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2015

October

Mirror: She will turn you into toads Remus Lupin
Log: Child what are you doing? Takeshi Ganz

September

Log: Ooh look seeds Chell

August

Log: She remembers medicine
Log: Something has happened Laura Roslin

P L A Y E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Your Name: Yubsie
OOC Journal: yubsie
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: Over 18
Email + IM:
Characters Played at Ataraxion: Bail Organa, Sandman!Death

C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: Esme “Granny” Weatherwax
Canon: Discworld
Original or Alternate Universe: OU
Canon Point: post-I Shall Wear Midnight
Number: Randomize!

Setting: Discworld. It's a strange place.
History:
Esme grew up with a sister Lilith (Lily). When she was still relatively young, her sister left home in order to become a fairy godmother. Esme greatly resented this, as it meant that she had to be the good one and she was quite certain she would have been very adept at being evil. However, she had to be good and thus remained at home to nurse her mother until her death. While it is not explicitly stated, this is most likely when she completed her apprenticeship under a senior witch.

During this time she also briefly went be the name Edemondidia. For a few hours. It was a very silly notion which soon passed. She eventually inherited a very traditional witch's cottage in Lancre, where she set up a stedding and cared for the nearby community. At some point she was also romantically involved with future Archchancellor of Unseen University. This relationship ultimately did not pan out, which she considers to be for the best.

The next time anything is explicitly known about Esme, she was already going by the title Granny Weatherwax. Because as far as canon is concerned, beyond the above to paragraphs, she has always been old.

A local girl, Eskarina Smith, began to show uncontrolled magical powers. Granny initially attempted to teach her traditional witching, but it soon became apparent that her magic was not actually witch magic. She thus escorted her to Ankh-Morpork to train at Unseen University. As part of this, she also learned to ride a broomstick for the first time. She took poorly to it. As female wizards were unheard of, Granny resorted to subterfuge, sneaking them in as servants so that Esk could observe the training of an apprentice.

Although Granny does not much care for such things as covens, she eventually formed a small one with Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick. They met regularly, though the bubbling cauldrons were more likely to contain tea than anything more sinister. The three were already meeting regularly when the king of Lancre was murdered. An escaping servant managed to save both the crown and the king's infant son and gave them to the witches. The witches appointed themselves the babes godmothers and each gave him a gift. Granny's was “may he always be exactly who he thinks he is”, as that is all anyone can ask for in this world. They then gave both the crown and the child into the care of a traveling minstrel troupe.
Of course, waiting for the return of the rightful king is all well and good, but the usurper was making life difficult for the people of Lancre now. In order to allow the boy time to grow up, the witches worked together to weave a massive spell to bring the kingdom forward in time while the king grew up elsewhere.

Conveniently, at this point the usurping Duke commissioned a play about himself, bringing the troupe back to Lancre. The witches had to pull the classic “humble wood gatherer” bit in order to get the troupe to the correct location. And then the apple seller bit to get into the castle. There are traditions. Although not too many traditions. After the play went down about how Hamlet required it to, the boy didn't wish to be king. Fortunately, the court jester turned out to be his brother and thus he took the throne instead.

When Magrat received the Fairy Godmother wand of a dead witch, she has to stop Emberella from marrying a prince/frog who she does not love. As Lily Weatherwax was attempting to assure the exact opposite, Granny and Nanny accompanied her to Genua. Along the way, they encountered a series of awfully familiar situations. Such as a house falling on one of the witches and a bunch of dwarves coming out as they felt compelled to sing the Ding Dong song. Sometimes Granny really hates narrativium. When they arrive at the city, they find that Lily has been influencing these events as well as the city itself to conform to fairy tales norms.

Granny was not impressed. She convinced Magrat to infiltrate the ball in Emberella's place while she and Nanny tagged along. They were eventually discovered and thrown in the dungeon, where they also had to contend with voodoo. In true Granny style, she addressed this problem by realizing the link went both ways and if she touched fire, the doll would burst into flames. She then defeated her sister by trapping her between two mirrors. Lacking Granny's utterly firm sense of self, she was not able to determine which was the real Lily and thus could not escape. Magic and mirrors are a baaaaaad combination.

The witches took the long way home, wishing to see an elephant. Upon their return to Lancre, they discovered that amateur magic practitioners had managed to weaken the fabric of reality by mucking around with matters they didn't fully understand. Granny goes away for a while and suddenly the portal to the land of elves is at risk of opening, typical. Despite her attempts to get the young women to stop, they continued to the point that elves arrive. At which point they discovered that... elves are not nice.

