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PLAYER INFORMATION
Name: Jim
Age: 27
AIM: credoinspiritu
E-mail: justcloseby@gmail.com
Timezone: EST+17; PST+20
Experience: I've been rping for six+ years, but I've had some bad experiences. I'm willing to discuss this if necessary, but I'm hoping that the depth of my application will speak for itself.
How did you hear about us?: cherchezlafemme

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Full Name: Holly Juanita Santos
Nickname(s): (if any) Holly J. She vastly prefers it, but doesn't throw tantrums about it.
Hometown: Albuquerque, New Mexico
Age and birthday: 17; August 19th, 1994
House and Year: Beauregard; 11th grade
Electives & Schedule: Music; Muggle Literature. Schedule here.
Wand: 10", Birch and Kneazle fur. Pleasantly springy.
Boggart: Spiders, crawling all over her. Holly is ridiculously afraid of spiders.
Patronus: A roly-poly Labrador puppy. Labradors, and dogs in general, are known for being the most loyal of pets, and loyalty is something that Holly both embodies and values highly. As she grows, so too will her Patronus age, but right now it's at a very cute puppy stage. This could be because thus far Holly has yet to encounter any real danger that would necessitate a Patronus.
Animagus Form: Holly isn't an animagus. She can't change into an animal, though she is fond of speculating on what she would transform into if she were able.
Religious Affiliation: Superficially Catholic - mostly inherited from her parents.
Extracurricular activities: School Choir, Quodpot (wide receiver)

Family/Relationships
Parents: WITH HER MOTHER Holly and her mother have the kind of relationship where they can share almost everything. It hasn't always been this free and easy. It's only as Holly has become a teenager and mostly grown out of her tomboy phase that the two of them found common ground.

WITH HER FATHER Holly is not as close with her father as she is with her mother, and that's mostly because when she was small, he was largely out of the house. George worked hard, because he never wanted to be seen as the husband who was simply living off his wife's inheritance. That's not to say that she's resentful of him, just a little more distant than she is with her mother.

WITH HER SIBLINGS Rosie and Tomas aren't even two yet, and Holly's been away at school for much of their lives so it's taken them a while to warm up to her when she's seen them. Over the summer she spent a lot of time with them, playing with them, changing diapers, giving baths and putting them to bed. She loves them to pieces.

Extended Family: There really isn't a lot of extended family for Holly to have a relationship with. Elizabeth's parents are both deceased, and George's parents live in New York, so visits are few and far between. The last time Holly saw her paternal grandparents was just after the birth of her siblings.

Familiar: none, at this stage.
Sexuality: homosexual
Significant Others: none, at this stage. Not only have I not had a chance to coordinate backstory with anyone else in game, Holly's rather inexperienced.

Appearance
PB: Shay Mitchell

Detailed Description:
In a world where popular media is dominated by blonde hair and blue eyes, Holly knows her black hair and big dark eyes don't fit the mold, and she's glad of it. The last thing she sees herself is a sheep, or a slave to convention. She never used to be overly concerned with her appearance, often just throwing her hair into a ponytail to keep it out of her face, but these days she's starting to make more of an effort.

She's lost a bit of weight since last year. Holly's a fan of food in general, and she used to think nothing of chowing down on burgers and fries on a regular basis. Combined with her generally active lifestyle this led to a naturally curvy figure, but these days she's slowing down, and recognizing that her youthful metabolism won't last forever. She doesn't want to weigh 300lbs when she turns thirty.

While she's at school she doesn't have a lot of choice about what to wear. Holly doesn't mind. She thinks she looks good in the skirt and tights, and she's not afraid to rock the naughty schoolgirl look, even sometimes rolling her skirt over at the waist to make it even shorter than intended. When she's out of uniform she's wearing skinny jeans and colorful tank tops and hoodies. She collects Converse All Star high-tops, and has a pair in just about every color imaginable. She keeps the black ones for school time, and mix and matches the rest with her outfits as her mood strikes her.

