Post by Sophia Andrews on May 10, 2024 15:35:33 GMT -5
WELCOME TO LOS EUROSIA,
SOPHIA KEZIAH ANDREWS
"Not a day goes by that I don't feel its burn
There's a point we pass from which we can't return"
BASICS
NAME: Sophia Keziah
AGE:
aged up: 27 (06/13/24)
BIRTHDATE: 06/13/1998
PRONOUNS: she/her
SEXUALITY: heterosexual (mostly)
RELATIONSHIP STATUS: single
OCCUPATION: bartender
NEIGHBORHOOD: East End
MEMBER GROUP: Blackstorm
POWERS:
Pyrokinesis: She can control and generate fire. Starting a fire is much easier than stopping a fire.
Sophia was six when she first noticed something strange. She was transfixed with the fireplace. When she moved her hand or her body, the flame seemed to follow direction. A little over a year and a half later, Sophia lost control of her ability while she was arguing with her mother and stepfather and started the first of two house fires she caused.
Her power was tied closely to her emotions, but as she practiced and attempted to learn better control. Now, though it can happen in extreme circumstances, she rarely loses complete control of her gift. She can control and create fire, and even put it out, most of the time. If it gets too big she can still struggle with putting it back out.
THE LOOKS
HEIGHT: 5’4
WEIGHT: 114 lbs
HAIR COLOR: Dirty blonde
EYE COLOR: Blue
FACE CLAIM: Madeleine Arthur
OVERALL APPEARANCE:
Sophia is just on the short side of average height, slim build, with curly dirty blonde hair, blue eyes, and a charming smile. Her eyes are expressive and enchanting, with a soulful depth that extends beyond her years. She’s seen a lot, and can sometimes have a far off, haunted stare when she isn’t focused on something specific.
More often than not, Sophia will be in jeans or shorts and a t-shirt. She feels the most herself in a somewhat vintage/grunge style. She doesn’t stand on pretense, and would rather be unapologetically herself and comfortable as her go-to daily attire. Though there is a time and place for everything, and when she feels like it she can pull out a more glam look. She just usually doesn’t think it’s worth the effort.
Soph has some notable scars and marks. Behind her left ear is a small branded X, burned onto her when she was a small child and her gift was discovered. Both of her hands have faint, patchy, healed burn scars. She has a tiny triangle tattoo on the side of her left middle finger to represent the elemental symbol for fire.
INSIDE
LIKES:
Lazy Sunday mornings, dark chocolate, freedom, reading, creating things (crafts, art, writing)
DISLIKES:
Organized religion, authority figures, being responsible for kids/babysitting, people who pry or push her to talk about herself
STRENGTHS:
Resilient: Sophia will keep going in the face of adversity. She is hard to dissuade once she has her mind set to accomplish something. She isn’t afraid to push boundaries and move past setbacks.
Daring: She’s done with being meek and quiet, waiting in the shadows for her turn to shine. Sophia will frequently do things that push her past her comfort zone, without fearing failure or judgment. She doesn’t care about anyone’s opinion of her actions outside her closest family and friends.
Good listener: Soph doesn’t like talking about herself, especially not her childhood. That, combined with working behind a bar, lends well to being a good listener. She’s generally easy to talk to and appears to be invested and engaged, even if she really couldn’t care less.
WEAKNESSES:
Reactive: Sophia can still be somewhat of an emotional rollercoaster, and her moods dictate how she views the world around her. She isn’t afraid of burning everything down even if it means she’s caught in the fire, literally and figuratively.
Reckless: Sophia can make reckless decisions that endanger not only herself, but those around her. She isn’t afraid of Hunters or dying, as long as she can make her death mean something, so she doesn’t see this as a problem.
Lacks empathy: There are times when Sophia struggles to have empathy for problems that seem mundane or easy to resolve. When she’s at work, she’ll just smile and fake it. In her regular life, it can create problems with truly connecting with other people.
OVERALL PERSONALITY:
For those that first meet Sophia, she comes off as carefree, energetic, and friendly. She makes a point to be approachable, especially when she’s working. She’s nearly always willing to lend an ear and listen to other people’s problems.
She is also unapologetically herself. She believes in being authentic, even when it isn’t convenient. When she sets her mind to a task, Sophia has a tenacious determination and can be difficult to deter.
