KeplerNova on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/keplernova/art/Otherworlde-Cressida-Year-11-618792231KeplerNova

Deviation Actions

KeplerNova's avatar

Otherworlde: Cressida, Year 11

By
Published:
1.7K Views

Description

Thanks to :iconlerpy: for art!

Basic Information
Name: Cressida Hawthorn
Age: Appears to be in her mid-20s. She has noticed that she has appeared to be aging very slowly as of late, most likely due to her status as a witch.
Height: approximately 5’5”, but she tries to appear taller
Species: Human (witch)

 
Academic Information
Level: Expert (graduate!)
Current Classes:
BST 401, BST 402, BST 403
Passed Classes: PTS 102, PTS 103, PTS 201, PTS 202, PTS 203,
PTS 301, PTS 303, PTS 304, PTS 401, PTS 403, PTS 404, PTS 402, BST 101, BST 102, BST 103, BST 201, BST 202, BST 203, BST 204, BST 301, BST 302, MDC 101, MDC 103, MDC 104, BST 303, BST 304, BST 403 (presumably)
Experience: 10,213

Personal Information
Likes:
-Learning, research, and experimentation. Academic curiosity is one of Cressida’s driving forces.
-Children (and cute things in general). Cressida is very protective of “the little ones”, although she does not like to admit it.
-Books/reading.
-Flying. Cressida can fly on a broomstick.
-Pomegranates
-Storms
-Classical music and folk music
-Poisonous and medicinal plants
-“Creepy” animals, which she thinks are cute
-Very strong tea
-Classic literature and poetry (well, most of it).
-Cheese
-The Witch Coven except Brunnie

Dislikes:
-People who are lazy, unintelligent, and/or insincere
-General immaturity
-Romance. Cressida generally finds it either stupid or difficult to understand.
-Flirting and innuendo, an extension of her dislike of romance.
-Religion
-Swimming
-Practical jokes, although Cressida does actually have a sense of humor.
-The beach, and hot weather in general.
-Losing, failing, or looking stupid, even if no one is watching.
-Sugary foods and spicy foods
-Noisy loud rock music

Fears:
-Never being accepted and never having friends. She will NEVER admit this.
-Drowning
-Not being respected
-Betrayal
-Failure
-Being mind-controlled, hypnotized or possessed

Strengths:
-Determination
-High intelligence
-Protectiveness, more so than she would care to admit.

Weaknesses:
-Secretly very insecure about her abilities
-Vengefulness and unwillingness to forgive, even when it is not justified.
-Not very tactful

Powers:
-Control over plants. As Cressida increases in strength and experience, she will be able to further control this ability. She can completely control the thorny vines on her hat and sleeve, and she uses them as a weapon. It's very powerful now. It does not and will never extend to fungi.
- Magical Photosynthesis. Cressida can, with concentration, absorb solar energy via photosynthesis. This turns her skin green. Due to this ability, she doesn’t need to eat as much as a normal person (as it's constantly active at a very minor level even without concentration/adrenaline). However, she cannot use other magic effectively while she is doing this, unless fueled by a significant amount of adrenaline.
-Flight. Well, on a broomstick, anyway. She has a lot more control over it than she used to. She's actually very good at flying now.
-(She actually has a longer lifespan than a normal human, but she is unaware of this. She is, however, starting to age rather slowly after reaching her mid-20s.)

Goals: To learn and study as much as possible, to find people who will accept her, and to further control her magical abilities. To find lots of uses for her memory-copying potion, and artificially create magical creatures. To teach at Otherworlde eventually. Additionally, she wants to get revenge on her father, if she ever meets him again… Or Zila, who's responsible for his messed-up personality in the first place.

Personality: Cressida is clever and analytical, and usually keeps her emotions hidden. However, she becomes very enthusiastic while learning and studying, as well as in the presence of cute things. She also tends to show anger and irritability instead of hiding it. She finds it difficult to trust people until she knows them very well, and can be quite cynical. She is very studious, and usually serious (and rather uptight as well). However, she does have a hidden sense of humor, and she is not shy. Cressida is much better at dealing with things than with people, so she tries to think of people as things. However, she finds this quite difficult, and is actually much more protective and caring than she lets on. She certainly isn't a bad witch… she just isn’t usually a very nice witch.

