Maria Etheridge

        FULL NAME:
        → Maria Morrigan Etheridge

        AGE:
        → 26

      SEX:
        → Female

        BIRTH PLACE:
        → Shannon Manor, Shannon, Carraig

        RACE:
        → Crieg

        DATE OF BIRTH:
        → February 8th, 1986




        HEIGHT:
        → 5' 7”

        WEIGHT:
        → 142lbs

        PICTURE:
        →

Spoiler:

      DESCRIPTION:
        → Maria has always considered herself very beautiful, for how can a princess being anything but beautiful? She is a tall woman, but very lithe. As vigorous activity, outside horseback riding and hunting, is prohibited, she has worked hard to keep her figure slim. She's proud of the way she looks, despite her mother's and grandmother's misgivings. While she has good hips “to bear many sons,” they consider her breasts “large and bordering on wanton.” Maria finds such observations obnoxious and she's quite content with her breasts and her hips. Her hair is a vibrant auburn, with wine-colored lowlights. It hangs down to her hips in waves, although she has a tendency to braid it and loop it into a bun. Her eyes are a mahogany hue, a very unique shade. She is pale-skinned and does her best to remain so, just to avoid her mother griping at her for something else.

She enjoys skirts from scandalously short to floor-length. Her ideal length of skirt (and the majority of the ones she wears) ends at her knees and are usually A-line. She adores wearing flats or low heels and she has almost one hundred pairs of shoes. She, of course, also owns a variety of shirts (to go with the aforementioned skirts) and formal dresses. She always has diamond studs in her ears, but that is just the tip of the iceberg of the royal jewels she owns. Her favorite possession in her closet is a black cloak which hangs down to her ankles, the hood coming up to shield her face when need be.

Her stride is delicate, gliding steps that are silent (part of the princess lessons). At least, that would be her normal stride. When she's running down the halls of the manor, screaming at her brother for hiding her books, her feet hit the ground hard. Her voice is shrill when she screams, but rather pleasant when speaking normally. She enjoys acting as a secret passion and enjoys practicing different tones and methods of speech.




        PERSONALITY:
        → Maria is not exactly what a princess is supposed to be. Obiedient, demure and quiet are not her best traits. She has the ability to act delicate and refined, since such things were metaphorically beat into her in her youth. Yet she despises the formalities and tries to treat the instances when she must act as such as a play, rather than reality. In certainly makes it all far more tolerable. Maria is also a bitter person; slights against her from youth have hardened her heart and forced her to hide away all vulnerability. She has a very determined nature and likes to succeed at goals she sets her mind to. She’s not afraid to get her hands dirty in order to get away with something. She wants to be seen as a person in her own right, rather than as just a pawn.
 
Behind that wall, lies an innocent heart. Her needs are simplistic; she wants to be appreciated for who she is and what she loves to do. Yet every time she has opened herself in the past, she was rewarded with rejection. She has since learned that is better to be the best actress in the world to those who call her “princess” than to be expected to be appreciated as Princess Maria, actress extraordinaire. She avidly reads Shakespeare as well as other playwrights, and she enjoys studying plant life. She keeps these passions carefully hidden, in order to avoid more displeasure rained upon her. Other areas have been strictly excluded in her education and as such, she often feels less intelligent in terms of politics. She studies what little she can, but her knowledge is still slim. Maria often appears aloof and only interested in embroidery, which allows some people to call her “rude” or “bitchy.” The comments only add to her ill-temper and often lead to shouting matches, although never in public. She feels that by speaking up (aka screaming) is the only way to be heard sometimes. And the plot she currently has rolling in her mind is the one way she feels she will be heard loudest of all. More than anything, she wants to be seen as more than she is; and if not as an actress, than why not as right-hand adviser to the new king of Carraig? Why not queen in her own right?



