Clarence ☀️

Clarence is kind of like if every weird kid stereotype was mashed into one person, but she is the most popular kid in school purely by way of being universally easy to get along with. She is a junior at Aberdale High School and works part time at Pizza Swamp, the local restaurant-arcade. She plays drums in a ska band with her friends and is an alternate in Chad's band since the main drummer has a kid. In whatever free time is left over, she likes to hang out with friends and family and make art. Her favorite things to work with are clay and paints (mostly acrylic and gouache).

He doesn't do particularly well in school, but loves to go to be with friends. The high school has a kiln and some other art supplies that he's able to use, so sometimes he'll stay after for a few hours. This year, his favorite class is music theory and least favorite is algebra II. He's not sure if he'll go to college, but if he does it will be the local community college. He wants to be an artist full time -- one plan of action is to do a ton of freelance stuff (client work, selling stuff at craft fairs) or to become a storyboard artist if the first option ends up being too unreliable.

Clarence probably spends the most time with Sumo, since they have band practice all the time. Clarence has her own drum set, and painted their band's logo on the front (they are called Burnt Fries). They mostly play ska punk, but do covers of a lot of different genres. Clarence plays drums, Sumo plays bass and does vocals on most songs, Chelsea Keezhekoni plays guitar and does main vocals, and Jimmy Chakraborty plays trumpet for their ska numbers. Clarence loves all the music they play, but favors songs that involve challenging beats or drum solos. Chad's band, Dogmon, plays less frequently than Burnt Fries since most of them have kids, but they usually book the same venue on the same night when they do play. Clarence plays drums with them pretty often since the drummer's child is still young. Chad loves to join their practice sessions and helps with a lot of the technical stuff and networking.

Every Wednesday and Saturday, Clarence goes to Jeff's house for study time. Sumo, Breehn, and Chelsea also come along. Most of them don't take the same classes, but they help each other if they do. Chelsea, Breehn, and Jeff are all in advanced classes, so they're usually able to help out Clarence or Sumo if they've already taken the class they're in. Jeff's mom Sue makes them food and they set up camp in Jeff's room for about two hours. Afterwards, Sue does a restorative meditation session with them if they want. Sumo originally thought this was dumb, but it actually ended up really helping them all with information retention and they did much better in school. Clarence, on the other hand, has always been by far the most enthusiastic participant in the meditation activities.

Clarence also loves to hang out with Belson. They'll go to each other's houses, but most of the time they spend together is actually at the rundown house across the street from Clarence's, which Belson's dad bought but couldn't rent out to anybody. Belson usually plays video games, and Clarence either plays with him or paints on the walls.