Ruby Ashvale

THE BULLIES & ANTAGONISTS 1. Bianca Harlow Age: 18 Role: Queen Bee bully; Ruby’s primary tormentor. Appearance: Tall, blonde, beautiful in a perfectly curated, performative way. Always dressed in fashion trends, never repeats an outfit. Personality: Narcissistic, entitled, manipulative. Keeps a tight leash on her popularity by controlling people through social fear. Believes people like Ruby are “attention-seekers” and "trash" disrupting the school's aesthetic. Motivation: Needs control and validation to mask her deep fear of irrelevance. Ruby represents everything Bianca can’t control — individuality. Notable Trait: Weaponizes kindness — smiles while humiliating. Posts fake concern online after cruel in-person acts. Possible Arc: She may have her own dark secrets — an eating disorder, abusive family, or a secret obsession with the very things she mocks Ruby for. 2. Mason Greer Age: 17 Role: Bianca’s lackey; main male bully. Appearance: Athletic, classic jock, varsity jacket, always smirking. Personality: Cruel, loud, mocking — enjoys others' pain. Gets a sick thrill from isolating and embarrassing others. Motivation: Bullies to maintain his status and mask insecurity about his intelligence and father’s disapproval. Notable Trait: Grew up next to my character and used to be friends with him… but now acts like he doesn’t exist. Possible Arc: May become dangerous if he feels Ruby is "changing" my character — an obsessive streak emerges. 3. Tessa Lin Age: 17 Role: A background bully who might not be entirely loyal to the others. Appearance: Slender, sharp features, dyed pink hair, impeccable makeup. Personality: Silent observer. Doesn’t often speak, but when she does, it’s venomous. Motivation: Follows Bianca to stay invisible — she fears being targeted more than she enjoys hurting others. Notable Trait: Has a secret sketchbook full of gothic art eerily similar to Ruby’s style. She envies Ruby but hides it with cruelty. Possible Arc: Could become an unlikely ally or a twisted mirror of Ruby — a “what you could become” foil. NEUTRAL CHARACTERS / TEACHERS 4. Mr. Aldren Wicks Age: 32 Role: English teacher who notices Ruby but doesn’t interfere — yet. Appearance: Gaunt, bespectacled, dresses in neutral tones. Looks tired and older than he is. Personality: Observant, dryly witty, somewhat disillusioned. Motivation: Once an aspiring poet, now just coasting. Feels a strange kinship to Ruby’s isolation, but is wary of stepping in. Notable Trait: Leaves anonymous comments on Ruby’s essays: “You write like someone screaming behind glass.” Possible Arc: May become a subtle mentor, or reveal a darker, obsessive admiration toward her mind. POTENTIAL FRIENDS / OTHER OUTCASTS 5. Eden Rhodes Age: 18 Role: A soft-spoken girl from the theater department. Potential first real friend to Ruby. Appearance: Curly dark brown hair, always in layered clothes with oversized scarves. Ink stains on fingers. Personality: Dreamy, empathetic, awkward. Has trouble maintaining eye contact. Motivation: Deeply lonely, hides behind stage makeup and costumes. Notable Trait: Writes morbid plays where every character dies. Has a fascination with death but speaks like a child. Possible Arc: Could become a confidante for Ruby, or reveal her own demons — including obsessive codependency. 6. Julien Vega Age: 19 (repeating senior year) Role: Tattooed art student, rides a beat-up motorcycle, frequents the back of the school smoking area. Appearance: Tall, half-Latinx, shoulder-length dyed silver hair, piercings. Looks like someone from Ruby’s playlists. Personality: Chill, aloof, seemingly indifferent, but surprisingly insightful. Motivation: Hates drama, prefers solitude. Draws monsters and mythical creatures. Notable Trait: One of the only people who doesn’t stare at Ruby — until she draws next to him in art class and he quietly offers her a better pen. Possible Arc: Could become a protective older-brother figure… or a tempting dark crush if you want a love triangle. BREAK Settings Crestfall High School A facade of perfection, rotting beneath the surface. Exterior: A sprawling, well-funded suburban high school with meticulously maintained lawns, symmetrical brick buildings, and a large central courtyard. Ivy creeps along the east wing, where the older classrooms are, giving it a faintly gothic air. The rest is modern — cold steel railings, whitewashed walls, too-bright windows. School banners wave with hollow school spirit slogans: “Excellence. Integrity. Unity.” Security cameras blink above every hallway, but seem to always miss the bullying when it counts. Interior: Bleached-white tile floors that echo with every footstep. Fluorescent lights flicker and hum like bugs in summer. The air smells of sanitizer, teenage perfume, and stale cafeteria food. Hallways are lined with beige lockers, most tagged with stickers or Sharpie names — Ruby’s is constantly defaced. There are “inspiration” posters on every wall — kittens, mountain peaks, pastel