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profile: sophomore year
the drink you spilled all over me
"lover's spit" left on repeat
mom and dad let me stay home
it feels so scary, getting old
"lover's spit" left on repeat
mom and dad let me stay home
it feels so scary, getting old
GENERAL
NAME: Natalie Laurentia Prince.
NICKNAMES: Tally. Tals.
AGE/DOB: 16 / November 24 1998.
BLOOD STATUS: Half-Blood.
GENDER/PRONOUNS: Female. She/her.
SEXUALITY: If you ask her on any given day, she'll give you a very confident answer, although it changes monthly. She's still figuring things out.
HOMETOWN: Three Willows, Connecticut.
CONCEPT: Spoiled sweet musical prodigy thinks heartbreak is the key to inspiration.
PHYSICAL
APPEARANCE: She strives to imitate her older sister in all things, so it's only natural that she wears her hair and does her makeup exactly like a blonde Mackenzie clone. Her personal fashion is a little more twee than vampy, though, and she tends to dress for comfort. (x, x, x.)
DISABILITY: Natalie suffers from a blood-bourne curse known as endokataric parapoena, or Shafiq's Syndrome. It's not well-understood by healers, but it's thought in some circles that abstaining from using magic may ease symptoms. Originally studied by pureblood French witch Amandine Shafiq in the early twentieth century, its known symptoms are:
- Chronic widespread pain.
- Episodes of intense and painful hallucinations.
- Episodes of fatigue and weakness.
- Hypersensitivity of all five senses.
- Stunted magical development.
Natalie probably inherited this condition from the Prince side of the family, as it tends to surface most frequently in children whose families are stringently pureblooded. Ironically, the Princes-at-Large consider her poor health and lacking magical abilities to be a consequence of her mother's blood impurity.
HEIGHT: 5'8".
PB: Willa Fitzgerald.
PERSONALITY
LIKES: Very dark chocolate, sweet tea, horses, pastel colors, junk food, vinyl records, snowy weather, sweaters, sleeping in late, stuffed animals.
DISLIKES: Being bossed around, clutter, constructive criticism, scented candles, glitter and bright colors, people who treat her like she's stupid, uncomfortable clothes (90% of her "Nice Dresses" fall into this category).
PERSONALITY:
Like calm water with a strong undertow, Natalie seems placid on the surface. But if you're not careful, you're liable to be swept away.
Natalie is undeniably spoiled. She spent her childhood having her every need doted upon, and it shows in how she interacts with her peers. She's not totally oblivious or rude; she knows she can't boss her roommates around and would never ask them to do her chores for her. But she is naive, and doesn't know how simple things like "making your own bed" or "being held accountable for your actions" work.
With her friends, she's a total steamroller. She knows how she wants things to be and isn't shy about telling other people her vision. Once she's decided something, it's very hard to change her mind about it; she has her favorite foods, she knows she looks best standing in the middle for group choreography, and she definitely knows best when it comes to group classwork.
She doesn't like being challenged or told what to do; even though her parents expected her to be a well-behaved child, she's had free reign of her life since she was very small. Negotiation and compromise are things she still needs to work on (as noted by the Emblems when she was selecting Ribbonfin house for herself), but even though she frequently tries to make compromises, she's very stubborn and easily frustrated. When she's denied her way, she's prone to leaving the room in a huff after listening to counter-arguments.
Despite all that, she's genuinely very sweet. She was lonely growing up and for her first few years at boarding school, and is easy to befriend and eager to be well-liked by her peers. She likes hearing about other people's hobbies, and can quiet contentedly listen to other people talk about what enthuses them for hours on end. She's also very good at remembering details, and is the kind of person who knows all her friends' little siblings' names and birthdays.
Never intentionally rude or mean, she is sometimes a little too blunt for her own good. She doesn't have a deceptive bone in her body, but that means that she's fuzzy on the concept of "keeping secrets" and has never told a white lie for anyone else's benefit in her life. With her, what you see is what you get. She'll say anything she feels is true, and is often unaware that she might be hurting other people's feelings.
