everything echoes

Name: Elle DeWinter

Age: 21

Gender: Female

Type: Aspect

Appearance:

5'2", with big brown eyes and petite, Elle appears younger than she is. Her long, blond hair is usually left to its own devices. She doesn't tend to wear much make up as it gives her the appearance of a little girl playing dressing up rather than a sophisticated woman. Her manner of dress is simple, favouring dresses in pale, neutral colours.

Personality:

Young at heart, playful and rather childlike. At best this promotes looking at the world with a wide-eyed wonder, imagination, generosity, friendliness and curiosity. At worst Elle can be immature, naive and secretive. Her emotions tend to become intense easily - the smallest of things can be wondrous and spectacular or terrible and despairing. Out of this is borne a great desire for there to be beauty in the world. A lot of time is spent in her own imagination, warping the world to suit her own optimistic outlook rather than facing bleak realities. She is easily drawn into things and people, finding most things fascinating in one way or another. A hopeless romantic, she is a firm believer in love conquers all.

Sexuality:

Straight

Constants:

[The Nightingale // The Nightingale and the Rose]


Rose Tinted Glasses - Elle is not a fantastic judge of people. She tends to make up her own perception of them, picking and choosing at traits to make a whole that fits in with her view of the world. She wants to see the best in everyone and doesn't really acknowledge that people may not always be what they seem. She is prone to make excuses for the poor behaviour of others or trying to rationalise in so they come off in a good light.

Everybody's Happy Nowadays - Driven to better the lives of others, Elle tries to help people wherever she can. Often this comes at her own expense and she doesn't fully consider the consequences or repercussions. In her naive perspective, everything will be wonderful if someone's dream can come true. Her efforts are not always appreciated and may be interpreted as meddling or squandered.

Ill-Fated - Despite the best of intentions, things don't always go as planned. Her efforts to improve a situation can inadvertently make it worse. Sometimes her noble goals fall completely flat, doing nothing to change anything for better or worse and her endeavors going unnoticed. Yet she carries on undeterred by failure, believing that next time good will win out.

City History:

Elle is the only child of Zachary and CiCi DeWinter. She was the hopeful ingenue attracted to his status as a well respected psychiatrist and he was the hopeless womanizer taking bribes from the mob to house 'problems' in Bedlam Asylum. Her parents eventually divorced when she was four on grounds of adultery and irreconcilable differences. CiCi left her in the care of Zachary and his mistress, Agatha, who promptly moved in and soon became Wife Number Two.

Five years later Agatha became Ex Wife Number Two. Women came and went in the household but none of them were officially moved in. She regarded her father as a lonely man desperately seeking love rather than a man desperately seeking gratification. To try and fill the perceived void in some capacity, she made sure she always had a smile and affection for the man.

When she was fifteen, Elle introduced Zachary to Helena Montgomery at a charity event. Impressed with the philanthropist's work, Elle thought she would be a good match for her father. The two hit it off and within the year Helena became Wife number Three.

Once Helena had the security of a ring on her finger, she began to show a different side of herself. Preoccupied with materialistic gain, she seemed much more in love with Zachary's money than the man himself. Elle was viewed as both an inconvenience and a threat. Helena decided she would tarnish Zachary's view of his devoted daughter in the hope he'd force her to leave the household. She sold several items of jewellery hid receipts from pawnbrokers in Elle's room. Refusing to believe it was his daughter, Zachary blamed the maid and promptly fired her. Helena made up ludicrous tales about supposed liaisons with boys and visits to speakeasies but all were dismissed. Both distressed by her stepmother's behaviour and belief that her father couldn't possibly be happy with her, Elle encouraged Zachary to break up the marriage. Zachary half took Elle's advice and resumed his numerous affairs. Frustrated by both her failure to ruin Elle's relationship with her father and his betrayals, Helena resolved to get Elle out of their life and hurt her husband.

While out on a shopping trip, Helena shoved Elle out into the road into the path of an oncoming car. Fortunately the driver managed to stop in time, leaving Elle only with minor scrapes and bruises from falling and extremely shaken up. Zachary used his influence to have Helena committed to Bedlam. Elle refused to talk about the incident, simply saying that she hadn't been hurt and everything was fine. When pushed she would clam up and become quite distressed. Her father decided that she would discuss it when ready.

Six months after the incident, Elle turned eighteen. She began volunteering with the city's homeless, bringing them warm meals and fund raising. It was both fulfilling and frustrating as Elle found that her grand ideals of safe shelters and plentiful provisions were unlikely to come to fruition. She continues to volunteer, determined to change things for the better.

More recently, she has moved out of the family home into an apartment with her friend Shoshannah Hagel and found herself a job as a waitress at the One More Round (something she has neglected to mention to her father). It allows her to make sure that some of the homeless people she knows aren't spending their handouts on booze, and bring a little light and empathy to the barflies who need it.

Special Skills and Abilities:

Green Fingered - Elle manages to make plants flourish, and has a particular affinity for roses.

Weaknesses:

We All Live In A Beautiful World - Elle notices plenty of the bad things in life but steadfastly refuses to acknowledge them. This is particularly pertinent when it comes to negative aspects of her own life; she will try to put a positive spin on them, absolve others and find fault with herself or simply attempt to forget about them.

Sure I Believe You! - Elle gets swept up in things. Things that spark her curiosity are likely to be questioned and the answers believed. She often fails to see that others may not be genuine or manipulating her. There is an exploitable innocence to her.

It's All Okay - Ignoring all that negativity takes it toll and manifests itself in periods of melancholy that Elle can't quite explain. The feelings bother her and rather than let them out, she pushes them down and keeps on smiling. However, the cracks in the relentlessly cheery act show in her being more subdued or retreating from others.

Esteem? What Esteem? - Despite her bubbly exterior, Elle's sense of self esteem is not that great. Things seem to have a nasty habit of going wrong and she blames herself. While she tries to be a good person, her perceived failings make her doubt herself. Somehow she's not good enough to make things right, and perhaps bad things happen to her for a reason.

Strengths:

Unassuming - Elle looks like butter wouldn't melt and her innocence makes her easy to trust. Her lack of self esteem can lead her to downplay her own positive attributes but gives her an air of modesty.

Shoulder To Cry On - Elle is always there for people in need. She makes a good confidante and keeps secrets (whether she should or not). If someone needs a sympathetic ear or an ego boost, she's a good person to go to.

Family or Connections:

Zachary and Helena DeWinter (father and stepmother)
Shoshannah Hagel

Residence:

A two bedroom apartment in the artistic district.

Career:

Waitress/volunteer

PB: Hannah Murray

Other Information:

Email: heart.shaped.somethings[at]gmail.com
Icons: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9].

Elle's handwriting font can be found here.