Post by Esha Mullur on May 5, 2022 22:50:01 GMT -5
WELCOME TO LOS EUROSIA,
ESHA CHANDRA MULLUR
"The one who was supporting me, he never became mine"
BASICS
NAME: Esha Mullur
AGE: 24
BIRTHDATE: August 2nd
PRONOUNS: She/Her
SEXUALITY: Heterosexual
RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single
OCCUPATION: Medical Student/Surgeon’s Apprentice
NEIGHBORHOOD: East End
MEMBER GROUP: Gifted
POWERS: Human Pufferfish
Esha’s powerset is reflective of the attributes generally associated with the Tetraodontidae family of fish (or, as they’re more colloquially known, pufferfish). Most notably, she has gills, the signature quills, and contains neurotoxins within her body.
Her gills are rather self-explanatory. When emerged in water her body can switch from her usual air intake to the set of gills that run along her neck. To her, the process is as easy as choosing whether she is breathing out of her mouth or through her nose. That said, she hasn’t always had good control over this, and sometimes when she gets startled or spooked, whether on land or underwater, she might accidentally switch her breathing intake, which can cause minor choking at best, possible suffocation at worst. Again, Esha has better control over this aspect of her biology than she used to, so its rare that it could be deadly, its usually more annoying, but that also depends on the surrounding situation.
On the other hand, there are her quills, which tend to be a bit more obstructive. Wherever there is hair on the normal human body, Esha has thick spiny quills. Arms, legs, head, back, etc. Basically, head to toe, save for the parts of her body that would naturally rub together for obvious reasons, like her armpits for example. Her quills are actually more comparable to porcupines than pufferfish, considering their look and feel. When brushed along their pattern, they are actually quite smooth, but to brush against it is quite the opposite. They are incredibly sharp, and anyone who might find themselves unfortunate enough to be punctured by them will also find that they can break off and stick to them. If Esha ever feels threatened, or is in any situation that would normally cause human hair to stand on end, her quills will become erect.
Additionally, most of her major organs produce tetrodotoxin, much akin to the pufferfish, her stomach and liver in particular houses quite a bit of the substance. While she is immune to this neurotoxin, due to similar mutations that the pufferfish has evolved with, it is quite deadly, about 1200 times more deadly than cyanide in fact. However, the toxin isn’t present on her skin, saliva, or even her quills. The only time that someone would ever encounter this toxin would be if they were surgically operating on her or trying to eat her. Fugu is a delicacy, after all.
THE LOOKS
HEIGHT: 5’6”
WEIGHT: 140 lbs
HAIR COLOR: Brown
EYE COLOR: Olive
FACE CLAIM: N/A
OVERALL APPEARANCE: Slim and slender are often words that could describe Esha. She stands at about 5’6”, but her height and presence are not usually muted amongst a crowd. She has a sleek and pure sun-kissed complexion, her face having no clear impurities. In some ways, she could be seen as almost artificial, which, depending on who you ask, might not be far from the truth. Given that her face is usually the only visible part of her body, she puts a lot of work into her complexion. It is very rare that she is seen without makeup or any kind of foundation. Her lips in particular are almost always dyed a subtle shade of red and tend to be quite perky. Much like the rest of her sleek features, her eyes are delicate and slim, a silent glowing olive tint to them. In between her very light yet thorny eyebrows is often a red bindi mark, usually a similar shade to the lipstick she is wearing.
At the sides of her neck, Esha has four rows of skin flaps that represent her gills. The skin around this area is paler than the other parts of her body, the skin itself also seemingly a bit rawer. Whenever this area is visible, Esha tends to apply toner for the sake of it blending in to her natural skin colour, but more often than not, her neck is surrounded by fabrics.
The ‘hair’ on Esha’s head is a similar brown-tan to her skin tone and is naturally slicked back. The way her quills are set up on her head don’t allow for much in terms of styling. When they aren’t combed back, they furrow upwards in a sort of fohawk manner. It stands at about a height of six inches. The quills on the rest of her body are only slightly shorter, by an inch or so. To most though, all of this is usually not visible. If she were to ever wear revealing clothing, she would likely shave herself first, which can be done as easily as any normal person could with their body hair, however, it grows back much faster, being back at full length within 24 hours.
Esha’s usual sense of style hails back to her Indian upbringing, as she has a tendency to wear saris, usually in warm colours like orange and pink, but she doesn’t mind blues and browns on occasions. She tends to rely on these styles of outfits since they have been the most reliable way of hiding her quills and disguise herself as an ordinary person, without needing to shave herself constantly. With more time that she has spent in America though, she has adopted some more western stylings, however, she generally feels that she does a better job at concealing herself with saris. Along with that, she is usually not without a scarf or headdress to cover the top of her head and the sides of her neck as well.
