♌ Fiana Arlin Byrnes PROFILE

[addaellis]

Profile posted here: Family thread
Work location

Post format

[align=center][size=20][color=#CDE472]
[imgright="height=400"]https://i.imgur.com/0l3f3fB.jpg[/imgright][url=https://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?page=1&t=25518381#392377800]ʚĭɞ🏛[/url][/color][color=#F88379][b]FIANA[/b][/color] [color=#CDE472][I]ARLIN[/color] [color=#F88379][b]BYRNES[/b][/color][/size]
[size=13][color=#FFCC33]39 years[/color] || [color=#CDE472]former Museum Educator[/color] || [color=#FFCC33]muggle[/color][size]
[size=11][color=#CDE472][b][I]Mother of Torin and Skyla[/I][/b][/size]
[color=white]_______________[/color][/align] [align=left]


[color=#F88379][b] SPEECH [/b] [/color]

[/align][align=center][color=white]_______________[/color][/align]
[align=center][size=10][color=#FFCC33][i]setting[/i][/color] [color=#CDE472]SETTING[/color] || [color=#FFCC33][i]with[/i][/color][color=#CDE472] CHARACTERS[/color]
[color=#FFCC33][I]appearance[/I][/color] [color=#CDE472] 5’5” well built[/color] || [color=#FFCC33][I]wearing[/I][/color] [color=#CDE472] CLOTHES [/color]
[color=#FFCC33][I]status[/I][/color][color=#CDE472] THINK/FEELING [/color] [/size]
[color=white]_______________[/color]
[color=#F88379][size=10][b]//OOC: [/b][/size][/color][color=#CDE472] OOC TEXT HERE [/color]
[spoiler] [quote=”QUOTING”] [/quote] [/spoiler][/align]

[align=center][color=white]_______________[/color][/align]

[url=https://pin.it/4rzS1Vg][imgleft="height=100,width=100"]https://i.imgur.com/xbTyIRa.jpg[/imgleft][/url][url=https://pin.it/5mDHIgU][imgleft="height=100,width=100"]https://i.imgur.com/64FlLIv.jpg[/imgleft][/url][url=https://pin.it/313wpwF][imgleft="height=100,width=100"]https://i.imgur.com/1RrecyV.jpg[/imgleft][/url]
[align=right][color=#FFCC33][size=9][i]There's a grace in the depths of self-destruction
I had to face before I held you in my arms
All the demons I have taken just to shelter you from harm
I'd do it all again for you my pearl [/i][/size][/color]
[url=https://youtu.be/GVbk1XoHIoo]🏛ʚĭɞ[/url]
[color=white][I]"Pearl" by SOBI[/I]
[/align]

Coral pink #F88379 / Sunglow #FFCC33 / / Iceberg Lettuce #CDE472

Notes for playing
Primary Tension: Curiosity and Preservation -- aka "WTF IS THIS MAGIC STUFF". Torn between her unfinished muggle degree, love for the museum and settings, and going towards the magical world where her kids will be.
Marked by losing people-- Losing her mother, losing (in part) her birth family. Losing (possibly) Aldis.

Character development Imagine Verine if she had given up her career. Take from Halinor.
Broken by the twins rejecting her.

plot Found and curate a Museum of Magical History/ Magical Cultural Heritage.
- possible divorce and remarriage??

~Imogen -- screech owl. Kinda kooky and mysterious aesthetic.

Mannerisms:  

[addaellis]

xʚĭɞxFIANAxxxARLINxxxMERCERx🏛xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxʚĭɞBASICS🏛xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
PRONUNCIATION fee-ANA ARE-lin MER-cer
FORMERLY KNOWN AS Fiana Arlin Byrnes
NICKNAMES Fi, Finny, Mrs. Byrnes
GENDER female
SEXUAL ORIENTATION straight
AGE 45
BIRTHDAY August 14th, 2014 -- Leo
LANGUAGES English, Irish Gaelic (fluent), Scots and Manx Gaelic (proficient), Latin and Sanskrit (rudimentary)
BLOOD STATUS muggle

FACECLAIM Miranda Otto
strawberry blonde hair, green eyes.
HEIGHT 5 ft 5 in (165 cm)
WEIGHT 119 lbs (54 kg)
APPEARANCE --

xxxʚĭɞSCHOOL AND CAREER🏛xxxxxxxxxxxx
EDUCATION
■ (never completed) PhD in Classics (Trinity College, left June 2044)
■ MPhil in Identities and Cultures of Europe (Trinity College, Class of 2042)
■ MA in Cultural Heritage and Resource Management (University of Winchester, Class of 2038 )
■ BSc Hons English Linguistics (University of Winchester, Class of 2037)

