Your Nickname: Dlee
 Have you read and do you agree to the Code of Conduct?: Yes
How did you find us and decide to write with us? Friend
If you have written other characters here[/color]: Yes
If Yes, list them all: Deus Deres - Primary
Colm Quigley - Secondary
 Is this a Primary or Secondary Character?:  Primary

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Full Character Name:
Vladlena Vladimirovna Savitskaya
Character Birthday & Age: September 19, 1991
City & Country of Birth: Anadyr, Russia
Pureblood, Halfblood or Muggleborn: Pureblood
House & Year: Durmstrang,  7th, Obertiel
Wand: 13.5", Pine, Dragon heartstring














Physical Description:
 Vladlena is a statuesque stunner whose looks are honed like a weapon.  She’s tall for a girl, skimming just under 5'9, with long, pale limbs and subtle curves often held unnaturally still. Her hands and feet are unusually small—she has to wear children's shoes, as most of her family does—as small as a child's, and her fingernails are always just long enough to look a little threatening. Everything about her appearance screams disciplined confidence. She moves with the cautious, wary grace of a housecat and an acute awareness of where she fits in her skin. Her movements are never awkward, her ankles always precisely crossed, shoulders back, back ramrod straight, and chin always just slightly tilted.

In contrast to the her demeanor, she has soft, cupid-bow lips and a petite nose framed by strong eyebrows and glass-green eyes, almost white-blue in color, ringed with pale gold flecks that melt into black and leave her with a rather unsettlingly pale stare. The strongest element of her face is her chin, sharp and strong in comparison to the softness of the rest of her would-be expressive face.

Her hair, once a deep chocolate brown, has been bleached and lightened over the years—magically, not that she'd ever admit it—so it has streaks of golden sheen and copper tints that catch the light. She leaves it in seemingly careless waves around her face, though in truth the artifice takes some time to look so effortless. Everything about her appearance is strategic, aimed at maintaining or furthering her status.

She dresses plainly, in harsh angles and dark colors, with no embellishments or fripperies.

Personality Description:
Vladlena is a meticulous, fast-thinking genius with a derisive tongue and an icy attitude.

She looks people straight in the eye when she talks to them, and demands their respect while being sure to give what they are due. Unfortunately, her opinion of how much respect they are due isn’t always equal to what they consider is due. She can be openly rude without being personally offensive, and frequently is. She is brisk more often than not, and strongly dislikes extended personal conversations. If there isn't a point to a conversation, why have it?

Vladlena is unshakable in her self-confidence. She knows precisely what she is capable of, and such is her logic-centric mind that it is impossible to disturb that knowledge or make her doubt herself. She is something of a genius, which is how she has maintained her position in the top ranks of Durmstrang despite her gender and the subtle bias against it. She's exceptionally quick-thinking, painstakingly logical in the face of intense pressure, and has a memory that would be the envy of any encyclopedia author. She has invented several of her own spells, and her discipline and control is meticulous. That being said, if it weren't for the faint air of aggression and competitiveness, she would probably come off as completely inhuman, instead of merely moderately robotic.  She is independent and collected, and has given herself up completely to the pursuit of success in the magical world, and her frightening intensity of dedication is somewhat overwhelming to the people around her.

Her greatest strengths are also her greatest weakness—Vladlena has something of selective blinders. She does not see alternative possibilities once she's selected her path. Her courage, unquestionable, is the result of a lack of passion, which often carries the day in otherwise insurmountable odds.  She is perceptive, resourceful, and intelligent—she speaks her native Russian, some French and German, and has a passable grasp of English, and she picks up words and spells quite quickly, even if they aren't in her native tongue—but she often fails to recognize the need for empathy and compassion, which can cost her allies and opportunities. She has charisma without charm, wit without warmth, and knowledge without patience.

Vladlena has committed herself to the grueling courseload of both Spellworks and Tangibles (emphasis in the latter with some courses in the fomer). Her mornings begin hours before the sun is up, and it is rare to see her engaged in any kind of non-academic event, as a result of the intense workload that comes with maintaining her status. Willpower, innate intelligence, stubbornness, and a great deal of illegal stimulant potions get her through. The few times her status has been questioned, she has dealt with the issue without mercy, and often with devastating results. Lena learned early that mercy, lenience, and any kind of vulnerability got you into trouble at Durmstrang, and so she has structured herself to lack all three. She doesn't take challenges lightly, and her coldly furious aggression in the face of questioning often comes as a surprise for the unwary.

