aesthetic

cigarette burns on arms, sleeves covering hands, the smell of flowers burning, the chill of an empty house, wind blowing through blinds.

biography

trigger warnings: drug abuse (meth), cancer, death

Solomon was the second child of two second-generation parents; with a star-athlete older brother, a tabby cat, and a townhouse in Connecticut things were normal, idyllic. In between baseball and school, Solomon and his brother helped around the family’s restaurant. There were plans for him. College, maybe law school, and then an even bigger future, but all of those plans went up in smoke before the high school diploma dropped in his hand.

Cancer was the word that set everything aflame. It was always there, lurking in remission, but no one expected for it to come back during his senior year. This time, his mother decided halfway through the fight that she wanted to go home. The hospital was not where she wanted to be as the cancer moved into her lungs, that was the beginning for Solomon.

Like most kids, he experimented at parties. Alcohol and weed, sometimes Adderall, but none of it was a regular habit. None of it was addiction, but it turned into a way to cope. Especially after his mother took her last breath two weeks before his graduation ceremony.

Solomon was never the same person after that, but he tried to be. He went to school, and played by the rules for the first few weeks. Yet, there was a part of him that detached itself on the inside. He found it hard to muster up the energy to keep going, to keep moving because there was no control over anything, no guarantees. Not even life itself.

While every kid skipped class, Solomon was serially absent for his classes. It began with showing up late on the first day, to no longer showing up at all, to barely leaving the dorm. He only made it through his freshman year from cram studying in a desperate attempt to act like he was the same person. His grades suffered, and while he made it to summer the words “academic probation” loomed above his head like a knife.

He transferred out to a community college for the next year and that returned a bit of his old self. That also meant running into old faces from high school; the ones he partied with; the ones that changed experiments to habits. Solomon became one of them easily, slipping into the crowd at night and returning home in the morning off-kilter but feeling more alive than when he left in the evening. His drug of choice settled in meth, and from there on everything got worse and better. Life was a constant up and down from there, and then his dad’s diagnosis came out in the open.

It was around this time that his older brother returned from graduate school. His fiancée in tow. Both of them combined kept the business going, but neither of them got too close to his father, or to him. Solomon liked it that way when it came to himself, it meant no one knew about the addiction, and no one knew what he was doing to fuel his addiction. The only one that might have had a clue was too sick to stop him.

Unlike Solomon’s mother, his father’s diagnosis was more aggressive. There was never a remission, only sickness. By the middle of what would have been Solomon’s sophomore year of college he passed away. The funeral dredged up resentment for Solomon. His brother and sister-in-law’s tears made him angry; both of them only cared about the business, they were never there – not even when his mother’s cancer returned. They dodged each other while at the house, Solomon became so good at it that they rarely came face-to-face until the letter in the mail arrived.

At twenty, he officially dropped of college. It was a surprise to his brother and sister-in-law, but the part of him that once tried to keep up appearances slipped away months before. They just never saw him enough to notice. At least, he thought this was the case.

She was always careful around him, but it was not until she entered his room and told him to leave that he realized someone knew. His sister-in-law gave him a deal: stop and get clean. That was all he needed to do if he wanted to stay in his house. Solomon almost told her to go to Hell, it was only when a neighborhood dealer got caught that he agreed.

When the truth came out, his brother was nothing short of shocked. When that turned into anger his sister-in-law kept him at bay. Solomon managed to get clean, and for the first few months it was fine. Then, he came home, and what was easy became impossible. For the next two years, Solomon was in and out of treatment. Clean then relapse. Rinse, wash, repeat. If it was not using, it was dealing. Sometimes both because they kept him going.

What was supposed to get him back on the path of the straight and narrow was the announcement that he would be an uncle. When his brother pulled him aside and gave him an ultimatum, it stuck for a few months. Then, he ran into old faces and familiar places. Like all the other times when he slipped, he fell, and there was no one there to pick him back up. He lost his job. He lost his place at his home.

For months, Solomon moved around New York. What was originally supposed to be a gig with "friends” turned into stealing copper off of construction sites, but it didn’t stop there. He stole diamonds and handbags from the rich, he turned tricks, he did whatever he needed to keep himself going from day to day. What dragged him out this time was a police raid. Solomon was one of two to escape the house, and he never looked back.

The first few days off of meth were difficult. He was tired and hungry, and with no roof over his head, he struggled to keep moving. There’s not much sympathy for users. A NA in Brooklyn managed to get him into detox, and from there on he’s been clean.

Being sober is a bitch. It’s work, and he’s spent the past ten months working himself to the bone to quiet the cravings. The world feels black and white, but he’s begun to see specks of color again. One of them being the married man who gave him a place to stay. Solomon knows what they do is wrong. He’s more than aware, but it’s a house and a place to eat. It’s a place to stay until he figures out his next move, but that’s the problem. Solomon doesn’t know what his next move is.

Like everyone, he’s seen the news. I.L remains one of the few things that capture his interest. He wakes up everyday wondering if he’ll be the next name on the chopping block. You don’t get sober without nursing more than a few demons along the way.

personality

- cynical, reckless, picky

+ shrewd, determined, loyal

aesthetic

venomous quips, baby pink and Rosé, summer champagne, white parties in the hamptons, impeccably manicured nails every thursday, silk sheets, negative headlines, sneak shots by the paparazzi, and hair so big it’s the only thing larger than her ego

biography

We all know how the story goes.  Sad pretty rich girl isn’t given enough attention, so decides to strike fear into others. Being hated and relevant is better than being looked past altogether. That was a lesson Bay Brooks learned at a very young age.

From the beginning the family dynamic had been the same. Mr. Brooks held the power and Mrs. Brooks was meant to fade into the background. Seeing Mr. Brooks was the multimillionaire investor who came from a succession of wealthy families due to successful business men like himself, the household was ran in a formal and proper way. When money had that kind of history, so did the tradition. Even from a young age, Bay was aware of the double standard that was set not only for her mother and father, but also for her and her older brother, Bryce. Similar expectations that were placed on her mother were place on Bay as early as she could remember. All that was ever desired for her to be was a proper lady. She received etiquette lessons, was taught how to be the perfect daughter, how to attend parties and be polite and kind to everybody. Bay knew what it all really meant. She needed to be quiet and convenient, beautifully displayed on the side like every other female in the family tree. Though, Bay wasn’t born to live life the way she was told. A fire ran through her body. Her opinions were desperate to be heard. Her presence was craved to be known. There was a demand to be respected innate in her. The truth was Bay would do anything not to become the shell of a women her mother was.

A realization happened, around the age of 10 for her, that in order to gain the respect she needed to live her own life she would need to impress her father. Intelligence seemed like the best solution at first. Bay studied harder than anyone to achieve the highest grades she could. She spent countless amounts of hours striving to be the perfect student in every subject. Her attempts did not end at school. The young girl participated in numerous after school programs that she thought were sophisticated enough to impress her father – instruments, ballet, debate team, science and math decathlon. None of it mattered. What out weighed all of this hard work was Bay’s inability to not be Bay Brooks. Like the time she told her 2nd grade teacher that her roots were showing and if she wanted to keep telling people she was 33 she should probably keep up a solid hair routine. Or the time in 7th grade when she told the principal she was a hypocrite for making the entire school sit through an Alcohol awareness seminar because all the teachers talked about how he was a drunk. And let’s not forget about the time in 9th grade where she told her father’s business partner he was an ignorant pig head when he laughed at her request to sit in on a meeting. That’s just to name a few. Soon it was clear that Bryce was the golden boy of the family and Bay was the problem child. Though, Bay did not see the harm in her bluntness. Besides, her father was the one she learned if from anyway. It was obvious her gender was the root of all the hypocrisy in her life. If she learned anything from all those history books, it was that that wasn’t changing any time soon.

If respect was unattainable and unrealistic in her world, she thought she might as well embrace all that made her problematic. At least when she was getting in trouble, she wasn’t invisible. If in order for the attention to be on her there needed to be a little chaos, so be it. She would never hold back ever again. Before the world new her as the head bitch in charge, Bay Brooks still held rank on the social latter in New York City.  High school, in hind sight, was just a practice for what was to come. Her indifference towards how others viewed her created a power she held very tightly. People feared her, which meant people wanted to be close to her in order not to get burned. Bay had a way of buttering people up before cutting them up into tiny little pieces. She ran high school, while barely lifting a finger. Her now rebellious behavior had lead her down an all new path with her father – somehow worse. A relationship led by neglect and verbal abuse had turned violent on occasion. 

