Mary Murdoch

[Mary Murdoch]

Application

character basics

NAME: Mary Murdoch
CANON OR ORIGINAL CHARACTER? Original
AGE/YEAR IN SCHOOL: 45 years old
GENDER: Female
COUNTRY: England
PROFESSION: International music teacher
GROUP: Works at Karasumori and Washizu
PLAY-BY: Meryl Streep

appearance

personality

Mary is one of those women who grew up being trained on how to be a perfect lady, and who constantly defied her parents instead of actually listening to what she was told. She's a very strong-willed person who, once she makes a goal, sees it completed to the very end. She can be both loud and bossy, because though she listens to the opinions of others and tries to understand them, she truly believes she's usually right.

She's extremely musical and believes it is her duty to share her passion for music with others, in hopes that she can spark the same emotions in them. She is also very intelligent and quick-witted, making it very difficult for others to get the upper-hand on her. She also has what one might call a "female" bias. This is do to her studies of Japanese culture, and a profound belief that girls are just as capable as boys. Because of this, she tends to treat her female students a tad better than her male students, often finding just a little bit of pleasure in making the boys look inferior.

All that being said, Mary is actually quite a thoughtful person, and if you can get through the cover of charisma that she seems to parade around, she's actually quite caring. She also doesn't hate guys, but is just trying to get them to rethink the way they see girls. Japan, for her, is the perfect place for her to meet this goal. She hopes that, despite the way she acts, all her students will feel comfortable enough to talk to her if they ever have a problem--yes, boys included.

family & history

Father: James Murdoch
Mother: Elizabeth Murdoch
Siblings: Younger sister, Isabella Murdoch
Others: None

Mary grew up in England, living a normal life. She and her younger sister were both sent to an all-girls boarding school from an early age, and there they were trained in the typical subjects one can expect in school. Naturally, being stuck at school for most of the year, Mary grew rather rebellious. She began to hang out with the "wrong crowd", getting into all types of mischief in the name of fun. Some things they took part in (including a few fights) got the group into serious trouble, some even expelled. But Mary was never one of them. She was lucky in that her good grades and otherwise good standing at school (and maybe even the tuition her parents were paying for her and her sister to be there) made it so that she was never kicked out, no matter how much she disliked the place.

The one good thing about the school, Mary believed, was that it had a high focus on the arts. Even though she was very good in all her classes, she still had the biggest passion for those classes that were generally deemed "not-as-important" at most schools--art, music, and the like.

Mary had always had a fondness for music since a young age, having seen several performances by the Royal Ballet of London when she'd been very little, and later on watching many Broadway shows when they made their way to England. She'd taken up singing and playing the french horn when she was 10, and began to try out other instruments in years to come. Whenever the boarding school administrators were looking for her, they knew exactly where they could find her--in the music department.

She never grew out of her love for music, winning multiple scholarships to multiple colleges for her skill. But it was when she had chosen a college that she also found another interest. Japanese culture. She liked many aspects of the culture, liked the uniqueness of it compared to the culture she had grown up in. She enjoyed reading manga and even watching the occasional anime. But one thing about the culture bothered her--the sexism. She couldn't understand how a culture could seriously believe women were less capable than men. Looking at her own skill compared to most of the males in her class (not only as a musician, but even as a student), she truly believed that inequality based on gender was one of the most nonsensical things humans had ever come to invent. She had--and still could--take down most guys in a fight.

Because of her interest, she began a side-quest of studying the Japanese culture further. The more she read, the more she felt conflicted. She truly did love many aspects of the Japanese culture--they seemed to really appreciate fine music, the classics, and they also seemed one of the most resourceful and environmentally-thoughtful countries she'd ever heard of. But at the same time, the more she saw and read about the sexism, the worse she felt.

Once she'd graduated from college, with a teaching degree in music and a minor in East Asian studies, she found a job playing french horn with a local orchestra and as a music teacher at an elementary school in the area. She spent the next decade working at these two places, paying back all her loans and making sure she had a comfortable-enough living situation to do what she'd always wanted to do.

She never even considered marriage, didn't date as she kept all her focus on her passion for music. But at the same time, the entire time, she kept her dream to visit Japan. She studied the language until she was fluent, and knew one day she'd have to put her new skill to use.

When she was 38 years old, she finally moved to Japan, on a working visa. She'd got a job at college there in order to be an English teacher. The pay seemed good, and it also meant she could finally live another part of her dream, examining the culture she had found so interesting. The only thing she feared she would miss was her music.

But she took the chance. And 7 years later, she is still living there. Since then, she has been switching from school to school. After the first college she taught at, she was accepted to teach music at another college not too far away. She later moved out of Tokyo, where she had been finding work, and to a smaller area nearby. This is where Karasumori and Washizu are located, and both of these are the two high schools Mary is now working at as a music teacher, at the same time on a mission to establish equality between the sexes.

other

YOUR REAL NICKNAME: Alex
HOW DID YOU...? Hehehe
CODEWORD: pineacollapple
COMMENT/OTHER: Nope