Retired Character - Kit 28th September 2013

Your Nickname: Jessica
Have you read and do you agree to the Code of Conduct?: Yes
How did you find us and decide to write with us? Other
If you have written other characters here: Yes
If Yes, list them all: Akiva Katz, Archer Radley, Jordyn Dimbleby, Josephine St. Just, Margo Amherst, Phineas Maele (Secondary)
Is this a Primary or Secondary Character?: Primary

Full Character Name: Lucia Emilia Dasmarinas (Her pen name is Adorabella Cox)
Character Birthday & Age: 28; December 15, 1980
City & Country of Birth: Brighton, England
Blood Purity: Halfblood
Alma Mater: Hogwarts, Ravenclaw
Job/Position: Columnist for Witch Weekly

Wand: A cherry wood wand with a phoenix feature core is good for the cheerful witch with decent skills.  At about eleven inches, it’s a fairly sturdy wand and swishy.  The tip is chewed just a tad from extensive thinking and careless tossing around.   

Physical Description: Lucia is a full-figured young woman.  Having a broader body type has always proved to be a help in her profession, often making her harder to notice and pay attention to.  She is of an average height, about 5’5” (1.8 yards) and a bit overweight.  She has no problem with this though, and doesn’t really think it’s a problem.  For the most part, she’s a modest dresser and tries to be fashionable but remain low key most of the time.  She likes colors, though tends to wear them when she is outside of work, if she’s on assignment, she wants to blend in.  People tell things to people they think they can trust. 

She’ll use make-up sparingly, usually to emphasize certain features (namely a signature red lip, the most adventurous she gets).  In addition to only wearing make-up for emphasis, it’s the same with jewelry.  There’s very little jewelry in her life, and as such it’s really only used for special occasions. 

For the things she cannot control, Lucia has a decently pretty face.  For someone of her stature, she didn’t really fill out too much around the cheeks, which is a blessing.  She’s got hazel-brown eyes with well defined brows.  Though she tries to look docile most of the time, her eyes are very alert and she’s often looking at fifteen things at once, trying to find what she is supposed to focus on.  Her skin at its darkest has an olive tone, though usually remains fairly light throughout the year, contrasting with her almost black hair.  Her lips are full and usually curved into a quiet smile, unassuming and quiet.  Her hair is probably her most eye catching feature she has.  It’s a thick, long, and curly mass on her head, usually tamed with a ton of product and a few well practiced bits of magic.  She loves her hair and takes very good care of it. 

Personality Description: Lucia is not at all what anyone would expect.  She has two very different lives on and off paper.  On the page, her name is Adorabella Cox, a pseudonym carefully designed to keep family and friends (except those she tells) what she is writing about.  On occasion she has published a few things in her own name (though the more… subdued work), and in the mean time tells those that do not know she works in editing, not writing.  Adorabella would not be ashamed of anything though.  She speaks her mind and really just tells it how she sees it.  When she is on paper, she is vibrant and scandalous, often making comments that would make a housewife blush and then eagerly read on.  She is enthusiastic and talks with the authority of a woman who walks into a room and knows exactly what she wants and how to get it.  She sounds smart with the writing she does, but definitely nothing like reality. 

In her actual life, Lucia is not so silly as her writing would suggest.  She has a sense of purpose and a lot of her writing is just targeted toward the audience.  She finds a lot of truth in some of what she’s writing (like how delectable some men are), but does not put much stock in romance advice or things like that.  She plays spin doctor to appeal to the perceptions of others and knows that the main demographic of the magazine are women – any woman, and that means that what she writes has to encompass a large group.  Usually, they’re interested in the same things; they just won’t admit it, so sometimes you have to be crafty.  Lucia feels like she’s developed that skill very well over the years, and uses it to her advantage, particularly if she’s assigned to something like giving advice. 

And yes, she scoffs at romance novels and the like in person, there is a small part of her that will, on a cold night, snuggle up with some trashy literature (amongst some classics and quality literature too).  She wouldn’t be the first person to write a sterling review for something silly, nor would she parade her patronship, but in the privacy of one’s home, sometimes it’s alright to be a little escapist.  This also includes her own attempts to write her own book, a top secret project since she was sixteen. 

It’s on these assignments that she has the most trouble.  Adorabella is romantic, idealistic, and fantastic -  Lucia is not so much.  She has a firm belief that they have to just happen and no one can give you advice for it.  The more you torture yourself about anything the less likely anything good is going to happen to you, so she tries to not aspire to impossibilities and live a reasonable life.  She is far more pragmatic than her optimistic false identity is, and definitely hides behind her name to talk about the things that she wouldn’t let herself believe but others eat up. 

