finchmods

[droppedyoursmile]

you think you're like iron and steel
but iron and steel will bend and break
in those complicated shadows

GENERAL

Name: Sabrina Liviana Quintanilla Lane
Nickname(s): Her name doesn’t lend itself terribly well to nicknames. Her brothers just call her Potato, and her family used to call her “Beany” or “Binny” when she was young and cute. She might sometimes be heard calling herself Binny when she’s talking to herself in the third person.
Gender/Pronouns: Female, she/her/hers. She didn’t actually really realize there was another option.
Birthdate/Age: July 31, 2002/16
Grade: Junior
Sexuality: Oh, she doesn't intend to get close enough to anyone to find out.

Major Arcana: The Emperor (emphasis on structure, taking a leadership role, applying reason and being organized, establishing law and order and following a regimen)
Minor Arcana: Cups

Concept: Tightly wound squadmother takes no shit, has no charm.

APPEARANCE

Height:	5'11"	Hair Color:	Brown
Build:	Tall and wiry	Eye Color:	Brown

Sabrina cares a lot about how she looks, but doesn’t want to look like she cares. She puts a lot of work into keeping her makeup subtle and almost natural, into managing her hair but not over styling it. She doesn’t like her nose, her mouth, her height, her bone structure, she plucks her extra lip hairs and carefully sculpts her eyebrows, and whenever she goes out, she tries to project an air of fucking flawlessness. It’s more important to her that she appear confident and unapproachable, with her towering height and perfect posture, her arms crossed and face set to bitch, than for her to actually feel confident.

Uniforms are a blessing to someone like Sabrina, who spends too much time deciding on her casual wear as it is, wasting at least half an hour pulling tights on and off as she tries to judge the appropriateness of the different opacity levels. In uniform, she follows the dress code to the letter, favoring skirts over pants and blazers over cardigans. Out of uniform, she has a sizable but very drab wardrobe with no bold prints and very few colors. She could honestly pare it down to about five pieces and no one would even notice.

Sabrina’s hands seem out of place, though; despite being a carefully controlled and impeccably clean person, her hands or arms are often covered in ink marks. She writes herself notes on her hands a lot, but a lot of times they're short and barely comprehensible because she just has so fucking many.

PB: Soni Nicole Bringas

PERSONALITY

Likes: Notebooks, pens that don’t smear, reading, transcribing things, tracking things, color coding, bullet journal aesthetics, cleaning, organization, being in charge, winning, getting an A+, pumpkin spice lattes, dark chocolate, coffee shops, coffee, Mexican food, rain, snow, routine, chore wheels, exercise, when her weight is an even number, writing things by hand, crossword puzzles, Wikipedia edit wars, mnemonic devices, Denver Nuggets, SF Giants

Dislikes: Being told to smile, makeup, her nose, her temper, failing, getting an A-, cheap pens, scented candles, dirt, bugs, white chocolate, red meat, alcohol, feeling judged, being alone, being in a crowd, heat, short skirts, glitter, disorganization, emotions, excessive use of emojis, adults who use baby talk, sleeping in, forgetting things, overused jokes and the people who make them
---
Sabrina Lane is an intense person. This comes as no surprise to anyone that's sat across from her in a chess match, or been guarded by her in a basketball game, or disagreed with her on a group assignment, where Sabrina has shown how unfortunately determined she is to be the absolute number one best and most impressive person in the room. She just... runs hot. She's tightly wound, high strung, unable to take a single thing lightly, and never learned how to turn that off. Sabrina is very aware of this, and has always tried to channel her energy into doing something good, being productive, into getting top grades and winning that race, remembering that formula or composition and being the teacher's pet. Her intentions are honestly really good here.

The problem comes in when Sabrina starts to struggle. She works hard as hell in everything she does, and when hard work isn't enough to trot into first place, she often lashes out and tries something desperate. Don't worry athletes, it's been a minute since she's bitten anyone in the middle of a game, but that doesn't mean she hasn't thrown out a foot to trip someone, or been accused (though not convicted) of pushing a rival down the stairs. It's a move that can come as a real surprise to people who don't know Sabrina very well, because, for the most part, she seems like a very controlled person. Sabrina follows and enforces rules to the letter, has no patience for horseplay or creative interpretations of the law, and does not make it a habit of displaying empathy for someone who got caught. She just also sometimes hides Scrabble tiles up her sleeve.

