Individual Character's full name: Vanessa Madison Bookman
Alias/ Nickname/ Code name: Nessa
Gender: Female
Age:
27 (De-aged to) 19
Date of Birth: (10/15/1992) (De-aged as if 2000)
Birthplace/ Home/ Place of origin: New York City, New York
Nationality: American
Ethnicity/ Cultural Heritage: Caucasian Mix
AppearanceHair color and style:
Brunette with shoulder length hair. Her brown hair lightens in the summer until it is a more sandy brown, but in the winter, it is more akin to chocolate She's grown her hair out to just between her shoulder blades. It falls in waves and is dyed blonde, occasionally with a temporary color over it.
Skin Tone: Pale in the winter, a light tan in the summer
Eye Color:
Dark Brown Blue
Height: 5’8”
Build: Thin, with narrow hips and comparatively broad shoulders, both of which she has learned to accept
Visible mutation: Her eyes have changed color, seemingly as a consequence of her mutation.
Scars/ Tattoos/ Piercings: Basic ear piercings and a cartilage piercing, nipple piercings, A tattoo of a masked woman with flowers and feathers on her right shoulder, a pixelated heart on her left wrist, and a sleeping fox amongst blueberries on her right thigh
Other features: None
Everyday clothing style: Nessa dresses casually most days, considering her “job” is playing video games. On days when she works, she will wear jeans and graphic tees, usually with a gaming theme, and often from her company’s own merch. She is not fashion inept; outside of work, she likes to play with a wide range of clothing: dresses, skirts, sweaters, cardigans. Nessa has no qualms with low-cut tops and flaunting “what she’s got,” but won’t push the envelope so far that anyone would accuse her of being risqué. For a night on the town, Nessa has fashionable dresses suited for the nightlife of New York.
Uniform: Psh, uniform. As previously stated, Nessa’s work clothes are more casual than her casual clothes.
Sleepwear: Either nothing or an oversized t-shirt
Miscellaneous clothing: N/A
Character
Personality: Vanessa comes on a bit strong in most aspects of her life. In almost no aspect of her life would Vanessa be described as “passive.” In conversation, the fiery young woman is prone to saying what is on her mind without sufficient consideration for the company she is in or how she might come across to others. Some people find this boldness and direct attitude refreshing, while others just find her… well, extremely rude.
Her humor is dry and sarcastic, developed through many years dealing with her brother. To get along with Nessa, it is important to remind yourself that when she sounds mean, she is probably trying to sound funny. It is a habit she is working on, but thus far has had little success. On her channel, it has left her polarizing: much of the fanbase loves her dry, quippy jabs at her coworkers, while others have a few colorful labels they like to pin on her frequently starting with “a,” “b,” and “c.”
When it comes to love, Nessa is forward with the things she wants, but tries to be patient and understanding of the needs of her partner. She does her best to be accommodating, even to the point where she might be sacrificing herself for the sake of the person she is with. If she gets attached, she can get clingy and worried about doing something that might scare off the girl. When this happens, she can sometimes lean on her mind-reading ability in hopes of figuring out if she is doing anything wrong. That puts her in the position where she feels guilty about committing that invasion of privacy with her power, and that can add an unspoken tension between her and her girlfriend.
Hobbies/ Interests: Video Games, Drawing, Dancing, Fashion, Women, Soccer, Exploring Nature
Job or part-time job and description: Let’s Player, Animator, and Podcast Host for The Pow Block Party, a notable online production company with a focus on video games, nerd culture, and episodic online content, both live-action and animated
Fears/ phobias/ concerns: Nessa has a fear that her powers revealing thoughts of the people close to her that would hurt her. Her loved ones thinking they are tired of her, her significant others falling out of love with her literally before her eyes, or someone she confided in passing judgment on her.
Also, Anatidaephobia. Ever since Booker explained his fear that a duck somewhere in the world was watching him, Nessa laughed at the idea, until her mind kept revisiting the nefarious duck when she would lay in bed at night.
Special talents: Nessa is a good gamer and a very talented artist and animator
MoralityGood; she is not perfect, and can be selfish, but she likes to think she is conscious of the injustices in the world. She keeps most of her opinions quiet, particularly her stances on mutant rights since she is still a closeted mutant, but she does donate to the charities she believes in and has been a vegetarian since she was seventeen, (with only one notable regression on her twenty-first birthday, when she was drunk and adamant that the only thing that would satisfy her was a busty redhead or a bacon cheeseburger.)
MutationsMutation description: Ocular telepathy. When Nessa makes pupil-to-pupil eye contact with another person, she can hear the thoughts currently running through their mind. There is no sign this is happening; nothing about her eyes changes visibly, but unless eye contact is broken, her target’s thoughts will be heard in her own head as well. This power is dependent on the ocular nerve of her target, since the ocular nerve delivers information between the eye and the brain, and Nessa’s power causes the conscious thoughts to be delivered along with visual information.
