Biography / Application
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aislyn_pepperAislyn Pepper
Basics
Name: Aislyn Jubilee Pepper
Nickname(s): Ace
Age:23
Birthdate: 16 August 1978
Blood Line: Half blood
Sexuality: Hetero-leaning Bisexual
Martial Status: Single
Former House & Years: Ravenclaw (1989 - 1996)
Occupation: Proprietor, Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor
Alliance During War: Dumbledore
Wand:
9 7/16", rowan, unicorn hair, sturdyNickname(s): Ace
Age:23
Birthdate: 16 August 1978
Blood Line: Half blood
Sexuality: Hetero-leaning Bisexual
Martial Status: Single
Former House & Years: Ravenclaw (1989 - 1996)
Occupation: Proprietor, Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor
Alliance During War: Dumbledore
Wand:
Appearance
Height: 5' 3 1/4"
Weight: 127 pounds
Eyes: Green
Hair: Auburn
Typical Attire: Aislyn is very reminiscent of muggle 1950s attire. She's usually found in flirty dresses, heels, and sweaters or light jackets in various bright or pastel colors. She is almost always either wearing an apron or has one tucked in one of her many purses. Since purchasing Fortescue's, she's updated her wardrobe to include a lot of ice cream themed items--the better to advertise with, of course.
Distinguishing Features: She has a very expressive face and full lips that tend to draw the eye, particularly since she often coats them in attention-catching shades.
PB: Emma Stone
Weight: 127 pounds
Eyes: Green
Hair: Auburn
Typical Attire: Aislyn is very reminiscent of muggle 1950s attire. She's usually found in flirty dresses, heels, and sweaters or light jackets in various bright or pastel colors. She is almost always either wearing an apron or has one tucked in one of her many purses. Since purchasing Fortescue's, she's updated her wardrobe to include a lot of ice cream themed items--the better to advertise with, of course.
Distinguishing Features: She has a very expressive face and full lips that tend to draw the eye, particularly since she often coats them in attention-catching shades.
PB: Emma Stone
Personality
Detailed Personality
Prior to the war, Aislyn's straightforward, honest manner is what made her a valuable asset to the Ministry's Invisibility Task Force. She had (still has, though she won't admit it) a gift for spotting the things Muggles were most likely to be curious about, and the way she would admonish her superiors when she thought they were focusing on the wrong things to hide was only just short of cheeky. She talks a lot without managing to stumble into babbling territory, and she has no problem being completely honest about her opinions when asked.
In the years since the war, Aislyn has become a bit more closed off about herself than she once was. She'll still give honest answers to questions, but she's far less likely to volunteer information about herself without being asked. She's still very approachable, smiling and sometimes waving at everyone she passes on the street. That approachable trait, however, tends to abruptly end when the subject becomes herself unless the other party happens to be someone she knows and trusts.
She once worked to keep Muggles ignorant for their own safety and mental stability. This plays directly into Aislyn's need to take care of people. She's the youngest of three siblings, but her older brother and sister have always known that their little Ace was the one to go to if they needed to talk or just not be the responsible one for a change. She doesn't always express this need in the most conventional of means. After all, her plan to help 'take care' of Wizarding Britain after the war was to open up an iconic ice cream parlor because "Ice cream can heal any ill of the heart, and those are running rampant now."
Outside of all of that, Aislyn is notoriously shameless. Considering things to be taboo doesn't even really register as an understandable concept with her. People can like who or what they want and, so long as it doesn't harm anyone, she won't judge them for it beyond to comment as to why it does or doesn't appeal to her personally. She likes enjoying sex, chocolate, and drinking (neither necessarily together nor in any particular order), and if questioned she won't both trying to hide any of it. Why would she, after all? Being ashamed is just a way of admitting that you care what society thinks of the choices that are yours to make.
First Impression: Bubbly and blunt. Aislyn will talk to anyone, and is genuinely friendly, but she has a nasty habit of saying exactly what she thinks that puts some people off. She also has a somewhat adorable habit of mixing English slang with the Southern U.S. slang that her mother still uses.
