ooTenderhearted * Imaginative * Gullible * Meek
Heterosexual * Freshmen General Studies * Aspiring ArtistAvicii - Broken ArrowsElysia is one of the quietest people you could come across, and she has no control over it. Anxiety is an awful thing and the young woman has lived with it her whole life. Despite this, she tries her best to be happy. Most of the time she succeeds. She still has issues interacting with people she's close to, let alone complete strangers but she has the determination to push through her problems. She has a love for the beauty of this world and of people. Even if she has trouble interacting with the world and people around her she'll try to find the good in anything and make a drawing about it.
In regards to her anxiety, it manifests itself in a disorder called selective mutism. Despite the first word in the name, she isn't entirely in control of the selection. She has found various ways to cope. The main one being her artwork. She has also discovered that working side by side with someone in some sort of task, and if she can keep quiet while cooperating with them and doesn't need to talk then she can start to feel more comfortable with them around. As long as the other person doesn't inadvertently increase her stress, this can produce a good relationship and she'll find it easier to speak to them. Although she still relies too much on sign language, her phone, and writing to communicate.
If she can get close to someone then she will be a great friend. A great listener to your problems, able to tell when you feel anxious, and being someone who'll drop whatever they're doing to help you are key characteristics she exhibits towards those around her. Especially her friends. She's shy, reluctant, and clumsy but she always tries to put on a smile no matter how uneasy it may be. Around school, if she is even seen out and about, she's either heading for class while keeping her head down, watching everyone doing their thing from a distance, or sitting on the ground somewhere staring at a canvas or rapidly drawing on it.
Relationships:
*{NPC} Ryon Dey - Father - A midwest high-school dropout and former construction worker. After his wife passed, he was the sole parent of three girls and that wasn't easy. Sure, he had the occasional help and the oldest was already college-age but he still struggled. Despite this, he did a wonderful job raising his girls and did everything to help them pursue their dreams.
*{NPC, Deceased} Mira Dey - Mother - Elysia never got the chance to meet her mother. The whole pregnancy was more difficult than normal and by the time the birth came both were in dire straits. Elysia instantly had to be taken to NICU and Mira was having unexpected issues. Despite the doctor's best efforts, she passed a few days after the birth.
*{NPC} Eliza Dey - Sister - 37 - Eliza is the oldest sister of the three. After their parents' death, Eliza took it upon herself to get a good education and job to provide for them all, as Ryon's job wasn't very lucrative. She hid her pain to take care of her sisters. She does her best but her strict standards cause a slight rift between her and Adelinde. Currently, she works as a pediatrician.
*{NPC} Adelinde Dey - Sister - 28 - With how young Adelinde was when their mother died she had looked for something to blame and that blame had unfairly fallen on Elysia. The first couple of years the relationship between the two was not good. But as they got older the childishness subsided and the two began spending time together. Today you'd never know they hadn't always been so close. Currently, she works as an author.
History:
The circumstances around Elysia's birth were unfair. The whole pregnancy was difficult and then she came earlier than her expected due date. After the birth was over she had to be instantly admitted to NICU and it was unsure whether she would make it. Despite this, her parents Ryon and Mira Dey along with her older sisters, Eliza and Adelinde, waited for her to pull through certain that she would live. But Elysia wasn't the only one to have a rough time after her birth. Mira was also in dire straits and unfortunately didn't recover. The family was in a somber situation. The matriarch had passed and despite their initial hope, the fear for Elysia's life was still there. It was a long and arduous journey but eventually, she pulled through.
The situation affected each member differently. Ryon became depressed from his wife's death and feared that something may happen to Elysia. Eliza who was much older took it upon herself to get a good education and job to provide for them all, as Ryon's job wasn't very lucrative being a construction worker. Adelinde being a child wanted something to blame for her mother's death and that blame unfairly fell on Elysia. As a baby, Elysia was unusually quiet. She cried when she was hungry, tired, or needed to be held but as she grew older the usual babbling that one associated with babies was not there. She didn't say her first word until she was two when most babies would combine words randomly at this age. It was determined that she didn't have a learning disability so the family went on as normal. She began talking a little more easing the worries of those around her but that ended around when she was 7. She got in a big fight with Adelinde. In reality, it was more like Elysia kept trying to help Adelinde in the garden but messed everything up and was yelled at. Crying she ran off when Adelinde or Eliza weren't watching. She knew where her father worked and went where he was for comfort.
