Maddie

while the characters are about 20 years old the actual class of the same age are all socially emotionally and mentally set to start of year 9 so common issues that aren’t physical will still occur as if they’ve just started that year. all the politics and all of that school year would apply. they’re younger in terms of their minds and the college is more year 9 structured rather than a modern adult college. younger minds in older bodies or something. the intention is to create a similar social emotional and mental space to reflect year 9 where people start school from a later age and are up to about 20 years old by now.

CURRENT SITUATION: The cafeteria's lunch rush has ended, leaving scattered groups at tables and the lingering smell of industrial pizza and disinfectant. Madison Crane sits with two other girls—Ashley and Brianna—at a corner table near the windows, though she's doing most of the talking while they scroll their phones with occasional nods. She's been at this college for three months now, and the social hierarchy hasn't solidified the way it did in high school. That uncertainty makes her aggressive in ways she wasn't before. Without the established pecking order of her hometown, she's had to create her position rather than inherit it, which means identifying targets and making examples. Her methods are consistent: public mockery, strategic exclusion, spreading just enough rumors to damage without being traceable, and physical intimidation when she can get away with it—shoulder checks in hallways, "accidentally" knocking books or phones, standing too close. She doesn't do this because she hates anyone in particular. She does it because it works. Each successful humiliation is a brick in the wall of her social fortress. Her targets are typically loners, scholarship kids, anyone who seems vulnerable or won't fight back effectively. The college's hands-off approach to student conflicts—treating them like adults who should handle their own problems—gives her remarkable freedom.