THE FAVOURITE CHILD
She's one of the main characters of my 404 story. She's hella chaotic and seems incredibly caffeinated all the time (she HATES coffee- not that she needs it lol). always smiling and wants to be the BEST at everything- puts 200% effort into everything and still ends up doing mediocre :( weird and silly and a freaking loser and i love her arghgha 
Resilient / perfectionistic She always tries so hard in everything she does and hates giving up. She feels really compared to others since no matter how much more effort she puts in, she always seems to do worse. She wants to prove her worth against them, so she always puts immense amounts of time and effort into making sure the things she does is as perfect as she can make them, and gets really frustrated when they don't turn out how she wants. This has also given her a very bad sleep schedule since she refuses to sleep until she's done or until she passes out.
Impulsive She is so scatterbrained lol and often does things impulsively. She's also very distractable and always ends up doing the WEIRDEST things (usually with solace)
Positive She has a really positive outlook on things, which can sometimes lead to her being seen as overly naive or innocent. She tends to give others the benefit of the doubt and is always smiling and laughing. This also ends up being kind of a mask; she really wants others to think she's capable and perfect, so she always tries to hide away any negative emotions with smiles and humour.
Competitive She's very hard on herself and feels like she isn't enough, since in the past, she's often gotten mediocre grades or fallen short of the top marks despite trying so hard. She's constantly trying to prove herself and appear like the best to everyone, making her incredibly competitive and appear outwardly confident. This makes her kind of annoying sometimes since she often takes things like friendly games too seriously. She's also not above telling small lies or secretly putting someone else down to look better.
Sensitive / clingy She gets really attached to certain people and craves their approval. She fears them secretly hating her or leaving her because she's not enough. She often overthinks tiny mistakes or comments and starts thinking that the other person hates her, which leads her into a world of panic and self hatred. She cries and panics really easily which she HATES and always tries to hide. She craves attention and is clingly, but also thinks that she's annoying and fears them secretely hating her or being bothered by her because of it. On the other hand, she also cares a lot about the people she loves and is really protective over them.
Anxious She's got like 200% energy all the time which is great but also makes her incredibly stressed and anxious about lots of things. She's really self-conscious about how she appears to others and really overthinks what they think of her, being really fearful of their rejection. She also gets way more stressed than normal about every piece of schoolwork and spends way too much time on everything since she's scared her work is horrible.
Closed-off She appears quite bubbly, and uses humour to hide her true emotions. She hates being vulnerable with others, always wanting to seem perfect and put together to them. As a kid, she was made fun of for crying easily and her dad was quite emotionally distant so she never learned to properly express or talk about her feelings / problems. As such, she avoids expressing any negative emotions and always tries to hide it with a smile or laughter.
Ather's older sister, Charity, was diagnosed with leukemia when she was young. Ather was born a few years after she finished treatment. However, it later resurfaced, leading to Charity's death and her mom leaving shortly after.
Ather was really young when her sister died, so she barely knew or remembers her. However, she's heard stories and knows how smart and disciplined she was. She often feels compared to her and that she's always coming up short of the expectations Charity set. She feels like maybe it should have been her instead- that her family wishes she were the one to have died instead. That way, they could have had the better daughter instead of being stuck with her.
i'll add other backstory stuff later but that's like the main thing
Ather was a really extraverted and excitable child in kindergarten. She would play with and get along with lots of kids but was also really bossy most of the time.
Charity, being 8 years older, would take care of her a lot. She really liked playing with Ather and spent a lot of time with her, although Ather barely remembers this.
Charity died and their mom left when when Ather was 6. She doesn't really have any memories of this, and most of what she knows about both of them are from hearing about her family talk about them. She feels kind of bad for not really remembering them, and is sometimes unsure if she actually remembers some of her memories or if it's just from hearing her dad talk about it.
Her dad grew quite distant for a period of time due to grief. Even though Ather doesn't remember most of this, the leaving of all three of her main caretakers made her fear abandonnement and crave attention. Although her dad did get better eventually, he was still relatively distant emotionally due to his personality. He wanted to give Ather freedom, so he never meddled much with her life and didn't really care what she did most of the time. He also never got angry at Ather for her grades or any behavioural problems, but that also meant he never intervened or gave her any support.
Throughout the early years of elementary school, Ather did well in most activities. She was loud and outgoing, often taking the lead in class activities. She was also incredibly competetive in games and could be quite bossy when interacting with other kids, usually being the one to decide what they would play and how they would approach group activities. She loved the attention she got from getting a question correct or winning a game in class. She also got along well with most of her teachers, being the type of kid to approach them with new riddles or puzzles she found and ask them to solve it (being really excited when they didn't know the answer but she did) or showing them what she and her friends made / did. She was also really creative, coming up with interesting ideas to roleplay with her friends and making them do weird things with her (like making gummy worm smoothies) which intrigued her teachers.
