Post by emmanuelle antoinette picquery on Sept 3, 2020 21:08:35 GMT -7
Emmanuelle Antoinette Picquery
pronunciation:
Ee-MAN-you-ell An-twuh-NET PICK-er-ee
nickname:
The Voodoo Queen; Emma, Emmy, Manny, Elle, etc.
age and birthday:
26
August 30, 1999
gender and pronouns:
Cisgender female; she/her pronouns
basic info
blood status:
Half-blood
sexuality:
Pansexual
wand:
11 inches, rosewood, Rougarou hair core, solid
playby:
Khadijha Red Thunder
appearance:
Standing at 5'9" with a thin, bony build, Emmanuelle might not seem very physically imposing to those unaware of her magical abilities. Of mixed Cree and African-American descent, she has tanned, freckled skin and dark brown eyes. Her hair is a reddish brown, and she typically wears it in its naturally curly state. Her ears are pierced once on each earlobe, and she also has her septum pierced.
Overall, Emmanuelle prefers to make a statement with her appearance. She tends to wear large earrings and bright clothing, typically robes or dresses, and she usually wears her hair down or in braids.
education and jobs
schooling:
Homeschooled
schooling status:
Graduate (2017)
current occupation:
Voodoo practitioner
Specialty Stock Supplier at the Gaelic Knot
personality
likes:
Traditional forms of magic, but especially Louisiana Voodoo; working with curses; experimentation, as long as traditional practices aren't forgotten; her heritage as a mixed Black and Native American woman; jambalaya; her grandmother; Knockturn Alley; maxi dresses; the color red; bayous
dislikes:
The Registry of Proscribed Charmable Objects; people who assume that voodoo is all voodoo dolls; witch-hunters; MACUSA's growing influence in wizarding Britain; Animagi; being late; electronics; eating breakfast; crawfish; small children
erised:
Emmanuelle hopes to carry on her family's legacy as a practitioner of Louisiana Voodoo, and she also hopes to gain increasing knowledge of new forms of magic that can help inform her practices. Ideally, she would see herself as the one to bring Louisiana Voodoo—and voodoo in general—the respect that she feels it deserves as a magical practice.
amortentia:
Magnolia blossoms, rainwater, and matches
boggart:
Emmanuelle most fears that the increasing governmental oversight of magical practices will cause voodoo to die out. Second to that, she also fears never being able to return to New Orleans.
overall personality:
admiration - Emmanuelle most admires her grandmother and her grandmother's abilities as a practitioner of Louisiana Voodoo. Although she could probably rival her grandmother's abilities anymore, in truth, she still holds her grandmother in high regard.
adoration - Where adoration is concerned, Emmanuelle certainly doesn't mind receiving attention from others, but she's generally more concerned with whatever it is that she's working on at the moment.
aesthetic appreciation - Emmanuelle most appreciates the sights and sounds of voodoo rituals being performed; there's nothing more beautiful to her.
amusement - Although it's also quite frustrating for her, Emmanuelle is amused by the ideas that many people hold about voodoo beliefs and practices. She finds a lot of them absolutely laughable, in fact.
anger - Emmanuelle is angered most by the extent to which her ability to practice voodoo is threatened by government oversight. For her, it's tradition, and she worries that it could be lost.
anxiety - Emmanuelle's anxieties are largely about her grandmother. She doesn't know what she would do if anything were to happen to her, but she is certain that she would drop everything to be with her.
awe - If anything, Emmanuelle is in awe of everything that she has been able to accomplish with her magic so far. She knows that there will always be room for her to improve, but she feels she's done well for herself.
awkwardness - Emmanuelle feels most awkward around non-magical people and tries to limit her interactions with their world as much as she can. They don't understand her life, and she doesn't care to understand theirs.
boredom - Not being able to toy around with spells or enchantments for very long tends to leave Emmanuelle pretty bored. Even when she's at work, she's usually thinking about what she can do when she gets home.
calmness - Voodoo rituals bring Emmanuelle the greatest sense of calm. She feels more connected to the spirits and her ancestors—and more empowered.
confusion - Emmanuelle is confused by how or why anyone would voluntarily choose to associate with the non-magical world. Given the history of separation between the magical and No-Maj worlds in the United States, in particular, she doesn't understand why anyone would desire to fraternize with them.
contempt - Those who don't understand voodoo and thus treat it as something evil that is to be feared are those for whom Emmanuelle feels the most contempt.
craving - Emmanuelle most craves her grandmother's home cooking. She hasn't been able to find anything that comes close enough for her liking since she moved from Louisiana.
disappointment - What is most disappointing for Emmanuelle is that she has never had a real relationship with her mother.
disgust - Crawfish. That might make her less than a "true" Louisianan, but no thank you.
empathic pain - Because she views voodoo as a means of helping those less fortunate than she, Emmanuelle does see herself as empathetic to others' plights. In her mind, her work is for the greater good of wizardkind.
entrancement - Because entrancement plays a role in some voodoo rituals, that would be with what Emmanuelle most closely associates the sensation.
