Marti of Oz 
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Posts: 2
(1/10/06 4:20 am)
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Stephen Lily Baylis
OOC
Name: Marti
Contacts: ezBoard inbox is best, but if you feel the need, I guess you can email me, mystgurl@gmail.com
Age: 18
Code: Hermione Granger
IC
Name: Stephen Lily Baylis
Nickname(s): Steve
Gender: Female
DOB: January 1 1994
Year: 4
Blood: Muggle, though family history on her father’s side is very vague, so there could be some magical blood in there somewhere.
House Preference: Ravenclaw
Why: Steve is a happy, friendly person who loves a good gossip and a game of some sort. However, she is also very devoted to book learning, sometimes at the expense of other things. Ravenclaw may not have been the obvious choice at first, as Steve is very loyal and can be quite daring. However, the Hat recognised in her a potential that, if nudged in the right direction, would grow into something more. It was being sorted into Ravenclaw that nudged Steve into believing she could become a talented student if she so tried. Her sorting was based, not so much on what she was, but what she could become.
Physical Appearance: Steve is a girl with an almost perpetual smile on her face, one that does not only affect her mouth, but extends past that, showing in her eyes, voice, and what she says and does. There is a sparkle in her light coloured eyes, one that shows a joy of life and a promise of fun for whoever might care to join her. The eyes themselves are a light golden brown, leaning toward the amber end of the spectrum, lined with long dark lashes, of which she is quite proud. In her first year a friend told her that if she pulled her eye lashes out, they would grow back longer, thicker and darker. Prone to spontaneity, Steve did just that. It did work, causing her lashes to come to their present luxurious state, but she looked quite odd for about two months while they grew back.
Her hair was once a shade lighter than her eyes, a bright golden blonde. However, as happens to many in adolescence, her hair has changed colour since she was a child. It is now a darker shade of golden brown, and is beginning to take on a coppery tinge, which is most evident out of doors on sunny days. It is very manageable hair, as she puts it, “It does what it’s told.” It is cut to a few inches above her waist, without a fringe, and by simply combing or scrunching it when wet, she can make it straight or wavy, sometimes it even takes on loose curls. She wears it up or down, changing it from day to day.
The hair frames a face that is open, round and friendly. It is well proportioned, like the rest of her, with evenly spaced eyes, nose and mouth. Her cheeks are chubby, emphasising the roundness of her face, and she has tiny laugh lines at the corners of her eyes. Her lips are full, and she has a liking for flavoured lip gloss. Her teeth are very neat and straight, owing to the fact that during the summer holidays she had her braces taken off, something that had been a part of her for almost two years. Now she wears a metal retainer, forming a band across her top and bottom teeth. Acne is an occasional problem for Steve, though it is by no means chronic, coming and going like the weather. She has sparse freckles, though those she does have are exceedingly dark, dotting her whole body. She tans easily, and has a light to medium skin tone, as though there were some Asian, or possibly South American, blood in her family a few generations back.
Her build, her mother would say, is her absolute worst feature, though on most days Steve wouldn’t agree. She has always been overweight, and currently is at 122kg, though her height makes up for some of it, as she stands at a reasonable 170cm, with room left yet for further growth. This can make clothes shopping difficult, and swimming awkward. Mostly, however, Steve chooses to ignore her larger size, and as she is not self-conscious about it, others tend to forget it as well. The only person who refuses to ignore her size is her mother, who is constantly hinting at or telling, depending on her mood, her daughter to diet. This is perhaps the reason that Steve steadfastly refuses to attempt to loose weight. She is happy with her look, and thus believes others should be too. So although she does not routinely over-eat, nor does she attempt to limit her intake. Other than that, her build is quite even, and well proportioned. She has quite large hands and feet, and reasonably broad shoulders, but they do not look out of place at all, they merely mean she must buy larger shoes. She is not especially curvy, without a large chest or defined hips. Steve will never be a pixie, even if she does decide to loose weight (which she supposes she will, later in life, probably for health reasons).
Her weekend clothing choices take into account her larger figure, flattering it rather than making it obvious. She prefers skirts, between ankle and knee length, which show her shapely calves (and hide her not-so-shapely thighs). The only pants she will wear are jeans, or pants cut in a jean style, with absolutely no taper. She can’t stand tapering, and the narrowest leg she will wear is straight cut. As a top, she will wear almost anything, not minding even strapless tops. Her preferred colours are currently browns, teemed with pinks, greens or blues. She is a very careful shopper, and does not have anything in her wardrobe that does not suit her well. On weekdays, she wears her uniform neatly, and with pride. She likes the Hogwarts uniform, especially the robes, something she had always wanted an excuse to wear. She likes jewellery, and usually wears several bracelets or bangles, as well as anklets if her outfit permits, and on weekends dangly earrings, switched for delicate studs or sleepers during the week. She would pierce her belly button, except that she prefers not to have that area of her body on show.
