AWildSquirtle — Roleplayer Guild

A beta sheet, for inspection. I started writing and the words didn't stop...

Mary Tarbell
Plant  ◼   September 17th  ( 18 )   ◼   Female

"Life ain't fair. But you can MAKE it fair!"

A P P E A R A N C E:
Mary stands just shy of 5'5 which irks her to no end, though her grandma swears she still had plenty of growth left in her "Judging by yer great-aunts." Her hair is a messy blend of brown and red, barely kept in check when she braids it. Her hands have seen more than their share of farming accidents with small scars from finding her way around farm equipment running up and down her forearms. When not forced into a school uniform, she prefers to wear baggy cotton shirts, jeans, or overalls. While Mary often draws henna on her arms, she was finally able to get her first tattoo of a lavender plant in Albany with her savings- something her grandma still smacks her upside the head for doing.

B I O G R A P H Y:
Mary Tarbell was born to Joseph and Alice Tarbell at 12:58 AM on September 17th, the day the family apple crop was due to be picked. Her mother often said she got right up 8 hours later and went to join her husband and the other farmhands to bring the crop in, with newborn Mary wrapped around her waist the whole time and she barely felt an ache in her body the whole time.

Mary called bullshit on this story by the time she turned 12, but her mom still tells it every chance she gets if anyone hasn't heard it.

Raised on a rural farm in upstate New York, Mary wasn't particularly well off, but she did have a family that cared about her, a roof over her head, and a grandma who was whip fast with a spoon to her knuckles if Mary ever came back from school with anything less than a B in any subject. Granny Tarbell was also the one to make sure that Mary kept her head just high enough to dream, but low enough not to get lost in the clouds. The Tarbell farm had been in the family hands for generations, since the founding of the nation, and it was expected that she'd carry on its tradition if her parents didn't or couldn't give her a sibling. Granny Tarbell's idea of dreaming bigger for Mary meant buying a few more fields and settling down with one of those nice boys from school.

Of course, tell any teenager that their life path has been chosen for them since their birth and you should expect a rebellion to ensue. Mary didn't (and still doesn't fully) know what she wanted to do with her life, but becoming another Tarbell farmer bringing in Apples from the orchard one season, cabbages from the fields another, and a few dozen eggs a week wasn't her idea of a storybook future. She did feel something stir within her every time she picked up a pencil and drew lines on paper, though. Her art teachers regularly pointed out that she showed more talent than most of her classmates, and there were summer programs that could be arranged for her- but the farm always had need of her. Mary started to protest and ask to attend any of these summer retreats when she made it through her freshman year. The shouting match went on for almost ten minutes before granny laid down the law and broke it up. For a while, her parents decided to let things lie and her mother even made a small peace offering by setting up a new flower garden for her on the front lawn when she noticed Mary was taking to drawing some of the wildflowers near the school bus stop in the margins of her notebooks.

Mary wasn't thrilled- her mother seemed to get the wrong message from snooping in her school books, but she let it slide and decided if she couldn't work with her parents to figure out this strange and exciting feeling, she would pursue her passion with the help of her school's guidance counselor. When a letter of acceptance to Corning Community College's early enrollment art program came in the mail, that was when the simmering conflict boiled over. What started as a calm chat about changing her major to agriculture, or even double majoring and selling "her arts" at the farmers market as a peace offering quickly exploded from the kitchen to the front lawn. The normally go-along-to-get-along Mary had had enough of her parents' dictates and stood her ground. She would graduate from High School. She would attend early enrollment classes over the summer. And she would go to a college- any college- to learn how to draw, paint, sculpt- to harness this feeling and create.

The neighbors were the ones to call 9-1-1 and get an ambulance to the property. Mary had two-dozen 1.5 inch rose thorns removed from her legs, her powers having manifested in the flower garden her mother had planted. Per state regulations, and with a little payback for providing fresh produce to the school at a reduced rate as recurring suppliers for close to two-hundred years, Mary Tarbell was enrolled in the Merryweather Institute after being discharged from the hospital.

P E R S O N A L I T Y:
Mary holds a can-do attitude forefront in her mind. Farming is not easy or profitable (as her dad was always quick to remind her), which meant she would have to at least work through her problems with other farm hands when they weren't handling heavy machinery. Mary developed the skill to look for unorthodox, cheap, but effective solutions to problems in front of her. 

But do not, under any circumstances, make decisions for her. Mary doesn't trust anyone- adults or other teenagers- to alter the course of her life in any way.

A B I L I T I E S / S K I L L S:
Driver's license ("So what if it's for a tractor, I can still drive us all downtown for a night of fun and the cops can't do shit!") Animal ken ("You ever teach a barn cat how to hunt rats and not the escaped chicken?"). Uncontrolled plant growth ability ("I don't want to talk about it right now.")

C H A R A C T E R  N O T E S:
Mary is a bit of a writing experiment for me in the world of YA. I don't normally write teenage characters, so feel free to make suggestions for posts that might make her seem more realistic a character. I would also be interested in romantic sub-plots.
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