Realistic or Modern ──│𝗛𝗔𝗨𝗡𝗧 𝗠𝗘│𝚌𝚊𝚜𝚝

[les etoiles.]

haunt me,
a cast [ cs ] thread

© weldherwings.

 

[les etoiles.]

classified keep out classified keep out classified

overview

text here ~ include your character's name, age, the role you are looking to take and anything else you'd like. use any placeholder as your wip until this profile is done.

appearance

text

height

text

weight

text

hair color

text

skin tone

text

eyes

text

faceclaim

appearance description here! as long as you want cause it scrolls

notes

psyche

trait

trait

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trait

trait

trait

trait

personality here ~ as long as you want

answer

alignment/mbti

likes

answer

dislikes

answer

fears

answer

reputation

answer

background

them in high school

just something brief!

them now

just something brief!

ADDITIONAL INFO

; any other information or trivia you'd like to include!

coded by xayah.ღ

 

[les etoiles.]

anri eriksson

#loverboy

#placeholder

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[les etoiles.]

mneme dove

#liarliar

#wip

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[aeneas.]

classified keep out classified keep out classified

overview

=> name: orion leopold abbot.
=> nickname(s): goes by rion, starman, leo (only if you're his mother)
=> age: 22 years old.
=> gender: cismale.
=> d.o.b: april 13th.
=> p.o.b: malibu, california.
=> role: suspect 7.

appearance

6'0"

height

160 lb.

weight

black.

hair color

pale-faced

skin tone

dark brown

eyes

alex schlab

faceclaim

=> in-depth.

hair: black and sinfully soft. unbeknownst to the student body, orion puts a lot of thought into his appearance; styling his hair before school and having an entire hair-care routine. not that it matters as rugby ruins it at the end of the day with tackles and dirt.

eyes: brown under the sun and black in the shade. rival teams find a daunting competitor in his vulpine eyes. friends see absolutely no thoughts.

body mods: lobe piercings he got from a friend in freshmen year ala-parent trap, he doesn't put any earrings on while at school but there's a reason why they still haven't closed up.

style: orion's closet

playlist: ; starman

notes

psyche

supportive

malleable

loyal

hedonistic

charismatic

temperamental

easygoing

insecure

attentive

✮ When you've been on top of the social food chain since elementary school, the most common adjective about you would be "cool". Cool could mean a lot of things and somehow Orion encapsulated all definitions of the word. He was cool in the way his friends enjoyed it. Suave. Charismatic. Down to have a good time and not particularly a long one. The one who'd laugh at stupid jokes at his own expense and make even worse comebacks—the "cool dude". He was also cool the same way one would describe the glaciers. Cold. Untouchable. Unachievable yet desirable nonetheless. Cool in the way marble statues of heroes were; stone freezing, yet chiseled to perfection. One single breath from him could be praised as if he invented the concept and a smile would garner a reaction you'd imagine people would wear when they meet god.

✮ Behind the curtains, Orion is the furthest thing from a cool dude—borderlining hot mess. They say heavy is the crown, the same could be said about medals. Being Cherish Grove's golden champion meant the same as a self-portrait being made of you by a painter who has never seen your face and only knows the deeds you've done. You don't see yourself in the end, but an ideal image of yourself. A picture meant to uphold and a persona meant to be played to perfection. Behind his painting stood Orion Leopold Abbot, a young man with quirks and issues.

✮ Burrowed in the cracks of his pedestal was his habit of knowing when he should be driving up to school to ensure he had someone in his clique to keep him company because he didn't like the individual attention. And don't even get him started on his weakness to peer pressure. Despite perceived notions, Orion cant stand isolation; and when you strike gold in the popularity lottery, it is easy to go broke by one simple utterance of "no". If allowing his peers to walk all over him made him a doormat, then so be it, at least he was a beloved doormat. The kind of doormat that got invited to parties at the expense of looking the other way at distasteful sights, covering for his good ol' pals when they asked—barely questioning, only going along. It wasn't like he had no sense of morals, he'd give his mutters of protest when he knew there was a line being crossed but he hid any tones of frustrations with playful shoves and boyish attitude.

