#whether it be the long hair and slutty outfits of the '70s

[wahbegan]

If i could give the trans community advice, it would honestly be that y'all motherfuckers need to start gatekeeping way harder. Like, deny it all you want, but trans isn't like black or gay. It ain't something that you just is or isn't. It's a state of mind. You don't wanna call it like a mental illness, but it's definitely a state of mind. It's okay to look at some 50-year-old dude straight dude who has never had any shred of gender non-conformity before suddenly walking into the trans support group whose appearance makes every nerve in your gut scream DIDDLER VIBES in shoddy make-up squeezed into a dress making inappropriate comments and be like "You know what? No. You don't get it. This is not for you." In fact i'd argue it's imperative for the success of the movement.

Remember, back in the good old days? Like in Silence of the Lambs, when the FBI profilers were like "Oh, yeah, Buffalo Bill ain't a trans woman, he's a violent autogynephile, it's a completely different psychology"? Why don't y'all go back to that?

Again, not to sound Machiavellian, but i want to stress that rights movements that want to be all-inclusive and for everyone and are more concerned with being good people than getting shit done are destined to fail

[rowanelliis]

hey hi hello i’m SLATER ( they/them ), twenty-five, currently living my worst life on the left coast ( pst ). i bring to you my twitchy, lonely son, ROWAN. he’s a part-time antique lover, part-time dishwasher, full-time ghost whisperer. ( or something like that,, we’ll get to it later. ) he fills the alone ranger plot, and you can find his bio/questionnaire HERE  &&  some quick stats HERE. follow me under the cut for a TL;DR bio and wanted connections !! @phqextras​

oh hello again ! as promised, here is the summarized bio, bc i get that it’s long and you have shit to do. that said ! if possible, i would really love if you read THE BIO before/instead of this. it’s just,,, better. and better is better.  anyway, here we go !

rowan was born in pleasance to a 22 yo anita ellis and a father who bounced shortly thereafter, but we don’t care about him

he sees dead people! always has. they vary in shape from faded human to amorphous eldritch horror, and they’re supremely unhelpful. they mostly dont talk and the ones who do dont really answer what youre saying, they just say whatever they want. they moan a lot tho. its annoying. he hates them. kinda.

anita was a fraudulent fortuneteller and genuine psychic. she just knew stuff. rowan figures whatever he is, he got it from her.

he loves her sm guys. she was the mf BEST MOM. we’re talking blanket forts. we’re talking homemade stews. we’re talking going to alby’s to try on outrageous outfits they couldn’t afford and then shoplifting some little treasure to delight rowan with on the way out. the BEST.

when he was eleven, he spent an afternoon in the sequoia grove and when he got back he learned that to everyone else, hed been missing for five days

so that was a whole thing

following a years-long downward spiral of her mental health, anita showed up at rowans high school in the midst of a full-on psychotic episode. he was taken away by cps almost immediately and sent to a group home a couple towns over.

when he got back to pleasance at eighteen, she was gone. missing, not dead.

since then hes been devoted to the cause of finding her but its been eleven fucking years and no one else seems to care so he do get down abt it sometimes

his main theory is that it has something to do with the sequoia grove. he thinks that maybe whatever happened to him as a kid happened to her, but on a larger scale.

he currently lives in the house that he grew up in and that his grandparents built, a giant ugly thing that hasnt been updated in any way since the 70s

hes bad at holding a job. hes bad at feeding himself. hes bad at sleeping. hes bad at forming and maintaining relationships. basically, hes bad at being an adult human.

ok so maybe he doesnt see ghosts. maybe his mom wasnt psychic. maybe theyre just crazy. that is a possibility. but its also possible its true. you dont know. leave him alone

ok now the fun part ! here are some connections id like to see for rowan:

actual friends (one or two, three TOPS. hes a loner ok)

i honestly debated whether i wanted him to have any close friends at all but yknow what! hes been in this town for nearly 30 damn years he can treat himself to a friend or two. these would be people who believe him, or at least have an open mind. they could be from way back or more recently. just people he’s comfortable around, and maybe goes to specifically for comfort. he needs a lot more of that than he’s getting.

