Age: 28
Gender: Female
Field of Study: Psychology
Physical Description: Julia stands at about average height and has a fairly slight build, standing at 5’6” and weighing 125 lbs. She has pale skin with a light sprinkling of freckles across her nose and upper cheeks. She has bright red-orange hair that falls down to her tailbone in tight curls, and her eyes are a pale green color. She has a medium-sized nose that is slightly rounded, mildly large eyes and somewhat thin light pink lips. She blushes easily, whether from emotion, exercise, or temperature. On the day of the abduction, she was wearing a black tank top, blue jeans, a gray sweater with a white and black geometric pattern on it, dark red Converse All-Stars, and dangling earrings carved into the shape of wings from white shell.
Julia’s clothing style could be described as earthy-indie. She prefers darker tones and either plain colors, geometric patterns, or paisley. She usually tends to stay away from bright colors, although she will wear them on occasion. She never wears any clothing that is advertising a brand, although she will sometimes wear t-shirts with designs that she likes, or from her favorite bands that she’s attended concerts for. She likes wearing dangly, somewhat elaborate earrings and will also sometimes wear necklaces and bracelets, usually in silver with animal or plant charms on them.
She doesn’t like wearing makeup, finding that it takes too much time and looks campy on her. She does, however, follow a dedicated skin care routine to keep her skin as smooth and clear as possible. She will sometimes paint her nails, usually in the same tones that she dresses in, although she occasionally will venture into bright colors there as well. On the day of the abduction she wasn’t wearing any makeup or nail polish.
Background:
- Julia was born on November 24th, 1993 to Mark and Lisa Raymond in Salem, Oregon. Her mother is a high school teacher and her father works for a health insurance company.
- She has one brother who is four years younger than her.
- Julia was raised in a fairly moderately liberal family with regards to politics. Her parents will often voice liberal talking points when asked, but if pushed towards more progressive ideals, they will often get uncomfortable and change the subject. Her mother has always been a bit more liberal than her father, who will sometimes skew a bit conservative on some issues but has never voiced support for any conservative political candidates.
- Julia came out as bisexual when she was 20. While she had a couple of not very serious romantic relationships with boys in high school, she met Mia at an independent art show when she was 21 and fell in love. The two women moved in together a year later and are still together. Mia is Julia’s first lesbian relationship, and also the most serious long-term relationship she’s ever had.
- Julia and her brother have never really gotten along with each other, and have drifted farther apart from each other as they got older, in part due to differing political beliefs. Her brother drifted more towards trade-based work as he came of age, and with that came a more conservative group of friends. Julia, meanwhile, made friends with other LGBTQ people as she got older, as well as some people who either were immigrants or whose parents were. After she came out, and especially after she started dating Mia, her relationship with her brother became more strained, until they both came to a silent, mutual agreement that it was best to just not talk to each other. Occasionally their mother or father would make a half-hearted attempt to get them to talk to each other, but the unspoken consensus within the family is that nothing would change and no real good would come of rekindling that particular relationship.
- Julia had a decent relationship with her mother growing up, although her mother has always been prone to bouts of depression and anxiety, which lead to Julia sometimes feeling like she had to take care of her mother without always getting adequate support from her in return. Her father has always been a bit emotionally distant and, as Julia realized as an adult, a bit sexist, so Julia has never been close to him. Even though she doesn’t want to admit it, she’s always been jealous of the relationship between her dad and her brother, of the bond that they seemed to share that she could never really be part of.
- While Julia initially wanted to go to college right after high school, her family couldn’t afford it at the time. Both her parents had taken a hit financially after the 2008 recession, and Julia wasn’t set enough on a major that she wanted to risk taking out loans to pay for it. She had been raised on a cautionary tale of one of her uncles who had taken out student loans, and then dropped out of college with one semester left. He had never been very good with managing money and had some mental health issues, and he was now in his fifties with thousands of dollars of student loan debt unpaid. Julia really didn’t want that to happen to her, so she avoided loans by waiting to go to college and working service jobs in the meantime until she had the money and the opportunity to move out of her parents’ house, which is when she ended up moving in with Mia.
