#liminal:intro

backstory

tw death, suicide, and grief

sora is known all around town as the luckiest unluckiest boy. or more so, that’s what they call themself to make themself feel better about the...not so great aspects of their past. their father was a fisherman, boating and fishing lived far back into sora’s family tree. when they were younger, they used to go with their father, wanting nothing more than to be with him at all times. to be brave, and strong, just like he was. both him and his brother idolized him.

until one day, after a midsummer festival, their dad said they felt a calling to the sea. that they needed to go fishing right then, despite whatever storm warnings there were for that evening. their mother could only protest so much before letting him go. sora remembers every detail of that night- it was the first time something close to him would be ripped away. the sound of the festival dying down behind them, their litle brother held close to their side as their parents argued in front of them, the slow footsteps back to the house, dragging tired feet as sora looked behind him and caught one final glimpse of their father.

it was weeks later that they found remnants of his boat, washed away to shore. sora doesn’t remember the following days, barely even remembers the following years as they took on the role of caretaker for their little brother as their mother confined herself to her room. it was when sora got home the day they turned 18 and found a note written on the kitchen table that they realized just what had happened. that someone else would be ripped away from them too. sora’s life didn’t change despite the loss. they hopped from job to job to take care of his brother, despite not being any good at any of the jobs he did (he’s notoriously clumsy), the townspeople wound tend to give him a little extra sympathy, considering everyone knows their story.

one summer day, for his little brother’s birthday, he told sora he was going with some friends to surf. that there was no reason to fear the ocean. that he would only be gone a few days, that it would just be a fun road trip with friends. sora should have known to say no, but they didn’t. they wanted their brother to be happy. the third and final person to be ripped from sora’s grasp.

now sora continues to live for themself. job hopping all around town. it’s almost a town joke now, how often sora escapes death and potentially awful accidents. bad things happen all around him, but they never touch him.

moving to the island was hard for them, obviously. leaving behind their childhood home, the only place where they still had a connection to their family, the only place memories lived, meant they had to be dragged out of centralia kicking and screaming. now they’re surrounded by ghosts, forced to face their fear of the ocean- hands of the dead grasping at their ankles the second they step foot in the waves.

personality

basics,

faceclaim.   bae suzy

full name.   park min-ji

nicknames.  minnie

age.   25 years old

gender, pronouns.   cis woman, she/her

sexuality.   bisexual

relationship status.   in a relationship

time in centralia.   25 years

more in depth,

triggers:  mentions of religion

›   was born and raised in centralia  &  doesn’t know anything different

›   the parks are fiercely religious family. they truly believe that the fires are a sign from god that the ‘end of days’ are coming and they passed on those views to their children  (minnie is the middle child of 3 kids)

›   the outward image of their family is very important to minnie’s parents and to the townspeople, their family are picture perfect. but as cliché as it is, behind closed doors was a whole different story

›   hasn’t strayed too far from the path her parents wanted for her. she went from high school straight into teaching at the local church;  she honestly really enjoys it. minnie also volunteers frequently

›   an absolute sweetheart. she tries to see the good in everyone and that sometimes comes around to bite her in the butt but she’s also the type of person to give 3, 4, 5 chances.... so yknow....  * cringe emoji *

›   bakes the best brownies and gives the best hugs

connection ideas,

her lover!!!! 🥺

a best friend she’s known since childhood / she’s known for a long time

maybe a penpal she had that ended up being in centralia??

enemies, frenemies, someone who picks on her / takes advantage of her kindness

someone who’s protective of her; probably fought someone who was making her uncomfortable<3

a newer person in town who she showed around and became friends with

basics,

faceclaim.   riz ahmed

full name.   devaj ali

nicknames.  dev

age.   39 years old

gender, pronouns.   cis man, he/him

sexuality.   bisexual

relationship status.   single  (open to starting a relationship)

time in centralia.   22 years

more in depth,

triggers:  brief mentions of parental death

›   both parents died in a freak accident when devaj and his younger sister, dania, were very young and they were put into a foster home together

›   the adoption center wanted to separate them but 17 year old devaj was having none of it; he was afraid they would never see each other again so he packed up their things and went on the run. the duo hitchhiked as far as they could and eventually stumbled upon centralia

›   by the time they found centralia, they were incredibly tired and decided to stay put. he thought it was a good idea so with the little money he had left, devaj bought them a little mobile home and they settled in

›   he hadn’t listened to the warnings people gave him when they first arrived and over the years, he started to hate the town. but at least he and dania are together .. right?

