mercy estrada (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
misericordias) wrote2017-03-16 10:16 pm
misericordias) wrote2017-03-16 10:16 pm
GOOSEBERRY APP & DROPBOX;
GENERAL
NAME: Mercedes Estrada
NICKNAMES: Merche @ home, Mercy with gringos
AGE/DOB: 17, July 10th
BLOOD STATUS: Half-blood
GENDER/PRONOUNS: Female, she/her
SEXUALITY: Magic 8 ball says "ask again later"
HOMETOWN: Mexico D.F., Mexico
CONCEPT: Bubbly party girl with equal parts fluff and darkness between her ears.
PHYSICAL
APPEARANCE: Uniform violations galore. She loves her own clothes, loves bright colors, loves big, visually striking jewellery. Her shoes are not practical. Her smile is genuine. Mercy has an ICD that's visible under the skin when she wears a tank top.
Although she's of a perfectly normal height, when Mercy stands next to her parents, it becomes evident that she ended up unexpectedly tiny. Her mother is 5' 10," her father is 6' 3," and all her relatives are similarly proportioned.
HEIGHT: Small but deadly, yo!!! About 5' 1"
PB: Melonie Diaz
PERSONALITY
LIKES: kids and old people, crime and horror stories, fast food hamburgers, angels, the feeling of sand under her toes and between her fingers, talking to strangers, being in busy spaces like train stations and restaurants, ugly and unloveable things
DISLIKES: the sound of chewing, wintertime, protein bars, hospitals, when her parents cry, dancing around subjects, manipulation, sour candy, getting left behind
PERSONALITY:
Mercedes is a talker. She’s the girl who will chat with you on the bus, in a queue, in a waiting room, at a funeral. Blessed with a curious balance of incredible extroversion and poor social skills, it sometimes seems like she’s simply unable to detect bad times and unfriendly people. This may be annoying to some (see: unfriendly people), but Mercy has a thick skin and a relentlessly positive attitude, and no amount of snapping will dissuade her from trying to make friends. She loves everyone, even if not everyone loves her.
Despite being staunchly opposed to manipulation, Mercy nonetheless often finds herself neck deep in other people's business. She is innocently nosy, and will ask you whatever she wants to know without any sort of ulterior motive. These questions can be strange or inappropriate; she has no filter and no sense of personal boundaries, which can get hackles up. More often than not, though, friends and even strangers, caught off-guard by her openness and not wanting to be rude to such a friendly person, will answer her with unexpected honestly. Anyone who is close to Mercy will have access to a treasure-trove of personal information.
Mercy's bubble-wrapped childhood may have been a little odd, but it didn't make her anxious. She is fearless, fun, and always ready for an adventure, much to her family's dismay. It's not that she wants to take risks or worry her parents, but early and persistent exposure to hospitals and healers has inured her to death. She thinks about it often, but it no longer has the capacity to frighten her. Maybe this is why she enjoys stories that would turn other's stomachs. Gore and horror don't phase her in the slightest, and the underlying themes are intriguing. For creatures who are, to her mind, fundamentally good, human beings sure do have an awfully large capacity for suffering.
She is easily moved by the feelings of those around her, but it'd be disingenuous to call Mercedes mercurial or labile. Her natural internal state is mostly placid — like a deep lake, undisturbed along its floor despite the wind and waves above. Her family, friends, and little adventures bring bubbles of joy into her life, but it's difficult to provoke more powerful, primal emotions in her. In this way, despite her outgoing nature, she's actually quite self-contained. It's a mixed blessing. On the one hand, being the source of one's own contentment is an easy way to stay happy — but on the other, sometimes she wonders if, deep down, there's something wrong with her. Her friends seem to get swept up in the passions and agonies of youth, but those same dramas, while superficially engaging, can leave Mercy feeling disconnected from her peers. Like life is just happening around her. Often, she just doesn't see what the big deal is, although, of course, she's happy to play along. Emotional intimacy, feeling close to people, being like other kids — that's important to her, and she's willing to fake it until she makes it.
Right now, she's focusing on living in the moment, and to be honest, that's working out fine. Foresight and future planning aren't Mercy's strong suit, and she has no idea what she wants to do when she graduates. Maybe, on some weird, secret level, she didn't think she'd ever get there.
tl;dr:
(+) guileless
(+) cinderella-friendly
(+) positive attitude
(+) adventurous and fun
(/) chatty
(/) #nofilter
(/) ~rebellious sick girl~
(-) nosy/personal
(-) too forward, no boundaries
(-) poor planner, no long-term vision
(-) dark/strange/inappropriate
(?) do you ever think about death? she thinks about death.
