BoM/TWS/SB Wiki

Characters: Social Group Dynamics

Kelsey Blankenship's AP Group
This is a group of AP students who operate more or less under the thumb of Kelsey Blankenship, Amanda Ferguson, and Anthony Kirk. They include Eva and Jessica and Marc Garner, Kim Walsh, Rachel Burton, Martin Gardinhire, Anthony Kirk, Geoff Mansfield, Ricky Golia, Brooke Galloway, Deanna Showalter, Olivia Byrne and Lisa Yarborough. Marc Garner is a de facto guiding member, in virtue of his charisma (he's the captain of the soccer team as well as academically gifted), and because Kelsey is rather desperate have his cachet, but he doesn't really give a fuck and is just as likely to be found with his soccer friends or other jocks. (Eva and Jessica Garner are patronized by the core group so that Marc will hang out with them, but the girls aren't so keen on Kelsey's group either.) Martin Gardinhire and Geoff Mansfield and Ricky Golia would like to consider themselves core members (and Ricky is dating Amanda, at least in the abstract), but in practice they are bullied along by the Big Three. Brooke Galloway, Rachel Burton, Deanna Showalter and Olivia Byrne are suck-ups, pulled along by the others because the latter need satellites if they are to feel big, though Olivia and Rachel feel the pull of the swim team, and Deanna is such a busybody that she is like a long-range comet that swoops in and out of the main body. Lisa Yarborough is too sweetly dim to pick up on all this, and mostly drifts along with them; to the extent the Big 3 pay attention to her, they rather coldly tolerate her.

The Other AP Crowd
The second AP crowd is smaller and somewhat antagonistic to Kelsey's group. George Basham, Tyler Burns, David Scofeld are its core members, and like Kelsey et al., they are country club members and hard-core AP people from money. But they are also conscious that they have talent on top of it, for they play in the school orchestra. Their girlfriends, Kristin Yetter and Abigail Kane, are also AP students and also musicians, but they are solidly middle class, which next to Tyler, David and George is practically the same as being having parents working the registers at McDonalds.

The Junior Class AP Crowd
The junior class AP students are less cliquish and dickish than the senior class group, but they have a special connection to each other. At the center are the three BFFs Alexis Lachance, Sabrina Rutledge, and Erin Hale. It also includes three long-time friends of theirs', Craig Wyatt, Douglas Canfield, and Rebecca Leary. Through Rebecca, who is dating Scott McInerney, they are friends with Scott, his best friend Roman Robey, and his other friends Justin Lovejoy and James Randolph (the latter is a sophomore). Rebecca herself is close friends with Tanya Firth, who is not taking any AP classes hangs out with this group anyway.

Sabrina and Erin have boyfriends, Alec Stockwell and Julian Henriques, and they also often hang out with the group, bringing with them their friend Jesse Sargent. Others who frequently are to be found in this group because of these overlapping friendships: Justin Lovejoy and the sophomore James Randolph.

Michelle Estrich is also good friends with the core girls.

WHS Boys' Varsity Soccer
The WHS boys' varsity soccer squad is divided into two groups: Thugs and Non-Thugs.

The Thug group is the smallest and really doesn't have any sway on the team dynamics, since most of them don't even like each other. The chief thug is Gary Chen, but he's such a competitive bastard that he subsumes his thuggery into a fierce team spirit, and he throws his all into every game. (More often than not he can be caught cussing out the Non-Thugs for being insufficiently driven.) George Mendoza and Oscar Cantu are scum from the bottom of the school, with Mendoza being one of Chen's pushers and Cantu putting in time at the Warehouse guarding the stairs up to the fuck rooms and collecting rents on them. Brophy Maddox and Lester Pozniak are just bullies. Chen and Mendoza associate with each other, and Mendoza and Cantu sometimes hang out, but otherwise these five don't have much to do with each other off the team, or with anyone else on the team.

The Non-Thug group, meanwhile, divides into the "Marc Garner" camp and the "Other Guys" camps. That's not to say relations between them are unfriendly. It only means that not everyone is friends with everyone else.

Marc Garner (team captain) won the spot by acclamation, given that his only real rivals are good friends of his and threw all their support to him. Marcos Rivera is probably his best friend, in fact, because of some past history that binds them, but Austin Dougherty is almost as tight with Marc. Cole Parker is also friends with them, though he's more of a hanger-on; Chris Love is much less enamored of Marc than most (jealousy is probably an issue with him), but he's an old, long-time friend of Austin so he's in Marc's camp as well. Marc and his friends always make sure to include Jeremiah James, the only African member of the team in their plans, but Jeremiah has other friends and interests. Though he can be considered a part of the soccer team's "Marc brigade," he doesn't associate with them all that much outside of soccer. (NB: Jeremiah's parents emigrated from South Africa when he was young, so he is not "African-American" in the usual sense of the term)

That leaves three "Other Guys": Tyler Rawls, Michael Rodriguez, and Nathan Ford. They are "outside" Marc's group only in the sense that they have other, closer friends off the soccer team and so feel no need to bond tightly with the rest of them.

