Mieke Bell

MIEKE ZOË BELL

| B A S I C S |
Name Mieke {Pronounced Meeka} Zoë Bell
Nicknames Miek or Mieks, but Mieke is generally short enough.
PB Megan Burns (aka Betty Curse)
Age 20
Sex Female
Year Sophomore
Major Forensics
Minor --
Occupation --
Hometown Cape Town, South Africa

| P E R S O N A L I T Y |

While it would be easy to claim that Mieke is forever scarred and tortured by the events of her less-than-fortunate childhood, the truth is that, even for how strangely she comes off, she's not really all that tortured at all. On the contrary, she's actually rather laid back on any normal day, and if one were to hold a conversation with her, she would be far more likely to talk about anyone and everyone else but herself. A very pessimistic view of life though Mieke may have, she is not always a pessimistic person. Like any normal teenager, she is a mix of emotions, ranging from perfectly cheerful to absolutely livid. While she is never what anyone would call perky, Mieke does have her moments. Around friends, she can be quite interesting conversation, and there are times when even those that she finds excruciatingly annoying can talk to her without fearing that they will be put down. Of course, that isn't to say that she's unaffected by the way she grew up by any means-- after all, no one would assume upon meeting Mieke that she had any semblance of a normal upbringing. The truth is simply that she doesn't really feel the need to call attention to the intimate details of her history... and why would she? It isn't exactly the most glorifying of stories, and the Bell family as a whole is far too proud to accept pity from people whose most frivolous of possessions are worth more than their entire house. Whatever. It's just, you know, life. Of course, delving deeper into the way things are reveals that, in fact, Mieke is more than just affected by her history; it essentially underlines who she is as a person.

Apathetic and reasonably chill as she may be, one could not imply from these traits that she is in any way a pleasant human being. Mieke isn't by any means a "people person," to put it extremely lightly. She is generally antisocial at best and more often than not wants absolutely nothing to do with actual human contact. To call her a kind person would be making a similarly grave mistake; honestly, on any given day, she would sooner insult you than offer a hello. While it is true that she herself stands generally unfazed by what happens around her, she was nonetheless raised with a serious amount of hate embedded into the very threads of her person; negativity and distrust come far, far sooner than any hint of warmth or favor towards her fellow man. She has no honest regard for most people's feelings and when she gets into it, she can get extremely vicious and unnecessarily cruel, just for shits, giggles, and the sake of passing time. It takes a very particular kind of person to gain Mieke's respect, though even after it is obtained, she will very rarely directly let on that she's given it.

In fact, it is rare to detect much of any genuine sort of emotion from Mieke. Growing up in a situation of little familial love or attention, really, in any honest way, the small girl was somewhat forced to develop a stone face and a detached heart, if only as a coping mechanism. Unfamiliar to the concept of any true sort of caring or feeling all throughout her childhood, the end result was an adolescent girl who found it difficult, really, to express much of anything at all-- something which immediately set her apart from her fellow female peers from the moment puberty began to set in. Mieke is easily the strongest, emotionally and mentally, of the three children in her family, and throughout most of her life has been looked at purely as "the responsible one," the babysitter for the babysitter, and the one who kept them all on track and level-headed in the best and worst of times. This expectation of her paired with the distinct lack of any other real goal assigned to her in life, has caused her to feel a very heavy pressure to maintain this unfailing and unwavering focus and emotional strength on a constant basis, throughout everything in her and her siblings' lives. Even in day-to-day life, it is hard to get Mieke to crack a genuine smile that isn't at someone else's expense. She is difficult to befriend, and it's nearly impossible to get her to take you seriously. It's just how she approaches life; it's both easier and safer if you don't actually have to feel, well... anything. Of course, being that Mieke is a human teenage girl, there are times when she simply cannot stop her true feelings from coming through. Usually this is forced to happen the hard way, by way of the occasional, very short-lived emotional breakdown due to bottling up and pushing away everything she has ever dared to feel, and though it never lasts long, it certainly is not pretty. Regardless of her role in the family, Mieke definitely has her moments when it is undoubtable that she is "the little sister."