If you described her as cold, you'd be right. If you described her as heartless, well, it would be more accurate to describe her as hearthidden. Vladlena will be one of those legends people read about, a brilliant witch of her time with a string of accomplishments longer than her heritage. But while she may someday make a great entry on a chocolate frog card, without some kind of serious intervention  on how to be  a living, breathing person she's on a train-wreck course for a very lonely life.


History:
 Vladlena's childhood is undeniably the source of the structure and control in her life. Her father's family, Russian purebloods, has been in charge of a reserve in northern Russia that houses several Romanian Longhorns and a handful of Ukranian Ironbellies for generations, and has contributed generously to Durmstrang in the past, in the form of monetary gifts as well as hard to get magical ingredients from dragons. Her mother was a Romanian pureblood witch with strong relations to the Romanian dragon reserve. Their marriage was arranged by Vladlena's grandparents and is purely political for the sake of strengthening each family's power in the field. Her parents don't even live with each other—they visit by Floo and regularly discuss the business and new techniques, and once a month have a formal family dinner at her father's mansion, where, once again, the sole topic is furthering their prestige and mastery of their profession.

Those dinners were really the only time Lena saw her parents. She spent her daytime hours with nurses and governesses, drilling her in language, etiquette, dragonlore, and subjects like arithmancy, ancient rune theory, and Russian magical history, which she was required to dutifully recite to her parents at dinners.  The Savitskays strongly emphasized independence and self-sufficiency—a staple for living in the frozen, isolated north of Russia—and to encourage this, frequently changed her governesses so as to avoid an unseemly attachment to an employee.  They did the same for her younger brother, and the siblings rarely interact to this day. Vladlena was raised on a very simple premise—the best sibling would inherit everything. Period. 

Vladlena was the first child born to the couple, to their sort of subdued dismay, as both had been hoping for a son. They got one eventually, five years down the road, and Vladlena's interaction with her younger sibling has been limited.

Never one prone to fear or outbursts, Vladlena's early manifestations of magic were witnessed only by the House elves—wreathy, smoky dragons from her fireplace around age seven, flying around her room as entertainment in the cold Russian nights. Not ones to really listen to House Elves, by the time anyone in the family noticed (they began actively seeking signs around age nine), she had some measure of control over what she was doing, and most notably her magic seemed to be shutting her governesses up, much to the pleased and proud amusement of her parents, who immediately took over her training in a more aggressive manner. She saw more of her mother in the two years before leaving for school than she had her entire previous existence.

The transition to Durmstrang was easy, as it was astonishingly similar to her disciplined childhood. Competitive, impersonal, cold, and with the sense you were constantly performing for some higher power. The ease of her transition made it easy for her to establish herself quickly, and her attitude and intelligence have kept her there. She took up two disciplines in part as a challenge to her younger brother, but mostly because while her parents expected her to focus on Tangibles—and, in particular, magical creatures, her interests truly lay in becoming an Enchantress. She hasn't recognized that motivation, yet, and it's hard to say if she'll ever openly admit it.


How Do You Fit Into Your House?:
 Her family has always attended Durmstrang, unmoving in their belief that the school provides the most practical education offered, and inspires the independence and discipline the patriarchs look for.

Vladlena has earned her strata position in no small part because of her pursuit of perfection and excellence in academics. Her  aggressive intelligence, control, and ability have long made her something of a teacher's pet, as has her swift devastation of anyone who has ever challenged her--academically or magically, she doesn't handle being trifled with well. Her heritage as the daughter of a prominent donor, and her manipulative attractive looks have further solidified her position amongst the best and brightest. She's logical enough to play the game right--if that means letting another donor darling outperform her to keep him happy and from getting his buddies to team up and demote her, well, that's what it takes. For now.

Sum up your character in one paragraph:
Independent, perfectionist, disciplined, logical, collected and brilliant, Vladlena is a meticulously analytical witch with a sharp tongue, an intense focus,  and with little to no passion or emotion. Cold and bordering on heartless, she's an ambitious genius with little patience for person-to-person interaction, and even less for incompetence. She has charisma without charm, wit without warmth, and knowledge without tolerance.