›   hates living in centralia  💀  but he hasn’t been able to save up enough money to move out so he and his sister are pretty much stuck here

›   devaj adores his little sister to bits. no one in the world means more to him than her  -  he will not hesitate to fight some bitches if they cross her!!!!!!!!!

›   grumpy towards everyone but soft for the right person... you know the type

›   he’s a very talented artist!!! he knows how hard it is to get by so he decided to open up a $5 tattoo parlor where literally every tattoo he does is only $5!! he loves his work so much

connection ideas,

the first friend he made when he got into town

his roommate  (dw he moved out of the mobile home by now)

first lover!!!!!!!! first kiss!!!! person who took his virginity!!!

exes on good or bad terms

regular clients who visit his tattoo parlor

enemies, ex-friends because of a misunderstanding, frenemies

neighbours :D

blind date that ended well or ended horribly

one night stand  (perhaps they have a kid together? perhaps he doesn’t know? *eyes*)

friends with benefits / casual hookups with no strings attached

Age: thirty Birthday: november 11th Zodiac sign: scorpio Sexual Orientation: pansexual/panromantic Relationship Status: divorced  Occupation: art curator / professional photographer Positive Traits: particular, intelligent, compassionate, loyal Negative Traits: irritable, impatient, perfectionist, emotional Aesthetics: a determined mind with no will to slow down, extensive knowledge of the arts with a passion for the business, never quite knowing the destination but enjoying the ride, curiosity about the unknown 

eric was born & raised in boston, massachusetts to mariah and paul montgomery 

his father was a famous baseball player for the seattle marlines in his prime, he broke records and built a dynasty out west before returning to his roots marrying eric’s mother.. paul’s high school sweat heart 

he had a couple sisters to follow, three to be exact and the family grew up comfortably 

eric always wanted more though.. he craved travel, exploration, he was always restless and knew there was something for him out there

he joined the navy and deployed not long after bootcamp, he got to see the world, met new people.. he even bought a camera.. 

documenting his journey wasn’t just to show his folks at home.. no it quickly became a passion, a necessity to keep his thoughts sane.

after 7 years enlisted and freshly 25.. eric moved out to new york, finding interest in the art scene that he could no dedicate his time and well earned money towards. 

he settled in nicely, found his niche.. his market.. he made his way through the scene with ease and charisma, matching the energy of each curator he met, soaking up their words of wisdom.. 

he caught wind of the rumors surrounding centralia from a friend during an exhibition of their work.. the idea for a project came to mind and once eric begun thinking about it he couldn’t stop.. 

he was in centralia two week later, it’s been a year now and while eric has made strides in his goal .. but he can’t seem to leave

whether it’s his car breaking down, basement flooding, or a week long cold.. something is keeping him in the town.. even if eric was trying to leave .. he couldn’t make it past the city limits..

BIOGRAPHY ( tw: brief, vague mention of child abuse, alcohol and drug use )

☽ ⋆ kelly definitely did not have the most structured or conventional upbringing. he doesn’t know a whole lot about his parents, only that he was taken away from them by child protective services when he was young for unfit living conditions —  later, as an adult, he’d get access to files that detailed their copious drug use in the home and numerous counts of negligence and child abuse, things kelly’s not sure if he doesn’t remember because he’s buried them so deep or because he was just so fucking young —  and without any immediate family willing or able to take him on, kelly found himself thrust into the underwhelming columbia county foster care system​

☽ ⋆ his parents never came back for him — not that he expected them to or whatever, drop it, okay? — and he spent most of his childhood and adolescence bouncing around from group home to foster home, never really managing to stay anywhere for longer than a few months and it wasn’t that he was a troublemaker. or at least, not at first anyway. maybe he’s a little bit loud, and yeah, he could be a lot to handle sometimes, but he tried to be a good kid, especially given the circumstances. it just... well, it never really worked out. and after a while, kelly couldn’t help but become jaded to it all. what was the point of believing in a system that clearly didn’t want shit to do with him? ​