That being said, Mieke is definitely not someone you want to mess with. Though she rarely works up the energy to get seriously angered or upset, if threatened, she will not hesitate to react violently and viciously. This is one girl who can definitely hold her own in a fight. She is certainly not the most well-moraled person in the world, and if something can be more easily obtained by less honorable methods such as theft, this is not a problem for her. She is also extremely prejudiced thanks to her dear mother's wonderful influence paired with the atmosphere of where she grew up. Mieke is not above petty hate crimes, nor mindless violence. She is rational to a point, but her entertainment value has a tendency to hold first priority.

Mieke's favorite thing to do is get involved. She loves chaos, and will participate in any way she can in order for things to get even more chaotic. For Mieke's personal opinion of the world is that it is, on a general basis, nearly always remarkably ignorant, incompetent, and stupid, and that there are very few people in this disappointment of a planet that have any business being alive-- if she can make someone's life just a little bit more miserable, just for a moment, she will jump at the chance. Maybe it makes her a bad person, but that's just the way she is. She cannot stand people who take advantage of their fortunate lives and bitch and moan about frivolous things as though they've somehow earned and therefore deserve everything they've been handed on a silver platter. If she can't enjoy her life, she has a hard time being okay with other people enjoying theirs without a little bit of disruption now and then. After all, surely they can handle it, or at least, Daddy's credit card can.

Mieke is interested in weird things. She has a very dark sense of amusement and tends to be attracted to rather morbid ideas and concepts. In her eyes, blood is really sort of "pretty," and death is not a tragedy, but a fascinating phenomenon of humanity. It is quite common to find her sitting unblinkingly in front of a medical documentary or an animal planet special on lions ravaging species weaker than they, taking notes and looking closer when they zoom into the disgusting sights. She doesn't take interest in these things just to appear weird or to creep out others, but she does have great fun going into detail just for shock value. She is not completely abnormal, however, and does have very random, more socially acceptable hobbies. For instance, she likes to cook, and can actually be quite artistic and creative when she wants to be.

All in all, everything in Mieke's life can be taken back to the great sense of pride that she has for who she is and where she comes from. Though it is by no means a background to brag about, and in fact is rather sad and even embarrassing, and though her home life is undesirable at best, it is nonetheless hers. She doesn't have a whole lot of things to call her own, so while it may be a pile of dirt in hell, it is Mieke's pile of dirt. This sense of pride is an embedded value that courses strongly through her family's lineage, and is absolutely not something easily surrendered. It makes her ruthless and relentless; when situations get serious, backing down is simply not an option.



Strengths:

• Cunning; Mieke is often the first to come up with a brilliant plan of action, regardless of whether or not she verbalizes it. Most of the time, she deems her company far too useless to bother sharing her contributions; she'll just make them happen, and let others worship or complain later.

• Interesting; she has a great life story, and she'll tell you about it, if you're worthy. She's smart, and makes for really deep, intelligent conversation-- you just have to prove your half of it worth her while.

• Practical; Mieke knows what's necessary and what is not. She knows when something is just going too far in any given direction-- whether or not she chooses to acknowledge when she's reached her limits is a completely different story.

• Compelling; regardless of the way she treats people, Mieke still manages to attract people to herself in ways that no one understands. She's almost likable, in a way-- when it's not you that she's taking her personality out on, one often finds that she's got a sort of intelligent sense of dry humor to her words. After all, no matter how unnecessary, inappropriate, or mean what she says can be, there is always a fraction of truth to them-- kind of like how the best jokes are the ones that are funny because of how true they are, when you go to think about them. She's like that. She's the kind of person you almost want to know, because of the opportunities and connections it provides you with, and because of how humanly enviable it is to possess the ability to be mean without fear of guilt or consequence.

