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monsterheartshq · 4 years

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THE GHOST.

“ tormented, insecure, intuitive, fickle. the ghost is all about channeling past trauma, seeing people’s true selves, and having spooky powers. ”

biography.

name. letty hollister age. twenty one occupation. waitress at abigail’s diner sexuality. demisexual, demiromantic gender. cisfemale faceclaim. danielle campbell monster. ghost

origin.

she was born colette elizabeth vogel to two middle-class german-american parents on july 6th, 1933 in camden, maine. she grew up in a quaint suburb, ate family dinners at six sharp, listened to war reports on the radio, was the type of girl who was always gifted an extra soda or an extra candy bar by adults. boys chased her from the age of fourteen but the one she ended up with was a boy she used to chase, a childhood friend born two years before her. they were really, truly, happy for a few years, for a little while. one december, on the way home from an office party, another car struck hers. she’d been twenty-one.

but that was all over now. that had been her life, and all she had before her was an afterlife. it wasn’t much for a long time, little more than despair given form, drowning in anger and confusion and longing for what she saw in her memories. thankfully, there were other ghosts out there to guide her out of her worst fate, and she made her way back to reality and society. she learned she could sense others’ emotions, could gather strength from the negative ones. she learned how to use her energy to communicate with the living and got quite good at it, haunting her family and hometown long enough to fear too much attention. one day, jostling through a box of mementos from her human life stored in the attic, she touched her favorite string of pearls and suddenly felt more solid than she had since she died. she was gaunt and uncanny even to herself, but it was so much like being a human that she decided to stay that way for as long as she could.

with her mementos anchoring her to the living and her innate empathy helping her partially overcome the overall unease she gave off enough to have distant acquaintances, she lived amongst humans for decades. sometimes, however, one painful flashback would be too much for or she would get too caught up in who and why and she’d be plummeted into timeless despair once more, only guided back to the present by other spirits or great displays of emotion. it’s best for her to keep going through the motions; stick around for as long as you can and keep your head down. help humans when you can, avoid trouble when you can’t, and don’t think about things you’re better off not thinking about. it gets easier all the while, but sometimes it just hits you and you’re plunged into complete sorrow all over again.

currently, she goes by letty hollister and is in her third year at byrne university after first coming to cinderbrush as a supposed freshman majoring in psychology. normally, she would’ve avoided a town like cinderbrush like the plague, with its haunted waters and haunted forest and haunted lake, but whatever drew so many tormented spirits to cinderbrush drew her, too. she didn’t completely understand how, but it made her stronger, closer to humanity than ever. between cinderbrush and her trinkets, being almost human was as easy as a ghost could ever hope. if only she wasn’t so obviously inhuman beneath her girlish features, with skin that got paler, hair that got lanker, and eye circles that got darker with each passing day between feedings. those that were sensitive to the supernatural often were able to guise what she had looked like upon her death–blood blooming on her chest, face cut up, lips deathly blue–which meant that nearly all animals avoided her, several people as well, and even an untrained eye could sometimes catch how letty never seemed to breathe or never looked any different one day to the next. it certainly didn’t hurt that she knew herself to be about sixty years older than the students around her and never went much out of her way to behave any differently. what was the point? she would have to leave in a few years anyways and it seemed awfully dishonest to lie to others anymore than her body already did.

letty longed for some kind of emotional anchor to the living nonetheless, and tried to make up for it by being overtly helpful, always swooping in to solve someone’s problem, offering a shoulder to cry on, uncannily hospitable but altogether still very distant. she was surprised to find anything of the sort in cinderbrush. she’d found and revealed herself to the gorgon, who needed letty just as much as letty needed them. then there was the ghoul, figuring out their place in the afterlife much like letty had, but different somehow, held here by something other than trauma and rage. they might need her. and if she was needed, she wouldn’t go anywhere.

look.

unnerving eyes. dubious smile. classic red lip. old hollywood waves. dark hair, white face. a perfume that doesn’t exist anymore. a dress just like one your grandma wore in a picture you have. a record player skipping. cool to the touch. encyclopedic knowledge. feeling helpful. being helpless. out of place, out of time. eerie. yearning. unchanging. faded. repressed. empty. lights flickering. glass shattering. doors slamming. barely-there fingerprints. a mixture of snow and rain. a woman’s wail on the wind.

moves.

unresolved trauma. you project the blame and trauma of your death onto your current situation.

creep. when you secretly witness someone in their most intimate moments, perhaps showering or sleeping, you learn a secret about them. the mun chooses how big of a secret it is that you learn about their character.

hungry ghost. you find sustenance in sadness. others feel compelled to dump their emotional problems on you,

social circle.

the disciple: there is something off about the disciple. they have a smile on their face that just doesn’t reach their eyes, and it seems like no one has noticed it yet. that is, no one except the ghost. the ghost doesn’t trust them. they spend enough time observing people around them to know when someone is up to something, and the disciple is definitely up to someone. so the ghost has made a point to watch them. and most often they happens at night, when the disciple is alone in their room, sleeping. at their most vulnerable. but the ghost knows something is up, and they’re going to figure out what it is... and then figure out how to warn someone.

the ghoul: being a ghost is… strange. time doesn’t move the same way as it did when you’re alive. it happens all at once, and you’re just… stuck. witnessing it all move around you. and sometimes you can control where you go, sometimes you can’t. but moments of intense emotion, you get pulled there. that’s what happened when the ghoul died. the ghost was taken there, and witnessed the entire thing. they also witness the ghoul being resurrected. the ghost is unsure how to approach the situation. they’re not sure how memory works for the ghoul, and if they have any memories of before now. but the ghost feels compelled to share what they know about the ghoul. about how they died. they just aren’t sure how the ghoul will take it, which is what has stopped them from saying anything thus far.

the gorgon: there is comfort the gorgon gets from being around the ghost. you see, the ghost is already dead, so nothing the gorgon does to them could damage them further. talking with the ghost its freeing, and one of the only times the gorgon doesn’t have to shield their gaze. they can laugh and sing and find that human connection they so desperately crave. and what does the ghost get out of all of this? they get a friend. someone who will treat them as if everything is normal. thats what they give each other. a sense of normalcy.

this character skin is TAKEN

#the ghost #taken

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sapphicscholar · 5 years

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Pride Month Prompts Day 22: Wedding (Grace/Frankie)

From this Pride Month Prompts post! I’m taking the opportunity to write some short fics for a variety of pairings that I haven’t written for as much. I’ll be sure to tag them all with #pride month prompts so you can find them later if you’d like!

Day 22: Wedding - on AO3 as Casual Simplicity

Pairing: Grace/Frankie

A/N: I apologize if this has already been done and I haven’t gotten to read that particular fic yet!

“Marry me.”

They’re words Grace never expected to hear again, not after 40 years of a loveless marriage came crumbling down around her, the husband she’d tolerated for so long apparently deciding that the years she gave him weren’t enough to make up for that “more” he’d gone chasing in another man’s arms, sneaking away on long “business trips” and leaving her alone with the children she’d come to love but had never wanted for her own sake. But the words are real. Nick is real, sitting there, right in front of her, looking perfectly handsome in a tailored suit from a designer that Grace has heard of and approves of. But the words—they have to be a joke, and she says as much.

Only Nick doesn’t leave. He stays there, telling her he doesn’t care if it’s crazy; he wants to marry her anyway. There’s an answer for every question, even that why that Grace has tried to avoid thinking too hard about when it comes to most of her romantic decisions. But Nick smiles up at her, more guileless than he’ll ever be during the business day, and tells her it’s simple, says, “I love you,” says, “I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

And there’s something so damn attractive about simple.

