𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐨𝐝. 𝐡𝐞/𝐡𝐢𝐦. 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐲.
𝐛𝐢𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐲. | 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬.
CHARACTER BASICS
Name: Lawrence “Laurie” Jude Westwood Age & DOB: 31, April 25th 1991 Gender & Pronouns: Cisman & He/Him Time in Bradford Springs: 1 year. Sexual Orientation & Marital Status: Heterosexual; Single Occupation: Aspiring Fiction Writer / Part-time Personal Assistant to Dr. Evelyn Mendez Positive Traits: creative, independent, caring, attentive, hopeful Negative Traits: compliant, self-effacing, jealous, cautious, scatterbrained Neighborhood: Apartment in Southside, Bradford Springs
BACKGROUND
tw: parental death & drug mention
It’s been you and your sister for as long as you can remember, attached at the hip even when you can’t stand each other. Given you’re born a year apart, you know there was a brief time before her. You know it was tragic, too. Your parents were young and in love when you were born, the two of them just happy newlyweds who were eager to start their little family in a quiet corner of London. There are a few short months of bliss before all their happiness turns to grief — a car accident takes your mother’s short life, leaving her husband and young son alone. You don’t remember what that time was like, but you can imagine the horrors of your father’s suffering.
He’s never been a solitary creature — it isn’t your father’s nature to wallow in isolation, and he’s no good at being alone. Your mother knew this, too, and would’ve wanted him to find some joy in life again. She’d have wanted him to find a new woman to love, someone who would help raise her son now that she couldn’t. So your father does, and soon after he finds love again comes your sister Bella. There’s no questioning who your family is, growing up with the understanding that Bella’s mom is your mom, too ( any easy conclusion, considering all your scraped knees she kissed, all the lunches she packed for you, all the times she held you as you cried ). You are your little sister’s fierce protector, as well as her constant annoyance. So close in age that it’s always ammunition for an argument, she is the person you most love in this world, though you’re often the first person to piss her off, too.
It doesn’t take long for this family of yours to notice your natural talents for story telling — though your parents might call it lying, the way you can seemingly make up tall tales from nothing. In your school days, you’re surrounded by stories. You become enthralled with books, the magic of getting lost in the pages, emerging hours later as a changed person. As a hungry reader, you turn to writing, too. There’s no doubt that you’re gifted with pen and paper, then encouraged by all your doting teachers, then further rewarded by scholarship committees and prospective colleges. One autumn evening, a letter addressed to you comes and announces that you’ve been accepted to Columbia’s prestigious Creative Writing program, and you feel like fucking magic.
You’re happy out there in New York, for some time at least. Being surrounded by a new world of art and music and poetry and fashion rubs off on you in an instant. You find a new passion in menswear, dressing yourself to the nines for your walk to the store down the block, taking photographs with your group of friends who seem to do it all — they all identify themselves as actors/models/writers/producers/makeup artists and more. At least you’re writing more than ever here. You’re submitting your stuff to publishers, too, something your family always encouraged you to do ( but you never did ). You find friends in the other creatives, fall in and out of love a few times, and everyone else around you makes this life look easy. You try to keep up with them.
Maybe you spent too much time partying and not enough time writing, or maybe all those friends of yours really are just more talented than you. Either way, graduation comes and goes and you’re the only one without some amazing offer for a wildly cool and artistic job. Your friends take positions at magazines, fashion houses, entertainment giants, and more, but you find yourself stuck in NYC working a hundred different part time jobs. You’ve done the fast food thing, retail too, and even a stint working at a call center. You learn quickly that customer service sucks wherever you go. Your family reminds you that you don’t need to rough it out on your own, but your pride refuses them. Meanwhile, you try to find the time to write anything worthwhile — sometimes, you get lucky and make a few hundred bucks by writing articles for everything from clickbait web blogs to cheap fashion magazines, but you feel no closer to any means of success. In the few months you live there, you spend your time getting high, writing a lot, and sending your work to literary agents. No word yet.
Thirty comes and goes. This birthday marks a whole decade of you trying and failing to get your work published, so you take this as a sign: maybe the city isn’t the creative dreamworld you once idolized it to be. Seeking a change of pace, you reach out to your aunt Joelle in Colorado, and ask if you can stay awhile. While the surrounding mountains are beautiful, you haven’t lived here long enough yet to know if they harness any creative magic.
Six months ago, you managed to land a real job, something that got you out of your aunt’s house and into your very own apartment in Southside. A surgeon-turned business woman puts an ad out for a personal assistant, paying an almost stupid amount for how much work you think you’ll be doing. But soon you find out how busy she’ll keep you, running from the night club she owns to the dry cleaner, and then it’s off to the grocery store and over to the hospital, where she moonlights as a fucking surgeon. You’re considering asking her for a raise sometime soon, but you don’t want to fuck this up yet. You’ll need to work for her until you finally manage to write a book anyone actually wants to read.
HEADCANONS
Since working for Evie, you’ve had a bit too much fun making TikToks for work. Mostly, you use this as an excuse to get back into fashion now that you can wear whatever you want to work. Your viral hits include, “A day in the life as a Personal Assistant,” “Styling Joggers for the Office,” and “LOOKBOOK: from 4 o clock meeting with ur boss to happy hour drinks.” Secretly, you’re hoping you can get some sponsorships to help make ends meet.
You’re a reader, but what good writer isn’t? You’ve read all the classics at least three times, though lately, you’ve ventured into the contemporary now that you’re trapped in BookTok, too.
Nothing helps your writing more than weed — thank god there’s finally a recreational dispensary in Bradford Springs. A blunt to yourself and then you can get past that writer’s block, a fog that’s been stuck in your brain ever since you left New York. And, it’s nice to unwind with after a long day of managing your boss’ personal affairs.
You worry that you’ve peaked already, having graduated high school as a golden child with high academic honors and a bright future ahead of you. Oh, how far you’ve come crashing down since then. It’s hard not to compare yourself to all your old friends who’ve graduated from Columbia, and to your family members, and to frankly, most everyone around you.
You have a dog — a sweet lab named Daisy ( which makes total sense, considering your love for The Great Gatsby ).
Despite your previous stint in NYC, and the up and coming nightlife in Bradford Springs, you’ve never been big on going out. You typically only hit the clubs on business for Evie.