History: Cressida was always a bit strange as a child, even before her parents discovered her magical abilities. Not only was Cressida surprisingly mature and completely unfazed by death and “scary” things, she was also a living magnet for strange occurrences. Freak storms, ghost sightings and similar unexplained phenomena occurred around Cressida, who was never bothered by any of it at all. Although Cressida’s mother simply accepted this, her father and her friends became increasingly unnerved by her latent supernatural abilities.
When Cressida was twelve, her plant-magic abilities fully manifested. Her father, who was very afraid of the supernatural, couldn’t stand being around Cressida and her powers any longer, and left her and her mother. This event made Cressida become distrustful of people and of romantic relationships, and she became rather isolated from society. Although Cressida never considered her father’s actions to be her fault, she is surprisingly insecure, worrying that she will never be accepted and that she will never be “good enough”.
When Cressida turned 18, she left home and decided to search for other people with similar abilities. She found the OtherWorlde Academy, as magic-users often do. She enrolled as a student, seeing the academy as not only an opportunity to learn magic and learn about her own powers, but also a place where she can finally be accepted.

After her first year at OtherWorlde, Cressida became a bit more social, making friends with a few other students (most notably Talia Flourish). Now that she was among magical beings, some much stranger than Cressida herself, she was no longer the “odd one” and found it much easier both to be accepted and to accept and tolerate others. She hasn’t lost her defensive nature or her almost obsessive desire to prove herself, but she has become a bit more secure. Now that she’s begun to study magic academically instead of just practicing her powers, she has become absolutely fascinated with the nature of magic itself. She wants to find out why some humans are gifted with magical abilities, as well as possibly manipulate those factors to grant magical powers to non-magical individuals.

After her second year at OtherWorlde, Cressida continued to open up more to other people, realizing that her friendships kept her moral and allowed her to keep caring about other people. She now tries purposely to reach out to other people, although she frequently doesn't understand people's reactions to the things she says. She understands her emotions now, but not other people's. As Cressida studies the complex world of magic, she fills her mind with new ideas and possibilities, thinking of all the things she could do with her skills, all the things she could explore and create. She's very interested in the possibility of creating artificial magical life. Her innate powers have become stronger, and she still studies them and their effects. She's generally a happier person now, although she still despises her father and what he has done. She has also become less insecure, but more arrogant.

After her third year at Otherworlde, Cressida learned that she can adapt well as well as plan, and as such is not quite as obsessed with planning everything beforehand. In addition, she has learned that people will still respect her even if she's not THE best at everything, though she has still kept her general perfectionism. She became a bit more reclusive during the tournament as she developed her arsenal of plants and weapons, but she's opening up again. She even went to the graduation dance, although she never actually danced, didn't have a date, and ran out at the end to work on her studies. She's still interested in her goal of creating magical beings artificially, as well as the concept of taking on other people's memories and experience.

After her fourth year at OtherWorlde, Cressida has become still more secure in herself, though she still has a few major insecurities, and also has become more arrogant as well. She appears to have made an enemy in the form of Virgil Valerian, after she slipped him a chilling potion for an assignment. However, having been appointed the leader of the Otherworlde Coven, she has made many new friends as well. She's happier than she has been for a long time. She's immensely proud of herself for developing the Memory-Copying Potion, as well as for being the first person to graduate from the Potionmaking department since Helmy himself. Now, she's back to take one more class before she tries to get a job as an assistant professor.

Cressida expected to have a rather uneventful fifth year at Otherworlde, but then MCressida showed up and turned her into a tree spirit. She met the spirit of her grandmother, Zila Hawthorn, and discovered that one of her ancestors was a nature spirit. She isn't happy with Zila or MCressida, and managed to get her reflection back into the Alternate Room. She also found out that MCressida did her assignments for her. Welp.

During Cressida's sixth year at Otherworlde, she met many new witches, but at the same time, she had to witness Lucy's departure from the academy. Instead, Cressida tried to connect with Orielle Fabron, another young witch whom she had met previously. Though given Cressida's aversion to romance compared to Orielle's boy-crazy attitude, there tends to be some clashing... Cressida also took Beast Studies classes, under a new professor, and she decided that she immensely preferred Daphne Parthenope to Helmy. However, the Beast Studies professor appears to have left, and Cressida has decided to simply continue on with her studies in that field and hope that the new teacher isn't an idiot or an asshole.

