marlene alexandria mckinnon
class of '78 • former gryffindor • the order
dragonologist. YOUR BODY TOLD ME IN A DREAM IT'S NEVER BEEN AFRAID OF ANYTHING you have never known how to give in, give up, back down, or pull a punch. warm summer nights, barefeet, crackling bonfires, throwing the first punch, screaming at the stars, challenging authority, giving no explanations, ruby red lipstick, raspberry stained hands, muggle rock and roll, spiting extremists with a smile, risking it all. you care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it. sidebar gif from maurawrites
Take survival, then take it away. What is left? The aftermath of a war. The landscape is a body of pain. There are ghosts in your walls, tucked into the crook of your neck, passing through your ribcage. Tourists come to wander you, to seat themselves in your destruction, to look around and marvel at what a fight looks like after it’s finished. They touch and they take and they desecrate. They sense your ghosts. They do not stay. This is what the after looks like. A valley of ghosts, scars on the earth, but somewhere, away from prying eyes, in the mountain range of your ribcage, a seedling takes root in the cavern of your heart. The aftermath of a war is a hollow place, and your body is a lonely and exhausted earth, blood-soaked and waiting, but there is a poppy in your chest, stubbornly blooming. Blood is not the best fertiliser for a barren ground, but you make do. You always do.
one day, we might make flower crowns in the burial grounds of our chests / a response to traci brimhall | j.d. (via hollowaches)
“Downworlder,” the demon breathed, and touched his long, spidery fingers to Simon’s cheek. “You must have had a heart that beat so strong in you, when it still beat.”
marlene mckinnon is nineteen years old and she is a member of the order of the phoenix. the pureblood is a former gryffindor and was from the class of 1978. she is a dragonologist and looks like maría gabriela de faría.
welp it’s 6:19 am why am i this way but hello it is jane again !! marlene is someone i’ve played a bunch, but it’s been a while since i’ve played with a different history, so i’m still ironing out a few kinks but i’m v v excited!! (also despite what the quote up there may imply, a) i do not like cassandra clare as a person and b) marlene isn’t a vampire fhkjsahjkasfkhj i just like the sentiment of it for her very much)
marls is the same age as the marauders & lily, but she’s a july kid so she’s still to have her birthday —- july 21, 1960 (cancer-leo cusp, and we’re going to pretend that her moon is in sagittarius and her rising is in aries (truthfully i have no idea what her moon & rising would be factually so we’re just... gonna direct the stars fhjksfdhj))
the cusp is excellent for her, because the warring nature of the two signs makes a mess, which is a good description of this lil miss!
x: Cancer is a water sign ruled by the moon, and possesses cardinal traits. On the other hand, Leo is a fire sign ruled by the sun and possesses fixed traits. The sun is associated with masculine energy and is symbolic of daytime, while the moon is associated with the feminine energy and represents nighttime. Fire and water, sun and moon, sensitivity and fierceness, masculine and feminine energies... it all builds into marlene mckinnon, a girl built of empathy & war, with a penchant for night time & wild things
also re: her bday, she’s due to die the day before she turns 21 bc we love smiling
sibling death tw // ok!! marlene was the youngest of five for almost all of her life, but about 5 years ago, when she was in fifth year (i think), her parents adopted a four year old boy named wren, who’s now nine. she had four older siblings: johnny (29), tommy (27), lorraine (24), matthew (22). johnny was in gryffindor, order member, died (possibly saving marlene & someone else on a mission) ; the others are tentatively still alive, though they slowly get killed off during the war, until it’s just marlene & wren & her parents that fateful night at the mckinnon residence (july 20 1981) of Death™. // end death tw
POTENTIAL CONNECTION/WANTED CHARACTERS: i would absolutely love her siblings around, any of them. i’m semi-flexible abt the names & fully flexible abt when or how they die (if we’re following canon, my only request is that some die before the 20th of july and nobody survives after it) —- all of her older siblings are adopted. i was thinking tommy (& johnny) were taken in after tragedy struck their parents, who were either sibling or cousin to one of marls’ parents (chants: sean teale! sean teale!), but that’s just an idea. i’m rly open to anything, and i’m down for some to have been biologically full-siblings to marls (preferably matty or lorraine, though) if you have a fitting fc in mind, but otherwise!! i would love any of them, and while i do have some ideas (mostly broad strokes —- johnny as the guidance, lorraine as the beating heart), i’m genuinely just really keen to have any of them around and am super open to talking abt anything that you might want to change!!
