Permissions

[battitude]

▷ First Impressions ▶ VISUAL: Steph's batlike features are what stand out most about her. She has huge tapered ears with prominent traguses that have an almost fork-like shape, a leaf nose, and is covered head to toe with short, brown fur. Especially long tufts radiate out from around her ears and neck, a genetic mutation unique only to her. Her face is severe, with a wide jaw and narrow, serious eyes. She has bluntly cut bangs that sit just above her eyebrows. Her hair is dark brown, thick, heavy and straight with little layering. It reaches past her shoulder blades at the back, with some shorter sections towards the front of the cut. In terms of her figure she's roughly 5'7", and at a fairly average weight with some thickness around her thighs and stomach. She also has fairly long feet (around a UK size 7.5) and a large handspan. ▶ AURAL: Steph's voice is deeper and at points more nasally than most girls her age. Due to her hearing disability affecting how she perceives speech she lisps on certain words and sounds, particularly "h" or "s" sounds. Otherwise she speaks fairly clearly, though can be loud since she has difficulty judging her volume. She speaks seriously and keeps what she has to say short, and there is little inflection in her tone. ▶ OLFACTORY: She smells clean and carries the faint scent of soap. Except for when she's wet. When she's wet she starts smelling of wet fur, but it's not exactly a pungent smell since she takes careful care of her hygiene (because having unclean fur is uncomfortable and embarrassing). ▶ DEMEANOUR: Serious and closed off. Steph always has a serious expression, and her body language is stiff and tense in a way that gives that suggests she's always slightly on edge and on guard. When spoken to her responses are short and to the point, and while she speaks confidently (albeit with a lisp) the lack of hooks she offers makes clear she's unwilling to converse very much. She looks people right in the face when talking to them, taking careful stock of their expressions and lip-forms to fill in for whatever she misses through listening alone. If they turn away, cover their mouth, or mumble while speaking to her, she'll warn them against those things and will become testy if they continue despite her words.

▷ IC Permissions ▶ PHYSICAL AFFECTION: Steph dislikes being touched and rarely responds well to physical affection. She's come to accept being tapped on the hand or arm to draw her attention in situations where she might not realise she's being addressed, but abhors all other contact more full-on than a brief handshake. If a person she doesn't know or is still on acquaintance levels of familiarity with tries to hug her/show her another form of physical affection, she'll respond with hostility. Even those whom she considers friends will find that she withdraws quickly or flat-out tells them not to touch her again. For Steph ever to comfortably hug with someone they would have to be a person is close with, whom she trusts implicitly. ▶ PHYSICAL VIOLENCE: Welcomed, but if it would result in any injury more serious than bruising or minor cuts, please ask first. Steph has no remarkable strength or fighting skill; she's liable to fight back out of anger or self-defense, but will prioritise getting the hell out of there if her attacker is more dangerous than she is. ▶ RELATIONSHIPS: Difficult, but doable. I am definitely open to shipping with Steph, but it will take time, development, and OOC coordination. Steph is an emotionally closed off person who finds it difficult enough making friends, so romantic relationships are understandably harder for her. Though she has had a small number of relationships in the past, they weren't hugely positive experiences and Steph doesn't really know how to navigate being in them. There's also the issue of her dislike of physical contact (as mentioned above) so any character looking to date her is going to have to be a little patient with her. ▶ PSYCHIC & PSIONIC INFORMATION: Steph has no psychic nor psionic ability. Your character can go ahead and read her mind, just give me a heads up first. ▶MAGICAL INFORMATION: Steph has no magical abilities. ▶ MEDICAL INFORMATION: Steph has sensorineural hearing loss, and this affects her and her interactions in a number of ways. Speech sounds mumbled to her and she has to rely on lip-reading in order to understand what others are saying — she won't be able to understand your character if she can't see their face while speaking to them, and may not hear them at all if they try to speak to her without first getting her visual attention. Soft sounds such as people tapping their pens or feet are lost to her entirely, and she feels discomforted in loud environments. She's aware that her hearing is set to worsen over time, and that there is a good chance she'll lose her hearing entirely (she'll be completely deaf before the time she's 25). She's also a hybrid, which means she has abilities normal humans lack. She can use echolocation (though not well, since her ears are so messed up), her sense of smell is much more sensitive, and she can spend long periods of time upside down without any detrimental side-effects. Her balance and climbing ability are excellent, but she is more prone than other people are towards feelings of l'appel du vide — "the call of the void", aka that instinctual impulse to jump that many feel when looking down from high places. Most of her dreams involve flying and she very rarely experiences phantom wing sensations. Being a hybrid does carry some disadvantages. She is naturally nocturnal, meaning she sometimes struggles to sleep during the night and events such as the clocks changing or staying up too late can mess with her bodyclock and throw her back into her nocturnal ways. She also has difficulty getting enough nutrients from food, and takes a small number of additional supplements especially to help aid hybrid diets. While Steph has a fairly healthy immune system, simple illnesses that wouldn't normally pose a danger to humans can hit her unexpectedly hard. ▶ OFFENSIVE SUBJECTS & TRIGGERS: Children being mistreated or endangered is a big one for Steph, since she has a real soft-spot for kids and dotes on her young twin brothers. Insensitivity regarding her hearing impairment can be variably upsetting depending on what's being said/done, and whether it's out of ignorance or full-blown discrimination. She'll react differently depending on the situation — she has a thick skin, but low tolerance, meaning she's not easily worked up into an upset state, but will remove herself very quickly from people who seem unwilling to be cooperative about her needs.

▷ OOC Permissions ▶ BACKTAGGING: Perfectly welcome. I'm on a slightly odd timezone and can be slow sometimes, so backtagging is my modus operandi. ▶ THREADHOPPING: With permission; please check with both myself and the other player first. ▶ FOURTHWALLING: Nothing game breaking, but if your character is the sort to observe that, say, they're inside an RP game being controlled by the players (like how the characters of Gintama are aware they're in a manga), feel free to have them quip about the stuff. Steph will just think they're crazy. ▶ OFFENSIVE SUBJECTS & TRIGGERS: There's nothing that I can't handle so long as the IC/OOC line is being respected, so throw whatever at me. If things do begin straying into uncomfortable territory I will let you know. ▶ TIME ZONE: GMT