- Once Julia was in a stable enough financial situation, she started taking classes at the local community college when she was 23. She initially was going to major in fine arts, but a combination of recognizing the dim career prospects that she would have as an artist and a dramatic, unhealthy friendship she had around that same time made her look more seriously into studying psychology. She finished community college with an associate’s degree in psychology, and then transferred to the University of Cascadia to get her bachelor’s. Even though Julia has been attending college for five years, she is currently in her final year, due to working full time while she was attending school, and therefore only attending school part-time for a few semesters.
- Julia’s initial plan was to become a therapist, however, the more she learned about what working in the clinical field would be like, the less she wanted that to be her career path. However, she liked studying psychology, and as she continued her education at Cascadia, she became more interested in a career in psychological research.
- She ended up developing an inappropriately close non-romantic relationship with one of her teachers at Cascadia, who then ghosted her shortly before the trip.
- Julia is quiet and generally considers herself to be an introvert. However, she will be very chatty with people that she likes and when talking about things that interest her. She is a very active participant in many of her classes. She is generally good at and interested in school, and keeps her grades high.
- Julia has an artistic temperament and personality. She has always been a fantasizer, and will often get so caught up in her own storylines and fantasies that she will sometimes space out and lose track of what’s going on around her. She is drawn to visual arts, such as drawing, painting, and dancing, although she also likes to write.
- Julia has shown artistic inclinations ever since she was little. As a child she liked to draw in crayon and finger paint, and she also loved to dance. Her mother would tell her stories of how she would stomp her little feet around when she was a toddler whenever her mother would play music in the kitchen or living room, in an attempt to dance along to it. Julia remembers being fascinated by dancers as a child, and would love watching musicals and music videos as a kid because she liked watching people dance. When she was a little older, she took a few lessons in ballet, and then as a teenager she took some hip hop and belly dance classes. She now takes semi-regular classes at a local dance studio near her house, and she will sometimes rent out space there to practice on her own. She likes a variety of dance genres, but has mostly stuck with ballet. However, when she makes up dances by herself, she will sometimes add in elements of other dance genres (such as hip hop or even belly dance) in with the more traditional ballet moves; she likes creating fusion dances that combine different genres to make something new.
- Julia also likes to write, although most of her writing takes the form of journaling. She started seeing a therapist around the same time she started college, and her therapist suggested that journaling might help her be more mindful of her thoughts and feelings. She finds that journaling helps her make sense of both herself and her life, in a way that nothing else really can.
- Julia is generally a very emotional person, with feelings that run deep and that are sometimes hard for her to control. When things are going very well for her she will be bright and sunny and friendly, but when things are not going well in her life she will often be moody and withdrawn and quick to snap at the people around her. Sometimes a melancholic mood will take her, and she won’t quite know why. She is also intellectual, and is very interested in learning more about herself, as well as other people and human nature in general. She enjoys discussing philosophy and exploring scientific questions and principles.
- Julia has always been somewhat socially isolated, and does not make friends easily. It’s usual for her to have about two or three friends at any given time, but she has no long-running close friendships. Her friendships will often end with one person losing interest and fading away, although she has also had some friendships that ended in dramatic fights. The person that she relies on the most for emotional support is her girlfriend, Mia.
Assets: Julia is intellectual and creative, so might be able to think of creative or innovative solutions to problems that she encounters during the experiment. She can think quickly when she needs to, so she might be able to get herself out of a situation that could seem hopeless. While she doesn’t have amazing athletic abilities, as a dancer she has some level of physical fitness, and can run and jump and do other physical activities without immediately tiring.
Limitations: Julia is generally withdrawn and doesn’t generally engage with or trust many people. This could make it harder for her to find strong allies during the experiment. She is also emotionally volatile, which could make her some enemies. Also, her tendency to fantasize as a coping mechanism might make her less aware of her surroundings, which could end very badly for her if done at the wrong time.