This is a real pattern in Sabrina's life; she presents herself as together, as exactly the sort of person she wants you to think she is, but the closer you get, the more obvious it is that she's really more of a controlled burn. Everything's technically fine, she just needs you guys to stand back and let her put out all these little fires on her own. This policy of keeping people at arm's length and refusing to let them lend a hand has worked out exactly as well as you can imagine. It's hard to befriend Sabrina. She has a prickly exterior and uses perfect grammar when texting, because she is the absolute worst. She's a pedantic know-it-all who will correct someone who uses the wrong homonym on Twitter, an insufferable do-it-all who volunteers for thankless tasks and then casually mentions them like she's not bragging about it, when you know she's totally bragging about it. So it's probably very surprising that she has a hard time relating to her peers, despite how confident she appears when she's ordering her squad around or daring people to cut her off in the hallway.

It's fine, though! Sabrina doesn't have time for other people in her life! Even without a squad to manage or classes and extracurriculars to juggle, her tendency to pile responsibilities on her back and never complain often backfires on her. It's funny, because Sabrina is an obsessive planner and hyperattentive to detail, she just puts a little too much faith in things starting and ending on time. No worries! She won't back down from the challenge of too much on her plate and not enough sleep, she's done it before. Please, don't worry about her, doesn't she seem like someone who has this under control? It's very important that you see Sabrina as someone who has this under control. She isn't just constantly challenging other people (whether they know it or not), she's also constantly challenging herself to be better than she was before, and this is just another way to prove it.

Sabrina feels best when she is in control of a situation, even if it's an unfamiliar situation and she's probably going to fuck it up somehow. It's hard for her to rely on other people and expect them to have her best interests at heart, which makes being in control an appealing prospect on its own. But Sabrina is more protective than one might think, especially given how little she cares when someone fucks up and gets caught, and she prides herself on being a good protector. There's a small part of Sabrina that envies softness in others, innocence or naivete, and she wants to save it. She's already jaded and prickly, and she knows she's strong and able to handle getting hurt or making a difficult choice, so it seems natural. It's low self-esteem coupled with something of a martyr complex, and it's not a great combination, but it'll do.

In her attempts to control, manage, and protect, Sabrina would love to be a problem solver for everyone. Bring her your woes, and she'll tell you exactly what to do! But Sabrina is only a problem solver on paper, where there's a predetermined "correct" solution she can puzzle out. Sudoku, crosswords, logic puzzles, mazes, all that shit, Sabrina loves it. Many of her notebooks are filled up with strategies for chess matches, or for her squad now. But give her a real life kind of problem, something that requires nuance and understanding, and Sabrina has exactly two pieces of advice: hit it until it gives in, and stop hitting yourself. Connecting with other people's soft emotions and thinking abstractly are not strong points for Sabrina. This is probably part of why she doesn't have a creative bone in her body.

This need to control doesn't just manifest in being protective and steamrolling group projects, though. Sabrina is very high strung, and doesn't like leaving things up to fate. Her bullet journals are full of ways to track her moods, her weight, how much water she's had that day, how much she slept, how much she studied, how fast she ran in athletics. This means she will never trust herself to "just remember" something that she read, or an assignment or important date, so she keeps an unnecessarily detailed calendar, and her notes are so dense she's practically rewriting the textbook. The few times she's been forced to rely strictly on a brief memory have made her scalp sweat and her heart beat too fast, because her memory is nothing special. It's the absurd amount of work she's willing to put in that's special.

SKILLS

Languages:
- Spanish - ★★★★★ - Fluent. Marisol insists the kids only speak Spanish when they talk to her to make sure they’re not just textbook fluent.
- Mandarin - ★★☆☆☆ - Learning. Some people consider extra studying a valid hobby.

Piano - ★★★☆☆ - Sabrina is a competent but dull piano player. With eight years of lessons under her belt, she can read music and play what you ask her to play, but she's tense and stiff when actually performing.

