⫸ B A S I C I N F O R M A T I O N ⫷
▼ | S T A T S : | ▸ B I R T H N A M E : | Andrea Pasternack
▸ N I C K N A M E / A L I A S : | Seven (7), Kintsugi, Icarus (Don't you dare), Snow (Don't you dare), Needles (Don't you dare)
▸ G E N D E R : | Female
▸ A G E : | 19
▸ H E I G H T : | 5'9"
▸ W E I G H T : | 116 lbs.
▸ E T H N I C I T Y : | 45% Polish, 35% Finnish, 12% Swedish, 8% Norwegian.
▸ Y E A R : | 2nd year
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| P H Y S I C A L D E S C R I P T I O N : | Since a young age, Andrea has developed beyond her years. She stand taller than many women, though not all, and even some other boys her age. Long, naturally wavy bright blond hair you'd see was well taken care of, but still appears a little bit brittle, and is further accentuated by hazel blue eyes and pale skin, and just as often done up with makeup so that her skin appears to possess an even skin tone without the underlying blood creating pictures on her skin. Her complexion, otherwise, gives you the impression that she was quite the beauty - and still is - but there is something else present in her face that'd give away a history with struggle. Where perhaps she passed through a dark time in her life and is coming back from it. Faintly noticeable, but ever-present bags sit under her eyes. Not wrinkles, but something that makes her skin look as though it's being pulled on tight. Pink but dehydrated lips and a tired expression, always trying to mask it with a kind, faint smile where tries to keep her mouth closed to hide the barely yellowed teeth. No scars on her face or freckles to speak of, though there are puncture scars on her arms. She wears a little button nose, the left nostril of which is adorned by a piercing with the littlest diamond you ever did see. She also has earring studs, one on each lobe. Other adornments includes a silver band on her left hand and red polish on her fingernails, giving it a clean looking guise, but closer inspection reveals that she picks at it. Perhaps the result of a nervous tick?
Her frame is petite and slender, with breasts at 28E and legs for days. She lacks enough strength to be even remotely threatening though, and while she can carry most of the stuff she'll ever need to carry, nobody will be asking her to do the lifting for them. Most of her workout routine is concerned about jogging and yoga. It keeps her cardio up and figure right, but not much more than that aside from the mental therapy they provide. Despite her looks and body type, she doesn't dress provocatively at all and so she is spared from sexualization at first glance. She might dress in "sexier" clothes behind closed doors if she's just doing it for herself and doesn't plan on going out. Typically, she is fitted with a black wool peacoat, buttoned all the way down. But underneath, one of her favorite outfits has any color of blouse tops, short sleeved, long sleeved, button-up or v-necked, it didn't matter - with a strap with a buckle going around her waist and it's usually tucked into a lace pencil skirt, often black. Underneath, she likes black leggings or yoga pants and she prefers to wear shoes or boots with thick cuban heels.
▼ | P E R S O N A L I T Y : | What we have today are remnants of what she used to be. You can still see the sun shining through the cracks, and she seems to glow a little brighter each day than the last. A couple years ago, she might have been louder, haughtier, more entitled and very much naive. But now you have a girl who has been humbled and jaded. She's soft-spoken. Delicately gentle. Timid. Sensitive to a fault, where she holds people's opinions of her in too high a regard, but she's also someone who's appreciative and generous. There's an air of wisdom around her, the kind that people have to suffer for, but she has always been sweet and kind. She is liberal with her love and willing to share it with people around her. She's got the heart of a mother, trying to protect people she cares about, even people she doesn't, and a particular soft spot for children. She tries to dole out as much advice as she can to keep people on the right path, and one of the first few things people think about after they're subject to such behavior is "what the shit has this girl been through that she's acting this way?"
A history of substance abuse tore her apart, and it took the Promise to build her back up. Even every now and again, she falls in this little pit of despair that she tries to not let other people see. When people build her up, she tears herself down. So guilty a conscience that she apparently seeks to punish herself even when others tell her what happened wasn't her fault. She's quick to forget about the positive reinforcement she receives and latches onto the negative. It's not that she doesn't value it. She does, and she exercises gratitude every day and deliberately tries to find reasons to like herself, but she ends up losing her way while walking through those woods. Her biggest wish is to just feel normal again, and feeling like the outcast out of everyone she meets feels like torture. She clings to the Christian values she was raised with, but her faith has since shattered. She finds it hard to believe in a God, or in a God who loves her, but the teachings of Christ are something dear to her. They tell her that everyone is worth saving. They told her that when Jesus sat with pariahs. With the beggars and whores, the bastards - all of them. She wants to believe there's still a chance for her, so she still carries on while trying to love thy neighbor, not be the judge of a person's worth, and sharing what she has. She wants to believe that being kind and remaining true to herself is all it takes to show herself worthy of the life she was given. She tries not to get involved in political discussion with people, since she has no desire to argue, but it follows that she votes liberally and progressively.
