Character Template

FULL NAME: Mary Josephine Ripley
PREFERRED NAME: MJ
NICKNAMES/ALIAS(ES): Pixy (only her father ever called her this), Mary, Joey (if you want to annoy her)
DATE OF BIRTH: June 16, 1859
AGE: 19
PLACE OF BIRTH: King City, Albion
CURRENT RESIDENCE: Isnit Weyrd
PARENTS: Edgar (deceased) and Louise Ripley (nee Vernon)
SIBLINGS: Emma (16), Ruth (15), Clara (14), Bessie (12), Rose (10), Alice (9), and Lillian (5)
PETS: none

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

HEIGHT: 5'4"
WEIGHT: 110 lbs.
HAIR COLOR: Brown
HAIR LENGTH: Middle of back
HAIR STYLE: Straight, usually braided
EYE COLOR: Brown
DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: (none)

OTHER PERSONAL INFORMATION

CURRENT SCHOOL/JOB: (pre-PIF) apprentice to a Rather Mad Scientist; before this, she attended The 4th Royal Academy for Young Ladies: the crown has set up many such schools across Albion; "4th Royal" is considered a fairly good one, but not the best.
BEST FRIEND: Helen Alexander
OTHER FRIENDS: Katherine Alexander, Jane Russell
RELIGION, IF ANY: Circlist
DREAMS/GOALS: If she didn't have to provide for her family at the moment, she would've liked to have been an artist. She's growing an interest in machinery though.

POWERS/SKILLS/SPECIAL ABILITIES

NORMAL SKILLS (cooking, shooting, etc.): Cooking, baking, sewing (mending), drawing, watercolors, science, and mechanical engineering
SPECIAL ABILITIES: Inventing
MAGICAL/NON-NORMAL POWERS: None

MISCELLANEOUS

FAVORITE COLOR: Blue - any shade/tint
FAVORITE BOOK: In Albia's Footsteps by Rowena Scott; also The Life of Da Vinci by James Edgars
FAVORITE FOOD: Cinnamon chip scones
FAVORITE ANIMAL: Anything fluffy, really
FAVORITE FLOWER/PLANT: Forget-me-not
FAVORITE NUMBER: 2, as it is the only even prime
FAVORITE PASTTIMES: Drawing, painting, reading, baking, playing with machines

NOTES

Albion is an alternate-reality version of England; King City (where MJ is from) is this reality's London. It's currently 1878 (month/day/year) in Albion. King Phillip and Queen Mary are ruling. There is no Parliament, only the Royals and the Nobility, though there are the various Guilds who manage their respective members. Each Guild has a Noble Patron to whom they can bring their important concerns. Edgar Ripley belonged to the Steamfitters' Guild, of course; their patron is Lady Leona Abney of Darlington.

Albion is heavily industrial, and thus the skies over King City are almost permanently gray from the smoke and fog and coal dust. It's also mostly sexually equal: both men and women can apply and be hired for almost any job, but the dress code applies equally to both. Long hair is still generally considered a requirement for women, and it's fashionable to leave it long and loose, so most women simply don't apply for the machinery jobs, despite these being the most ubiquitous and also decent-paying jobs around.

Around her neck, MJ wears her mother's heirloom silver chain (to keep her from pawning it for booze) and, at the end of it, her father's pendant of his patron saint, St. Joseph (for whom she was partially named), the patron saint of steamfitters.

The Steamfitters' Guild looks after the girls as best they can, but they have their own families to see to, and MJ doesn't like receiving charity or pity. They recommend her for jobs when they can find one for her.

MJ was (until the PIF got ahold of her) working for Professor Lisa Sturmgard, a Deutschenlander (German) living in King City. Professor Sturmgard is considered Rather Mad, and they're eyeing her to see whether or not she should be upgraded to Stark Raving Looney or not.

The Professor's latest invention was supposed to be a Time Travel device. She had instructed MJ on the adjustments that should be made and left for an important luncheon with several big wigs from Illuminati University's School of Weird and Unusual Sciences and Engineering (WUSE). While making the adjustments noted, MJ misread the written directions (Professor Sturmgard writes half her notes in her native Deutschenlanden) and accidentally tuned the neuronic capacitor to High. One of her pockets caught on the lever to turn it on; there was an instant loud hum that had MJ dropping the spanner she was holding and clapping her hands over her ears, backing away from the device; suddenly there was an explosion!...

...and MJ found herself in an entirely different world.

