Posts
1
Archived Applications / Josefina Soto
« on: 10/04/2020 at 05:23 »
Application for Hogwarts School
→ CHARACTER INFORMATION.
Name: Josefina Soto Guzmán
Birthday: May 1st, 1948
Hometown:
Bloodline: Halfblood
Magical Strength (pick one):
Charms
Magical Weakness (pick one):
Divination
Year (pick two): 1st, 2nd
Biography:
“Your family should just adopt me. Then we can finally be sisters. Then I won’t have to move to England.”
Josefina whimpered, curly hair floating in the summer heat. As the sun beat down on the sidewalk right in front of the Soto residence, Josefina rested her head on Antonia’s shoulder—not even two seconds later, she collapsed pathetically into her friend’s lap.
Toni had never seen sensible, strait-laced Josefina Soto cry before until now, not even when Andy Rodriguez and his gang had cornered the two of them after school and they had to wait until Max Carrillo scared those arrogant cowards away. Josefina had been strong then. She held her ground and dared to look the enemy in the eye while Toni Cortez almost peed in her brand new dress.
“There, there.” Her hand hovered awkwardly over Josefina’s back. “Hey, it’s okay! We’ll be sending letters all the time anyway, right? It’ll be like you never left.” Determinedly, Toni ran her fingers through the other girl’s brown waves, hoping that it felt comforting in some way or another.
“But it won’t be the same!”
“It’ll be close enough.”
“But I’ll miss you, and Carla, and Amanda, and Rachel, and everyone.” The silence that followed—that suffocating blanket of silence invading every surface of the neighborhood—did little to raise their spirits. Carla and Amanda and Rachel and everyone would miss Josefina in their somber, unsaid ways.
...
Then, with a grimace: “Fina, you’re getting snot all over my skirt.”
“Oh, sorry.” Josefina sniffed and dabbed at her eyes; for a moment, the tears eased from savage waterfalls to gentle streams and that unfamiliar emotion of despair seemed to be put back where it belonged—a place far away from here, far away from Brooklyn, New York. Far away from the nine-year-old tortoiseshell heart of Josefina Soto Guzmán.
***
Despair returned in the shape of the SS United States.
Josefina hugged her coffee-brown suitcase close to her chest, fearing that if there was nothing to ground her, she would be blown away by the salt-and-sweat winds. She had managed to stuff everything in there. Everything that mattered, at the very least.
(Charlotte’s Web, The Secret Garden, Anne of Green Gables, and perhaps most excitingly, an entire box set of The Lord of the Rings series, all shoved in the corner of the suitcase against dresses and baubles alike. Goodness, what if the pages got bent?)
“Mamá,” the young girl choked out finally as she tugged at Elisa’s skirt. The SS United States loomed over New York Harbor and breathed out steam in deep intervals, drenching its passengers in thick, white clouds. Her hair, so subject to the wiles of water and heat, threatened to dance up in the heavy air. “We have to turn back around. We can’t go anymore.”
“Little lady, what on earth are you talking about?”
“I… I’m sick. Fever, chills, everything. We have to schedule an appoint with a physician or something, Mamá, I think I might faint—”
“You’re acting ridiculous.”
Josefina could have exploded. Her rage fumed red and hot like gooey lava in the active volcano, just barely contained for the victims standing nearby. The crowd pushed around her, oblivious to the impending storm brewing within one little Puerto Rican girl whose fists were balled indignantly at her sides. It took all her will not to scream at the sky. Instead, she became a statue and imagined herself in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
There could be no winning when it came to grown-ups. Papá carried her on board with the rest of their luggage.
***
How dearly Josefina wished to become an adult! How she wanted to make her own choices or know many things or not be the laughingstock of Mamá and Papá’s jokes.
On her first day of school in Norwich, the city still damned with the impressions of the Norwich Blitz in ‘42, Josefina introduced herself to the class.
