⋆ Rory Collins Jackson ⋆ The Baby ⋆ 18 ⋆
Full Name: Lorelai Juliet Collins Jackson Nickname(s): Ror, Baby Jackson DOB: August 2, 1967 Gender: Cis woman Sexuality: Bisexual Job: Primarily a student, but also working part time at the Cherry Museum (and perpetually picking up shifts at Maraschino Music) Major: Undecided Living Arrangements: Currently living with her uncle and cousin, but she & Zahra are trying to save up to move out together + : Trusting, kind, enthusiastic, brave, supportive, - : Naïve, over-sensitive, stubborn, anxious, clumsy,
& more! stats! here!
Bio:
(tw for child abuse, domestic violence, & *literal* murder)
It’s somewhat difficult to reach “townie” status in a town as small as Cherry if you weren’t born there. You’d think it would be even harder, when your arrival was somewhat of a shock to everyone involved. Thankfully even the nosiest old bats ladies in town couldn’t bring themselves to ask questions when they saw the grieving ten year old: deathly pale, save the only semi-visible splotches of purple and blue—bruises refusing to fade—that littered her body. It became an assumed tragedy, with most people believing both her parents died in some terrible accident. The truth was so much worse.
Rory was ushered into the Jacksons’ spare room (their town, their lives) in the predawn hours of an unusually cold May morning because after years of abusing her and her mother, her father had snapped, and done the unthinkable. he stabbed his wife to death, and had attempted to kill his daughter too, stopped only by the emergency personal arriving on the scene. Dan Collins was arrested, Eliza (Jackson) Collins was declared dead at the scene, and Rory? Rory was left effectively an orphan.
Luckily for her, Rocky Jackson was having none of that. He’d dropped everything when the police called—drove a few hours down the coast to identify his sister’s body, and to collect his traumatized niece. Only once he arrived, and quietly introduced himself as her mom’s brother, did Rory finally allow herself to be led into a bathroom so the dried blood could be scrubbed off of her skin.
The following months were brutal. She existed in a constant limbo between her new home in Cherry and her old town, where her father’s crime was the case of the decade. Reporters gathered outside the courthouse. She had to testify—had to sit on the witness stand just a few yards away from him. Rory was terrified of him. Terrified he would get off somehow, or escape prison, and come after her to finish what he’d started.
Even after the trial was over, she struggled to adjust. To grieve. Rory didn’t have a smile to give to her uncle, or a single word to say, except when she was getting into shouting matches with her cousin, or waking up in the night screaming from a night terror. Rocky could barely coax one word answers out of her, and the therapists he brought her to fared even worse. She sat through sessions the same way she sat through her classes: silently, staring at the floor. Until... Something changed. After months of tension and biting remarks, a switch seemed to flip between her and Zahra, and suddenly they were inseparable. And a quiet boy in Rory’s class started talking to her. It took time, but slowly, she started to uncurl from her tight coil of grief and anger. She recognized her mother’s smile in the mirror. Realized she wanted to see it more. She spent weekends on Zev’s floor, talking about movies, until it all hurt less and less. With support from her uncle, Zahra, and her new best friend, she began to blossom in Cherry.
But everything wasn’t magically fixed. Far from it. For all that Rory started to move on from the pain of losing her mom, she didn’t deal with it. She buried it. Tried to be the best niece she could possibly be to her uncle, the happiest, smiliest, easiest version of herself. Because that smile looked just like her mom’s, and if she couldn’t
That said, the chaos of high school wore heavily on Rory. Especially the “prank” of the box. And she hated to see someone messing with the people she cared about. Maybe that was why she threw herself into figuring out who was behind it all. With all of the LBD and Lux drama behind them, she’s really enjoying her first year of college. She can finally stress about normal things like her new classes, and dances, and parties. But her real biggest worry these days is her uncle—and money. He puts up a good front, but she knows Maraschino Music is struggling. That’s why she’s always picking up shifts there, and why she was so grateful to Donny for giving her an in at the museum. Rory owes her uncle everything. She’ll do whatever she can to help him.
Headcanons:
Rory’s very affectionate in most of her relationships, both platonic and romantic. She gives hugs away like spare change and lets “love you”s roll off her tongue without a second thought.
When she was little, Rory got stuck in the undertow in the ocean and almost drowned. Her father pulled her from the water physically pretty unscathed- but she’s still scared of drowning all these years later. It made the incident with the box all the worse.
Moving to Cherry didn’t cure her anxiety. That was a hard learned survival skill, growing up in her house, it wouldn’t be easy to let go. She’s still fairly shy in group situations outside of the gang. She certainly wasn’t popular at Cherry High, other than for being Zahra’s cousin, and then senior year after Zahra graduated, for being Bambi’s friend.
She likes to draw, mostly sketches in pencil or pen. She’s actually pretty good at it, but it’s just a hobby.
