Ive mentioned once or twice now to people separately, but the reason I made Mary Lou was really convoluted actually ahaha. So her name came first Mary Lou Prindeou and I got that from a cartoon I used to watch as a kid called Rolie Polie Olie. The main character of the show, Olie, had a favourite tv show called the Smith Family Hudson, the Family in Space and the show had a theme song which somehow managed to sound exactly like Mary Lou Prindeou if said in the right tone and in a sing song way. I used to say the lyrics for the tv show theme song really wrong and one day (like six months ago?) it morphed into singing Mary Lou Prindeou. So I had a name. The more I thought about her, the more I really wanted to make her and I really wanted someone who was really soft and sweet, but would develop to have a cutting edge. I gave her the backstory of her father being magical and dead and her mother being a muggle because I wanted her to grow up without magic, but then be thrust into this crazy world and what it would be like for someone who just didn't handle it well. Thus Mary Lou was born. And I went to great lengths to explain why she was attending HNZ rather than Ilvermorny. So feel free to quiz me on this, I have alllllllllll the answers lol