Robert had seemed simple. He was a lawyer from a wealthy family with a charming smile and an easy laugh. He was a perfect gentleman on their dates, never pushing her to do things she didn’t want to do—later, she’ll wonder if all those years of polite manners were just repression dressed up in bourgeois niceties. When he asked her to marry him, neither of them asked why, neither of them wondered if it would be enough, if it would be the kind of love that sent them reeling. They fit. Socially, politically, financially, hell, even aesthetically—Robert’s taller, slightly stockier frame the perfect accessory to finish off Grace’s ensembles, right along with all shimmering, pre-packed gift jewelry that accentuated prominent collar bones and thin wrists and long, perfectly manicured fingers.

Simple makes sense. Simple is Byron telling Grace she’s “smokin’ hot” and sweeping her off her feet—quite literally—his desire plain for the world to see. Simple is the way her body had reacted to that show of need, of someone wanting her so clearly, so straightforwardly, at least until her mind caught up with her.

Everything with Nick would be simple. Problems would be purchased and turned into solutions or made to disappear. Love would be something declared in clear prose. Meals would appear and could be ignored in turn, the dishes vanishing and leftovers sliding down a garbage disposal that would never be clogged with paint or dirt or the DVR remote that had gone missing weeks ago. Sex would happen on a semi-regular basis and would continue to be semi-good, and Vybrant, promising older women that they could enjoy genuinely fulfilling sexual pleasure, would continue to flourish, and never would she let herself hold those two things up side-by-side for a comparison that might show her things she didn’t want to see.

Grace leans over and kisses Nick, hoping it’s answer enough when she can’t make her mouth form the sounds needed to agree to this next simple step. He cups her jaw and kisses her, smiling into it, and it isn’t Byron’s rough hands, but it’s real. It isn’t some video broadcast to the whole Internet talking about kisses that never happened—kisses offered in jest and discussed in public and penciled into Grace’s otherwise pristine planner in all capital letters, but never a real option.

As Grace walks down the beach, tucked into Nick’s side, she finally manages a, “Yes.” And that settles it. Because Nick doesn’t offer things he doesn’t mean. He doesn’t proposition someone for years only to laugh—loudly, too loudly—and insist it had been a great big tease all along when they finally start to say yes.

Only, it turns out that for all his simplicity, Nick wants some of that simplicity in return. He wants someone who will want him back. Can deal with a third player in the game, but not when it becomes clear that player 3 will always be priority 1.

They’re in the back of Nick’s car, flying down the highway on their way to be married, but all Grace can think about, can talk about, is Frankie. About what Frankie said. About everything Frankie has done. About all the ways Frankie has been telling her, again and again, even after her walking disease of a boyfriend took his yurt and fucked off, that what they have isn’t enough—and why shouldn’t it be enough? Why can’t it be enough? Why is Grace—again, always—being told that what she valued as enough someone else saw as lacking, never the “more” that would somehow make it worthwhile?

Nick shrugs his shoulders, as laissez-faire in his attitude towards Frankie’s behavior as he wants the government to be about his business. “Maybe Kooky wants something that you already have without her.”

“And what the hell would that be?” Grace snaps, yanking her hand free of Nick’s, too annoyed to want his easy comfort right now.

Nick turns to face her head on then, and Grace can see something like resignation in his expression, wonders how she’s fucked another thing up today, all before the sun has even set. “I meant me. A relationship.”

“Oh.”

Before Grace can get out one of those light, breezy laughs and paper over the fact that she’s forgotten the very thing she’s on her way to concretize in binding, legal documents, Nick takes her hand in his once more. “Maybe I should have listened when you told me this was crazy.”

“Nick.”

“I love you, Grace. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But not when you’ll always be there wondering about someone else.”

“It’s not the same,” Grace insists, her voice cracking as Nick’s words edge close—too close—to the questions that she’s been trying to quiet with pills and drown in vodka.

“No, it’s not the same. But I think I’m on the losing side here.”

---

Hovering on that thin line between still drunk and already hungover that would normally have Grace reaching for either a new drink or an Ambien and a few Advil, Grace pulls her sweater tighter around herself to ward off the chill as she wanders down the beach. The sea lions are quiet now, the breeze barely a whisper in the air. If only Bud and Allison had scheduled their wedding for 4am, then no one would have known that Grace couldn’t make heads or tails of Frankie’s pictionary Post Its.

The lights are almost all out at the beach house now, though the outside decorations are still up, long strings of fairy lights twinkling in the night sky. Grace knows she could walk back in, go up to her room, and sleep in a bed, but after hours of drunken contemplation alone, she isn’t quite sure she deserves it. Yes, Frankie had left stupid notes that made no fucking sense, but Grace could have asked, could have dealt with Joan Margaret and gotten on Frankie’s calendar, or pulled a Frankie and scrawled her name across the entire day (and she thinks Frankie may well have honored such a request). Instead, she’d assumed that Frankie was being, well, Kooky—and the caricature of Kooky that Nick thought he knew, not the slightly kooky but also brilliant, caring, warm woman Grace had come to know over the years.

Of course, there’s still anger there, too. Anger at Frankie for thinking that her life only meant something if she drank disgusting cacao and slept in a yurt on a beachfront in La Jolla and stole the Whole Foods groceries Grace was still buying for her and acted like somehow it was all enlightened because some man who smelled like feet and patchouli told her it was. Anger at Frankie for getting stoned and tweeting out promises that would bankrupt the company they’d worked so hard to build together—their refuge in a world that told them they didn’t matter. Anger at Frankie for posting some poorly edited video that made it sound like they were some old lesbian couple selling vibrators and sneaking into one another’s rooms late at night to kiss and test out their merchandise. Anger at Frankie for making her think about those things, making her wonder about those possibilities.

Then Frankie’s own anger and hurt comes rushing back at her. The betrayal in her voice when she’d seen the store-bought cake—the last straw that seemed to scream into that big empty kitchen: “I don’t trust you to do anything, not even when it comes to your children.” But Grace’s mind keeps returning, again and again, to the big fuck you moment—at least the one Frankie named as such. “You ran away with your boyfriend.” Grace absolutely loathes the hope she can feel bubbling up in her chest at the thought that maybe Frankie does see value in what they are together, that maybe Nick hurt Frankie—not because he was a capitalist or a fiscal conservative, but because he was there, with Grace, the new second name to her “Grace and”—as much as the yurt hobo and the version of Jacob who’d decided Santa Fe was a good idea had hurt Grace.

Eventually Grace settles herself in on a pile of rocks, tries to ignore the aches and pains that have become so much sharper as all the alcohol from earlier fades into the cold sobriety of almost-morning. Closing her eyes, Grace lets her mind drift, thinks about all that might have been had she run off with Nick and gone through with the marriage. Would she be here now? She doubts it. A wife would have been at home in bed with her husband, not sitting on the beach desperately needing to make things right with the woman who’d been her home for the past five years.

---

It’s a little after sunrise when Grace sees what she thinks is another figure down the beach. Her eyesight isn’t as bad as Frankie’s, but it certainly isn’t what it once was. Deciding it’s worth the potential humiliation of yelling at a stranger or an inanimate object, Grace stands and starts moving toward the blurry shape, yelling, “Frankie!”

But then the blurry shape is standing and yelling, “Grace!” right back at her.

And she doesn’t care that her knee is screaming, doesn’t care that Grace Hanson most definitely does not run, because her heart is pushing her as fast and as far as she can go—even if it isn’t very far or very fast.

