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Basement Dwellers
Stef
Stefan ("Stef") Riley / Stephanie ("Steph")
Stef is a 21-year-old student at the Royal College of Saint Almsworth, and a closeted trans girl who has resigned himselfnote to living out his life as a male. Seven years prior, his mentor and older-brother surrogate Mark went missing at Saint Almsworth, and is generally presumed dead. A year after Mark's disappearance, though, Stef met a woman who looks almost identical to Mark. Now, Stef is enrolled at Saint Almsworth hoping to find out what happened to his best friend, but has made no progress and is losing hope.- Beware the Nice Ones: Stef is mostly quiet and unassuming, but when he snaps, he's surprisingly badass.
- Big Brother Worship: Stef's view of Mark.
- Fiery Redhead: Mostly subverted. Stef is fairly even-keeled, occasionally sardonic, and generally quite calm.
- I Choose to Stay: When Christine realises she's imprisoned an innocent "boy," she offers to free him from the basement. Stef refuses, which completely knocks Chrisine off her game.
- Insistent Terminology: Despite being a trans woman, Stef initially uses "he/him/his" pronouns, feeling that he doesn't "deserve" to be called a girl. She gets over it.
Aaron
Aaron Holt / Bethany Erin
The first boy captured for the 2019 intake. Shorter than the others, with a crude but witty sense of humor- Accidental Pervert: After realizing the nature of his crimes against women, accidentally flashing Stef induced a sobbing breakdown in him.
- Always Someone Better: As he comes to terms with becoming Bethany, he often gets insecure about progressing slower than Steph or the fact that Will is a closeted trans girl as well.
- Guys are Slobs: Aaron certainly seems to think so.
- Vulgar Humor: Aaron's stock in trade. Officially, Maria disapproves, but she comes to appreciate it more and more.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: One of the ideas Maria persistently drills into Aaron's head.
Adam
Adam
A 19-year-old boy abducted from his extremist Christian family and the "church" they run.- The Fundamentalist: Adam's personality at intake.
- Innocent Bigot: As he's gone through the programme with Edy as his sponsor, Adam has become less The Fundamentalist and more this.
- Long-Lost Relative: The uh...mechanics of the cult he grew up in mean that he and Edy are, at farthest, cousins, but she believes he's actually her half brother, although she still hasn't told him.
- Trauma Button: Loud, angry male voices practically send Adam into a fugue state.
Declan
Declan Shaw
A not-terribly-bright 22-year-old bully in the 2019 intake.- Barbaric Bully: His standard modus operandi. It doesn't end well for him.
- The Dog Bites Back: After enduring weeks of abuse and mutilation at the hands of Jake, he takes advantage of a moment of weakness after Trevor, Val and Frankie escape and claws his eyes out.
- Fate Worse than Death: Declan washing out was already implied to be this... and then it got worse.
- From Bad to Worse: Oh, Declan, you thought being in Dorley was bad? Good luck with Grandmother.
- Manipulative Bastard: Declan manipulated at least one girlfriend into returning to him repeatedly, even after he raped her.
- The Sociopath: Declan seems to genuinely not care about the pain he inflicts on anyone, including himself.
- Too Dumb to Live: Bragging about raping your girlfriend in a feminist torture dungeon filled with cameras and surrounded by women with tasers definitely qualifies, yeah.
Martin
Martin Holloway
A depressed, socially-withdrawn 20-year-old from a semi-aristocratic family.- The Alcoholic: Martin is characteristically deadpan and blunt about his alcoholism.
- Blank Slate: Martin essentially reduced himself to this, leading to what Aaron calls his "baffling personality reset."
- Running Over the Plot: Martin driving while drunk resulted in him killing Ella's best friend's husband, which landed him in Dorley's clutches.
Ollie
Oliver Bradley ("Ollie")
A belligerent 24-year-old in the 2019 intake.- Domestic Abuse: Ollie beat either his wife or his girlfriend.
- Driven to Suicide: He attempts suicide at one point, but is saved by Frankie and talked back by his sponsor and Trevor.
Raph
Raphael Pittman ("Raph")
A 20-year-old philanderer in the 2019 intake.- Out of Focus: While all of the other intakes have important plotlines going on even Declan, Raph is mostly just kind of...there.
- Plot-Inciting Infidelity: What brought Raph to Dorley's attention wasn't just him getting his girlfriend pregnant and insisting she terminate the pregnancy, but that he immediately started cheating on her with several other women.
