☆ former account: callista lovis ☆
mobile-friendly version of ency!

ic fast facts:
preferred name: cori
gender: cis female
d.o.b.: august 12 2014
mbti: istp

ooc fast facts:
preferred name: calli
discord: callicocat.
owls/dms: open
threads: ask

Corinna Ellis Starling has always thought her first name was far too elegant and stuffy for her tastes. The incongruity of the name and, well, the real person would simply be too much. No, she always introduces herself as Cori, instead. Her youngest cousins have nicknamed her everything from “Rin” to “Coco,” but to almost everyone else, she’s simply Cori Starling.

It might be strange that Cori has such a feeling about her name because, standing at a mere 4’ 6” (137 cm), she seems to already encompass contradictions.

Beyond her wavy brown hair, button nose, and soft skin, her callous tongue and sharp hazel eyes often catch strangers by surprise. While her blunt honesty and propensity for witty, occasionally scathing remarks can give her an air of hostility and condescension, she simply refuses to hold back when sharing her opinions, positive or negative. Very expressive with both her voice and face, Cori is also a big gesticulator and “talks with her hands,” so to say. However, despite her confident exterior, she’s quite uncertain about who she is and constantly feels like she’s a walking mix of contradictions.

Impatient but not impulsive, independent but reliant on her family, she hates liars and bullies but has no qualms about cheating or stealing (at least when she’s the one doing it). Cori is quite smart, but after years of coasting through primary school, she is accustomed to doing just the bare minimum and has little patience for schoolwork. She is fiercely loyal and protective of her friends and family but lacks compassion for just about anyone else.

Usually fidgeting, she has a hard time sitting still and can almost always be spotted with an acid pop, chewing gum, or Muggle lollipop in her mouth.

She loves flying and swimming, the open sky and the smell of the ocean, but she doesn’t care much for quidditch. She likes the happy thrum of her magic and the way photography lets her slow down.

Although she doesn’t have a well-developed style yet, Cori almost always wears boots or else a pair of worn sneakers, and her socks are usually mismatched. She doesn’t care much for makeup from an aesthetic standpoint, but as a kid, she was teased for the freckles on her face and so covers them up with magical cosmetics. In fact, most people who have met her after the age of about nine don’t know she has freckles at all.

Cori's most treasured possession is a delicate, solid rose gold ring her grandmother gave her before she passed. Not trusting herself to wear it on her finger, she had employed her mom in helping her string it onto a fine rose gold necklace chain. She wears it 24/7 and never takes it off, not even while she’s flying or in the shower. Lenora had helped her magically enchant it so that no one can take it off except herself or with her consent. She almost always keeps it underneath her clothes, whether it’s under her robes or under her shirt on the weekends. Ironically, the delicate infinity knot ring and chain contrast sharply with Cori's vibe. Constantly in motion, callous with her tongue, and often sporting grass stains on her shoes or knees, the feminine jewelry seems at odds with her very person.

Born to Theodore and Lenora Starling, Cori grew up in a magical household with firm ties to the Muggle world.

Her father had chosen to take his wife’s surname (a rather unpopular choice in the opinion of some of his family), but he had been born Theodore Young. A wizardborn Ravenclaw, he gave his sense of humor to his daughter—dry and witty with a love for puns, anagrams, and other linguistic quirks. He doesn’t believe in stereotypes and is more open-minded than his wife. He truly loves his wife and would do anything to make her happy. Although absent-minded when absorbed in his work, he often turns his unquenchable Ravenclaw curiosity onto the matters of his daughter, making him an attentive and observant dad, if not occasionally nosy. He considers himself a polyglot and is proficient in multiple foreign languages, including French, Italian, Greek, and Mandarin. However, his true passion may lay in the realm of classics research and its intersection with magic. (He named Cori after the Greek poet Korinna. Lenora insisted on giving her the more normal and androgynous middle name “Ellis.”) This love for languages and history doesn’t seem to have rubbed off much on Cori, but Theo tries not to let it bother him too much. As far as he was concerned, his priority as a dad is to raise her to be a happy, healthy, and wise woman. Everything else comes after.