Likes: Sweets (particularly ice cream), cute clothes, dancing, club music, general physical affection, cuddling, lady kisses with a decent bottle of red wine, and inordinate amounts of reading.
Dislikes: Ignorance, intolerance, reminders of her work at the Ministry, seeing survivors of the war disappear into their haunted minds, people who broadcast someone's trauma without permission, and bugs. (Seriously, those suckers are gross and she doesn't want them anywhere near her--there's a reason Herbology and Potions were her least favorite subjects.)
Boggart: Herself, in uniform as a part of the Invisibility Task Force after Voldemort secretly took control of the Ministry.
Mirror of Erised: Her shop full of the smiling faces of those she knows are haunted by what He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did to them.
Prior to the war, Aislyn's straightforward, honest manner is what made her a valuable asset to the Ministry's Invisibility Task Force. She had (still has, though she won't admit it) a gift for spotting the things Muggles were most likely to be curious about, and the way she would admonish her superiors when she thought they were focusing on the wrong things to hide was only just short of cheeky. She talks a lot without managing to stumble into babbling territory, and she has no problem being completely honest about her opinions when asked.
In the years since the war, Aislyn has become a bit more closed off about herself than she once was. She'll still give honest answers to questions, but she's far less likely to volunteer information about herself without being asked. She's still very approachable, smiling and sometimes waving at everyone she passes on the street. That approachable trait, however, tends to abruptly end when the subject becomes herself unless the other party happens to be someone she knows and trusts.
She once worked to keep Muggles ignorant for their own safety and mental stability. This plays directly into Aislyn's need to take care of people. She's the youngest of three siblings, but her older brother and sister have always known that their little Ace was the one to go to if they needed to talk or just not be the responsible one for a change. She doesn't always express this need in the most conventional of means. After all, her plan to help 'take care' of Wizarding Britain after the war was to open up an iconic ice cream parlor because "Ice cream can heal any ill of the heart, and those are running rampant now."
Outside of all of that, Aislyn is notoriously shameless. Considering things to be taboo doesn't even really register as an understandable concept with her. People can like who or what they want and, so long as it doesn't harm anyone, she won't judge them for it beyond to comment as to why it does or doesn't appeal to her personally. She likes enjoying sex, chocolate, and drinking (neither necessarily together nor in any particular order), and if questioned she won't both trying to hide any of it. Why would she, after all? Being ashamed is just a way of admitting that you care what society thinks of the choices that are yours to make.
First Impression: Bubbly and blunt. Aislyn will talk to anyone, and is genuinely friendly, but she has a nasty habit of saying exactly what she thinks that puts some people off. She also has a somewhat adorable habit of mixing English slang with the Southern U.S. slang that her mother still uses.
Likes: Sweets (particularly ice cream), cute clothes, dancing, club music, general physical affection, cuddling, lady kisses with a decent bottle of red wine, and inordinate amounts of reading.
Dislikes: Ignorance, intolerance, reminders of her work at the Ministry, seeing survivors of the war disappear into their haunted minds, people who broadcast someone's trauma without permission, and bugs. (Seriously, those suckers are gross and she doesn't want them anywhere near her--there's a reason Herbology and Potions were her least favorite subjects.)
Boggart: Herself, in uniform as a part of the Invisibility Task Force after Voldemort secretly took control of the Ministry.
Mirror of Erised: Her shop full of the smiling faces of those she knows are haunted by what He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did to them.
History
Father: Gavin Pepper, Halfblood
Mother: Maryanne Jackson-Pepper, Muggle, American
Siblings: Castor (27, Gryffindor, twin to Pollyanna, Chaser - Caerphilly Catapults), Pollyanna (27, Ravenclaw, twin to Castor, member of the Ministry's Muggle Liaison Office and the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee)
Children: None.
