@
FrostyHi5 & @
kyn: I don't think it's a good plot device and I don't like my feeling about what it's going to be used for. But I don't find the actual abuse, the bullying, or the reason for the bullying to be a stretch at all. Real people get abused like that, and real people get bullied for way stupider reasons. I myself have been bullied for way stupider reasons.
What I
do find unrealistic is the notion that she'd start taking showers and the bullying would
just go away. That's ridiculous. Once people start bullying a person, they don't stop unless someone new and more fun to bully comes along and the fashion shifts, or something dramatic happens to shut it down. Once it's begun, nobody cares why it started or whether that reason is still there; you're bullied because you're bullied, and you're assumed to be a proper target for bullying because people have been targeting you for bullying. In real life nobody would have noticed that she'd started washing or that she was maybe attractive, the whole thing had started feeding on itself long before and short of becoming a really vicious fighter and beating some people up bad, there was nothing she could have done to stop it. Seriously, if you're a major bullying target the options for ending it are getting randomly lucky, leaving, beating the shit out of the bullies (which is often just not feasible no matter how much you want to), or somehow provoking a truly massive, ongoing adult response on your side (which is in many settings not available). Changing yourself to become less the victim type is not relevant--that's good prevention, but it will not end something once it's under way. People's ideas about you are already formed and have little vulnerability to the reality of you. And they're having too much fun being bastards and maintaining social solidarity at your expense to be willing to change their minds.
(As a side note--the fact that you can't stop bullying does not mean I advocate "just ignoring" your bullies, as stupid parents often do. Bullies won't bully you less if you don't react, if anything they'll just keep pushing, and you yourself will feel like a loser. So fight back--you might as well, you'll feel better about yourself, and maybe you'll manage to hurt some of the bastards. You'll get more respect from anyone who isn't in on it, too. Except the kind of stupid authority figures who have no interest in being any use--they'll get on your case for fighting back maybe, but they can suck it.)
This would make more sense if she got transferred at the same time she learned how to stay clean; in her new debut, she might be treated better.