[Verified by Banshee] Philomena Lefting

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Philomena Lefting

Postby Philomena on December 29th, 2012, 4:28 am

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Philomena Lefting
42 year old professor of literature, specializing in the life of Kenabelle Wright

General Information
Home City: Zeltiva
Birthday: Summer 18, 470 A.V. (Note that Minnie does not know this date. She celebrates (as far as that goes) her birthday on Summer 31, the day she arrived at the orphanage)

Physical Description

From the rear, Philomena Lefting can easily be mistaken for a child. Her hair is pulled into two middling brown pigtails, usually lopsided, her body is narrow, but with a soft plumpness one might mistake for the last remnants of baby-fat, and she's exceptionally short - if she's 5 feet, she's JUST that tall. Her face, though, behind thick spectacles, tells a more honest story - crows feet by her eyes, the beginnings of liver spots around her neck and, and the sagging skin of a woman settled into age. She has a tendency toward the dramatic in her dress, but always clumsily applied - a tartan dress with a bright red sash, perhaps, or a men's ascot hanging over a v-necked blouse - she is the fashion equivalent of someone who is simply making a bit too much of an effort. Her demeanor is scattered, continuously distracted - it is not unusual in fact, for her to be seen walking with her face pointed down to a wax tablet, mumbling to herself. Even when not trying (often unsuccessfully) to multitask, she has a way of forgetting herself in the midst of conversation.

Character Concept

Philomena - Minnie or Dr. Lefting, depending on the station of the person addressing her - is a Professor of Zeltivan Literature at the University of Zeltiva. In terms of her personality, she's at once both very emotionally needy - she has a tendency to drive off those whom she attaches to - and paranoid of others. Much of this is a function of her childhood, and it has left her where she is - an 'old maid', in her own mind. She has a brilliant, but eccentric mind for literature, and deep learning across a spectrum of topics, but her passion - and it is a passion - is the life and work of Kenabelle Wright, the famous sailor, and her books describing her voyages. This particular fascination can be somewhat obnoxious, even, to the people around her - her knowledge is deep, obscure, and if it is possible with such a swashbuckling subject, dull in its fascination with minutiae. Her lifelong dream would be to go to Wright Manor and study there. Her series, "The Reader's Companion to Kenabelle Wright" is the text of choice for those who are trying to understand the sailor's written work, and is well-regarded for its clear scholarship, and insightful research.

Finally, in her heart of hearts, she has always wished she could be an artist - in her younger days, she wrote a libretto to a series of operas, in fact, on the subject of Kenabelle Wright. But she gave up on this dream, largely because she was never so good at finding others to work with on the music and product of her works. Nonetheless, she haunts the bohemian districts of the student quarter frequently - though she is more a hanger-on than a real member of the young artistic culture.

Character History

Philomena was found left on the steps of the orphanage of Zeltiva, with no explanatory information whatsoever - not even the proverbial basket for her, just a squalling, underdressed infant left on the cobbles. Her name was given her by one of the workers - noone really remembered who - and her last name, she chose herself, when she was old enough to need one, as a backwards punning paean to her life's obsession, Kenabelle Wright (Wright and Lefting. Noone said she was clever at wordplay, now did they?).

Philomena grew up in the hardscrabble world of orphan life, but developed none of the street smarts and toughness of the young gamine, relying, rather, on her status as a pitiful ingenue, to scrape pity-scraps from some of the others. Her intelligence earned her, not so much friends, but at least a circle of mutual benefit, when she began helping some of the other children with their schoolwork, in exchange for food during the lean times, and protection from the rougher students.

It was in those childhood days that she developed a lifelong fascination with her heroine, Kenabelle Wright. She inherited from one of the other orphans, a tattered copy of an annotated version of her work, and it became her escape from her own tiresome life. She would spend hours reading it, drawing maps on her slate, asking questions of her teachers about places and people, and drawing doodles (not terribly talented ones) of ships, sailing.

