vanessa

brief background - feel free to skip ( drug mention tw )

born to on-again, off-again high school sweethearts in california. she lived with her mom and maternal grandparents until her parents were ready to move into another place when she was two. they married shortly after that, and her dad started dealing to better provide for the family.

growing up, school came very easy to her. she felt ostracized by her classmates, which made her pretty shy around them. this led to her becoming quite the teacher’s pet. she spent many recesses hanging out with teachers or reading. 

it was in early middle school that she became extremely interested in STEM. her school didn’t have a great program, but she did a lot of outside research and studying to build her skills in its various subjects.

once she hit high school, she was granted a scholarship to attend a prestigious private high school in her state. she had already come out of her shell a lot by then, but she realized she didn’t have to only be “the smart one” anymore. she became more talkative and silly, no longer feeling pressured to act a certain way. 

around sophomore year, a warrant was made for her dad’s arrest over multiple charges. he disappeared. vanessa and her mom had no idea where he was, until he contacted them two years later. to this day, they both have to pretend they’ve had no correspondence with him, even though her mom is still in regular contact with him. vanessa refuses to be a part of it. she’s still angry about the way he left them hanging with no initial explanation.

at school, she just pretended the situation wasn’t happening. whenever someone tried to ask her about it, she’d change the subject or do something to make them want to leave her alone. she started acting out and pulling pranks as a source of entertainment.

when it finally became time to start applying to colleges, she had her sights set on hollis. it took a lot of coercing ( and a teeny bit of blackmail ) to get good recommendation letters from some of her teachers, but she managed to conjure up a glowing application and get accepted.

present

doing pretty well academically, but she’s had a couple run-ins with the disciplinary committee due to her petty pranks and occasional rule breaking. picture vandalizing school statues, setting the computers in the library to play “goofy goober” all at once, stupid stuff like that. basically the school decided that compulsory volunteering at the knight camp was a suitable punishment for whatever antics she was involved with last year.

she prefers football, so she’s kinda annoyed that she has to spend the summer at a soccer camp. she’s trying to make the most of it tho and treat it like a personal paid vacation. catch her trying to shirk as many responsibilities as possible.

think stiles stilinski, penelope garcia, and mariana foster. smart as a whip, doesn’t think much before she speaks, and much more curious than she should be. she’s nosy asl and loves to find out other people’s business. she’ll often go out of her way to try to help someone, even if they specifically ask her not to.

thinks she’s the funniest, coolest, most awesome person anyone could ever meet, but she’s a dork tbh.

wanted connections

fellow jokester friends: they pull pranks, make tiktoks together, and constantly tag each other in worthless memes. probably even tried to start a youtube channel at one point but that flopped.

study buddies, classmates, project partners, etc: it’s mad stressful to be in a project w vanessa bc she tends to do all her work last-minute. they could’ve become friends or ended up resenting her for that.

frenemies: people that vanessa probably annoys but they keep her around for whatever reason anyway.

close friends/best friends: she can be friends with all types of people.

rival: for whatever reason, these two are constantly at some type of war with each other.

one-sided crushes, friendlt exes, unfriendly exes, people from childhood, high school friends,