ok back to marls
youngest of five for most of her life, now scored a kid brother whom she’d do anything for (she thinks) (she hasn’t exactly had to test it) and four elder siblings whom she loves completely and who were instrumental in how she grew up —- surrounded with love and people who protected her even as they challenged her. ( who’s that back there, trailing after tommy and lorraine —? little marlene mckinnon, tiny fists balled up as she marches behind them — where’s she gone now, the little rascal —? oh, up that tree, get down from there, no not by jumping merlin fuck — )
her siblings are all pretty different from each other & johnny was the only one in gryffindor and he’s a completely different kind of gryffindor than marls. whilst both had that same good heart at their core, johnny was noble and brave and an excellent leader, and marlene has always preferred being a second, being there to back someone up (she’s never been good at letting people go in alone) & was something impulsive and daring. between her siblings, she learned how to fight, how to trust, how to land and, possibly most importantly, how to fly
hogwarts shenanigans
marlene was a chaser at hogwarts, but she’s always been a slightly better flier than player. she’s never been particularly focused on getting goals —- her talent and interest was always in setting up the goals, in the daring of diving for the quaffle, in the speed and risk of rocketing across the pitch to get the quaffle to one of her teammates to score. she likes racing to get the quaffle, and setting it up, like the gameplay dynamics of the chasers working in tandem to get the quaffle down to the other end of the pitch. she’s always been fast, that’s the thing about marlene mckinnon: on the ground or in the air, she’s always been quicker than you can believe. quite possibly was the fastest player in the school, but that in no way translates to the best — her personal vote for that is james, though she acknowledges the skill of others such as gwenog jones, lucinda talkalot, ludo bagman and emma vanity for the one year she saw her play. a good player, she thinks, tends to be a little better-rounded, and not only has good instincts, but also good insight, and an ability to both strategise and to take direction. marlene’s flying is often characterised by the risks she’ll take — as well as her creative moves, like the mckinnon flash — and under leadership she disliked, it probably wouldn’t end as well. however, she trusted, respected and loved james, and she was very happy to have him as a captain.
appalling at herbology and potions
like, awful
in second year, she once had a situation with these magical vines that attacked her, and that pretty much sums up her entire herbology career & then potions is terrible because of the fiasco that is her focus
she managed to scrape a high enough grade to get into it at newt level, thanks purely to her wonderful friends who managed to get her studying on track enough, but then she dropped it in seventh year — she’d kept at it because it’s necessary for a few career paths, and many of her friends, she knew, focused on it because it was a requirement for aurordom, but she had an inkling that aurordom would actually be a poor choice for her, especially given how little she trusted the ministry, and by the time she was starting seventh year, she had decided to drop it (despite her father being a member of the wizengamot & one of her brothers being involved somewhat in the ministry, the trust was.... not present fdshjsdfahjk)
on the other hand, she loved comc
comc, dada and charms were her three best subjects, and she was v good at all three of them
dragons!!! she spent her time in history of magic classes drawing up schematics about how they could obtain dragons, manticores and other xxxxx creatures
she quite liked history of magic, though it’s v selective bc she can only focus on the elements which interest her
she’s got a lot of thoughts on the treatment of lycanthropes by the wizarding society (they’re not positive thoughts lmao bc the treatment of werewolves and other part-humans is so terrible; she has a lot of thoughts about the registration system, and its initial purpose and what it’s used for now, and also beyond werewolves, the treatment of vampires and other part-humans) and she had them prior to her discovery of remus’ “furry little problem” but they’ve certainly not subsided since
general (this is all over the place i’m sorry)
empathetic and it can be a real problem for her honestly?