So when Made in Manhattan came knocking at her door, she figured the opportunity couldn’t have been any sweeter. Thrown together with her brother and a mishmash of other young New York elite and new fish in the sea, it became a reality TV show hell bent on exposing its participants’ dirty secrets and pitting one another against each other for ratings. Or what Bay liked to call the greatest game of all time. It quickly rose to the top of E’s ratings, and the show became a guilty pleasure to those who could only dream of living the lives of New York’s young elite. But where other weaker competition on the show sank, Bay rose to the top… and after Season 2, it was no question who was the Head Bitch in Charge.

Now, after six years, Made in Manhattan is being cancelled, leaving Bay with a world of possibilities ahead of her. With the work chalking her up to nothing but a stupid blonde bitch Bay saw endless doors being opened in front of her. She knew it was important to do something that would prove to the world just who Bay Brooks truly is. Everything felt like it was adding up to this moment. The blonde was finally going to be able to create something where she would have to be taken seriously – no matter what. Finally, it hit her. Bay decided she was going to create her own business – a production company to be exact. Not only that, but it was going to be a production company that focused on green-lighting female centric projects, whether that meant writer or director. Now that she has everything set, from investors to employees to their first project in the works, it is just time to announce to the world that Bay Brooks is a force to be reckoned with.

personality

+ intelligent, honest, confident - manipulative, bitchy, blunt

aesthetic

smoke filled rooms, moonlight reflecting against the sea, Cartier Rings, penthouse views, adoring fans, spotlight, unmade beds, auras, oblivion

biography

Whenever you hear the howling wind blow it carries something with it; whether it be the sound of distant laughter or memories of the past; the wind blows, times change, and external scars fade. To be truthful, however, it’s the internal scars, the ever-present malice from the past that eats people alive.

Tasha was marked from birth, her future would be tragic and short, an absentee father and opium addicted mother sealed that fate. Children produced by people such as these rarely saw their third birthdays, let alone a smile that wasn’t coated in animosity. The first miracle in Tasha’s life is that she wasn’t born addicted to the drug her mother couldn’t be bothered to stop using while she was pregnant. The second miracle would come years later, with nothing but heartache in between.

The streets of Detroit, Michigan were home, the city sounds outside her window were a comfort. Marcus  was only a blurry silhouette in her mind, he disappeared after a heated argument with her mother when she was only five years old, storming out into the world without so much as a glance towards the small girl hiding in the corner. Dominique Taylor was a memory so vivid that it knocked the wind from her lungs and pried apart the glued seams of her heart. The woman was cruel and distant, leaving purple bruises upon her daughter’s skin whenever she was home, and subsequently disappeared for days at a time, leaving Tasha hungry and alone. Maturity was the key to survival, wisdom and smarts beyond her years becoming a necessity. She learned to hide the bruises so her teachers would stop asking questions, learned to take whatever money she could find to the grocery store to buy food, and learned to stop watching the door, hoping that a miracle would come bursting through.

Extremely use to being on her own, Tasha had scarcely noticed that it had been five weeks since her mother had been home. So when child protective services showed up on her tenth birthday, she was hesitant and relieved simultaneously. The women who greeted her was warm and reassuring, glowing like a beacon of light in the darkness. And, just like her father, she exited the home without looking back.

Life as a foster child was better than the one she left, but at times not by much. Some families gave the illusion of caring, others didn’t care for falsities and let it be known that they were only in the fostering game for money. With this, Tasha became more distant, avoiding home after school and instead venturing to various places she deemed and escape in the city. Libraries, grocery stores, playgrounds, and the occasional church. By far, her favorite place to sneak into was the local jazz club. Bright lights pierced through the grey smoky haze inside, illuminating who ever graced the stage.

They sang their hearts out and so did she, capturing the songs in her head and singing them the entire way home. Singing became her solace, gentle tones flowing from her throat, telling tales of the past and giving her heart a way to heal. Opportunity shone its golden light on Tasha one cold day in December. Sneaking away from the club that evening a man called out, someone she would come to know as the owner of said club. He heard her voice and wanted others to as well. It was from then on, every Wednesday night that she would be allowed to grace the stage she admired from afar. Her voice rang out over the microphone, creating a warm atmosphere where her truths fell upon a few open ears. When she was sixteen one of those ears just happened to belong to a producer at Def Jam Recordings. He had found his new muse, and she had found her way out

Statistically she had beaten the odds, her fame came with fortune, and details of her upbringings were locked away in the crowed file cabinet of an overworked social worker in Detroit. Now, she was no longer in the smoky spot light of a nothing jazz club, instead she stood in the blinding spotlight of her own creation. The smile that plants itself on her lips is never bright nor revealing, it is comparable to that of the Mona Lisa, up to interpretation, a mystery. She’s the sultry voice pouring over the radio, through headphones, and over blaring concert speakers. Her fame was undeniable, her voice the backbone of her sanity.

Still, with cameras flashing and fans shoving pictures in her face for an autograph, she remained humbled by her past. An optimist at heart, she often finds herself thinking of what love truly means. Family is supposed to be the purest form of love there is, and yet her family had disappeared and forgotten about the doe eyed girl cowering in the corner. Somehow, she found it in her heart to forgive, pushing past the resentment and pain felt towards her parents and chalking it up to “deep down, they loved her.” Oh how the naive are truly deceived.

When Dominique Taylor suddenly resurfaced, it was like a tornado ripped through her soul, something so beautiful yet disastrous. A warm greeting was nonresistant, the money demanded immediately. Years of telling the press that her parents were dead was uprooted in an instant. Hush money was the only thing keeping the image of Tasha Taylor pristine. Every month, with shaking hands she signs away the $10,000 requested by her mother. Where the money goes, she hasn’t the fainted clue, but somehow through the sheer malice that Dominique represents, the naïve young girl from Detroit still believes that her mother eventually will find love for her only daughter.

Agents, makeup artists, managers, and producers all buzz around her like flies, each offering up their loyalty for a paycheck in return. Music is the only family Tasha has ever known; it rearranged her fate and glorified her soul. Being one of the biggest names in the music industry has it perks, but if the devil is in the details, the hidden truths of the industry makes it hell on earth.

She is confident and insecure, open and reserved, self-destructive yet optimistic, intelligent yet unbelievably naïve. A conundrum at heart, a people pleaser upfront, a puppet whose strings need to be pulled, and a captivating voice to the world threatening to unravel.

personality

+ Empathetic, Optimistic, Free-spirited, Dedicated

- Naive, Obsessive, Self-Destructive, Absent-Minded

AESTHETIC

three a.m. phone calls and sly charm, a crooked smile and a heavy heart, everything in neat rows, controlled chaos, the clean smell of linen sheets and early morning coffee

BIOGRAPHY

There is something to learn from being obscured by the shadows of siblings. No one learns a lesson better than Silas Harwell, and he learned from each of his siblings mistakes. He wasn’t exactly forgotten or exactly overlooked, at least by his parents. No, his parents saw him very well, and while they may have lacked a little in his praise, he was never really concerned with that. He wasn’t in a bad light, and that’s what mattered. The shadows taught him something very important – that those who were never seen were really the ones running the show. From an early age he was overlooked by his siblings, who were seemingly born for spotlight, but when he wasn’t there to listen their lives fell to the rocks. Younger than two and older than two, he was the guy they went to for trusted advice. He was the organized one, clicking his tongue when they did something naughty. He was damage control, seemingly the one with all the secrets.

He was just that through most of middle and grade school, the secret keeper, the organizer. The student that all the teachers trusted, the peer that knew exactly what to do in any situation. A man grown in a child’s body. What changed? He did. His body did. Suddenly the secret keeper had better intentions than his usual books and history. Stepping onto the field was a feeling that he’d later familiarize with himself as the media industry. He wasn’t particularly good at the sport, but it earned him notoriety. He contributed something other than raw talent to the team. What he was good at was keeping the team together and morale high. The team came together like glue the moment he stepped into the locker room, all their motives and goals aligned and it worked like a machine. He played a bigger role now, he brought the team to the championships, he kept the team out of just enough trouble. He swiped team captain because he was charming, because his team listened to him. And he swiped MVP because the one game he wasn’t on the field was a disaster. Alone, they were nothing. Together they claimed the championship three years in a row.

Being good at lacrosse, being on the team that went to state his freshman year because of him that was something that earned him popularity. It earned him invites to his friend’s parents clubs, it earned him a sports car. Still, his teammates depending on him to minimize damage with the coach, and he was riding shotgun on some of the most troubling excursions. It was Silas that managed to get his best friend off the hook for damaging property. It was was Silas that redirecting energy, and managed to keep their infamous senior prank under wraps. When the head of the prank blew off, he was the one working the situation to make sure that everyone had their scholarships.

