Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom OC Application
Player Information
Name: Sparky, Christianna, Hey You
Age: 38
Preferred Method of contact: Journal, Plurk, Email
Contact Info: Plurk: Allotrios
Email: de.allotrios@gmail.com
Number of Characters in the Kingdom: none
Timezone: Eastern United States

Character Information
Character Name: Zeki Barrone
Age: 26
Canon: none
Canon Point: (if possible give episode/issue name and number.)
Gender: Female

Character World
Zeki lives in a Big City like any other Big City in the present day. It's a lot like New York.

Character History
Character History:
Zeki was born in Ohio and spent her formative years there, living near farming and agricultural lands during the bulk of her teenaged years. She expressed an interest in art at a very young age (as children do), and in high school, was skipped from the basic art class up to Art 4 and Oil Painting, which usually requires a few prerequisite painting classes. She also enjoyed staying after school for the art club because it was unstructured and less populated and formal (and the other students who stayed were 'her' type of people – quiet and a little weird) and would have gotten into surreal photography if good cameras and lenses and photo editing software weren't prohibitively expensive. After high school, she went to a local community college for a general education and came away with a liberal arts degree and several art-oriented electives. (Her family couldn't afford a fancy art school.) After this, she left Ohio with her degree and a collection of first place county fair ribbons and headed for The Big City for the opportunity its glittering facade offered.

What she got was a tiny, ramshackle, one story flat top crammed in between two larger buildings, and an abandoned kitten that she named Mister Kitty. She got a job as a substitute teacher, and then teacher's assistant, occasionally managing to save up enough to attend an artsfest here and there, where she would sell a little bit of art and have her work picked apart by a panel of 30 people over two or three days and then go home to get drunk under the kitchen table and reevaluate every artistic decision she's ever made.

Despite strongly preferring to be left alone in her studio with her paints and charcoals, Zeki has a tendency to attract the strangest assortment of company, which has often left her worse off physically, emotionally, and mentally than she started. She struggled with depression on and off and mostly on while navigating these relationships and the bizarre ups and downs that accompanied them and attempting to sell her artworks in galleries when she could afford the commission rates (assuming she had what they were looking for), and on the street when she couldn't. (It took a lot of wasted money before she quickly learned how to sort through galleries and approach ones that were a decent match.)

During one artsfest in New York City, she met a gallery owner, which wasn't unusual, had a conversation about the work displayed, pricing, sizing, commission versus monthly fee, etc, which wasn't unusual, and made an appointment for a portfolio review session, which also wasn't unusual. What was unusual was how well this particular arrangement eventually turned out. Zeki now shows collections at Mindscape Studios regularly, and has developed a cooperative, trusting relationship with Dee, the gallery owner. Dee pushes her work to customers, and if customers approach Zeki directly, she pushes them to Dee's gallery. She makes frequent trips to the gallery to attend open houses and promote her work and is finally feeling the ground settle beneath her feet.

Character Motivation:
Well, she doesn't do what she does for the fame and recognition. (It must be the money.) Zeki paints and sculpts and draws because she loves to, and if she doesn't, it'll all bottle up and make her crazy.

Personality:
Zeki is quiet and unassuming and a bit deadpan. She watches the world go by with an appraising eye and some amount of resigned dislike for almost everyone in it for no real reason. She likes to think she does the right thing, generally, but she really doesn't, and her lack of good judgment has cost her multiple times. Most of the time, she's detached and unsurprised by surprising turns of events. Once in awhile, she startles those nearby with an unexpected burst of energy or action. She has been known to eat nothing but a small handful of grapes in a day, or an entire Taco Bell party pack in one sitting. It depends on how productive she's being. She used to listen to a lot of heavy metal, but now she listens to The Paper Kites and The Mountain Goats.

Canon Strength/Weaknesses:
Zeki is tall for a girl, but very thin and, accordingly, not physically strong at all. Despite this, she has been in a number of tremendously dangerous situations and has a remarkable capacity for survival. She has a weakness for things or people who seem to need help and has been through periods of mental instability, but somehow tends to come out more or less alive. She can also moonwalk and do the Thriller.

