Bailey Hersh

[RetroVenus]

Name: Bailey Leslie Hersh
Gender: Non-binary (Assigned Female at Birth)
Age: 17
Hobbies and Interests: Drawing, writing, gardening, orchestrating different outfits, needle felting, doll customizing

Appearance: Bailey is quite small, standing at a mere 4’11” and weighing in at 97 lbs, making her slim but not underweight. She is Caucasian, having her ancestry be a mix of German and Scandinavian countries. Her skin is pale, with a pink undertone, which is more prominent on her cheeks, nose, and joints. Freckles dot along her entire body, and she has dark eye bags. She has an hourglass body shape, though this has more to do with a thin waist given that her chest is rather flat. Her legs look long on her short build, and she has no muscle definition.

Bailey’s eyes are ocean blue in color, and can be described as doll-like, being large and round in shape. Adding to this, her eyelashes are long and thick. Her face is mostly round, though it comes to a point both at her chin and nose. Her lips are round and plump, though her mouth is overall small. She has full cheeks and high cheekbones, and her ears are slightly larger than average. Her thick eyebrows are slightly downturned, giving her a sad look whenever she’s not expressing anything.

Bailey’s hair is thick and fluffy, being curly in texture and layered. The curls are most prominent around her cheeks, curling inwards and framing her face. It’s styled into a shaggy bob, and her blunt bangs stop just short of her eyes. Her hair is currently split-colored due to a recent split-dye process; the left side of her hair retains her natural light blonde color, while the right is a deep ocean blue, similar to her eyes.

Fashion wise, Bailey puts in the effort to dress the best she can, both in Cyber Reality and in the physical world. Her outfits usually follow a theme, but what that theme is tends to rapidly change. One motif that often appears is angel wings, whether that be in the form of costume wings on her back, or wing imagery on graphic t-shirts. On servers that allow for more esoteric Avatars, she goes all out; full, white angel wings on her back, and a glowing golden halo floating above her head. In addition, she’ll also add ball-joints to her Avatar.

Last week, Bailey’s fashion sense followed the lovecore subculture. Turtlenecks in pink, red, and white were a common sight, alongside accessories with heart or lipstick motifs. This week, however, Bailey’s been phasing this out, replacing this with chokers, oversized tops with text printed on, shorts, and thigh-high socks.

As for makeup, Bailey has a rather large collection, but on average only wears concealer and eyeliner in Cyber Reality, and nothing at all in the physical world. She had both her ears and navel pierced, and while all three piercings show up on her Avatar, she hasn’t worn jewelry in years, both in the physical and Cyber Realties.

On the day of the attack, Bailey’s Avatar wore an oversized robin’s egg blue pullover hoodie, with white string cords, the word “nah” printed in white text at the chest, and laced up with two white lace ribbons at the front, each forming a bow at the bottom of the hoodie and going two x patterns up. For bottoms she wore gray high-waisted shorts, though these are usually hidden from sight by the hoodie, for footwear she wore gray platform boots with matching gray laces, and for socks she wore blue thigh-high socks with a black fishnet pattern overtop, terminated at the top with a deep blue band. Around her neck was a deep blue choker, and her hair was done up in high pigtails held in place by white hair ties.

Background: The second child of Teddy and Deborah Hersh, Bailey was born four years after her older brother Steve. Teddy works as a pastor at a Protestant church in San Jose, while Deborah works as a housewife. The two German-Americans were both born and raised in San Jose, however shortly after the birth of their first child, a job offering and a love of adventure had the family pack up their bags and move across the country to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Steve thus grew up in Grand Rapids, while three years later Bailey was born and raised there until she was 15.

Despite being a man of the cloth, Teddy quickly grew a following among LGBT youth due to being both openly bisexual and speaking out against the more homophobic views within the church. The more conservative members of the church viewed him as a maverick, but begrudgingly admitted that his sermons were bringing in more people.

