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User Name/Nick: Rei
User LJ: magdaleina
AIM/IM: SchmooeyFoo
E-mail: weirdophreak17@yahoo.com
Other Characters: The Marquis de Sade impure_tale, Mozenrath mighty_morbid, Rose Tyler love_dont_roam, Reaver tatty-bye
Character Name: Frances Owens
Series: Practical Magic (the movie)
Age: Indeterminate. Old enough to have had a sister's daughters grow up and have children (aged up to 8 years old) -- though she looks to be a woman in her mid to late forties. However, it is hinted in the film, and I'm going to run with it that Frances and her sister Jet -- known as "the aunts" -- have not visibly aged at least since the main characters (Jillian and Sally) were very young themselves. It's never established that their Nieces' mother is their sister and not another niece -- but for the sake of this app and to prevent headcanon, she was their much younger sister.
From When?: (She will be returning from the point she left off and will not realize she has been gone all that long.) She's coming aboard the Barge toward the end of the movie, after she and Jet left the Owens house as a way of spurring their nieces into cleaning up their own "mess". She serves here as a means of guaranteeing the safety of her nieces and her grand-nieces -- and perhaps also to achieve a guarantee that their family curse can be broken. The former is a matter that she has perfect faith in the normal way of things to deliver, the latter requires power she cannot access. It is possible that she and her sister may have come to the Barge before, and this may very well be the source of their agelessness. However, as a means of protecting her mind from the secrets she learned there, and from using those secrets or giving people access to them that should not have them, she has no memory of the place beyond fleeting, dream-like images and is aware of her unmemory as a protective measure.
Inmate/Warden: Warden -- Frances has experience raising up her two nieces alongside her sister, Jet, and as one of the known local witches in her little village, has also had a good deal of experience in tendering her powers toward the service of the many superstitious women and men living there -- people who would avoid her on the street but when the chips are down will happily look to her abilities. As it is, with her vast knowledge and subtle power, she has a keen understanding of the laws of nature, how to bend or go around them, and the often poetic justice that comes in with that. Because of this, she admires the mission of the barge and is happy to contribute to it.
Item: For information while in ports (and to open Warden-only areas on the ship), she has a small book where clues and directions will appear. While aboard the Barge, though, her Inmate being in danger and other similar clues will be presented to her much in the way most of her premonitions are -- through overt symbols and happenings in her everyday surroundings, which concur with old wives tales and superstitions more often than not. While on board the ship, if her Inmate's picture falls off her wall in her cabin, it means they have been killed. She will see external signs of this while off the ship -- such as hearing the deathwatch beetle, or seeing six crows, etc. If they are in danger, her ring finger will burn where her wedding ring used to be worn.
Abilities/Powers: Frances is a natural-born witch. It is implied in the film that the powers that the Owens women have are hereditary. However, they move with certain pagan circles time and again, giving the indication that while their individual powers might be unique, there is a culture of people who adhere to the same beliefs as they do -- not at all unlike Pagans in contemporary society today, though the Owens women do not outwardly favor any specified deities. As it is, Frances' powers are effective but mostly subtle. She and all women in their family have a knack for simply making things "happen" -- whether a door closes by itself and hits someone on the ass, or leaves fall from a tree in mid-spring, or someone staring rudely trips on a landing. It's more assumed by the other villagers that they cause these things, but it could also be that the Owens women are simply lucky, and their presence causes things to fall into place in a certain way. Karma works double-time for them. Often what might be their power is so subtle that it's left up to the onlooker to decide whether it's them or just a freak coincidence.
What seems to also be quite apparent is that the aunts appear to just automatically know things about people -- it's not mind reading so much as something they can just pick up by looking at a person (or by just somehow knowing all gossip in the village despite existing on the fringes). They can also hex people -- in that if they point a finger at you and say they want you to get the measles, you probably will. This is seen at the hands of one of her grand nieces, who is scolded for the display. Owens women are also seen jumping from the roof of their home on Halloween and "flying" -- or rather, floating gently to the ground. They can also stir without having their hands on the implement, light candles by blowing on them, etc. This is not achieved so much through some inherent power they have over certain elements so much as an intrinsic harmony with them.
