Post by Mark Roberts on Feb 11, 2014 21:19:04 GMT -5
[presto]
30
MALE
MAGICAL FOLKLORIST
HALFBLOOD
HETEROSEXUAL
DANIEL SUNJATA
MARK HENRY ROBERTS
 Mark was born in Chicago on February 7th, 1994 to his ecstatic parents, Abby Sterling-Roberts and Malcolm Roberts. His mother was non-magical, and was a Professor of Linguistics at a local college. His father, Malcolm, was born to one magical and one non-magical parent. Mal was young during the Civil Rights movement of the 60s and the Chicago Riots that occurred in 1968, so though he was educated in a magical institute, he worked as a lawyer and activist in the non-magical world. This meant that Mark, and later his younger sister Lindsay, were raised in a primarily non-magical environment, except for when they went to visit their grandma. For this reason, until Mark received his invitation to the Potawotami Institute of Magical Studies, the small magical school his father had attended, he was very much unaware of Chicago's rich supernatural community. Unlike witches and wizards on the other side of the pond, the many different systems of magic which had mingled in the Americas meant that their Magical History courses were taught by a rotating group of witches and wizards familiar with different aspects of magical history. The young Mark was fascinated by this sudden inrush of information, and eventually became a magical historian and guest lecturer at his old school. Mark was very much dedicated to academics, but never had any trouble interacting with other people. His passion for history meant that, while he was often the unofficial tour guide for any visiting magical people or tourists, and he enjoyed leading non-magical tours of 'haunted Chicago' as well - if he sometimes begged favours from some ghost friends to give these tours a little scare or two, well, none of them would believe you. But while Mark was good at interacting with people and charming them, he never quite managed to form many deep attachments; most of his commitment went into his folklore studies, and once people became too insistent or needy, Mark had no trouble putting a little - or a lot - of distance between them. Mark was too singleminded to really want to spend a lot of time connecting and cultivating anything that went too far beyond professional, but the few relationships that were really important to him, he embraced wholeheartedly. Most of these relationship were his relationships with his parents, grandma, and especially, his baby sister Lindsay; of course, at only a couple years younger than Mark, Lindsay was hardly a baby anything, but he wasted no opportunity to make fun of her and lord his supposed age and wisdom over her. The two of them were relatively close in age, and the only kids in their family. Growing up the kids of two very busy parents who mainly spent time with other adults meant that both the kids were thick as thieves from a young age, a closeness which didn't diminish, but grew with age. The one unexpected relationship in Mark's life began with what seemed like a totally normal encounter; because of his side gig as a tour guide, Mark tended to hang around in a lot of very tourist-y locations, and bumped into a recent transplant from Ireland who introduced herself as Norah O'Banion. Norah seemed nice enough, and during the conversation, Mark found out that Norah was the same age as Lindsay, and since Lindsay was looking for someone to split rent with and Norah planned on staying for a while, Mark introduced the two. Of course, he hadn't failed to notice that Norah was gorgeous, and hilarious, too, but while it registered for him, it wasn't until months of encountering her during visits to Lindsay's that he was forced to admit all of the above, and the fact that he was romantically interested in Norah too. Mark's uncertainty about how to proceed from there (his usual method involved a no feelings involved fling, which it was clearly too late for) and if it hadn't been for Lindsay's meddling, it's possible that the relationship wouldn't have gone any further. But happily, Lindsay essentially forcing them on a date led to a romance that quickly became serious. Mark found that dating Norah was just as much fun as being Norah's friend, but with some additional benefits. Norah settled into a job as a professor's assistant in Muggle Studies while Mark buckled down in his research, and the two soon moved in together. After a few years, Norah dragged Mark along to Ireland since it had been nearly four or five years since she'd properly seen them, and MArk was introduced to the O' Banion brood for the first time. Coming from a relatively small family, Mark was overwhelmed by the sheer number and volume of the relatives Norah seemed to have, but figured that it certainly explained where Norah's own vibrant, cheeky personality came from, and he eventually became comfortable with most of them. Mark's real nervousness came from another source - a week before taking the Portkey to Ireland, Mark snuck up to visit his granny and begged her wedding ring off of her. After four years dating each other, Mark popped the question at a family dinner that included every one of Norah's relatives - and none of his own. While Mark sent loads of pictures home to his folks, he wished they could have been there, too, and privately decided to try and convince Norah to have the wedding in Chicago. While this idea had occurred to him, Mark didn't expect the issue that actually came up via this discussion - since Norah had been in Chicago for nearly five years, Mark had not even considered that she might want to come back to Ireland, instead of staying on in their apartment in Chicago. But eventually, they compromised, deciding to wait on the wedding and get married when had decided where they were going to live permanently. Far from putting a damper on their relationship, this decision invigorated it - the happy couple spent the next few years traveling around the world, and then decided to split time between Chicago and Ireland. But when Norah became pregnant, and his grandma moved in with his parents because she began having difficulties living alone, Mark began to insist that the two of them shift to Chicago year-round. Understandably, Norah didn't agree, since she wanted to live with her own family in Ireland during her pregnancy and after, too. Unfortunately the disagreement became so severe that, aside from involving Norah's grandmother and other relatives, it led to Norah having a miscarriage as well. Both Mark and Norah were absolutely devastated by this, and the strained relationship deteriorated even further. Eventually, Norah returned Mark's ring and returned to Ireland. Mark didn't even know what to say to her at this point, and had no idea how or even if he still could be in a relationship with Norah, especially since he still felt entirely responsible for the row that led to Norah's miscarriage. It took Mark a long time to recover from his sadness over the end of his relationship with Norah and the loss of their baby. After a long time working on his folklore book and staying in Chicago, Mark realized that though he still felt sad over the relationship he desperately missed Norah herself. Mark decided he wanted to try and work things through with her, and figure out how to handle their mess of a relationship together. When he got to Ireland, though, her disapproving family told him that Norah was finally starting to get her life going again and had gotten a new job teaching at Hogwarts. This set Mark back a bit, since he started to feel guilty about whether going to see Norah would derail her life again. Eventually, he convinced himself that going to visit just to see how she was doing couldn't cause any harm - though of course that wasn't what ended up happening. Norah eventually turned his offer down, but not before they slept together again. Mark struggled with his feelings but eventually realized that holding on to Norah when she needed space would be unhealthy for them both. To his shock, though, Norah contacted him after four months saying she was pregnant. Mark immediately made attempts to help and support her - even offered to marry her - determined not to let his needs cause Norah issues. However, Norah had matured, too. She refused all his offers, and decided to have the baby in her circumstances independently. Mark visited a number of times during the pregnancy and was present for the birth of Thomas Aidan O'Banion. While Tom primarily stayed with Norah, because of how young he was, Mark did take his son home so that his family could meet him. Because of Norah's strict teaching schedule, Mark does a lot of traveling in order to stay in touch with Tom and see him as often as possible. Mark is not entirely satisfied with not being close to Tom all the time, but he finds that he respects Norah's independence and her need for space much more than he was able to before; though the two of them may not be dating anymore, they still care for Tom and one another very much. ALIAS AGE ZONE |
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