Despite her history, still don't make the mistake in believing the "dumb blonde" stereotype. She became the valedictorian of her high school one year with a 4.5 GPA and 126 IQ, and was accepted into Cambridge s University to practice public law. While tragedy struck that forced her to drop out in her second year, she very well could have kept going if she were remain devoted and drop other responsibilities. Book smart, nuance savvy, knows three languages, and is politically aware, she's a girl whose wits you don't want to challenge. While she's no human calculator (closer to being a human dictionary TBH), she could probably debate circles around you if she wanted to. As suggested by a successful high school career, she's good at scheduling and juggling priorities. Also musically and artistically minded according to her penchant for singing, love for acting and theater, and painting. Singing is something that can be practiced at all times, but the latter two had to be fit into her busy schedule with careful time management.
It takes a lot to rile her up. She'd sooner shut down or dodge drama when she can, but she has been through too much and understands all too well what it's like being on the bottom rung to let it happen to other people, and certainly not to watch another berate them for it. It's a passionate anger that makes her lose sight and perspective, and it's embarrassing for her when it happens. She can also be a hypocrite sometimes. She is the first one to give people her condolences and sympathy, but she hates pity. She could appreciate it when she was first on-board and in dire need of help, but she's in recovery now and trying to be on her way to being normal again. The last thing she wants now is people's pity. She wants to move on, not to remain in her past. She can even be a little bit cruel, unprecedentedly so, when the victim of her lashing out was just unfortunately unaware or oblivious, only trying to do what they thought was best and offer their condolences. Andrea knows she's in the wrong when this happens, but she struggles trying to control or even contain her emotions
Ultimately, she is a generous girl who means well. She's loyal to kind hearts, and she loves unconditionally. If you're looking for a friend, you'll scarcely find one more devoted and understanding.
▼ | B A C K S T O R Y : | Andrea's story is one of a girl who was set up for success in every possible way, but lost everything. Growing up, Andrea was completely unaware of her own privileged life, and how lucky she has been for the majority of it. She was born to a Christian high-middle class family in Poland. They could afford good schools. Andrea was working early, she learned how to drive, was raised faithful, and she learned English and French on top of her native language. Hard work carried her to be her high school's valedictorian. She had boyfriends, broke her heart a couple times, and move one. All the while, she had multiple opportunities made available to her such as offers for placements in a couple different commercials by different producers with the help of her loving family - oh, and she could sing. Everything was essentially handed to her on a silver platter, and that is not to knock her own intelligence down, no. She was smart and balanced her early life out nigh perfectly. In the senior yearbook, was voted Most Likely to Succeed. Amidst all this fortune and the popularity she had in school, it didn't do much to alter her nature. She's naturally been a sweet-tempered and reasonable girl, if a bit naive of her place and the place of others in the world. She denied the existence of her privileges and good fortune and insisted that she has worked hard to earn what she has – which may be true to some degree, as she is no stranger to responsibility, but it's clear that a lot of things in her life has been handed to her, and she is currently on the beginning of a long road that's keen on not giving a single damn about "all the good things" she's accomplished. Right outside of high school, the world is very different.
