and every demon wants his pound of flesh

Character Name: Elise Rainier
Series: Insidious
Age: somewhere in her 60s
From When?: Shortly before the final scene of Insidious: Chapter 2.

As Insidious: Chapter 3 is a prequel to the first two films, her history covers the entirety of that film as well.

Inmate/Warden: Warden. Elise spent her entire life helping people in danger and working with the dead, and it wouldn't be any different on the Barge. She has a number of skills she could draw upon, noted in her powers and personality sections.

Item: A pocket-sized hardbound notebook. The cover reads "BOOK OF SEEING." It's a smaller version of the one she keeps at her bedside to record her dreams.

Abilities/Powers: Elise is a human, and while in a physical world like the Barge, her physical strength is only on par with that of any healthy sexagenarian. Her abilities are psychic and spiritual in nature, and while they aren't ideal for protection in a physical realm (see the information about her death in the history section for an example), they're still extremely potent.

These powers tend to bleed into each other a bit, so if clarification is needed, just let me know!

- Clairsentience: Elise experiences intense clairsentience, or psychic intuition. She can sense the presence of the dead and malicious entities, the holding places of the souls who have been taken by such entities, and where and how the world of the living and other planes bleed into each other and intersect. Once she senses these things she can further hone in to a more exact location (for example, she can walk into a house, detect the presence of a spirit, and then trace it to the exact room it inhabits, down to its orientation within that room). She experiences this intuition both in a vague "vibe" sort of way and through multiple senses, most often sight (clairvoyancy) and sound (clairaudience). She can tell if a person is possessed by sight alone, though not always immediately, especially if she doesn't think to look for it.

- 'Listening': I'm not sure exactly what to call this, because neither is the character! Upon being asked if she's a mind reader, she claims to prefer the term "listener." Elise is able to pick up on surface-level thoughts of the people around her, as well as the most basic kind of information: names, hobbies, careers, et cetera.

- Precognition: The occasional bout of precognition strikes Elise, but it's something she never intends to do and she doesn't seem to have any control over it. Furthermore, her predictions can be vague and concern things that won't happen for years, so they're not always helpful. Thus far she's only experienced precognition regarding her own fate, and even if she doesn't consciously process the clues therein, she tends to show a subconscious awareness of them (like taking up wearing scarves constantly, a subconscious impulse to cover her neck after seeing her own death by strangulation).

- Dream visions: It isn't uncommon for her to have dreams regarding people in need of her help, and the things which are after them; she wakes startled, records these in a notebook, and seeks out the people of which she dreamed at a more reasonable hour.

- Trance medium: Now we get into the heavy stuff. Elise is able to converse with demons and the dead directly, no conduit needed. While in the process of communication, she enters a trance state. She can communicate directly with her mind in this state, but when other people need to know what's taking place, she will speak aloud and allow the entity to reply using her mouth. When speaking aloud this way her voice is barely audible, and equipment for capturing the conversation is typically used.

While a trance is taking place, depending on the nature of the interaction, the surrounding environment can be affected: furniture toppling, light bulbs flaring and shattering, things opening and closing, etc.

- Hypnotism and related abilities: Elise is able to hypnotize people, which she does before attempting some more difficult maneuvers. She is able to erase the memories of other people while they're hypnotized, or to suppress their psychic gifts; she has done both before in order to prevent a victim from being possessed. She can likewise reawaken the gifts she has previously repressed, if necessary, and can guide anyone with the potential for voluntary astral projection through the process and onto the astral plane. She only uses these powers as a last resort, and only in order to protect the people she's using them on. Suppressing one's ability to travel astrally and erasing their memories of ever having done so, for example, can sever the link between them and malevolent entities who may have latched onto them during their travels.

- Astral projection: Elise herself can voluntarily and consciously project herself into the astral plane, though she avoids it if at all possible. While in this state her astral body is able to interact with ghosts and other entities who dwell there. On one hand, she is able to use this to forcibly retrieve a hostage human soul and return it to its body. On the other, this leaves her vulnerable to direct attack, and it's possible that what happens to her there could kill her physical body. Thankfully, her spiritual body is much, much stronger than her physical one; she's able to throw entities two or three times her own size across rooms, beat them down, and open holes in the ground through which to drop them.

Time is messy in the astral realm, and it's said time as people understand it doesn't exist there. While projecting, Elise is sometimes able to affect past events. This creates a time loop, specifically, this type. In other words: the changes she makes to the past had created the past she'd already lived before going back in time.

While projecting, the surrounding physical environment may be affected in the same way it is during trances.

