What's in a Name?

Kirsten Lundgren

Kirsten Lundgren- Danish/German (mother); Swedish (father); Kirsten Lundgren is a beautiful and charismatic cheerleader at the high school who has served as Hannah Quigley's archrival since the 1st grade. She is generally a very kind and sweet person, although she can also become extremely vindictive when she is provoked. She is a lover of all things related to fashion and makeup, namely Schiappacasse shoes, and is very focused on her appearance, as according to her peers, she has experienced several fun, but short-lived flings. She is also naturally tall and thin at 5 ft. 7 in. and has freckles and straight, waist-length blonde hair that has never been cut, which earns her positive reactions from some onlookers and slight jealousy from her female friends. Kirsten is often the first one to jump on the bandwagon of what's trendy or popular and often enjoys gossiping about others, during which the females join in to discuss their interests, such as Tanner Buchanan and Tate McRae. Her friend Bebe created a list ranking all the boys in her class by attractiveness, and she also launched the Pleases and Sparkles club with several of the girls in her grade. She has often proven to be unkind to the point of cruelty, antagonizing Hannah since the 1st grade and ridiculing her among other students despite their friendship in kindergarten. She is keen on seeming well-behaved in front of adults however and was often seen as an exemplary child and student, making Hannah bothered by her "perfect attitude". Kirsten is often perceived as vapid and shallow by those around her and classified as stuck-up and unapproachable due to her good looks, which makes her secretly resent them. She tends to feel lonely due to the absence of her father, a pilot who divorced her mother when she was 6 years old and has since been estranged from her and the family. She looks toward her pet dog Robbie for affection and has considered him to be her most loyal companion since she was a young child. 

Her two best friends as of elementary school are Meygan Davis and Sharidan Tellez, whom she first befriended due to their similarly rhyming names, with the three calling themselves "The Three Amigas". Kirsten is an influencer who is usually very friendly and flirty and posts under the screen name Cantaloupe Sinclair, and she is often seen hanging out with other students, especially the girls. She steadily dated a boy named Scott Tucker between the 5th and 9th grades despite their rocky on-and-off relationship and Hannah Quigley's mutual attraction to him. She dislikes the unwanted attention she receives from boys deep down and desires for them to appreciate her for her intelligence and aspirations rather than superficial traits such as her breasts. She shows hidden depths when she admits that one of her ancestors was a Holocaust survivor in class, and her cousin desires to become a coder, making an app for her uncle's department store businesses. Despite generally being nice, Kirsten has a mean streak and can be quite tactless, as shown when she made fun of a new girl at her sleepover, although she felt guilty about that soon after. She is also implied to have a Machiavellian personality, being referred to as the "Two-faced Bitch" by a few others due to her duplicitous and dishonest nature. Much of Kirsten's negative attitude is rooted in the neglect she receives from her father and the toxic relationship she shares with her mother, causing her to resort to taking out her aggression on others to cope. Her friend Meygan has a strong maternal instinct however, serving as the "Team Mom" among her friends, and seems very immersed in her duties in looking after an egg during a project at her school. Kirsten secretly likes to cook for comfort and often watches Food Network in the privacy of her bedroom in order to pick up new recipes, such as osso buco and refine her skills in the kitchen. 

Her favorite foods are köttbullar and anything ethnic, such as Pad Thai, and she has traveled to many locations, including Milan, Italy and Vienna, Austria due to her father's work. She is also seen as a practical schemer with her ability to devise complex plans and bring them to fruition, in addition to her clever decision to make handmade paraphernalia to raise money to attend a concert. At first glance, she seems like a typical respected, well-liked cheerleader, although upon closer inspection, she holds onto a deep-rooted darkness due to suffering from an eating disorder. Though Kirsten was slightly harsh towards Hannah, she acted somewhat friendly towards her despite the labels given to her by their fellow classmates. Her mother, who had blonde, close-cropped hair, great cheekbones, and long legs was seen as the root of her eating disorder, forcing her to maintain a "perfect body image" while criticizing any perceived flaws. She describes her as the type of person who transformed casual celebrations like bachelorette parties into high-stakes vacations and acted disproportionately over gender reveals. This presumably led to the development of her bulimia, as her mother constantly wanted her to maintain a good physique while keeping her under a tight thumb. Kirsten would hide her inner struggles from her friends and especially her boyfriend, as while she and her mother appeared to share a loving relationship on the surface, they were fairly distant from one another in reality. Her "good attitude" and powerful presence would also affect the people around her and make the disaster she experiences in 9th grade gym class even more tragic when a boy ties a knot in her hair with gum. This inspires her to make changes in her life and cut her long hair in a short, feathered style, symbolizing her newfound maturity and growth as a person. She becomes more sophisticated from there on and occasionally wears makeup to enhance her blue eyes and natural features, in addition to experimenting and coming to school at one point dressed in all black.