Post by Mara Cooper-Bell on Nov 17, 2024 2:31:55 GMT -5
WELCOME TO LOS EUROSIA,
Mara Eilish Cooper-Bell
"can't change the weather, might not be forever, but if it's forever
it's even better"
BASICS
NAME: Mara Cooper-Bell
AGE: 19
BIRTHDATE: November 11
PRONOUNS: any (mostly gets she/her)
SEXUALITY: Bisexual
RELATIONSHIP STATUS: single
OCCUPATION: Sector Intern
NEIGHBORHOOD: The Heights
MEMBER GROUP: Sector
POWERS:
Petrifying Gaze. By making direct eye contact with Mara, no matter how brief, it will induce an immediate state of complete immobility on the person affected. This gift is to not be confused with Medusa's type of immobility, the affected individual is NOT turned to stone, only paralyzed in place. They can move their eyes, but that's it. Mara is able to control her gift; when it is not activated, her own eyes appear glazed over and dull, almost resembling those of a corpse's. But when Mara's gift is activated, her blue eyes are clear and sharp, piercing through whoever meets her gaze.
The state of immobility is a mental one, and not a physical one; she manipulates the cerebellum itself to stop motor function in the individual. It wouldn't matter if a gifted individual with the strength of an elephant was affected, they could not fight her influence. However, mental/psychic related gifts may be able to resist depending on its strength.
THE LOOKS
HEIGHT: 5'2"
WEIGHT: 141 lbs.
HAIR COLOR: Has gone through many phases and is very damaged, currently black
EYE COLOR: Blue/Blue-gray (depends on gift status)
FACE CLAIM: Billie Eilish
OVERALL APPEARANCE: Mara's style is best explained as the "tom-boy" style, often wearing very baggy masculine street clothes. On a normal day, you'll find her wearing a backwards baseball cap, baggy faded jeans, an oversized t-shirt or sweater, and possibly even overalls. She tends to lean towards other articles of clothing that match this street style, occasionally opting for beanies, hoodies, sweatpants and the like. You will almost never find Mara wearing anything that fits her. (She uses belts religiously and has a whole army of them in her closet at home.) She does occasionally wear softer, more cozier styles, though, complete with a single-color sweater, slightly less baggier jeans, slippers and multiple rings.
As for her physical appearance, it's practically impossible to tell from the bagginess of her clothing. This is on purpose- and not just for style. Mara suffers from a mild case of Anorexia, and wants to keep her body hidden from the rest of the world. Underneath all of the layers she is skinny, with little muscle surrounding her bones. She is not dangerously skinny, but still barebones enough to be concerning in her doctor's eyes.
Along with this, she has cellulite that runs up her thighs and waist, along with a large slash scar across her abdomen. She does have a couple of ear piercings and one nose piercing as well, along with a small heart tattoo on her wrist. Mara isn't necessarily extremely attractive, but tries her best to look presentable in her own way. She's just a person living life and scraping by, she thinks herself this way and dresses accordingly.
INSIDE
LIKES:
- listening to music
- rollerskating
- rollerblading
- pogo stick
- freestyle scootering
- the concept of death
- playing the guitar
- writing poetry
- cats
- black and white
- being outside
- indie video games
DISLIKES:
- eating too much in one sitting
- annoying people and children
- foods that are too sweet (candy, sugary cereal, syrup, etc.)
- reading
- people who hate things for no reason
- what she sees in the mirror (in terms of her body)
- buzzkills/know-it-alls
- people with closed mindsets
STRENGTHS:
- mentally strong & stable
- confident, can be charismatic in a chill way
- kind
- patient
- super chill, slow to anger
- hiding in shadows & small places
- surprisingly quick & agile
- respectful
- easygoing & flexible
WEAKNESSES:
- unexpressive
- blunt at times
- SEEMS unempathetic (but is empathetic)
- has a slightly unsettling resting face
- fears getting of getting too close with people
- has a small social battery, "extroverted introvert"
- finds genuine extroversion & warmness completely hilarious
- physically weak
- has a complicated relationship with food
- sees things in black and white with no room for middle ground
OVERALL PERSONALITY:
Mara’s personality has been described in two words by her friends: blank and blunt. Mara is the type of person to say exactly what she’s thinking without giving a second thought, even if it isn’t much (which is most of the time). Mara has a lot going on inside, but isn’t very good at expressing it, along with emotion. Don’t get her wrong- she does feel emotion, just not lots of it; her face almost always remains stagnant. A slight smirk might emerge from something she finds funny, and her frow may slightly furrow when she’s angry. People who know her better know that she’s capable of limited expression, but first impressions almost always spiral downwards because of Mara’s dead-eyed stare.
