Survival Of The Fittest

• High-strung high-achieving ace student and clarinetist who can definitely avert burnout if only they snort enough cocaine (false)
• Proooooobably hasn’t actually done cocaine, but they’re incredibly reckless and more than a little self-destructive, mostly as a way to cope with the unbelievable amount of pressure they (and their parents) subject themself to. Basically an over-caffeinated ball of resentment and anxiety who lacks healthy outlets
• Parents are just extremely pushy tiger parents of the worst order. They have a tendency to treat Birch like a trophy to show off and boast about, and, well, it’s very embarrassing when your kid’s lacking in boast-worthy qualities. Lately, though, they’ve taken to encouraging Birch to practice less on the clarinet—it’s all well and good when you can brag about how good of a musician your daughter is, but she shouldn’t get it into her head that she can make a career out of it, you know? (Amusingly, Birch now practices more on clarinet than they used to, out of spite)
• Likes to rebel by partaking in delinquent activities whenever they have the plausible deniability for it. If they’re not already in with the delinquent crowd, they’re definitely begging to be inducted. Ask them to do something stupid and dangerous and they’ll find a way to do it that’s even more stupid and dangerous
• How are they finding time to study and practice and engage in delinquency, you ask? Good question! The answer is that they Don’t Sleep
• One more thing: they’re a nonbinary transmasc, keeping it a secret from their parents, and extremely twitchy and nervous about being caught. Don’t ask them if they’re binding safely; they’re not

• TBA/in progress, if you have any ideas at all then let me know
• Okay but, like, obviously they have delinquent friends/enemies/homoerotic rivals
• Bisexual, may or may not have a string of exes with whom they broke up under acrimonious circumstances

• So she’s a 10/10 butch lesbian heartthrob but she’s, like, really really really into fossils and rocks
• She knows that a lot of people find it grating when she derails the conversation to explain precisely why Lystrosaurus was just so damn abundant during the early Triassic period or whatever, so she tries not to talk about it too much. In fact, she’s very charming and good at getting a good grade in social situations! Though, of course, if you want to hear about Lystrosaurus’ status as a survival taxon…haha jk…unless…
• The one thing about that is that if you say something egregiously inaccurate about a paleontological subject, she will um akshually you. She knows it’s obnoxious, but she simply does not care—it matters when people have an inaccurate view of natural history, damn you!
• In general she’s p good at school, does solidly well in all of her classes without needing to try too hard—except for biology, for that subject she’s a die-hard tryhard and consistently top of the class
• Has a carefully-managed competitive streak, which mostly comes out when she’s playing fighting games. She can also be kinda cocky, though mostly in a playful ‘haha wouldn’t it be funny if I got punished for my hubris’ kind of way
• Her sense of humor is dry and somewhat deadpan, and she’s probably something of an introverted extrovert? She’ll show up to social events and whatnot, and she seems to enjoy it, but she probably won’t say a lot unless you hit her hyperfixation button
• She really really likes hiking. Rocks, animals, maybe even a fossil if you’re lucky—what more can she ask for?
• Actually has a healthy and loving relationship with her parents because someone’s gotta balance out Birch and Vivian

• TBA/in progress, if you have any ideas at all then let me know
• Friends probably include outdoorsy kids and paleontology/geology/zoology nerds? Conversely, if your kid likes Jurassic World (or similar media) too much then she probably has an incredibly petty hatred for them
• Lesbian. One of Alice's themes is feeling like people only want her for the role they expect her to play, in a 'everybody looks at me and sees a handsome athletic butch who can step on them, nobody's interested in listening to me infodump about paleontology' kind of way. So if you have a girl and you're up for a romance attempt that ends up with Alice feeling like she's been used, let me know!

• Former nerd who got so good at cosplaying as a pretty popular girl that she became a pretty popular girl. As one does
• Used to be really good at school, until her depressed and chronically stressed-out med student brother fell asleep at the wheel and got into a lethal car crash when she was in 8th grade. After that she did her best to stop trying and have fun instead, because, like, what’s the point?
• Needless to say this really pissed her parents off, but they were inattentive and neglectful toward her while her brother was alive so they can suck it
• Despite affecting a cavalier attitude towards schoolwork, low grades still make her anxious, so she ‘relapses’ into studying often enough to maintain a B+ average
• Intentionally cultivates an image of being a vapid, vacuous valley girl, but isn’t particularly secretive about the fact that it’s an act. Will give you an ‘I know that you know’ wink if she thinks you know. Generally rather chill and laid-back, and tends not to take anything too seriously
• Probably unsurprisingly, she’s really into performance art and weird experimental theatre stuff. Also likes tabletop rp, for similar reasons. Also also likes drag and burlesque, but it's harder to get entry to those when you're a minor
• Is just a very sweet and friendly person. Life’s too short to be anything else, y’know? That said, she's not above some light-hearted trolling; Vivian's discovered that playing dumb is an effective way to mess with people who, in her opinion, take themselves too seriously
• Pansexual, generally attracted to people she perceives as feminine regardless of gender. Has also been getting some gender envy for femboys as of late, but…nah. Just because she finds femboys attractive doesn’t mean she wants to be a femboy…right?