✮ At his core, he's meek. His head loves to run and worry, consume his thoughts with panic, and flood his head with panic. As overwhelming as the world is, he is a "go with the flow" kind of guy—capturing life's moments with his eyes and memory. His heart bleeds with loyalty and devotion to those in his real clique. Easy to be played within the grand scheme of things but was a part of who he is. But there's a firecracker in his depths. Its line fizzles and lights on every occasion but when it ignites, it goes off. Orion is more than aware of his anger issues, the broken plaster on his walls makes it difficult for him to forget. He's trying to overcome it, okay?

infp-t

alignment/mbti

likes

healthy snacks, the smell of the beach, hot coffee—preferably with cream, jogs at sunrise, his guard dog bartholomew, summertime, the mad max film series, embroidery, anything with cinnamon, sea creatures.

dislikes

orange juice (or orange-flavored anything for that matter), candid photos, gossip, reality tv, the smell of cheap perfume, the smell of cigarette smoke, big formal events, tests, taxidermied animals, silence.

fears

✮ failure.
✮ dying without a purpose or legacy.
✮ the future and the change that comes with it.
✮ being completely, utterly alone.

reputation

Orion had many faces depending who you are. If you knew him in high school, you'd know him as Starman. A popular face in the crowd who always brought home the gold. If you knew him around town, you'd think he was another dumb jock, laughing with his boys and playing around with girls. If you knew him as a friend, you'd know him to be a big softie—always down for a good time and will pull up your hair while you vomit in the toilet too. If you knew him as a lover, you and he were probably more alike, getting together for the image rather than actual love. If you knew him after everything, Orion was a more casual man, you may even say happier.

background

orion's past

The Abbots were a group of scientist's attempt to create a suburban nuclear family out of Malibu socialites. In other words, horrific and barely hanging onto to dear life, ready to explode at any minute. Edmund and Chesa Abbot were happy raising their son in the sunny beach paradise in Malibu until they weren't. Call it a sudden desire for white picket fences and the aesthetics of "middle-class living" but Edmund had nothing but money to burn and so they packed up and set up shop in the small town of Cherish Grove. From the prolonged "trips" back to their villa back in Malibu, it was clear that Chesa wasn't loving the change as much as Edmund thought she would. Thus in a last-ditch effort to save himself the time answering divorce documents, Orion's sister Delilah was conceived.

Whoever said babies couldn't fix a marriage was a fucking liar. Since Delilah had graced the holy Earth, everything was smooth sailing on the S.S. Abbot. Sure, Orion's father barricaded himself in his study to focus on his business back in Malibu, and yeah, his mother breathed down both his and his sister's necks in order to feel some sense of living. But they were all good. Besides, Orion was too young to understand and it wasn't like he was given the time to. The Abbot parenting style relied on a lot of extracurricular activities like violin and rugby or cello and ballet.

Settling into the new environment was actually a piece of cake. It turns out that kids enjoy new kids who come from the new family that reeked of influence. First week into 1st grade and he had been invited to a copious amount of playdates and birthday parties. It was then Orion decided he liked Cherish Grove. It was simple. Safe. And it was easy to feel like he belonged, especially when the town had carved a place perfectly fit for him and his family to belong in the first place.

By sophomore year in high school, Orion decided he didn't entirely like the grove. Yet, it was the only thing he really had going for him. Violin was a bust and rugby became the one constant in his life that paved the road to success. The talk of scholarships through the sport had been a common point in every conversation with his parents—his father especially. "How are you home so early? He'd say whenever he wasn't in his dragon's den. "Doesn't your coach know anything about work ethic?" Rugby easily became his life. And everything around him was just an accessory to the lifestyle Edmund Abbot had set for his son.

It was his bridge to everything; his father, his mother, his friends, his school. Sure, his family's bank account and flashing opulence played as the hook to his growing popularity but it was the prowess that acted as the sinker. Without it, he didn't know what he would have become. All the Abbot children were golden children. However, the thickness of their gold coating was different. Delilah was the brains—the graceful one, she who never failed an exam, a renaissance woman. And Orion was the brawns. Whatever that meant beyond sports and athletics. Where his sister had been looking into the future by the time she hit first year, Orion stayed festering and drifting into the expanse of the unknown, blanketed in the stability of everything familiar to him.

He always knew how the water tasted in Cherish Grove; every make-out spot at school, what every carving engraved in the forest trees said, and every trick in the book to remain afloat.