She also performed pretty well academically and often picked up new concepts really quickly. Her teachers often praised her for her good problem solving skills-- she loved puzzles and brain teasers and would often solve them much faster than her peers.
However, she was also really impulsive and would often get in trouble for it. She could rarely wait her turn, was always running in the hallways, and her competitiveness often went too far in activities. This wasn't too much of a problem at first, since she was still really young and was well liked among her teachers and classmates for her bright, bubbly personality. As she got older, though, her teachers started getting tired and frustrated. Ather felt worse and worse everytime she got in trouble, until she started fearing it completely. The tired sighs and look of disappointment of "you again" felt like a stab in her chest. She became very sensitive to rejection; She was now very perceptive of everytime her classmates complained about her bossiness, commented about her being loud and weird, or laughed at her crying easily, taking all of it to heart. Her chaotic, outgoing nature began to fade away and she became highly self-conscious and aware of how she presented herself.
This was worsened by the fact that once school went from fun activities to grades and test-taking, she was no longer the brightest in the room and started falling behind her classmates. No matter how much she knew about the topic, she never seemed to do well on tests.
At home, she could tell that her dad was tired of hearing about her behavioural problems. And, even though he never said anything, she could tell from the way he would stare at her report cards then close them with a simple nod and hollow "well done" that he was disappointed in her grades- especially with the ghost of Charity's perfect marks hovering above them.
Even though her dad never directly compared her to Charity or said anything about her grades, her grandparents did. They would often comment on her poor manners, which Ather tried her best to improve each time they visited, though she could never please them and half the time didn't really know what to do without clear instructions. They also often talked about and praised how great Charity was, and would directly compare her to her sister, sometimes when Ather was still in the room. This was mostly to her dad, but they did sometimes say it directly to her face. "Her grades aren't looking as good as Charity's, are they?" "Her manners need some work. Remember how polite Charity was? Bless her" Ather's dad would usually defend her and eventually cut ties with them. Ather hasn't seen either of her grandparents in years, but the things they said still hurt a lot and stuck with her.
Ather became friends with Adri and Cast in early elementary. They hung out a lot together and this was her main friend group for most of elementary school.
One time, Adri and Ather were defending Cast against another classmate who was making fun of him. Ather ended up pushing the classmate and he fell, hitting his head. He wasn't seriously injured, but both Ather and Adri got sent to the principal's office. Adri was just really frustrated but Ather was like a sobbing mess lol. idk i just thought this would be a core memory for her
The three of them discovered an old treehouse in the forest and liked to play there. At some point, they ran into another kid called Callum there. He would sometimes be there when they visited the treehouse and they would hang out together whenever this happened, slowly becoming friends with him.
One day in fourth grade, they visited the treehouse and found him slumped on the side with a pair of shears stabbed into his side (they didn't really understand at the time but this was Callum's suicide attempt). They got help and Callum survived since he didn't stab the shears very deep. However, they never saw him again and the friend group broke up shortly after. Adri moved away soon after for other reasons, and Ather and Cast didn't talk and mostly avoided each other at school.
In middle school, Ather was even more paranoid of how others percieved her. She feared rejection more than anything else and was incredibly anxious all the time. Every little bit of criticism or rejection hit like a truck and she did everything she could to try and be as perfect as possible to avoid it. She carefully monitored her behaviour, trying her best to do exactly what she was told and be as little of an annoyance as possible.
She also became very obsessive with trying to prove herself and live up to Charity's standards. She got really stressed over schoolwork and put a lot of effort into each assignment. She tried her best to appear confident, participating a lot in class.
Despite her efforts, though, she still struggled with focus and her grades did not improve much, which frustrated her and continued to lower her self-esteem.
All of this continued to worsen in high school, and she started to cut herself and hate herself even more, seeing herself as worse than Charity in every way-- annoying, sensitive, bad at everything she thouches. She hid all this behind her happy, confident persona, though.
She also met Ace around this time, who would later become her closest friend. Her main friend group was with him and a girl called Annaleise, but Annaleise moved away a few years later. She and Ace started hanging out with some other classmates (mainly Jasmine's friend group) but she never really felt like she could be herself around any of them other than Ace. Both of them were sort of third-wheeling most of the time and didn't seem to be as part of the friend group as the rest of them.
Baker Aimee Carty
Senses MICO
Mad's world Mad Tsai
I can do it with a broken heart Taylor Swift
Smile Black Gryph0n
Quiet Tobi Lacroix
Compared child TUYU
Lost one's weeping Neru
Parasite DECO*27
Both of them were once childhood friends! Ather originally liked hanging out with him since he was really quiet and not great at school which made her feel better about herself. As they got closer, Ather now really admires his art and music skills. He's also one of the only people she feels like she can be herself around, and the only person that she feels comfortable venting to since she knows he won't judge and genuinely cares
Close friend
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Relationship
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Relationship
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