my boy builds coffins, for better or worse. some say it’s a blessing, some say it’s a curse. ● but your sweet, sinless sensation is not my style, and i’m not givin’ up. ● with a chance to go back and amend every grievance, how could i resist preventing my demons? ● know that i would gladly be the icarus to your certainty, oh, my sunlight, sunlight, sunlight. ● the boy said, “my name’s johnny and it might be a sin, but i’ll take your bet and you’re gonna regret, ‘cause i’m the best there’s ever been.” ● oh, if the sky comes falling down, for you, there’s nothing in this world i wouldn’t do. ● i know we can’t stop what’s coming, but i will try. oh, how i’ll try. ● there’s an elephant inside the room. it only comes around when i’m near you. ● i really fucked it up this time, didn’t i, my dear?
sweet summer days. lazing in a beam of sunlight that streamed in from his bedroom window, sleeping past 6am now that school was out. woken up by a brother eight years his junior bouncing onto the mattress with chants of
play with me, play with me!
alfie was all wide eyes and curlicues. kaz grabbed his excitable hands, leading him downstairs where he could make breakfast for them both. eggs, scrambled and a little burnt, with extra cheese for alfie, because
“that’s the caldwell secret. it’s why all the chicks dig this handsome smile, ‘cause...”
CHEESE!
alfie finished the sentence for him, already well aware of his brother’s ancient wisdoms.
an afternoon spent carting his younger brother around on his back. so many afternoons like that. kaz was the fast one, so his shoulders were well worn by the small limbs that rested on them. piggyback rides were his speciality. alfie’s preferred way of moving about town.
the caldwell boys, a familiar sight around normal. kaz and his brother-shaped backpack. alfie with too large eyes who shared stories of the corpses that had recently shipped in to their family funeral home. kaz’s smile was a beam that shot through the discomfort of others who weren’t quite sure how to talk to the awkward younger one.
alfie and his hyperfixation. his desire to make friends but his inability to understand how. the only time he braved the horrors of social interaction were the ones with his hand firmly held by kaz’s warm, calloused palm.
the world was harder for people like his brother. that was what his parents had told kaz. sometimes he needed extra help. that was okay. kaz would always be there.
he made varsity the spring of sophomore year. something he had worked so hard for. kobbs’ voice echoing in his head, words like captain and scholarships and future. a future away from normal, away from the graveyard, away from the south side. pride and glory and a sense of belonging in the world.
practices started to take up more time and that was when the babysitter came into the story. alfie had cried the first time they left him with her.
she grew on him, but she never quite filled the shoes of his big brother. every day, the hope that his afternoon would be spent with kaz. every day, the disappointment as he was shuttled off to the babysitter’s house.
kaz, 16, a boy with a life. with a team, with a best friend, with a girlfriend. games, parties, midnight fortnite sessions. the time he made for his brother grew shorter and shorter as he grew more distracted by the particulars of teenage life.
a cold november day. fall break from school. a text from sara, his on again off again that was currently off (again). come over. let’s talk.
alfie in the kitchen downstairs, feet dangling from a chair. his eyes lit up at the sight of kaz, at the prospect of what days off together would bring.
can you take me to the park?
“i can’t, buddy. but i can call abby and she’ll take you.”
why? why not you? you never hang out with me anymore. you like everyone else better than me.
“that’s not true. it’s not. i’m busy, but you’re still my favorite dude. we’ll hang out tomorrow, alright? just you and me.”
tomorrow. you promise?
“cross my heart and hope to die. tomorrow will be the most epic brother day we’ve ever had.”
epic. alfie had tried the word like he’d never said it before. mimicking the way kaz spoke, testing it out for himself. later, when kaz dropped alfie off at abby’s, he echoed it again.
epic. tomorrow, right?
“tomorrow.”
tomorrow a town-wide manhunt. tomorrow their mother’s frantic sobbing. tomorrow a thousand missing posters printed. tomorrow an empty bedroom. tomorrow an empty promise.
tomorrow the worst thing he’d ever done. tomorrow the thing he’d always regret.
FULL NAME: Kazran Caldwell
PREFERRED NAME/NICKNAMES: ‘Kaz’ to a majority of the world. His sports bros call him ‘Caldwell’.
APPEARANCE.
FACECLAIM: Tyler Posey
SEX: Cisgender male
HEIGHT: 5′10, pretty average.