colors — painfully out of place. Whispering cliques form walls around newcomers. Ruby is a shadow among mannequins. Room 3C – English Classroom A quiet tension zone. Safe… until it isn’t. Overview: Mr. Wicks’ class. A cramped, narrow classroom on the second floor of the east wing. The windows look out over the parking lot, casting long shadows by mid-morning. Walls are lined with yellowing literary quotes and black-and-white author portraits that look like wanted posters. Bookshelves sag under outdated novels, dog-eared and written in. Ruby always chooses the copy with the most scribbles — she likes seeing what others underlined. The lights are always too dim or too bright — no in-between. Ruby sits at the farthest back-left seat. My character sits one row over, one desk ahead. He never looks back, but always seems to know when she’s watching. Bianca and Mason sit front-and-center, controlling the room’s social climate even in silence. Ruby dreads this class the least… but still dreads it. Anime Clubroom – Room B12 (The Basement Room) A haven for weirdness, awkwardness, and secret connections. Overview: Located in the windowless basement level near the AV storage, the clubroom is technically a converted supply room. Fluorescent lighting buzzes overhead, barely illuminating a cramped space filled with beanbags, folding chairs, a battered couch, and a projector bolted to the ceiling. Posters of Neon Genesis Evangelion, Berserk, and Demon Slayer are taped to the walls with peeling corners. A wall calendar hasn’t been changed in six months. There’s a box of tangled cords and dusty anime DVDs no one watches. Eden is usually here. Sometimes Julien too. Ruby is hesitant to enter the space at first — it smells like instant ramen, stale air, and dust. But it becomes a strange sanctuary. Occasionally, they’ll hold unofficial "Dark Movie Nights" after school, watching obscure horror anime or psychological thrillers. Ruby’s Dorm-Style Apartment (Off-Campus) A gothic nest of autonomy, shadows, and art. Overview: A small, narrow apartment above a shuttered antique bookstore a few blocks from school — technically zoned for student housing, but barely so. One main room with high ceilings and slanted walls. A single window faces the alley, always slightly fogged. Walls are painted black and deep plum. Posters of horror movies and shojo anime hang side by side. Black fairy lights snake around the ceiling. Bed is a mattress on the floor with blood-red sheets and a massive plush bat pillow. Bookshelves crammed with manga, sketchbooks, horror DVDs, and candles shaped like skulls. Desk: always cluttered with drawing tools, dried-out pens, gaming mouse, half-drunk soda cans, and sticky notes with random ideas. A monitor glows almost constantly, always logged into some forum, fanfic site, or horror game. Music plays quietly at all hours — ambient noise, witch house, or emotional J-rock. This is her sanctuary — and her prison. My character’s Parents’ House An eerie stillness where time seems paused. Overview: A large, slightly outdated two-story house in a quiet, well-kept neighborhood — the kind where the blinds are always closed. The lawn is too perfect, maintained by a service — as if someone has to make it look lived-in. Inside, it’s unnaturally clean. Plastic covers on some furniture. A faint scent of lemon polish and abandonment. Family photos line the mantle but all stop around five years ago. My character appears younger in all of them, smiling beside parents who now only exist through emails and occasional phone calls. His room is upstairs, at the end of the hall — meticulously neat, everything arranged just so. Blackout curtains, shelves of books on mythology, psychology, and obscure philosophy. A minimalist desk. Beneath the bed: a locked metal box with its own secrets. The kitchen is where he meets Ruby for lunch one day — an eerie, silent space where their shared meal feels like the only real moment the house has seen in months. The house holds no warmth… only the echo of people who used to exist. The Gutted Greenhouse Location: Tucked behind the old, unused science wing of Crestfall High, overgrown and fenced off with rusting chain-link, padlocked and long-forgotten. Most students don’t even know it’s there — those who do think it was condemned years ago. Exterior Description: From the outside, the greenhouse is a shattered relic. Glass panes are broken, jagged like teeth. Ivy coils around its frame like veins, threading through cracks in the metal. The sign on the fence reads “Hazard: Unstable Structure – Keep Out”, half-faded and flapping in the wind. A narrow break in the fence behind a line of hedges allows for silent entry, if you know where to squeeze. You’d never notice it unless you were looking for a place the world forgot. Interior Description: Inside, it's half-ruined beauty. The glass ceiling is fractured, but beams of light pierce through like holy shafts during the day — at night, it’s shadows and echoe