Universe Research

In all of my transgender studies research, I've been neglecting the other kinds. Now that I've actually started writing, I needed a college to set it at, and I decided on Haverford College.
I could just make up how Haverford works.
One of these days I'll convince myself of that. No, this'll amuse you, I have actually spent the last couple of days researching the academic calendar, dorm setup, Spanish major plan, core curriculum, and class schedule of Haverford. I have just now double-checked that Leandra doesn't have any overlapping classes and discovered a fairly plausible reason to send him/her to Bryn Mawr for biology (important to the plot).
I've also been populating the 'verse with characters. I stared at the screen for a while waiting for them to walk in before giving up on that. Instead, I pulled out our rock collection and went through slightly less than half of it, one rock at a time, and wrote a sentence to a paragraph personifying each rock. I found it was a mistake to notate which rock it was in the paragraph, because those people got stuck with the names of rocks...and not names like Opal either that people actually have. Then I picked the ones that fit the plot nicely, added some background characters for scenery and we're off!

Antigony: The only one not at least partly based off of a rock. Pale skin, so white she's probably never been out in the sun, with straight brown hair with bangs and eyes to match. She's bony, all angles. Leandra wonders if she eats. She's a militant radical feminist, but the sort that gives feminism a bad name--she rags on Leandra and Leandra's trans friends who identify as either female or male for 'subscribing to the gender binary'. Antagonist to a minor theme about what feminism is, I think. Opinionated as all getout.
Ella (Eloise): She's something of an airhead at first glance. She's tiny, exuberant, and still obsessed with the Jonas Brothers, with platinum blonde hair up in pigtails. But she really does care about people and the environment and you want her in your corner. She's Leandra's bio lab partner. (Ammonium Magnesium Sulfate, aka Boussingaultite)
Unnamed: They're slippery, always ready with a fake smile and a grin, fast, smart, and deeply suspicious. Nobody's good enough for them, until they are. Bleached hair kind of everywhere. They pronouns on purpose. (Selenite)
Henriette: She's delicate in a way that makes everyone want to protect her, even though whether she needs it or not is yet untested. Asexual, pagan, and a bit of a hippie, she goes barefoot much of the time but wears body glitter. She has a tangled mess of dirty blonde curls and a ginger's complexion. She's in Leandra's Advanced Intermediate Spanish Class and also the robotics club. (Moonstone)
Chrysacolla: Flashy and great at parties, Chrys wears leather, sequins, an expanse of makeup, and streaks in hir hair. Genderfluid and a scientist. (Chrysacolla)
Whitney: So gay. Like, really. Trans, too, but so stereotypically gay that the trans-ness turns gets totally overshadowed. He's got the hands, the 'oh honey' the 'OMG', he wears a feather boa and turquoise glasses. His blonde hair is slicked back and he might be secretly a ginger. (Unakite)

Also, class schedule!
MWF: 10 am, Intro Bio. W: 1 pm, bio lab.
TTh: 10 am, Intro to Syntax. 11:30 am, Advanced Intermediate Spanish. 2:30 pm, Intro to Anthropology.

I am so very proud of this class schedule. I am such a dork.