InsaneJournal

PLAYER INFORMATION
NAME: Dee
AGE: 30 (OH GOD)
TIMEZONE: Australian EST (GMT+10, give or take)
AIM/EMAIL: cupiscent@gmail.com - catch me on email or gchat, AIM is a rarity.
EXPERIENCE: cupiscent
JOURNAL TO BE USED FOR CHARACTER: rejoyce



BASIC INFORMATION
FULL NAME: Joyce Caroline Jackson
GOES BY: What, is Joyce too long or difficult for your tiny mind? (She may accept Joy or JJ from select people, and every now and then will respond to people using only her surname with a rant about the inculcated patriarchal oppression signified by the forced definition of her as her father's child.)
AGE: 17
DATE OF BIRTH: 23 January 2005
ZODIAC SIGN: Aquarius
ASTROLOGY: Slytherin Aquarians are lucky. They have inner drive, determination, and great ambition; they also have brilliance, cleverness, and an almost total disregard for "what everybody thinks," which means they can go for their dreams without caring if other people mock them or consider them strange. More introverted and full of social conscience than the average Slytherin, these wizards are easily overlooked socially (by fools), although they excel in the classroom and eventually become great wizards indeed. They are stubborn and will not back down without a fight if challenged.
BLOODLINE: Messy as hell (halfblood)
SEXUALITY: Joyce refuses to answer this question on the grounds that simply asking it perpetuates a mindset that people must have predefined parameters for sexual attraction. (That said, however many girls she's kissed to buck the system, she has yet to actively fancy one.)



ACADEMIC INFORMATION
YEAR: 7th
HOUSE: Slytherin
ACHIEVEMENTS: Many people would suggest "not being arrested". Joyce would add "yet".
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES: Chaser on the quidditch team, last year and (hopefully) this
REQUIRED CLUB INVOLVED IN: Art appreciation
FAMILIAR: A tawny owl called Slave. You guessed it; Joyce has Views about the servitude of owls to the wizarding postal service.
WAND: 9 inch rowan, dragon heartstring
O.W.L. MARKS (IF APPLICABLE):

Charms - O Transfiguration - E History of Magic - O

Muggle Studies - O Potions - E Ancient Runes - E

Astronomy - P CoMC - E Herbology - A

Divination - A (and no one was more surprised than her)

CURRENT COURSES: Charms, Transfiguration, History of Magic, Potions, Ancient Runes



APPEARANCE INFORMATION
HEIGHT: 5'8
WEIGHT: She doesn't keep track, probably around 130-ish pounds
HAIR COLOUR: Brown
EYE COLOUR: Blue-grey
DEXTERITY: Right-handed
PB: Michelle Trachtenberg



PERSONALITY INFORMATION
LIKES: Arguments, surprising people, challenging people, subverting the dominant paradigm, chocolate, spontaneity, wicked and dry humour, freedom, hard truths.
DISLIKES: Liking chocolate (ugh, how totally expected for a girl), conservatives, mindless obedience to the norms of society, prejudice, the media, alcohol and other perception-distorting devices, meat and meat-eaters, lies.
IN DEPTH:

If Slytherin's all about ambition, Joyce's has been expressed at various times as being: to be a cannibal; to destroy the Sorting Hat; to turn Hogwarts into a commune; to bring down the government. It could probably best be summed up as to set the world on fire. Possibly literally. Joyce is the sort of shake-em-up ultra-hippy whose future could equally be late-night university arguments on the nature of being, or a suicide bomb. The world is appalling and narrow-minded and scared and just too fucking comfortable, and Joyce is the sort of girl who believes that if something needs to be done, there's no excuse for not doing it.

Not that she really sees it that way. What she wants - according to her - is to be herself and do what she wants, and if she has to tear society down to achieve that... well, so be it. You started it. Being yourself is, actually, a big thing with her. She's not going to be befriending, making over, or becoming a life coach to shy, retiring types, but she is often up in everyone's faces challenging the things they do that she sees as conformist, unthinking, sheltered non-decisions about who they are.