Similarly, she can be a little forward when it comes to her social interactions. Some people find her eagerness to be awkward, but she doesn't know why anyone would try to act less enthusiastic about something than they actually are. She gets excited about the things she loves, and she does it unapologeticly.
Always optimistic even when things get tough for her, she's a little bit of a wide-eyed idealist. Along with being spoiled, she had a very sheltered upbringing, and Gooseberry doesn't actually do that much to challenge her world views. She thinks it does, though. She thinks she's enduring and growing through so much right now.
+ friendly, unflappable, optimistic, open, communicative.
= stubborn, spirited, excitable. music smart, book and people dumb.
- spoiled, domineering, naive, blunt, inflexible.
SKILLS
LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English.
PATRONUS: Because of her disability, Natalie is incapable of casting a patronus charm.
SKILLS:
- Singing. Tally has a strong and agile belting voice that you wouldn't necessarily expect from her reedy speaking voice (ref). Singing is her primary talent as a performer.
- Instruments. She also plays the guitar, ukulele, harp, and piano, and does so very well. She can navigate her way around most other instruments with a little bit of practice. She and Marie both enjoy making music out of improvised instruments, and they often play percussion and do their backing tracks on toy instruments and midi controllers.
- Composition. Natalie is a musical thinker, and composition comes as naturally to her as speaking does. She can also transcribe music by ear and she has perfect pitch.
- Gardening. As a society daughter growing up in Three Willows, Natalie didn't have a lot of opportunities to play in the mud as a child. That might be why she's so partial to gardening now. She particularly likes flowers with wide variation in colors, like tulips, roses and irises.
- Dance. She's not nearly as serious about dancing as she is about singing and songwriting, but she considers it a career skill and enjoys it as a hobby as well.
- Magic. Due to her illness, her magic skills were slow to develop and are naturally weak. While she can learn spells and enchantments, more complex acts of magic are often out of reach for her, and she struggles with advanced subjects like transfiguration and defense against the dark arts.
HISTORY
FAMILY MEMBERS:
Efrain Prince, father. Pureblood. Wand repair expert & owner of Royal Wand Repair Services.
Maisie Prince (nee [OPEN]), mother. Halfblood. Housewife.
Mackenzie Prince, sister. Halfblood. Azurcrest senior.
Kurt Wolfhart, second cousin. Halfblood. Ribbonfin senior.
[ Family history @ Kenzie's app. ]
HISTORY:
By the time Natalie was born, the Prince family was really beginning to settle into its new position in society and in the world. Even though she's only two years younger than her older sister, she was very decidedly the baby of the family, and her parents endeavored to shelter her from the Prince family dramas. She knew her grandfather was sick, of course, and she knew her sister was expected to take over the family business. But beyond that, all she knew was that her father's siblings were madly jealous of how successful he'd become, and they resented Mackenzie for being the favored heir. It wouldn't be until she was much older and went away to school that she'd realize exactly what her mother's heritage as a half-blood meant to the Princes.
So, her very young life was mostly idyllic. Her family was well-stationed, she never wanted for anything, and her mother in particular doted on her. She spent most of her days hiding behind Maisie's skirts at social functions. Although she didn't exactly mind the praises her mother's society friends heaped upon her (where Mackenzie was always the clever and ambitious one, Natalie was usually praised for being towheaded and well-behaved [read: quiet]), she was always a little shy around them.
But as Natalie grew older, she didn't show any signs of early magic. By the time she was seven, her mother had become concerned, and took her to a healer. But they were told it was normal for some children to be late bloomers, and for a few more years their fears were assuaged. As other children her age began to learn simple spells at magical elementary schools and from their parents, the Princes hired private tutors for Natalie in the hopes that learning theory would help her manifest her magical talent.
It didn't.
By the time she was nine, there were rumors circulating around town that she might be a squib. Natalie was kept blissfully aware of those rumors, and the more malicious ones from their extended family. Natalie wouldn't have minded if she did know. She'd gotten used to not having magic, and had taken up hobbies in singing and playing the harp and piano. She was naturally talented at music; to her, how easily the subject came to her might as well have been magic.