Getting to know Soph any deeper reveals the cracks. Her secrets run deep, and anyone who pushes to learn more about her is usually stonewalled. She finds it hard to trust, and it takes a lot of effort to make it past the superficial persona that she tries to keep up.
BACKGROUND
HOMETOWN: Shawnee, Oklahoma // Cody, Wyoming
FAMILY:
LIVING
Zachariah Andrews - father, gifted (photokinesis) - 54yo
Jeremiah Andrews - oldest brother, gifted (electrokinesis) - 29yo
Josiah Andrews - older brother, assumed human (latent gift - erebokinesis) - 28yo
Ruth Andrews-Hall - great aunt, gifted (neurokinesis) - 77yo
Daniel Hall - father’s cousin, gifted (atmokinesis) - 53yo
William Hall - distant cousin, gifted (electrokinesis) - 28yo
DECEASED
Deborah Jones - mother, human
Adam Jones - adoptive/step-father, gifted (precognition)
Abigail Jones - younger half sister, presumed human
Aaron Jones - younger half brother, presumed human
PETS:
Soph doesn’t have any pets, but there is a stray cat that hangs around on her balcony. She feeds him and talks to him, sometimes even letting him wander around inside her apartment on nice days when she has her slider open.
HISTORY:
The beginningZach and Debby were both from religious families, and they met in church. Zach came from a family that was also Gifted, mostly with kinetic powers, but that was a closely guarded secret. Zach didn’t tell Debby about his secret when they started dating, not even when they got married or started having children. What did it matter if he could control light particles? It wouldn’t make a difference in their relationship and everyone was safer if she didn’t know.
They were the classic picture perfect couple in the beginning. Zach worked a lucrative 9-5, Debby stayed home and had three babies in their first four years married. Things were going well. Jeremiah and Josiah were a year apart, then another year and a half later came Sophia. They lived in a nice house but it was in a somewhat rural area, and Debby grew bored of being home with three babies every day. She began working at the church daycare. She could bring the kids with her, and she had some interaction with other adults throughout the day to keep her from watching Veggie Tales on repeat at home.
Around the time Sophia turned two, Debby was getting closer with the pastor at their church, Adam. He was charismatic, kind, and thoughtful. But her friendship with Adam was also causing a rift between her and Zach. Adam was full of fantastic stories, visions from God, he would call them. Zach thought he was full of shit, but Debby bought into what he was pedaling when his visions began coming true. Zach was still suspicious of Adam, but everything seemed to be benign, so he left it alone, reluctantly joining Debby and following Adam as he splintered off from the church with a small group of followers.
A couple years later, Adam had amassed a devoted following. He purchased a defunct 200 acre ranch in Cody, Wyoming and started collecting money to build a compound (build is generous, he only lightly renovated the old buildings) for his group to relocate and live away from the corruption of the rest of the world.
Zach wasn’t down for moving states to follow Adam. Zach and Debby fought about it for several weeks, until one night Debby grabbed Sophia and left to join Adam in Wyoming. Adam had told her Zach wouldn’t let her go, that he was too rooted in the corruption of the world to see the truth.
Debby had intended to bring the boys as well, but as she got Sophia into the car she saw the light flick on in their house and she took off, never looking back. She refused to talk about Zach or her sons whenever Sophia would ask about them, and before long, Sophia stopped asking.
The bad years
CW: religious trauma, child abuse, deathAdam was waiting for Debby when she arrived with Sophia. He told her God showed him a vision of their arrival. He’d already gotten the compound set up, running well enough to get them started. He had a room ready for Debby and Sophia in his own house, separate from the half dozen cabins or the bunkhouse that remained from the property's previous life as a ranch.
It wasn’t long before Adam spiritually married Debby (who had never legally divorced Zach), and ‘adopted’ Sophia as his own daughter. Ready made family, he held them to a higher standard of obedience and devotion. Debby found her purpose there. She helped turn the loft in the main barn into a school room, and taught Adam’s approved (and heavily modified) curriculum to the children that were living at the compound. Indoctrinating them to believe that there was a plague of curses coming to their world, that they had to stay separate and keep themselves clean.