Say this for the Jackson kids: they get attention. Sam might want it; Joyce maintains she doesn't at all, but she still gets it. Shouting in the centre of the room will do that. Metaphorically, not actually; Joyce is a "actions louder than words" sort of girl, and while she can throw activist rhetoric quite handily, she's more likely to indulge in anarchist actions, or construct a scenario that proves her point. Whatever she's doing, she does at full speed ahead and with every fibre of her being - and that includes having fun. Which she has plenty of, because being yourself is about enjoying yourself, and The Man doesn't want you to be happy and fulfilled, He wants you to be limited and pacified. (What's the difference between being yourself and conforming to the mindless teenage stereotype of society? Ask! Joyce is happy to tell you! Pointedly!)

It's a lot more complicated than it seems on paper, however, and there are many parts of Joyce that even she can't make fit her Plan for glorious individualism. Like the fact that her entire quidditch career - from the moment she got on a broom to how hard she trains to keep her place in the team - has been prompted by wanting to connect with and be loved by her father. Like the fact that despite all her rants about how modern music is a media construction delivering society-sanctioned brainwashing, she actually likes a lot of it. (Well, a girl has to dance to something!) Like the fact that sometimes, she's just a teenage girl, who wants to be liked, who wants to fit in just a little, who isn't honestly sure just who she is.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
FATHER: Daven Jackson. Muggle-born. Team manager of Falmouth Falcons.
MOTHER: Harriette Jackson (nee Dune). Muggle-born. Runs a wizarding daycare center in London.
SIBLINGS: Samson Jackson, 6th-year Slytherin. Some days Joyce denies the relationship, but he's her brother and she does, actually, love him. There's a firm limit to how much trash-talking she allows in her hearing.
OTHER RELATIVES:

PATERNAL GRANDFATHER: Donald Jackson. Muggle. Deceased.
PATERNAL GRANDMOTHER: Margaret Jackson (nee Addams). Muggle.

MATERNAL GRANDFATHER: Harold Dune. Muggle.
MATERNAL GRANDMOTHER: Betty Dune (nee Bloom).

UNCLE: Jacob Clarke. Muggle.
AUNT: Hannah Clarke (nee Jackson). Muggle.
COUSIN: Evan Clarke, 6. Muggle.

UNCLE: Henry Dune. Muggle-born.
AUNT: Linda Dune (nee Murray). Half-blood.
COUSIN: Reid Dune, 11. Half-blood. First year Ravenclaw.
COUSIN: Ashlyn Dune, 11. Half-blood. First year Slytherin.

HISTORY:

There was no trace that Joyce could discern in her parents of their tumultuous history. Maybe they were just newly united against their curious, unpredictable baby. She wasn't noisy, she just seemed to love to behave counter to everything in the books, and to do just what she wanted. All that's really changed in the intervening years is how much she wears. And that she's potty-trained.

When Samson - noisy, demanding, absorbing Samson - came along, Joyce got left quite a bit more to her own devices, which was just how she liked it. She wasn't neglected, she just had far more range for self-entertainment and -expression. To a certain extent, she's always been grateful to Sam for grabbing attention the way he does. That extent has been limited by how irritating, arrogant, selfish and basically an exemplary pillar of male fucking privilege he is, not to mention the magnificent skill he's developed of knowing just how to drop her right in it.

Needless to say, formative years in the Jackson household weren't precisely tranquil. Joyce never really took to the whole concept of behaving herself, though she accepted (eventually) that she could get everyone off her back by toeing the party line when there wasn't a point to prove. Indeed, it made outbursts all the more noticable. By the time she got to Hogwarts, the lessons of being raised "properly" had rankled. When the Hat noted that her ambition could take her far in Slytherin, but her forthrightness and blood suggested Gryffindor, Joyce suggested that Slytherin needed some fucking shaking up.