In this time, Mustrum Ridcully also arrived for Magrat's wedding to the king, which actually managed to distract Granny from the elf business. At the most inconvenient moment possible, most likely due to that damn narrativium. And so the elves came through in great numbers and succeed in capturing Granny. She attacks the Elf Queen with magic and suddenly collapses, having bought Magrat time to defeat the queen. When Magrat and Nanny went to read her will, they found a note indicating that she was still not dead, having instead Borrowed her entire beehive, no mean feat.

Granny's next adventure began when the most promising of the amateur girls sought out an opera career at the same time Granny realized Nanny had received no royalties for her cookbook. Combined with the fact that Granny wished to recruit Agnes as the new Maiden of their coven (Magrat having retired from witching after becoming the queen). It didn't take long for Granny to persuade the publishers to pay Nanny richly (she can be rather persuasive), and thus she had plenty of time to get all up in Agnes's business. It's not meddling, it's just witching. There was a lot of business with a “phantom” as well as embezzlement and murder. Nothing some good old fashion witching can't resolve.

Around the time of the birth of Magrat's daughter, a clan of vampires made their way to Lancre. Granny was somewhat off her game at this time, being somewhat uncertain where she falls in the Maiden, Mother and... Other One hierarchy now that Magrat is a mother. Eventually, the other three confronted the vampires on their own. It went... poorly. Granny stumbled in just in the nick of time, but still did not appear to be bringing her A-game. She was bitten by one of the vampires, and seemed to be destined to join them. However, in time the vampires found themselves craving hot sweet tea instead of blood. Due to her formidable will, the mixing of blood caused the vampires to be Weatherwaxed. They let the locals deal with the rest.

While Granny does not often take on apprentices, she did help oversee the education of Tiffany Aching. This largely consisted of ensuring she was apprenticed to suitable teachers as well as helping her with particularly tricky crises that arose from her tendency to attract the attention of outwordly forces. She even seemed to feel some degree of affection for her. However, that did not stop her from being willing to kill her had she not found a way to defeat the Cunning Man. Thirteen hundred words later, we have finally reached her canonpoint!

Personality:
Given her pride and arrogance, Granny on the surface would make an ideal wicked witch. Her ultimate downfall as a wicked witch was her unshakable knowledge of what is right. Not necessarily what is nice or what would be considered good by storybook standards, but what is right. She goes out of her way to make sure what is right is what comes to pass. Many people would consider her meddlesome, especially when their best interests aren't necessarily the same thing they think they are. Similarly, she is incapable of hurting a child. She isn't terribly patient with children, but she cannot bring herself to harm them.

Connected to this, if you looked up "no nonsense" in the dictionary, you would find an iconograph of Granny. She is a witch who gets things done. She prefers a straightforward approach, foregoing the excessive embellishments that some witches practice. Not proper ones, in her estimation. She has little patience for such nonsense and will not hesitate to speak her mind on the topic. Or any topic. She also does poorly with “modern nonsense”, grasping the concept of theatre poorly and not taking well to broomstick flying. So her reaction to a spaceship will be, in a word, interesting.

Granny is close to very few people, largely due to her tendency to be right rather than nice. This doesn't bother her, as she would rather be respected than liked anyway. She is also untroubled by the notion of that respect being mixed with fear. People realize that she is a reliable force they can turn to in a crisis. She does hold affection for some people, which she tends to show in an extremely gruff way. Most likely, only those who have known her long enough to be the objects of such affections would ever recognize it as such.

Indeed, her personality is probably best compared to a force of nature. Her strong will is legendary, and she does nothing to discourage even exaggerated tales. Indeed, she encourages all tales about her and will be the first to tell people that they are not all that exaggerated. She is a woman who knows exactly how much power she has. Part of her difficulties in broomstick flying stem from the belief that obstacles should get out of her way.

Even if Granny is not concerned with making friends, she understands people extremely well. She considers this her primary tool as a witch. Her usual approach involves using her understanding of the human mind to essentially nudge people into solving their own problems. By steering people's beliefs, she is often able to entirely avoid making use of her very real powers. Her awareness of the power of belief is part of the reason she doesn't believe in the gods. She knows well enough that they exist, she just doesn't see the sense of encouraging them.

Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations: While Granny generally prefers to use Headology for her witching, she does in fact possess considerable magical power. Her most commonly used ability is Borrowing, the act of superimposing her mind over that of an animal, allowing her to see what that animal sees and influence the animal's action. This leaves her body catatonic necessitating a sign proclaiming that she is not in fact dead. This is difficult magic to begin with and she is particularly adept, being the only person to ever Borrow an entire beehive.

