FITZSIMMONS, Dante Frankland

[dante frankland fitzsimmons]

DANTE FRANKLAND FITZSIMMONS

FULL NAME: Dante Frankland Fitzsimmons.
NICKNAMES: Fitz, Dan (mainly extended family call him Dan since they’re actually fond of his name and hate nicknames)
AGE: twenty-five
GENDER: male
SEXUALITY: Straight.
STATUS: Single.
GROUP: Student.
GRADE: Freshman.
MAJOR: Creative Writing
JOB OCCUPATION: Hard Rock Supeervisor.

HAIR: Blonde and on the long side of short. Dante lightens in often, so it’s closer to white blonde than the dark blonde he naturally is. It’s also not uncommon for him to play wish wash out colours for fun. It’s usually styled sticking up in the air, sometimes in all directions, but Dante will occasionally wear it slicked down and in a fashionable neat way if the event asks for it.
EYES: Brown.
SCARS/BIRTHMARKS: Only a few small ones from daft accidents he can’t even remember.
TATTOOS: He has a G on his right hand ring finger for his niece, a star on his chest, and on his left foot there is a smiley face, the letter Y because it's his favourite, and the word ‘big’ to remind him of the Tom Hanks movie, which was his favourite growing up.
PIERCINGS: He had his ears pierced when he was younger, but he took them out when he was in college.
PLAY-BY: Tom Fletcher!

LIKES: cats, Tom Hanks movies, writing, Disneyworld, Harry Potter, journals, organising his bookshelves, strumming a guitar, cardigans, walking, meeting people, cherry coke, his glasses, hats, being an uncle, shopping, London, video games, Christmas, musicals, water parks, cinnamon toast, The Sims, early mornings, Starbucks coffee, lazy days with friends, pub crawls, candles.
DISLIKES: dark chocolate, hangovers, getting sick, hospital waiting rooms, clothes that are too tight (unless they’re skinny jeans), people saying he should think about laser eye surgery/contact lenses, being lied to, paint fumes, feeling stressed out, bad Wi-Fi, long commutes, sour milk, restless nights, a bad ending to a good book, oysters, passing out during a movie, girls being blackout drunk.
FEARS: losing his family, snakes, other people’s feet.
SECRETS: Dante has always wanted to be a songwriter, but he’s never shown his work to anyone other than one person back in high school who was an old music friend who strummed guitar with him on a Friday evening. To those who ask now he tells them he’s interested in writing a novel, which is the truth, but only a half truth.
PERSONALITY: Dante is an awkward but talkative bloke, who wanders on the nerdy side of things. He’s a fun guy, so long as you like your fun in doses of video games, movie marathons, and late night take out expeditions. He’s a friendly guy who won’t say a mean thing about anyone, regardless of what he really thinks of them. He’s imaginative, a scribe born centuries later than he probably ought to have been. Asthma renders him incapable of being athletic, but while he might appear lazy to some, Dante is far from it, but prefers to keep fit by doing things like walking or shopping. He can be a bit daft at times, but he just likes living life on the lighter side, making people laugh. He’s probably treads a little more on the flamboyant side than most, and many can be forgiven for thinking he’s gay, but Dante is totally straight. He’s shy when it comes to the women he likes, purely because he’s never had much luck at the dating game. He’s a sweet guy, but just bumbles when he should have more confidence. When it comes to confrontations, Dante is the guy who would let himself get kicked to the ground before he raised a hand to anyone else. Dante wishes he could stand up and protect his friends, but the truth is he’s quite the coward who runs and hides when he wishes he could say something. He’s a dreamer who spends a lot of time wishing he was more than he was, but Dante is probably more insecure about himself than he ever wants to be. He wants it to change, wants to be greater than he is, but he doubts it will happen.

