Profile/Desciption

[phrynefisher]

GENERAL

Name: (Honourable) Phryne Fisher

Sex: Female

Age: 28-ish

Marital status: Sworn to never marry

Sexuality: Heterosexual

Species: Human

Intelligence: Quick-witted and (oftentimes) over-curious, while Phryne is no genius, she's quite the intelligent creature.

Strength: Stronger than she looks, she's made certain of that. Just your basic human with quick reflexes, a strong survival instinct (no matter what anyone says) and judo training.

Occupation: Lady detective


APPEARANCE

Hair: A neat, dark brown bob.

Eyes: Blue

Complexion: Quite pale (she keeps out of the sun and does love hats)

Height: 5'9"

Weight and build: Phryne is quite tall for a woman, and yet quite slim, although never unhealthily so. She's all long lines and toned muscle hidden beneath her gorgeous gowns.

Accent: a creature straight out of Melbourne, Australia, and sounds every inch of it.

Scars: Few and faint, she's not one to think on them overmuch.


LIKES AND DISLIKES

Likes: Silks, excitement, fast cars, faster men, whiskey, a good mystery, independence.

Dislikes: Boredom, the idea of a life trapped by the expectations of others, judgmental busybodies (sorry Aunt Pru), cruel and callous individuals.

Movies/TV: Where she prefers her films domestic, she'd be delighted to discover modern cinema

Music: Jazz, swing, pretty much anything you can dance to


PERSONALITY

Having come from such humble beginnings, Phryne Fisher is nothing like your standard wealthy aristocrat. Certainly, her Aunt Prudence would agree as she forever disapproves her niece's wayward, wild ways.

 

Phryne adores life for the very fact that it is so fleeting, hungry for every experience and pleasure she can take from it. That grubby, rough-fabricked childhood gave her an appreciation for beautiful silks and furs, such pleasure taken in each new beautiful gown, every bit of glittery jewelry she hangs from her throat and elegant hat atop her head. Wealth coming to her recently has made her anything but unaware of what strange twists fate could bring, seeing that she not only enjoys those finer things in life, but that she understands what freedoms such wealth can allow her. How else could she afford her own car to drive madcap through the streets, or carry on her affairs in the privacy of her own home without needing to worry about her reputation. 

 

With her family long gone (save for dear Aunt Prudence, who is never 'gone' long), she's made a family out of her patchwork companions. She loves them more than life itself, thinking nothing of using her wealth to aid them wherever necessary, and ready at a moment's notice to throw herself into the proverbial or literal fray for their sake. With a potent mix of loyalty and ferocity, Phryne defends not only her family (as she sees them) but any she believes to be in danger or taken advantage of, thinking nothing of interfering when she believes she can be the least bit of help, no matter how many heart palpitations she gives the Detective Inspector.

 

Crime is just so thrilling, the mysteries there to unravel a brilliant challenge (and Phryne can never resist a challenge).

 

Adventure is what she seeks, and adventure is exactly what Miss Fisher finds. She's daring to the point of recklessness, lavish to the boundaries of hedonism. Phryne is flirtatious, forward-thinking and not one to shy away from the opportunity of some handsome man, some delicious cocktail, some heart-thumping dance to shock the social scene. Where she would never trample over others to get what she wants, and preaches nothing but of tolerance for how others carry on their lives (as long as they too aren't hurting anyone), she lives a life remarkably free for a woman in 1928-9. She dashes right into trouble and toward gunfire, with a stiletto tucked into her garter and a pearl grip revolver in her hand.

 

She's too intelligent and over-curious to ever be satisfied with the life of a housewife. Just as she's far too nosy to keep from interfering in the love lives of her friends, or stay away from a crime scene just because 'technically' she might not be allowed to pocket some bit of evidence.

HISTORY
(Warning: May contain spoilers)

She was not always the Honourable Phryne Fisher, you know. Once upon a time, Phryne was simply the daughter of an impoverished family in Richmond, Melbourne, with a sister she adored and a father who was too drunk to properly fill in hers and Janie's birth certificates. When she was still just a child, Janie was kidnapped from the circus they had snuck off to visit, and while the crime was not solved until the past year of Phryne's life, she was certain her sister had been killed by the same man accused of a string of murders (although he was convicted of the kidnapping of only one, his single living victim).

 

Feeling as if she had lost half of herself and having blamed herself for having not kept an eye on her sister, Phryne soldiered on. After finishing school, she fled Melbourne and Australia entirely and joined a women's ambulance unit in France as a nurse during the Great War. What she saw there haunts her nightmares to this day, and while she was given a reward for her conduct and a French pension to support her, it was some time after the war that she was anything other than lost and penniless.

 

Phryne was taken as an artist's model in the intervening time, falling into the arms of a charismatic and talented artist, René Dubois, who stole her away from the more gentle soul who she had played muse for. Their relationship was a passionate one, but terrifying in equal measure as René's obsession became a creature out of control. Cut off from her family and searching for anything that might offer her a reprieve from her memories of the war, she allowed it (too long, she'd later say), but did eventually make her escape.

 

The war did so much damage to them all, and yet in the wake of so much destruction, the more illustrious heirs of Miss Fisher's families were all lost, leaving her father (and Miss Fisher, by extension) with both title and money. Both offered freedom – of choice, to indulge for the first time in the finer things of life and live her life however she wanted.

 

She traveled far and wide, picking up new skills and new languages with utter delight. There was a great, wide world out there and she could not wait to taste every bit of it.

 

Perhaps she might have stayed away forever if not for the news that the man she believed had killed her sister was nearing the end of his prison sentence and her own determination to see him locked away forever. Only a day back in the country and she discovered that a dear friend's husband had been murdered, and where Murdoch Foyle remained ever at the back of her mind, she set the matter of that monster aside to untangle the events behind a murder, a back-alley abortion ring, and a shipment of cocaine. There she met dear little Dottie, the young woman who she would hire as her companion; Burt and Cec, a pair of communist cab drivers; and Detective Inspector Jack Robinson, her intriguing counterpart in law. There, as well, she discovered the new direction of her life, that of Miss Phryne Fisher, Lady Detective.