application × baedal × narcisse noir
Out of Character Information
Name: Liisu
Username: dubonnetcherry
Are you over the age of eighteen? I am like eight thousand internet years.
Current characters in Baedal: Martel, Nuala, Ilde, Solomon, Seoraj.
In Character Information
Basics
Character Name: Narcissa Malfoy
Username: pristineismyhat
Fandom: Harry Potter (AU | Bete Noire history)
Played By: Rosamund Pike
Icon:
Canon Character Section (disregard if applying for an original character)
Physical Description: Narcissa is 31, 5'9", with blonde hair, light colored eyes, and a distinctly old school glamour in both appearance and general upkeep. Her perfumes of choice are both Caron; Narcisse Noir as an evening scent, and Narcisse Blanc for the day.
Sexuality: Narcissa is heterosexual in general and a bit obsessively tangled up with her husband in the specific! She's the product of a Good Girls Don't upbringing, which means that while at this point she more or less knows what she wants, she does contend with the notion that it's not appropriate, it's not proper, it's not ladylike, etc, etc. Mostly this means that rather than express what she wants from her husband directly, she'll attempt to provoke him into doing it - they're extremely sexually compatible, the stumbling blocks tend to be 'Narcissa's pride' and 'Narcissa is crazy', so at this point Lucius probably has a mental association between "arousal" and "irritation".
History: THIS LINK is general canon; I will elaborate on my personal view of Narcissa below.
Born on June 16th, 1955, Narcissa was the third and youngest daughter of Cygnus and Druella Black (née Rosier), after Bellatrix and before her Andromeda. She grew up in their Ravensden manor, a spoiled, privileged little girl who enjoyed the position of "good daughter" (and used it to her advantage throughout her childhood and adolescence). Andromeda was the rebellious one, Bellatrix was the wild one, and Narcissa was the one who knew her place.
Which suited her, largely meaning that as long as she was exactly what everyone expected her to be, she could get away with murder when they weren't looking (though her sisters, who were admittedly more responsible for her than her parents tended to be, paid a good deal more attention). Doted on in very different ways by both her sisters, tolerating her idiot cousins and trotting after her parents obediently, Narcissa marked time through her childhood and adolescence with an eye on her idea of independence (not much like Andromeda's).
It was coloured by the war, as was more or less everything in that era, further complicated when Andromeda and Sirius were respectively disowned as blood traitors, at which point Narcissa's ability to coast through undetected was severely hampered by the amount of attention put on the remaining Blacks. She kept her head down, said yes and no at the right times, and had only a few hiccups along her intended path towards social domination of the purist upper classes (an energetic rivalry with ex-boyfriend Lucius Malfoy and a dalliance with Ignace Desjardins that ended when the young man in question...went missing) as she did her best not to be dragged down by the whispers surrounding her family. She fostered a friendship with younger Slytherin student, Severus Snape, who could not be prevailed upon to admit he liked her company but would ultimately be a life-long friend whether he really wanted to be or not.
After graduating Hogwarts, Narcissa went abroad to Italy for a long holiday with her uncle (a cousin of her mother’s) and his extended family and friends. She wrote her older sister (her only sister, Bella reminded her) dutifully, enjoyed Italy a great deal, and was so surprised by Lucius Malfoy's declaration of intent to marry her when she returned to Britain that she had to step into the next room and laugh so hard her mother thought she'd run away to sob. Navigating a challenging (from her perspective) courtship - the revelation that Lucius had joined the same cause as her sister, the heightening tension of the war, the fact much of their circle treated her like a pretty infant - Narcissa nevertheless emerged relatively unscathed and married in 1976. Despite Bellatrix's assurances (on the wedding day) that she didn't have to and all she'd have to do would be tell Bella so and she'd be glad to take her away and make good use of an excuse to shove a wand up the Malfoy upstart's backside.
Privately wary of the methods employed by the Dark Lord and his cause, she "enjoyed" the contradiction of Lucius's assurances of their victory vs the urgency of a Malfoy heir in case he didn't live. Several stressful and fruitless years of relentlessly trying to get pregnant resulted in the birth of their first and only child, Draco Malfoy, in 1980; after he was born, she flatly refused to ever do it again.
Only a year later, the Dark Lord fell. In 1986, during the lull period between the first and second wars, Narcissa was taken to the city of sin - Bete Noire - not long after her husband’s arrival there. Briskly setting about adjusting to their new situation (and hoping to find a way home), she and Lucius searched for a suitable home while he brought her up to speed with what he’d already experienced in the unusual city with its strangely tainted magic. She disliked the necessity of living so near to muggles and dealing with them on a personal level, but acknowledged it for what it was - Narcissa’s mercenary desire to survive and thrive permits her to bend her philosophies where necessary for her own safety and comfort.
