Susan Clarke

Name: Susan Clarke

Gender: Female

Age: 17

Grade: 12

School: Aurora High School

Hobbies and Interests: Softball (third base on the school team), music (particularly alternative rock), partying, fashion club, fishing

Appearance: Susan is a girl of slightly above average height (5'7"). Her build is relatively slender; while she weighs about 145 pounds, more of that comes from muscle than fat. Susan has a round face, with a small nose and thin lips. Her teeth are straight (the result of three years of braces in middle school) and clean (the result of strict attention to dental hygiene). She's considered fairly attractive, and puts a good deal of effort into maintaining her appearance, plucking her eyebrows and applying makeup regularly. Susan's ears are pierced, and she tends to wear studs in them (except when she's participating in softball). She has no other piercings.

Ethnically, Susan is three quarters Chinese, one quarter mixed European descent. Her surname comes from her paternal grandfather. Susan has pale, clear skin; wide hazel eyes; and straight black hair, which she keeps fairly short, cut straight a few inches above her shoulders. She takes good care of her hair, washing it every day. Susan has good posture, but in a relaxed sort of way; while she stands straight most of the time, she rarely looks rigid. A generally happy person, Susan is usually smiling, though when she is angry or upset she telegraphs it very clearly.

Susan tries to dress in a fashionable way, favoring tights under shorts, dresses, or, most commonly, short skirts. She wears a wide variety of tops, but tends to prefer button-down shirts and blouses. When it's cold (as it often is in the winter in Seattle), Susan dons a thick wool pea coat, colored bright red. She tends to prefer fairly sturdy leather shoes. Being comfortable with her height, she generally eschews high heels. Susan likes to accessorize, and usually has a scarf, a bracelet or two, and a necklace on, along with an assortment of rings. Susan rarely wears hats unless it's for warmth during the cold. Of course, when practicing or playing, she wears the uniform of the school softball team.

Susan has a fairly notable presence. She is energetic without being fidgety, and speaks loudly and clearly without yelling. She's good about waiting her turn, though, and does not interrupt people when they're speaking. She speaks perfect, unaccented English, and a little bit of Mandarin, though nowhere near fluently (in fact, she's learning more of the language in school, very slowly).

Biography: Born June 9, 1994, in the Swedish Hospital and Medical Center, Susan has spent her whole life—barring a few family vacations over the years—in Seattle. Susan's parents, Zhao Mei (her mother) and Steven Clarke (her father) brought her up with great love and care. They were even more careful than normal because they had a difficult time having a child; they married at a fairly late age, and Susan's birth was not an easy one, as she had to be delivered by C-section. In light of this, they decided that they would not try for another child, leaving Susan without any siblings.

Susan's parents were financially quite well off. Steven came from a wealthy background, with his parents having amassed large amounts of money through shrewd business investments and hard work. Mei's family was upper middle class, and the two have done well in their own right. Steven owns a small chain of successful restaurants, which he spends much of his time managing, and Mei is a mid-ranked executive at a bank. While the economic downturn has the family in slightly worse shape than normal at the moment, they have saved and planned well enough over the years that they are still in much better condition than most, and continue to live a relatively worry-free life.

As a young child, Susan was fairly demanding and needy. She quickly learned, however, that her parents had very specific limits beyond which they would not let her push. This led to her learning the boundaries and not fighting battles she was sure to lose, making her childhood fairly low on conflict. Susan's parents were very protective of her and kept her close to them whenever possible. Mei took a long leave of absence to parent Susan personally, and, while Susan did attend preschool, her parents were both very selective and involved during her time there.

When the time came for Susan to start kindergarten, her parents spent a long time debating whether to send her to a public school or not. In the end, they chose to enter her into Seattle's public school system, figuring that, while they wanted to protect her, they shouldn't shelter her too much. In most ways, Susan adapted very well to school, making friends easily and blossoming socially. She is, and has always been, highly extroverted and friendly. The one part of school Susan struggled greatly with, however, was the actual work. In lower grades, it wasn't so noticeable, but as the rest of her classmates made progress and built upon their knowledge, Susan began to fall behind. This frustrated her greatly, and during her late elementary and early middle school years she often clashed with her parents and teachers, feeling that her challenges were in some way due to failings of theirs.

Susan did not have a learning disability, at least, not one that was severe or easy to classify. She wasn't stupid, by any means. In fact, she was quite socially astute, easily able to keep up with conversations, even on subjects which she did not really understand. Her grades, however, were consistently poor to average. Her parents tried to help her during middle school, purchasing study materials and hiring tutors for her. While this did help Susan learn some study skills that she still uses today, she never managed to become a great student, possibly because she just lacked passion for schoolwork. In the end, she decided to settle for being good enough, diverting the attention that she had poured into trying to excel at academics elsewhere. Now, Susan gets mostly Cs in classes, with the occasional outlying B. Susan does very well in classes that do not rely on book knowledge, consistently performing well in gym. Teachers occasionally push her to see if she can do better, but she's become quite adept at deflecting attempts to return her focus to academics.

