InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Baby poop!"

marlene mckinnon is phenomenally idiotic (heart_of_a_lion) wrote,
@ 2008-11-14 20:04:00

find_the_mod | biography
No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try.

BASICS
Name: Marlene Eugenia McKinnon
Age & Birthdate: 19; 16 October, 1959
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Marital Status: Single
Blood Status: Halfblood (almost pure; her father's mother is a muggle, but the rest of both families can trace their lineage back quite a ways, though there's quite a bit of intermarrying with muggles and muggleborns; Marlene grew up pretty much entirely in the wizarding world, with little knowledge of the muggle world beyond the basics to be able to more or less blend in with the muggles in the area and avoid standing out)
Wand: 11 in, maple, phoenix tail feather
Current Residence: A flat in muggle London with Roland Williamson
Affiliation(s): Order of the Phoenix member; Ministry personnel
Political Stance: She is firmly on the side of good. She believes that the Ministry is in the right, but they're often too slow to catch the Death Eaters, so she believes in the Order as a means of fighting Voldemort. If you were to ask her, however, with whom her loyalty absolutely lies (if she had to pick one), she would be completely torn: does her loyalty lie with Bartemius Crouch, Sr., the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement (also known as her boss); does it lie with her father, one of the squad leaders for the Aurors and her own personal hero (not to mention the reason she wants to be an Auror herself); or does it lie with Albus Dumbledore, who personally invited her to join the Order of the Phoenix?

SCHOOL & WORK
Former House: Gryffindor
Years: 1971 - 1978
Any Extras: Quidditch Chaser (72 - 78); Quidditch Captain (77 - 78)
NEWT Scores:

Care of Magical Creatures: O
Charms: O
Defense Against the Dark Arts: O
Potions: EE
Transfiguration: O

Occupation: Auror Trainee
Attitude Toward Job: She LOVES it. Sure, she gets beat up and often wants to just curl up and sleep forever, but she's wanted to be an Auror all her life, and her goal is finally in her grasp.

PERSONALITY
Likes: Beating Boyd, Quidditch, boys, chocolate, the Scottish highlands, competition, dragons, the Hebrides Islands, mornings, coffee, jogging, working out, beer, annoying Roland Williamson, dogs, being right, winning.
Dislikes: Losing to Boyd, losing in general, sprouts, dark wizards, the pureblood tendency to "keep the line pure, nudge nudge wink wink," being told she can't do something, being wrong, sitting around and doing nothing.
Greatest Fear: To die a worthless death.
Greatest Wish: To become a great Auror.

General Personality: From the moment she was born three weeks early, Marlene has been a force to be reckoned with. Lacking slightly in patience, she's an outgoing and gregarious girl. With two younger sisters and no brothers, Marlene took on the role of "son" in the McKinnon family, becoming a Daddy's Girl and an incredible tomboy (though at her mother's urging, she does occasionally wear dresses, but she's most comfortable in worn-in jeans and t-shirts). She also took on the role of "protector," seeing it as her duty as the oldest child to watch out for her sisters and keep them safe. This role especially extends into her career plans, as she is bound and determined to be an Auror (not just any Auror, of course, but the best Auror ever).

She's also a morning person -- and an annoyingly chipper one, at that; coffee is not required to get her up in the morning, though it is a nice perk. Her mothering tendency comes out in her habit of trying to help people who are in need of coddling and mothering and nursing back to health (if blood and gross stuff like that didn't totally ick her out, she might have considered being a healer, if it wasn't for the fact that she has wanted to be an Auror for as long as she can remember). A harmless flirt, Marlene has also been known to flirt with boys without realizing it, though she does try to keep from flirting with friends' boyfriends -- though her friends and their boyfriends hopefully know that she doesn't mean it when she accidentally does on occasion.

Marlene is also up to any challenge, no matter how big or small. The easiest way to get Marlene to do something is to throw the word "dare" into it or hint that she might not be able to do it: nothing lights a fire under Marlene more than being told she can't do something. She'll try just about anything at least once, and she's not overly worried about putting her health or safety at risk for others (or sometimes for pure curiosity's sake, like when she tried to fly by simply leaping out from a high branch of a tree).

Amazingly enough, Marlene can be quite diplomatic, if the situation calls for it (unless you start insulting her or her family or her friends, then all bets are off). She also has a strong stubborn streak, and she'll rarely admit to being wrong, even if she is; she'll hang onto arguments long after she's lost them, insisting that she's right and providing crazier and crazier reasons as to why she's right. Tying into her stubborness, she's also a very determined young girl: once she gets it into her mind to do something, she'll follow through with it and get it done, come hell or high water; she's like a dog with a bone that way, and you pretty much would have to kill her to get her to stop. Contrastly, she has very little patience, and she doesn't like waiting around for results or information: she wants to do things now now now and if she wants to know something, she needed to know it yesterday.

Her biggest weakness is probably obvious to anyone who knows her well: her sisters. If you want to hit her where it hurts, go after Effie or Isobel, but only if you're prepared to deal with her wrath. She would do anything to keep her sisters safe because if something happened to one or both of them, and she could have done something to prevent it, she would never be able to forgive herself.

PERSONAL & FAMILY HISTORY
Family:

Kenneth Iain McKinnon:

Fiona Morag McKinnon née MacFusty:

Effie Catriona McKinnon:

Isobel Greer McKinnon:

History: Kenneth McKinnon and Fiona MacFusty were school sweethearts. From their sixth year on, they had eyes for nobody but each other. Fiona's family was from the Hebrides Islands, northwest of mainland Scotland, where they cared for the Hebridean Black Dragons. Kenneth's family was a bit more conservative, hailing from Edinburgh, Scotland, and tending to work in the Ministry of Magic. Indeed, Kenneth's greatest dream growing up was to become an Auror. After Hogwarts, both Kenneth and Fiona pursued Ministry jobs: Kenneth as an Auror and Fiona in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. She was hoping to keep things safe for not only "her" dragons, but other dragons, as well.

