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[quote][center][size=125][b]Trunk[/b][/size][/center]
[b]Stats:[/b]
- Stamina: 14
- Evasion: 11
- Strength: 12
- Wisdom: 9
- Arcane Power: 5
- Accuracy: 15
[right]+9 stat points from wins | [[url=https://www.hogwarts.io/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=8714&start=50#p149357]x[/url]][[url=https://www.hogwarts.io/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=13818&p=221038#p220798]x[/url]][[url=https://hogwarts.io/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=15254&p=243297#p243249]x[/url]][[url=https://hogwarts.io/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=16317&p=262149#p262116]x[/url]][[url=https://hogwarts.io/viewtopic.php?p=294534#p294534]x[/url]][[url=https://hogwarts.io/viewtopic.php?p=317191#p316921]x[/url]][[url=https://hogwarts.io/viewtopic.php?p=357116#p354933]x[/url]][[url=https://hogwarts.io/viewtopic.php?t=20754&start=30#p424177]x[/url]][[url=https://hogwarts.io/viewtopic.php?p=576988#p576988]x[/url]][/right]

[b]Abilities:[/b]
- Calming Presence
[reducio]Phyllis, even though she didn't realize it, had a presence about her that set people at ease. Despite her reputation, which wasn't the best and would normally lead someone to be unsettled when first meeting her, she just had this easy-going nature that lent others a sense of calm. Yes, her family had associations with Dark Magic, and, yes, she was known as a troublemaker, but be it her smile, relaxed posture, or something else, perhaps intangible, she had a calming presence.

The presence first became apparent when she was four. Her family, being wealthy Pure-bloods, had a number of house elves working for them. On that day another family high in status was visiting and one of the house elves spilled tea on one of the guest's dress. Naturally, he was kicked from the room and told to go punish himself. Phyllis, feeling badly for the creature, followed. She couldn't stop him from banging his head repeatedly against the wall, but she was successful in calming the poor elf down.

Such instances came up throughout her childhood in similar manners. When she moved with her mother to Canada, Phyllis became the peacemaker in the ring of friends she found in a magical urban area. The kids she hung around were far from well-mannered and had a tendency to get into fights even amongst themselves. Phyllis was the one to break those fights up and help everyone calm down.

And in situations where Phyllis and a friend were setting up a prank, she made it easy to relax. Sure, they were in the middle of doing something that could get them into trouble, which could be a bit stressful, or one might be overly excited, but with Phyllis around they were able to execute their prank without blowing their cover.

The same carried over to Quidditch. As a first year, Phyllis hadn't made the team but even just when playing for fun her teammates found it easier to play. Even when they were down, the girl was unflappable, never getting frustrated or giving up. In her mind, so long as you kept trying there was always a chance of coming back, of winning. They just had to focus and around her doing just that was much easier.

Even without each and every situation that made it clear her presence had an effect on people, her personality alone lent itself to helping others relax. Phyllis could be intense when she wanted to, but most of the time the redhead was laid-back, carefree. Grades weren't a concern; in fact, not achieving top marks aided her goal of irritating her mother. Plus, the way she saw it, things just [i]happened[/i]. You couldn't always do anything about it, so why not just go where things took you?

To those she cared about, Phyllis was solid, unchangeably loyal. In every other aspect of her life she was unpredictable, but when it came down to her friends counting on her she wouldn't let them down for anything. It was another aspect of her that helped her friends, her allies, not worry and instead focus there energy on succeeding.

It was true that Phyllis wasn't the smartest, hence the reason she hadn't identified the aura of calm she possessed. But she didn't have to know about it for it to be there. Without a doubt, Phyllis had a calming presence.[/reducio]- Fearless
[reducio]No one was truly fearless. It simply wasn't possible for a human to not be afraid of [i]something[/i], be it spiders, the dark, losing a loved one, or one of the other numerous things there were to be scared of. All that considered, Phyllis was as close as you could get to fearless.

Growing up the way she did, Phyllis [i]had[/i] to be fearless. It was that or be scared out of her wits of what her mother might do with all her Dark Magic next. Not letting anything get to her was probably not all that smart, but Phyllis wasn't exactly known for sharp intellect. Her sometimes reckless bravery led to many a not-so-great circumstance. For instance, climbing a tree too high without checking if the branches could hold her weight. That had been a painful day, what with tumbling to the ground when the branch under her snapped and breaking her arm. It was a good thing indeed that she'd grown up with magic to fix such accidents. Or, another time when she'd jumped into an icy lake to save one of her friends even though she had no clue how to swim. She'd been awfully lucky to survive that.

Still, not being scared of just about anything had its benefits. She didn't dread big occasions, didn't have to deal with stage fright, and wasn't afraid of just walking over to someone and striking up a conversation. In relation to that calming presence she possessed, the fact she wasn't scared made it that much easier for the people around her to relax.

When the Ilvermorny students had been invited to Hogwarts and fights had broken out at the Masked Ball, she'd charged straight into them. It was far from the smart thing to do, especially since she had next to no spells under her belt and all, but that didn't mean it hadn't been proof of her lack of fear. Maybe it was just the sort of bull-headed bravery you'd expect out of Gryffindors. Maybe it would get her killed someday. It wasn't as though she were scared of the potential repercussions, so what did it matter?