HISTORY
FAMILY MEMBERS:
Aarón Estrada, father, no-maj orthopaedic surgeon of significant acclaim. Workaholic turned doting daddy after the discovery of his daughter's congenital heart defect.
Ximena Trujillo, mother, witch. Pro-Quidditch player turned team owner. Takes no shit, gives no fucks. Independent spirit and mama bear who is perfectly willing to set someone on fire in defense of the people she loves.
HISTORY:
Despite being very much planned, Mercedes was born at a tumultuous time in her parents' lives. Her father, a fresh faced orthopod attending, was busy building his thriving practice, where he was churning out paper after paper on his new and revolutionary method of unhappy triad autograft repair. Her mother, a beater for one of Mexico's most promising Quidditch teams, had just retired from her impressive athletic career and was making the transition into the business side of the sport.
Everything changed when Merche, a small but happy two year old, was noticed to have "squatting spells." Her nanny described how the toddler would be playing happily when all of a sudden, she would stop what she was doing and squat close to the ground. This'd happened a number of times, she said, but she'd never been able to figure out what the girl was doing. Ximena was baffled, Aarón, alarmed. He knew something was seriously wrong with his little girl.
She was whisked to healers and no-maj doctors alike, where everyone confirmed what her father already knew. Mercedes had been born with a serious congenital heart defect.
Her parents were, and are, devastated. Their daughter could have died. In fact, she still might.
Mercy's father, already suspicious of magical methods of healing, demanded that her heart be surgically repaired in a no-maj hospital (which it was, without incident). Then, angry that this condition was missed, both parents very publicly tried to sue the healers at the facility in which Ximena gave birth. Medical malpractice is hard to prove, however. They lost the case and in the trial, the point was raised — how can you fault the healers for missing a condition that went unnoticed by her surgeon father for two years? Horrified, Aarón significantly cut back on his hours at work, curtailing his career to spend more time with his daughter and leaving Ximena the primary breadwinner. To say he fussed over her is an understatement; Mercy may as well have been called the girl in the bubble.
Growing up a little lonely for Mercedes. After years of media attention surrounding the lawsuit (if you thought Ximena was in the public eye before, well), her mom and dad made the decision to withdraw her from the spotlight a bit, moved house, shunned school in favour of private tutoring at home. An only child, Mercy mainly kept the company of adults. Her parents, while loving, doting, and exceptionally protective, were busy people. Their fears about her physical condition limited her participation in childhood activities, and her family's wealth and status made it hard for her to just get to know other kids. This was difficult for social-butterfly Mercy; she spent a lot of time talking to herself and her imaginary friends.
She watched tv, read anything she could get her hands on, and daydreamed endlessly from the swing-set in her backyard. Her parents' fixation on her heart gave her an early interest in the body... and an early understanding of the fragility of life. Anyone could die any moment, she knew, and wasn't that a funny thing? Her ruminating has left her completely desensitised to the gory and the macabre. She often forgets this isn't true for everyone.
After a few years had passed, it was decided that Mercy would attend a local private school. She was delighted and took to the new atmosphere like a fish in water, although her teachers did notice that despite her warm, cheerful personality and general extroversion, Mercedes sometimes lacked the social graces one would expect from an outgoing kid. Like a puppy who has never been to the dog park, she occasionally finds herself blithely trampling social norms that seem obvious to the better socialised. This has improved over the years. It hasn't disappeared.
Convincing her parents to let her apply to Gooseberry was the ultimate assertion of her independence. They worry so much, especially now that she's so far away. But also, they recognise their daughter's desperation to grow and learn and meet new, different people. Mercedes transferred her sophomore year and has been a happy student ever since.
SCHOOL
YEAR: Senior
HOUSE: Azurcrest
SORTING: Mercedes sorting ran over 5 minutes, but not because she was a difficult sort. The emblems love a bit of chatter, and so does she! She asked them all kinds of questions about themselves — nothing deep or pointed, just stuff like, "Have you always lived here? Is it fun working as an emblem? Do you like being a fish?" When Ms. Rhee came in and kindly asked if she'd like to join her in Ebonhide, Mercy replied, "Ohhh. Oh, that's so lovely, but no, sorry. I'd like to go with the bird, if that's okay?" She'd made up her mind in the first 30 seconds. Azurecrest is a great fit.
WAND: Blackthorn and demiguise hair, 12", bouncy. It sometimes draws stares; here is this dark, complex, immensely powerful wand, one often associated with the Dark Arts, in the hands of the human equivalent of champagne. Everyone assumes it's an heirloom of some sort or that it doesn't suit her. It isn't. It does. No one else has ever owned Mercy's wand. It chose her and her alone.