As his championship titles started to stack up, the more his place in school was secured. Starman. Once the rising underclassman playing with the big boys, turned the heartthrob senior who wooed the student body with his athletic figure and coolheaded demeanor. In his final year of high school, some say he had the world in the palm of his hands. Who really cared if college was on the horizon? The rugby team was already made of fratboys; drinking till they walked like headless chickens and singing like wasted sailors stranded in the middle of the sea. Whatever pit growing in his stomach was just a figment of his imagination. The cringes he got from his own team were affectionate. His neediness to stay afloat was a joke.

Orion Abbot learned the hard way in many ways. He learned the hard way that vulnerability was the same as wearing a suit of steak in front of guard hounds; chewed up till you couldn't recognize the puny little loverboy in the mirror. He learned the hard way that confiding in even the closest of companions like Anri can step you up for betrayal. He learned the hard way that some conquests are futile; guys like Lucas and himself just couldn't get along.

He also learned the hard way that having a rough relationship with Lucas would get him to be a prime suspect in his disappearance.

The Abbot family were quick to shut the idea down, to parade their son as the golden saint who could do no wrong. It was what they did best. For if you ignore the cracks of an already weak foundation, what does it matter? A building is still a building. It isn't broken until it crumbles into rubble.

orion's present

The building came crashing down through rot, despair, and loss. Chesa Abbot was a woman who did not like weakness—prancing about in her dagger heels no matter how painful the blisters may be, touching scalding hot pots and pans just to show off her manicure, and pushing herself beyond the limits just for the sake of a good show. So it was to be expected that even a deadly thing like cancer wouldn't cause her to faint or fidget. She continued her charade and advised her children and husband to do the same; they were the Abbot family after all. For two more years after Orion had graduated from high school the Abbot family continued to play their part in the grove. Calm, cool, and collected.

It was only when Chesa truly needed professional attention did the Abbots have to alter the narrative. What was said to be another family vacation for the summer was actually the official move away from Cherish Grove. Just four months after their permanent stay back at Malibu, his mother was gone. And like an organ harvest, the grand Abbot home in the grove had been riddled with moving vans to collect all that remained of her image. It was safe to say that Orion—or anyone from the family for that matter had no plans on coming back.

However, a plan was much different from being ordered to return. Within the two years back in Malibu, Orion was just starting to feel himself again. No more masks, facades, or roles he needed to play. He had gotten an athlete scholarship at the University of California and was working under his father to take up the family business. For once, he had forgotten about the life he once had in Cherish Grove and the faces he once knew, Orion was ready to start his life anew.

Yet here he was back. Yippee.

ADDITIONAL INFO

✮ is actually a really nice dude. will help granny cross the street.
✮ has undiagnosed dyslexia and adhd.
✮ he has a fake laugh for the public to hear, and a hyena chortle for his friends.
✮ giving very 30/90 energy internally.
✮ maybe it's popularity, maybe it's being micromanaged by everyone around you
✮ his favorite movie is anything involving drew barrymore, she is his queen.
✮ is very oblivious to his social standing and the success that comes with it.
✮ cares a lot about what people think.
✮ back at home, his and his sister's room has a door in between their connecting wall so orion could always bug her.
✮ lowkey needy.

coded by xayah.ღ

 

[neptune.]

charli baek

#sparkwithoutflame

#shin yeeun

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[neptune.]

tate bradbury

#sputnik

#johhnnyx

♡coded by uxie♡

 

[neverbackdown]

classified keep out classified keep out classified

Skylar

Skylar Jones, goes by Sky or Jones or whatever nickname you can make up for her, She's 22, Birthday is November 25th ,

Applying for Suspect 8

appearance

5ft 3

height

112lbs

weight

Brown

hair color

fair skinned

skin tone

Hazel

eyes

Hailee Steinfeld

faceclaim

Long brown hair, piercing hazel eyes and infectious smile, Skyar stands at the just below average height of 5'3 and has a slim yet athletic build. She has both ears pierced. She has a scar in the shape of a question mark on her knee from a injury she sustained when she was a child.

notes

psyche

Confident

Courageous

Sarcastic

Stubborn

Adventurous

Protective

Caring

Since childhood Skylar was always a bubbly, confident and charismatic girl. The type of girl to always have a smile on her face and always itching for a new adventure. She was the loud girl in the back of the class who struggled to sit still, intelligent but never really cared about school work especially since there was a whole other world outside to discover.

