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Ursula de Luca, Junior Year
GENERAL
NAME: Ursula Andress de Luca
NICKNAMES: Urs and Lulu. Only childhood friends and family are allowed on the latter one.
AGE/DOB/ZODIAC: 16 / November 7th / Scorpio
BLOOD STATUS: Halfblood
GENDER/PRONOUNS: Female, she/her
SEXUALITY: Heterosexual. 100%. Right? Whatever. It's only high school so obviously no one is seriously being auditioned to play the part of Mr. Ursula de Luca - and there will most definitely be a Mr. Ursula de Luca.
HOMETOWN: Los Angeles, CA via
CONCEPT: Gossipy instameal heiress misses true calling as a Reality TV villain.
PHYSICAL
APPEARANCE: Ursula is, at all times, representing the Ursula de Luca brand. Whether in or out of uniform, Ursula always looks put together and the idea of dressing ~comfortably~ is a foreign concept. The year 11 Ribbonfin girls are the only people allowed to be privvy to the horrific beast of face creams and tangled hair Ursula becomes behind closed doors.
HEIGHT: 5'3"
PB: Chelsea Clark
PERSONALITY
LIKES: Gossip, gazing at Mr. Chettri's face, social games (cards, charades, etc), seafood soup, make up tutorial videos on YouTube, ice skating, meeting new people, elaborately staged selfies that make her life seem way more perfect than it is
DISLIKES: Bugs and sweat and hiking and all this "great outdoors" nonsense, having her picture taken without her permission, dealing with the "messy details", baggy clothing, photobombers, wardrobe malfunctions, vanilla scented anything, fighting the urge to bite her nails
PERSONALITY:
Ursula de Luca takes her birthright very seriously. With the way she behaves, you'd think she was preparing to ascend the throne of England one day. First impressions are everything and Ursula is very conscious of the image she presents. Strangers are met with smiles and friendly chit-chat and likely little more impression than "what a nice girl". But, oh boy, say that to someone who actually knows Ursula and you're likely to be met with some snorting laughter.
Ursula is the kind of girl that reality TV producers dream of. To put it politely, she's something of a rotten fish and proves that the downside of strong diplomatic skills is the ability to get away with all manner of trouble making relatively unscathed. She is a firestarter and a shit stirrer. In her own words, she's a "curious observer of human nature". Partly for science and partly for her own entertainment, her actions are the sort that can be editted into great television. She's always quick to reposition herself as mediator, but make no mistake - when she sympathetically informs someone that their boyfriend has been cheating on them and oh my gosh, you poor thing, am I the first to tell you? all she really wants is to kick back with a bucket of popcorn.
Of course, everyone knows that reality TV is in the editing. Reality TV would love to have you believe that Ursula is the sort of girl who stalks through the hallways slinging insults at anyone who dares to look her way. In truth, Ursula sees a clear distinction between stirring up shit and actually being a shit. Bullies are not to be tolerated and if it's up to her to protect the less socially fortunate then so be it. She's been on the other side of things and she hasn't forgotten how miserable it was. While she would hardly consider herself the patron saint of nerds and weirdos, she generally adopts a "You do you" philosophy and will patiently nod along to a recitation of the latest Doctor Who episode or a passionate explanation of the differences between rabbits and hares. She is also quick to lend genuine emotional support (and ice cream) to those in need... just maybe don't mention anything to her that you don't want to spread like hellfire. She insists she knows the difference between a secret and a secret, but just to be safe...
Ursula really isn't the cartoonish mean girl who barks orders at her
Ursula is very ambitious. She knows exactly where she wants to be in the next five, ten, and fifteen years and every day is just another step towards her goals. She will take over her mother's company some day, but she is hardly going to rest on her laurels when she does. Ursula is determined to figure out The Next Big Thing and capitalize on it (resulting in the general adoration of all). Ursula views her time at Gooseberry, both in and out of the classroom, as just the education she needs to succeed.
HISTORY
FAMILY MEMBERS:
Arthur Pendragon (Wong) de Luca, father. Pureblood. VP of Worker Relations, Witches' Secret. The frequent butt of jokes, Arthur is much younger than his wife and often dismissed as a trophy husband. A good natured and eccentric enthusiast of all things Muggle, he honestly is quite proud of his wife's accomplishments and (despite the rumors) it was entirely his decision to take her last name upon marriage. He finds any chance to liason with the Muggle side of the family business to be thrilling and was given a meaningless job title to suit those purposes. He is the second most embarassing person on the planet.
