Eve of Destruction

So, it has recently come to my attention that Eve's powers are a bit confusing.  Seeing as Tim "Amalgam" Baskerville has used the ~*gem*~ to steal her powers in the Round Robin comic over at ClubTeenTitansOC, I thought it was a good idea to expand not only on Eve's powers, but on Eve as well (when/if she wakes up, someone will need to write her).  Trying to be helpful lol

So, this is Mara O'Grady.  She's got superpowers.  It was never her intention to use them for evil, but that's how things worked out.
Like it says in her profile, Mara's powers developed suddenly.  She was at a high school party, minding her own business and hanging out with some girl friends, when every guy's eyes turned to her.  It was as if, without warning, every boy at the party was in love with her.  In their raw, untamed state, her powers brought out unpredictable behavior from her admirers.  The shyer of the boys hung back and ogled from afar; the more aggressive of them got handsy and vulgar (much what you'd expect from rowdy, partying high school boys).  Her friends were a combination of amused and jealous and were no help to Mara when she needed them to enforce her personal space and the necessity of consent.
She ran out of the party, heading for home (it wasn't too far).  Confused and upset, Mara tried to figure out what had just happened.  The night went from bad to worse when the middle-aged men she passed started making advances on her as well.  One in particular (skeevy from the get-go) grabbed her arm, threatening sexual assault.  Mara panicked, and giant, inky wings sprouted from her back.  She was able to use the man's momentary shock to get away from him.  Going home wasn't an option (what would her parents think of her?  would her dad react this way to her?) so she flew away and found an abandoned building to hole up in (it was boarded up at the bottom, but upper stories had windows that she could fit through).
She tried for a while not interacting with any men but quickly found it impossible.  She ran out of money very quickly, but she realized that she could get men to buy her what she wanted.  Slowly but surely, she learned to harness her powers for personal gain.

Now, here's where I think a good explanation of Eve's powers is appropriate.  Her profile says that she can "Can control the actions of men as if they were in love with her."  This love is an un/healthy mix of lust, adoration, and idolization.  At different levels of proficiency, the powers affect men differently.  With little to no control, the target's own personality shines through (men who are meek have crushes from afar, men who are prone to violence and aggression may attempt sexual assault, etc).  As Eve learns to better understand and control her powers, she learns to shape the reactions of her targets (a meek man can be pushed to aggression, an aggressive one to simmering, etc).  She can create an "I'd do anything for you because I love you" scenario.  The range is also affected by Eve's skill.  It starts out as a proximity thing - only those around her are affected.  Later, initial proximity is required but targets will carry out their tasks regardless of proximity.
Eve's power affects men.  This generally means those designated "male" at birth.  So, trans women and certain people who identify outside of the gender binary are also affected, but they're more likely to resist her.  The sexuality of the affected doesn't affect Eve's powers.  She can control hetero/homo/bi/pan/a/demisexual men alike (plus any other sexuality that I left out I'm sorry).  The only real difference their sexuality has on the experience is how they feel about it after.

This brings me to Eve's own sexuality, which feels important to mention as well.  It's a bit complicated, so I'm going to have a hard time articulating what I mean.  Interestingly enough, Mara would have identified as straight.  Mara is/was sexually attracted to men.  However, she wasn't repulsed by the thought of having sex with women (which some women are).  There were celebrities that she could imagine saying yes to if they offered, but the thought of female anatomy didn't really do anything for her.  Bisexual didn't really feel right for her, but she was on the queer side of heterosexual (a demisexual approach to women?  Does this term work if I split genders?).
Then her powers develop.  She sees the absolute worst of the male gender.  When she has little control over her powers, it's the aggressive/skeevy guys who make themselves especially known to her.  As her talents grow, it's cemented in head again and again how easy men are to manipulate.  It gets to the point where men disgust her on a fundamental level.
She meets Bailey and they become reluctant friends (Mara's spent a lot of time on her own by now, plus she's a supervillain and that's a secret).  Bailey is gay, and she's got a bit of a crush on Mara.  When she learns about Mara's abilities and history, she makes sure to be really careful not to be like the men that Mara affects.  She is super considerate of how traumatic learning to control those powers was for Mara and respects her right to not be interested.  This is huge for Mara.  She appreciates immensely the thoughtfulness Bailey has for the whole situation.  Knowing that she is interested also affects Mara.  It takes a while, but eventually she decides that she cares about Bailey in a strong enough way that she can and wants to reciprocate that kind of affection.

So, that was a lot of information!  I guess one final thing I'd say is that, if this little section on sexuality seems confusing or unrealistic, it's very close to how I define my own sexuality (I'm straight, and that's how I identify, but there are definitely ladies out there that I would have sex with.  It just takes a lot more for a lady to interest me in that way as opposed to a man.)

I'd like to thank LilBluestem for asking a lot of questions about Eve's powers in this picture.  It was really helpful as a creator/writer to have a reason to hash this out (and feel like there's an audience for it).

Eve/Mara, Bailey, story etc (c) me
Teen Titans (c) DC Comics