quartz, pyrite, kyanite
quartz: how my muse thinks other people see them
Hmm – it very much depends on what sort of person is looking at her. I break it up into three categories: family, friends, and strangers. The only immediate family Peyton has is her father, Sebastian, and she think he sees a lost little girl, his lost little girl. He wants to give her a purpose, structure, a calling that is stable and makes sense. She sees he doesn’t want to think of her as a disappointment, but if Peyton is the only child he’s was given (he doesn’t dare think of marrying another after Peyton’s mother – Peyton knows he would never love another woman as much as he loved and worshipped her mother) then she is a little disappointing, given the two powerful, ambitious people she came from.
She has two sets of friends: those she grew up with who live in Vancouver, who she flies to on the weekends to visit, and her dance friends, who live in Nelson. Her Vancouver friends pity her for moving to the smaller, underdeveloped British Columbia city; they’re all unemployed and live off their parents fortunes, so having a parent who forces you into anything is decidedly ‘sad’. Peyton thinks her Vancouverite friends see her growing more and more distant from them, the less time she spends in Vancouver. She thinks they think she’s becoming less of the free-wheeling party girl of their early twenties and teen years, losing some of the socialite princess status to work and dense forest.
Her friends from Nelson took a while (and are still taking a while) to warm up to her. At first she tried to hide her privilege from them, but when she started to get close to her studio friends she had to fess up and say who her father was. She thinks they see her as determined and talented, but underneath don’t understand the passion and hunger she has for dance because she doesn’t seem to need it as much as others seem to (which is bullshit, because dance is the only thing keeping her sane at the moment). However, they respect her, and think she’s got a good heart and a good sense of humor despite her very posh upbringings. She’s glad to have friends in Nelson, but is afraid that they’ll push her away because she’s too ‘different. And if her friends in Nelson push her away while her friends in Vancouver distance themselves from her, well…she’ll be all alone.
pyrite: a physical health headcanon
Basically, in the greatest shape of her life. She takes flawless care of herself, both in terms of what she puts into her body and how she keeps herself active. Except for the drinking – her liver probably won’t forget her social habits, though she definitely has reeled back since moving to Nelson and away from her friends in Vancouver.
Otherwise she has abs for days and can probably lift you and put you on a shelf if she needed to. And she’s very proud of that fact; she likes being strong and capable in that sense, even if her day job is spent sitting at a desk making phone calls and typing out emails. She didn’t use to have the developed muscle she has now; when she danced ballet she was much more lean, thinner, strong yet fragile looking. Peyton likes the way she looks now; people see the muscle tone and think twice before fucking with her. She feels able to defend herself and her friends, which is something not many people can say walking home at two in the morning.
kyanite: an anger headcanon
She doesn’t get angry very easily, which is probably thanks in part to all the appeasement she’s received over her twenty-eight years of living. There hasn’t been much to make her seriously angry – Peyton has mostly been frustrated. Perhaps the angriest she’s ever been was when her father threatened to cut her off completely if she changed her major to Dance from Business in undergrad. She couldn’t believe that her father would cut her off for wanting to do what she loved. The ploy worked; she didn’t pursue a major in Dance and instead danced every spare hour of free time she had.
In fact, her lack of a short temper makes Peyton a pretty good person to be around. She’s quite easy-going; she becomes more wounded than offended when people take to insulting her or where she comes from. And if she is angry, most likely she’ll channel it into dance, or boxing, or tai chi, whatever sort of exercise she can get her hands on.
Actually, the thing she’s missing in her dancing is emotion. She has all the technique down -- she’s flawless in that regard, because she practices and is determined to make everything look good -- but what makes other dances better than her is they have emotion experience to channel into their movements. Their flawed histories and backgrounds, their anger and pain, make for a more convincing storytelling than hers does. It frustrates her to no end, that she can know technique so well yet still not be at the top of her game.
