Calypso Aikaterini Shaw

Twenty-seven // Aquarius // February 7th

Female.

Pansexual - it's all vibes over here bb.

444 Miners Street.

Ethel Mae Willoughby

Sixty-five // August 3rd // Leo

Female

Marijuana is the only lover Ettie needs.

#39 Shady Pines Drive.

Southern Grandma Coded ~ Kind ~ Nosey ~ Blunt ~ Hardworking ~ Quick Witted ~ Truthful ~ Mentor like ~ Whimsical ~ Sarcastic ~ Free-spirited ~ Unselfconscious ~ Open-minded ~ Odd

With a joint in one hand, and a cast iron skillet in another, Ettie is what some would consider the epitome of a hippie southern grandmother. Having lived a long life, she aim's to spread kindness and has always been considered a shoulder to lean on by members of her community. She's quick witted and has a blunt nature about her - though like most older southern women, she hides her bluntness under the floweriness of words. The older woman is known as one of the town gossips, but not one that will spread your information - just someone who likes to gather a lot of info on others simply because they're nosey. Yes, Ettie Mae is a nosey little shit.

She enjoys nurturing the minds of others, especially if they are younger than her by a generation or two, and always has a spare glass of sweet tea with a side of conversation for anyone who find their way onto her porch. A hardworking woman, if Ettie is not in her kitchen, she can be found in her small yard doing things like gardening and the like. An extrovert at heart, Ettie loves being around people and helping them in whatever ways she can.

Matthew Cliffton Jennings

Thirty-eight // October 21st // Libra-Scorpio Cusp

Male.

Heterosexual.

Owner and operator of Jennings Automotive.

#3 Shady Pines Drive

Noah Pierce Tanner

25

Male

Demisexual

Mechanic at Jennings Automotive.
Night Shift Bartender at Huskers Bar & Grill.
Random odd jobs.

#79 Shady Pines Drive

For a lack of better word, Noah is curt bordering on dismissive. Like he never has time to actually show you his personality (which he doesn't as he usually runs from job to job.)

Quick and to the point, he never really minces words or dances around topics. He'll tell you straight up what's kicking in his head if you ask. Not that you'd get much, most of what's in the forefront of his mind is providing for his siblings. He's been parentified since he was 13. It's only gotten worse ever since his parents abandoned him and his siblings.

He's quick on the uptake on learning things. Hardworking and stubborn as he's had no choice to be anything else unless he wanted his siblings to starve. He is also careful not to injure himself, being slow and methodical and taking safety as a priority as he is the sole provider for his siblings.

He is also practical and a realist, making him hardheaded with a slightly quick temper. He feels like life has passed him by and will continue to do so. Despite this he has a soft spot for both his siblings and is extremely overprotective of them. He could never shout or get angry at them. He believes his parents' abandonment was not their fault and they are innocent from everything happening.

Gideon Hale Mercer

The Surveyor, Death Inc, Inevitable

55

Male

He's been seen with young arm candy of both sexes

Founder & CEO of Mercer Strategic Systems (MSS)
Private military contractor specializing in:

Terrain-based operations

Infrastructure security

“Disaster readiness”

Signal and logistics support

Public-facing role: Defense consultant & infrastructure specialist
Actual role: Power broker with private armed reach

Gideon's family is heavily obscured, but both of his parents came from nothing. Gideon spent a lot of money to erase them. He is currently single and has never been married. His closest connections are to his staff.

• Butler: Philippe De Lyon || Age 70 || Handles Gideon's day to day, and runs all staff || FC: Charles Dance.
• Security Team Leader: Joel Hagerty || Age 45 || Leads the Tactical Team near Gideon at all times || FC: Jason Statham.
• Additional Team Members Liam Hagerty || Jayson 'Deacon' Deeks || Marcel Lafayette || Arthur Hastings (Actors in the Team: Luke Evans, Jay Harrington, Gerard Butler)
• Head of MSS Domestic: Andrew Barns || Age 60 || Heads up all Domestic Projects in North America || FC: Iain Glen.
• Vice-President and Senate Majority Leader: Oliver Steele || Age 57 || Vice-President of MSS, Political Officer, and Face || FC: Sean Bean.

