#recreancydevelopment

[glendajchittock]

Glenda had never been one to truly worry. Why would she, really, when it felt almost as if she knew her goal and how to get there (and perhaps also had plenty of help along the way too?). To her, Dementors weren’t something she was ever going to encounter, and so the Patronus charm was just another tick in a box of spells that she didn’t quite get to check off, but that she wasn’t truly worried about needing to learn. After all, when would she need to learn to fight Dementors?

She’d tried the spell before, trying to check that box off, of course. The Ravenclaw prided herself on knowing spells, but this one was just a little too far out of her grasp it seemed. Still, she didn’t fret, and just put it down as something she would work on in the future. There were plenty of other things to focus on, mainly her radio show and all the new music coming out.

Joining the Order, it hadn’t come up again, and so for the past year, helping out with her radio show and going on missions and such as needed, Glenda hadn’t thought there was a need for it. Of course, that all changed on the last mission, at hearing that a group had been attacked by Dementors and had absolutely needed that spell in order to be safe. 

And so, Glenda realized that maybe she did need that spell, and had set out to try and learn it. This time, she had a little more knowledge on it, had done a bit more thinking, and the memory she’d used was one that meant the most to her in the world. Closing her eyes and trying again, Glenda had been surprised by the small hummingbird that had shot out of her wand and gone zooming around her like it was already on a mission of protection.

A hummingbird didn’t surprise her at all, truly. A free-spirit, seeking to enjoy life to it’s fullest, and fierce protectors that stand up for what they believe in and their loved ones, it made sense to Glenda why the hummingbird was her Patronus. And now it’s not just another tick in a box to know that she can produce one; now she can do as she needs and help protect those she cares for in the Order.

[adarkershadeofalice]

ALICE LONGBOTTOM’S PATRONUS: SKUNK (corporeal)

Skunks are some of the most peaceful animals on the planet. They’re not afraid, they’re not mean, they’re not aggressive -- they’re calm and confident and steady. This is because they don’t have much to fear. No predator with any brains messes with a skunk because skunks possess the ultimate weapon and every wild animals know this, and know not to tempt their wrath.

When a skunk raises its tail, you run.

There isn’t much that phases them, isn’t much that upsets them. Messing with their kits is one of those, and anyone who has made the mistake of crossing a skunk knows exactly how much suffering this small, innocuous little creature can bestow when its ire is raised. It’s the sort of stink that lingers in the memory even after it has -- mercifully -- at last faded from the nose.

Skunks aren’t bothered by it. Skunks aren’t bothered by much of anything...because they know there isn’t much that’s going to take the risk of bothering them. And those few creatures that do are likely to fast regret it.

Alice was a little startled when she saw the form her patronus took. Not being much of an animal person, she didn’t know enough about skunk personality or habits to realize how fitting the form was for her. The rest of the N.E.W.T.s-level D.A.D.A. class laughed a little at the “stinky animal,” although the fact that she was one of the first students to muster a fully corporeal patronus helped mitigate the potential for mockery.

The fact that Alice was never much of one to be bothered by light mockery helped, too. Everyone had learned quickly that she wasn’t much fun to bait and tease because she either shrugged and took it in stride or, when backed into a corner or pushed too far, struck back hard. Much like a skunk.

And much like a skunk, Alice is very protective of those she considers under her care. Her laid-back attitude evaporates at any sign of threat to them, and the full-force of her fighting instincts come out instead -- usually much to the regret of whoever roused her wrath. Alice doesn’t pull her punches.

Maybe that’s why she’s been considering bolstering her dueling skills with Dark Magic these days. If she’s going to do what it takes to protect the people in her charge, then she needs to be ready to do whatever it takes to protect them. Even use the enemy’s weapons against them, if need be. After all, mama skunk doesn’t hold back when her kits are threatened, either.

