JAELYNN “Lynn” CLARKE / 25 YEARS OLD / BARTENDER AT THE GOLDEN EAGLE / MAIN STREET
HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS:
Lynn lives on Main Street in a flat above the Golden Eagle, paying rent to the landlord of the bar. Aubrey Morris is her flatmate.
BIOGRAPHY: (tw: suicide, depression, PTSD, death)
Jaelynn Clarke grew up in a wealthy residential area in New Jersey, USA. Her father is a lawyer and her mother is an orthopedic surgeon, making them one of the wealthiest families in her neighborhood. The house she called home had two stories and a massive basement and was far too big for her family considering the fact that there were only four of them. It was a life of luxury, and a life her family definitely wanted her to have for herself in the future, which is why they did their best to provide her with a great education. When they realized law school was never going to work in terms of their daughter’s goals and aspirations, her parents began to push her in the direction of medicine. For the entirety of her academic life, she truly believed she wanted to be a surgeon just like her mother, but it wasn’t just because her parents chose it for her. Lynn genuinely wanted to help people, and she wanted to be successful. There was a determination and an ambition inside her that turned her into a workaholic from as early as middle school. She even went to a specialized high school for medical and science related studies and was accepted into a pre-med program at Columbia University, an ivy league college in New York City.
She grew up idolizing her older brother, Michael. Lynn strove to be just like him in every possible way: she adopted his taste in music, played all the video games he liked so she could talk to him about it, tried to hang out with him and his friends constantly. When they were younger, Michael saw his little sister as more of a pest than a sibling, but by the time they grew up the two of them were inseparable. They confided in each other, found comfort in each other when their parents were distant or busy. Lynn had always been the more ambitious one, the more responsible one. She was on her way to being a medical professional while Michael was struggling to get through each and every day as a college student, entirely unsure of what he wanted to do with his career and his life. It was in her freshman year of college that Michael dropped out of the community college he was attending and decided to enlist in the United States Marine Corps, a decision that terrified her but also evoked an overwhelming sense of pride. She was happy he’d found something to give him a sense of purpose, but she was horrified at the idea of him getting hurt in battle. Fortunately, he wasn’t marked too badly physically or psychologically during his first tour overseas. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only tour he was deployed on.
By the time he came home after his second tour, Lynn was a senior and was preparing to graduate from Columbia and enter into med school. Medical schools across the country were intensely competitive, and she spent practically every waking moment focused on her studies – so much so that she couldn’t even find time to be there for Michael as he struggled with PTSD and his chronic depression. Of course, he did his best not to let her see how much he was suffering, as he didn’t want to keep her from her own happiness and goals. Lynn knew something was wrong, but she didn’t know the extent of how bad it had become. In the end, Michael decided nobody would be able to help him and there was only one solution to end his suffering. As soon as she found out about his suicide, it felt to her like the world had gone dark. She lost her drive to become a surgeon and dropped out of Columbia halfway through her final semester, much to the dismay of her parents. Lynn just didn’t know how to focus on helping other people when she could no longer find a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Her brother was gone, and he took all of her joy and ambition with him when he passed away.
Lynn didn’t have it in herself to stay in Jersey afterwards. The pain of her loss was too much for her to handle, and her parents offered no comfort or relief, shutting her out completely for ‘wasting their time and money’ once she’d left Columbia. She was angry at herself for not doing more to help her beloved brother and couldn’t stand the idea that he was all alone with his thoughts at the end, completely trapped by his own mental illness. She was angry at her parents for leaving her in the dark to suffer alone while they found solace in each other. Eventually everything grew too overwhelming and she decided she needed a fresh start. It was at the age of 22 that she moved to Harpoole Bay and got a job as a bartender, and she’s been living on Main Street ever since.
Lynn is a friendly girl, and she often tries to keep herself busy so that her mind can’t wander to dark places. She doesn’t really like to talk about what happened with her brother in detail, since she believes his death was somewhat her fault and could’ve been prevented had she been there for him more after he came back home. Her experience has given her a new perspective on the world and a better understanding of what is important in life. For this reason, she can be a bit reckless at times and tends to respond badly to overly dramatic situations or people. A deep sadness till weighs down her heart, and she can often be found drowning her sorrows in a bottle of liquor, but she does her best to keep it concealed whenever she can.
FACE CLAIM: Alycia Debnam-Carey ✗ MUN: Ria, EST, 18, She/Her
