Not Keira (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} imfelicity) wrote,@ 2008-03-21 09:57:00 |
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 FULL NAME: Felicity Arethusa Smethwyk NICKNAMES: Elise, Eli BIRTHDAY: May 22. Sixteen years old. ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Gemini BLOODLINE: Pureblood HOUSE; Ravenclaw THE WAND; Oak tree and dragon heartstring; 11"; inflexible. &personality. Start at the very beginning, a very good place to start: in the beginning, there was Keira. Then, three minutes later, was Felicity. Identical in every aspect, the Smethwyk twins have spent their life battling this inherency of their very selves…and yet cherishing this same bond. It is the irritation of having someone who looks like you…and even acts like you at times, since twins are so rarely completely different unless they work utterly hard to be. Felicity struggles between wanting to be her own woman and never wanting to part from her sister; despising when Keira pretends to be her and takes points from students and secretly adoring the fact that this is something that no one else can do but them. Hating that professors confuse the two, still, and loving the fact that when it is dark and the girls are sitting together, they look the same. Resenting her sister's protective streak and feeding on it. Being a twin is walking a tightrope of identity, but it is one that Felicity is fine with walking…but with friction and fights along the way. It is said that your biggest battles in life are with yourself: having a twin makes the internal conflict very external. Slightly high-strung and incredibly anal, Felicity is either most likely to become Minister of Magic or die at the age of thirty from a bleeding ulcer. She is more delicate than her sister, paler from more time indoors (though she wishes she had talent at Quidditch, oh so very much), spends free time practicing her violin, of which she is talented, but would never presume to have the real gift at the instrument to make a career of it. She is not a girl who prefers books to people, but she does spend a great deal of time with her books. Her will to succeed is almost palpable, both for honour of her family and from the expectations of being a Ravenclaw, and the pressure that she places on herself has created a fault line under her extremely determined will—there is an obvious fragility to Felicity of you look hard enough, the tremors of someone who is motivated to perfection through sheer fear. Felicity is very concerned with her credibility: you have to learn the rules before you can break them, and she has built up an impeccable academic record, filled with sterling marks and compliments from each teacher on her remarkable intelligence and drive. Professor Slughorn was quite enthusiastic to make her a member of his Slug Club, though at first it was simply due to her pureblood lineage, if truth be told. Her scholastic achievements have been married with strong leadership skills, though she does tend to be a touch autocratic. It was almost a given that she would be made Prefect, though it didn't stop her from nearly giving herself an ulcer over it, just as now, she is nearly fervent in her desire to be Head So she knows the rules. But she also presses them, bends them, breaks them when they offended her moral sensibilities. At an early age, Felicity became aware of the double standard between boys and girls, especially in the uppercrust society of purebloods. Boys got to be leaders and achievers, displaying Syltherin cunning, Gryffindor courage, or Ravenclaw brains (and whatever it is that Hufflepuffs do) front and center, expected to lead. Women did their maneuvering behind the scenes, controlling the house and the social environment, just as powerful but frightfully unseen. For as many witches that had incredible skill and brilliance, famous for their contributions and achievements, despite the fact that a witch's powers can be just as strong as a man, despite the fact that the size of a person has nothing to do with broom ability, and actually due to a woman's smaller figure, she should be more aerodynamic and therefore a better flyer [DEEP BREATH]…it is still a wizard's world. Men are wizards, women are witches. Witches, which have a terrible connotation in the muggle lexicon, but what is the difference if their abilities are the same! Bloody bollocks, can a woman not win! Can she not, even in a society that seems to have all of the cards equal and on the table in terms of magical ability?! Egged on by reading muggle books like "The Feminine Mystique" and the collected works of Gloria Steinem and Simoine de Bouvier and Elizabeth Cady Station and the rest of the American suffragette movement, Felicity's feminism has come to a rolling boil. She is a tireless crusader for gender equality at Hogwarts, constantly piping up when she sees in inequity in treatment, and