May Lawson

## May Procter

2018

**May Naomi Procter**, *né* **Lawson** (b. December 30th, 1997 as *Maria LéCoultre*) is the main deuteragonist of *Of Cigarettes & Copulation*, which details her meeting, alliance, and eventual romance with Jacob Delsin, as the two engage in a violent fourteen-day campaign to topple the Sacchitello Crime Family which culminates in a domestic terror attack upon the Stansfield Building.

## Biography

### Early Life

LéCoultre was born in Syracuse, New York and from a young age had spent her life in poverty, after her father ran off during the 2001 financial crisis. Maria's only connection to him onwards was his vinyl collection, which included artists such as *The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, David Bowie* and *The Smiths*, all of which she soon fell in love with. As the daughter of a neglectful and frequently hot-tempered mother, Maria grew to see her elder brother Noah as a makeshift parental figure in her life and would often turn to him for comfort and protection when upset or the focus of her mother's outbursts. At some point, Maria met Eliza Harrower and the two remained friends for the remainder of her childhood.

At the age of twelve, her older brother had decided it in their best interests to run away from home, taking Maria along with him, the two snuck out of the house after their mother had left for work and caught a late-night train to New York City using tickets that Noah had been saving up for several months to buy, they began their new and unforgivingly harsh lives living on the cold streets, taking up the aliases of "May" & "Ethan Lawson".

Over the next half-a-decade, the pair would typically crash on couches and find occupancy in one of the overcrowded homeless centers of the big city. May dated several partners during this time and was a frequent victim of both physical, sexual and emotional abuse from her partners. She could usually be spotted in the subway or in city parks playing her ukulele and begging for change, avoiding sex work out of fear of further abuse and her elder brother's insistence. Ethan worked odd jobs in construction and elsewhere that would hire him under-the-table since he had no legal identification under his new alias.

A stroke of luck hit the siblings on March 7th, 2016, when May received an exorbitantly generous cash tip from a polite stranger. Meanwhile, Ethan had finally able to secure an under-the-table but extremely high pay wage job, being hired for $20/hr under special detail by Stansfield Industries. Little did he know, that his contract was directly tied to the illegal and inhumane dealings between the largely influential-yet-secretive Sacchitello Crime Family and the unknown "M" firm. Over the next year and a half, Ethan would be responsible for opening several local "support groups" for struggling addicts, alcoholics and homeless, whilst unbeknowingly the attendees of such meetings were monitored, kidnapped and trafficked to an upstate facility where they were subject to the experimentation of a highly classified military bioweapon and a newly developed drug with similar intended outcomes, that would cause extreme levels of agitation, paranoia, hallucinations and irreversible brain damage to those involved.

Ethan, while in the dark as to the true nature of his position and of his employers, had become aware fairly quickly of the disappearances, and while struggling with the morality of the situation, soldiered on, pouring all the money he earned into providing for his sister, finally being able to afford her an apartment and gifting her with a refurbished Volkswagen bus for her 19th birthday. In turn, he also took caution that nobody he worked with was aware of his sister's existence, the one exception to the rule being Logan Benson, an extremely close friend who would become romantically-involved and later engaged to May.

A year later, Ethan's guilt caught up with him and he not only learned of these experiments but actively tried to expose them to the public, even after several threats against him, making him an active target. Finally, a hitman was hired to take care of Ethan and attacked him as he was leaving his apartment later that evening. Ethan managed to make his way to a nearby payphone and placed a final call to his sister, attempting to apologize for his actions and explain his situation. He was shot mid-call by the assassin, traumatizing May for the rest of her life.

## Personality

Perhaps May's most defining character trait is her openly stoic and sardonic behavior; a traditional cynic, May's usual range of reactions don't fall far beyond deadpan sarcasm, usually vocalized by a dry and witty joke at the expense of herself or others.

## Appearances

* Nihilist Apathy
	+ *One Cold Night*
* Of Cigarettes & Copulation
* Nihilist Apathy
	+ *Saudade*
* Holmes

## Killed Victims

This list shows the victims Ryley has killed:

* Anthony Sacchitello

## Relationships

Family
* Bethany LéCoultre - Mother
* Ethan Lawson † - Brother
* Noah Miller - Son

Romantic
* Logan Benson † - Ex-Fiancé turned Enemy
* Jacob Delsin † - Partner
* Eliza Harrower

Friends
* Kevin Lesler † - Friend and Ally
* Chuck Garland † - Ally
* Lyla Painter - Ally
* Trevor Renton - Ally
* Elijah T. Cole - Ally
* Pablo Fuentes † - Ally
* Quint Schraeder - Ally
* Tony Santoro † - Ally
* Jennifer Mulgrew - Ally
* Simon MacGregor - Ally

Enemies
* Michael Sacchitello † - Arch-Enemy
* Anthony Sacchitello † - Enemy and Victim
* Weston Harringfield - Enemy

## Further Notes

* Several main influences for the character of May Lawson include Lisbeth Salander, Jessica Jones, Marla Singer, Elizabeth Comstock, Vesper Lynd, Mona Sax, Hayley Stark, Nikki Swango and Ava Lord.
* Several of May's fake aliases are references to *The Beatles*, such as *Lucy Diamond* (a portmanteau of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds), *Molly Jones* (and, by extension, Jacob's alias of *Desmond Jones*, from Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da), *Sexy Sadie*, *Julia Harrison* (a reference to both the song Julia as well as rhythm guitarist George Harrison), *Eleanor Starr* (drummer Ringo Starr and Eleanor Rigby), and *Rose Lennon* (singer/guitarist John Lennon and Maxwell's Silver Hammer)
* It's alluded to several times that May suffers from Cotard's Syndrome, an extremely rare mental disorder in which those afflicted hold the delusional belief that they are dead (either figuratively or literally), do not exist, or have lost their blood or internal organs.