Alyssa

The Cast » Alyssa

Alyssa Christianson

Portrayed By	Natalie Portman
Gender	Female
Date of Birth	May 15th
Age	25
Zodiac Sign	Taurus
Aliases	Aly
Place of Birth	Upper East Side, New York City, NY, USA
Current Location	formerly New York City
Occupation	Writer/Stenographer
Known Relatives	Dr. James (father), Mariah (mother)
Significant Other	[R]
Known Abilities	Telekinesis
First Appearance	Broken Glass

Alyssa Christianson is an excitable, inquisitive writer whose drive is to find the secret part of people's lives. She is also an employee at Enlightenment Books.

Table of Contents

(Evidence of a time long ago)

++ Hide logs for 'Old'

History

Alyssa is the daughter of famous private diagnostician Dr. James Christianson and his wife, Mariah, a retired nurse. Raised in a practical manner, the girl was expected to follow in her parents' footsteps. Instead, she daydreamed during school and floated her way through a very easy college degree. Settling into the life of a writer, she also works as stenographer and helper to the known author and political upstart, David Brennon, who had been suffering from arthritis and various other medical issues the past years making him unable to continue writing for quite some time.

She lives in a an apartment in the avenues, staying as far away from her parents' Upper East Side location as much as possible. Most of her time is spent assaulting strangers with random questions about their lives or working on her ongoing fantasy novel.

Her parents hope she is just on a sort of vacation before she decides to go to law school. Yeah, it'll happen…

Born the only child to Dr. James Christianson and wife Mariah, little girl Alyssa was all set up to be the spoiled one – her parents were perfectly content with one offspring and her father had a successful practice that brought in one of the best salaries his field could offer. Her mother was a retired nurse who occasionally made personal house visits to the wealthy and so had a bit of stashed money on the side independent from her husband. There was just the all-important fact that her parents were both stingy with their money. There would be no pampering, just the immediate teaching of good banking skills and why the average person loses money on taxes because they don’t keep track of all the rules. Baby Alyssa was not all that intrigued.

From the beginning, she was meant to follow in her parents’ footsteps but there were always early signs of how that was going to fail. Alyssa had no memory for numbers and would often abandon her homework to read a good book in the library. She did well only in the classes that were able to keep her interest. It wasn’t that she wanted to disappoint her parents and teachers, but she was too easily distracted by hiding a book underneath her desk or drifting off into wondering what this class would be if this were a magic school, instead. She indulged in starting to create an extensive movie collection and tried to look up volunteer positions for the various theaters in the city.

When Alyssa expressed her desire to become the author of the next big fantasy series, her parents couldn’t believe it; that profession wouldn’t give her money, stability, or a good dependable name in the community. They were adamant in finding something else that she could do and she took their urgings as best as she could while also taking time to develop her own beloved skills. The only really horrible times were when her parent’s suggestions took a turn towards physical activity. She wasn’t exactly the “get out and run a mile before breakfast” type of person.

For as long as she could remember – which isn’t that long considering but we’ll pin it around the early high-school years – Alyssa has been extraordinarily clumsy. When she’s lost in thought, she is an easy victim to any obstacle one can imagine tripping over or bumping into or knocking down. The extra part is the power that manifested during this time. A long time passed before Alyssa even realized anything was happening. She was so absent-minded all the time that it only seemed natural to wish her phone were nearby only to look up and find it bumping against her hand. She could easily assume that she’d simply forgotten standing up and fetching it sometime earlier.

It was the times when things were a little more insistent about her taking them that she began to suspect. After all, how can you write off being upstairs in your room and wishing with all your heart that you weren’t too lazy to go get that can of Sprite only to have it come knocking on your skull hard enough to leave a bruise moments later. A second instance happened when she was still partly asleep, muttering about how her bedside table shouldn’t be halfway across the room. At the name of the piece of furniture, it shuffled and groaned its way across the floor and banged impatiently against the bed until she put a hand on it to still it.

That was pretty thought provoking. And yet, imagination wild, she couldn’t settle on one explanation that was better than the rest. Content to just let things continue as they wanted, she kept herself to herself as always. The largest area that her discovery affected was her favorite, her writing. Her misadventures in calling objects to her inspired an ‘imaginary’ blog about a teenage girl getting used to having some strange new powers. Disclaimers littered the fake journal, but many of the details therein were taken from her own experiences. People that she met on the street got cameos in her fictional superhero’s life.

Alyssa’s senior year of high-school, her mother attended to an elderly man named David Brennon who was suffering from arthritis and a multitude of other small problems but shunned modern medicine. Mariah came home every day complaining of the man’s sour attitude. It was the day that she went on a rant about the book that David was writing that Alyssa became interested. She offered to accompany her mother on one of the visits. David was as biting and gruff as ever, but Alyssa was far too curious about his novel-writing to let that get in her way. She would calmly let insults slide off her back and go on to the next question. After a while, David grudgingly allowed her company. After three days, he hired her to help him finish his book since he couldn’t do all of the actual writing himself. He would jot notes on his good days or Alyssa would take notations as he talked. She half-learned and half-created a version of shorthand to deal with the speedy way Dave sometimes threw ideas at her. Once she was home, she would type up what they had worked on and then print out a copy to show to him. Changes were made – changes were /always/ made - but as time passed she grew to understand more and more of what Dave liked and so had to make less corrections. She once shared her superhero blog with Dave and he immediately shunned it. The dislike he showed was quick and final, unlike the dragged out gruffness that he usually displayed to hide his actual approval. She was struck and abandoned the project a few months until, just recently, she had the heart to pick it back up again.