When Holly speaks, people listen. She doesn't often raise her voice, or shout or make a fuss. She's calm and collected, but even those unfamiliar with her can sense a hint of wicked good fun just under her surface. She's always up for a laugh, and if asked to vote, most people would probably name her one of the biggest flirts at school - if not number one.

Personality
Likes: greasy, fattening food; soda; whiskey (she's not had any since before they came back to school, though); purple, then red; girls; her parents; her friends; honesty; being active

Dislikes: broccoli; juice from concentrate; beer; wearing too much black; boys who think lesbians are hot; people who pry; bigotry; misogyny; over-zealous religious people (they give the normal religious people a bad name); people who can't stand on their own two feet; clinginess; waiting; too much attention

Quirks: Holly bites her nails, something her mother has tried countless times to get her to stop doing, with little success. She has a tendency to fixate on songs, so her latest favorite is usually on repeat for twenty or so repetitions until she doesn’t feel so compelled to listen to it, and can listen to other songs!

Secrets: Holly has never had sex with a boy. She hated the idea of her younger siblings. It's not common knowledge that she is multi-lingual.
What’s in your characters pockets? Right now? lint; lip gloss; about thirty six cents in muggle change; a spare hair tie, her iPod. Holly doesn't really carry much in her pockets.
Strengths: compassion; maternal instinct; good work ethic; dependability; good at languages (fluent in Spanish and Tagalog, aside from English)
Weaknesses: an aversion to the limelight; being very unsure of herself in romantic relationships (because she hasn't had any, really); can be very competitive
Strongest subject in school: Latin (there's a lot of Latin in your average Catholic mass)
Weakest subject in school: History of Magic (tends to be too dry for her to follow unless she's in the right mood)
One thing she can't live without: her cellphone.

Detailed personality: Holly is full of big ideas. She likes to organize and to plan, but she's not so good with follow through. Her reasoning is, she's the brains behind most operations, so it should fall to others to put her ideas into practice. She's got a very busy mind, and it's not unusual for her to wake up in the middle of the night with inspiration striking her - she keeps a notebook beside her bed for just this reason.

She's always had a very self-assured way about her that people find comforting, but it irks her when people rely on her too much. She never minds giving advice out, but she can't stand the kind of people who harp on all the time, wanting her to make every decision for them. At some point, it's time to stand on your own two feet, and if you can't, then Holly's not interested in having you around.

Perhaps it's because she was born as the sun rose, but whatever the reason, Holly's definitely a morning person. With the exception of the times she's been sick, Holly's risen with the sun just about every day of her life. She doesn't usually like to burn the candle at both ends, so unlike a lot of her peers, she doesn't mind going to bed early. Sometimes she stays out late, having fun and partying, but those times are the exception and not the rule.

Holly's not the neatest or tidiest person in the world. A lot of it stems not from laziness, but from lack of time to spend putting everything in its place. She's always quick to point out, however, that messiness and dirtiness are two very different things. Just because her shoes are scattered all around the floor of her room and her books are buried under piles of clothes, doesn't mean she has food moldering under her bed or laundry festering in corners. She always maintains that she's messy but she's not a slob.

While she's never been obsessed with her weight and appearance, she is a firm believer in being the best "Holly" she can be. She likes to go for a run before breakfast every day. Her route takes her around the edge of the grounds twice. She plays Quodpot - but she's not the captain. It's more responsibility than she wants, so if it did get offered to her, she'd turn it down. She just doesn't see herself as a leader of people.

Holly's always been an incredibly loyal friend. She's experienced firsthand what it's like when the people you trust turn on you - as the lesbian daughter of a biracial couple, Holly has known her share of bigotry - and she's sworn never to do that to anyone if she can help it. She's still friendly to everyone until given a reason not to be, but she's definitely more guarded, and much more careful about who she lets get truly close to her.