• Strong; being emotionally strong is something that Mieke has always been able to do, especially in times when her family was falling apart and there was no one around to run to their aid-- which is admittedly, most of the time. She does, however, have a breaking point, though it is much farther off than most are.

Weaknesses:
• Unpleasant; well, it's true. No matter how cute or smart she can be, that gets outweighed times ten as soon as she directs her attention your way. The fact of the matter is, Mieke is mean. She has very little respect for the existence of other people aside from herself-- she's even rude to her own little brother, who she finds to be useless on the very worst extent. If you hang around Mieke too long, I'd imagine after a while it would feel kind of like a big, crushing weight on your shoulders. She's just kind of a joykill like that.

• Overconfident; though Mieke is very intelligent, she also tends to know this, and that can (and often does) lead to overconfidence and, ultimately, lesser or more difficult success-- or even, in some cases, failure-- because of something she simply overlooked.

• Closed-minded; well.. you can't really experience the joy in life if you're too busy sulking around about how much it sucks, can you? In what is probably her greatest fault, Mieke is very prone to missing out on many of the things that life has in store for her just by being completely closed off to everything and everyone around her. What she fails to realize is that not everyone is stupid, ignorant, or incompetent just because they don't play into her idea of the great scheme of life. She's more than a little bit prejudiced, in more than a few ways, and.. well.. she is flawed and at a loss because of it more often than not.

Likes:
• biology
• art
• chaos
• drama
• harassment of others
• fire
• dead things
• dissecting dead things
• blood-- she thinks it's pretty
• animal planet documentaries
• medical television specials
• sharp objects
• the grim reaper
• fighting
• mint chocolate chip ice cream
• cartoons
• ice cream cake
• being paid attention to
• meat
• south africa
• not being cold
• hoodies
• other people's hoodies
• dark colors
• stripes
• makeup
• big cats; she finds them beautiful, and envies their ruthlessness.
• succeeding. winning. whatever you want to call it.
• hot chocolate
• coffee {particularly seattle coffee brand from south africa}
• birds; they're so free. they have no boundaries. it is physically impossible for a bird to get "stuck" in one single place for its entire life with no means of escape.
• being mean or snarky to people with completely innocent intentions-- she loves to watch their big, stupid smiles fade to confusion.
• stepping on bugs

Dislikes:
• most females; she just doesn't get along with them.
• people of other races-- Mieke and her siblings were raised to be incredibly prejudiced and the engrained views have retained.
• well-off people, people that have it easy, rich people, spoiled people, wealthy people-- the list goes on.
• pity.
• being cold.
• her family.
• her life.
• not harassing people.
• teacher's pets, suck-ups, goody-goodies; why do they waste their time? there are more dignified ways to charm your superiors.
• people and their general stupidity
• stuck-up, holier-than-thou types.
• gingers.
• christmas carols.
• musicals
• people that are too perky. think Disney channel.
• boring people; there is really no point to a person's existence if they are not going to do something with it.

| H I S T O R Y |Zari Royer was by no means a woman who settled. On the contrary, in fact, she rarely accepted anything less than the very, very best something could come by. She carried this mentality all her life, throughout everything she did and everything she stood for, and when it came to finding a mate, there was absolutely no exception to the rule. Zari would marry the perfect man to help her create the perfect little boy who she would raise to be big, strong, and able to carry her perfect family name from generation to generation.

Living in Cape Town, South Africa, "perfection" in the way she was looking for it wasn't exactly easy to come by. However, she soon found that perfect man in one Kofi Bell. Kofi was everything Zari wanted and more: he was wealthy, attractive, strong, and maintained a fairly influential position in society and on the work ladder, having climbed his way to second in command at the company he worked for and, according to him, very close to taking over the whole shebang. The couple lived in luxury for a while, Zari completely and utterly smitten with the man, and Zari wasted absolutely no time-- it wasn't long before they were expecting their first child, a little boy who they named Nico. Everything was going just as Zari had always hoped and dreamed that it would: she was living large with her man who brought her home the bacon, and with her perfect son on whom she doted and spoiled and carefully raised for his first year or so of his life. That is, she thought he was perfect... until it came out that Nico had been born with and developed a few attention problems here and there and was later diagnosed with ADHD as well as a learning disorder-- which are not really huge, devastating flaws, but in Zari's eyes, they made her son less than perfect, and less than perfect was unacceptable. She still planned to see if she could "fix" him so that he would outgrow the problem, but she meanwhile began to try for another baby... "just in case."

