Melissa Psylionne

Melissa Psylionne is the second oldest sibling of The Psylionne Family and a student at Bloomenburg High School. She is incredibly introverted and most likely one of the lesser acknowledged of her siblings by her parents due to her middle position and tendency to keep to herself. It is more typical for her to respond to ongoing conversation or event with a unenthused/tired tone than be the one to initiate said discussion. Fitting of her current state of being and feeling, she tends stray away from typical avenues of social interaction, becoming part of the nebulous underbelly of her school's society. This has placed her in a difficult to escape funk, where she desires to break out of bad habits but has trouble pushing her initiative to the point it needs to be to do so. Thus, Melissa often uses her Illusion powers to create temporary spaces where she can feel in control.
She has a noticeable liking for baseball and other more "nerdy" things. In particular, she seems to show a gravitation towards fantasy aesthetics, which can be seen during her Epithet based emotional outbursts. Outside of these outbursts however, it is difficult to get a read on how Melissa is really feeling on something. Her feelings are not something she likes to show to people, instead opting to record them in journals or through other formats.
== Powers ==
Melissa's Epithet, "Illusion", grants her access to an incredibly versatile and volatile powerset. Essentially, by subjecting all living things in a given area to her Illusions at once, she can create a placebo effect for everyone that causes them to believe that whatever is happening is real. Through this, their minds cause any sort of damage or other changes to themselves while being masked as whatever Melissa's Illusions have taken the form of. If she wants to, she can also simply mask a chosen object or objects through use of her Epithet.
On a smaller scale, she can create doubles of herself or another chosen object, cause someone's senses to go crazy for a short time, or make herself appear as something else and gain properties based on what she has chosen.
On a larger scale, when Melissa has let her emotions burst, her Epithet gains a large boost in potency and range. She can imbue larger areas with a plethora of illusions at once, which essentially transforms said area into whatever sort of location she desires. Most often, she chooses a castle in which she is a princess, masking her baseball bat and baseballs as a royal staff and energy blasts respectively. While not incredibly common, she has had bouts of these outbursts from time to time.
Also, Melissa has the capability to create entities completely comprised of Illusion Epithet energy. For all intents and purposes, these entities are not real and are only able to make contact with beings currently under the effects of Melissa's powers. However, some of these entities have appeared to have gained a firmer grasp on reality than others, potentially being tied to greater parts of Melissa herself. As such, these particular illusions are able to act on their own and be seen by most people with limited input from Melissa. The only two known examples of these types of illusory creatures are The Jester and Abel.
== Madness Ensues ==
=== Part 2: A Grade-A Performance...Actually, More Like Grade-F ===
This Part featured Melissa as a catalyst for the main conflict, which is an unusual position for her to put herself into.
As the party entered Bloomenburg's Auditorium-turned-Dance-Hall, they took note of Walter Psylionne (Melissa's Father) and Melissa standing close to the stage. Soon after, Melissa left the room through a nearby door and waited outside said door for a short time while she prepared herself. The party finally decided to investigate right as Melissa was entering Mr. Psylionne's Chemistry Classroom, which they eventually entered themselves, but not before checking out every other room on the first floor of the school.
Initially, Melissa was surprised that she was followed (although she really shouldn't have been), but soon got over that and accepted the fact that the party knew she was up to something. After a quick snap of her fingers, her Illusions overtook the entirety of Bloomenburg High School, transforming it into "Princess Melissa's Castle". Melissa herself donned a princess getup and became significantly more cocky, sicking a group of Shadow Illusions on the party before disappearing. In reality, these shadowy beasts were nothing more than another group of students Melissa had made the party see as monsters.
Once the party overcame them, they encountered Walter and his wife, Lydia Psylionne, who explained what was going on and told the party of the potential of Melissa's Epithet.
From there, the party scaled Bloomenburg, blazing past all of Melissa's traps along the way. Of note, Izzy Duvall made efforts to communicate with Melissa throughout the trek, writing messages and outright shouting to her. Melissa, did in fact, notice these attempts. The party also managed to find a book on Melissa's feelings regarding her family within the library, which specifically detailed how she felt ignored despite recognizing her parents' incredibly busy work schedule and her grievances regarding each member of the family. In a similar vein, they also saw destruction left in the wake of Melissa's younger brother, Kestrel Psylionne, implying that he has been in the castle (specifically the dungeon) at least once before.
Upon reaching the third floor, the party, now following the lead of Abel, powered through a gauntlet that forced each of them to face their greatest fear. This section appeared to be modeled loosely after the Psylionne Household, or at least featured mock-ups of each family member's bedroom. One of these rooms featured Melissa herself standing among large panes of stained glass, while the voices of various class members could be heard mocking her. After a sad message to the party, this Melissa appeared, leaving only the real one to be dealt with.
Melissa appeared sitting upon a throne in the center of a large room with checkerboard floor patterning, once again taunting the party in preparation for what she thought would be a fight. However, the party was unwilling to attack, instead attempting to reach out to Melissa and make her come to her senses. At first, Melissa was incredibly angered, almost to the point of making the first attack, but the party's resolve continued to shine through. After a bunch of speeches, an edgy but kind of effective showcase from Izzy, and a literal slap to the face from Luna Chrysalis, Melissa finally calmed down enough to be sensible again. From there, she explained how Amelia Toldyne, one of the prom queen nominees, had spread nasty rumors as teenagers tend to due, which lead to almost universal bullying against Melissa. This was the straw that broke the camel's back, as Melissa then decided that she would ruin the prom with this castle plan. Along with this, she swore that there was something else she wanted to explain to the party, but that she couldn't remember it. At the same time, weird, orange particles of energy began glitching in and out of existence around her. Regardless, she and the party both forgave each other, and the party officially accepted Melissa into their friend group. Everyone there exchanged phones numbers, or in Slick Horseman's case, phone numbers written on eggs, and Melissa then got her dad to bring her back home seeing as how she was completely exhausted physically and emotionally.
== Trivia ==
* Melissa is one of Patronix's favorite TTRPG characters he's made, even if she hasn't gotten to be shown off much as of yet.
* Patronix somehow did not expect the party to try and diplomacy their way through Melissa's fight in Madness Ensues Part 2.
* A drawing of Melissa is used as the icon for the official Madness Ensues Planning Discord Server.
* Although she has never had a substantial role within it, Melissa has been in the audience of Destruction Bench Agreement along with The Jester and Abel for a large number of episodes.
* Patronix does not remember where he got the idea to make Melissa be a fan of baseball, but he suspects it may have something to do with Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase.
* Melissa and DBA character Morpheus have incredibly similar character sheets in terms of what each of their abilities do and how it is that they work.
* Melissa is most likely the Madness Ensues Character Patronix has drawn the most for whatever reason, the only other contenders for the position being The Jester and Robin Rimmicks.
Category:Characters
Category:Madness Ensues Characters