It’s not difficult for Alice to cast a corporeal patronus, although it’s not as effortless as it was for a while there, either. In her first years of work as an Auror, her first years of marriage to Frank, the spell bubbled up almost effervescently, strong and steady and luminous. Dumbledore’s trick of attaching more than just happy thoughts but specific thoughts -- and translating those thoughts into audible words -- to the spell took a little bit to master, because Alice had become so comfortable and confident in casting the spell that tweaking it was difficult. But she figured it out, and now finds it an extremely useful trick. After all, a patronus is one thing the other side can’t fake, no matter what.

The war has cast a shadow over things of course, but Alice still has enough happy memories in her past -- and as a trained Auror, is focused enough to channel her emotions when needed for her spellwork -- that she can conjure a corporeal one even during the darkest or most stressful of times.

That doesn’t mean it’s quite as bright as it was, once. Doesn’t mean it’s quite as easy. But the light is still there, steady and stubborn. Even as the world seems to be falling down around Alice, the light is still there.

[speakablyundoner-rr]

THE CHARM

The Patronus Charm was not a spell that came naturally to Robyn. As it was not one she expected to ever have use for, she didn’t begin to learn it until she joined the order, and even then it took her nearly a year of concerted effort and practice to be able to conjure a corporeal Patronus. Thankfully, she had been practicing in her garden at the time, else the over nine-foot wingspan of the vulture that burst from her wand may have caused serious havoc in her cottage.

Since then, she had reliably been able to cast the spell, and has even had some practice using it against Dementors when the Unspeakables have had dealings with them. Not that those occasions necessitated the spell, but the opportunities presented themselves and it wasn’t as if Dementors had someone to complain to about the magical misuse. If anything, Robyn’s human coworkers were rather grateful for the relief.

THE VULTURE

Universally associate with death for their carrion nature, vultures have a number of varying, contradicting, spiritual meaning. Sometimes they are seen as agents of rebirth and cleansing, for their part in healing the cycle of life and disposing of disease, an equalizing force in nature. Others brand them unclean and dangerous due to their association with the putrid rot of decaying corpses.

On either side of the coin, there is an perceptiveness and intuition to them that underpins a resourceful intelligence. They are not creatures to be taken lightly, balancing darkness and mystery with great wisdom and even, according to some legends and cultures, divine power. Caution is never ill-advised around this great bird, and always remember: a circling vulture is an omen of great misfortune.

[recreancyrpg]

At various times the admins will make a character development post.  This is completely optional - just a chance for players to expand their character and build them more into the roleplay. It will count towards activity. You can find all previously posted character development posts here. Feel free to answer old ones retroactively!

The Patronus Charm is well known throughout the Wixen World, but neither widely taught nor often utilized as it is an extremely specialized charm with little use outside very particular and uncommon situations…or is it?

A few years ago, Albus Dumbledore had a break-through with the spell: that since the patronus was tied directly to the caster’s thoughts and feelings, it could also be used for communication – a way to send messages faster (and more securely) than by owl and without the locational constraints of a floo-call. The spell is only suitable for short messages: a quick thought or two recorded in a moment and relayed once the intended recipient is reached a few seconds or minutes later - but the ability to communicate even a few words quickly over distance is all but invaluable in a war.

The Order of the Phoenix thus makes efforts to train their members in use of the Patronus Charm. Only a corporeal patronus can be used to relay messages, and it is difficult to produce a full-bodied patronus (especially when under emotional stress) so not everyone in the Order is capable of using the spell to pass messages…

Can your character cast a patronus? What kind of animal form does their patronus take? How reliably can they cast a corporeal patronus, if at all? If they can’t cast one, feel free to still discuss what it would be if they could!

[madeyed-andmoody]

ALASTOR MOODY'S ESTATE

The Moody family comes from an old line of pureblood wix, descended from the earliest, darkest years of the middle centuries. Before they were acknowledged as landed wix, however, the Moody's made their money through cursebreaking and potion distillation, the former of which continued to be passed down the family line for generations.