Anything more powerful and overt -- such as making a person fall in love with another, or bringing someone back from the dead (things that are best left to natural occurrence and not meant to be tampered with) requires very specific ritual and the gathering of materials, and always comes with a price -- typically of the poetic "be careful what you wish for" variety. These are rituals she does not have memorized and requires her family book of spells to perform -- most of them also require that a second caster be present, as Owens women tend to come in twos -- but not always. She was rarely seen casting in the film without her sister Jet present.
Personality: Frances is one of the two mysterious and alluring "aunts" -- known for decades, like their mother before them, to be witches by the locals in their village. It's not a part she plays; she simply is, and has come to accept that people who know what she is don't want to be her neighbor or her friend, or really see her as anything other than a witch -- to be kept at arm's length, always regarded with curiosity if not suspicion, and occasionally useful. Though Jet will never seem to give up being friendly with people and openly soliciting them for conversation and human interaction, to Frances this is futile. She's no longer offended by the way that people avoid her; she's just become jaded to it. You can't fix stupid.
Frances is very reserved and practical to a degree, especially if you compare her to her sister. As mentioned before, she doesn't mind the family keeping to themselves versus the other locals, but this doesn't translate as hiding to her. She's the first to give a straightforward, sometimes even overly blunt, answer. She rather disdains anything she considers to be hiding, or failing to accept oneself and one's circumstances for what they are. People who deny what they are in the hope of seeming more normal strike her as cowardly, though she might put this just a little more gently to people she actually likes. On the other hand, people who wantonly flaunt themselves, especially hoping that someone who disapproves will see them, kind of irritate her as well. There is such a thing as living and letting live, and she prefers to exist with an air of dignity.
Among the Aunts, she seems more outwardly strong and brave -- not to say Jet is cowardly, but while Jet shows her fearlessness by smiling, telling a joke, and remaining pleasant and in that way "above" the circumstances, Frances is quicker to turn hard and firm and display her dominant nature with a sort of no-nonsense attitude. It's also harder for her to maintain the serendipitous air that her sister seems to just naturally exist in. The death of her husband, Ethan, in concurrence with their family curse (that any man who loves an Owens woman is doomed to die), is something she openly accepts as fate. She cannot comprehend Jet's desire to insist in front of their then-young nieces that it was an accident -- even though it was, understandably, done to shield them from the circumstances behind the many deaths surrounding their family, until they were old enough to accept it. Her choice to come to the Barge to perhaps undo that curse is a rare and bold move for her, as she seemed always willing to accept that there is simply nothing that can be done about it.
Around people who know and accept her for who and what she is, she's a warmer, more open and fun-loving individual. Magic is regarded with less pointed aloofness on her part, sparing the cryptic turn of phrase she reserves for the uninitiated. She enjoys companionship, a good laugh, the beauty of nature, of song, and even of the people she's come to feel estranged to. While it seems to be in her blood to look after those that need her, she's more like a big sister than a mother, able to dispense helpful advice on one hand but not too proper to have a drink with you and tell a dirty joke in the next moment. She loves her body -- the human body in general in fact, but understanding what being an Owens woman does to men, she isn't always so open to the thought of being outwardly sensual -- perhaps because she can't separate the act of sex from love, personally, no matter how flippant she is on the subject as a natural process.
As a Warden, Frances will treat all people, her Inmate included, much as she treated welcome guests back home. The ancestral house the aunts keep is a place without conventional rules. They have chocolate cake and soda for breakfast, and they never forced their nieces to do things like homework or take baths -- that's just the sort of thing that solves itself. You want to be a smelly failure? Then be one. You don't? Then you'll take a bath when you need to and study. She maintains, though, that the things the girls learn in the Owens house are much more important than the things they learn in school. This is her approach to Wardening. Be wise. Teach common sense. Be respectful of all things around you. Let people make their own mistakes and reap the consequences.
History: Wiki Link to the film
New Sample Journal Entry: "Where has the time gone?" a given person muses, after misplacing a few odd hours. I won't mark it impossible for months to fill the void of lost space, but somehow I still think that the phrase was not coined for such occassions. It becomes less of time wandering away from you and more you wandering away from time.
So I suppose the more appropriate question is "Where have I been?"
