❛ knock, knock! ❜ rita’s knuckles rapped on thin air as she waltzed towards emma, smile beaming as per usual. she’d spotted the blonde tucked behind a shelf in the library just as she had stood to leave, and she couldn’t help the interest that piqued at the sight. not that emma was involved in anything particularly interesting right now — but rita had noticed the blonde taking to strange company in these last two weeks, and she would be damned of she didn’t find out more. ❛ what are we working on? anything exciting? i’m surprised you’re not here with finnigan. wasn’t he your partner for that last assignment? not that we should be keeping those partners — i haven’t even spoken to mine since we finished — but i could’ve sworn i’d seen the two of you around since then, too. a friendship brewing, perhaps? a strange choice, if you ask me, dear. ❜
❛ Is anyone sitting here? ❜ Without waiting for a response, Rita took her graceful seat next to Caradoc, her signature dazzling smile glued to her lips. With a few whispered words, two mugs of coffee appeared on the table, and she nodded at the second cup as an offering to the man while taking a sip from her own.
Rita was a big fan of a story, and Caradoc Dearborn was four novels in a series. She had been dying for a chance to speak to him since the program began, and after his recent win, this felt a good a time as any.
❛ Such a shame no one’s talking about your win, isn’t it? They’re all too focused on that catfight between Evans and Black. Both of them are being ridiculous, if you ask me. But I don’t want to talk about them — congrats are in order for you, are they not? Though I suppose you’re used to winning around here. You’ve done all this before, and with flying colours, I hear. Almost a shame you had to come back, but then we wouldn’t have been so lucky as to train with a real professional. A win for us, and a win for you! ❜
Frank had just been finishing his run for that morning when a shrill voice caught his attention. His brows furrowed in confusions as none other than Rita Skeeter appeared next to him and in true Rita Skeeter fashion began speaking incessantly. It was a little DIFFICULT for Frank to keep up with the rambling, but it appeared to be (as it usually was) about the concerns in other’s lives. A topic that Frank himself wasn’t personally interested in… and yet the boy was too polite to simply tell Rita to buzz off as many of his other classmates would have. “ I mean.. uh… the shirt looks nice, ” He stammered, “ but.. uh.. I don’t think that Andromeda got her invitation because of her looks. Actually… that’s kind of inappropriate, innit? “
skeeter, r.
Rita tossed her long blonde ponytail over her shoulder, fluttering her eyes and flashing the boy a dazzling smile. ❛ Oh, how you FLATTER me, Frankie! ❜ She giggled, lightly clapping her hand on his chest in a teasing flirt. At his protests, she merely laughed, tossing her head back before returning her eyes straight back to his. ❛ Don’t even get me started on where the instructors eyes have been floating, my dear Franklin — inappropriate is putting it lightly. Do tell me, though — why do you think Andromeda got that invitation? ❜ With a quiet murmur, a tall glass of ice-cold water appeared in Rita’s hands ( she’d always been good at wandless magic ) and she took a gentle sip before continuing, as though it were idly conversation. ❛ I’ve heard so many different stories I don’t know what to believe anymore, and you’ve always struck me as an honest boy — surely if you know the truth, you’ll tell me, right? ❜
❛ — no, rita, i WASN’T asking you, ❜ alice huffed, coming to a stop as she completed their morning run and turning to face rita, hands on her hips. alice enjoyed the morning, usually. she liked the cool, crisp air and the first rays of morning sunlight and the quiet of the world around her. leave it to rita skeeter to shatter that quiet in the most abrasive way possible. ❛ — genuine question, do you get off on being universally hated or do you ACTUALLY think i want to hear you talk ? ❜
skeeter, r.
❛ ooh, someone’s feeling testy this morning. ❜ rita’s words were teasing as she shrugged on a light jacket, not allowing alice’s words to drop her brilliant smile. rita was well used to be told she was HATED, there wasn’t a cell in her body that cared to retaliate to that remark. ❛ is this because your darling rival finnigan beat you in our last assignment? rather tragic, alice, i mean really, where’s the girl power? i’m sure that was fuel to the fire of your little game with him... ❜
❛ i have a question for you! ❜ rita’s footsteps crunched in the dry grass as she caught up to the cadet who was completing their run just a hundred metres ahead of her. ❛ do you think this new shirt i had my darling sister mail me will catch the attention of the instructors at our next assignment? i’m trying to win, you see, and i’m thinking that if i wear something flattering enough, i’m sure to gain some extra points. isn’t that what andromeda did to get her space at the table, or something? ❜ rita spoke absently, shrugging her shoulders with a brilliant nonchalance as they continued their light jog. ❛ or did psycho evans accuse that win of privilege.. i mean really, that’s a little far-fetched, don’t you think? then again, maybe beauty doesn’t have anything to do with it. madame odette is a striking beauty and she’s been cleaning our tables all week. i blame kendra for that one, if you were asking me. ❜
❛ she licks blood off her fingers and she looks like divine absolution. careful, meleager: this is your sport but she’s not playing a game. do not think you are safe because you love her. do not think she will not stain her mouth red with your blood too. ❜
* ╰ jenny boyd ; twenty-two ; she/her — wow, RITA SKEETER sure has grown! it’s almost hard to believe they actually passed recruitment… i still remember them being so DILIGENT & CLEVER now they just seem DECEITFUL & APATHETIC. guess they’re special if they made it this far. word in the halls is they’re training to be a HIT WITCH but i don’t think they’ll make it out alive. after all, they’ve shown signs of being NEUTRAL in the war.