The Hat seemed to like that idea.

And sure, it's not easy being a halfblood in Slytherin, but Joyce, even at the tender age of eleven, just did not care about the prejudices of others. She wasn't here to prove herself. She didn't - and doesn't - have anything to prove to anyone except herself, and she knows her own worth. She also found, though, that there's a certain degree of equally blind, stupid prejudice headed towards Slytherins, and she's been just as willing to deliver a tongue-lashing on that score. A bit of this, a bit of her self-assurance, a bit of the fact that she's not actually aggressive about it and is generally good fun (which especially came into stark relief against the general aggravation of her brother)... something in here has meant that while Joyce is never going to be crowned Queen of Slytherin, she's reached some sort of relatively comfortable accommodation with her housemates.

Not really one to indulge in an activity as boringly normal as "dating", Joyce has nevertheless managed some date-like involvement with people here and there, though perhaps nothing as shocking (and classically Joyce) as losing her virginity in fifth year to a guy she didn't really like. That way, no one could ever even pretend that this meant anything.

None of the professors has ever had cause to quibble about Joyce's intelligence - she's a bright girl - though more than a few of them could (and have) complain about her application and focus. Good results in Transfiguration and Care of Magical Creatures don't ameliorate the hours she's spent arguing with the professors about the wizarding arrogance inherent in both disciplines. The only subjects she really performs consistently excellently in are History and Charms, where her interrogative skills actually work in her favour.

Joyce's other school activity has been quidditch - less a calling than a duty, with a father like hers. She works hard and pays attention to his advice, purely in order to make him proud (and counts it all worth it when he grins and ruffles her hair, however much she professes to hate it). Reserve chaser for the team in her fifth year, she was added to the starting lineup last year, and damn well intends to be there this year as well.

SAMPLES
FIRST PERSON:

Well, if I achieve absolutely nothing in my time at Hogwarts, I think possibly I can lay claim to having improved the vegetarian options on the menu. Tonight’s pumpkin and zucchini bake was absolutely marvellous, and when I think of my first year and the trouble I had convincing the house elves that bacon was not a vegetable... well, future generations of ethically responsible eaters won’t know how appalling it once was, that’s all I have to say. Just because the rest of you are perfectly happy shovelling rotting carcass into your face doesn’t mean the enlightened have to suffer unduly.

Speaking of enlightenment, I love the way summer means there's still daylight after dinner! Too glorious an evening to waste indoors, so I am totally hitting the pitch just as soon as I can get my broom and get back out there. If anyone else wants to toss a quaffle about, you know where to find me.

Plus this means I don't have to face up to the potions homework for another hour or so. I am totally baffled by the third question. I didn't think flame height mattered if you were keeping the mixture off the boil, or am I missing something?

THIRD PERSON:

The door to the Slytherin commonroom levered open, but for a moment nothing but the sound of voices came through. And then Joyce came in backwards, gesturing with one arm out into the corridor as she called, "Yeah, well you could do with a bit of self-de-fucking-termination!" Almost tripping over the lintel as she turned around, she added almost under her breath, "And better taste in shoes, what the hell is with those, how does a four-inch heel prove anything other than that you want to sacrifice your ankles on the altar of fashion and the male gaze?" She regained her balance, and shoved her hair out of her face with the hand that wasn't carrying a couple of books. Which she then shoved under one arm as she yanked her tie out from around her neck (it had already been loose, but Joyce could rarely be bothered with "that ritualised status-ribbon" unless a teacher demanded it) and used it to tie back her hair.

A few folk in the commonroom might have looked up at her entrance, but after six years, you could even get used to Joyce Jackson, mostly by tuning her out. Still, she could get used to that in return, and do things like draping herself over the back of one of the couches, saying, "Hey. Hey. Hey." And then, when no more attention was forthcoming, dropping one of her books on the couch-occupant's knees. "Hey," she said, pointedly, grinning down over the back of the couch. "Come fly with me."