Pippa
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Philippa "Pippa" Green |
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|---|---|
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Dorley girl |
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| Gender | Female |
| Year of intake | 2016 |
| Year of graduation | 2019 |
| Sponsor | Ellie |
| Gender at intake | Cis male |
| Date of birth | unknown |
| Name at intake | unknown |
| First appearance | Chapter 2 |
| Chapters with POV scenes | |
| edit this box | |
Pippa (sometimes called Pip) is a graduate of the 2016 intake. Her sponsor was Ellie.[SD 5] She is currently sponsoring Stephanie.[SD 2]
Pippa is 170cm (5'7") tall, [LL] white, and has bleached blonde hair that she keeps in a pixie cut. She is skilled with makeup [SD 33] and seems to have a preference for dark or bold eye makeup, [SD 12] which Steph suspects she wears in order to look older. [SD 14] Bethany considers her to be cute and sharp-featured. [SD 22]
As of the 29th of November 2019, she is twenty-two years old [SD 19]. She speaks in a deep alto [SD 44] and has been known to let it slip lower when startled. [SD 6] She is a lesbian; [SD 12] Willow describes her as "kind of a loner". [SD 12]
Pippa always wears a bracelet that was handmade by her cousin Sarah; [SD 10] she has a habit of touching or playing with the bracelet when she is upset or thinking about her cousin. [SD 11] When she is not wearing it, the bracelet rests on a special stand on her bedside table. [SD 36]
Pippa is a philosophy student at Saint Almsworth and is working on her dissertation. She considers sponsoring a "one-time thing" until she finishes her degree. [SD 12] She is a very organized student [SD 26] and often complains about her educational workload.
Pippa is in a casual relationship with Rani. [SD 29] Their first date was November 2nd. [SD 13]
Personal history
Pippa has an older cousin, Sarah, whom she was once close with [SD 14] and misses "dearly" [SD 6] and has not seen nor been allowed to seek out since she was seventeen. [SD 14] Willow reports that Pippa wants to see her cousin again, but she's "terrified" that she won't be recognizable. [SD 12] The bracelet Pippa always wears is part of a pair that Sarah made for each of them. [SD 14]
Pippa likes to sing, and has since before she transitioned. [SD 34] Pippa is a Taylor Swift fan and has at least one playlist comprised mostly of her music. She considers "22" to be "her song" because she is 22 years old. [SD 19] Pippa relies on music when she is stressed out. [SD 34]
Pippa has always wanted to visit the Natural History Museum in London and has plans to go with Steph one day. [SD 20]
Pippa is unfamiliar with the literature when Jane brings it up. [SD 30] She is workshopping some novelty mug ideas. [SD 43]
Pre-transition
Pippa comes from a religious family; she recalls the church experience as "simple Church of England with an occasional side of imported Evangelicalism (for the songs, mainly)". [SD 29] She does not swear; Monica believes it is either a "churchy habit," or an "anger management thing". [SD 42]
Left alone at the age of seventeen after Sarah moved away with her abusive husband and with her father sent to prison [SD 36], Pippa found it hard to function -- Sarah took care of Pippa and was able to soothe her temper; her sudden absence ultimately set Pippa on a path towards Dorley Hall. [SD 14]
Pippa has likened her experience with masculinity to an iron maiden: "a shell that protects you, but it hurts you as well". [SD 20] Out of the current intake, Pippa sees herself as having the most in common with Leigh, presumably because of their similar anger issues; [SD 29] Pippa still feels shame about her temper. [SD 36]
Intake
Pippa was reportedly the most oppositional of her intake, fighting the hardest, spending the longest time in isolation, and being warned and restrained "over and over again". She was known to argue with Aunt Bea even into her second year in the programme; Christine recalls that most of her memories of Pippa before Steph arrived "are of her arguing with Bea". [SD 3] Pippa tells Bethany that she has made it through the programme "with a lot of fuss and a lot of friction". [SD 29] Even in the current day, Pippa's anger tends to flare up when in stressful situations. [SD 14]
Pippa's intake in 2016 was an especially rough one, with three washouts. [SD 10] She states that her intake "rioted" at disclosure. [SD 18] At some point during her forced transition, she had suicidal urges. [SD 24] Pippa would often sing into the mirror with a hairbrush as a microphone to release stress while in the basement. [SD 34]
Eventually, Pippa was the first in her intake to ask for a bra, ostracizing her from the rest of her intake at the time. [SD 20] Nevertheless, Pippa initially hated the feminine training in her second year, only coming around on fashion and makeup after repeated encouragement from Ellie. [SD 45]
During her first time out "as Pippa", she thought she spotted someone she used to know and hid in a bush, only to realize eventually that it was someone else. [SD 26]
Jodie states that Pippa's intake was comparatively slow in picking their NPHs. [SD 22] Christine suspects that Pippa is not very close with the other girls from her year and that she is probably lonely. [SD 10]
Sponsoring
Pippa "never wanted to be a sponsor" [SD 29] and only has plans to be a sponsor for one year. She is the only new sponsor in 2019, [SD 23] and is, by her own admission, not very good at it. Despite being loyal to the programme, she has her reservations about its ethicality.