“I’ll come to you!” And Frankie, who eats carbs and whipped cream and gummy bears for breakfast, is running like some sort of elite athlete in the 65+ category, while Grace waits, half hobbling, desperately hoping her knee won’t give out on her now.

Then Frankie is in front of her, and all the anger slips away in the face of the person she might have lost, maybe forever, and everything Grace has been thinking comes pouring out of her. Apologies for the terrible things she’s said. Admissions that she’s become a better person, someone that most days she can stand to look at in the mirror, with Frankie at her side. And somehow it all builds to Grace, standing on the beach, waves crashing beside them and the surf inching closer and closer to their feet, holding Frankie close, calling her a best friend, a partner, telling her that she needs her. And there’s nothing simple about that need. There are no straightforward lines where Frankie can do x or be y to fulfill z. It’s a need mingled with pangs of annoyance and frustration and anger but wrapped up in what Grace is finally realizing is love, and somehow that outweighs everything else, makes it simple even when it’s not. “I need you,” Grace repeats, blinking back tears that make Frankie look blurry, even now when she’s only inches away.

“Oh, I need you too.” Frankie falls into her arms with the words, holds her tight, the last vestiges of their fight falling away the longer they stay like that. “So, let’s go home.”

A sentimental part of Grace that rarely rears its head, and even more rarely gets anything out, wants to say that she’s already there. Instead she blurts out, “Nick asked me to marry him.” In an instant, all the happiness and love in Frankie’s expression is clouded over with hurt. “I—we’re not.”

“Not getting married?”

“Not getting married. Not together.” A deep breath. “He felt like he was always competing with you. Competing and losing.” Frankie’s usual taunts about beating Nick in any way are absent. She looks cautious, and Grace wonders if the same fragile hope is demanding shelter from her too. “Maybe he’s right.”

The quiet maybe isn’t enough to bring Frankie back to that joyous openness—not after she’s put back up those walls so few people realize she has in the face of all the pain Grace’s declaration had been poised to deliver.

This will never be simple, and Frankie will never be Robert, assuming Grace will say yes because it follows logically. She will never be Nick, convinced so deeply of her own charms that she’ll put her heart on the line in matters of love without a moment’s hesitation. Despite the “fuck it” lifestyle, she will never be Byron, desire plainly written in every move.

But, Grace realizes with a jolt, she can be that for Frankie, can let her see everything she’s offering—no jokes or questions about it.

Grace steps forward, closes the distance that had pulled them apart again. Her hands find Frankie’s arms first, one coming up to hold her jaw, thumb sweeping across her cheekbone. “I’m not going anywhere this time. I promise.” A kiss to the forehead, like Frankie had asked for all those years ago, only to have Grace deny her in a moment of panic about why—dear god, why—the thought of pressing her lips to any part of Frankie had sent her heart pounding. Then Frankie’s cheeks, one after the other. Grace pauses, waiting, centimeters away from Frankie’s mouth. “I promise,” she whispers again, the words ghosting across Frankie’s lips. Her eyes flutter shut as she leans forward, her mouth finding Frankie’s. Just one kiss. One sealed promise. One hint of what might be waiting for them.

When she pulls back, she finds Frankie blinking at her. Everything is still and silent for a long moment.

Frankie’s hand reaches out, tangling around her own. “Let’s go home.”

#pride month prompts #grace x frankie #grace hanson #frankie bergstein #fix-it fic #some spoilers for 5x12 and 5x13 #fanfic #ficlet #fluff with feelings

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starryandersen · 5 years

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ok so I have this idea for the longest time please hear me out. brandon/adam (I’m lost but u can’t tell me you aren’t as well) both of them are hockey players but Brandon is secretly an acclaimed author (zach hyman vibe) and his latest book is an experiment with poetry and of couse it’s about Adam, can’t blame the guy. BUT imagine when somehow the secret is revealed and Adam gets suspicious after all of his friends tell him to read it and he caves in and reads all of Brandon’s books.

(pt. 2) AND he finds out he somehow always ends up being an important character in every single one, but full on freaks out when he realises the whole book of love poems are describing HIM! anyway that’s all I’ve got but it fits well with 33.hide so I’m curious about what are your feelings about this

yes yes YES i love it! i agree brandon/adam have stolen my heart and this is such a lovely trope. i’m such a slut for the dramatiques so this is wonderful. i hope you don’t mind if i write a little smth for it, since it really DOES fit so well with 33 :)

33) hide

Seriously, when Brandon had come out as this Y/A writer, it kind of rocks the whole team’s world. Of course, it was never that they found Brandon incapable of being a writer, but it certainly in a million years would never have been anyone’s guess at his secret talent. Between all of the stress baking and hockey, everyone had been baffled as to where he had found the time to write whole fucking novels. Especially when, in the thick of the season, the common perception is that Brandon and Adam have a combined total braincells of negative four. They tend to be associated with each other.

Mark is the first one to finish reading the bulk of Brandon’s repertoire, two novels and his latest publication, a poetry book, and as soon as he’s done, he’s leaving the books in Adam’s stall with a little post-it note telling him that he has to read it.

Adam has never been a big reader, admittedly, he had relied on SparkNotes religiously all through school and wasn’t one to read for pleasure. However, he really is curious to see what Brandon even wrote about, and he was eager to be a supportive friend. He picks up the first book on an off-day where Brandon had obligations and couldn’t be around to entertain him, so he curls up on the couch and reads while listening to the rain thump against the windows in a slow pattern. He finishes it before dinner, wrapped up in every single word spinning off the page, building an entirely different universe inside his modern apartment. Adam can hear Brandon’s voice in each word, telling of his protagonist’s adventures.

It’s kind of fun, Adam realizes, as he uncovers relationships between the side characters and their teammates, it feels like a private look into the story that Brandon’s other readers wouldn’t get. Something unnecessarily warm settles in between his ribs. One of the characters, the one who actually holds the key to the climax of the story and is far more important than the reader would have been expecting, is based off of him, he thinks. Adam only puts it together at the end. The way Brandon describes him, things that Adam wouldn’t think to notice about himself even, makes the heat build in the tips of his ears. He finishes the book and slams it closed, dropping it onto the coffee table with a pounding heart, and goes for a run to process it all. It’s oddly flattering.

“I read your book, the one about the spies.” He tells Brandon, one day over lunch, taking a bite of his sandwich like it hadn’t unearthed a whole plethora of repressed feelings that Adam hadn’t though would resurface. Brandon goes pink in the cheeks, stirring his soup with his spoon.

“You can read?” Brandon bites back, but the anxiety under the flat, sarcastic lilt of his voice is easy for Adam to pick out. He worries his bottom lip between his teeth, watching him carefully across the table through dark eyelashes. The dim, yellowed light is casting perfect shadows over his face and makes him look unfairly good. Brandon always looks unfairly good. Adam kicks him under the table.

“Shut up, asshole. I was gonna say that I really liked it.” He defends mildly, through a smile. Brandon catches his foot between his ankles, and keeps it there. Adam doesn’t make any struggle to pull away. “My favorite was Andrew, naturally.” Brandon goes a dark red, eyes widening and returning to the perpetual hooded look that they always seem to have so fast that Adam thinks he might’ve imagined it. He steels his expression and shakes his head.

“Narcissist.” He sighs, and Adam retaliates with another kick to the calf with his free foot. Brandon laughs, and scoops baked carrots and peas into his mouth.

