Astoria Vero
Toujours Pur
A S T O R I A V E R O
I'm not a stop along the way.
I'm a destination.
who's that girl?
LEGAL NAME: Astoria Cécile Genovese Vero
KNOWN AS: Astoria | Rory (at your peril) | 'Proby' (short for Probationary Agent)
HOMEWORLD: Dosuun
FACTION: First Order
ROLE: FOSB Intern | Queen Bee | Social Saboteur | Amateur Slicer
FORCE SENSITIVE: Unknown
KNOWN LANGUAGES: Galactic Basic | Epicant | High Coruscanti | Huttese | Minnisiat | Taarja
AGE: Young Adult
SEX: Female
SPECIES: Human
HEIGHT: 5’8” | 1.73m
WEIGHT: 122 lbs. | 55.4kg
BUILD: Slender | Leggy
HAIR: Ash Blonde
EYES: Blue
PLAYBY: Frida Aasen
THEME: Old Money by Lana Del Rey
RELATIONSHIPS:
- Radcliffe Tiberius Vero (“The Captain”) – Father | High-ranking military commander for the First Order. Amasses a hefty fortune by fighting other men’s wars across the stars. Frequently absent. Astoria doesn’t refer to him as Daddy or Father. He’s the Captain to her, like he is to everyone else.
- Adelphia Karwena Balti-Vero – Mother | Socialite. More familiar with her social calendar than with her daughter. On Astoria’s eighteenth birthday, the first words out of her mouth weren’t Happy Birthday, but rather Put some product in your hair, darling. It looks a bit dry.
- TDL-6.0 (“Nona”) – TDL/X1-Lioness Nanny Droid | The closest thing to a secure emotional attachment that Astoria has – and it’s a robot. Nona raised Astoria from birth and has stayed on in the household as the girl’s companion droid. Rarely leaves her mistress’s side and won’t hesitate to pull her concealed blaster cannons on you if necessary.
what's she like?
+ STRENGTHS:
- “Fate is for losers” | Call her Machiavellian, but Astoria never leaves success to chance. She’s a Master Manipulator and a Weaver of Webs, equal parts ruthlessness and intelligence. Her most frequent excuse for hitting the snooze button in the morning is I was up late plotting. No scheme is too wicked, nor any extreme too far, if it will get her exactly what she wants (but watch it – she’s a prim little prude and does have some scruples). Her supremely warped and sometimes quirky genius has evolved beyond taking the bull by the horns – she is the bull. Better get out of the way.
- Sunshine Barbie, or Darth Vader? | Astoria walks that line. It’s a thin one, but she makes it look easy.
- Climb, Baby, Climb | One glance at Astoria’s baby blues and you’ll be looking perfectionism square in the eyes. High-achieving, cutthroat, tenacious, and competitive, Astoria is consumed by an inherent drive to claw her way to the top of the mountain. However, it’s not enough for her to merely reach the summit – she has to get there in first place. Anything you can do, she’ll do better and probably ten times over every day for a week – just for the satisfaction of beating you at your own game.
- Slice & Dice | Imagine your surprise when you show up to meet the Master Hacker you’ve been promised, and it’s blonde-haired, blue-eyed brat. What can Astoria say? Being twisted, conniving, and meddlesome has its advantages. So does being raised by a robot. Astoria is an exceptional computer hacker and a code cracker for sport (how else do you sabotage your enemies?), but her amateur sleuthing skills suggest a future career in espionage. What was that dreadful thing you did at that party three years ago that only two people know about? Astoria probably has a file on it somewhere in her arsenal of blackmail. Oh, and be careful what you post on Spacebook – with Astoria, it just might come back to haunt you.
- Most Valuable Player | Need revenge? In a bind? Astoria is the proverbial big guns you bring in when you need something done right - she’s the girl you want on your team. Despite her Ice Princess exterior, she is fiercely protective, compassionate, and doting toward those in her inner circle. Her friends’ enemies are her enemies, so it’s wise to keep yourself squarely in the friend category. Show her you’re worth it, and she’ll show you loyalty beyond your dizziest daydreams. Just remember that trust fund babies can’t be bought with money – you’ll have to work a little harder to sway Queen A.