It is into this awkward, middle sort of portion of the family history where Mieke enters the scene. Mieke Bell was born into the world on October 27th as the second failed attempt at the "perfect child." While there wasn't truly anything "wrong" with the little girl, her flaw lied exactly therein; she was a girl, and was therefore useless to Zari as she could not so much as hold onto the family name, never mind carry it across generations. The possibility of having a girl, though a fairly reasonable thing to take into account when trying for another baby, was not something that really ever crossed Zari's mind, and she was left a little bit at a loss for what to do with it. However, as Mieke grew into what was still a well-developed and healthy baby regardless of her inconvenient state of gender, Zari accepted the young girl into the family and continued raising both of her less-than-desired children to hold her own beliefs and values in life, many of which were, unbeknownst of course to the toddler-aged Mieke and Nico, quite corrupt in moral standard.

Zari's problems from there only serve to worsen for her as not long after Mieke was born, it was uncovered that Kofi had been found to be involved in a number of scandalous affairs within his plans to take over his company. Kofi had been around less and less in that past year and had been paying less and less attention or care towards Zari or his young children, caring much more about the power he would obtain once his plans had come through. His plans, however, were upon investigation, never exactly that he was next in line to the head of the company-- but rather that he was attempting to steal the position through a variety of slanderous and fraudulent scheming that backfired and ultimately ended up leaving him bankrupt and unemployed. In a moment of desperation and shame, Kofi went home, took everything in the Bell household that was worth any value, and fled. Betrayed, backstabbed, angry, and left with nothing to her name, Zari had no choice but to attempt to support her family on her own.

At first, they were at least managing to stay afloat, but in all that had happened, Zari had slunk into a steadily growing state of depression which led her to seek comfort through some unhealthy practices. After two years, she had found herself fired from the fourth job she had tried to hold down since Kofi had left, and with very little to show for herself aside from a particularly nasty drug habit and a newborn third child from one of several failed relationship attempts. Kai, the youngest member of their family was indeed the healthy, perfect little boy that Zari had always wanted, with no birth defects or diseases becoming evident throughout his first few years, and even though she no longer had the reputable, strong, legacy-building family name she once hoped to be able to pass down through new generations, she still found a small bit of relief that something in her life had finally turned out right.

Nico and Mieke, meanwhile, had seen their mother at her very worst and lowest, and while she had never been a particularly amazing parent to begin with, once her drug problem began messing with her head, Zari began treating her firstborn children with harshness and contempt. She admitted to them that she had a hard time even looking at them, because they were now just looming reminders of what she had once had, and of the man she had once loved who had gone on to destroy everything for her. As Mieke grew into an adolescent, she tended to feel like she barely even existed when she was at home, living with fear and unsureness as to exactly how to feel towards their mother. Though she generally ended up coming to the conclusion that their situation was less than favorable and that the woman was a mentally deranged bitch, she still found it extremely difficult to shake the strong beliefs that Zari raised her with, since that was all she'd ever known.

Eventually, Nico, who had been acting out for most of his life because of his disorders and their difficult home life, got put into a juvenile facility after one particularly defiant stunt. Not wanting to end up meeting the same fate, and determined to actually at least try to make something of herself so she could someday escape her family home for good, Mieke began applying to colleges in the United States-- trying to get as far away from her mother as possible, of course. Eventually, she stumbled upon Orange Island, and after receiving a full scholarship based on her race, background, and financial misfortune, she was off, worse for the wear and unlikely to have an easy time fitting in anywhere. But, you know, whatever. It could be worse.