One sentence description:

If you're curious as to whomst I'm picturing as each character, please refer to the 'cover pic' of their story. I'm shit at giving vivid physical descriptions -but I swear I'm trying to get better, I really am- so the cover photo being the OC in question (and maybe their pairing partner if I can figure out the finer points of graphic design just enough to slap a cover together) is what made most sense for me to do.

Ages & Backstory may have been toyed with here to make things fit and flow as cohesively as humanly possible. Sorry up front if this bothers anyone.

General

Full Name: Stella Faith Baxter - Milton (Clay)

Reason for name: Silas and Nina immediately honed in on Starla Hope and Stella Faith when they discovered they were having twins. When they discovered it was not twins but triplets, they originally intended for Nelle to be named Stephanie Joy but then events took a dark twist. When Starla and Stella were adopted by the Baxter family, their original names were kept. This was fortunate, as it made things so much easier for Nina to track at least two of her daughters down when she was able.

Nickname: Stell, Stellar

Reason for nickname: Family nicknames that stuck

Age: 33

Gender:Female

Place of Birth: New York, NY

Birthday: June 15th

Currently living in: Port Charles, NY

Species/Race: Human

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Blood Type: N/A

Occupation: Veterinarian

Sexual Orientation: Straight

Social Status: N/A

Relationship Status: Divorced; it's not a pleasant situation, fyi

Status: N/A

Appearance

Body Build: Curvy, hourglass figure

Height: 5'5

Weight: N/A

Skin colour: Fair, pink undertone

Hair style: Stella prefers to keep her hair longer. It's wavy and stops about the middle of her back. She typically wears it up in a messy bun or braid for work, strands escaping during the day at will

Hair colour: (Natural) Brunette (Current) Honey Blonde with brunette roots

Eye colour: Light brown

Distinguishing Features: Slightly poutier lips than Nelle or Starla. She's also got herself a dark freckle just below her left eye.

Preferred Clothing: casual and practical. She's really not one for dressing up.

Accessories: the necklace that Nina had made for all 3 of her girls, the anklet that she and Starla made each other as teenagers, dark tinted sunglasses / perscription reading glasses with transition lenses, banana flavored lip balm and two or three hair ties and her Apple watch around her left wrist.

Health

General health: Stella has bad eyesight due to excessive eye strain. She also suffers from migraines, especially if she's been relying heavily on screens on a particular day.

Posture: Her posture is decent.

Any physical illnesses?: Nope

Any mental illnesses?: Nope

Take drugs?: Nope

Smoke?: Her vice is the occasional drink after a long day.

Mental/Emotional State

Archetype: N/A

Mental age: Her actual age

Act before thinking/Think before acting?: Thinks before acting. She actually kind of overthinks.

Emotion-wise, generally: N/A

Conversation

Way of speaking: Her voice is similar to Starla's. She doesn't have quite as sultry a voice but then again, she doesn't actually try to make her voice sound sexy, either. Her accent is also just a little bit more pronounced.

Common conversation starter: It's usually about someone's pet because she's usually talking to a patient's owner.

Swears?: When she's frustrated, freaking out or angry as hell, the curses flow like a river.

Made-up words?: Nope.

Made-up language?: She and Starla have their own little code they use when they want to talk about something without someone else catching on.

Likes/Dislikes

Likes:

-Animals, give her all the animals

- long drives with no destination

- the smell of coffee

- Her job. She loves saving/helping/taking in animals. Kind of why she saw fit to open a veterinary office / shelter.

- Kiddos

- Watching old movies / rom coms / Disney or Pixar

- Reading

- Her glasses

- The smell of freshly upturned dirt or mown grass after a rain shower

- Cardio

- Calisthenics

- Early morning jogs

- Swimming

-Cooking

- Sleeping in til noon.

- Neutral colors.

- Leopard print anything.

Dislikes:

- Cruelty of any kind but animal cruelty is the highest on this list

- Having to deal with her ex husband John in any way/shape/form.

- Burning food

- Bland food

- When it's entirely too hot and humid outside.

- Being stuck in traffic

- People dumping animals just because "it's harder to take care of them than I thought it'd be, hurr durr."

- Jumpscares

- True crime documentaries / the news, she chooses to be oblivious.

- Stressing out

- the color pink or the color red.