Skylar is brave and will not back down from a fight, she is stubborn and once her mind is made up it is very hard to talk her out of something. She is sarcastic and tends to always have a sarcastic quip up her sleeve. She can be quite impulsive and rash in her decision making tending to jump headfirst into something without always thinking through the consequences of her actions.

A good way to describe Skylar would be a "free spirit" she is care free and doesn't care what people think of her. She chooses to live life the way she wants to after all she learned the hard way that "life is too short to take for granted". She is very protective of her friends and family and would do anything for them.

ENFP-T

alignment/mbti- ENTP

likes

Parties, music, Disney and pixar movies, Graveyards- they relax her, exploring old abandoned ruins, adventures, chocolate, thunderstorms, the beach, swimming in the sea, the smell of diesel, fireworks, camp fires, coffee, desserts as she has a sweet tooth.

dislikes

Dark chocolate, the taste of artificial cherries, the colour orange, the weather being too warm or alternatively too cold, being told no, being somewhere she has to sit still, spiders and most other insects, dark and enclosed spaces, heights, horror movies - she wont sleep for weeks after watching one, the feeling of glass when it comes out of a dishwasher, the sound of chewing or heavy breathing, forks being scratched on a plate or pan

fears

(1) Acrophobia (Heights) - [doesnt know where this came from but will get the shakes and her limbs stop working after a certain height]
(2) Claustrophobia(Dark and enclosed spaces ) [She got trapped in a tight dark shaft as a child, she never really got over the fear she felt]
(3)Taphephobia (Being buried alive) [Irrational yes but she saw it in a movie one time and for some reason has been terrified of the aspect since.]

reputation

Carefree, Bold and daring Free Spirit who is super friendly to everyone she meets.

background

In High School

Skylar has a pretty standard life growing up, two doting parents (be it they did work alot but they were there when it really mattered), a nice home, and anything she could ever wish for. Skylar comes from money, however, she doesn't like to show this off and most people would not know that Skylar is rich instead she says she's "comfortable". The Jones have always had a lax parenting style in terms of they tend to see Skylar as more of a friend than a daughter, never really setting rules and believing that everyone learns through making their own mistakes. Skylar dated Lucas for a few months during their final year of school but began to find they were better of as friends. The breakup went worse than she ever could have imagined and is still grateful that Tate happened to witness what happened, terrified of what could have happened if he wasn't there.

Them now

The incident with Lucas, his subsequent disappearance and being named a suspect all took a toll on Skylar and she found herself slipping into a depressive state with bubbling anxiety. She became a lot more reserved as a person, leaving the bubbly girl behind and instead became cold and distant for a time. As the group began to crumble, Skylar left the group behind deciding to head to a college far away from their home town and the memories it held. Struggling to deal with it all, Skylar fell down the partying lifestyle using drugs and alcohol to help her block out the memories. She eventually pulled herself back together and finished college with a good degree. Her life was going good but now the turmoil is beginning to unsettle as she's back in her home town and old memories are being dug up.

ADDITIONAL INFO

- She always singing random songs to herself

- she's very fidgety, always moving and can't sit still, whether it's tapping her toes, shaking her leg, messing with her hair etc

- She squeezes her right arm just above the elbow or rubs the back of her neck when nervous.

- Her secret wish is that she was born a princess and grew up in a castle ( she watched disney movies too much)

coded by xayah.ღ

 

[lvcid]

classified keep out classified keep out classified

overview

cassidy torrence—cassie to those who knew her growing up, and cass to the people she knows now—is a 21-year-old ex-resident of cherish grove. she did all she could to distance herself from the small town, but to the police force who brought her back, she’s known as suspect number 6.

appearance

5’6”

height

131 lbs

weight

honey blonde

hair color

lightly tanned

skin tone

dark brown

eyes

madelyn cline

faceclaim

cassie was once the picture-perfect image of a seaside “it girl.” warmly tanned skin; long, sun-bleached waves that only the salty air could achieve—she was the brightest thing the sleepy city had ever seen. her time away was an opportunity to reinvent herself in the name of fresh beginnings—despite her heavy past, everything about her was lighter now: her hair, her skin; she was like a faded version of the girl she was before disaster struck cherish grove—colder, even.

notes

psyche

adventurous

charismatic

humorous

outgoing

selfish

gullible

flirtatious

flighty

Always the glass-half-full sort of girl, Cassie can’t help but look for the good in others, even when they don’t deserve her kind judgement. She has a big heart—too big for her own good sometimes. She longs for a sense of community; connecting with others has come naturally to her for as long as she can remember, and she only feels at home when in the presence of her loved ones.