Pets: Jax, two-year-old black and tan krup.
Detailed History:
Halfblood Gavin Pepper met Muggle Maryanne Jackson while traveling through America studying Muggle culture after his graduation from Hogwarts. She was a graduate student in Atlanta, Georgia, finishing up her PhD history and cultural anthropology. Their romance was a whirlwind, culminating several months later in a quick trip to Las Vegas for a private wedding. They spent the next year traveling between Wizard and Muggle locations, teaching one another all about their respective cultures. Shortly thereafter, Maryanne became pregnant and they relocated back to Gavin's childhood home just south of London. Maryanne took a job as a history teacher and Gavin was quickly welcomed into the Muggle Liaison Office at the Ministry of Magic. Their first born children, twins Castor and Pollyanna, were the apples of their parents' eyes.
Aislyn Jubilee came along four years later, the last child Maryanne would bear. From a young age she was curious and outspoken, asking all of the questions and listening raptly to the answers. Her parents taught her to read when she was four--mostly so she could look up the answers to her many questions herself rather than always having to ask. When the twins left for their first year at Hogwarts, seven-year-old Aislyn begged them to smuggle her there in one of their trunks. She desperately wanted to go to school. To tame their most learning-oriented child, Maryanne had the brilliant idea to enroll her in Muggle primary school, where she excelled until she was old enough to attend Hogwarts herself.
Aislyn's school years were far more distressingly eventful than she would have liked. She rode the train that first year with an excitable pair of red headed twins named Fred and George, but was disappointed at the sorting when they went to Gryffindor and she found herself in Ravenclaw. The house suited her, as she was driven to excel in all of her classes, but her housemates only tended to like her honesty until she was honest about the things she thought about their actions. Still, she managed to make friends and generally enjoy her years at Hogwarts. The only time she seriously did not like school was in her seventh year when Dolores Umbridge came to Hogwarts. She spent the entire year keeping her head down and trying to never look the horrible woman in the eye to prevent herself from launching into a very impolite tirade.
Finally, her years at Hogwarts were finished, and Aislyn immediately began her career in the Department of Magical Accident and Catastrophes at the Ministry. She worked extremely hard, and by the time Rufus Scrimgeour had taken the seat of Minister she was on the Invisibility Task Force. It was a job she had dreamed about for many years, but finding herself in it as a war was brewing was not the dream she'd had in mind. Aislyn's nightmare truly began with Scrimgeour's death and the rise of Pius Thicknesse. Where before her job had been to creatively cover up the secrets of the Wizarding World, protecting curious Muggles from discoveries that their minds simply weren't prepared for, it suddenly became her duty to either cover up nefarious activities under the new Ministry or--even worse--to research new Invisibility Spells for use by wizards she simply did not trust.
When the Ministry began to round up wizards and witches of "questionable bloodline," the Pepper family knew that it was time to get out. Aislyn, Pollyanna, and their father all left on the same day, making to return home as usual. That night, along with their mother and Castor, they all went into hiding. They may have been halfbloods, but no one in the family was naive enough to believe that their extensive work with Muggles was going to be smiled upon by the new powers in charge. They disappeared into the Muggle world instead, hiding wands and robes in their trunks and taking a plane to Maryanne's family in Georgia for an "extended visit." While the Pepper family patriarch had no problem running, all three of his children were resentful of the idea. The twins wanted to join the fight, and while Aislyn knew she'd be useless on that front she felt guilty that she hadn't offered her extensive skills in hiding things to those who were fighting against You-Know-Who. It is that guilt that drove her actions once the war had ended.
The family returned to England just days after the Battle of Hogwarts to find their world half in ruins. Aislyn's father and Pollyanna immediately rejoined the Ministry, determined to help rebuild Muggle-Wizard relations. Castor took to the rebuilding efforts for a while, traveling with teams of 'fixers' as they moved across the country doing whatever they could to restore what had been destroyed. Aislyn, however, felt lost. The things she'd done in her Ministry office before they'd fled haunted her, and no matter how much she wanted to help she simply couldn't bring herself to go back. She spent many days wandering through both Muggle and Wizarding London, trying as hard as she could to think of what she could do to help rebuild her world.