Including him. He attended Princeton for a degree in media relations. The degree was just a piece of paper. He used the experience to rub elbows with socialites, with budding models. He was just nineteen when he filed for his corporation, and he was hungover when he spent the morning distributing his stocks. Suddenly, he was an nineteen year old CEO and founder, and he would live up to the title. Every day was a talent search, and he booked his first talent two weeks after he started the company. She was a young model who had an image issue after she threw a plate at the photographer. Now she wanted to get into politics. And he was the master of images. He completely changed her life, he taught her everything including how to speak. Two years later she was voted into the New York House of Representatives.

The next decade and half he built an impressive portfolio. He took talent that was struggling and transformed them, he took their scandals and made them disappear. He earned his name, and he gave so much blood and sweat for it. Talent, money, damage control. The endless cycle of watching his talent, getting new talent, and attempting to help the struggling talent. He was a household name in the industry, he was everything he wanted to be from the moment he had the idea.

Once an asset, doesn’t mean you’ll always be an asset. Continuity means maintaining the brand. By the brand, he means himself. All the small habits he made have become full fetched now. He’s the man with the plan, always and forever. He’s earned his name and he works to prove with every client that he’s the best. A name is just a name, after all. The last project that he was was for the President of the United States. He maintained everything along the campaign trail, traveling, barely sleeping, and right there with the next President of the United States when the polls came back. He was offered a place at the White House, but Silas ultimately turned it down. He likes the fight, he likes the struggle – and the political landscape of DC is something he ever wanted.

These days, he’s managing some very troubling people, those who really test him. But what’s life without a challenge? He flicks between accepting the challenge and wanting to cut them loose. Somewhere between feeling like he’s about to lose everything he worked for with these ones and knowing he’s the only chance they got at keeping a career. He cares for them, they’re really just children, but he’s beginning to find that they don’t want to be helped. He’s beginning to see the inherent risk in those who want all of the fame but none of the hard work.

The question remains: is he willing to risk his career for theirs? No, absolutely not. If they don’t shape up soon he’ll cut them loose and burn them, and that threat is getting close to leaving his lips to them. He can make or break someone’s career, and it happens quicker than they think. They call him a shark because he can sense blood in the water, but the truth was that he was much more of a spider. He is more capable at catching secrets than anyone else, and he has the power to destroy someone with the same secrets he’s keeping.

PERSONALITY

+ intelligent, witty, charming, organized

- calculated, distant, broody, reserved

AESTHETIC

pins and needles in mannequins, burberry coats, thigh highs, instagram famous, half smiles, flashing lights, flowers crushed underneath heels, hair blowing in the wind

BIOGRAPHY

They say business runs in the family, and that’s the story the media ran with. The truth is Olivia is only a Lee by name not by blood. Born in San Francisco, Olivia was originally Olivia Hwang. For the first five years of her life, her parent’s marriage worked, but it all came crashing down when family friends enlisted their help with running their business.

What was supposed to be a few months of helping keep their old friends afloat, turned into scandal. Within months, her mother’s affair came to light, destroying not only their family but the Lee family in one swoop. Her older sister belonged to her father’s first wife, and she was the favorite from the day one. Her little brother was the grandson her grandparents always wanted and her mother’s key to acceptance in the Lee family. As for Olivia? She was the throw away. Her mother’s baggage from a marriage now gone astray, and Yoo-jin Lee’s stepdaughter.

To say Olivia stood in her sibling’s shadows is an understatement. Growing up, she was always second best. Never at the top of ladder. Never shown off at beauty pageants in the mall, and none of her awards stood in the front of their grandmother’s china cabinet. For most of her childhood, she tried to find her niche. She wanted something that she was the best at, but it never worked. When she joined soccer they signed her little brother up for lessons, too. He went on to become the goalie and ran with the hobby all the way through college. When she joined dance, her older sister was the one with all the solos. As more years went by, Olivia amassed more hobbies, but never shined as bright in her family’s eyes. In fact, it only irritated them. They found her insincere and needy.

While most children frayed at the seams from trying to push themselves to the front, Olivia forged her own path when she entered high school. Her older sister and little brother continued to show great skill for the arts and sciences, and Olivia learned to get attention from her peers. She became a part of the popular crowd, and since everything in high school was a popularity contest, she had a long list of leadership positions stretched out behind her.

The Lee family despite all their pride never made it to the top tier of the tax bracket. They were strictly middle class with their antique store, but they did everything to make sure Olivia and her siblings made it far in life. When her older sister went to Berkeley, Olivia veered off track and applied for Columbia. She knew that in order to become anything other than herself that she would need to put distance between herself and San Francisco Bay.

At Columbia, Olivia thrived. She was a different breed of student with her sense of style. While her siblings blended in with groups wonderfully, Olivia learned to build them. Networking became her greatest skill, and no economics class ever taught her that, but her classmates offered endless possibilities. While other creatives flocked to NYU, she built up her technical skills while amassing a following on the side. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook — they became the greatest tools of her trade. As her following grew, so did her interest in fashion. More brands reached out. They wanted reviews with her face on it. She wanted to reach the top, and it all began with an online boutique devoted to luxury and creating a different segment of the fashion industry — she called it Threads.

Olivia opened her first physical boutique in Manhattan just days before her graduation. She skipped walking the stage in lieu of a grand opening. Within a year, she bought her first place in the Upper East Side and never looked back. Business school applications went to the trash, and so did her life in California. small text

At twenty-seven, Olivia is more than a social media star. She’s a CEO, a philanthropist, a brand influencer, and an occasional model. Yet, the majority of the public only sees a pretty face and a name. Olivia knows that the label “famous for being famous” follows her like a shadow, and she’s grown to hate it. It carries too much scorn to benefit a lasting empire. It is one thing to collaborate with brands and designers, it is another to design on your own, and that’s where her heart lies. After two successful shows at NYFW, Olivia’s career as a full-fledged designer shows promise.

However, branching out means more attention and more potential for drama. Some people want Threads to remain her sole project. Other people want her to continue to be her own brand. When it comes to matters of the heart things aren’t as easy anymore. Ever since her rise to fame, the media has looked through exes for any stains on her reputation. The problem is, mist of Olivia’s exes remain from when she was young and in high school. Most of them hardly remember her, and if they do they have nothing bad to say. As for friendships, Olivia only has two friend groups. Her true friends, and those that the media think she’s close with. The first is much smaller than the former, and it dwindles with every year as more prove themselves to not like her but her fame. Those that have stuck around have their own demons, so Olivia keeps an eye on them. It’s one thing for them to harbor their demons, it’s another to bring those demons to her door. Any flings that happen in the present operate under the same conditions: rabid fans, and reputations to protect.

It’s the rabid fans that keep Olivia afloat, but have the potential to make her sink. Sometimes, they manage to uncover more secrets than the paparazzi. Over the past year, Olivia’s wound up with trespassers of all sorts and constant cellphone changes. All of this was child’s play until the beginning of 2018. After a year of dealing with a stalker, things finally culminated when the young woman broke into her home and security system. After attacking her bodyguard, the young woman held Olivia at gunpoint. It was luck that the police arrived before things escalated, but the memories and a future trial haunt her. The legal proceedings have begun to take away from her business plans, and she’s found herself growing more and more frustrated. Years ago, everything seemed to happen in the blink of an eye, but now the legal proceedings threaten to hold her back.

PERSONALITY

+ intelligent, sociable, creative, ambitious

- distant, calculated, cold, reserved

AESTHETIC

cigarette ash,  emaciated features, smudged red lipstick, a tight band around your arm, a censored filter over parted lips, braless t-shirts, short needles & inked skin

BIOGRAPHY

It all begun in the small town of Delight, Arkansas. Despite the name, there was little to no stray away from the southern stereotype of a small town. Racism, homophobia, and classicism were seen as formalities. The Atkins family was no different. The family had lived in the town for generations. The Atkins had a beautiful son with a wit that matched no other. It wasn’t until a simmering summer evening that their family was turned around. A dark-haired little girl came into their lives. Kathryn Marie Atkins was the child people wished for the first time around. Her mother immediately left her part time work at the local inn to take care of her daughter. This break soon turned into a career. She paved the child’s way before she was even able to walk. Kathryn was to become a doctor at the hospital in the next town over. She would attend a nearby university, so she would never have an excuse to back out of family events. A lover of God and extremely well read, the brunette would remain seated on the front row of service each Sunday. With no real room to pry away, Kathryn did as she was told. She tried to form herself into a golden child and prove she was better than her younger brother. She could never live up to the standards that her brother did. As the years went on, Kathryn began to diverge from the path her parents slaved for. She pushed herself to pursue her passion in theater. One of her dreams was to make a career in the film industry. The lust for something bigger than herself drove her to do anything to escape the town she was in.The only thing that seemed to get anyone out of the town after high school was college or marrying off.