Right out of high school, not even a legal adult yet, and Andrea already had high expectations of where she planned to go, but she was determined to smash those barriers. She wanted to travel to the United States to pursue law at Harvard, which was a massive undertaking on its own. At the same time, she also wanted to balance with it an acting career, which would help pay for the expenses. Then the heavy hand of reality squashed her Legally Blonde fantasies: despite valedictorian status and scholarships, Harvard never replied to her applications. She went down the list applying, and all the while also auditioning for acting gigs so that she wasn't wasting her time. Oxford? No. Yale? No. Stanford? No. She got only small gigs playing extras in commercials. Submitting submission after submission, at this point only waiting to see if one of the big colleges notice her, she eventually got acceptance at Cambridge University in the UK. The university was prestigious in its own right, but it didn't make Andrea feel very special after being ignored so many times. Still, she persisted through Cambridge, where she sought to practice public law and become an attorney
Trying to balance her life became challenging when she was on her own in Cambridge. She survived her first year, but entering her second year of university, she was caught like a tight-rope between trying to survive, succeed in school, and salvage an already drowning acting career. She was being stretched thin. She felt herself falling apart at the seams with her pushing herself far beyond what she was capable of. She refused to let go of acting and "come back to it later". She had no family around to support her. They could give her money, but they couldn't give her more hours in the day. She was barely sleeping, always hungry, until one "concerned friend" wanted to give her something that'd help pick her up in no time, claiming that it was ten times better than coffee. Andrea was desperate and she didn't want to think about what it was, and it only struck her when it was too late after she consumed crystal meth. The magnitude of the situation she found herself in was overwhelming, and she didn't want to accept that she did it. She tried to ignore it, but the addiction swooped in and snatched her up. It might have helped at first. It might have started like, "well, one more tiny hit couldn't hurt," but in no time at all her grades were already plummeting as this new addiction started taking over. It was during a particularly bad trip that her powers manifested and she began seeing crazy ass phantoms and things were being moved by her mind. She thought she was going absolutely insane, or maybe it was just a really bad trip. It got so bad, though, that she ended up dropping out entirely. She couldn't support paying for college. She could't support her own addiction. Any chances at landing good jobs in acting completely shriveled up. She had nearly no marketable skills and she practically turned homeless overnight - and she still had no idea what it was she was seeing. The drugs she took helped her to ignore them. She didn't know what to do. She just knew she had to survive, and she was desperate... so she did what she could and sold her body on the streets of London.
It was a vicious cycle. A vicious cycle that lasted only four months. In a mere four months, everything she wanted was taken. Everything she stood for was stripped. She didn't feel like the same person, she felt dirty and sinful and suicidal. Her faith shattered. She was afraid. Her powers were inexplicable. The money she made was just enough to feed her and fuel her addiction to meth and at some point, cocaine fell into the mix. All throughout it, constantly daydreaming about the life she originally aimed for. In a mere four months, everything she used to be she felt was dead. But as far as the governments were concerned, she was still a registered person. A meta, even if she was a druggy... and she was randomly chosen. Why they hadn't decided to rescind that order is mystery to her to this day, but whatever they thought they were doing, they thought they were saving her: a young drug-addicted girl. When she was first sent to the Promise, their first action was to detox her and put her in rehabilitation programs alongside her usual classes. It was agonizing. She couldn't imagine what it would have been like for a person doing this for multiple years, but whatever medicine they were pumping into her was burning her insides. It wasn't long before all the substances were gone, but the psychological damages remained. From the addiction, to the depression - what she has done to herself has traumatized her. She wanted nothing more to punish herself, but the faculty insisted that it wasn't her fault. They promised her that they'd put her back on the road to recovery and assign her a particular teacher that might be able to help her through these motions - and at the same time, help her to understand the powers she has. All she could do was cry tears of relief.
She has now been on board the Promise for a year. Not as many as some, but putting her a year ahead of all the meta-humans to come. She has gotten healthier with each passing day and is finding new reasons to keep on smiling. Her old nature is beginning to resurface, and her very sensitive history has gotten her into some personal conversations and relationships with the Promise personnel, endearing herself to many of the teachers as they become more familiar with one another - one in particular being the peculiar Dr. Peter Brooke. Even in the past year, she has gotten to control her powers very quickly compared to many students (though that may be the nature of her abilities with its ease of accessibility). Though many of her darkest emotions are still buried along with the lingering urges of her old addictions, she is finding it easier to find hope in tomorrow and to accept herself and what she has been through. Still, she looks back on her life with regret, and if there was an opportunity to go back and make different decisions that didn't lead her down a path of suffering, to be normal, she'd take it in a heartbeat. Even if it meant never meeting the people she met on board the Promise... not that'd she ever tell them that. Some of the Japanese students and staff have taken to calling her "Kintsugi" as a pet-name (as well as the fucking weeaboos), after the art of repairing broken pottery by filling the cracks with gold. Those whose favor she's not earned, or those to whom she's the subject of ridicule, have dubbed her as "Icarus" - but few would dare to be so cruel to call her that to her face. Other name-calling includes "Snow" (referring to blow), and "Needles".
