Good gravy, I don' think I could have made this set any uglier if I tried.
Name: Freya Larsen
Nickname: (if any)
Age: 16
Element: Earth
Circle: Europa
Song: Somewhere Only We Know - Keane
Word: Drapetomania
Quote: “To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”
Good Qualities: friendly, clever, quick to laugh, quirky, placid
Bad Qualities: quick to laugh (her go-to reaction), disimulative (in attempt to conceal what she might actually say/do), occasionally suspicious, anxious, awkward
Bio: Raised by her grandmother in the middle class district of Edinburgh, Freya grew up a slightly off-beat child. Known for her preference to hide in the garden and run around barefoot, hiding amongst the plants and lawn furniture and terrorizing the cats, she was near feral as a small child. As she developed speech capabilities, Freya would spout nonsense, a habit which show up every so often later in her life, leading to bullying and criticism from the other girls at her school. Coming to terms with the fact that others did not appreciate her...uniqueness, Freya decided she could no longer be Freya, she had to become like everyone else to avoid being noticed and picked on as she had so very often in her youth. The change in her attitude and character did not go unnoticed by her guardian. Having developed the ability to adapt and mimic the attitudes and behaviours of her female peers, Freya became much different than the girl her grandmother knew her to be; deciding that the friends Freya had made at school were becoming a bad influence and that her granddaughter needed a place to be educated where her odd personality and behaviours would be accepted, she began to search for a new school. She didn’t have to search long before a letter addressed to Freya from Marseilles fell through their letterbox.
Likes: running through wet or warm grass barefoot, going barefoot in general, fairy lights, how everything smells before and after it rains, the full moon, thundershowers, picking at old scabs, blending into crowds, coloured glass, her grandmother’s baking (bless her), photography, fresh flowers, broken china
Dislikes: dissecting animals, sitting still for extended periods of time, when multiple people talk at once over each other, liver and onions, bee stings, cooking magazines (they’re not the same as cookbooks), oil pastels, poodles
Hobbies: singing in the shower, bug collecting, reading old children’s novels from the war period, baking, doodling, tree climbing
Quirks/Bad Habits: Freya has a tendency to bite her nails when she becomes anxious or nervous, a bad habit her grandmother has been trying to break her of for years, though nothing ever seems to work. Occasionally talks nonsense words to herself under her breath. Sometimes it’s hard to get Freya to stay in one place if she’s left alone - her grandmother has often found her wandering around the house and the garden in the middle of the night for no reason other than the fact that Freya had suddenly decided she had to get out of her bedroom (this progressed as she got older and on several occasions she had climbed out windows and began walking up and down the street). Her number one bad habit would be concealing her true self from others, especially her peers out of fear that she may once again become subject to the whispering and taunting she faced in the past.
Style: Freya’s style changes as often as she changes her mind, which is annoyingly often. It never stays quite the same, but she typically prefers comfort over looks since she has no interest in fashion itself. She frequently shops with other people and takes their opinions on what she should wear, whether it be a friend’s opinion or her grandmother’s.
(just a bit about what she wears, where she shops, how she feels about her style and maybe how others feel)
Model: Lily Collins
QUESTIONS:
1. Where are you from and who do you live with when you're not dorming at school (Holidays, breaks, summer)?
I’m from Edinburgh, Scotland, where I live with my Gran.
2. What is your favorite subject at school and why? Probably art. The let you alone most of the time and so you can do whatever you like, or at least that was always my experience at other schools. Expressionism is always encouraged, they say.
3. Generally what kind of people are you friends with? (popular, artsy, smart, chill, partiers etc)
Just about anyone, so long as they like to laugh. I can’t abide by people who take themselves seriously.
4. How do you feel about the school? Did you want to come or were you forced by your parents?
My grandmother thought it might be a good change for me to get out of Edinburgh for a while and it sounded interesting. The brochure seemed promising and the school offers a lot of things you normally wouldn’t have the chance to try, do, or learn at the kinds of schools I’ve been to.
-out of character-
5. How did you interpret the song, word, and quote and how did you apply it to your character?
At first I was going to attempt to make Freya a selective mute who was terrified of what other people thought of her, but then I kept looking at the image paired with her information in the collection and it didn’t connect with the idea I had, so I changed my mind. I had to think about it for a while, especially concerning the quote, but I decided that Freya might have a touch of a disorder, possibly Tourette’s, ADHD, or even a little bit OCD, or perhaps certain elements from all three without having been properly diagnosed with any of them (as I admittedly don’t know that much about Tourette’s or ADHD other than what I can read on the internet/Wikipedia). Thus she ended up being a bit off-centre and knowing it, so she tries to hide it to avoid being bullied as she was as a child (which I’ve mentioned a billion times by now) - in my mind, Freya desires nothing more than to be herself, but also wants to say the right things, do the right things, and be the person she thinks she should be, but she just kind of ends up laughing as a reaction to everything because she’s confused or unsure how to react. People will find her irritating, there’s no doubt. The song and word kind of go together, combining her impulsive need to leave rooms or buildings just so she can be outside and her desire to find someplace to be alone and just be herself, which is outside in nature (thus later tying into her power/connection to the earth element).