Strengths: The benefits of mind reading are obvious: understanding someone’s thoughts makes it easier to predict them. While her powers are limited to conscious thoughts, if Nessa is smart, she can use conversation to make the target think about certain topics. Thoughts like that are instinctual; often when someone does not want to think about something, (like a super-secret passcode,) it becomes all they can think of, leaving this information free for Nessa to obtain.
Weaknesses and Limitations: Nessa has no control over this ability. Ever since it manifested, Nessa has read the thoughts of any person who she made eye contact with, whether or not she wanted to. The inability to choose when to use this power has made her incredibly conscious of where her gaze is falling, because not every thought is one you want to hear.
This power is also limited to active thoughts. Nessa cannot currently probe “deeper” into someone’s into someone’s mind and look for the secrets that are not in the forefront of their mind.
With Nessa’s ability being innately “on,” and her status as a closeted mutant, she has done little to push herself and has no clue how to “psychic harder.” Anyone with the ability to resist telepathy will be able to shut Nessa out.
Finally, as this ability requires eye contact, if someone is avoiding her gaze, has their eyes hidden by anything more opaque than dark sunglasses, or is blind (due to the inability for the optic nerve to convey information between the eye and brain,) Nessa cannot peek into their mind. She is also limited to reading one mind at a time thanks to the inability to maintain true pupil-to-pupil eye contact with two people at once. (Well, technically if both people had their heads pressed together with each meeting an eye, it might be possible, but that scenario would be unlikely and more of a hassle than anything.)
Physical AbilitiesGeneral Physical Capabilities: Strength- Typical for a woman her size who engages in yoga and jogs
Speed- A little quicker than the average twenty-something, but she is by no means a runner
Reflexes- Hand-eye coordination and timing are actually great
Stamina- Nothing special
Flexibility- Surprisingly flexible, as can be seen in yoga and… other things
Fighting Style: She will spray you with mace
Fighting Style Pros/Cons: Pro: Mace hurts people's faces
Con: Mace might hurt her face if the wind blows. Also, without mace, she has no real fighting skill and would have to rely on flailing wildly, so anyone who was physically stronger and had the most basic understanding of fighting would dismantle her easily.
History Of Your Character[REDACTED] was born as the “son” of Buckram “Buck” Bookman and Barbara “Libby” Bookman, and the sibling of the soon to be infamous
Booker B. Bookman . When the child was first born, she was too young to understand the over-the-top acts of jealousy Booker was prone to and started forming memories around the time Booker got his toddler-sized head out of his butt and realized he actually liked his little sibling. When they grew older and learned the social aspects of teasing, sarcasm, and jokes, they would embark on a back-and-forth to span the ages, but for a while there, they were just two kids who had a strong, familial connection. Where Book went, a young [REDACTED] was never far behind.
For reasons she would not learn for a few years, [REDACTED] was usually timid and insecure around people who were not her brother. She clung to her video games and her drawing and, (to a lesser extent than her brother,) books, and her penchant for directness did her no favors when people did make the effort to strike up a conversation.
[REDACTED] might have gone down an anti-social, secluded path had her social butterfly of a brother not been so keen to pull her out of her shell. Most boys still made her uncomfortable, but slowly, she gained some female friends, and even had a fledgling childish romance or two. Evidently, some girls were interested in shy “boys” who were surprisingly in touch with their feminine side. The boys of the school were not so kind, but most had no intentions of crossing Booker, preventing the worst of the bullying.
One of the two major discovery’s of [REDATED]’s life came from a bad sibling move. Shelby had been the girlfriend Booker was with prior to Kathleen (and, as it would turn out, Grant.) The girl was a year younger than Book, and three years older than the younger Bookman sibling, but she was always sweet to [REDACTED.] She quickly developed equal parts crush and admiration on Shelby, and the two carried a short relationship, (without Booker’s knowledge.) Even if they would not last, Shelby was the one who first helped a shy kid feel comfortable enough to open up and accept something she had been ignoring or in denial of for so long: she was a girl.
Vanessa did not accept her new identity right away, but Shelby was there to help her as she experimented with new clothing, and just being seen by someone as who she really was. Accepting what she knew to be true, there was one person Nessa wanted to go to with this self-discovery. Explaining that she was dating Booker’s ex was softened by the bigger news of her transgender identity, and it did not hurt that Booker was able to reply with a confession of his own bisexuality. It was a moment of acceptance between siblings, and that was going to be important for what came next.
The Bookman siblings approached their parents and confessed to their identities. To the untrained eye, it did not go particularly well, but in that moment, feeling the most heightened stress she had experienced in her still young life, Vanessa’s untrained eyes became untrained mutant eyes. Switching from the disappointed looks of either parent, Vanessa was suddenly hearing words where there were none. It was not hard to figure out: she was reading thoughts.