Sports: At first, sports were just her brothers’ thing—they’re meathead idiots and she’s a perfect little lady—but being on a chess team brought out Sabrina’s competitive monster enough that her parents decided maybe they should let her exorcise some of those demons on a field.
- Soccer - ★★★☆☆ - Sabrina's first organized sport. She's fast and feisty and knows the nuts and bolts of the game, but she’s also maybe a little too feisty. She maybe bit a girl on the field once.
- Basketball - ★★★☆☆ - Sabrina loves basketball, she just hasn't played a full game without fouling out in about five years.
- Hockey - ★★★★☆ - This is where Sabrina's bloodlust belongs. She's been playing pickup hockey for years, but it wasn't until she was asked not to return to soccer that her parents allowed hockey.

Chess: ★★★★☆ - Oh this is her jam. Do you know how many notebooks Sabrina has filled up with chess strategies and opening moves? The only YouTube channels she’s even subscribed to are chess channels. Any rumors that she bit a kid at a chess game are nothing but jealousy and slander.

Organization: ★★★★★ - Some people call it a problem, Sabrina calls it a master-level skill. There’s not a thing in her part of the room that she hasn’t labeled, catalogued, and cross-referenced in one of her notebooks.

Making friends: ☆☆☆☆☆ - She’s, uh… not charismatic.

HISTORY

Family:

Mother – Maria Soledad (Marisol) Quintanilla Cortez, Assistant Attorney General for the State of Colorado. The eldest daughter of Honduran immigrants, Marisol was born and raised in Modesto, CA. A ruthless, ambitious and vain woman, she takes pride in destroying glass ceilings and the men standing on them. Diagnosed with breast cancer four years ago, she’s been in remission for a year and a half now.

Father – Benjamin Lane, neurosurgeon. A child of relative privilege who grew up in Telluride, Benji has never known what it’s like to not get what he wants. Though not as ruthless and ambitious as Marisol, he is a perfectionist with a temper who both fights with and relates to his sons much more than he does Sabrina. Sometimes she’s just… a lot to handle at one time. He was also on three episodes of Jeopardy! about ten years ago and has never once shut up about it.

Brothers – Connor & Clayton, 18, identical twins who graduated high school just this last year. Connor is a moron meathead who sometimes puts his shirt on backwards, Clayton is a genius meathead who open mouth kissed a stuffed moose once, and they’re both dipshits that love their little sister. They went to an all boys’ boarding school their last two years of high school.

Hometown: Denver, CO

Marisol Quintanilla always knew she wanted to adopt her children. Actually, Marisol Quintanilla always knew she wanted to work in the political sphere, and felt tremendous amounts of (societal, political, cultural) pressure to appear maternal and start a perfect little family. She just didn’t want to risk her figure or her forward momentum at work to do that. So as soon as she and Benji Lane were married, they started the adoption process—the years of interviews, of turning up the charm and showing off a perfectly decorated and baby-proofed home, schmoozing and calling in favors until they were at the top of the list for a baby girl in California, due at the end of July.

Sabrina was adopted the moment she was born, and for six whole months she was the center of the world. The Lanes worked so hard to get her, and they were going to show her off for everyone to see, to coo over, to remark on how Marisol did not look like she had just had a baby. It wasn’t all for show—she may have been adopted out of vanity, but she was not unloved—but it can be said her parents had a habit of casually remarking on how hard yet rewarding it was to adopt a child out of a bad situation.

And then the twins happened. The Lanes had barely started the adoption process again when the agency contacted them; something had happened, intended parents had fallen through, and a pair of identical twin toddlers they had previously been on the shortlist for needed a home. It was sudden and unexpected, but it was an efficient as fuck way to wind up with a full family. In an instant (or, well, a matter of months), Sabrina went from only child to the youngest of three, and Marisol looked fantastic for a mother of three.

Going from zero to three children in such a short timeframe was a shock to the new parents, but Marisol has never met a problem she can’t force a solution to. Within a matter of weeks, all the kids had a full schedule lined up and Benji’s sister had been imported from Telluride to help shuttle them around. It didn’t matter that Sabrina wasn’t even a full year old, or that most classes were meant for parent-child bonding at that age, she was signed up for any class that could feasibly contribute to her development. It was something that continued throughout Sabrina’s entire childhood; if there was a free moment in her six-year-old schedule, that just meant she had time to learn piano, work on her science fair project, study for the spelling bee. It was more than just childcare with a side of efficiency; Marisol was determined to raise overachieving children. She knew the challenges of being an ambitious young Latina clawing her way up the professional ladder, but her only daughter was going to rule the fucking world whether they liked it or not.