She takes pride in her fingernails, which, in her opinion, are perfect. They have beautiful oval shaped beds, tiny moons, and are perfectly flat, rather than rounded across their length. Because of this, she takes great care of them, and has become quite talented at it. Her toenails she is less proud of, but will often whack on a bit of colour when she is doing her fingers, usually silver.
Personality: Steve is a happy, excitable, friendly person who finds it very difficult to stay still. She is always moving in some way, be it drumming her fingers, jiggling her leg, tapping a table, or something else. If she’s not supposed to be staying still, she is much more extroverted in her movements. Normally this expresses itself as a dance of some sort, made up off the top of her head. Before going to Hogwarts, she did a lot of jazz ballet classes, and still goes back to them every summer. She is a very neat dancer, enjoying it tremendously, and it satisfies her need to move.
She is the kind of person who gets frequently gets excited, more often than not, for no reason at all. She expresses this by moving even more frequently than usual, bouncing on her toes and setting off in a random bound of leap-turns down a corridor, rather than using the more conventional method of walking. She is also prone to silent giggles, which serve to make her smile wider than usual and resound inside her head.
Despite her need to move, she is not at all athletic, and is quite studious. She is very bright, and has a natural talent for school work, enabling her to get good results across the board. The subjects she enjoys most, and is thus best at, are Potions and Transfiguration. She likes them because they are difficult to get your head around, but once you do, it’s extremely satisfying. They also follow exact rules, meaning that once you get it right once, you’re more than likely to get it right each successive time. Her least favourite subject is History of Magic, as it tends to be just memorising a lot of dates and names, something she can do, but gets bored with easily. This year, however, it is improving, because they are starting to look more at why things happened, and how these things influence the modern world. As well as being far more interesting, this sort of thing is a lot easier to make up if you get stuck. Her absolute worst subject is Herbology, though it is one of her favourite classes. Unfortunately, she really has not got a green thumb at all, and despairs, because plants are not fans of following the rules that make her other subjects so easy. She almost always gets in the top five rankings in her classes, if not higher (except in herbology), and gets at least one first placing.
Steve is quite confidant, and a very capable public speaker, so the idea of giving a speech or introducing herself to a new person has never been very daunting to her. She is very open to new people, but tends to make a very definite decision as to whether or not she likes them very quickly. Generally, she leaves her mind open for about three conversations worth, and then decides permanently what she thinks of them, and nothing they do in the future will change that. This means she is perhaps not the best judge of character, and first impressions, or more accurately third impressions, are very important to her. People she decides she doesn’t like soon become the subject of very confidential gossiping with her friends. She enjoys to gossip, but does not spread rumours (except on rare occasions) or gossip with just anybody. All gossip sessions are definitely private and confidential, and woe betide the person who breaks that confidentiality.
Like most overweight people, Steve has had her share of bullying, taunts and teasing. After letting it get her down for much of primary school, she made the conscious decision going into high school that it would not bother her, and it doesn’t, for the most part. She’s heard it all before anyway, and realizes that those people simply aren’t worth time or effort. However, if something is said about or done to one of her close friends, Steve goes straight into revenge mode. She always tries to get back at the person without sinking to their level of pettiness, though she is not always successful. She is, however, almost always successful at not having them find out it was her.
Steve doesn’t get angry very often, but when she does, she gets very angry. She will fume, and silently yell at herself or others inside her head. She usually tries to find a place to be alone, so she can hit things, and often cries in anger. She often feels the need to hurt something in this state, and when inanimate objects don’t suffice, that thing often turns out to be herself. She will slap or thump or stomp. Once she took it out on a stone wall, reducing her knuckles to a bloody mess. After she has calmed down, it is still best to avoid her, as she takes between and hour and two days to return to her usual happy state, and in the mean time can be very snappy, sarcastic, and downright mean.
She’s a very empathetic person, capable of seeing many points of view, whether or not she agrees with them. She prefers other people who are also able to see many angles of a thing. People who disagree with her, she can cope with, as long as they have their reasons, but people who outright refuse to look at a situation any way other than their own frustrate her tremendously.
On the whole though, she is generally a very happy person. She is enjoyable to be around, and able to hold an intelligent conversation.
History: For Steve’s parents, it was love at first sight, which might explain their very different personalities and views of the world. Her mother was a socialite, though perhaps not as successful a one as she’d have liked to be. Attempting to be seen at parties, going to the right charity functions, owning the latest perfume, it was all part of the regular daily routine for Andrea Clarke, until she met Frank Baylis. Frank was calm, poor, and unconcerned with his standing, nothing like the sort of man Andrea was usually around, nor the sort she wanted to be around, which made their romance and eventual marriage even more of a surprise. Not as surprising, however, was their divorce, about 7 years later. By that stage, Steve was six years old, and has drifted between parents ever since, though tending to favour her father.
