Hover over the album for a surprise! Credits to Cyber Coder{.dev} for the tutorial to make this!
Portia is a black teenage girl. She has coily black hair held back with an orange and yellow headband. She wears a pink patchy shirt with blue jeans and red and white sneakers.
Portia is a shy girl trying to become more confident and put herself out there more. She loves the color pink, bright colors, and insects. She can be a bit of a nerd when it comes to her interests. Once someone warms up to her, she'll talk your ear about insects or the musicians whose cassette tape she collects.
This character is only listed as "Teen Fan" but is also colloquially referred to as "Cassette Girl" because she asks Ryan Akagi and Min-Gi Park if they have any cassettes for sale.
Her name is Portia Lockhart, she's 17-18 years old, and in addition to collecting cassette tapes, she has a special interest in insects and plans to become an entomologist when she gets to college. She works at Dumpty's Diner to help pay for college costs.
Portia Melody Lockhart was born on August 27th, 1967 in Powell Lake of Canada. Her dad was a traveling musican and her mom was a librarian. She has an older stepsister named Judy, two younger siblings named Gia and London. She always had an intense fascination with bugs since she was little. She was, and still is really close with Kez Lewis, her cousin. Growing up, the two of them would wander off so Portia could go looking for bugs and take some home with her. This would later lead to her father gifting her the necesary kit and tools to safetly collect bugs and study them
Portia went to the same school as Ryan and Min-Gi, but aside from listening in on their rehersals in the auditorium, she never really got to talk to them much. She spent most of the time outside of classes hanging out with her friends and letting them overshadow her. Not that Portia minded. She was incredibly shy, and was happy to remain at the back of the group with no one's eyes on her. However, things started to change when her friends encouraged her to join the theatre troup at school. She eventually only joined when she learned her crush and director of the musical Celeste Yang would be there (as well as Ryan and Min-Gi there to provide the music). Portia stuck to the behind the scenes crew, but couldn't keep her eyes off of Celeste. She practically memorized all the lines and songs in the musical just so she could imagine Celeste and her playing the leads in the musical.
One day, Celeste was growing frustrated that a certain romantic scene between the two leads wasn't going the way she wanted, so she decided to enact the scene herself. The only problem was that she needed someone else to play the second lead to demonstrate. Most of everyone else were either crew members or had only memorized the lines for their specific role, and most were pretty nervous about engaging in a kiss scene. Before she could stop herself, Portia voluenteered to play the second lead for her. Portia herself doesn't know how she got through the scene with no problems, but Celeste was pleased with her performance and even suggested that she audition for a role for the next play that came around. It took Portia a couple hours while her friends were congratulating her on her performance to realize she'd kissed her crush on stage.* Portia didn't know whether she felt more elated or embarassed.
*Now you may be wondering how they got away with this in the 80s. Well, simply put, it's a play, and to everyone else, they're just acting. Even then, I can just say the theatre troupe was a safe haven for queer kids so it's not like any one there really cared.
Celeste moved away within a week after she graduated, but before she left, she gifted Portia the heart earrings she wore as a token of her thanks for helping her out with the play. Portia still had another year of school left. It was near the end her senior year that she resolved to put herself out there more. It may have been too late for high school, but university was a whole new playing ground and a fresh start. In the mean time, she had all summer to get herself ready. She took a job at Dumpty's diner to help offset the cost of school. She saw Min-Gi again who was also working there for college. The two caught up and became really close over the summer. Being around Min-Gi made the dreary restauraunt job a little more bearable and fun.
After the events of Book 4, it was Portia's 18th birthday and her friends decided they would travel to New York City to tour and hang around for the week. One night, they went to an open mic night to check out the local performers. It was there that Portia spotted Ryan and Min-Gi and decided she would properly introduce herself to them (namely Ryan) this time around. She asked them if they had any cassette tapes. When Ryan and Min-Gi said they were working on it, they would hang out after their performance while the other acts went on. They spent time in the city together, growing even closer than before.
If it wasn't obvious, I love her a lot. I was drawn in by her design, and upon acknowledging that the crew probably didn't have much planned from her aside from the one liner I decided to flesh out her character more. She's bascially my oc now. Practically my daughter.