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‷ watch out , ASTRID BEAUFORT-DONNELLEY has crash-landed into roswell !! she looks THIRTY-SIX YEARS OLD and celebrates her birthday on DECEMBER 16TH. she is from CAMBRIDGE, resides in JUPITER VALLEY and is currently working as A SECURITY ANALYST. one thing you should know about her is HER JOB HAS ALWAYS BEEN HER LIFE, TO THE POINT THAT SHE CAN APPEAR EMOTIONALLY UNAVAILABLE, AND BECAUSE OF THAT, SHE DOESN’T HAVE A LOT OF CLOSE PEOPLE IN HER LIFE (THOUGH THAT COULD ALSO BE DUE TO HER CONSTANT PARANOIA).‷
TW: child neglect, teen pregnancy, death
➣ NICKNAMES: Beau
➣ PRONOUNS: She/Her
➣ ORIENTATION: Bisexual
➣ BIRTH DATE: December 16th 1985
➣ OCCUPATION: Security analyst
➣ THE PAST:
↳ Astrid was definitely born with a silver spoon. Both her mother’s and her father’s family were extremely rich, the marriage being one of convenience to unite two empires. Astrid was awkwardly in the middle of it, the third child of five that her parents would bring into this world. Although she had a good amount of siblings, Astrid felt there was a thousand kilometer distance between her and anyone else in her family. Although all of them went to private schools, Astrid was the only one to be sent away to a boarding school in France through middle and high school. She was different from her siblings in some way, though she couldn’t pinpoint the reason. The rumor was her mother, Léonie Beaufort, had had an affair around the time she got pregnant with Astrid, and there was a good possibility she wasn’t actually her father’s daughter. Maybe that was why.
Astrid was, however, very smart, and managed to skip two grades while still maintaining an impressive amount of extracurricular activities, which meant she was applying to university at fifteen years old and matriculated in Stanford by sixteen. There, she met an older girl, a twenty years-old who saw the bright-eyed young girl and decided to make it her mission to protect her from the world. She was a scholarship student who had a child while still at school, and although her parents hadn’t thrown her out right away, she was still estranged from them by that time.
Astrid admired the woman, and they lived together throughout college in the apartment Astrid’s parents paid for (without their knowledge, of course). When she graduated at twenty-one, the two split their ways, but stayed in touch. She went on to do get her masters degree, which she finished by twenty-four.
At twenty-five, she got the heartbreaking news that her friend had died in a car crash, and the parental rights of her young daughter were to be transferred to Astrid if she accepted the burden. She was devastated and in shock, but most of all, she didn’t know what to do. By this point, the girl was a teenager who had grown familiar to Astrid from when they lived together, but that didn’t make it any easier. Astrid wasn’t a mother, she was just some girl. A roommate. An older sister, at most.
From then on, her life was filled with trying to find her footing in life with a teenager, fights with her parents about her now adopted daughter, and trying to get her PHD. Astrid went numb. She found comfort in her now daughter, sure, but that took time, and a full two years of work before their relationship smoothed over after the sudden change in dynamic.
She had enough of her parents when they called the girl a gold-digger, and that was the moment she cut them off completely. Fuck them. By that point she already had an entry-level job in the field of cyber-security for a company that payed enough for her to support herself, and enough savings to last a lifetime. She was also a responsible investor, so truly, she didn’t need anyone.
It took her a while, but a couple of years of moving around and connecting with her new daughter and throwing herself into work finally brought her to a point where she can finally feel happy, although her paranoia that her family might still be keeping tabs on her somehow has never worn off.
➣ THE PRESENT:
↳ Astrid and her daughter found their way into Roswell five years ago by chance, being transferred here to work in the local branch of a bank after a mass data leak aa few years before that. Although she’s somewhat part of the town now, she still feels distant and disconnected. She never explained that her daughter is adopted to anyone, so she figures there must be rumors about her running around due to their closeness in age, but she mostly ignores it.