The thoughts were… ugly. Their parents were upset that their perfect football player was making questionable choices in his dating life, but they held their tongues, sure he was going through a phase. Vanessa got it so much worse. As they told her not to make hasty decisions, and they could revisit the idea of “her identity,” the were disgusted with her. It was the kind of disappointment and shame you could not hear behind surface-level intolerance and discomfort.
Vanessa fought back tears. If being trans was disappointing, she had no desire to out herself as a mutant in the same moment. She kept that aspect of her identity a secret from everyone, even her brother. She considered broaching the topic when her abilities seemed to stop working around him, but knowing she would be unable to read his thoughts, it seemed unnecessary to let him know about a part of her that would never be relevant to him.
When Booker went to college and Vanessa was left going to high school, things only got worse. Fighting with her parents about the clothes she was wearing to school, making a “spectacle of herself,” and anything else they could throw at her to discourage her. Fortunately, Booker had raised a very stubborn sister, and not only did she power through with the support of her friends and occasional girlfriends, but she found herself pushing further.
Hormones were a topic her parents shut down every time Vanessa asked about them, and even as a late bloomer, puberty was going to hit her like a sack of bricks. Enter Vanessa’s ex, Shelby, who helped hook the developing woman up with hormones obtained through… less reputable channels. It was not ideal, but it was better than nothing.
Until, of course, Vanessa was caught. That fight was the worst, and entering the last year of high school, Nessa clung to her support group as she pushed for an emancipation from her parents. She watched the shame and angry thoughts through their eyes when the court granted her request, and she walked away from her parents for the last time.
Vanessa lived with some of her older, more stable friends while she tried to get on her feet. She left school, because in her eyes, money was more important. She worked three jobs simultaneously, hell-bent on having money for rent, hormones, and food, in that order. At eighteen, she pushed herself through getting her GED so she could pick up a better job as a bank teller, getting her hands on more funds, and sweet, sweet health care.
Making it to twenty-one, Vanessa was finally where she wanted to be, and all her saving could finally calm down enough for her to start truly indulging in video games again. Her roommates always told her that her outbursts were “a spectacle,” and they nudged her into streaming. It was a fun outlet for her, a surprising source of positivity and compliments, and a supplement to her income. It also led to opportunity when one of the Let’s Players from The POW Block Party reached out to her and asked her to come in for a few videos.
Vanessa ended up taking a permanent position with the company, and as it turned out, “that hot girl that plays video games online” was her apparent dream position. Along the way, she even learned how to help out with editing, ingraining herself in the company.
In January, 2017, Vanessa met
Rebecca Grey-Morris , and in the Spring they began a relationship that seemed to be going well. It was refreshing to date someone who could not read her thoughts. Until, of course, it was not. Rebecca broke her heart, and it was time for Nessa to pick up the pieces. Life was not always easy, but it was still good, because at least she was her, and that was enough.
Roleplay
What’s your OOC alias?: Aly
Where did you learn about this site?: This site is like a hometown I’ve returned to
Do you have any other characters on MRO, if so who: Rebecca Grey-Morris and
Stephanie Graves Sample RP:
It was a bizarre feeling. Nessa knew her relationship was over—or at least on its way into the incinerator—and she was still not processing what was happening. She knew the anger and the tears would come soon enough, but it was hard to see that when she was sitting in the back of an Uber next to a buzzed sunbeam of a woman.
It was fun to watch as she tried to stay awake. For as drunk as Nessa was, she had not hit the point where she was physically tired. Emotionally exhausted, sure, but that was a different beast.
Occasionally, the telepath would submit to her curiosity. She would catch a glance of the brown eyes she was sitting beside, and there would be a brief flash of whatever was fresh in the other brunette’s head:
Okay, Maybeee I’m a little drunk. Just a little. Nessa scoffed quietly at the downplaying of her clearly inebriated state.
I’m awake! A moment after she almost definitely dozed off prior to a pothole.
I hope she thinks my bedroom is cool, too. Genuinely, Nessa had been wanting to see her bedroom since she was told about it. In a purely innocent way… or, if she was being honest, maybe a
mostly innocent way.
When they reached the building, her host for the night was still chipper and congenial with their driver. It was a good balance, because Nessa had no space in her night for new strangers. She was only okay with the one she chose to go home with. (Again, innocently.) She was asked to follow along to the top floor, and she complied.
”Lead the way, birthday girl!”Her body felt numb, which actually made climbing stairs easier because Nessa could not feel the strain on her legs. Little drunk victories. They made it to their destination, and she followed into an empty common space. She was warned that any flatmates might have been asleep, so when asked about food, Nessa did her best to fight her drunk urges, keeping her voice hushed.
”I think I’m good, ac—”Grrrrrrl.Yup. That was her traitorous stomach. In those sparkling brown eyes, she saw thoughts calling her silly, and a smile unexpectedly formed on Nessa’s lips.
”Okay, that’s a lie. I’ll take whatever you whip up, hun.”