More conventional forms of power she has demonstrated include telekinesis and the ability to cause things to catch fire, though the latter may actually be the extreme power of her glare. She is capable of turning people into frogs, but doesn’t tend to bother. (This will have a permission post in case she does bother)

Less traditional abilities include being able to fade into a room's background, put off injury until a more convenient time and convince people they've been turned into frogs. (Also on the permission post) She once shifted the kingdom of Lancre fifteen years into the future, but this was not a trivial task. (Let's just nerf that one completely shall we?)

Additionally, Granny has phenomenal willpower. One one occasion, a vampire attempted to vamp her and instead got Weatherwaxed. She is simply that stubborn.

In terms of weaknesses, she is vain, prideful and arrogant. While on the Disc this has largely been balanced by the fact that when it comes to power, she is usually right about being the best, it could quickly become a major issue on Tranquility when multiple dimensions change all the rules.

Additionally, while she can fly on a broom, she is terrible at it.

Inventory:
-Broom
-Pointy hat
-Black dress
-Battered black cloak
-Small white kitten

Appearance: Granny is not terribly tall, but her force of presence often makes her seem taller. She is in fact skinny. She has a clear, though wrinkled, complexion without a single wart. She has grey hair that she wears in a severe bun. She tends to dress like one would expect of a stereotypical wicked witch. She has blue eyes, which she uses in a penetrating gaze.
Age: I'm not about to ask, are you? Old enough to be the “... other one” in the coven. Let's say... 75?

AU Clarification: N/A

S A M P L E S
Log Sample:
Granny had been looking forward to getting back to Lancre. Interesting sights and all, but people just didn't do things sensibly in foreign parts. There was a proper manner of things and people in Lancre generally followed it. Or at least were very cooperative when she made a suggestion on that front. You found fools anywhere, but she'd made them generally sensible folk.

She had expected to find the place just as she left it. Not these girls dancing about in the dark. Drawers on, that counted for something at least. Even the silliest amateur witch tended to avoid that, with the sort of weather they got here. But some sort of goodness knows scratched on the ground. Wasn't proper witching, making squiggles in the dirt. Didn't actually do anything... unless it was paired with altogether too much belief. Then it most certainly did something, it just generally wasn't what the person doing the believing was going for.

Best to put a stop to it soon as possible then. Maybe this time she was back fast enough to protect reality. She pointed her broomstick at their circle. It was useful for something, at least. Well, a few things. It would come in handy when it came time to wipe those squiggles clean. Cooler heads would prevails. Hers. It always did. “What sorta nonsense is this then?”

Comms Sample:

[Granny is glaring into the camera with a great deal of motion blur, trying to figure out the device. She's only doing this because there's trouble and the ship is larg.]

Newfangled bitta nonsense. Ain't anythin' wrong with just talkin' to folk.

[Ah, there. The image of Granny's glaring face comes into focus. The next words are actually clear.]

Reckon some of ye lot have notions about goin' off an' doin' somethin' heroic. Thing about heroes is most've 'em end up dead. And even if it don't go that far, creates a lot of work fer the rest of us. So be sensible. No one go doin' anythin' foolish.

[Action: Mayfield Elementary]

[Anyone who actually came in to school today will find Granny in her classroom the same as ever. Well, except for the fact that she is wearing multiple layers.]

Today we're talkin' about not freezin' to death. I don't want to hear about any of ye doing anything foolish out there.

[Action: Around Mayfield]

[It would probably make more sense to check this over the phone, but Granny doesn't much care for that contraption. So she's making her rounds, knocking on doors]

Ye got enough firewood?

[Action: 1146 Mitchell]

[And as she instructed the others, Granny is getting a fire going and gathering blankets. Anyone who walks into her view is going to get orders.]

Close up any rooms we ain't using.

[Action: 1448 Mitchell Road, morning]

[Granny is in the kitchen. Making pancakes.]

Good morning everyone!

[Action: Elementary School, erm during the school day]

[You may find your teacher rather odd today. She's... smiling]

Hello my darlings! Who's ready to learn?

[Action: Streets of Mayfield, after class]

[Granny will be found wandering the town, greeting everyone in the street]

[Granny wakes, immediately aware that this is not where she fell asleep. Especially since she doesn't remember going to bed. She takes in her immediate surrounding. The bed. The candles. France.]

What is this nonsense?

[Then she realizes what she's wearing. A wispy filmy, not the proper flannel she tended to wear to bed. She tugs at the hem, trying to will it longer.]

What is this nonsense?