Approved! - Kit
Your Nickname: Bri
Have you read and do you agree to the Code of Conduct?: Yes
Are you over thirteen? Yes
How did you find us and decide to write with us? Friend
If you have written other characters here: Yes
If Yes, list them all: Zia Piselli, Jai Patil, Claire McByrne, Jules Deville
Is this a Primary or Secondary Character?: Primary
Full Character Name: Edolie Lauren Fern
Character Birthday & Age: February 7, 1972 (age 38)
City & Country of Birth: San Francisco, California, USA
Blood Purity: Halfblood
Alma Mater: Hogwarts
Job/Position: Ancient Runes Professor
Wand: 9 1/2 inch walnut wood with dragon heartstring core. Pliable (even a bit bendy) with knobby surface. On the base is carved the Younger Futhark symbol for Odin's Rune (which represents good fortune).
Physical Description: The lack of hair-brushing combined with the earth tones in all of the flowy clothes she wears makes it pretty clear to the observer that Edie Fern is a free spirit. The way her clothes hang off of her, she almost looks like a bird. If it were up to her, Edie would be naked all the time -- so airy, breathable clothes are as close as she can get without getting a few over-eager students knocking at her door. (Still, occasionally Edolie's clothes will be see-through -- this is normally quite unintentional). Even when Edie is nude, or even partially nude, her confidence makes it a bit less obvious (at first, anyway). Edie only owns a few pairs of shoes, as she spends most of her time barefoot. She does love her some costume jewelry, though.
Edie has big eyes and an even bigger smile, which both make her face look very welcoming and friendly. In general, Edie exudes congeniality and pride and the people in her presence can physically feel that. Her wavy hair is just as wild as she is, partly because she hates cutting or brushing it and partly because it can't decide on just one color. It's always sunkissed and somewhere between blonde, brown, and red.
Scribbled upon her arms are notes, since Edolie is often forgetting at least 2-3 things. Also etched into her arm is a tattoo that says "Breathe," something she got as a reminder to herself that she needed to slow down and think sometimes. She also has a few small scars scattered across her body from countless traveling mishaps.
Personality Description: Edolie Fern is first and foremost an adrenaline junkie. It's a title she's been carrying for nearly all of the 38 years she's been alive, and her craving for adventure resulted in a bold and reckless personality. Edolie doesn't like to stay in one place for too long, but she will try pretty much anything at least once -- three times, just to be completely sure. She possesses a 'devil-may-care' attitude and is twice as likely to do something if you tell her she can't or that she shouldn't.
A great guest at parties, Edie goes with the flow and holds a very open mind. She lacks cruel judgment and gives pretty superb advice, even if she can't take it herself. Her eccentricity and spontaneity make her a pretty big flake and quite the daydreamer; she hates planning anything in advance out of fear of completely forgetting about it. She hates disappointing her loved ones and loves to make as many people happy as she possibly can. Conflict is not something she enjoys experiencing, and she'd much rather crack jokes and swap stories rather than fight. She will avoid it at all costs, even if it's not appropriate or acceptable.
Wanderlust is a serious affliction that Edie has, and she appeases this by traveling as much as possible. Edie is almost always living out of suitcases, either going off on a trip or just coming back from one. A change of scenery is sometimes all she needs to feel at ease. When she isn't traipsing across the world, Edie enjoys gardening -- unsurprisingly, she is a big fan of exotic plants and flowers. She also keeps a diary, which is coded, of course -- being multi-lingual assisted her greatly when inventing her diary-writing language. Edie is not ashamed or regretful about anything she's written in any of her diaries; she just doesn't feel that her personal business needed to be read by wandering eyes.
Edie has plenty of secrets, guilty pleasures, and off-beat dreams; perhaps her biggest guilty pleasure is smoking, which she claims she does 'only socially,' but deep down the habit is a bit more developed. Edie is also a vegan, preferring to eat only organic and all-natural foods (no matter how bland or boring they might look).