Despite her personable disposition, Cassie isn’t exactly the type of girl one would want to bring home to their parents. At her core, she’s a thrill-seeker, chasing after her next adventure. She grows restless easily—as a child, she was the one to drag her friends into mischief, a habit that she never managed to shake.

To strangers, Cassie can come across as dumb and naïve, which is true to an extent. Her rose-colored-glasses view makes her more susceptible to anyone looking to take advantage of her. Of course, this isn’t to say that she’s completely innocent on that front—she’s flighty and cares about her own interests more times than not (though she’s not proud of it), meaning she can be undependable and has a bad tendency to inadvertently use others for her gain.

C.N./ENFP-A

alignment/mbti

likes

being (overly) affectionate with the people she cares for; the colors that clouds turn at sunrise/sunset; fast, late night drives on back roads to nowhere; friendship bracelets (and making them); peach-flavored chapstick; rocky road ice cream; seeing the sun peek out after it storms, when the earth still smells of rain; the type of tired one gets after swimming all day; the thrill of almost getting caught doing something “bad”

dislikes

the feeling of lip gloss after it’s gotten tacky; glitter (since it never stays where it’s supposed to); neon colors; puppets; small insects (ants, gnats, ticks, etc.); most flavors of soup; the type of people that would get their significant other’s initials tattooed on themselves; wearing “outside clothes” in bed; the winter season, when the sun sets at 5pm

fears

seclusion (and being alone in general); stagnancy; living an unfulfilling life (also known as: dying young before she has the chance to achieve anything remotely significant)

reputation

It depends on who is being asked. To her childhood friends, Cassie was the life of the party, the one to push them out of their comfort zones and ensure they all had a fun time, no matter what they were doing. To parents, Cassie was a reckless girl—a bad influence on their children despite her warm and inviting presence. To her past lovers, Cassie was a tease and flirt, known for sending mixed signals and being unsure of what she wanted. To the people she’s met during her time in the city, Cass is a quiet girl, unsure of her way in life and jaded by what the world has thrown at her—a stark contrast of everything she was before.

background

high school

For the larger part of her life, Cassie seemingly had it all. Being the only child of rich parents had its perks, that was certain—she never had to lift a finger unless she so chose. To her parents, she was a golden child—she could get away with murder if it came down to it, always counting on daddy’s money to bail her out of the worst trouble she managed to get herself into. Of course, like any teenage cliché, she did all she could to test her limits.

Wild child that she was, Cassie sought out fun in everything, regardless of the form it took and the consequences that came after. She complicated the relationship between Lucas and herself for the sake of curing her boredom and sating her curiosity, only to nearly cut all ties with him when a better option presented itself, despite her parents’ persistent asking after “the neighbor boy” and his whereabouts. She dated Anri—much for the same reasons—and after being caught in a rather compromising position by someone else in their friend group—Tate, to be exact—she quickly ended the relationship before word could spread.

Outside of complicated affairs of the heart, Cassie got herself into her fair share of other kinds of messes. Sneaking out, “borrowing” her parents’ car to cater to her and friends’ needs—because her own vehicle was too small to fit all of them inside—whenever she pleased, and throwing school-wide parties any time her parents were away were a part of her routine by the time she was sixteen.

The only thing to ever slow Cassie down was Lucas’s disappearance and subsequent murder. After being named a suspect, a switch flipped in her mind. For once, she’d been met with a situation that couldn’t be turned into a game of sorts, and the last thing she wanted was for the attention to be on herself.

later

As soon as the opportunity arose, Cassie left Cherish Grove behind. After being exonerated from Lucas’s case, she realized the best thing to do was to put distance between herself and the town she’d called home for so long because now it felt that at every turn, there was something to remind her of the recent tragedies, looming overhead like a storm cloud, weighing down on her: Lucas’s house, taunting her any time she drove by; the eyes of those that weren’t fully convinced of her innocence, following her every movement.

Alas, escaping the past never seems to work in the runner’s favor.

