Hopefully they're tropes but [i]subverted[/i] instead of just tropes. The different art style for each is [i]meant[/i] to be thematic. Not sure if it actually is...

[hider=The Sparling Family][sup][h1][center][color=black] T H E   S P A R L I N G   F A M I L Y[/color]
[color=white]T H E   S P A R L I N G   F A M I L Y[/color][/center][/h1][/sup]

[center][img]https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0b/88/22/f7/ramp-view.jpg[/img]

[i]"They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. They [i]say...[/i]"[/i][/center]
[color=white][sub][ ❇ ]  B R I E F  F A M I L Y  H I S T O R Y[/sub][/color][table][row][/row][row][cell=active]The Sparling name is an old one in Huddeen. Faded headstones in the town's graveyard bear testament to that. However, their line has been rather sparse over the past couple of decades as successive generations have left for the greener pastures of Boston, Providence, and New York. Then, a dozen years ago, family matriarch Hattie passed away and the old family house ended up in the hands of her granddaughter, pregnant young grad student and former wild child Alana, along with her growing family. Moving back from Boston to the town where she used to spend summers with her grandma after her parents' divorce, she brought her husband Devon, a stereotypically geeky storyboard artist, and her children Lila and Jason. While the grand old home was everything they could've hoped, vintage 1970s-era decor and some electrical issues aside, their first few years were difficult, as Devon had to switch jobs, Alana had to delay setting up her own practice when their youngest daughter Winnie was born, and Lila suffered an accident that confined her to a wheelchair and necessitated the installation of a ramp and extensive renovations. Things have calmed down since then, and the family has flourished... at least [i]outwardly[/i]. 

While Devon's career has taken him to conferences across the country and Lila has gone off to the Juilliard School in New York to study violin, small-town star athlete Jason doesn't see much of a future, Winnie grows ever stranger and more introverted, and Alana continues to fray at the edges as she wears too many hats, commutes for too long every day, and juggles too many responsibilities in her desperate determination to make sure that [i]her[/i] family won't go the way that her parents' did. Add to this the recent arrival of Devon's older sister Carina from Boston, fresh off of some serious controversy, as well as Lila back on holiday, and things are... volatile. Oh, then zombies. Zombies have happened too. Is there any way that this fraying family can pull itself together long enough to survive and maybe even be an asset? I guess we'll have to wait and see.[/cell][/row][/table][color=white][sub][ ❇ ]  F A M I L Y  M E M B E R S[/sub][/color][INDENT][sub][table][row][color=2c2c2c][sup][h3][b]
▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅[right]▅▅▅▅▅▅[/right][/b][/h3][/sup][/color][/row][row][cell][center][table=bordered][row][img]https://i.pinimg.com/564x/99/7c/e3/997ce3cf56000eb7c0e913aca5a178ba.jpg[/img]
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[i]"Sming actually [i]does[/i] help."[/i]
[color=666666]▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅[/color][/cell][/row][/table][/center][/cell][cell][table=bordered][row][/row][row][cell=active][INDENT][sup][sub][h3][b][color=black] S P A R L I N G,   A L A N A   ||   M O T H E R[/color]
[color=WHITE]S P A R L I N G,   A L A N A   ||   M O T H E R[/color][/b][/h3][/sub][/sup][/INDENT][sup]_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/sup][INDENT]Growing up, Alana was just about the most obnoxious possible version of a ca. 1995-2002 first-gen edgy gamer girl. She never thought she'd be a psychologist. She assumed her job would be something in a creative industry but, here she is, and there's a kind of art to patching minds back up, she supposes. She's certainly had to do more than her share of that over the course of her life. As an ex-urbanite, this mother of three commutes into Manchester for work whenever her job requires it of her. While she was born in nearby Nashua, Alana's parents broke up when she was small and she bounced around. She spent much of her later childhood and early teens in Huddeen with her grandmother before moving to Boston with her dad and becoming a child of the early internet. Luckily, her most absurd exploits were pre-social media and, just after her twenty-second birthday, she was a mother anyhow and her crazy days fast faded. After inheriting her grandmother's house a dozen years ago, she packed her young family up and moved out to Huddeen, with its lower cost of living and safer streets. Now into her early forties, Alana's weathered far more storms than she'd ever imagined and is a lot number to it all than she imagined that she'd be at this point in life. She'll often go on about how she loves this town, and is an active member of all the relevant community organizations. Embarrassed about her wild past and her husband's at-times immature behaviour, she tries as hard as she can to fit in, never quite feeling like she manages it. Secretly, her interest in her marriage is waning but, remembering her childhood, she's determined not to let it fail. You know how they say that shrinks are as much of a mess as their clients? At least she's not abusing prescriptions... [i]yet[/i].[color=666666]▅
