#about mora

If you follow this bagel and read some stuff you might have noticed that Mora is a very colorful, very specific person, and that many people, including myself, really love her for who she is and what she represents. Don’t know about you guys, but to me she was very very unrealistic in her optimism and naivety, how open she is to people, and how she follows her heart and gut more than follows reason and doesn’t seem to put much thought into how exactly the gears turn. 

And then two years ago I’ve met a girl who changed the way I started to perceive her. 

The girl in question was my roommate, and the first evening of living together I was gifted with a ‘sister’ bracelet. We were drunk,  I laughed it off, and the next day I reported to my friend with some moraish things that girl had done throughout the evening. Few weeks later, after a significant amount of ‘that’s sooooo mora’ moments, I started telling her about the stuff I’m writing and introduced her to the character. And, you know that feeling when you go to a fortune teller for the first time and right off the bat she tells you stuff about yourself that she coulnd’t possibly have known? Turns out it wasn’t just skin deep mora behaviour as I initially thought. The more I told her about the character the more her mouth went agape. They’ve shared a backstory as well as personality and physical traits. Little things, big things. At first it made me feel like when you say the exact same thing your bestie does exactly the same second. And then it happened, over and over.

I’ve given Mora a really troubled past. I hope you haven’t picked up on that, I’ve tried to let her reinvent herself after running from what kept nailing her to the floor. She stays positive and optimistic as can be, which at the same time makes her incredibly vulnerable, which is one of the things I’ve learned thanks to the Mora double. And I don’t mean it in the way like, she goes rollerskating without a helmet on, what could possibly go wrong? I mean the emotional aspect. The desperate need to be loved, not taking the realistic approach to stuff. She hesitates a lot but does not think things through enough before finally commiting, and very much opens herself up to being hurt and disappointed.

At this point I’m very wary of hurting Mora in my writing. I don’t want her to settle for whatever happens but to have a say in what happens. I want her to grow, to become a strong and independent woman. We often say OCs are our babies and we love them OH so much! And then we go and tear their limbs off and make them suffer for our own amusement. Mora became so much more than that for me. She is flesh and bones and I just legit want her to be happy. 

Eriu looks the flower over. It’s a daisy, nothing special. It doesn’t even have a notable smell.

Nevertheless she picks it and rolls between her fingers for a moment, watching the petals spin. Without much thought she then puts it in her hair, and it magically stays in place.

—

“Would you like to go on a trip?”

“A trip?” Mora snapped out of her daydreaming, turning to Eriu with a spark in her eye and a half-washed plate in froth covered hands. She was ready to step away from the sink and start packing her things. “Where to?”

Eriu exhaled a puff of thick cigarette smoke and turned her head to look at Mora too. The round table she was sitting at was covered in papers. “Eastern Europe. Quite a long way from here. Not the best season for sightseeing either, but I figured—”

“Yes I would!”, Mora interrupted, tensing up in excitement. She did not seem to be able to hold anyone’s attention for more than five minutes for the past few months. Everyone seemed too busy to breathe, and herself she could not leave the house for various reasons during that time. This was a gust of fresh air she needed.With this surprise power-up she started washing the dishes two times faster. “Never been in Ukraine. I’d love to go!”

“I figured you might.” Eriu nodded with a smile. Her eyes turned tot he paperwork. “I’ll need you to sign some papers for me. It’s a business trip. We will have some things to take care of before we go sightseeing.”

✒︎  Mora reads a lot of teenage love story blogs and romance novels, and the worse the writing and the less she understands the more she enjoys it. Her favourites are the oddest fanfictions, out of character, without a mood and with a plot so inconsistent once can get lost barely two pages in. Most of them begin on a sunny morning when the reader gets to join the protagonist in dressing up for breakfast and describing what the protagonist sees when they look at themselves in the mirror. That kind of writing entertains and does not require much thought. It’s perfect.

✒︎  For many years Mora had a bad habit of biting her nails. When an anxiety attack kicks in she will cut them short not to hurt herself by biting them.

✒︎  Playing a dummy has been her defence mechanism for a looong time. Only when it fails to protect her cracked little shell from cracking more she will get serious.

✒︎ Mora doesn’t like gossip and doesn’t appreciate being talked about behind her back. Doesn’t matter if it’s something innocent, like ‘x told me you looked lovely in that sweater’, or something serious she really needs to know, if it comes up in a conversation she will get really anxious and possibly flee the scene on the pretense of trimming the flamingos.

✒︎ If Farris was introduced to Skyrim she would start and finish the game in one sitting. It would cost her many a sleepless night, she’d lose a few pounds, and resurface the outside world some few weeks later as a happier woman.

✒︎ Farris doesn’t shave her armpits, legs, or russian forest. If it’s there, it serves a purpose. Fortunately for her, her leg hair is lighter than the rest of her body for some reason.

✒︎ Mora’s sculpted a couple of flamingos out of bushes in the backyard. She dresses them up accordingly for the season. At the moment they are cosplaying as Wirt, Greg, and a zombie geisha.

✒︎ Mora’s room hides an insane amount of handcrafted pillows.