The presence of her two favourite and notably deceased cousins made Bete Noire more appealing than it might otherwise have been; Evan Rosier and Regulus Black were not men she was going to see anywhere else. Her fuss for Regulus’s safety and comfort were partially driven by a displacement of her worry about her son - their prevailing theory remained that a time displacement between Bete Noire and their world meant Draco wouldn’t notice the absence of his parents any more than Narcissa had noticed Lucius’s, but it didn’t make it significantly easy on her and she focused on her family in the city of sin in an effort to deal with that. (Her friendship with Evan was more complicated, as ever.)
Still, her time in Bete Noire was brief before she and Lucius were split up again; rather than returning directly to their own world, they were sent to that of Sebastian LeMat a short while apart. While Lucius found himself with LeMat, Narcissa went further astray and spent several disconcerting months as a guest of Alastor Moody, who dyed her hair red and charmed her eyes several shades darker - he reasoned that changing a few of her recognizable features combined with how much younger she was than the (deceased) Mrs Malfoy of their world would result in anyone who might’ve otherwise recognized her talking themselves out of it. While he had developed a strange and somewhat antagonistic fondness for Mrs Malfoy while working with her during the second war and while this in large part contributed to why he assisted the younger Mrs Malfoy during her universal displacement, Moody was no fool and well aware that she was not to be implicitly trusted; he confiscated her wand during her stay, keeping it on his own person at all times. He and Sebastian eventually reunited the hidden Malfoys after smuggling them out of England to Italy, where they spent some time before Lucius vanished again, shortly before Narcissa did so herself.
This is the point at which Narcissa arrives in Baedal; the first thing she’s going to do is reverse the spells on her appearance.
Powers: Narcissa Malfoy is an accomplished witch of the usual order in HP. She has a particular knack for charmwork and illusions. Additionally, she is comfortably familiar with the Dark Arts and a talented Occulmens (with some assistance, initially, practising with Severus) - her climactic moment of bullshitting the Dark Lord in the final book involves Narcissa banking everything for her family on her ability to lie to him, and this woman is neither stupid nor a fan of Russian roulette. She wouldn't have risked that much on it if Voldemort could easily discover her ruse from her own mind, so I am definitely on board with the theory that y'all can't read her mind.
Talents/Abilities: Narcissa’s talents include speaking French, a skill for managing money and numbers, and excellent penmanship. She has a knack for manipulation, and accordingly can be especially observant in dealings with others. (This is tempered by the fact all of her observations are coloured by her own opinions and, frankly, self-absorption.) She also spent her time with Alastor Moody ~learning how to smoke cigars~.
Personality: Narcissa Malfoy is honestly sort of a pit viper with a familial propensity toward being utterly fucking mental, but let's start this off with some KEYWORDS.
Negative: ruthless, selfish, spoiled, self-absorbed, tunnel vision, vain, prejudiced, superior, bratty, obstinate, manipulative, hot tempered/irrational, underhanded, backhanded.
Positive: ruthless, intelligent, devoted/loyal, family-oriented, ambitious, organized, determined, independent, self-assured, charming, impish/mischievous, proud, witty.
So that's the overview, and no, putting ruthless on both lists was not a mistake. Essentially, Narcissa's parents attempted to instill in their youngest and probably in their eyes sanest child that she was the best and the finest, that as a daughter of their noble and ancient house she had certain responsibilities as well as privileges, that she was deserving (so long as she kept on the right track). And yeah, girlfriend drank the koolaid. Her highest priority is family and she believes, strongly, that one has an obligation to that family - in her understanding of the world, it was Sirius and Andromeda who betrayed her/the family, not the other way around, and with a basic inability to understand why they might have felt that way and done those things, she did feel strongly personally hurt by their choices.
(She may not have got along with Sirius under any circumstances, but he was family; that was what mattered, and she doesn't understand why it wasn't what mattered to him.)
Accordingly, a great deal of Narcissa's identity and personal self-worth is tied up in her concept of family (if you did a drinking game of how many times I say 'family' in this app, your liver would curl up and whimper, btw), and the late '70s, early '80s were a rough time for her personally as she watched the ancient and noble house of Black essentially crack apart from the inside. She's an intelligent woman, she saw which way the wind was blowing, and it was a profound disappointment - like suddenly realizing that your parents are people, not gods, but on a much larger scale. In an almost conscious choice, she essentially turned her back on what was burning and refocused herself on the Malfoy family, Lucius and Draco particularly.
Having socially flourished out from the shadow of her sisters, Narcissa is nevertheless not a woman who desires a spotlight; the concept of 'the power behind the throne' (or 'behind every great man') is something that appeals to her (and her ego) a great deal more, and her methods have reflected that. Outside of Hogwarts and the social sphere that she dominated during her time in Slytherin House, she's comfortable stepping back into a visibly secondary role; playing the role of kittenish ingenue that her sisters and their social circles have grown to expect from the youngest and most delicate-seeming of the Black girls, she is well-aware that she's frequently underestimated and she endeavors to make her peace with that by simply taking advantage of it. Always fond of machinations, Narcissa has developed her methods - in adolescence she didn't always have quite so much forethought as would be valuable to her in later years, planning for immediate results and not always considering long term social impact - and does superbly in her present role as lady of the manor, networking like a champ. Or a great white shark, one of those!