Just because Mara isn’t great at expression doesn’t mean that she doesn’t care. She loves and cares immensely- in her own ways. For the most part, she’s a person of action over words. She is a bountiful gift giver (despite not having much money to her name), a great giver of advice (though it may be harsh), and apart from work, her schedule is always free to which she makes time for others. Call her, and she’s there- it just might not be the happy-go-lucky go-getter someone might be expecting.
Mara is mentally strong, aware of her issues and not afraid to open up about them- to the right people. In terms of friends, Mara is good at setting boundaries with friends to make sure the right information gets to the right people, including her troublesome past. She knows people have experienced worse, which puts her at ease, but still acknowledges she still has baggage that she wants to get rid of. This baggage includes her complicated relationship with food, as being a pageant girl for multiple years has ruined her view of it.
Despite not having much energy, the little energy she does have goes to the skate park. She may not look like it, but she does like physical activity- from scootering to rollerblading, she loves feeling that adrenaline of being in the air and going fast. She is more likely to connect with a person through the skating park than other alternatives (but it is still possible and likely).
Overall, Mara could be described as a bland bowl of oatmeal with a single blueberry in it. There may not appear to be much, but there’s a whole world of a person underneath her glazed-over, unreadable eyes.
BACKGROUND
HOMETOWN: London, UK
FAMILY:
Eleanor Bell (Deceased) - Mother/Human/44 (at time of death)
Skip Cooper - Father/Unknowingly Gifted (Memory Immortality)/43
UNKNOWN FAMILY (Family she doesn't know about)
Walter Bell - Half Brother/Gifted/22
Oliver Bell - Half Brother/Gifted/22
Tinker Bell (Deceased) - Half Sister/Unknown/9 (at time of death)
PETS:
Rocky Balboa is Mara's pet shale rock. She mostly has Rocky as a joke; she knows it isn't alive, but acts like it whenever there's people around. Rocky has his own little glass enclosure with fake plants and even a tiny bed made of straw.
HISTORY:
TW: Eating disorders and the struggles that come with it.
Mara was born out of wedlock in London. She doesn’t know much about her mother other than she was on a year-long business trip, cheated on her husband with Mara’s father, then dipped after giving birth without much of a goodbye. Mara’s father was devastated, but he had a newborn to take care of, and with child support checks coming in every month, he knew he was going to get by. So with a single broken-hearted father, a small apartment and a struggling bakery that she was now set to inherit, Mara’s life began.
Mara was an adorable baby, and grew to be a helpful, even more adorable toddler, helping her father in the bakery whenever possible. She was praised by the incoming customers, her father and his friends at how much of a woman she was already becoming. This continued for a few more years until suddenly, the child support checks stopped coming, and her father’s supplier refused to renew their contract. Mara’s father was forced to permanently close his bakery.
They both lived on their savings for about a month while her father frantically searched for any kind of living alternative. In a last ditch effort, her father used the last of his savings to move them both to a cozy, moderately popular town in California called Los Eurosia. And thus, at 9 years old, Mara began the next chapter of her life. Though she was optimistic, it didn’t turn out as good as she was hoping for.
Over the next year, Mara’s father worked from 8-9 every day, hopping from part-time job to part-time job trying to make ends meet. When Mara would come home from school every day, she could see that he was getting more and more stressed out and quick to anger- something that made her start to slightly fear her father. She knew he meant well, but she also didn’t want a screaming fit from her father after simply asking for a scoop of ice cream.