CLUBS
■ Reading Group (throughout all schooling)
■ Fencing (only at Trinity)

DREAM JOB Museum Curator
CURRENT OCCUPATION
■ Clerk for Synister Studios (2054 - present)

■ Formerly: Secretary for Snapdragon Solutions (2044 - 2055) (11 years)
■ Formerly: Educator (2042 -2050) and research assistant (2040-2042) for the National Museum of Ireland (10 yrs)
■ Formerly: Research assistant for the Museum of Literature Ireland (2036 - 2040)
■ Formerly: Gallery assistant (2033-2036) and administrative assistant/ receptionist (2030 - 2033) at Westgate Museum (6 years)

xxxʚĭɞPERSONALITY🏛xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
SENSITIVE Easily touched or offended, Fiana is generally a sweet and soft-spoken wit who is equally quick to trust or hold a grudge. Although she has always been considered the more forgiving and less touchy twin, Fiana is simply not as expressive about her unkind feelings. Through most of her life, Fiana has dealt with mood swings and irritability that makes her both easy to upset and cheer up. Despite weekly swings and momentary touchiness though, both Fiana and her twin Caroline have always tried to believe in hopefulness and resilience in the face of uncertainty or despair.

PASSIONATE A romantic at heart, Fiana wears her heart mostly on her sleeve-- she has very many interests and curiosities and is very open and expressive about her interests. She’s constantly looking about, absorbing everything around her, and expresses cheer openly. Aside from her museum and linguistic passions, Fiana’s children-- her pearls-- are her pride and joy. Connecting with them meaningfully has been her top priority since their conception.

AMICABLE Family and friends are everything and Fiana has time and again sacrificed her own mental health or dreams for her family. She tries quite hard to get along with and befriend everyone she encounters. With little time to keep in regular contact with different friend groups though, she is mostly left with positive but distant acquaintances. She always managed to face complications with a calm smile, even if she’ll collapse or explode once it’s over. She tries to hide her own misgivings and insecurities, expressing only the positive and cheerful.

INQUISITIVE Fiana approaches the world with curiosity and interest, constantly observing and asking questions. She loves discovering new worlds and cultures, and enjoys getting to know and building connections with people around her. From her care and curiosity towards cultural and linguistic research to taking care of the household, Fiana has questions about everything: even if she doesn’t particularly like what she has to do, she will find a way to enjoy and be intrigued by something about it and throw her full effort towards it.

THOROUGH Cohesiveness, understandability, and flow are the golden standards in both work and everyday thinking. Fiana has always loved reading and listening to stories about people and the way they live and she’s always willing to learn more or share what she’s learned. Moreover, she has a diligent mind that follows through with any anecdotes and theories, grounding them in other knowledge. This was built up through her studies, and she was generally an excellent student; even if she is no longer working, she carries this mindset to her parenting and homemaking.

ʚĭɞ🏛HOBBIES
■ Reading everything and designing ways to display or showcase things she’s read.
■ Fencing
■ Brewing Tea

ʚĭɞLIKES
■ Books. Visual novels. Research anthologies. Fashion magazines. Cereal boxes. Her kindle is always on her.
■ Tea and desserts
■ Cultures, languages, myths. People and the things they come up with!
■ Picnics -- bird watching and stargazing during them.
■ Hair accessories

🏛DISLIKES
■ Cleaning. Messes, but also cleaning messes.
■ Shopping
■ Arrogance and entitlement -- people who think they know more than the exhibit are usually (not always!) but usually full of themselves.
■ Heights
■ Being stressed, overworked, but excited by an idea. There is not enough time in the day for everything.

ʚĭɞSTRENGTHS
■ Active, interested, with good follow through.
■ Friendly and open-minded, gets along with most people

🏛WEAKNESSES
■ Spreads herself too thin-- she tries to handle everything herself and inevitably burns out
■ People pleaser-- her amiability makes her anxious to be pleasant and inoffensive with everyone

ʚĭɞDREAMS
■ Going back to working in a museum in a curator position
■ Writing and illustrating a book
■ Torin and Skyla finding their passions and loves

🏛FEARS
■ Torin or Skyla getting cancer and dying the way her mother did. Tor or Sky getting hurt in any way really. She knows they’ll be hurt over the course of life, but she fears them suffering through it alone.
■ Being alone, without or unable to turn to her or twin or dad.
■ Family feuds. Anyone in the family detesting anyone else.

xxxʚĭɞBACKSTORY🏛xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ʚĭɞ🏛EARLY CHILDHOOD Fiana Arlin Mercer was born just 12 minutes after her fraternal twin, Caroline Aislin Mercer. They were nearly opposites at first blush--Caroline was straightforward and headstrong, while Fiana was flowery and meticulous. The daughters of schoolteachers Desmond and Aine Mercer, Cammy and Finny were both friendly, enjoyed reading, and excellent students, although with different groups, aesthetics, and subjects. At first they fought over everything and competed bitterly at school.

