Arielle Grimes

[Cicada]

Name: Arielle Amity Grimes
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: Southwest Red Rock High School
Hobbies and Interests: Life sciences, gardening, singing and karaoke, basketball, travel, prayer and bible study.

Appearance: Arielle is 5’9” and is a Caucasian woman with cool-tone, pale skin. She has an athletic rectangular body, with well defined legs, core, and a small bust. Arielle weighs 140 lbs on average. Arielle’s face is heart-shaped and she has a sharp chin, heart-shaped lips, and low cheekbones. She has a snub nose. Her eyes are a bold bluish-green, round, and she has naturally long eyelashes. She has slender, styled eyebrows with a sharp bend. Her eyes are identical to her twin Lynx Grimes’. Arielle is a redhead, with 1B straight hair in a dark auburn shade. She wears her hair to her waistline with waterfall bangs, and regularly styles it with complex buns or braids.

Arielle has confident body language. She tends to take up a lot of space with her hand gestures. Her voice is of an average female pitch and has a naturally deep weight. She speaks with a natural monotone. She is a trained singer with good technique in a mezzo soprano range.

Arielle likes casual athleisure, and has a preference for pastel colors and non graphic patterns like polka dots and stripes. She has typical makeup skills and prefers clean girl applique. She paints her own acrylic nails, and likes them in similar soft and bright colors to her clothes. Arielle has lobe piercings. On the day of the abduction Arielle wore a light gray hooded long-sleeve with white polka dots on top of a white camisole with a multicolor floral pattern. She wore three necklaces: a gold chain cross necklace, a gold chain necklace with a gold-carved chrysanthemum charm, and a silver chain moon pendant with a flower border that is a gift to her from Lynx. She wore team-issued varsity joggers, black with red trim, with her team number 12 in red over her left hip. She wore baby blue trainers with white platform soles. She wore simple white flower studs. Her nails were done in an amaranth red shade.

Biography: Arielle Amity Grimes was born May 30th 2006, along with her fraternal twin Lynx Grimes. The twins were born to Atlas Grimes and Meredith Grimes née Cobbler. The family lived in Winnemucca, Nevada where Atlas was an engineer working for a major mining firm operating gold mines in the area. Due to this the family had an upper middle class income. Meredith deals with early onset multiple sclerosis. Between this and her deference to Atlas, Meredith was a quiet presence in her children’s early life. Atlas dictated most of his children’s early lives and schooling. He was a stern, heavily religious disciplinarian and was controlling of his children. He rarely let the kids out of the house except to go to church, and as soon as they could read both were required to join him in regular bible studies. Arielle took her bible studies seriously, becoming deeply spiritual and religious.

Atlas berated both his children extensively for mistakes, and Arielle still remembers routinely being yelled at and forced to reread passages of the bible. Unlike her twin brother, Arielle avoided the worst of her father’s ire. Arielle knew from a young age that Atlas disciplined her brother harshly, though she would never be aware of the full extent. Atlas would whip Lynx with a belt in sight of his wife and daughter, and Arielle regularly tried to talk her father down or interpose herself physically between them. Atlas would ignore her attempts. Afterwards he would discipline her for what he considered inappropriately trying to play a masculine role as a protector. But he never laid a hand on her, and his view of her was always relatively more charitable.

Atlas allowed Arielle and Meredith to cultivate a garden at home. Meredith had herself been a gardener from a young age, and passed on her extensive knowledge of the craft to Arielle. Atlas as an engineer warily approved of Arielle’s interest in plants, provided he could read any gardening books she requested and ensure they did not promote anything un-Christian. Among all the complex and traumatic memories of her childhood home, her hours gardening with her mother and being left alone by her father are ones she cherishes. The chrysanthemum, her mother’s personal favorite flower, is a symbol Arielle carries in the form of her first ever necklace.

Atlas’s desire to control his children’s lives led to the children’s enrollment into a school a year later than they should have enrolled, with him insisting he could adequately homeschool them. Meredith would eventually convince Atlas to let them go out of concerns for their socialization. The twins had difficulty fitting in. Lynx in particular often got into trouble and was easily frustrated. Arielle was distracted by their struggles and trying to be there as a shoulder for them to cry on during lunch and recess, but the scars of their shared trauma meant a lot would go unsaid between them, as Lynx wanted to protect Arielle from the true scope of what Atlas put them through at home, where Atlas had become increasingly physically abusive.