Her father continued getting more and more unhinged until he eventually lost all of his jobs due to performance issues. He was once again devastated- how was he going to take care of himself and his little girl? He looked at Mara, her cuteness turned to a quiet beauty. Her beauty- wait a minute. He was sure he saw an ad in the paper earlier that day… it gave him an idea.
For multiple years after that, Mara became a pageant girl. She would dress up in beautiful dresses, strut down the runway with the other children and win the big money. On the outside, all seemed fine. Her father was finally able to afford a nice house in West Hook and give Mara whatever she wanted- except for one thing. The ability to quit her job. What the public didn’t see is the bad side of being a pageant girl- wearing things she didn’t want to wear, being put in front of cameras she didn’t want to be in front of, being overwhelmed by scholarships and opportunities she didn’t even want. But the worst of all- she couldn’t even eat what she wanted. But since she was taught to eat little to keep being beautiful, it became a habit and eventually her mindset.
Mara continued to starve herself all the way until her junior year of high school, when she finally decided enough is enough. Her father had become too obsessed with wealth, status, and money at this point- what had started off as a way to get back on his feet ended up becoming a way to exploit his daughter so he doesn’t have to live in shambles. It was evil, was what it was- Mara saw that now, and was sick of it. She didn’t go to her next pageant.
Then the next.
And then the next.
Her father started to catch on, begging her to go back to pageant life. “You could become the next Ms. Universe one day, Mara!” he exclaimed, a little too loud for Mara’s comfort. “Don’t throw away your life when there are hundreds of opportunities for you.” When she refused, he began threatening her. He even threw a punch at her. Mara looked him dead in the eye, unhesitating, expecting the worst and accepting it, but to her surprise, he stopped in his tracks. Nothing. It’s like he had just… froze. That was the day Mara discovered her gift. And even after she learned to control it, setting her father free from being petrified, he continued to threaten her on the daily. But nothing could get in her head anymore, not even his threats of taking everything away from her- because she didn’t want any of it.
Not too much longer after, she presented emancipation papers to her father, who at this point was exhausted trying to convince her to stay. Out of a last gesture of love towards her, possibly the last speck of humanity inside him, he signed the papers.
With her secret savings that she had been building over the years, she bought an apartment in the Height and started her newfound early adulthood. She began wearing whatever she wanted, when she wanted, opting for boy’s clothes over anything else. It was a sign of rebellion against her past life, and as she pursued new things, her passions and hobbies aligned with this rebellion of what she knew. Everything except her relationship with food.
Out of all the habits she couldn’t break, it was her eating habits and how she saw herself. She could disguise what she saw in the mirror with all the baggy clothes she loved, but without them, she was still just the little pageant girl that needed to stay pretty. Stay presentable. Stay skinny and beautiful. Sometimes, she felt like punching the mirror- she hated how her body looked. On some days, she felt like using her gift on herself. Stay frozen forever, so that life could just go on without her. But alas, she didn’t and pressed on. She went to the doctor and got diagnosed with a mild case of Anorexia, something she is still attempting to work on to this day.
On the other hand, Mara’s high school years were beginning to come to an end, and she still had no idea what she wanted to do with life. Sure, Mara got new hobbies and things she likes to do- but not a new way forward. What was her purpose? She genuinely didn’t know.
So she invited a couple friends over to her apartment, had a small party, and at the end of it she spun her own makeshift “Career Wheel.” She had put dozens of careers on it that she randomly pulled from the internet- “Firefighter,” “Astronaut,” “Pickleball Player,” the list went on and on. What the wheel ended up landing on was “Detective.” So that’s exactly what she began to pursue.
Not too long after, she graduated high school and began looking for internship opportunities. She didn’t believe in college, wanting to get into the action immediately. While on her search, she was scouted by a Sector member, who referred her to Ferris Felwinter - without another thought, she began to work under him through a six-month internship. She was glad where she ended up, smiling at the thought of giving gifted people a chance to truly live. And she works with him to this day. She likes her life, and while it isn’t the best, she’s accepted that it could be worse and that she’s come a long way. (She isn’t too fond of her next-door neighbor, though. This Walter Bell dude is a little too happy-go-lucky for her.)
THE PLAYER
NAME: Ray
AGE: 18
TIMEZONE: PDT