FLYNN, MARK BRADLEY

[Mark Bradley Flynn]

Mark Bradley Flynn
Here's to the strong; thanks to the brave.
Don't give up hope: some people change.
Against all odds, against the grain,
Love finds a way: some people change.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

full name:

[/b] Mark Bradley Flynn
age: 17
sexual orientation: Bi-Curious but prefers boys.

blood status: Pure
house/former house: Slytherin
occupation: n/a
alliance: Dumbledore's Army (Order)

amortentia: Burning flesh of any kind, including animal meat. Mark doesn't eat flesh at all.
patronus: Hare
boggart: Aidan Flynn
erised: His father standing behind him while he holds the Quiddich House Cup.

strengths:

• Good student
  
• Intelligent
  
• Persistent
  
• Willing to change
  
• Adaptable
  
• Steadfast
  
• Loyal (to persons, not allegiances)
  
• Ambitious
  
• Determined
  
• Dreamer
  
• Good friend
  
• Skilled with potions

weaknesses:

• Tends to be a bully
  
• Has to have his way
  
• Pushy
  
• Temperamental (quick to anger)
  
• Has a tendency to rage (violently)
  
• Has a hard time making friends (but an easy time keeping them)
  
• Doesn't get along with his family.
  
• Ambitious to a fault (cut-throat)
  
• Can be unkind/cruel
  
• Easily confused when it comes to allegiance

likes:

• Quiddich
  
• Animals (mostly dogs)
  
• Junk food (and lots of food)
  
• Potions
  
• Grey magic (what could be used for dark or light)
  
• Slytherin house
  
• Reading
  
• Mystery
  
• His Family (whether they know it or not)

dislikes:

• Confusion about family issues
  
• Eating vegetables or most things good for him
  
• Muggles
  
• Muggle-borns and Mud-bloods
  
• People who lack direction
  
• Staying Still
  
• Being confined
  
• Idiots

habits:

• Hyperactivity (Mark can't sit still for long)
  
• Picks at the cuffs of his shirts when he's nervous
  
• Guzzles pumpkin juice constantly
  
• Ignores people he doesn't like (as though they don't exist)
  
• Stops to pet every dog he sees

goals:

• Learn legilimency
  
• Become an Auror
  
• Reunify with his father
  
• Maintain a strong relationship with his aunt
  
• Find a way to communicate with his deceased mother and siblings

personality: -

People can change, can't they? That's the basic premise that has dominated Mark's life for the past three years. Guilt has wracked him constantly, invading his dreams and waking him up in the middle of the night screaming. There were nights that he wished he hadn't chosen Slytherin in the sorting ceremony, days that he wished he could go back in time and fix his wrongs, but every day he spends wishing that there was some way for him to be well and truly punished for the mistakes that he has made. There is nothing... nothing that he can do to bring his mother and siblings back, but he knows that he is responsible for their deaths, and he will never forgive himself for it. The only thing that he can do is remain loyal to his remaining family and to Dumbledore as he struggles to make right of his life.

Mark isn't always a nice person. And in fact, he wasn't always as nice as he is today. He has a mean streak and an ambition that will eat you alive if you aren't careful. But over the past three years, things have begun to change. After the fire, it took him three years to recognize what he had done and to feel the real remorse for it. His father no longer spoke to him, and he spent his holidays with his Deatheater Aunt, Brigit. She taught him everything she knew about the dark arts, but it wasn't comforting, and the more that he has learned, the more that Mark has turned away from the Dark Arts to seek something he considers more normal and certainly more fulfilling.

Now, five years after the death of his mother and siblings, Mark has begun to feel a real, gut wrenching remorse that has sent him over to the Order side of the war. He continually seeks to punish himself for the house fire that he believes he caused, and he has been unable to purge himself from the guilt in the same way that he's been unable to make things right with his father. Mark experiences a great deal of fear and uncertainty as a result of his past choices and he is trying hard to find even ground so that he can tackle the threat of facing his father again.

All in all, Mark isn't a bad person. But he is a sad person and he has a great deal of stress in his life. For the past few years he has been applying all of his academic energy to learning to become an animagus and is now focusing on legilimency. He's highly academic and school gives him something to focus on other than his worries about what's happened in the past. One of the reasons he wants to become a legilimens is because more than anything, he wants to figure out the mind and understand it when he doesn't really understand his own mind.

appearance:

At first glance you might say that Mark inherited his father's height. He stands at six feet and three inches tall, which for a seventeen year old is still quite tall. But that doesn't account for the four inches that his father has on his height, towering over him in any crowd. But he is more slender than his father, almost thin, dependent more on his magic than he is on his brawn. He's exceptionally physically strong regardless, and he has worked hard to become the captain of the Slytherin Quiddich team. He's a strong Keeper and enjoys the position, but he tends to be envious of the smaller team members who are able to compete for the Seeker position.