also, she’s not very good at letting go emotionally? she’s absolutely capable of caring about someone and not endorsing or forgiving them, but she tends to carry people around in her heart and under her skin forever and that’s an immensely difficult thing for her to try shake or even address
bad at processing emotions, like,,, so bad LMAO
she really needs to talk things through to make sense of her emotions but does she? not that often! a good example of this is when johnny died & she didn’t rly process it well bc she considered it her fault & therefore didn’t want to waste people’s time talking abt it which.... marlene pls
a v tactile & physical person, so she’s often shown affection that way (when people are okay with that) but also means that when she wants a distraction, she often craves physical connection (but also like, in hogwarts and stuff, before the war Really Hit her day-to-day life, kissing and sex and the like were just kind of... a fun and good natured end to some shenanigans & she never considered it more than that & it wasn’t even really a distraction, it was just... a natural evolution to some of her nights —- whereas now, sometimes it’s a v genuine distraction) —- sometimes that just looks like sitting w a friend in their kitchen in the quiet of the night, drinking until they can’t see the reflection of people they couldn’t save in each others’ eyes anymore, but sometimes it’s Touch. truly just being in people’s presence, particularly the presence of her friends & people she trusts, just... rly helps her
really really good for a fun time though!! hit her up for shenanigans always
loves sugar quills, like so much,,, eats sugar quills like most people breathe
does Not Like cats or birds
diehard for her friends
she’s very much led by emotions, and when those are conflicting, it can be a situation — but she tries, and she has a good heart, and when it comes down to it, she’ll always do what she thinks is right, even if it can be a messy road to getting there
she laughs a lot, idk, she’s not rly one to back down from a fight but her general state of being is probably more quips and laughter
and going off above abt how she’s a pretty physical person — she just always has been, running around the grounds when she was younger, being so involved with quidditch when she was older, and things being tangible are really grounding for her? it’s also sort of how her reflexes work best — she can duel, absolutely, but she’s also pretty good in a physical fight
not v good at defensive or healing magic though so if any of her friends want to help her out w/ that, hmu!! esp if your character wants to get more proficient at physical fighting as well, marls is defs down to help w/ that! i’m hoping like... it’s been a year and a half, i would hope she’s better now at defensive and healing magic, but she’s still never going to be Great so that’s always connections fodder
after graduating, she went into magizoology!! she just... rly fucking loves magical creatures
her focus is on dragons
she lived.... somewhere after hogwarts, and then some time later (6-12 months ago) she and mary moved in w alice after frank and her split up
marlene’s empathetic & angry abt it
v good at shades of grey, not so good at black and white —- you know when harry and ron save draco from fiendfyre, and it’s like... harry insists they have to save them, and then ron punches draco in the face later? marlene is Both. she’ll try save you — risk herself to save you, even if you don’t deserve it — but she’ll be Mad abt it & happily deck you later ( she’s not exactly mad about saving people, or trying to, she’s more mad at herself for it some days )
joined the order straight out of hogwarts
sits on benches at 2am eating cake batter
rly good at making breakfast food, less good at proper food
she will come to ur flat / ur always welcome wherever she’s living to pop in at 2am after an order mission and she’ll make you french toast
night owl
wanted connections
just... quickly
hello mckids // siblings!! 27, 24 & 22 (can be order or not)
god help the girl // i would love someone to have been appalled at her defensive/healing magic skills (lack thereof, rly) and forced her to accept their help, which might have been in the past or still going! marlene is v happy to help w physical fighting in return
we don’t talk about fight club // marlene is actually a good teacher in some ways, bc she’s p good at connecting to people, so going off the last point: if you want some physical fight training or you just want something to spar/rail against, mar is available. also, less friendly, but if you’re someone she doesn’t like, she’s also available for an actual fight
fwf // you know porn without plot? this is fuck without feelings. or maybe fuck w friends! which sounds like a bad tv show but there u go. anyway! people she’s hooked up with at hogwarts as generally a laugh / good time, people she’s hooked up with post hogwarts as both that & as a distraction
learn to process bench // i would... rly dig someone (possibly someone her age but could be older, cant be younger) who was on the mission w/ her where her brother died bc heck maaaaaybe they got her to talk (or maybe they’re both bad at processing & they just. Look At Each Other and don’t talk lmao) // MARY MACDONALD.
feelings are too hard // fwf but........ with feelings that she hasn’t rly given a moment to think abt. possibly does still hook up with & resolutely ignores that feelings are there, possibly hooked up with once & never has again bc wow she is not examining that, or perhaps she’s never actually hooked up w them and managed to get complicated feelings that she won’t address (which... is a double problem if they have feelings for her) regardless! either way, it’s v possible she’s somewhat aware there’s Something going on in her chest but hasn’t addressed it so doesn’t Fully Know bc she’s a fucking idiot (and it’s equally possible she does know and is just... Ignoring It)
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