- Exorcism: Elise is able to exorcise locations in nearly all cases. In situations where a haunting is person-focused, or it escalates into a possession, it causes her considerably more trouble. Sometimes she can exorcise the person directly, under her own power; when she can't, she can usually at least quiet the possessing entity. This entails temporarily sealing it, unresponsive, in the host body. This gives her more time to change her tactics and create a specifically-tailored plan of action.

In addition, the souls of good people now deceased can become trapped in the world of the living or the Further for a number of reasons. If nothing is actively holding the soul there, Elise is able to release them and send them on their way to the final afterlife without any exertion.

While performing an exorcism, the surrounding physical environment may be affected in the same way it is during trances and astral projections.

- Defense: This isn't told so much as shown, so I'm not sure how to describe it in detail. Elise is able to defend herself from being possessed. While it's possible for something to latch onto her like a parasite and assail her from that angle, it can't take over her body or alter her memories/mind (floods and other such events would be an exception to this rule, of course!).

Personality:

Elise is a very kind woman with a big heart, and her powers come second to this. While not actively working with malicious forces, she's very cheerful and lively. She shows warmth and kindness to everyone she meets, and when she loves, she loves very deeply. She can be playful, even tending towards giggling. Sometimes she'll play little practical jokes on her friends. She's very much a motherly (or grandmotherly, depending on the age of those she interacts with) woman, and tries her best to give people hope and closure. She often ends up being the most resilient person in a given situation, serving as a rock for the desperate and tormented.

Her empathy is so deep, however, that it can become a hindrance. She's cried on behalf of some of the ghosts she's had to banish upon learning their histories, and it's led to her being caught off-guard.

Elise deals with the dead for a living, but in her free time engages in decidedly happier activities, such as knitting. She's an active gardener who grows a variety of flowers and particularly enjoys roses. A frequent customer at farmers' markets and a good cook, she often prepared Sunday dinners with her associates, Specs and Tucker. As Specs and Tucker are rather nerdy men in their early 30s, they persuaded Elise to engage in a number of things they enjoy. She's now able to kick ass in Super Smash Bros, for example, and has dabbled in tabletop games. They would watch horror movies together and laugh at the inaccuracies.

All of that being said, she also has hobbies relating to her profession. She collects relics of psychic practices that she doesn't use herself, such as crystal balls and spirit communication boards, and cultural objects from around the world which are related to the paranormal.

While working with forces beyond the physical, Elise turns serious, fast. Her speech drops into quieter tones, and all traces of prior silliness vanish. She remains empathetic towards those seeking her services, but she's also markedly somber and serious and doesn't sugarcoat anything. She impresses upon people how serious their situation is, and that they need to trust and cooperate with her exactly as she instructs if they want to resolve their situation. Elise spares nothing while dealing with malicious entities, screaming and even getting physical (as best as a tiny, 60-something-year old woman can) if that's what it takes to protect her clients. When the dust settles and all is well again, she laughs and jokes around as a sort of pressure-release to help her wind down.

Having experienced major depression, severe anxiety, borderline agoraphobia, and suicidal ideation before, she's equipped to understand others who suffer from it without casting judgement. She knows how debilitating these things really are, and would never expect anyone to simply "get over it." The same goes for grief; she would do everything she could to help a person move through theirs, as she was incapacitated by grief for her husband.

As with depression, Elise can be immobilized by intense fear, and though she hasn't experienced that level of fear in years, there is always a possibility that it could happen again. During these periods, she finds herself torn between fear for herself and fear for what might happen to others if she refuses to act. This leads to conflicting actions on her part: repeatedly attempting to make herself useful, only to draw back; promising to come to the rescue, and actively trying, only to be newly terrified and running away. She shuts herself away from the world, and comes to truly loathe herself for failing the people who need her. Though she most often serves as a rock for those who need strength, in times like this she'll eventually seek out someone she trusts in an effort to rediscover the strength she's lost.

When worn down by the nature of her job, she will likewise seek out friends for support. She's been seeing ghosts since her early childhood, but still claims that she will never get used to it, and it can take its toll on her (even after dying herself!). She tries not to show her fatigue, and it can lead to unfortunate things, such as collapsing from exhaustion or leaning towards depression. Obviously, this isn't a good thing for the people around her, either, because she isn't operating at full capacity and can't be there for people in ways she normally would be.

In addition, Elise sometimes takes horrible risks that put not only herself in danger, but the people she seeks to help. After realizing something had suddenly possessed the father of a family she'd just helped, she snapped a picture to gain proof while alone with him, instead of playing dumb until she could gather help or something with which to defend herself. Her powers aren't made for defending herself or anyone else in the physical world, and she's a very small, elderly woman who occasionally overlooks that her tangible body isn't as capable as her astral one. The thing in the possessed man used the strength of its newfound body to throttle her to death, and with nobody else aware of the possession, went on to wreak havoc on the family afterward.

