THE BASICS

Name: Roberta Curran

Nickname: Robby


PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

Sex: Female

Age: 20

Hair: Black

Eyes: Brown

Height: 5'10"

Weight: 135lbs

General Appearance: When she was younger Robby had been lean and wiry. After her final growth spurt, which had left her looking almost painfully underweight and stretched out, she finally started putting on weight, in the form of muscle as opposed to more feminine curves. She still doesn't look like a bodybuilder, but she is now a healthy weight, almost all of it well toned muscle.

Robby's fashion sense compliments her androgynous build and features. She wears men's clothing, usually favoring hard wearing, practical clothes. Jeans, t-shirts, tank tops, heavy boots and a battered leather jacket make up the majority of her wardrobe. Her hair is cut relatively short, and is usually left to look after itself. Although she has a healthy collection of distinguishing marks, scars and tattoos, the only ones that catch the eye when she'd fully dressed is a crude, prison house spiderweb tattoo on the back of her right hand and a small scar that runs through her left eyebrow, a remnant of an old bar fight.

Living up to her reputation the first impression Robby gives is one of a surly and angry young woman who uses violence as the go to solution to her problems. This is often the second, third and fourth impression she gives too. Some people have suspected that there's more depth under the surface she projects; Robby usually manages to charm these potential allies into her bed, if female, or into acting as her sidekick, if male, before discarding them to stop them getting too close.

Currently Wearing: Robby has both arms on display again, but her left is held awkwardly against her side. Today her jacket is over multiple layers that fit her far better than her usual outfits. She's wearing a white tank top under an unbuttoned light denim jacket. On her bottom half is a pair of black jeans that are so new there's still a cardboard label on one of the back pockets declaring them to be from the 'men's boot-cut val-u' range. As always her boots finish off the outfit.


HISTORY

Personality: Robby's first instinct is to keep to herself. She can and, in an effort to keep her new job, will hold a conversation, although she prefers to steer the focus away from herself and towards whoever she's talking to. Trust does not come naturally to Robby, and aggression is her default solution to difficult situations.

Sexual Preferences: Homosexual

Employment: Unemployed

About Your character: The Curran's have always been hard drinkers, hard fighters, and afraid of hard work. In other words, they're trouble. Big Tommy Curran looked set to buck that trend. He ran track, he finished High School, and he even got himself a job as a mechanic after graduating. Most surprising of all, he somehow found himself with Lizzie Cochrain, a nice, quiet girl from a nice, Christian family. Instead of leaving town, to raise hell or rot in jail, like his large brood of siblings Big Tommy got himself married and looked all set to settle down.

The apple never falls too far from the tree, and any town gossip you care to ask will tell you that six months after the wedding Tommy and Lizzie became parents. It was a difficult birth, and Big Tommy came back from the hospital with little Roberta the next day. Lizzie was in the hospital for two weeks, with Roberta's twin brother Tommy Junior. In a small town everyone knows everyone else's business, so it was an open secret that Tommy Jr was born damaged, he wasn't eating, was suffering a 'failure to thrive', and he was not expected to survive for long.

Doing the decent thing and sticking around long enough to say 'I do' seemed to exhaust Big Tommy's ability to fight against his Curran genes. Shortly after the birth of his children he quit his job, and got back to the Curran family business of claiming welfare checks and fiddling money from the state. At least he kept to himself instead of raising hell around town, the small family retreated away from town life and hid away on the run down, rambling patch of dirt farm they'd somehow acquired.

They did such a good job of protecting their privacy that it was almost a surprise when Roberta turned up for her first day of school. If the town had started to forget the troublesome family the debut of their daughter as a visible presence quickly changed that. Everyone agreed that it was a shame that the poor little thing was always dirty, and smelly, and in clothes that didn't really fit right, they hung off her small frame. It was a shame, but not really surprising, she was a Curran, after all. The bruises that appeared without any offer of an explanation, even when directly questioned, were clearly just another symptom of her heritage. Her mother often had similar marks on the rare occasions she was forced out of the family home to do chores in town, although she made more effort to hide them. They were harder to ignore than the signs of neglect, and over the course of her school career Child Services made multiple trips out to the family home. Twice, once when she was six and once at eleven, Roberta was removed from the house, and the town, to live with a foster family. Both times she was returned home after a few months, although everyone agreed that there didn't appear to be any improvement from her family.

