twicecursed

Name: Stacey MacKinnon

Date of Birth: January 12, 1990

Age: 17

Sex: Female

Appearance:

Stacey is rather unassuming, her large nose being one of the few noticeable features of her. Her blue-gray eyes don't garner much attention as her long brown hair tends to add to her 'ordinary' vibe. Body-wise, she's tall and lanky; despite her exercising, she can't seem to put on any muscle mass.

Special Abilities:

White magic (Level 2), first-aid training, three years high school Latin

Supernatural Affinity (Species/Group): Human/Witch

Supernatural Affinity (Powers):

White magic (Level 2)

Her blood is very tasty to supernatural creatures that drink it, and can give a power boost to those that use blood for their powers (vampires, blood magicians, even psychic healers if the backlash was in the form of a wound or stigmata.)

Fae loathe her on sight.

Personality:

It's not that Stacey's naturally meek, it's just that living with two strong-willed women has made her passive. She's the type of person who would keep her objections to herself just so the group would 'get along'. In her mind, if her loved ones or her own survival isn't at stake, there's no reason to get into a confrontation. If she can't seem to get along with someone, she just simply avoids that person. The one exception to her need for harmony is the supernatural. She's been taught that 'If it's not human it's out to control/kill you'. She has yet to meet a truly supernatural creature, but if she did, she wouldn't take it well and would most likely flee for her life.

It's Stacey's sense of empathy for her fellow man that's both her most appealing personality trait and the source of her personal failings. Because she tries to see the other person's point of view, she's less
willing to force her own viewpoint on someone. Her sense of compassion makes her a good friend, but makes her non-confrontational.

Surprisingly, Stacey's not the codependent type. Had she grown up in a more normal environment, she would have become the average rebellious teenager. Unfortunately she grew up knowing what dangers were out there and the lengths her family went through to protect her. This not only smothered most teenage impulses to rebel against her mother and aunt (she knew what they sacrificed for her), but led to a need to become 'better' than the 'burden' she thought herself to be. Stacey tries to be a good daughter, but the family obligations she has leaves her overwhelmed at times. She tends to blame herself heavily for her failures. The fact that her mother and aunt are usually understanding about it just makes things worse.

What Stacey wants the most is not attention (she gets plenty of that at home), but the respect you get when you're seen as a reliable person. She sees herself as a burden to her aunt and mother, and wants to be the person they can rely on, not the other way around. Anyone that constantly asks her for advice would get a friend for life.

History:

To understand the events in Stacey's life, you'll have to first know a bit about her parents. They met in Venice. Stacey's mother, whose husband had divorced her when he found out she couldn't have children, was taking a vacation when she met Stacey's father, a photojournalist. After a brief but passionate affair, they had planned to part ways when Stacey's mother discovered she was pregnant with a 'miracle child'. While her father couldn't give up his traveling lifestyle, he was more than willing to try to make an attempt at raising a family. Stacey's mother accompanied her father on his travels and when her brother was born, the three of them were a caring, if constantly moving family. However, when Stacey was born, her mother couldn't justify not settling down anymore and so her parents parted ways; Stacey was placed with her mother, and her older brother left with her father. The two sides of the family call and write one another frequently, and her father and brother visit at least once a year.

Stacey's family would be merely unconventional if it wasn't for the supernatural aspects to it.

The MacKinnons were a family of Protectors. Around a thousand years in Scotland, a powerful witch who was tired of the constant raids on her village by the Faerie managed to seal all the gates in thesurrounding area. When some of the newly-displaced Fae kidnapped her daughter in retribution, she called upon the MacKinnons to locate her and bring her back. The MacKinnons managed to rescue the girl, but her captors cursed the family: if they ever stayed in one place longer than a month, they would waste away and perish. Hearing this but having no means to undo the curse, the witch both blessed and cursed the family: The MacKinnons would be 'Fruitful and Fertile, Hale and Healthy, Their Blood Blessed with Life Itself' but the women of the family would never become Protectors (and thus be free from the Fae curse). Not wanting to abandon their lands, the family split ways: the men roaming the area in keeping with the curse, the women staying behind and guarding the homesteads.