Kathryn wasn’t keen on either, but the college applications seemed to pile on her desk with each growing day. Exhausted from the peering looks from her mother and the aggravated tone of her father’s as his greasy hands clenched on his fifth beer, Kathryn gave in. After applying around to different universities, the brunette merely waited on her decision. She was never necessarily passionate about school, despite her academic achievements. The ringing leader was NYU. She decided to take a trip, staying with her brother as he showed her around the campus. It was almost too good to be true - - - away from their soul eating parents, living on their own, and creating a new life for themselves. She accepted the offer.

When Kathryn returned home, she hung around town with her best friend, Roy. On a drunken adventure, they went on private property near the edge of town. A farmer shot Roy without any warning. No trial was held and the action was declared as self defense. Kat wanted nothing to do with the toxicity of her family and hushed rumors around town. As the summer drew to a close, Kat settled into an undergraduate degree of pre-med biology. Her first year at university felt like a hiccup. She finally settled into what her parents wanted, but none of it felt right. In a skew of finding herself, she went out on a limb. Her first job in college was nude photography. It lined her up for other opportunities aside from a wannabe SoHo magazine. The photography was just side money at first, fishing out bags of xans and liquor. It wasn’t until her second semester at NYU that she dropped off the grid completely. She cut off all contact from her parents and anyone back home.

Her photography progressed into a career in adult film. It fulfilled the checklist in her life: acting, fame, and money. She bounced between traveling around the nation and keeping up with contract jobs in porn. From Los Angeles to New York City, Kat got a taste of what it was like to feel herself. She soon became a pillar in the adult community – striking a name recognizable almost anywhere. At least, if you knew what was good for you. With success, the actress fell into her own demons. It started in her freshman year of college, binging whatever substance that was given to her towards hanging around wealthy club owners. She fucked, snorted, and drank her weight almost daily. What appeared at first innocent fun sprouted a full on addiction. She became a punchline. Producers began to catch on. The company she signed under noticed. They threatened to rip her contract up once her second DUI was placed on their desk.

Before the #MeToo movement, the adult film industry generally swept everything under the rug. Once Kat approached the company with an assault complaint against one of her directors, they were quick to cut ties with her. She was dropped from the company and much of her contracts were burned. After exiting court ordered rehab, the brunette made ground to recover a tainted reputation. At first, casting directors merely laughed in her face when she tried to get hired for roles. Her filmography was less than desired for a Hollywood executive.

In tune with picking up her reputation, she tried to force herself to grow up. She was growing close to her mid-thirties and made no progressions to her Lothario personality. Instead of waiting for the right one, she decided to take hormonal shots. After attempting for nearly two years, the positive sign that everyone hoped for appeared. In tune with good news, allegations were set against her former director. A lawsuit was rolling once the #MeToo movement rolled into the larger picture. Though Kat didn’t file a lawsuit, she was offered her job back at the company. Despite the recommendation from her friends, she took the offer while asking for a larger role in the company. She didn’t want to just be an actress, but a director as well. With her near decade of experience in the industry, it was an offer they couldn’t refuse.

Allegations against her director appeared shortly after Kathryn accepted a role for an independent horror film. While the film was in post-production, she spent the majority of her pregnancy balancing between her social life and directing. She celebrated her pregnancy with a near strike of three years of sobriety. Though her love life was tangled, she was finally happy. Things were going in a good direction for once. In April 23rd 2018, Jonah Atkins was born. It should have been a happy moment, if the child looked like the donor she chose. Instead, it looked like her best friend’s child. Kat goes between custody with her baby daddy while on maternity leave from her company.  

PERSONALITY

+ intelligent, comical, driven

- perjurer, stubborn, ill-tempered

AESTHETIC

broken down road signs, empty russian villages, flames reflected on his irises, reaching the brink of death and laughing, corruption, poison running through your veins, ash on his fingers, the thrill of the hunt, the innocence you can’t get back, wondering if you’ve reached hell… and wondering if you’ll ever come back

BIOGRAPHY

He came screaming into the world in a bath of blood, his first breath was timed with his mother’s last breath. Vasily was acutely aware of the death that surrounded him and hung over him like a cloak. It used to bother him, but he grew out of it early on. He was eleven when his sixteen year old brother decided to join the local Ukrainian mafia. Vasily joined as well — it was a promise of sticking close to his brother. At first he was just a messenger, running the rooftops of old villages and sneaking around to spy on rivals. No one ever expected a kid. The dirty money funded his brother schooling for chemistry, but they didn’t see it as it was. It was just survival of two orphans who only had each other.

Years passed. Vasily started to film his exploits of climbing, doing pull ups off a building thousands of feet in the air. Riding a bike along the edges. He cultivated a following of users. They had no idea who he was or what he was connected to. This was a blessed relief from the place he hailed from. His brother was working steadily, building an empire of drugs and new analogs that promised to fuck even the most hardened drug user up. Vasily wasn’t oblivious, this was life. Someone was going to do it, why not them?

The life he led on the internet was a side product of the real life he felt like he couldn’t escape. Things escalated quickly. Sent all over Europe, he pretended that he was going to do tricks. But that was his release. The truth was that he was sent over Europe to oversee chemical buys and steals. He was a master of fantastic hiests — a true Prince of the Underworld with a vein for things that made his heart pound. He was the first to try a new drug, trusting his brother not to kill him.

Everything changes. And in his world it changed fast. On a rainy night in the whole world came crashing down. After returning to his home from another job well done, he found that they were not alone. A rival supplier had his brother with a gun to his head. Vasily didn’t even have time to react before he watched his brother’s brains splatter all over his desk. There was a second of hesitation and that was enough for Vasily to throw himself out a window and escape the streets and rooftops that he was so good at.

Stealth was something that he was good at. What he wasn’t good with was seeing that his shit all over the mainstream web. They asked too many questions. Questions that could get him killed. So he bounced. He left his world behind and posted a few videos here and there of stunts. He traveled, he stayed on the run, and he bide his time. He made arrangements, and when the time was right he pulled the roof down on the head of the man who murdered his brother. Literally — the video of the explosion was recorded and uploaded. He made sure that no one would ever know who he really was, and went into a more permanent form of hiding.

Hiding in plain sight. He was just another tattooed immigrant. His account went dormant. But to those who knew who he truly was, there was a place to grow. To evolve. There was such a thing of exhaustion, and in that he attempted to find normalcy. He started studying to become a firefighter with the NYFD within a few weeks of his accepted citizenship. He passed the tests with flying colors, and all the tattoos were taken in stride. That was when he met Axel Kimble, a fellow brother at the Ladder Company 157. The firehouse that never sleeps. When they weren’t working, they were bonding and in him, Vasily found another brother. They created something wonderful, a secret society for the New York Elite – a sharp juxtaposition – two firefighters that saved a socialite from a drug overdose and became some of her favorites.

In truth, it didn’t even cross his mind that the society he was creating was something that was reminiscent of what he left behind. It was less blatantly harmful, he thought. A club for people who want to scream at the top of their lungs but couldn’t. It started off with a stunt, and it ended in foundation. Absconditus Caelum. Now the society has blossomed into something of its own. Drag races, underground fighting, whispers of dares and danger.

What started as harmless fun is blossoming into something else, and Vasily has never been one to recognize the difference. Vasily was only able to recognize the difference due to Axel, but with his death a great deal of things started to change. He grew up in a world of violence, this is natural to him, the old ways came back too quick without someone to balance him. After the Once In A Blue Moon charity event, his members started to disagree. The bodies piled up. People were beginning to whisper. This heist was botched, everything was threatened on being uncovered. There could be no false steps now. Vasily couldn’t afford for people to know his real identity — he didn’t want to have to bring the house down on Young Elite, but he would. He’d done it before, after all.

PERSONALITY

+ fearless, bold, resilient, passionate, reserved

- reckless, spontaneous, short sighted, callous, thoughtless

AESTHETIC

long nights and spilled liquor, loud music and empty beds. overflowing bookshelves, heavy history, bullet points and bullet casings

BIOGRAPHY

Life was always easy. Doted on and supported by parents that adored her, Saoirse knew the value of love and laughter from the very moment that she first came into the world. Born to parents who’d dealt with their own demons and struggles, they built a world for their daughter that would guarantee she didn’t have to live through those same struggles. Starting a humble life in the outskirts of Ireland, they never dreamed that their small quaint pub would ever become something greater. The universe had other ideas for them, and it was with an unexpected suddenness that they found themselves opening another bar in the center of Dublin, attracting locals and tourists alike. Saoirse grew up in the pubs, serving food and cleaning up after patrons, sticking close to her mother and father as she learned the value of hard work. School was easy for her, but history was where her passion really lay. Her father had instilled in her the knowledge of their country, and the value that history gave to the future. Mistakes were doomed to be repeated if not learned from, and she took that idea to heart. Maths, and writing - they were fine, but they didn’t make her thirst for more like knowing about the past.

