bite off the head of whomever decided to push her that far. It worsens when she is stressed; her senior year promises to hold more struggles rather than less, all because of the new pressure to finally win at Quidditch for Ribbonfin before it’s too late. Truthfully, Gwen had always played Quidditch for the pure love of the sport, finding it exhilarating. Some parting words from her graduating teammates took a bit of the shine off, when she realized they were angry at her overall lack of ruthless competition. This year, she’s trying to channel a bit more determination, but it’s brought an anxiety to playing that she never had before.

For all her outgoing demeanor, Gwen is not a leader. She’s middle of the road, happy in a crowd and content to swim with the rest of the fishies. She’s never in front, blazing the path, nor is she behind, rounding up stragglers like a mother hen. Instead, she walks in line with the rest of the group, the quintessential companion. The sort of friend who is a port in any storm, she will dance at a party with someone too shy to go alone, or walk a friend to a teacher conference with a thumbs up and some words of encouragement. She’s the support group and is as neutral as Switzerland in just about everything. Innately a goofball, she is usually ready with a quip or funny retort to bring humor to a situation. Still, even her cheer and patience can run out when others dig down and refuse to compromise, and woe to anyone who tries to out-stubborn her.

In her private life, Gwen is practical, but with a fanciful side. She expects to go into magicraft, just like her father, who has a deft hand making magical items and charming implements. Artificing is her favorite subject far and away, and everything else she learns just gets applied to that theory. She started out using divination tools in order to focus on the magic needed to mesh with the mechanical, and accidentally discovered she might be a true Seer. Unfortunately, that doesn’t sit well with her self-perception; she’s a maker, and what does a maker need with fortune-telling? That was for witches with imagination and creativity; she doesn’t have a lot of either as far as she is concerned. She can figure out how to enchant a clock, but she isn’t sure about seeing the future. Because of her largely magical upbringing, Gwen also struggles with some Muggle everyday things: she is afraid of riding in cars (and would never imagine setting foot on a plane), doesn’t get public transportation at all, and can be a bit wary of tech. Her work in Artificing is usually with mechanical tools, but she is a bit embarrassed by her luddite ways and is trying to learn some of the Muggle ways of tech.

Overall, Gwen likes being average, because it lessens any pressure. She’s cute but not beautiful, smart but not a genius, skilled but not talented. None of that is what she prizes. Instead, she wants to be known as kind, loyal, determined. She’ll never be a famous Seeker or head of Magical Artifacts or anything like that, but she will be the best Gwen she can be, at least.

SKILLS

LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English, and Southern English. Gwen knows some Gaelic because of her grandmother.

PATRONUS: Has not yet mastered this! If she does, it will be likely be a kestrel, like her familiar.

SKILLS:
---Horseback riding: Gwen doesn’t consider this a skill as much as a normal way of life. She petitioned to have her own horse, Bobo, a black gelding, join her at school but unfortunately was turned down. She is not a showman but did do halter showing and was usually the groom’s helper at competitions whenever she got dragged along.
--Survival skills: Or as Gwen likes to call it, growing up in a rural area, i.e. she can start a fire, build shelter, forage for edible foods, set a snare, and so on. She knows her way around woods.
--Good memory: Which she entirely wastes on being able to quote entire movies. Don’t see stuff with her if you can help it unless you want to hear all the dialogue as an echo.
--Daredevil flier: There’s a reason that Gwen is a Seeker and not a Chaser; she loves flying high, fast, and fearlessly.
---Chess master: Gwen learned chess from her father at a young age and then has spent every chance since then trying to get good enough to beat him. It’s probably never going to happen, but the effort does make her happy.

HISTORY

FAMILY MEMBERS:

Gareth Popplestone, father: Halfblood. The eldest of his generation, Gareth inherited the farm from his father after Nathan Popplestone’s unfortunate death during a dark wizard attack in Enka. Gareth is quiet and studious, and the farm runs like clockwork under his guidance.
Judith Popplestone nee Jackson: Halfblood Like her daughter, Judith is blonde, vivacious, and outgoing. She is the ‘face’ for Popplestone, due to her skills with calculations and sales combined with a saleswoman’s smile. She negotiates all of Popplestone’s contracts, while the rest of the family does the physical work.
Angela Drake-Jackson: grandmother (Pureblood) Gwen’s maternal grandmother was born in Ireland and emigrated to the States in her early twenties, where she met Jeremiah. She worked for MACUSA for most of her life, before retiring to write wizarding children’s books. She is very reserved, and gets on Gwen about her manners all the time.
Jeremiah Jackson: grandfather (Muggle) Jeremiah and Angela’s marriage was the stuff of scandal in their time, although Jeremiah didn’t understand most of the reasoning for it. He supported his wife from day one and happily accepted everything that was unique about her. A fellow farmer, he started contributing skills in animal husbandry to the Popplestone farm when his daughter married Gareth.
Mary Popplestone: grandmother (Muggle) Gwen’s paternal grandmother is her best cheerleader, always writing long letters that she is tickled to send by owl to Gwen at school, and the letters are always full of questions about what fascinating new magicks her granddaughter is learning. More than anything, Mary wishes she could send a Howler, as she thinks that would be the best fun ever. She was devoted to her serious husband, and never remarried after his death.
Nathan Popplestone: grandfather (Halfblood, deceased) As serious and staid as his son is now, Nathan took his family’s work seriously and is credited with developing the hives into what they are today. A tall, dark and brooding gentleman from a more restrained time, he spoke often and eloquently about injustices and prejudices among his fellow wizards. He was struck down at a town council meeting in Enka when Gwen was two, and she only knows of him through stories and photos.
Colin Drake (Halfblood): Gwen’s distant cousin attends Hogwarts and is of the same year as she; they struck up a competitive friendship when he worked a summer at the farm as part of his parent’s wish to ‘broaden horizons’. He is a Gryffindor, and he and Gwen have been playing a long term game of chess-by-mail for months now.

HISTORY:

Born in the mountains of North Carolina, Gwen comes from a large, if insular, mixed family. Never overly concerned with bloodlines, the Popplestones now have a mix of Muggles, Muggleborn, and halfblood members. The family home is located on Mt. Pisgah, and has been there for generations. Asheville witches and wizards tend to live in Candler, a nearby township, and there is a smaller town not far away, Enka, that is purely for wizardkind. In decades past, the area was small enough to keep overlap to a minimum but now that Asheville is a thriving metropolis, it’s gotten a little tighter all around.

Oddly for her family, Gwen is an only child. Both her parents have at least four brothers and sisters, so her cousins number in the high double digits, not to mention her second cousins, cousins once removed, and so on. In fact, the Popplestones keep close contact with their family line, the Drakes, back in England, and Gwen has several cousins there who attended Hogwarts. She herself went to Ilvermorny, and was sorted into Thunderbird. Her parents don’t discuss why they chose not to have more children, simply saying that they were happy with one. It allowed Gwen a lot of freedom in her childhood, and it also meant that her parents could afford to send her to the more prestigious wizarding schools. Both Gareth and Judith Poppplestone were Ilvermorny alums, so it was expected their only daughter would follow in the same footsteps.

The Popplestone farm is traditionally a wizarding farm, and among the apple orchards they cultivate needed ingredients for potions, charms, and the like. Some known ones are jewelweed, dittany, motherwort, fluxweed, and their own magical honey which is in big demand in most wizarding cities. Over the years, they diversified into livestock as well. Just about every Popplestone cousin, aunt, uncle, and grandparent works or has worked the farm for periods of time. Gwen was not exempt; from the time she was little, she spent any non-schooling time harvesting, planting, mucking stalls, and her favorite, training horses. She was given the fun responsibility early on of breaking each of the foals to a halter, easing them into being led by halter, then eventually to a bridle at two years old, then to a harness or saddle, whatever they were marked for. Although she preferred this, it didn’t happen too often, as Popplestone wasn’t primarily a horse farm. But she got to do it often enough to keep her happy. Her own horse, Bobo, is a gelding she raised from the moment he was foaled, all sleek black and high-spirited (with a big bushy tail that kept him from looking too refined). Once he was trained to a saddle, she rode him everywhere.

Gwen held little interest for the homesteading side of the farm and was always (sadly) a lackadaisical cook at best and never cared much for herbology. However, she adored working with her father in his workshop, where he had a deft hand for charming and repairing the tools they used around the farm. She first learned the ins and outs of charming tools and implements, ones necessary to farm the more difficult plants. In fact, it was both her innate talent with practical artificing and her family name (Popplestone honey is pretty damn popular) that earned her a spot in Ilvermorny, and later in Gooseberry. At the early boarding school, she earned a reputation as a friendly, reliable sort of student.

There was that unfortunate incident with a fistfight in the stables, but Gwen penned a very nice apology letter and behaved herself after that.

