THE BELLWETHER // Nadia Ives. Unaligned human, Ford supermodel. Born in 1988. Living at the Easton, Apt. 08B.
“I want to know how you can grow bigger. Don't go looking for some kind of rescue, you are the only one who can save you. We are more than our scars, more than the sum of our parts.” —Mary Lambert, Sum of Our Parts.
KNOWN TRAITS // Elegant, savvy, defiant, perseverant, unravelling.
Work as an escape from life. Airfare to take you away from skin that smells like moth balls and drug store cologne. Hair on the ground. Helplessness and sacrifice. Doing what you can and running when you can’t. Milan, Paris, London, Tokyo. Vicuna and spider silk hemlines. Pearls that take decades to make draped around your neck. Housefire heavy breathing, ash under your fingernails. Unthinkable choices. Around the world doesn’t change your world.
History
⇢ Trigger warnings: cancer, death, housefire mentions.
Nadia Ives was born the younger sister of Kevin Ives, who now insists on being called Forest. Nadia grew up in a stable, two-parent household in Astoria, Queens. Her father worked in construction and her mother was a fashion designer. In a modern turn on an old tale, it was her mother who was the breadwinner, with a higher salary than her husband. She worked for DKNY and travelled often to look over fabrics and factories. Nadia’s father was proud of his wife and proud to help raise the children, doing the cooking and helping with homework. Nadia admired her mother, clinging to her slacks whenever she was home, looking over the fashion sketches and playing with any fabrics swatches she could. A young Nadia enjoyed creating “monsters” with these swatches, while an older Nadia learned to hand-sew them to her Barbie dolls. She always knew she wanted a life like her mother’s—free to travel the world and have experiences, able to come back to a home she loved. Nadia was certain she wanted to become a model, doing faux-runway shows down the hallway for her fourteenth birthday party. By 16, she was signed to a modeling agency. Her older brother made it to her first show, even though he was busy with college and firefighting. Nadia had a close relationship with her family, and, for awhile, their lives were normal.
This changed when Nadia’s father’s chainsmoking habit reared its head and the outcome was a cancer diagnosis in 2010. A gloom hung over the entire family. Kevin moved back home and started giving all of his extra salary to the medical expenses, which prompted Nadia to do the same. She didn’t want to give up on her dreams though—and her father gave his blessings to continue, wouldn’t have her wait by his bedside. All the same, Nadia came home when she could, even as her career took off and she got signed with Ford, becoming one of the top names in the business. Sometimes, it was what kept her sane—somewhere to go that wasn’t home, especially as Kevin became less and less present. It was like he was making Nadia and her mother take care of everything and it felt suffocating. He didn’t even show up to work, as far as Nadia knew, in late 2015. And when their father finally passed in January 2016, he was nowhere to be found. She had to plan the funeral and make all the arrangements herself, even though she was in the middle of prepping for next month’s Fashion Week. It was almost unforgivable. But what was worse was when her firefighter big brother not only didn’t show up when her apartment caught fire in April, but didn’t even check in on her. It was just Nadia in the hospital’s burn ward, face in gauze, hand held by a new widow.
Occupation
Supermodel.
Nadia is a highly paid fashion model with a worldwide reputation and a background in haute couture and commercial modeling, signed with IMG at 16 and then Ford in 2011. Becoming badly scarred in 2016 was awful; she was aging past prime and couldn’t afford to lose time in the limelight—but couldn’t model with a scarred face. Desperation helped her find the Rookery, where she’s now a regular user of the expensive, elusive elixir #99.
Connections
Forest: Nadia hates referring to Kevin as Forest. She has her theories now about the name, but still harbours a lot of resentment for how he went missing just when she needed him: during the funeral and during the fire. Now he reappears like normal, lecturing her on what she does at night, trying to play big brother? Fuck off.
Larkspur: The person who introduced her to the Rookery, Nadia learned what she knows about the fey from Larkspur—just enough to matter, enough to get her into the back room of the Rookery for elixirs. She and Larkspur have become very close friends, partying together whenever Nadia has a spare moment for escapism.
Frost: Nadia’s Runner, an enabler who gets Nadia her precious elixir #99—though nothing else, because Frost knows Nadia hangs out with Larkspur and that Runners are banned from providing Lark with any elixirs. Frost has told Nadia she’s not supposed to mix and match... but Nadia’s almost always taking #99.
PLAYLIST 1. When I Grow Up // 2. Hopeless Wanderer // 3. Sum of Our Parts
Nadia is portrayed by Lily Collins. The faceclaim is NEGOTIABLE. Nadia is currently TAKEN by Ange and not available for application.
