Name: Uriah Laurent
Nicknames/Alias: Poet (by… a previous lover), Pa (by his children)
Age: 30
Gender: male, he/him
Sexuality: gay, but will vehemently deny it
Personality: Uriah has always been a sensible, matter-of-fact type of person. Usually he likes to be in the background, observing from afar. However, through his experiences he has learned to be vocal, to get into the thick of things when necessary. He has also learned to stay composed at the same time. He has a calm, unassuming presence, and if you were a mere acquaintance, you’d think he didn’t have any sense of humor. If you knew him better, perhaps as a friend, you’d know his sense of humor is more specific, more… dark. You’d also know that he has an eye for drama and gossip, though as an observer, not a participant. He tends to hide a more spontaneous, perhaps more flamboyant side.
Appearance: Uriah is a bit on the thinner side, though his legs have more noticeable muscle. Overall his frame is very angular and bony, and he has the complexion of newly polished wood. He has a boxy face with a sharp jaw, and he has large facial features, aside from his eyes which are more narrow. His eyes are also small coals, framed by thick eyebrows. He has a slight tooth gap behind his full lips, and his dark hair is close cut to his head, with it being slightly longer at the top.
Backstory: Uriah was born in 1893 to a lumberman father and a school teacher mother. His father was a formerly enslaved man who escaped when he was a teenager, and met his mother once he started selling lumber. After a few years, they married and had Uriah. They lived on the outskirts of a small town near a forest, where his father could pick up the wood from the lumberjacks and take it to the town to sell. It was a mostly black settlement that his father helped to found, and it was quiet. Simple. People knew each other, and helped each other. And so, Uriah’s early childhood was rather blissful. Until, well… his parents tried having another child after him, and it ended in a miscarriage. Uriah was around 2 years old, and he barely remembers it now, but he does have the recollection that something changed. His mother. She had always seemed stuck in a distant time. So did his father, likely in the time when he was enslaved but he showed that externally with his stern voice and bursts of anger, which intensified after the miscarriage. His mother kept it inside, with only her eyes drifting off into the distance and her voice going quiet to show for it. For a while, she couldn’t seem to give Uriah much attention. He didn’t understand what had happened until much later. As the years went by, things slowly returned to normal. Mostly. Things had changed, and the town grew. In school, Uriah showed his intellect and creativity, but he wasn’t the best at making friends. Luckily, he wasn’t bullied too often since his mother was the teacher.
When he was around 9, the town became subjected to a race riot. To this day, he doesn’t know what caused it. Perhaps a white town nearby saw how their black settlement was growing and grew scared. It was raining that day, so everyone was inside, and there was little time to realize something was wrong before the first bullet shattered a window. It wasn’t long before chaos ensued, and the sky turned from dark gray to a burning orange. The Laurents’ home was set ablaze too. They all made it out, but they had no where to go but away. They passed through other towns, one Italian family even took them in for a while. Then, a few months after they were expelled from their home, his mother’s brother contacted them and let them stay at his place. It was a nice house, and there was enough room for everyone. Uriah’s uncle took a shine to him, and they hung out with each other a lot. This sparked his interest in film and screenplay. Although in the beginning, his uncle worked more with cameras and photography, the way he chose his subjects and seeing how he made decisions about how to depict them fascinated Uriah. Things settled down during this time. Although he was interested in his uncle’s work, during this time, at around 11, he started helping his father with lumbering. And, although things seemed to have settled down, he was not shielded from the hatred and discrimination from white neighbors. His parents tried their best, but even as a child, Uriah was robbed, verbally abused, and humiliated. He always seemed to handle this with surprising maturity, but really he didn’t want his parents to worry. A while later, his uncle said he was going to Europe to see what filmmaking and photography was like there, and he left the house in the Laurent’s care. Uriah then began to explore his new interests with more vigor. They offered an escape from all the struggles, sometimes a way to express his feelings about those struggles. He would sometimes take a photograph, then write a poem or narrative based on the photograph. His parents thought it was a little strange, but for the most part, they supported him. This eventually led to him following his uncle to Europe.
That came to a halt once the war began. Both Uriah and his uncle had to move back to America, where he felt… mostly distracted. This distraction became evident when he completed his first motion picture, with the help of his uncle. It was a short flick about a man traveling the world. Eventually, when America joined the war, his father was drafted. This wore his mother down even more than she already was, so Uriah didn’t become a soldier. He decided to work in a military office. He received a letters from his father every now and again, but eventually they stopped. He never heard from his father again. There was no word of whether he was dead or alive. Just that he was declared missing and never found. Uriah moved on. He didn’t want to worry his mother. Writing poems and screenplays when he could was a nice distraction. He met a woman who he eventually befriended, and later he married her to please his mother and to reassure himself that… well, he was normal. After the war, they settled down and he decided to take up his father’s old job of selling lumber. He also got in contact with his uncle again, and dove a little deeper into the world of film. Although the discrimination he faced prevented him from making it big, he did gain a foothold once he released a second motion picture. It was a bit of a rocky start though, the reception of both films were mixed. Uriah began to doubt himself, despite his wife and uncle reassuring him. Speaking of which, his marriage also became a little rocky. Especially when his wife, Evelyn, expressed a desire for children. He became distant from her, but his mother also expressed a desire for grandchildren, and so he went through with it to appease them both. And so, he started a family with Evelyn. This only eased some of the tension. A boy, another boy, and a girl. Only then was his wife satisfied. To be fair, Uriah did love his family. He understood Evelyn’s wants and needs, but it was easier for him to think of her as a sister and a friend, not a wife or lover. Meanwhile, he tried something different. He collected all the poetry he had written over the years and decided to publish it as an anthology. This was a considerable success, and it allowed to him to push further with his films. He decided to do something more ambitious, and more risky. A full feature film. This was how “Me and Achilles” was born.
Song(s): Power- Damien Escobar, The Weight of Us- Sanders Bohlke, Talk to You- Ricky Montgomery
Other: This man wrote a lot of homoerotic poetry. I just know he did. He didn’t publish it though, for obvious reasons. Also, his children are very sweet. They are Adam (3), Jerome (2), and Louisa (6 months)
