"You disturb me. And your theory on this murder disturbs me. And you disturb me."
BASICS
NAME: O'hara
GENDER: Female
PRONOUNS: She/Her/Hers
ORIENTATION: Straight
BIRTHDATE: Early Summer 2745
AGE: 31 as of Late Summer 2776
LOCATION: High Reaches Weyr
OCCUPATION: Rider
WING: Sunburst Squad
APPEARANCE
EYES: Blue
HAIR: Blonde
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 5'8", average
PLAY-BY: Maggie Lawson
EXPY SOURCE: Juliet O'Hara (Psych)
FULL APPEARANCE:
O'hara is a woman of a little over average height and approximately average build. She has fair skin, slightly wavy blonde hair that she keeps cut to a little shorter than shoulder-length for the sake of practicality, and wide blue eyes. Her face is somewhat diamond-shaped, with prominent cheekbones but a soft chin. Her voice is on the higher-pitched side, almost girlish-sounding sometimes despite clearly being past her actual girlhood.
She tends to dress a little more formally than the situation often calls for, but she has a love of "girly" clothing as well. When given the opportunity to dress up, she's all about lace and ruffles and frills. A very little lace, at least; it's quite expensive, after all.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY:
O'hara is a woman who thinks she has a lot to prove, despite any evidence to the contrary. She's determined to be the absolute best that she can possibly be, convinced that because women haven't historically ridden bronze, everyone assumes that she's bound to fail. She's extremely ambitious, with her eyes on a political position even if she won't be considered as a squadleader due to being a rider and not a wherhandler. She is outspoken in defense of women having an equal place in all matters, and is arrogant enough to assume that she speaks for all women when she says that no woman wants to just settle down and be a mother when there are so many more important adventures to have in life. She considers more traditionalist women who don't believe that women should ride bronze to be traitors to their sex.
She's highly competitive, never one to back down from any sort of challenge no matter how petty. While she won't quite stoop to cheating to win, she will stop at almost nothing else and in a physical competition can get extremely aggressive to the point of disregarding harm she might do to others or herself. When set a task to complete she's just as determined to do it to the best of her abilities; she's both competent even under pressure and a bit of a perfectionist. She holds herself to extremely high standards.
Though she says she likes stability, in some ways O'hara actually thrives on chaos. She seems to be most in her element when everything is falling apart around her; failed relationships only seem to drive her on rather than getting her down. Her taste in men tends toward those who are less reliable, which has definitely come back to bite her before.
Despite being all about business when she has a job to do, in her free time O'hara is a cheerful and bubbly woman. She's kind and empathetic when she doesn't let her workaholic tendencies get in the way, and can often go out of her way to talk to people. She's forgiving of most personal failings in others save one: dishonesty. She places an extremely high value on honesty, and once she's learned that she's been lied to her trust can be extremely difficult to regain--if it ever can be. She still hasn't forgiven her father for telling her that some fictional songs were true, and it's been Turns since then.
HISTORY
FAMILY:
Mother, Marye
Father, Fralloy, Harper
Older brother, Romino (2740)
Older brother, Ewan (2742)
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: None
BIRTHPLACE: Mid-sized hold in Igen territory
HISTORY:
Onahara was the youngest of three children, the sole daughter of a Harper and his wife. She grew up a bit of a tomboy with a family who loved her and who she loved in return. She loved to listen to her father's stories, especially the more fantastical ones that he assured her were true no matter how unlikely they sounded. Her sole source of dissatisfaction was how often her parents talked about the idea that her older brothers might one day be Searched and become bronzeriders, but they never once suggested that she might ride gold--she just wasn't "womanly enough". Still, it was an idle dream at best; they all knew their prospects of ever being Searched were low.
She was fifteen when the dreamed-of Searchrider came. Not only was Onahara Searched, but so were both of her brothers. Their parents were equal parts thrilled and distraught over all three of their children leaving at once, but in the end all three did accept the chance to go to the Weyr. They'd be together, all three of them! Not for long though as it turned out, as both Romino and Ewan Impressed only a few sevendays after arriving at the Weyr, leaving Onahara alone as a Candidate. Well, as unfair as that was, she was determined to one-up them both by Impressing a gold.
While waiting on another Hatching, she found that some of the other Candidates were laughing behind her back at things her father had told her were true and that she had repeated thinking they were completely factual. That dragons could move rocks with their minds, that Smiths had made a chair that could allow people to fly to the Red Star, that there were boats that could speak, that there were fish that were just as smart as dragons and could talk to them, that once a wher had laid dragon eggs. A little piece of her trust died that day, and she never did forgive her father for not just telling her that his stories were nothing more than fiction.
It only took a bit over a Turn before a very large egg hatched a bronze with oddly crumpled-looking wings. He was extremely no-nonsense, marched straight up to her, stared her up and down, and said that she would do. Lassith was not the gold she had hoped for, but he was plenty good enough for O'hara, who despite knowing that women had begun Impressing to bronzes, had never considered it to be something that could happen to her. On closer inspection of Lassith's wings, he appeared to be missing most of the bones beyond the second joint, leaving him with only one line of bone on the leading edge of the wing.
As the pair proceeded through Weyrlinghood, there were definitely some growing pains. O'hara became--perhaps understandably--very touchy about any comment anyone made about either women who rode bronze or Lassith's wings. There was some uncertainty about his ability to fly at all, and while he did fail in their first lessons, he did eventually manage to fly. In fact, he flew quite well, achieving a speed and agility that were unexpected for his size. Unfortunately, he couldn't maintain powered flight for very long, and upon graduating they were obliged to join the ground crew.
With the ground crew, they found stability. The Turns passed with little change. Threadfall came and went, but the pair was lucky enough to consistently make it through without any serious harm to either of them. Life was good. O'hara had a series of flings, but no relationships that got particularly serious, admittedly usually because she tended to get nervous that they'd demand she become nothing more than a mother and ended things before they could really go anywhere. Over the Turns though, the pair started to grow frustrated with the status quo. They were both ambitious and wanted opportunities to advance, but knew they couldn't get them at Igen--teaching wasn't in O'hara's wheelhouse, a rider was extremely unlikely to be made a squad leader over mostly whers, and Lassith lacked the stamina to successfully chase a gold.
Eventually, patience ran thin. O'hara wanted to be more than she could ever be at Igen, and she'd heard that things at High Reaches ran differently. More democratically. It was a place where a woman who had proven herself a more than capable bronzerider could become Weyrleader even if her dragon couldn't fly Thread or catch a gold. And so they transferred.