It was after a generation or two that the drawbacks to the witch's blessing were discovered. While the women of the family could never become a Protector, they never lost the ability to pass on the 'gene' to their sons. They still had the Protector fertility, indeed a more potent version due to the witch's blessing. In fact the dormant Protector bloodline in their blood combined with the witch's blessing made their blood very, very, tasty to supernaturals that drank it. In the hands of a black magician, the blood provided an easy power boost; in the hands of an actual Blood magician, the power boost was huge. Many MacKinnon women became hunters so they could get rid of the creatures and blood witches that would eventually come after the family sooner or later.

When Stacey's mother conceived her son, she was willing to travel with her family since both her son and his father were under the curse. When Stacey was born, however, her mother began to feel guilty about forcing her daughter to move every month and not having a stable home. It didn't help that her mother's family had a history too. Her mother came from a long line of witches, one that had its own history....and enemies. Her mother's family had a long standing feud with another family of witches known for their ruthlessness. Stacey had a gift for magic, though it was a weak one; her brother did not. Her mother's family wanted Stacey to learn under the family tradition, and kept safe from retribution from their rivals; every witch was vital to the family. Figuring that her children would be best protected if they were separated and under the care of one parent, Stacey's mother moved to Michigan to be closer to her own family and began studying to become a nurse while raising a daughter on her own.

Stacey's childhood was a happy one, if a bit unusual. She grew up knowing her mother's family were witches, and that her father's family did 'important work'. She kept contact with her father and brother, and even got to see them now and then. Her paternal aunt even visited from time to time (in fact Stacey saw her more often than her father), keeping an eye out for her niece. When Stacey became a teenager, the true details of her family history were introduced to her: why her father and brother couldn't stay around, what her aunt did for a living, and why she would have to be careful in the future.

Stacey started learning white magic when she entered high school. Taught by her mother, a white witch, Stacey has a strong grasp of the basics and even took Latin in high school thinking she might need it for translating texts. Later on she realized that the chances of her finding a tome that required Latin to translate would be small indeed. She writes her magical notes in Latin; it doesn't keep out any scholar worth his salt, but it does keep out the average eavesdropper should her notes fall into the wrong hands. During the summers in between school, Stacey took first aid courses as she wants to become a nurse like her mother.

In the summer after her junior year, her mother,a nurse, accepted a new job at the local hospital in Marquette. Coincidentally, her aunt decided to retire from hunting and live with Stacey and her mother. The three of them have just recently moved into a house and have begun the process of 'fixing it up'. Between working on her magic and the new self-defense lessons she's getting from her aunt (which is pretty much at the 'run away' stage at this point), her brain will be pushed to the limits with all the learning once school starts. This certainly doesn't do much for her stress levels.

Weaknesses:

Non-confrontational: Unless someone is going to be hurt, Stacey will back down from an argument every time. She would rather avoid someone than confront them. This mindset even bleeds into her magic: she can't practice even the most simplest of black magic spells.

Socially Awkward: Stacey tends to do poorly in crowds, her need not to disrupt the boat overrides any desire to mingle or party. She tends to fade into the background easily if there's a lot of people.

Blood Fertility: Thanks to her Protector genes and the witches blessing, her fertility has pretty much made Stacey very straight-laced and prudish about sex. Not wanting to become a single mom at a young age, Stacey's very much the wait-until-marriage type.