Her intelligence did not go unnoticed by the keepers of the orphanage, and she was prepared on scholarship to attend the University. She worked her way through school as a librarian, where she helped keep special collections, and met one of her mentors, Harold Dorbern, the keeper of the special collections department, who taught her Old Commontongue, which she reads and speaks with some fluency. After several years of intensive research in her field, she found a second, more influential academic mentor: Hannah Watchtower, one of the survivors of the Wright Circumnavigation. She graduated, with honors, and took a position in literature, first as a lecturer, and then with the publication of her first reader's guide, as a fully tenured professor.

She has had no long term romances, and because she hid herself away in school, to work for her keep, missed many of the experiences of that wild period of life.
Last edited by Philomena on January 23rd, 2013, 4:30 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Philomena
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Philomena Lefting

Postby Philomena on January 8th, 2013, 4:10 pm

 
Skills
Writing - 23 (20 SP, +1, +1,
+1)
Copying - 1 (+1)
Story Telling - 7 (+1,+3,+3)
Tailoring - 1 (+1)
Brawling - 1 (+1)
Climbing - 1 (+1)
Acrobatics - 1 (+1)
Observation - 6 (+1, +1,+1, +3)
Larceny - 1 (+1)
Organization - 4 (+1,+3)
Teaching - 28 (15 RB, +2,+4,+4,+3)
Philosophy - 4 (+2,+2)
Socialization - 3 (+1, +2)
Observation - 2 (+2)
Research - 31 (30 SP, +1)
Rhetoric - 4 (+2, +2)
Librarianship - 3 (+3)
Midwifery - 5 (+5)
Medicine - 3 (+1,+1,+1)
Child Rearing - 5 (+5)
Persuasion - 4 (+2, +2)



 
Lores
Lore of the Life, Work, and Scholarship of Kenabelle Wright
Lore of the Literature and History of Early Zeltiva
Farson Home For Orphans : "The Kennel"
Raised In The Dog House
Kenebelle Wright Day: Generosity Pride And Hope
Dull Of Practicality Though Sharp of Abstract Spells Doom For An Orphan
Droll Of Meaningless Scribble
Comical Applications of Bleach
Blessed Coin of Charm Wright
Growing In A Rare Land Where Charity Is Commonplace
Hero By Happenstance
Gifts Of A Poor Orphan's Chance
Simple Luck For The Luckless
"The Book" - 'An Account of the Circumnavigation of Mizahar by Kenabelle Wright'
A Hero Gained
Navigating A Library
Inspiration Sparked
The Quills Rest is Faddish
Lock Wants to Play a Game
Lock is an Antidotist?
Lock's Motives Are Shrouded
Lock is Harmless
Acquaintance: Lock Circuta
Birth of Egyptus
Observing a Brawl (Weylin, Daishira and one random dude)
Snow to Clot Wounds
Lanie the Childhood Friend
Lanie the Thief
The Zeltivan Orphanage
Suffering Together with Lanie during Childhood
Taking a Hit
Honor Amongst Thieves
Librarianship: Book Care
Librarianship: Book Preservation
Librarianship: Book Restoration
The Smell of Disease
Plague's Vicious Cycle
Hannah Watchtower the Mentor
Hannah Watchtower's Last Words
Hannah Watchtower's Death
Fatal Effects of Blood Poisoning
The Life, History and Deeds of Hannah Watchtower
Hannah Watchtower's Last Gift
Hannah Watchtower, My Friend
Charm Wright, Hero-Captain of Zeltiva
Charm Wright's Intimate and Dark Secret: One that May Only be Written After Her Death
Charm Wright's Biography Offer
The Legacy of Charm Wright's Coin
Shipping Records of an Ancient Ship
A Special Connection with Charm Wright
Hannah Watchtower the Doctoral Supervisor
Dorrings the Butler of Hannah Watchtower
Hannah Watchtower's Lecture of Summer 492 AV
Various Alcohol From Different Regions
Undocumented Sailor: Horace Tillerman
Fact Revisions: Basalt, Not Granite
Explaining the Little Intricacies of Lyric Poet
Drake the Fake Date
"Nose" of the "Midrian Quartet"
"Britches" of the "Midrian Quartet"
"Hop" of the "Midrian Quartet"
"Skip" of the "Midrian Quartet"
Robbed by "The Red Shoe"
Egyptus' First Prayer, in his own hand
Taking Care of Young Egyptus
Egyptus' Childhood
Egyptus "Gypa", Precursor of Wrenmae Sek
Celebrating Egyptus' Birthday Together
Egyptus the Harbor-Son
Charm Wright's Secret History
The Secret of Kenabelle Wright's Notebooks
Aleric: Red Haired Traveler
Aleric: From Wind Reach
Kenabelle Wright's secret room
The meaning of Dharopan