Steve’s masculine name is a thing often remarked upon, and the girl blames her mother entirely, though her gynaecologist should take some of the blame. The ultrasound, you see, revealed Andrea’s baby to be a boy. Being the kind of woman who likes to plan ahead, she did a lot of research on baby names, and finally chose Stephen as the name she most preferred. However, when the baby was born, it was not male at all, but a beautiful little girl. However, by that stage Andrea had her heart set on the name Stephen, and had already decorated the baby room and ordered embroidered napkins. Though Frank tried to convince his wife to change her mind, the most she would concede to was a change in middle name, to the more feminine Lily.
Steve has never gotten on particularly well with her mother, but does realise she tries her best. The aspect of her mother Steve most dislikes is, of course, the constant pressure to loose weight. Andrea is somewhat ashamed of her daughter in that respect, but does attempt to respect her daughter’s wishes, some of the time, at least. Part of this rift between them is simply due to not understanding. Andrea, a woman who has spent her life worrying what others think of her, simply does not understand that Steve doesn’t care.
After the divorce, Steve spent most of her time with her father, seeing her mother only a few times a month. This meant she took on a lot of her father’s easy going nature. Living in a small house in suburbia, very different to the elaborate house her mother lived in but couldn’t afford, Steve had a very normal childhood. She was average on the popularity stakes, not the queen bee but by no means at the bottom either. She attended a regular primary school, and did jazz ballet classes twice a week with her best friend Sarah.
Sarah was perhaps what made her transition to the wizarding world very difficult. Both girls had applied for, and been accepted into, a very good private boarding school. Steve and Sarah were both looking forward to this tremendously, both for the school and being together while they went there. It must have come as a shock, then, when Steve told Sarah she was going to a different school.
Steve was at her father’s when the owl arrived, entering through the kitchen window and landing particularly gracelessly in a bowl of potato salad. Neither girl nor father had had any notion of wizards or witches previously, nor had they seen an owl quite as close as that. Trying to help the animal, Steve pulled the bundled letter off its leg, and it promptly ruffled its feathers and flew off again. While her father remarked on the strangeness of owls, Steve realized that the paper she had just pulled off the owls leg had her name on it. Curiously, she began to read it aloud to her father.
The letter included both the standard enrolment information and an additional letter explaining the existence of the hidden community of wizards and witches. At first Frank was convinced it was some kind of practical joke, but the further they read, the more they were convinced. So much so, that they decided to go ahead with it. So on September 1 they arrived at platform 9 ¾ with everyone else, and a suitcase full of spell books and robes.
Of course, the problem was what to tell the rest of the world. They did, of course, tell Steve’s mother the truth, and she was invited to assist in deciding what say to their friends and family. Eventually it was decided that Andrea had also submitted an application for a very good, very remote, most unheard of school that she preferred to the other school. This school was seemingly less well organized than others, and had only just let them know Steve had been accepted. Andrea had also insisted that Steve go to this particular school, rather than the other. This set of not-quite lies proved quite appropriate, allowing Steve to continue her friendship with Sarah – barely, as she was quite upset when she found out – and provide an explanation as to Steve’s whereabouts for her parent’s friends and families.
Steve’s schooling began as it does for almost everyone who enters Hogwarts. As a nervous first year, unsure of who to talk to or what was expected of her, she travelled via the train and then across the lake to the castle where she would spend most of the next seven years. A castle! Not even with the idea of witches and wizards had Steve ever expected a castle, and the look on her face was mirrored on the faces of several other muggle-born children. Not one to be afraid of boats or deep expanses of water at night, as one of the girls sharing her boat was, Steve was able to appreciate every moment of that first night, and it is painted upon her memory forever. A blending, watercolour painting it may be, but it will always be there.
Then, of course, came the sorting. This, more than anything else since she arrived at Hogwarts, Steve believes, has changed her. It wasn’t a conscious change, more the sort that you notice only when you look back. She listened along with all of the other students as the Hat sang the qualities of each house, the bravery of Gryfindor, the loyalty of Hufflepuff, the determination of Slytherin and the intelligence of Ravenclaw. She does not remember exactly what the hat said to her (or was it to itself?) as it rested briefly upon her head, but she remembers exactly what she thought as it cried “Ravenclaw” to the hall. Ravenclaw? Ravenclaw is for intelligent people……… Could that be me? The suggestion of the Hat turned Steve from an average achiever into a girl who strove for the top in everything she did, wanting to live up to the prediction of the hat, to prove herself worthy of its decision. And every time she did live up to that idea, the realisation that she could indeed do this made her try even harder. Steve finished her first year with a very good report card, something her parents were extremely proud of, even if they couldn’t understand the subject matter at all.