Susan's interest in athletics began when she was young. She has played softball since elementary school, and has kept up with the sport to the point that she has earned a spot on Aurora High's team, playing third base. Susan has quick reflexes, and her decent height gives her a bit of a boost in retrieving balls. She is also skilled at bat. The one area in which Susan leaves something to be desired is competitiveness. She's playing for the fun of the sport, and, for her, winning is just another facet of that, and certainly not the most important one. Losing does not hit Susan hard. She pushes herself to do well, but she's not the sort to beat herself up over mistakes. She does work out frequently, trying to stay in shape and always attempting to improve her skills, but she lacks the dedication of some of her teammates. Susan tries to contribute in other ways, attempting to keep team morale up by making the other members of her team feel good about themselves, and is always ready with a compliment or nice word.

Susan enjoys spending as much time as she can with other people. While she feels closest to the other girls on the softball team, she has many friends from outside it, too. Her social interests are not really constrained by cliques and popularity, something that has kept her from ending up among the inner circle of popular kids. She spends a lot of her free time at social gatherings, parties, and school events. Susan's parents are generally happy that their daughter is so extroverted, but they often worry that she'll end up in trouble. Susan is a trusting, optimistic girl, one who still has more than a little of the typical teenage feeling of invincibility. Susan is a risk taker, often goofing around in a physical manner. She jaywalks frequently, and in sophomore year injured her leg falling off a table at a party. While she recovered quickly and easily, her wild behavior concerns her parents greatly. They have accepted her interest in softball fairly well, since it is overall not a particularly dangerous sport, but they still often worry that Susan will do something reckless and get hurt, in the game or out of it. This is the one area in which Susan and her parents frequently find themselves in conflict; Susan truly believes that she has a good handle on her life, and feels that her parents are overprotective.

Another area in which Susan and her parents sometimes are at odds is boys. Susan has dated a fairly large assortment of guys, though almost always briefly and casually. Her parents have not always approved of her choices, and worry that her willingness to spend time with so many boys will result in her making poor decisions or establishing a bad reputation. Susan, on the other hand, sees absolutely no problem with her behavior. She is not promiscuous, and sees high school as a time to have fun without being too serious. If any rumors have started floating around about her, Susan has not caught wind of them (beyond some playful teasing from a few friends), and probably wouldn't be too concerned if she did unless she started being harassed. She is currently not romantically involved with anyone, having broken up with her last boyfriend a week before winter break. Breakups are one of the areas where Susan does occasionally have drama in her life, as she can grow dissatisfied in relationships rather quickly and without much warning, though she normally manages to remain on fairly good terms with exes.

Susan does have a few more solitary interests. She enjoys music, particularly favoring alternative rock (which she finds compelling both lyrically and instrumentally), and will sometimes sit for hours just listening to songs. She has a large collection of CDs, and is fairly opinionated on the merits of albums as opposed to digital distribution. She takes some pride in having never owned an MP3 player. She believes that music is best enjoyed with full concentration, rather than as just a background soundtrack to other activity.

Susan also has recently taken up fishing, initially on a whim. Her father enjoys fishing, and throughout Susan's childhood he repeatedly attempted to coax her into exploring the hobby with him, without any success. Susan agreed to accompany him on a trip as a birthday gift about a year ago, and found herself actually enjoying her time. She and her father have become closer through their shared interest, though he is much better at it than Susan is. She hopes to find a similar point of mutual interest with her mother, but has so far not had much luck.

Susan is also interested in fashion. She likes to look her best, and follows trends as they develop, though she is not afraid to buck them when they conflict with her style. She is a member of Aurora's fashion club, though her involvement is not particularly consistent, as she doesn't really like comparing herself to others or trading fashion tips, feeling that people's looks are very personal things.

Overall, Susan is a pleasant, outgoing young woman. She's always interested in meeting and talking to new people, and wants to get as much fun and excitement out of high school as she can before going on to the rest of her life. She's pretty casual about things, sometimes taking life perhaps a bit too easily, but has avoided serious stress because of this. Susan has no idea what comes after graduation, just that she's not going to college. Her parents, while disappointed with this choice, are being supportive of her and have recently begun helping her explore other possible avenues of interest. In the worst case, Susan knows that she could always fall back upon her parents' money, though the thought of doing so is not one she particularly likes, feeling that it would be unfair to ask them to support her.

Advantages: Susan is very social and is quite good in situations calling for interactions. She has a large circle of friends and is in good shape from her softball experience and the exercise required to stay fit for the team.

Disadvantages: Susan is used to skating by without putting too much effort forth, and being noncompetitive. While a fine enough strategy for school and sports, that's a very dangerous attitude for a game of life and death. As a friendly and empathetic person, Susan would have a hard time hurting anybody, and seeing her friends turn against each other is likely to be even more traumatic for her than for many of the others. Susan is confident, and is able to back that up in normal life, but may have a very hard time realistically appraising her situation in SOTF.

Threads
Below is a list of threads containing Susan, in chronological order.

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Susan Clarke. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''