- [+] Mitch Vernet
Name: Mitch Vernet
Gender: Male (He/Him)
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: Southwest Red Rock High School
Hobbies and Interests: Heavy Metal Music (Favorite Genres - Death, Doom), Animal Rescue Volunteer, Recreational Marijuana Use
Appearance: Mitch is a lanky Spanish American dude with lightly-tanned skin and long, straight dark-brown hair which obscures his face almost entirely save for a small gap down the front. He stands at 6”0 tall though he often slouches, appearing shorter than he actually is. His eyes are a deep brown behind his lengthy locks, with reddened veins around the edges of his sclera - a byproduct of both his lack of sleep and frequent smoking. He has a small amount of body fat spread evenly around his body, otherwise he’s relatively
The shape of his head could be described as tall and rounded, allowing his hair to fall straight down on all sides. His face doesn't display an huge range emotion, though he is generally jovial and unguarded in how he carries himself. The corner of his mouth appears to be permanently raised in a subtle smirk as if moments from chuckling to himself. He doesn’t seem to realise this, however.
He always wears black jeans and some kind of band t-shirt wherever he goes, usually bearing some grim imagery like a vulture perched on a skull or an eroded gravestone on his chest like an emblem. Mitch’s right ear is pierced with a thick metal ring wrapped tightly around the helix, though it rarely sees the light of day thanks to all of his hair. He does not tend to layer up with jackets or coats due to the Nevada heat.
On the day of his kidnapping, Mitch was wearing a black band shirt depicting the album cover for ‘Scream Bloody Gore’ by Death, his usual black jeans as well as a pair of brown working boots, a woven leather bracelet around his right hand.
Biography: Mitch Vernet was born in Las Vegas to Ricardo and Jessie Vernet, the former being a car salesman and the latter a stay-at-home mom. While decently well off due to his father’s job, the family was severely strained due to Ricardo’s long absences and Jessie’s undiagnosed stress disorder. When Mitch was 6, his mother had an anxiety attack whilst driving him to school that caused her to collide with another car, gravely injuring herself and the other driver. Jessie was hospitalised and would later die from surgical complications, though Mitch fortunately did not suffer major injury from the crash save for a bruised elbow. Ricardo was granted custody of the young boy, still in shock from the events which had occurred whilst he was away at work. He quit his sales job to instead search for part-time work to spend more time with Mitch while keeping them both afloat.
The tragedy took its toll on Mitch’s father over the years, often spending his evenings gambling or drinking while Mitch stayed home. During these times, Mitch would wander off to his local record store to check out all sorts of different albums. ‘Epicus Doomicus Metallicus’, a release by Candlemass, caught his eye - that pencil-sketched horned skull merged with a facsimile of Christ’s cross stood out to him amongst the sea of vinyls. He’d play that album every chance he could - he found parts of himself in the music he hadn’t recognised before, forming an unbreakable connection between him and the ‘heavy’ sound he now loves. Heavy Metal would become his genre of choice, with bands in the Doom category like Black Sabbath, Candlemass and Funeral becoming his all-time favorites.
Throughout his life, Mitch has struggled with sleeping. He would lie awake for hours before nodding off, leaving him tired most days.Mitch’s school life was bumpy to say the least, though he still performed reasonably well in class despite the occasional nap mid-class. He enjoyed music as a subject, unsurprisingly, though also had an interest in the sciences and especially animal biology. In addition, he was decently well-liked by his peers but it always seemed that he’d been left out of most social gatherings. Whether this was due to being the ‘dead mom’ kid, his overgrown hair or that ‘scary’ music he listened to, he was never sure.
He would soon become enrolled at Red Rock, leaving his old schoolmates behind. To his delight, he discovered the budding metal scene surrounding the high school - up-and-comers like Crackhead Psychopath and Finest in Niflhel would see Mitch attend every show they put on, standing by the front with his arms folded and nodding his head. He would smoke weed for the first time with his new friends after the bands packed up, a habit he frequents to this day. Mitch’s passion for animals would also come to ahead once he started volunteering at a nearby wildlife centre. cleaning the cages after school. Recently he has had to cut down on these visits to work his current cashier job, after money had become tight again due to Ricardo’s habits.