Cori’s mother had been one of the few Muggleborn Slytherins. With an ambition to prove herself despite her upbringing and perceived lack of magical heritage, she was a quick learner and, despite initial hurdles, eventually found friends both within and without her house. Sharp, perceptive, and brilliant, she can be ruthless when pursuing her goals but is soft and gentle to her family. To those outside her family, it may be a surprise to see the depth of her kindness in interacting with Theo and Cori. Diplomatic, serene, and cool-headed, she balances out Theo when he loses his temper and rarely raises her voice. Lenora is brilliant at charms, transfiguration, and just about all manner of wand work, but Theo tells her that her true talent is being a mother because she’s wonderful at it. (Lena tells him to stop flattering her.) Like her husband, her goal is to raise a happy, healthy, and wise daughter, but she also makes it a priority to ensure Cori is independent and emotionally intelligent.

Fueled by her ambition and precarious status in Slytherin, Lena had immersed herself in all things magical and, in the process, pulled away from her parents whom she felt could no longer relate to her life. Although they attended her wedding to Theo, they simply fell out of consistent contact. They were able to rekindle their relationship with the birth of Cori as, to everyone’s surprise, Lenora’s mother, Rosalie, grew very close with her granddaughter.

A few months after Cori’s tenth birthday, Rosalie passed away peacefully in her own bed. Several of Cori’s favorite childhood memories center around her grandmother, and the gap left by her passing will surely be raw and tender for a while.

Although Cori is an only child, she has plenty of cousins on both sides of her family, and they have fairly regular family get-togethers. As she grew older, though, it became more and more difficult to sustain her relationships with her Muggle cousins as her magic grew faster than her ability to control it. They hope that as she heads off to Hogwarts, she will find outlets for both her magic and energy and learn to conceal it well, so that she won’t have to alienate her Muggle family like her mother had.

Other than the struggle of hiding magic from some of her family (which was mostly Theo and Lena’s battle, anyway), the emotional scars of preparatory school teasing (which Cori refuses to acknowledge, to the dismay of her parents), and the recent passing of her grandmother, Cori had a fairly happy childhood. Theo would often read to or solve crosswords with his daughter, Lena would teach her all manners of things, and she had plenty of joyful afternoons riding toy broomsticks and rolling around on the grass with her cousins.

Ever since Cori was small, she’s always felt the presence of her magic; she just didn’t know that that was what it was. It was like a second skin, like blood pumping steadily through her veins, like the atmosphere—always around her, breathing with her. It seemed to pulse with her stronger emotions, but it was always very subtle, never malicious but not quite benevolent, either.

The first time it announced its presence to the rest of the world was when she was 5 years old. Cori barely remembers it herself, but the story’s been passed around so many times in her family that it’s almost like she can picture it in her memories.

Their home rests in the countryside, and the back garden bumps up against woodland. Unlike Muggle homes with fences, the Starlings preferred to keep their garden open to the wild and protected with magical shields instead—wards against unwelcome intruders and the like. However, they hadn’t expected a benign guest to cause such a ruckus.

Lena had been adamant that Cori get lots of fresh air, sunshine, and general contact with the outdoors as a child. So they had brought their little girl out to the garden and temporarily left her on one of the benches as they ran back to the house. It doesn’t particularly matter to this story what they were getting; imagine it’s something terribly important, like a pitcher of lemonade.

In any event, Cori had quickly leaped off her bench and began exploring. The next thing she knew, she was looking up into the face of a huge male red deer. Red deer are usually non-aggressive… but Cori didn’t know that. About 4 feet (122 cm) just to its shoulder (in other words, not accounting for its head and those antlers), the stag towered over little gobsmacked Cori, who was maybe about 3’ 2” (97 cm). As soon as he let out a deep grunt, Cori squeezed her eyes shut and let out a scream in fear, toppling back onto her bum.

Unbeknownst to her, when she had screamed, her whole body had lit up in a brief, strong flare. The stag had snorted in surprise and quickly turned tail, returning back into the forest he had came from.

Theo and Lena had witnessed the scene from afar as they were coming back out of the house, but their worry quickly turned to elation at the clear display of magic. (Of course, Lena quickly tried to smother that as she rushed to comfort her now crying daughter.)