Marc concentrates on the boys' varsity team, and delegates "relations" with the girls' varsity team and the boys' JV squad to Marcos and Austin, respectively. Marc has a particularly fraught relationship with the girls' team, given that he is dating Hannah Westrick, whose presence on the girls' team has brought chaos and bitterness. He even intervened in her tryout to make sure she got onto the girls' squad, so Anita Nuevo and he have very bad relationship. (Outwardly, they are cordial to each other.) So Marcos is his go-between with Anita. Probably it would be better if Marc handled it, though, because Marcos is so pro-Hannah and pro-Marc that he can't even be pleasant to Anita, and will hector and curse her at only the slightest provocation. Austin, meanwhile, keeps an eye on the JV squad, offering one-on-one coaching on his own time. He is popular with the JV players who take soccer seriously; he is much less popular with those who don't.

As far as relations to with the other boys' varsity teams: Marc and his brigade are friendly with the wrestling squad and with Cameron Huber's faction on the football squad. At the same time, they also get along pretty well with Erik Carstairs and the less thuggish members of his circle. With the other teams they are free of friction and even of contact. Toward the basketball squad, though, they feel contempt due to the arrogance of Black and Patterson and its influence on the other members of the team.

Marc has been careful to cultivate a friendly (but intense) rivalry with Eastman, and will happily socialize with them off the field while trying to destroy them on it.

WHS Girls' Varsity Soccer
The girls' varsity soccer squad is riven by jealousies and rivalries. Some are long-standing, with Tara Weston, Gabriela Costa, and Katrina Schwarz resenting the dominance of the clique that includes Anita Nuevo, Bonny Trask, Dominique Hughes, Kelly Rinaldi, and Barbara Powell. Tara's group then rallied around Hannah Westrick when she joined the squad. In the middle/unaligned/ trying to stay the hell out if it all: Dani Sumner, Josie Holden, Phoebe Beauchamp and Mikaela Bowers. But Josie leans toward Anita and Mikaela (out of the hopes that a reshuffling might move her up to starter) leans toward Tara and Hannah.

WHS Boys' Varsity Basketball
The WHS boys' varsity basketball has a good chance of going all the way to the state finals. That's not a surprise considering the talent on the team, and the Trojan work ethic that the leadership imposes. But that doesn't mean the team is a unified set of musketeers.

The team is run from the top by the duo of Gordon Black and Steve Patterson, who use bullying, terror, and the prospect of relief from the same (and maybe the rewards of access to the fuck room) to enforce discipline and work. Seth Javits is their closest ally, and they consistently reward him with the teasing hint of making the duo a trio by raising him to their level. In fact, neither of them seriously considers giving him the reward.

Beneath this ruling clique are three other groups. Not much distinguishes the trio Jonas Martin, Darren Green and Luke Bennett from the trio of Ryan Shuler, Dylan Lloyd and Matt Nichols. All are thugs and reprobates. Gordon and Steve keep the two groups checkmated with each other by encouraging rivalries between them, and each trio forms the core of rival practice teams. Despite this attempt to divide-and-rule, the two groups do not hate each other, and are often to be found socializing at the same parties.

Brendan Tummler and Shawn Sax are two best friends who get along with the others on the team, but most keep apart. Probably this has to do with Shawn being African-American, and Brendan being (secretly) gay.

Jeremy Richards and Scott Frazier are the two odd men out, and Gordon accepted them on the squad only because they were heads-and-shoulders better than the other seniors who tried out, and he didn't want to take any of the juniors on the JV squad. Jeremy is a particular source of rage and annoyance to Gordon, as he is distinctly sub-par compared to the others, and he tolerates him mostly for the sake of Seth, who is Jeremy's best friend. Scott is a fine basketball player, but he is quiet and polite, which marks him off from everyone else. Worse (as far as Gordon is concerned) he actually takes an Art III class and an AP social sciences class, which in Gordon's eyes makes him effetely intellectual.

Gordon and Steve take absolutely no interest in the girls' basketball squad, and actively ignore it. Meanwhile, they actively interfere with the boys' JV squad to back up their favored clique, and harass and intimidate the rivals.

WHS Boys' JV Basketball
The boys' JV basketball squad is not quite the nest of vipers that is the girls' varsity soccer squad, but it's close. Largely, this is the poisoned fruit of the previous year, when Gordon and Steve (then still on the JV squad) honed their savage management style.