Romantically, Holly’s a dabbler. She's never really had a steady relationship, but it wasn't because she doesn't want one. At school, so far proximity has worked against her (familiarity breeding contempt, perhaps?) and it was impossible to get anything going at home during the summers knowing that come September, she'd be off to school again.

Growing up her parents took her to church on Christmas and Easters, but although the family call themselves Catholic they're certainly not practising, every Sunday Catholics. It's a box to check when census forms come around, not something to agonize over and lose sleep thinking about. Holly can reconcile her sexuality with her psuedo-religious upbringing by saying, well, God made me, so he must love me the way I am.

Personal History: Holly Juanita Santos was born on the morning of August 19th, 1994 to two muggles: George Santos, an investment banker, and Elizabeth Santos (nee Lopez), from old money on her father's side. Holly was an outgoing, friendly baby, and loved to meet new people. This prompted Elizabeth to find her an agent and get her into modeling and acting, as much as an infant can act.

She was a natural, doing mainly print work, infant wear catalogs and baby food commercials, branching out into television just as she was beginning to talk. It became apparent that she was a natural only at, well, looking like a baby. As a small child her acting ability was limited, and so her career effectively ended.

Holly doesn't remember any of this, but there are scrapbooks and albums dedicated to her work that get brought out at the slightest provocation, which she hates.

Largely left to her own devices after this, Holly spent much of her childhood running around with the neighborhood children. She grew into a tomboy, much happier in jeans and sneakers than in frilly dresses, preferring to climb a tree than have a tea party.

When she started school she was immediately popular with the other children. Instead of clinging to Mommy or Daddy's leg, she was off and playing, and in this way she seemed to effortlessly draw the other kids to her. Elementary school was kind to Holly, and she loved every minute of it.

Her magic started to manifest at the age of about seven. She fell out of a tree, but instead of plummeting to earth and being injured dreadfully, she floated serenely down to the ground and landed without so much as a bruise. Holly's parents panicked, but a representative from the AAW was sent to talk to the family, and the decision was made to send her to CCI. She started in the Lower Institute, at the beginning of sixth grade. Holly was actually excited about the chance to go away to school. She'd always been an independent sort of person, and while she loved her parents, she didn't feel lost at the thought of not having them around constantly, like some of the other kids she knew did.

Junior high was when all of her friends were discovering boys and what it was like to have crushes and first "relationships". The relationships consisted of intricately folded notes with messages like "will you go out with me?" and boxes to check marked "yes", "no", or "maybe". Holly received her fair share of them, but unlike her friends, she never felt the need to send them, and she usually checked "no". Only when some of the more vocal girls in the class start to wonder aloud why Holly never had a boyfriend, did she succumb to the peer pressure and go to the movies with Chad Williams.

It was horrible. The movie was boring, all cars and things blowing up; his hands were sweaty when he first tried to hold hers and covered in butter and salt on his subsequent attempts; she was about four or five inches taller than him, so when he tried to put his arm around her shoulders, she had to stoop slightly to let him reach; and to top it all off, when he kissed her, he ended up slobbering all over her face. Holly decided that perhaps dating wasn't her thing.

For a while, Holly used her terrible first date as an excuse for why she didn't go out with boys. But the truth started to dawn on her toward Christmas of ninth grade, when she got her first real crush. The object of her affections was a rather beautiful substitute teacher, filling in for a semester while the regular teacher was on maternity leave.

Holly had always had the kind of relationship with her mother where she felt comfortable talking about most things, but even so, it took her a long time, and two or three more crushes on beautiful, unattainable women before she was ready to admit that she was most likely gay. Finally she just blurted it one day, the summer after ninth grade, while the two of them were making dinner. Though initially stunned, Elizabeth recovered well and hugged her, and told her everything would be all right.