When she got there she watched from outside the fence waiting to see her dad. When she saw him she called out to him distracting him from what he was doing. In a lot of places getting distracted can be dangerous. A construction site is one of them. Cutting all the details out he got injured. He was no longer able to work and Eliza had to leave college to work enough to provide for the family. This is around the time that Elysia stopped talking almost entirely. Things were hard and the anxiety within the young girl didn't help. She would spend the next year in her room hiding from everything. She even stopped drawing for a while. The only time she left her room was for school or to grab something to eat. She was too scared to interact with anyone.
For a while, after her mutism showed, she'd often get in trouble at school for 'refusing' to speak despite her extremely obedient behavior in every other aspect. Kids were cruel and bullied the quiet girl. Some of her friends stuck close but others thought that she didn't want to talk to them despite her trying to find ways to communicate. It was hard. But eventually, someone thought to ask the question 'should she be taken to a psychiatrist?' It took a while but the psychiatrist was able to determine that she had selective mutism rather than autism. Making the correct diagnosis and Elysia realizing what was wrong was the first step to recovery.
They tried various methods to help her. It took a few years but Elysia found herself being able to talk to her family a little bit more. The main thing that helped was her family telling her that they didn't blame her for what happened. Even Adelaide apologized for how she had treated her. She was still having difficulties as the road to full recovery is long and arduous, but she was doing much better. She began learning sign language, she started using her phone and writing to communicate, and she began drawing again putting more effort into it.
When she became a teenager she was more determined than ever to improve. She kept trying to force herself to interact with others. It never worked but she didn't stop trying. You miss every shot you don't take, and if you take hundreds of shots one will eventually hit. That has somewhat been a motto of Elysia's. Despite what others said she had never seen her art to be that great until her teacher recommended she enter a contest. She drew a simple image of the night sky which had a full moon covered partially by a cloud. She thought it was mediocre but she was surprised to get first place. More surprising was that she could get money from doing something she had so much fun doing. To help her family and have her own money that she worked for she began doing commissions online.
Coming around to her college years she knew that she wanted to push herself, even more, to get better. A large university was too frightening of a prospect but she also didn't want to just go to the same community college that so many she had grown up alongside were going to. So, despite Ryon and Eliza's concerns, she moved in with Adelinde who was currently living in Briarwood. It was the perfect opportunity. Going to school with new people but still having the support of someone close by.
Everything was going fine until that weird demonstration in her sociology class. It was strange and freaky but the weird part was that the next morning she woke up somewhat tired. She was usually a morning person but she did have a few off days. The weird thing was that on her desk lay a sheet of paper with an odd drawing on it. She didn't remember drawing it. It showed the back patio door wide open and a deer running off into the woods. That was weird. What was even weirder was when she went to the backyard to check on the garden she saw a deer. She must have spooked it because the majestic creature ran off towards the woods. Elysia went back to her room to look at the drawing and the deer looked almost identical.
Magic:
Knack:According to Elysia, her drawings are simply that. Plain average drawings that shouldn't cause as much fuss as they tend to. To others, they almost appear to take a life of their own. When they say that a picture can say a thousand words, well it's quite true with Elysia's works and even a little more. She started young drawing in coloring books as a coping mechanism to deal with her anxiety. She would spend hours of her day drawing in these books running through so many of them so quickly. She quickly upgraded to blank canvas' putting her all into them. She doesn't find them all that impressive, but that is because she already knows how she feels and what is in her heart and mind. Some have described looking at her art as if they were having a conversation with the girl and that's her knack. Like how an expert musician can play someone to feeling certain emotions or an actor can move someone towards the same thing, Elysia can convey her emotions through her artwork and have a better conversation with them this way than using her phone or writing ever could.
Gift:Elysia's gift can be described as Subconscious Precognitive Drawings. Getting into the details of this, whenever Elysia goes to sleep her body seems to take a mind of its own. It will grab some form of paper and pen or pencil then will draw something. The drawing can be something of little to no significance which will always comes to pass.
The other types of drawings will take a lot of her energy for when she wakes up. That's really the best way she can judge what kind of value they have. These drawings tend to come in groups over different sleep periods. They are confusing and abstract like a puzzle with no edges. The imagery also isn't always one-to-one. Sometimes she may need help to identify the meanings as they may only be answerable by others.
The final type she can instantly identify. This is because some part of her is visible in the drawing showing her at someplace or doing something. Almost like the drawing is guiding her to go somewhere or do something.