Accepted!  -- Sparky

Character Name: Vladlena Savitskaya
Age: 17
Please provide a link to their Application: http://absitomen.com/index.php?topic=8798.0
Do any of your other Characters have Special Abilities?: No
If Yes, then Please provide their name and a link to their bio:
 
Special Ability: Animagus
What level is this ability at?: Advanced
At what age did your character gain this ability?: Began training at 15
How did they learn or hone this ability?: Vladlena began her training in the middle of her 5th year at Durmstrang under special tutelage of the Spellworks instructors for the Obertiel. During the summers, she maintained contact and strict correspondence with her professors so as to continue training.
Describe how the Special Ability influences their life.  What do they use it for?: Vladlena is rarely content with the mundane, and even less so with mediocrity, and naturally mastering a highly complex, rare and challenging form of magic holds immense appeal for her.

1.)   Maneuverability: A small, 30-inch long mammal can get a lot more places than a full-sized witch can. The Arctic Fox is nimble and fast, able to scamper on the ice fields with incredible traction thanks to fur-lined paws, and capable of speeds up to 35 mph. These abilities are most similar to a cat—the Arctic Fox can do just about anything a cat can, and fit anywhere a cat can. One notable difference is that the Arctic Fox is not as good a climber as the average housecat, and while they can jump faster, they can't quite cover the same kind of distance.

2.)   Subterfuge: The Russian Arctic Fox, because of the intensely cold climate, has smaller ears and a shorter nose than most foxes, and is about the size of a housecat. In the dark, moving quickly and after rolling around in some soot, a fox could possibly be mistaken for exactly that. Depending on how the TWT goes, I would like to have Vladlena return to the UK a la Fleur Delacour, and possibly pursue one of the more dangerous careers offered. The ability to unobtrusively slip through alleyways, listening in on shady conversations, or to slip along the rooftops of closely-packed buildings, could come in very handy in a future career. True, anyone paying attention would notice the tail was a little bushy, the nose a little long, and the proportions distinctly off, but funny thing about the brain—it passes over unexpected things if focused enough on something else (I direct you to the Selective Attention Test! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo)

3.)   Advanced Hearing: Tied into the above, the Arctic fox has dramatically engineered hearing abilities—it's how they hunt lemmings under the snow. The range Vladlena has as a fox is far greater than what she can hear as a human. Of course, filtering the additional sounds becomes more necessary. This is the one major area where Vladlena comes into conflict human mind vs fox mind. The fox instinct is to automatically filter out the unnecessary, Vladlena's is to listen to everything. Currently, this is a major conflict she has to deal with, but with practice, she will better be able to meld human reasoning with vulpine ability.

At the moment, Vladlena uses her ability strictly for training and practice.

As for the influence it has had on her life, one of the reasons Vladlena has embraced the study so completely is the freedom it offers, which is not something she's ever really had in her life. The world gets bigger when you get smaller, and walls seem so much further away. That discovered sense is partially what will lead to her eventual break from her family's direct wishes.

REFERENCE VIDEOS:
Inferior Climbing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq-5Hx4Upo8
Jumping (Hearing/Smelling): NOTE it catches a lemming in the end, if you're opposed to that sort of thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT6XPHXK4e4&feature=related
Speed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTQQgcIpUM0

Write a description of what happens when your character is exhibiting this Special Ability: Vladlena transforms into a Russian Arctic Fox—cunning, nomadic and individual, competitive, clever, resourceful, the ultimate adversity thrivers, etc. Her pelt, lusciously thick and warm (too warm in the English climate!) changes with the season. In the summers, it is a bluish brown-grey, with copper and gold streaks  atypical to Arctic foxes but similar to how her hair appears when not transformed. In the winter her fur is creamy white, with silver streaks in the same places as the copper and gold of the summer. She has a long bushy tail, a short nose, small curled back ears and short, stubby legs. She isn't very big—about 28 inches long, 10 inches high at the shoulder, and only weighs about 2.6 kg (or a little under  6 pounds).

At the intermediate level, Vladlena has mastered the physiology of the animal, and has a solid grasp on its instincts, as well as the ability to shift into the creature with relative ease. At the moment, the challenges she faces are maintaining total human awareness; she sometimes gets lost in fox-thought, particularly at the scent of rodents, and often has to fight flight instincts, and turning back into her human form, which takes her some time—nearly twice the time it takes her to do the reverse transformation. Her other challenge is filtering all of what the fox ears hear, and fighting fox instinct to focus only on "prey" sounds. She also hasn't totally mastered the whole maintaining your robes bit. Mostly she just forgets her shoes, and several pairs have now disappeared into wizard space.  She does not need her wand to transform at this point. Brilliant and diligent in her practice, she has few doubts that she will have fully mastered the technique by her graduation from Durmstrang.