Spurred on by her mother's acceptance, Holly came out to George, who was visibly less thrilled (and somewhat skeptical), but nonetheless supportive in his way. After that came her friends, one by one. Her success was spotty at best. Holly's real friends' reactions ranged from scandalized fascination, to warm indifference, as if her sexuality were such a non-issue as to be boring to them. The rest of her friends were less positive. Some were outright cruel to her, taunting her and calling her names, and some of them started to pretend like she wasn't there and had never been her friend. Those were the ones who hurt worst of all - at least the ones bullying her were still acknowledging her existence.

It's not a secret that Holly's a lesbian. Thanks to some of her former friends, the whole school knew about her sexuality within days. She's never once hung her head in shame over it, though - if people want to hate on her because of it, that's their hang up, and it doesn't have anything to do with her and how she lives her life. In some respects, she's glad she's so out. She makes it clear that if any of the younger girls are going through similar things and need to talk, she's there.

Holly managed to miss Katrina, having not even started at CCI. She was home in New Mexico until the September of the following year. 2006 was her first year away, and it happened to be the year that the crazy woman was captured on campus and carted off. She didn't see what went on with her own eyes, but she heard plenty of eyewitness accounts from her friends, so it was almost as if she was there.

She was, however, around to witness the eighth year who committed suicide by jumping off the roof in 2008. He was a classmate of hers, and she took it hard. For a long time afterwards she kept asking herself, was there anything she could have done? Could she have been nicer to him? It took her a long time to come to terms with the tragedy, and even now she feels slightly guilty when she walks past the spot where it happened, despite having nothing to do with Douglas Hendee's apparent pain.

Despite repeated attempts, Elizabeth was unable to conceive another child after Holly, though she always wanted more than one. She decided to try IVF when Holly was fourteen, and after one failed attempt, Elizabeth fell pregnant. She gave birth to fraternal twins Rosie and Tomas a few months before Holly's sixteenth birthday.

This last year Holly joined the Quodpot team and she's been training hard. She likes the physicality of it, and she loves being able to flop down at the end of the night, exhausted after a good day's training. She thinks it feels even more satisfying to sit down and relax when you've actually done something with your day.

Samples:
RP Sample: Holly sighed and kicked back on her bed, relaxing. It had been a long day of classes and she was looking to decompress before starting on her homework. She glared at her backpack where it sat, near the foot of her bed. Sure, it wasn’t the backpack’s fault that it was full of evil, icky books, but Holly rather thought that if the backpack loved her at all, it would make a little extra effort to not be so… visibly guilt tripping her.

She laughed at her ridiculousness, and stretched luxuriously. No, there wasn’t any way she would be getting stuck in to a History of Magic essay in the foreseeable future. Luckily, it was Friday, so she had the whole weekend to get to it anyway. She grabbed her iPod and turned on her latest favorite song, loud. If she were at home, this would be the part where she started to sing along, but she was mindful that her roommate could return at any time.

After hearing the song three times, Holly sat up and dangled her legs off the side of the bed, her work ethic getting the better of her. Sure, it was Friday and she did have the whole weekend, but there was Quodpot, and a bunch of other things she wanted to do with her weekend. The last thing she needed was a big hairy essay hanging over her head the whole time, preventing her from truly enjoying her time off.

She compromised, in her head anyway. She changed into her most comfortable pair of jeans and a bright green tank top, switched her black Chucks for green ones, and sat down at her desk, reaching out to grab her bag. She scowled heavily at the bag, then made a series of terrible, monstrous faces at it – to punish it, obviously – then opened it and pulled out her History books, grinning to herself.

Other Stuff: Holly loves music, and isn't often without her iPod. She's glad it works on campus, and isn't silly enough to have tried to modify it magically, like she's heard some others have done.

Plot ideas? Mucho trauma! I'm up for just about anything, bar death. I'm not afraid to make my character hurt for the sake of plot, if that's what is needed, and if it comes up more or less organically. I've noticed you use the "rolling" system, and that's fine by me!