Barge Reactions: Elise is already aware that the universe is vast and full of wonders, and the concept of a multiverse is something she'll adjust to without trouble. In fact, she'll probably be fascinated by it. When faced with something completely alien to her, like characters of a species not native to her world, she would attempt to learn and understand (though with demon characters, she would be extremely cautious and guarded; every single one she's encountered before has been actively malicious towards people). Provided there's evidence, she she won't play the skeptic regarding things like powers, magic, advanced technology, et cetera, seeing as she herself has powers. She would react to floods and ports on a case-by-case basis like the average human being; some she'll shake off and some will cause trauma, depending entirely on what happens for the duration of the event.

Path to Redemption: N/A

Deal: Elise would want to obtain the ability to converse with her coworkers without conduits, and for them to be able to see hear under the same circumstances. She wouldn't wish for them to have a psychic ability to see all ghosts, like she has, as she knows it's both a blessing and a curse and it's a burden she doesn't wish for them to bear. Being able to speak with her as an exception, however, would do a lot to keep them safer while in the field. Right now, they can only converse haphazardly through spectral detection equipment developed by one of the two still living, and if the equipment breaks in an emergency situation, they would be left helpless.

(To clarify, she wouldn't wish to be brought back to life herself because she knows exactly what happens as a side effect of bringing a ghost back to life in her world, and it's ugly and awful. She's at peace with her death and isn't looking for a way back into life, just to protect her loved ones whose time hasn't yet come.)

History:

BEFORE THE BUSINESS
Elise Rainier was born in California in the 1940s, to a Reconstructionist Jewish couple. She was their only child. Her parents were warm and loving people, and overall, her early life was quite happy.

Her first memory of sensing the dead occurred at roughly age four. She used to play hopscotch with a group of children regularly. She could sense that they were dead, but didn't have proof until a year or two later. While attending the funeral of the child of a family friend (who died young due to illness), she connected the names on the nearby graves with those of her friends. A neighbor woman with similar senses eventually picked up on Elise's activities and taught her both caution and practical skills regarding the use of her powers. While her interactions with the dead were largely untroubled in her childhood, she would come to have a rather darker view of the phenomenon in later years, after experiences with less than friendly forces.

After doing very well in school, Elise went to college and obtained a degree in anthropology. Although she'd dabbled in psychic investigations in college, working with other students, she had no illusions regarding how little pay she would receive if she took it up as a career. As an anthropologist she did various work with schools and museums to pay the bills (she did genuinely enjoy her work, however), and ventured into the psychic business on the side.

STARTING AS A PSYCHIC - THE FIRST LAMBERT HAUNTING
She focused her talents on hauntings and possessions, and the resolution thereof, at which she was remarkably capable. After a few years, she gained a reputation as a genuine, talented paranormal practitioner, which put her in contact with other psychics for more difficult jobs that required collaborative efforts. With a network of peers and more frequent casework, she was able to gradually focus more of her time on this "side business" and less on her normal job.

In 1986, she was brought in on a case that would change her life forever, and ultimately lead to her death decades later. A fellow psychic named Carl, with whom she'd worked before (and had a bit of an amiable on-and-off relationship with), requested her assistance with a haunting that was beyond his own abilities to resolve. A single mother, Lorraine Lambert, had noticed a menacing figure appearing in the background of photos taken of her young son Josh, and in each photo, the figure got closer and closer to him. After hypnotizing Josh, Elise used him to help her find the entity's location in the house. She honed in on the entity (appearing as a withered old woman in a black bridal gown) in Josh's closet, at which point it tore her arm open from elbow to wrist. The contact allowed her to divine its basic nature: Josh was unintentionally experiencing astral projection in his sleep, and the entity, a ghost, had latched onto him like a parasite while on that plane (a place Elise called "the Further") in the hopes of stealing his body and using it to stay in the world of the living. So powerful was it that the only option left to Elise was to suppress Josh's gift and erase his memories of the experience. She explained to Lorraine that there was no other way to divorce her son from the parasite, and with Lorraine's permission, Elise and Carl were able to successfully save Josh Lambert.

JACK RAINIER
Elise continued her work after resolving the (first) Lambert haunting, and while in her late 40s to early 50s, she met her eventual husband in a farmer's market. Jack's surname was also Rainier, though they were unrelated, and he was as much of a lapsed Catholic as she was a lapsed Jewish individual. They were married within the year.