The number on my door has changed, but little else on the inside. If I'm seeking more violent change I probably need only look at the current populus. It is too much to hope, for instance, that Mister Swearengen is still aboard? Miss Rose? Or that sweet boy who brought me potting soil?
New Sample RP: Frances thought that perhaps she should have felt as though this were some sort of return, that she should feel as though she missed her cabin, stuffed with the basic comforts of home. She sat by the fireplace, steeping a cup of tea whilst she contemplated these surroundings, her last conversation with her previous Inmate still fresh in her mind as though it had only been the day before. Unfortunately, other than the sudden awareness that time had passed, she had no conscious understanding that she had gone away, no feeling of absense. The only thing this made her do was trust the environment a lot less -- surroundings that had been built so that she could live as she had back on the island, with her senses just as open and unhindered.
Provided she did not experience any similar jumps in time in the near future, she could rebuild her rapport, perhaps. Now it was as though the flames of candles, the shadows along the edges of bookcases and picture frames, were watching her, listening, expectant -- of what she did not know. Perhaps this displacement only heightened her awareness of the Admiral, since this was all his own creation.
She scoffed to herself, "Enough, girl," and bent to sip her tea -- still a little too hot; she deserved that. Whatever the circumstances behind her disappearance, it had been for a reason. Perhaps she simply wasn't the Warden for Al Swearengen, and she was here again, now open for someone more appropriate. She sat back in her chair tiredly, still holding her cup close to breathe in its calm aromas.
For whatever reason, the situation inspired the old song "Que sera sera" to drone in a somewhat teasing strain in the back of her mind, and she couldn't help but chuckle.
Sample Journal Entry: When you spend so much of your life guiding another hand at the pot, and then make the decision to step away and see if lumps start to form, a certain -- nervous energy bubbles up in a person. Having never been a mother but having always been an aunt, I really don't think it's an "empty nest" issue. When you're the aunt, the birds can come back whenever they want, and they do. In fact, they're there now, and I'm here -- making myself useful before I return just in the nick of time.
As it should be.
The Admiral knows how to make a deal, so at least deep down I know there's no point in worrying. You can't do everything for them.
...Of course, I wasn't expecting to make the journey alone. I don't suppose anyone has seen my sister? Kindly lady, big smiler, answers to the name of Jet? Probably went out of her way to say 'hello' to you in passing if you saw her at all, come to think of it.
Sample RP: "This is completely ridiculous."
First-timers said things like that a lot. Even back home -- some lucky native managed to be raised to disbelieve while the rest of the island remained guardedly superstitious, or some poor fool newly moved there had been drawn by all the rumors floating around. Either way, it didn't matter. Lesser practitioners tended to find themselves blocked if the querent was unwilling. Frances kind of wished that it were that easy -- her family and the people around them would have been much happier if they could ignore one another.
But everyone has to eat.
As it was, she was unshaken as she unwrapped her deck. "A lot of completely natural things are ridiculous. There's no shame in it, or it would have stopped you from coming here." She gestured to the chair across from hers. "Sit."
The Inmate sat, and his whole being exemplified a person entirely too postured to knowingly show just how uncomfortable they were -- rigid while sitting, haughty lifting of the chin, hands flat in the lap with the odd reach to brush a little hair from the brow -- the sort of telling signs that could be used by any two-bit charlatan to open a reading with "you seem to be troubled" or something equally leading.
Given his garb, and earlier conversations she had seen, he probably knew this, and expected more of the same. It paid to be observant.
"Taking it all in?" he asked. "I suppose you want to tell me now that my 'aura' suggests great turmoil." Okay, so his phony-opener was better.
"Actually your aura suggests you're slowly recovering from a devastating injury -- so slowly, in fact, that the only progress to be seen is that you're not getting worse. Now, your body language tells me that you're uncomfortable, and your insistence on coming here despite your obvious skepticism is what clinches the whole great turmoil thing. But A for effort, kid." Frances set her stack of cards face down on the table between them. "Shuffle seven times."
Special Notes: The nature of the Owens women's powers is hard to describe in black and white terms, much less limit -- especially considering they're usually very subtle, small things they do. Naturally I won't make assumptions on the things that she does -- major, book-requiring spells will be plotted and announced in the ooc, and I'll check with people in IM before having her know or do anything to or about anyone.
