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Name: Ramona Therese Bartelucci

Age: 17

Gender: Female

Type: Dreamer

Appearance:

Ramona doesn't share much in common with her extended family as far as looks go. She's a lovely girl full of soft expressions that stretch from her green eyes to the gentle, uncertain smiles she only ever seems to share when she's figured something out. Moving with a particular lightness to her step, Ramona's got a subconscious tendency towards silence in her movements, though she still attracts attention with her cluelessness as to the fashion of the moment. Her clothes may be expensive, but they're also dated and unflattering. She tends to avoid overt amounts of jewelry, though the bit or two she wears (a ring of her mother's and a pendant of Saint Pulcheria) are utterly extravagant.

Personality:

Her first impression might be that Ramona simply doesn't have a personality, or perhaps that she's touched in the head or slow. When she speaks it's in an even tone, and limited to obvious facts, spoken with a clinical observation or the progressive care of a researcher explaining their findings. Ramona is difficult to read or predict in her expressions, given that her most frequent one is a wide-eyed stare that seems to strain towards capturing every detail. Plenty of people find her rude or even jarring, given how often Ramona will apparently break focus from dealing with others to jot out notes in a small notepad she's never without.

The simple truth is that Ramona speak so little because she's always thinking, always puzzling over details of people she meets, trying to study them and understand why they do what they do. She doesn't understand social cues or the concept of a hierarchy, because she's only ever known a life where she was at the top of it. She adapts quickly, though, always working to adjust her theories and theses to incorporate new observations.

Sexuality:

Heterosexual

City History:

Ramona is the gem in Papa Bartelucci's crown, plain and simple. She's not his only child, but she's absolutely his favorite. Raised without really knowing her mother, or the (different) mothers of her siblings, Ramona still never lacked a female influence in her life. The problem, of course, is that none of them were particularly motherly. Ramona was brought up by an army of tutors and instructors, schooled to the finest degree that money could buy for a single hope her father held dear: legitimacy in the city.

He wanted what the Walkers have; children who the city would embrace as treasured members of society, whose words could encourage or discourage social trends and public concerns. Sadly for old man Bartelucci, most of his children seemed to share more traits with him than with their mothers. Ramona alone was the one who lacked the viciousness, the erratic behavior, the willingness to blow up a problem instead of work around it. To that end, her father devoted as much of his fortune as needed to shape his daughter as she grew, hoping to produce an educated woman who could not only command respect, but some day marry into a position of real power and legitimacy in the city.

The problem, as it was for some Walkers, was that the job worked too well. Raised without social interaction beyond her own family, and having utterly nothing in common with them, Ramona grew up insular to a fault. She never learned the social cues that come instinctively to most people, and any that should have come naturally were forced out to make room for chemical compositions, nuanced languages, or the proper way to coax music from her Stradivarius. Ramona knew there was something different about her, though, and with age there came a desire to learn what it was.

It was curiosity, plain and simple, not confidence in herself or longing for kids her own age; Ramona saw this as an enigma that she could crack with observation, research, and deduction. Being that she'd nearly reached an age where she could claim independence, and with her father refusing to consider college, he's grudgingly started to give her freedom to venture into the city on her own, and even allowed her to enroll in public schools to obtain an official diploma, though it's a rare day when she doesn't have an overseer shadowing her.

Special Skills and Abilities:

Ramona's extremely well-educated in hard sciences, on the level of collegiate students several years older than her. She's a virtuoso when playing violin, and at her father's insistence, Ramona has learned both Italian and Russian. Though she finds it odd, she's also listened to his urgings to learn a great deal of religious history, focusing on Catholicism. Her analytical mind gives her an edge in games of strategy, though it's a skill she seldom gets to use.

Weaknesses:

Sheltered - Ramona has absolutely no idea just how bad it can be out in the city, from the homeless population to the corruption of the police and politicians to her own family's blood-soaked and bomb-charred dealings. She's learned little bits about the real world from going to public school, but the vast majority of how the world works is wrapped up in one big surprise that isn't going to be pleasant for her.
Detached - The formative years when most people learned how to interact with each other were very different for Ramona, and while she had human contact, it was a stricter sort. Empathy doesn't come easy for her because of this, not to mention the fact that she's never really had any hardships of her own, and subsequently doesn't know how to react when someone else has them. The rare times when someone has upset Ramona? She knows bad things happen to them at the hands of her father's men, but in her mind, it's completely deserved.
Spoiled - She's as far from bratty as is possible, but Ramona has never wanted for anything in her life. This ranges from firing tutors for not specializing in minutiae she wants to learn to needing five different incredibly expensive violins for the slightest difference in sound to refusing the simplest demands until she gets that rare copy of a Cyrillic bible that she's been asking for. A seemingly endless fortune and a doting father have combined to give her the farthest thing from practicality possible.
Trained - Sure, there's bits of her that have begun to strive for the smallest shows of independence, but by and large Ramona is still a creature of habit. Specifically, the habits her fathers has instilled in her. Whether it's the twice-weekly visits to St. Peter's or the strict expectation that she'll be home for dinner at the same time every night, Ramona seldom has reason to question these rules. They're her life, they always have been, and in her subconscious? They always will be.

Strengths:

Objective - If there's an advantage to her utter lack of empathy or social norms, it's apparent when Ramona is faced with a problem. Free of the confines of emotional attachment, courtesy towards others, or embarassment over how they might react, Ramona excels at critical thinking and any opportunity to work in problem solving. Conversely, she's not afraid to admit when she can't crack a problem, or to ask for help, because there's never been room for ego to take root.
Brilliant - The expensive teachers have gone a long way, yes, but just as much of their progress is due solely to Ramona. She's never had to hinder herself in the name of gender roles, never been pinned down by a public school system before now, and her mind has flourished as a result. Ramona's command of her fields of study is truly daunting, and she lacks anything resembling hesitation when she sees an opportunity to either expand her knowledge or leverage it.

Residence:

Mansion on the outskirts of town

Career:

Amateur chemist, student

PB: Emily Browning