- Savage AF | Astoria is great in a crisis and can talk her way out of anything, usually with an assorted combination of quick wits, eyelash-fluttering, and an outlandish story she came up with on the fly and passed off as the truth. She’s breathtakingly fluent in sarcasm – her most brutal one-liners and scathing clap-backs are almost theatrical and will leave you wondering whether you should snort-laugh or curl up in the fetal position and cry.
- Class Is More Than Something You Attend | You can buy a good education and perhaps even good connections, but there’s no price tag on good breeding. Fortunately for Astoria, she has all three. Born into an established First Order family of old name and affluence, the entire world rests at her perfectly polished fingertips. Astoria is in her final year at an elite preparatory school and counts the First Order’s best and brightest as her peers. The girl has friends in high places – namely because high places are the only places she occupies.
- WEAKNESSES:
- A Girl of Extremes | Astoria is unpredictable, dramatic, and entertainingly neurotic. She often likens herself to old Holo-film starlets and enjoys pretending her life is a glamorous biopic where she’s the lead role. Wearing oversized sunglasses and staring wistfully off into the horizon while lamenting something as asinine as a broken nail is only one example of the idiosyncrasies she keeps in her repertoire of theatrics. There’s no telling what she’s going to do or how she’s going to react to anything – it’s either the end of the world as we know it, or it means nothing to her at all.
- Things Fall Apart | To Astoria, everything’s a game. The Queen Schemer rarely does anything out of the goodness of her heart or without an ulterior motive. She’s staggeringly immature and childish in this regard. Even her best-laid schemes are better described as hijinks and have a tendency to blow up in her face with comical and/or disastrous results. While she often ends up hurting those she cares about the most, no one suffers the fallout more than she does. Karma’s a real you-know-what.
- It’s Astoria’s World | You’re living in it. The girl is comically vain, a caricature of herself, and she’s not afraid to show it. Her wildly inflated conception of her own self-importance is so laughable and absurd that it might be completely harmless if it wasn’t so exasperating. The average person can likely stomach her outrageous egotism in very small doses before wanting to throttle her – but stick around long enough and it might just grow on you, a bit like a slow mold.
- “Haven’t you heard? I’m the crazy bint around here” | Despite thinking she’s better than everyone else, Astoria suffers from an inexplicable inferiority complex. She puts up a glacial front, but in reality she’s a bit of a toasty marshmallow – soft, and potentially scalding. It’s a recipe for supreme disaster, as she is deeply insecure, sensitive, paranoid, and vengeful. Threaten her throne or betray her trust and you’ll be lucky if she writes you off forever – she’s more likely to destroy you.
- Fembot? | No - Astoria is human, but her ability to form close emotional connections is extremely stunted due to absentee parents and a droid being her only example of nurturing behavior. The girl is desperate for sincerity but rejects it when it’s offered to her; she is vastly more comfortable in the shallow end of the pool. Give her flowers, jewels, and compliments, and she’s all yours. Give her your heart, and she’ll impale it with a high heel and walk away.
- Silver Spoon Syndrome | How many synonyms are there for over-privileged, dependent, and entitled? You might as well tattoo them all on Astoria’s forehead. Not only is she reliant on others to fend for her well-being, she expects as much. What’s worse is that she has no notion of self-defense and couldn’t lift a finger to protect herself if she tried (isn’t that what Nona’s blaster cannons are for?). Without her nanny droid, Astoria is a sitting duck. Can we pause to consider what girl her age still needs a nanny droid, anyway?
- Slave to Dynastic Design | From how to dress, to whom to marry, Astoria’s life has been carefully designed for her by parents who don’t really know her at all – and Astoria hasn’t protested once. She is severely limited by the ideations of success foisted upon her by society and never considers the possibility of doing things differently. Because of this, Astoria rarely has an original thought outside of her spectacularly juvenile scheming. Beneath all the bling and bravado, she’s a lonely, resentful child who feels stuck but won’t do anything to change her circumstances – all because she’s comfortable.
what's her mug?
Astoria is insufferably dainty and doll-like from head to toe:
Baby-blonde hair retains the unsullied platinum of infancy, never darkening a shade past the brilliant white-gold she was born with.
The round, slight over-protrusion of her forehead is sometimes a source of insecurity, but it complements her soft features and balances the ridiculous swell of her lips if you view her profile from the side.