Years passed before they were expanding again, but this time it was past the UK, and into the United States of America. Saoirse fell in love with the east coast - the sun, and the atmosphere of something always happening. She spent as much time there as she could, building Sláinte from the ground up as she made friends with those that permanently resided in the city that never slept. Ireland had always had a lot to offer her, but as she graduated from school and sought for the next adventure, the next step, she didn’t think that Ireland had enough. In the fall of 2009, she began her college career at NYU, majoring in history, the same way her father had. Her parents made their way from Ireland to New York as often as they could, leaving Saoirse to oversee the bar as much as she could while still attending classes. Sláinte became hers, the place where she could go at night to do homework in the back office as she ran the bar. It was a mess of red tape - being underage meant that she had no business running an establishment built primarily on liquor, but she instituted a full menu, hiring an Irish chef to serve Americans the foods that she had grown up on.

It was in the middle of December in 2009 at 3 a.m. when the family attorney called her to inform her that there had been an accident. A car bombing - the first that Ireland had seen since 2001 had killed her parents, leaving her with nothing to bury except empty caskets and the last of her innocence. She became bitter - she closed the pub in Dublin, the city where her parents had been killed, out of spite. She left the others - the small towns needed the revenue, and they hadn’t played a part in killing her parents. She left them in the capable hands of those who had been working there since the beginning, overseeing them from the east coast with an ironclad refusal to step foot onto the soil of the country that had once been her home.

She fell into a pattern. She continued schooling and running the bar while also losing herself into a myriad of other vices. Drinking, smoking, any drugs that she could get her hands on in the few hours she had between closing the bar and making her way to her morning classes. She built up walls, hiding behind a petty exterior and the harsh tones of her voice whenever someone tried to ask a question. They had been known well enough, and their death at the hands of the first car bomb in eight years had left them splashed across newspapers in Europe and in New York City. She wasn’t left with a moment of peace. Her moves were followed and it was speculated what would become of the enterprise that her parents had built now that it was left in the hands of their semi-capable barely adult daughter. She spoke on none of the matters, preferring to dart around the questions and isolate herself from her peers in an effort to keep her head on straight.

It was during the anniversary of her parents death that her biggest mistake was made. Drunk on some of her own product, she found herself behind the wheel of her car. One wrong turn, a run light, and she wrecked her car into a light pole. A hundred articles and few thousand dollars later, she found herself with mandated court therapy and AA meetings. She almost lost everything - the bar suffered, bringing in less business and less money. She had to cut employees and watch as everything her parents built started to crumble. She could barely keep the bar floating, but she did, dumping her own money into it and doing all that she could to support the few employees that she had left.

A year later with a degree under her belt in record time, her life began to turn around. Sláinte and the death of her parents had left her with a nest egg, but she was able to move out of the tiny loft apartment she held and into something bigger, more fitting of someone who was building her own life there in the city. Sláinte began to prosper again, rebuilding like a phoenix from the ashes of a burnt reputation and a too-young owner who didn’t know any better.

Twenty-one and continuing on her own adventures, she built up a reputation that was a continuation of who she had always been as much as it was something more. She became the girl who had made something out of nothing, who had overcome death and grief and a myriad of mistakes enough to pull herself together and make a name for herself. The papers, they all said that they had known it, always. They said that they had believed in her, that they had championed her for the beginning like she hadn’t had to fight them every step of the way.

Now twenty-seven, her life is much the same. She does whatever she feels during the day, and runs her bar at night. She fills her hours with tastes of her own liquor stashes, and shakes her head at offers of different kinds, doing all she can to keep her head on straight.

Sláinte has expanded into a larger building, one that’s always filled to capacity and bristling with New York City’s esteemed and up and coming. She has stuck with the same loyal group that have been there from the beginning, and she gives to them as much as she can. Trips and cars and loans for apartments covered by someone who has more money than they could possibly know what to do with. She’s been thinking of expanding into a second bar, but nothing has caught her eye enough to make her feel like it’s good enough to carry on the legacy that her parents have left her with.

PERSONALITY

+ effervescent, fervid, resilient

- cynical, possessive, stoic

AESTHETIC

half-empty coffee cups, christmas lights all year round, polaroids and smeared makeup. camera lenses, film, ink stains and filters. poetry books, laughter, partially understood languages and wanderlust.

BIOGRAPHY

Fallon Robinson was born in San Francisco, California, in the summer of 1991 to two lawyers running their own firm. Fallon was a quiet, reserved child from the beginning, which was only encouraged by the fact that her parents both worked long hours, and rarely had the time to pay her any attention. She first laid hands on a camera at the age of 6, and she found herself endlessly entertained. She spent the next few years learning the most basic things about the camera, and how to take pictures, and eventually her parents bought her a better camera, and signed her up for photography lessons as a way to keep her busy and out of the way of their business. She found herself excelling at everything that was thrown her way, and with her teachers, she was groomed to be a world-renowned photographer. It had taken a trip to an underprivileged area for her to realize that outside of photography, she found herself wanting to tell stories. She wanted those who couldn’t tell their own stories, to be able to show to the world what their reality was like. She spent the rest of her childhood and all through her high school years building a portfolio, drawing attention to as many things in her area as she could before she took off for university.

Going to university, she focused on Photojournalism at Columbia University in New York City. She worked as she took classes, garnering attention from magazines and publications in the city that sought to have her pictures tied in with their stories. It wasn’t long after that, that she started to travel for magazines. She was sent to far off countries for photographs of the sights, but she always came home with a piece on what they could do better - what they could do to help the poor and underprivileged of that society, and what she proposed as a plan. She wrote pieces for underfunded non-profits and those who couldn’t write for themselves, working tirelessly as an advocate for the voiceless. She graduated early, and found herself signing on, voluntarily, to report a piece from the front lines of Afghanistan. Months spent in the desert surrounded by death and terror, gave her another new perspective as she headed off to another country, her camera and laptop in tow.

She could never stay in one place for long, but she found that after the heavy weight of time spent overseas, she needed something lighter. Easier, to recuperate before she headed off on her next great adventure. However, New York City would be her next great adventure. With the times changing, she knew that she could play a part in it, to speak on behalf of those who may not have the presence or ability to speak; to ensure that no voice was lost in an among the other voices that drowned them out, intentionally or not. She knew that the place she would do most good was in her old stomping ground.

Fallon is settled in the Brooklyn, surrounded by like minded people and relishing in the healing comfort of music floating through open windows, and beautiful murals surrounding her on her morning walks around the neighborhood, photographing to her heart’s content. She’s still adjusting to life not only in the United States. She doesn’t hold any resentment towards her parents, who haven’t spoken to her since she uncovered the truth about her parentage and her mother’s affair almost two years ago. She lives on her own, with her small tabby kitten named Fergus, and she focuses on everyone except for herself.

Her goal for her time spent in NYC is to join in on the movements that are happening, and to ensure that each person that is coming forward, anonymous or not, has their story heard and their voice spoken for. She has always been an activist, and she knows that she can assist and do good for many people in the area by providing her assistance to them. She dreams of starting her own company, but she’s too involved in being the photojournalist that she can’t relinquish the time to actually form the company.

PERSONALITY

+ adaptable, compassionate, optimistic

- naive, flighty, loquacious

AESTHETIC

velcro kevlar straps, chambered bullets and sirens. coffee cups and take out containers and overturned picture frames. paperwork and files.

BIOGRAPHY

She fought from the very first moment.

She didn’t come into the world screaming, she came into the world silent, and shaking, addicted to a substance that her mother had long ago fallen victim to. She hadn’t been planned for - her mother had never dreamed that she would be with someone who wanted a child, the way that her father had. But her father had wanted a perfect child. He had wanted a child with someone who could look pristine and perfect and play the correct part - his affair with Scarlett’s mother had been a moment of weakness, and the thought of a child that was half her made his skin crawl.

He left her to her own devices, sure that her drug habit would terminate any pregnancy before it made it anywhere. It was their own shit luck that it didn’t, that Scarlett was born anyway, the signs of her addiction obvious within hours of her birth. Her mother had been told that it would be a long road, but that wasn’t something that she had signed on for. She had barely wanted the child in the first place, and with the withdrawal symptoms setting in, she fled.

