rohanxpersaudx:
Rohan considered himself a creative person. He was, of course, a theatre-maker. And he had a taste for finer things: art, music, and drama among them. But he was not a painter. He had never been a painter. He had maybe tried once or twice before. And it was not that he lacked vision. He simply could never quite place how to turn the image in one’s head onto something on the canvas. It was for that reason that he brewed cosmetic potions the way he did. Some people sewed or crafted; he just had to think. Nevertheless, while he supposed it may become a disaster, he had still come tonight to accompany some friends and to be supportive of local businesses. Noble causes in and of themselves. But the evening had largely already become more of a wine thing than an art thing. He twirled his glass around in his hand, then, taking another sip. He looked up with a low noise of acknowledgement as Julian settled beside him.
“Oh, uh, hello,” he replied, choking a bit on his drink. Rohan brought up a hand into which to clear his throat before offering a more polite smile. “Yes, yes…I know. I’m all right. I just, well, I have this sort of strange thing happening with painters right now in my life. No offense or anything. Really. But I know this one artist. And you can’t see him. Probably. But I could if I really wanted to. He’s…some place. Around.” Bringing up a hand, Rohan vaguely waved it through the air. “What I mean is, he hasn’t moved on. Outright refuses. Which is very on-brand. I mean, this is the sort of tortured artist who chucked his life’s work into an incinerator. Who does a thing like that? What? Are we living in a tragic opera?”
Rohan sighed. “This wine is very strong, isn’t it? Gosh.” He hummed a little, realizing, evidently, that he was talking too much and making very little sense. “My artist friend is very judgmental. And I may need to call on him again because we produced an opus together. It’s a good opus.” He trailed off and spoke up only to fill the silence that followed. “I talk to dead people. I’m trying not to get haunted by my judgmental dead artist friend for producing a crappy painting. That’s the short version of this farce.”
.
Julian was still rather new to Lunar Cove, and while he had been in town for a month now there were still some finer details to the community he wasn’t exactly privy to. Quick comments and vague references, mostly handed to him by his elderly landlords in mumbled tones, had completely gone unnoticed by the young man, floating so far over his head you would have swore he was being purposefully daft. The reality is that Julian still wasn’t really sure what the hell was going on around town. When Rohan spoke up and began responding to him, he at first didn’t find it that odd. He kept his friendly grin plastered over his face, nodding and saying a, “Oh, no offense taken,” at the other’s comments on other artists in his life. It seemed reasonable to deal with oddities where creatives were concerned, he saw no need to question it. But the more the other man spoke, the more his brows began to pull inwards towards one another, furrowing his handsome brow.
Okay, artists were dramatic. He could absolutely see a Picasso wannabe throwing away their life’s work, but Julian wasn’t sure why he “couldn’t see him”. Was he not there? Is that what Rohan meant? Surely that’s what he meant. And then the man rambled on some more, the only comment making much sense to the painter being that the wine was very strong. He was beginning to see that more and more and wondered if he was allowed to stop the man from drinking much more. Julian certainly wasn’t planning on taking another sip of the glass he left by his own easel, that was for sure. It was the talking to dead people bit that really sent him for a loop, causing his brows to fly upwards towards his hair line.
“Oh,” left him in a low breath, and he took a moment before recovering. So he was probably dealing with a weird drunk guy, he didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable. “Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, artists can be real drama queens sometimes,” he paused to chuckle, a little awkwardly, “So I can definitely see the fear of being judged from the grave for a crappy painting.” A beat and then he quipped, “Of course you could argue that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and, perhaps more effectively, that your piece is abstract. Can’t argue much when the abstract card is thrown in.” He raised a brow in amusement, because, while the whole thing was really fucking weird, it would be kind of funny to argue that point with the ghost of a painter when it came to defending one’s craft. “Is, uh... Is your dead pal here right now?” Julian subtly looked around the room, hoping to land his eyes on a very real and very much alive friend of the guy’s soon who could maybe explain their drunk pal’s weirdness logically.