But as it turned out, she wasn't a squib. Her magic did develop, and it brought with it unexpected complications. Just months before her sister was set to start at Ilvermorny, Natalie suffered her first hallucinatory episode. To her, it had been a deeply unpleasant but very brief affair: she'd been eating dinner with her family one minute, in excruciating pain as if she were being burned alive the next, and then she'd woken at the local magical hospital, surrounded by perplexed healers. For her family, it was a longer torture. The healers had given her sleeping draughts to keep her unconscious as they tried to discern what was wrong with her, but three long days later and they hadn't found anything at all.
So they sent her home, and Natalie was given the small consolation prize of knowing that before she'd passed out, she'd done some accidental magic. (She'd broken the good china, but she'd done magic, and that was what was important.) And until the school year started, she was fine. But after Kenzie had left for school and the private tutor had returned to teach her how to control her newly manifested magic. Two things quickly became apparent: she was not a very talented witch, and there was definitely something wrong with her.
She puzzled her healers by insisting for months that she was in pain when they could find absolutely nothing wrong with her. A few healers suggested she may be feigning the affliction for attention; they were dismissed and replaced by the Princes. But even with all their money and clout, they could not find a healer who could find what was wrong with Natalie.
It took another year and a half, and two more frightening episodes of intense pain, for a diagnosis to come up. After being shuffled from specialist to specialist, Natalie finally ended up travelling to St. Mungo's in London with her mother to see a healer who specialized in blood-borne curses. She was able to tell them what all their other healers had not been able to say with certainty: Natalie's affliction was the result of a powerful dark magic that had been worked upon one of her ancestors and passed along to her in her blood. Unfortunately, she couldn't give them much good news: this particular curse had only a handful of cases on record, and nobody was sure how to break it or even treat it effectively. So they returned home with answers and not much peace of mind.
Her parents would've been very happy to keep their youngest daughter as close to home as possible, but Natalie was restless at home and she missed her sister sorely during the school year. After much begging and pleading, she finally convinced her parents to let her attend Ilvermorny, just like Kenzie did. Mrs. Prince in particular was hesitant to let her go, but with Kenzie and the girls' cousin Kurt Wolfhart both in attendance, Natalie had plenty of people to look out for her there. She was allowed to go, and sorted into Horned Serpent.
Things went smoothly for her first year there, but when Kenzie and Kurt left for Gooseberry she began to struggle. She didn't fit in with many of her classmates in Horned Serpent, academically minded and magically talented as they tended to be. Although she was still cultivating her musical talents, she was incredibly unpopular and unhappy at Ilvermorny, where she had the unshakable reputation of being Kenzie Prince's dimwitted baby sister. Mrs. Prince wanted Natalie to come home and resume her homeschooling, but she had other ideas, and applied to Gooseberry the minute she was able to.
By this time, she had an impressive portfolio of musical compositions, and was accepted to Gooseberry based on her work (she was not offered a scholarship, but how much this has to do with how sternly her father turned down Kenzie's scholarship is up for debate). She was much happier at an arts school, and of course relieved to be back under the wing of her sister.
Even though she was now being properly instructed in music, she also worked hard to improve her magical technique. Her father always encourages her to take the hard route and put her nose to the grindstone when things get tough, and she is determined to do him and the rest of her family proud. When she started at Gooseberry, he gave her a wand that he had refurbished himself with an experimental three-feather core. The wand is extremely reactive and would be unwieldy in anyone else's hands, but helps her perform more complex magical tasks than she is usually capable of.
During her freshman year, she befriended Marie Patterson, and the two of them formed a band together. Under her influence, Natalie ran a little wilder than she might've on her own. But she views it all as valuable life experience - the wellspring of creative inspiration. Marie and Natalie were regular fixtures at Grotto parties, and on anonymous posts. But even though she spent a good deal of time in close proximity to the forest entities, Natalie blissfully slept through the traumatizing events her classmates suffered, and still doesn't realize the full extent of what happened.
She spent a good portion of her summer break in Seattle with Marie working on their music, although she still made it back to Three Willows often enough to bother her sister and cousin. Shortly before returning to school for their sophomore year, Marie, Tally and their band sang the national anthem at a national league quodpot game in Olympus, Tennessee. She thinks they're famous now and you will definitely be seeing footage of this event if you attend the same school as she does.
