⌜aaron taylor-johnson. 30. cis man. he/him.⌟ ╱ was that JULIAN KOENIG i just saw wandering around lake stillwater ? you know the RED HERRING? odd … i never imagined they’d be back in town, especially after everything that happened last time. but i guess it makes sense, considering they've always been known for being INTUITIVE and RESOURCEFUL. still, you'd think they'd be more cautious—especially since they’re also quite VOLATILE and NIHILISTIC, but then again that explains, he was a chess champion in high school. last i heard they were working as a/an UNEMPLOYED in PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA… i wonder if that's where they picked up that SMALL BOOK OF CROSSWORD PUZZLES they're always carrying around. nonetheless, with whatever happened on that lake all those years ago, they'd better hope the cabin keeps them safe this time around.
full name: julian adriel koenig (pronounced kay-nig; he once had a little outburst at the bank after the teller mispronounced his name lol) nickname: jules date of birth & age: november 12, 1994 ( 30 years old ) place of birth: palo alto, california zodiac sign: scorpio gender & pronouns: cis man, he / him sexual orientation: bisexual occupation: software engineer / currently unemployed 3 positive traits: intuitive, resourceful, quick-witted 3 negative traits: volatile, nihilistic, vindictive family: dan koenig ( father ), nina roth ( mother ), eleanore koenig ( twin sister)
BACKGROUND
tw: mention of drugs, hospitalization, mental illness.
julian, along with his twin sister, was born in palo alto, california. his father, dan koenig, was a software engineer for apple while his mother, nina roth, was a former hollywood a-lister who was known for being a scream queen in the 80s and 90s. she retired from the limelight when the twins were born and opted to start a health and wellness business (in a similar font as gwyneth paltrow's goop).
very smart kid. like, mensa-level smart. however his parents didn't want him to get in over his head so he still went to a regular, albeit private school. adversely, because he knew he was smarter than everybody else, this sort of gave him a superiority complex and made it difficult for him to get along with other kids.
his best friend growing up was his twin sister, whom he affectionately called ellie (though, to everybody else, she was nora). while they were inseparable, they were also almost complete opposites. ellie was a lot more likable and sociable and often brought julian with her to gatherings and events, much to julian's (and ellie's friends) disdain.
julian was pretty much a carbon copy of his father and was admittedly much closer to him than he was to his mother. nina wasn't as motherly as she made herself out to be in her interviews with entertainment tonight and people magazine and, in fact, missed the spotlight and the glamor that came with her previous life much more than she'd care to admit. dan, however, preferred to keep a quieter, simpler life. that, and his tendency to be married more to his work than to his wife led to their divorce when the twins were in their sophomore year of high school. julian chose to stay with his dad in palo alto, which meant that ellie did, too.
his then-boyfriend got him into adderall and coke in their junior year to stay awake and alert and busy busy busy. these habits worsened in college, especially when he didn't get into stanford (shocker!) which was the one school he applied for as he was so confident he would get in, but apart from his grades and a 1450 SAT score, nothing really made him stand out. with no other backups, his mother pulled some strings at her alma mater in her hometown in minnesota (where she was a regular donor) which was where he and his sister ended up going to.
majored in computer engineering in college where he met jamie novak. jamie was the first friend he made and was one of the very few people he liked hanging out with.
he dated harper chen in their freshman year and broke up mid-sophomore year due to julian's substance abuse and the fact that he just wasn't making enough time for her. however, they remained good friends after.
jamie and julian had a big fight when julian found out that jamie and eleanore hooked up while jamie was dating isa. julian knew how his sister felt about jamie and was afraid that jamie was only playing with eleanore's feelings and confronted him about it, threatening to tell isa if he didn't leave his sister alone. jamie, however, counter-threatened that if he did that, he would tell everyone about julian's own dirty little secret, which was that julian was sleeping with one of his (married) professors, who had introduced him to ketamine to manage his high levels of anxiety. both of them decided to call it a stalemate and wouldn't speak for a couple of months.
that is, until eleanore told julian that jamie and a bunch of other people were going down to stillwater to celebrate the end of the final exams and that he should try to talk to jamie and make up. hesitant at first, julian ended up making the trip and arrived on the last day for the sole purpose of talking to jamie and nothing else. julian found jamie at his cabin where they talked, but to this day julian wouldn't tell anyone, not even his sister, what they talked about. some heard yelling, some saw jamie storming out of the cabin with julian coming out minutes later heading the other direction. later that night, jamie would meet his tragic demise at the lake.