Alastor's father, Aodh, was passed the family estate after his father, Eoghan, passed away in his sleep. Alastor's grandmother, Niamh, had passed a few years before - as the eldest of five, Aodh was given the estate and all its land, titles, and the family money to distribute as he wished. Each of his siblings received a hearty stipend and Aodh saved the rest for his children.

Alastor, as it were, wanted little to nothing to do with the family's legacy or its money, but it suited him when he was in most dire need. The last time he touched that money for anything outside of a dire expense, in fact, was for his mother Eleanor's dragon pox treatments.

The estate sits now, a looming monolith, out in the County Cork countryside. The village hamlet that surrounds it is well cared for, the people's homes bought and paid and given to the families who have resided there for generations. Many wix there whisper of the mysterious estate, and the Muggles who have moved to the area are curious about the dilapidated building. The drive, if one is curious enough to try and walk it, is a tangle of overgrown trees, briars, and thistle; unsurpassable by even the most tenacious of persons. From what one can see of the building, where it stands nestled between two hills and flatland, it appears run down, though cared for - even if no one has seen hide nor hair of the Moody's heir in decades.

Little do the people of the village know that the estate is still in use, a hidden refuge for any dire Order business that needs to be conducted outside of the country. Additionally, the estate may also be used as a safe house for people and artifacts of great importance, a waystation for the members passing through. The warding and illusion work is reinforced monthly. The sole resident, beyond the Order members themselves, is an old, cantankerous house elf named Aoife, a being who has been a friend of the family for generations and who would keep their secrets to her grave.

[silenceisoverrated]

Conveniently at the same height as the mun, Amelia is 5 feet 7 inches (1.74 m) tall. It has never been something she has thought much about since there were countless other things to worry about while growing up. Amelia is content with being a little taller than most but not tall enough to properly tower over people.

[ofdaisies]

Character Height

Daisy is a small bean. Think short, and then even shorter, and one has the height of Daisy Hookum. A mere 5 foot (1.52m) she is what one would consider a short arse. But she couldn’t care less.

Daisy is loud, and she is hyper. She has no need of height to make people aware of her presence. Of course that means she can sometimes be annoying, since she sometimes will go overboard to compensate how small she is. She has to look up to everyone, which is funny, because there was people that she does indeed look up, to both physically, and figuratively.

One would think that being so short would be frustrating. But, Daisy really tries to let it bother her. And, she does have magic. So she’ll just summon anything she can’t reach. Of course, she hadn’t quite worked out that this would not exactly work in the muggle world. 

[theoselwyn]

Character Height

Theo would describe her height at average. Not overly tall, but also not overly small. Of course, technically, she is smaller. Smaller than average in actual fact. But she wouldn’t say that.

Theo stands at 5 foot 5 inches (1.65M) tall. She wasn’t that bothered about her height. And then she started dating Evan Rosier. Evan is 9 inches taller than her, and she really does not like it. Some people say height differences are cute, Theo just finds them annoying. She can only hope that the top of her head looks nice, because when she is right beside him that is all Evan is seeing.

Considering that some people find her intimidating and scary, the juxtaposition of her being short could be seen as quite amusing. Theo generally couldn’t care less about being shorter than most, and her fiery personality sure makes up for what she lacks vertically. She can certainly make herself known in a room. 

[txlkalots]

character development - patronus

The first time Lucinda managed to coax the mass of blue mist into a blob resembling an animal, she had no idea what to expect. Some people she felt clearly was a something, but her mind drew a blank at what could represent her. She never really felt herself as something. 


However she did secretly hope for her patronus to be something cool. Really, who didn’t? There was no way she could live it down if her shape ended up being a slug or something equally dull. Lucinda wasn’t asking for something wicked like a unicorn or thestral - she’d be happy with a bird of any sort, maybe something with claws.


It took several tries before it became corporeal enough to tell a proper shape. And it took her another day at the library to figure out what exactly it was. Turns out that the round little body, beady eyes and soft snout formed a prairie dog. The more she read about them, the more Lucinda liked them. Stubborn little things, at peace in their tribes, not to be messed with. And way better than a slug.


