bedlams_belle

Name: Elizabeth Walker

Age: 39

Gender: female

Type: Select One

Appearance:

Elizabeth looks a little young for her age. Not a whole lot, but people generally guess she's about five years younger than she is. She's also of mixed race, which is fairly obvious. Her mother was Hawaiian, and that's a trait strongly carried in her features. She's got a darker complexion, and big brown eyes.

Generally she's usually seen in her nurse's garb, though when out of it she goes for comfortable dresses or clothes. If she has even the slightest occasion for it,(and sometimes not) she'll dress to the nines, with some of her old clothes, even if she's not had anything new in a good seven years or so.

Personality:

In addition to looking a little younger than her age, she smiles easily, and sometimes can have a child like edge to her. Not that she's unintelligent, just she can appreciate the small things in life, and gets along quite well with children. She's warm, inviting, a real bleeding heart type of personality. It's part of why she wanted to be a nurse, and that stands out in her personality quite well.

Most people who encounter her will be put at ease fairly quickly, since she's easy to get along with and is quite attentive. She's not a woman who's looking around at the horizon, or appearing to be waiting for her turn to talk. When she's talking to someone, they have her full attention, and a lot of people appreciate that focus. She also isn't judgmental in the slightest, able to take just about everything in stride, or so it seems. She's very giving and nurturing, someone who very easily will put others before herself and take whatever time out is needed to help someone through whatever they're going through. People don't peg her for the nutter that she is for quite a while, usually.

Sexuality:

bisexual, though she's not acted much on any feelings for women. she believes she's straight, and that the leanings other ways are part of her 'madness'.

City History:

Originally, she was a Konnovich. An illegitimate Konnovich, but most certainly part of the family. The Walkers took her when she was only three, and from that day forward she was a Walker all the way. Whether she was predisposed to be malleable or she became it, Elizabeth is actually somewhat of a cautionary tale for the Walkers. A basic 'look what happens' if things are pushed too hard and too far. They started grooming her very young, wanting to come out with the perfect bride, socialite, and upstanding member of the Walker family.

That didn't happen. What did happen was that she definitely fell in line--but her version of falling in line wasn't anything that could be considered normal. Elizabeth was chosen by one of the elder Walkers, the last generation they had amongst themselves before they recognized they needed to stop inbreeding, and due to his family's 'eccentricities' he was not what one would call a handsome man. On the contrary, he had many birth defects, and was unsightly at best. In order to sort of stop repulsion before it started, he took a heavy hand in her life, trying to cultivate the sort of relationship they wanted it to wind up being at the end.

Well, they got it alright. Elizabeth loved him with all of her heart and soul. She was, to put a very sharp point on it, crazy about him.

Things went oddly for a while. They were married before she would have been legally able to marry, because, of course, she had her guardian's consent. As for the fact that her name didn't exactly change, people looked the other way. It helped that the girl physically didn't really look like a Walker. Either way, she was married young, and they started in on what they thought was going to be a perfect scenario. She was sent to school to become a nurse, her idea, and one they thought they could play with well. Plus, quite a lot of the Walker elders were a little on the frail side, all things considered, so they knew it would be a prudent decision. She actually excelled in the program, and, due to her family's influence, was able to finish her courses in record time. She graduated with honors, and behind the scenes, she took care of people.

No one is really sure what happened. Not really. Her husband started to lose it. No one's sure why, no one's sure how, but whatever happened to him, he definitely started to lose his shit. When it became a point of liability for the Walkers, they made a difficult decision. They decided to have him committed at Bedlam. This was not a good thing for Elizabeth. In fact, she went a little crazy herself. And one thing Elizabeth did have was a head full of Walker secrets. And not only Walker ones, but the rest of the affiliated families as well.

She took care of a lot of said secrets personally. The other thing Elizabeth was brought up to do beyond being a pretty little thing on her husband's arm was the other 'family business'. And the girl was a prodigy at it, or so it's said. So some of those secrets? She got out of people personally. Beyond that, she was around. She'd grown up in environments where she heard things, so much so that half the time, people never even paid attention to the fact that she was in the room.