- high heels / dressing up to the 9s.

- riding the subway

- people who talk on their phones in public on speakerphone

- demanding "I wanna speak to your manager" types.

Hobbies

- Work.

- Spending time with her family / friends.

- Cardio

- Swimming

- Sleeping in late

- Long drives to nowhere

- Reading

- Fostering animals.

Habits

N/A

Strengths/Weaknesses

Strengths:

- Detail Oriented

- Family Oriented

- Nurturing

- Protective

- Good sense of humor

- Practical

- Intelligent

- Easy going

- Non-Confrontational

- Romantic

- Stable

- Calm/Collected

- Punctual

Weakness:

- Stubborn

- Passive / Petty

- Non-Confrontational

- Overthinker

- People Pleaser

- Perfectionist

- Too practical

- Can be overprotective

- Holds in her anger until she can't anymore and then explodes.

- Hates being put into a position where she comes off as "mean" or "bitchy" and will go above and beyond to avoid.

- Kind of a pushover.

Skills/Abilities

Stella is very good at handling animals and seems to have a natural charming / soothing nature to them. She's patient, probably a little too patient sometimes and she's a dedicated veterinarian.

Stella has a 4 year undergraduate degree & a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree. This is all she's ever wanted to do for her entire life and now she's doing it, so she's thrilled.

Education/Intelligence

Education: College graduate

IQ: N/A

EQ: N/A

Secrets

Always felt like there was something off with the youngest of her siblings, Stephanie(Nelle). She never tried to say anything because she hoped against hope she was wrong, but even as kids, Stephanie(Nelle) was showing some seriously concerning signs and while they were in the group home after they were taken from Silas, Stella and Stephanie(Nelle) got into a physical confrontation on the stairwell and Stephanie(Nelle) tried to shove her down. If Stella hadn't managed to grab a handrail, she'd have taken a nasty spill down a flight of stairs.

Fears

It's not a fear so much as a dread.. She's going through a hella nasty divorce right now and she's dreading having to face her emotionally/verbally/financially abusive ex spouse John when the time to do so comes. Because she's afraid he's going to contest the hell out of the divorce and/or pull other stunts and all she wants is freedom and peace.

Dreams/Goals

She's already accomplished her main one, tbh. She owns a pet store /veterinary clinic/animal rescue in Port Charles.

Views/Opinions on...

Government: Neutral.

Religion: Neutral.

Economy: We're fucked.

Technology: It's not something she absolutely has to have.

Favourites

Food: Cobb Salad with dressing, Brownies, Vegetables of any kind and fruit of any kind.

Colour: Taupe or white.

Animal: All

Number: None

Holiday: Christmas

Season: Fall

Time of day: Early morning

Thing to watch: The sun rise.

Movie: Back to The Future series, Heathers, The Outsiders

Show: Soap operas, Animal Planet, Supernatural (she may or may not have had a thing for Dean Winchester)

Type of art: All

Genre of music: Classic Rock

Genre of literature: Romance, particularly historical ones.

Genre of shows: Romance

Genre of movies: 80's/90's movies, particularly rom coms.

History

Stella Faith was born on June 15th in New York, New York to parents Silas and Nina Clay (Reeves). She is the second of 3 identical triplets. Silas and Nina were overjoyed at the arrival of their triplets and in the beginning, life seemed like it might finally settle down and get peaceful because having the girls really did help the newly wed couple straighten out a lot of pre-existing problems and the girls seemed to bring both parents a sense of peace and sheer joy. Silas broke things off with Ava and while he promised to remain involved in the life of his daughter, he refused to have anything further to do with her because he was determined to fix his relationship with Nina.

Silas would take Kiki every other weekend and as a result, the triplets were allowed to bond with their sister. Ava always tried to pull something slick whenever the exchange occurred, but Silas wasn't having it. The co-parenting relationship was strained and given Ava's criminal ties, Silas and Nina were actually trying to build a swaying case against Ava in the hopes of winning sole custody of Kiki.

