FAQ / Cheat Sheet
Name: Moira Mercia-Ward (AKA: Mo-Mo, Sweater Girl)
Species: Human (w/ Alpha Gene)
Playbook: Scion
Alpha Ability: Thread-Kinesis
Pronouns: She/Her
Age: 15 (Currently 2021 in-game)
DOB: June 24, 2005 (Cancer Sun, Pisces Moon, Virgo Rising)
Height: 5'4"
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown / Black and gold on power-activation
Sexuality: Pansexual
Mother: Malena Mercia (Greek)
Father: Winston Ward (Black)
Other Relatives: Melita Mercia (Aunt)
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Who is this character? This is Moira Mercia-Ward, a first year (sophomore) at Alpha King Academy! She was part of an accidental late admission group with her four best friends, Achara Singhaboon, Colt Arvidsson, Diarmuid O'Ceallaigh, and Will Smalls. Later they met Kid Condor, and the six of them were dragged into an intensely dangerous mystery revolving around a fellow student murdered in his dorm room.
FASCINATING, I WISH TO KNOW EVERYTHING! Oof. That's a tall ask. This game spanned nearly 2 years and a lot happened, most of our sessions were 12+ hours, weekend-long affairs. I'm happy to share specifics via the ask function, but I'm afraid a novelization is out of the question. |D
What is Moira's Alpha ability (power)? Mastermind and I call it "Thread Kinesis"--basically thread-movement. Moira often wears sweaters or clothing with laces, she can unravel/unlace these things and use them to constrict opponents, cushion blows, rappel and swing, grab objects, etc. as long as she's in physical contact with what she's controlling. More recently Will Smalls developed a set of twelve magnetic metal plates with holes, to allow Moira to weave her own shields and plate metal. Or create pretty vicious swinging-mace weaponry. Robots beware......
Dang that sounds wild. Can she only control yarn and laces? For the moment, that's what she can control most easily. During the endgame, she was able to control wires for a moment but it created great physical strain. Someday she may be on the same level as her mother (she's able to control wires as well as clothing without being in physical contact, making it unsettlingly easy for her to restrain and constrict anyone who happens to be, you know, dressed).
Why the hyphenated last name? I'm so glad you asked... Moira is the only daughter of Winston Ward and Malena Mercia. Malena happens to have the same power as Moira, in fact this power has passed itself along the female offspring for generations (Malena will say that they're descended from the Moirae, the Fates, themselves, though Moira is extremely skeptical for obvious reasons). Both of her parents being progressive, Moira's last name was hyphenated to "preserve" the Mercia name.
Moira's mom sounds a little intense... Is she okay? Absolutely not. Malena Mercia was an activist for a time, but her methods became more and more extreme until she was classified as a villain. She called herself "Filanesse" as a kind of bitter joke-- if she was going to be villainized for simply doing what had to be done to hold bad people responsible, she would gladly take up the mantle of a 'villainess' (Fil, filament, look I'm very symmetrical it's fine). Eventually when Moira was 10, Malena was defeated by Thunder Solomon (leader of The Vanguard, a prominent superhero team) and arrested for various vigilante-villain activity and killing a security guard. Malena was sent to Alpha Max-- maximum security for people with Alpha abilities-- for a long time. Moira visited for a few years when she still didn't quite understand the extent of what had happened, but eventually asked Winston if she could stay home when he visited Malena. Moira's confusion and grief turned into anger over being essentially abandoned because her mother killed someone using their power. Teenagers, right?
Dang! So has Moira seen her since she stopped visiting the prison? You think she managed to keep that bit of her traumatic history private for two years of gameplay? HA! The trail of the dead student led back to Malena, so Moira had to visit her in Alpha Max. The first time was an emotional disaster, Moira running out of the prison after the visit having a full-blown panic attack. The second time she went, there was a prison break and Malena escaped to join the Big Bad Evil Guy in their plot. Malena kept reappearing and trying to get Moira to come to her side, but Moira was still simultaneously furious and pleading with her mother to just take responsibility for what she'd done and go back to prison. It didn't go over well. At the end of the season, Malena nearly killed Moira and her sister Melita in a blind rage and disappeared when she realized how far she'd gone.
...She has a sister? A twin sister in fact! Melita Mercia, who helped raise Moira. Melita is the youngest and participated in the Filanesse-identity, using her power in tandem with Malena's to make the villain seem even more formidable and powerful. It also helped them evade capture by authorities for a time, Filanesse always seemed to be able to outmaneuver whoever was chasing her, be wherever she needed to be in a moment. The three of them, Melita, Malena, and Moira, spent most of Moira's childhood together, raising her to feel strong and proud in her femininity. They were their own 'coven', for lack of a better word, and when Malena was arrested Melita disappeared, leaving Moira without her support network.