What Adam hadn't seen in any of his visions was that Sophia would manifest a gift. When she was six, she started noticing that the flames in the fireplace would react to her - move when she moved, get a little brighter when she got excited, dim slightly when she was sad. No one noticed for a while. Not until the day Adam and Debby told Sophia that her name was changing. Sophia was mad, she didn’t want to be Sophia Jones, she was Sophia Andrews. She hadn't brought him up for a long time, but she started yelling at Adam that she wasn’t her father and she wanted her real father. Adam struck her, and Sophia shot out a ball of flame, large enough from her anger and fear that it caught on the curtains immediately. It started growing larger, and Adam grabbed Sophia and Debby followed the two of them out of the house. No one was hurt, but there was also no one to stop the fire from spreading. The house burned to the ground.
Adam covered up the fire as faulty wiring, something that could happen to anyone. It was an old ranch, the buildings weren’t new. They’d only been minorly renovated before being inhabited again. It was believable. Until the day Sophia showed the other kids what she could do during lunch one day.
There was instant fear. Sophia was different, she was corrupt, cursed. She was like the people that Adam had warned them about, and she was among them. Debby begged Adam to keep him from sending Sophia away. She was currently pregnant with Adam’s own child, but she couldn’t bear to lose another one of her children. She’d already lost Jeremiah and Josiah.
Adam agreed, coming up with a plan. After all, he knew that their own child could have a similar ‘curse’, since he was Gifted. He told Debby that he had to mark Sophia, show that she was touched by the curse, but he was going to figure out how to save her. He found an old brand in the barn, a tiny X that he wasn’t sure what was used for in the past, but it would suit the purpose now. In a very public display, he had three adults hold Sophia still and he branded her behind her ear. Visible, but not in a place that would ruin her.
From then on, Sophia hated Adam. She hated her mother. But she was only seven, and they were in the middle of nowhere. They didn’t have a telephone or internet. They were completely isolated from the outside world.
Several months later, Debby gave birth again. This time, she had twins. A girl then a boy, much to Adam’s excitement. But they didn’t go to a doctor, Debby had given birth at the compound. No one had expected twins, they weren’t prepared. Debby lost too much blood. She died hours after the twins were born.
Abigail and Aaron were tiny things. Several of the members stepped up to help Adam through the first few months of their lives, coming to the house in shifts to help with the twins. Sophia was almost eight, old enough to help out. The little babies were needy and loud and they took away her mother. As much as she’d been mad at her, as much as she hated her, Sophia was upset by her death. Eventually she realized that it wasn’t the babies’ fault that Deborah had died, that they were sweet and cuddly and smelled nice after getting a bath. Reluctantly, she began helping out with the twins more and more.
One day, Adam had another of his visions. This one was showing Sophia losing control and setting fire to the entire compound. He couldn’t let that happen, and he couldn’t just kick her out. The twins were attached to her. He’d convinced his followers he would be able to save her, to cleanse her of her curse somehow. So he had her practice with her fire, away from the compound. When other kids had to go to worship group, she was participating in ‘private study’.
However misguided, it was working. Sophia was gaining much better control of her power. She was always headstrong and fought with Adam regularly, but there were no further incidents with her setting buildings on fire. Adam was certain that he’d put a stop to the vision he’d seen.
He was right, sort of.
The fire, part 2
CW: child deathBy the time she was fourteen years old and the twins were almost seven, arguments between Sophia and Adam were coming more frequently. She didn’t fit in, people were either scared of her or they would tell her how they were praying for her salvation. She hated the stares, and she hated being so different. She didn’t know that the visions Adam would have were just like her ability to control fire, that they were the same. Maybe if he had revealed that to her, she wouldn’t have felt so alone, so desperate to get out.
What Sophia did know was the combination to Adam’s safe, where he kept the cash he made selling the wares that they made at the compound in town. She also knew where he kept the keys to his truck, and the way to town. She’d gone on enough supply runs to help, she’d been planning this for months. She was glad that she’d learned out to drive on their property, most of the kids her age knew. They could be more useful that way.
She had planned on leaving in the middle of the night, just like her mother had done almost a decade ago when she brought them there. But Adam woke up before she made it out of the house, saw the bag she had packed and the keys in her hand. They started arguing again, and Sophia only meant to throw a small bit of flame at Adam, burn him enough to get him to back off and let her go. But she lost control. She grazed Adam with the fires it jumped to the wall behind him and rapidly grew. Abigail and Aaron were upstairs, and Sophia started to panic, making the flames spread faster and faster. The whole house was burning before she could get up the stairs. She still ran up, searching for the twins but she fell through a spot in the floor before she could get to their room.