Although they both finished school in 1950 and knew that they wanted to get married and spend their lives together, they didn't actually get married until the fall of 1958, wanting to wait until they could afford a good place to live, where they could raise a family. Once they were married, though, and settled into a nice medium-sized home just outside of Edinburgh, Scotland, they were quick to start their family. Their first child, a daughter they named Marlene, was born just under a year after they were married. Two more daughters, Effie and Isobel, followed quickly, after which point the McKinnons decided that having three little girls running around was more than enough for two parents, already run ragged by work, to handle.

As the oldest daughter, Marlene took it upon herself, even from a young age, to be her sisters' protector. Even when their parents hired a nanny to help care for the girls, Marlene considered herself a second mum to Effie and Isobel. However, it was more her father that Marlene identified with. More than anything in the world, she wanted to be just like her father when she grew up, only a girl. Her fondest memories were of him telling her stories before bed of all the great things that he and the other Aurors did. While most other little girls might have been dreaming of growing up to become princesses, or mothers, or herbologists, or potioneres, or whatever (or often changing their minds every other week, as Isobel did), Marlene was steadfast and positive: she would become an Auror when she grew up, no matter what.

Marlene's childhood was spent, for the most part, in Edinburgh, either in the area of her family's home or the area of her father's home, but at least for a few weeks every summer, the McKinnons visited Fiona's family, where Marlene often spent her time running around with her cousin, Boyd MacFusty, who was a year older than her and more than a little bit reckless and crazy, just like Marlene was. They were often to blame, directly or indirectly, for the other's many broken bones over the years. The family knew to keep the two of them far from the dragons when they were together, for fear of what kind of damage they would manage to do.

In the summer of 1971, when Marlene was eleven, she received her long-awaited Hogwarts owl. She spent every day that summer watching for her owl to come, impatiently asking her parents and the nanny incessantly if it had come yet. She had been showing signs of magic since she was three, so she had no doubt that she would receive her owl. She was equally positive that, when she arrived at Hogwarts on 1 September that year, she would be Sorted into Gryffindor, just like her parents. Sure enough, the owl arrived, Marlene was taken shopping for her school things, and when it was her turn with the Sorting Hat, it merely had to skim her head before shouting out "GRYFFINDOR!" for all to hear, and Marlene gleefully took her place at the crimson and gold table.

The only thing that upset Marlene about going off to school was that she had to leave her sisters behind at home. Surely nobody else could take care of her sisters and protect them as well as she could. Once she had secured her own place in Gryffindor, she began hoping that both Effie and Isobel would be Sorted into Gryffindor, as well. Although Effie joined Marlene at Hogwarts a year later, she was -- to Marlene's dismay -- Sorted into Hufflepuff, though Marlene then tasked her best friend, Roland Williamson (who she had met when they were both on the train to Hogwarts their first year; he was Sorted into Hufflepuff, though they still became quick and close friends, almost like siblings from the start), with watching out for her sister while they were at Hogwarts. When Isobel joined her sisters at Hogwarts two years later, she was Sorted into Gryffindor with Marlene, which thrilled Marlene, because she would be able to keep a close eye on her.

Through her years at Hogwarts, Marlene cultivated close friendships with her fellow Gryffindors, as well as a few outside of her own house. She was determined to not let House borders keep her from making friends, but it was certainly easier to make friends with the people that she shared a Common Room with and everything. She was particularly close with her yearmates, her roomies and their male counterparts, as well as her fellow Quidditch players, as she made the Gryffindor Quidditch team as a Chaser in her second year (then later was made Captain in her seventh year, which delighted her to no end).

Marlene knew what classes she would need to excel in to be accepted into the Auror Training Programme, so she worked hard to maintain good marks in those classes. She also chose to add Care of Magical Creatures to her class schedule in her third year, primarily because of her love of her family's dragons. She excelled in that class, as well, and opted to continue into the N.E.W.T. levels of it, as her fifth N.E.W.T.-level class, in addition to the required Charms, Defense, Potions, and Transfiguration.

In her seventh year, she applied to the Auror Training Programme, and after going through the interviews and character and aptitude tests the following summer, she was accepted into the programme, along with Roland. The two of them got a flat together in muggle London.

It was in her first year of Auror training that she was recruited into the Order of the Phoenix by Dumbledore himself. It had to be done carefully, because her loyalty to the Ministry was well-known and deep-seated, and it was equally well-known that she would do nothing to jeopardize her career as an Auror. But her desire for justice and willingness to do almost anything for it also made her desirable. Although she was torn not only by her loyalty to the Ministry, but also by the prospect of having to lie to her best friend and roommate, she joined the Order, driven by the desire to do something more swift and active.

PHYSICAL
Portrayed-By: Amber Tamblyn
Physical Description: At 5'7", Marlene is a bit on the taller side of average for a girl, but she weighs in at a rather healthy 136 lbs. She works out every day to stay in shape and in top condition. She's most comfortable in worn-in jeans and t-shirts, and she'd go around barefoot all the time if it was feasible. When she has to dress up, she'll grudgingly wear a dress, but it's usually torture to try to get her to put on more makeup than a bit of lipstick, and she's never once painted her nails (which are usually kept short, and she bites on them when she's nervous). Her shoulder-length dark brown hair is usually worn either loose around her shoulders or pulled back into a ponytail. The most she ever does by way of styling it is to run a comb or brush through it.