Things were going great until suddenly, when the girls turned 10, they weren't anymore. Nina was driving home from work one night and an SUV started to tail her, speeding as it practically rode her bumper. The SUV would later be revealed to be driven by a member of the Jerome crime family at the order of Ava as revenge because she discovered that Silas was going to attempt trying to take Kiki away.. Her plan backfired. One, Silas wasn't even the one driving the family car that night. Two, Silas shut down completely when Nina slipped into her coma and when Ava tried to use grief as a way to crawl into bed with him and make him forget the custody case he was going to pursue, he brutally rejected her. Ava was furious, so she then turned to Madeline Reeves, Nina's mother and she convinced the woman that Silas wasn't fit to be a father. Madeline called in an anonymous favor with some friends of hers who worked in welfare and a surprise visit from a welfare agent revealed that Silas was drunk. Functional, but drunk. The house was in a total state of disarray, the girls were happy but they were a little dirty, having just eaten lunch. Assuming the worst about the situation she'd seen, the agent took the girls out of the home.

Starla, Stella and Nelle all wound up in the same group home. However, it wouldn't stay this way. The triplets came up with a plan that would hopefully keep them from being split up and they assumed that Nelle would go along with it, however, she refused to play along like they begged her to. As a result, Nelle was placed in a foster home first and her foster parents went on to adopt her, making the arrangement permanent. Starla and Stella remained in the group home for a few months and in those few months, it was the two of them against the world. They made a pact to find Nelle and their father, Silas again when they were able. Starla and Stella eventually get placed in the home of Sophia and Bryant Baxter of Montgomery, Alabama. Bryant was a stern and solemn preacher and Sophia was his boisterous and feisty wife. The girls were expected to attend church every single Sunday and before long, Bryant had them singing in the choir, something that neither girl particularly enjoyed for differing reasons.

Stella, the middle of the triplets, was just trying to keep her head down and her nose clean. The way she saw things, the sooner they got the hell out of the Baxter home, the better off they'd be. They could go and reunite with their father and the sister they'd been split apart from and maybe, everything would go back to the way it was before. Stella kept this non argumentative / good girl to the extreme mindset all through her years with the Baxter family and as a result, she was one of the top in the class. A misunderstanding between Stella and Starla saw the two drifting further and further apart because Starla believed that Stella was just willing to forget their real family and cast them aside for this 'new one' they'd been given. Stella never really figured out an accurate way to tell her sister otherwise, so throughout middle and high school, the two were as different as day and night. Bryant was a minister and nothing if not strict. He expected (read, forced) both twins into participation with church and community events. Where Starla butted heads with Bryant, Stella's biggest source of aggravation was Sophia, who for whatever reason felt like Stella was the prettier/better of the twins and often tried to force Stella into situations where she was thrust into the limelight with all attention on her. The woman was trying to live out her own failed dreams through Stella and for quite some time, Stella went through with it all, not daring to speak out or rebel against. Things came to a head when Sophia forced Stella to drop 4H and tried to make her take up cheerleading and pageants the school district / local community and state held. Stella was adamant and refused, even going so far as to turn to Bryant for a little help pleading her case. He did so happily and after this, Sophia went above and beyond to say and act in ways that were hurtful towards Stella, telling her she'd never amount to anything.

The senior year of Stella and Starla saw the twins starting to reconnect, Starla having just returned from a summer of "camp" she'd been sent off to in the hopes of fixing some behavorial issues Bryant felt needed to be addressed before she went down a path dangerous for her and threw her entire life away. Stella finally found a way to tell her sister -and prove it true, that she was just being as non-confrontational as possible because she merely wanted to get her diploma, get the hell out of the Baxter house and go find their real family at last, just like the twins had planned all along.

Stella and Starla go their separate ways for college / life experiences and Stella winds up graduating with a full scholarship to the college of her dreams, the University of Alabama. So she winds up in Tuscaloosa for five years. During this time, Stella and Starla visit each other frequently and put all their spare time and money into finding their sister Stephanie( Now known as Nelle Benson, though they don't realize this) and their father, Silas Clay. Stella also meets John Milton (for visuals, picture Garrett Hedlund) and the two begin seeing each other. Stella makes a break in the search for their father and excitedly, she calls Starla. Starla comes to Tuscaloosa over a spring break to visit and from the word go, Starla absolutely loathes John, though she won't tell Stella why. She also seems afraid of him, which is something Stella absolutely files away for later because Starla is not the kind of woman who scares easily for the most part. John's true colors begin to peek through because after Starla is gone, John basically tries to convince Stella that Starla was trying to get in his pants and that she was a bitch, that she wanted to break them up and he just didn't like the person Stella became around her sister. This gives Stella enough pause to break things off for a while, but John quickly charms his way back in and Stella discovering she's pregnant kind of "Fixes" things for a short time.