☽ ⋆ the christmas of the year kelly turned seven, he was staying in a group home that had a present drive sponsored by one of the local businesses, and one of the older children had shoved an ornament-shaped scrap of paper in his hand and told him to write down just one thing that he wished for — and not to dream too big, he’d been warned explicitly, or the odds of someone picking his ornament were slim — so, after several long moments spent debating, a young kelly took a calculated risk and sloppily scribbled the name of the one thing he’d been dreaming about owning for years. that year, there was an acoustic guitar waiting for him when he woke up on christmas morning, and with it, a strap, a pick, and several books of sheet music and tabs. far more than he’d ever even thought about asking for, ever thought he could ask for. even today, he’d still pinpoint that day — that moment — as one of the happiest of his life. ( and arguably one of the most important when it came to saving it. )​

☽ ⋆  kelly thrust his entire focus into teaching himself the instrument, and as he grew older, music became a crutch to help him deal with the instability of his day to day life; he reached a point where it didn’t matter where he’d be laying his head at the end of the night, didn’t matter if it changed every couple of weeks or whether he was in a private bedroom or the bunks of a group home, as long as he had his guitar. it came everywhere with him, always in his hands or slung over his shoulder, and he started filling composition books with messy, hand-written sheet music and lyrics. and eventually, he got better. he got good, even, enough to try and start his own band. or several, actually. it took a while before he found the members that would lead him to form handsome garbage, not until well after high school — and honestly? he’s sure that’s one of the only reasons it’s the only band he’s been in that hasn’t disbanded after a couple of months.

☽ ⋆ graduating high school by the skin of his teeth and aging out of the system both hit kelly the same year, and without any sort of structure to keep him even a little bit on track, kelly floundered. he became homeless and spent the first few years of his life couch-surfing, crashing on park benches and eventually in the back of his shitty old beater of a car once he could afford it. he drank a lot — it wasn’t hard to find a bar or a liquor store in the area not to card him, and kelly spent a good while trying to seek solace at the bottom of every bottle or baggie he came across. he hit rock bottom at 21 with a handful of newfound addictions, an empty stomach, and not a dollar in his pocket, a night when the heat in his car had gone out and, instead of spending his last change on a shitty motel room, he’d spent it on a bottle of whiskey so he could warm himself up and pass out anyway. he woke up covered in his own sick with a cop banging on his driver’s side window and, fuck, he knew he had to clean his act up.

Dae-Hyun was born as the son of a model and the owner of an Entertainment company that hosted reality tv, concerts, late night shows and so on. They were involved in pretty much anything big happening anywhere.

Because of this, Dae-Hyun grew up in private planes, cocktail parties and filming sets. As the oldest of two children, spotlight was soon set on him as the next heir for MOON ENTERTAINMENT and every dime their parents owned. But if only fame and extensive paperwork were the only things waiting for him in his future years.

Generations ago, the Moon family decided to invest in a little town called Centralia and its mines. Corruption and lack of attention to their actions contributed to the tragedy that hit Centralia in the ‘60s. Worst part is that they were entirely aware that something like this was quite possible to happen, but they would not cease operations.

They were quick to erase any kind of track and left Centralia ( although gossip runs wild and most likely more than one family knows the truth ).

The family went quiet for some years until they reappeared in Korea with their entertainment company that soon went global.

The story about the mines was hidden as much as possible for the upcoming generations of the family, but the wittiest members could easily find out about it if they knew where to look.

It was not a secret, though, that something odd plagued the family; some kind of illness that caused every first born to eventually descend into unexplainable madness just to suffer a tragic death around their 50 o 60 years of age.

Doctors could not find a treatment that worked enough and the Moons were too proud to believe in superstition.

Images and apparitions of people in horrible physical conditions, skin irritation and burn blisters that came out of nowhere, the sudden feeling of suffocation and eventually, the constant screams that would deteriorate the sanity faster than anything and leading the person towards an imminent death.

This is what nested in the brains of every first born in the Moon family, no matter the place or life lived, they all had the same ending.

But appearances are everything and the children are never warned about such a tragic ending even after hearing the hundreds of horror stories that followed the family. For Dae-Hyun was not any different.