The real disadvantage, however, is in her blood. It's very tasty to those that feed on it, from vampires to insects. Stacey is constantly plagued by mosquitoes if they happen to be around. To a supernatural creature that can tap into the power of blood (vampires, blood magicians, etc.), they can get some benefits from it. The benefit is dependent on the type of creature. A witch whose 'style' involves a bit of blood for the ritual will get a small power boost, but it will be nothing compared to what a blood magician could get. Note that the benefit is specifically tied to blood; a psychic vampire could feed from Stacey all he wanted but she'd just be a normal human to him, while a faith healer would only get a boost if the backlash hit Stacey and it was in the form of an injury or stigmata. It goes without saying that Stacey wouldn't be able to use her blood to fuel her own magic, assuming she would want to learn those paths in the first place.

Being a tempting target for a small population of the supernatural community has made her a little bit paranoid, she's petrified of getting a cut or scrape and keeps a first aid kit with her at all times. While there's no way of knowing about her blood's effects until it's actually used, that bit of knowledge doesn't put Stacey at ease. If the secret came out, there would be no telling who would be after her.

A Vendetta or Two: When you come from families of witches, protectors, and hunters, you pretty much know that somewhere down the line one of your ancestors or relatives might have pissed somebody off. Your father and brother? There's a good chance that someone after their wards might choose to go after you as bait. Oh yeah, and the women on your father's side of the family? Let's just say that their persecution complex led to a lot of dead supernaturals and someone might be holding a grudge. Heck, even your mother's side has enemies; the feud with that other family is heating up and can become violent real soon. And yet she still keeps quiet on it for some reason.
Ironically, it may be her mother's family that might be the biggest threat to her. Unknown to Stacey, the reason why her mother moved to Marquette was that she feared that her family might discover the unique properties of Stacey's blood, and would use her as an edge in the upcoming feud. She chose Marquette in the hopes that neither side of the feud would start something surrounded by lots of supernaturals.

Obligations: Just because she's young doesn't mean both families would pass on the chance to call on her for favors if it was needed. Witches don't grow on trees and even a simple charm could be useful.

Misinformed: As her mother's knowledge of the supernatural was sketchy beyond witches and protectors, her education in that department was left to her aunt. Unfortunately, there were several flaws in that plan. The first was that her aunt (and nearly entirely most of her father's family) was pretty much of the opinion that if it wasn't human they'd try to control you, kill you, or worse. The second was that if they didn't deem it a threat, it wasn't worth studying; Stacey's in fact rather clueless about most of the supernaturals out there and has heard about only the malevolent ones. The third was that Stacey was taught magic first, unless a creature sprouts wings or fangs she's going to first assume that any supernatural effect is a spell until proven otherwise.
Even if she finds out the truth about the supernatural, her mistrust is fairly ingrained to the point she's going to judge each creature on a case-by-case basis.

Loathed by Fae: The original curse centuries ago was a pretty old form of Fae magic, and modern fae can still sense it even if they can't recognize what it is. Since the curse is 'dormant' in women, fae just can't help but dislike them, even hate them sometimes. In men, the curse is full-blown, and fae have urges to destroy the humans on sight.

Strengths:

'Hale and Healthy': While the witch's blessing helped the MacKinnons live to a respectable age despite the risks of childbirth and diseases of the time, it means jack squat in the era of modern medicine. Still, she gets a cold less frequently than her peers. 'Healthy' does not mean 'athletic' however, just because she doesn't need her flu shots doesn't mean she has a shot at getting on the gymnastics team.

Contacts: When you come from an extended family of witches, protectors, and hunters, you've pretty much got a built-in pool of resourceful people you can call on. Granted, Stacey would pretty much rely on her mother and aunt if she had a problem, but the resources are still there.

Guardians: She lives with her mother and aunt. One's a white witch, the other's a former hunter. They're extremely competent, if a bit overprotective. The downside however, is that most of Stacey's activities are monitored in one form or the other.

Magic: Stacey's a low level white witch, her non-confrontational nature makes it hard for her to grasp black magic.

PB: Emily Perkins

Other Information:

AIM: themightyemu77

This journal is fictional and for role-playing only. This journal has nothing to do with Emily Perkins, it just uses her image. Images courtesy of the good people of Hollow Art.