It was a very controlled childhood. They didn’t eat anything without parental approval, they watched no more than an hour of educational television a day, they spoke perfect Spanish and had impeccable manners when they met mom and dad’s coworkers and bosses. As a child, Sabrina thrived under this level of structure. While Connor and Clayton fussed with their starched clothes and complained about never getting to spend any time with their friends, Sabrina would do anything to make her parents happy. Did her mom want her to do charity work? No problem. Would her dad love her more if she was a world class chess champion? She can do that.

But no matter what she did, Sabrina never felt like she was doing enough. It wasn’t that her parents didn’t love her or her brothers, it was more that they always seemed more interested in rehashing their latest defeats than praising their accomplishments. She was taking the same math as the boys, but she lost the spelling bee. She won the chess tournament, but she got third place in the science fair. In a misguided attempt to keep the kids from coasting through life, the Lanes would focus on how to improve and what they could accomplish with enough hard work and sacrifice. Sabrina didn’t understand that there was no level she could reach or prize she could win that would garner their unconditional praise, so she just worked harder.

Connor and Clayton went the other direction. The twins loved their little sister, and they counted themselves as her protectors, but they had always lived in their own little world. It was a world that was hard for Sabrina to break into, a world full of sports and gross smells and weird inside jokes. A world that, despite their open rebellion against things like dressing nice and volunteering at a soup kitchen for Thanksgiving, their father clearly encouraged. He even seemed to like it when his sons came home covered in mud and made fart jokes, while Sabrina never got to the dinner table with an imperfect manicure. She tried to follow their example (not by making fart jokes, thanks) and joined soccer after she definitely did not cause a commotion by overreacting and biting a chess rival.

It was not a huge success. Instead of getting an amused pat on the back every time she scored a goal, she got a talking to for playing too aggressively. She tried basketball, and rarely played a game without fouling out before halftime. Hockey was the only sport that didn't regularly punish her for her aggression, and even then she spent a decent amount of time in the penalty box.

As tedious as this life was, it was one Sabrina knew how to manage. To succeed she just needed to get straight As, win all her hockey games, play the most difficult compositions on the piano, speak multiple languages, be the prettiest girl in school, and, most importantly, suck up to her parents. It would have been no problem to drag herself across the finish line of graduation if that was all. But Sabrina was 12 when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was in an early stage and, as Marisol put it, no match for her, but things were immediately thrown out of whack. Marisol wanted to treat her cancer aggressively, throwing every treatment and a double mastectomy at it for good measure. She didn’t want this to put her life on hold, not while she had promotions to get, not when she was gunning for State Attorney General as soon as this was out of the way. It was just that, no matter how she handled this sudden curveball, Marisol needed to take time off work. Her bosses insisted on it. And that was bad news for everybody involved.

Suddenly homebound, Marisol busied herself in other ways around the house—redecorating the dining room, harassing the HSA for minor infractions seen around the neighborhood, micromanaging her kids’ lives. That was the worst part. They couldn’t leave the house without providing her a detailed agenda of where they were going and what they were doing, followed up by texts to vet their story. She would check their homework without them even asking, or clean their rooms if they dared leave a single shirt on the floor. When the school year drew to a close and Marisol faced the prospect of not being able to return to work for at least another several months, she announced she was going to homeschool the children.

Connor and Clayton were not down for that. Neither was Sabrina, by the way, but Connor and Clayton had always been better about voicing their concerns. It was hard for them to be concerned about their mother’s illness when she was making their lives such hell. To be fair to them, Marisol didn’t want her children (or anyone, for that matter) to even consider the idea that she might not show this cancer the fucking door. To be unfair to them, Sabrina definitely considered that idea. The boys went to their father to tell him they wanted to go to a boarding school out of state, while Sabrina went to her mother and suggested she write a book instead. The idea of running away to save herself was tempting, but the idea that her mother might die while she was out of state was unbearable.

Marisol did not end up homeschooling Sabrina. The book had been a good suggestion, and it distracted her just enough for Sabrina to pick up more advanced classes and prove keeping her in school was better for her future. But without Connor and Clayton there to soak up some of the attention, Sabrina found herself suffocating under the weight of her mother’s increasingly impossible expectations. She signed her up for extra clubs and volunteer work without asking, there was too much attention on her, the pressure was mounting and the criticisms along with it—but Sabrina refused to leave as long as her mother was sick.