He grew up like his father did: with pockets full of cash, the power of command to get whatever he absolutely wanted, a personal assistant glued to his heels and the adoration of the masses.

The boy was molded to whatever was needed and so, you could say he had done a bit of everything: Sports? Checked. Hosting? Checked. Modeling? Checked. Acting? Checked. Music? Checked. Reality tv? Checked. Anything else you can think of? Checked.

To say he was in need of a therapist at a short age would be an understatement. There  is so much someone like Dae-Hyun could tolerate before breaking, because ah, even when he could be a snob and spoiled, he had inherited the heart of his grandmother ( who came to love Centralia dearly ).

A soft interior was usually bruised by paper friends and and loud plastic laughter. Champagne and designer clothes as gifts, jewels for numerous superficial dates that would plaster the covers of magazines for the next two weeks.

He had to toughen up enough to avoid the judgmental stares of his father, who only told him to get a different therapist or a smoke at the balcony. Ah, poor boy, never bright enough to see through people until it was too late; or maybe he had just learned to keep a blind eye until it was unbearable.

Always a good brother, though, he was overprotective to a fault with his younger sister; being the only person that was forced to grow at the same hellish pace, the only one that could truly understand him.

And maybe it was this sense of camaraderie or something else that pushed his sister to tell him about what she had found about Centralia. The information was incomplete and unclear, though, so when they asked their parents for answers, Mr. Moon saw this as a good opportunity to send his children away and pile more layers of dirt over the issue while they were gone.

“Businesses that went wrong”, the man said, “but why don’t you pay Centralia a visit and [REDACTED]”.

So the siblings arrived to Centralia with a very excited Dae-Hyun ready to follow father’s orders and escape from a boisterous life for a while.

TL;DR A heir literally haunted by his ancestors sins takes a break from the spotlight in hell town. Poster boy with gold retriever soul is learning how to connect with people, but what is his real agenda at Centralia?

STUFF

English name is Noah and usually introduces himself with that name, specially because it is his stage name as well. Dae-Hyun is mostly reserved for his family and fellow Koreans, but it doesn’t bother him if his fans call him that. Feel free to call him even by his last name as well, he thinks it’s cool too.

Passionate about photography and the way people survive without thousands of dollars per week ( pls excuse him, he’s learning ).

Pretty hands that have never worked for real in his life.

Exquisite fashion sense.

Accidentally condescending sometimes.

Paranoid about his visions sometimes.

AFRAID OF FIRE.

Acts first, thinks later.

The kind of person who would even take impulse before jumping from the bungee.

Easily scared by amusement park haunted houses and pranks, but very collected if Cthulhu itself showed in front of him.

Flirty.

CONNECTIONS

Baby boy has been EVERYWHERE so most likely your muse has at least heard about him?

Drunk hook up(s) pls, he’s a party boy.

Who’s gonna give him his first real friend?

Crushes from either side.

People that know his family was involved in the Centralia issue.

People that don’t like him bc he can be snobby.

Trigger Warnings: Child Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Murder, Addiction/Alcoholism, Classism, Arranged Marriage. 

The story always starts with a girl who has stars in her eyes, the night sky in her veins, and the need for something more than the barely breathable box that is a small town. Hell, it wasn’t even a town. Violet’s father always told her that, a constant reminder that it was only a small Louisiana parish, and maybe that was all it would ever be. Its the latter that always seemed to turn down her smile, a proverbial gut punch to the aspirations of someone who needed to be something more than someone’s wife, or someone’s mother. There’s irony in that, considering her ticket out of town did come disguised as a wedding ring.

Alvaro Bourdeaux was a highly sought after bachelor, the kind of man that would have made a good husband, so says all the women lined up to pretend they weren’t looking at him from the back pews of that dirt floor church. Violet was nowhere near his social circle, she offered him not a single bit of value beyond what she could provide with her body, and that? Well, that she’d learned to use in all the right ways, a hell of a long time ago. It was simply a means to an end, it was her soul that needed to be treated like a temple, and worshipped like she still believed.

The first time they slept together was in the back of his fathers Bentley, and that, classy and creative as it was, was her origin story. Named after the last sweat soaked stroke that would start the universe spinning in what she always swore was the wrong direction. Family’s like the Bourdeaux’s didn’t, and couldn’t, afford a cheap cotton scandal, woven from materials that were destined to pull them apart, so they settled for the next best thing, and the thing that would solidify Violet’s original plan - Marriage.