She and Jack loved each other deeply, and Jack had told her up-front that he had recurring struggles with major depression. Elise did her very best to help him through these times when they occurred, but at some point between 2001 and 2005, he took his own life. She found him in the bathtub after he slit his wrists with the straight razor he used to shave, and it was too late for medical intervention to save him.

Distraught and desperate, Elise did something she knew to be wildly stupid: she projected herself into the Further, hoping to find Jack's spirit before he moved on (as the Further is not only an astral plane that can be traveled, but also a way station between life and "a better place") the dwelling place of demons, and an endless purgatory for the souls of the wicked dead). Ignoring her own advice that when you call out to one of the dead, all of them can hear you, she searched for her husband.

The Further, however, serves even more functions, and both demons and the souls of the wicked dead wander through it, as it serves to be their endless purgatory. The ghost of the "Bride" who had menaced Josh Lambert heard her calling out, and bearing a hatred for her, latched onto her. It didn't seek to use take her body, as it had Josh's. Instead, every time Elise tried to use her gift, the Bride would come forth and attempt to kill her. Elise, now terrified, stopped using her powers and became a recluse, locking herself in her house and interacting with no one. She became depressed and even suicidal, but couldn't take her own life, knowing what laid in wait for her if she did.

THE BRENNER HAUNTING
Roughly a year after Jack's death, a teen girl named Quinn Brenner stopped by Elise's house asking for help. Though Elise refused at first, she felt for the girl, and invited her in. Quinn explained that her mother Lilith had passed away from breast cancer a year and a half before, and that Quinn believed she could feel her spirit. She told Elise she'd been trying to contact her mother to speak to her, and Elise decided to try contacting Lilith for her. However, only a few seconds in, the Bride tried to manifest in her home and Elise stopped the session in fear. She sent Quinn home with a warning that calling out to one dead spirit meant all of them could hear her, and not to try contacting Lilith again.

Quinn did in fact feel the presence of a spirit, but it was the ghost of a murderer who'd lived in her building decades ago and wanted to claim Quinn as his newest "pet." After she was struck by a car and rendered clinically dead for a brief moment, the ghost (known as "the man who can't breathe") took half of her soul before she was brought back and continued to haunt her in an attempt to claim the rest.

The man who couldn't breathe manifested in Elise's house when she attempted to discover his true nature. Sean tracked Elise down and begged her for help. Elise's fear that Quinn might be murdered won out, and she attempted to seek out the man who couldn't breathe in order to formulate a plan. Upon projecting herself into the Further, Elise experienced a reflection of her own future death: the Bride forced her into a chair in an unknown house and began choking her to death. Her physical body began suffocating, clawing at her throat, and she was saved by Sean forcing her back to physical consciousness. She fled the apartment, traumatized, and apologized for being unable to help.

After running in fear, Elise sought out Carl for advice. He reminded her of the Lambert case, and how she saved that family, and reminded her that she was stronger than the Bride simply by being alive. Talking to him strengthened her resolve, and she revisited the Brenner family determined to dispel the haunting once and for all.

Already there were "Specs" and "Tucker," two men in their early thirties who claimed to be paranormal experts under the title of "Spectral Sightings." Quinn's younger brother was a fan of their online vlogs, and he convinced his father to enlist them in an effort to save her. They had some useful self-built equipment for detecting ghosts, but no psychic abilities, and so they were largely ineffective. Elise requested that they stay and help, however, and she entered the Further to get the rest of Quinn's soul back.

Elise was accosted by the Bride shortly after her entrance, and told her she would die at its hands. Elise was able to beat it down and destroy its connection to her for the time being. Enlisting the trapped ghost of one of the prior victims of the man who couldn't breathe, she zoned in on his location. She freed the victim's soul and called out to the man, but he took the form of her late husband, Jack. In Jack's form, he told the now-weeping Elise he missed her...and asked her to join him, presenting her with a straight razor and telling her she had to do it herself. Knowing that Jack would never ask her to kill herself, she realized the man knew he wasn't as strong as she was, and was trying to persuade her to remove herself as a threat. She dispelled the illusion of Jack and called him out.

He revealed himself to her, along with Quinn's partial, deformed soul. Elise grabbed her and began to run while the man started to collapse the plane around them. After a fight, Elise was able to deter him and return to her body...only for him to grab Quinn's half-soul from her at the last second, and then claiming all of it. Elise was able to call forth Lilith Brenner, and together they enabled all of Quinn to return to her body.

SPECTRAL SIGHTINGS - THE SECOND LAMBERT HAUNTING
With the Brenner haunting resolved, Elise suggested to Specs and Tucker that they should go into business together. They agreed, and under her leadership Spectral Sightings became extremely effective. She sort of "adopted" the two as her surrogate sons, and they worked together for years.