WEIGHT: around 160 lbs. a little lighter when it’s baseball time and a little heavier in the winter during bulking season.
BUILD: he’s generally lean and muscular, with a little more muscle definition in his thighs and calves.
HAIR: short and black. he would grow it out but his mother makes him cut it regularly.
HANDS: big hands for holding many balls. occasionally sports a big ink stain on the side of his right hand from an intense drawing sesh. too often has dirt caked under his fingernails. his hands always smell vaguely like a baseball glove.
SCARS: a few, on his knee and calf, and a good one by his elbow. they’re all from various sports injuries, except the one across his hip that came from the time johnnie convinced him it would be a good idea to parkour over a barbed wire fence.
CLOTHES: absolute sports bro garbage trash. ratty, dirty sneakers and white socks that come up a little too far. basketball shorts or track pants. jeans on only the most special occasions. his shirt is usually a jersey of some sort, and he’s rarely seen without a baseball cap (backwards, naturally).
OTHER FEATURES: dimples! he has the most adorkable dimples when he smiles, which is most of the time. he also has a stick n poke tattoo on his wrist that his bff johnnie gave him - a poorly rendered skull and crossbones.
SPEECH.
VOICECLAIM: if Tyler Posey was a good southern boy
ACCENT: slow and southern.
LANGUAGE: english and spanish. his spanish pronunciation is inhibited by his deeply american accent, much to his mother’s chagrin, but he is fluent.
ARTICULATION: he often has to search for a word or way of phrasing something in the middle of a sentence, but when he finds it, he says it with confidence.
EDUCATION: kaz’s vocab is a lot of slang, peppered with ain’ts and y’alls. sometimes he’ll surprise the room with a three-syllable word but it’s always a shock when it happens.
LAUGHTER: loud and often, from deep in his chest. has probably teared up from laughing more than he’s teared up from crying.
MANNERISMS.
FACE: his heart is displayed right on his face, in flashing neon lights. he’s often accused of having a case of the puppy dog eyes.
HANDS: he fiddles a lot. he has a hard time keeping still, and his hands always need to be doing something. he doesn’t use them to talk, but he’ll be spinning a pencil in his hand mid-conversation for sure.
LEGS/FEET: similar to his hands, he’s generally tapping and bouncing his leg to get out the pent up energy.
EMOTIONAL OUTBURSTS: the happier and more excited he gets, the louder kaz is. he has no concept of his own volume and the halls of normal secondary are often blessed with echoes of him yelling, “BRO!”. when he’s upset, however, it’s quite the opposite. he withdraws and grows quieter.
HABITS: kaz can’t stand the quiet, so if there’s a silent room, he can often be heard making beatboxing noises under his breath.
PERSONAL SPACE: kaz has no concept of such a thing. anyone in the vicinity should prepare for him to barge into their bubble without the slightest thought.
HEALTH:
DIET: as a growing sports boy, kaz eats quite a lot. mostly protein, but when he’s not trying to be ultra fit for baseball, he’s a snack fiend.
SLEEP: as a kid, growing up in a graveyard gave him frequent nightmares. he grew out of them, but his sleep cycle never really recovered, and he wakes up easily throughout the night.
EXERCISE: every morning before school, he goes on a mile run. on the weekends, he does it for longer. he hits the gym to weight train whenever his team does but he doesn’t usually seek this out on his own. he’s more of a runner.
CLEANLINESS: he’s a dirty, sweaty boy because he spends all of his time outside. his mother is unsure if he owns a piece of clothing without a grass stain on it.
ODOR: general boy stank masked with the strong scent of old spice.
NARCOTICS: although his friends dabble in recreational drugs, kaz is a good boy who doesn’t touch anything stronger than weed. he’ll even pass on that if he’s got practice or a game the next day.
ADDICTIONS: baseball.
PERSONAL.
INTROVERT/EXTROVERT?: extrovert as hell. he hates alone time and will bug his friends to be in their presence no matter the time or day.
OPTIMIST/PESSIMIST: annoyingly optimistic. he’s like the bard of the group. when he’s sad, he has his moments, but it isn’t difficult for him to jump back to the glass being half full.
SEXUALITY: straight-ish as far as he knows. he’s only ever dated girls, but there was that one time he woke up to his best friend’s hands on him. johnnie claimed he was half asleep and thought kaz was a girl, so it was whatever. he doesn’t think about it a lot. romance has never been a focus of his and he generally only dates because it’s a thing everyone else does.