Her stay in New York lasted a short four years before the call was received, summoning her back to Cherish Grove. Cassie had finally managed to settle into her new life—she’d taken on a job as a marketing intern at an environmentally-friendly clothing company, and while at times, it was as if she was drifting aimlessly through life, allowing herself to be pushed and pulled without any of the bright spirit she once had, she’d finally begun to feel some semblance of happiness again, but nothing lasted forever.

Of all people, Cassie should have known that.

ADDITIONAL INFO

❖ Cassie is a picky eater—she’s the kind of person to order chicken tenders and fries at nearly any restaurant.

❖ As much as a people person as she is, Cassie cares for animals much more—she cries during ASPCA commercials and growing up, she would beg her parents to call in a donation any time she saw one.

❖ Cassie’s deathly allergic to honey; after unknowingly consuming some baked into a cake once, she was hospitalized for a week afterwards.

❖ A regular victim to nostalgia, Cassie collects mementoes of any and all occasions in a box that she keeps under her bed. When she was packing up to move, she transferred all of her childhood/high school pictures to the box for safe keeping, and it wasn’t until she’d arrived in New York and was looking through it during a wave of homesickness that she realized one of the photos was missing.

coded by xayah.ღ

 

[celadon.]

CLASSIFIED KEEP OUT CLASSIFIED KEEP OUT CLASSIFIED KEEP OUT CLASSIFIED KEEP OUT CLASSIFIED KEEP OUT

overview

name: romeo zechariah krieg-kuziemski
age: twenty-two
date of birth: 9 march
gender: male
pronouns: he/they
sexuality: bisexual
role: suspect five

wip

appearance

6'3"

height

152 lbs

weight

brown

hair colour

fair

skin tone

grey

eyes

dylan christensen

faceclaim

Tall and pretty. Romeo's look has changed drastically since high school, most notably the four-years-long, well-maintained dark brown hair he now sports. His eyebrows, once tweezed, are now thick and kempt; he now wears jewellery, rings and chokers and bracelets; his ears are pierced; his nails are manicured, sharp, sometimes painted; he takes skincare a lot more seriously now; and he has loosened his grip on masculinity enough to assert himself in terms of how he really wants to dress - that is, kind of like a witch, kind of like one of those rock stars who die young, kind of like he's on vacation.

playlist

psyche

charismatic

clever

passionate

mercurial

free-spirited

secretive

truthful

promiscuous

modest

defensive

self-aware

cynical

Romeo is a self-assured, seductive, and interesting person. He's complimentary to almost everyone he meets; he's effortlessly poetic, and talking to him you receive an image of his mind as this lush garden; rejecting materialism, he ardently believes in knowledge, learning and having learned many extraneous skills. He's just enjoyable to be around, enjoyable to hear laugh, enjoyable to watch as he pays attention to you, dedicates his great powers of observation to you. He's also incredibly sensitive under the surface, susceptible to mood swings, bitterness, jealousy (him? oh, yes), and upending waves of deep resentment. He's usually able to keep his tantrums contained or at least directed at something acceptable or unimportant, but sometimes it's really hard, especially when he's been drinking, and being as vigilant of his anger response as he needs to be can be terribly exhausting. Being alone is difficult for him. Going unadmired for too long is impossible.

ESTP (assertive type)

mbti

likes

music, their guitar, nice weather, the ocean, sex, individual liberty, ritual magic, untrained painters, spicy food, science fiction, autumn leaves, woodworking, gemstones, spirit photography, old houses, birds, velvet goldmine

dislikes

people who emphasize things, wasteful people, belligerent people, religious symbolism, deliberate cruelty, ambiguity, bodybuilders, pollution, banking institutions, loud engines, the ultra-rich, right-wingers, hard drugs, churches, preachers

fears

losing control, being permanently hated, living a boring life, that they may never make real connections with others, his father, becoming his father somehow

reputation

In Cherish Grove, 5+ years ago: An ass. Likes to blow things up a lot. He'll probably be a fuck-up in a few years' time but he knows a really good plug so...

In New Jersey, now: Potential new member of pretty much any scene. Destined to be the centre of however many conversations in however many apartment get-togethers. Dazzlingly hot in bar booth lighting. A slut.

background

them in high school

The last thing Romeo will speak about with his friends - and this was just as true for high-school Romeo as it is for present-day Romeo - is what kind of family he has, what kind of home he comes from. His high school friends quickly grasped that it was off-limits as a topic of discussion. He hasn't really gotten into it with anyone he's ever dated, either.

