If you had to, say, come up with adaptations of each of your characters where they're in their mid-to-late-twenties and living in or near an offbeat, woodsy little college town outside of Seattle with a bustling alternative art scene and a lot of options for them to live in anything from luxury homes to super affordable apartments, how would you picture each of them existing? Would Catherine still be in her parents' home, watching her siblings? Would Ruby settle down there for a live among more down-to-earth and eccentric party people instead of the LA elite, and would her family approve of her being stationed somewhere besides NY and LA? Would Serena have any interest in investigating the weird cult-like degenerate activity going on in the local underground metal scene? Would Constance have fled there from the rural south, or is her home just a drive away in rural Washington? 👀 Feel free to go on forever if you want to describe their living arrangements and if they grew up there or moved there or what their day-to-day lives are like or where they work and if they went to that nearby Arts/STEM hybrid university that's maybe named Mt. Rainier. :-)
This ended up longer than I anticipated. I'm not putting it under a read more >:-)
Ruby, after years of intensive therapy, finally realised that nothing good was coming from living so close to her family. It was dysfunctional at best, and toxic at worst, and the main thing was she didn’t even like them. There was nothing for her in LA, and she put some of her worst tendencies down to the crippling boredom and the easy access(they’re a coping mechanism, but she hasn’t done enough therapy or honest reflection to realise that). So, what dies she do? She calls up her old friend Max, wanting to know what she’s up to. Because Max can do no wrong, in Ruby’s eyes. When she mentions the town outside of Seattle, she’s convinced it will fix all her problems. Of course, in moving away, she found the one place where her mothers more out there movies were discussed. Even in death, she will never be able to escape Grace Kane’s presence. She still drinks, but not as heavily. Instead of getting black out drunk multiple times a week, she’s a low level of tipsy all the time. Ruby tells herself that it’s fine. She’s better than she was in her wild party days, so that means she can continue. She found a studio apartment, though, with big windows and a little balcony and she picks up a paint set and canvas one day, because she’s actually pretty good. And if she lives within walking distance of Max, one of the few people that she loves to the point of wanting to be better, well… That’s just a coincidence. She doesn’t work, because she doesn’t need to, but everything’s paid for. Her parents are just happy that she’s not being a public fuck up anymore.
Constance goes to college. She’s the first in her family to even apply, pushed by the guidance councillor who thinks it would be a good idea for her to get away from the small town, where she’ll always be known as the girl who came back. Her parents hate it, from the first minute she broaches the subject. They lost her once, and her moving to Seattle feels like they’re losing her again. It’s so far away, and she’s so… Delicate is the word they use. Weak is the word she hears. They’re scared college is going to change her into someone they don’t recognise, even further from the girl she’d once been. They insist she finds a church to attend while she’s there. She tried the closest baptist church, but it didn’t feel right, so she stopped, but didn’t tell them. The verses aren’t the same without the oppressive heat and the fear of God. She graduates, but her social work degree sits on a shelf, unused. She considers going back, but she thinks she’s just punishing herself. So, she stays. In her shit box apartment where the walls are paper thin and the hallway looks like something out of one of the horror movies her roommate made her watch. She prays, every night, holding the little gold cross in her palms so tight it makes indents in her skin. She prays for the nightmares to stop, for her life to feel like hers, for world peace. She prays to a God she’s not convinced of anymore. She works in a bookstore, stocking the shelves in the relative silence and reading when she’s done. She comes home smelling like ink and paper, arms aching.
Catherine never gets away from her parents. She goes to Mt Rainier, studying marketing, but she’s expected home on time, to take Oscar and Kennedy to piano lessons and gymnastics and Tae Kwon Do, to cook dinner and help with homework. She’s expected to be there for recitals and competitions, because she can’t rely on either of her parents to remember. So, she does. She lives in an apartment with two roommates, and makes the ninety minute drive multiple times a week, and it’s like she never left at all. Sometimes, she thinks her parents don’t even notice that she’s gone. Her roommates don’t either. No one really notices her anymore, as she floats from place to place. She wonders how long it would take for someone to realise she was missing. If she just… Kept driving. Would anyone file a report? Would they care enough? Or would they just go on and keep living, filling the gap she left. She thought about that more often than she really should. What was stopping her, really? She could leave. She was an adult, she could do whatever she wanted. She could tell her parents to go fuck themselves and actually take care of their children for once. She could miss a pick up, and go to the tennis courts instead. It had been far too long since she’d practiced something solely for herself. Her racket sits in the back of her closet, taunting her. And then, because she’s a glutton for pain, she does it. She does one thing for herself. She changes majors, effectively starting from scratch, even though it took her six years to almost complete her four year degree. It doesn’t feel like enough rebellion. She wants to scream.
Serena’s got a pretty cushy job at a small newspaper-slash-blog. Her dad knew a guy, and it was the best offer she was going to get with her mediocre grades, so she packed her bags and moved to Seattle to chase her dreams. He pays her rent in a little apartment, close to the office, and she brought her little car, and her life stays little. She found all the best coffee shops in the first week, and calls home every night. At first, she stays in her comfort zone, writing about things around her. The car crash down the street, the local University’s latest politically incorrect fuck up and their even worse attempt at trying to fix it. Then, one night, looking for something to do, she stumbles into a bar. It’s dark, and every surface is sticky, and she tries so, so hard to keep an open mind. The music, if you can even call it that, sounds like chaos, and anger, and other things she can’t quite explain. She tries to blend in with the walls, just to watch, because it’s fascinating. She watches in the same way she watches documentaries, the different cultures that seem so strange. She starts picking up on the subtle differences, the subcultures within the bar. People who don’t interact, who barely look at each other, and run in their own circles. The ones that clash, in words or actions, over the smallest slights. She itches to start taking notes, her thumbs flying over the screen of her phone as she desperately tries to remember it all, but eventually the heavy-pour drinks start to get to her. She strikes up a conversation with a guy sat next to her, all dark clothes and dark eyes and before she knows it, she’s pulling him back to her apartment, all thoughts of stories disappearing. He’s gone, in the morning, but she finds one of his rings in her sheets, the next time she crawls into bed. It’s a heavy thing, solid, and almost reminds her of a gargoyle. She opens the half written note. She’s writing because it’s interesting, she tells herself. Not because she wants to see him again.
Andrea is an outlier. She has been all her life. She’s closer to the cryptids she studies relentlessly than other human beings. She works in a coffee shop during the day, living in the shitty apartment above it, and every night she spends hours pouring over her research. She saves every dime to pay for her “research expeditions” where she travels across the country to some Bigfoot sighting, or haunted house, or site of some horrible disaster. She’s been to Silver Bridge, she’s been to Area 51, she’s hiked every forest with a Bigfoot sighting. She doesn’t really do anything else. Her blog has a moderate but fanatical following, half watching the madness for entertainment, half believers who feed into it. She runs purely off coffee and red bull and menthols and cheap food. She once sat for thirteen hours writing a blog post, not once moving from her desk. Her weird kid vibe has only gotten stronger as she’s grown, an uncanny valley of a human being who stares just a little too long without blinking. Her parents barely know her, choosing to put more energy into her more normal siblings. She returns for Thanksgiving, every year a little bit less Andrea.
So, in this, Serena’s the oldest in her late twenties. Catherine and Ruby both sit comfortably in 24-26. Constance would be the youngest at 23, a year out of college. Most of them stay pretty true to their vague character arcs, where Connie had always had doubts, Ruby was always going to try to get better, Serena was always going to realise she was sheltered, and Catherine was always meant to scream.
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