15 notes
·
View notes
JULIAN CHANDLER INTRODUCTION.
meet julian; an artist, human, alive for now
GENERAL
FULL NAME: Julian Rhys Chandler
NICKNAME(S): Jules
AGE/DATE OF BIRTH: 30, 07/12/1992
GENDER: Cisman
PRONOUNS: He/Him
OCCUPATION: Freelance Artist and Worker at Blank Slate
SPECIES: Human for now
BIOGRAPHY
TRIGGERS: death mentions, miscarriage
PROLOGUE.
Someday soon, in the very near future, Julian Chandler is going to die. There will be no warning, no slow decline into Death’s cold embrace, not a single sign of what is to come. Unceremoniously and in a strange new town surrounded by strange new people, the young man will meet his end. What Julian Chandler doesn’t know is that his fleeting mortal existence will not be the definitive end. For the last time that his human heart beats will soon after be followed by a metamorphosis – and his eyes will open and his heart will beat again, this time in endless night and an all-consuming bloodlust.
I. CHARMING BEGINNINGS + IMPOSTER SYNDROME.
Death has followed Julian for nearly half of his life, though he’s been none the wiser. Sure, everyone knows the inevitability of their end; every passing second we draw closer and closer to the natural end of life, but for a young kid one’s mortality isn’t at the forefront and center of their mind. Prior to that fateful meeting when he was sixteen, Julian’s life was unblemished and free of any complications that could bring such a thing in question. Born the youngest of three boys to a personal injury lawyer and historic preservationist in Forest Hills Gardens, there was little to concern the boy. His childhood was as charming as the Tudor houses which dotted the Queens neighborhood he called home. Afforded luxuries that their parents were not as fortunate to grow up with, Julian and his brothers had a spoiled upbringing. There was little that they could want for, and Julian had been particularly blessed.
Cliché as it was, he was the baby of the family and, much to the chagrin of his older brothers, he had lived up to the title. He was always a tad bit more sensitive and tender-hearted than Conrad and Grant were, and their mother, Caroline, had done little to help the situation. In the few years before giving birth to Julian she had lost two other babies, and so to her he had been her precious little miracle. Since birth, he was practically glued to Caroline’s hip. While the older boys pursued sports and more ‘manly’ pursuits, as their father boasted, Julian spent most of his time seated upon his mother’s lap while she worked in her studio, diligently restoring artworks and artifacts of historical value. It was Caroline who encouraged the soulful artist in him. She traded soccer meets for piano lessons, comics for books on the master artists, and she was the one who taught him the proper way to hold a paint brush. It wasn’t anything special at first, not some crazy prodigy story, but as the years went by and he got older and far more absorbed in pencil and paper than the world around him it became very clear; Julian had a gift where art was concerned, and Caroline wanted nothing more than to nurture it.
Unfortunately Russell Chandler hadn’t felt similarly. Julian’s father didn’t want any of his sons to waste time on ‘fruitless hobbies’. He wanted them to become so much more than what he and Caroline amounted to. For his sons he always envisioned Ivy League futures followed by prestigious careers in high paying fields. That’s why the older boys lettered in sports, were highly dedicated to their studies, and spent so much time doing community service, all in pursuit of scholarships and attractive college applications. Julian was the odd man out, more dedicated to building his techniques than fulfilling his father’s hopes and dreams. “Little pictures are nice, but they won’t get you anywhere past Queens, Julian. When are you going to grow up?” It was the root of his insecurities, how little his father seemed to believe in his talents, and the reason he began to hide what he could do.
When adolescence came around, Julian wanted to somehow live up to his dad’s standards, even if he kinda fell behind the other boys. He pivoted into sports during middle school, started focusing more diligently on his studies, and began trying to imagine his future in some lucrative industry. Slowly he began to hide away his paints and brushes, his one true passion becoming a shameful secret; the colorful skeleton in his closet. Still, Julian never quite measured up to Russell’s image of the ideal son – not athletic enough to be a star player, nor smart enough to be valedictorian.