Gideon Mercer moves through the world with deliberate calm. He speaks evenly, listens without interruption, and rarely raises his voice. Emotion, in others, registers to him as noise, data that signals instability rather than meaning. He is unfailingly polite, careful to acknowledge feelings without ever allowing them to influence outcomes. In conversation, he favors prediction over argument, framing opposition as misunderstanding and resistance as an unfortunate but expected phase of adjustment.

He does not view himself as cruel. He believes morality is contextual, a luxury afforded by stability rather than a guide to creating it. Control, in his mind, is not domination but stewardship. Sacrifice is inevitable; the only question is whether it is managed efficiently or allowed to spiral into chaos. Gideon takes comfort in systems, legal, economic, logistical, because they absolve him of personal responsibility. If the system functions, the cost is justified.

Among peers and superiors, Gideon is deferential in tone and dominant in effect. He allows others to believe decisions were theirs, positioning himself as an advisor rather than an authority. With subordinates, he demands competence, not loyalty. Failure is met with quiet reassignment, success with understated reward. People fear disappointing him more than being punished, unsettled by his composure and the sense that he is always several steps ahead.

Gideon’s greatest blind spot is his inability to understand devotion. He assumes that, when pressured, people will choose survival over sacrifice, efficiency over heritage. Loyalty to land, to community, to memory does not factor into his calculations. He believes people adapt, because they always have. It is a belief that has served him well.

There are exemptions to this. His close staff he considers family and are the only people he trusts, and each of them have been with him for a long time.

Zoey May Frye

Trouble: In her youth, many an adult could be heard saying "That girl is Trouble". It didn't stick

24. Born in August. Just before school started up after summer break.

Female

Could maybe date another woman. But can only see herself getting serious with a member of the opposite sex.

Waitress at Waffle House. Has worked overnight. Disappointed she hasn't gotten in a brawl. Gives extra portions to customers that aren't assholes.

Martin Frye - Grandfather and Legal Guardian | Worked the mines from a young age. Married young. Provided.| FC: Chris Cooper

Constance 'Connie' Frye - Grandmother | Still remembers when Magnolia's Salon opened. For now. Memory can be...a tricky thing. | FC: Laurie Metcalf

Zachary Frye - Father | Deceased. Drunk accident. He was the one behind the wheel. Lived in Kentucky.

Katie Leigh - Mother | Divorced after half a year of marriage. Estranged is putting it nicely. As good as dead to Zoey.

Zoey fucking hates her lot in life and though she tries not to show it in her day to day, it's written on her tired, bored face. Small town life is all she's ever known even before her moving to Pines Holler, but it's a lot easier to amuse yourself as a child when going down to the creek or running through the woods was an adventure on the level of the Fellowship of the Ring. Perhaps that's why Zoey has always been known as a restless, rambunctious soul. But that was then, when she was younger and could get away with things with a stern talking to and the folly of youth.

Zoey is frustrated and aimless and has entered adulthood without much in the way of a clue or a goal. She'd always just had her grandparents to rely on and even now she still lives with them, but her lack of passion and drive has made her exhausted and confused and bottling everything up to force a smile as she takes orders and makes small talk with people who think Waffle House is the highlight of their day. She'll cuss and bluster and wonder how it is she's in the prime of her life but it feels like she's treading water. Imposter syndrome has been a part of Zoey since her arrival and it's only continued to fester. She stood out as a kid and is only now trying to blend in just because it keeps her going. Zoey will listen to the problems of others and repeat advice picked up over the years thinking it helps; after all, an ear listening and pretending to be friendly was better than nothing, right?

At the end of the day, Zoey, like anyone else, wants something to come home to, be it acceptance or love or just a cold beer and the radio to listen to the Reds game.

