#also i hope this spices things up and doesnt immediately drive everyone following this away

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Road to Nowhere: Intros - Crystal Vu’s Orphanage

The Strangetown Orphanage has recently re-opened its doors to children in need, and just in time for a new generation of orphans - a pair of siblings, Erwin and Jessie, and a set of ex-adoptees with G names, the Newsons.

When she isn’t at the local science lab, Crystal Vu is stepping up to be the one to look after these rowdy kids. Although looking after so many children can test her patience from time to time, Crystal maintains a great degree of compassion for them all.

With so many kids under one roof, things are often chaotic and stressful. Will the orphans manage to grow up well under Crystal’s care, or will this cramped environment do more harm to them than good?

= Crystal Vu = A brilliant inventor with a big heart, Crystal enjoys creating wondrous machines for the betterment of society and looking after those in need. That’s what the newspapers say, at least.

Crystal is a woman of simple pleasures. She loves tinkering, money, baby animals, and the company of others.

She tries to be the role model that she believes the orphans need in their lives. Not all of them seem to like her, unfortunately, but she’s doing her best. Maybe they’ll come around? That’s what she hopes for, at least.

Aside from her community service, she wants to work on her home inventions, but the children demand quite a lot of her attention, and she often struggles to balance her work with her passion.

A nice man, fellow scientist Lazlo Curious, has been making offers to help her out with her latest inventions, but she hasn’t taken him up on any such offers just yet. They’re secret projects, and you can’t be too careful who you share your ideas with.

= The Newsons = After their mother’s unresolved disappearance, the adopted Newson clan is faced with the reality of separation. With no parents to guide or protect them, the Newsons have to take refuge under the roof of the Strangetown Orphanage and hope that they can stick together.

Adopted siblings Ginger, Gavin, Gabriella, Gallagher, Georgia, and Garrett never thought that they’d have to return to a group home after Gloria graciously brought them all under her wing, most recently bringing a pair of toddler twins into the family, before she vanished without a trace.

The story goes that famed astronaut Gloria Newson was a kind and charitable woman who managed to balance having a large family with defending the nation from interstellar threats. She cared deeply for children, despite the inability to have any of her own, and this led her to adopt the six Newson kids. After she disappeared, the kids couldn’t live by themselves, and they had nowhere to go... except for here.

Troubled teen Ginger now has to step up to keep a close eye on the rest of her siblings and the other orphans, despite the stress it causes her. Gavin is working towards becoming a man, working hard to the point of exhaustion, balancing it out by watching movies about space cowboys and hoping he’ll live that dream one day.

Gabriella and Gallagher put their focus on keeping up on their homework, while hopefully waiting for the call that their mother has come back so that they can return home. She’s coming back, right? She’s got to come back.

Lastly, Crystal is trying to teach Georgia and Garrett their toddler skills, but the time she has until their birthdays is rapidly running out.

= Erwin Pries = Erwin’s crackpot conspiracy theories net him weird looks, but for him, it’s the only thing keeping his head above water. Maybe one of these days, he’ll turn out to be right.

Erwin strongly believes that the alien invasion never ended, that the zombie apocalypse is coming, and that he ought to prepare special headgear to protect against mind-controlling plants from another dimension. Of course, everyone just thinks he’s ‘crazy’ and ‘weird’ and a total nerd who doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but it doesn’t matter to him what other people think.

He knows what’s true, and he knows that when one or all of those scenarios he’s preparing for come to pass, everyone who has ever doubted him will be sorry.  They’ll want in on his apocalypse shelter, and... he will graciously let them in, because he’s not that petty. But he’ll definitely say “I told you so” a few times.

He’s always been interested in this stuff, but after his parents died, the conspiracy theories became less of a hobby and more of a coping mechanism. After all, why face the darkness of daily life when you can imagine the darker possibilities of ‘what’s really going on’ beyond yourself?

Erwin insists that his surname is pronounced like ‘breeze,’ but considering the overly-inquisitive, nosy person he is, it’s not surprising that everyone gets it wrong.

= Jessie Pries = Jessie’s favorite pastimes include playing dolls and annoying her older brother. She misses her parents and her home, but she’s happy to have so many kids to play with... or she would be, if any of these kids knew what ‘fun’ even was.

Jessie’s young life was turned upside down after her parents died. Ever since, her smile has lost some of its’ luster, but she hasn’t lost her mischievous spirit. She’s definitely one of the more rambunctious kids in the orphanage, usually to the dismay of... just about everyone, it seems.

Her pranks and jokes are all in good fun, even though she keeps getting told off for them. But what else is she supposed to do? It’s so boring around here. There’s only so many games of Don’t Wake The Llama you can stand before it starts to lose its’ spark. It seems like the only game the other kids want to play.

As for Crystal, she’s... nice, but she’s not very fun to play with. It’s always just “do your chores” and “do your homework” and “help me look after the babies” with her. She’s so clinical about it, far from a real mother figure. And let’s not get started on Ginger ‘Killjoy’ Newson, who seems determined to rain on her parade.

Worst of all, Erwin, her own brother, doesn’t seem to want to do anything with her anymore. It’s like he’s living in his own little world. Jessie misses when she was the center of attention...