weird never looked so good

— BIOGRAPHY ( tw for substance abuse, drug abuse, addiction, mention of rehab ) 

Trash. That’s what everyone in the town of Asheville said about the Van Sant family. They were a family of seven, living in a cramped, falling to pieces house on the outskirts of town. Ripley was the middle child in their family. They grew up not entirely poor, but one of the poorer families in town: Ripley’s father worked two jobs to keep the family afloat and their mother did what she could as well, working her own job and odd jobs when she could. Which left Ripley and all their siblings adultless most of the time, especially since the nearest neighbor was at least six miles away. What the Van Sants lacked in money, however, they gained in being a close-knit family. Ripley’s mother told bedtime stories to her children when she was home and their father often would play catch with his children when he wasn’t exhausted or at work. As much as the rumors about the family spread through town, they were wrong. They weren’t pushing drugs, they weren’t doing anything illegal, they were just lower class, below-average income American family with nothing but each other.

Life was alright for Ripley, until he turned six and their parents got a divorce. It didn’t surprise anyone—they’d been having problems for a while and with little money saved up, tensions in the house had grown high. Ripley was too young to understand what was going on, but suddenly their father was gone, leaving only one parent in the house. Almost six months went by before Ripley even saw their father again and it was only because he wanted custody of the children. In the time he was gone, Ripley’s mother had begun dating someone new, a friend from high school. So appalled that she had the nerve to start dating after such a short period of time—and to someone he considered a close family friend—he walked out of their lives, swearing he’d never come back; which is a promise he kept. Soon, Ripley’s mother remarried her girlfriend and the family moved into a slightly bigger and better house. Eight years old at the time of their mother’s marriage, Ripley suddenly had a room they only had to share with one sibling, not three. And they had two moms now, rather than just the one. It was an adjustment for them, but Ripley was nothing if not excited for a family like the one they’d previously had.

Things started to change for Ripley when they entered high school. The kids around them all started paying more attention to clothes and shoes, things that they knew they could never afford and would never be able to ask for. Despite living in better conditions than before, their parents still didn’t have that much extra money to buy fancy things for their children, especially since it wasn’t one pair of Converse, it was five. Ripley didn’t mind, at first. But then the other children started making fun of them for their handed down clothing and ripped up shoes, and something in them snapped. They were better than those other kids, they knew it, even if they didn’t have what everyone else around them did. At first it was little things that Ripley did that got them into trouble: fights with other students, talking back to teachers, and snapping at anyone that tried to help. When that stopped satisfying them, Ripley sought out other ways to be a little more defiant: stealing, lying, going to parties, getting drunk. It wasn’t long before they fell in with the wrong crowd, where they started dealing and doing drugs. Ripley’s teachers all tried to get more involved with their life and keep them away from the groups of people they’d gotten involved with, but the more they tried, the more Ripley pushed them away, refusing help from everyone. With a steady income from the drugs they were dealing, Ripley could get anything they wanted, and those people that made fun of their plain clothing, boring sneakers, and handed down cell phone all had to watch as they suddenly owned the best they were willing to buy. They rose to the top, surrounding themself with the people that used to make fun of them—if only to prove that they had the ambition to do what it took to prove everyone wrong.

All good things must come to an end, however, and things fell fast for Ripley. Senior year of high school, Ripley overdosed on some prescription drugs they’d taken before class—a careless mix of things they couldn’t even identify. Rushed to the hospital, the doctors managed to save their life and they were sent to rehab for the rest of their senior year. When they were released, Ripley ended up redoing their senior year, but rather than finish school off in Asheville, their parents relocated to Blowing Rock, North Carolina, a smaller town where no one would know what had happened to them. And luckily, it helped with the healing process. As did something else Ripley never expected to happen: a doctor at their rehab facility told them to get involved with something—a sport, a club, a job, anything. With no real interest in any violent sport, Ripley did something unexpected: they tried out for the cheerleading team. Surprisingly, they managed to get through their senior year with little effort and without relapsing, despite temptation. And then they decided to spend their first year at a community college to keep their head on their shoulders before transferring to NYC to be close to their brother their sophomore year.

College ended up being a breeze for them, putting their soul focus in on their work, Ripley was able to graduate in three years. They currently live with their older brother, Pip, in a tiny apartment. Their brother works in the video game industry while Ripley ended up getting a job working at NPR through a connection they made at school. They are keeping their head down and attempting to climb up the ranks in the production world because one day they’d like to host their own radio show, but that’s a long way off as they are slowly working their way through graduate school. Currently, they have a podcast that they produce with a friend called Crimes and Chaos, which mostly talks about true crime, but occasionally will discuss supernatural topics.

— WANTED CONNECTIONS / PLOTS

friends

hookups 

fans of the show

people they met in college

fellow queer friends