Adam starts on the poetry book last, which takes him the longest. It’s a combination of the hustle and bustle of the season as it progresses, and the required amount of brainpower it takes to understand poetry. Adam has never been a poetry guy, but there’s something in Brandon’s words that roll off the page like silk and breeze through his chest like a breath of fresh air. They’re shockingly emotional, more than Brandon has showed in person during all of their years of friendship combined. It’s beautiful.

They’re flowery and reflective and simple, but the ones that stick with Adam the most are the heartbreaking stanzas of unrequited love. Brandon does say in the forethought that not all of the poems are of personal experience, but these feel so real that it’d be near impossible to fabricate them. The one he’s stuck on at the moment is one of these pages that tug at the heart strings and make Adam a little dizzy. He’s sat against the headboard with the book in his lap as he tries to make sense of it. Brandon exits the shower, perfect and naked and dripping pearls of water that absorb into the towel around his waist, and flushes all over when his eyes land on Adam. The pink spreads deliciously down his chest and Adam wants to bite him.

“Shit, don’t read that around me.” Brandon grumbles, moving towards his suitcase to dig out some clean clothes. Adam reluctantly averts his gaze and discards the book onto the bedside table.

“It’s- you don’t have to feel weird about it, or anything. You’re really good, man. I didn’t know you had all of those emotions in there.” Adam tells him, tapping his own chest. Brandon shrugs, pulling a shirt over his head that falls loosely over his shoulders, baggy around the elbows. He drops down onto the bed next to him and Adam pretends not to stare at the way his thighs strain against the fabric of his briefs. “I mean, shit. Those love poems, wow. She must’ve really broken your heart. Why didn’t you ever tell me?” The pronouns feels awkward and bitter rolling off of his tongue and he doesn’t know why. It leaves his chest aching.

“Yeah, uh, I don’t know. Kind of sucks to bring up, you know? It never could’ve worked.” Brandon pauses, hauling a slow breath through his nose. “He’s too good for me anyway.” Adam blinks, trying to process the words coming from the other side of the bed. He suddenly feels all turned around.

“Brandon I’m- fuck, I’m sorry. That’s shitty. No way he was too good for you, though. You’re-” Perfect, he wants to say. “-great.” He drops a hand to the side of his face, stroking his thumb gently over Brandon’s jaw. The pad of his thumb just barely grazes the corner of his lips. “Who-”

“They’re about you, Adam.” Brandon says at the same time, squeezing his eyes shut. He sounds like he’s swallowing around a golf ball stuck in his throat and his face is turning a splotchy pink. Adam’s hand stills, heart stopping. There’s just no way, no way that someone could wax so poetic about him like that. Especially not his teammate, his liney, his best friend. He feels like he can’t breathe, the only thing grounding him is the sounds of the mattress creaking as Brandon sits up. Finally Adam’s brain starts working again, he reaches out to grab his wrist.

“You fucking sap,” is all he’s able to get out before he’s pulling Brandon in for a bruising kiss, hands holding on like he’s the most precious thing in Adam’s world. He probably is.

#brandon/adam #lowry/tanev #sysakiddo #prompts #IM SORRY THIS TOO SO LONG #ive been so fucking busy #anyway your prompt made my heart go kaboom i loved it sm

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waitingformargo · 6 years

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~ Facts about Me ~

I’m pretty cute, I have a cute face with a cute nose and do cute things like naming the head made of styrofoam, that I bought to put my hats on, Brian. Or maybe that’s weird, I don’t know.

I have three guinea pigs that I adore and love to cuddle and I love it when they lick my face.

I listen to audio books at night, I barely fall asleep without.

One of my favourite books is called “The whole world in a single sentence” (translated) and contains little tips on writing, like cinquains or also ideas on what you could write about or words you could use, making you observe your surroundings, find adjectives to describe it etc. I don’t think I actually ever used any of the tips but just flicking through it makes me smile and feel warm. If I had to throw away all my books and pick only one that I can keep it’d be this.

I love my guitar that I named Jesse. I love running my hands over it, smelling it and feeling the strings. But I can’t really play it actually. I know the common chords, sure, but that is hardly enough. I barely practise but it isn’t my aim to be good at it anyway. It calms me down to just strum a bit and to badly play a few of my favourite songs while singing to it.

When I think of home I think of sounds more than anything. I think of children playing and shouting and of the sound of a piano in the background. My parents’ flat is next to my former primary school and next to this again is the music school my dad works at. My room used to be directly next to the school yard and I often did my homework listening to the other children play outside and to the students playing their instruments fading into my room. I actually have a certain melody playing in my head when I think of this. It’s a small instrumental part in the song Unstillbare Gier (Confessions of a Vampire or also Endless Appetite) from the musical Tanz der Vampire (Dance of the Vampires). If you want to listen to it it’s 1:06-1:23 in this version (which is my absolute favourite, having Drew Sarich on vocals): Die unstillbare Gier - Drew Sarich als Graf von K…: http://youtu.be/PCqEybPFdpo

I love music in general, mostly British bands, mostly indie rock.

I collect vinyls although I don’t listen to them often. It’s the same with drinking tea: I love it but I need time for it. I like to savour the moment and to do things like these consciously. I don’t have vinyls playing in the background, I sit in front of my record player and watch the vinyl spin while listening closely. I don’t just take sips of my tea every now and then. I warm my hands on the mug, staring into the brown liquid. I don’t do these halfway. I’d never put a record on when I’m not in the room and I’d never drink tea for breakfast when I only have little time before uni.

When I was younger I sewed myself plush toys. I couldn’t sew well and I still can’t and they all look a bit weird but I am proud of them nonetheless. They were pretty weird animals or even objects though- I still have a hand-sewn jellyfish and a plush belly (yeah, I wrote belly) that I gave to my older sister. It even has a belly button.

I collect sand from all the places I’ve been to in little glass bottles and I like to look for special postcards as well.

I love to write. Since I was 10 I knew I wanted to be a writer. I don’t believe that I ever will be now but that doesn’t change a thing. It is still my greatest and probably my only passion. Nothing has ever come this naturally to me. It’s probably my writing talent that prevents me from bringing anything else to perfection because anything else actually requires work that I am not ready to invest as I was good at writing from the start and expect myself to master every new challenge like I did with this. I haven’t written in a while and nothing makes me hate myself more than when I don’t write for a long time. I don’t want to waste my talent and I don’t want to waste my life. I’m sure this is my biggest fear. To waste myself.

Characters and character development is the most important part for me in a story. I don’t care for the plot. Give me a trashy love story between an alien-human hybrid and a cactus that takes place in the 30th century; as long as the characters are complex and interesting it could still become my favourite book.

I love F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I once created a little book with quotes from Fitzgerald novels for one of my favourite musicians because he made a song full of references to his writing. To this day I like to believe that I am the only one who ever got those hints.

I love drinking milk.

I behave like a child when I am around my parents. When I visit them, coming home to my former home, I can forget about the responsibilities of an adult and pretend everything is like it used to be when I was little. I talk differently with them, feeling like an 8-year-old, play games, solve puzzles, watch movies from my childhood, knowing that they’ll always accept me back like I never grew up.

It makes me proud that one of my heroes smiled at me during a concert.

It makes me proud that I once won in a writing competition.

It makes me proud that I didn’t give up school during an impossibly hard phase and am now able to study at university.

It makes me proud to be a good person.

It makes me proud that I can be proud of myself.

Making this list makes me feel like a complex character from a book someone created and characterised like this, with all these little details because they grew very fond of them and it would be sweet and make me feel loved if that was the case.

I can’t keep plants alive.