In the end, to shut her up, and keep her from exposing things, they had her employed at Bedlam. This worked out fabulously for them, because really, it just put Elizabeth back with her husband. She quieted right down, and for a long time, they sort of didn't have to worry about either one of them. Things were quiet for a good five years before Elizabeth's husband died. It was cited as due to 'complications' with some of his birth defects, but no one's really sure. But, he was kicked off, anyhow.

After that she never left. Something about the patients called to her, possibly it was her own brand of madness. Either way, she went there, then never quite came home again, choosing to stay and work at Bedlam, staying mostly out of the limelight her family generally attracts.

She lives in a small house on the property. She can come and go as she pleases, and takes good care of the tiny residence.

Special Skills and Abilities:

she went to school for, and graduated near the top of her class in nursing. She also, after almost a decade of working at Bedlam, has quite the grasp of madness, and how to psychologically analyze people.

Weaknesses:

Multiple Insane Factors - First of all, the woman doesn't have all the cards in her deck anymore. Maybe she never did. It's hard to tell. She's a very quiet crazy, though. It sneaks up on you. She's the kind of girl who you can know for a while before you realize that something's wrong with her. Creepy sets in slow with her, and a lot of people even dismiss it for a while before they really come to the startling conclusion that she really is quite mad.

Skewed Morality - Elizabeth's sense of right and wrong doesn't line up with other people's. It comes quite a lot from growing up in the environment she did. And while naturally she's quite the caregiver, and that's the most prominent aspect of her personality--there's another side. What the Walkers do best is the pretty public face...and ripping other people's off behind closed doors. She knows how to do that to people. She knows how to torture, and well. And while she doesn't enjoy the work, if she feels it is necessary, she will go through with it, without question, and she won't lose sleep over it. She'll lose more sleep over accidentally hurting someone's feelings, but not ripping out fingernails with a rusty set of pliers. She was a frightening whisper in people's ears before she was committed. No one wanted to be sent to Elizabeth. A lot of it was because while the other Walker 'information managers' were sadists, fully, happily enjoying their work, Elizabeth was so sweet. Soft spoken. Nurturing while slicing into you. It just kind of seemed to make everything worse, really.

Fierce, Unreasoning Loyalty - She's a Walker. And she'll always be a Walker, and no one is ever going to get her to turn on them. They are her family. She'll do anything for them. Even things that include things that are detrimental to her, she'd walk in willingly and blindly, because that's what you do for family. It's also the biggest manipulation point for her, and if others latch onto that, it's far easier to get Elizabeth to do what you want than any other manipulation technique. Also, even if she's unaware of it, her family whom she loves to death so loyally mostly finds her a dirty secret they would be content for everyone to forget about. Unless they absolutely need her, and they haven't in years. They'd prefer she stay a ghost story in the criminal underground rather than actually resurface in public.

Medicated - Very quietly, Elizabeth has been on various medications for the past ten years. Whether they help keep her sane or not no one can say, but people do know that going off of them is a Bad Plan. She starts breaking down rather quickly if she doesn't have them, and the results are entirely unpredictable. She views them as 'vitamins' even if they're nothing of the kind.

The voices in my head tell me I'm sane - Elizabeth hears voices. She's learned not to actively talk about them in public, or to doctors or the like, but she does hear them off and on. She has names for some of them, and they have distinct (to her) 'personalities' and the like. It's the most clear, prominent manifestation of her psychosis. And also the most diagnosable one, really.

Strengths:

Eye of the Beholder: Elizabeth doesn't see people like others do. She can and does look past any physical imperfections. She doesn't look at how anyone's dressed, how dirty they might be, she doesn't see scars as detriments, etc. She's a woman who says she sees people's souls. This means she also sees past not just the physical, but she will look past madness like it's not there at all, or maybe just that she doesn't find anything wrong with it. Sure, it makes her a strange woman, but it also makes her fairly endearing to a lot of people, and to people who've been shunned for various reasons, her reactions to them often garner her loyalty. It's most certainly know at Bedlam that if anyone dares try and mess with her, there will be retribution for it. Not from her, but by people around her.

Family or Connections:

Walker family, patients and staff at Bedlam

Residence:

Bedlam, a small house on the property

Career:

nurse

PB: Shannyn Sossamon