Application:

Name: Mary Josephine "MJ" Ripley
Age: She's 18 but claims she's 16, and most people believe her.
Gender: Upon ending up on Planet? ...hard to say. Biologically female, but at the moment she comes through, she looks like a young boy.
Species: Human

Appearance: At the moment the PIF gets ahold of her, she's wearing gray corduroy overalls, stained and splotched and singed in spots, with a large central pocket on the chest, in addition to the usual hip and butt pockets. There's a rubber mallet hanging from a loop on the outside of her right pants leg (like on carpenter's pants), and the chest pocket has a couple screwdrivers and a wrench in it. Under the overalls, she has on an undyed cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and solid, scuffed-up work boots that could be black or could just be filthy - it's a little hard to tell. Fingerless gloves of cheap brown leather protect her hands, though they're also a little scuffed and...*ahem* "well-loved". They're also clearly too big for her; there are brass buttons on the back of the gloves (near her wrists) for adjusting the size: a flat black button has been added to each glove and inexpert holes cut to receive them, thus cinching the gloves down a little tighter when fastened. Her fingertips are ink-smudged, and there's graphite along the side of her little finger.

Her face has soot on it, and her mouse brown hair is braided and tucked up under a faded blue cap that has also seen better days. The main clues to her actual gender are the long eyelashes and somewhat fuller-than-is-normal-for-men lips (though we're not talking Angelina Jolie here). Her ears are a little pointed on the tops - she's definitely human, but someone from a more fantasy-esque world might wonder if she were part elven. Her eyes are brown. Her skin is pale, almost unhealthily so.

She's about 5'4", and what you can see of her arms (mostly her elbows and forearms) looks painfully thin. It's hard to guess at her weight; her clothes look baggy on her. There's also a pale silver chain around her neck, disappearing under the shirt.

Personality: Determined, hard-working, and stubborn, yet also sweet and curious. She loves to cook and bake, and has a fascination for machinery and tinkering. She hates needlepoint. She's the type to stand up to bullies, to speak up when something isn't right, and to ask a million questions about something she's interested in. She's not typically prone to giving up on something or someone.

Her stubbornness is certainly one of her biggest flaws; she has a tendency to dig her heels in from time to time. Once she's made up her mind, you're not going to change it easily. She's also proud and very touchy about the implication that there's anything wrong with her family or their current standing (having fallen from solidly middle class to lower-middle, if not outright impoverished). She feels like she constantly has to prove herself, and hates pity. She refuses acts of charity outright; she'll work for and earn what she gets, thankyouverymuch, and she has a pretty broad definition for what "charity" entails.

History: Mary Josephine is the oldest of 8 children born to Edgar and Louise Ripley. Her father was a steamfitter, which was a good, solid career: not top of the ladder, by any means, but a trade that requires a long apprenticeship and proper licensing to obtain. Mary was proud of her father's career and was happy to play dutiful daughter (outside of this annoying nonsense about her finding a husband). She was a Daddy's Girl all the way, and the apple of his eye; his nickname for her was "Pixy" because of her ears (though he's the only one she'd let call her that).

Edgar was killed a year ago in an industrial accident on the job, and Louise promptly crawled into an absinthe bottle and refused to leave. MJ left behind her frilly dresses and tea-pouring lessons (somewhat gratefully), and started taking care of her sisters (her parents had no sons). To do this, she had to dress like a boy - not because women aren't allowed to do this sort of work, but because long hair and pretty lace tends to get caught in machinery. All the best jobs in Albion involve machines in some way. She might not have been a machinist before, but she'd learned a lot from sitting at her father's knee, and she put this knowledge to work.

She had been taking odd jobs here and there, whatever she could get to make money. It hasn't been easy and it hasn't been steady; sometimes food is hard to come by (especially when Mum insists on her "medicine"). She'd only recently signed on with a local scientist (of the Rather Mad persuasion); helping her with one of her latest "inventions" is what landed MJ on the Planet.

Roleplay Sample:
((I haven't done much forum RP, but I have done some on my WoW guild's site. This is probably the best representation of my abilities as they stand now. I wanted to come up with something for MJ, but couldn't think of anything off the top of my head at 3:30 in the morning. This was my first post in a 4 or 5 person thread.))

Landoriel cut off a rather virulent curse word and stuck one finger in his mouth. Savage Leather was hard to work with sometimes, and leatherworking needles had to be sharper and stronger than most tailoring needles to begin with. Stonefang, curled up next to Lando's chair, suddenly sat up. Lando was about to reassure his companion when the wolf bolted for the window. Its hackles began to rise, along with a low growl. Lando dropped the leather and needle on his desk as he stood and crossed the room to join Stonefang.

His mouth opened in shock, and he patted Stonefang twice on the side. The wolf knew its cue and took off. He'd kept his door open (thus why he'd bitten back swearing just now), and Stonefang dashed for the stairs. Lando spun away from the window, grabbing up his crossbow and quiver. He would've liked to be able to armor up again, to grab his trap launcher and some traps - at least some explosive ones - but he'd have to trust in his comrades. He ran out of his room and vaulted the railing rather than take the stairs. He landed in a crouch, then pushed off for the gardens.