She can be very quiet in certain situations, but is a fantastic listener, usually how she finds out the information she needs.  Lucia has this uncanny ability to seem inconspicuous wherever she is, being modest and quiet, but always has a quill on hand with a notepad (decorated like a personal journal), to take notes.  Though she does not admit to it in her daily life, she loves gossip and hearing the latest news.  There’s something tantalizing about having information and she just loves to hoard it.  Sometimes, she’ll share if it’s good enough, but other times, she likes to keep it. She has a good heart and good intentions most of the time, and if something is told to her in confidence, she probably won’t share it. 

Lucia can be prudish when confronting certain situations, but as stated earlier, her alter ego has no such complaint talking through the page.  Her family life has always been decent, but as the oldest daughter, she takes the leadership position and has been told (half-jokingly) she’s going to be the next matriarch.  She doesn’t think she’s bullheaded enough, but sometimes she gets reminded that she can be getting a little bossy and her tone is overstepping the lines.  Even when she means the best, she can push buttons, though usually she knows when to say sorry and make reparations.  She really is nice, when you get down to it.  She knows that sometimes you have to do things to get ahead and keep things in line, and she’s done them, including not exactly be entirely truthful, but that’s why her life is compartmentalized into two separate spheres, one she can tend to leave at work and one she gets to return to at home, like a well worn pair of slippers.

History: Lucia was born and raised in Brighton, England, a classic seaside resort town that was a tourist destination for the privileged for a long time.  Her parents were of two different locations.  Her father was a Portuguese half-blood wizard who went to Beauxbatons while her mother was a half-blood witch who went to Hogwarts.  They met in Brighton during one of the many festivals and during that summer they had a novel worthy romance.  Of course, when school caught back up, both were sent back, but continued to communicate regularly by owl and over holidays.

It was after they graduated that they started to seriously pursue a relationship beyond friendship and eventually, it happened.  They were dating, both working – the woman in her family’s flower shoppe and the man writing with an assortment of odd jobs.  The woman’s family discouraged her saying a writer would never make a living to support them, but she did not listen and good thing too, because only two short years later, they were planning a speedy wedding and only five months after the ceremony little Lucia Emilia Dasmarinas was born.

She was not the last Dasmarinas child either.  Lucia had a younger sister twenty months later (her parents were not the type to wait) and life was not always as easy as it could have been.  They were by no means wealthy, but Lucia was never left wanting.  She was a good big sister too and showed a natural knack for responsibility even as a little girl.  She always loved being at the flower shoppe and watching her mum work, and she liked going to day school with the small wizarding community in Brighton where she learned the skills she need for Hogwarts.

Lucia really liked school.  She had a big imagination and a way with words that she just picked them up and used them whenever she could.  She liked writing things and composed stories all of the time.  She must have had fifteen diaries before she entered Hogwarts and then she had at least three a year to record all of her thoughts, ideas, and things that she wanted to say.  She found that in school she was always getting information and just retaining it, but she didn’t always know what to do with it.  So, she just kept writing and writing, those journals are laying somewhere in a box, probably formulating some of the early ideas for the novels that she always told herself she would write.

At Hogwarts, her grades were fairly good.  She liked learning about magic, though her scores in practical applications were much lower than her written ones.  She grasped concepts and knew how to write about them and apply them theoretically, it was just the actually doing magic part that really made things difficult.  She could, but it always seemed to take her much longer to learn magic practically than it did theoretically.  So, in that case, she just stuck to the papers and by the end she was really just writing and doing theoretical magic (thankfully).

As tensions in the larger world ran high, Lucia stuck to her own narrative, ignoring the larger problems in favor of small things that she could really grasp.  She didn't like confrontation, didn't know how she felt (though she did know she was not in favor of killing people, harming anyone at all, really), so she wanted to stay out of it.  Her parents had their strong opinions, but thankfully, though the war ravaged a lot of England and the larger world, her small circle remained untouched - at least until the battle came to Hogwarts.

Lucia was not one of the brave souls that stayed behind.  Not everyone could be a Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, or Hermione Granger, after all.  This was in her sixth year, and throughout her seventh, Lucia could just see how... depressed everyone was.  Yes, it was within reason, but it was dreadful!  Something about it just made her want to resolve things, be lighthearted, and that was where she discovered the art of writing under a pseudonym.  Sometimes she would write silly things for friends, pass them around (anonymously, of course), and try to generally lighten up the mood - sometimes it wouldn't work, but you can't blame a girl for trying.  It was then she discovered she had a pretty good talent for writing what people wanted to read and liked to hear them talking about it, even if she never claimed responsibility.  It planted the seed for her plans post-graduation.   

