#psumariela

[privmu]

MARIELA "MARI" JULIANA INES LOPEZ

AGE: 33

BIRTHDAY: November 17th, 1991

RELATION: Half sibling

TYPE: Solo

GENDER: Cis woman

PRONOUNS: She/Her

ORIENTATION(S): Fluid

FACE CLAIM: Adria Arjona

JOB/SCHOOL

JOB: Events Management Professor at PSU

ALUMNI?: Alumni

ABOUT

A single mother to two children in her early thirties was absolutely not where Mariela Lopez ever saw herself in a million years, nor is she necessarily pleased about the fact now. Mari adores her children and couldn’t imagine life without them, but given the chance of a do-over, she’d be lying if she said she wouldn’t have waited at least another ten years to have them. Raised by a strong, independent single mother herself, Mari never judged her mother’s choices, but would she have liked to have been married before popping out children herself? Definitely. That wasn’t the hand she was dealt, though, and despite Maribel being praised for raising her children singlehandedly, Mari certainly doesn’t let the same define her.

A resident of London, England, Mari’s father tried to be in the picture for a little while, but perhaps because of the distance, he became less interested in parenting as the years went on, and by the time she’d reached her teens, Mari was lucky if she even received a birthday card each year. While she will, to this day, say his absence doesn’t matter to her, it did secretly foster in her a sense of feeling not quite good enough, so Mari has always been very guarded with her heart and those she lets close to her. Despite a level of Lopez-inherited snark, she really will befriend almost anyone unless given reason not to, but whether she’ll trust them or not is an entirely different story.

The spotlight was never really Mari’s thing. She didn’t hate it, but she didn’t crave it—it was always something that was just there thanks to her parentage. She had no desire to pursue a career in the spotlight herself, though. Fortunately, pretty, popular and Valedictorian, Mari had her pick of prospective career paths, and decided during her sophomore year of high school that she was going to capitalize on her ability to organize, order and plan everything to a T. Having attended plenty of events throughout her life with her mother, the intricacies of event planning caught her attention, so Mari enrolled at PSU to study events management, where she thrived the same way she had in high school.

It was during her time at PSU that she met the man who would go on to become the father of her children. Both in the same field, both with a strong sexual attraction to one another despite the way they butted heads, Mari and Ezra embarked on a years’ long on again-off again relationship, accidentally producing two daughters along the way. Even after the birth of their first child, now-4-year-old Lucie, the two remained very on and off, but co-parented well. When Mari fell pregnant with now-2-year-old Poppy, however, Ezra decided to pop the question. Whether it was due to pregnancy hormones or that desire for a traditional family structure, Mari said yes, though she knew deep down that she didn’t love Ezra. She wasn’t sure she’d ever loved him, in fact.

Both successful in their careers, they chose not to rush their engagement, and Mari continued to enjoy her job as Events Planner for her alma mater. When it came time to eventually plan the wedding, though, they were back to butting heads, the way they had in college—the way that’d stopped them from ever going into business together. There were certain things Mari wanted, but she was by no means a bridezilla. Ezra, on the other hand? Total groomzilla. That wasn’t the only reason Mari left him at the altar, though… She loved him as the father of her children, but Mari still wasn't in love with him, though that was impossible to communicate to him amidst his flurry of panic and planning.

The day of their wedding, their guests waiting in their seats and Ezra at the altar, instead of joining them at the venue, Mari quit her job, took her daughters and hopped on a flight to England, where she has remained for the last three months, reuniting with distant family members from her father’s side and essentially hiding from the life she left behind. Mari isn’t a monster, of course; she knew she couldn’t just abandon her home forever, especially with the children she shared with Ezra who truly was a wonderful father, so following a phone call from PSU, explaining their Events Management professor was a dud and begging her to take the position, Mari took it as a sign to finally go home.

Now, part-way into the semester and three months since seeing her ex-fiancé, Mari is back in Los Angeles to reunite the girls with their father, and to take up her new professor position—while facing the consequences of her actions alongside.