May 2085: dresses

Ocean Michen is 16, Joey McCullough is 15.


Ocean hovered in Joey's peripheral vision, smiling silently, quiet and floaty. She was like a blue jelly fish.

"I know," Joey said. "My sister ditched your brother at the prom. My sister is Satan. It wasn't my fault and I don't care."

Joey's sister was graduating, finally and thank God. Not that Joey ever craved the spotlight, but maybe for once she could exist in this town without being known as "Ruby's little sister".

"I don't care either," Ocean said.

welcome back to LH, the Thompson family!

This is all because I needed Ingrid to be a photographer for my studio-in-progress, lol!

I posted their pictures on my Tumblr the other day, but I have a little bit of backstory for them as well. (I love writing these backstories, btw. I might do one for everybody in their profiles!)

---

Adam and Heather are 52-years-old now. Heather is the senior vice-president of PharmaTech, a chemical engineering facility in Lake City. Adam felt stifled in the crowded education field, where the top positions were taken and there was nowhere to go, so he took his love of physics and mathematics and expanded on the passions of his youth: the paranormal and supernatural sciences. With Heather's pharmaceuticals doing very well, Adam could afford to take a sabbatical to study some of the more fringe sciences. He hosts his own research team (granted, much smaller than what Heather's got going on) out of a small office based in the Old West End. He doesn't worry too much about who's the breadwinner in this family -- he gets to study ghosts!

Laney (right) is twenty-six now, and prefers to go by her full name, Elaina in adulthood, even though nobody ever calls her that. She is the most serious of the three; sweet, friendly, dedicated, and incredibly intelligent. At first glance you wouldn't guess she'd studied forensics and genetic science in college, but she did. She's working in crime scene investigation for the Lake County Police Department. She didn't date much in college -- to be honest, telling guys she studied blood splatters and corpse decay kind of freaked them out a little. Perhaps it was all the time her parents spent in graveyards before she was born that gave her a taste for the dead? In fact, she may have even been conceived in one.

The twins are twenty-two now, and just home from college. Ian (left) is friendly, funny, loyal, and has no idea what he wants to do with his life. He has a degree in technology because his parents made him go to college. Mostly he enjoyed the parties and learned a little about computers. He isn't lazy though; he works hard at whatever he happens to be doing at the moment, and there isn't much he dislikes. He had a long-term girlfriend in college, but she just dumped him, saying he was a really nice guy, but that he lacked focus and direction. Bummer.

Ingrid (middle) is similarly floaty, fascinated with just about everything and focused on nothing. But her fine arts degree allows for such scattered interests. Her passion lies with photography and poetry, though she also loves to paint, jog, travel, ride horses, read, and fish. If you added up all of her different hobbies, it might even equal a full job. She's happy though, and people love to be around her... for as long as she'll let them. She has has few very close friends, and has never kept a boyfriend for longer than three weeks.

Welcome back to Lakeside Heights, the Thompson family!

April 2085: date night

April 2085: Barbara McCullough is 41, Phillip is 43, Ruby is 18.

"What are you wearing?" Ruby scowled at her mother. "Haven't you had that blouse since like, 1972?"

April 2085: happy birthday, dear Ruby (spring birthdays)

*** mildly NSFW for one quick boob. When Darla wants her top off, she gets her top off, lol! ***

April, 2085. Ruby McCullough is 18 years old. 

The car was painted a shade that Ruby couldn't decide if it was supposed to be brown or green, bringing to mind things like mud, or bugs, or excrement.

"What is this color? It looks like horse shit! How can I drive this while people still have eyes!?!"

April 2085: lie to you, part 2

April 2085: Benny and Leo are 21; Sophia, Charlie, and Natty are 20 years old; Josh is 18.

Soundtrack: "Would I Lie to You?" by Eurythmics


Natty found the party, after driving for miles figuring she'd missed the right spot. "A patch of trees around the bend," he'd told her. "Look for the fire." So she finally saw the fire, small as it was, and she parked behind a row of bushes. She didn't see anyone she knew, a couple guys playing kicky bag. "Whoa," one of them said, dropping the bag. "Girl just came out of the woods."

"Whoa," the other one said, and then they both started to laugh hysterically. They were drunk already, and maybe high too. It smelled like campfire and the earthy smell of rain, and she didn't see Josh anywhere. She considered maybe this party was a bad idea, but then the first one of them came over and greeted her.

April 2085: lie to you, part 1

April 2085: Charlie and Natty are 20 years old, Josh is 18.

Sountrack: "Would I Lie to You?" by Eurythmics

She remembered the first time they did it -- "did it", because at fifteen, you're not really mature enough to "make love" yet, even if you might really grow to love each other some day. It was her idea, after school before her parents got home for work. They had approximately sixty-five minutes and two condoms, and so it happened.

At twenty now, in their second year of college together, Natty had loved Charlie as long as she could remember knowing how to love. She loved him even though he was annoying sometimes, and a little bit anti-social, and had planets and stars on his boxers. She loved him because she'd grown up with him and watched him become a man. She loved him because she couldn't imagine loving anyone else.