In her seventh year at Otherworlde, Cressida entered the tournament again, and although she lost to Kichi, she managed to place fourth, one place higher than the last time. She appears to have made an enemy of Chrono, as she defeated Casper in a particularly cruel way, and Chrono's confrontation inspired her to try to actually get along better with people and be more personable in general. Cressida hopes that she has not made an enemy of Emily, who she also defeated. She found out that her grandmother, Zila, made it back into the world, and is determined to stop her, but she does not know that Zila is possessing Virgil. She also ended up creating a golem servant, which she named Adam.

Cressida's eighth year at Otherworlde was highly eventful. From the zombies in October, to the escaping beasts in November (which, at least, was probably not Upton's fault), to the fact that she gained companions in the form of a griffin and owl thanks to her Beast Studies classes... Cressida also participated in the Secret Santa event, where she received a book from Mithrandiel, gave a fireproofed outfit to Paris, and bought presents for the entire Coven (because she had forgotten to sign up for their Secret Santa event). Oh, and she was almost mind-controlled by a siren into attempting to kill her teacher, giving her a general fear of forces taking over her brain.

During Cressida's ninth year at Otherworlde, she was replaced by her reflection, and subsequently died when the reflection did, only to be revived not too much later along with mCressida. While Cressida was stuck in the Alternate Room, mCressida started taking revenge on the people who were (indirectly, somewhat) responsible for her death. After mCressida killed Aiden to traumatize Aphina, Cressida basically sent an emotional overload to her reflection and switched places once more in the Alternate Room with mCressida. She also finished the MDC classes that mCressida had started. And saved a gnome.

Cressida's tenth year at Otherworlde had little out of the ordinary besides doing assignments. But those assignments were extraordinary indeed. Not only did Cressida go on a field trip to the Amazon Rainforest, she also got a chance to meet the Titan Atlas, who had a surprisingly interesting outlook on life, and was the first step on Heracles' quest to meet ancient gods. She also got a spider as a pet. Cressida used to never think she would have pets... now she has two, plus a griffin companion and a golem. Beast Studies is getting to her, and she wonders if it's perhaps actually made her a better person.

Misc. Information:
-Cressida speaks with a Received Pronunciation English accent.
-Cressida’s broomstick was originally an ordinary old-fashioned broomstick that she could only fly because of her powers. It is, however, developing its own magical properties. If she flies it for too long, it starts sprouting leaves and little branches, and she has to prune it occasionally.
-Despite her affinity for plants and interest in potions, Cressida is a horrible cook. Mostly because she 1) likes to experiment and 2) a lot of the foods she likes are gross.
-She swears using Greek mythological references (oh, Styx. Oh, bloody Acheron) and Latin words (stercus!).
-The font used as her “handwriting” is Mistral.
-Her outfit is actually a costume that she bought in a costume shop.
-Sometimes (but not always), she uses a large bag instead of those multiple belts to carry her potions and notes.
-She has a large burn scar on her upper left arm, going up to her shoulder. It's from her tournament battle with Quinlan. She has other burn scars as well, considering all the fire users she's encountered in the tournament.
-She also stole a doll of herself from Quinlan during the battle, and she keeps it in her dorm room.
-She now has a creepy rag doll teleporting around and stalking her, thanks to entering the Hexing building without protective measures. Orielle helped her get rid of it... mostly. Sometimes it still shows up.
-Cressida accidentally ate mermaid meat once. This is why she doesn't get meat at the Wolfsbane Cafe anymore.
-She is aromantic asexual.
-She has a small golem named Adam, whom she created for a Beast Studies assignment.
-She also owns a magical flying video camera.
-She now has a tawny owl named Daphne (after her old Beast Studies teacher), as well as a griffin companion named Heracles, and a wolf spider named Arachne.
-Out-of-universe fun fact: She's actually loosely based on an old recycled Harry Potter OC who was in turn loosely based on me and partially inspired by this picture: fav.me/d5uiw21
 
Roleplay Information
Chatroom Availability: Not very frequent. I will try to be there for anything important if I am informed ahead of time. I do have college, though, so it might be difficult. I prefer note roleplaying.

IM Availability: SKYPE NOTES

How did you find OtherWorlde?: Via dAhub. I just watched the group for a while, and then decided it was awesome and that I wanted to join.