Apprentice Sorcerer Application
Class: Probably Mystic. She seems wise, but really isn't, and has made some remarkably poor judgment calls in the past. She is fairly intuitive, however. Zeki can often see through someone's BS or subterfuge right off the bat, and when she doesn't, she's inquisitive enough that it doesn't take her long to figure it out – when she does, however, she may already be in too deep.

Magic Style: Mage/Toy class only.
She doesn't believe in magic, so perhaps it should be up to the mods. As for channeling device, I suppose it'll have to be something fitting, like a paintbrush, but I can see her being unlucky enough to get stuck with something ridiculous like a magic box of spaghetti.

Sample Section
First Person Sample:
I feel like I'm waking up. That's what this feels like. Waking up from some long hibernation deep within a tomb of my own making. Waking up from some blackout trance, covered in paint when I was sure I was asleep. Waking up from a panic, or a void, or sorrow, waking up and letting the pain fade away and taking a breath, feeling it stretch my lungs and remembering that I'm alive and I'm doing okay. I am doing okay. Well, even! Things have been going really well, which...I'll admit, makes me apprehensive. I want this to work. I do. I want to be okay, I want to stay okay, I just- I never just stay okay, and maybe that sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy, but I swear I'm not sabotaging myself, I love my current gig, all right? Dee is great. The gallery is great! I'm painting again, and I'm not homeless and I have some canned soup and croutons in the kitchen. Everything is great! I just...it worries me, and I don't want to get too comfortable because what if something happens? Something always happens and it feels like something is overdue. God, Zeki, get your shit together! I mean, no, you have your shit together, you have it together. Now you just have to...y'know. Keep it together. Easy. Right?

Third Person Sample:
Z.Barrone 04/20

“And that, Mister Kitty, is curtains. Call the station manager, because we have a series wrap.”

Zeki folded her arms, her still-wet paintbrush dangling from her fingers as she tilted her head at the lurid green signature in the corner of her mural. Done at last. Zeki had never tried an enormous, mural-sized painting before, but she was happy with the result. It was a life sized child standing on a beach. She was holding an umbrella and facing away, watching as a ship sank in the distant, murky ocean. From inside the umbrella, wet and slimy tentacles were writhing and descending. Those had taken the longest, but they had also been the most fun. At one point, Zeki had overworked them with details and shiny wet spots, and they lost some of their life and movement because of it, so she had to start them over.

Now, she stepped back with a rare smile. It was eerie, but not unsellably so. It had some color – several colors, even, a few of them bright.

“Station manager here, did I hear a perfectly tied up finale where everyone's arcs are complete and the viewer feels a bittersweet fulfillment? Oh, I did! You're finished!”

“Dee! I didn't know you were still here.”

“I'm everywhere.” Dee wiggled her fingers in the air while Zeki swished her paintbrush in a cup of water to rinse the paint out of it.

“Well I'm glad you are; I am finished. And I could use a drink.”

“Girl, you're gonna have to buy me a drink when we sell this baby!”

“If you get me a drink now, it's a deal.”

“Oooh, I'm gonna hold you to that. What's your poison?”

Zeki pulled a face. “Eh...no poison. Just a Coke or whatever. Something sugary.”

“You got it, babe, bee-ar-bee.”

When Dee left, Zeki let out a long breath and stared up at the sky of her painting. Half of it was bright blue and clear. The other half was oppressively gray, but that's also the half that had the sun in it, which shot through the gray clouds in occasional bright gold streaks. The ship was beneath the blue sky. She touched the ship, wondering if she should have put it more...right in the middle. Or even under the grey sky. It would have complemented the composition better if she had, but her point, as an artist, was that bad things can happen in ideal circumstances, while sometimes good things are hidden behind misfortune.

Maybe she was overthinking it. It was late, and she had been overthinking a lot of things that didn't merit it. Zeki gave a small, tired huff, turned away from the mural and leaned against it. Or, she meant to lean against it. Instead, she kept going backwards and into a freefall-

“Wh-WOAH!”

-as if there was nothing behind her at all.

“Zeki? You all right?" Dee poked her head around the corner, two cans of Coke in hand. "I heard a yell. …. Zeki?”

Just splashing some color around.