She likewise had difficulty finding a place among her peers, but her submissive and soft demeanor helped her slot into a small group of friends that appreciated her being easy to get along with. This group would start a small student garden on school grounds with teacher approval and supervision. Her knowledge being appreciated and valued gave Arielle crucial confidence in herself. In exchange, her friend group would teach her things she missed out on at home, like pop music and memes. In particular Arielle took to sports at recess. She would casually play four-square, soccer, and do basic gymnastics. Arielle enjoyed the dopamine that came with physical activity, but none of the sports stood out strongly until she started to fixate on basketball. She was enthralled by the elegance of the footwork involved and the need for complex strategy and teamwork. She watched older kids playing basketball on the school court and observed how to make calls and plays, building her mental alacrity.

However her father’s overwhelming presence meant she could not truly come out of her shell. She felt a lot of guilt in doing things that she felt flew in the face of her father’s teachings. She ultimately loved her father in spite of his harshness, as she believed it was her place to be a loyal daughter. Meredith would quietly encourage Arielle to explore her opportunities. Arielle was further confused during a confessional where a pastor encouraged her to believe that she could be faithful even with secular interests. This conflicted Atlas’s more patriarchal and conservative views

Arielle did her best to compartmentalize at school and double down on church. She joined the youth choir. She had a strong voice for her age, and got solos in hymnals. Atlas was proud of his daughter taking on this important role, which led to him requiring her to practice singing at home. He would personally oversee her, once again berating her whenever she slipped up. She loved expressing herself in a way she felt brought her closer to God, but her father’s harsh expectations led her to develop a dread of her work in youth choir.

Arielle had a number of other trusted adult figures in her life through her father’s friend circle. One in particular, a man in his mid 20s named Hansel, started to take to her in an increasingly inappropriate manner around the time she entered the fourth grade. He would invite himself into the home with Atlas’ approval. Hansel and Arielle’s relationship centered around him playing the kind and fair male figure in Arielle’s life compared to her disciplinarian father. He would validate her insecurities and hobbies, and serve as a shoulder to cry on. As their relationship grew closer he began to become increasingly explicit with the idea that he cared for her in a romantic sense, and that he wished to marry her when she was of age. Hansel would inappropriately hug and touch Arielle. He also introduced Arielle to sexual concepts verbally. As Arielle went through puberty the two of them mutually planned to consummate when she was older. In Arielle’s perspective Hansel was the legitimate love of her life. She actively assisted him by claiming he was her main bible study partner.

One other adult figure who came around the home often was Meredith’s sister Morgan, who had been exiled from the Cobbler household for being gay. Morgan was recently wealthy due to luck with investments, and would come around to check on the kids and try to convince her sister to escape Atlas and come to Las Vegas. Lynx was fully taken with the idea, but Arielle was more reluctant. She understood her father made all his family's lives worse with his domineering and abuse, but she was conditioned to his vision for the family via Atlas’ interpretations of the bible that he pushed on her. She was also against the thought of leaving Hansel..

Morgan did what she could to bring joy to her niece and nephews' lives. She would take the kids on day trips through the backwater of northern Nevada with Atlas’ reluctant approval. The simple freedom of travel exhilarated Arielle, who had never left Winnemucca. She loved seeing the sights of other small towns and the Nevada wilderness. Morgan would even trust the kids to help her with basic repairs, the sort of non traditional feminine coded thing Arielle had never felt comfortable engaging with around Atlas. More importantly, she began to see that Morgan trusted and loved them unconditionally, and in turn warmed to her. This added to the conflicts she felt, with the life of freedom Morgan offered versus being a good daughter to Atlas.

The tension in the household ultimately broke, but in a way that left Arielle in particular out of the loop. When the kids were due to graduate, Atlas and Lynx got into an altercation. Atlas beat Lynx to the point that they had to be sent to the hospital. Meredith finally understood the danger her husband posed and called for Morgan to come and get them, and after threats of getting the authorities involved Atlas agreed to let Meredith, Lynx, and Arielle leave. Arielle was not present for either event. She arrived home from choir practice after Atlas brought her brother to the hospital, and she was shooed out of the room when Morgan arrived. Arielle, to present, only knows that Lynx somehow ended up with a broken nose, but the full scope of the incident is otherwise kept from her. Meredith, Lynx, and Morgan refuse to fully elaborate. Forced to fill in the blanks, Arielle’s grim imaginings have led her to feel intense feelings of shame and guilt that she didn’t do more to help Lynx as their sister, and resentment that nobody will trust her with the truth.

