Elodie Laine Van Bueren

Elodie Laine Van Bueren (a.k.a. CaTaLiS(t))

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Elodie had always known two things: Her parents would never be satisfied with her, no matter what she accomplished, and that she would die trying to change it.
Nothing was ever good enough for Melinda and Roland Van Bueren, least of all their daughter. This despite the fact they’d been lucky to have her at all. The seemingly perfect couple had done everything right only fail for years to produce a child to complete the perfect picture. After seven years of trying, and constant theorizing about which of the two was the genetic dead end, Elodie was finally conceived.
The Doctors called it a medical miracle, a marvel that was never repeated. Anyone else would have looked at Elodie as a gift from the Gods, a bright healthy child, advanced for her age and always top of any activity she tried. Her parents looked at her like a consolation prize too little too late. She didn’t have a very personal relationship with her parents, despite their heavy involvement in her upbringing. They were more like business partners than nurturing figures, and their business was making Elodie into as perfect an heiress to the family as they could manage. The Van Buerens had been one of the richest families in New York for the past 200 years, a fact that no one would ever let her forget.
Every misstep, every mistake was a mark against the family. Another nail in the coffin that would bury the fortune and acclaim they’d spent so long building. Their forefather, a man named Gerolf Van Bueren, had emigrated from the Netherlands in the early half of the 19th century like most others at the time: fleeing religious persecution and carrying what was left of the family’s savings. To hear the story as her parents told it Gerolf had been a latent genius, the cleverest businessman there ever was, who made strong investments and generated profits that kicked off the family business for the next hundred generations. As the latest and greatest link in the Van Bueren family chain it had been made clear to Elodie from a very young age that to live up to this legacy perfection was not enough. The future of the family was at stake, never mind that it was really built on the luck of a drunkard who just happened to make an investment in Cocaine at the right time. The family had the weight and significance that comes with time and Elodie needed to excel and exceed everything that had come before her to even hope that she would be worthy of the mantle she was born to bear.
The burden that was her family wore heavily on her from a young age. She had nothing to truly call her own. No interest her parents hadn’t forced her to take on, no friends they hadn’t hand-picked, no moment of her life they hadn’t found a way to monitor. She’d occasionally made attempts to branch out: trying(and failing) to convince them to let her read Harry Potter or pick out her own wardrobe or just have an hour or so of unregulated free time, but none had ever succeeded and she’d always been left frustrated and defeated. However, none had been worse than her attempt to participate in the school play. At ten years old she hadn’t expected much. She’d seen the posters around and thought the idea of pretending to be someone other than Miss Elodie Laine Van Bueren seemed fun. Plus she might actually meet some friends that weren’t solidly stuck under her parent’s thumb. So on the day of auditions, she ditched her minders to try and make it big in showbiz. For her first play, she did surprisingly well. She’d spent a lot of her young life analyzing others to figure out how to best climb to the top in any given situation so acting came fairly naturally. Afterward, she left with a spring in her step and a sense of pride at having done something for herself. It didn’t last long.
The next week, when the cast list was mailed home, her parents arrived home from their trip unexpectedly and found the letter announcing her role as the second lead on top of their desk. They were furious. Half the staff was fired and rehired on the spot for letting their daughter slip through the cracks and any semblance of free time Elodie had was taken away. That still wasn’t the worst part though. The worst part of was that they didn’t make her quit.
“A Van Bueren always keeps their word.” They had insisted, “You represent the family in everything you do. There is no part of your life that does not reflect on us. So you will not be quitting the play. You will go above and beyond to fulfill your role and it will not be second lead.”
First, they tried to bribe the school into giving her the lead role. That hadn’t worked since the cast list had already been sent out however they did succeed in bribing the theater teacher into writing Elodie’s character into almost all the scenes and giving her more lines even if that meant taking them away from the other characters. Due to their actions, she became the star of the show in every way except on paper and was alienated from the rest of the cast, destroying any hopes of socialization. Which in her parent’s minds was all the better. The free time that they’d taken away was now dedicated to practice and lessons with a private acting tutor and at the end of each session they’d have her perform for them whatever scene she was workshopping and then brutally lambast it to “prepare her for the reality of being a performer.” Needless to say that she did not try out for any plays after that.
She initially got into hacking through virtue of having to find workarounds and loopholes through her parent’s blocking filters when she was thirteen so she could use the internet for things other than homework. It seemed like the one thing she could do that her parents couldn’t ruin. From there it spiraled into faking emails from her teachers praising her academically, changing fellow students grades, and getting into public figures social media accounts to post stupid/random shit just to see what happened. It hadn’t been very serious for her. Just a way to let off steam. Then her Freshman year of College rolled around and everything changed.
That year she pulled off her biggest hack yet: managing to crack into the account of a high up member of the federal government, planning to go with her usual stupid pranks by deleting or dropping something into their database but while digging through their files she found a cache of documents incriminating them in an illicit trade of classified information with some members of the Russian Government and she knew what she had to do. Under the alias CaTaLiS(t) she leaked the documents online and sat back and watched the dominos fall into place.
This was bigger than her. This was a real change, the only one she’d ever made. People were angry, and shocked, and rallying around what she had done. Calling her a hacktivist. Calling her a terrorist. Calling her a hero. She didn’t try to change their mind. Elodie Van Bueren cared about her image. CaTaLiS(t) had no use for anything but chaos.

Gender Identity

Female

Sexuality

???

Education

Graduated two years early from Horace Mann School and went on to receive a Masters degree in Bio-Chemistry from Harvard at 22 years old.

Accomplishments & Achievements

Awarded the Davidson Fellows at 15 and was awarded the Breakthrough Prize in the Life Sciences category due to her work during her Master's program.

Failures & Embarrassments

Worked herself into exhaustion and fell asleep onstage during a Piano recital at 7. Took second place in ISEF at 13. Has not yet been awarded a Nobel Prize

Mental Trauma

Pent-up anger at her parents. Slightly controlling. Neurotic and has developed what can only be described as a borderline eating disorder.

Morality & Philosophy

Sometimes the greatest kind of control is making others realize just how little they really have.
The only thing that matters is the effect you have on the world.

Social

Family Ties

Her cousins, Renee and Nathaniel Van Bueren, the two other would be inheriters if Elodie doesn't prove to be an impeccable leader. Her Uncle Edgar Wright is a Senator for New York.

Religious Views

Agnostic Atheist.

Wealth & Financial state

Very affluent. Grew up in the lap of luxury and continues to live that way.

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Species

Scion (PreVisitation)

Ethnicity

Caucasian

Year of Birth

1999 A.D. 23 Years old

Birthplace

New York City, New York

Current Residence

Washington D.C.

Eyes

Light blue, doe eyed

Hair

Mid length naturally curly strawberry blonde

Height

5'4

Weight

110

Known Languages

English, Dutch, and Japanese.