I have been suffering from depression since I was about 14. I went through two therapies, am still taking antidepressants and I guess I can’t yet go without them but I’m confident that I’ll be alright eventually.

I always dreamed of having a pet chameleon.

When I was little I used to play with marbles on the floor in the corridor. I gave them names and played they were in school.

I like to draw pictures with hidden objects, adding many details to it.

I rather listen to the audio books of Harry Potter than to read the books. I used to listen to them and draw scenes from it.

I did that with different audio books and movies as well and collected all my drawings in a box. I love to get them out from time to time and look through them.

I still have many of my milk teeth as I put them into a tiny box when they fell out or rather when I pulled them out once they were loose.

I like to remember the times when I played and fell onto my knees, having bruises on them. It’s a very child thing having bruises on your knees.

I like the scent of warm tar in summer, of mowed grass and floor polish.

To me lit candles smell like Christmas while freshly blown out candles smell like birthdays.

I’m silent around strangers. Even with my friends I’m often silent during talks and just listen to them. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say, it’s just that I often don’t know how to say it. Maybe that’s why I love to write. I can structure my thoughts.

I love being alone. I can easily entertain myself and being around too many people for too long wears me out. I need to get home and change into my pajamas to recharge then.

I like dimmed lights and soft voices. I like blankets and calmness and feeling cozy.

I love losing me in myself. It often happens at night, it happens when everything becomes slow and fuzzy, when the night swallows reality and I drift off into my thoughts. I especially get inspired and emotional when there are many lights.

Once I was at a city festival and there were hot-air balloons, their lights flickering and I stood there, among many people with horrible music playing loudly, but that kind of moved into the background and I began to cry at the beauty of the moment. And I must have looked weird but I was just happy and overwhelmed by the world.

I usually repress my anger and swallow it down until I explode and say horrible, exaggerated and unreasonable stuff towards those I’m angry at.

I’m loyal and would do anything for my friends and family.

I love drinking cocoa while watching children’s shows.

I like suspenders, bow ties and glasses although I don’t need them.

I would love to own various wigs so I can change my style for each day.

I love food. Yet everyone says I’m a picky eater and I guess I am. But I love the stuff that I actually do eat.

I should go outside more often.

I have the brain of a fly. I can’t remember where I put my notes, when I have an appointment or what I ate yesterday. I also don’t remember much from my childhood. Whenever my parents try to describe an event to me that took place when I was ten or 13 or even 17 I can’t recall it happened. They could tell me anything and I’d believe it.

I don’t have a sense of orientation at all. I could probably get lost three streets away from my home.

I’m a daydreamer. I’m often lost in thought and although I hear someone is talking to me I don’t stop dreaming, not even for a second to tell the other person I can’t concentrate on them right in that moment which leads to them being annoyed.

I love language and what you can do with it.

I am super lazy.

I have no willpower and can’t force myself to do anything that needs to be done. If I have a course in the morning I often don’t go because I can’t bring myself to leave my bed.

Concerning work I worry too much about not being good enough while at the same time only doing the bare minimum.

I don’t believe in god or a higher instance. I also don’t believe that there will be anything happening after I die. I believe that this will be the end.

I am agender. I don’t identify as either male nor female and that’s not a phase, it’s who I am: human.

I like making lists as they help me a lot to structure my thoughts.

I think that my neck is too short and my arms too fat and I’m self-conscious about my belly but all in all I think I look alright.

I’m good at remembering faces, names and voices.

I love my sister to death. She is the most important person in my life.

I can watch a movie once and memorise the best quotes from it. Me and my sister often talk through quotes and make quizzes about who said what in which movie. It’s our thing.

I love writing letters. I think it’s an intimate thing and you think more about what you want to say when you write a letter than a quick text message. I wish I had a pen pal again who I can get to know through letters and who I can tell secrets about me. I want the exciting feeling of waiting for a letter, of opening your mail box to find one.

I’m into freckles and dimples and moles.

When I feel ugly I put on cute dresses, heels and makeup and watch a movie looking bomb.

I like using my typewriter. I love the clicking noise, the font, and that I need more time this way. It makes me think more about what I write. It fuels my creativity.

I’m a procrastinator.

If I had the choice to either go back in time or into the future I'd always choose to go back. I don't want to know what will happen to Society and Earth. This knowledge would burden me too much.

#personal

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yatorihell · 7 years

Text

In The Darkness Chapter 15 - Diagon Alley

Words: 2,449

Summary: Hiyori bumps into someone familiar in Diagon Alley as she prepares for her second year at Hogwarts.

Previous chapter | First chapter

For the 1st anniversary of the Harry Potter AU!

Thank you to Gio (@themusicalbookworm) for beta-ing me!

A/N: A while ago there was some discourse on my Tumblr over me putting Yato into Slytherin 'because he's evil'. Yato's speech about this in this chapter reflects that stereotype I'm trying to break about Slytherins. It's also an important plot point which I can't talk much about, but trust me, Yato isn't Slytherin because 'it's the evil house'.

Read on AO3

Detached from wizarding life, Hiyori’s summer resulted in long, lazy days of completing assignments and catching up with old friends. Smartly avoiding questions of her ‘private school’, Hiyori recounted stories of what she had been up to, minus the magic and mishaps, to both her old friends and her parents.

Her letters home throughout the school year didn’t include the numerous occasions that would make her mother faint with horror, and her father pull her out of the school altogether. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

Her father was much more relaxed and, unlike her mother, embraced her interest in a break-neck sport where enchanted balls battered players and left them hospitalised. So much so that once she greeted her parents after returning to Kings Cross Station, they had gone to Diagon Alley and gifted Hiyori a Nimbus 2000 – and a lot of protective clothing – for her birthday.

Unable to practice, Hiyori admired the broom which had been propped up in the corner of her bedroom, anticipating the moment she would be able to ride it - and hopefully not smash it into smithereens.

Although she had stayed in contact with Aimi and Yama throughout the summer, Hiyori had no contact with Yukine nor Yato as they hadn’t mentioned any addresses. She wasn’t even sure if they had owls.

It didn't matter now though as the next school year was just around the corner.

Returning to Diagon Alley in late August (through a suspicious looking pub entitled The Leaky Cauldron), Hiyori and her family collected the next load of books she would need for her second year at Hogwarts.

Her parents were sidetracked the moment they left the bookshop by the allure of the other bizarre shops they had been too terrified to step foot in the first time they had collected her school supplies.

Hiyori gave up on trying to drag her mother away from gazing at the array of neon coloured bottles in Madam Primpernelle's Beautifying Potions shop window, whereas her father was opposite reading the strange flavours of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour.

Hiyori stared down the barren alley. Its lopsided cobbled path trailing down and forking off in different paths. The first years had ransacked the shops the moment they received their acceptance letter, gathering all the equipment they would need to see them through the oncoming term.

Amongst the few pointy-hatted wizards towing children and gatherings of fellow students, Hiyori could see a single figure walking alone, head bowed and carrying a bag over their shoulder.

They barely brushed past Hiyori in the narrow street, not even looking up as she acknowledged them. They seemed familiar, the bag tied shut with string and the dark shock of hair which concealed their face.

Someone familiar…

“Yato?”

He stopped abruptly, stiffening under their black robe before slowly turning their head.

His hair was dishevelled, clumps of it sticking up to give him the appearance that a fan of jet black peacock had erupted from his head. Untameable bangs fell over his wide-eyed stare when he caught sight of Hiyori.

“Hiyori?”

