#but alas I discovered this year that lilac blooms here in like. the beginning of April

[airplanetunez]

Wishing a Glorious 25th of May specifically to people like me who live in area where lilac does NOT bloom in May. Truth! Justice! Freedom! And a floral-based holiday that aligns with my climate zone!

[bloodinhershoesrpg]

WHEN THE CURTAIN DROPS...

Kindness, the term you’re most frequently associated with. The definition of the girl next door, every teenage boy with a fable for cheesy romance’s wet dream to the extent even your nickname fulfils the criteria. Little Barbie has been attached to your heel ever since your brain could fathom the concept of memory, bubbly little Barbie, an angel in pastel tulle, embodiment of untainted purity and infantile naivety. Illusions that happen to be a newer addition to your reputation, illusions that have you toss your head back amidst laughter in the safety of your own company as you recall the faux sadness displayed in their eyes right before they lean in to purr tales of the cold harsh truth — as they call it — to one another, well out of earshot, about how a girl as fragile as you will never last. Oh, how wondrous they find it to be that you have come this far without caving in; oh, how they long to discover your secret for this ostensibly undeserved success. At long last, they’re all the same, the ones you call friends seamlessly fitting in with the ones you’ve remained wary of: narrow-minded, short-sighted, heart-renderingly superficial. What they can’t see doesn’t exist, a logic so simple it sickens you in secrecy. You’re too soft, they whisper, you’ll never be able to stomach the struggles of a real ballerina long enough for your name to gain immortality and you wouldn’t dare to correct them.

...YOU SHOW YOUR TRUE COLOURS

For what they neglect are layers, depth, more than meets the eye. A devoted believer in the theory of everything having a reason, your kindness does not come devoid of one, naivety and greenness the furthest from fitting descriptive terms for a girl of your calibre. Confidently, you would proclaim you’ve seen it all, felt it all, slight exaggeration being part of the calculation but the essence of your statement indisputably truthful. From the punching bag to the one dishing out punishments to the reformed sinner — your journey has been rocky at best, your willingness to fight for your values and desires the sole reason you have pulled through and now find yourself seated on marble steps between rehearsals, invitingly patting the free seat beside you, your encouraging smile always reaching scintillating eyes. A certain comfort you have found in peace, all disturbances of it striking you like a dagger to the chest, the frequency increasing drastically the further your career progresses. If there was a choice to make between tranquillity and triumph, they might picture you overtaken by weakness but you alone know that you would not need to ponder. Even your duties as voluntary advocate for tolerance and collaboration has its limits and, alas, when push comes to shove, aren’t we all, even the most fragile of us, fighting our own battles?

VICTIM OR CULPRIT?

Of the twenty years you have thus far lived, seventeen have been filled with ruthless training, your successes not in the least as uncalled for as some might wish for them to be. The name Barbara Donne, often synonymous with Barbie, has been on the tip of every ballet aficionado’s tongue, including those possessing enough power to secure your reign, your new role as The Lilac Fairy inevitably bound to garner the most attention you, the glowing spitting image of Skyler Samuels Kat McNamara, have ever received. 

IN RELATION TO

ADELINE MOREAU: A girl of your upbringing is hardly used to compliments on her accomplishments, let alone heartfelt praise. Adeline has given you all that and more, her words laced with a form of encouragement you had yet to experience. Prior to her employment you had inarguably exhibited talent but your technique was lacking, never quite graceful enough for perfection; with her by your side, however, your shine is undimmished, your way to the top paved with tiles of pure gold. There is no way to thank her enough, albeit her help is much subtler than its effect, but you attempt to with sweetness and understanding, conviced that the time will come when the woman might hope to find an open ear and a friend in you. LINDSEY DAVIES: The hatred of envious commoners has hit her with unfazed force even succeeding the one you have fallen victim to before, your sympathy for her sparked at first sight. No nasty rumour could lead you astray, draw you away from pursuing a friendship with the girl whose stardom, soon to come, everyone finds even more unearned, even more suspicious. A part of you pities her for the spiteful glares so often directed at the back of her head, if not thrown straight at her, eye to cold eye, whereas another silently rejoices over her taking your place as the one everyone loves to pester. With a temper like hers and the right arguments, she might just teach those snobs a lesson on your behalf.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW

Chances of Survival: Slim Applicant must be open to portraying childhood trauma (form UTP) Faceclaim is negotiable

Starring: Becky as Barbara Donne

BARBARA. Hailing from the Greek word barbaros, meaning foreign or strange - she’s always figured that she had been named aptly. Always an outsider, always a stranger, even in her own skin, she takes comfort in Saint Barbara, in her strength. She knows how the story goes: every wound inflicted upon her healed, every fire brought near her skin extinguished. But she knows how the story ends and sometimes, in the dead of night, Barbie wonders if she’ll end up like her: end up the martyr, end up the sacrifice, with the insides of her veins painting the ground. ANAIS. French for grace, her middle name always seemed like a taunt to her – in her former years, she had always been lacking grace, been too much raw power and not enough silk covered elegance. But in recent years, she has lived up to it, coating her movements with an old world finesse like a second skin, moving through the ranks without a ripple, leaving onlookers always confused as to where she came from and how she ascended. (Surely, she cannot deserve it.) DONNE. Rooted in Irish mythology as Donn, the god of the dead – her last name always felt like a little bit of a promise, and a little bit of a curse.

PERSONALITY. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be? Barbie thinks she remembers being soft, being kind in the beginning – and part of it stems from her looks. She was born with delicate features, handpainted on a canvas of porcelain, doe eyes that changed with the context of her background (green in the woods, golden on cloudless mornings, honeyed hazel in the pale afternoon light), and hair so bright it was only rivaled by her smile. When people saw her, small and lithe and fragile, flighty in essence, a little dove that alighted in the palm of their hand, it was hard not to trust her, an impossibility to expect cruelty from her. And because the world craves sweet things, beautiful little souls, because it aches in constant hunger for a minute kindness, it swallowed her up, turned her softness into a warzone and layered her edges into knives.

So she remembers her obsidian mouth, flinty and stone cold but still beautiful – tongue cutting through skin so thinly, down at a molecular level, that most of the time, people didn’t even notice blood being drawn until they left, drained and cold. But she believes that everything has a purpose, and this portion of her life is no different. She remembers that it feels just as empty, just as painful, to be throwing words like punches as it does to receive them, and how truly heavy lies the head that bears the crown. She dissembles her weaponized empathy, sheds her cloak of cruelty – it never suited her well anyway.

So here she stands, bearing kindness around her neck like a cross on a chain, letting it glint and dangle in front of everyone, takes the shattered glass hate and grinds it to dust beneath the molars of her smile. She tastes war, heavy on the back of her tongue, and everyone knows the innocents are the first to go. But here’s the beauty of being delicate: when she shatters, all her broken little pieces will cut them right back. And everyone leaves none the wiser; everyone thinks that it’s their fault for breaking it in the first place. Everything has a purpose, everything is by design.

BACKSTORY.

i. dig up the bones

Her father likes to talk about the day she was born – about how when her mother finally had her after an exhausting eight hour labor, she had said, half delirious, “She will have a hard time of it.” He likes to talk about how her mother had cried and held her close after that, rocking her gently as tears dropped from the tops of her cheeks onto Barbara’s forehead. “She is so beautiful, and the world will not stand for it. Don’t argue with me. Just answer me this, my love: why do flowers wilt? Why do they wilt, when they should bloom forever?”

He has no answer for that question, and Barbara learns early on not to ask it.

But her mother is right, in the end. She spent her childhood tucked away and loved, hiding like a little mouse from the rest of the world, spoiled sweet to the core. But the world finds you eventually, and everything will come all at once.

It starts because her hair gleams like a halo of fire around her porcelain skin, and the kids at school tug at it and make fun of her for the translucence of her cheeks when blood rushes to the surfaces and matches her hair. They call her carrot-top and throw the baby carrots from their neatly packed lunches at her, and she finds out everything can hurt her, no matter what it is.