INSIDE
LIKES: Swimming, stringed instruments (mandolin especially), parties, biology, simulation video games
DISLIKES: Water, her quills/powers, surprises, pufferfish, shapeshifters, lazy people
STRENGTHS: Self-motivated, disciplined, intelligent
WEAKNESSES: Slow, frail, self-important
OVERALL PERSONALITY: To put it bluntly, Esha is a workaholic. She has a set schedule for everything, and even if she’s not working her job, she’s keeping herself occupied in some other manner, whether it be schooling, meditation/yoga, or volunteer work. She’s a busy body, a go-getter, and she likes it that way. At the same time though, she’s also a hopeless romantic, so yes, she’s essentially the leading lady of a hallmark romcom.
Esha is the type of person who finds balance between science and religion, which of the two takes priority depends on the day, but she remains a devout believer of Hinduism. Being the daughter of a religious guru, it would be hard for her not to be. Her lifestyle is often shaped around her religion, and she is more likely to turn to scripture and her gods for guidance before other people. At times, she feels she is indebted to her gods, while others, she feels as if she has been cursed or punished, all stemming from her history with her powers. On the other side of things though, she believes in the scientific method, specializing in the medical fields, taking after her mother.
She is not anti-social, but one could be forgiven for thinking that she is. She is actually quite outgoing, a social butterfly when given the chance. The main issue is that English isn’t her first language, so she can have a bit of a tough time keeping a conversation going. She has certainly gotten better than when she first arrived in America, however, her inner thoughts are still in Hindi, so often there’s a buffer between her translating the words in her mind to the ones she speaks. She isn’t too bothered by this most times, but that can change if someone’s trying to rush a conversation along or she forced to talk more than she’d like. While she has lived in America quite a while, she’s still a bit of a fish out of water, so she’s still prone to culture shock. That said, she can find differences in culture fascinating.
As a conversationalist, Esha does have quite a few subjects of interest. On top of her religious and scientific studies, she has an ear for music. She is a hobbyist mandolin player, meaning, she can play the instrument, but not particularly well. She can play a couple songs off the top of her head, though she’s generally not satisfied with the level she’s at. She’s not the type of person to give up if she’s not satisfied, so she still practices whenever time allows it, or if she’s feeling particularly moody.
Additionally, she’s an adept swimmer, feeling quite natural in the water. However, she has a complicated history with the water. You see, she has an irrational fear of water. She doesn’t have any issues with water that reaches her waist or her chest, but rather, when she reaches a point where she can’t physically feel or see what’s under her. Her brain will just immediately go into panic mode. She does better with pools than lakes or the ocean.
Another fear she has is in relation to her powers. She would live the rest of her life happily if no one ever knew about her quills and keeps it as a closely guarded secret. She sees these sections of her body as hideous, largely in part by the fact that she sees herself as a hairy freak. For that sake, she compensates by making the one place her quills don’t cover as beautiful as possible, her face. When her quills are taken out of the picture though, she gains quite a bit of confidence and loves nothing more than flaunting herself about.
As well, due to her history with them, Esha has a bit of a tough time trusting shapeshifters, particularly ones that change into animals.
For better or for worse, Esha feels like she’s the center of attention. Some might call it a feeling of arrogance or self importance, but Esha doesn’t see it that way. Since she was six, she had been led to believe that she was blessed and cheated death to fulfill some sort of purpose. At times, it makes her feel like she’s an avatar of sorts, while others she thinks none of it is true, and what happened way back when was a matter of circumstances rather than fate. She hasn’t found a definitive answer for either.
BACKGROUND
HOMETOWN: Bhatkal, India
FAMILY: Chandra Mullur (Father)
Sameera Mullur (Mother)
PETS: N/A
HISTORY: Esha’s parents were an unlikely couple, in some aspects. Personality-wise, they didn’t seem all that compatible. Chandra was a religious guru, practitioner and teacher of Vaishnavism, and overall upholder of traditional rites and rituals. Sameera was a woman of science, her family coming from a long linage of doctors and healers. They were roughly tens years apart in age, and likely would have never had met without their families arranging a meeting. Despite all of that, they seemed to have found what the other lacked and tied the knot from there.
Somewhere later down the line, Esha would be born, the first and only child of her parents. Despite both lacking a telltale ‘gift,’ they would find that their daughter would be born with a set of gills along her neck. It was a peculiar mutation, but at the time, she showed no other signs of gifted abilities, aside from the fact she was hairless and showed a distinct lack of any ability to grow hair. It wasn’t alienating though, and her parents were still very accepting of her, even acclimating to her aquatic lifestyle by bring her to the beach, though, during times when it wasn’t crowded.
Her parents had no interest in drawing attention to Esha’s gifts, not wanting her to be the subject of prejudice and fear. Her mother had looked into getting her gills surgically removed, even going so far as to reading up on the procedure herself. Her father though, he was especially interested in Esha learning to master the use of her gills, training her in breathing techniques and escorting her to the beach whenever he could. One day, when Esha was but the age of six, there was an incident.