• TBA/in progress, if you have any ideas at all then let me know
• Probably has a pretty broad friend group? Vivian's very extroverted and friendly to pretty much everyone, and she's also incredibly indifferent to cliques
• Generally, I'm gonna be looking for friends who fall into each of the following categories: friends who completely buy her valley girl aesthetic, friends who suspect that her aesthetic is an act but are chill and go along with it, and friends who suspect that her valley girl aesthetic is an act and are *determined* to figure out 'what kind of person she really is'
• Pansexual, as mentioned above. She's caring and supportive towards her partners, but she's also the kind of person you can be dating for over a year and still feel like you barely know

Dr Adjective wrote:Hello Birch!
Depending on the time scaling, Heather's either more than happy to introduce a new person to Rebelling, or the one that's still part of that crowd but beginning to grow away from troublemaking for its own sake and towards a more directly politicised sort of rebellion. In either case, in the present day she's certainly pro-pissing off your pushy parents and doing your own thing, but slightly more of a voice of reason within that context. Taking care of your comrades is praxis. She's also kinda-sorta self-appointing herself the guardian angel of queer kids so she is a safe space to talk gender stuff.

Also see Mercy Myers and the extended Family for people they may be moving away from?

Dr Adjective wrote: Hello Alice!
Artemis doesn't know very much about dinosaurs, but she's plenty eager to hear more. She does know that birds are supposedly the descendents of dinosaurs, and she likes those! Might be down to go on an outdoors trek from time to time but she's more of an indoors person by-and-large though.

Butch lesbian hearthrob? LK fancies her, there is no avoiding this. Romance on the cards but with the caveats that LK is fairly early in transition and that she's probably involved in a poly thing, either or both of which may not be to Alice's taste.. Also an indoors person but very down to 1v1 her at any given fighting game, though her own preference is for the FGC's black sheep Super Smash Bros.

Mercy disliked the Jurassic World movies for different reasons, so there's... almost something there. Problem is she likes the original Jurassic Park. It's a classic! It has Jeff Goldblum!

Dr Adjective wrote:And hello at last to Vivian!
Speaking of Mercy, guess who's good at literal costumes and has a handful of nerdy interests whilst also being a pretty, popular girl? This kid! Could be a gateway drug to the world of being not-a-dork. Come listen to her band and/or watch horror movies with her! Oh she may also be of use in makeup for performance art, significantly more likely to want to help if it’s in any way macabre.

If she's still actively involved in tabletop stuff, Artemis is supposed to have a group. So far I think it includes Koa? I forget if there were others. My brain is a sieve when it comes to anything actually useful.

Hope might be a former friend who feels a bit left-in-the-cold by her glow up, potentially?

Fiori wrote:Marcy and Birch: Can see Birch and Marcy being fellow inductees into the delinquent crowd, possibly even egging each other to prove they're not just posers?

Koa and Vivian: Theatre kid AND tabletop geek? Imagine she and Koa will at least hang out amongst the same crowds, possible he maybe even knew her back when she was more openly nerdy?

Deblod wrote:While I think Mortimer, Emma, and Joanne are relatively neutral to all three.

Alice on the other hand (depending on her height), can be the perfect candidate for being Vanessa's girlfriend.

Cicada wrote:I can nominate Sohel as one of Birch's acrimonious (on their end anyways) exes if you'll be going down that path! Sohel has like... nothing to offer someone like Birch at all, the only reason they could have ever gotten together however briefly is probably because Sohel casually went rizz mode on them during a class assignment he was looking for help on, he asked Birch out, Birch said 'eh why not' then realized their mistake a couple of days later and unceremoniously booted him out. They can probably go in on insulting him and belittling him for a while then realize he just shrugs and takes it in good humor.