But there were other things that began to work for Julian. Puberty had been good to him; towering over the other kids in his class at a staggering 6’4” and with dreamy blue eyes and dimples so deep you could drink from them, Julian was granted an air of popularity during his high school years. Partially because of his good looks, but also because he’d finally grown out of the timid nature being a sheltered mama’s boy afforded him. Sports meant having to learn to be a team player and how to work with others, and he quickly shed his socially awkward demeanor in favor of an easy going charm and affability he didn’t realize was beneath the shyness. It was a whole 180, from the quiet artsy loner to a handsome letterman-wearing hometown hero. He swore he’d never seen his father more proud of him, even if he felt like an imposter.
II. A MEETING BY FATE.
By the time he was sixteen Julian had become so much more outgoing than he’d ever been, to the point where he no longer shied away from approaching unfamiliar faces. That being said, he wasn’t quite quick to introduce himself to the unfamiliar face who’d shown up in the school yard. In fact, he hadn’t even laid his eyes on Jasmine Chamberlain before he heard the first whispers about her. Queens was a cultural hub, one of the most diverse in the country, but that didn’t mean it was always welcoming. High school was never quite welcoming. He’d heard the gossip starting in first period; a new girl from out of town, whose last name didn’t match her family’s, whose mother supposedly died though there was no body to be found at the scene, and whose father was incarcerated. For what, he wasn’t sure – there were at least four different reasons floating around the school halls, but likely they were all made up by their classmates. He didn’t care about what they said anyway, Julian was never one for the mean spirited chat of bored teenagers.
So when he finally saw her, he didn’t think twice about walking up to Jasmine Chamberlain to introduce himself. Casually he fell into place beside her, offering a warm greeting accompanied by a dimpled smile and firm handshake. Jasmine seemed innocent enough, not worthy of the social pariah some of his tight knit circle wanted her to be. Almost instantly Julian had decided it was imperative that he get to know Jasmine, and it wasn’t very long before he declared that they were going to be the best of friends. He could be stupidly persistent if he truly wanted to be, and so he’d made a point of going out of his way to greet her every day at school, falling easily into step beside her on the way to mutual classes, and taking about every second to bombard her with questions about her life before Queens and everything he could discern about her. Somehow, perhaps just by persistent weaseling, he managed to actually befriend the girl, and before long his declaration had become a firm reality.
Their friendship had persisted through the rest of high school, and even though they attended different universities (albeit still within the same huge city) they remained close into early adulthood. While Jasmine went to NYU, Julian decided to follow the blueprint his father left and attended Columbia University. Despite his deep love and passion for art, he’d opted for a business degree while planning fervently to attend law school. It made Russell happy to have a son following closely in his footsteps, but for Julian it was slowly eating him alive. While college was a fun experience, full of so many firsts and exciting changes, there was a part of him that came to resent himself for the decision he’d made. It wasn’t until he spent a full weekend locked away in his room, buzzing from the many energy drinks he chugged down to stay up and study for the LSAT that he’d suddenly had an epiphany. He didn’t want this, to become an attorney working alongside his father at his firm, having his soul sucked dry by a career that he had no love for. He wasn’t strong enough to spend his entire life pretending to be this person just for his father’s benefit, or to go into more debt just to appease the man. And so at the last second, he decided he wasn’t going to pursue a career as a lawyer anymore, and at the first chance he could he took up a job as a project manager for a startup in Philadelphia and moved away from his father’s disappointing gaze.
III. LIFE IN SHADES OF GRAY
The next few years of Julian’s life seemed to pass by in a dull haze. He eventually found himself working at an SEO firm as a client experience manager, putting his degree to work he supposed. From 9 to 5 he was just going through the motions of his thankless desk job, going home to a nice but lonely townhouse where a glass of wine and his easel awaited him. He regretted forgoing art school to appease his father, but that didn’t stop him from honing his technique. And slowly he got out of his fear of showing his work, inevitably choosing to post onto social media for the world to see. Not that it did much for him; he managed to grab a couple of small freelance jobs here and there, a logo or an ad design finished in the space of a few hours over the weekend, but it wasn’t the career he’d originally dreamed of for himself. He used to fancy himself a future illustrator, an award winning graphic novelist. Dreams weren’t meant to pan out, it seemed. So he watched his life continue to float by, his passions left to the wayside for the stability his father always craved for him. Even when he disappointed the man, Russell Chandler still somehow won.