Mark has brown hair that he wears fairly shaggy and piercing blue eyes that seem to look right through you. There's a certain hardness in his face that is normally unusual in someone his age, but Mark has seen a lot of life. His clothing style reflects some of his life experience, in that he prefers clothing that is just slightly worn-looking, but still in the latest styles for the area in which he lives.

marks, scars, tattoos, etc:

Small, self-inflicted burn scars going up the length of Mark's left inner arm.

overall style:

Mark is a t-shirt and jeans kind of guy, though he often wears an Oxford shirt over his tees. He's almost always a little bit on the scruffy side, probably taking a page out of his father's book. He doesn't always take care of his clothes, but they're at least relatively clean, except perhaps for his Quiddich gear.

mother: Emily Flynn
father: Aidan Flynn
siblings: Jenny and Caleb Flynn (deceased)
spouse: Looking (for a boyfriend/girlfriend)
children: N/A
other family members: Aunt Brigit (former Hufflepuff, now Death Eater)
wealth status: Upper Class
pets: A Barn Owl named Joshua

history: -

Mark is the son of Unspeakable Aidan Flynn. He believes that his father is at Hogwarts for the sole purpose of keeping an eye on him because he doesn't trust him, and the truth of the matter is that Mark can hardly blame his father for feeling that way. He hasn't done much to make himself trustworthy and his father is more intensely suspicious of him since he learned (and earned) the ability of animagus. He feels as though his father is always watching him, and it makes him uncomfortable, but he also knows that his father's suspicion is natural and understandable.

After all, it was Mark who set the fire that burned down his father's house, killing his mother and two younger siblings.

He's never gotten over the guilt. He might have found it easier if it had been a spark of his magic, either uncontrolled or intentionally breaching the laws of their society that had caused the fire, but it was something much simpler (and more stupid than that). Mark had been experimenting with Muggle smoking tobacco and had dropped ash onto the carpet of the home unknowingly, then left the house. It caught fire, and within an hour the people who had been left inside were dead. He wasn't there to watch the blaze, but he harbors the guilt of knowing that his father did. He's never told Aidan what happened, though he knows his father believes the fire was set and he was intentionally responsible for it. He's never been the same person since then, and he has worked hard to turn his life around and become a better man than what he might otherwise have been. But most people still see him as "that" Slytherin, or "just another Slytherin." He doesn't take it well at all.

Mostly Mark has thrown himself into his studies. Early on at Hogwarts he wanted to learn to become an animagus, and because the skill required so much study, he started very early on, even secretly working in his first year at Hogwarts. He has recently gained the ability to shift with success though it isn't something that he does often. Transfiguration is easily his best subject, however, and he has focused on it for so long that it has become an ingrained part of his personality. He's developed an embarrassing fascination with the Transfiguration teacher. Now, however, he's mostly turned his attention to the study of legilimency, wanting to learn what he believes will help him to gain an understanding of those things that still elude him. He's been working hard, but between his regular schoolwork and Quiddich, he's behind on the studies that he's trying to do.

Life hasn't been eventful for Mark since the fire. He lives with his Aunt Brigit when he isn't in school, and he tries hard to avoid his father wherever possible. He isn't always successful, but he tries to keep his nose out of trouble and to avoid giving his father any reason to think that he's up to no good. In truth, he's on the side of Dumbledore and the others who he sees as the "dogooders" as though he could possibly make up for his transgressions of the past.

[/blockquote]

ROLEPLAY SAMPLE:

This might be hard to understand out of context. This is from The Hunger Games RPG and Smokey was a very recent character who I'd just started when the Reaping came. If you don't know THG, the reaping is an event in which one boy and one girl (12-18) in each of twelve districts are chosen to go into an Arena and fight to the death against the 23 other "tributes." Smokey was chosen as a tribute and is now at the Capitol training center preparing for the games. The Blood Bath begins this Friday, January 28th, 2012 and I'm preparing for it, which is one reason I'm not around as much as I might otherwise be. Anyway, each tribute had to send in a "private training thread" for their tribute. My problem is that before this, nobody really knew Smokey. This is my only opportunity to have him remembered when/if he dies. Out of the 24, odds aren't on him, so he might be gone this Firday (I'm really sad about that, to be honest). Anyway, this is his private training thread, and it's more than 4000 words. This is pretty typical of my writing on that site. Please ignore any weird formatting. I'm trying to remove it all but I might have missed some.