Lando could see Stonefang bound over two elves - was one of them Tylein? - who seemed to be in some sort of pile. He didn't even pause to roll his eyes this time, just mentally approved as his companion put himself between the dragons and his guildmates. Lando loaded a bolt into the crossbow and took aim as he cleared the doorway out into the gardens. One Netherwing and one...sort of injured one? He hadn't seen a dragon like that before. But if it was already injured, it'd be easier to take out, and he hadn't heard of Netherwings being vicious on their own before. Which meant the strange one was probably mind-controlling the Netherwing. Take down that dragon and all should be well.

Not knowing this particular species of dragon or its weaknesses, Lando decided for a test shot. Certainly, if he could hit an eye, the thing'd probably come down, but it looked like it had every intention of coming down anyway, and that would make precise shots like that easier. For now, testing for other weaknesses would have to do. He aimed for where the dragon's left wing joined its body and fired a Serpent Sting.

Where'd you find us: I was shanghaied! I was pressganged into this by Kaskaskia! It's all her fault, I tell you! ALL HER FAULT!

Notes

Emma (2 years younger): MJ's closest sister, in both age and friendship. People in the neighborhood often referred to them as "M & Em", they were so often seen together (no relation to the American candy; it does not exist in Albion, sadly). Even though Mary was the eldest daughter and thus was given the full force of societal training and upbringing, Emma was in for her full share as well, and excelled in a lot of areas Mary lagged in (such as tact, for one). Emma is often considered the most beautiful of the Ripley sisters, as well as the most genteel and polite. She talks often of marrying a handsome doctor or lawyer so that she can throw lavish dinner parties for all her friends; she does, in fact, have the makings of an excellent hostess. She's also quite fond of gardening and cooking, though she does share with her older sister a distaste for needlepoint and sewing. Whereas MJ's instinct is to barge through an obstacle, Emma finds ways over, under or around, usually through more gentle arts, like persuasion. She is MJ's complement in many ways, and the sister MJ misses most. When MJ disappeared, Emma was thronged with potential suitors, but was focusing on which college she would like to go to. She planned to study Home Economics, which is to say, "How to Be a Perfect Wife and Hostess" - a legitimate pursuit for a young woman looking to use college primarily as husband-hunting grounds.

Ruth (3 years younger): Ruth has been focused on what she wants to do with her life from a very young age. She is going to be a column writer for the ladies' magazines, focusing heavily on political and cultural issues. Ruth was always closest to their mother, and Louise's activism wore off on her. Though only 15 (at the time of MJ's disappearance), she was already organizing an Abolitionist Club at school (The 4th Royal Academy for Young Ladies, where all the Ripley girls end up).

Clara (4 years younger): Quiet, withdrawn, and easily led around by the older girls. She actually LIKES needlepoint and the more relaxing, indoor activities, but she will pitch in for anything her sisters ask her. She is always the one to ask if this might not be the best idea or if they'll get in trouble. She is shy outside of the family and tends not to say much inside the family, for that matter. But she's very observant, and often catches details the rest miss. If you've lost something, Clara can probably find it for you in no time. Whatever her dreams for her life, she's keeping them to herself.

Bessie (6 years younger): Bessie feels the need to be the Strong Moral Center of the girls. Whenever Mother's not around, MJ might be in charge, but Bessie's the one who'll see to it that Everything Is Done Properly, as Mary seemed to just let everyone do as they pleased. Well, that's all well and dandy for you, Miss Oldest Daughter, but the rest of us have to WORK for things! Bessie and MJ don't have the best relationship. Like Ruth, Bessie is closer to Louise than she was to Edgar, but she does whatever Mum says unquestioningly and isn't one to stand up to authority.

Rose (8 years younger): The daydreamer of the sisters, Rose is constantly playing make-believe. One moment she is a beautiful and forlorn princess, stuck in a tower, awaiting her true love to come and save her; the next, she is a dashing pirate queen, sailing the high seas in search of Castellan gold and adventure! Rose would've LOVED Isnit and its magical creatures and strange, exotic peoples. Whether she's destined for a life as a novelist, playwright, or actress, none can yet say, but drama (and a need to be the center of attention) are in her SOUL.

Alice (9 years younger): Alice struggles to differentiate herself from her sisters. She also struggles with her maths; MJ often had to tutor her to help her with schoolwork. She is the troublemaker, the snoop and the sneak, and these qualities have only intensified since their father's death. She, like Lillian, doesn't like being made to sit still and pay attention.

Lillian (13 years younger): The youngest of MJ's sisters, and thus the apple of her eye. MJ may be closest to Emma, but she will always have a special place in her heart for Lillian. MJ liked to read to Lillian and was teaching her how to draw. Lillian is still young enough (she was 5 when MJ disappeared) that her interests change minute to minute, and it's hard to keep her still unless it's story time. She hates rainy days.

Content of this site belongs to either J.L.Roberts, Isnit Weyrd, Blizzard Entertainment (for the roleplay sample, which mentions specific World of Warcraft content), or the respective characters' creators. Plaigirizing characters is a no-no! Please don't do it. ^_^