History: Clara Norman was an American girl with six sisters. That's right, six girls who could overshadow her at any moment. To make matters worse, they all looked very much alike, and most of the time Clara felt lost in the shuffle. As the summer of love progressed, Clara escaped from her parents' home to attend Woodstock, finding there a young Brit named Henry Fern. Floating on the tunes of historical musicians, they kissed and loved and did everything Clara could have dreamed of and more. Perhaps the LSD, shrooms, alcohol, and marijuana were influencing her, but Clara was convinced that she was in love.
She was reassured when a week later, reunited with Henry but stone-cold sober this time, she felt the same way. Apparently her smooth-talking British boy did too, and they talked the hours away, covering every topic from the Beatles' best album to Henry's experiences in English orphanages, starting from a very young age. They both were misfits, much like the rest of the counterculture. Thankful that they finally fit in somewhere, they took the lifestyle on completely. Their common adoration for love, peace, and all things in between helped push them right along their way into a whirlwind of romance.
Clara's family wasn't the biggest fan of Henry, believing that he was a no-good hippie that would corrupt one of their precious daughters. Clara, of course, feeling the opposite, announced to her parents that she was a long-haired hippie freak too and that her and Henry were in love. They ran off together, traveling throughout the continents, to all the nooks and crannies of the world that celebrated life the way that they did.
Soon enough, their love romps turned into a baby, and in 1972 Clara gave birth to Edolie Lauren Fern. They had been so close to naming her Sunflower Hope Fern, but Henry had reasoned that it was nonsensical to have a two-plant name and Clara had to agree. With Edie in tow, Henry and Clara continued moving from country to country, never establishing one place as 'home.' Edie had been born in America, but shortly after her birth, Clara and Henry brought her to Europe. They spent many years in a variety of countries in Europe, eventually moving on to Asia and then Australia.
Finally, when Edie was eight years old, Clara decided that she had experienced enough of the nomadic lifestyle, completely ruining their plans to venture to Africa and South America. Now a mother, Clara was concerned for her daughter, and while Henry continued to travel the world she brought Edie with her to a commune just outside San Francisco. They lived there for many years, though once she reached the age of ten Edie was allowed to independently visit her father as often as she chose. She loved doing this, because once she was old enough to understand it, the traveler's lifestyle was a glamorous one. She was envious of the way her father could just walk into a pub he'd never been to before as if it were home, making friends with the owners within minutes.
Hogwarts accepted Edie when she was 11 years old, and through this letter she discovered that her father was, in fact, a wizard. Growing up, Edolie always felt that her father had some sort of magical quality about him. He was so majestic, the way he ran across the world like a fabulous gypsy of some sort. Learning that she was right in thinking that her father was actually as magical as she thought that he was -- and that she, apparently, was too -- made her feel closer to him than ever before.
She went to the school with a heart full of enthusiasm and ambition. The liberal school complemented Edie's free-spirited upbringing, and at the school Edie flourished. Appropriately placed in Ravenclaw, Edolie did not bother herself too much with making friends and instead focused on this new world that had been shown to her. There wasn't a single spell that failed to amaze and enthrall Edolie, not one that she didn't immediately want to perfect after hearing about it or seeing it. Edie treasures her time at Hogwarts to this day, never forgetting her first years of spell-casting and potion-brewing and the excitement that went along with it.
After her time in Scotland, Edie returned to the commune where her mother still lived. Over the course of her Hogwarts career, Clara had given birth to two more children -- Ruby and Conrad. She didn't know who the father was, but in a commune, the philosophy was that it took a village. After separating, her parents had both become casual daters -- serial daters, if you wanted to be more accurate but slightly less nice.
Her mother wanted her to go to college, and since Hogwarts had really awakened her passion for knowledge, she did so without argument. Not suited for a muggle university, Edie turned to Laevenstrome's Funduct of Sorcery. She focused on Anthropology and Linguistics, dabbling in History. She had always been the best in her class at Ancient Runes; she had an eye for puzzles and patterns. Plus, she found the Wizarding world fascinating and believed that Ancient Runes was a great way to understand it. In her time at muggle university, Edie spent much of her time studying abroad and doing research, where she learned a surprising amount about the Wizarding World in context of Muggle history. It was amazing (and somewhat hilarious) what the muggles made of the artifacts that were left behind by wizards. Languages, drawings, tools, clothes -- there were many things that muggle researchers had gotten just completely wrong.