FAMILIAR: Nooooone.
CLASSES: Charms, Astronomy, Hermeticism, History of Magic, Transfiguration, Defence Against the Dark Arts.
SENIOR PROJECT: Miniature, magical reproduction of Tycho's supernova and the birth of Tycho G. It requires more history and reading than she'd anticipated, honestly, but it should be beautiful when it's done. If it ever gets done. Research is hard.
ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: Mixed bag. Look, she couldn't be stupid — she had to get this far. But Mercy has a habit of speaking before she really has a chance to formulate her thoughts and also she has no inhibitions about asking questions in class, so she can kind of look ... airheaded. Her reading and writing skillz are nnnnnot strong, so History of Magic was probably a bad choice for her, but she'll get through it! She hopes!
Astronomy is her best class, the lil physics savant. She's doing quite well and she likes spending time in the tower, looking at the stars. Her performance in DADA is also strong, which has lead to the rumour that she's some kind of gunner, playing dumb in order to trick people into underestimating her. She's not. She's just open about her weaknesses and her strengths are self-evident.
EXTRACURRICULARS: Cheer squad*, events committee, fencing & duelling (she doesn't fence, but she loves to duel, and is one of the fastest draws in the club. Duelling with Mercy is always lighthearted and she takes losing with a smile that belies how seriously she takes it and how hard she practices).
*Serious exercise is allowed in patients with her condition (so long is the defect is repaired and the patient is monitored and generally well, of course) but her parents really don't appreciate how flippant she is about the physical strain. She ought to be more careful.
OOC
NAME: cameron
EMAIL: captainkickflips@gmail.com
CDJ:
angoranimiOTHER PREFERRED CONTACT: gchat, dropbox, email, w/e
TIME ZONE: gmt >:(
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I also want you to know that Chris does
Eventually
Find some kind of way to fuck up her name
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Mercy and Zav Host A Podcast
1. Should we think of a cute wizard way for them to record their podcast or are they gonna owl in a couple of microphones and a computer that they keep in the lodge?
2. Ideas for what the podcast even is:
- talk show format where Mercy and Zav discuss weird news stories from around the world and use them as launch points to inevitably go off on wild tangents about death or food or how nice Mr. Merrill is
- fake news format where they report on The Onion-style fake news stories. I dont know if Zav is clever enough for this lmao
- a bad advice show
- Zav and Mercy literally just have 45 minute conversations.
- something entirely unrelated to the news
3. How famous will they be within 5 years
4. How should they come up with the idea to do this in character. I have no clue.
Re: Mercy and Zav Host A Podcast
1. i don't have any particularly magical ideas altho i have to tell you i actually love the idea of a secret pirate radio station. FOR WIZARD EARS ONLY.
2. top two for me are talk show (& THE NEWS) and bad advice (bc it would be funny) which like... frankly, they could combine the two. each week they try to talk about A Topic and by the end they're just like "and now some advice for our friend pillvester -not his real name- in nevada!" fake news would be v funny too, but honestly... i don't think mercy could pull it off, lol.
3. they just do it for shits and think no one is listening which is why it catches them really off guard when they go to a restaurant and the waiter is like OH MY GOD I KNOW YOUR VOICE YOURE THEY GUY FROM THE SHOW turns out they've been a Thing this whole time and no one thought to tell them
4. it depends on what their show ends up being about but maybe mercy could ward zav or vice versa about some Hot Topic and after some back and forth one of them can be like "we're geniuses and the world needs to know," lmao. IDK IDK I HAVE TO BRAINSTORM THIS ONE
Re: Mercy and Zav Host A Podcast
If we do SECRET WIZARD PIRATE RADIO STATION (which is growing on me), it might not be a bad idea for Mercy and Zav to go to Mr. Oakes and be like "SO, WIZARD WIRELESS..." I don't know that they're specifically looking to start a club, but they could certainly frame it as, "AND when we're gone...new generations can learn all about this super cool magi-technology!" We can pop that in the mod drop box and see how it goes?
I have been hunting for weird ass news stories from 2013 - 2014. When I find one that is particularly bizarre I will have Zav ward Mercy with a clipping of it and be like "This made me think of you."
LMK if you have any thoughts! RANDOM ICON GO
Re: Mercy and Zav Host A Podcast
ok i love all of this i love all of THIS i'm going to do my own hunt for weird news stories so i can have mercy reply in turn with 'what a coinkydink this made ME think of YOU' also we definitely don't have to do WIZARD PIRATE RADIO btw? like i think you have a genius idea with the wizard wireless thing but if you'r enot really feelin the Vibe i am mmore than happy to back this train up and try and rework the podcast concept
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