User LJ: magdaleina
AIM/IM: SchmooeyFoo
E-mail: weirdophreak17@yahoo.com
Other Characters: The Marquis de Sade impure_tale, Mozenrath mighty_morbid, Rose Tyler love_dont_roam, Reaver tatty-bye
Character Name: Frances Owens
Series: Practical Magic (the movie)
Age: Indeterminate. Old enough to have had a sister's daughters grow up and have children (aged up to 8 years old) -- though she looks to be a woman in her mid to late forties. However, it is hinted in the film, and I'm going to run with it that Frances and her sister Jet -- known as "the aunts" -- have not visibly aged at least since the main characters (Jillian and Sally) were very young themselves. It's never established that their Nieces' mother is their sister and not another niece -- but for the sake of this app and to prevent headcanon, she was their much younger sister.
From When?: (She will be returning from the point she left off and will not realize she has been gone all that long.) She's coming aboard the Barge toward the end of the movie, after she and Jet left the Owens house as a way of spurring their nieces into cleaning up their own "mess". She serves here as a means of guaranteeing the safety of her nieces and her grand-nieces -- and perhaps also to achieve a guarantee that their family curse can be broken. The former is a matter that she has perfect faith in the normal way of things to deliver, the latter requires power she cannot access. It is possible that she and her sister may have come to the Barge before, and this may very well be the source of their agelessness. However, as a means of protecting her mind from the secrets she learned there, and from using those secrets or giving people access to them that should not have them, she has no memory of the place beyond fleeting, dream-like images and is aware of her unmemory as a protective measure.
Inmate/Warden: Warden -- Frances has experience raising up her two nieces alongside her sister, Jet, and as one of the known local witches in her little village, has also had a good deal of experience in tendering her powers toward the service of the many superstitious women and men living there -- people who would avoid her on the street but when the chips are down will happily look to her abilities. As it is, with her vast knowledge and subtle power, she has a keen understanding of the laws of nature, how to bend or go around them, and the often poetic justice that comes in with that. Because of this, she admires the mission of the barge and is happy to contribute to it.
Item: For information while in ports (and to open Warden-only areas on the ship), she has a small book where clues and directions will appear. While aboard the Barge, though, her Inmate being in danger and other similar clues will be presented to her much in the way most of her premonitions are -- through overt symbols and happenings in her everyday surroundings, which concur with old wives tales and superstitions more often than not. While on board the ship, if her Inmate's picture falls off her wall in her cabin, it means they have been killed. She will see external signs of this while off the ship -- such as hearing the deathwatch beetle, or seeing six crows, etc. If they are in danger, her ring finger will burn where her wedding ring used to be worn.
Abilities/Powers: Frances is a natural-born witch. It is implied in the film that the powers that the Owens women have are hereditary. However, they move with certain pagan circles time and again, giving the indication that while their individual powers might be unique, there is a culture of people who adhere to the same beliefs as they do -- not at all unlike Pagans in contemporary society today, though the Owens women do not outwardly favor any specified deities. As it is, Frances' powers are effective but mostly subtle. She and all women in their family have a knack for simply making things "happen" -- whether a door closes by itself and hits someone on the ass, or leaves fall from a tree in mid-spring, or someone staring rudely trips on a landing. It's more assumed by the other villagers that they cause these things, but it could also be that the Owens women are simply lucky, and their presence causes things to fall into place in a certain way. Karma works double-time for them. Often what might be their power is so subtle that it's left up to the onlooker to decide whether it's them or just a freak coincidence.
What seems to also be quite apparent is that the aunts appear to just automatically know things about people -- it's not mind reading so much as something they can just pick up by looking at a person (or by just somehow knowing all gossip in the village despite existing on the fringes). They can also hex people -- in that if they point a finger at you and say they want you to get the measles, you probably will. This is seen at the hands of one of her grand nieces, who is scolded for the display. Owens women are also seen jumping from the roof of their home on Halloween and "flying" -- or rather, floating gently to the ground. They can also stir without having their hands on the implement, light candles by blowing on them, etc. This is not achieved so much through some inherent power they have over certain elements so much as an intrinsic harmony with them.