Hiyori couldn’t help but notice the blue of his eyes being especially sharp in contrast to the dark circles that had taken hold under his eyes, almost as if he hadn’t slept in a week. Her stare didn’t go unnoticed as Yato quickly patted his hair and forced a smile.

“Are you,” Hiyori began, about to say exactly what she had been thinking, but was cut off by the voice of her mother interrupting their encounter.

“Who’s this?” The question snapped both of their attention to Hiyori’s parents who stared at Yato with the curiosity of a hawk.

“Ah.” Hiyori threw a glance between Yato and her parents. If this was the first time they were meeting a bonafide wizard, they were in for a surprise.

“This is Yato, and these are my parents,” Hiyori said, shuffling nervously. She had left his name out of the letters, mainly because he was the cause of the trouble she got into.

“Oh, a friend of yours, dear?” Mr Iki said with a good-natured smile, unlike his wife who regarded Yato’s disheveled appearance the same way a teacher would with an unruly child.

Hiyori muttered a ‘yes’. I suppose we’re friends, she thought as she cast a glance at Yato who stood unusually quiet on the spot. After a beat of silence only filled by the sounds of the street, her mother spoke.

“What a… curious boy,” Mrs Iki didn’t hide the apprehensiveness in her voice, yet her choice of words was gentler than the ones she would’ve chosen had they just passed in the street.

“Wouldn’t you say, dear…”

Mr Iki’s short attention span had been snatched in this exchange when his wife tried to involve him in the conversation, the sight of a rundown second-hand store window compelling him to distractedly agree. With an idle farewell to Yato he tugged his wife’s hand to follow him to the shop window, perhaps to bicker over buying more padding to ‘protect their daughter’, though Hiyori doubted the dented helmets would do any protecting.

Just as Hiyori repressed a smile upon hearing the first complaints begin. She turned back to Yato, who looked less uncomfortable now they were gone.

“Well I won’t keep you.” Yato bowed his head slightly, gaze travelling as if distracted so that he could go on his way, wherever he was going.

Hiyori’s brow creased again when she looked at his appearance more closely, seeing the grime on his chin and the mud splatters which were almost invisible against the black cloth.

“Yato, is everything ok?” Hiyori asked, stepping in time with him as he took his first steps away.

Yato looked at her levelly, the wide smile that he had given her a few moments ago drastically reduced to a thin line.

“Peachy.” There was a tone of cynicism in his voice as he readjusted his bag on his shoulder, giving her parents another glance before starting to walk again with no farewell.

Hiyori watched him, robes flutter around his feet as quick paces took him up the thoroughfare.

“See you in September!” she called out to him.

Yato raised his hand in acknowledgment but didn’t bother turning, instead vanishing around the corner and out of sight.

Just like the first time Hiyori stepped onto Platform 9 ¾, there was a havoc of students sending whirling sparks of red, blue and white which fizzled and banged above her head.

The occasional shower of tattered paper with each collision of flare and paper butterflies which flitted around. Crumpled twists of paper lay scattered on the ground, revealing themselves to be broomsticks when they shuddered back to life and reshaped, only to begin jousting each other overhead and battering what looked like a rusted Knut in the stead of a Quaffle.

The pierced whistle of the Hogwarts Expressed drowned out Hiyori’s shout when she managed to see Yukine through the cluster of students and spilling heaps of luggage that waited to be loaded, but she managed to catch his shoulder in time before he vanished into the near-crowded train. She was met by a confused scowl at the sudden grab, but Yukine’s expression dissolved into a dorky smile the moment he saw Hiyori.

It turned out that Yato was already with him, holding the door of an empty carriage open and beckoning them over the squeals and shrieks of overexcited first years and lairy students who would wreak havoc in what would be their final year at Hogwarts.

Hiyori greeted Yato, deciding not to mention their encounter in Diagon Alley when Yukine exclaimed that they hadn’t seen each other in months. He was much cleaner than he was that day, dressed in his robes already and not as dishevelled as he normally would be. Perhaps she could ask about it in private.

They crashed into the cabin and shut the door to block the new wave of magical dangers, a summer of restricted magic finally crushed by shouts of ‘periculum’ and ‘relashio’ as students sent sparks flying and lit up the train as if it were Bonfire Night.

At exactly 11 o’clock the Hogwarts Express pulled away from the platform, gathering speed as it took its passengers out of London and replaced the stagnant scenery with rolling hills and lochs that carved rivers through the valleys.

Hiyori sat beside Yukine, with Yato opposite him next to the window just like they were when they returned to London. Nostalgia flooded through Hiyori as she remembered her first time on the Hogwarts Express, new friends cramming her head with knowledge and fantasies of the school she was going to. The Sorting seemed like it had only happened a few months ago rather than a year.

“This time last year we were going to get sorted,” Hiyori turned and nudged Yukine, to which he hummed and looked out of the window.

“I don’t remember seeing you, though,” Hiyori continued thoughtfully, undiscouraged by the lack of chat. Before Yukine could reply, Yato cut in.

“He’s like 4ft tall, of course you didn’t see him,” Yato breezed with an idle grin. Yukine didn’t bother turning, instead favouring to flip his middle finger at Yato.

“I thought Hufflepuffs were nice.” Yato grinned, leaning back further in his seat so his back was pressed into the corner, arms folded. “Still, I guess not all houses are like admired like mine.”

“No wonder you’re a Slytherin,” Yukine shot back, “you think you’re the best house.”

“Yes, but I was nearly a Gryffindor,” Yato said simply.

Yukine and Hiyori stared at him. A silence followed this revelation, neither of the pair knowing whether he was serious or not when he gave them a sly grin.

“What?!” Hiyori spluttered.

The very idea that Yato would be put in Gryffindor was alien to her. He certainly didn’t strike her as someone who would fit into her house as well as others. He and Bishamon were polar opposites, and it was clear she was a Gryffindor through and through. Surely that would put him in the house of their main rival?

“I chose Slytherin. The Sorting Hat couldn’t decide if I should go to Gryffindor or Slytherin, so I asked to be in Slytherin.” Yato explained this so plainly as if he were discussing the weather.

“Why the hell did you choose Slytherin?” Yukine asked, still doubtful even though he had heard that some students were given a choice of what house to be in. The Sorting Hat did take their choice into account.

“I want to be great.” He looked Yukine in the eye when he said this, evidently being honest at this proclamation.

Hiyori gave him a quizzical look. Great?

Yato’s eyes slid from Yukine’s to Hiyori, then back to the window. “The most powerful wizards have come from there, so it makes sense.”

“Evil,” Yukine cut in. That word was one of the most used descriptions of any wizard who is put into Slytherin, even if they weren’t necessarily bad.

“Powerful,” Yato corrected sharply. His eyes fixed on some point in the distance through the window when he lowly continued.

“No one is evil unless they’ve done something unforgiveable. I don’t think many eleven-year olds have done something bad enough to make them be put in a house supposedly tailored for those who would become dark wizards.”

The silence that spread over the cabin was infectious, Yato’s reasoning held some truth. How could the Sorting Hat see darkness in the heart of a child and decide that they would flourish in a house which favoured the Dark Arts? It would just be a breeding ground for psychopaths. ‘Evil’ was never stated as a quality that Salazar Slytherin desired, only ambition – which in turn could morph into something crazed and lustful that would make the brightest student turn their resourcefulness to darker means if it meant they could reach their goal.

