Velma "Bray" Clarks

[Velma "Bray" Clarks]

VELMA “BRAY“ CLARKS

....the mask

Your Name: you may call me shwaggy!
Where did you find us?: RPG Directory
How long have you been roleplaying?: way…way too long. 10 years?
Password: admin edit

...basic character information

Birth Name: Velma Ann Clarks
Nickname: Bray--and yes, students may address her as such.
Gender: Female
Age: 22
Birth date: January 1
Major: English
Classes: creative writing 101-104
Animal Identity: domestic ass

...personality

Likes: subtle comedy, corny jokes, coffee, terrible teen romance novels (secretly, of course), sleeping in, the occasional bubble bath, folk music, weekends, writing short stories in her gradebook, and obscure metaphors.
Dislikes: most “classic” novels, hypocrisy, conformity, beer, Daylight Savings Time, excessive use of “um”, driving, terrible teen romance novels (as far as anybody could tell), Nicholas Cage, and lemon flavored anything.
Fears: needles, crowds, and failing.
Strengths: level-headed, resistant to pressure, intelligence.
Weaknesses: stubborn, workaholic, bottles up her emotions.
Overall: 400 words minimum[/b]

Once upon a time (which this individual would find to be a terrible way of starting out a story of any kind), Velma was a quiet, head-down, yes sir, please and thank you kind of girl. All throughout high school she stood quietly in the background, making the grades without ever causing a confrontation or showing much of a personality at all. Everything radically changed the minute she graduated--she flourished into an opinionated, liberal-minded recyclenaut. Nowadays, she is a very passionate young woman who lives to wake up the creative genius in her pupils.

“Bray”, as she is known for reasons that will soon become apparent, has a brilliant sense of humor and a laugh that could wake the dead. She is not the sort of friend whom one would take out to the movies, as she is the sort of person to verbally assault the actors--to put it simply, she is a loudmouth when she isn’t careful. When it comes to issues like environmentalism, Bray is extremely open about her views and cannot be swayed. Despite all of this, in a normal setting, she is passive and open-minded, and an effective professor.

She has a sarcastic mindset, which can make her seem pessimistic if not interpreted correctly. On particularly dreary days, she can be a bit “woe-is-me”, and attributes that mostly to Seasonal Affective Disorder, which she has been diagnosed with.

Her intellect is dazzling, and often overlooked. Students generally think that she is a “fun” teacher, but few count her as a favorite because the workload tends to stay steady in her classes. Having made her own way in life by working hard, it is difficult to persuade her to leave a task unfinished. There is something to be said for productivity, as she is a superb multi-tasker and often will complete several projects in the time it would take a normal person to start one.

She has an affinity for folk-music, and appreciates any work that is done independent from a record label. It is against her ways to consistently match her clothing and conform to today’s standards of style--in her stubborn way, she will sneak wardrobe choices like sneakers and T-shirts into her ensemble for formal occasions. In her mind, comfort defeats glamour any day.

Overall, Ms. Clarks is a kind soul with good intentions, who perhaps simply needs to be socialized a bit more, and find more friends. She spends the bulk of her time alone, working diligently.

[/size]

...appearance

Celebrity Play By:
Appearance: [400 words minimum]
Bray is petite--she stands at 5 feet with 5 inches, and weighs in at 140 pounds unless she eats copious amounts of cake, which she will do on occasion. There is nothing terribly exciting about her body, and she secretly worries over this. Proportionally, her head may appear large compared to the rest of her frame, but somehow it works for her.

Her skin is creamy and unblemished, as she conquered her acne problem several years earlier and still uses Clearasil preventatively. She has a heart-shaped face with large, round, brown eyes, and a pouting set of lips that are naturally the shade of coral. Her forehead is prominent, and normally she leaves her bangs down to try and mask it. Her cheekbones are high, and cheeks rosy from an allergy that reared its head once she landed in Hawaii.

Normally, she doesn't bother with makeup, but every once and a while she will use mascara and maybe a bit of eyeshadow; this is mostly for lack of any cosmetic knowledge. She prefers the idea of a "natural" face to that of a manufactured one.

Dark mahogany is the current hue of her hair, and it reaches down just past her collarbones. As with her face, she tends to leave her hair however it decides to start the day--sometimes, this includes cowlicks, and most times, it means a massive case of bedhead.

She is an adversary of style, and prefers cotton T-shirts and blue jeans to anything else. When she can swing it, she will be found wearing clothes that make it difficult to distinguish her from a student at the school. Laceless skateboarding shoes are her go-to foot dressings, though she has never once attempted the sport--they're comfortable.

In her four-legged form, Bray is a medium-sized burro, standing at 13 hands tall and weighing in at around 450 pounds. Her fur is thick in winter, which gives her quite a bit of grief given the warm climate of Hawaii, and slick in the warmer months. She has an ash-gray coat with creamy white forelegs, underbelly, nose, and eye spots. Her long donkey's ears are black-tipped, and a black dorsal stripe runs down her high back to a tassled tail. Across her shoulderblades is another black stripe, which combined with the dorsal stripe creates the cross symbol--hence the name "cross donkey". Aside from this, she could pass as your average, run of the mill ass.
[/size]

...history

Parents: Marc and Deborah Clarks
Siblings: none.
[400 words minimum]
Velma Clarks was born exactly 8 and one-half months after her parents were wed. Marc and Deborah consistently kept up the story that she had been born premature, though the entire family knew better. Marc was a police officer, known as "The Nose" by his peers, who spent most of his time at work. Deborah worked from home, attempting to start up her own business as a pastry chef. Velma grew up with much time to herself, which she generally enjoyed.