It was on one of these wandering days when she had the epiphany that led to her purchase of the ruined building that had once been Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor. She'd seen a small Muggle boy scrape his knee, and heard him insist that ice cream could fix anything when his mother offered it. Aislyn was well aware that it was a childish way of looking at things, but she also couldn't think of a single person she knew who hadn't had a favorite flavor at Fortescue's. Grand gestures weren't the only things that could heal. Mr. Fortescue had died in the war, but the name of the shop he'd built, a billion happy memories for hundreds, was something she thought she could use. She was going to create a beacon of good times so everyone who suffered could at least have something bright and cheerful.
It took Aislyn nearly three years to purchase the property, rebuild the ruined shop, obtain her business license, and finally finish all of the necessities to get Fortescue's open. She kept her resolve to not change the name, simply adding "Aislyn Pepper, Proprietor" beneath the sign painted on the window. She's been open for a while now, and while business isn't exactly booming she is managing to stay in the black. She's still hoping that her tiny light will be enough hope for everyone else to start picking themselves up again. Baby steps.
Mother: Maryanne Jackson-Pepper, Muggle, American
Siblings: Castor (27, Gryffindor, twin to Pollyanna, Chaser - Caerphilly Catapults), Pollyanna (27, Ravenclaw, twin to Castor, member of the Ministry's Muggle Liaison Office and the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee)
Children: None.
Pets: Jax, two-year-old black and tan krup.
Detailed History:
Halfblood Gavin Pepper met Muggle Maryanne Jackson while traveling through America studying Muggle culture after his graduation from Hogwarts. She was a graduate student in Atlanta, Georgia, finishing up her PhD history and cultural anthropology. Their romance was a whirlwind, culminating several months later in a quick trip to Las Vegas for a private wedding. They spent the next year traveling between Wizard and Muggle locations, teaching one another all about their respective cultures. Shortly thereafter, Maryanne became pregnant and they relocated back to Gavin's childhood home just south of London. Maryanne took a job as a history teacher and Gavin was quickly welcomed into the Muggle Liaison Office at the Ministry of Magic. Their first born children, twins Castor and Pollyanna, were the apples of their parents' eyes.
Aislyn Jubilee came along four years later, the last child Maryanne would bear. From a young age she was curious and outspoken, asking all of the questions and listening raptly to the answers. Her parents taught her to read when she was four--mostly so she could look up the answers to her many questions herself rather than always having to ask. When the twins left for their first year at Hogwarts, seven-year-old Aislyn begged them to smuggle her there in one of their trunks. She desperately wanted to go to school. To tame their most learning-oriented child, Maryanne had the brilliant idea to enroll her in Muggle primary school, where she excelled until she was old enough to attend Hogwarts herself.
Aislyn's school years were far more distressingly eventful than she would have liked. She rode the train that first year with an excitable pair of red headed twins named Fred and George, but was disappointed at the sorting when they went to Gryffindor and she found herself in Ravenclaw. The house suited her, as she was driven to excel in all of her classes, but her housemates only tended to like her honesty until she was honest about the things she thought about their actions. Still, she managed to make friends and generally enjoy her years at Hogwarts. The only time she seriously did not like school was in her seventh year when Dolores Umbridge came to Hogwarts. She spent the entire year keeping her head down and trying to never look the horrible woman in the eye to prevent herself from launching into a very impolite tirade.