When you're sad and when you're lonely
And you haven't got a friend
Just remember that death is not the end

Sometimes, just in the blink of an eye, your life could change into something that you'd never imagined. Just a few days ago Smokey had been sure that he would never be reaped. It was his final year and he'd make it out of this one alive. Never mind how the math worked out so that he had his name in that bowl more times than almost anybody else in District Twelve (between his age and tessarae he was sure that he was doomed from the start, now that he'd taken the time to be more intelligent about what had happened to him), he was going to make it through one more year so that he could set his mind to working and making sure that Bethany never had to take out tessarae. She ain't gonna have a choice now. Tessarae is the only thing gonna keep her alive if Daddy don't go back to work. I coulda done it next year. I'd be out of school... Bethany was never off his mind, and he already had the locket that she'd given him after the reaping tucked against his chest on a thin but strong chain that he had forged in the fires when she was a little girl and had first received the locket from their grandmother. It had her initial in the middle of it, and right now it was the only thing he had to cling to. I want to win. I never thought I'd say that, but I want to win. Want to or not, he'd been saying that (aloud) for the past two days.

"I want to win." The words were spoken quietly and quite a bit of breath in that way that people had when they'd bee working too hard for too long. Winded. Most of the activities that Smokey had done during his training weren't particularly active; he'd worked on edible and medicinal plants, and he'd worked on healing so that he could gain techniques to keep him alive in the Arena when there were parts of him that weren't in the best of shape. He'd been taught how to tie a good tourniquet and how to cauterize a wound. Neither had been pleasant and his stomach had been churning for most of the past two days. But the food has been fantastic. I've been eating like a king for the past few days and at least there will be a bit more meat on my bones going into the Arena. And I didn't even throw up! Goodness knows I thought I was going to throw up at least a few times! Alright, so right now he felt as though his stomach was about to empty its contents in the middle of the floor as though in a horrific effort to prove just how badly he'd done at the edible plants station which, let's face it, was my best station. I don't know how much good that's gonna do me in the Arena. Startin' to think I shoulda worked with blades while I had the chance, careers or no careers!

And all that you held sacred
Falls down and does not mend
Just remember that death is not the end

His hands were shaking, and he held them at his sides since there were no convenient pockets in his training uniform. The room was enormous and intimidating with the kind of fluorescent lights that were known for causing seizures in patients with epilepsy. Wouldn't that be funny, if I just dropped to the floor and started to have a giant fit right here? I might bite off my tongue like those avoxes like the one who was takin' care of me. Would they still make me go into the Arena or would I be a different kind of slave? A shiver went down Smokey's spine as he glanced around the room at the various stations. At the majority of them, the trainers had cleared out in one way or another, but there were several items still scattered around. At the blades station there were swords and knives, dummies meant for stabbing. Already torn up, pierced through, a mess everywhere. I could never do that. But there was a small voice in the back of his head saying, Oh, but you will. If it's your life or theirs, you will do to the people training with you what they did to that dummy, and you won't even think twice about it if it's their life or yours.

Still, if he could help it, Smokey's strategy for right now was simply to stay alive and to trust his instincts to allow him to improvise once he got into the Arena. There were various different items that he could use that would be at his disposal, most of them blunt objects, but he was already calculating how maybe he could find some vines and use them as ropes to kill by decapitation or at least strangulation. And once starvation started, well, ain't nobody more used to starvin' than District Twelve, so maybe I got an advantage there, huh? He'd already trained himself to cold weather if it was a cold Arena like last year, giving his coat and the extra clothing for Bethany rather than for himself. His body had adjusted and he could withstand quite a bit of cold now.

Somewhere in the balcony a throat cleared, and Smokey raised his head to look up at them, squinting against that hideous artificial light that seemed determined to numb his mind. They're bored by now. They've already seen twenty-two people by now and it looks like one of them up there is already beginning to fall asleep. What was it that we've been told? Impress them! But how? There was only one thing that Smokey had a talent for, and that was humor. Here, he could see none, no up-side to the situation that they were in, nothing to laugh about. There was no smile, as though his face was as frozen as his mind was. Get it in gear Smokey! Move yer ASS!

Not the end... Not the end...
Just remember that death is not the end.