John keeps pushing for a wedding date but Stella keeps putting him off. This brings a little more of John's not so great personality start to peek through and he begins to accuse her of cheating, like the man believes this and says it with his entire chest whenever he accuses Stella. Stella breaks things off with John a second time and goes to a doctor, confirming the pregnancy. Stella's both thrilled and scared to death. She wants to keep it hush-hush because she fears it'll jeopardize her chance at finishing veterinary school, but John reveals the truth to their advisor / mentor in the program because one, Stella's grades are way better than his are and as a result, she's up for an internship with a veterinary clinic in New Orleans and two, he thinks that if something happens to deter Stella from finishing her time in university, she'll be devastated enough to come crawling back. Stella confronts him and the two have an altercation and during the heated exchange, Stella begins to feel pain. The pain -and her stress level going up entirely too fast, overwhelm her and she faints. John rushes her to the hospital, again, to seem like the good guy, but when Stella wakes up, she wants nothing more to do with him. She has him thrown out of her room and when she's told she miscarried and thanks to some damage done when they were trying to remove the baby, she may not be able to have children ever again. This throws her into a depression and the only things that keep her going and push her through finishing her time at college (without the scholarship, because of course, she lost that too) is the fact that she's now more determined than ever to become a licensed veterinarian. As this is happening, John makes a big show of "changing himself for the better" for her and he really lays on that charm as thick as he can. At first, Stella's not interested, but his persistence wears her down over time and they share a trauma bond, this is something John is not quick to let Stella forget about, either. John "helps" Stella through a period of depression and Stella believes that maybe he's changed this time around, giving him another chance. Though she's quick to tell him that he's officially on strike 3 with her and if he blows it this time, there will be no other chance. The two get engaged.

At some point after Stella and John have moved to Mobile and gotten their first place together and a job working at the same veterinary office, Starla comes back into Stella's life -Stella kind of kept her at arms length because of the way Starla openly hated John and the fact that Stella didn't want to hear I told you so or worry her sister / have her sister go all mama bear when she took him back- and this time, the two are reunited with their father, Silas. Upon meeting John, Silas bluntly tells Stella that he doesn't care for the guy and also tells her that if she ever 'needs him' he's only a phone call away. He doesn't push his opinion or the issue any further, but he doesn't mince words when he sits John down and tells the man that if any harm comes to his daughter, he'll easily dispose of John's body. Stella and Starla begin to make trips back and forth to each other and to Benson-Hurst/Port Charles, where their father is living. John absolutely hates these trips and covertly, he tries anything he can to meddle with things so that Stella can't make it, but Stella always manages to skirt around his hidden efforts and goes anyway. The resentment builds and John begins to have angry outbursts and tries everything to make her stop seeing her family. The two are fighting again and John is starting to go back to his old ways. Stella tries to tell herself that he's just worried that she'll leave him (he has serious abandonment issues / other issues that she's aware of, thanks to couples counseling) and that as soon as he realizes she's not going anywhere, he'll stop.

The only way to do this is to finally set a wedding date. Even though Stella really doesn't want to marry him and she has a bad feeling every time she considers it, she feels like maybe it's just cold feet / maybe she can grow to love the idea. Bearing that in mind, she sets a date. She and John have a small and private ceremony at the town courthouse and when Stella discovers that John purposely didn't invite her father or sister, Stella is furious. They've already consummate the marriage, so the only way out is divorce. And John's family is an affluent one, so John knows all the ways to contest/ make the divorce harder than it really has to be and he threatens her with such. Stella sees no other choice but to walk out on John and after she returns from the trip to 'bury her mother' with her father and sister to discover John's tampered with her private bank account somehow, (probably to keep her from attempting to leave), Stella decides to just leave him. It just so happens that on the day she's planning to carry this out, her grandmother Madeline turns up in town. As she's packing the last of her things into her sedan, Madeline confronts her, telling her the truth about their mother. Hinting that it might be for the best if Nina's girls 'returned to her'. At first, Stella writes off the woman's advice, as does her twin.