Their handpicked choice to run the JV squad is Russ Stanton, a bully who tries to follow their playbook. Helping him are Ryan Bruno and Diego Rojas, with an assist from his own brother, Samuel Stanton, this year elevated from the freshman basketball team.

Russ, Gordon and Steve had their way during their junior year because they succeeded in forcing Roman Robey to quit the team halfway through the year, despite Roman being at least as good as them and in some ways (as a shooter, for instance) markedly superior. The problem was that Roman fought constantly against their bullying. But they forced him and his two friends, Justin Lovejoy and Scott McInerney, to quit. With the elevation of most of the JV squad to the varsity squad, though, Roman and his friends (now juniors) returned, so that there the trio of Russ, Ryan and Diego is evenly matched by the trio of Roman, Justin and Scott. And just as the first group has picked up Samuel as a sophomore-class associate, the second has picked up James Randolph as a sophomore-class ally.

This leaves the rest of the junior-class players (Glenn Paynter, John Robertson, Lincoln Wright) in the middle. These holdovers from the previous year are still semi-traumatized by the treatment they got, and they still go in fear of Russ and his friends (not to mention Gordon and Steve), and otherwise they would be natural allies of Roman.

Of the remaining sophomores, Darrell Jackson and Eric Hines just try to keep their heads down. Liam Schoonover would love to be an associate of the bad boys, but they scorn him for being a member of the much-derided Los Scorchicos boy band. Elijah Washington, whose long-term goal is to be the captain of the varsity squad his senior year, cagily tries to maintain a foot in both camps by taking Russ's side on the court while keeping friendly with Roman's side off of it.

WHS Varsity Football
The WHS football squad is split down the middle into two cliques, with no neutrals in between.

Cameron Huber, the quarterback and team captain, heads one group. These are the serious players who, with Huber, want the team to compete soberly and seriously on the field. These include his personal friends Marcus Johnston, Chris Ratliff, Ethan Nieves, and Reece Palendech. Also supporting Huber are Sean Mitchell, Isaac Adler, Liam Walker, Matthew McElroy and the junior Thomas Schmitz.

Ranged against Huber, under the leadership of Erik Carstairs, is a crew that is more interested in drinking and partying. They are also notorious for smoking weed. Many of them moonlight at the Warehouse as hired muscle, where they work out aggressions that would probably get them in legal trouble otherwise. Ranged with Carstairs are Scott Bickelmeir, Nathan Hall, Dalton Douglas, Cole Stanchik, Connor Vale, Dominic Kleason, James Bridges, Roy Nelson, Brian Kelly, Blake O'Brien, and the juniors Kevin Hall and Brian Westlake.

Cameron's group is outnumbered by Carstairs, and Huber maintains leadership of the team only because of the support of the team coach. But he also survives because Carstairs doesn't particularly want to mount a successful coup, and is just happy to cause Huber endless misery.

WHS JV Football
The split in the football squad predated the current school year, and can be traced back several years, in fact, and will probably continue afterward (just under new banners) because the same divisions exist in the JV squad and are imposed upon the freshmen players when they move up the ranks. Among the juniors, Cameron's group has influence over Alec Stockwell, Ezequiel Montiel, Hudson Cutright, Jason Rowe, Jesse Sargent, Joshua Swan, Julian Henriques, Kelton Barnes, Nicholas Brown, and Quinton Bell. The other juniors—Andreas Williams, Dustin Miller, Garrett Powers, Jacob Shults, Kirk Brownfield, Nathan Evermore, Michael Danner, Nathaniel Dale, Ryder Hillberger, Jeremy Carver, and Kyle Butler—incline toward Carstairs.

The sophomores haven't yet been solidly sorted out, but some are already aligned with one camp or the other. On Huber's side: Cole Kavanaugh, David Harrell, Luke Bryant, Matthew Olsen, and Trevor Murphy. On Carstairs's side: Christopher Miller, Daniel Moore, Jan Taylor, Jeremy Brooks, and Tim Stark.

WHS Varsity Volleyball
Ellie Kemp - Ellie's pretty much a Pollyanna, sweet and humble almost to a fault. These qualities make her a good leader for the odd mishmash of people that make up the volleyball team however. She believes fully in all of her teammates from a star like Lacey down to a freshman like Libby so the team is intensely loyal to her. Her humbleness may be due to deeply buried confidence issues however but if that's the case it's not something she's open about. Largely tries to find positives in situations and people so she's not someone who would be engaging in rumormongering, badmouthing and the like; even regarding someone like Chelsea.