Born in a small Kentucky town not terribly far from Louisville with a population barely over one thousand, Zoey spent a lot of her childhood going down to the creek and going frog giggin' and kicking leaves. She didn't have much, her father being a single parent working an underpaying job didn't afford her that luxury, but she didn't mind. But she also didn't realize the bottles in the bin kept adding up over time. Didn't realize the sickness in her daddy's eyes. But then, how could she?

After the cops knocked on her door and told her, Zoey just froze up. The only thing she had to remind her of her dad was the baseball cap that he bought her on the only vacation they ever took. Of course, it wasn't a vacation for her father, it was an attempt to reconnect with his ex-wife who had moved to Ohio, but to Zoey it was a core experience. A little road trip capped off with a baseball game. She even had ice cream. After the death of her father, her grandparents took her in and she moved to Pines Holler. It wasn't like Kentucky. It seemed similar, but it wasn't.

Almost as soon as she got settled, Zoey was causing trouble. With little to do, Zoey began making her own fun. Throwing rocks at windows to houses she thought abandoned only to find that, no, the houses were occupied and just in a state of disrepair. Getting into fights with boys and girls at the park because they wouldn't let her play or because she tagged them too hard. Stealing from the shop because she wanted candy or soda or beer. Things that started off minor only ever escalated and by the time she was a teenager, Zoey was familiar with the cops in Pines Holler and had, on more than one instance, had to apologize at a community meeting at the behest of her grandparents. Her grandparents had always been pillars of the community but any sympathy they had towards Zoey and her situation was lost shortly after her twentieth case of vandalism and destruction of property.

It wasn't all bad for Zoey growing up. When she wasn't throwing rocks and spraying obscenities on walls she enjoyed foraging in the woods. It reminded her of home, only with less stabbing of frogs and more identifying mushrooms and enjoying the sound of leaves under her shoes. As she entered adulthood and the health of her grandmother began to get worse, the consequences of over a decade of being a menace in the Pines caught up with her. While members of the community were more than willing to look after her grandmother, many were far less charitable to Zoey which, of course, led her to seeking employment with a non-local establishment. She's tried to make up for her youthful transgressions, but bad gas travels fast in a small town and even now, three years since her last fight and destruction of property, she still gets the side eye from people.

Waffle House is not her career, at least she doesn't want it to be, but it's all she has. And she's at a point in life where she might have to decide if Pines Holler is worth trying to stick around for. It hasn't been good to her but...neither has she been good to it. But she's trying. And that's all she can do.

Theresa Patterson

Tessa: - Short for 'Theresa'. Everyone in Pines Holler used to call her that. Most probably still do even if she corrects them. It's just Theresa now.

31

Female

Bisexual. Recently single after a two and a half year relationship.

Before leaving after high school, Theresa wanted a part time job at Magnolia's Salon mostly so she could show people how to do black hair the right way. But now, having left for twelve years, Theresa has found employment with Waldron and Sons Realty and Development and is back in her home town to do feasibility studies. Of course, she knows better than to tell the people that, so she has numerous cover jobs if asked. Hopefully no one calls her out.

The house she grew up in, and where her father still lives, is 693 Miners Street. She is not currently staying there, however. She is living out of a motel room a couple miles outside of Pines Holler. The nightly rate is cheap and the continental breakfast is terrible but at least it gets HBO.

George Patterson - Father. A Pines Holler local to the core. Eats at Lou's twice a week and has for the past...forever. Worked as a contractor, doing roofing and home repair jobs for the community. Never missed a Sunday church service. | FC: James Pickens Jr.

Sandra Patterson - Mother. Retired pediatric nurse that worked outside of Pines Holler. Considering picking up a part-time job now that money is tighter and things are costing more. Would rather finally start that dream of having her own garden instead. | FC: S. Epatha Merkerson

There's a confidence in Theresa that wasn't there before. While never the quiet girl, she was never really decisive and tended to go with the flow. But now she's found her voice and that voice has very little nice to say about the small town she used to call home. While not brusque, Theresa has a relatively short fuse for things that waste her time including and especially the nature of small town folk to take the highway to get to the point of an anecdote. It's not out of pocket to call Theresa a bit icy because of this.