Steve’s second year began with a boost in confidence. Spending the holidays back in the muggle world, Steve realised how much she missed the school, and the friends she did not have to lie to. Her return to school, and seeing all the terrified First Years, including a girl she had known in primary school, was a great enjoyment to her, as she was no longer at the bottom of the ladder. The knowledge she had gained in the previous year allowed her to enjoy things like Quiditch much more than she had previously. The highlight of the year was the sighting of a unicorn on a terribly against the rules dare performed by her and two friends in the forbidden forest one night in March.
The third year, and the introduction of Arithmancy and Care of Magical Creatures classes and Hogsmeade visits, began a new level of freedom for Steve and the rest of the third year students. Now somewhere in the middle of the pecking order, and the first year students seeming tinnier than ever, Steve and her friends were well and truly at home within the castle. Random pranks and dares were at an all time high, and much more was going on that the teachers knew about, or at least that they said they knew about. Steve’s academic record was still fantastic, but now there was so much more in her life as well.
Entering her fourth year, Steve has high hopes. She realises that this is the last ‘fun’ year before the pressures of external exams crush everything else in her fifth year, and she intends to make the most of it.
Roleplay Sample: Stepping lightly, Stephen Lily Baylis crept into her dorm. She was terribly nervous, in a good sort of way. A nervous grin was on her face, her lower lip griped between her teeth. Her breathing was shallow, her movements quick. Very quietly, she closed the door, pressing it until it clicked, to make certain it would stay closed. Turning, she walked silently, with small, quick steps, to her bed next to the window.
Dropping her bag to the floor, she sat, ignoring the quill that spilled from it to roll a few feet away. Licking her lips in anticipation, she looked for the first time since it had been given to her at the rolled scroll of parchment she clutched in her hands. This was it. She had spent three days on this scroll, neglecting almost all her other work whilst she had it. And now she would know.
She had never put so much effort into an assignment before. But herbology was important to her. She liked it, but was not very talented at it, and thus wanted to become better. And this was not all there was to it. In addition to the six foot long essay, there was a stack of small plants in the greenhouse, that had been marked along side it. She knew they weren’t perfect; one was over-watered, another was over-pruned, and she was sure a third had not yet developed from the lava stage, but she hoped that the essay would make up for the practical.
When they had received their marks the previous period, just before lunch, she had refused to look at it right away. She wanted to be in private when she got the good, or bad, news.
Carefully, she unfurled the top part of the scroll, eyes tight shut. Taking a breath, she peaked, just a little. Just enough to make out some shapes in red, comments from the professor. Taking another deep breath, she opened her eyes and looked at the paper, her eyes moving straight to the circled number at the top.
Golden brown eyes went wide. She bit her lip again. She let go of her breath, and very quickly took another. Then gave up and fell backward on the bed, and huge grin on her face. 75! She’d gotten a 75! Okay, so it was nothing like last weeks 97 in Transfiguration, but it was a fantastic result for her in Herbology!
Casting the scroll aside, she rolled over her head, a backwards summersault across her bed. Ending up on her knees, she grinned at the ceiling, then jumped up to her feet. She stood stock still for a moment, the silly grin still plastered over her face, then the excitement burst from her in a thousand pieces. She jumped into the air, throwing her hands above her head, then spun on her landing, throwing herself out into a left layout pardebouré. A quick hitch kick, and she was doing a dance she had learned the previous summer, to a song that was as joyful in rhythm and sound as it was in lyrics.
Giggling silently, she fell to the floor, laying the side of her face on the cool floorboards. Singing the lyrics to herself, she rolled to her back, giggling again, though no noise escaped her lips. It was so worth it, she told herself, the words ‘seventy five’ echoing through her mind.
Tipping her body sideways, she pulled herself upright with a smooth body roll, then scooped her bag from the floor. Reaching the door with a quick series of step-turns, she left the dorm for the great hall, still grinning widely.
Celebrity Avatar: None, cos I don’t know anyone that looks like her, and I don’t have the talent to make one if I did. 
Notes:
With my roleplay level, I guess you’d call me intermediate. My usual post length is about ½ a typed page, but goes between 1/3 and 3 pages routinely. Looking around the site, it looks difficult, but I think I can do it, if you’re patient with me. I’m also really looking to improve. In 2 years of RP, I’ve gone from struggling to get 3 or 4 sentences out there to occasional 3 pages posts, so if you’re willing to give me a shot, I think I can reach your standard eventually.
Edited by: Marti of Oz at: 1/11/06 10:31 pm
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