Cassandra Merrick

Cassandra Merrick is a character role-played by S\_Venizelos (they don’t stream – maybe one day).

## Description

Cassandra is a somewhat reserved person with a generally friendly demeanor towards any people she meets, but her friendly face hides a tendency towards cold and calculated cruelty against those she dislikes. She will much more often just listen to the conversations around her without really saying much herself unless she feels comfortable around people. Her clothing style can be described as business casual, and her hairstyle is usually just two side braids to keep her long hair out of her face. Cassandra typically tries to keep her gang affiliation under wraps and at best wears muted blues.

## Background Information

Cassandra Merrick was born as Addison Marie Hawthorne in Springfield, Illinois. However, she tells people that she was born and raised in Peoria instead, and typically only gives vague details about her past life.

Her childhood was a reasonably normal one. She lived a sheltered life with moderately affluent parents who both worked in the medical field. Growing up, her parents’ demand for academic excellence fostered a rivalry between her and her brother Jonathan. Jonathan simply had an easier time at achieving good grades at school, at studying, at anything that mattered to her parents. Cassandra learned at a young age that she had to put in much more effort to achieve the same recognition and praise by her parents, and she resented them and Jonathan for it. Since her parents cared about results, she also quickly learned to take alternate paths to success as long as her reputation didn’t suffer for it.

This intense sibling rivalry pushed Cassandra her entire life. She always tried her hardest, always did her best, and always pushed herself beyond exhaustion to excel and to prove her worth. It made her a perfectionist, and it made her stubborn. It also made her ruthless enough to take any path that would lead to her desired outcome. In her high school days she quickly made contact with local gangs and befriended them in secrecy. She couldn’t afford to be seen in these circles but she soon learned that she had much more loyal friends among these people than among her actual peers. They also provided her with various means of faking her way to perfection, be it stolen or faked exams, or Adderall to make studying easier.

The efforts paid off and Cassandra managed to get accepted into the University of Chicago to study counseling. All the time spent around her secret friends while trying to maintain an acceptable reputation had exposed her to a fair share of traumatic events, and she wanted to do right by the people who actually cared about her. College life away from home also presented her with a freedom that she hadn’t known before. It suddenly didn’t matter anymore if her friends were of the less acceptable variety, as long as she kept less than legal activities under wraps. It was at that time that she made contact with the Gangster Disciples, and started dating one of their members, a man named Jerome Johnson. Through them, she started experimenting with drugs, figuring out her own wishes, dreams, life choices – far beyond what her parents expected from her.

Throughout her college days, she kept up her Adderall habit to keep up her good grades, and she had to resort to more illegal means to be able to finance her habit. Some well-placed loans and good grades allowed her to study abroad for two semesters, one at the University of Berlin, and another one at Loughborough University in the UK. Even there, Cassandra would typically be found around drug dealers and users.

Once she graduated, she became a resident counselor for the University of Chicago. Throughout the years she had kept up her affiliations with the Gangster Disciples, and was in a longterm relationship that was leading up to marriage. Her office would be used for drug deals, and Cassandra would provide gang members with favorable psych evaluations to reduce prison sentences.

A drug deal gone bad led to catastrophic results however. Not only were the police on her tail, her fiancé shot a police officer in cold blood to cover up their tracks. They broke up in order to at least spare Cassandra’s reputation. Still, Cassandra was considered to be an accessory in the murder but went into hiding. This led to a police officer stalking her and making her feel unsafe. No matter how much she stayed on the move, there seemed to be no escape. Ultimately, the only way out was giving up her life in Chicago. So with the help of friends in the gang she was given a new identity, and her safest bet of escape was Los Santos. Cassandra doesn’t know what happened to her old identity, and she has no contact to the Gangster Disciples anymore to ensure her own safety.

## Relationships

### Family

* Parents: Miriam and James Hawthorne

* Older brother: Jonathan Daniel Hawthorne

* Ex-Fiancé: Jerome Johnson

### Friends

* Tom Grizz

* Trash Kitty

* Cayde Hunter

* Westly Rhodes

* Barry Valentine

## Quotes

* “Yo what the fuck.”

* “I will shank you.” (to Tom)

## Trivia

* Her car, a Bestia GTS, is distinctly labelled as a female.

* She keeps a tally of how often she has run over Tom – and how often it was his own fault.

* She avoids introducing herself with her full name and tends to only give her first name.