Although Marc was distant, he was proud of his family, and extremely loyal to them; however, he seemed hesitant about the idea of more children, and convinced Deborah that it would be in everyone's best interest if Velma was an only child.

With no siblings or pets to play with, Velma spent the bulk of her childhood sitting in her room drawing pictures and playing make-believe with her Breyer horses. She had developed at a slow pace, all things considered. With little interaction, her social and cognitive abilities blossomed later than they should have. While her peers were reading "See Spot Run", she was still learning her first words.

...one of which was "doggy". One night, as a five-year-old Velma hobbled down the hallway unsupervised, she came across her father, just getting in from work--she rounded the corner and came face to face with a large black hound. She screamed and burst into a crying fit, terrified, and the hound suddenly was her father, picking her up and attempting to quiet her.

Her mother would never believe her, but she would hold on to that memory and tell herself that it hadn't been a dream.

School years came and went, and never once did Velma bring home a new friend for a sleepover. She outgrew her toys and moved on to books, and traded in her crayons for a diary (which never filled). Several years into her life, she still had seen very little of her father--he was a working man. By this time, her mother had given up on her small business and resorted to working at the local supermarket.

High school was a battlefield. Kids she had gone to school with for her entire career were completely different--it was frightening. It didn't help that most of the other students had already hit puberty and were filling out in ways that Bray simply was not. She had caught up to them mentally, but physically she still fell short.

At her own graduation, after receiving her diploma, Bray began to experience intense stomach cramps. Feeling sick, she slipped through the crowds of families and graduates, and stole out onto the soccer field and sat beneath the bleachers to try and quell the unpleasant feeling. She felt nauseated, and her bones seemed as if they would burn her from the inside out; her lungs swelled and her heart grew, and in a long painful moment she was suddenly not herself. That first change was frightening, and confusing, and she was not in control of her own mind. As soon as the change had finished, she could only run--there was no stopping the frightened animal.

Two people were killed in a traffic accident that the animal caused, and when Velma came to her senses she was in a pasture with other "stray" livestock. Thoroughly confused, she simply climbed over the fence, and walked home.

Her parents sent her off to college, where she kept her identity under wraps long enough to earn her teacher's degree for English, as she had always been a good student in that subject and enjoyed telling stories. After that, she still felt a sense of loneliness, and found that teaching in a normal school simply didn't complete her.

Her father came through, though. No phone calls, not even a handwritten letter, but he sent her a pamphlet for Shifter Academy, and she was off.

...connecting human to animal

[One Paragraph Minimum (Can be point form)]
Being stubborn is a classic personality trait of a donkey--Bray, being strong-willed and highly opinionated, fits the bill perfectly. Donkies are known for being hard workers, able to carry heavy loads for great distances, while Bray is a highly-motivated individual, known for her work ethic. An ass is generally docile, complimenting her passive nature, and both are unconventional creatures.

...literacy

RP Sample[/i]
-Must be in the 3rd person point of view and in past tense
-REMEMBER we are an intermediate-advanced literacy site. Please keep that in mind.
-Must be at least 3 paragraphs
-Our minimum word count is 400 words!


To their credit, they had supported her for this long.

Bray watched as her parents turned and walked away, her mother leaning on her father and perhaps crying into his arm as they left their daughter at the baggage check area. They hadn't said "goodbye". It stung her a bit, but she pretended not to let it faze her outwardly.

Since she had returned home on the night of her graduation, after the change, they had looked at her differently. When questioned as to exactly where she had gone after receiving her diploma, the girl simply stated the truth--she had transformed into an animal and run away.

Deborah had laughed, as if it had been a joke or another one of her daughter's creative bursts, but Marc looked severe. He had known about the possibility of this since before Bray had been born. Ashamed, he explained to the women how his own brother had been cursed by a disease which changed his shape, but he neglected to mention that Bray had been telling the truth thirteen years ago when she ran into a dog in the house.

She didn't correct him.

From that night on, things had been tense. Bray attempted to please them by acting as normal as she possibly could, but what was done could not be undone, and they slipped further and further apart.

Now, they were turning her loose. She was bound for college halfway across the country, a writing scholarship paving the way to greater things. They had driven her to the airport in silence, handed her en envelope of money, and left.

Severence pay... she thought to herself, a bit of sadness creeping in.

At that point, the future was uncertain for her. It became increasingly difficult with each passing day to ignore her peculiar condition, but there was nowhere to turn.

"Next, please," the bag check clerk beckoned.

She laid her suitcase on the counter, dwelling on her past which had so abruptly ended. Was it really fair? Something inside of her said no, it wasn't. Did she really want this? The same something again said no. If her father had known this would happen, why not warn her or prepare her for the inevitable? Maybe people wouldn't have died. Emotions boiled inside of her, and she had been suppressing them for so long that the pressure was too much to bear.

"I said I need to see your I.D., please," the clerk interrupted her thoughts, an aggravated look on his face.

Bray hadn't been listening. Embarassedly, she fumbled in her purse for her I.D. card, and with each passing second the teller grew more irate.

"Any day now."

It was too much. She burst into tears right there, releasing weeks of bitterness and resentment, prompting the clerk to wave his arms frantically and try to assure the other guests in line that he hadn't done anything to provoke the outburst.

Still sobbing, she handed over her card, was cleared, and wordlessly continued on to the security checkpoint. [/font] [/size]