Her happy memory tends to be bits and pieces, but her strongest is the one vacation her family took abroad. They’d been to the beach before, but the sandy dunes in southern France beat the freezing ones back home with a wide margin. The ocean was the kind you’d paddle around in leisurely, and not swim quickly to keep the feeling of cold a-bay. They’d had ice-cream with almost every meal, and Mica, despite being so much older, had nothing against letting his inner child out and playing with her. It was the kind of summer frozen in time. Mica always said he’d take them all back when he was working proper and Lucinda was done at school. 


While Lucinda was once getting quite adept at casting a patronus, she’s struggling a lot more with them now. She has managed to survive, riffling through new memories each time she casts the spell, but she isn’t always able to cast a fully corporeal one. Lucinda is aware that it might be a problem one day - but she’ll figure it out.

[pandoraalcmene]

At an underwhelming 5 feet 2 inches (157.48 cm), Pandora can often be found standing on her toes or climbing people/furniture to get something that is out of her reach. Although a witch, she is of the belief that scaling things is more fun than summoning the item.

Pandora is also prone to running then jumping into people’s arms. If asked what happens if someone isn’t prepared, her usual answer is “I’ve done it enough times to trust they won’t let me fall… That and I’ll whine if they do.”

[healerrosier]

At 6 ft. 2 in. (187.96 cm), Evan is the second tallest member of his family. A rather unfortunate thing since him of a decade ago would have preferred having an inch or two on his father so he wasn’t constantly being looked down on. He’s never really had an issue with it past that, rather appreciating that he doesn’t always need to wave his wand to summon something out of reach.

[drxmedatonks]

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: PATRONUS CHARM

Andromeda's patronus is a FALCON.

Falcon's are notorious problem-solvers, commonly sitting perched up on high branches, where they can watch everything and easily locate their prey. They are highly intelligent birds, often associated with DOMINANCE, ambition, and freedom. Many groups may also believe the falcon to symbolise warfare. 

She can comfortably conjure up a patronus -- Andromeda's life isn't filled with any feeling in between, she has high highs and low lows. There are plenty of memories to pluck from, feelings easily filling up her chest to bring her the necessary emotion for this spell. Namely her favorite, and the one that pushes her patronus out the fastest, is remembering the day Nymphadora was born, her little body dropped onto Andromeda's chest for the first time in her life, her lungs so tiny that her cries were a quiet, precious thing. Ted by her side, her own eyes filled up with tears.

If you ask her, that's the secret people don't seem to know about, or they don't care enough to see. Love, Andromeda would tell you, is the real feeling one should focus on when conjuring up a patronus charm -- the happiness will be a consequence.

[adarkershadeofalice]

Alice Longbottom is 5′9″ (or 1.75 meters), which puts her just a smidge taller than her mentor and co-worker, Alastor Moody—although since he wears taller boots than she does, it isn’t usually obvious—and two inches shorter than her husband, Frank.

Having grown-up around many taller people, and coming from a family that all share similar or greater heights, Alice doesn’t tend to think of herself as particularly tall, although she is a little above average. Regardless, she thinks herself a perfectly reasonable height: tall enough that she can reach most shelves with ease, but not so tall that she has to duck to go under doorways. If she were asked, Alice would say that the most tedious part of her height is the fact that most chairs seem to have been designed for shorter people, and those extra few inches can be annoying to deal with when one is sitting for any length of time—at least so long as one is expected to maintain proper posture in said too-short-legged chairs. Alice is thus prone to crossing or curling or propping her legs up on things rather than sitting in a properly demure and ladylike position. If they wanted her to be ladylike, they should have designed chairs that were comfortable.

She’s also not particularly fond of the way off-the-rack robes are all so short in the sleeves (broad shoulders compound the problem of arm length for her) but between the Longbottom fortune and the generous wages she makes as an Auror, that’s easily worked-around by simply ordering only bespoke instead.