Script Sample:
Cressida: *closes a large book with a snap* So, mandrakes and deadly nightshade are actually in the same taxonomic family as tomatoes, then… I like that. Right, I need to get-- *is knocked over by another student, running to get to class* Ack! You idiot… Watch where you’re running! You’re going to pay for that! *flings the briar on her sleeve down the corridor at the running student*

Paragraph Sample:
Cressida swooped down towards the ground on her broomstick and alighted on the cobblestones. “Ha-HA! Didn’t crash!” she shouted triumphantly, to no one in particular. She didn’t travel with anyone. She didn’t have anyone to travel with. “The book was certainly right about the ‘fog and ice’ bit,” she murmured under her breath. “I’m glad I brought a coat and scarf.” The young witch critically surveyed the buildings of the academy, determining if her effort was worth it. “Oh, that’s fantastic,” she breathed, grinning. Enthusiasm began to creep into her voice. “Oh, I’m going to learn so much! I’m going to be brilliant here!” Cressida laughed, sounding a bit more evil than she had intended. Not that it mattered. The campus certainly looked evil, too, but this is the place she chose. This is where she, Cressida Jocasta Hawthorn, had wanted to go. And she had finally arrived. As the witch walked towards the central building of the academy, she looked at her broomstick. Leafy twigs had sprung up all over the handle, and they had started to curl around the bags attached to it. “Oh, stercus. I definitely have to prune this thing again…”

 

Relationships:

| Bullet; Green - Likes | Bullet; Black - Dislikes | Bullet; Blue - Unsure | Bullet; Yellow - Interested By | Bullet; Purple - Saddened By | Bullet; White - Fearful Of | Bullet; Pink - Respects | Bullet; Red - Love (non-romantic, obviously. More of a familial-love sort of thing.)|


Chrono: Bullet; PinkBullet; PinkBullet; Purple Has a grudging respect for him after her loss to him in the tournament. She is impressed by his abilities and she used to want to "surpass and replace" him, though this has mostly gone by the wayside by now. He doesn't seem like too bad of a person, and seems to even be *gasp* sane. By defeating Casper in a rather vicious way in the tournament, Cressida unknowingly hurt Chrono very much, and he got her to go seek out Casper so she can apologize to him. He is one of the people she respects most. And he is also a member of the Warlock Alliance, too!

Lilin: Bullet; PinkBullet; PinkBullet; Purple Is one of the few people Cressida truly respects. After drinking a potion that contained Lilin's blood, which almost turned her evil, she understands what Lilin has to deal with as a devil. She still doesn't completely understand why it would be difficult to fight a friend in the tournament, though. Goodbye, Lilin! You were an excellent person to know. Cressida misses her a bit. But now, Lilin seems to be returning...? Or not...?

Helmy: Bullet; BlackBullet; BlackBullet; Pink Cressida uses "Professor Helmintio" as a standard for herself to meet, at least when it comes to potionmaking. She used to highly respect him and constantly attempt to earn his approval, but now she thinks he's kind of immature and irresponsible. And he threw a potion bottle at Oreo. Asshole.

Tishna: Bullet; GreenBullet; Green She's pretty cool. She was the first other witch Cressida ever met, and got Cressida into researching her heritage. Which led to some nasty revelations, but oh well.

Brunhilde: Bullet; BlackBullet; Blue Cressida tried to like Brunnie. She tried. Especially after she gave Cressida some really great Christmas presents. But after spending more time around her, she has decided that Brunnie is essentially a duplicitous nymphomaniac sociopath.

Cathrine: Bullet; Yellow Hasn't interacted much with her. But she's another Coven member! That's great!

Lucy: Bullet; GreenBullet; RedBullet; Purple YOU'RE ADORABLE and Cressida thinks of you as kind of a little sister. Also your grandma might have killed her grandma, and considering what Cressida thinks of her grandma, that's pretty cool. But you left. And she misses you.

Orielle: Bullet; GreenBullet; GreenBullet; Purple She thinks "Oreo", as everyone seems to call her except Cressida herself, is a rather interesting new Coven member. And has no respect for her at all, but hey, she's at least mostly nice. Orielle left the academy, and Cressida misses her.

Virgil: Bullet; BlackBullet; Blue You're an idiot. That's about it.

Emily: Bullet; GreenBullet; BlueBullet; Yellow Rapidly becoming a friend, especially after helping Cressida stop being a tree. Cressida had to fight her in the tournament, and they haven't spoken recently, but Cressida hopes that their friendship hasn't been impacted. (Though Emily being undead now seems to have changed her general attitude a bit, so there is that...)

MEmily/Etherjane: Bullet; Blue WEIRD

Ulna: Bullet; Blue WEIRDER THAN GODDAMN ETHERJANE

Pin: Bullet; Black She thinks Pin is basically the biggest idiot on the planet, including Virgil, and this mostly counters her fascination with the fact that he's an artificially created creature.