 
Languages
Common Tongue (Fluent)
Old and Middle Commontongue (Basic)
Last edited by Philomena on March 20th, 2015, 6:51 pm, edited 25 times in total.
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Philomena
Player
 
Posts: 724
Words: 718931
Joined roleplay: December 29th, 2012, 3:40 am
Race: Human
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Medals: 1
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Philomena Lefting

Postby Philomena on January 8th, 2013, 4:36 pm

Possessions on Person
Thin cotton shift

Good quality sea-chest, locked with good lock and key:
Box carved by Imtappdentosin with keys to the Wright family records inside.
Journals of Kenabelle Wright
Collected papers of Charm Wright
Moneybox

Good quality sea-chest, unlocked:
A parasol, blackthorn shafted with a copper ferrule
6 fine sets of out of fashion Zeltivan clothing
Wax Tablet and Stylus

3 blank books
5 vials of ink

Lodgings
Through 8th of Winter - Zeltiva Asylum
8 Winter - 88 Winter - Wright Manor
88 Winter - 45 Spring - The Magpie (A Fluyt on the Akvatari Trade Route)
45 Spring - Not yet determined - Abura Guest House, at least temporarily

Possessions currently held by Emily Hurston
One boxes of personal notes and journals:
The libretto to a proposed cycle of operas:
    The Gods' Doctor
    The White Plague
    The Captain and the Doctor
    Circumnavigation
    The Captain's Tomb (unfinished)
9 journals written in immensely cramped handwriting
5 ruined books, in which Minnie has journaled in the marginalia
1 blank book
A battered prayer doll of Qalaya, now carefully preserved (Acquired here)
A single, silk velvet glove, for the left hand

Possessions currently held by the Wave Guard
Full Academic Dress (formal robes of office, fine fabric, with stocking, and cap, for the Literature Department of Zeltiva University)
Tacky dresses, scarves, hats
One small vat of low quality spirits of violet
A small onion crate, containing a decrepit copy of An Account of the Circumnavigation of Mizahar
Blackthorn wood Shillelagh
A few children's clothes (dresses, an apron, a pair of trousers) carefully preserved

Ledger

100 gold mizas (Starting coin)
-55 gold mizas (Academic Dress)
-3 silver mizas (Wax tablets, notebooks, pens, ink)
-7 gold mizas (second hand clothing)
-2 silver mizas (Spirits of Violet)
-36 gold mizas (10 journals, 5 ruined or damaged books used as defacto journals during lean times)
+920 gold mizas (Winter 512 Wages)
-450 hold mizas (Winter 512 Expenses)
-300 gold mizas (225 journals, ink, pens, blotting powder and sundries - transcription of three copies of her books and journals)
-50 gold mizas (medical care from plague)
-75 gold mizas (large sea chest)
-45.15 gold mizas (All her money is apprehended with her arrest.)
0 mizas (Spring 513 - Autumn 514 Expenses - in the asylum)
+1250 gold Mizas (Kena Wright's Emergency Fund)
+1250 Nilos (Kena Wright's Emergency Fund)
-117 Nilos (1.5 nilos * 78 days - Good living conditions for Winter 514, for the period in which she was not in the Asylum)
-90 Nilos (Passage to Abura from Zeltiva, with board)
-2 Nilos (Stout blackthorn shafted parasol, copper ferrule)
-5 Nilos (Ink)
-3 Nilos (3 blank books)
-120 Nilos (good lock and key)
-450 Nilos (Spring 514 expenses)
CURRENT TOTAL: 1250 gold mizas, 461.5 Nilos
Last edited by Philomena on July 5th, 2015, 3:53 am, edited 13 times in total.
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Philomena
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Posts: 724
Words: 718931
Joined roleplay: December 29th, 2012, 3:40 am
Race: Human
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Thread List