Rita de Luca, mother. Muggleborn. Founder and CEO, Witches' Secret. Frequently described as a brassy upstart by the upper eschelons of society, Mama de Luca is both Ursula's idol and the most embarassing person on the planet. Rita is something of a diva and has made no effort to make herself more pleasing to the Old Money purebloods that tsk heavily in her presence.
HISTORY:
It would be impossible to discuss Ursula's history without first diving into what exactly Witches' Secret is. Young Rita de Luca, freshly out of schooling, entered into what she assumed would be a fairy tale marriage that would go down in the history books. Reality set in soon enough as she discovered her husband expected her to morph into a 1950's housewife each day upon her return from a long day at work. As a muggleborn who had spent her early years feasting on McDonalds and microwave dinners, it seemed absurd to her that magic wasn't capable of producing a glamourous three course meal with a simple flick of the wrist. Thankfully it wasn't too long before she kicked her husband to the curb and set about remedying this oversight. This was America, after all. Witches and wizards were just as entitled to instameal "delicacies" as muggles were.
Over the years, the company has evolved and grown considerably. In its current incarnation, Witches' Secret functions on a weekly subscription box model with prepared meals arriving via Owl Post along with a set of simple instructions to morph the unassuming nonperishable food cubes into something table ready - though not exactly a glamourous three course meal. Roughly five years ago, Rita expanded operations to bring the pre-heavily magicked product (under a different name) to the muggle specialty grocery market with further expansion plans for the future.
Jumping back to the events directly responsible for bringing Ursula into the world, at roughly thirty five years old, Rita had grown her little startup idea into quite the success, but childless and husbandless, this was about the time that people in the Muggle business world would have started pestering her about her succession plan. Instead, it seemed like every encounter with one of her school day friends involved the "when are you having children?" question, with the implied "you're not getting any younger!" tacked on.
As luck would have it (of course), it was around this time that Rita's path crossed with Arthur Wong, a handsome pureblood who was roughly ten years her junior. For such a career driven woman, Rita was still a hopeless romantic and the two became quite besotted with each other and were married far too quickly for Arthur's parents. (She's a muggleborn! She's old! She'll never give us any grandchildren! She's tricked you into changing your last name! And on and on.)
To his credit, Arthur handily deflected his parents and never pressured his wife about wanting children - he had married her for her, not the prospect of building his legacy. Rita, however, was quite fixated on the idea of having a child - an heir - and after two years of disappointment, Ursula Andress de Luca was born.
Given the circumstances of her birth, it would be reasonable to assume that Ursula's childhood was characterized by heavy pressure and expectations to perform. Not so - Rita was utterly delighted with her little heir and showered her with love and affection and a great sense of self-worth. Arthur, similarly, adored his daughter.
Ursula was finally brought to the harsh reality that the world did not, in fact, revolve around her - the anointed one! the heir! - and the betrayal came from the unlikely source of her own mother. After a pleasant year attending the local day school in Pittsburgh, Ursula was spirited away to California, because Rita had gotten it into her head that she had outgrown Pittsburgh society and that such a wealthy and successful witch such as herself belonged in La-la-land.
California doesn't quite live up to expectations. Rita really, really wants to live in a house with a ghost because that just seems SO FANCY. Alas, there are no available houses in Elysian Fields with a ghost, so Arthur rattles the windows and pipes occasionally to make it seem like the house has a ghost because he's that adoraboo. Far more importantly than the lack of the ghost, everyone acts like the de Luca's just rolled off the set of the Beverly Hillbillies.
Unsurprisingly, the first year at Port Prep was very rough on Ursula. She was the new kid, she talked funny, she came from New Money, she dressed like she fell into a laundry pile, and on and on. There were many tears and lonely lunch time meals. She appealed to her parents for advice, but was met with infuriatingly useless coddling and assurances that if people didn't like her the way she was, they weren't worth her time. It may have seemed like reasonable advice to an adult, but Ursula was a six year old child and she really, really just wanted some friends.