Shelby Ho - Ellie's best friend and during practice can be the stick to Ellie's carrot. Her closest friend on the team outside of Ellie is Aria Giordano as she's taken on something of a mentorship role to the junior girl. Outside of the team she associates largely with some of the marching band members, mainly Philippa Hosford and Hermione Gilbert. Comes from a firmly upper-middle class family who have instilled in her a strong work ethic and a lot of common sense so among any of her friends she usually tries to play the role of the voice of reason.

Lacey Salter - Originally from the town of Evansville where she was on that school's volleyball team before moving to Saratoga Falls in her junior year. She's the volleyball team's star (for a given value of star when talking about them) and their best player. She's fairly friendly and though not fond of groups like Chelsea's or the AP snobs she has enough social savvy to avoid getting on their bad sides. Outside of the team she hangs around with Catherine Muskov and her social circle.

Los Scorchicos
a.k.a., Sonia Emilia "Scarlett" Bard, Matthew Ghenz, Bastien Jankowski, Liam Schoonover. Started by best friends Liam, Bastian and Matthew, who noticed they had some musical talent, liked to make musical sounds, and looked good in a mirror. Bastian and Liam come from solid middle-class homes; Matthew lives in a trailer park with his mom; but all are reasonably clean-cut kids with decent grade who are the band business for the fun and the fame. Personalities: Liam is the slightly wild one; Bastian plays it cool; Matthew is shy and rough-edged. All attract attention from the girls, but Matthew is the one who deflects it, mostly. Scarlett, meanwhile, started as a groupy but then by playing up her attraction to Bastian got herself a place on the band, which she is now trying to front and dominate, to the resentment of Matthew and Liam, and even of Bastian, a little. She carries herself in a very confident but personable way but with an air of pretension. Essentially she should act like, think of herself and maybe even be treated as the coolest person in any room she enters. Basically she expects to be a big star some day and if that's with this band then that's fine and if they're a stepping stone then that's fine too. She's not a horrible person but she's also very calculated and pragmatic in achieving her goals.

The Orchestra
The bass players
Ryan Barker, John Rider, Emily Sparks, Tommy Ueno: The double-bass players in the school orchestra do not socialize with each other outside of orchestra, but they form a tight little group inside it. Emily is tiny, but she's the first chair of the double basses. The guys, all of whom tower over her, love her to pieces; she reciprocated by letting John take double-bass duties for the Chamber Orchestra. (Besides it gives her more time to spend with her creative-arts friends (Hennepin and them) and at the Warehouse.) The double-basses are like their own secret club inside the orchestra, even though they each have very disparate interests and don't socialize much outside of it.

The misfits
Patrick Currier, Katelyn Feaster, Raymond Koepp, Alex Sheehan: A mix-and-match set or orchestra members who loosely socialize based on that shared interests. Patrick is a country-club type, and is a fair musician, but he is of only average academic talent, and the other country-club types have always treated him badly so he has retreated from them. Raymond has musical talent, but isn't a star, and gives the impression that he doesn't give it much thought. He'd rather be camping out with a six pack of beer. (He and Justin Roth have sometimes made trips out together, though Raymond doesn't do anything like the drugs Justin has, and Justin doesn't tempt him with them.) Katelyn is a very talented cellist, and it really burns her up that she's not in the Chamber Orchestra, and that she's not first chair of the Orchestra. But she blew her audition badly, so she ain't. She's also not great at the academics. She's kind of the "bad girl" of the orchestra--she gives the impression that she might brain some of the assholes with her cello--and so hangs out with Raymond and Patrick and Alex. The latter, meanwhile, scampered out of the marching band (he's a flute player) and into the orchestra because Dr. Stemple caught him with a doobie.

The string players
Sarah Bhatnagar, Olivia Bhatnagar, Audrey Briscoe: The former are Indian-American sisters, in case the names and faces aren't a giveaway. Super-serious AP students who play in the orchestra, but with a sense of fun, though there is so very little time for it. They are friends with Tyler Burns's group, and I doubt Sarah has any time for Kelsey's BS. Audrey is most friendly with these two, and hasn't much time for anyone else in the orchestra, except maybe the juniors. She is friends with a wide range of people outside the orchestra, though.

The woodwinds
Mary Boucher, Gabriel Cardona, Luis Castillo Danielle Davis, Mackenzie Fuller, Samantha "Sammy" Giles, Susie Lekuawehe,: Many of the wind/ brass/ percussion players in the orchestra are also in the marching band, and those that aren't (Danielle, Mary, Samantha, Gabriel) kind of wish they were. They all regard the string players as insufferable snobs (but very talented snobs!); the string players return the favor by condescending to them (politely!) as a lot of bubble-brained toy tootlers.