As a child everyone agreed that Roberta took after her father. She was disruptive in the classroom, rude to adults and too rough on the playground. She wouldn't sit still in lessons, shouted out whatever thought came into her head, and had an unhealthy interest in her female classmates. She was an unpopular child with both her peers and the adults around her, and her family's antisocial tendencies didn't help, she was never allowed to join in after school activities, she didn't visit other children's houses, not even when a grudging invitation was offered, and no one ever visited her house. Unlike some children, who just take a while to adjust to school, Roberta's behaviour didn't improve with age. She didn't grow out of any of her bad habits, apart from her tendency to wet her pants if she got over excited or angry, and even that took her much longer than her peers, and she managed to develop new ones. Academically Roberta skulked around at the bottom of the class, but when it came to inventing new ways to get in trouble she excelled. The first student in her year to swear at a teacher, the first to smoke, the first to drink, the first to be in a real fight and the first to get suspended from school were among her achievements.

She was also the first to come out as gay, at the tender age of eleven, after returning from her stint in care. And the first to get herself arrested. When she was thirteen Roberta again spent some time away from the town, this time in a juvenile corrections facility following an incident that involved her stealing a car, crashing it into a tree, and setting fire to it. Proving that she didn't learn from her mistakes she returned to incarceration only six weeks after her release, this time for setting fire to an abandoned barn. Following this Roberta managed to stay out of jail, although she was picked up regularly by the local police for various misdemeanors; public drunkenness, vandalism, assault, disturbing the peace, and she spent more than one night in a police cell.

By the time she was seventeen Roberta had quite the reputation around town. Even adults had started to cross the street to avoid her, and her violent temper was the stuff of legends. Then she disappeared. There were theories about where she'd gone, but no one knew for sure, and everyone agreed it was probably for the best.

Two years later she reappeared without a word of explanation and has tried to fit back into the hole she left. She hadn't lost her cynical sneer, her bad attitude or her quick temper, so it wasn't too hard for her to pick back up where she left off. Making no attempt to return to school she got a job as a bouncer, the work seemed to suit her and it's rare that anyone gives her any trouble, after all, her reputation precedes her. After breaking her arm she lost her job, and has recently taken a job at Mara Bakery.

Word Around Town:

"Roberta? Total psycho. Everyone knows that. I'd stay away from her if I were you. My brother saw her throwing stones at our cat once. Psycho."

"She's a Curran. The whole family's a mess. What more would you expect?"

"Oh. My. God. I know she's my cousin, but, seriously, she should have stayed away. When my Mom was still talking to her sister, you know, Roberta's Mom? Well, she'd come over and stay sometimes. Total freak show. Stole food out the cupboards. Like, totally couldn't take a joke and would get all worked up and go totally OTT and be all violent. Plus she wet the bed. And we're, like, not talking when we were little kids. I heard she got taken away to the crazy house. You ask me, she should have stayed there."

"Robby? Why are you asking me? That was all just a dumb rumor Stan started because I wasn't putting out. I'm not a dyke like her."

"It's her mother I feel sorry for. First a shotgun wedding to a Curran. Then one of her babies dies. Poor little sick thing. And the one that survived is a little hellion. She's stuck out there, all alone. Everyone knows he hits her. I've tried talking to her about it, but she won't have it. There's no helping some people. Poor thing."

"She'll be off the streets and back in prison by the end of the month. Guarantee it. Unless she goes into hiding with her screwed up family. You know they buried that screwed up brother of hers in their yard? Hand on heart truth. That's why there was never any funeral. It's no wonder she's such a screw up."

"You know why she's got that job, right? Her parents cook meth. All Breaking Bad. She's selling it. For real."