#brandy larue

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Brandy

Full name: Brandy Macaulay (née Larue)

Birthday: 14 May 1962 (Sign: Taurus)

Date of death: March 2000 (at the age of 37)

Height: 181 cm (5'11”)

Heritage: Scottish, French

Place of birth: Glasgow, Scotland

Residing in:

▫️ Glasgow, Scotland (until 1978, when she ran away from home);

▫️ Inverness, Scotland (from 1978 until her death in 2000)

Job: she had worked in retail for a couple of years, then switched to working as nail technician at a beauty salon in town—a job she highly enjoyed. She held that particular job until her eventual death, in March 2000.

Relationship status: married to Malcolm James Macaulay, from 1988 until her death, in 2000; they met in 1985

Immediate Family:

▫️ Matis Alexandre Larue (father)

▫️ Davina Larue (née Gordon, mother)

▫️ Malcolm James Macaulay (husband)

Children:

▫️ Blair Úna Macaulay (daughter)

▫️ Donald Dougal “Donnie” Macaulay (son)

A few things to get to know Brandy!

▫️ Brandy was quite the character, one could say. Determined, passionate about her beliefs and desires, quite stubborn, the type who set her mind on something and then went ahead and did it, or at least gave it a try (or multiple). The type who couldn't be pressured into doing what she didn't want to do, and who couldn't be stopped from doing what she wanted to do. Last time someone tried that (her parents), she took her backpack and walked out the back door (aka ran away), leaving only a note behind.

▫️ Yup, you heard that right, she ran away from home. That's how she ended up from Glasgow to Inverness, actually! She was only 16 at the time, and it happened after a particularly nasty argument with her (well-intentioned, but somewhat overbearing) parents. Her life got quite chaotic for a while, but she managed to stay afloat and figure it out, believe it or not. She was that dead set on proving (mostly to herself) that she can be on her own and handle it just fine. What started as a reckless decision made on a teenager’s whim (and definitely felt like a reckless decision for a while), ended up with Brandy having a taste of the independent life, and realising she didn't wanna have it any other way from then on. This whole thing is a story in and of itself, and we will get to it another time (you can find a short version of it over here), but I’ll say this: this wasn't the end of her relationship with her parents. Brandy reconnected with them after a while!

▫️ Brandy loved squirrels! So much so that she and Malcolm built a little feeding house for them in their backyard. It’s there to this day, periodically taken care of by Malcolm, and still frequented by the little critters.

▫️ She was fluent in French (learned it from her dad, who is French).

▫️ Before she and Malcolm moved together, some time after they got married, Brandy lived in a rented flat she shared with a dear friend (a lass named Emily Glenn).

▫️ There’s a lot of Brandy in both the Macaulay twins. They look quite a bit like their mum—the eyes, the freckles, the little tooth gap, the nose shape—but they also hold some of her fire. Some of that bright, vivid energy that fueled Brandy's every action. I think there are moments, every once in a while, when Malcolm kinda just… stops to look at the twins and is a bit like “🥹”.

Here’s the sketch version, because I quite like it:

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Playground 🛝🍃

(1985, Inverness, Scotland)

Just look at these freaks, about to make out at a kids' playground. 🌝🤣 I might have mentioned before that these two had NO shame when it came to making out and/or hooking up in public/slightly unconventional places, and that statement still stands. I mean, let’s not forget that one time when they hooked up in their best friend’s bed, on his birthday, after he specifically told them to “not fucking dare!!”. Dougie (the best friend in question) most certainly did NOT forget, I can assure you. 🤣

All of that aside, I still can’t get over this little interaction, and once again I feel compelled to point out how smitten Malcolm is right here. 🫠💖 Not only because I love his pretty little face in general, but also because I feel like this one was a meaningful moment for him (which shows in the way he looks at Brandy). He might not have actively realised that, at least not right away, but it sure played its part on him. He was in the process of falling for her, and it was little moments like this one that did the trick for him.

There were no kids at the playground around that time of the day, by the way. A few might have come around at some point tho, forcing Brandy and Malcolm to (eventually) cool down, possibly while being a bit like "You guys REALLY had to come and play hide and seek or whatever at this precise moment, didn't you? 🙄" as if the KIDS were the problem here. 🤣

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Figuring It Out

(Sketch/WIP)

This is not exactly one of my best sketches, but it still gets somewhat close enough to what I had in mind in order for me to like it, *and* it features these two, who continue to be my heart and soul, so… 🥹 This little scene is inspired by and related to a little lore bit I wrote a few weeks ago, and which you can read below!

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As much as Malcolm and Brandy were really, *really* the one for each other (and as much as I adore the wholesome and unhinged nature of their relationship 😭💖) their couple dynamic was not without its fair share of little bumps along the way. I mean, that’s the case with pretty much any human relation, so there’s nothing surprising in that fact alone, but the more I get to know the two (especially Brandy), the more I can see some particularities in what *they* had to face, beside your regular, innocent couple bickering.

Brandy was in a much better place in the mid-’80s, when she and Malcolm met, both in the way she related to herself and to the world around her. She was much bolder, much more self-assured, much more in charge of her own life, but she still had this tendency to become defensive and lash out when a situation or a circumstance got into her head enough to make her feel trapped, misunderstood and/or overwhelmed. Definitely not as often as it happened back when she was a teen, but enough times to still be a thing for her. That hot impulse that led her to run away from home all those years back would find ways to light itself up every now and then, telling her to do the same again. And even though she was past using that as her method of choice, there were still moments when Brandy found it a bit difficult to handle how she felt in a way that didn't involve *actually* running away from the thing/situation that made her feel that way. So, of course, all of this would inevitably slip into her and Malcolm’s relationship, too, one way or the other, which is something the two had to learn how to work out as a couple.

Also, here’s a thought that is semi-related to what I said above: there are times when I think about these two and I kinda wish they met in their teenage years, because they would’ve been glorious back then, too, but at the same time I am glad that they didn’t, because I have this strong feeling that if that actually happened, they might not have lasted the way they did. 🤣 They would've probably been fed up with each other by 1982 or so. 💀 🤣