julian was a lot more withdrawn after that, reverting to his old high school ways of keeping to himself, and kept very few people in his circle, which included his sister and harper. he suffered a public nervous breakdown on campus on his last semester where he was a very strong candidate for summa cum laude and end up dropping out. his father brought him back to california where he entered rehab for the first time, returning twice more for the next couple of years.
his father insisted he stay close, so he got a place of his own in palo alto while working as a freelance software engineer, primarily in cyber security. he hasn't been in contact with anyone from college in the past eight years, except of course for harper, who sometimes comes to visit him. he was four months unemployed and two weeks on his third stay in rehab when he received news of harper's untimely passing. opting out of the program early, he traveled back to minnesota to honor harper's last wish and confront old, haunted memories.
OTHER INFO
obsessed with doing crossword puzzles and always keeps a small pocket-sized collection with him at all times.
loves watching movies, which was one of the very few things he got from his mother. he particularly enjoys the horror-slasher ones as well as the lynchian or cronenbergian variety but also appreciates sci-fi and drama.
he was hospitalized in his sophomore year of high school after staying awake for 72 hours straight and consuming mostly energy drinks while reviewing for the SATs, hoping to get early admission to stanford. he was discharged from the hospital the same day as his exam and took it anyway despite remembering almost nothing of what he'd studied, and ended up with a low score. he retook the SATs again the following year and got a 1450.
played chess competitively in high school and has even played in international invitational tournaments.
his dating history isn't very long nor complicated. his first relationship was with dustin wells on his junior year of high school, who gave him his first taste of drugs since his brother was a dealer. the relationship ended not with a bang, but with a fizzle right before they graduated, the reason simply being that dustin was going to attend college abroad and neither thought they were going to make it long-distance. only his sister knew about dustin. his next relationship was with harper chen in their freshman year of college, ending amicably early in their sophomore year. then, very briefly, there was kayla simon, a phd student and beauty queen whom julian met at a lab in LA where she was an intern and he was doing an ocular on their security system. they dated for five months before breaking up when kayla became a finalist for miss universe. and then, finally, noah kelley, a visual artist whom julian met at an art show. they've been together for four years and currently have put their relationship 'on pause' after julian rejected noah's proposal.
while julian is aloof, he is by no means shy—he can get very loud and opinionated when it comes to matters he cares passionately about like tech and current events, often in a condescending manner.
while most people see him as cold and uncaring, he can also be very sweet, mostly towards his inner inner circle and he's not typically into physical touch unless it's with people he's super comfortable with, like ellie and harper.
his appearance has changed almost drastically from when people last saw him in high school. those who knew him then might not recognize him so easily; they might remember him as a well-groomed and baby-faced kid but he's a lot more unkempt nowadays, with unruly curls and a thick stubble. he's also sporting cuts on his face after getting into a fight with another patient at rehab before leaving for stillwater.
what was once a bright-eyed and hopeful young man has now turned into a pessimistic, nihilistic shell of the kid he used to be. untrusting of those around him and paranoid to a fault, he might even resort to lying and distorting the truth—often to a point where he no longer knows what to believe in—as a means of survival and protecting those he cares about, most especially his sister.
CONNECTIONS
jamie novak , first college friend. like many others, jamie introduced julian to his friend group, though often found himself still not quite fitting in, but they were people, at least, that julian still thought about from time to time and made college feel a little bit less like a distant lonely planet. in his sophomore year, julian found out about jamie hooking up with nora, his twin sister, and threatened to tell isa, jamie's girlfriend about it but jamie was holding on to a secret of julian's himself. both boys cut each other off from their lives until the night of jamie's death at stillwater lake.
harper chen , ex-girlfriend. harper and julian remained good friends even after the breakup, constantly keeping in touch years after college up until harper's death.
nora koenig , twin. other half. lifeline. the one person who has ever really known julian, the real julian.
isa morgan , math tutee. julian tutored isa twice a week for an hour and a half after classes as a favor to jamie, both realizing they had a lot more in common than originally thought and striking a weird, albeit brief friendship. lost touch after jamie's death and especially after college.
willa hoffman , harper's roommate. julian struck a vague form of acquaintanceship with willa for harper's sake. julian felt a sense of protectiveness over the girl, mostly because he thought she was an invertebrate who couldn't stand up for herself for being so spineless.