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[i]"He who sits on the highest throne still sits on his own bottom."[/i]
[color=666666]▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅[/color][/cell][/row][/table][/center][/cell][cell][table=bordered][row][/row][row][cell=active][INDENT][sup][sub][h3][b][color=black] Z A N E T T I,   D E V O N   ||   F A T H E R[/color]
[color=WHITE]Z A N E T T I,   D E V O N   ||   F A T H E R[/color][/b][/h3][/sub][/sup][/INDENT][sup]_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/sup][INDENT]If Alana eventually grew up, Devon never quite managed the trick. A storyboard artist and gig worker, he pursues jobs in the videogaming industry with particular gusto and has built up a fairly impressive portfolio. A proud nerd and daydreaming creative, he lives for his work and loves his family, very much in the mold of the 'cool dad'. He convinces himself that it's natural, but he works hard at it. Yet, he can also be a bit of an avoidant husband and father: enthusiastically there for the good times but absent for the more challenging ones. While he's certain it's only an unfortunate coincidence, he's beginning to understand how bad it looks and how much trouble it's causing his loved ones. Devon's never quite mastered the fine art of 'adulting', but he's trying. He's always been somewhat awkward but has grown socially and in confidence over the years and has become unused to failure. Sometimes, however, in his more anxious moments, he suffers from impostor syndrome. He constantly worries that his creative spark is leaving him and that he might end up embarrassing or holding back his family members, particularly his daughter Lila. As his career has finally started to take off in recent years, he's been seeing more of her in New York and they've grown somewhat closer. At the start of our story, Devon's trapped in Boston where he was attending a conference. He calls his family on the phone at every opportunity while they still have service. He's trying to get someone in the Boston Quarantine Zone to do something or, barring that, to make his way back, but he doesn't quite know where to begin.[color=666666]▅
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▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅[right]▅▅▅▅▅▅[/right][/b][/h3][/sup][/color][/row][row][cell][center][table=bordered][row][img]https://i.imgur.com/GgpnEHD.jpg[/img]
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[i]"You don't have to stand up to stand out."[/i]
[color=666666]▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅[/color][/cell][/row][/table][/center][/cell][cell][table=bordered][row][/row][row][cell=active][INDENT][sup][sub][h3][b][color=black] S P A R L I N G,   L I L A   ||   O L D E S T   C H I L D[/color]
[color=WHITE]S P A R L I N G,   L I L A   ||   O L D E S T   C H I L D[/color][/b][/h3][/sub][/sup][/INDENT][sup]_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/sup][INDENT]A surprise child and the reason that Alana and Devon are married, Lila is twenty-one as the story begins, and was visiting home from university in New York when the epidemic struck. A perfectly average, if somewhat rambunctious kid before being paralyzed from the waist down in a tree-climbing accident at the age of twelve, she was forced to reinvent herself and find new purpose. Since then, with her mother's relentless support , the oldest of the Sparling children has become the sort of inspirational story that's a magnet for bursaries, scholarships, speaking engagements, and interest pieces by local new outlets. An extremely talented violinist from an early age, she has already featured in major productions and boasts nearly a hundred thousand subscribers on her YouTube channel. Living the young, sophisticated urbanite's dream, Lila has left her small-town roots behind and flourished in New York: a young virtuoso headed for success. Yet, deep down, vicious insecurities about being a burden - about being [i]incapable[/i] and unattractive - tear at her, and the constructed world and its many obstacles act as constant reminders that she cannot just [i]do[/i] many of the things she