perhaps takes a few too many points from boys instead of girls—she is merely leveling the playing field. She has hung a gigantic poster of muggle Opposition Party Leader, the Tory Margaret Thatcher next to her bed, and actually works on mailers on the behalf of the Conservatives in her spare time. The "Iron Lady" is her hero: a fierce, brilliant female leader, every inch as strong as a man and maybe more so to have made it so far up in a society that seems to make things twice as hard due to the lack of a certain piece of genitalia. Rowena Ravenclaw was brilliant, but notice. People talk about her beauty as much as her wits. Mm hmm. Screw that: Margaret Thatcher was ugly as hell and kicking ass. That's a hero! That's not to say that Felicity doesn't care about her looks. She does. She likes being pretty and feminine; she wants to be the "hot twin." But she seems embarrassed of her desire to be pretty, snapping at people who compliment her for her looks and asking if they would compliment her on being "particularly smart" that day, since no one makes that comment to a male. She actually has very little interest in boys, finding them to be a distraction from her studies, quest to be Head Anyone? Anyone? Buehler? That's what she thought. Boys.. HERO: BOGGART: ANIMAGUS: PATRONUS:  &family.FATHER:Father: Tobias Smethwyk. An wizarding actuary, working for the Ministry. Younger son in the Smethwyk family, an ancient, well-respected, and extremely wealthy wizarding family. MOTHER:Mother: Erica Stainwright. An entrepreneur, she has created a line of cleaning potions that cut down on any housewitches' chores. TWIN SISTER:Keira Smethwyk. Well-liked, energetic, apathetic. The yin to Felicity's yang. &history. The Smethwyk family is one of those old and renowned wizarding families, so old that the legacy has a layer of dust. There's Elliot Smethwyk who invented the Cushioning Charm for brooms in 1820 and his daughter Leopoldina Smethwyk who was the first British witch to referee a Quidditch match. But each generation was packed with Healers, Ministry lawyers and executives, the fine and financially rewarding positions that a family packed Ravenclaw brilliance and brains would expect to achieve. It has led down to Tobias Smethwyk's small family, in a manor borne of affluence and privilege, to carry on the legacy of excellence. Tobias, an actuary for the Ministry, married Erica Stainwright, a tenacious young woman of self-made wealth from her line of cleaning products for witches tending to their homes. She was outgoing where he was more reserved, and he pursued her for a fast and passionate courtship. However, Tobias' traditional views and expectations for a wife clashed with Erica's ambition; money so old it had arthritis clashing against the nouveau riche: a combination of gender politics and societal difference began to rip the two apart. Still, there was that silly hope that children would solve it, so they had some--twins. Keira first, followed by Felicity, who, after the initial cry to assure that she was indeed alive, fell silent and seemed to stare and measure every person in the room before falling asleep. The next time she cried was when a nurse took Keira from their shared bassinet, leaving her alone. The focus of the family shifted, for a time, to the daughters. Twins were, obviously, a handful, and they coloured the entire estate with their antics. Switching places, playing tricks, inventing secret languages and rarely finishing a sentence since the one already knew what the other was saying...they were maddening but fascinating little things. Of course, their symbiotic nature was annoying to the children they played with: the twins had each other, other people were stupid. Well, that was Felicity's view. Precocious at a young age, she was regularly paraded out at dinner parties to show off her prodigious knowledge. Everyone enjoyed Keira, she was the life of the party; Felicity, though, was an intense little lightening bolt, flashing brilliance and then retreating, bored of playing dumb social games. It is why she let Keira lead their whole childhood. If she had her way, they'd only play together and do interesting things, like potions experiments and making up languages. Not games and things, since she had the physical gifts of a block of cheese. Still, her home life wasn't perfect, and even now, Felicity's immature mind doesn't necessarily understand all that happened to lead to her parents' divorce. The novelty of the twins wore off for Tobias and Erica, and their fights resumed, building in earnest until finally, they divorced in the girls' tenth year. It was contentious at best--at first, the parents divided the girls amongst the two of them. Felicity, who blamed her father and his backwards, antiquated, sexist views of a woman wanting to make her own way, was placed with her mother to live with during the week; a three days elapsed