Steph
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Stephanie “Steph” Riley |
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Dorley girl |
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| Gender | Female |
| Year of intake | 2019 |
| Sponsor | Pippa |
| Gender at intake | Trans female |
| Date of birth | 1998-09-02 |
| Name at intake | [show]Stefan “Stef” Riley |
| First appearance | Chapter 1 |
| Chapters with POV scenes | |
| edit this box | |
Stephanie (often called Steph) is a trans girl in the 2019 intake. She is sponsored by Pippa.
Stephanie is 175cm tall (5'9") with red hair and freckles.
She is in a relationship with Bethany. [SD 26][SD 31].
She has a younger sister named Petra.
Pre-transition
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Steph knew from an early age that she wasn't a boy, [SD 6][SD 45] but struggled to fully identify as a girl. [SD 6] Her immediate family seem to have "got religion" somewhat recently, prior to 2015. [SD 1]
Teenage years
In 2012, Steph's best friend Mark began to grow distant and sullen before leaving for college at the Royal College of Saint Almsworth. Less than a month later, he is reported missing; the police have no leads. [SD 1]
Two years later, Steph is out running an errand and observes a visibly anxious young woman at a Tesco near the Saints campus who strikes her as oddly familiar. In her nervousness, the woman drops her debit card (revealing her name: Melissa Haverford) and forgets her groceries as she exits the store. When Steph tries to catch up with her, she quickens her pace, only to slip on the sidewalk. Steph helps her up and, finally recognizing the resemblance, asks if she knows Mark, a question that seems to make her uncomfortable. They exchange a few terse words about Mark and the woman leaves. As Steph watches her bus pull away, she realizes that the woman used her name without Steph ever introducing herself. [SD 1]
Her suspicions raised, Steph spends the next year researching and discovers Mark's disappearance is part of a pattern of "unruly" male Saints students who have disappeared, only to seemingly have reappeared with new identities as women at Dorley Hall, a dorm for disadvantaged female and non-binary students. She forms a theory: someone at Saints is helping closeted trans women transition and start new lives; [SD 1] this would mean Mark is alive but has secretly transitioned and is now Melissa. [SD 3] By this point, Steph is certain that she is not a boy but believes transition to be unfeasible with her lack of resources and support. She sets her sights on enrolling at Saints. [SD 1]
At Saints
Steph enrolls in Saints as a Linguistics major and spends her first two years attempting to look further into Dorley Hall and glean more information or somehow gain access to their resources. Her efforts are unsuccessful and she nearly fails her second year at school after neglecting her studies due to her obsession with the search.
Meanwhile, her dysphoria has increased and she has begun to talk herself out of the possibility of ever transitioning. Finally disillusioned, depressed, and resigned to her fate, she decides to attend a party on campus in an effort to start facing life as a man.
At the party, she meets a young woman named Christine; the two hit it off and abscond to the rooftop to talk. When Steph offers to walk her home, Christine demurs; she lives close by at Dorley Hall. Inebriated, Steph reveals that she knows "a funny thing about Dorley Hall..." [SD 1]
First year
At intake
Christine manoeuvers an inebriated Steph into the bushes outside Pippa's window, then screams and runs away; [SD 3] Christine then edits Saints' file on Steph, sealing her record and adding comments to suggest that Steph was dangerous in some way, leaving Pippa to draw her own conclusions and bring Steph into the basement. [SD 5]
When Steph awakes in a cell beneath Dorley Hall she initially believes that she has been inducted into some sort of overly-complicated study by the Saints Psychology department. During her first evening in the cell, Pippa arrives and 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] The next night, Steph is visited in secret by Christine who presses her for information; after Steph reveals her theory and motivations, a guilt-ridden Christine decides to break her out of the basement. In her effort to convince Steph to leave with her before it's too late, she reveals the true nature of the programme at Dorley Hall and also that she is a participant in it. Steph is slow to believe her, but once it becomes clear that Christine is telling the truth, Steph confesses that she is trans and tells Christine that she wants to stay -- she has no other viable pathways to transition. Christine is conflicted but is eventually convinced to go along with her request and to help Steph survive the programme while playing the part of one of Dorley's usual subjects, dangerous "bastards" who have been "poisoned" by masculinity. [SD 6]
The deception
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A "Judas goat"
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Images
Official "intake" artwork by Emory Ahlberg.
Official "transition" artwork by Emory Ahlberg.
Official "graduation" artwork by Emory Ahlberg.
Pre-transition associates
| Dorley girls (and a few non-girls) | |
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| 2019 intake | Adam (Edy), Bethany (Maria), Diana (Monica), Leigh (Tabitha), Martin (Pamela), Ollie (Harmony), Raph (Jane), Stephanie (Pippa) |