What about Winston though? Winston is a great dad! He's a public defender and works hard to support Moira with his single income. Which means often he wasn't around when Moira got home from school and often came home to eat, sleep, and change his clothes. He's a very supportive parent and wants to protect Moira from everything-- sometimes even from her own and his own feelings. They didn't really discuss Malena's arrest, and so their house was fairly quiet, dark, and sad from the tension and forced-cheerleading on Winston's part. He absolutely did his best, but Moira's life had a huge crater in it where her support network used to be. It's a tall task to fill it when you're already burning the candle at both ends and in the middle to make ends meet.
What's Moira like at school? In the beginning, Moira was very guarded and reserved. The Alpha Identity Protection Act (AIPA) is supposed to seal names and records of active superheroes and villains so their families don't get caught up in their personas, however many heroes still have access to that information. Moira spent the first few months guarding the fact that her mother is a convicted villain with everything she had in her, and it made her seem quiet, awkward, constantly nervous, and blank. In reality so much of her was caught up in her parentage, in the fear that she would someday lose her sanity and kill someone with her power like her mother did, that she stopped moving forward and growing. Pain was comfortable and familiar, building a new self that was separate from Malena and Melita was new and scary--so she didn't do it until the events of the game more or less forced her to confront the realities of her situation and start developing again. She's highly artistically-minded (she has a tree on campus that she regularly yarn-bombs to work out her feelings), she's practical while still being subject to emotional swings and panic attacks, she's highly protective to the point where she's thrown herself in front of real physical harm to protect her friends thinking 'I guess I'm just going to get hurt, this is how it goes'. She gets a little sarcastic if she feels unheard, inconvenienced, or taken advantage of, lightly gives her friends shit when she senses buffoonery, is highly sensitive to how people might be feeling even if she doesn't always know what to say, and is absolutely not above tying the school bully's shoelaces together under the lunch table if he's picking on her friend. As a random, non-specific example......... 8D
(I'm sorry you guys, if you're here, you're going to have to deal with my dumb shipping-- Moira tied Hunter Solomon's shoelaces together when he started picking on Will. Yes, Hunter, the son of Thunder Solomon, the woman who brought Malena down. This shit just writes itself, it's not my fault.)
How does she feel about her friends? Well she very nearly died fighting alongside them, they've absolutely become her new support network. Not the same as what she had with Malena and Melita, but enough for her to feel loved and free to explore the person she's becoming. She's probably closest with Will and Diarmuid, who both really supported her through her identity and mental health journeys. She has great admiration for Kid Condor, and a massive crush on him (he was the first who found out who her mother was and opened up to her about his own less-than-stellar childhood parentage). Achara is her roommate, and while Moira is organizing her scrapbooking supplies Achara is staying up all night playing video games. They couldn't be more different and that initially gave Moira serious pause, but their relationship is growing. Moira and Colt still don't see eye-to-eye, the two of them seem to keep missing each other. However Moira would absolutely have his back in any situation, just because they aren't best buddies doesn't mean she doesn't want what's fair and good for him.
What about a special someone, eh ehhhh?? Currently Moira is building a potential relationship with a second year named Xiomara. She was asked to the Winter Formal by Xiomara and spent most of her time worrying and feeling like she was leading her on by not telling Xiomara who her mother was. She sees what her mother did to Winston's life and doesn't want to do that to a partner. Feelings that are actually reciprocated have been on a very far back burner while dealing with everything else in her life, but she's starting to unclench and give things an honest chance.
So Moira likes boys AND girls? She likes everybody if given half an excuse. She's a little stunted now, but I imagine when she gets to college she goes pretty partner-wild.
OTP? Moira's got two hands and a lot of thread she can use to hold onto many things. I'm just saying.
What are her major themes in-game? Mental health, the power in what's traditionally thought of as 'feminine', moving past childhood trauma, finding the artist in the pragmatist, embracing parts of yourself you initially want to reject, finding greater purpose and courage when it's easier to just hide, finding your own definition of heroism, nobody is inherently "good" or "bad"-- they make choices that shape them.
Can I draw her?? I would LOVE IT. I wouldn't like anything with any intense depictions of violence/torture/sex, she's a kid after all, but I'm guilty of aging her up to write post-AKA fics so just use some good judgment I guess? She's my precious baby after all, handle with care. <3 (I say, as someone who gave her villainous heritage, mental health issues, and an unstable power...)
I really wish this was a TV show! Hey same! But it's great that our anonymous animator is making our kids move and we've gotta be happy with that! <3 Especially since adapting a 2-year-long tabletop game that means so much to us personally into some 10-episode studio-sterilized thing would be stomach-turning. Maybe one of us should work on marrying a billionaire who mysteriously falls down the stairs.
I have a question that's not here and I'm absolutely dying to know-- You can totally hit the asks! I love chattering away about this to anybody who will listen~