ROMANTIC: kaz has a huge heart and he can be super romantic. he’s that way with everyone he meets.
PLANNING: kaz would rather rush into a situation and figure it out on the fly than stand back and make a plan. if he’s forced to rely on others before he can act, he likes to get the ball rolling by throwing out a million suggestions until one sticks.
INTUITION: when it comes to the game, kaz has great intuition. it’s like he knows what the other team is going to do before they do it. he trusts his gut, and he brings that with him in real life situations as well.
GOALS: more than anything, kaz wants to get out of normal and explore the world. his way to do that is through baseball and a potential scholarship, which he is very close to achieving.
INSECURITIES: he takes most things in stride, but he can be insecure about his intelligence. especially with the murder club, he often feels like he isn’t contributing or helping the cause. he internalizes a lot of it and tries to put himself out there anyway, in the hopes that he’ll accidentally do something right.
PHILOSOPHY: the caldwell family is not particularly religious, at least not more than their neighbors, but they are very traditional. they have a lot of beliefs about the sanctity of life and death. kaz is far more hedonistic/utilitarian in that he does what makes him happy in the moment and disregards whatever it might mean for his afterlife.
RELATIONSHIPS.
PARENTS/GUARDIANS: kaz lives with his biological mother and father, but he doesn’t have a close relationship with them. they’ve always been distant and mostly allowed kaz to run off and do his own thing. they’re responsible parents, if not emotionally neglectful.
FRIENDSHIPS: being a popular guy, kaz has a large social circle. he’s closest to the other guys on his baseball team, particularly johnnie ward, his best friend. after his brother’s disappearance, kaz has been distancing himself from his regular crowd and spending more time with the murder club.
ANNOYANCES: kaz is the ultimate peace keeper. he rarely thinks that anything is worth fighting over and always tries to see things from the other person’s shoes, when he can. the only thing an argument is ever good for is entertainment when you’re watching two people go at it and you know you’re not involved.
ADVERSARIES: kaz is more forgiving than he should be. he takes most things in stride, so it would be difficult to do anything so heinous that you lost his friendship. anything involving his brother is a good way to get him riled up.
STRANGERS: kaz treats everyone he meets very familiarly, like they’ve been best friends for years.
FUN STUFF: he does the standard teenage boy stuff with his pals. they play video games, trash other people’s houses at parties, hit each other with sticks, etc. he’s very active and hands on so he rough houses with his friends a lot.
BEST FRIEND: johnnie ward is his bff and has been for a long time. johnnie is like the mr. hyde to his dr. jekyll - the one who always drags kaz along to do the dangerous, slightly illegal things.
WORST ENEMY: at the moment, kaz’s worst enemy has to be the sheriff and the rest of the police force. although he’s generally always been on good terms with them due to his sports prowess bringing renown to normal (johnnie often shoves kaz at the cops when they get into a spot, so he can smile their way out), he can’t forgive them for the lazy, uncaring way they’ve handled his brother’s disappearance.
INTERACTIONS.
GROUPS: the more the merrier. kaz loves having people around him and thrives in group settings. he’s the guy at the party who keeps hopping between different social groups to interact with everyone he can.
OPENNESS: it’s a 50/50 situation. there are certain things that kaz keeps very private, that he’s unwilling to talk about. he’s so bent on keeping it positive that he doesn’t often share the deep stuff unless he’s doing so flippantly. however, there isn’t a lot that he takes seriously enough to treat this way.
GENEROSITY: kaz would probably give both his kidneys if someone really needed them. he grew up lower class (not as much as the wards, but enough) so he doesn’t have too much to share, but he shares it all the same.
JEALOUSY: romantically, kaz is not the jealous type. he’s so socialable himself that he couldn’t imagine getting upset if someone else was the same way. the only thing that’s ever really made him jealous is seeing the way his more well-off teammates live. they can afford the nicer cleats and have more time to spend in the weight room, etc. etc. he’s seen how it takes him more work to stay at the same place as them and wishes it were easier.
TEMPER: generally patient as a saint, if only because most stuff either flies over his head or is taken in a positive manner by him. his temper has gotten worse recently, but it’s still very tame.
