01. BASICS
NAME: Zara Mayfield TITLE: The Escapist DATE OF BIRTH: October 31st, 1993 ( Twenty-four years old ) PLACE OF BIRTH: Manhattan, NY PREFERRED PRONOUNS: She/Her SEXUAL & ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Pansexual & Panromantic OCCUPATION: Undergraduate student FIELD OF STUDY: Music and Composition
02. PERSONALITY
MBTI: ESTP POSITIVE TRAITS: Independent, Creative, Freethinking & Courageous NEGATIVE TRAITS: Reactive, Impatient, Resentful & Unstable
03. BIOGRAPHY
Zara was born to the Fosters, a family of prestigious government officials who had grown up knowing nothing but wealth and fame. Benjamin, and his father before him and so on, had always held a spot in politics in the state of New York, whether it be governor, mayor or even state representatives. Whatever the role, the Fosters stepped up to the plate and had done so for many, many years. Jasmine, Zara’s mother, came from wealth of her own, being the daughter of well known congressman and previous Boston Mayor, Jefferson Mayfield. The congressman was more than thrilled when his only daughter married Governor Ben Foster, starting a rather large family of her own. Their marriage, the kids, activities they participated in; it was all looked at. Sonya, their first born, was a clever, talented writer with a flair for politics, their only son Heath a baseball champion, their second daughter Zara a skillful musician, and their last child Bethany wanted to help people in any way that she could possibly think of. For a while, it seemed the family was untouchable when it came to scandals or secrets, for they had none. The Fosters were a perfect, wholesome, American family; until they weren’t anymore.
It was hard to be the ‘first’ at anything in a family who had been doing the same thing for so, so long. But Ben managed to be the first to crash and burn under the weight of secrets he, his employees and even his wife had attempted to cover up. As it turned out, the Fosters did have secrets and scandals, and a young thirteen year-old Zara would be the first to discover her parent’s dirty little secret. Walking into her father’s office one Friday afternoon, Zara found her father and his secretary exchanging more than just a few words on top of his desk. Almost immediately, Zara went to her mother, angered by her father’s betrayal and lies, but Jasmine wouldn’t listen. In fact, she yelled at her daughter, telling her she had no idea what she was talking about, and she should forget what she saw. She couldn’t. Instead, she told Sonya, whom she trusted would talk some sense into their mother.
Sonya, angered by her father’s affair, and her mother’s persistence to keep it a secret, leaked the story to the New York Times, the very paper she’d been interning with for a year. Upon leaking the story to the New York Times, an onslaught of women began coming forward, claiming to be other mistresses to Governor Foster. It was like they’d opened a floodgate of secrets that just kept coming, completely burying the Foster family and tarnishing the name the once beloved family had held. Their father not only lost his position as Governor, but he lost his family as well. After the affairs had been outed, Jasmine’s father, Congressman Mayfield, made his daughter divorce Ben, and change her and her children’s last names so they would no longer be associated with such a disgraceful name.
Even with their last name changed people still remembered the faces of the family with one of the biggest scandals New York had seen in a very long time. Though she tried, Zara never could quite forgive either her mother or father for the lies, watching idly by her siblings sides as the two fought over custody and drank their way through hearings. In the end, Ben became a useless alcoholic with no prospects, paying child support every month that he could hardly afford, and Jasmine won the children but not their faith. Sonya became the most bitter, still exceeding at everything she set out to do and gaining a position as a journalist at the New York Times for the very story she leaked about her own family. She even married and had a kid, much to Zara’s dismay. She’d once looked up to her sister for guidance, but found instead her own taste for bitterness and resentment. It grew easier and easier to blame her failures on her mother, her father or even Sonya. Zara remained close only to Heath and Beth, who had always been a little more forgiving and hopeful than the likes of Sonya or herself.
It wasn’t until she was eighteen years old that Zara came across boxes of her father’s things; journals, poetry, trophies, and other belongings from his younger years. Through this box of memorabilia, she realized her father had had other aspirations, other hobbies, and other dreams that didn’t involve politics. Some had even said when she was much younger that she had gotten her rebellious, independent, free spirited nature from her father, who had apparently never wished to be anything more than a musician. In a way, her connection to music kept her close to her father, even if she had blamed him for years. She, out of all the siblings, had always been the most like him. Sleeping around, failing classes, not trying hard enough, drinking, a passion for music… Zara began to fear that she, like her father, would end up living a life she didn’t want to live. This thought only pushed Zara to rebel more and to focus solely on her DJing career rather than attending college or getting a ‘real job’ as her mother liked to put it.
After years and years of sleeping around on friend’s couches, drinking, and getting into one too many fights at bars, Zara’s mother had had enough. Turing Academy was a last resort of sorts, seeing as she’d narrowly flunked out of college and drank her way through life thus far. Pulling some strings with the headmistress, who happened to be an old family friend of the Mayfields, Zara was granted admissions into the academy, upon the condition that she went to drug and alcohol counseling as well as kept at least a 2.0 GPA. She was told it was either this or some mental institution, and so she decided studying music at Turing Academy would be the lesser of two evils. Zara never liked school and while she could easily make friends, she didn’t much like keeping any around and couldn’t offer much moral support or advice when they asked for it. But she did find that for some reason she liked Turing Academy and she liked studying music. Perhaps at first Zara had come here because her mother had told her to, but now she actually didn’t mind it, and rather enjoyed it. Finding out about The Grid from mutual friends of several members already in the little ‘group’ was the first time she felt like it didn’t matter who she was or what her last name was. There wasn’t politics, heavy family expectations, strong consequences or the story of her father’s downfall. In The Grid, she was just Zara, and often, she finds it is the only place she can truly escape and be who she wants to be.
04. FAMILY
Benjamin Foster: Father (estranged)
Jasmine Mayfield: Mother (estranged)
Sonya Stevens (née Mayfield): Older sister (estranged)
Heath Mayfield: Older brother
Bethany Mayfield: Younger sister
04. FAMILY
The Artist: Friend
The Hacker: Becoming friends, live in the same apartment building
The Phoenix: Acquaintance, live in the same apartment building
06. AVATAR
AVATAR’S FACECLAIM: Alycia Debnam-Carey (Commander Lexa) SPECIAL SKILLS/POWERS: Swordsmanship (sword fighting and wielding, main source of fighting, has a sword that was presented with the avatar), Telekinesis (can move objects or people with a flick of the wrist and the mind) & Temporal rewind. WEAKNESSES/LIMITATIONS: When losing a life, Zara’s telekinesis is weakened, and becomes fickle. She can only turn back time once every time she enters The Grid and must have all of her lives intact, otherwise she can’t use that skill. She can rewind no more than three minutes.
ZARA MAYFIELD is portrayed by Sophie Cookson and she is currently TAKEN.
