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beathq-archives-blog · 6 years

Photo

BASICS

full name: daphne moon

age: 20

gender: cis female

pronouns: she/her

department: visual arts

HISTORY

there are those destined for bright lights and magazines, or for briefcases and medical reports. those who turn their dreams of touching the stars into fruition—or as close as they can get, working for nasa, becoming astronauts, searching for new planets and galaxies. those who turn fantasy into reality, spinning worlds of color into dresses and skirts flowing like rivers.

you never really pictured yourself as any of that. you never envisioned yourself to be anything, really.

( question: what do you want to be when you grow up? answer: just like my mom question: what’s your mom like? answer: everything i’m not )

your mother is both your rock and your cage, your inspiration and your downfall. in childhood’s eyes, she is a superhero, a single mom taking on the world even when it is fighting against her. she works long shifts as a nurse, so you bounce from after-school care to your neighbor’s living room to your own when your neighbor isn’t around. the apartment is small and you see your mom worrying over bills you don’t understand, but you two make it work. she puts your crayola drawings on the fridge with dollar tree magnets, and you always make sure to tell her your school day because she always asks.

( there comes a point when she stops asking and you stop sharing. )

even in elementary school, she pushes you to do well, double-checking your spelling and math homework when all you’d rather do is play basketball with the kids down the street. sixth grade rolls around and not much has changed: you’re great at p.e. and drama, but your grades in social studies aren’t exactly stellar. you’re popular and talkative and make people laugh, but your mom just wants you to do better in school.

but you just want to make art. you tote around an old canon point-and-shoot you get from your uncle after he notices you playing with it the last time your mother drives you two hours to his house for christmas dinner. you don’t realize it yet, but that camera holds a promise you won’t break to yourself even if you think you will.

( when you blow your wishes up to the sky, you promise yourself this: do what you love no matter what. )

puberty brings a lot of changes, but you don’t expect mom’s new boyfriend. even more unexpected is the wedding that comes one year later. he’s overly nice and tries too hard, but you suppose with your mother’s inclination towards tough love and candor bordering on harsh, you guess they balance each other out. with a double income and a promotion at the hospital, you end up moving from your apartment and into the suburbs. you even get two step-siblings! isn’t this the happy, wholesome family you’ve always wanted?

( no. no. you and your mom were fine on your own. )

step-sibling one and step-sibling two are okay, you suppose. not best friends, but not at each other's’ throats; you all understand that your parents are happy and so you should try to be too. still, it could be a lot better, especially when your new sister is twenty times more perfect than you’ll ever be. star athlete, star student, star everything who spends her free time volunteering and tutoring and walking dogs. meanwhile, you spend your time getting high and barely turning your homework in on the due date—your new high school doesn’t change your habits no matter how much they try to.

daphne has potential, say teachers at parent-teacher conferences, if only she applied herself more. you’re known for talking back and skipping class, for being a disruption. you’re still the girl everyone goes for a laugh and a good time, but you’re barely passing the one AP class you take junior year, and you’re average in all your others. you spend your weekends stealing alcohol from your stepdad’s liquor cabinet and kissing almost strangers in parks after midnight. when you’re seventeen, you look in the mirror and wonder: did your mother really put herself through so much for you to end up like this?

of course, it’s harder when everyone is pushing you in the direction you don’t want to go, when your passion is supposedly misplaced. making movies isn’t going to get you anywhere even if you did win awards for young, aspiring filmmakers, even if you want to spark conversations about the unspoken. even if you want to tell stories about people like you because not every asian is the awkward nerd or the sexy dragon lady. it doesn’t matter if you take pictures of everything and anything, if you capture the giddiness of a couple newly in love or the smile in your friend’s face as you catch her mid-laugh. it doesn’t matter that the money you saved up from your part-time job went into a new lens when your stepsister is two years into her degree at stanford or your cousin has just been hired as a software engineer at google.

what makes you think you can make a career out of a camera? your mother asks you, and you wonder if you two have ever seen each other at all, or if you’ve been too busy piling expectations on each other to take a closer look. either way, you resign yourself to maybe a business or computer science degree; you at least know you really, really suck at bio, so med school’s out of the question.

graduation rolls around and you can’t feel more relieved to throw that cap up in the air. while some classmates head off to start their freshman year at cal poly and usc and columbia, others take a gap year. one of your friends goes backpacking across europe. and you? community college. might as well knock your g.e.’s out before you declare an average degree that’ll pave the way to an average nine-to-five.

it’s halfway through an econ lecture when you ask yourself what the fuck am i doing? you hate this. you’re not meant for business meetings and data entry. you have more fun in the screenwriting elective you took because you had room for it. you decide not to apply to transfer after your two years at the jc are up, and instead book a one-way ticket to the east coast to keep that promise to yourself. your friend in dc needs a roommate, you’ve got the entire summer and maybe more to build an even better portfolio, and if all goes according to plan—which really isn’t your forte—you’ll apply to film school. your parents aren’t sure what you’re doing and you’re not either, but it’s about time you take a risk that doesn’t involve some drunk dare.

the b-side happens on accident. you find it through someone you’ve been following on instagram, and after you watch one performance, you’re hooked. the atmosphere is exhilarating; there’s passion in every spoken word, in every song. it doesn’t take long for you to become one of their videographers, and the long days and late nights you shoot are all worth it. someone once told you a vibrant soul like yours belongs in front of the camera, but you’ve never felt more right behind it.

( question: what do you want to be when you grow up? answer: everything i told myself i’d be. )

( played by JENNIE KIM & penned by IZZIE. )

#( f. )#( visual art. )#new rp #semi appless rp #oc rp #city rp

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