Postby Philomena on February 25th, 2013, 5:29 pm

Thread List

 
Child 470-484


 
Undergraduate 485-488
Spring 31, 485 - I'm Nobody, Who Are You?
Winter 15, 485 - The Privilege of Hurricanes
Spring 7, 488 - A Tongue to Tell Him


 
Foster Mother 489-498


 
Lecturer 498-502


 
Professor 503-512
Autumn 77, 504 - How Brooks in Eden Bubbled
Winter 25, 506 - Literature Mountaineering
Spring 12, 507 - Brave, Who Charge Within the Bosom
Winter 32, 509 - Some Say a Word is Dead
Summer 24, 511 - A Piercing Comfort
Last edited by Philomena on April 10th, 2013, 4:17 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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Philomena
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Posts: 724
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Joined roleplay: December 29th, 2012, 3:40 am
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Philomena Lefting

Postby Philomena on February 25th, 2013, 5:30 pm

 
Winter 512
Winter 1, 512 - First Day on the Job
Winter 5, 512 - The License to Revere
Winter 14, 512 - Part at Table, Part in Memory
Winter 20, 512 - Dusty-throated Lectures
Winter 27, 512 - Kelvic Twins
Winter 34, 512 - Fever Heat
Winter 35, 512 - Igon Everto
Winter 36, 512 - Anger, As Soon As Fed - Is Dead
Winter 36, 512 - He Scanned Their Trinkets
Winter 38, 512 - And so the rain comes down
Winter 40, 512 - The Funeral of Kip Drawlins
Winter 40, 512 - On the Wings of Pestilence
Winter 40, 512 - Fearing It, It Came
Winter 41, 512 - A Certain Slant of Light
Winter 44, 512 - The Loneliness One Dare Not Sound
Winter 49, 512 - Picking Fights
Winter 50, 512 - A Sickness of This World
Winter 51, 512 - Wright is Lefting
Winter 52, 512 - They Fling Their Speech
Winter 54, 512 - I Remember You
Winter 56, 512 - No Time to Rest
Winter 63, 512 - For I Stood Up
Winter 75, 512 - Where Ships of Purple Gently Toss
User avatar
Philomena
Player
 
Posts: 724
Words: 718931
Joined roleplay: December 29th, 2012, 3:40 am
Race: Human
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Topical Index

Postby Philomena on April 12th, 2013, 3:26 pm

 
The Tale of Lanie and Wrenmae
Without a doubt one of the pivotal threads, and one of the two root threads from which all others spring (the other being her devotion to Qalaya), Alanza, or Lanie, is one of the dominant figures in Minnie's life, and her son, Egyptus (now known as Wrenmae to much of the rest of the world) is another.

Lanie and Minnie met incidentally, at the orphanage in Zeltiva in its darkest days, when they were both inmates of it. Minnie was a shy, guarded, bookish creature. Lanie, for her part was a lonely, impulsive child who channeled her loneliness into an intense search for a patron god.

The two developed a friendship after Minnie, in pity of the younger girl whose infection of worms made her continuously even hungrier than was normal for a girl of the orphanage, took a beating given to her in punishment for stealing a jar of jam from another girl.

The friendship blossomed throughout their entire childhood, and the two became very close - Minnie is asexual, but Lanie is unquestionably the closest she's ever been to being in love with someone (though if one focuses on the physical aspects of love, one could make a good argument for Evalin). They eventually began to call each other sisters. It was during this time, that the two - Minnie being spiritually devoted to the call of being a a recorder of tales, and Lanie being a natural story teller - collaborated to begin to write the "Tales of Wrenmae Wanderer", a collection of fairy tales about a fictional character they made up, named after a mashup of their nicknames for each other: Minnie-Wren and Lanie-Mae (even now, in fact, Minnie think of the name 'Wren' as referring to her, not to Wrenmae, and it startles her to hear people say it). These stories have never been finished, which we'll bring up later.

