Camilla Bell

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Name: Camilla Bell
Gender: Female
Age: 17
Grade: Senior
School: George Hunter High School
Hobbies and Interests: Gardening, statistics, Magic: The Gathering, classic literature, cooking, embroidery

Appearance: Camilla is a Caucasian girl with pale skin and a lanky build. She has a height of 6'1", and weighs 142 pounds. She has an oval-shaped face, with a pointed nose, thin lips, and freckles. Her eyes are round, and colored gray. Her hair is dark brown, straight, shoulder length, and usually kept in a ponytail. She usually does not convey much emotion while speaking, and often pauses to collect her thoughts in between sentences.

Camilla dresses comfortably, preferring practicality over style. She usually wears plain shirts and sweatpants, with sneakers for footwear, and sometimes a hoodie. Her wardrobe is mainly made up of whatever she and her family can afford, though she tends towards blues and grays in terms of colors. She saves her little makeup and jewelry for special occasions only.

Biography: Camilla was born with the name Camilla Myers to Jason Meyers and Maria Myers (nee Bell). Jason and Maria had met during their senior year of high school in Nashville, after Maria moved from Chattanooga. Almost immediately after graduating, they started dating, and got married little over a year later. The newlyweds then decided to move back to Chattanooga, partly because Jason wanted something new, and partly because Maria wanted to go back to her hometown. About one and a half years after their move to Chattanooga, Maria unexpectedly became pregnant. While this initially caused much anxiety with both Maria and Jason, since neither of them planned to have any children, they decided to keep the baby and start a family with some coaxing from Maria's aunt, Caroline. Even so, they decided that they would only have one child. On September 10th, Camilla was born.

Maria changed her job at the supermarket from full time to part time, not wanting to quit working entirely. Since Jason kept working full time, Camilla didn't have as close of a relationship to him as she did with her mother. However, Camilla was closest with her great-aunt, Caroline. When both her parents were working, Camilla was babysat by Caroline, who kept a garden on her porch. Once when she was four, Camilla found a Venus flytrap in the garden. When she asked Caroline about it, she explained how a flytrap eats, and allowed Camilla to feed it a fly. When her mother came to pick her up, Camilla started begging for a Venus flytrap of her own. Since Maria was unsure of young Camilla's ability to care for a flytrap, she instead got her a strawberry plant, explaining that maybe she'd get her a flytrap when she was older and more responsible. Camilla was disappointed, but still did her best to take care of the strawberries, even with Maria doing most of the work.

Once Camilla entered first grade, she again begged her parents for a Venus flytrap, since she thought she demonstrated enough responsibility by taking care of the strawberries that her mother got each year. Instead, they got her a packet of marigold seeds, feeling Camilla still wasn't quite ready. She accepted the seeds, and planted them as soon as she could. Camilla insisted on growing them with no intervention from her mother, and the plants ended up lasting 2 months. The flowers never bloomed, which left Camilla upset. Jason took the opportunity to talk to Camilla about responsibility. The lesson resonated with her, and she agreed to let her parents help the next time she tries to grow flowers.

At the start of third grade, Camilla finally got her flytrap. She was overjoyed, and proud of herself. This sense of accomplishment extends to every plant she grows, and considers ever plant grown to maturity to be a small personal victory. Over the years, her garden has grown to include other plants, like flowers, ferns, and cooking herbs. Years later, Camilla still considers the flytrap to be the centerpiece of the garden, and is still quite attached to it.

During the summer of third grade, Maria stated that she wanted to start working full time again, with Jason trying to convince her not to. The argument devolved into screaming and crying, and ended with Jason storming out of the house. After the argument, when Camilla was nine, Maria filed for divorce. After a lengthy legal battle, Maria won full custody over Camilla and Jason moved back to Nashville. Shortly after, Maria and Camilla changed their last names to Bell. Camilla is still in touch with Jason, and they talk about once a month.

Camilla had long suspected that there was something wrong with her parent's marriage, but was convinced they would eventually make up. She held onto that belief throughout the divorce, and only let go of it once Jason moved out. At that point, Camilla started to worry about her own part in the divorce, and wondered whether or not she was part of the reason her parents separated. Over time, Camilla let go of much of her self-blame, instead placing it on her mother. She thinks that Maria's moodiness and neurotic tendencies caused conflict within the marriage, and eventually ended it. This created a lot of one-sided resentment on Camilla's end against her mother, which Maria is unaware of. However, as Camilla realizes she has picked up her mother's habits, she has recently started wondering again about her part in the separation.

It was around the time of the divorce when Camilla discovered classic literature. To try and cheer her up, Caroline sent her some of her old books. They were classics such as Wuthering Heights, 1984, and The Picture of Dorian Gray. Camilla found those books to be a comfort, and started seeking out more books like them. She continues to read such books because she feel the fact that the timeless quality of their messages and commentary are worth reading and admiring. Most of the classic literature she reads are social commentaries of various kinds, such as the works of George Orwell, because she feels that their messages are especially important.

During fifth grade, Maria started teaching Camilla how to cook and sew, thinking that it would help her later on in life. While Camilla did not have much interest in sewing at first, she immediately took a liking to cooking. She feels that it's an especially rewarding activity, because one gets to eat what they cook. Most of the time, Camilla prefers to cook more simple meals over more elaborate dishes. Her interest in cooking lead her to start growing her own herbs to use. When she does use these herbs, she likes to highlight the fact that she grew them herself to whoever she's presenting her meal to.

When Camilla was in middle school, she started to take her academics more seriously, and withdrew from most social activities at school. As her own way of compensating, she started to used social media extensively. It was through a sewing artist's Tumblr blog that Camilla discovered embroidery at the age of 11. This caused her to take more of an interest in sewing, since she wanted to emulate the designs she found on the blog. While she sews often, she is quite self-conscious about her designs, and feels they aren't good enough to show to other people. As a result, few people outside her family know about her embroidery hobby.

When Camilla entered high school, Maria insisted she use social media less and make more friends at school. It was at this time when Camilla discovered Magic: The Gathering, through one of her new friends. She enjoys the strategy elements of the game, and likes how the rules and mechanics tie into the story. While she's part of the MTG club at school, she considers herself just a casual player of the game.

Camilla still takes academics very seriously, especially since she's about to enter university. She's been accepted to the University of Tennessee for their Entomology program, and plans to move to Knoxville to be closer to it in the near future. She wants to start living on her own as soon as possible, because she wants control over her own life and feels she hasn't been given enough.

Camilla is very much a perfectionist, and driven by the desire to do everything she does as flawlessly as possible. Thanks to this, along with her attentiveness and attention to detail, she gets very high grades, in range of As and high Bs. However, her need for perfection feeds into the neurotic tendencies she's picked up from her mother, causing her to constantly re-check all of her work, and worry about its quality so much that she never actually does anything with what she creates. In her eyes, something is better off unfinished rather than flawed.

This desire for perfection extends her relationships with others. Camilla constantly worries about what other people think about her, and because of that she chooses her words and actions very carefully. Half of the time though, she's too worried about messing up in front of others she simply doesn't act or speak. However, she's been trying to be more social. While she's asexual and aromantic, she still desires close friendships with people she feels  can just relax and be herself around. She has yet to find such people, though.

Advantages: Camilla is quite observant, and checks everything twice. She has a good knowledge of plants that are usually grown by gardeners and their useful properties.
Disadvantages: In tough situations, she tends to freeze up rather than act, because she's afraid of messing up. In addition, while she's outwardly willing to join alliances under someone else's leadership, she secretly resents not having control, which could lead her to act out eventually.