Appearance: Mona is a pretty girl, but has no idea how to carry or compose herself. She has light blonde hair, which she keeps cut just below her shoulders and takes a “brush it, clip it back, and go” approach to styling, and ashy, grey-green eyes. Her eyesight is terrible – she's not quite legally blind without glasses, but it comes close. She dresses cute and a little childishly, wearing a lot of floral patterns and muted pastels, skirts and lacy cardigans. Mona isn't necessarily overweight, but she has a very soft shape about her. Added to a short stature, ample hips (dat ass), and significant breasts, it gives her a nice figure that is often completely undermined, made doughy by a general lack of attention to staying in prime shape, dressing to fit, or body confidence.
She cleans up all right, when she bothers to put in contacts and has someone else do her makeup for her and help her with her hair. But she will never be very glamorous, at least not until she learns how to carry herself with confidence.
In short, there's a reason most of her icons are taken from probably ScarJo's least glamorous looking role.
PB: Scarlett Johansson
Background: Mona's parents intended for her to be the last of their children. The fact that she now has five younger sisters is testament to how far they ended up straying from that goal.
Living in a very wealthy area of Omaha, Nebraska, the Nystrom family had just about everything they needed and were on a continuing social climb. Mona was primarily cared for by a nanny when she was very small, and even when her mother decided to leave her very successful career to be a stay-at-home mom (pregnant, at the time, with twins), she missed out on the close, tight-knit family experience.
Although Mona occasionally butted heads ('butted heads' here meaning 'was overpowered by') with her older sister, who did not take as well as she did to having more younger siblings to fight for their parents' attention, she was happy to have little sisters. Given their ages and the order in which they were born, having the little ones around often meant that Rebecca and Mona were on their own, but...she didn't mind (Rebecca might have). Compared to her sisters, she was a boring kid, anyway, so it didn't bother her that the more interesting ones would get more attention. She didn't have a twin, and she wasn't even in System Soccer, let along the best forward there.
In elementary school, Mona started taking ballet and music classes. Ballet was okay; she probably wouldn't have chosen it on her own, but Rebecca did ballet and her parents thought it was too important an extracurricular to let go (which made sense to Mona; if Rebecca couldn't have horseback riding then she shouldn't be picky either). Music was better; Mona found more affinity for it and wasn't as embarrassed by her shortcomings. Recitals, too, were fun, and they made for an easy way to bring the family together, especially when her father was away, helping to develop the business district in Bellevue over a ten-year plan to increase the small city's economic health (her dad would get pretty rich doing it, too).
The Nystrom girls mostly shared their out-of-school activities for a long time, becoming a small clan of shared hobbies. Their parents had very strict ideas about the kind of women they would grow up to be, what hobbies would be most advantageous, what skills they should have, how they should act...By the time the eldest girls were in middle school, this was proving to be rather troublesome. Ballet was making Mona realize some awful things about her body (she was really fat, wasn't she, and not very pretty...?); the twins wanted to go to art classes; Rebecca wanted to play more sports. Eventually, they won their bid for some individuality. Mona stayed with music but got into more academic extras, taking place in math and science bowls and even participating in a few regional competitions.
At around thirteen, she figured she wanted to be a veterinarian. Well, maybe a doctor...But past that decision, Mona never paid much mind to it. She was good at science, it was good to do what you were good at, and she wanted to help people. Perfect! Mona attended Oregon State, where she was a premed student studying Biochemistry.