NAME: Samuel Lancaster
GENDER: Male, he/him
DATE OF BIRTH: December 3rd, 1989 (29)
PLACE OF BIRTH: Wilmington, North Carolina
NEIGHBORHOOD: Forest Hills
OCCUPATION: Professor of English at UNCM
FACE CLAIM: Liam Hemsworth
trigger warning: Illness, Death
In early December of 1989 a baby boy was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. His parents named him Samuel Lancaster. Over the years the Lancaster’s would come to have five children. Little Sammy grew up surrounded by love and farm work. The Lancasters owned a modest size farm in the Murrayville area of Wilmington. Primarily crops but a few animals too. All of the children were expected to help and Samuel did, but he much preferred play over work. As a young boy, when he thought no one was looking, he’d get into all kinds of mischief; joy rides on the tractor, hiding in the corn, swiping chicken eggs to yolk nearby neighbor’s mailboxes. He was a wild, spirited boy whose father insisted he straighten up and whose mother said he was fine.
Sam’s mom always had his back. He was definitely a mama’s boy, and when she took sick his whole world changed. At the tender age of ten, he became his mother’s keeper. Anything she wanted, he did. Before School. After School. Instead of practice. Sam was there for his mom. While his older brother cooked their families’ meals, he did his best to nurse their mother back to health. For a brief time, after Liberty got better, Sam thought he wanted to be a doctor. He enjoyed helping his mother get well but not so much all the science and math classes. By his freshman year of high school he’d abandoned his medical dreams and was starting to write. He loved it so much he joined his high school’s newspaper and, later on, won scholarship awards for a few of his articles. While Sam’s interests were more academic than some of his siblings, he still stayed active. Although not with typical sports like football and baseball, but on his skateboard and in the ocean.
Following high school Sam didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life, just that he wanted to get out of Wilmington. So, he went to college at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. A little more than 3 hours North West of his hometown, Sam’s new home offered him freedom without judgement while still being able to see his family whom he loved so much. Like his early youth, the first few semesters at Wake Forest were wild. Sam partied more than he slept or did school work combined. He was surrounded by new people and experience. Enough was never enough. There was a girl he brought home for one Christmas, but other than that Sam didn’t practice monogamy. He had a reputation on campus as a fuck boy that seemed to follow him until he graduated. Which he did eventually do, with a B.A. in communications and journalism.
After several years of living in a new place and a chance to grow up, Samuel moved back to Wilmington. His relationship with his father, although once very tense, had grown into a bond of mutual respect. He didn’t want to take over the family business someday, and that was okay. Mostly, he reasoned, because his dad knew Steven would do it. Regardless, Sam felt seen and valued by his father for his differences and actually headed his advice to continue his education. A few months into Sam’s M.A. in English program at UNCM, his father passed. The loss didn’t level him as badly as his older brother Steven, but he still struggled with staying focused on the future when his mind dwelled on the past. Sure, he and his dad had made amends but only just. There were years of memories to be made with his old man, and now all he had were the tense ones of his angsty adolescence.
When push came to shove, Sam grieved in singular silence but also taught himself to truly cherish those had had left. His family made it easy. They were all lovable people. Especially the smallest, newest edition; Audrey. She’s his older brother Steven’s daughter, but his best bud. When UNCM offered him a position teaching in their English department he wasn’t sure he wanted it, until he realized leaving Wilmington meant leaving her. Now, Sam rents a townhouse in Forest Hills to be close to the university, where he works as an English professor. Primarily he teaches intro courses but has recently taken on an upper level journalism course. In the future he plans to go back to school and work on his PhD, but for now is happy gaining real, classroom experience, being surrounded by people who love him and who he loves.
( + ) altruistic, brave, loyal
( - ) arrogant, superficial, impatient