There were, of course, the things she was scared of. Being in the dark alone, for instance. Her childhood had taught her full well the horrors that hid in the shadows. Water, too--when she'd tried to save her friend, she'd learned just how terrifying it felt to drown. Neither of those fears would stop her from anything, though. Phyllis would still plunge into the shadows, still jump into water if it meant saving a friend or if it needed to be done. Perhaps that was the most important thing about her, more important than being mostly fearless in the first place: when she did get scared, she faced her fears anyways. Between the fearlessness and the bravery, Phyllis would not be stopped by fright.[/reducio]- Statistically Relevant [+2 Stamina]
[reducio]Phylicia Stanwood was tough. It was apparent even when she was a toddler; if she fell down, she was going to get back up. Throughout a childhood full of often reckless pursuits of excitement, scrapes, bruises, and the occasionally broken bone were common. She was quite the adventurous little thing, and when she played, she played hard. She was always outside, running around, climbing trees, doing cartwheels, flying her toy broom, and generally looking for any way to have fun.

Over time, her outdoor activities strayed away from simple playing and more into improving her physical abilities. Her endurance was possibly the only thing she admired about her family; Stanwoods were known for never giving up. Granted, the things her parents worked at until they got what they wanted were hardly admirable, but she was going to be different. Better. And that started by being the best broom flier out there.

Zipping around the grounds surrounding her family's manor brought a whole new set of dangers. See, when Phyllis flew, she only had one speed: fast. The little girl didn't know how to go slow; she was in it for the rush of adrenaline, the feeling having the wind streak past you. Instead of the occasional tumble out of a tree, now she was running straight into them, along with boulders and the occasional fence. Perhaps the resulting head trauma caused her to become even more reckless and stupid, but she never once cried. Instead, she always got back up, grabbed her broom, and walked back to the house to get fixed up.

This resilience wasn't just physical, though. Sure, she could take her fair share of hits and keep going, but getting up required a mental aspect. She knew how to shake things off. She chose to be optimistic, to believe even through growing up with parents that mostly ignored her that things could and [i]would[/i] get better. And if she believed there was always a light at the end of the tunnel, it was easier to get back up.

In addition, over the course of her first year she took to running in the morning. It wasn't as amazing of a feeling as zipping through the air on her broom, but it still felt good, feet pounding on the ground, propelling her forward. By the end of the year she could go a pretty long time without having to stop or slow down. She felt ready to face whatever came her way. Felt ready to keep pushing through.[/reducio]- Catch
[reducio]Phyllis loved sports, and broom sports in particular. She loved winning, and even just playing, flying; the feel of wind in her hair and pushing her broom faster and faster still. But here was the thing: things like broom racing and Quidditch? They were brutal. You were playing one minute and the next you were plummeting to the ground below. A lot of the time, you didn't get back up after that. The brutality itself wasn't really Phyllis' problem with it; Merlin knew she got a little too excited to roughhouse. No, what she didn't like was losing a teammate. It happened, but no one wanted to see a teammate sprawled on the grass. No one wanted to win and then watch a teammate grapple with the delivery of the news and the fact they hadn't been able to finish the game out, and of course it was only worse when it was a loss to report. The redhead's philosophy, not that she was entirely sure what philosophy meant, was that no one should get left behind.

She lived it. In her first broom race, despite the buzz of nerves and itch to speed ahead, she hung back because her friend and teammate had a slower broom and she wasn't going to leave him in the dust. When things had gone wrong at that first Masquerade Ball, the thought of leaving without her friends never once crossed her mind. She'd never let a prank partner take the fall; either they both got out of there or they took their punishment together. Simple as that.

Maybe that was why she ended up leaving the broom racing team. It was too individual of a sport. Yes, you had a team, but the whole point was for someone to race out ahead to cross the finish line first, not so much to work together. If someone was attacked, too bad, let them be targeted so you could slip by. Combine that with the fact she'd been in love with Quidditch since she knew what it was and she had her mind made up.

As she took to the skies in a different sport, she had a new way to keep up her code. If ever a teammate was to be knocked off their broom and it was remotely possible, she'd swoop down, getting a little faster in her rapid decline each time, and tug them out of their fall. It was a lot of fun riding together, anyhow; you could hear each others' jokes that way! The team was what counted to her, rain or shine, win or lose. No one left to fall.[/reducio]- Wandmaker [Snallygaster Heartstring | Dogwood | 33 cm | Quite Flexible]
[reducio]Distant was probably the best word to describe Phyllis' relationship with her father. It was true, more or less, even before her parents split, with him so often caught up at work. Always work. Maybe that was why he didn't fight for Phyllis to stay with him, why he seemed content with only the handful of times they saw each other a year and the letters. And Phyllis was fine with that. Life held too many good things to get snagged on wishes her father wasn't so distant, literally and emotionally. She had more than enough amazing friends to make up for it.

