S045 - Fox, California

#1

Name: California Fox
Gender: Female
Age: 20
Grade: 12
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Illustration (particularly comic book style), comic books, webcomics, pool, streaming, anime, music gigs

Appearance: California is a little above average height, standing at 5'6" and weighs 142lbs. She has a somewhat triangular face with a smaller jawline and pointed chin. Her ears are flat to her head with her right ear missing the top and her nose is slender. Her eyes are a deep and vibrant green, almost emerald in color, while her mouth has full lips with a prominent Cupid’s bow. There is a noticeable scar that runs up from her neck and over the right-hand side of her mouth. Her hair is platinum blonde and cut in a sliced bob style with a center parting.

California typically wears a plain grey beanie with a gold puffer jacket. Underneath this, she wears band tank tops and t-shirts. She has a large collection of wristbands on her left arm from various festivals and gigs that go partway up her forearm. On her lower half, California wears ripped jeans typically in navy, black, blue or grey and either boots or older skate shoes. In warmer weather, she switches to denim shorts or dark leggings.

On the day of the abduction California was wearing her puffer jacket and beanie, a black Exit Order ‘Drops’ t-shirt, ripped blue denim jeans and a pair of Converse x Slam Jam Bosey MC High Tops.

Biography: California is the eldest child born to Orion and Virginia Fox, both natives of Salem. Orion and Virginia initially met each other as they crossed paths in the Salem and Boston art scenes. Orion himself was known for his impressionist paintings while Virginia was part of the punk scene. California’s younger brother Salem was born two years after her. Their names were inspired by the beauty of the state of California and of their home city.

Growing up California and Salem were exposed to a large portion of the art and music scene in Salem, as it wasn’t uncommon during the summer months for their parents to host large barbecues with many of their friends from the two scenes being invited. While Virginia was from a family with only two siblings, Orion came from a much larger family and had five other siblings that all resided within the state of Massachusetts. As a result, family gatherings for the Foxes were big occasions with many people present. The location of these gatherings would differ from year to year, but the Thanksgiving celebration at their grandma's house was an annual affair where everyone turned up at the old farmhouse.

The frequent presence of other artists during her younger years led to California being immediately attracted to art, but not of the style of her father. Instead, she was at first drawn to a portrait style that then gradually shifted into her current more comic-book influenced style after being introduced to comics by one of her mother's friends. She was drawn to comics thanks to their dynamic depictions of movement and the colorful art of superheroes along with their long mythos. This interest has continued throughout her life and also saw California go through phases where her style shifted to match the artists she was most enjoying at the time. Her current favorite comic books are Monstress and Hellboy, so her style sits at a crossroads between Sana Takeda and Mike Mignola with additional influences from manga artists such as Akira Toriyama and Kōhei Horikoshi.

During this early period of her life California—despite excelling at art—frequently struggled with her schoolwork for other subjects, with math being a particular issue, as well as showing resistance to socializing with her peers. At first, it was thought by her teachers that California was potentially displaying signs of a learning disability and informed her parents. Eager to ensure their daughter was supported if she did indeed have a disorder of some kind, Orion and Virginia took her to get tested but it was found that she was merely a very introverted child who didn't like expressing herself and required extra tutoring. Following this Orion and Virginia started giving California additional tutoring at home. But despite their best efforts, California’s work and grades did not see the improvements necessary for her to be able to pass the fourth grade and as a result, she was held back and required to repeat the year. This also did not see any results at first as California withdrew more into art and did not interact with the members of her new class for a long time. But eventually, she was able to be coaxed out of her shell by a couple of her new classmates and settled in. She managed to successfully pass fourth grade the second time of asking.

As she grew up, art became California’s main hobby but music—especially punk—still had a strong presence in her life thanks to Virginia’s band and long history within the local Salem and Boston scenes. It wasn’t uncommon for California and Salem to spend evenings at gigs or concerts when there was a show on. California always enjoyed these outings and saw them as a sort of adventure where she would get to go and see new and interesting places and people. These experiences led to her developing a love of gigs and she tries to attend as many as she can, while also taking friends along whenever possible. Some of her favorite bands are Firewalker, Exit Order, Boston Strangler, Svalbard, and The Distillers. It was during these trips that California picked up her smoking habit, something that has continued throughout her life, while her parents at first tried to talk her out of smoking, California was quick to point out that Virginia smoked while she was younger and they have since relented when it became clear California wasn’t going to quit. California manages to keep a steady supply of cigarettes through older friends she met at gigs, or more recently, through her parents as she is close to the legal age, despite doing this, they still do not let her smoke in the house.

It was also during these trips that California first picked up an interest in eight-ball pool. This came about as sometimes California and Salem would not be allowed into venues due to their age and so would have to be taken to nearby bars by Orion until the show was over. With little to do to entertain themselves at these bars besides play pool, it was something that naturally made sense to do. Orion taught them how to play and California found the game enjoyable thanks to it requiring a good level of hand-eye coordination, a skill that she values, and finding the game relaxing once she got into the rhythm of play. California has continued to play pool as a hobby whenever she has the opportunity and it isn’t uncommon of her to hustle her friends or their friends if given the chance. It’s a well-known fact that any travels with her for gigs almost always involve a stop at any venue that has a pool table so she can get a game in before the show starts.