AFFECTION: kaz’s way of showing affection is through touch and time spent with the other person. he’s very affectionate with all of his friends, always boosting them up and being their hype man. a total team player.
DISTASTE: if he dislikes someone, he simply becomes the opposite of himself. cold, robotic, generally antisocial around them.
ETIQUETTE: polite enough. his mama raised him to be a gentleman so he acts accordingly, but he can’t help being a little rude around the edges without realizing so.
RESPONSIBILITY: he feels responsible for everything. he’s always been extremely independent, as his parents left him alone to take care of himself and then eventually his brother, so he sees himself as the one who has to handle it all. if something doesn’t go right, he feels like it’s his fault and internalizes the blame. he projects his bad feelings onto others when they’re bad, if only because he has a hard time processing them.
CONFIDENCE: kaz is very confident in most aspects of life, aside from anything to do with academia. he rolls with the punches.
HONESTY: honest, but never in a way that intentionally hurts someone else’s feelings. he will occasionally blurt out something that’s honest and rude, but it’s usually accidental and he tries to put a positive spin on most stuff.
LEADER OR FOLLOWER: follower, and pushover. kaz’s friends could get him to jump off a bridge if they really wanted. he likes to go with the crowd, to feel like his belongs.
FLIRTING: if kaz is speaking, he’s flirting.
ATTENTION SPAN: poor. he’s very easily distracted. the only place where he’s super focused is out on the field.
LIFE.
DUTY: kaz has always been responsible for taking care of his brother. when baseball started to get more intense with scouts was when he asked abby to take over for him. he’s the de facto captain of his team and is in charge of making sure everybody is in shape and doing what they should.
COMBAT SKILLS: he’s a lover, not a fighter. but he’s fit and athletic so it wouldn’t be difficult for him to defend himself or others.
HOME: he’s a garbage boy with a very messy cave of a room. but it’s organized chaos and once a month his mom makes him clean up because it smells worse than the dead people in there.
COOKING: he can use a microwave. hot pockets all day, baby.
DRIVING: he doesn’t have a car, preferring to get about town on rollerblades, but he can sometimes be seen driving johnnie’s white mustang when his best friend is out of it.
FINANCES: the caldwell’s live a humble lifestyle. they’re on the lower side of lower middle class. more like upper poverty. but kaz does odd jobs here and there for cash money, like mowing lawns and shoveling snows and such neighborhoodly things.
PETS: there’s a feral cat that lives in the graveyard. he also has johnnie.
LAW: he’s gotten in trouble a few times - breaking and entering, vandalizing public property, public urination... mostly things his friends were doing that they blamed kaz for because they knew he’d get out of it. he doesn’t have a record because that’s usually true.
TRAVELING: he’s never been out of normal, but he wants to travel the world more than anything.
MEDICAL: the only time kaz has ever had a real medical mishap was at a very young age, when his parents left him in the car to go to a town council meeting. middle of summer, way too hot, and it landed him in the hospital nearly dead from heat stroke. he doesn’t suffer any lingering medical issues from it but it has left him with a strong desire to always feel like his body is functioning and alive.
PARTYING: he’s a partier, always letting his friends drag him along to the haunt of the night.
HOBBIES: drawing. he doodles in his sketchbook. it started being a more frequent activity as a way to bond with alfie, but he does it on his own as well.
kaz caldwell (jordan fisher). junior and resident athletic prodigy at normal secondary. he is a pisces and the jock of the group. he lives with his parents and younger brother in the groundskeeper’s cottage of normal cemetery.
milkshake order: 75% cookies and cream, 25% chocolate
• pure of heart, dumb of ass
• normal’s golden boy, beloved by all (including most authority figures)
• baseball player for the normal ghouls, focused on getting scouted so he can receive a scholarship and get out of his small town. he is notably very fast on his feet. he is also in possession of a potentially-haunted bat thanks to holly and her lesbian witch moms.
• a doodle artist in his spare time. he keeps an art journal on him.
• joined the murder club after his little brother disappeared. kaz is fiercely hopeful that they will find him alive, even after all this time.
UPDATES:
. kaz hears voices. they whisper to him about the woods, as well as fellow members of the MC (primarily jamie) and occasionally latin phrases that he does not understand. he hasn’t told anyone about them and they’ve been getting progressively worse.