Stella leaves town and for a few months, she kind of bounces around, trying to stay one to two steps ahead of John, her soon to be ex. She takes jobs at veterinary clinics with each new town she's living in and saves all her money, putting it towards her eventual divorce since John's had her old accounts frozen and basically committed identity theft using her SSN and name, her credit cards. She basically has to start over, new everything and it's during one of these moves that she finds herself sitting in Jackson, Mississippi at a diner, crying as she tells her sister the whole story. The two compare notes about their visit from "grandmother" and both choose to write it off. Starla tries to suggest that Stella just come to Louisiana and crash on her couch but Stella refuses because while they have reconnected and they've always been close as hell, they're night and day and sharing a room when they were children/teenagers showed them that they just can't be roommates. Plus, Stella just wants some time to clear her own head, get her life in order and she thinks she'll find this in Gulfport, which is where she's heading.

Stella settles in Gulfport and this is where Nina finds her and the two reconnect. Stella's soon to be ex husband shows up while Nina is making her visit and Nina voices her concerns about the situation. Stella calmly tells John to get lost, telling him that as soon as she's able, she's going to divorce his ass. John kind of laughs it off and tells her she'll "Try". He also tries to convince her that nobody's going to go through what he went through with her, that nobody wants her, that nobody will ever love her like he does. Stella's had enough time out of the situation and enough therapy to pick herself up again that she sees this as an attempt to gain control of the situation, it's a tactic he's used often in the past and most of the time, given her non-confrontational nature, it tends to work. Nina has John thrown out of the apartment complex and after a long talk with her daughter, she gets her to go down to the local police precinct and make a restraining order. Stella does this and she also begins to save every single admission of something he's done to her (the identity theft, the debt, etc) that he sends her in angry texts and every single time he tries to violate the restraining order or hints that he's planning to for her case.

Nina convinces Stella to return to Port Charles with her. Stella does so, happily. She doesn't want to take the money her mother offers to start her own clinic/rescue/pet store in town, but Nina convinces her to take it. Stella hires a divorce lawyer (Diane Warren) and she has John served with divorce papers on the same day she makes a call to one of few lawyers in their old hometown that she knows cannot stand John or his family and she sends the lawyer all the proof she has of every criminal activity that John's taken part of that she's aware of. He's arrested on the same day he gets the divorce papers. The crimes are taken to court, Stella declares that she wants to press charges to the full extent and for a brief period, Stella has to return to Mobile to testify against John.

John is found guilty of all charges and given a 5 year sentence in prison. Stella now has to wait until his sentence is served before proceeding with divorce, no thanks to John hiring a buddy of his father's to work his case and trying to dispute her grounds / sue her and contest the divorce. Stella tells the lawyer on his end she has no problem waiting, but either way, she's going to go through with it and she has her own lawyer. Almost immediately, Diane puts in the paperwork for a change of venue in the case, moving it so that John now has to come to New York when the trial begins upon his release. Stella has been trying to settle into a life in Port Charles, working as much as she can with her clinic/rescue and she's just enjoying her peace of mind and peace and quiet.

But that's rapidly coming to a close, because John's just been released. The trial starts upon his release and Stella will now have to come face to face with John again and to be honest? Her anxiety is through the fucking roof because John is fucking furious now, she's had him thrown in prison for quite a few years and he's taken to making a threat or two now and then. On the other hand, she's relieved that this weight she's been carrying will soon be off and she's angry at herself for not leaving the damn man alone to begin with and her patience / hold it all in facade has changed a great deal thanks to many many sessions with a good therapist and lots of support from her mother and sister/ half sister and cousin.

Personality

Please see strengths and weaknesses. Those sum her up the best.

Relationships

Family:Nina and Silas Clay, parents. Sophia and Bryant Baxter, adoptive parents. Starla Clay and Nelle Benson, identical triplet sisters. Kiki Jerome, half sister (via Silas). Olivia Locke and Rafe Kovich Jr, cousins (via Silas' twin brother Stephen).

Love interest: Ethan Lovett

Friends/Allies:Starla, Kiki Jerome, she eventually befriends Francesca Zacchara and Roxette Jerome as well as Ekaterina Spencer.

Enemies: Her ex husband John Milton.

Quotes

N/A

Trivia

N/A