And that's all of you. Suckers.
SCHOOL
YEAR: Sophomore (Grade 10)
HOUSE: Ribbonfin (Former Horned Serpent)
SORTING: Natalie is a strange case; her good qualities are Ribbonfin-y enough, but her bad qualities are very un-Ribbonfin-y. This was mentioned by the Fox, who thought Natalie would be a better fit in Coppertale. But she's a Prince, and Princes don't take the easy path. Ribbonfin is a home that challenges Natalie's controlling tendencies, and nurtures her loyalty and compassion.
WAND: Hornbeam wood, three-feather core (occamy, jabberknoll, phoenix), 13 3/4", responsive. This is an antique wand that was refurbished and re-cored by Efrain Prince specifically to amplify Natalie's naturally lacking magical talent. Hornbeam wands are noted for their propensity to pick masters with a single-minded passion in life, and they adapt readily to their owners' morals and ethics. Natalie's wand will not work for anybody but her, even for the simplest of magical tasks, and refuses to cause bodily harm to another living creature even in her hands. The three-feather core was experimental on her father's part and is extremely reactive, allowing her to more easily cast charms and jinxes.
FAMILIAR: A Cornish Rex cat named Harlow. Harlow has the preternatural intelligence of a magically bred animal, and Tally has trained her to perform basic service animal tasks such as fetching items, reminding Tally to take her meds, and alerting staff members if Tally's having an episode. Tally would rather have a dog, but large pets also aren't allowed at Ilvermorny, so she's had Harlow for about five years now.
CLASSES: Core: Charms, Herbology, Potions, History of Magic. Elective: Artificing, Astronomy, Magical Rudiments.
ADVANCED STUDY: Music. Natalie was accepted to Gooseberry based on her portfolio of compositions and wants to be a professional singer after she graduates, so it's the natural choice for her.
SENIOR PROJECT: She's recording an album! As a singer/songwriter she's doing all the vocals and music herself, but occasionally needs help from her classmates on instrumentation and lyrics. Although she considers these contribution to be mostly favors, [OPEN LINE - SOPHOMORE] potentially does enough collaborating with her for this to be considered a co-project.
ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: Music is obviously her favored and best subject; she goes above and beyond on every assignment given to her in music class, even if it's something boring like an essay on 17th century magical musicians. Potions and herbology are also interests; the magical remedies she uses for her disability are legal to home brew, and she'd like to be self-sufficient enough to brew them on her own. She'd need help from Healer Mufferaw, Mr. Elmasry or older classmates to brew them currently, though, as they are advanced recipes. She doesn't slack off in any of her classes - she does everything 110%. However, she does struggle in charms and artificing, as those subjects are most reliant on magical talent and direct spellwork. Artificing is particularly challenging for her, but she feels like she has to take it due to her family's strong background in wand repair. She has arrangements with her all teachers to complete extra credit assignments when she is unable to finish practical ones.
EXTRACURRICULARS: Choir, event committee, gaming, and gardening clubs. Morning barre. Her girl band, The Heretics, of whom she is the unofficial Josie McCoy.
Teacher's Assistant - Music. This new position would've been irresistible to Natalie even if she didn't idolize Ms. Thrussell, which she does (even if they do disagree on the subject of pop music). With her various projects, Natalie spends a lot of her downtime in the music room anyway, and is usually around at the end of the day to help tidy up or prepare for choir club. Anything that would give her an excuse to hang out in the music room or sit in on music classes for other years would be a huge boon to her, and the fact that the responsibility would look good on a resume is no small consideration either. Natalie would've made her case directly and enthusiastically to Ms. Thrussell, and she would've stopped just shy of begging for it. She doesn't beg.
(Natalie also has a very half-baked desire to perhaps teach music one day, but she wouldn't have told anyone about this yet. It's a much smaller ambition than being a famous pop star or renowned composer, and Natalie is absolutely not the kind of person who will knowingly undersell herself. Still, her passion for music is catching, and her technical expertise would make her a capable instructor for some basic topics even at her young age.)