Aside from Kintsugi, the only name she has come to appreciate is "Seven" (7), after a character from early 21st century pop-culture television show Stranger Things.
⫸ P O W E R I N F O R M A T I O N ⫷
▼ | P O W E R C L A S S I F I C A T I O N : | Cerebral (Extra-Sensory), Other
▼ | P O W E R D E S C R I P T I O N : | Psionic Phantoms?: The exact nature of Andrea's power is hotly disputed among the faculty. One popular theory is that Andrea is capable of seeing another plane, so to speak, with bio-luminescent eyes. A plane which exists within our own as an additional dimension of space. Within this plane exists corporeal entities and apparitions. According to this theory, the nature of the apparitions are unique. They exist as a streaming consciousness existing within a polydimensional temporal plane, and between units of time – thusly invisible to anyone else. It's been suggested that they are made of an electrically active gas, and while mostly inert, are inexplicably bonded together ionically – it held up that this high-energy being was able to pass information along so easily, as though they were made up of neurons. Perhaps the true power is the ability to see them and the mental link Andrea shares with them, but the apparitions are no less incredible. It's claimed that these "spirits" possess incredible cerebral-type powers, from telekinesis to telepathy to mind-linking, chaining the consciousness of multiple people together through a third party.
While the apparitions are incapable of speech and verbal communication, in theory, as well as intangible with three dimensional objects, they are capable of carrying out simple tasks and understanding her communication. This includes scouting out a particular area and retrieving information that Andrea can utilize as he sees fit; this gives him the appearance of a pseudo-omnipresence in his environment. To a certain degree, Andrea is even able to control them, or at least influence them and their decisions, via a mental link to make those kinds of demands. This mental link also grants her a form of protection from some psychic and telepathic abilities. When telepathy is used on her or if anyone is infiltrating her mind in any way, the apparitions sense another presence in Andrea, and therefore becomes hostile at the alien presence in their environment. Deafening shrieking and wailing provides a defense mechanism that will hurt and hopefully ward away the invader, but at the same time, will also harm Andrea in the process. The screaming is so loud and endless and chaotic, that people's ears will begin bleeding in mere seconds.
Accesible Psychic Interface?: The second theory appeals better to those who are reluctant or too afraid to accept the possibility of extra-planar creatures, ghosts, or aliens - what have you - living alongside us. Instead, they approach the topic from a different perspective. Cerebral powers manifests differently in different metahumans, and it is possible that how it developed in Andrea allows her to interact with her psychic abilities in a more out-of-body way and the development of glowing eyes simply might be her being able to see her own meta-human/psionic energy flowing around her. Whereas a archetypal psychic would simply move things with their mind, Andrea either subconsciously created a medium or interface to perform these feats, or the powers manifested that way on their own by creating the interface without psychological interference. But the results are the same: flexible psychic telekinetic and telepathic abilities. While perhaps not powerful enough to lift impossibly heavy objects or structures like tractor trailers (or at least not yet), the interface allows her to subconsciously multi-task a huge variety of objects. The phantasms are innumerable, and the limit to the number of small, insignificant objects she can lift have not yet been met. However, it is worth noting that the number of objects decreases depending on the weight of the objects she has to lift. This could be due to the number of phantasms in her interface that she commits to lifting a certain object or prying into a certain person's mind.
In addition to those feats, if she is not operating through real ghosts, then this theory's attempt at covering her psuedo-omniawareness is to suggest she has the power of scrying. To look through her mind's eye and watch a certain location, or detect the presence of people around her by just barely listening in to surface thoughts of those around her. Not quite reading minds per say, but sensing mental presences in the area. Her ability to be aware of multiple things at once, if not through ghosts, can connect multiple consciences together where she is the crossroads where these consciences meet. It is assumed that it can be done through her sharing her mind with two consenting parties as a sort of forum for them to nearly instantly share thoughts and feelings and emotions. What lends so much credence to this theory as opposed to the phantasm theory is the wear and tear this puts on Andrea. She can only do that so often before exhaustion sets in, her nose starts bleeding, and she starts getting dizzy. The mind can only handle so many thoughts and feelings at once, and doing it too often - even scarcely enough so it won't apparently damage her - can still trigger periods of depression or bipolar disorder. As for the screaming - well, Andrea has been through a lot. It is entirely possible that her ability to sense mental presences could allow her to sense when one is occupying the same space as hers, and that it is an automatic subconscious response to danger as to hide her insecurities.