Will
William Schroeder ("Will")
A 19-year-old with a smug, arrogant attitude.- Enraged by Idiocy: If he thinks someone's an idiot, he will have nothing but contempt for them... and he believes he's Surrounded by Idiots.
- Foil: He's one to Stef, although the ways don't become fully clear until late in the story when it's revealed that he's also a closeted trans girl.
- Insufferable Genius: Will's a pretty smart kid. He's also utterly intolerable to be around for more than a few seconds.
- Jerkass: Will could be the poster boy for this trope. He's smug, arrogant, belligerent, and absolutley convinced he's the smartest one in the room.
- Only Sane Man: How Will sees himself.
- Surrounded by Idiots: Will is firmly conviced of this.
The Sisters of Dorley
Christine
Christine Hale
A linguistics student at the Royal College of Saint Almsworth, and a third-year in the Dorley Hall programme who arranges Stef's capture after he reveals his suspicions about Dorley Hall, thereby kicking off the plot.- Amicable Exes: With Paige. They get back together.
- Berserk Button: Accusing her of being a man will push her into a rage... or into a Heroic BSoD.
- Brainy Brunette: Christine is intelligent enough to have cracked all of Dorley's computerized security systems, which she can operate from her phone.
- The Cracker: Formerly a hacker, and taken in for some sort of computer-related harrassment of women.
- Femininity Failure: One of Christine's constant anxieties, which she struggles with a fair bit in the first book before going through a bit of a Girliness Upgrade.
- Heroic BSoD: Slips into one when Lorna accuses her of still being a man, specifically the kind of man who threatened women as her former self had.
- Insecure Love Interest: To Paige. She has no idea how she got so lucky to be with Paige, but Paige feels the same way.
- Obliviously Beautiful: Multiple characters point out that, by any objective measure, Christine is gorgeous.
- Oblivious to Love: Christine assumes Paige, who she thinks is oceans more beautiful than her, is completely over her and just wants to be friends. Literally everyone else can tell that Paige is head over heels for Christine.
- Peerless Love Interest: By the time the story starts, she thinks Paige (who she still has a crush on) is way out of her league. Paige disagrees vehemently.
- Techno Wizard: Christine has complete access to all of Dorley Hall's computer systems when the story starts.
- Tomboy: Christine's general aesthetic, which Aunt Bea finds... problematic. Really, though, she's more of a Tomboy with a Girly Streak, which is developed further as the story progresses.
Paige
Paige
A third year in the Dorley Hall programme who dated Christine in their second year, as well as an famous Instagram influencer.
- Amicable Exes: With Christine. They get back together.
- Dance of Romance: When the 3rd years go out to the bar for a night out, she eventually drags Christine out onto the floor in an, extremely successful, attempt to get back together with her.
- Oblivious to Love: Christine assumes Paige, who she thinks is oceans more beautiful than her, is completely over her and just wants to be friends. Literally everyone else can tell that Paige is head over heels for Christine.
Melissa
Melissa Haverford (formerly Mark Vogel)
Stef's former mentor, friend, and role model, who went missing in November 2012.- Big Brother Instinct: From the first moment of meeting Stef and realising how similar they were. Most explicitly demonstrated in her return to Dorley Hall upon realizing Stef is in the programme.
- Big Brother Mentor: To Stef, and later to Stephanie.
- Big Damn Heroes: Subverted while "rescuing" Stef from Dorley Hall, though the second-years still think it's incredibly romantic and sweet.
- Cool Big Sis: Finally gets to be this for Stef, and is really happy about it.
- Driven to Suicide: Twice. Once Shahida talked her down, the second time Abby found her hours away from suicide and brought her to Dorley.
- Everyone Loves Blondes: A bit of a subversion. Melissa was the perfect Dorley girl in her intake cohort and seen as something of a role model, but was also seen as aloof, withdrawn, and arrogant.
- In-Series Nickname: "Liss," to multiple people. "Em," to Shahida.
- Missing Mom: Melissa's mother Laura died in 2009 of an as-yet-unspecified illness.
- Roaring Rampage of Rescue: Melissa returns to Dorley Hall like an avenging angel, taser in hand, to rescue Stef from the programme... only to learn that Stef is trans, and is in the programme voluntarily.
Aunt Bea
Beatrice Quinn ("Aunt Bea")
The administrator of Dorley Hall, who oversees the day-to-day operations of the programme.- Iron Lady: Beatrice can flip from the cosy "Aunt Bea" personal to an icy ruthlesness in an instant
- Lost Lenore: Valerie.