Once was in college, Alyssa sought as much financial dependency as possible. Although her tuition was parent-paid, she made sure to buy her own groceries and chip in for part of the rent of her dorm. Her time with Dave was paid, though she insisted almost monthly that he didn’t need to give her money for it – she loved the work. He never backed down, though, and she eventually took the pay as a sign of affection from the bad-tempered man. Her classes got far less priority, though she enjoyed these more because she was able to choose liberal arts courses that sparked her interest. She graduated with a PSL degree – the shame of her parents, though their one hope was that she could continue with that to law school and still come out with a fairly respectable career.

Instead, Alyssa cut herself off from her parents and declared that she was going to take a few years to work on her novel and to dedicate more time to Dave. Her parents were devastated but since Alyssa was paying for everything by herself they couldn’t lord the dependency over her head and instead resorted to not-even veiled comments every moment they could see her and every week on her voicemail. Alyssa lives in her own apartment to the tune of her own pipe… and the near daily messages left by parents constantly trying to be helpful by pointing out other job opportunities they found that just made them think oh-so-much of her. She takes the advice in as much stride as usual, listening dutifully to each voicemail and then forgetting about it moments later when some shout heard outside makes her think of a new idea to jot down. Every Thursday, she visits Dave to copy out his notes and take them home for typing. She owns a lot of stuffed animals but has yet to rescue her favorite pet from the parent’s house due to them believing she has to clean up her life-style before she can care for a living and breathing creature by herself. Sometimes they say she can take the cat if she agrees to apply to law school.

Timeline

VOLUME ONE:

Alyssa's adventures begin with she harasses ILC (Interesting Looking Character) #1, Hector, and then gets involved with the broken glass incident.
(LOG: BROKEN GLASS)

Later, she meets a fellow named Max who wants to draw her picture. Their proposed motorcycle ride is interrupted when his "ex-girlfriend" shows up.
(LOG: TRADING FAVORS)

Meeting up with Cass again causes more glasses to be broken and she meets ILC #2, the man affectionately known as "Lurch".
(LOG: …)

She storms out of having dinner with her parents and runs into Claudine and Namir outside. They all adjourn to the Noodle Heaven and talk about mustard gas.
(LOG: …)

Alyssa goes to hand in her resume to Cass at Enlightenment Books and is treated to a demonstration of Stefanie's powers.
(LOG: LITTLE SHOP DEMONSTRATION)

Arriving at Starbucks puts her in the company of Sean and Namir, the first of which knocks her hot chocolate off the table causing him to stretch his hand to catch it in time. Namir displays his own power, panicking Alyssa who tries to leave. Caught up with, she calms, speaks longer with Namir and, for the first time ever, tells someone what she can do.
(LOG: IT'S QUIET IN HERE 1&2)

Alyssa goes in for an interview at Enlightenment Books.

Now happily employed at Enlightenment Books, Alyssa spends her first day practicing her power, fielding Lachlan's romantic attempts, and meeting "Stan" (Adam) the NYU professor.
(LOG: KENSEI RESEARCH)

Alyssa is dragged to a fancy Natural History Museum event and uses the time to dig up information about Kensei and the name 'Yaeko'. She also runs into Tamara, Namir, and Samantha at the event.
(LOG: …)

After seeing Namir at the museum, Alyssa decides to meet with him to go over ability stuff again. They talk about Kensei, power theories, and then go out to an alley to test said theories. Alyssa ruins his book, oops.
(LOG: THE PAPER IS YOUR CHILD)

Quotes

Empty. D:

Trivia

Despite not following in her parent's footsteps, Alyssa still has a rather extensive understanding of the human body and various emergency procedures thanks to conversations at dinner.
Alyssa is very rarely without a hat. She stuffs all her hair into it.

Relationships

… Adam/Stan … is a mysterious NYU professor who knows a bit about Takezo Kensei. ("you don't look like a 'stan', in fact, you kind of look like a 'kensei'")
… Cass … is her boss and a good person to talk to.
… Claudine … is a friendly but bit shy girl.
… Daniel … is a really sullen teenager kid.
… Hector … is shabby.
… Lachlan … is apparently attached to her boss! Also, a humorous flirt.
… Max … is an artist who rides a motorbike. Too bad his ex-girlfriend is scary as hell.
… Mr. Hendrickson … is Lurch.
… Namir … is an extraordinary gentleman who is the first person who ever got to see her power in action. She trusts him explicitly, even if she sometimes tells herself she shouldn't.
… Randall … is a guy who always seems to show up where she is. He mentioned anime to her once and she's never been able to disassociate him from it.
… Samantha … is a new acquaintance who just happens to also know her father. Maybe they can commiserate sometime.
… Seamus … is a handsome fellow with a handsomer accent. They had dinner once and she's got the whole first meeting on tape.
… Sean … is Stretch.
… Stefanie … is a girl who told everyone she could make flowers grow, and she really could! That was the first time powers had ever really come up in a conversation and it opened up a lot of choices.
… Tamara … is a friendly seeming but vanishing could-be acquaintance.