Dove Keeper Character Profile: Marcy
Marcy is the thirteen-year daughter of Rosalie and Anatole. Growing up sheltered and learning most of what she knows from books, she holds an idealized view of her papa and the world. She is also lonely and wants both a friend and independence, and this leads her to make understandable, but not especially well-thought out actions to gain these. She is also curious and always wants to investigate anything she deems strange.
Most importantly of all, she really loves dogs.
Marcy is bisexual with a preference toward women. Like her mother and her paternal grandfather, she has a mental illness—what would now be considered schizoaffective disorder, though the symptoms do not grow pronounced till she reaches her early twenties. In her time, she would've most likely been diagnosed with schizophrenia, which became a term in 1908; while "schizoaffective psychosis" was a term, the disorder has had a poorly organized means of diagnosis for a long while, and the causes are still not stark.
These aspects of Marcy's life, as far as I know, are fictional, as there is little on the real Marcelle; her sexuality and mental illness, explored more in Birds in a Cage than Dove Keeper, are meant to give positive, heroic representation to a mentally ill and queer woman in a genre where mentally illnesses, especially those with psychosis, are often especially linked to sinister deeds or a plot twist akin to "the hero was the murderer all along!"
In Dove Keeper, while her mental illness isn't mentioned much, her burgeoning feelings toward women are a focus. It is my hope both she and her mother can be complicated female heroes who help readers feel less alone and connect with others like them; barring, of course, the related-to-someone-who-cuts-off-heads-for-money thing.
But then, I don't know the details of most people's personal lives.