Arielle and Lynx would begin their lives anew in Las Vegas, due to begin middle school at the end of that summer. The family were given their own Skyline Heights apartment, near Morgan’s. Morgan would handle much of the family finances. Meredith’s MS symptoms would severely worsen under the stress of having to flee Atlas’ home and would never truly relent in the years following, making it increasingly difficult for her to run her own household. Arielle’s first concern upon moving in was to contact people back home, specifically her father and Hansel. She initially was able to maintain contact with friends but over time there would be natural drift, especially as Arielle’s living life as a city girl led to resentment. Her father would respond to calls from her, but maintained a cordial politeness and refused to elaborate on what had happened. He would only encourage Arielle to continue her bible studies, and cryptically warn her to be wary of her aunt and brother, but he never actively tried to sow division in his old family. Hansel had no interest in taking calls from Arielle. She was devastated by his callous lack of consideration, and she spent a lot of the summer before middle school mourning him and wondering what she had done wrong to lose his affection.

The summer was an emotionally rough one for her. While Lynx was out with Morgan often, exploring and enjoying his new found freedom, Arielle stayed at home. She focused on helping her mother with the household, learning cooking skills, regularly cleaning, and starting a new garden with Morgan’s financial assistance. This is when Arielle began to be mindful of household management, including growing plants that could save the family money in groceries like microgreens and herbs, even though Morgan covered all their expenses. These little touches helped keep Arielle close with her mother, along with their continuing to go to church regularly.

A divergence in the dynamics of the new family began to make itself apparent. Arielle’s main authority figure was Meredith and Lynx’s was Morgan. Arielle would increasingly pride herself on keeping the house in good shape for Lynx, seeing it as a place they could return to no matter how wild their adventures. Being able to play this role as emotional anchor for them helped assuage some of her guilt as a sibling. In this regard Arielle increasingly treated Lynx with a demeanor that could be called permissive.

Arielle did her best to approach starting middle school with a positive mindset. She would keep an eye on Lynx, and while they continued to be difficult in classes and nearly got suspended at some point, Arielle was satisfied that they seemed happier, more confident, and had many more friends. Morgan also intervened during the suspension. Arielle thus internalized that she could fully focus on her own life at school. Arielle kept her grades high. She developed a quieter reputation than her cooler and edgier brother, less social with a lot of her emotional energy tied up. Arielle developed a reputation as taciturn and stand-offish. She leaned into it over time, appreciating the space and developing confidence in her way of expressing herself. In her favorite class, science, she was a bit more talkative, but generally only with the teacher, waiting until after class to ask questions.

As she went through puberty she began to take pride in staying fit and looking lean as part of her image. She wouldn’t put together that her love of basketball could become something more as she had internalized from Atlas’ parenting that it was inappropriate. It was her seventh-grade PE teacher who noticed Arielle’s naturally developed basketball IQ and ball handling. That teacher encouraged her to try out for the girl’s basketball team, and with her height and existing aptitude she immediately became a valued member of the team. She loved the ambition to win shared among herself and her teammates. Team dynamics naturally appealed to her need for authority. In contrast to her demeanor in classes she was more open and social with teammates, somewhat quiet, but sharing casual affection that she found healing from the lack of affection she’d lived in Atlas’ home.

Her middle school team would go much further in the Clark County bracket than expected from a generally no-name school that year, and the wins heartened Arielle, built her sense of camaraderie, and motivated her to search out ways to build her skills. Everyone else in the family was thrilled with how excited Arielle was about the calling she seemed to have found in life, and Morgan put her into spring and summer basketball camps and clinics. Being put into an environment with other tweens and teens aiming for competitive basketball in high school quickly humbled Arielle. She often struggled against far more seasoned athletes who had started training seriously earlier than her. She failed tryouts for extracurricular teams like the AAU. This did nothing to dissuade her, however. She enjoyed the challenge and had faith that she would achieve whatever she was meant to achieve. This confident determination proved critical for her development, and she did not falter where many other hopeful girls might have thrown in the towel.