        LOVE:
        → Studying poison/poisonous plants, lemon water, her brother (sometimes), Shakespeare, acting, tiaras, embroidery, bubble baths, the attention of being a princess, plotting to overthrow Gavin to prove herself, her favorite cloak, her shoes

        HATE:
        → Fiona (her mother), Gavin (sort of), being third in line, being treated as a pawn rather than a human being, being called a “spinster”, mud on her shoes

        DEEPEST SECRET:
        → She is plotting against her cousin to have her brother take the throne so she can prove that she's more than just a pathetic spinster. If necessary, she'll take the throne herself. She plans on poisoning Gavin to give Brendon the chance to overthrow, but she would never tell Brendon, since he wouldn't believe in it.

      IDOL:
        → Lady Macbeth, Cleopatra



        HISTORY:
        → Royal children are easily pushed onto servants, because it just isn’t royal to have parents lovingly raise their children. So from birth, her mother was always a politely distant figure while nursemaids and tutors followed her day-to-day. Bitterness was something Maria learned as a child.

And her cousin and brother did not quell the bitterness. Two boys against one girl; Maria lacked playmates who enjoyed the same activities she did. She wished to practice embroidery, or study a scene of Shakespeare. The boys were too busy doing “male” activities.

It only got worse as Maria moved into her teens. Lessons ruled her days. Preparation for one day being some noble’s wife. She detested every moment of it and detested it more when she was told she “wasn’t living up to the Etheridge name.”

So when she could, she would run off to her room, shooing her trail of her servants. Shakespeare’s words carried her to far and mystic places and a fascination with plant life led her to the twisted, dark world of poisons and their great variety.

Tragedy struck the Etheridge family as within two years, the king and his brother had died. Suddenly Gavin was king; Brendon and Maria had moved up in the world. Yet she was kept from politics and male studies and forced to continue her princess lessons.

She was constantly heckled by her mother for being inadequate and how she would barely be able to manage running a household, let alone a kingdom if that rarity occurred. When her love of acting was discovered, it was quickly squashed by Fiona, her mother.

Yet Maria continued to practice, without her mother's knowledge. If only she could escape palace life and receive the well-craved recognition in another way... on the stage! But her mother's words about her incompetence gnawed at her being. They kept her at the manor, resolute.

She grew more and more bitter as she grew and her mother began to “lose all hope in her spinster of a daughter.” Suddenly being a princess was beginning to lose all of its perks. She wanted to prove that she was QUITE capable.

She needed to prove that she could handle being more than just a bride. But she was still third in line; her brother presented a problem. Yet not as large as cousin Gavin being on the throne. His secretive ways were easy enough to discover.

It was even easier to slip these issues into her brother's ears. He was full of pride for Carraig and he only needed a little push to go for the throne. Maria would help him get there, because she could be more than a wife.




      TRIVIA:
      → Avidly enjoys studying plant life, especially those of a poisonous nature.
→ Is a lover of Shakespeare and enjoys acting out scenes of his plays. Loves acting in general. She believes if she had the opportunity, she would've been an actress of the stage.
→ Really dislikes her cousin. Only dislikes her brother.
→ She actually does like embroidery; she has created several pillows and is working on a tapestry of the faerie kingdom in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
      → Speaks fluent Crieg and Cretan. She is also fluent in understanding and using sign language.




        ALIAS:
        → Andrea, but I also go by Csi (or Cissy, to a SELECT few)

        OTHER CHARACTERS:
        → Csilla Angelis, Xiao Yu, Patience Vinrouge, Marcelina Henriquez de León, Vladmir Ivan Asarov, Hans Ludwig Reinhardt, Nayeli, Roarke Moray

      CREATOR'S COMMENTS:
        → Plot development, hoooooooooooo! She's been difficult to make, as she likes to contradict herself. Definitely a good actress; I can't tell what is her real story or what she wants me to believe.
→ Also, if you don't mind, although she is a civilian, I'd like her to be “colored” like the Crieg Militants as she is royalty.

        FACE CLAIM:

Code:

[b]PERSONA 3[/b]/[i]Kirijou Mitsuru[/i]

      CUSTOM RANK:
        → Poisonous Princess

Given circumstances, you will be dubbed Princess for rank instead of a normal one and within the Crieg military.