➣ ABOUT ROSWELL:
↳ Astrid thinks aliens are possible, but doesn’t think there have ever been aliens on Earth. That being said, the general science fiction vibe of the town taps into a childlike joy inside her, and she really likes the town for that reason.
when: aug 20th - 03:40pm
where: lunar laundromat
who: open ( @roswellstarters )
Among the array of peculiarities that sprouted along Anton’s day-to-day life, there have been some favourites— like that time a mystical thrift store owner had pulled a supposedly lucky bucket hat from ‘the back’ and claimed that it was meant for him (he had gotten a free cupcake out of it, of that Anton’s pretty sure); and that other occasion, when, at a punk show, his synesthesia had painted snakelike shapes that lured him through a nook leading him backstage. The band had turned out to be real chill, as far as he can remember.
He’s not surprised, then, to find something thumping in his machine, something he’s pretty sure was not included in his pile of colourful, vibrant laundry. Anton popped the gaping door open and caught a sneaker by the laces. Brows creeping up towards his bleached hairline, he shut the washing machine door and turned to the few scattered folk tending to their own chores.
A washing machine was something that Astrid always regretted not having bought yet, but something she also always forgot to get until it was time to make her way to the laundromat. When she was leaving, she’d probably tell herself to remember to look for one with a good price, then forget about it when she got swamped at work. She was deep in thought about her patterns and how predictable her life had become, when the guy beside her took a shoe of the washing machine, earning a confused expression, furrowed brows, and a nervous giggle from Astrid. “What the hell?” She looked around, waiting for a response. “Was that not there when you put your clothes in?”
Taking a seat next to Astrid, the brunette looked in front of her, trying to take in her surroundings from a different point of view. “Murphy’s Law at its best, huh?” Lara smiled before she lightly, barely visibly, shook her head. “I think that with time we all learn how to categorize the fuck ups.. there are those that can and should be handled without us, and then are those we book the first flight home from the Dominican Republic because hey, the world is about to end.” Or the Westies had caught a Russian vor in action, which meant another war was about to start between the two mobs. “Taking a stroll; it’s my cardio,” she laughed but just a mere look at the woman would obviously point out that looking like that demanded a hell lot more of a cardio. “But no, I’m still getting to know Roswell so between time in office and the Wild Pony, I do tend to walk around. It’s so small, yet so bizarre.. in a fun way.”
x
She released a small sarcastic laugh. Murphy's law described it perfectly. Astrid was, by all means, a workaholic, and her one weak attempt at taking her mind off it ended up with her mind being unable to focus on anything else. “This is the type of fuck-up that could be handled without me, if the guy working today hadn’t payed his way through college and got the job through daddy’s connections.” She understood the irony of saying that when she had been born into wealth, but somehow it felt different (and annoying) when people fully took advantage of their privilege that way. “Honestly, if they just fired him, I’m sure I would have a lot more free time. Even if they didn’t hire anyone else.” She looked at Lara. She hadn’t really thought that she would enjoy the silliness of the town, having the image of a no-bullshit woman. Astrid didn’t really know all that much about the other yet, when she thought about it. “It really is fun, right? I was a big sci-fi nerd when I was little, it’s fascinating to walk around a town dedicated to it.”
“Unfortunately, just visited. I’ve spent my summers in Europe and Asia,” she smiled as she continued,” well, whenever my family would go to Singapore, we’d make a stop in Europe so I believe I’ve covered most of the continent, especially Spain, Italy and France.” Truth be told, Poppy, during her childhood, had traveled more than her peers - if it wasn’t for family vacations or gatherings, or all those summer schools, then it was due to the nature of her parents’ careers, especially her mother’s. “You went to Stanford? Nice, but no. I went to Harvard & Columbia. I’ve always wanted to live on the east coast, but I guess we don’t always get what we want,” or life makes other plans. “Yeah, that could be it. After all, Roswell is a small town. What brings you here, if you don’t mind me asking, of course.”