Everything changed when they turned 15 and Aine was diagnosed with brain cancer. As Desmond picked up a second job to pay hospital bills, the twins struggled to balance their own schedules with hospital visits and taking care of the home. They bonded over their shared responsibility and concern, growing to trust and rely on each other through tense times. While the twins had been babysitting and pet-sitting to earn spare change since they were 13, they immediately turned to looking for part-time work. Cammy found work at a local library first, and a few months later, Fiana started as receptionist and administrative assistant at a local museum. Otherwise, the girls spent their time in their mother’s hospital room, keeping her spirits up or just doing homework. Unfortunately, after a hard struggle, Aine passed away just a year and a half later.

ʚĭɞ🏛EDUCATION and MARRIAGE After sixth form, Caroline and Fiana both attended the local University of Winchester. Fiana did a sandwich year in the midst of her linguistics program and started studying comparative mythology as a remote research assistant for the Museum of Literature in Ireland, directly inspired by her time at the museum. During these years she improved her Irish Gaelic, her mother’s language, and dabbled into Scots and Manx Gaelic. These fed into her first Masters directly working with cultural heritage work in museums.

While Fiana loved living with her father and twin, she was feeling a little extra by the time she graduated at 23. Not a few months after sixth form exams, Cammy had gotten pregnant. She and her secondary school sweetheart, Aaric, were engaged, but decided to wait on a wedding until after Cammy got her degree. Aaric had started working, and Grandpa Desmond doted on baby Candy. Meanwhile, Fiana hadn’t so much as had a first kiss or date. Her father would occasionally tease her about more grandchildren and while she knew he was only teasing, Finny started to feel like she had to be somehow undesirable or unfit as a romantic interest. When the Museum of Literature offered an in-person role in Ireland, Fiana took the opportunity to escape her home life.

After a year in Ireland and a particularly successful collaboration project, Fiana transferred to the National Museum of Ireland. Her new supervisor, Quinn, was aghast that Finny had been in Ireland for a year but still didn’t have many friends outside of work. Xe took Fiana out to various gatherings and activities, including xer school fencing club. The club captain was one tall, dark-eyed, and handsome Aldis Byrnes. There was an instant connection: Fiana found in Aldis a gentle and honorable inspiration, and Aldis found in Fiana an eagerness to learn, affection, and stability. Three weeks after meeting they started dating; a year later, they were married, and pregnant with twins of their own.

With the museum funding further education, Fiana applied to Trinity College to further continue studying cultural identities and comparative mythology. Aldis completed his masters in Data Science a year before the twins were born. After a few years working in cyber security, he started his own security development startup called Snapdragon Solutions. Juggling her new promotion to Museum Educator, her graduate classes, and caring for their new children, Finny carved out time to help the small Snapdragon team organize and streamline their workflow. With the added stressors though, Fiana quickly burnt out. She had faced mood swings and burnout before, but this time it was a new level of exhaustion and depression. With her studies in Latin and Sanskrit stalling as well, Fiana spiraled into suicidal thoughts. After three months of barely being able to find the energy to eat and cradle the kids, much less work or do school and housework, she made plans to take leave from the Classics PhD program. She never went back to it, but did continue her museum work after a month’s leave and starting on antidepressants.

ʚĭɞ🏛CHILDREN and FAMILY LIFE The twins, Torin Sheamus and Skyla Corinne Byrnes, were Fiana and Aldis’s pearls, prides, and joys. Both parents adored the twins, and although keeping up with work and home was a struggle sometimes, the twins’ health, well-being, and education were uncompromisable priorities. As parents, they always expressed curiosity and support for Tor and Sky’s thoughts, interests, and dreams, treating them as much as possible as intellectual equals from a young age. Finny nurtured their inquisitiveness in people and the world around them, while Aldis encouraged resilience, hopefulness, and playful spirit in their lives. The twins were always the first to experience and comment on exhibits at the museum, and the first playtesters for anything the Snapdragon team worked on. After the parents’ weekend fencing group, the whole family would have picnic luncheons in St. Stephen’s Green. A few times a year Aldis would participate in a Game Jam or Hack-a-Thon, and the kids were always invited to participate and treated as an equal team member.