She goes home and cries in her room, cursing her hair and her fair skin and her thin frame. She wishes she were big and burly and tall, so no one would dare hurt her. She begs her father to let her take self-defense over dance, but can’t find her tongue when he asks why. So she channels her hurt and her anger into ballet – it makes her feel beautiful and strong, this tulle-layered corner of hers, far away from playground wounds. (All this hurt and loneliness and spite bites her in the ass one day, when they say her dancing is too much the raw provocateur and too little of the soft princess they’re looking for.)

Either way, her wishes aren’t heard, and this is how she learns the casual cruelty of children.

It changes in high school – while she’s not big and burly and tall, no one dares pick on her because her beauty becomes her sword and her armor. Boys who used to pull her pigtails find themselves wanting to tug her hair for different reasons, those who laughed at the easy blush of her cheeks covet how naturally color comes to her, and with time, they want to press bruises into her skin with their lips and not the packaged contents of their lunches.

She is a stroke of lightning upon her childhood tormentors, just how a vengeful god smote St. Barbara’s killer where he stood after her death. She hides wolf grins behind demure hands, sharp teeth snapping, blood-hungry. Is she not made from the gilded dust of monarchs of ages past, sitting pretty with a crown tipped on a bed of curls?

Payback feels like freedom until you stop and realise you’re still just as pissed as before.

ii. but leave the soul alone.

In the end, it’s love that unclasps the years of trauma she wore swathed around her delicate shoulders, that pulls her down from where she played judge, jury, and executioner in her academy. They find her in an empty training room, lights dimmed and pushed up against the mirror, only it’s not any of the boys they find her wound around, and the lipstick prints on her neck attest to that fact.

Barbie is all little red riding hood to Isa’s big bad wolf, and she’s homesick for a sixty second love, hungry for the sink of her canines.

She is quickly and swiftly ousted from the uppermost echelons of academy hierarchy, but she can’t bring herself to mind. (What she does mind are the slurs pressed in whispers behind her back, dyke dyke dyke.) So she goes back to drinking venom insults and letting it drip off her lips like honey instead, lets herself be repainted kind-bubbly-weak-Barbie, kind smiles reaching welcoming eyes, the Sistine Chapel amongst a sea of sinners, a safe harbor in a storm. She pats the seat next to her and her quick taps sound like welcome home, stay for a while.

[bihsconstruction]

WHEN THE CURTAIN DROPS...

Kindness, the term you’re most frequently associated with. The definition of the girl next door, every teenage boy with a fable for cheesy romance’s wet dream to the extent even your nickname fulfils the criteria. Little Barbie has been attached to your heel ever since your brain could fathom the concept of memory, bubbly little Barbie, an angel in pastel tulle, embodiment of untainted purity and infantile naivety. Illusions that happen to be a newer addition to your reputation, illusions that have you toss your head back amidst laughter in the safety of your own company as you recall the faux sadness displayed in their eyes right before they lean in to purr tales of the cold harsh truth — as they call it — to one another, well out of earshot, about how a girl as fragile as you will never last. Oh, how wondrous they find it to be that you have come this far without caving in; oh, how they long to discover your secret for this ostensibly undeserved success. At long last, they’re all the same, the ones you call friends seamlessly fitting in with the ones you’ve remained wary of: narrow-minded, short-sighted, heart-renderingly superficial. What they can’t see doesn’t exist, a logic so simple it sickens you in secrecy. You’re too soft, they whisper, you’ll never be able to stomach the struggles of a real ballerina long enough for your name to gain immortality and you wouldn’t dare to correct them.

...YOU SHOW YOUR TRUE COLOURS

For what they neglect are layers, depth, more than meets the eye. A devoted believer in the theory of everything having a reason, your kindness does not come devoid of one, naivety and greenness the furthest from fitting descriptive terms for a girl of your calibre. Confidently, you would proclaim you’ve seen it all, felt it all, slight exaggeration being part of the calculation but the essence of your statement indisputably truthful. From the punching bag to the one dishing out punishments to the reformed sinner — your journey has been rocky at best, your willingness to fight for your values and desires the sole reason you have pulled through and now find yourself seated on marble steps between rehearsals, invitingly patting the free seat beside you, your encouraging smile always reaching scintillating eyes. A certain comfort you have found in peace, all disturbances of it striking you like a dagger to the chest, the frequency increasing drastically the further your career progresses. If there was a choice to make between tranquillity and triumph, they might picture you overtaken by weakness but you alone know that you would not need to ponder. Even your duties as voluntary advocate for tolerance and collaboration has its limits and, alas, when push comes to shove, aren’t we all, even the most fragile of us, fighting our own battles?