x
"I used to travel a little too, but I don’t do it all that much anymore. Most of the time I just wandered a little while going back and forth between England and France, so you probably know more of Europe than me." She started stretching her arms, enjoying the pause in her daily run. Astrid missed Europe, sure, and it would always feel like home, but whenever she remembered it, the memory that overtook her was always the coldness of her parents and the exclusion she felt in boarding school. “Oh, that’s cool. I wanted to go to Harvard at first, but I ended up choosing Stanford.” She chuckled. “It’s not too late to move. Do you have a lot of roots here? You can always get a new job.” A sense of relief overcame her as she realized the other didn’t know her at all. “Yeah, we probably just bumped somewhere. Where do you work?”
as a native, ollie knew every nook and cranny of the small town known as roswell, new mexico. they were notorious amongst some, their regular outbursts either scaring people off or drawing them in, and that’s just how they liked it. but there was another, smaller part of olympia thatch that craved some sort of normalcy sometimes, and those moments were when they escaped to the u.f.o. emporium. though the place was a certified tourist trap, they find some solace within the confines of its walls. there were less-public places they could escape to if they wanted — but that was the issue, wasn’t it? they didn’t want to. sat with their cheek in hand and staring blankly at an artifact that clearly was made of plastic, ollie’s attention was redirected to the person beside them as they spoke, both of their eyebrows raising in curiosity. “you got someone with a sticky fingers problem? or are you worried that people are so nosy that they’ll try to paw through your things just to find something worthy of their entertainment? either way, they sound super shitty and you should yell at them for it.”
Astrid turned her eyes to the person beside her, then released a deep sigh. How to even explain the situation on a simple way? Someone had just doubled the work she’d had to do the next day for no reason, and although it wasn’t such an emergency as to justify her running back to the office, she was still exasperated. “They didn’t touch my physical stuff, they touched my work.” She her eyes back to the floor in front of her. “Which is honestly worse, I can buy new stuff quicker than I can rewrite lines of code.” Honestly, she would prefer to have a coworker who kept stealing her stuff but could do their job well. She was tired of working with idiot. “Also I can’t yell at my coworkers. I’m pretty sure that would get me fired.”
“Uhm, the second one,” Suraj said, though feeling like hiding when she said it was weird. They wished it was cute and weird, that at least would fit the scene. They sighed. “I’m uhm… so.. You know the script I’ve been writing…” slowly and surely, though maybe not surely. “I want to introduce the main character to the audience in the first scene, but the two characters are already engaged in conversation, and… I need someone to say her name, you know, so the audience remembers the name for the next scene.” They paused. “Maybe I can spin it into a ‘I don’t want to use pronouns way’… though, no idea how.”
x
Astrid stopped to think for a bit. Being a writer wasn’t one of her abilities, in fact she had payed a lot of money for other people to edit her papers in college because of that very reason. She really cared about Suraj and their writing, though, and thought long and hard about their problem. “Well, people emphasize important sentences with names sometimes.” She started, her eyes lost at the wall behind Suraj as she tried to think. “Like, ‘but do you really think that, Suraj?’ People do that sometimes.”
“i’m not going out tonight” aylin says to the other, they’d planned on having a cosy night in with cooper, just watching netflix shows and eating takeout. “look i’ve even got my spot cream on, it’s over. i’m not getting changed” she carries on, gesturing up towards her face, “c’mon, you can stay at mine, i’ll order us both pizza”.