“Hello, my name is Josefina. That is HOSE-a-FEE-na, not JOES or YOSE-a-FEE-na. I’m from New York. I like to read. I moved here because my parents got better jobs, and when I grow up, I wanna be just like them.”
Her eyes glowered accusingly at the kids in the room. How dare they not be Toni or Carla or Amanda or Rachel.
“I’m not here to make friends,” she finished off dramatically. “In fact, it won’t be long until my mom and dad let me go back to New York.”
***
And Josefina asked for a long time, but despite every plea, every whimper, every bargain, Mamá and Papá would not let her move back to New York.
“It’s no fair!” she argued, pulling out a hasty and rather complicated essay she had composed last night. “See, there are many reasons why we should move back: culture, sights, and experiences. You know, you can’t get a good pizza here in Norwich than you can in NEW. YORK. CITY.”
“Josefina, I don’t want to hear it,” Mamá warned.
“You don’t understand. You just don’t understand!” The paper in her hands crumpled beneath clenched, shaking fists. In the quietest voice she had ever used in her life, Josefina continued. “I hate it here. This school, this city. Everything. I miss all my friends and our rowhouse between Tío Bernardo and Tía Maria. I miss the block parties and all the dances we made Jackie do just to make him feel embarrassed. I even miss all those dumb street cats Papá didn’t tell us he was feeding.”
And quieter yet: “I miss home.”
Mamá’s face softened, and for a moment, a small glimmer of hope lit up in Josefina’s eyes. “I do understand, Fina. I miss everything about New York too. Don’t think you’re alone in your suffering, girl, because your father and I feel that ache in our hearts everyday for that city, for the people we left behind. Not just you, darling.”
The two leaned into a warm hug. Josefina closed her eyes and felt Mamá stroke her hair, just like she used to when Josefina was a little girl. This time, yes, this time, Josefina just knew that they would pack their bags and hitch a boat (or perhaps a plane!) back to their treasured home. The whole family bonding moment just proved it!
“But we are not moving back, you hear me?”
→ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION.
Note: This section is optional, and is up to you to complete.
House Request: Up to the hat!
Personality: Extremely stubborn. Extremely passionate. Has a lot of hard set opinions about her home city but is normally open to anything else. A debater at heart. Would write fifteen essays and make four presentations just to prove a point. The type to overtake an entire group project but complain that her group members didn’t do any work. Used to be more of the "protector of the weak" back home but developed a bit of a mean streak due to all the negativity towards moving really bogging her down.
→ SAMPLE ROLEPLAY.
You come across one of these posts on the site. Please select one & reply as your character. Remember, you can only roleplay your own character's actions, not Evangeline's or Hugh's.
Option II:
Josefina just wanted to be alone.
And in fact, Hogwarts had many places to be alone—she’d made a list of them all. It was mostly corridors and classrooms along with a small section in the library strictly on Tuesdays at 4:42pm. For some odd reason, however, all of those places were either taken or didn’t have the right energy for her to mope about.
Thus the gardens, which were normally filled with people like couples making out with each other by the rose bushes (gross!) or prissy pureblood princesses having tea parties amongst the peonies (pretentious!). The gardens just felt right today though, and Josefina didn’t have to provide any reason why. It was her solitude to enjoy after all.
As she marched between the flowers, pretending to stay busy by stopping occasionally to poke at a petal or rub a leaf between her fingers, she caught a flash of fur in the corner of her eye. A squirrel? Josefina, bored out of her mind, rushed to follow it.
After a few paces, the girl quickly stopped, and a scowl tugged at the corners of her mouth. A rat. It was a rat.
Disgusting!?
She whipped around and clicked her tongue. Stupid rodent wasting her time. Maybe that was why her dad liked keeping those cats around.
Sadly enough, Josefina was face-to-face with another gross little creature.
"Can I help you with something? It is not polite to stare."
Josefina scoffed. “As if it's polite to spread your icky germs around, buster.”
→ ABOUT YOU.
Please list any characters you have on the site (current and previous): Valencia Salvatierra and co.
How did you find us?: TopSites