They maintained distant but regular contact with extended family. Their playful Uncail Killian and paternal grandparents were available locally for babysitting. Once a year, usually over summer or winter breaks, Grandpa Mercer would visit them for a few weeks; other years, they would visit Aunt Cammy in England.

As the twins started school, Torin started getting back pain and balance issues. Initial doctor visits didn’t suspect anything and despite the family history, Fiana was mostly assured it was another issue, perhaps to do with sleep or the new stress from school. That changed suddenly when Torin passed out at school and was rushed to the hospital: there they found a quickly-growing tumor on his lower spine. The operation would cost him his legs. Fiana immediately feared cancer, and made sure Skyla was also getting the needed checkups. Aldis warned her not to get too paranoid, but the thought of her children dying the way her mother had was heartbreaking and mind consuming. Thankfully, Torin recovered healthily and Skyla seemed to be healthy as well.

As medical bills, and a full home renovation--ramps, bathrooms, flooring and furnishing--wiped their savings out, Finny made the controversial decision to resign from the museum. She was stretched thin between her positions already and decided that someone needed to be at home more and knew Aldis couldn’t leave his own company or swap roles, especially given how small the team was. Tensions over finances and long hours apart strained their marriage, but they managed to keep their one-story flat and return to a state of partial normalcy.

ʚĭɞ🏛THE WIZARDING WORLD That normalcy changed shortly after the twins turned 11 with the arrival of Hogwarts Governor Wesley Edgeworth. Fiana took to the wizarding world with careful but open interest; Aldis was more hesitant but did eventually agree to send the children to Hogwarts. With fewer home responsibilities, Fiana soon got a part-time job--not at the museum like Aldis expected, but at Synister Studios, an art shop and studio in wizarding Diagon Alley. She learned more about the wizarding world, took the WOMBAT exams, and befriended Zavier Moore, a linguist and translator for ancient runes.

Over the twins' second year, Fiana and Aldis tried to work on their marriage more, but the cracks that formed throughout the last 11 years were too deep. By the summer, they submitted the final divorce paperwork and Fiana moved to a small flat in wizarding area. After some months of tension, it was clear the divorce was better for both of them. Christmas breaks would still be as a full family--something Torin insisted on. The first of these went more smoothly than expected and there was even a comment that it was like Aldis and Fiana never broke apart. There was a hint of getting back together, but the put a stop to it before anything happened.

Fiana continued working at Synister Studios, but dedicated more time to learning about the wizarding world and started developing plans for a Museum of Magical History. Late in 2057, Fiana and Zavier started officially dating. She met Zavier's son Gus and Gus's wife and kids.

They celebrated Torin's vice captaincy in Quidditch, Skyla's promotion to first-string seeker in 2058 and then both of them getting prefect. But in 2059, Skyla started feeling weaker and shorter of breath. He voice softened and the weakness persisted-- she was later diagnosed with Juvenile Polymyositis (JPM), an autoimmune muscle disease. She suffered through part of her fifth year in the Hospital Wing as a result.

xxxʚĭɞRELATIONSHIPS🏛xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
FAMILY
■ Children Torin Sheamus Byrnes; Skyla Corinne Byrnes, (muggleborn)

■ Twin’s family Caroline Aislin Mercer, librarian; Aaric Eaton Mercer, sound designer; Candice Eibhlin Mercer, drummer for The Dead Scandals
■ Parents Aine Mercer, schoolteacher (muggle); Desmond Mercer, schoolteacher (muggle);

■ Ex-Husband Aldis Reuben Byrnes, Developer and Founder of Snapdragon Solutions (muggle)
■ Ex In-law family Killian Patrick Byrnes, video game developer (muggle), Siobhan Byrnes, pastry chef (retired, muggle); Cormac Byrnes, PhD, professor emeritus of engineering (muggle)

■ Pets Imogen (IMMA-gen) (her eastern screech owl)

DATING Zavier Moore
FRIENDS
■ Best Friend: Quinn O’Neill, former mentor (npc)
■ Gus and Brook Moore and family.
■ Driskol Abrams and family.
■ The Snapdragon Solutions staff
■ Former friends from work or school

xxxʚĭɞUPDATES🏛xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
CREATED June 2021
UPDATED 29 May 2023
UPDATES MADE
■ backstory updates (organization, update for Skyla's condition.
■ (recent update)
■ (recent update)