The day Marisol was declared cancer-free and officially in remission was the day Sabrina announced she wanted to go to boarding school, too. Which boarding school? Doesn’t matter, whichever one accepted her first. She needed to get away before she drowned in all this work or she smothered her mother in her sleep. As it turned out, Finchwood was the lucky one to invite her to attend, all the way across the country in Maine. Terrified to leave but dying to get out of Colorado, Sabrina accepted the invitation to visit, where she would find out what this school was really about.

Signing the contract was the easiest decision Sabrina ever made. The difficult choice had been getting the hell out of Denver. Knowing that coming to Maine came with a purpose, that returning home would be downright irresponsible, made this the natural choice.

COMBAT

Persona: Haheuiah, Angel of Protection, bringer of justice. Patron angel of soldiers and lawyers.
Element: Ice.

ACADEMICS

Core Classes: English*, Mathematics*, Science*, Social Studies*, Training.

Elective Classes: Leadership, Comp Sci, Music (piano)

Clubs: Athletics, Gaming, Community Outreach, Student Council

General Performance: 110% is the bare minimum for someone like Sabrina. If she doesn’t know every answer, if she doesn’t ace every quiz in record time, if she doesn’t master every skill and win every race, then she’s just not trying hard enough. Sabrina has a strict homework and study schedule that she adheres to religiously, and is a master-level multitasker, often listening to language tapes while she cleans or reciting facts and figures to herself as she swims.

OOC

Player: Alex
Email: heydudeshutup at gmail
CDJ: thisisalex / 24601
Other Contact: Dropbox
Time Zone: PST

Comments

[droppedyoursmile]

Character Name: Sabrina Lane

Squad: 10
Squad Position: Leader
Primary Weapon: Warhammer
Combat Style:
Sabrina is a decisive leader, and a precise fighter. Even when she’s at a loss or she’s in over her head, Sabrina likes to be the one to make the decision, to be in control of the situation. Luckily, Sabrina is rarely at a loss, because she plans way too far in advance, and treats every training or exploration like a chess game. Strategy is her strong suit, improvisation is, uh, kind of not, so she plans for every contingency, tries to anticipate every single thing that could go wrong, right, or sideways in the weirdest of ways. She can be stubborn about changing the plan, and struggles to not take it personally when she’s forced to make an adjustment. She knows that making changes on the fly is something she is objectively Not Great at, and lives in constant fear of making some real dumbass moves in the field—something she’s liable to do if asked to improvise.

In actual combat, she is ruthless and efficient. She values quick, effective kills over style, and has very little tolerance for showing off. A strong girl with a big hammer, she does strength training and target practice incessantly, and charges into a fight with an air of real confidence. The truth is, Sabrina will often run a quick cost-benefit analysis in her head, and often finds that dealing with a couple small injuries herself is worth it if she gets the kill. She’s very protective of her squad, and wants to save them from ever getting hurt, but is also full of praise for anyone that shows bravery without getting themselves almost killed.

Her leadership style is tough at times, she expects a lot of training and exercise and dedication, and she really doesn’t know how to handle people on a one-on-one basis, but she clearly has affection for her squad. While it’s difficult for her to show it sometimes, she appreciates everything they do and every time they fail to achieve death.

Attribute: Balance

Persona Name: Haheuiah
Persona Appearance:
Haheuiah is a tall, thin figure—too thin, too tall, with limbs that look like they've been stretched in a taffy machine. The pale blue being moves as if it's floating, unhurried unless there's danger. The body itself seems to be made of another material: it's lumpy in places, the arms are twisted and imperfect, and a closer inspection might show that the skin or clothing is flaking or peeling off. Beneath the outer layer, it looks like paper, covered in handwritten notes, as if Haheuiah itself is made of papier-mâché.

On the face is a mask, much smoother than the rest of the body. It's blank, white, like porcelain, but the surface is marred by two long, jagged gashes where the eyes should be. Behind the cracks, more of that papier-mâché can be seen, but you would have to get real close to see it.

When using an attack, Haheuiah swings its arms around with reckless abandon. The placid, unhurried pace turns into a whirlwind of activity, but only for a brief moment. When it's over, the calm exterior returns, like nothing weird happened at all.

>> INSPIRATION/VISUALS <<
Affinity: Ice
Weakness: Air
Ailment Susceptibility: Forget