She didn’t want to go back to Brighton though.  Even though she loved her family, she wanted to try something new.  She wanted to be in the city and doing something creative and exciting.  So, she decided she would take her love for writing and apply it.  She tried to go to the Daily Prophet, but it was found her… particular style was not being looked for. The fantastic, the unusual, and the things that were more normally not included in “serious” (for the wizarding world a relative term) journalism.  So, without further ado, she looked elsewhere.  The Quibbler was too out there – and she wasn’t the sort to conspiracy theorize or do magi-zoology.  So, she looked again.  And there it was.  Witch Weekly.

Now, Lucia was not particularly romantic, at least not outwardly.  She wasn’t the type to sigh and swoon in public, nor was she going to publicize her own affairs, but hey, it was a job and she had a flare for the fantastic and a vocabulary that could make almost anything sound romantic, so she signed up.  It was a chance to do something different and actually make money doing something she liked.  Granted, sometimes she feels a little bad about what she writes, particularly when she’s not being entirely truthful (but let’s be honest, we’re all trying to sell a paper here), but it’s a living and she does well with it.

Her life is split into two distinct pieces at this point and she’s been getting a bit more gutsy with what she’s been putting out.  That means requesting more high risk assignments (her Valentine’s Day article though not exactly the result of ten months of undercover research, was definitely at least ten weeks, and she did do a good job working as someone’s secretary).  She has this ability to blend into the background and as she is pleasant and a prodigious worker, it’s not hard for people to overlook her presence, often saying things they might not want repeated near her.

For the rest of those seven and a half months that no one can account for, well, it wasn’t that she wasn’t writing, but she was just working on her own projects and for once, telling the truth to her family, was editing articles for the magazine.  She was also scoping out a good return story, which, after you’re gone for a certain stretch of time just has to be fabulous.

She uses this to her advantage and is just spending her time with her split down the middle life writing for the magazine, writing for herself, and always trying to get the next big break.  She frequently visits home even if she no longer lives there and has to tell her younger sister that “no, she cannot live with her and that she will need to stop being a bum if she wants to move to London.”  Other than that, it's pretty day-to-day, just writing and making a living. 

Describe your job duties and how you go about them: Being a reporter is a fairly straightforward task.  Working for Witch Weekly, Lucia has responsibilities to her readers to provide interesting, informative, and exciting articles that they will want to read.  She has a duty to journalistic standards to keep everything pretty much factual (though there are some straws that do bend farther than others).  Her articles are generally expose style or lists; she likes to insert a lot of drama into what she’s writing and play with things to engage her readers.  Knowing how to sell a magazine is important to writing an article.

She does a decent job keeping her pseudonym secret, never telling anyone what she writes nor that she actively publishes in the magazine.  There are the occasional stronger pieces – book reviews, music reviews, and recipes that she will put her name on, but only then when Lucia appears next to an article would her picture come up.  This helps when she has to go places on assignment and try to weasel information from those that might not want to give it – or at least give it willingly.  She holds herself one step above paparazzi sometimes.  But, she’s a mystery and Adorabella Cox is an enigma - that’s how it should remain. 

Elaborate on your expertise in your field: Lucia was always creative and has been writing for a long time.  She has a good vocabulary and a wild imagination, particularly with things that she would never dare say out loud, and that's what the readers want, after all.  She's got a sense of humor about her job, considering it's not exactly... hard-hitting journalism, but it contributes to the light and fun tone of her articles. 

She's pretty hard to notice in a group when she's just playing plain-Jane and doesn't really bring herself to the forefront when she's gathering information.  She isn't the fame seeking type, at least not in the traditional way.  She likes to have the glory without the direct recognition of what she's doing, which works well to not blow her cover or damage her credibility. 

Writing Sample: N/A

Sum up your character in one paragraph: Lucia is a columnist for Witch Weekly.  She has something of a double life which she has worked on managing over the years.  As an ex-Ravenclaw she says and feels she is above silly romantic drivel, though seems to have a propensity for writing it.  She doesn’t tell people about what she really does, but that suits her fine. She doesn’t need the fame for writing what people like to read.  She has been working on her own book for ages, though she usually gets distracted in the middle of it and starts over eventually.  It’s a long work in progress.