"Looks like we got a great audience here tonight!" he called out to the gathered Gamemakers, none of whom seemed enthusiastic to see another tribute standing before them. His hands clenched at his sides. Several bored faces turned toward him, and at least for a moment he had their attention. Smokey flashed a grin. He opened his mouth to make some kind of a joke about how the lights were designed to make avoxes without the trouble, but the joke fell flat, even for him, and he gritted his teeth instead. "So I thought about showin' y'all about how I did at the edible plants station, but I done eaten so much of that rich food y'all got here in the Capitol, I'm thinkin' that it's more likely to look like I'm just gonna go on in that Arena an' poison myself. I ain't sure that's the kinda thing you're thinkin' you wanna see o'course." He swallowed. Well that was just about the flattest joke ever. Maybe I should go for the edible plants station. Not sure what I'd do there other than prove to them that I can tell what different kinds of plants are, and they're bored by now, so they aren't gonna be too interested in watchin' me pick around with some stupid fruits an' vegetables. 'Sides, I just ate an' my belly's full. No point in stuffin' myself. Save that knowledge for later. Suddenly it occurred to Smokey that he could go over to the station and all it would take was him downing a quick-kill poisonous plant to be out of the games and somewhere... Somewhere more peaceful, anyway.

"Yanno, havin' dangerous plants in a training center prolly ain't all that smart. If I wan'ned to go on over there an' pick up some of those nightlock berries, for example, all it takes is me just poppin' a couple of 'em in my mouth an' swallowin' 'em an' you wouldn't have me outta here fast enough to get me in that Arena. You really should think about having runners up." It wasn't even remotely funny, and Smokey found suddenly that he felt incredibly bitter, as though he just couldn't go on for another moment. Within days he'd be dead and it would all be worthless anyway. No matter how much he wanted to win, reality said there's no way that I can do this. There is no way that I can kill even one person and if I'm going to survive, I'm going to have to. And if I don't go home, how much do you want to bet that Bethany gets reaped? I swear they rig those things. The Capitol loves their sibling tributes. And maybe if I did eat some of those berries, it would spare her. But it could also be the opposite, and that was what kept him going as he stepped closer, glancing around the room. He'd not worked much on combat, which left him afraid of even touching one of the swords. The edible plants was worthless, and what was he supposed to do with healing? Prove how well he could tie a tourniquet? Well... There was that.

When you're standing on the cross-roads
That you cannot comprehend
Just remember that death is not the end

They're already bored. I'm going to have to do somethin' to impress them. I been takin' care of Momma all this time, I guess healin's the way to go. I'll talk my way through it. "So when I was four years old my Momma had this big accident. Stupid thing really. In District Twelve we got all these potholes everywhere," Smokey began as he walked toward the healing station and then went down onto his knees. This would be easier, more relevant if there were people other than himself to heal, since working with a dummy in the training center was different than working on yourself in the Arena and he knew it. But he sucked it up, gritted his teeth and dropped down onto his knees, hauling the man-sized (and weighted!) dummy up to his chest so that he was cradling it as though it were a part of his own body, the legs covering the area where his would be if he was sitting with them outstretched instead of underneath him. "So one day when I'm four, she steps into this pothole in the middle of the road. She mighta just turned her ankle real bad, maybe broken it, but bein' my momma an' I swear to you the most melodramatic person ever, she felt like she needed to fall down. I was right there, mind you -- no joke, I'm not makin' jokes right now -- an' there was this giant rock right there. Well, wouldn't it just figure she done smacked her head right there on that rock?"

Not all of the dummies in the arena were particularly life like. Most were pretty simple. If you cut off a leg, they lost their leg and needed to be replace. A few had been rigged to spurt animal blood everywhere when an artery was severed, and the one that Smokey had chosen was one of those. He hated this. The blood reminded him of that day with his mother, the blood flowing from her temple, spilling onto the white snow and spreading out silently across the ground while he screamed and screamed. Now he swore that he could hear his own screams in his head. Thank goodness Bethany was at home with Daddy. I dunno what I woulda done if she'd been there. But what he had done was to stop the bleeding by applying pressure to the wound until it clotted. Regardless, that apparently hadn't saved his mother. Sure, but I'm not sure I believe she's anythin' but lazy, if you'll excuse me. He kept that one to himself and instead he cleared his throat.

And all your dreams have vanished
And you don't know what's up the bend
Just remember that death is not the end.