VICTIM OR CULPRIT?

Of the twenty years you have thus far lived, seventeen have been filled with ruthless training, your successes not in the least as uncalled for as some might wish for them to be. The name Barbara Donne, often synonymous with Barbie, has been on the tip of every ballet aficionado’s tongue, including those possessing enough power to secure your reign, your new role as The Lilac Fairy inevitably bound to garner the most attention you, the glowing spitting image of Skyler Samuels Kat McNamara, have ever received. 

IN RELATION TO

ADELINE MOREAU: A girl of your upbringing is hardly used to compliments on her accomplishments, let alone heartfelt praise. Adeline has given you all that and more, her words laced with a form of encouragement you had yet to experience. Prior to her employment you had inarguably exhibited talent but your technique was lacking, never quite graceful enough for perfection; with her by your side, however, your shine is undimmished, your way to the top paved with tiles of pure gold. There is no way to thank her enough, albeit her help is much subtler than its effect, but you attempt to with sweetness and understanding, conviced that the time will come when the woman might hope to find an open ear and a friend in you. LINDSEY DAVIES: The hatred of envious commoners has hit her with unfazed force even succeeding the one you have fallen victim to before, your sympathy for her sparked at first sight. No nasty rumour could lead you astray, draw you away from pursuing a friendship with the girl whose stardom, soon to come, everyone finds even more unearned, even more suspicious. A part of you pities her for the spiteful glares so often directed at the back of her head, if not thrown straight at her, eye to cold eye, whereas another silently rejoices over her taking your place as the one everyone loves to pester. With a temper like hers and the right arguments, she might just teach those snobs a lesson on your behalf.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW

Chances of Survival: Slim Applicant must be open to portraying childhood trauma (form UTP) Faceclaim is negotiable

Starring: Becky as Barbara Donne

BARBARA. Hailing from the Greek word barbaros, meaning foreign or strange - she’s always figured that she had been named aptly. Always an outsider, always a stranger, even in her own skin, she takes comfort in Saint Barbara, in her strength. She knows how the story goes: every wound inflicted upon her healed, every fire brought near her skin extinguished. But she knows how the story ends and sometimes, in the dead of night, Barbie wonders if she’ll end up like her: end up the martyr, end up the sacrifice, with the insides of her veins painting the ground. ANAIS. French for grace, her middle name always seemed like a taunt to her – in her former years, she had always been lacking grace, been too much raw power and not enough silk covered elegance. But in recent years, she has lived up to it, coating her movements with an old world finesse like a second skin, moving through the ranks without a ripple, leaving onlookers always confused as to where she came from and how she ascended. (Surely, she cannot deserve it.) DONNE. Rooted in Irish mythology as Donn, the god of the dead – her last name always felt like a little bit of a promise, and a little bit of a curse.

PERSONALITY. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be? Barbie thinks she remembers being soft, being kind in the beginning – and part of it stems from her looks. She was born with delicate features, handpainted on a canvas of porcelain, doe eyes that changed with the context of her background (green in the woods, golden on cloudless mornings, honeyed hazel in the pale afternoon light), and hair so bright it was only rivaled by her smile. When people saw her, small and lithe and fragile, flighty in essence, a little dove that alighted in the palm of their hand, it was hard not to trust her, an impossibility to expect cruelty from her. And because the world craves sweet things, beautiful little souls, because it aches in constant hunger for a minute kindness, it swallowed her up, turned her softness into a warzone and layered her edges into knives.