before Felicity threw a tantrum so hard, she nearly hyperventilated, so furious was she at being separated from Keira. Instead, the twins were shuffled back between the parents. Which parents was at fault for this situation was the focus of many a ferocious fight for the twins, but at this point in their lives, it isn't worth the energy for a fight no one will win. Though their father is totally to blame. Boys. By the time the letter for Hogwarts arrived, Felicity already had a strong grasp of politics, gender inequity, and the fact that she was smart and almost everyone was dumb. The only person worth notice was her twin. She both relished Hogwarts and dreaded it. Surely, there would be other Ravenclaws--because naturally she would be a Ravenclaw--who would be interested in academics and politics, in discussing social milieu and gender inequities. But on the other hand, then Keira could find other friends, friends like her and pull away from Felicity. When the sorting hat was placed on her head and mulled putting someone with her drive and ambition to change the world in the name of equality in Gryffindor, she mentally screamed back at it to not be so bloody stupid and put her with people who would be like her, in Ravenclaw. It laughed and placed her where she wanted. To this day, she does wonder if perhaps that house had people who would be more like her. But the brilliant people are always in Ravenclaw; Gryffindors cover up what they lack in sheer cheek and nerve. She's happy where she is. But she held her breath the entire time Keira was being sorted, terrified her sister would be in Gryffindor...or worse, Hufflepuff. But they were placed together, and for the first time all day, Felicity smiled. Like her dual feelings of nervousness and excitement before arriving to Hogwarts, Felicity has been both pleased and greatly disappointed by the school. It has been intellectually stimulating, meeting her voracious appetite for academics. In fact, in her third and fourth year, Professor Flitwick asked and got her approved to use a time turner so that she could take more classes, though she resumed her normal studies in her fifth year, given the need to focus on OWL studies and her new duties as a prefect. She finds her Head of House to be quite a genius and respects Professor McGonagall a great deal. Her report card has been stellar; save for an E on her Transfigurations OWL, she has never received anything less than an O in any class--and she blames that on having a bad cold. On the other hand, socially, Hogwarts has been a massive let down. Too many Ravenclaws are either socially inept, unable to discuss anything but their schoolwork; or, they are too busy being nice and boycrazy or doing stuff with their weird band, and it's all such a disgusting waste of intelligence. No one seems intent on changing the world! Everyone seems happy to be such...teenagers, it's incredibly depressing. Slytherins are cunning but usually too angry and cruel; Gryffindors are too perky; and Hufflepuffs...please, they have the mental acumen of a piece of toast. Felicity feels like there is no one who truly understands her, except for Keira. She is uncompromising, though, and refuses to associate with mental midgets in the sake of friendship. She's dismissive of the stupid and the vapid--and yes, Ravenclaws can be vapid--but she is not...mean, per se, unless you are a stupid boy. Just brittle, the icy veneer of someone who feels oh so greatly understood. The one thing she had not said, not to anyone, is that she is considering going to Muggle university after graduation, like Oxford or Cambridge. Or maybe go to America and study at their Harvard, since it is the best in the world. She just loves learning that much, and is very curious in studying politics, feminism, sociology, and law, things that Hogwarts and the wizarding world cannot give her. It is possible to create false records to allow a wizard to go on to such school, but despite discussing this once or twice with Professor Flitwick, she isn't sure if she'd want to go down a road that Keira can't follow. At all. FIRST KISS: FIRST SEXUAL ENCOUNTER: FAVOURITE BOOK: FAVOURITE MUSIC: FAVOURITE COLOUR: FAVOURITE FOOD: FAVOURITE PLACE: FAVOURITE ANIMAL: HOBBIES: PHOBIAS: LIKES: DISLIKES: &relationships. BEST FRIEND: Keira FRIENDS: ENEMIES: SIGNIFICANT OTHER: CRUSH: PAST RELATIONSHIPS: SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Heterosexual. TURN-ONS: TURN-OFFS: &school. BEST SUBJECT: W0RST SUBJECT: FAVOURITE PROFESSOR:. LOATHED PROFESSOR:. BEST YEAR: NUMBER OF O.W.LS:. NUMBER OF N.E.W.Ts:. EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES: Slug Club || Ancient Runes || Prefect Duties &ooc. NAME: Mags! E-MAIL / INSTANT MESSAGING: on the contact list TIMEZONE: Eastern USA EXPERIENCE: DONCHOO BE SO RIDDIK THERE BABEE. PLAYED-BY Sarah Polley |
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