Mitch has faced his fair share of hardship throughout his life, though he takes every bump in the road in his stride. As long as he's got the music, he's content, even better if he's able to help someone else along the way.
Advantages: Mitch's biggest strength is his ability to take life's punches, mentally - there are few things that really shake Mitch to his core, it'll take the worst of the worst to truly get to him. His appreciation of music has also lead to a keen sense of hearing, able to pick up minute sound differences in his surroundings, and his concert-going has helped boost his overall stamina
Disadvantages: Mitch struggles to sleep even at the best of times, so he may find his energy reserves to be lacking day to day. To add, his constant smoking has really caught up with him - his reaction speed is poor, significantly so, when paired with his insomnia. Mitch can becomes fidgety if he doesn't smoke for a long time.
- [+] Canon Relationships
- Heather Klein - They get along pretty well, punk vs metal stereotypes be damned. Besides, 'fuck the system' is a sentiment they can both agree on even if Mitch doesn't think about politics that much. He's made an effort to avoid hamburgers since they became acquainted so he has that going for him.
Ash Green - Fellow concert-goers. They don't exactly talk much together outside of the gigs (if they can even hear each other), but he thinks they're a good egg for supporting the local bands (particularly Finest in Niflhel, which Heather plays bass for). When they do talk though, they tend to connect over animal rights issues and the rest of humanity's shortcomings.
Rowan Cartwright - Good buds who smoke pot and talk music. Their relationship is simple, but he appreciates having someone as music-oriented as Rowan to chat with in his free time. He also doesn't exactly have an ideal home life either, so they might also bond over that.
Raya Loux - They have a synergistic business arrangement (he wanted an earring made once and she took him up on it). Now Raya is Mitch's go-to for trinkets and piercing replacements.
Mitchgrind playlist
- [+] Meela Paireerak
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Name: Meela Paireerak
Gender: Female (She/Her)
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: Southwest Red Rock High School
Hobbies and Interests: 4X Strategy Games, Programming, Cooking on a budget
Appearance: Meela is a 5”0 Thai girl with shoulder-length wavy black hair, dark brown eyes and olive skin. Her head is nearly a perfect circle, though more tall than wide, and her cheeks are slightly rounded and puffy. She applies makeup semi-regularly, preferring to use deep red shades of lipstick. Nine times out of ten, she looks displeased about something regardless of whether she actually is or not.
She’s averagely proportioned and at least a little overweight due to being physically inactive - with her egregiously baggy attire, it’s impossible to tell either way. Not particularly muscular or athletic, she nevers moves faster than she has to. That is, until something pisses her off - you’ll never see anyone approach another human being with such violent ferocity (and velocity).
Meela is never seen without her swamp-green hoodie, bearing a cute snake pattern design on the back. She tends to wear comfortable shorts and avoids wearing socks for personal reasons, opting for sandals when leaving the house. Her wire-frame glasses sit precariously on the bridge of her nose as if threatening to jump off her scowling face.
On the day of her kidnapping, Meela was of course wearing her beloved hoodie, a pair of brown camo cargo shorts and tan leather sandals with multiple straps.
Biography: Meela Paireerak was born in Boulder City, Nevada, though she didn't grow up there - her family, which included her parents Jon and Chalai Paireerak as well as her older sister Lynn, moved to Las Vegas when she was 3 to reconnect with the city’s Thai community. She’s a third generation Thai-American, her grandparents emigrating from Bangkok to the US in the mid 60’s in the midst of the Vietnam War. Her first language is English but she does have rudimentary fluency in Thai thanks to her family using it at home.