Schizophrenic Psychic?: There is no shortage of people on the Promise, whether they're student or faculty, that sees Andrea and thinks she's crazy. With her power, it's come to be expected. She's accepted that. Their ignorance is no skin off her bones. But for people who have heard about her history, or have read up on her may not say it out in the open, but would pin her craziness on her history with substance abuse. It's a judgmental point of view that doesn't make people popular, because Andrea is still one of the sweetest and generous people her friends know, and no one would be so cruel to suggest that in front of her... but that doesn't mean they don't exist. The third theory entails her just being a ridiculously powerful psychic that has gone nuts with the drugs frying her brain, making her too dangerous to keep on board the station. There are some people who are so afraid of these rumors flying around that they probably would jettison her out an airlock if they had an opportunity to do so. Cerebrals are dangerous to keep around at the best of times. Her claims of seeing ghosts just gives her haters ammunition to use against her.
▼ | L I M I T S | W E A K N E S S E S : | With the nano-machines coursing through her body, it's difficult to determine what her limits are. What is known is that accumulative weight does have an effect on her capability to telekinetically manipulate objects. What has so far been observed is that slight noticeable changes was observed when she was asked to lift a three hundred pound object and a large amount of insignificant, miscellaneous items (pens, pencils, paper clips, etc.). While she could lift all of the miscellaneous items in the room, putting a three hundred pound object in the mix gave her visible signs of strain. When asked to instead lift a five hundred pound weight, she was found to lift fewer objects. The five hundred pound weight could also be held in unison with the three hundred pound weight, but with much fewer miscellaneous items - she preferred that she didn't. If she were to focus all of her energy into a single object, she learned that she could lift even her own teacher, Dr. Brooke, whose body was made of an iridium alloy and weighed about sixteen-hundred pounds (though the man was only hovered above the ground, truthfully). With her in her second year, and more in control of her powers, the limits have gotten higher. The only real limits that haven't changed is her inability to move energy around (she could lift a paper that was on fire, but not the fire itself) and telepathy. Try listening to more than one conversation at a time, or reading more than one book at a time. While she can multi-task and perform actions in the background, you need to pay attention and focus on a single book or person if you plan on actually reading or listening.
Her weaknesses are more distinct however. Her inability to read the mind of her own teacher could very well have something to do with him thinking at the speed of a super-computer, but she felt like she couldn't even access it. Electromagnetism can disrupt her ability to focus on thoughts, like how throwing a rock in a pond creates ripples and it becomes harder to see your reflection. In addition to that, simply getting to it - hearing it at all - felt impossible. Dr. Brooke surmised that it may have to do with the iridium in his body: it was denser than lead and had close atomic numbers. When putting a subject in a lead-lined room, Andrea was completely unable to detect that the person was even there. Her inability to control energy is a limit, but when confronted with a meta who would wish to do her harm, it becomes a weakness. Controlling gases is also nearly impossible for her. Seizing free floating matter is very difficult for her to grasp, like trying to grab smoke, but having it slip between her fingers. She can influence its flow, but she wont be able to hold it. The self-defense mechanism of psionic screaming whenever another presence occupies her mind doesn't just hurt the invader. It hurts Andrea, too. These screams are so terrible that, if lasting even as long as five seconds, her and her invader begin bleeding from the ears. But it's not even the ears being damaged, rather, a very intense sensory overload on the brain. Linking consciences together is also incredibly draining to Andrea for reasons already explain, and she can very easily begin bleeding from the nose from the process.
Her incredible multitasking can take her attention off of herself if she is carrying a lot of items around. Like, an absurd amount of items. Until that point, she is still aware of herself and surrounded, but the more she carries, the more spaced out she appears. She's still aware of her surroundings, but her focus on simply controlling the objects and where she plans on taking them can make her forget to think about herself. Part of this can be subsided if she can take the focus on the specific movements of objects. If she's making simple motions and patterns, like say making tornado of debris around her or a group of people, she is able to divide her attention to focus on her own safety. That wouldn't take much to maintain. Most she'd have to do, really, is think about the spinning motion of a ceiling fan and go with the flow.
Andrea has a teacher that no one else, or very few have, Dr. Peter Brooke. He also gives personal advice and tests her limits more than any of the other teachers.