Sophia ran from the house, trying to use enough control to keep herself out of the fire. She still managed to get a burnt on her hands as she pulled at the doorknob, but she made it out. Adam and the twins did not.
The last thing she remembers about the compound is seeing the house ablaze in the rearview mirror of Adam’s truck as she sped off the property.
The escapeThe people in town knew about the compound, they considered the ‘weirdos’ out there as mostly benign so they never bothered with them. But when Sophia showed up at the police station the night of the fire, they were more than willing to believe the tale she spun for them. She told them some truths, like how her mom abducted her and brought her out there when she was five (which was easy enough to confirm, since her dad had filed missing persons reports on them both), she told them about Adam being crazy and convincing everyone that she could magically start fires, and about both house fires. The first one being electrical, the same excuse they’d used years before, and that Adam was mad at her because he caught her trying to run away, and wanted to make the rest of the community upset with her so he started the fire, and it got out of control. She showed them the burns she got escaping the house, and said he tried to go get the other kids out but she doesn’t know if they made it.
The very nice, very shocked deputy told her to wait while he got the sheriff on the phone to figure out what to do. They couldn’t go on the property without a warrant or a call for help, so they filed a report based on what she told them, and contacted child services to return Sophia to her father.
A couple days after she was gone, when the deputies took reports from other community members about the girl who set a fire by magic and stole the truck, they assumed everything she’d said was true, and just took down their reports as well, not bothering to investigate further and letting the community handle their own affairs like they had always done. To this day, they are still out there, under new leadership, convinced that Adam was some kind of prophet and his death (along with the twins) cemented his teachings.
Once Sophia got back to Oklahoma, she was reunited with her father and older brothers. There were some growing pains as Zach adjusted to parenting a teenage daughter, and Sophia got used to the real world. She went to a real high school, and made friends. She excelled in academics once she caught up (but still finds some gaps here and there even now in things she missed learning). She found out that she was not alone in her gift, that her father and Jeremiah were also Gifted, just like her.
Life was good for the next year. Until someone from the cult showed up on their doorstep, wanting to take matters into their own hands and ‘cleanse’ the world of the cursed Sophia. Zach still lived in the same house that Debby had fled from, never realizing it may become an issue. Thankfully, with his own ability to control light, he was able to disorient the man enough to get his three kids safely out of the house and call the police. The man was arrested, but Zach no longer felt they were safe in their home.
The California dreamBy the time Sophia was a junior in high school, the Andrews family moved to California, to Los Eurosia. Zach’s Aunt Ruth told him it would be a safe place for them. Her grandson Liam was living there and could help them until they were settled in. Liam was the one who suggested it, who said they’d be safer there and he had some connections to help the family settle in.
Liam’s connections were through Blackstorm. It didn’t take long before Jeremiah was recruited to Blackstorm. Sophia followed step shortly after graduating high school and joined as well. It was the first time she felt like she truly belonged. Not only were Gifted accepted, they were celebrated, something to be proud of. Not ashamed. Not a curse to be hidden or eradicated.
While Jeremiah and Sophia joined the cause, Zach was hesitant to align himself with a group he considered radical, and Josiah never manifested a gift so he just stayed out of all of it.
Zach largely carried the same he always had. Keeping secrets and just living his life. He bought a house in West Hook and found a new job to keep him busy. He doesn’t ask questions when his kids ask him for help or get themselves in a sticky situation and need his help.
The rest (so far)Soph took a job working as a bartender when she was 21, and she has held that position since. She moved out of her dad’s house in West Hook, getting her own apartment in East End near the bar she works at. Josiah is the only one still living with Zach, but he’s made it clear that his home is open to his kids whenever they need him, for any reason or even no reason at all.
Living in East End has really opened Sophia up to the art scene, and she experiments sometimes with abstract art. She’s learned that getting her feelings out on a canvas can feel extremely cathartic.
Mostly, Soph just enjoys existing, being able to do what she wants and go where she wants. She lives in the moment and tries not to take anything for granted.
THE PLAYER
NAME: Aimee
AGE: 35
TIMEZONE: EST