would like. In truth, she is very much like her younger siblings, though they probably don't think of her as such. In her dreams, she's still a spontaneous creature, wandering the neighbourhood with Jason in tow, climbing trees and hiking in the ravine, pulling Winnie in a wagon, and playing games of tag or basketball that stretch into the night. There's a shared history with her family and she loves them, but she hasn't spent all that much time with them in years. She loves her mother, too, who pushed her hard to pick herself back up and to succeed, but there's something else there as well: resentment at stealing her away from her childhood with endless practice, rehearsal, and travel, for molding her into an 'inspiration' instead of a person. With her friends, in their little shared apartment, Lila's fun, irreverent, and vivacious, always ready with a quick quip or pithy observation. Here, at 'home', she increasingly feels like the odd one out in her family of lovable losers. Huddeen is a pleasant place full of fond memories, but indelibly part of her past, not her future.[color=666666]▅
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[i]"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."[/i]
[color=666666]▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅[/color][/cell][/row][/table][/center][/cell][cell][table=bordered][row][/row][row][cell=active][INDENT][sup][sub][h3][b][color=black] S P A R L I N G,   J A S O N   ||   M I D D L E   C H I L D[/color]
[color=WHITE]S P A R L I N G,   J A S O N   ||   M I D D L E   C H I L D[/color][/b][/h3][/sub][/sup][/INDENT][sup]_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/sup][INDENT]Three and a half years younger than Lila, Jason was always playing keep-up with her when they were kids: in school, where teachers went on glowingly about her; for attention, where she seemed to lap up their parents' love with her musical talent and witty remarks; and in the little pencil marks measuring height on the doorframe, where he could never quite catch her. Then, after she had her accident, he won the third of those battles definitively, and lost the others. As his parents' and, especially, his mother's attention reoriented itself toward Lila, and his playmate returned home less able to... play, the boy found other ways of entertaining himself. Where his father was a genuinely creative person, Jason merely aped and dreamed. Instead, his talents lent themselves elsewhere. A natural athlete and good with his hands, he is a mediocre student at school, but well liked by both teachers and other students, co-captaining his high school basketball team to the state's final four in his junior year. Yet, the scholarship offers from major universities haven't exactly been flooding in. He enjoys shop class, console gaming, and skateboarding more than anything else, and is [i]just[/i] tall enough to dunk on the basketball hoop in the driveway. In between occasional games of Horse with his dad or his sisters, it takes relentless punishment while the curbs and railings in town see similar treatment from his skateboard. At the end of the day, Jason is more than a little bit edgy, with a mohawk, a couple of tattoos, and a fondness for music that would make his once-rebellious parents blush. This, he eagerly blasts out the window of his 2007 Buick, recently purchased from an estate sale for $1700. There is nothing academic that really interests Jason, but he can play shooters and zombie survival games for hours and, yes, he has a (very humble) sword collection. With little to no direction in life, a secret part of him is... weirdly kind of excited that the apocalypse is nigh. He's already constructing traps and barriers and he practices with his cheap knockoff katana in the backyard. Perhaps the dire nature of the situation just hasn't dawned on him yet, so the question is: when [i]will[/i] it?[color=666666]▅
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[i]"Life isn't boring if you know where to look, but I think - like - most adults lose that somewhere along the way."[/i]
[color=666666]▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅[/color][/cell][/row][/table][/center][/cell][cell][table=bordered][row][/row][row][cell=active][INDENT][sup][sub][h3][b][color=black] S P A R L I N G,   W I N N I E   ||   Y O U N G E S T   C H I L D[/color]