So she remembers her obsidian mouth, flinty and stone cold but still beautiful – tongue cutting through skin so thinly, down at a molecular level, that most of the time, people didn’t even notice blood being drawn until they left, drained and cold. But she believes that everything has a purpose, and this portion of her life is no different. She remembers that it feels just as empty, just as painful, to be throwing words like punches as it does to receive them, and how truly heavy lies the head that bears the crown. She dissembles her weaponized empathy, sheds her cloak of cruelty – it never suited her well anyway.

So here she stands, bearing kindness around her neck like a cross on a chain, letting it glint and dangle in front of everyone, takes the shattered glass hate and grinds it to dust beneath the molars of her smile. She tastes war, heavy on the back of her tongue, and everyone knows the innocents are the first to go. But here’s the beauty of being delicate: when she shatters, all her broken little pieces will cut them right back. And everyone leaves none the wiser; everyone thinks that it’s their fault for breaking it in the first place. Everything has a purpose, everything is by design.

BACKSTORY.

i. dig up the bones

Her father likes to talk about the day she was born – about how when her mother finally had her after an exhausting eight hour labor, she had said, half delirious, “She will have a hard time of it.” He likes to talk about how her mother had cried and held her close after that, rocking her gently as tears dropped from the tops of her cheeks onto Barbara’s forehead. “She is so beautiful, and the world will not stand for it. Don’t argue with me. Just answer me this, my love: why do flowers wilt? Why do they wilt, when they should bloom forever?”

He has no answer for that question, and Barbara learns early on not to ask it.

But her mother is right, in the end. She spent her childhood tucked away and loved, hiding like a little mouse from the rest of the world, spoiled sweet to the core. But the world finds you eventually, and everything will come all at once.

It starts because her hair gleams like a halo of fire around her porcelain skin, and the kids at school tug at it and make fun of her for the translucence of her cheeks when blood rushes to the surfaces and matches her hair. They call her carrot-top and throw the baby carrots from their neatly packed lunches at her, and she finds out everything can hurt her, no matter what it is.

She goes home and cries in her room, cursing her hair and her fair skin and her thin frame. She wishes she were big and burly and tall, so no one would dare hurt her. She begs her father to let her take self-defense over dance, but can’t find her tongue when he asks why. So she channels her hurt and her anger into ballet – it makes her feel beautiful and strong, this tulle-layered corner of hers, far away from playground wounds. (All this hurt and loneliness and spite bites her in the ass one day, when they say her dancing is too much the raw provocateur and too little of the soft princess they’re looking for.)

Either way, her wishes aren’t heard, and this is how she learns the casual cruelty of children.

It changes in high school – while she’s not big and burly and tall, no one dares pick on her because her beauty becomes her sword and her armor. Boys who used to pull her pigtails find themselves wanting to tug her hair for different reasons, those who laughed at the easy blush of her cheeks covet how naturally color comes to her, and with time, they want to press bruises into her skin with their lips and not the packaged contents of their lunches.

She is a stroke of lightning upon her childhood tormentors, just how a vengeful god smote St. Barbara’s killer where he stood after her death. She hides wolf grins behind demure hands, sharp teeth snapping, blood-hungry. Is she not made from the gilded dust of monarchs of ages past, sitting pretty with a crown tipped on a bed of curls?

Payback feels like freedom until you stop and realise you’re still just as pissed as before.

ii. but leave the soul alone.

In the end, it’s love that unclasps the years of trauma she wore swathed around her delicate shoulders, that pulls her down from where she played judge, jury, and executioner in her academy. They find her in an empty training room, lights dimmed and pushed up against the mirror, only it’s not any of the boys they find her wound around, and the lipstick prints on her neck attest to that fact.

Barbie is all little red riding hood to Isa’s big bad wolf, and she’s homesick for a sixty second love, hungry for the sink of her canines.

She is quickly and swiftly ousted from the uppermost echelons of academy hierarchy, but she can’t bring herself to mind. (What she does mind are the slurs pressed in whispers behind her back, dyke dyke dyke.) So she goes back to drinking venom insults and letting it drip off her lips like honey instead, lets herself be repainted kind-bubbly-weak-Barbie, kind smiles reaching welcoming eyes, the Sistine Chapel amongst a sea of sinners, a safe harbor in a storm. She pats the seat next to her and her quick taps sound like welcome home, stay for a while.