Bella Elizabeth Armani

The character and page **Bella Elizabeth Armani** were created by Essie. If you'd like to discuss this character or make edits on the page, please reach out!

TW for ab\*sive relationships & manipulation.

### Relatives

Related to the whole of the Armani family by marriage. She is the daughter of two (deceased) wealthy landowners, so she has a few cousins but she hasn't been in contact with them since before her marriage.

## Biographical information

### Marital status

Bella is legally married to Rowan Armani, but the two had an unhappy marriage and decided to separate in their personal lives. They still, for publicity, present themselves as a happily married couple.

## Appearances

### Appears in

First roleplay, second roleplay, third roleplayDifferent versions of Bella's character have appeared in the past two roleplays, but they were not solidified, developed variants, and therefore I don't really count them as canon- the Bella Armani that appears in the current/third roleplay is the official, canon version of Bella.

### Debut

First roleplay (see 'appears in' for more info)

## Appearance

Standing at a relatively average height of 5’5, Bella has light skin and a controlled mess of long/medium-length gray hair, previously brown, which she keeps pinned and tucked up into a tight updo. She has bangs and little loose ends around her ears, and occasionally wears some sort of hat or headband or other hair accessory to push back some of those ends.

Bella typically wears plain but *very* nice and custom-made dresses. She doesn’t care much for fashion aside from that she would prefer to look clean and put-together, really. With that said, she does have new dresses made a few times per year to keep up with changing styles (interestingly, with her being such high nobility, this means that she herself has set a few trends- though she mostly leaves that to younger and even higher-up nobles/the royal family). Her closet consists mostly of dresses with long skirts and essentially the same style, with things like fabrics, necklines, sleeves, and trims setting them apart.

Bella’s natural resting face can look somewhat irritated and/or judgemental, which matches with her personality, honestly. She has a diamond/triangle shape face and pretty defined features, such as her nose and jaw. She has kinda teal-blue eyes, and thick-ish eyebrows. As far as makeup goes, she doesn't do much other than a light amount of lip color and stuff to kinda smooth the appearance of her skin. If she has an event to go to she'll have her lady-in-waiting do something a little more elegant.

Her expression is often hard to read, something she’s practiced strategically since she was young so that people wouldn’t be able to easily tell what she’s thinking.

She tries hard to present herself as the perfect noble; you won’t often see her with bad posture or sitting in an "unflattering position"- think the British royal family and how they aren't supposed to cross their legs, only their ankles, and that kind of stuff.

## Personality

As with most people, Bella's personality will be very different depending on who she's speaking with, whether other people are around, and what the topic is- but to put it simply, Bella cares *deeply* about reputation, and that's the stem of a lot of her personality traits.

In public, Bella paints herself and her family to be the ideal noble family. Whatever the public sees of her and her husband or her children, she makes sure it's good. She has impeccable manners and is very polite, and she always watches her and her family's every word and move. She's extremely careful not to make anyone in her family or fellow nobility look bad, and has a plan for the majority of possible situations- whether that's a newspaper reporter randomly questioning her, someone asking her opinion on a recent political decision, or one of her children "acting out", it's pretty likely that Bella has a response already planned out in her head.

In private, Bella is controlling, judgemental, and, let's face it- ab\*s\*ve. This also stems from her obsession with public image- getting your entire family to not say something that could be taken out of context by the media doesn't just come naturally. Bella controls pretty much every aspect of her children's careers, with somewhat of an exception being her two oldest, Edelweiss and Levi. She believes that without her guidance and control, her children's careers will fail. She has always been a controlling parent- even since Edelweiss was young, and even when she had somewhat of a special bond with Levi- she was always hard on them. She rarely played with them or showed them the affection and care they needed- and when she did it was more of a reward than something her kids expected. She expected them to be perfectly behaved and do pretty much anything she asked of them. Bella, although a huge force in her kids' lives, never exactly raised them- most of the time they were left with a tutor or a hired caretaker- or, on occasion, with their father. Bella did spend a lot more time with Edelweiss and Levi when they were young, but handed Adri and (especially) Carmine off to other people as she got busier planning out careers. When she did spend time with her kids, it was mostly to pass on information and lessons in how to be the perfect noble.