In 2010, Elise was contacted by Lorraine Lambert. Her grandson Dalton (one of Josh's children) had lapsed into an unexplained coma, a state in which he'd remained for months. Lorraine had seen flashes of a demonic creature in the house, as well. Elise sent Specs and Tucker head with their equipment to determine that it was a legitimate paranormal event, and after witnessing some of it themselves, Elise joined them.

She explained to Lorraine, Josh, and Josh's wife Renai that Dalton, like his father before him, had the ability to astral project in his sleep. Unaware that his journeys were more than dreams, he'd explored the Further too much and his soul had been kidnapped by a demon (whom he called "the man with fire on his face"). The demon sought to inhabit Dalton's body, not simply to return to life but to torment and kill the living. It was slowly severing Dalton's remaining link to his own body. Because all of this was happening on such a large scale, many ghosts had appeared in the house as well, each racing the demon to take Dalton's body as a vessel. Josh, who remembered nothing of his childhood haunting, refused to believe her and Elise, Specs and Tucker out of the house. He changed his mind after coming across drawings his son had done revealing the truth of his abilities, and called Spectral Sightings back.

Elise held a group seance and contacted Dalton, speaking to him aloud and letting him speak back through her. Specs transcribed her whispers, which turned to threats as the demon intercepted their conversation. It attacked them brutally, using Dalton's body like a puppet until Elise was able to temporarily quiet it.

Reasoning that Josh would be able to get to Dalton more quickly due to their father/son connection, she restored Josh's ability to project and guided him into the Further. While he was able to save Dalton from the demon's clutches, he ignored Elise's warnings not to speak to anything there and confronted the Bride.

Dalton and Josh returned to their bodies. Specs and Tucker hauled the heavy equipment to the van and Lorraine and Renai went with Dalton to the kitchen. Josh remained in the living room, where he helped Elise to pack up some of the smaller stuff. As they laughed and joked in relief, she caught a brief glimpse of John's hands looking old and withered, and suspected something had gone horribly wrong. She took his photo with the closest camera, and the digital preview screen showed the Bride standing in his place. Josh hadn't made it back to his body at all. Cover blown, the Bride forced Elise into a chair and strangled her to death, fulfilling the prior threat.

AFTER DYING
After death, Elise moved on to the "better place" that follows the Further. In the land of the living, paranormal events continued to occur; Lorraine enlisted Carl, Specs and Tucker and the four of them investigated things themselves. They discovered the identity of the Bride (a severely disturbed man named Parker Crane, who began killing at the behest of his abusive mother and had killed himself very shortly after seeing the child Josh visiting his nurse mother at a hospital where Parker was a patient. He'd worn the bridal clothing while killing to hide his identity, and became a serial killer known as "The Bride in Black." He had wanted to take Josh's childhood body to be able to experience a normal childhood). The presence of Parker's ghost in Josh's body began to rot it alive; this, along with his mental instability, caused him to lose it entirely and attempt to kill Josh's family. Carl was pulled into the Further by proximity, where he and the actual disembodied Josh attempted to fix things. However, none of the people involved were able to do anything.

Elise, sensing their distress, came back to the further and began to take things into her own hands. She drove away the ghosts of both Parker and his mother, and sent Carl and Josh on their way. After returning, Carl suppressed Josh and Dalton's abilities the way Elise had shown him in 1986, finally resolving the Lambert case.

AFTER THE LAMBERT CASE
Elise chose to go back to work with Spectral sightings for the time being. As a ghost, she could interact with the field equipment and thus communicate with Specs and Tucker in a makeshift way. They would interact with the afflicted living clients, and Elise would deal with ghosts and demons directly in the Further. Apart from the spotty communication, and trying to get the haunted to actually believe them, they managed to make it work.

Sample Journal Entry:

Hello? Is this thing on?

[There's a bit of tapping on the video screen with the tip of her forefinger before she withdraws her hand.]

Well, I hope so. [She chuckles a little.] It's a bit more complicated than a smartphone!

Hello, everyone! I'm Elise Rainier, but you can just call me Elise. I volunteered to be a warden not too long ago, so I haven't been assigned to anyone yet. If anyone's willing to show an old lady the ropes, I'd truly appreciate any advice you'd have to offer. Better for me to learn now than find myself stuck later.

Sample RP: Here.

Special Notes: Would it be possible for Elise to bring her dog aboard? He's a male golden retriever named Warren, who passed away sometime between the end of the Brenner case and the beginning of the second Lambert case.

As for the app itself: if I need to make any clarifications or adjustments, just let me know and I'll be happy to do so!