Astrid nodded along. She wasn't one to go out herself, but very rarely, she got the excitement for a night out on the town. However, finding Aylin, a person she'd been hoping to drag along, still on their pajamas, was like a damp towel on her plans. "I guess that’s as good as any other plan." She said, starting to give up. “Are you sure you don’t wanna, I don’t know, hit up a bar or something?”
unlike astrid , ender had taken to roswell just fine — she had discovered some incredible , albeit annoying , roommates , had great connections with her co-workers , and had even formed a little clique of her own reminiscent of the eighties cult classic heathers . she hoped , by proxy , that some of that gregarious nature could rub off on her cousin ; it was one of the reasons the younger of the pair had all but invited herself on the excursion to the UFO emporium despite little to no interest in all things extra-terrestrial . swiping at the other’s phone , her dark eyes narrowed as she read back the text — they then rolled , exasperated , pocketing her cousin’s device , clacking on ahead in her too-high heels for such a mundane trip out . “ i’m not having work spoil our day together , “ she announced , resting perfectly manicured fingernails against the tempered glass of one of the many exhibits , “ even if this place is shitty . i mean , who believes any of these things are real ?? “
It was a little weird, hanging out with someone so close to her old life, a shadow of everything she used to be (and should have been, if her parents had their way). Ender was around the age of her daughter, which was enough to knock down most of her defensive system, even if she still sometimes wondered if the girl ever mentioned Astrid to her parents. She hoped the girl didn’t, though it’d always be hard to trust someone from her mother’s family. She wondered what the girl even knew about what happened between her and their family, her being barely a teenager when everything happened. Maybe she didn’t even know that she had cut ties with everyone. She’d never ask. Instead, she just let out loud sigh. “Work has a way of spoiling most of my days.” Astrid fully understanding her hypocrisy. She loved working more than she liked most people and she certainly loved it more than all the half-baked hobbies she’d attempted throughout her life. “Don’t you like horror stuff? I’m pretty sure sci-fi and horror are neighbour genres. Didn’t sci-fi start with Frankenstein?” She remarked, smiling as work and her past evading her mind for a little bit.
Ben had been sitting not far away when he heard the comment and cast a glance idly in the direction of where it had come. The smallest of smiles crept across his features. Seemed he wasn’t the only one who felt that way about people sometimes. He’d definitely become a loner somewhat over the last couple of years, coped much better on his own than with other people —- not that anyone really ever understood that. “You have problems with people like that, too, huh?” he casually questioned, nodding toward her phone.
Astrid looked at the man, one of her eyebrows raised as she smiled absentmindedly, like her mind was far away. It really was. She let out a deep sigh. “Yeah, well, sometimes it does feel like whenever I’m not at work, someone decided to make me think about work.” She chuckled, knowing fully that it would be hard for her to relax for the rest of the day. Astrid was a workaholic as is, she really didn’t need her coworkers trying to make it worse. All she could think about now was how to fix what they had texted her about, even though she didn’t even have all the information yet. She had a problem. “Do you have asshole coworkers too, or just assholes in your life in general?”
France. It was that word that caught Poppy’s attention. “France as in.. you took vacations there or you lived there? In any case, I envy you. Well, for the latter.” If anything, Poppy often took trips to Paris and Cannes, though she preferred Italy and Spain. But to live in Paris, now that would be a dream come true. “But I get you. I would sell my soul to a devil to be able to go anywhere in the Mediterranean at the moment. I don’t even know why I’m still living here.. in the middle of desert,” chuckling to herself, she noticed how the woman in front of her was rather unfamiliar to her, but reminded of her someone. Who, she didn’t know. “Have we met before?”
x
"Boarding school." She said, simply. One trick she'd learned about keeping her past hidden was that she could get away with revealing any amount of information, as long as she was careful with what she said afterwards. There was no point in hiding her European roots, since her English accent was still very thick. “It was a nice place to live, but I didn’t really get to meet the country too much.” She chuckled. “Are you from the Mediterranean, or did you just visit?” She felt a chill go down her spine as the woman appeared to recognize her, though she didn’t remember ever seeing her at her parents’ world. “Did you go to Stanford?” She tried to sound nonchalant. “I’ve been living in Roswell for a couple of years, too, so maybe we bumped at some point.”