The two had two really dangerous adventures together. The first was when they were nearly kidnapped by Ignotus Everto, as a gift to Evalin, and then later saw him murder another orphan before being made a Nuit by her. The second time (referred to in the same thread as above) was when the orphanage was being stalked by a mad child murderer know as 'The Bird Lady', who eventually marked Minnie as her next victim. At this point, Lanie ran into the streets and prayed wildly to the Gods, asking any of them to come help. Sadly, the one who came was Vayt. Vayt marked Lanie with his mark, and told her that all he wanted in return was for her to kill three people, and that one would be the bird lady, and the bird lady would not murder Minnie. The first was a random man, Lanie never even knew who he was - she simply brushed against him on the way back to the orphanage, and he died quickly of a sudden, terrible disease. The second was indeed the Bird Lady. Lanie slept with Minnie in her bed, to protect her, and awoke when the Bird Lady came. She planted a hand on the murderer's face, then, and Vayt filled the creature with a terrible illness, that immediately felled her to the ground screaming. She died before she coudl go to trial. It was a few weeks later, as Minnie began to waste away and die, that Lanie realized the truth - the third person was Minnie herself. Lanie left the city, promising Vayt she would serve him until she took Minnie's life as the third promised one.

Minnie did not see her beloved friend for many years. When she finally returned, she was pregnant. Minnie kept her in her own flat, and they simply worked hard to touch each other as little as possible. Minnie ended up midwifing the baby, who was born without complication: Egyptus, or Gypa, the child who would later become Wrenmae Sek. Minnie, and Egyptus, began to grow sicker and sicker, though, and finally Minnie told Lanie she had to leave, that Minnie herself was ready to die with her, but that the child deserved to live. She promised two things, and both of these are very pivotal:

1) She promised she would care for the child, and raise him as best she could.
2) They promised each other that when Gypa was grown, and Minnie grown old, that Lanie would return to her, and they would take the Tales of Wrenmae Wanderer, and write the last stories in it, then go together into the wild-lands, so that a beast woudl come and eat them, and they could lie together in the same belly.

These two promises, Minnie takes extremely, extremely seriously. They frequently define her actions, and have saved her life more than once - it is the second that, for the dark years of her life, kept her from suicide.

With Lanie gone, Minnie settled into being a mother for many years. She raised Gypa in the Spring of every year - during the other three seasons, he went with his biological father, a merchant, who returned him each year to Minnie, who taught Gypa to call her his 'Harbor Mother', a title of emotional significance to them both. Most of the years were good, though in the seasons Gypa was gone, Minnie found herself fit to bouts of loneliness and depression. She raised him to love Qalaya, and to tell stories, like his mother - or more than this, to worship stories. She infused with a strong sense of the need for stories to follow a strong narrative, and most of all, to have an ending. She told him the tales of Wrenmae Wanderer, and gave him a copy of all the stories, with blank space at the end where she promised to write the final story for him, one day.

Then, when Gypa was nine, he left on a trip with his father. And never came back. The next Spring, when the tulips bloomed, and went to seed and died, and her son never came home, was one of the most painful of Minnie's life, and the Springtime has been a dark and terrible period for her ever since, and she hates the season on principle.

Only years later, did she learn that her son had not died. Minnie, for the third time in her life, now, became infected by a Vayt-marked's plague, in Zeltiva in 512, when she cut herself with a fish knife, and then brushed against the plague bearer in a meeting at the town square. She recognized the plague almost immediately, its quick progression, the way in which it crawled through you almost palpably, and became convinced: this meant Lanie had returned. She only needed to find her.

Sadly, she was mistaken. Despite many late night, madness-clouded searches, Minnie could not pin her down. The truth came as she sat, collapsed into sleep in her office. She woke suddenly, feeling as if Lanie had come in. She had not. Instead it was her son, Gypa, who, in the years in which they had been parted, had been cursed with the same dark gnosis as her mother. He was now the plague bearer of the city. He returned the Tales to her - in the back, in his childhood, he had tried to write his own ending. Minnie pleaded with him, but finally, too shocked and horrified to think, allowed him to leave. She spent the rest of Winter growing more and more ill and more and more hopeless of herself.

The tale as yet has no end. There is things that could happen in 513, in Spring and Summer, that would be very meaningful. But its difficult to say if they will occur.
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Philomena
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Posts: 724
Words: 718931
Joined roleplay: December 29th, 2012, 3:40 am
Race: Human
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