Wispy eyebrows and thick lashes frame a gaze that can be interchangeably innocent or terrifying.
Her eyes are crystal blue and wickedly intelligent, but they tend to glaze over and appear rather vacant when she’s bored, which is often. She’s a masterful eye-roller – if you think she’s judging you, you’re probably right.
Snub nose is agonizingly snobbish and prim, nothing more than an upturned little button. Beneath it, her lips look veritably bee-stung – they are full, shell-colored, and shaped like a rosebud, drooping heavily downward in a perpetual pout.
When not in school uniform, only the finest and most fashionable wares drape her lissome figure. She’s a tall-ish but delicate priss of girl, with slender legs that go on for eons. If given the chance, she would look right at home on the catwalk.
what's her story?
What more is there to know? Astoria Cécile Genovese Vero was born in the early spring on Dosuun, in the heart of the First Order’s growing empire, to a venerable family of old pedigree and fortune. To no surprise, she is the only child of the revered Captain Radcliffe Vero and his social-climbing wife, Adelphia – and it’s a good thing, because they can scarcely handle one child. When Astoria, a screaming newborn with a shock of flaxen hair, was handed to her mother at the hospital, Adelphia wrinkled her nose and demanded that the nurses Do something to make her be quiet, or else Remove the strident creature. A nanny droid was requested and custom-ordered for the girl at once.
Enter TDL 6.0, a TDL/X1-Lioness Nanny Droid whom Astoria named Nona as soon as she was old enough to talk. (‘Nona’ is believed to have been Astoria’s first word, but her parents are still unclear on that – in fact, they aren’t quite sure at what age their daughter started talking. For all they know, she came out of the womb speaking perfect Huttese.) While Astoria’s father spent nearly three-quarters of each year away on business, her mother occupied herself at home with such fascinating pursuits as galas, brunches, and social clubs. In their absence, Nona more or less raised Astoria (to the extent that a robot can raise a human child). She even acted as the girl’s private tutor until Astoria was old enough to enroll in primary school – at only the most prestigious institution, of course, because don’t all six-year-olds require fluency in five languages?
From the very start, Astoria was preened, polished, and educated like a luxe thoroughbred. There were etiquette classes, dance lessons, and musical instruments; history, philosophy, art, and the sciences; teas, cotillions, debutante balls, and everything bright and beautiful in-between. Astoria received the best of the best and wanted for nothing – and yet, as the years progressed, she only seemed to grow more petulant, tyrannous, and unhappy. As she neared the cusp of adolescence, the girl needed her parents more than ever – especially her mother – and no pretty dresses or shiny baubles, nor even her darling Nona, could replace the attentiveness she craved. At twelve, she developed anorexia nervosa as a coping mechanism and spent a summer exiled in reformatory treatment until She was ready to be a big girl and stop such nonsense.
That was the turning point for Astoria – except the nonsense she stopped was pining for her parents’ attention like a sullen child. She promptly bloomed into a young woman of independence and innovation, forging her own formidable path as she entered secondary school, where she is currently in attendance at one of the First Order’s most elite preparatory academies. She’s accumulated a tight posse of friends who are nearly as over-privileged and jaded as she is, and for the first time, she’s happy. A sizable portion of that happiness is largely due to her new hobby: hacking. No, Astoria isn’t a tech geek (have you seen the girl?) – she’s a meddlesome mastermind.
What began as petty social sabotage fueled by boredom has spiraled into a lucrative underground business of advanced slicing and espionage. Partially instructed by Nona, and partially self-taught (at the expense of her ill-fated peers), Astoria’s computer hacking, code breaking, and sleuthing skills have begun to reap a reputation beyond the gilded halls of her prep school coterie. Her initial clientele included only her fellow students – revenge on an ex-boyfriend here, an exposé on a back-stabbing friend there – but lately, her catalogue of clients has become alarmingly more far-reaching and sophisticated. Most recently, she's been hired as an intern in the First Order's Security Bureau, under the supervision of Agent [member="Malcolm Denwich"]. The combination of her age, socioeconomic status, and amateur-ish training allow her to fly under the radar, which renders her services especially attractive for those at the top levels looking to get a job done without getting caught.
After all – who would ever suspect?