So when one of his letters strayed from the usual, surface-level discussion of what they'd been up to, Phyllis was surprised. He wanted to see her face-to-face, to spend a few days over the summer together? They hadn't spent that kind of time, just the two of them with no social function attached, in... well, in forever. So why now?

(Phyllis knew why. It was because she'd been asked to be a part of Ilvermorny's Hexiwizard team. There'd been congratulations when she'd joined the Quidditch team, but this was different. This was enough to catch genuine attention, maybe even pride. But it hurt to think that only this was finally good enough, so she was going to keep on pretending it was just out-of-the-blue.)

Her father inquired specifically about her wand--Was she attached? Did it work well?--with an offer to take her wand shopping at the special place he'd gotten his, if she wanted. Once upon a time, he had promised a small Phyllis admiring his wand with bright, wide eyes that he would go with her to get her wand, and that hadn't happened. She'd forgotten about that. Phyllis was not hung up about this promise he was a good three years late on; she hadn't even thought about it until the letter knocked it loose from the dusty recesses of her brain. She couldn't say she even cared for these sticks wizards so treasured, for spell-casting at all. 

Actually... that wasn't true, actually. Phyllis did care, she saw things like Maxi hitting two people with one incantation and thought that was [i]so cool[/i], wanted to do it herself. But she was used to being passing, at best, with a wand, really a downright disappointment for a pureblood. So she made her identity friends and flying, instead, using magic only where she needed to. Cool things like splitting spells just weren't in the cards for Phyllis.

But maybe, just maybe, she could be better with a new wand. It couldn't be any [i]worse[/i]; there existed very little connection between her and her current wand. Something had sparked enough for it to pair with her in the first place, but something--Phyllis' lack of effort, just not meshing--had made the length of wood feel like little more than a stick. And maybe the time with her father would be nice. Somewhere inside, there was a little girl who [i]had[/i] cared, confused and missing her father, who did want that promised wand outing.

So over the summer, Phyllis would spend several days with her father back in England. On one of those days, he would take her to this wand shop. He spoke of it highly, and from what Phyllis gathered, it was prestigious, expensive. High-end was probably the right word. Thus commenced the hunt for the right wand, her father hovering excitedly at her shoulder and finding combinations for her to try. Whether to be annoyed or endeared by the interest, Phyllis wasn't sure. Some of that energy did seem to rub off on her, though, hope that perhaps she could find a new, better wand breaking through her lack of enthusiasm.

[b]Wood: Dogwood[/b]
First impressions were important, and it wasn't uncommon for people to come away from meeting Phyllis with the word [i]loud[/i] in mind. This was especially true when she was younger, the little redhead always having things to say and the projection to make sure people heard her. When she arrived at Ilvermorny, she got a bit better at managing her voice level and not talking [i]nearly[/i] so much, because she realized people found that annoying. Still, loud was a word people might think about her, and if not, extroverted, sociable, and enthusiastic certainly were.

She was talking when she picked up the wand that would become hers, making some idle joke to her father because it would be much too boring to do this in silence, and perhaps that was half of the battle in winning the wood's allegiance.

[b]Core: Snallygaster Heartstring[/b]
The wands being funneled her way were primarily of the strongest cores. It was a very intentional thing, so that even Phyllis, with her limited knowledge of wand components, could notice. That was hardly a surprise, she was sure her father would be happiest if she came out with what was the best possible wand on paper. But she felt nothing with those--she didn't really think she had the necessary power, or whatever--and eventually their search expanded, which is how she ended up with a wand of Snallygaster Heartstring in hand. Did Phyllis even know what a Snallygaster was? Not really.

But it was this core that chose her, and if she had known the traits this core typically bonded with, she wouldn't have been surprised. She had that physical aspect, speed and grace shining through when she spun through the air on a broom. She had the warmness, optimism and openness being how she carried herself and aggression something very rarely expressed. And she had the self-awareness, in touch with how she felt about things and remarkably cool-headed for someone who appeared so expressive. The wand knew what it was looking for in a good match, even if Phyllis didn't.

[b]Length: 33 cm[/b]
Phyllis barely even noticed the lengths of the wands she tried out, but a short wand was just never going to fit. She was loud, expressive, humorous. [i]Dramatic[/i] was not something she typically was, unless it was sarcasm, but otherwise she fit the bill of a longer wand perfectly. Phyllis had a bigger presence, and so would her wand. Plus, it just felt right in her hand.

[b]Flexibility: Quite Flexible[/b]
Beyond preferring her wand to bounce a little when she swished it, a more flexible wand was only fitting. Where many might get nervous to try something new, for Phyllis there was only excitement as she chased the adrenaline of novelty. Constantly she was pushing her limits on a broom, and she was fine dropping plans to do something else with friends last-minute. Going with the flow seemed to her to be the best way to live.

Phyllis was not, however, a pushover. She had defined lines on certain things; she wouldn't be cruel, or exclusive, or follow through with ideas that were nothing but bad. That kept her laid-back approach to life in check. Most things didn't hold too much weight to her, but she would hold firm on those that did.[/reducio]
[b]Extracurricular:[/b]
Is your character a Broom Racer? No
Is your character a Quidditch Player? Yes - Keeper
Is your character a Duellist? No[/quote]