Romeo's home life as a young child is not fondly remembered. He was, finally, the result of a badly broken marriage. His mother was a chilly unsolicitous recluse who, having had two traumatizing miscarriages after Romeo, ignored him and all but confined herself to her room; his father is Cherish Grove's town priest, a former military chaplain who made clear his contempt for any emotional expression he felt unwelcome or perceived as unnecessary. Romeo was and is someone especially attuned to unfairness, so living under such fascist silence was like hell itself. From the age of about fourteen until he left the house, Romeo and his father would get into screaming arguments at least once a week.

So Romeo was an awkward annoying teen, a thorn you'd prick yourself on - a notion that'd be hard to accept if you only met him in the last two years. He was rowdy and dabbled in drugs and made a few more stupid errors and judgments than some of his peers, less than some, you get it. He was popular but insecure in it, more apt to express unwarranted grief with someone else - and earn some time in exile - than he is now. Most of his good qualities went unnoticed and unappreciated here, not least of all by Romeo himself. One person who peeked in at those things, who he could consistently draw back and be more normal for, was a girl named Charli, his childhood neighbour and later classmate. Through Charli, he was introduced to the group who would become his family of friends, so to speak, for a few years, and he taught himself to be more normal for them too. After a period, he was normal. He didn't have to try as hard. He stopped trying to have anything to do with his parents, took steps to prepare for the life he'd live without them. He began to be more like who he would later be - started playing guitar, growing out his hair.

Then one of their friends was physically assaulted by her boyfriend, Lucas, who went missing a week later. Romeo, the kid with documented anger issues, was the last to see him alive. They were all held, all questioned, Romeo for hours, into the night - but they were all set free in the end. Any suggestion of civility in his relationship with his parents, that is whatever wasn't already discarded from the drugs and the hypothesized gayness, was refuted at last by this detainment, and their "relationship" functionally ended. That was easy to take. What wasn't as easy to take was how the bonds of their friend group were so shaken that a continued grouphood after graduation was immediately recognized as impossible. Romeo would have semi-contact with Charli - nothing regular, days at a time - and virtually none with the rest of them over the next four years.

them now

After high school, Romeo moved to the opposite coast to start his life (and get away from what happened, if we're being truthful), joining a few bands and becoming a restaurant worker. It's been fine. It's been exceptional in terms of how not-nagging those old memories are now - he'll never forget them, sure, but they no longer pester him. It's just nice to not have a reason to tell anyone about it or even talk about that time in his life at all. Instead, it's oh, no, I'm still trying to decide what to take in college. Working until then. Instead, it's oh, I have a girlfriend, kind of. I have a boyfriend, kind of. Yes, I am single.

He's just kind of been buzzing around, trying things out, having looping conversations with his easily flattered therapist, never quite getting too close to anyone. Leaving one job, starting another, moving to the next city over. He has no real priorities. Lately there's been something in the air about a record deal for one of his groups, so maybe that'll be something someday. Who knows?

Of course he hasn't really been thinking about that lately.

Because he found that fucking letter on his stoop and got sent reeling back. They found a fucking body.

There's the dread you would expect, but there's also a dumb excitement, like he's a dog in a car window going somewhere. And there's also a sweet sadness. People he misses, who never really got to know who he was, who might still not when this is all done. But at least now there's a pretense for them to talk. He's been talking to Charli again. And, weirdly, Mneme, but it's like, good. Is it? Well. If it isn't good then it isn't. If it is good... then it's really good.

But also really bad.

And there's his parents, who are a whole other thing altogether.

He's scared and elated and cannot stop laughing at the sheer unlikelihood of it. The nigh-impossibility. How did they even know where to find Lucas? Who was it that spilled?

ADDITIONAL INFO

Romeo is lactose intolerant.

His skin burns really easily.

He's been known to rock-climb but he doesn't want to make it a habit.

He volunteers for those organizations that go around picking up litter off the street. He's honestly quite serious about littering, how bad it is, how easily avoidable it is.

He hasn't met a toilet he can't unclog. He was actually an apprentice plumber for a while.

He literally changes into pajamas and drinks warm milk before going to bed.

He buys matches exclusively for lighting candles. He doesn't use his cigarette lighter.

coded by xayah.ღ