Though she found all of this enthralling and was certainly immersing herself in her studies, Edie's natural inclination to be wild and reckless was not gone. She went out like the rest of the students, tending to be the life of the party whenever she went. Edie could get a little crazy, sometimes, and after a particularly patchy night of partying, she ended up pregnant. Not knowing who the father was, Edie gave birth to the baby and gave it away without ever learning what the gender was. She believed it would be easier this way, but there are certainly times where she wonders about what ever became of her child.
After university, Edie travelled for years, developing her expertise on Muggle/Wizard anthropology. There were an astounding amount of folk tales about wizards, even fossils proving their existence. She was curious about how she'd spent so many years traveling around the world without ever once realizing that there was a supernatural world alongside hers, one that she would someday be a part of.
When she was thirty years old, Edie decided to slow down a bit and moved to London. It was just fast-paced enough that she didn't get bored, but she was staying still long enough to organize her thoughts. After weeding through her diaries throughout the years, researching details she'd left out, and interviewing a couple friends who had come along with her on her journeys, Edolie Fern published her first book, Journey of the Fern. She was pleasantly surprised by the high sales of her book and was suddenly well-off enough to rent a bit of a nicer flat. Never having really had a flat of her own before, she didn't know what to put in it. To this day, Edie still doesn't like to have too much clutter.
At 35, Edolie was beginning to grow bored of her London lifestyle and moved to Scotland's country to get a new perspective. She loved the vast, open fields and random cows -- for a little while. Then, again, she got bored. She moved to Glasgow, then moved out of Glasgow very quickly upon realizing that she was not what she wanted at all. Just in time for Edolie to get really frustrated with her living situation, Hogwarts contacted her and offered her a job as the Ancient Runes professor after hearing of her success as an author.
Describe your job duties and how you go about them: Although Edolie is one of the younger professors, she does still understand the value and importance of education. She has always been passionate about educating herself, particularly on all things magical, but she realized quickly during her time as a student that not all people felt that natural fervor for education. Edie considers gathering interest in her subject to be one of the more important aspects of her job, particularly since Ancient Runes is offered mainly as an elective course. To her students and staff, she cannot express enough how vital the concepts behind Runes have been in her own personal research and studies. She does her best to have the students work hands-on with ancient materials and also attempts to provide historical and cultural context for the runes they work with. Her enthusiasm, knowledge, and fascination with the subject are all very clear to the students who take Professor Fern's class.
Elaborate on your expertise in your field: Edolie has spent most of her life traveling and observing other cultures. She has extensively studied the subjects involved with cultural and social workings of the magical and muggle worlds, finding the overlap between the two to be very interesting. Her natural ability for learning languages helped her in succeeding in her career as a wizarding anthropologist, and her history as a muggle-born also assists her when comparing the two worlds. She has written a book on her findings, Journey of the Fern, which was well-received by critics and researchers alike. Though she is quite young for her position, Edie Fern has seen much more than many of the professors have seen in their lifetime. She has been to every continent in addition to studying their histories, has been on live digs where muggles uncovered fossils that actually turned out to be quite unlike what any of them hypothesized - Edolie knew that it wasn't a dinosaur they'd found, but a hippogriff. Of course she kept her mouth quiet, inspired by this moment to discover more about wizarding history, folklore, language, and culture.
Writing Sample: Sum up your character in one paragraph: Wild hippie-chick Edolie has spent her life traveling, but has finally decided to slow down and share her findings with the students of Hogwarts. Specializing in the linguistic and anthropological history of Wizards (and the interpretation of that history by muggles), Edie is a young expert who (hopefully) inspires her students to be just as curious about their world.
Edolie Lauren Fern: Curator at National Museum of Wizarding History