Admittedly prejudiced, while Narcissa doesn't philosophically disagree with her husband's Cause, the war always troubled her and for her own part, she doesn't really see a great benefit in ideas like wiping out the unsuitable muggle population. In order to be superior, after all, one must always have someone to be superior to - and as the war progressed, she became more and more uneasy with the idea of the rich culture and history that she prized above so many things was slowly being reduced to a tug of war led by extremists. Loyal and frankly in no position to contradict anyone, she kept her doubts to herself and focused on dealing with the situation that she was in rather than thinking too hard about maybes and might-have-beens; she took the same approach, in essence, when the war ended with the fall of the Dark Lord and she scrambled with Lucius to find their footing in the changing world.
At the end of the day, she is a ruthless, mercenary pragmatist who will wear the hell out of a nice pair of heels and has done a lot of mental gymnastics to justify and validate the values and prejudices with which she was raised.
Object:
Reason for playing: I have been playing Narcissa off and on for about six or seven years, at this point, and though I move further and further away from the HP fandom over time, I still have a significant fondness for my first ever LJRP character. I’m extremely fond of our HP cast, and I’m very interested in the CR and conflicts that may arise with the life she leads here. I’d like to reunite her with her husband and with Sebastian also, see how she deals with characters further along in the timeline than she is, and watch her adjust to the very different atmosphere in Baedal - social politics are her bag, baby, so this game is pretty appropriate, I feel; I would like to see her make connections and development outside of her comfort zone, both situationally and with regard to the people around her. I don’t think she’ll officially hook up with Hellsing as Lucius has, but I do think she’ll probably have some Integra-related CR to get her involved in their political movements, so that should keep her in motion. And also provide fabulous scenes of Integra and Narcissa hanging out smokin’ cigars, which I think we can all agree needs to happen. Also in things that need to happen, I am intrigued by playing her off her tinier alt, and I’m sure Shar’s Bellatrix would enjoy having two sisters again and neither of them being Andromeda.
Gods: Shada is kind of a gimme here, I think, with the magic, motherhood and propensity for massive drama.
Writing Samples
Players may choose to write three of the four writing samples. Additionally, for two of the three samples applicants may substitute links to previously written roleplaying threads of no less than eight substantial replies. We reserve the right to ask for an additional sample if more information is required.
First-Person Network Post: Narcissa’s Bete Noire arrival post.
Third-Person Arrival Post: The first thing she does is fix her hair.
Oh, of course she reads the literature (how unutterably condescending) and she tries the door (locked, and unresponsive to her spells); she puts Evan’s wand away with hers and permits herself the momentary pang as she realizes he mustn’t be here, else he’d have it. She hopes Lucius is here, and eyes the CiD as she considers whether or not to use it to try to find him.
...but the first thing she does is fix her hair. The spell Moody had used was effective, and her hair’s been growing in red for the past month or so, which makes stripping out the magic to let her natural colour return and remain something of a time-consuming effort. She leans against the table as she works on it, and only when smooth blonde hair frames her face again, only after she’s leeched the darker colour out of her eyes and returned them to what’s familiar, then she is satisfied enough to turn her attention to other things. She has found herself in yet another strange place, and she will face it nothing other than herself.
She is more than capable.
Third-Person Action Post: It would take a genuine effort, Narcissa thinks, to dredge up anything less appealing than calendars and schedules and - Merlin, she's even tried applying Arithmancy, which it must be said was and remains no one's pick for a glamorous subject of study. She's tired and irritable, Lucius is bruised and running late, and the suggestion that he might just make it quick, then, is hardly met with delight.
The thing is that she should be pregnant by now. There's no earthly reason why she shouldn't be - she considered framing the test results that prove as much and hanging them in the bloody foyer in lieu of a family portrait to put an unceremonious end to the gentle, patronizing inquiries about the state of her womb, presently fruitless as it is. The fantasies that occupy her mind while Lucius is occupying her body are vengeful and unflattering - which is something, at least, because Merlin knows the sex has always benefited from her temper - but she'd so much rather be angry than be bursting into tears over blood in her knickers again, month after month after interminable month.
She's young, healthy, and shagging like a damn Weasley; she thinks it would be easier (better, even) if there were something for her to pinpoint and blame, but instead it's just this frustrating ignorance and emptiness, taut conversations late at night and dreaming about what it would be like to be the valkyrie of the family instead of an ineffectual broodmare.
(If he leaves her-)
Afterwards, Lucius cancels his appointments for the afternoon and she sits in his study with him, and things are not perfect, but he's home and there's tomorrow.
Misc
Other: Narcissa is semi-AU and pre-canon, as a result of her Bete Noire experience and subsequent history between Bete Noire and Baedal.