Anything more powerful and overt -- such as making a person fall in love with another, or bringing someone back from the dead (things that are best left to natural occurrence and not meant to be tampered with) requires very specific ritual and the gathering of materials, and always comes with a price -- typically of the poetic "be careful what you wish for" variety. These are rituals she does not have memorized and requires her family book of spells to perform -- most of them also require that a second caster be present, as Owens women tend to come in twos -- but not always. She was rarely seen casting in the film without her sister Jet present.
Personality: Frances is one of the two mysterious and alluring "aunts" -- known for decades, like their mother before them, to be witches by the locals in their village. It's not a part she plays; she simply is, and has come to accept that people who know what she is don't want to be her neighbor or her friend, or really see her as anything other than a witch -- to be kept at arm's length, always regarded with curiosity if not suspicion, and occasionally useful. Though Jet will never seem to give up being friendly with people and openly soliciting them for conversation and human interaction, to Frances this is futile. She's no longer offended by the way that people avoid her; she's just become jaded to it. You can't fix stupid.
Frances is very reserved and practical to a degree, especially if you compare her to her sister. As mentioned before, she doesn't mind the family keeping to themselves versus the other locals, but this doesn't translate as hiding to her. She's the first to give a straightforward, sometimes even overly blunt, answer. She rather disdains anything she considers to be hiding, or failing to accept oneself and one's circumstances for what they are. People who deny what they are in the hope of seeming more normal strike her as cowardly, though she might put this just a little more gently to people she actually likes. On the other hand, people who wantonly flaunt themselves, especially hoping that someone who disapproves will see them, kind of irritate her as well. There is such a thing as living and letting live, and she prefers to exist with an air of dignity.
Among the Aunts, she seems more outwardly strong and brave -- not to say Jet is cowardly, but while Jet shows her fearlessness by smiling, telling a joke, and remaining pleasant and in that way "above" the circumstances, Frances is quicker to turn hard and firm and display her dominant nature with a sort of no-nonsense attitude. It's also harder for her to maintain the serendipitous air that her sister seems to just naturally exist in. The death of her husband, Ethan, in concurrence with their family curse (that any man who loves an Owens woman is doomed to die), is something she openly accepts as fate. She cannot comprehend Jet's desire to insist in front of their then-young nieces that it was an accident -- even though it was, understandably, done to shield them from the circumstances behind the many deaths surrounding their family, until they were old enough to accept it. Her choice to come to the Barge to perhaps undo that curse is a rare and bold move for her, as she seemed always willing to accept that there is simply nothing that can be done about it.
Around people who know and accept her for who and what she is, she's a warmer, more open and fun-loving individual. Magic is regarded with less pointed aloofness on her part, sparing the cryptic turn of phrase she reserves for the uninitiated. She enjoys companionship, a good laugh, the beauty of nature, of song, and even of the people she's come to feel estranged to. While it seems to be in her blood to look after those that need her, she's more like a big sister than a mother, able to dispense helpful advice on one hand but not too proper to have a drink with you and tell a dirty joke in the next moment. She loves her body -- the human body in general in fact, but understanding what being an Owens woman does to men, she isn't always so open to the thought of being outwardly sensual -- perhaps because she can't separate the act of sex from love, personally, no matter how flippant she is on the subject as a natural process.
As a Warden, Frances will treat all people, her Inmate included, much as she treated welcome guests back home. The ancestral house the aunts keep is a place without conventional rules. They have chocolate cake and soda for breakfast, and they never forced their nieces to do things like homework or take baths -- that's just the sort of thing that solves itself. You want to be a smelly failure? Then be one. You don't? Then you'll take a bath when you need to and study. She maintains, though, that the things the girls learn in the Owens house are much more important than the things they learn in school. This is her approach to Wardening. Be wise. Teach common sense. Be respectful of all things around you. Let people make their own mistakes and reap the consequences.
History: Wiki Link to the film
New Sample Journal Entry: "Where has the time gone?" a given person muses, after misplacing a few odd hours. I won't mark it impossible for months to fill the void of lost space, but somehow I still think that the phrase was not coined for such occassions. It becomes less of time wandering away from you and more you wandering away from time.
So I suppose the more appropriate question is "Where have I been?"
