Unwritten

☀Guest #2☀: Ida Jean Gallagher (@HannahFare)

Name: Ida Jean Gallagher

Age: Twenty-one

Location: Des Moines, Iowa, though she attends school in Ames

Occupation: Undergraduate student at Iowa State (biochemistry major, music minor); she also helps out in the local hospital's ER

Personality: Ida Jean is a funny girl. She considers it her only way to truly relate to people—she's so unlike her peers that humor has become a crutch for instant connection. In recent years, her sense of humor has led people to desire her presence, but not much ties her to these people in return. She feels as if she is trapped by her inability to truly enjoy others' company. Originally she believed this to be an issue with her own psychology, but connection with a new acquaintance has changed her perspective. Ida Jean treats others well. She is kind and patient with her peers, and she favors honesty with a positive bent. Her intuition into others' selves is usually spot-on. Unfortunately, her recent sadness has made her rather forgetful, and she continues to disappoint others by falling through on commitments. She can become absorbed in one topic for long stretches of time, near-obsessively, letting other facets of her life drift into the background. Often Ida Jean can let fear get the better of her, and she will fail to act until the ramifications of not acting outweigh her misgivings.  

Appearance: Ida Jean is a pale girl, burning more easily than the tan members of her large family. Veins are visible snaking through her near-translucent skin. Her hair is fine and blonde, falling in wisps around her shoulders, and her eyes are colored a stormy blue-gray. She applies makeup sparsely and spends most days bare-faced. Her cheeks are round and youthful, retaining the appearance of her childhood years well past when most lose their baby fat. If one looks from the side, a little bump is visible in her nose's bridge. Her lips are full and deeply colored. She stands at about 5'6"; most of her height is in her thighs—her torso is unusually short and her thighs unusually long, placing her knees at an odd spot on her legs. Ida Jean's voice is deep and throaty, and her laughter comes in spurts. One can see the ridge of her collarbone jutting from beneath her skin, as well as her entire ribcage. Though her coloration is striking, most do not consider her particularly beautiful.

Backstory: Ida Jean is the second daughter of four. Both her mother and father are physicians, though they took different paths to reach this point—while her mother came from a family of doctors, her father was raised in a poverty-level household and funded his way through college by working as a plumber and fast-food worker. When asked about her mother's reputation in medical school, Ida Jean's father will say, "Everyone thought she was an ice queen. She was the prettiest girl in our class." On her father, Ida Jean's mother will say, "He had narcolepsy. He was also a genius, but that's literally all I knew about him for years." They fell in love in medical school and started a family in their thirties. Ida Jean's household was traditional and principled. Television was limited; her parents encouraged her to read instead, and she'd reached an advanced reading level by the time she graduated elementary school. Because she was particularly bright, teachers and babysitters called her a wunderkind. The family hired nannies throughout Ida Jean's childhood to drive and supervise her while the parents were at work. One nanny said on a three-year-old Ida Jean, "Sometimes I catch her looking at me, completely silent. It's like she's seeing right through me." At times, Ida Jean seemed to have a boundless energy level, scaling playground structures at the park and reading chapter books in a handstand position. This energy would decrease as she grew and as various ailments began to take effect. Around late elementary and middle school, Ida Jean fell prey to family conditions from her mother's side. Like her great-grandmother, Ida Jean became deeply depressed; she was treated for both depression and worsening childhood OCD. These issues seemed to recede, though they manifested themselves later on in high school and college in new and terrifying ways. As a result of her unique biological makeup, Ida Jean found herself isolated and unhappy. She began to sleep more and talk less. Recent treatment for Ida Jean's disorders has brought back some of the liveliness she lost over the years, though short-term problems continue to plague her, most prominent of them a foiled quest for romantic love. She has always loved to write romance (almost as fulfillment, considering her social isolation), but these developments have rendered her unable to enjoy even reading it. She hopes Ariston's Resort will bring her the distance and perspective necessary to renew her love for the writing craft.

Biggest Fears: Ida Jean fears traversing life in a gray fog, never truly connecting to another person in the way she desires. She fears disappointing the wise people who have raised her and the peers who have placed their trust in her.