But the worst thing to Julian was the decline in his closest friendship. Having abandoned his shallow high school friends after graduating, the only thing that remained constant for him for a while had been Jasmine. Even through college, and a bit after, they maintained their close relationship. He’d followed her career as a journalist in New York, being a highly vocal supporter of her work, and they’d remained in contact even when they were no longer living a matter of minutes away from each other – he’d even made the drive from Philly to NYC on the occasional weekend just to see her, not even bothering to stop in Queens to see his own family. She’d been such a cornerstone to his life for so long… He didn’t know how to react when she all but vanished from it. It all changed when she’d suddenly up and left the city, choosing to travel. Something he at first applauded as being cool (and envied immensely) but didn’t think much of.
From that point onward the contact between them grew fewer and fewer in between, until it seemed like Julian was reaching out to a ghost. One sided conversations, one sided friendship. Where the hell had things gone so wrong? How he’d come to find out she was living in a town in Rhode Island – the name of which he’d never heard in his life – wasn’t important. When he’d found out about Lunar Cove, where it seemed she’d settled, he had a strange fancy to pack up his life and run there himself. Maybe Jasmine had the right idea; dropping the big city life and moving to some unknown town to start fresh. Julian was thirty now, and decidedly unhappy with the life he’d fallen into. He’d thought maybe a change of scenery would have done him some good. And maybe having an old friend in the same strange new vicinity would make things a little easier. Sure, it was a bit odd to drop everything in your life just to follow your maybe-still-best-friend but once he’d made up his mind Julian was determined. Without much of a thought he quit his corporate job, sold most of his belongings, including his car, and took the first bus all the way to Lunar Cove, RI.
EPILOGUE? ENTER LUNAR COVE.
Julian’s only been in town for about a month now, and he’s beginning to think this may have been his worst idea yet. He traded a nice townhouse in the big city for a basement apartment in the house of a lovely elderly couple, with the leakiest faucet you’d ever seen among a myriad of other maintenance problems (which he, being the young, generous and strong buck he is, decided he would fix for his kind landlords). He’d given up a high paying job just to be an associate at an art store downtown, and has had little movement in his freelance career – though he tries not to complain. What’s more artsy than being a starving artist after all? Worst of it, though, he has yet to stage a reunion with his childhood friend. In fact, he’s worried of receiving a chilly reception when she realizes he’s unexpectedly showed up in her new town. Who just drops their life to chase a friend you barely speak to anymore?
What Julian Chandler still doesn’t realize is that there are bigger consequences to his arrival in Lunar Cove than just upsetting an old friend. The seconds are ticking by quicker for him, Death’s shadow looming over him as his cruel fate slowly draws nearer and nearer. And as the strange intricacies of Lunar Cove’s society begin to make themselves known to him, he’s going to come closer to having to accept that his life is about to change and will never be the same again.
HEADCANONS
preferred art mediums: for traditional he works primarily in acrylics, graphite/charcoal, watercolor and ink. dabbles in oil but lacks the necessary patience. likewise does digital work.
preferred subjects: portraits (including royal pet paintings), landscapes
art style: can do realism, prefers stylized illustration for graphic novel work and editorial illustrations
plays piano and guitar, the latter of which being one of the few possessions he kept and brought with him when he uprooted his life from philadelphia.
while he maintains a close relationship with his mother, he hasn’t been particularly close to his father or brothers since changing direction with his career/education and it’s become worse since he dropped everything to follow jasmine to lunar cove. as such he hasn’t been home in a long while and kind of craves the normalcy of family; in the mean time he’s practically adopted the elderly couple he lives with as his grandparents and spends most of his time helping around their house than socializing with people his own age since arriving.
that being said he’s DESPERATE for friends and can be extremely outgoing and in his own little way kind of charming. he followed his best friend here, but he’s also looking to build a community of his own so he will absolutely try to befriend even the grumpiest of residents if it means finding a family to replace the one he’s mostly at odds with.