- Moral Pragmatist: Bea sums up her stance on the ethical questions posed by Dorley's programme in a conversation with Stef:“I admit, it’s unorthodox. And the series of events by which we came to it, even more so. But it works.
Maria
Maria
Aunt Bea's second-in-command, and Aaron's sponsor.- Cool Big Sis: Very much so for Aaron.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Even for a Dorley girl, Maria's past is horrific. Then again, she's a survivor of the ''original'' Dorley Hall.
Edy
Edy
Adam's sponsor and Maria's girlfriend. She also grew up in the same Cult as him.- Cult Defector: She is a former member of the same Cult Adam was trapped in, but it's unclear if she escaped on her own or if she was taken to Dorley from it the same way Adam was.
- Long-Lost Relative: The way the Cult works, Edy is at farthest Adam's cousin, but she believes he's actually her half-brother. Not that she's told him.
Vicky
Vicky
A former Dorley subject who took the first opportunity to leave and live offsite.People in Almsworth
Shahida
Shahida Mohsin-Carpenter
One of Melissa's childhood friends, who has been carrying a torch for her since they were teenagers.- Big Beautiful Woman: Shahida has put on some weight since high school, but likes it.
- Cannot Spit It Out: She's been carrying a torch for Melissa since high school, but even after learning that Melissa is still alive—and a woman—she can't bring herself to say so, for pretty understandable reasons.
- Determinator: The love of Shahida's life disappeared in 2012, and she was putting up missing-person fliers on the Saints campus seven years later. Upon getting the barest whiff of a hint of the idea that Melissa might have transitioned... well, as Tabby put it:“Shahida is a terrifying monster who sat in the SU Bar scrutinising every blonde who walked past and comparing them with a half-dozen photos that she’d edited to make you look like a girl. No-one else is that psychotic.”
- Everyone Can See It: Shahida is hopelessly in love with Melissa, to the point where it's literally lampshaded in the text of the story.
- In-Series Nickname: "Ess," to Melissa.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Again, with Melissa, to a distressing degree. It gets resolved.
Rachel
Rachel Gray-Wallace
Shahida's childhood friend, who became part of the friend group with her, Amy and Melissa.- Best Friend: Amy.
- Happily Married: Married to a woman named Belinda, and by all accounts she adores her.
- Only Sane Man: Sees herself as this after Disclosure. She eventually gets over it.
Amy
Amy Woodley
The fourth member of the high school friend group with Rachel, Shahida and Melissa.- Best Friend: With Rachel.
- Queer Establishing Moment: Despite being the high school friend group's token straight girl, she quickly starts dating Jane when she gets Disclosed to.
Lorna
Lorna
Vicky's girlfriend and an out trans woman, who Vicky steals meds for. Elle
Elle Lambert
A wealthy heiress who bankrolled Aunt Bea, both in her takeover of Dorley and in the ongoing program.- The Sponsor: She pays for most of Bea's operations.
Russ
Russ Vogel
Stef's childhood best friend, and Mark's younger brother.- Best Friend: Theoretically to Stef, though Stef is closer to Mark, which causes some tension between them.
- Out of Focus: Russ and Stef fall out after Mark's disappearance, in great part over Stef's insistence that Mark is alive.
Smyth-Farrow House (Unmarked Spoilers)
Valerie
Valerie
Valerie formerly Vincent, a woman who was kidnapped and transformed under Grandmother's Regime.- Lost Lenore: She is one to Beatrice.
- Sole Survivor: She is, to the best of her knowledge, the only surviving woman who was subjected to Grandmother's torture. She eventually learns that Bea is alive.
Dorthy
Dorthy
Dorthy, AKA Grandmother, the leader of the previous, much more brutal, regime, who was ousted by Bea.- Evil Matriarch: Oh yeah
Frankie
Frances (Frankie)
A violent woman who was taken in by Grandmother and turned into one of her Sponsors, which in her version of Dorley more resemble brutal torturers.- Defector from Decadence: By the time the story picks up at the Smyth-Farrow household, she's exhausted of being dependent on Grandmother and no longer wants to torture anyone, even if she continues out of fear of reprisal.
- Mirror Character: To a lot of characters, but most notably the Sponsors at the current version Dorley.
Trevor
Trevor
A PMC working for Dorley Hall. He's kidnapped when Declan is intercepted and subjected to the same treatment. Jake
Jake
A cruel and detached soldier who helps "Train" Declan for Dorothy.- Killed Off for Real: Diana claws his eyes out after Val, Frankie and Trevor escape.