The first few years of marriage were great, or maybe that was just because the joy of raising children hadn’t gotten any wear and tear yet, or maybe because her mother hadn’t fallen in love with liquor yet, either. Whatever it was, it was enough to plague Bentley’s memories with white spots, filling that seemed fake, saccharine sweet, which was nothing like the taste of blood that Violet usually left in her mouth. Six years after Bentley was born, came Evangeline, nicknamed Lily, probably in hopes that they might save a loveless marriage that had already started to crumble.

Band aids don’t last forever, so soon it was the hired help that began to raise the girls in their own ways, when it wasn’t Bentley herself simply assuming the role of surrogate parent, like at seven years old she’d already known her little Lily, as she was affectionately called, would need protection least she be stepped on, or worse: wither away. She was eight the first time her mother got a little too drunk, lost a little too much control, and instead of letting her words create wounds, she did it herself. It was that night they all learned a thing or two about Violet Bourdeaux, mostly, that no one would ever really know if it was misery or alcohol that would steal the light from her eyes, but whatever it was, replaced that light with a darkness no one could penetrate, not even the whimpering pleas of her children, when they still believed in salvation.

Years later, one of what she finally admits is her first well formed memories, her mother had gotten so mad at the pair of them for breaking some ancient vase that reminded her of a time she had a more worthwhile heart, before she ruined herself, that she really seemed to snap. That break, just like the rest of them, was one that Bentley refused to let ruin her sister, so she purposely antagonized her mother, purposely talked back, and purposely called her bullshit out in the open for the world (well, the world inside that house), to see. This was enough to have Violet grasp her daughters hair hard enough, with enough boiling force to pull one of the braids from it as she dragged her, using those same remaining braids like some kind of fucked up reigns until she was in front of the house, scrambling to get to her feet again but she wasn’t quite fast enough.

The first time the her father’s belt hit her, it knocked the wind out of her. The second, is still imprinted on the small of her back, the strange shaped scar that feels like over ten years later, it could still split open and bleed her dry, on some of the worst nights. She lost count at how many times her mother hit her that night, but she didn’t stop until her father came home and found them that night. The neighbors said that some nights, they swore they could still hear the resonating pain in Bentley’s voice as it stayed strong, pleading for a savior that never seemed to come.

The family covered this up, money and power always went hand in hand. Bentley didn’t speak for two months, her mother added another notch to her rehab belt, and the family moved on. When her eldest daughter neared the age of eighteen, Violet knew one thing, and that was how to make her an asset, and make sure they maintained the only thing she had left, which was wealth. It sure as hell would never be love. That being said, just like a perfectly played chess match, her mother began plotting her moves, the ones that would take her rebellious daughter (the one that inherited the urge to run from her mother, even if she’d never admit it), off her hands. In the mean time, Bentley only gave her more reasons to want the problem she was, solved, between petty almost arrests, and general trouble.

They waited two months after her birthday to follow through, and much like her childhood, the first year lulled her into thinking that maybe things hadn’t turned out to be so bad. Maybe, she would benefit from her mothers own lack of love, for once. She couldn’t have been more wrong, but all her lessons seemed learned the hard way, and only the hard way. The first time he had accusation in his voice when he said she looked stunning, she should have known. Hindsight was always a motherfucker, which was something she whole heartedly believed in.  

Eventually, Alton Price would carve his initials in the soft skin of her collar bone, while meticulously reminding her that no longer would she ever be able to look in the mirror without thinking of him. He was a part of her forever, and she, in turn, was his forever. That much might have been true, but the one and only thing that embodied the old adage of like mother, like daughter, was the severity of whatever snapped in her. Bentley’s pieces didn’t make a clean break, they snapped, chipped, and withered away, some of them never to find solace within one another again. Once she’d collected whatever was left behind, her hands were covered in the blood of her so called soul mate, and she had not a single regret about it.