As California continued to draw and work in a more comic book style, it wasn’t long before Salem came up with the idea of her creating a webcomic to both show off her work but also get popularity online. California was unsure of the idea at first but with her brother's encouragement, she decided to give it a shot, creating God Stomper, which was about a girl who bonds with a demon and discovers a secret world of gods, demons, and angels. The webcomic, which she secretly didn’t think would last past the first few pages, has now been running for around four years. Over this time California has built up a moderately-sized but devoted fan following for her comic that includes a Discord channel that she is a part of, although her level of interaction within it can fluctuate. While she was initially unsure of how to feel about her work being available on the internet for anyone to view, she has grown accustomed to it and enjoys receiving messages from fans who talk about how much they enjoy her work. Despite having a webcomic of her own California hasn't read many other examples of the genre, typically relying on fan suggestions as to things she may like. Even with these suggestions, her reading can be spotty as her interest fades, but of the suggestions she has received the webcomics she has stuck with and enjoys the most are Kill Six Billion Demons, Brothers Bond The Wormworld Saga, Rice Boy and Bird Boy.

After getting what she considered a big enough following California also started a Twitch stream where people could watch her work on pieces such as commissions, bonus pages, and other general artwork. California’s stream doesn’t feature much engagement between her and the audience—as she uses it mostly to relax—instead, most of the content is her drawing with background music and occasionally she will comment about something. While the stream itself doesn’t feature many viewers at a time, when it is combined with her commission work and a tip jar for her webcomic, California sees a decent amount of money each month through nothing but her art.

Anime was another hobby that Salem introduced California to, although she had already experimented with it some when she tried watching Dragon Ball Z but hadn’t found it engaging. Instead, Salem showed her shows such as My Hero Academia and One Punch Man, appealing more to California’s interest in superheroes to get her attention. This strategy proved effective and California slowly started to look into more animes outside of those two, even watching older shows such as Dragon Ball and Devilman. California enjoys watching animes because she both enjoys the art of many of them as well as the interesting world-building and mythos' they build up. Some of her current favorites are My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, Dorohedoro and The God of High School.

As California grew up older than the other children in her year group she went through phases of finding it awkward and accepting it, but during twelfth grade, as she was driving home from a shopping trip to Boston, she lost control of her car due to a storm and crashed into the barrier in the middle of the road, rolling the car multiple times. As a result of the accident California was in hospital for multiple months and had to go through extensive rehab and physiotherapy for her injuries to her back and legs. While she was in hospital recovering California had work brought to her and was given instruction over Zoom in an attempt to help her continue with her senior year. Unfortunately, she found it hard to engage with the material when it wasn’t being presented in person. This combined with bouts of depression brought on by the accident resulted in her giving up on trying to complete the work and failing her classes. This once again meant that she found herself having to repeat a grade due to missing too much of the school year. The end result of this was that she had ended up in the same grade as Salem.

California has found this immensely awkward and has once again retreated into her more anti-social shell, only really opening up to a select few people who have earned her trust. This isn’t due to any inherent dislike of her new classmates, more that she just wants to get through the year and finally graduate, although she can sometimes be brusque when spoken to. While California is aware she could get her GED to get out of having to retake the year, she believes it would be even more embarrassing for her personally, especially if Salem graduated and she didn't. Aside from this, California’s favorite subject and the one she does best in is art. She views all the other subjects she has to take as necessary evils and does as much as necessary to pass them.

The accident continues to be a factor in California’s life even a year removed from it. She still needs to visit a physiotherapist to check up on how her recovery is progressing, finds it difficult to take part in physical activity for too long, and is frequently extremely sore if she does take part in any extended periods of exercise. Mentally, California also suffers from the aftermath as she has fluctuated in weight after being discharged from the hospital as a result of her depression. As well as this California is now noticeably uncomfortable when she has to be in a car.

Her relationship with her family is still strong, her mother and father have supported her throughout her struggles at school and continue to do so. California’s relationship with Salem currently sits at an awkward point where Salem is looking out for her more than the other way around since she has been put into his grade. This situation is something that California finds extremely embarrassing and something she tries to avoid, but despite this, the pair are still extremely close, frequently watching anime together and taking part in some of the same clubs at school.

Advantages: California has relatively good hand-eye coordination thanks to her skill at drawing and pool, which is something she could make use of on the island in the right circumstances. She also has a preexisting ally in her brother Salem with who she could work together. Finally, she isn’t close to many of the other members of her grade so doesn’t hold any particular attachment to the majority of them.
Disadvantages: The flipside of this is that California doesn’t have a large list of potential allies to cover her back as she is not close to many of her class. Additionally, she has been smoking for a good portion of her life and has had trouble exercising since her car crash meaning she is extremely unfit and will have difficulty if she needs to exert herself to any great degree.

Designated Number: Student No. 045

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Designated Weapon: Icepick

Conclusion: What is she supposed to do with a picture of ice? Oh, icePICK not ice PIC. I thought maybe because she's an artist... Well, nevermind. At least you got something designed for the cold. - Abby Soto