. kaz’s best friend is johnnie ward (fellow member of the ghouls and jamie ward’s twin brother), but after the ghouls’ most recent win, they got into a fight and are currently not on speaking terms. kaz is angsty about this.
. casey is kaz’s ex-girlfriend. they broke up shortly before alfie disappeared.
. after the successful (?) exorcism of tommy, kaz started to feel some type of way about keeping tommy tied up and he didn’t like the idea of turning tommy into the police when it was the “demon” who had lead him to murder. after finding out that edwina felt the same way, the two went behind the club’s back and released tommy. he died shortly after that. both edwina and kaz share an immense amount of guilt over it and have slowly tried to win back the club’s trust.
johnnie grabbed the big gulp cup, a size reserved for the section of southern america that still laughed in the face of diabetes. he pushed it against each soda in rapid succession; pepsi on diet on mountain dew on sprite on rootbeer. “they call it a suicide,” he told kaz, gulping down the heinous potion of his own creation. he smacked his lips and smiled when he was done, a grin sticky around the edges, missing its two front teeth. daring. reckless. like romeo before juliet's stone tomb, kaz grabbed a cup of his own. a suicide pact, sugary delights met such sweet ends.
ii. twelve years old, kaz's bedroom.
mr. caldwell's old cds were strewn about the room. two boys sat amidst the sea, sorting through the cases to find music that sounded the way they felt. angry, urgent, alive. johnnie with bruises, a fierce black eye that scoured the floor until he found it. the perfect album. a punk rock manifesto they played at deafening volume. johnnie screamed along to songs he did not know, full of more hurt and rage than any poser band from the 80s could ever have hoped to be. he was a bright, blinding fire and kaz was all consumed. if music be the combustion of love, burn on.
iii. thirteen years old, the caldwell bathroom.
when johnnie had his first taste of a girl, he described it to kaz in vivid detail. his words were of peaks and valleys, salty marshes, and humid climates. he vowed to become an explorer; he would chase the adventure of teenage girls, searching for a treasure he could not yet name. something akin to the love of a mother. he would give most of himself to this studious pursuit, but not all. there were little things he saved for his best friend, a boy who was as lovely and temperate as eternal summer. johnnie's jacket hanging in his bathroom. his bike knocked over in the backyard. a bedroom window always left unlocked.
iv. fifteen years old, the front seat of a beatup cadillac.
a needle, an ink well, an ill-advised setting for permanent art. what better way to mar their virgin skin than by the hands of their best friend? kaz went first, pricking a slow pattern along johnnie's right hand. the shape of an anchor to keep him sturdy in the constant tempest of his life. then johnnie's turn. it stung and then ached and then burned, the skull and crossbones he tattooed onto kaz's wrist. “'cause these hands are deadly,” he'd said, his smile both beautiful and dangerous. it was the day kaz learned some cupids killed with arrows, some with tattoos.
v. sixteen years old, johnnie's white mustang.
the car was quintessential johnnie. sharp, rough, cool. born of questionable origin. their first joyride was down south normal's broken roads in the middle of the night. johnnie's foot was lead on the pedal and their hearts beat in unison with every miles per hour gained. he was the happiest kaz had ever seen him, finally going the speed of his own temperament. kaz could not bring himself to look at the road, bewitched by the dark magic of johnnie's expression, of his hair under the moon, of the way he smiled like the revv of an engine. if life was naught but sound and fury, let it signify this. the space between them in the car. their reckless trust in shitty goodyear tires and that love would be enough.
vi. seventeen years old, behind the baseball field.
their friendship was as ferocious and soft as both boys could be. a part of that town the way marie's was, the way baseball was, the way god was. kaz never planned for monsters to trickle in with whetted claws and snatch everything that was his normal. both brothers, in a way. johnnie watched the months make distance between them, but he would not be abandoned like a condemned trailer. if love could not withstand, he was determined to prove himself a villain. to hate the idle pleasures of those years. to regain control, to wreck with his hands what was falling apart.
How to Add Checkmark Alt Code- MS Office, MAC & Symbol Command
How to Add Checkmark Alt Code- MS Office, MAC & Symbol Command
Select the cross (X) and the checkmark ALT code in the polling station’s image. The following is a complete overview of the leading digital buffer code in the image between the intersection point of Windows ALT (X) authentication and rating.
They compare the numerical link indicated by the corresponding HTML element, if available, comparing it with the HTML element. If you are not familiar with…