In fact, she was just resourceful, and just creative enough to make it look like her husband’s death was a horrible accident. It left her to inherit the money, money she would have rather crawled in a grave next to him, than provide to her mother or anyone else, besides Lily. So she left, free to travel the world, free to be who and what she needed to be, and happiness, or whatever watered down version could find the right vein, soon became something like a drug of choice, a drug that worked well, and finally started to dull the sharp edges of her loss, sometimes making it feel like she just might be able to return to the slice of life she’d allowed herself to daydream about all those years ago.

Fast forward to the way her smile has always been slow and steady, the deliberately lazy upturn in features that is sweet like southern comfort. She’d been wearing it for all of five seconds when the phone rang, and changed everything. Her sister had gone missing. She was home before sunrise the next day, if you could even call the place she’d grown up, home. It was more like the place she’d grown against, and escaped from, but none of that mattered. A week later, around three am, she woke from her exhaustion - right out of a dead sleep, and that’s when she truly knew her sister wasn’t coming back.

It was a few more weeks, burying heartbreak with relentlessness before she finally got the official word, they’d found the body. The culprit ended up being the wolf at their own door, someone they had invited in to share meals and family secrets. In return, Dr. Todd Newsome repaid them by tearing both their daughters apart, one physically, one emotionally. When the details came to light, even the most hardened detectives couldn’t stop what happened to that little girl from becoming their worst nightmares. Like a kick in the teeth, paired with salt in the wound, Newsome would walk, a free man after a hefty donation to the right judge, the right cop, the right people to pull strings to let his destruction go unpunished. Unfortunately for him, Justice was a concept Bentley didn’t mind leaving up to interpretation.

Soon after the trial or the lack thereof, she spent five days in the basement of her neighbors house, his house, with him. There was something about that house, placed where she could swear she felt her sister trapped underneath. Her pain, her joy, and everything in between, simply weighed down, tied to the floorboard like stains that would never come out. Bentley used that like motivation speech, it’s what helped her find her mothers hand me down brutality, because after all, five days is a long time spending unraveling someone, piece by piece, until you take the last thing they had left: their life.

These were the first two chevron tattoos inked into her hands, because she made herself remember. Every mark was the physical blood on her hands; every mark made sure she didn’t wash away the faces and the names that had played out her tragedy. After she watched the basement, then the house, be reduced to nothing, just as he had reduced Lily to nothing, she left. A journey that just feels like running, and running, and running.

Centralia was the only place that didn’t remind her to keep running, to keep moving. Something about the strange little place created a false sense of safety, which explained why she had been there long enough now to even breath the words friends, or even lovers, to some of the people that lived there. Honestly, though, it all just felt like the calm before the storm that would eventually displace her once again. She’d gotten old enough to learn that for some reason, she never deserved peace.

CONNECTIONS

run away a connection for a character that would have to have been born in louisiana, and could have grown up next door or close enough to where bentley was when she was living there. i’m a sucker for the whole, remember when you used to crawl into my window at night, or like, you were the only safe place i knew, type intimacy and past connects.

devils and angels this would be both the chance to try and make her better or worse, someone who takes the time to sit with her, and possibly get to know who she is (not just what she shows people), and helps her either learn to accept that perhaps there isn’t a reason to carry guilt for what shes done, and maybe the darkness isn’t so bad instead, or likewise, someone who teaches her that she doesn’t have to be a prisoner to her own actions or to the guilt, and genuinely supports her, reminds her that maybe she does deserve the peace she wanted, and can still have it after everything shes been through

repeat customer a customer that frequents the florist for one reason or another, maybe they are putting weekly flowers on a loved ones grave, maybe they are working up the nerve to ask her for a drink, or maybe they are just fascinated with how she gets her roses to grown in soil that was dismissed as long gone.

who i used to be someone who met her when she left home after saying goodbye to her husband, when she was still trying to embrace happiness and so of grifting around living her best life, this could be someone from anywhere. it can be a simple connection (one night or a few nights), or something that was a fling (hello angst), or even someone who spent months with her only to have her dip when she got the call about her sister.

look who it is the one responsible for her even knowing, or learning more about centralia. this could be someone she met online through social media or a forum, hell it could be a cop that started to put the pieces together about what she’d done, but either way they ended up getting her there. the connection can be platonic, for their own personal gain, or something more intimate, im down to brainstorm.

first place the first friend or person that she came to know in town, on her own accord. this could be a one night stand the first night she drifted in town, someone who served her drinks when she spent the first week at the bar, a random server at the diner in town that helped her decide to stay, anything really, im down to clown. 

i have some more dramatic assery and angstish ideas that could tie into her issues with not staying put, or a fear of getting close to someone, ranging from simply platonic/friend shit, to romantic things that will quite literally hurt both our feelings, so we can also work with some of this...since im too lazy to write anything else out. 