Finally, her years at Hogwarts were finished, and Aislyn immediately began her career in the Department of Magical Accident and Catastrophes at the Ministry. She worked extremely hard, and by the time Rufus Scrimgeour had taken the seat of Minister she was on the Invisibility Task Force. It was a job she had dreamed about for many years, but finding herself in it as a war was brewing was not the dream she'd had in mind. Aislyn's nightmare truly began with Scrimgeour's death and the rise of Pius Thicknesse. Where before her job had been to creatively cover up the secrets of the Wizarding World, protecting curious Muggles from discoveries that their minds simply weren't prepared for, it suddenly became her duty to either cover up nefarious activities under the new Ministry or--even worse--to research new Invisibility Spells for use by wizards she simply did not trust.
When the Ministry began to round up wizards and witches of "questionable bloodline," the Pepper family knew that it was time to get out. Aislyn, Pollyanna, and their father all left on the same day, making to return home as usual. That night, along with their mother and Castor, they all went into hiding. They may have been halfbloods, but no one in the family was naive enough to believe that their extensive work with Muggles was going to be smiled upon by the new powers in charge. They disappeared into the Muggle world instead, hiding wands and robes in their trunks and taking a plane to Maryanne's family in Georgia for an "extended visit." While the Pepper family patriarch had no problem running, all three of his children were resentful of the idea. The twins wanted to join the fight, and while Aislyn knew she'd be useless on that front she felt guilty that she hadn't offered her extensive skills in hiding things to those who were fighting against You-Know-Who. It is that guilt that drove her actions once the war had ended.
The family returned to England just days after the Battle of Hogwarts to find their world half in ruins. Aislyn's father and Pollyanna immediately rejoined the Ministry, determined to help rebuild Muggle-Wizard relations. Castor took to the rebuilding efforts for a while, traveling with teams of 'fixers' as they moved across the country doing whatever they could to restore what had been destroyed. Aislyn, however, felt lost. The things she'd done in her Ministry office before they'd fled haunted her, and no matter how much she wanted to help she simply couldn't bring herself to go back. She spent many days wandering through both Muggle and Wizarding London, trying as hard as she could to think of what she could do to help rebuild her world.
It was on one of these wandering days when she had the epiphany that led to her purchase of the ruined building that had once been Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor. She'd seen a small Muggle boy scrape his knee, and heard him insist that ice cream could fix anything when his mother offered it. Aislyn was well aware that it was a childish way of looking at things, but she also couldn't think of a single person she knew who hadn't had a favorite flavor at Fortescue's. Grand gestures weren't the only things that could heal. Mr. Fortescue had died in the war, but the name of the shop he'd built, a billion happy memories for hundreds, was something she thought she could use. She was going to create a beacon of good times so everyone who suffered could at least have something bright and cheerful.
It took Aislyn nearly three years to purchase the property, rebuild the ruined shop, obtain her business license, and finally finish all of the necessities to get Fortescue's open. She kept her resolve to not change the name, simply adding "Aislyn Pepper, Proprietor" beneath the sign painted on the window. She's been open for a while now, and while business isn't exactly booming she is managing to stay in the black. She's still hoping that her tiny light will be enough hope for everyone else to start picking themselves up again. Baby steps.
OOC
Name/Alias: Caitlin / Mei (I'll answer to either)
Age: 26 (22 March 1988)
Email: dementedpenguinproductions@gmail.com
AIM: Meilan Firaga
Timezone: Eastern Standard Time (GMT-5)
Age: 26 (22 March 1988)
Email: dementedpenguinproductions@gmail.com
AIM: Meilan Firaga
Timezone: Eastern Standard Time (GMT-5)
Samples
First Person/Journal:
We're finally open! Thank you so much to everyone that came out for Fortescue's big day! I hope to see many of your smiling faces back in the future. Remember: the more you show up, the more great flavors you'll get to try!
[Private]
Sweet Merlin, I didn't expect it to be this hectic. It's entirely worth it, though. Bless their hearts, but two young witches actually cried when I handed them their scoops today. They said it was just like when they'd been getting ready to go back to Hogwarts.
And now I'm crying. I know this is what I wanted. It's what I set out for. But I really didn't expect that opening day of an ice cream shoppe would tug this hard on my heartstrings.
