ooc | application
The PLAYER
Name: Madison
Personal LJ: 3dog
Contact: email ; strawberryeggs [at] yahoo [dot] com
aim; vitapulchritudo
The CHARACTER
BASICS
Name: Ophelie Ramona Baertschi
Gender & Played-By: Female ; Mia Wasikowska
Age & Birthday: 16 ; March 14, 1927
Nationality: Swiss
Sexuality: Heterosexual, more or less.
Physical Description: Ophelie has a surprisingly sturdy build, a result of a few years worth of quidditch. She wears it well, and it’s all about how you carry yourself as far as she’s concerned. Her hair lightens considerably during the spring and summer, and inversely darkens during the winter. She hasn’t cut her hair since first coming to Durmstrang, and prefers to keep it pulled back in some fashion, usually in a fishtail braid.
FAMILY DETAILS
Parent/s: [father] Erik Baertschi, Kveld Alumni
[mother] Verena Nadezda, Hufflepuff Alumni
Siblings: She has two younger sisters, Heidi and Mitzi. They are twins and still in their toddler years.
Extended Family: N/A, but I’m open if anyone wants to be cousins or something…heh.
SCHOOL-CENTRIC
Year: 6th
Path/House: Morgen
Major: Care of Magical Creatures
Quidditch: Chaser
Pet: A Spectacled owl named Windermere.
Wand: Birch, 9 ½ inches, fairy hair, sturdy.
Patronus: A Heron, an animal which symbolizes quiet, tact, and delicacy.
Boggart: A particularly gaunt looking beggar.
Erised: Herself and her family surrounded by riches
PERSONALITY
Favorites: Animals (the rarer they are, the more fascinated by them she is), flying, quidditch, firelight, domestic magic, spicy foods, winter time, silk clothes.
Distastes: Sweets, war, indecency, yelling, combative magic.
Secrets, Strengths, & Weaknesses:
[secrets] As far as secrets go, Ophelie considers her family’s impoverishment to be a deep secret. In reality, while it isn’t the “talk of the town”, it wouldn’t take much digging to find out about her monetary situation.
Her fondness for Quidditch is a quirk that she likes to keep to herself, as she has it in her head that it’s not particularly ladylike. The smile that can be seen on her face while she’s playing is hard to deny.
[strengths] Ophelie is an expert animal handler, and shows no fear towards the more ‘bitey’ sort. She is also a great listener, and incredibly patient. While it can come off as naivety, she is adept at making the best out of a bad situation.
[weaknesses] Her upbringing has left her very concerned with where she stands in society. She struggles greatly with trying to find something of a happy medium. It’s difficult to shake the feeling that her father is still keeping an eye on her.
Detailed Personality: On the surface, Ophelie seems very quiet and passive. She is not one to stir up trouble, although her role as a follower can sometimes get her mixed up in it all. She is compassionate, although seems reluctant to show it. What worries her is that she might be seen as showing compassion to the ‘wrong sort’ of person. She is deeply concerned with how others see her, and works hard to please everyone. Usually this leaves her stretched a bit thin. Her obsession with proper societal standing makes her seem shallow, but she is in a constant struggle to find a happy medium.
Ophelie strikes many as naïve, in the sense that she tends to gloss things over. She never seems to see a situation as bad or hopeless. Everything is fixable in her mind, and what qualifies as ‘fixed’ to her is usually nothing more than a temporary solution. Ophelie always seems to be cheery and a good mood, but the line between genuine and forced emotions is blurred. She likes to laugh, or at least insists that she does. If nothing else, Ophelie is a genuine listener
It’s when she’s around animals and up in the air that she seems the most at ease. Any feelings she might express while on her broom or handling animals can be taken as absolutely genuine. As far as school work is concerned, Ophelie is studious, setting aside time almost every day for studying. She doesn’t shine in the classroom, usually keeping to herself and not actively participating. Care of Magical Creatures is the exception to this.
HISTORY
Character History:
For the majority of her life, Ophelie wanted for nothing. Her father was a well to do wizard, and while her mother’s magic wasn’t much to brag about, she at least had a pretty face. As the only child, she was the apple of her father’s eye and was considerably spoiled by her father. Her mother kept her from becoming spoiled rotten, asking Ophelie to help with chores before she could enjoy her toys. Ophelie was an obedient child, and always calmly did as she was told.
Her father felt the need to educate Ophelie on the ins and outs of the Wizarding society, making sure that she would not only be a proper witch, but a proper lady. Ophelie was so concerned with her studies that she didn’t notice her family deteriorating around her. It was her second year at Durmstrang when her father disappeared without a word, leaving her mother next to penniless and pregnant. Despite his abandonment of t he rest of the family, she still held him in high regard. Her father was sure to keep his daughter taken care of, sending her gifts and money. When he found out (and Ophelie is not quite sure how he managed to) that she was diverting the flow to take care of her mother the gifts stopped. It was not too long before they started again, but this time they came in clothes that would only fit her, or deposits into an account in her name.
The disappearance of her father seemed to loosen the hold he had around her, and she had made steps in adjusting. One of these was joining the quidditch team. Partially on a whim and partially due to some prodding she filled in as a chaser in her fourth year and found it to be freeing. She developed a love for the game, although rarely speaks to anyone about it outside of matches. She does however keep a few trading cards of her favorite professional players tucked in her textbooks.
Ophelie continues her studies at Durmstrang in hopes of giving her mother and sisters a higher quality of life. She wants to be able to continue working with animals, but worries that she won’t pull in enough money to support them that way.
SAMPLES
First-Person: Oh, what a clever little device! I love all these little pictures of everyone, they are absolutely adorable. I’m so glad to be back, summer seemed to drag on this year more than it had before. I hope that everyone else had a much more exciting summer than I did.
And speaking of summer exploits, does anyone have a good remedy for a few calluses?
Third-Person: Cleaning wasn’t generally a task that would bring a smile to someone’s face, but Ophelie was a different sort in that regard. She moved about the dorm room in a fluid sort of way, humming a generic tune to herself. Everything in the area surrounding her bed was immaculate and well looked after. It might as well have been brand new for the way everything seemed to glean in the sunlight. Ophelie smoothed out her bedspread for the umpteenth time and smiled, satisfied with her work.
“Wonderful,” She said softly to herself, sitting down on her bed and effectively undoing all her previous smoothing out. A quick glance around the room confirmed that she was all alone, and feeling safe in that knowledge she pulled out her Spell Theory text book and thumbed through the pages. By the time she had reached the back of the book she had a small pile of trading cards sitting in her lap, some with no subject and others with beaming young men in Quidditch robes front and center.
Her face softened as she examined them, closing her eyes and enjoying the moment. A noise from somewhere-she wasn’t entirely sure where-brought her back to her senses and she quickly shuffled them back amongst the pages, closing the book and stacking it amongst her other books for the year. By the time another student entered the room she was busying herself in another book, offering nothing more than a small smile and a wave in greeting.
Everything was safe and sound.