In hindsight, Pippa has her doubts that Melissa dropped her debit card in front of Steph on accident. [SD 34]
Stephanie's intake
Pippa is the graduate who brings Stephanie into the programme. Unbeknownst to her at the time, Christine contrived for this to happen by manoeuvering an inebriated Steph into the bushes outside Pippa's window, then screaming and running away; [SD 3] Christine then edited Saints' file on Steph, sealing her record and adding comments to suggest that Steph was dangerous in some way. [SD 5]
Due to emotional baggage regarding her own past experience in the programme, [SD 3] and because she is her first subject, [SD 5] Pippa is excessively unforgiving with Steph when she first arrives in the basement, choosing to accelerate her intake schedule rather than simply letting her stew in her cell. On Steph's first evening in the basement, Pippa eagerly berates her with a misandric, multi-hour lecture and interrogation that inadvertently triggers Steph's dysphoria, [SD 4] causing her to disassociate. [SD 6]
Before the ruse is revealed, Pippa is conflicted by her urge to like Steph [SD 6] and confounded by her innocent friendliness. [SD 9] She is shocked by Steph's self-harming in the shower and shows concern for her as Karen assaults her during the examination in October. [SD 11] These incidents lead her to decide to simply be a friend to Steph rather than continue antagonizing her. Afterward, Pippa gives Steph her first estrogen injection [SD 12] and gets the other sponsors to call her by her preferred name. [SD 13]
While reviewing security camera footage, Pippa realizes Steph is deceiving her. Noticing that Steph refers to Melissa with her current name and pronouns, she confronts her and Steph comes clean, admitting she's trans and knows the true nature of the programme; Christine, watching on the security camera feed, confesses to the subterfuge. From this, Maria and Aunt Bea become aware of the situation and step in; in the heat of the moment Aunt Bea comes down harshly on Steph, but Pippa voices her distaste for Aunt Bea's manipulative treatment of Steph and convinces her to allow her to oversee Steph's transition with full autonomy. Pippa, for her part, is relieved when the truth is revealed, though she is, in the immediate aftermath, resentful towards Christine. [SD 14]
Sponsoring a trans girl
After Steph comes out as trans, Pippa resolves to only allow she / her pronouns for Steph going forward and (with some prodding from Christine and Paige) Steph acquiesces quickly. [SD 14] Aside from this sticking point, Pippa generally allows Steph to set the pace of her own transition [SD 25] and in many ways relinquishes sponsorship duties to a communal effort by "all of Dorley". [SD 26] Pippa often provides Steph with information on the Hall and keeps her up to date on the comings and goings of the other sponsors and basement dwellers.
When it becomes clear Maria will recover from Leigh's attack, Pippa spends the night with Steph. They drink wine and listen to music together and Pippa returns Steph's keychains (which are gifts from her sister) that she had promised to keep safe. [SD 18] Pippa later gifts her a braided cord to keep the charms on her phone. [SD 20]
By November 30th, Beth observes that Steph and Pippa are "practically brother and sister". [SD 19]
Pippa helps Steph try on women's clothing, underwear, and makeup for the first time and is delighted by the gender euphoria it produces in her. She helps Steph with her voice training and helps her socialize with Ren and Naila. [SD 20] She provided bra booster inserts for Steph that ease her dysphoria [SD 26] and has recently been teaching her how to do her eye makeup. [SD 45]
Steph and Pippa are close and consider each other sisters. [SD 26] Pippa calls Steph "Stephanie Middlename Riley" when annoyed; [SD 21] it has become an in-joke between the two. [SD 25] Pippa has gifted Steph bracelets that she made for her. [SD 30] For Christmas she gives Steph a stuffed frog and elephant. [SD 33]
Further adventures
Pippa is present when Rachel arrives at the Hall to confront the programme; she has to remove herself to the roof when Rachel makes a baseless accusation towards her. [SD 34] The two have since reconciled. Pippa let Rachel spend the night in her room to avoid going home while on the rocks with her wife; that night she shared her pre-transition story with Rachel. [SD 36]
By dint of sponsoring Steph, Pippa is also fairly involved in monitoring Beth's progress and well-being and has offered her advice multiple times regarding her transition and gender identity. Beth claims Pippa has "egg theories" about her. [SD 39]
Pre-transition associates
- Sarah, Pippa's cousin. Three years older than Pippa and trapped in an abusive relationship with a man. She moved away when Pippa was seventeen and Pippa hasn't seen her since. [SD 14]
- Pippa's father. He is missing the ring finger on his right hand. [SD 29] He once served six months in prison after Sarah pressed charges against him for beating her husband following her rape. [SD 14]
Notes on biographical information
- Name: The list of characters in the Neem Tree Press edition of Welcome to Dorley Hall lists her as "Pippa (Philippa)".
| Dorley girls (and a few non-girls) | |
|---|---|
| 2016 intake | Cally, Meredith*, Pippa (Ellie), Siobhan*, Veronica, Willow, plus 3 unnamed washouts |
| 2019 intake | Adam (Edy), Bethany (Maria), Diana (Monica), Leigh (Tabitha), Martin (Pamela), Ollie (Harmony), Raph (Jane), Stephanie (Pippa) |