The first six months of her life were spent being poked and prodded and weaned off of the substance that had almost cost her her life. She was destined for a foster home - no one knew what the lasting effects of her addiction would be, and very few new parents were willing to sign themselves on to someone they knew would be a lost cause. The foster homes were where she continued her fights. Shuffled from place to place, she was constantly looking for fights. Every other child wanted to prove that they weren’t weak, they weren’t someone who could just be ignored, but the only people they had to fight were each other.

Her first memories revolve around split knuckles and bruised up limbs, spitting in the face of anyone who tried to cross her. The foster homes tried - they tried to show her a different way, and she resented it. The only thing that made her feel half alive was the way that she felt when she landed a punch, up until the years that she discovered the high that could come from drugs. It was easier, then, for the homes to pass her off. They couldn’t risk the possibility of a complete epidemic, and she didn’t respond to anyone or anything.

She began living on the streets, bouncing from house to house, trading sex for drugs at the age of sixteen, freshly dropped out of school. She’d had a few close calls, but she had found that looks could get you anything, and she had managed to keep herself out of prison. She was seventeen when she met him. A rookie, training with a superior officer that she had dealt with on more than one occasion. She could see the understanding in the rookie’s eyes when he realized that he was signing on for a job that wasn’t as upstanding as he’d once believed it to be.

She enjoyed watching that - the naivety and innocence flee from someone when they realized that the world was fucking cruel, and it hardly ever played by the rules. When she met him again, she wondered if he were following her. She offered to give him a taste - to let him in on one of the multitude of the NYPD’s secrets, and he resisted. He instead offered her dinner and a place to take a shower, each of her barbed avoidances and daggered remarks ignored as he continued to press her, following her throughout the city like he didn’t have anything better to do.

Eventually, she caved. She couldn’t remember the last time that she’d had a real meal, let alone somewhere peaceful to take a shower. She didn’t believe that it wouldn’t come without its own price - she knew how people operated in the city and she was wholly prepared for him to be like everyone else. Until he wasn’t. Until he told her that she could stay, as long as she didn’t do drugs in the apartment. She didn’t believe him - she knew that more would come along with it, and she kept her life bouncing from place to place until she got in over her head.

Living like she did meant racking up debts. It meant owing people who could change the terms in an instant, and when she couldn’t pay they thought that they could take payment by force. She had been fighting since she was an infant, and she held her own long enough to get out and go anywhere else. She didn’t remember choosing his apartment. She didn’t remember intending to go there, to knock on the door and beg for a place to stay, but she had.

He maintained that she stayed there for free - with his only request being that she educated herself. She scoffed at the idea - she hadn’t been in school in a few years, and she doubted that this would be permanent, but the idea of sleeping in the same place every night enticed her, and she did as he asked. They helped each other - she gave him information that could help him earn his way into the Gangs Unit and he gave her a place to stay and access to the things she would need to get her GED.

She found herself invested in his job - in the idea of actually doing something worthwhile and good. She somehow ended up with her GED at nineteen, proof that she could accomplish something that didn’t require her fists or selling her body, and she waited with excitement in her veins to show him the piece of paper - the one thing that she had accomplished in her life. He had missed the graduation, forced to work, instead, and it wasn’t until the news came through about the Twin Towers that she felt panic for the first time. Fear. The realization that she was in over her head and he could have died.

Long hours spent at the apartment cultivated in him walking through the door covered in dust and dirt, an apology on his lips for having missed the ceremony. The diploma lay forgotten and ignored that night, giving way to something tentative. She had two years until she could become a police officer - an idea that had come out of that day, born out of never wanting to have to feel that powerless again. He also made her want to be better. To fight, but to fight for something instead of against everything.

She trained, and studied, and became an officer in the New York Police Department following her written exam and six months of the academy. She paid her dues - she worked the night shifts that were reserved for new blood, and she did it without complaint. She came home every morning to an apartment that had become theirs somewhere along the way, and apartment that she now played her part in paying for, as his fiancé.

She earned respect. Her backstory was known to only a handful, and those that met her at the Academy, or on the job would never suspect what she had been through in the past. They saw an unflinching gaze and a quick willingness to prove that she was as tough as anyone that came across her, and they accepted that they were graced with an officer that would have their back.

She handled herself against the worst of the worst. Her shrewd look at the world allowed her to find connections that others couldn’t, and a few short years later she found herself pulled into the Gangs Unit for the biggest case the NYPD had ever seen. It was risky - she had to go undercover among people who hadn’t seen or heard from her in years, people who didn’t really trust her. Everything went smoothly up until the moment of the bust. They had suspected her already, and they planned on taking her down with them - but a misplaced bullet left her able to keep fighting, while one ended Carter’s life.

She fled the Gang Unit after that. She switched gears, diving into the Joint Terrorism Task Force with a ferocity and determination that was frightening. She closed case after case, and if a body happened to drop along the way, people tended to turn a blind eye. She was good - she could cover her tracks, and they couldn’t risk losing her. Not with the gravity of the cases they were working.

Years have passed with her stint at the JTTF turning into a permanent position with a promotion along the way. Living in the same apartment that she has for almost a decade now, she finds herself facing a new case. The department won’t label it - domestic terrorism is a phrase that strikes panic into the hearts of the city’s residents, and they can’t afford the slew of false accusations that would come with the panic.

Spending time rubbing elbows with the city’s elite has never been her idea of fun, but she finds herself at gala’s in expensive dresses with her gun strapped to her thigh, doing anything she can to get ahead of someone who has routinely been two steps ahead. She feels the pressure - the body count has been steadily increasing, and all of the pointed blame falls on her shoulders as one of the highest in the chain of command.

The pressure doesn’t concern her. She’s always thrived under the heavy weight of the world, Atlas carrying the Earth on his shoulders, but she doesn’t view it as a burden. She views it as drive, determination, an opponent that she’s determined to knock to the ground and come out victorious.

PERSONALITY

+ assertive, dauntless, indomitable

- abrasive, destructive, erratic

AESTHETIC

the whir of a tattoo gun, ink splattered on linoleum, the vibration of a plucked bass string, floors littered with picks like confetti, steam rising from a running faucet, nails trimmed to nubs, bloodshot eyes, faded band tees with the sleeves cut off, hair that covers the eyes

BIOGRAPHY

They say that the city can suffocate people, but that was never really the case for Jake. No, what was suffocating was the poverty that seemed to cling to the Ryleigh family, and all of the setbacks that came with it. For the first six years of Jake’s life, he remembered cramming into one apartment with his parents, and three uncles. Of all the adults the only two that were remotely stable were his parents, which was nothing short of unexpected. However, just before his sixth birthday the unexpected arrived in the form of a little sister, Phoebe. Then a few months later, after what was described as a workplace accident, his father passed away. This devastated Jake’s mother, but also gave her a jolt to reality. After taking two jobs, she managed to move their tiny family into a duplex just outside of Minneapolis. She found receptionist work, and the house itself was cheap.

This move was what led to childhood bullying for Jake. While it was easy to hide the way that his family lived before the move, it was impossible after. Anyone within a five mile radius knew that his mother struggled to make ends meet. Instead of letting it get to him, Jake began to make jokes at his own expense. If people were going to laugh he at least wanted to laugh, too.

When his mother remarried, they moved to a new house in the suburbs. At the time, Jake was thirteen and at the stage in his life in which moving felt like the end of the world. He met his first true friend, Lee Randazzo, on the way home from the bus stop. They were neighbors, and Lee was a kindred spirit. The two of them bonded over having lost a parent and their love for music. Specifically rock music. Fast forward almost two years later to a basement floor frigid to the touch and covered in cassette tapes. It was this day that led to the birth of the idea that would soon become Washable.

Things started out simple enough. Lee, as discovered by their choir teacher, could actually sing. Jake liked the bass that Lee’s dad kept in the basement. They met Ken, their first drummer, after school. He was a jazz band kid, but he wanted more, and they needed a drummer. Keith came a few months later; then, Jeremy a year later. Lee found them and that was how they built the band. Over the next three years, each of them got a little better at being a band. They started playing locally after school despite their parent’s complaints, and they practiced in Lee’s basement whenever they had the time.

By the time senior year rolled around, Lee, Jake, Jeremy, and Keith were ready to commit to the band 100 percent. Ken was not. Ken wanted college, so he left, and they came to a fork in a road. Luckily for them, Aaron found them and unlike Ken he wanted the band just as much as they did. With Aaron on board, they were able to find the right and venues and Oliver Fink, agent for Hollywood Records, found them.

At nineteen, Jake and the rest of the band moved from Minnesota to sunny LA. They all fit it with ease. They were on top of the world, and it stayed that way for five years. Five years and three records was a lot. If they weren’t in the studio they were on stage. Jake loved it, but Lee started to crumble.