Arielle went into the summer between seventh and eighth grade with a clear vision in life, to do well academically and to focus on improving at basketball. However, she remained troubled. Even as she began to intellectualize that what Hansel had done to her was gross and wrong she continued to miss him in quiet moments, which only made her feel worse, often struggling to sleep for fear of thoughts of him that would disgust her. Her aunt and brother had been offering regularly that she join them in weed vaping. She was initially disinterested due to a desire to stay clean in line with how she had been raised, but at some point her need for relief led her to give marijuana a shot. She found it relaxed her and helped her sleep better, even improving her post-game and practice analysis. She would become a regular smoker at home, with before bed hangouts with her brother and aunt becoming a bonding ritual for the trio.

She busied herself as much as possible with housework and with summer basketball programs. At some point Lynx, by this point firmly entrenched in his own new identity, began to encourage Arielle to be around the house less, explicit with the dislike for their mother he had built up as he had come to terms with her passivity during their younger years. Arielle brushed Lynx off for a time but she eventually lost her patience and made clear the boundaries between the lives and outlooks they had built for themselves. She wouldn’t interfere with Lynx’s chosen lifestyle, and in turn, he wouldn’t with hers. They would be there for each other with no outward judgement, and both found this spoken arrangement satisfactory. Their continued protectiveness of each other is non-verbatim, and Arielle worries about Lynx and does her best to keep her eye on him through the grapevine and mutual friends within his circle.

Arielle’s eighth grade proceeded with her focus being on basketball. At church she was given an opportunity to join the youth choir again. She declined due to her focus on her athletics. She maintained the programmed guilt she felt from focusing on secular activities, despite how much her passion for basketball had revitalized her. She tried to compensate by continuing her bible studies and assembling a small group of peers to give her structure and social reinforcement for her studies. She often hosted them at her home, and the group would judge Lynx as he continued to openly express himself, coming out as bisexual and non-binary and making loud fashion choices such as hair dye and strange outfits.

Arielle began to consider that she was bisexual, regularly feeling romantic and sexual attraction to girls in her class and on social media. She took cues from Lynx’s own experimentation and her unconditional support of them, which made her feel more comfortable exploring it herself. She negotiated with herself that she could experiment with women and ultimately settle with a man as God intended, and she would wear the label of bisexual and heteroromantic going forward. In truth she is the inverse, with a stronger attraction to women. Her sort of coming to terms with her sexuality led her to realize the girls she had gravitated towards for bible study were bigots, and she quietly stopped associating with the group. At church she was advised to accept her feelings while striving to ultimately marry and have children with a man.

When Arielle joined high school, she felt herself to be on an upswing. She had managed to find some peace with her history with Hansel, at least to the point that he no longer appeared in her nightmares. Lynx was better at staying out of trouble, and there was a comfortable distance between their social circles. She is wary of the sort of delinquents they surround themselves with, but trusts them to handle their own business. Lynx will occasionally invite Arielle along for a party in their social sphere, and Arielle occasionally takes them up on the offer, to the point that she is trusted among them despite not fitting the mold of a Red Rock delinquent in most respects.

Arielle was studious and managed straight As including 5 scores in AP Chemistry and Biology, for a time entertaining dreams to have a biology-related career. Arielle’s basketball tryouts got her on the JV team as a development prospect with ample game time, while also being on the Varsity bench. She would only play a scattered few minutes in Varsity during her freshman season, but got exposure to better players. She was particularly taken by the Hood twins, considered the strongest of the starters, and she was an avid follower of Charlotte Hood’s social media content, using it to inspire herself in her own basketball goals.

Arielle was interested in dating and figuring out her tastes and preferences before looking to settle down when older. She has been in a few relationships of various lengths since her Freshman year. She is openly out as bisexual among her peers. She focused on trying to cultivate long term relationships with men, and her willfulness on this has prevented her from noticing the true nature of how her attraction model works despite multiple girlfriends she generally felt more connection to than her boyfriends.