[wila-travers]

Character Development 001: Patronus Charm 

It took Wila almost a year of being in the Order to be able to cast a corporeal Patronus. Prior to joining the Order, she had known of the Patronus charm and it’s uses, but she had never had a reason to try it outside of curiosity, and Wila had never cared much about what shape her Patronus might take. But joining the Order, it became a necessary skill that she needed for her success in the organization. But by then, Wila had been dealt the death of her sister, so focusing on happy memories was particularly difficult. 

But that didn’t mean that Wila wasn’t determined to figure out a way to work around her grief. 

If she wanted the rest of the Order to take her seriously and to realize what an asset she could be, it only seemed natural that she learn how to cast the spell. But the problem was that most of her happiest memories were with Sarai, and they were locked behind a wall of grief. No matter how hard she tried, the thought of her sister brought tears to her eyes and a knife to the heart. It was rather quick that Wila realized that thoughts of Sarai were useless on her quest to casting a corporeal Patronus. 

Months of frustration followed. It wasn’t often that Wila struggled with something like she struggled with this particular spell. She had practically been a prodigy when it came to finance and magic had always come easy to her. The frustration of not being able to do something that the vast majority of the Order could do didn’t help. She tried to think of as many different happy memories as she could, including the memory of her father finally accepting her for who she was, but even that memory was tainted by Sarai’s beaming face. 

But then on a particularly chilly winter evening, it finally hit Wila. Someone had once told her that she didn’t necessarily need to think of a happy memory but perhaps a happy outcome. The first time that Wila managed to cast her Patronus, she thought of the joy that she would feel at avenging her sister’s death. And out of of her wand burst a small Patronus. It took her a few moments to realize what it was.

A crow.

It’s a fitting Patronus for Wila. In many cultures, the crow is an omen of death and darkness, which suits Wila. She hopes to be an omen of death for the Death Eaters. But more than that, crows are known to symbolize transformation and life changes, and they are problem solvers and are great at coming up with solutions. 

In ancient mythology, crows were often the mediator between life and death and were the bearers of bad news, often bringing news of a hero’s death to others. People with a crow Patronus can be seen as cunning and crafty but also misunderstood because of the association with dark omens. They have a creative intelligence, are dependable and protective, and are very good at spotting hidden dangers. 

[recreancyrpg]

At various times the admins will make a character development post.  This is completely optional - just a chance for players to expand their character and build them more into the roleplay. It will count towards activity. You can find all previously posted character development posts here. Feel free to answer old ones retroactively!

While it’s true that it’s what’s on the inside that counts, a person’s outer shell nonetheless impacts how they move through the world…and how other people interact with them. Knowing which character has to bend over to talk to someone else, or who has to stand on their tiptoes if they want to grab someone else by the collar, can add a surprising amount of interest to an interaction! So tell us your character’s height and how that affects the way they move through the world.

                             (Feel free to put your height too just for fun!)

Please list in both feet and meters for ease of understanding for all, and tag your posts with RECREANCYHEIGHT for ease of later reference!

[lxceandlovegood]

XENOPHILIUS LOVEGOOD'S PATRONUS

Growing up with a sense of magic, Xenophilius always had a very sure sense of themself, no matter how down they were or how atrocious wix and Muggles could be to them. They have a plethora of happy memories, from both their childhood and growing up, to counteract those times of strife and hardship.

Because of this, Xeno finds it incredibly easy to cast a corporeal patronus. In fact, they were able to do it within their first few tries, much to the chagrin of their peers. The memories that they harness fluctuate, but they almost always involve a loved one, be that a friend or a family member, and never just themself.

When their patronus takes shape, it is in the guise of a loyal, loving beagle hound. Eager and as sweet as its caster, the beagle is loyal to a fault, curious, genuinely happy, and a free-spirit. That being said, if you cross Xeno or their patronus, or harm someone they love, you'll be sure to find a few teeth marks in your behind as your make your way out the door.