While Massachusetts felt similar enough to her home that Gwen had no issues, when she first came to Utah, she faced a very unexpected bout of homesickness. It was startlingly unfamiliar, the dryness, the different plants, snakes, spiders, and just about everything else that left her out of her element. Breathing was different! It didn’t help that she developed an allergic reaction to cottonwood that required multiple visits to the healers….and that was followed up by a persistent nosebleed that took months to finally address. All in all, Gwen’s first year at Gooseberry was lonely, awkward, and painful. She knew a couple classmates from Ilvermorny, although of a different House, but she didn’t fit in, not yet. She was the one sneezing in the halls, looked at more with pity than interest. Where back home she knew her place pretty well, and she’d been too immature at Ilvermorny to have time to feel out of place, Gooseberry was a real change.

Her sophomore year was a big improvement, when she got her ‘altitude’ legs and joined a few clubs to better get to know her classmates. Bonding with fellow Ribbonfins got easier; Gwen didn’t always get the subtleties of who was being catty rather than friendly, so she made a few friends almost despite their better efforts; there are some who she calls friends who probably think she’s nuts. She tried out for Quidditch but remained an alternate; it wasn’t until she was a junior that she got the coveted Seeker position. Remembering her difficult first year, she attempted to be a sort of big sister or mentor to the younger Fins, with moderate success. For all her kindness, Gwen isn’t the most sensitive and she struggles to see problems as significant. She can be supportive, but she’s not always understanding.

Going into her senior year, Gwen finds it a sort of relief. She adores Gooseberry but it’s not her home; she’s ready to move on to bigger things. At the same time, she feels she’s missed out on some quintessential school things, like dating and being irresponsible. She’s torn between wanting to end the year on a solid note, a strong footing for starting out her post-senior life, but at the same time wanting to know what it’s like to really feel that senioritis. Letting loose might not be in the cards, but she rather wishes she were brave enough to try it anyway.

SCHOOL

YEAR: Senior (Grade 12)
HOUSE: Ribbonfin
SORTING: Gwen’s Sorting was one of the quick ones. She’d read up a little on Gooseberry before she came, but she attempted to keep an open mind rather than aim for one House. And yet, she knew Ribbonfin was the one for her almost from the moment the guardian spoke. The suggestion that she could be both a peacemaker and a defender of the weak in one place appealed to her. There was a brief back and forth where fox suggested her stubborn streak would be better served in Coppertale, but Gwen said she knew her own mind and to respect that, thank you very much.
WAND: 13" Hornbeam wand with Dragon Heartstring Core
FAMILIAR: Tas, an American kestrel. Her cousin trained Tas and gave him as a gift when Gwen was accepted to Gooseberry.

CLASSES: Core: Charms, Hermeticism, Transfiguration, Artificing, Electives: Astronomy, Wizard Literature

ADVANCED STUDY: Divination. From early on, Gwen was not sure about taking this class, and she sought out Mr. Chettri’s advice. From a young age, she’d used a few mediums like tarot and crystals to help center her mind for her artificing work, and she found that she had a knack for foretelling minor events for her family. She still thinks her skill is middling at best, but she still dedicates herself as strongly to this class as she does any other.

SENIOR PROJECT: Gwen has been working on a magical clock/tracker for nigh three years now, and figures this is her best shot for a good senior project. Her idea is to have a version that can track animals within a radius of a farm, to give farmers a more accurate idea of how their herds move. She ideally wants it to track the hives back home and predict when the queen is ready to swarm to start a new hive.

ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: In everything except Artificing, Gwen is a solid B student, the sort that tests well and remembers to turn in work on time. Very much the slow-but-steady performer. She tolerates Charms because she needs it, but finds it a bit boring. In Artificing, she’s straight-A’s, model student, and is the sort to tell Mr. Oakes that Georgia is good and all but he should really come see Bryson City for some real views.

EXTRACURRICULARS:
Quidditch: Gwen is Seeker for the Ribbonfin House team and reserve seeker on the school team. She adores Quidditch and would play it all the time if she could, although she doesn't plan on pro competition. If she could stay in pick up leagues with her friends after graduation, that would be enough for her.
Equestrian: Gwen is the club president, and loves introducing others to the fun of horseback riding. This is pretty much where she gets most of her exercise (she's got very strong legs).
Crafting: Gwen never passes up a chance to learn more about any kind of workmanship. She uses this club to try out different techniques.
Gaming: This is primarily because of chess, but she'll play other games, too. She doesn't have any interest in LARP sadly.

OOC

NAME: Mel
EMAIL: Setsunaluna@gmail.com
CDJ: Melantha
OTHER PREFERRED CONTACT:
TIME ZONE: EST