hookups (past or present)

i think hes kind of slutty?? not in any active kind of way, hes definitely not aggressive or even confident, but he’s so starved for affection that i think he’d have a hard time saying no to anyone offering it. his sexuality is Undeclared but Not Straight, so he’s up for grabs. he’s also weak for...... how do you say..... les milfs. i mean he would never use that word but it is what it is. mommy issues doesnt even begin to cover it. on a related note! if your character is on the amoral side of the spectrum, this guy would be wildly easy to manipulate. just like, brush his hair with your fingers or call him good or whatever. he’s Weak.

exes (maybe one serious, no more than a couple more casual)

here are some great reasons to dump rowan:

will not remember your birthday or anniversary or anything

obsessed w his mom

sometimes sleeps with his eyes open which is creepy as Fuck

usually broke

lives in that fucking house

kissed someone else at your birthday party bc they had really pretty eyes and were standing really close and kinda smiled at him and he got overwhelmed

routinely talks to the air, sometimes aggressively. thinks hes covert abt it. is not.

love interests (look im not actually into planning ships it just felt fair to rowan to balance this out a little)

here are some great reasons to date rowan:

will never, ever laugh at you or make you feel small

will give small, thoughtful gifts for no reason

cute floppy hair, doe eyes

once he feels safe with you, he will do anything for you, any time, forever

lives in that fucking house

you never knew a kiss could make you feel so wanted

maybe he’s special, you know? maybe he’s just something special

( ok that was gay ! now back to your regularly scheduled programming )

people who think he’s crazy (as many as possible tbh)

i know weve got a lot of believers here but honestly,,, even among believers i think hes kind of an outcast. the mf talks to himself. there are like 8 agreed upon stories around town and hes seen waaaaaay more ghosts than that. and non-belevers?? fuggedaboutit. i kinda see this as part of the reason he was rejected from the mystery gang. maybe someone it was like ‘ok im into checking this stuff out but that guys fucking nuts’. idk. what is life without struggle?? without conflict?? boring.

people who are using him for the story (whoever wants)

this could be a writer or reporter, but it could also just be someone whos interested in this kind of stuff. OR again, could be a non-believer who just thinks its entertaining to watch him. could be honest about their motives or straight up manipulating him into thinking theyre a friend or whatever. pretty open, i just think he would be a figure of interest to certain people.

someone who was present when his mom showed up at the high school (someones?)

this isn’t even a connection really so much as just A Thing I Want. i want someone who saw a tiny, angry-crying sixteen year old rowan drag his screaming mother down the hall of the science wing with their own two eyes. student, teacher, visiting alumni, parent or sibling who was at the school for some reason idk. maybe they pitied him and approached him later. maybe it was the thing that made someone decide hes a lost cause. it doesnt even have to ever come up. i just want someone to have that image in their brain. i want them to see it when they see what a mess he is now.

a final note! when rowan was a kid he was pretty open about the ghost stuff, mostly because his mom always believed him w/out question and he didn’t know it was something to hide. after the whole woods incident and the reaction of cps + the cops to his story, he learned to keep that shit to himself. unless he knows your character well, he probably wouldnt have discussed it w them directly. however! anyone around his age might remember the stuff he talked about as a kid or his mom showing up at the school (honestly that was dramatic enough the story may live on in the halls of nwhs today in some form or another). anyone around his moms age (40-50) might know how woo-y and sketchy she and her child were. there are certainly rumors about both of them. also, most people have probably seen him behaving strangely, ie. suddenly rerouting on the sidewalk to walk around what seems like nothing, telling something to fuck off under his breath, or just flitting his eyes over to a seemingly empty space over and over. he really does try to appear as normal as possible, but it’s difficult. i think most people see more than he knows, and more than he would like them to.