What Theresa has always been and continues to be is smart. But where she was just book smart, she's now a bit more streetwise even though sometimes there is the lingering difficulty in actually using that found voice to be heard by her co-workers and peers. It's not that she's still trying to get out of her shell, but rather that lingering youth anxieties have mutated into adult insecurities that she still needs to sort through. But she doesn't let that get in the way of doing her job, of which the intelligence has helped her become quite good at.

Theresa lacks when it comes to humor. She knows humor and jokes but she just...doesn't quite know how to make people laugh and her attempts at telling jokes have gotten a grand total of two laughs in her life. And that's counting pity laughter. Theresa is someone that took to life in a town like Pines Holler very well but her time away has changed her and only for the worse. But that's fine with her, or so she says, because she never thought she'd come back and now that she has, she can at least maintain an air of smug superiority over the people who couldn't get out. Well...she'd never do that openly, of course.

Because deep down there's still part of her that has a fondness bordering on nostalgia for the place. Even if it's much smaller now that she knows what the grass is like on the other side.

Theresa, or Tessa as she was known back then, lived in Pines Holler and grew up as a small town girl among small town folk that understood the idea of community. It helped that her father was and still is a pillar of the community. As a kid, Tessa always saw her father doing things like organizing town potlucks or making sure to say hello to everyone and always keeping an open door policy for the neighbors. Young Tessa spent more time reading in her room than socializing even though she wound up reading the same books multiple times due to not having many options. As she reached middle school age, though, Tessa found herself enjoying going down to the river at Paradise Falls and going fishing or laying in the back bed of her father's truck and looking up at the stars. She'd even tell people about the constellations if they gave her the chance to.

It seemed like Theresa would follow in the footsteps of her parents, specifically her mother, and get a job outside of town while still living and being part of the community. But that felt weirdly limiting to her, as if she should aim higher than spending her life in a place where everyone knew your business and the only entertainment for adults was going to a bar after working for scraps. It didn't matter how many times her father tried to tell her about the value of community, of treating your neighbor like family, for Theresa the goal was never just a small life and going to church on Sundays.

So she left shortly after her nineteenth birthday.

She went north. A small fish in an ocean of lights and action and rodents and street food. She got a degree, got an internship, landed a job, went on dates, broke up, lived fast as if she was making up for lost time. But despite having a job and an apartment within walking distance of a delicious Chinese restaurant, as Theresa entered her thirties she found herself wondering when life was going to be...fulfilling. The glitz and glamor of a professional career seemed to be what she wanted, but they don't tell you about the way her boss casually ignores her ideas but likes the same idea from a male coworker. Or the numerous people she matched with utterly torpedoing their chances by using words like 'exotic' or wanting to touch her hair. The job paid and all...but when she said hello to the man in the apartment next to her all she got was told to fuck off.

It was better than going nowhere in the middle of nowhere, wasn't it? Of course it was.

And then an opportunity presented itself. Her bosses were looking to expand down south. Plenty of land in smaller towns that could be turned to housing or infrastructure or leisure. Theresa submitted a name for consideration and was tasked with doing feasibility studies. The company she works for is very interested in acquiring land and making a nice profit. And all Theresa has to do is convince them that Pines Holler is the next slice of gold for developers and engineers.

Maybe that's why she opted to stay in a hotel. It makes it easier to pretend like she's not going back home to try and kill the place that raised her.

But surely Pines Holler welcomes its own back. Surely.

Eleanor Mae Caldwell

Thirty-five // July 15th

Female

Heterosexual

448 Miners Street.

Rowan Elijah Shaw

Twenty-four // October 28th

Male

Undecided / Unlabeled — music has always come first (He's gay lul)

444 Miners Street.

Elizabeth May 'Liz' Fulton née Rhodes

35 | February 19th

Female

Bisexual though never really explored as she dated her husband young

Stay at home mum/wife.

Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Fulton was born and raised in Pines Hollow. The result of a teenage pregnancy, Liz’ mother was kicked out of home causing the family of 3 to have to live with her father's parents, sharing a bedroom until Liz was 6 years old. Her parents, wanting a better life for Liz, finished their GED and her mother completed a teaching degree. Just before her mother's graduation they scraped enough money together to rent a 2 bedroom trailer.

In her formative years, money was tight but Liz would barely know it back then those times, surrounded by many kids in the same position. No matter what, her parents made sure her belly was full and she was cared for. It took a couple of years for her mother to find a stable full time teaching job at the elementary school a couple of towns over but doing so seemed to cause a shift in the Rhodes family. By the time Liz was 12 her parents had managed to buy a modest 2 bedroom house on Digger's rd, their pantry was always stocked and the family didn't need to rely on hand me downs any longer. In terms of the country, they were lower middle class at best but Liz felt rich.

From young her parents attempted to instill morals of responsibility and hard work. She learnt how to keep a budget and balance books early in life. Her parents worked to make sure she'd break the cycle of financial insecurity that ran in her families. Liz had always kept these skills for better or for worse. She was always good with money but forever scared of how close she could get to losing everything.

As middle school faded into high school Liz found her passion in art, particularly in expressionism and abstract art and photography. In this time she also found herself the passion of one Isaiah Fulton. Liz did grow up playing with Isaiah at the trailer park alongside all the other kids but they were never super close. There's no doubt Isaiah fell first but Liz is sure she fell harder, although she would not have admitted it at the time. The pair started dating just before junior year.

On graduation Liz got accepted into an art program at UNCSA. She worked 2 part time jobs in her final year of high school to save for college and her parents gave her some money but she still needed financial aid for the majority of the degree. She moved into a dorm at the university, leaving her family, friends and boyfriend back in Pines Hollow. Liz found herself hating it. She hated uni life, struggled to make friends, found the content and marking too subjective and was incredibly homesick. She dropped out after the 1st semester and returned to Pines Hollow.

She returned to her job at waffle house, working full time and soon after her return moved into a one bedroom trailer with Isaiah. When the pair were 21 Isaiah proposed. Liz excitedly accepted but the couple decided to have a long engagement to allow them tome to save for the wedding. Life, however, had other plans. A few months after their engagement, Liz found herself pregnant despite the couple being careful. Although accidental the thought of expanding their family wasn't necessarily unwelcome. Isaiah's family pushed the couple to tie the knot before the arrival of their child. The next couple of months were a flurry of planning until about 3 months into Liz's pregnancy she lost the baby in her own home. She was left broken, unable to leave her room for a week and in the process lost her job at Waffle House. After a month she picked up a job at Husker's as a bartender. With everything arranged, Isaiah and Liz decided to go through with their wedding.

Isaiah and Liz stayed at the trailer park, trying to save where they could. At 30 Liz’ student loans were fully paid off the couple decided to move to a 2 bedroom house on Miner's street and start trying to grow their family. Liz quickly fell pregnant and the couple excitedly prepared for their incoming little girl. When Liz was 34 weeks pregnant she noted that the baby was moving less than usual one evening and booked in to see a doctor first thing in the morning. That night she woke up in the middle of the night weak and feverish, having bled through her clothes and sheets. Isaiah rushed her to the ER where they found out the baby had died in utereo. Labour was induced and Liz delivered their little girl. She had wisps of her mother's black hair and a little button nose that seemed like her father's. Little and perfect but with no air in her lungs or heartbeats. It took Liz months to return to normal life.

After a few months the couple decided they still wanted to keep trying. It took a few years and just a month shy of her 35th birthday Liz discovered she was, once again, pregnant and the couple sprung to make preparations although more cautious and fearful. Liz planned to work right up until her due date for some extra money but ended up struggling too much with morning sickness and sciatica so left work only 4 months later. All seemed to still be ok, that was until Isaiah lost his job and now the Fultons are facing dwindling savings with a baby due in 2 months