The "perfect noble" reputation Bella has built for her family isn't true, however. Bella has a lot of insecurities, actually. She's privately terrified to be seen as anything other than perfect, though she doesn't tell anyone- she was taught, even when she first started rising the social ranks, that flaws weren't acceptable. She certainly wasn't some of the nobles' ideas of "perfect" when she first joined the palace staff as a lady-in-waiting, and as she began gaining recognition and reputation in the palace society, she was corrected and scolded for a lot of tiny mistakes. She projects a lot of her insecurities onto her children, particularly Adriana- she doesn't exactly realize she's doing it, and when she does, she justifies it by saying she doesn't want her children to make the same mistakes she did.

## Backstory

Bella Elizabeth Armani, born Bella Elizabeth Harren, was born to two relatively rich landowners, William and Elizabeth Harren. She grew up in the wealthy countryside of Ilosia, and has always been used to a certain level of privilege. She would occasionally go out with her father when he had a business matter to attend, but it mostly consisted of her sitting just outside the business room and then going out to the fancier shops and bakeries afterwards.

Her mother was never a prominent figure in Bella's early life, and pretty much did the bare minimum. They would never grow very close, but when Bella was a teen, her mother began being a little more involve- mostly by teaching Bella all of the etiquette expected of her if she marries into nobility.

When Bella was in her late teens, her father lost a lot of crops. Her parents decided it would be easiest for Bella to get married off to some high-up noble. They arranged several dates for her, and for the first 3-4 years of this she dreamed of some kind of true love. However, she gave up on this- After 4 years of buying herself time and pushing back against getting married, she went on an arranged date with the younger Armani brother, a few years younger than her. To tell the truth, Bella *was* attracted to Rowan- he was good-looking by her standards, he respected her, and he shared a similar boredom with politics. They dated for about a year before both her and Rowan's parents agreed to a marriage- it wasn't exactly a forced marriage, but it definitely was highly arranged and there was a lot of pressure for them to marry.

So, they got married- Bella 23, Rowan about 20.

### Timeline

16- beginning of pressure to look for a spouse

20- years of failed dates and Bella pushing back

22- main date with Rowan

23- married

24- by this time she had a few publicity things going on and had attended a few royal meetings

25- pregnant

26- gave birth to Edelweiss

26-28 gained recognition and acceptance as a member of House Armani

28/29- pregnant

29- gave birth to Levi

29-30- really great mental health after having a really positive pregnancy and birth and her relationships were at an alltime high

30- pregnant again

30- gave birth to Adriana

31- bad mental health because of a kinda sh/tty postpartum experience but was getting a lotttt of recognition by the public and was the sort of model Armani. this is when she started getting to be a sh/tty parent and such.

33- personal mental health getting a little better (i'd say she probably started spending more time with Catherine around this time since they would've both had young kids at that point and they would have each other to be able to talk to)

34- update on Bella's relationship with her kids: pretty sh/tty. At this point Edelweiss is like 7, which is old enough in Bella's eyes to learn the art of manipulation and how to get what you want! She's still close with Levi, even after she had to be away from him while she was going through postpartum with Adri. Speaking of Adriana, Bella's relationship with her was damaged from the start, since the recovery from Adri's birth was pretty rough. At this point Adri is 3 or 4 and mostly taken care of by the servants. Levi is too, but he gets more one-on-one time with Bella than Adri ever got.

34-36- pretty chill years, mostly Bella teaching Edelweiss how to be like her lmao

36- got pregnant again. Bella actually wanted to stop at three kids but was kind of pressured into having another because it'd be good for publicity

37- gave birth to Carmine- her pregnancy with them was pretty easy but at this point she was just kind of over the whole baby thing so she mostly ignored Carmine as a baby and handed them off to servants

WIP

## Relationships

### Immediate Family

#### Rowan

*husband/ex-lover, negative/complicated*

Bella's relationship with her husband started off with an arranged date. It was one of her earlier ones, and she didn't really see anything good in Rowan that first day. A couple of years later, however, they were pushed into a second date as a sort of middle-ground marriage opportunity for both of their families. Bella was under a lot of pressure at this point to get married, and she actually was decently attracted to him, so she happily agreed to an arranged marriage with Rowan.