The cogs in Hiyori’s mind put it all together – what it meant to be a Slytherin, and how Yato would fit into Gryffindor. The more she thought about it, the more traits matched up. Yato was an idiot – but a reckless one. Brave to the point of stupidity when it came to facing off against a mountain troll, daring enough to break into the library past curfew, and nerves to do whatever it takes to catch the Golden Snitch. Godric Gryffindor himself would be proud, but it looked like Yato’s own desire for ambition, and perhaps his cunning traits to meet his own ends, had thrown the Sorting Hat to let Yato choose his own house.

After the prolonged silence, Yato quietly spoke. “You don’t think I’m bad, do you?”

“No.”

Yato hummed quietly at the answer. Of course that was Hiyori’s immediate response, and Yukine’s too as he shook his head. Yato hadn’t done anything bad. Questionable, but not bad, and always to help them, be it facing off bullies, trolls, or helping with homework in his own way.

They were quiet for a long time before the awkwardness was broken by the arrival of the sweet trolley, allowing Yato to set a couple of chocolate frogs and jelly slugs free to make Hiyori shriek whilst Yukine blew multi-coloured bubbles of gum.

Maybe this year Hiyori would get over her fear of sweets.

The sun had completely sunk into the hills when the Hogwarts Express groaned to a stop at the small station of Hogsmeade. Like before, Kuraha rounded up the terrified first years and herded them towards the lake where they would make an impressive trek to the impossible castle-topped cliffs.

Unlike first years – who would take the longer scenic route to the castle –, the trio and the rest of the school made their short walk to the wrought iron entrance gate of the school grounds. Guarded by the statues of two winged boars, the same carriages that had taken them away from the castle a few months prior waited to take them back again. Yukine stuck nearly uncomfortably close to Hiyori’s side for the whole walk, only breaking away to clamber onto the nearest carriage and beckon Hiyori up beside him.

Yato looked cautiously at the space where a horse would be tethered to pull their carriage along, as if he could see something the others could not. With a sharp jolt once he had mounted the steep steps onboard, the carriage clattered on the trail towards to the castle.

Rocking and swaying over dry bracken and looking up at the darkened canopy of trees which hid the stars, Yato’s lips tugged into a small smile.

He was home.

#there we go #the discourse is officially explained in the fic #the reason why yato is slytherin and why its not a bias choice based on his past #*jazz hands*#noragami #noragami aragoto #yato #hiyori #yukine #hp au #harry potter au #in the darkness #my writing #also its 2am and im impatient to post cos shits bout to get real in a few chapters get lit

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decodingellipses · 7 years

Text

Trans in Theatre: Adversarial and Jubilant Ultimatums

After one of our late night dress rehearsals for Footloose, I felt a friend to my right grip my arm during our notes. She said, “Denny, are you okay?” and I realized tears were falling down my cheeks without my notice at all. At that point, everybody fixated their eyes on me and for the first time (of soon-to-be many), I felt seen but so unseen. This was my junior year in high school, and I was cast as the male lead, Ren McCormack. Despite the crisp dance moves and singing, the director kept telling me that something was still not right about my performance. She then sat with me until midnight, where we were the only ones left on stage. Through the shakiness in my voice and my hands burying my face, I said, “It’s just hard playing something you know you’re not.”

She looked at me, and for the first time, I think she really saw me.

My senior year I was cast as The Leading Player in Pippin, a gender neutral character with a presence so demanding you can’t take your eyes off the charm, wit, and agility. Around this time I was sneaking out late at night, dressing up with my friends and going out. Liberating myself from gender roles and rebelling against their normalizations kept me stable emotionally and mentally. I was in a place where I had to dissect gender to its core in order to sort myself, and experimenting with winged eyeliner paired with a staple dark red lips and too many striped dresses allowed me to come to terms with myself at my own pace. I took advantage of the ambiguity of gender within my role in the show through androgyny.

Femininity turned from secretive repression into a hobby.

My first theatrical experience in college was an identity play reading for The Laramie Project, a collection of reactions to the homophobic murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998. I auditioned for two women in the room, one who was an upperclassman directing the play, the other an older white woman who accompanied the student director. She had a sweet and nurturing voice, and a full head of gray and white hair that complimented her soft smile. I felt an odd sense of comfort for a strange white lady I barely knew. She still recognizes me now and wishes me well whenever we bump into each other. I read a monologue they provided and was contacted the next day to play Romaine Patterson, the lesbian best friend of Matthew. It was my first time reading a part that was inherently for a woman. I don’t recall my exact emotion that given moment, but I know I was happy. Telling my friends about it felt radical and transformative. To be seen as a genderqueer person of color beyond that identity and only for talent was a big deal for me. Previous auditions for The Voice and X-Factor never went well because like my high school director, the producers could tell something was off.

I started to, too.

The following semester, I took an acting class. The second I walked into the first day of class and saw twelve fraternity boys was the second my own ideas of theatre spaces being safe from potentially harmful masculinities were proven wrong. My professor was a mother with a smile as big as her frames, face framed by the middle part of her dark curls as beautiful as her name—Carmela. Her fingers were crowded with unique rings, her outfits casual yet bold with statement pieces—I could tell this person was comfortable with who she was, while remaining to be somewhat reserved. I envied her. I wanted her womanhood, although confusion overshadowed my lack of vocabulary to express this specific desire. All I knew to do was to wake up two hours prior to classes for the sole reason of feminizing myself. But the hesitation on femininity started the moment she referred to me with “she, her” pronouns, which led the entire class, including the fraternity boys, to do as well. At the time I reserved to gender neutral pronouns because I knew I wanted to detach myself from anything innately considered ‘male’, and unlike the most heard trans narratives, growing up without exposure to trans folks (a conscious one, that is) left me thinking my gender was concrete, and Carmela was another person to see me beyond what I knew was possible, and that is woman. Her de-solidifying my possibilities as a person gave me space to let my gender identity move and rebuild, even with words as scary as “her” and “girl”.

Not once did I ever correct anybody in that class.

Transitioning started the summer after that. I officially came out as a woman, and coming back to school was surprisingly easy. I never thought much about what it must have been like for everyone else, which led me to sleep comfortably every night thinking everyone around me must be on board as well—the theatre department included. I wish people spoke to me about concerns, or vocalized their questions, in which I would have been much slower and more patient moving forward. Instead I felt immortal and unbeatable, and receiving my first female lead in a show the same day I started my medical transition were only further signs that I was going in the right direction. I was misgendered throughout the show but I disregarded that. I recognized the ways in which I could have been critical in the moment but I disregarded that. I refused to admit that people were not seeing me as a woman because I accepted and made effort to uphold how progressive everyone involved in the production must have been to include me in the first place. Although I wore an exquisite wedding gown, I also wore three noses but I disregarded that. I felt beautiful in the midst of knowing the audience saw me otherwise—I played the freak but I disregarded that. I kept quiet because a part of me felt that staying silent as the team player would access me to more opportunities. I was right. A few months after, I was cast for the following semester’s show, where not only did I play a woman, but a woman of my race. I thought the recognition as a woman of color meant that I was perceived twice—for my gender, and for my racial background. But I was still misgendered throughout, therefore disregard became a way to navigate spaces where successes and failures were happening simultaneously.

Earning my first female role as an openly trans woman should have been the starting point to education beyond inclusion, because what is the point of inclusion if we are unaware of its purposes? What is the point of adding flowers to the living room if there are no given benefits to the overall goal of aesthetic aside from sole decoration? My personal purpose was to prove people’s inherent assumptions about trans talent wrong—not to be tokenized. It still is. But being in my position and getting two leads in a row, I had a responsibility to fulfill. The fulfillment of my responsibilities became highly prioritized because I know opportunities like these do not always work in the favor of girls like me. Taking it for granted was never an option. So when I found out I was the only woman of Asian descent to even audition I kept pretending that I played these roles because I could, not because I was needed; because I have talent, not because of profitable aspects about myself that could satisfy their agendas.