Arielle’s social life in Red Rock would always be muted. Due to being the main person in charge of her household and her busy schedule in basketball she could not afford much time to socialize. Her demeanor did not help as she was stern and sometimes stubborn. She is acquainted with many fellow athletes but rarely takes time to form real friendships outside of her closest social circles, and she is not known to party. She would bond with a few other Christian students and begin a new bible study group. Arielle avoids anyone giving her grief for her sexuality or secular focuses.

Arielle’s relationship with singing remained strained in her high school years. While she was grateful for the training she was provided when young, memories of the stress her father put her under as a member of her church’s youth choir disinclined her to pursue anything formally. Arielle still dearly enjoys singing in a casual way and she often suggests karaoke dates with friends to the point where it is what she is famous for in her intimate friend circles.

During the basketball season of her sophomore year, a shakeup in the lineup occurred with the ejection of more talented members who lacked synergy and had been causing problems. Arielle was shifted out of her position as a JV starter. Coach Clark focused on Arielle as a piece to elevate the lineup, deciding the teamwork skills she had demonstrated would be more valuable than strict skill. Arielle’s increased time off the bench in Varsity proved her merit. By the end of sophomore season she was the team’s reliable sixth man. After continued off-season development with her teammates Arielle was formally a starter during her junior year.

Upon achieving her starter position, Arielle maintained her fierce work ethic, turning her into a strong asset for the team during their yearly deep runs into championships. Arielle has a defensive specialty with her agility, handling, and quick reads meaning she has a knack for disrupting opponents and efficiently converting back to offense. She has unreliable shooting compared to her teammates, and is otherwise adequate on the opponent’s side of the court. On the sidelines she helps keep up team morale. She’s not peppy, but forward looking with a clear head during difficult moments using a no-nonsense problem solving approach.

With the Varsity team she would get to travel around the state much more frequently due to the team’s pedigree meaning plenty of away games and exhibition matches. More opportunities to see new sights deepened Arielle’s youthful desire to travel and see more of the world. She felt it difficult to express this, however, as the few times she brought it up to Morgan and Lynx they would encourage her to shed some of the responsibilities she imposed onto herself to see more of America. This did not sit well with the affirming self-image she’d built for herself as the de facto head of their household. She downplayed her desires to travel internally as it would disrupt her carefully built plans for the future. Arielle likewise is aware that she cannot prioritize making a serious run for college basketball as she would need more extra time to develop than she can afford. She has accepted that she will have to put aside basketball and focus on her career and family once she graduates. With this in mind she has played her final season as a senior all the more ferociously.

Arielle applied early to UNLV and has been accepted. UNLV has a D1 girl’s basketball team that is above her caliber, and she is in talks with the famed Coach La Rocque’s staff to be a scrimmage player so she can continue to enjoy the sport that has brought so much to her life. There is an unspoken element of resignation in making this call, while she knows it is the practical thing to do, she does sometimes wish she could have had it differently and perhaps focused, gone all out, and proven to herself she was worthy of continuing on a college team.

Beyond this, Arielle has pulled back from her hopes to have a career in biology. She seeks a stable career above all else so she can continue to provide for her mother, as she remains quietly skeptical that either Morgan or Lynx are up to the job. She is undecided in her major, but is already internally settled on the idea that she will likely be working corporate after college. While she remains the closest to her biological mother, she maintains an excellent relationship with both Morgan and Lynx, and Arielle is one of the few people alive they are willing to take criticism and advice from. Arielle remains in contact with her father, and continues to view herself as a loyal daughter despite everything. She currently has been in a year-long relationship with a male peer who is generally misogynistic in the way a lot of men in her generation are. She does not accept that their poor relationship is emblematic of how warped her worldview is. She has a general lack of emotional awareness that her confidence disguises well.

Advantages: Arielle has a natural confidence due to her faith and disciplined nature that means she will approach problems without backing down. Arielle is good at quickly evaluating situations visually. She has above average fitness with explosive power, agility, and stamina.
Disadvantages: Arielle has difficulty changing her plans or mind on the fly. She lacks a deep understanding of her own emotional state beyond a surface level, and is thus more susceptible to detrimental emotional and mental consequences. Arielle is likewise self-sacrificing and codependent due to her self-denying tendencies, and she will prioritize the input of others even when clearly flawed.