Hope Morgan

Hope Morgan / Willa Fitzgerald

OOC

Game Journal Portrayed By
Stairs hopeitsadream Willa Fitzgerald

Basic Stats

Full Name: Hope Caroline Morgan (but actually Helen Lisa Townsend)
Nickname(s): None
Gender: Female
Age: 23
Date of Birth: June 19, 1995
Zodiac: Gemini
Sexuality: Straight
Relationship Status: Single
Birthplace: Boulder, CO
Job: None yet, will likely become a barista

Family

Father: Charles Morgan (lawyer; deceased)
Mother: Elizabeth Morgan (née Craig; doctor; deceased

Actual Father: Steve Townsend (architect)
Actual Mother: Kelly Townsend (née Flynn; CPA)

History

Hope Morgan was the only child of power-couple Charles and Elizabeth Morgan. High school sweethearts, Charles and Elizabeth dated all through undergrad, got married, then had something of a long-distance marriage as they attended law school and medical school, respectively. Once they were living in the same city again (Boulder, Colorado), they set to work on that whole family thing, but their lives were so busy with their respective jobs that they decided to only have one child. Hope didn't actually see her parents much when she was growing up, mostly because they worked such long and odd hours, but her parents made sure she knew that she was loved.

Her childhood was full of extracurricular activities to keep her busy while her parents worked their long hours. Hope cycled through several types of lessons: gymnastics, karate, tennis, softball. But her favorite lessons by far were the dance lessons. Dance was a wonderful combination of art and sport, and it spoke to her more than any of the other activities. Having found an extracurricular that she loved, she started focusing her energy on that, while her parents, with their well-paying jobs, were happy to keep her in lessons and buy anything she needed for them.

Upon reaching high school, Hope auditioned for and joined the school's dance team, but as her friends and classmates were looking to the future for what they wanted to do, Hope just ... didn't really know. She focused on the dance team and her classes, but nothing (besides dance) really interested her. Her parents kept trying to entice her to be interested in the sort of high-powered, well-paying careers that they had, but after having grown up with her parents always either at work or on call, she was definitely not interested in being either a doctor or a lawyer. And although she loved dance, she wasn't sure if she was ready to commit to that as a career.

High school ended, and at her parents' insistence Hope started attending the University of Colorado Boulder, starting out with an undeclared major. Ultimately, with little interest in going to college just to get shunted into a random career, Hope dropped out after her second semester. Her furious parents insisted that she at least get a job or they'd kick her out, so she found a job waiting tables at a nearby restaurant. Of course, waiting tables wasn't exactly what she wanted to do with her life, either, but it sure beat treading water in classes she wasn't interested in at college.

Everything changed, however, in February of 2017. Charles and Elizabeth were at a dinner where Elizabeth was being presented with an award during a typical Colorado Winter Storm. Even those with years of experience driving in such weather can have trouble, and that's exactly what happened when they were on their way home from the dinner. Hope got home from a late shift at the restaurant to an empty house, and when a call to her mother's cell phone went to voicemail (her mother never let a call go to voicemail), Hope called a family friend for help. The family friend traced the Morgans' route backwards and found the wreckage of the car: they'd hit a patch of black ice and careened into the side of a mountain. Both Charles and Elizabeth had died on impact.

The following year was one that Hope would sooner forget. Trying to grieve for her parents while having to take on what felt like the whole world: planning their funerals, having all sorts of financial information dumped on her, learning about assets and mortgage and loans. It was all more than Hope could really take, and she sort of just shut down. She gave her parents' estate lawyer free rein to do whatever was necessary to get the family's finances into a manageable state for her, up to and including selling their house: only a month after her parents' death, Hope felt haunted by their presence in the house that was far too large for her to live in on her own. She rented an apartment in town and let the lawyer put the house up on the market. When the house sold in February of 2018, they sold anything left in the house (when Hope had moved out, she took a few of her things with her) that the buyers didn't want to keep. At that point, Hope was looking to get out of Boulder, maybe even entirely out of Colorado. Everywhere she went, she was reminded of her parents: the hospital where her mom worked was unavoidable, there was the street with the high-rise that held her father's office, not to mention all the places they'd taken her as she was growing up. Nearly every street in Boulder held a reminder for Hope of the family she'd lost.

Somehow, she ended up in a small suburban community right outside Seattle, Washington. She got a job there as a barista, an apartment, even started making some new friends. But then in October she was on her way home from work when she passed a door that... hadn't been there earlier. And it wasn't even a door to anything, it was just standing there in the middle of an alley, no building around it. A peek around the doorframe revealed just the alley, but opening the door revealed a meadow. Curious, Hope was drawn through the door and into the meadow, but when she turned around the door was gone.

AND NOW FOR THE REAL STORY:

Helen Townsend was the only child of Steve and Kelly Townsend. They were hardly a power couple: Steve was a partner in an architecture firm and Kelly was self-employed as a CPA for several small businesses in the small town they lived in outside of Boulder. Helen grew up surrounded by extended "family" (close friends of her parents' who were practically adoptive) and love. She did take dance classes, though she wasn't on the school's dance team. And she did have dreams: to become an architect like her dad. She didn't go to UC Boulder, she went to NYU. She FaceTimed with her parents and friends back home frequently, but loved the hustle and bustle of the big city, the towering feats of architecture, the culture. She also loved Roger, her boyfriend who was studying to become a nurse.

Helen was close to graduating when her world was flipped upside-down. February of 2017 didn't see her parents die in a car crash on an icy mountain road (to her knowledge, her parents are both still alive), but rather a different death: Helen and Roger were out walking when they took a wrong turn and ended up at the mouth of an alley, where they saw a man executed. They ran away, but they had been seen. They went to the police station and told a detective what they had seen, leaving statements with their names and phone numbers. Two weeks later, Roger was found murdered in his apartment. That day the police took Helen into protective custody. She remained in protective custody for nearly a year before the man who had killed both the man in the alley and Roger was put on trial. Even after he was in jail, Helen received a death threat, so the police decided it would be safest to put her into witness protection.

After a teary final goodbye to her parents, who had flown out to New York to see her, Helen Townsend became Hope Morgan. She was given a new family, a new background, a new identity. She was sent all the way across the country, to reduce the chances of her being recognized after having her picture in newspapers for months. Helen-- now Hope-- tried to put together as much of a life as she could in Washington, even though she hoped it would only be temporary: if the men who the hitman had worked for were brought down, she would be safe to resume her old life and return to her home. She was still clutching to that hope when she walked through the door and ended up somewhere far away from where she would never be able to return home (as she will find out once she learns more about where she is).

Personality

Hope is the sort who will be there for her friends through thick and thin. If it hurts you, it hurts me too. But because she treasures her friends so deeply, she tends to be picky as to who she'll allow close; she'd rather a few close friends than dozens of shallow friends. But she is very friendly and sociable, always ready with a smile, which helps make her a great waitress. She's also an active sort, one of those weird people who actually enjoys running, and she also loves to dance.

Abenterra

Arrival: End of October, 2018
From where: Earth; Seattle, WA, most recently
With what: Watch on one wrist, wristful of bracelets on the other. The clothes on her back (jeans, button-up shirt, black sneakers, socks, underwear, bra). Purse with phone, gum, apartment keys, lipstick, earbuds, taser, pepper spray, wallet (with cash, a debit card, driver's license), an assortment of coins, probably some lint.
Home: To be discovered, but she'll start out at the castle for a while.

Trivia / Random Facts