envy - Emmanuelle is secretly envious of people who have been able to know both of their parents, because she never got that opportunity for herself.
excitement - Getting new ideas for enchantments is most exciting for Emmanuelle, and she's always eager to act upon her ideas.
fear - That voodoo will die out with her generation is Emmanuelle's greatest fear, and it's probably the only reason that she would consider having a child of her own; she needs someone who can carry her own legacy forward someday.
guilt - Emmanuelle does feel guilty that she's gone and left Louisiana (and her grandmother) for so long, and she plans to return to the United States sooner rather than later.
horror - Emmanuelle is horrified by the things that MACUSA and the British Ministry of Magic consider to be "progressive". It has come at the expense of traditional magical practices, and she isn't happy with it.
interest - Other forms of voodoo and other traditional forms of magic most pique Emmanuelle's interest.
joy - Nothing brings Emmanuelle more joy than knowing that her voodoo practices have helped someone else.
nostalgia - Being so far away from home, Emmanuelle experiences a lot of nostalgia for New Orleans and the time that she spent with her grandmother and uncle as a child.
pride - Emmanuelle is proud to carry on her grandmother's legacy of practicing Louisiana Voodoo. She's also proud to be Cree, even if she isn't as connected to that aspect of her background.
relief - Emmanuelle is most relieved when she tries something experimental that works without a hitch.
romance - Emmanuelle has never really focused on romance and has never had a proper romantic relationship with anyone, although she's never actually sought out such a relationship, either.
sadness - Knowing that she will never truly get to know her father brings Emmanuelle the most sadness. She hopes that he would be proud of her and what she has managed to accomplish, however.
satisfaction - Emmanuelle is most satisfied when she knows that she has put her best foot forward when it comes to doing something. Particularly challenging enchantments are definitely up there.
sexual desire - Emmanuelle is pansexual and considers herself to be attracted to people regardless of how they present or identify.
surprise - Emmanuelle is most surprised by how different life is outside of Louisiana. She hadn't really traveled prior to uprooting herself, and she's still shocked by some of the unexpected cultural differences.
sympathy - While some might view her work as heartless, Emmanuelle does what she does out of care for other people and a desire to alleviate their suffering. She simply believes that magical and non-magical society are better off separate from each other.
triumph - Praise from her grandmother for something she's done is the highest form of praise Emmanuelle could hope to receive, and she knows that she's done something right then.
personal history
origins:
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
relations:
mother:
Dawn Cardinal, 53, herbologist, half-blood witch, estranged from
father:
Antoine Picquery, 1971–1999, former metal charmer and Louisiana Voodoo practitioner, pure-blood wizard
paternal uncle:
Raymond Picquery, 1964–2024, former spell inventor and Louisiana Voodoo practitioner, pure-blood wizard
paternal grandmother:
Fabienne Picquery, 85, Louisiana Voodoo practitioner, pure-blood witch
paternal grandfather:
Sylvain Picquery, 1934–1996, Louisiana Voodoo practitioner, pure-blood wizard
pets:
N/A
history:
TW/CW: Death, Hurricane Katrina, murder, (effectively) police brutality
Emmanuelle Picquery was born to Dawn Cardinal, a Cree witch from Montana, on August 30, 1999. Emmanuelle's father, the late Antoine Picquery, was an African-American wizard from Louisiana who died in April of that year in a magical explosion, a few months prior to her birth. Dawn, who had never married Antoine, had planned to place Emmanuelle up for adoption. When Antoine's family found out, however, they decided that they would raise the little girl, and Emmanuelle was taken care of with her paternal grandmother as her legal guardian.
Emmanuelle's earliest memories are of spending time with her grandmother and her uncle Raymond at their home in New Orleans and watching the rituals that they performed with great admiration. She loved the energy and the excitement of it all. Louisiana Voodoo ran in her family's blood; it was something in which her grandmother, in particular, had been trained, and Emmanuelle couldn't wait for the day when she would get the opportunity to follow in her grandmother's footsteps.
When Emmanuelle wasn't quite four years old, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Fortunately, her home and family were relatively spared, and Emmanuelle's faith in her family's voodoo beliefs only grew stronger because of the experience. It wasn't long after that that she began to take voodoo more seriously, and her grandmother began to craft that interest into teaching Emmanuelle.
Rather than being educated at a non-magical school or with other magical children around her own age, Emmanuelle was educated largely in the art of Louisiana Voodoo; everything else was secondary knowledge that her grandmother and uncle would always relate back to voodoo in some way. Although Emmanuelle was cut off from many other children, she never saw herself as lacking anything. She was proud to be magical and proud to practice voodoo; it was vibrant and more exciting than the "regular" sorts of magic that she knew some other people practiced.
Alongside voodoo, Emmanuelle was never kept from knowing her mother's identity. They might not have had much of a relationship with one another—seeing one another once a year at the most—but Emmanuelle was also aware of her Cree heritage on her mother's side. She was proud of her identity, though she didn't have a strong desire to leave Louisiana at any point. People in Montana wouldn't react to voodoo practices in the same way, and Emmanuelle was comfortable with her life as it was.