character parallels: petra solano ( jane the virgin ), annalise keating ( how to get away with murder ), valencia perez ( crazy ex-girlfriend ), cher horowitz ( clueless ), jacqueline white ( unbreakable kimmy schmidt ), lizzie saltzman ( legacies )
links: stats, pinterest
rita skeeter ( born margarita estrella skeeter ) has always craved two things in life: love & attention. from the moment she was born, she would cry and scream until she was coddled in someone’s arms. perhaps it was a side effect of always being seen as second best. you see, it was rita’s sister, adelina skeeter, who was viewed as the golden child, the little girl who could do no wrong, the sickeningly sweet miracle that rita’s parents had always hoped for. rita, on the other hand, was an accident — and she had to spend every second of her childhood proving she was worth anyone’s time.
this, of course, left the young girl starved for affection — she craved it so intensely, the kind of love and attention that her sister was showered in, that any time she was even remotely praised for something, she would repeat that action again and again and again until she was told off for being boring. she moulded herself after addy, so beautiful, so graceful, so intelligent and creative and multi-talented — but never quite enough.
rita’s first year at hogwarts was an absolute nightmare. as addy was a seventh year and head girl at the time, she constantly lived in the shadow of this brilliant, extraordinary witch. rita tried everything to get noticed, to be a pioneer within the slytherin house, but nothing she did was ever enough for what addy had accomplished when she was her age.
it wasn’t until rita decided to put her keen observational skills to use that she began to garner some attention. having spent her whole life up until now observing her older sister, picking for flaws, she knew how to see things that no one else could even dream of seeing. by the end of her first year, she had started so much gossip and intrigue that nearly everyone, including those in older years, would come to her if they had a curiosity they wanted confirmed about another student.
for the next three years, rita clung to this. she’d always wanted to be the best at something, and if this meant she was the best at gossip, then who was she to complain? people were talking to her now, they wanted things from her that no one else could give, and so she leaned into this, pushing and prodding at buttons that everyone else was too scared to even go near and spreading rumours like there was no tomorrow. she was a queen at this, at watching and manipulating and deceiving to get the information she might need to cause a ruckus, and having never particularly cared for the feelings of others in the first place, she had no problem ruining lives if it meant she got the attention she needed.
by the time she entered fifth year, spreading gossip through word of mouth simply wasn’t enough for this ambitious young girl. and so little rita pulled together a team and began a school newspaper, a lengthy publication left at the doorstep of every dorm on the first saturday of every month. the newspaper kept updates on the outside world, the running tally of house points, run-downs of the most recent quidditch games, a q&a and, of course, skeeters corner — hogwarts’ new gossip column.
rita thrived in her last three years at hogwarts. with the paper keeping her busy and the students practically falling at her knees for all its information (they could hate her all they wanted, but everyone loved a bit of gossip) fifth and sixth year flew by in a blink for her. it was in her seventh year that she began to push herself even further. picking classes that would help her shine ( after all, rita had always been talented in more ways than one ), rita pushed herself to stand out as one of the most talented witches in her year, knowing it was something she could achieve now that she was in the spotlight and addy was out of the way. but she continued to push herself outside of classes too --- in her own time, rita saw that there was a way to push her limits even further, and towards the end of her seventh year, rita became an animagus, all on her own.
leaving hogwarts was where things started to change. rita had shone within hogwarts because she was at hogwarts --- it was easy to shine there when she had the entire school wrapped around her finger. out in the real world, however, rita had yet to pull everyone into her trance. she had a brief stint at the daily prophet directly after she had graduated, but they wouldn’t let her shine like she knew she could, and so she left quickly. without things like skeeters corner to keep her busy, rita felt lost.
when she first heard about edin, rita knew what she had to do. she in no way had a dream of becoming an auror, or even a hit witch like she put on her application, but she’d been told edin was for the best of the best, and rita skeeter was the best. so she joined recruitment a year after she had graduated, slightly behind but with a drive that pushed her further than some of her fellow hopefuls. rita had always been a talented witch, but edin was different --- edin was tough, and it took rita an extra year to pass recruitment than anyone else, now making her two years older than her fellow first years.
this extra time however has only made rita even more desperate to prove herself. once she had started recruitment, she needed to finish it, because there was no way she was going to come out as a failure, and the same goes for her now as she walks the halls of the training program. she is not just the best at gossip, after all ( she is the best at that, though ). did addy pass edin recruitment? i didn’t think so.
it’s nice to know as well that there will always be GOSSIP, even at an elite training camp. rita is drawn to drama like a moth to a flame, and she is ecstatic to dig her hands into the meat of edin’s rumour mill. she is, after all, the centre of one of edin’s favourite rumours --- rita skeeter cheated her way into edin. it’s not true, of course ( or is it ), but rita is more than happy to keep the flame of the rumour going. all publicity is good publicity, you see.
blakekathryn
gummygunk
tangentwithtanner
snowghoul
jbbartram-illu
ellievsbear
discoholicmusic
andulkaphoto
pixelskylines
prguitarman