Cecil: Bullet; BlackBullet; Black PISS OFF AND STOP GOING IN THE GREENHOUSE BEFORE YOU MAKE EVERYTHING EXPLODE. That is all. And you're a rival with Pin for the Giant Idiot Award.

Cal: Bullet; Black She has no idea why Orielle likes him. And she, being a Discworld fan, also thinks he's a rubbish Death. She has realized, though, that whatever made Orielle cry wasn't actually his fault. Which means that her respect for Orielle is almost zero.

Gray: Bullet; BlackBullet; BlackBullet; Black She hates him as mush as she hates her father, and for similar reasons. At least she got to beat the crap out of him via tree before he left.

Daphne Parthenope: Bullet; Pink Cressida thinks she's quite a good teacher. For the most part. And then she left. Damn.

Cassidy: Bullet; YellowBullet; Blue Your powers are cool. Cressida's inclined to take Cassidy's side vs. Finnick's, but she wants to understand this whole Gravity Shifter mess.

Finnick: Bullet; BlackBullet; BlackBullet; Blue Your powers are cool too, but you're exceedingly rude. She is avoiding you now.

Samhain: Bullet; Yellow A very interesting student...

Melusine: Bullet; Blue Generally, Cressida is not sure what to make of her.

Paris: Bullet; BlueBullet; BlueBullet; Green Cressida is... very conflicted. On the one hand, Paris is an exceptional Beast Studies classmate and very cute, and PRODUCES PLANTS FROM NOTHING, but on the other hand, Paris is also the living personification of the day Cressida hates above all others and oh dear Artemis WHY

Valkyrie: Bullet; GreenBullet; Yellow Yet another one with a stupid name, in Cressida's opinion. But she's smart, and so Cressida actually likes her. And is fascinated with her photographic memory. And puzzled by her fear of bugs.

Carina: Bullet; BlackBullet; White Why does Cressida fear this little cupid blob who can't even fight? Simple. Carina made Cressida temporarily fall in love with someone she hates (that being Finnick), thanks to Finnick's crush on her. And Cressida chopped off Carina's wings in retaliation (disproportionate retribution much?), but she will never forget the fact that CARINA FORCED HER TO FALL IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE SHE HATES. And that absolutely terrifies her.

Casper: Bullet; Purple She went... rather overboard fighting him, and Chrono made her admit it. She's trying to find him so she can apologize. (Which is being RPed at the moment.)

Upton Baines: Bullet; BlueBullet; BlueBullet; Blue Cressida appreciates her new professor's lessons, but she thinks he's immature and unprofessional.

Kichi: Bullet; BlackBullet; BlackBullet; Pink Cressida respects Kichi's power, but she still thinks he's an obnoxious little piece of flying shit.

Lorita: Bullet; Blue Kind of indifferent to her, though she is teaching Lorita how to read.

Cressida's mother (Elizabeth Hawthorn, formerly Elizabeth Smith): Bullet; PurpleBullet; RedBullet; Red Cressida loves her mother, the one person who has always accepted her. However, she also can be very impatient with her, as she thinks her mother is pretentious, naive, and overly emotional.

Cressida's father (Duncan Hawthorn): Bullet; BlackBullet; BlackBullet; Black Cressida absolutely despises her father for breaking her family apart, and considers him untrustworthy, blindly traditionalistic, disgusting and cruel. She is beginning to at least sympathize a bit with him after discovering that his mother didn't want him, but now she also thinks he's a massive hypocrite.

mCressida: Bullet; BlackBullet; BlackBullet; White Cressida hates her reflection almost as much as her reflection hates her. She thinks MCressida is an evil bitch who won't grow up and accept that she can't take Cressida's place.

Heracles: Bullet; GreenBullet; GreenBullet; Green Cressida has become great friends with her griffin companion, even though she has to use potions to be able to converse with him, and she promises to one day help him on his quest to "find the gods".

Zila: Bullet; BlackBullet; BlackBullet; Black Cressida hates her grandmother to no end, thinking that she is irresponsible and wicked. At least she's just a spirit.

Atlas (yes, the Titan): Bullet; PinkBullet; Yellow He was very interesting.
Image size
708x534px 2.61 MB
© 2016 - 2024 KeplerNova
Comments3
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Leelu's avatar
...Cress is one of my favorite characters from you, Marlena nearing the same level of faves. Mind if I doodle either of them?