The number on my door has changed, but little else on the inside. If I'm seeking more violent change I probably need only look at the current populus. It is too much to hope, for instance, that Mister Swearengen is still aboard? Miss Rose? Or that sweet boy who brought me potting soil?
New Sample RP: Frances thought that perhaps she should have felt as though this were some sort of return, that she should feel as though she missed her cabin, stuffed with the basic comforts of home. She sat by the fireplace, steeping a cup of tea whilst she contemplated these surroundings, her last conversation with her previous Inmate still fresh in her mind as though it had only been the day before. Unfortunately, other than the sudden awareness that time had passed, she had no conscious understanding that she had gone away, no feeling of absense. The only thing this made her do was trust the environment a lot less -- surroundings that had been built so that she could live as she had back on the island, with her senses just as open and unhindered.
Provided she did not experience any similar jumps in time in the near future, she could rebuild her rapport, perhaps. Now it was as though the flames of candles, the shadows along the edges of bookcases and picture frames, were watching her, listening, expectant -- of what she did not know. Perhaps this displacement only heightened her awareness of the Admiral, since this was all his own creation.
She scoffed to herself, "Enough, girl," and bent to sip her tea -- still a little too hot; she deserved that. Whatever the circumstances behind her disappearance, it had been for a reason. Perhaps she simply wasn't the Warden for Al Swearengen, and she was here again, now open for someone more appropriate. She sat back in her chair tiredly, still holding her cup close to breathe in its calm aromas.
For whatever reason, the situation inspired the old song "Que sera sera" to drone in a somewhat teasing strain in the back of her mind, and she couldn't help but chuckle.
Sample Journal Entry: When you spend so much of your life guiding another hand at the pot, and then make the decision to step away and see if lumps start to form, a certain -- nervous energy bubbles up in a person. Having never been a mother but having always been an aunt, I really don't think it's an "empty nest" issue. When you're the aunt, the birds can come back whenever they want, and they do. In fact, they're there now, and I'm here -- making myself useful before I return just in the nick of time.
As it should be.
The Admiral knows how to make a deal, so at least deep down I know there's no point in worrying. You can't do everything for them.
...Of course, I wasn't expecting to make the journey alone. I don't suppose anyone has seen my sister? Kindly lady, big smiler, answers to the name of Jet? Probably went out of her way to say 'hello' to you in passing if you saw her at all, come to think of it.
Sample RP: "This is completely ridiculous."
First-timers said things like that a lot. Even back home -- some lucky native managed to be raised to disbelieve while the rest of the island remained guardedly superstitious, or some poor fool newly moved there had been drawn by all the rumors floating around. Either way, it didn't matter. Lesser practitioners tended to find themselves blocked if the querent was unwilling. Frances kind of wished that it were that easy -- her family and the people around them would have been much happier if they could ignore one another.
But everyone has to eat.
As it was, she was unshaken as she unwrapped her deck. "A lot of completely natural things are ridiculous. There's no shame in it, or it would have stopped you from coming here." She gestured to the chair across from hers. "Sit."
The Inmate sat, and his whole being exemplified a person entirely too postured to knowingly show just how uncomfortable they were -- rigid while sitting, haughty lifting of the chin, hands flat in the lap with the odd reach to brush a little hair from the brow -- the sort of telling signs that could be used by any two-bit charlatan to open a reading with "you seem to be troubled" or something equally leading.
Given his garb, and earlier conversations she had seen, he probably knew this, and expected more of the same. It paid to be observant.
"Taking it all in?" he asked. "I suppose you want to tell me now that my 'aura' suggests great turmoil." Okay, so his phony-opener was better.
"Actually your aura suggests you're slowly recovering from a devastating injury -- so slowly, in fact, that the only progress to be seen is that you're not getting worse. Now, your body language tells me that you're uncomfortable, and your insistence on coming here despite your obvious skepticism is what clinches the whole great turmoil thing. But A for effort, kid." Frances set her stack of cards face down on the table between them. "Shuffle seven times."
Special Notes: The nature of the Owens women's powers is hard to describe in black and white terms, much less limit -- especially considering they're usually very subtle, small things they do. Naturally I won't make assumptions on the things that she does -- major, book-requiring spells will be plotted and announced in the ooc, and I'll check with people in IM before having her know or do anything to or about anyone.