[/Private]
Third Person/Thread:
It was a frighteningly humid summer day. Aislyn was in Muggle London, strolling aimlessly down a small street. She came to a park and paused to watch a group of children playing happily. One little boy fell as he came down a slide, scraping his knee. He began to cry and his mother rushed to him. As the woman carried her son toward the playground entrance, Aislyn overheard her offering to take him out for ice cream. The little boy nodded, enormous tears still falling from the corners of his eyes. "Ice cream makes it all better," he insisted.
Aislyn would later say that she knew she was crazy, but she found her feet carrying her through the streets until she came to The Leaky Cauldron. She slipped into the back, tapped the well worn pattern on the bricks, and began a slow trek into Diagon Alley. When she came to the destination she sought she paused, one hand resting on the nearly ruined cafe fence.
She couldn't think of a single person she knew who didn't have a favorite flavor at Fortescue's at some point in their life. The famous ice cream parlor had been a wealth of happy memories, the biggest reason to look forward to back to school shopping. It wasn't the biggest idea. She wouldn't change the world with some big, flashy gesture, but maybe, just maybe, she could provide that tiny bit of happiness that everyone needed to light the fires in the hearts from. Determined, she turned toward Gringotts and steeled her spine for what she was sure would be a long negotiation.
Pausing just outside the doors to the bank, Aislyn straightened her hair and smoothed down the skirt of her light sundress. With a deep breath, she pushed her way through the doors and made her way to the nearest open counter and addressed the goblin there as firmly and politely as she could manage. "I need to speak to someone regarding the properties in Diagon Alley left derelict and abandoned by the war," she said clearly. "I read in the paper that their ownership reverted back to this bank."
We're finally open! Thank you so much to everyone that came out for Fortescue's big day! I hope to see many of your smiling faces back in the future. Remember: the more you show up, the more great flavors you'll get to try!
[Private]
Sweet Merlin, I didn't expect it to be this hectic. It's entirely worth it, though. Bless their hearts, but two young witches actually cried when I handed them their scoops today. They said it was just like when they'd been getting ready to go back to Hogwarts.
And now I'm crying. I know this is what I wanted. It's what I set out for. But I really didn't expect that opening day of an ice cream shoppe would tug this hard on my heartstrings.
[/Private]
Third Person/Thread:
It was a frighteningly humid summer day. Aislyn was in Muggle London, strolling aimlessly down a small street. She came to a park and paused to watch a group of children playing happily. One little boy fell as he came down a slide, scraping his knee. He began to cry and his mother rushed to him. As the woman carried her son toward the playground entrance, Aislyn overheard her offering to take him out for ice cream. The little boy nodded, enormous tears still falling from the corners of his eyes. "Ice cream makes it all better," he insisted.
Aislyn would later say that she knew she was crazy, but she found her feet carrying her through the streets until she came to The Leaky Cauldron. She slipped into the back, tapped the well worn pattern on the bricks, and began a slow trek into Diagon Alley. When she came to the destination she sought she paused, one hand resting on the nearly ruined cafe fence.
She couldn't think of a single person she knew who didn't have a favorite flavor at Fortescue's at some point in their life. The famous ice cream parlor had been a wealth of happy memories, the biggest reason to look forward to back to school shopping. It wasn't the biggest idea. She wouldn't change the world with some big, flashy gesture, but maybe, just maybe, she could provide that tiny bit of happiness that everyone needed to light the fires in the hearts from. Determined, she turned toward Gringotts and steeled her spine for what she was sure would be a long negotiation.
Pausing just outside the doors to the bank, Aislyn straightened her hair and smoothed down the skirt of her light sundress. With a deep breath, she pushed her way through the doors and made her way to the nearest open counter and addressed the goblin there as firmly and politely as she could manage. "I need to speak to someone regarding the properties in Diagon Alley left derelict and abandoned by the war," she said clearly. "I read in the paper that their ownership reverted back to this bank."