Though passionate about spreading the word of God, Teddy did not impose his beliefs onto his wife and later children, if anything encouraging them to find their own belief. While Deborah is a Christian as with her husband, Steve would call himself an atheist, though he avoids thinking about religion as much as possible. Bailey, meanwhile, is agnostic.

As a child, Bailey loved to imagine worlds different from her own. While she did enjoy reading, this hobby fell out of favor once she was deemed old enough by her parents to visit Cyber Reality, which was when she started middle school. With parental supervision and whenever there wasn’t a sermon in session, she could explore the server for the church her father worked at; one of the first in America to have one. She was in awe of the religious imagery that was in the server, and she wanted to put down her thoughts on paper, whether through drawing or writing. This soon morphed into creating her own worlds, as any book she read couldn’t quite replicate her feelings.

The older Bailey got, the more time she spent in Cyber Reality, whether it be the church’s server or another. Her mother was worried about the amount of time she spent attached to a screen, and tried to introduce Bailey to other hobbies that Cyber Reality just could not replicate. The one that stuck the most was gardening. Bailey had always been interested in how beautiful the flowers looked in her mother’s garden, and wanted to help the garden flourish. Deborah was delighted to share a hobby with her child, and the two can frequently be seen in a local library reading books on plants and gardening.

The Hersh’s were rather well-off when it comes to income, and as a result both Steve and Bailey have generous allowances. In Bailey’s case, she spends most of hers buying new outfits. She always liked dressing up, but as Cyber Reality progressed and Avatars could be more couture, Bailey’s fashion sense became more esoteric. Angel motifs were a big part of how she wanted to express herself, due to her connection to Christianity. She wanted to be perceived as holy. During her high school years, seeing someone in a server she was on add ball-joints to their Avatar made her want to do the same. As her father’s church and later her high school forbade Avatars that looked different from how you looked in the real world, she learned how to express herself in a way that would work just as well as if she was in the physical world, leading to her being fashion conscious in both Cyber and physical realities.

Steve, by contrast to Bailey, was much more reserved when it came to Cyber Reality. Though he understands the importance of it, he was always rather terrible with any complicated technology. As such, whenever it came to understanding how Cyber Reality worked, he would turn to Bailey for advice. Over the years, as Steve became more familiar with how Cyber Reality worked, their relationship began to sour; Steve would act as if he never needed Bailey’s help to use Cyber Reality, and started to push her around, dumping tasks and chores that he didn’t want to do onto her. As Steve and Bailey were quite close before this, Steve’s cold attitude towards her felt sudden. She would tell herself that this was just a phase he was going through, and that if she did as she was told, he would go back to his old self.

By the time high school had started, Bailey’s self-confidence, which had once been quite high, was now crumbling. She would let other people walk all over her, not just Steve. More and more of her peers were starting to think of her as a doormat. Said self-confidence did not quite go away, however. Whenever something she was passionate about came up in conversation, she would become extremely self-confident for as long as the topic was being discussed. She would argue with her classmates over minor things, such as gardening tips and fashion advice. This, combined with her tendency to put herself down in a way that puts people in a corner, lead some of her classmates to perceive her as selfish.

At the age of 15, Bailey had come to realize that she was non-binary. Coming out to her family was not an issue, as her parents were supportive of LGBT rights, and even Steve accepted his sibling. Bailey would still use she/her pronouns as she was the most comfortable with those, though on social media she also uses they/them pronouns alongside she/her.

Around the same time she came out, there were increasingly severe incidents of stalking happening to Teddy. There was someone attending his sermons who kept heckling him until he was eventually barred from attending his sermons. Shortly after this, threatening letters were sent to the Hersh residence. The man was eventually found out to be Alexander Britt, a member of the far-right who attended a different church and heavily disagreed with Teddy’s teachings. Though a restraining order was put in place, Teddy and Deborah were both uncomfortable with staying in Grand Rapids and wanted to return to San Jose. Steve and Bailey were against this decision, as both had grown up in Grand Rapids, but the decision was final.