"So there she was, blood pourin' outta this big hole in her head," Smokey went on talking as he used the sharp part of his finger nail to start a gash in the dummy's head. It didn't bleed well, at least not the way that a human would bleed from a cut on the forehead where the veins were prevalent and the blood was highly oxygenated and bright red. He pressed his lips together, agitated, but the icy fingers that gripped his heart told him that he was failing, and failing badly. He shot his head up, seeking the eyes of one of the Game Makers, and then flashed a huge grin. "So there I was, an' I was four years old, an' you'd think a four year-old was pretty stupid, right? I mean, sure. An' she's screamin' an' screamin' until she wasn't screamin' no more, an' the only thing I could think to do was to grab these huge hands full of snow an' shove them onto the head wound. I guess that's a good way to cause an infection," he said, forcing a laugh. "Well I guess you could say now I know better. I know plantain is good for infection, but cabbage leaves can help draw the infection out too. You just gotta layer 'em," Smokey said as he slapped one of said leaves on the (not so) bloody head of the dummy and bound it around. There wouldn't be any bandages in the arena and there were none here, but the mess and gore would help to attach the cabbage leaves to the head. "I guess the problem is that when you're out there, you're gonna have to be decidin' whether or not you wanna eat the cabbage or put it on your head!" he joked stupidly.

Right now they're thinkin' about what an idiot I am. Blatherin' on about... About my mother. Suddenly (and surprisingly!) there were tears burning in his grey eyes, and Smokey sniffed them back, clenching his jaw against the sudden surge of emotion. Whatever else she is, she's my mother, and I'm gonna miss her, wherever I'm goin' after the Arena. For just a moment Smokey couldn't breathe, which strangely gave him another opportunity to prove what he knew about defending himself and keeping himself healthy in the Arena; he put his head back to open his own airways, catching his breath and then coughing so hard that he nearly vomited. "Well that was clever," he muttered to himself, then shook his head. He had to get through this.

Not the end, not the end
Just remember that death is not the end.

How much time had passed? Smokey wasn't sure. It could have been seconds, minutes, even an hour, but he knew that it was running out. Runnin' outta time, runnin' outta time, runnin' outta time, became his mantra, one word for every beat of his heart until he was sure that he couldn't keep up at that pace any more because his heart was racing so fast. His cheeks were hot and, he realized wet. I'm thinkin' about Momma an' it's makin' my cheeks wet cause I'm cryin' like a stupid little baby in front of the Game Makers. Just what I needed. They're gonna think I'm the hugest idiot in the world. They know what I know. I'm gonna die.

"I ain't so good with blood," Smokey said quietly, then cleared his throat. "But yanno, it ain't other people's blood I'm gonna be seein'. It's mine. An' I figure that if you gotta do somethin', if you know that you either stop that blood or you die, you figure out some way to get lotsa pressure on that spot that's bleedin' an' make it stop. An' I'll tell you what else, cause... Cause..." Panic and hysteria were becoming too close to the surface and he thought that he was going to explode if he gave in to it. He swallowed it back, pressing his tongue hard to the roof of his mouth like when he drank cold water too fast in the summer and got a headache. Get. Control. Now. "I been watchin' these games for years, so I'm figurin' I'm gonna have to deal with some broken bones," Smokey said as he reached for a long wooden rod and secured it to the dummy's arm with some cord that could easily be replaced in the arena with thin vines. Times runnin' out, time's runnin' out, times' runninout, timesrunningout, timesrunningout! His voice was growing more desperate and panicked as the seconds ticked by and he couldn't think of another thing to do. He could heal infection, put pressure on a wound, splint a broken bone and... "Look. I don't wanna lose nothin' in that Arena. Not a limb, not my life, not my sanity an' we all know I'm prolly gonna lose all of it. So here's the thing: nothin' I show you is gonna make a single difference. Not to you an'... Well, maybe to me. But here's the thing; I wanna survive, gentlemen." With nothing more to say, Smokey rose to his feet. He hadn't shown his tourniquet, but he knew the time was up and that no matter how much he panicked, it really isn't going to matter one little bit whether you've got all the sponsors in the world once you're in that arena. Remember thinkin' about steppin' off your plate early? Yeah. Nothin' to send home to Bethany but at least... At least she wouldn't have to see you turn into some kinda an animal.

But in the end, they were all animals anyway. That's what we are. Every last one of us. If this is a game of survival, I sure as hell am gonna survive. Nothin' else to it. "Thank you gentlemen for your time," Smokey said as he saluted toward the balcony. "But since I'm dead anyway, I figure it's time for me to give Aisley her chance to impress y'all. May the odds be ever in her favor, cause they sure as hell ain't in favor of the boy from the Seam." With nothing more to say or do, Smokey turned and stalked out of the training center.

Hello! My name is, Devin and I've been roleplaying for 15 years.
My character's play-by is Logan Lerman and my application is, awesome! so sort me already!