Unlike Rita, Ursula went to extreme lengths to fit in. No more Pittsburghese, no more sloppy clothing, no more dreaded 'pop'. It doesn't happen overnight, but Ursula managed to find her way to the top of the Port Prep food chain. Well, maybe not the top, but she was the fourth best friend of the most popular girl in her year. (Sometimes third best depending on the week!)
Things were going great until Rita decided to up-end Ursula's world again. Sure, Ursula had heard of Gooseberry High, but it was some weird kumbaya school in the middle of nowhere for people who wanted to go eat bugs. Or whatever. It didn't matter because Ursula was the fourth best friend of the most popular girl in her year and she sure as hell wasn't going to Gooseberry High. But Rita had read the literature and heard from Other Parents how highly regarded Gooseberry was so if the done thing was attending Gooseberry now, well, that's where Ursula was going to go. Applications were sent in, cafeteria improvements were donated to, and a letter welcoming Ursula arrived.
This was not okay. This was not part of Ursula's plan. Port Prep was an excellent school and she already had her next four years of classes mapped out. (As well as her eye on a boy who would have been very well suited to becoming the future Mr. Ursula de Luca, though she hadn't told him yet.) There probably would have been door slamming and bodies thrown into beds, but by now Ursula had learned to control herself and instead she settled on stamping her foot and insisting that her mother was ruining her life.
Despite her reservations, Gooseberry was not awful. She might no longer be anyone's fourth best friend, but she was Ursula de Luca. And maybe someone else would be thrilled to be HER fourth best friend.
For the most part, academics were academics. But last year ~Mr. Chettri~ arrived. From the moment she saw him, Ursula was smitten, and after some serious agonizing about Frivolity and her Future, she
Ursula will be joining LARP this year as a minor act of rebellion, though the only thing she is actually rebelling against is her own image of herself. Expect her to be UTTERLY TERRIBLE in the beginning and insist that she play the princess because obviously. Hopefully over the course of the year she will loosen up and truly explore stepping into someone else's shoes.
SCHOOL
YEAR: Junior
HOUSE: Ribbonfin
SORTING: If this had been Hogwarts, the Sorting Hat would have been instantly propelled back off her head while screaming "SLYTHERIN!" Instead, Ursula's sorting saw some rather heavy bickering back and forth between all of the emblems with Coppertale in particular urging her to confirm that they were her top choice. To Coppertale's dismay, she instead said (while surpressing the urge to roll her eyes), "You all have such commendable traits that I would be honored to be placed in whichever house you choose." A moment of silence followed as three emblems turned away and Ribbonfin sputtered "I won?"
WAND: Yew, kraken beak core, 7 inches, springy.
FAMILIAR: Sebastian, an elderly brown owl no longer fit for the strenuous work of being part of Mama de Luca's delivery fleet. (I wish I could tell you she has a pair of snakes named Flotsam and Jetsam, but alas, no.)
CLASSES: (core) Charms, Herbology, Outdoor Education, Potions, Transfiguration; (electives) Artificing, Magical Rudiments; (advanced) Divination
SENIOR PROJECT: Ursula is planning to develop a product and have it market ready by the end of her Senior year. What is this product? She has no idea. But she still has a whole year of tea leaf reading and gossip mongering to figure it out.
ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE: Ursula maintains the grades she needs to continue with her chosen course of study, but isn't terribly concerned with being a star pupil. Her schedule has been carefully tailored to prepare her to step into her mother's shoes with every class selected based on practical future application. There is no time in Ursula's schedule for frivolity like Music or becoming an Animagus.
There is plenty of time for
Conversely, Ursula absolutely despises Outdoor Education. She's been putting it off and decided to finally get it out of the way this year so it wouldn't affect her Senior Project. The class is hot and sweaty and miserable and Ursula has no interest in wrestling bears for a living so why does she have to do this, ugh.
She does get a notable amount of pleasure watching Prospero's reaction whenever she slips out an "Or you could just subscribe to Witches' Secret" whenever there's a cooking lesson during Magical Rudiments.
EXTRACURRICULARS: Event Committee, Gaming Club, LARP. She tells anyone who asks that LARP is an excuse to focus group with the nerds.
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