Steve now had to consider which university in California he wanted to attend, as he originally wanted to go to Grand Valley State University. Bailey, meanwhile, was enrolled into Sycamore High School, being the high school that was the closest to her old high school in terms of structure.

Bailey maintains an account on social media that was originally solely focused on gardening. Through this, she found another hobby of hers in the form of needle felting. She would follow accounts that specialized in this, feeling that the creations were adorable, and soon picked up the craft herself. As of the present, her account is a mixture of gardening, needle felting, and the occasional picture of herself. She was still afraid of posting information about herself after what happened with her father, however she likes the attention she gets from her posts.

She also follows accounts that focus on doll customizing. Given her interest in ball-joints on CR Avatars, she believes that making her own dolls would be the next step. She has only recently gotten into this hobby, however, and thus has yet to learn how to sculpt her own dolls, settling on simple customization for now. She has a tendency to stay up late at night trying to customize these dolls. She has a small collection of them, the standout being a doll that resembles herself.

As she’s still a junior, she has yet to decide on what she wants to do after graduation. She would like a post-secondary education of some sort, though she’s unsure of what course she would want to take. A part of her wants to take a nursing course, as she thinks that sounds interesting, however she has no experience with healthcare whatsoever, thus making it unlikely that she’ll take this option.

Personality: One of the first things people notice about Bailey is how much of a doormat she is. ​​​Indeed, she is quite the pushover, showing almost no confidence in herself. That said, when certain opinions or beliefs of hers are questioned, that lack of confidence turns itself on its head and she becomes very certain in said opinion/belief. She’s rather quiet, even during times where she should speak up. Despite her general lack of self-confidence, Bailey can be startlingly selfish. While she doesn’t believe herself to be better than others consciously, her wanting to be holy in presentation makes her jealous of those she believes are more pure than her. Despite this, she tries to be kind to others, though that jealousy still manifests, usually through her tone of voice. She can be energetic when it comes to her hobbies and interests, however anything outside of that she leans more towards the lethargic. She puts on a cheery front, wanting to be seen as someone who’s constantly in a good mood as she wants others to also be in a good mood. She has a hard time dealing with people who are less than receptive to her, thus why she wants people to be happy around her. Despite her overall moodiness she’s rather good at bouncing back from a negative event.

Reputation: How Bailey is perceived by her peers tends to widely vary; she’s well liked among her friends, however there are those among her peers who have grown to dislike her for her self-centered nature. She enjoys getting compliments and being with others, so long as they don’t earn her jealousy, something that is rather fickle. Adding on to others' dislike of her is her tendency to put people in a corner while she puts herself down, effectively forcing others to comfort her. For those who are not her friends nor those who dislike her, she is seen as a quiet kid. Her grades are generally good, which combined with her quietness means that most academically focused students have no issues with her.

[Cicadan]

Hello there! There shall be critique.

[+] .

“doll-like”

Air quotes are inappropriate for the standard tone of a profile, and in this case they're not needed.

In addition, she’ll also add ball-joints to her Avatar.

You'd want to specify that this is for cases where her Avatar is customizable, and wouldn't be the case in her school Avatar (thus, would not be relevant in-game) due to school dress code.

also this is very incomplete send help

Yep, you're missing a lot of background in that pretty much none of it is actually about Bailey as a person and we'll need that to be addressed. Key points I can think of here: what was she like as a child, how did she come onto her interesting Cyber Reality aesthetics, how did she develop and mature into the person she is today. How did she pick up her current social group in school. What sorts of beliefs does she hold onto most dearly that she'll push back against her doormat personality, and why those beliefs specifically?

Also you mention she can come off as self-centered in her Reputation section but make no overtures as to why this is the case in her Personality or in her Background. Overall we're missing a lot of the core justifications needed for a character to be fully fleshed out, so I'd focus on putting more detail into her backstory that justifies her current personality and reputation.

That's it.

[RetroVenus]

henlo there is more to her profile now yes

[Cicadan]

Approved.