Meela became interested in computers after her dad set up a PC in her room during middle school to help her with studying. One of the first games she downloaded to play in her spare time was Sid Meier’s Civilization V, a choice that would doom her forever. She’d play it all the time, way late into the night on weekends, favoring civilizations like Austria, Siam and Greece that favored a diplomatic playstyle. She also quickly became acquainted with programming in C++ as she developed mods for the games she played.
She’s had a distaste for people, or rather an aversion, ever since joining Red Rock High. Dealing with other students is a chore, either they want something from you or they’re wasting your time with dumb stuff. It seems like she’s the only one in the entire school who knows how to defrag a hard drive or even how VPNs work. Though she’s not unpopular per se, she wishes she could hide in the woods for a while to avoid people asking her to turn a laptop off and on again.
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
- [+] Canon Relationships
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Raya Loux - Machines might be her thing, but computers are definitely not. She is in dire need of Meela's expertise, so she's always a call away when her laptop acts up. This *should* draw Meela's absolute ire - it doesn't though, for some reason. Raya is, like, the ONE Red Rock student that doesn't annoy her.
Yusup Almas - She is *constantly* trying to convince Meela to join the cooking club on account of her skills ("Oh god, who told you I was good? I mean I AM good but no."). She's considering it in private, however.
- [+] Renée Burke
Name: Renée Burke
Gender: Female (She/Her)
Age: 19
Grade: Senior
School: Southwest Red Rock High School
Hobbies and Interests: Golf, Hiking, Photography, Instagram
Appearance: Renée is a British-Canadian girl with long, wavy chestnut brown hair that is remarkably well kempt, pale blue eyes and light skin which appears to tan very poorly. She also has thick eyebrows, a daintily smal nose which turns upwards and pristinely whitened teeth.
She’s 5”8 without her boots, always standing upright as though trying to avoid slouching her back at all costs. Her physique is healthy, boasting minimal body fat and defined leg muscles due to frequent exercise and dieting. She wears a baseball cap to protect her eyes from the sun, rarely taking it off unless she’s indoors. Her earlobes are both pierced with small silver studs.
On the day of her kidnapping, she was wearing a sky-blue baseball cap bearing the team logo for the Vancouver Canucks (a stylised capital C combined with a fierce orca breaking through ice), a white vest, gray shorts and a pair of mud-brown hiking boots which have weathered quite a bit of use.
Biography: Renée Burke was born in Vancouver, Canada, where she lived with her parents Rachel and Bernard Burke. She was an only child which, in addition to her father having a high-paying job as an orthodontist, has meant she’s drifted through life relatively strife-free. She did well in class up to middle school, excelled in physical activities and sport - she enjoyed strolling through the natural trails of north of the city and even took regular hiking trips in her spare time. Her life was good.
That was until she and her family moved to Nevada. Her dad had always dreamt of living in Las Vegas, an idea her mother supported due to the lower costs of living - to add, Bernard discovered a new job opportunity across the border which could pay even more than he earned in Vancouver. To the both of them, it was an opportunity they couldn’t miss out on. Renée utterly loathed the idea - she never dealt with hot temperatures very well, especially not dry heat. Besides that, the idea of living in a ‘barren desert wasteland full of drunks and creeps’ didn’t sell her on the plan either. Unfortunately her say in the matter was functionally void. Her parents already made arrangements to stay with a friend based in their soon-to-be new home and, to top it off, they’d also had her enrolled to attend Red Rock High at the start of the next school year.
Vegas was exactly as Renée expected it to be - loud, obnoxious, unbearably hot. She wore copious amounts of sunscreen every day to protect her sensitive skin, donning her now ever-present cap to block the oppressive rays from her sight line. Her new school wasn’t much better either, full of American meatheads who were somehow more primitive than the ones back home. Still, there was a silver lining to all of this - to her shock, she found her calling as a member of the Red Rock golf club. Turns out they all have rich parents too - finally, someone she can relate to in this place.
- [+] Canon Relationships
- Lawrence Willoughby - Another hiker in this godforsaken land, this bond was bound to form. Whenever she's out in the wild Vegas desert, Lawrence is probably there alongside her.
