ROP Laura

Hey y'all! These are just some character notes for my upcoming Revenge of Pahkitew contestant, Laura, the uptight overachiever. These are just some brainstormed ideas that I've jotted down as to what I want to do with her and whatnot. Feel free to contribute if you have any ideas as well! ^^

-Overall personality: Laura is just your typical overachieving high school student who wants to do whatever it takes to get what she wants. She goes to Westlake High School in Ohio and she is very involved in business club, law club, lacrosse, field hockey, and DECA (a business competition for high schoolers in which she had done exceptionally well on a national level). She scored a 35 on the ACT exam and got almost a perfect score on the SAT, but is planning on retaking both again because she wants her scores to be absolutely perfect. She has also taken numerous AP classes, scoring 5s on every single exam she has taken. In terms of family, she's an only child from a wealthy family, born to Amelia and Charlie Roark, who both work in one of the top businesses in the world. Part of her desire to achieve more is to set a good example within her family. Another part of it is her immense fear of failure (which she has had a history of even through her elementary school days, when she scored poorly on a worksheet from an after-school math program and in the 7th grade, when a group project for a science fair led to disastrous results). Laura is essentially the type of person that has really high expectations for herself when it's really unnecessary.

-Backstory: With all this said, despite her fear of failure, she also had a fun side to her. She loved spending days shopping at the mall and grabbing coffee with her friends, going to the Cedarpoint amusement park during the summertime, playing Laser Tag at Zap Zone, and having fun with her childhood friend, Soonchan. The two enjoyed pranking students and teachers alike, and never getting caught. They even decided to start going out by the time they started high school. Unfortunately, their union didn't last long. In December of the same year they started high school, a prank on a teacher went completely wrong and ended up with Laura getting caught and Soonchan getting away. As a result, Laura ended up serving her very first detention in school history, and despite the principal's reassurance that it would not go on her permanent record, an internal part of her was absolutely paranoid that something similar would happen again. She dumped a trash can on Soonchan after school, which signified the end of their relationship. Afterwards, Soonchan and Laura shared a Calvin and Susie (Calvin & Hobbes) type relationship with Soonchan constantly messing with her and Laura getting aggravated by his antics. This incident was another reason why she became more uptight and bossy than before.

-Plans for her plot: From a structural standpoint, Laura is intended to be similar to Courtney. She doesn't tolerate nonsense and she admires people who are just as focused as she is about certain tasks. In her dictionary, there's no such thing as wasting time! She's the type of person who's determined and focused on getting things done. She's quite judgmental of people as well. As for her behavior in the game, I'm thinking about making her have a managerial type of behavior, and have her be the type of person who wants to have control over the team to ensure that they gain victory. I highly doubt she will win ROP. However, her loss will be key for her development as an antagonist. As for her running in the senior class presidential election, she will lose the election to the other candidate Donald, who's more likable, easy-going, and relatable to the other students. This showcases Laura's biggest flaw, in that her bossy and uptight nature downplays her likability factor quite a bit. Angered by both losses, she's going to believe that she's going to have to take drastic measures and a harsher strategy in order to get what she wants. Another reason why she's upset about her loss in the election is that even though she's very active in extracurriculars, has exceptional grades, and performed extremely well in DECA, she's worried that she won't get enough leadership experience to showcase that she's good enough to get into the top colleges of her choosing (her top college is The University of Chicago). I'm still thinking about how to play out her strategy if I successfully make her go the antagonist route, but her basic strategy: ally with the strongest, no-nonsense type contestants, run the weaker contestants out of business, and eventually, run the stronger contestants out of business. During her antagonistic downfall, I was considering having something similar to Andrew and Celes in DE where Soonchan reminds her of how fun-loving she used to be and questions if she's really going to let one little "oopsie" change her entire person. She'll have a big breakdown at this realization, explain everything to the contestants, and revert back to her normal self. She and Soonchan become friends again and she'll also check her emails on her phone, one of which says that she got into her top university!