PLAYLIST

listen

»  lake wright townsend  «

lake townsend ( birth name to forever be unknown ) is a success story told by two white, wealthy californian artists that had found love and the desire to be parents too late, ultimately adopting lake and giving her a life that they wouldn’t have known without them.

lake didn’t know moments of wanting to know their birth parents, having put the thought out of their mind entirely due to the simple fact that they always felt like they BELONGED— a less than easy task for a baby found abandoned at a fire station, for a person of color learning and growing in a white community, for someone who’s always known and practiced fluid sexuality. somehow this has been lake’s story of finding belonging no matter where they are with the support of their loving, overly empathetic and understanding parents that rarely projected their own toxicity.

»  the california girl  «

for the first ten years of life, lake grew up in the canyons of los angeles that attract artists, musicians, writers, actors, and folks representing an astounding variety of spiritual pursuits, including their family.

the townsends lived in topanga canyon, california, where there is a remarkable concentration of creative energy shot through with a general sense of good vibes. this looked like wild, wide-open spaces; enforced solitude; and an atmosphere that teeters between insular and inspiring.

it was very important to the people there that they respect nature and not try to change the small, creative community that thrived there, amongst the trees.

whenever lake came to learn about the green monster that goes with attending to school with malibu’s elite, their parents reminded them that they were not one of the designer beach town inhabitants. “don’t try to change topanga,” they would tell them when lake wished it was more like where their friends lived in malibu, “let topanga change you.”

a bottomless well of privilege, however. struggling artists still struggle. your average poet or painter is going to have a tough time scraping together the bread to buy in topanga, a market where median prices are in the millions.

when lake was on the verge of their eleventh birthday, jobs, money, things that eleven year old could never understand, had their family uprooted across the country to the suburbs of pennsylvania.

topanga canyon was like an aging hippie that refused to wash off its natural character, harboring the same famous aesthetic it held in the seventies and before. similarly, lake refused to wash off the parts of malibu and topanga that shaped them, even if it meant standing out in centralia.

and as fate would have it, lake learned that they loved to stand out.

having dreams of driving a motorcycle along the coast of pacific coast highway toward a morning surf gave lake a vision to aspire toward. of course, they had to start with the family car, but they took care of it to prove responsible enough for something of their own . until then their surfboard would be the most important thing lake takes out for a ride.

»  centralia  «

there was a certain learning curve that came with being the new kid, but lake’s outgoing personality, sense of style, and creativity had them making friends in no time.

most friendships made were lost over time, lake being the type to jump around from friend group to friend group, finding whatever mold fit them best at the time.

while doodling in notebook margins all day, lake daydreamed about working on vintage cars with their dad after school. 

post high school they tried to live and work in philadelphia as an artist, but the city life proved not to be for them.

after a while they made their way back to centralia. it was no california, but it was a closer life to the one they idolized in their mind growing up.

in the evenings and sometimes the late nights into early mornings, lake is painting their colorful mind onto a canvas in hopes of fulfilling the same dream as all those left in topanga canyon: making a sustainable living, perhaps even a luxurious one, from their art.

in the mean time they are simply trying to catch some sleep between art pieces, surf sessions, and working at the garage. 

»  personality  «

lake is both an empath cry baby and a feminist that takes zero shit, stands up for others, and uses their voice as needed.

the person lake loves most in this world is themself and they has no shame in it, having been raised with the idea that they would fall apart if they ever let self-love slip from their grasps.

they have solid posture that commands a room. when sitting, they are often ‘ man - spreading ’ to practice taking up space rather than make themself small.

»  wanted connections  «

past high school friends/acquaintances.

art friends.

best friend, confidante, partner in crime.

flirtationship.

love affair.

friends with benefits.

friends that call them out on their shit.

friends that they would die for.

unrequited crush.

unlikely pairing.

party friend.

friend they makes art with in their down time.

a night owl they hang with when pulling all nighters.