Upon checking on his daughter, Chandra would find her body floating in the water, and she was out cold. Panicking, he pulled her from out of the water and rushed her to the hospital, not only to seek medical attention, but to seek guidance from his wife. Upon her examination, she was met with a grim deduction. Esha’s body was exhibiting the common reactions to neurotoxins. Not only that, she had the markings of a pufferfish’s spines on her skin. Her mother knew enough that there was no cure for the poison, but her father was a man of faith. He prayed over Esha’s body. He chanted every suitable mantra he could muster. Among them were Gayatri, a mantra rumoured to bestow supernatural powers, in addition to Mahamrityunjaya, also known as the “Great Death-conquering Mantra.” Given the fact that Esha remained alive, yet comatose, for roughly a week instead of merely dying to the poison like most would, her father and many others were under the impression that it was working.
In due time, she would awaken alive once more. There was a caveat though. Her once hairless body was now covered with quills. The running theory became that due to her father’s pleas, the gods saved Esha’s life and in doing so, bestowed her with a new body. To prevent her death at the hands of a pufferfish, they had to reform her into one in order to bestow her with their unique immunity to the toxins. Not everyone was so accepting of this theory, some wondering if she ever actually encountered a pufferfish and if this was merely an evolutionary state for her dormant gifted genes.
Regardless of what was true, the incident around Esha became a bit of a media circus in not just Karnataka, but India as a whole. A lot of faithful Hindus pointed to this incident as being a clear and present sign that their gods do in fact listen, while the detractors smelled a hoax. The topic was a heated discussion for three years at the very least, but as with most things, the hype died down with time. Though, any Indian native who was alive at the time would likely be able to identify her as “that girl who was transformed into a pufferfish” just by looking at her.
The general populous would move on, but not the religious sectors. Esha would often be invited to be present for rituals at various temples all around India, in a lot of ways, she was a minor celebrity. Being a celebrity meant that she had plenty of fans, but just as many detractors. It made her place among peers awkward at times. She got a fair bit of nicknames she wasn’t proud of. Esha stuck to her studies though, becoming a top honours student, exemplary, really.
Then puberty hit, and suddenly being a human pufferfish wasn’t so hot. Esha developed far more issues with her self-image during this time. She wanted to have the smooth skin of her peers and not to be all bristly. It came down to two options for her, covering herself up, or shaving the quills, neither really prevented the hazing considering that everyone knew she was the pufferfish girl.
There was nothing that Esha could wish for more than to go someplace where nobody knew who she was, well, aside from her powers disappearing altogether. She would be given that opportunity with a simple flyer with a very eye-catching title: “student exchange program.” The western world wasn’t always up to date with what happened in India, especially for cases like her, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity. Maybe just a little taste of what normal life was like.
There was yet another emerging issue though, Esha was also reaching an age of maturity, nearly the age at which her mother was having arrangements for suitors. The thought of it was a bit distressing for Esha, so the sudden break from her family felt all the more welcoming. Not to mention, if she found love in the western world, she wouldn’t have to settle for whoever her parents chose for her.
The papers were filled out, and Esha would find a placement in an American high school. During this time, she was able to let loose a bit, allow herself to make impressions upon people organically instead of coming into conversations with people who already had an opinion on her. On top of that, she was in control of her body image. Nobody knew she was the pufferfish girl; she could just blend in with the rest of the crowd, be a normal human being. It was tantalizing and rewarding.
She would attend parties, dance with whoever she wanted. She was in control of her destiny. She would meet someone during this time, not at a party though, but while she was quietly playing her mandolin at an aquarium. His name was Chase, and for a time, she thought that he would be the person she would bring back home. He was a quiet soul, with his own issues of identity and destiny. They were kindred spirits, in a way. The issue was, he was a gifted person as well, but one with uncontrollable animal inside him. She thought that she could help him maintain and control himself, but the beast was unpredictable, and often times she couldn’t tell who was in control, or if there were two separate people at all. He was a were-beast, so there often came a telltale transformation, but one night that changed. Whilst still in human form, Chase assaulted her, she swears to this day the animal was in his eye, but she’s not sure if that was fact or what she wanted to believe. Luckily for her, her quills saved her that night. He had no idea she was gifted until he was punctured by them. Needless to say, she never saw the man again after that incident, even when she tried looking for him.
At that end of that relationship though, she began to realize she was running out of time. During her adventures in America, her father was busy lining up potential husbands for his daughter. Upon sharing the exciting news, Esha and her father got into a bit of a heated argument, not helped by the fact that Esha hung up on him mid-conversation. With some deliberating, she decided to apply for American universities and colleges, making her brief trip away from home a bit longer lived than she initially planned.
Of course, Esha was accepted into her choice of program. From there, she made her settlement into America, focusing her attention on getting forward in life and ignoring whatever was happening in India even if she sometimes missed her home. Eventually, she would wind up in Los Eurosia, undergraduate degree in one hand, and keys to her sketchy (but affordable) apartment in the other.
THE PLAYER
NAME: Redgrim
AGE: 27
TIMEZONE: Eastern Standard Time