Drinking and self medicating hit its peak during their second tour. Jake and Aaron begged for Lee to go to rehab. They insisted that putting the band on hold would be worth it if he could get clean. The band wouldn’t keep afloat if they kept cancelling shows and missing rehearsals. Lee insisted he was fine, and for a few months thing seemed that way.

Their fourth album was in production when Lee went out for the night. Jake planned on going with him to a mutual friends house, but when he got stuck in traffic Lee told him to meet him there. He was only a hour and a half late when he got to their friends house and saw the ambulances surrounding it. Dead on scene, is what the paramedics said. Accidental overdose was the official report on the autopsy. According to their friend, Lee was already at their house when Jake called. There was nothing he could have done, but Jake wasn’t so sure.

In the months after Lee’s death, Jake and the rest of the band tried to get back on their feet. They looked for a new main vocalist, but nothing ever worked. By the time their fourth album released, they knew it would be the last. The band went their separate ways within a month of the album’s release, and Jake? Jake was relieved.

After Washable’s end Jake went moved from the West Coast to the East Coast. There was nothing to return to in Minnesota, and too many bad memories in California. It was around this time that he and Kathryn ran into one another again. They wound up dating during this time, but it was not meant to last. Her addiction tore them apart. They never stopped hooking up, but they did stop referring to one another as friends. For a few months, Jake drifted around the boroughs of New York. He spent his days wandering through places, and drilling through his savings. As impending debt loomed near, Jake thought about the album covers hanging in his room. Album covers he designed with his own two hands.

Becoming a tattoo artist was never his end goal, but it was something. He forced himself through an apprenticeship, and a licensing exam. Slowly, Jake learned the ins and outs of running a shop. Now, nine years after the band’s end, Jake is an established tattoo artist in Brooklyn. He runs his own shop that boasts an Instagram following of over a million. He intends to keep at it. He enjoys being able to put art on people’s bodies and wouldn’t trade it for the world.

The problem was he never really forgot what  it felt like standing on stage, nor did he give up writing completely. Although, he was never the lead vocalist, he could carry a tune. Other people thought he could do way more than that. After a few randomly posted acoustic sessions on Facebook, fans came out the woodworks demanding a tour.  Especially, after footage leaked of him on stage during a former tour-mate’s show months back. He was substituting for their sick bass player and it didn’t go unnoticed by the die-hard fans in the crowd. With the tourist season being over, Jake decided to go on tour all up the east coast as a soloist.

However, it was not the return to music or the successful EP that was the biggest change and surprise in Jake’s life. The biggest surprise came in the form of Jonah Atkins — his best friend’s baby. Jonah was supposed to come out looking like a donor, but instead the curly-haired boy looks like him. The past few months have been Jake settling into the role of fatherhood while avoiding his feelings for his son’s mother.

PERSONALITY

+ laidback, loyal, goofy, gregarious

- stubborn, indecisive, flighty, bitter

AESTHETIC

nights bleeding into mornings, an abandoned piss bottle on your floorboard, flickering red lights from the stage, always standing behind a curtain, neon lights against a diner’s window, beat up checkered Vans

BIOGRAPHY

Aaron grew up in Minneapolis his entire life. He was an only child, falling in the footstep of his father every morning. He would always spend time at the neighbors while his father worked two jobs to support their apartment. With the lack of supervision, Aaron kept track of his own schedule. He learned from an early age to wake up before his father did and prepare breakfast. He was always a step ahead simply because it felt better to be. In return, his father took out a loan to pluck up a set of drums on Aaron’s fourteenth birthday. Though it started as a simple obsession for middle school band, it extended as an entry point for his dive into the punk scene. He thrived in the underbelly of the night life. His father was too busy to keep track of where Aaron was at all times. And besides, it was the nineties. He crushed his worn out chucks and denim flair before hanging around the local bands. He started out as a groupie, wanting to desperately have some in with any of the bands that gave him a chance.

His first in was through Kendall, a bombshell blonde that dated Plath Sides’ lead singer. In turn of free lessons, Aaron mistakenly fell too hard for the blonde. Brief lessons turned into two teenagers too high on hormones to forget the set of drums between them. Sides never took off in the local scene, crashing as soon as the lead caught onto Ken’s cheating. The two were impossible to displace for a better part of his teens.

Washable was an once in a lifetime experience. Aaron was the last to join the group, twitching his fingers in line with other auditions. His only perception of a band was sitting in the back of his parent’s garage while one of the neighborhood kids screamed into the mic. He was able to blend easily into the music scene in Minneapolis. He knew where all the punk shows were. They were always the best places to drink underage and get high beyond belief. After all, a little bit made the crunch of a fist against his shoulder less painful. It was a small chance the band would pick him, and they did. The next year was a whirl between learning new sets, writing, and connecting with the band. He got along easier with the lead, Lee and the bassist, Jake. The two seemed to come in a package when it concerned friendship. He took on a lead role within only a few months of playing with the band. After another set in a near packed bar, Oliver Fink from Hollywood Records approached the band with an offer to sign. It was a fool’s choice to refuse.

After they signed up, Aaron’s life lifted from the slow drawl of Minnesota to the Californian sun. Kendall followed. Their relationship took a strain as soon as he dived into studio. Their high school sweetheart was filled with a string of on-and-off fights and makeups. He plunged into a sea of liquor and half empty cartons of Marlboro Reds. A love for music soon turned clinical. Washable was gaining more recognition and eventually a song on Billboard’s Top 100. Their first EP was something raw. Everything else felt dulled once a better part of the band sunk into the highs of touring. Aaron wasn’t sure how he was placed in the position of caring, but he remained there. He was always the one to hold Lee’s tangled hair while he was neck deep in the venue’s toilet. It was clear once their third album topped charts that Lee was slipping under the pressure.

He self medicated with any sort of substance imaginable. He would show up to recordings high. It didn’t make it better that nothing would help. Lee wouldn’t listen to his pleas. He’d all, but throw it back in their attempt at helping him. Some people didn’t want help. It didn’t take until the next relapse that Aaron realized his mistake of loosening his eye on Lee. In 2009, Lee was found dead at the scene of a party. His death was listed as an overdose and another addict’s story vibrated through the media. Their fourth album dropped shortly after Lee’s death, undoubtedly becoming their highest selling one. People wanted to make meaning from tragedy.

Washable disbanded shortly after Lee’s passing. No one wanted to be around. Jeremy took his ego and stepped up to be a lead in his own band. With little chance to turn, he followed shortly behind Jeremy. One of the bands they toured with offered him a slot once they lost their drummer. He slipped easily from the skin of Washable to a harder scene with Kill Lolita. He signed with Fearless Records shortly after the band’s second album. His fame, although minor in comparison, blossomed. He got used to the life of touring through his late twenties. He gave up the idea of having a family and settling down. At every opportunity, it paled in comparison to producing music.  

Aaron recently settled down in New York in the last year. It only made sense to settle in one of the larger music capitals. He found a tight place in Manhattan that suited all of his needs. He never really found the necessity of keeping an apartment other than in Los Angeles. Now, he wanted a change of scenery. Maybe, he wanted a change of faces. Tensions were growing high in the band. The last tour fractured once one of the lead guitarist was accused of messing around with underaged girls. The accusations weren’t wrong, but the label wanted to save face rather than drop the member. It split the band in the decision. Lance wanted to protect his friend, which only drove them further from concentrating on their music.

So, the band was on a hiatus while they figure out the legality or rather – if they still want to play together.  

PERSONALITY

+ empathetic, dexterous, sagacious

- cynical, brazen, erratic

AESTHETIC

the sound of typing on a keyboard, the whirring of fans, and spare computer parts. energy drinks and all nighters. stuttered sentences, paychecks with commas, business suits, meetings and cigars.

BIOGRAPHY

Do better, Elijah.

Those were the first words he could remember his father saying to him. Life in the Beckett household wasn’t about unconditional support or scribbled drawings hung on the fridge - it was about being perfect. His older sister, Madeline, she had mastered the act. She was a straight A student, a dancer, a painter. She excelled at everything that she did and on the surface she looked like she enjoyed it. In reality - she couldn’t wait to get away.

Three years older than Eli, she was his only bit of support inside the frigid walls of their Virginia home. Appearances in their community were everything, and something about Elijah just never fit in. He resented going to private school and trailing after his father to be shown the ropes of a business and life that he couldn’t care less about.