[color=WHITE]S P A R L I N G,   W I N N I E   ||   Y O U N G E S T   C H I L D[/color][/b][/h3][/sub][/sup][/INDENT][sup]_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/sup][INDENT]Six years younger than Jason, Winnie was - like her sister - an 'accident'. Her parents hadn't intended to have a third child, but her older siblings were thrilled. At eleven years of age, she's a quiet, socially awkward, and very active girl who doodles, explores, and daydreams as much as her father ever did growing up. He'll never admit to it, but she's the child he understands most and he spoils her with new games, art supplies, and the sort of long solo father-daughter days out that Lila never had the chance to get. Lanky, gangling, and much taken with idiosyncratic fashion and scary things at a young age, Winnie is greatly enamoured with minecraft (and secretly, sacrilegiously, roblox as well). Both in-game and out, she often tags along with her older brother when he lets her and tries to recreate that sense of adventure in real life. He's become a more reluctant partner in crime lately, though, as he heads toward adulthood, and she's started playing more mature games in an attempt to keep up with the person she most admires and wants to be like (though she'll never admit it, of course). While not actively disliked or bullied at school, the youngest Sparling daughter is definitely not one of the popular girls either, and she catches some flak for spending almost as much time with the boys as she does with her assumed tribe of rambunctious pre-pubescent girls. A characteristic of both ADHD and autism, Winnie goes through intense monthly obsessions, gobbling up every bit of knowledge that she can on random subjects of interest. A cultural magpie plucking greedily from the fertile environs of tiktok, discord, reddit, wikipedia, and YouTube (where she's dutifully subscribed to her sister's channel), she is almost uncannily knowledgeable about random trivia and it is the one thing aside from minecraft that she will reliably and enthusiastically speak at length on. Out of necessity, she has now set her mind to the task of zombie apocalypse survival and relentlessly marshals her family to do the same.[color=666666]▅
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[i]"To me, 'bossy' is not a pejorative at all. It means somebody's passionate and engaged and ambitious and doesn't mind leading."[/i]
[color=666666]▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅▅[/color][/cell][/row][/table][/center][/cell][cell][table=bordered][row][/row][row][cell=active][INDENT][sup][sub][h3][b][color=black] Z A N E T T I,   C A R I N A   ||   P A T E R N A L   A U N T[/color]
[color=WHITE]Z A N E T T I,   C A R I N A   ||   P A T E R N A L   A U N T[/color][/b][/h3][/sub][/sup][/INDENT][sup]_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________[/sup][INDENT]Carina never set out to live up to her name. She never wanted to be a 'Karen' and she cringes inwardly (and outwardly, for she can do nothing with subtlety) at the thought that people might consider her one. Three failed marriages, a circle of friends as superficial as they are materialistic, and repeated run-ins with the glass ceiling pushed her to the edge. One ill-advised incident broke her. As a girl, Carina was always the favourite child, and quiet, awkward, artsy Devon ever her shadow. Popular in school, she looked out for him, she protected him, and when he was getting his start as an artist, she let him surf her couch for months on end. More than one potential boyfriend was scared away in that manner, but she never said a word about it. Carina loved her little brother. Rather, she [i]loves[/i] her little brother, and her nieces and nephew. She just wanted a family of her own, but she fell for jerks: handsome jerks, badboys, rich jerks, and just, well...[i]pigs[/i]. She'd seemed never to make a bad choice growing up and, even as her career advanced and she made all of the right connections, everything seemed to go wrong outside of ever-fancier job titles. The men in charge said that she was bossy, but was she really? The first time that she was passed up for a promotion, she held it in, waited, and didn't jump to any conclusions. It happened again, though, and again, and she took her story to the media. Not much happened except a couple of articles and a horizontal move to a new firm. Again, she was passed up, despite giving her all to the company and sacrificing her marriage for it. A third job and a third marriage ensued, and then came the fateful day when she'd just had too much and a Starbucks employee gave her this smug little smile as he knowingly shortchanged her on her Venti. There were cameras and they didn't pick up any of the nuance and she went viral. She was publicly released from her job. She was doxxed. She was divorced. She was canceled. Carina was even sorry at first, but not after how vicious they all got. So, she bought herself a gun for self-defence, packed up her things, sold her apartment, and moved out to Huddeen to lick her wounds once the worst of it died down. She will see if her brother is as generous with her as she was with him.[/INDENT][/cell][/row][/table][/cell][/row][/table][/sub][/INDENT][/hider]