For the next few months I shared my story, making sure I expressed that it was never just a role I earned, but that I was transitioning under a microscope for the majority of campus to watch. Therefore, people knew who I was and could comprehend how big of an accomplishment this must have been for me. I bounced from one interview to the next ranging from friends’ articles to local newspaper journalism, giving them the heroic story I knew they wanted. Here I was, a nineteen year old Southeast Asian trans woman spilling my story of the adversity of transitioning at school, whilst spilling my story of triumph and attainment of playing main female characters in the theater department, knowing that there were gaps in between one story of challenge and the other of execution. I did not tell them that many people were struggling to see me beyond a man, that these roles were not the only thing I was “acting” in. I did not tell them that I felt the pressure to act woman on the daily—for the sake of being understood— and add on my character on top of that to act for. I did not tell them that I felt exhausted, stripped of my own personhood. But most of all, I did not tell them these feelings because I was warped in my own thought that the things I accomplished were courageous, and nothing else.

I was happy, though.

At least happy enough to come back my junior year believing I was going to be seen no different from the rest of the girls during auditions. Especially because none of the roles required the women to be a specific kind of woman, and therefore I sought after them as my perfect chance to really prove people that I was capable and deserving of a female role with no strings attached. For the first audition, I studied the script months prior to the audition day and created two monologues on my own from pieces in it. Oddly enough, the night of auditions, there were two female monologues provided, in which they were almost identical to the one I put together. Instantly I felt at an advantage because it was clear that the visions I had for these women were very close to the director’s. For the first time, I did not have to use vulnerable parts of me as a source of reliability, only creativity and deep understanding of the script. The second audition was for the only female role in the show. Her character development was built off of the desire and dream to be a forefront leader despite—or maybe even because—of her gender, a desire and dream I hold closely.

The following day I searched hard for my name on the callback list before realizing that I was not called back for either shows. I felt the people behind me looking over my shoulders to see the cast list, and in their exhales I heard “Sorry, maybe next time,” “Yikes,” “I feel bad for you,” “What happened?”

What happened?

I felt myself in shock, but worked painfully hard to prevent any showings of defeat or weakness. I came into my junior year with content and pride in the conquering of my endeavors, and within those five seconds of glance I started to question everything I might have done wrong. Straight away I put the responsibility on me, because the professors I have worked with know what they are doing, right? They are the ones whose judgments should be trusted, no? During a callback, the people who auditioned are asked to come back because the directors or anybody else involved were interested in what they had to offer during their auditions. This can either solidify the decision to cast these people, or make them change their minds. To be stopped before the second process confused me in all angles. I saw myself back in sophomore, junior, and senior year of high school where producers never passed me through the first rounds of The Voice and X-Factor auditions because they knew something felt misaligned. But this time, I was whole, with the strongest sense of identity out of all twenty years of my life, so therefore, my identity could not have been the reason, no? I don’t want to believe my transness is the reason I was not granted the opportunity to prove myself past auditions, and it took me strength to slowly admit to myself that my experiences in previous shows were never perfect. Some days they were barely validating or comfortable. It was a difficult process having to prove my own gender before the characters I played.

I learned to prove myself—(cis) womanhood before talent, whiteness before talent, Americanness before talent (unless my race is needed)—twice as hard for half the consideration before somebody else’s name blankets mine. When I do earn a part, I memorize my lines twice as hard for half the recognition compared to someone who might embody surpassing privileges that give them access to opportunities where recognition is a routine experience in their involvements in theater. Over the past couple of months my peers in the department have comforted me with words like “it’s not fair to you,” “your gender is valid regardless,” “this is not a representation of your talents.”

For those who have been my backbone throughout this emotional calculation, I profoundly thank you. However, the problem is that there is more to this. I am not seeking out validation—I know I’m valid. I am not having these conversations to re-stabilize myself as if I’ve lost a sense of identity, but to redirect the conversation and have everybody else acknowledge why they don’t have it as exhaustive, and what integrating privileges they possess that allows them to think this issue is one sided, and therefore lacks a need to hold themselves accountable at any extent. Many of the minoritized students participate in the identity play series, where their theatrical experience lasts for only one to two weeks for rehearsals—the performance production is not as tumultuous as the faculty or student directed shows. The series allows for many unheard narratives to be on the front lines of exposure and the following discussion sessions open up the conversation into further depth. However, many of the participants are only exclusive to identity play readings, and the space to welcome them (with effort) to larger scale shows in the department is limited, thus there is an imbalance between the demographics of the regular members who participate in major production shows versus the ones who are part of the identity series. This leads to the impression that those whose identities are minoritized are utilizable when their otherness is needed—a deep pain I know all too well.

My experience in the department lies at the crux of having enough marginalized identities to truly transcend in identity play series with personal authenticity and having enough past experience to be given roles for the main stage. I aspire the space to roam freely where I can openly talk about what it means to be an Asian transgender woman in the theatre department, but also where I can express myself artistically without my sense of self being the source of muse for whatever it is I do on stage. It is impossible to completely disregard my transness, but to make my work revolved around it is no better.

There is a way for transness to flourish in plays and productions that have the potential to be progressive. Angel from Rent encapsulates the reclamation of femininity (for a person who is inherently not meant to be feminine under the socialization they were enforced into) as her narrative parallels amongst many trans women who internally struggle to claim their own girlhoods. In this I see a theatrical opportunity to have the production not only progress the show, but allow opportunities for trans women of color to showcase talent, even if Angel is traditionally a drag queen of color. A modernized adaptation allows a political play to move along with progressing politics.

There is also a way for transness to not completely diverge from any other plays, because trans narratives are not completely alienated from non-trans narratives—there will always be a bridge in between. In 9th grade, my English class read Romeo and Juliet, and nobody volunteered to read for Juliet. I felt her character on a deep level but hesitated to raise my hand—not only did I lack the language to describe my situation, but so did everybody else. All I knew is that there was more to Juliet than a girl who falls in love with a family foe; there was a young woman who craved to liberate herself from her family’s containment in order to pursue a more novel life. Due to societal pressure to please others before herself, her option was to take her own life—an emboldening statement of redemption and salvation. This is not uncommon in many lives of trans women and trans femmes. In 2014, Cincinnati, Ohio, a 17 year old transgender girl named Leelah Alcorn stepped in front of a tractor trailer on Interstate-71 after posting a suicide note online saying “My death needs to mean something.” In her note, she mentions “When I was 16 I realized that my parents would never come around, and that I would have to wait until I was 18 to start any sort of transitioning treatment, which absolutely broke my heart.” In Leelah’s heartbreak I see the story of Juliet—a suicide not driven from love, but driven from social abuse that prevents the embrace of and ability to love. Adaptability of transgender stories into mainstream stories is possible.

I dream of transness in theatrical spaces to be acknowledged, not as a cause for muse or a reason of dismissal. I dream of this phenomenon of theatre as a safe space for LGBTQ+ people beyond cis, white, gay, flamboyant men. I dream of trans girls and trans femmes of color like me celebrated on stage as much as we do advocacy off stage. I dream of people who hold power in theatre to mobilize their privileges, and hold themselves accountable to take it further to tell stories that matter, stories that marinate in truth, stories that can impact the audience yet provide benefits for those involved, because it is the right thing and it is doable if you care enough.

Make them happen. If the show must go on, do not leave some of us behind.

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