He loved technology. He had assembled the pieces of broken school computers into a supercomputer by the age of eight, rewarded by his teachers who could see the brilliance in the feat, he was punished by his parents. Playing around with wires, in their mind, was entirely useless. Do better, Elijah. The words were echoed so much he was sure that they would be written on his tombstone, carved into the rock that would sit on his grave after he had accomplished nothing.

He hid his computer under cover of the loose floorboards under his bed while he did his best to take after his sister and pretend - he was intelligent enough to get straight A’s, even if his interests didn’t lie in any of the subjects he was being taught. He began to play soccer - his father’s sport - in an attempt to appease a man who never had time to show for the games anyway, but once in a blue moon to critique Eli. Do better. Nothing he did was good enough, and as high school neared and then became a reality, he found himself dreaming of everything that would come next.

Madeline continued her facade of perfection while the real truth began to bubble out. Sneaking out of the house at all hours of the night, going to concerts and street races, making plans to separate herself from the family the moment that she turned eighteen - everyone except Elijah.  Her only support and strength in a house that had done its best to rob her of all of her own thoughts and feelings, her younger brother had kept her grounded in ways that he didn’t even know.

Elijah’s world changed at fifteen. With the end of his freshman year in sight, it also meant the end of his time in the house with his sister. He knew her plans - she was going to run off with her boyfriend to New York City - their uncle lived there, a man they barely knew but a man who had made it clear that he supported individuality and free thinking in a way that had made Elijah’s mother’s skin crawl. His fears of losing his sister became a reality in an entirely different way when a police officer came to inform the family that Madeline had been killed in a hit and run accident.

The house became more of a tomb. His will to live had somehow gone out of the window with the loss of his sister, and his parents redoubled their efforts. Do better, Elijah. They needed better, because he was all that was left for them. Instead, Elijah became different. Someone who had always been quiet and reserved became who he really was - a troublemaker, someone who cracked jokes in class and resolutely distracted other students with his grin and sharp wit. His talents with a computer became known far and wide as he cracked into the school system to change grades just enough to get them by without being obvious. Seeing his talents, his friends decided to test that. Hack into the FBI. At first he had simply laughed - he was good, but he didn’t know if he was that good.

Madeline’s words echoed in his head as he settled down to try. Live the life that you want to live, Eli. Don’t let them take this away from you. Within a few hours, he had access to their system, and the reputation of someone who could do big things. A pure talent, a madman. He had thought that what his parents didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, but one missed footprint and the FBI were at their door, asking questions that only pointed to one possible culprit - Elijah. Dragged out of the house in handcuffs, Elijah felt a flurry of panic. Spending his life in jail had never been a part of his rebellious plan, though he would remember the look on his father’s face for the rest of his life.

A thousand questions and two days later, Eli was shocked by the outcome. They needed someone of his expertise to revamp their security, to take their system from what it was and make it into something virtually impenetrable. Laughing, at first, he was sure that there had to be a caveat. A catch. But soon he realized there wasn’t, and he spent two weeks entirely reworking their network, beefing up security and lecturing employees on the proper way to implement tools and practices.

By the end of the two weeks, they had decided. They wanted him - with whatever stipulations he put into place. For someone of sixteen, the idea was overwhelming, and he left without promising any kind of answer. He had done what they asked - now he needed to figure out what he wanted. The house he returned to was the same as always. Mourning Madeline’s death and faced with a now delinquent son, it was almost as if they both had died in the accident. He was sure that’s what his parents would have preferred.

His remaining years of high school passed in a blur as he outlined the rest of his life knowing that the FBI wanted him to work for them. He still dreamed, however, of MIT and all that it had to offer, as much as he dreamed of owning his own company. He wanted to make a difference everywhere, not just for the one government agency. Do better, Elijah. He would - he was, even if it wasn’t how his father had wanted.

Following a negotiation with MIT and the FBI, a plan was implemented. He would spend two years at MIT, fast tracking a degree that was, simply, for fun. For the experience of being normal. After his graduation, he was free to go wherever he wanted to start his company - a place where he would teach and train new hires for all government agencies, as well as members of the military.

Elijah completed his two year degree before making his way to New York City. In a way, it was all to honor Madeline. To do what she had never been able to do, to make a home in the city that had always called to her. He found a home with his Uncle Rudi, in Brooklyn Heights as he began the arduous process of starting a company.

Greyhat was built from the ground up with his own two hands in Manhattan, fueled by money from the agencies that had a vested interest in his success, knowing all that he could accomplish himself, and all that he could teach to those that would work for them. Greyhat became the biggest thing in cyber security, with people clamoring to get in its doors.

At twenty-six, Elijah has grown his worth to millions, though the money means less to him than the experience, the company. He’s made many friends along the way, as much as he’s made enemies for the policies implemented to get into the company. He knows the risk that knowledge given by him could pose, and he hesitates to offer too much to those who may use it to burn the world to the ground.

PERSONALITY

- brilliant, innovative, painstaking

+ childish, obsessive, unrestrained

aesthetic

cracked ipad screens, blue-light filters, wearing sunglasses indoors, floral shirts, bruised lips, white noise, muffled voicemail messages, messy buns, blocked numbers, late projects, sketch books, neon “open 24 hours” signs

biography

Though heavily glamorized and sought after by the masses, the true life of a nomad is lonely, rootless, and riddled with deceit. Sana Kyeong’s earliest memories are of poorly lit bus stations and the constant feeling of watchful eyes. Her mother had tried her best to shield her from the truth, to wipe away the scenes of raised voices and dark purple bruises that appeared every-time her father did. Alas, young Sana managed to piece together the truth. Her father was a monster, a drunken and disgraced former police officer that never knew when enough was enough; and her mother was a battered woman who found the strength to escape.

On the night of their disappearance, cracks of thunder filled the air as if it were the soundtrack to their mission. Ha-Rin scooped her sleeping daughter from her bed with gentle arms, dressing the child in as many layers as possible before grabbing a singular bag and vanishing into the night. From city to city in South Korea they bounced, never staying long enough to make friends nor enemies, forever running from the hateful reach of a man whose possessiveness knew no limits. Ha-Rin did the best to create some sense of normalcy for her daughter, but with the constant change of scenery and appearances, Sana became just as paranoid, hyper vigilant, and unstable as her mother. Even in their sleep there was no rest to be found because this monster was a suffocating and all-consuming beast.

It was a rapid escalation of events that drove the mother and child out of the country. A now teenaged Sana awoke to the muffled cries of her mother. Though they marked the most critical moments of the girl’s life, the truth of what transpired next is lost even to Sana’s own mind. There was a flash, a bang, something sharp, and then silence. A metallic smell filled the air, and before Sana could take a closer look at the gruesome scene crafted by her own hands, Ha-Rin grabbed her daughter by the arm again and fled across the sea.

It was on the streets of Brooklyn that Sana was finally allowed to find some authentic piece of herself. For now, it seemed that their nomadic days were a thing of the past; roots were now able to take form and a foundation was built. Her mother found steady work and Sana used the space in her mind formally occupied by crippling paranoia to focus on a passion long stifled. Sports and other group activities were impossible for a family on the run, so artistry became her vice. The hobby started off with scribbles on thin restaurant napkins; flourished into full blown works that won her small contests here and there before eventually morphing itself into a partial scholarship to NYU. It was in her art, CGI and Cell animation specifically, that her truth came to life.

Moving straight from her undergraduate years to her first year of graduate school, Sana Kyeong’s life is in constant motion. Bouncing from various sets to the computer screens in class, Sana offers up her artistic skills in bringing imaginative creatures and figures from the past to life. Commission for these works and advertisements are little to none, a sad production of present intern culture, but she cannot find it in herself to complain. For years she has worked as a waitress at a small and rather rundown 24 hour dinner in Williamsburg to keep herself slightly ahead of her student loan bills. The work is menial but necessary, so she makes the most of her usual 12am to 6am graveyard shift by playing up a skill once required for survival; lying, or as they called it New York, acting.

As well adjusted Sana seems from her troubled past, lying about just exactly who she was is a habit deeply ingrained. Each person she meets gets a different version of Sana Kyeong; whether it’s the orphaned hard-ass whose bite is just as bad as her bark, or the innocent and sheltered college girl who has lost her way; each false face is crafted specifically for its audience, drawing them in and feeding them the lies they so desperately crave. Some would say its an illness, others would call it a defense mechanism; and while they’d both be right, Sana just prefers to call it a hobby. It’s her favorite game to play, and the prize isn’t at all as glamorous as it seems.

personality

+ Intelligent, Creative, Charming, Independent

- Manipulative, Picky, Unforgiving, Facetious

Hello, I will be changing around some admin characters today. I’ll post a new biography shortly. Everyone will be around this weekend. It is a little over a week before we open. If you have any questions at all, pop in.