b l o o m

STATS.

fc: kat dennings.

name: dinah forrester.

age: 34.

gender: nonbinary — she/they

sexuality: demisexual

species: non-human

birthplace: babylon, texas

residence: babylon, texas

occupation: police dispatcher

ABILITIES.

gorgon — it is not as defined as what people thought of Gorgons in mythology. Some people say you're a modern Gorgon but in reality you're the standard. Though generally skipping a generation, all Gorgon who are born are female and can start to present their oddities as young as 13.

gaze — the weight of your gaze has always been heavy. it is not so simple as 'turning men to stone' as told in the myths, but instead there is a mysticism behind your blood that tugs from someone else, with direct eye contact, their very will to live. this isn't in the sense that you'll kill them, but more that they wish to settle, to become a rock and remain immobile. some histories say extended exposure to the direct gaze of a gorgon will cause a calcification in the bones of whomever they are focused on but it is thoroughly undocumented.

hair — no, they are not snakes and you have never had snakes of hair, but it is impossible to cut it too short; it grows back as if it has a mind of its own and never allows itself to be shorter than shoulder-length. to that end, in times of great distress your hair seems to have a mind of its own, as if powered by whatever ancient energies exist within your bloodline and can be used for defense or attack.

LIMITATIONS.

bad eyesight — the same ability that causes your gaze to be potentially harmful means that your eyes are weaker than others. you have always worn glasses or contacts to have a hope of seeing things clearly and even then, especially in the dark or when your power is active, you can sometimes only see a blur.

strange eyes — in that same vein, the color and make of your eyes seems odd. it's hard to hide when your eyes are such a pale grey as to almost be white and are marked by striations of gold and green that, if left uncovered in the dark, will glow slightly. you have to wear contacts with special characteristics to cover this and they are both expensive and hard to come by and you are sometimes reduced to wearing sunglasses (both to temper your gaze and hide the oddities)

weakness — there is an imperative in gorgons that they must use their gaze; it is a gift from the gods (at least as the grannies would tell it) and you are meant to be using that as you would. because of that, your body seems to get weak when you have neglected your duty. those who choose not to draw energy from others tend towards lethargy and malaise and most gorgon do minor feeding throughout their day just to get by.

PERSONALITY.

you've spent your entire life being underestimated but it has created a confidence in you that transcends; you're cautious on who you let in your life for this reason. it doesn't mean that you don't get inside your own head and have bouts of neuroticism that can make things difficult, but you use your aloof nature to avoid putting it on anyone else and handle it on your own (no matter how unhealthy and withdrawn that might make you.) people have often described you as mercurial because your moods often shift like the wind, but you like to think you're just passionate; some say this makes you difficult to be around, perhaps they think you're incapable of focusing on one thing but in the end, you're just a bit curious about everything and that makes it hard to give up on anything.

+ confident, passionate, cautious, curious

- mercurial, withdrawn, aloof, difficult

BACKGROUND.

born in 1989 in babylon, texas, you were the first of your direct family to ever be gifted with the gorgon title. everyone saw it as a great blessing for you to have this but all you saw was a yoke that would keep you from being who you truly wanted to be. your powers presented when you were 14 and with them your eyesight went bonkers and your dreams of becoming a firefighter in austin along with it.

try as you might to escape that life and create your own outside of texas, you found yourself right back in it after an incident at college left someone in the hospital for a month in a near coma because of your untamed and unmanaged abilities.

when your mother passed you went into a spiral of bad behaviors and misadventures; bad decisions led to bad relationships and now you're surrounded by people who remember you in your twenties and forget that you have, in fact, matured. you have no other living family in babylon but your grandmother lives in utah, your father (estranged) lives in florida, and your siblings are scattered about the country (with the exception of your littlest sister who is in france.)

babylon has done nothing wrong to you, and yet you never feel like you truly belong. all the friendships you made when you were in school feel so transient and long ago and the ones you have now feel as if they might fizzle at any moment. it's a lovely place to be a bit weird, but you're a lot weird.

no one knows your secret yet, and you do everything in your power to hide it. this means that you've never held a relationship lasting more than a couple of months and most of your friendships (as stated above) have become thin by neglect.

slowly you've been trying to adjust to the fact that you are who you are and set down roots in babylon, but the truth of the matter is you always feel a bit of an outsider.

currently working at the call center in the police station, handling dispatch and emergencies.

HEADCANONS.

dinah has a reputation that has chased her since she was in her mid-twenties. she was good in her teens but her rebellious phase came late and some people remember her being a hellion and refuse to let that go.

dinah has to take extra precautions when she's waiting on her contacts prescription to arrive; at these times she requests day shifts and wears sunglasses a lot so that people don't see her eyes as much.

dinah doesn't think she's better than you, but if you try to say you're better than her she'll do her very best to prove she is.

dinah is the only gorgon she's ever met and, according to the grannies, the only one born in the US in over a century. but they could just not have all the facts and information and dinah finds it hard to believe any of that.

WANTED CONNECTIONS.

siblings — this one can come whenever but she does have a few siblings around who are either a) human or b) some other breed of beast/species that you can figure out later.

that one friend — your character and dinah get on even though they knew her in the bad phases of her life and they have, perhaps, inklings about her not being exactly human but they've not broached the subject yet. the best friend she wants and the only one she's gonna get.

that guy from college — your character was the guy dinah accidentally drained into a coma. she fled as there was no real evidence it was her and no one pursued it. she stayed by your bedside for about a week then realized that when you woke up you'd have questions. you've been a dog with a bone since then and have finally tracked her down to babylon only to realize she's not the only strange thing in town. converted conspiracy theorist.