likes puns and tells terrible jokes. his tinder profile is probably a really bad dad joke; thank god he’s cute bc that’s the only reason he gets matches.
he can be an absolute hopeless romantic and loves the idea of romance and being in love… but he’s never really had a serious relationship or attachment. since he spent most of his adult life trying to mold into what his father wanted him to be, and then at a career he didn’t much care for, he tended to attract women who had an expectation of the kind of man he’d be (ie professional, ambitious, career driven, mature kind of guy) only to get a dad joke loving optimistic artist boy, which for some reason they weren’t as into. so he’s never had a relationship that’s lasted more than a month, despite falling quick and hard for whatever pretty face gives him attention.
he played lacrosse in high school and tried to get really into sports culture as a kid but honestly isn’t a huge fan of it. could not make a team, and owns a Phillies baseball cap just because he lived there a long while and felt weird not being as aggressively passionate about the teams as the locals he worked with. He isn’t sure he even knows how most sports work.
carries a journal with him EVERYWHERE. just a beat up pocket sized moleskin that he jots down everything into — from phone numbers, to random thoughts, memos and appointments, and of course random little doodles, and is known to randomly space out and pull said journal out at any opportunity.
sold his car and now he bikes everywhere. no matter the weather, he will bike from his home in echo acres all the way to work in downtown LC. he expects he’ll have the nicest calves in lunar cove within months.
idk more to come when I’m more awake lol
MISC
SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Heterosexual
ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Heteromantic
FAMILY: Russell Chandler (father), Caroline Chandler (mother), Conrad Chandler (eldest brother), Grant Chandler (older brother)
HOMETOWN: Queens, New York
FACE CLAIM: David Corenswet
HEIGHT: 6’4”
EYE COLOR: Blue
HAIR: Dark Brown
DISTINGUISHABLE FEATURES: dimpled grin, effortlessly coiffed wavy hair, scruff/light beard though this only appears when he’s particularly engrossed in a project and hasn’t shaved in a few days as consequence
STYLE: cozy knit jumpers, mismatched socks, bright white sneakers, light wash denim with paint stains here and there, thrusted graphic tees, cracked brown leather jacket, tortoise shell glasses, polos and nice slacks when he’s feeling fancy, shades of blues to match his eyes
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: cancer
PINTEREST: (x)
WANTED CONNECTIONS
Tinder Matches / Dates — he’s new in town, single, flirty and ready to mingle lol no but I seriously think it could be a funny way for him to meet some people. not necessarily meant to be romantic as much as kinda just funny
Ghosted — to go along with the above, maybe the first person he matched with in town but someone ended up ghosting rip. could be another funny interaction that can lead to a fun dynamic.
Customers / Commissioners — regulars at the store who either became fans of jules’s work or needed someone to hire for a freelance job and found him
Neighbor / Jog Buddy — someone in echo acres who is willing to join him on morning runs and maybe build a bit of a friendship with; he can be pretty chatty in the mornings
Model / Muse — someone who has modeled for figure drawing classes in town, and who julian has drawn quite a bit
Student — similar to customers but someone who wanted to gain a new artistic hobby/talent and became julian’s first student in the arts
Coworkers (pls) — pls bring people who also work at blank slate so he can have some fellow art friends
Vampire Sire (future plot, but we can start planting seeds) — there’s so much to this but inevitably julian has to die with vampire blood in his system; let’s start planting the seeds towards a dynamic sire/protege storyline for the future!
Supernatural Sensei — he’s currently oblivious to the supernatural but he will also become quite skeptical as things are shown to him; someone in town has to help him see this stuff is for real reals
Friends — as marked on the tin; he could use all the friends
Enemies / Art Rival — but also would love to see him having people he just doesn’t get along with, or even fellow artists to be rivals
Grouch Who Just Doesn’t Like Him — at least one person can’t like that shiny optimistic boy scout
idk hmu with ideas
EXTRA
This is an old sketch of an old character using the same fc but it still works here for Jules so enjoy will I finish it? Probs not.
3 notes
·
View notes