Their marriage stayed relatively happy throughout the years. However, around the time Carmine was born, they both were worn out from work, and Bella from her recovery after childbirth. They both realized this quickly, and after about a year of petty arguing and lack of romance between the two, Bella decided to bring it up- for once, it was a respectful, mature conversation, and they agreed to separate. However, because divorcing due to a loveless or otherwise unhappy relationship isn't exactly possible in Ilosian culture and law, they agreed that they would have to lie to the public and pretend they were in a happy marriage- otherwise, the Armani reputation could be ruined.

They still have a unique kind of trust. Bella went to Rowan not very long after she found herself in a scandalous relationship with Theodore, and although the night was full of bitter, angry fights, Bella knew she could trust Rowan to keep her secret.

Currently in the RP, the two rarely speak outside of family gatherings (like dinners and such) and public outings, when they're forced to act like a happy couple.

#### Edelweiss

*eldest daughter, formerly positive, currently negative*

Bella's relationship with her eldest child has always been unique. Bella was very reluctant and nervous to have children, and her fears were confirmed when she was miserably sick throughout most of her pregnancy with Edelweiss. She didn't immediately bond with Edelweiss, exactly, but the two were almost always together anyway, as part of Bella's social career. Bella didn't really know what to do at all, so she just kind of let the servants raise her kid and occasionally played with aer.

Once Levi was born, Edelweiss was basically ignored for a solid three months while Bella had to take care of him, as she was the only one who could get him to shut up and stop crying. Once Levi was kinda through with the newborn baby stage, Bella was able to spend more time with Edelweiss- although, whether she actually did or not is debatable- I'm sure you can guess the answer.

Bella put a lot of pressure on Edelweiss from the start to be the perfect child- she hardly tolerated aer showing any faults in public, as she wanted to be a perfect, flawless family. If Edelweiss behaved just right, she would reward aer with her love and affection- if not, she'd grow irritated with aer. As Edelweiss grew up, Bella basically depended on aer to be the golden child whose intelligence and social skills were shown off at parties and to the press. This quickly evolved into inserting Edelweiss into Ilosian politics, and Bella began to take her to every meeting she could. Bella never really considered the effects of this on her child(ren). She knew it was intense, but she knew it was how her own mother forced her to be successful, so she blindly stuck to it, rarely checking in to see if Edelweiss was okay and if ae.. I don't know, needed a loving mother or something?-

Once Edelweiss became of age, Bella almost immediately started pushing her onto dates in the hopes that Edelweiss would marry someone of even higher status. After a few years of Edelweiss's subtle pushing back on this plan, the argument happened. At the Matriarch's welcoming party, the two had a really big argument regarding Edelweiss's marital status, which ended in Bella giving up on Edelweiss, finally snapping their long-broken relationship in two.

#### Levi

*son, formerly positive, currently neutral/negative*

Bella had a bond with Levi since he was born. Her pregnancy and birth with him was really easy and one of those magical experiences some people have, so she was really happy. Levi was a really hard baby to take care of and was only really comforted by Bella, so she ended up taking care of him a lot. She really actually complained about it a lot at first, but as she was forced to sit down and spend time with him, she ended up really forming a connection with him. They were really close most of his childhood, actually. For a while after Adriana was born, they were apart a lot, but as soon as Bella fully recovered from her birth with Adri, the two of them were really close again.

As Levi grew up, he continued to be close to Bella- Because Edelweiss was already learning all of the manipulation sh/t, Levi was exposed to a little less than her. He was still expected to behave perfectly and be the perfect Armani child, but he didn't have to work as hard for Bella's love- Bella gave it to him regularly. She didn't really know why she liked him so much, is the weird thing. She made sure not to give one kid more attention than another in public, but it was well-known in the palace society that she favored Levi. WIP

#### Carmine

*youngest legitimate child, neutral/negative*

#### Eden

*youngest (and illegitimate) child, ...it's complicated*

## Other

### Bella's picrew references

Bella in her late teens/early twenties. At this time she was a lady-in-waiting for a higher-up noble, and wasn't considered to be very high in social status yet.Bella in her mid twenties-ish. By this time in her life she had gotten married to Rowan and was probably considered to be a noble of relatively low/mid statusBella in her fifties, and her most up-to-date picrew. Considered to be one of the higher-ranking nobles in Ilosia and one of the heads of the Armani family. Picrew: The Lady of Hera by @K\_pupu.Bella's modern AU picrew in which she is a rich famous actress and still just as terribleBella in the modern AU again, picrew by grgikau (https://picrew.me/image\_maker/426722)