One could often see Lara Fitzgerald walking around the small town of Roswell.. not just to get to know her new town, but also to clear her mind. With everything that was happening in her life, her failed marriage, upcoming birthday, the only good thing was just how successful The Westies had been when it came to conquering Roswell. The city would be theirs with no doubt - well, hers - and despite how happy she was about it, she couldn’t help but to feel sad when it came to her personal life. If money could buy happiness, she’d be the first in line. “Astrid?” Not really expecting anyone here, well if you don’t count the tourists, Lara got surprised upon seeing a familiar face. “What’s happening? Who’s got you to wrinkle your face like that? Whoever they are, they aren’t worth of you having to get botox, trust me,” she smiled as she pointed at the empty space by Astrid, “may I sit down?”
x
Upon seeing Lara, Astrid felt her shoulders relax a bit. Although she didn’t have a lot (or any) really close friends, she had come to consider the woman at the very least a trusted person, someone who was unlikely to sell her information off to her family. She looked like someone who had her own secrets to protect, and although that would put off a lot of people, it was almost an umbrella of protection to Astrid. “You can sit.” She smiled softly. “Work stuff.” She said, with an eye roll. “It seems that whenever I decide not to think about it for a little bit, they can sense it as prime time to fuck things up.” She waved her worries away, deciding to focus on the moment for once. “But you’re right, it’s not worth the botox. What are you doing here, Lara?”
It felt as if Roswell was drained of every other citizen who headed to the cool of the seaside or the mountains for the long, hot remainder of the summer. If she could, Poppy would trade Roswell for a warm summer days & nights of Greece or Croatia, where one could swim, sail and feel the sea on their skin, but all she could was trying to catch the shade on her way between the hospital and her home.. and vice versa. “Has the sun decided to fry us all?”
Astrid liked to keep in shape, and one of the ways to do so, was by sometimes going on walks after work, though it had become harder and harder due to the heat of the summer. As she walked, Astrid could feel sweat dripping down her forehead, which just made her want to turn back and walk back home (though that would still be walking). She stopped near a woman who then remarked about the same weather that was killing her. “Right?!” She took a deep breath. “It’s on days like this that I miss France the most.”
Suraj pulled in their legs as they sat in the little cubicle at the Crash Down after a work shift, hammering down on the keys on their out-dated macbook as they worked on the script that was always morphing and remaining unfinished like a good script should be. They stopped the movement and frowned. “Do you think it’s normal for people to call each other by name in a regular conversation? Like, in the middle of a conversation, randomly. Not like… Hey uhm… name.” they asked the person in the other booth. ( @roswellstarters )
Astrid frowned her eyebrows. She had come to the Crash Down in the hopes of going over some work stuff, and seeing as Suraj seemed to be here for the same, she had chosen to ignore them. That was, until they turned to her and asked that question. “What?!” She said, gears turning inside her head. “Like, in a ‘I don’t wanna use pronouns way’ or in a ‘I’m trying to make sure I remember your name later’ way?” She took a sip of her coffee. “Because one of these is weird and cute and the other is just weird.”
for: @roswellstarters ···
location: u.f.o. emporium
time: early evening
After all this time living in Roswell, Astrid hadn’t really made many close friends, so a lot of the times, she ended up visiting landmarks of the city by herself, walking around the many alien-themed establishments and letting herself smile and relive the few good parts of her childhood. She was a huge nerd for most of her early years, and even during her time in boarding school, she had spent a huge chunk of her time reading and watching sci-fi. At that moment, after walking around through the “authentic” alien paraphernalia, she had decided to sit down and rest for a bit, a content smile stamped onto her face, and check her phone. There was a single message from a coworker, asking her if she could come early the next day to fix something. She sighed, typing a quick “okay”. “Can you do nothing without me?” She whispered to herself, feeling her mood sour a bit. “At least stay away from my stuff.”