While the opportunity arose for her to attend Ilvermorny, Emmanuelle didn't want to, and she elected to continue studying under her grandmother. It gave her less opportunity to interact with children of her own age, but that was a minor drawback. More important was ensuring that she would be able to continue her grandmother's work someday. Ilvermorny wouldn't be able to teach her the things that her grandmother knew like the back of her hand, and more "mainstream" forms of magic felt dull and lifeless.
By the time that she was a teenager, Emmanuelle was well-versed in the art of Louisiana Voodoo. Her education might not have been the same as that of many magical children, but that wasn't of any concern to her. She was learning precisely what she knew that she needed to be, and it never actually felt like "work" to her, either. The thought of going to a place like Ilvermorny and having to write essay after essay on magic that she would never actually do in practice sounded like torture.
Coming of age was exciting, however, because it gave Emmanuelle greater freedom to do magic and to practice voodoo without her grandmother there to watch her every move. She took over some of the rituals over which her grandmother typically presided, and she began to learn more about inventing spells from her uncle Raymond. It was helpful knowledge to have, even if spells existed for most tasks already; she never knew when a new need might arise.
Although she was no longer a child, Emmanuelle continued to enhance her knowledge of voodoo and began to make a name for herself, too. When her uncle Raymond was accidentally killed by a MACUSA Auror in a case of mistaken identity in 2024, it solidified for Emmanuelle that she would be the only one to carry on her grandmother's work once she was gone.
Ending up in the United Kingdom (and Ireland, given its proximity), then, was hardly Emmanuelle's plan. It was only after the news broke that the students from Ilvermorny would have to attend Hogwarts beginning in September of 2024 that she had any interest in leaving the country, but she hoped that there would be a market for her services and decided to spend a little time "across the pond" to scope things out. There, the only shops that were interested in anything that she had to create or sell were in a place called Knockturn Alley, where folks seemed more interested in her and her abilities than anything.
Although she had taken a job at a specialty shop in Dublin called the Gaelic Knot in order to provide for herself, Emmanuelle quickly ended up meeting a number of people from the Knockturn Alley side of things. Gradually, a few of these associates led to her joining the Purifiers, for whom she became a go-to for creating enchanted (or even cursed) objects.
Now, over a year later, Emmanuelle has stayed for the sake of continuing to do business with the Purifiers, which is far more lucrative than she could have imagined. She plans to return back to Louisiana eventually, but she's enjoying her life as it is.
site events reaction:
Although Emmanuelle had some level of awareness of the events in wizarding Britain in the years prior, it was only in 2024 that she began to focus on it more. Most of what happened with the various magical schools around the world, including the Triwizard Tournament, didn't hold much significance for her. When the news of the vandalism of Ilvermorny became public, however, her interest in it wasn't because she actually cared about Ilvermorny itself; she hadn't attended the school, so she simply viewed it from a business perspective.
Once she moved to England and began working a day job in Ireland, she began following the news there, though. She couldn't exactly ignore it, though it wasn't long before she was a member of the Purifiers and understood more of what was really happening behind the scenes. She was among the Purifiers to arrive at Azkaban on the day it fell, eager to know what a magic-dampening device might be able to be engineered to do. The Purifiers' failure to get the device only strengthened her resolve to get a better handle on magic of all sorts.
The Hag's Fever outbreak left Emmanuelle sick for a few days, though she considered herself fortunate that the travel restrictions were in place, because she wouldn't have wanted to spread the illness to her grandmother if she were to return to Louisiana. That was about the only bright side, though at least she hadn't had to go to St. Mungo's for it.
Although she did not participate in the explosion of the Quidditch stadium itself, Emmanuelle justified the casualties as a necessary price to pay for the Ministry to understand that change was going to come whether they liked it or not. She was, therefore, sorely disappointed to learn that Viktor Krum had been made Minister for Magic, though the silver lining was that he didn't seem to be exceptionally intelligent.
That seemed good enough, until Emmanuelle saw the Ministry's response to the barrier issue on Hy-Brasil. While she didn't have any experience with the Druid community and doubted that they would approve of all of her rituals, Emmanuelle felt that they also had a right to practice magic as they wished—and without the Ministry's interference. Of course, that was a little hard to do when so many magical creatures had just fled, but there wasn't very much that Emmanuelle could do about it unless a herd of something were to show up at her door.
alias
name:
mod audrey
pronouns:
She/her
age:
23
time zone:
US Central Time
reference:
Current member!
other characters:
@ezekiel, @chrissy, monday meadow weekly, @clarence, parvati patil macmillan, brody christopher dubois, penelope raisa bainbridge, kaylee māhealani mahi'ai, maxima ruqayyah greyback, @muffet, @dasha, samira ali warsame, felix valentin fortescue, @priscilla, @blair, camila calderón, @claricia, honey satheesh varma, @tamatha, sadhbh wormwood