MOTHER: Anita Harmony Fitzsimmons, 46.
FATHER: Viktor Jamison Fitzsimmons, 60.
SIBLINGS: Stelle, Hestia Fitzsimmons, 23.
OTHERS: Gabriella Demi Fitzsimmons, 1, niece.
Jon Christian Lee, 25, best friend.
PETS: Harry, Ron & Hermione. All two years of age now. Ron is a ginger tabby, Harry is a black and white American shorthair, and Hermione is an Abyssinian – supposedly the smartest cat breed around!
HOMETOWN: London, England, but he’s lived in Manhattan since he was eight.
HISTORY: It’s hard being the son of Oxford professors, but Viktor did his best and found himself teaching at Cambridge not long after he graduated with his PhD in Philosophy from there. He wanted to be different from his folks, but there was so much pressure to be just like them, that the best he could do was to teach at their rival school; something they were still proud of even though they would pick at the flaws in Cambridge’s system at every chance he gave them. It was there that he met Anita. She was an undergraduate back then, studying medieval literature, but their romance bloomed despite the rules. Of course, nothing actually happened for a number of years, and Anita just worked around Viktor a lot in the library, or would go to him to ask for help with some of the allegory in her work. Only when she was nearing the end of her studies did she actually tell him how she felt, and he pointed out that subtly hadn’t really been her strong suit. She felt embarrassed until he told her that her feelings were indeed reciprocated, but that he valued his job too much to risk anything until after she had graduated. So, the day after she graduated, they went out for dinner and ended up back at his place in a whirlwind of emotions that had been building for three years. Anita ended up studying for her Masters at Oxford since Cambridge was out of the question if their relationship was to continue. It was awkward with both of his parents teaching there, but thankfully neither of them taught what she studied.

Anita had just completed her Masters when she discovered that she was pregnant. Stunned, but happy to face responsibility, Viktor married her in a short and sweet ceremony in the registry office. The guests were a few friends and family who were treated to a low-key reception and dinner at a hotel across the street. They moved into Viktor’s house and made preparations for the birth of their child. They wanted to pass onto him something that encompassed the two of them; philosophy and medieval, so when the doctors announced after a gruelling ten hour labour that they were now the parents of a baby boy, they bestowed upon him the name Dante, and blessed him with the middle name of Anita’s ailing father who didn’t live to see his grandson start school. Dante would later ask his parents if they had ever considered bullies when they picked his name, but his father would tell him that he was wise enough to rise above such things. In fact, Dante was the type of kid to be trampled on, not rise.

When Dante was two his little sister came along. His parents had decided to keep with the theme of names, but after much deliberation had concluded that naming their daughter Beatrice was a little too Freudian in the end. Ultimately, they named her Stelle, which meant Star, and is the last word of each of the three parts of The Divine Comedy. A friend suggested the modern Stella, but that was deemed too modern by the scholarly parents who wanted everything to be authentic and fitting with their little plan. Thankfully, after Stelle put Anita through a traumatic birth, they decided to have no more children.

Growing up, there was a lot expecting from Dante. Viktor explained that it was what was best for him, and that his parents had put him through the same. Thankfully, the move to New York when Dante was eight took a bit of pressure off the little boy for a while. The move came as a result of Viktor being offered a position at Columbia University, and it was hardly mission impossible for Anita to find work teaching in the states either, though she opted for a less prestigious school. Dante found himself as the new kid, being ogled at for his accent, goofy glasses, and weird name. At least some of the kids called him Dan, though his parents scowled at the atrocious shortening of his name. Dante wasn’t totally keen on it himself, but it was a hell of an improvement in his eyes. However, it didn’t matter what the kids called him, the bullies were still there and he was still a prime target for them. He didn’t know things, used strange words, and was different to the other kids in his class. He found it hard to fit in just about anywhere, but he met another boy through his music lessons that Viktor insisted would make him more cultured, who befriended him almost immediately. It was Jon and he would become Dante’s best friend over the years. Dante could strum a guitar and play the piano fairly well, but he was not destined to wow the crowds on a stage; he didn’t even dream of that for himself. Jon however wanted this, and would eventually have it.

Dante bumbled his way through school, trying to avoid the bullies, failing most of the time, and just waiting until the time came when he could graduate and get away from them all. He told himself that while they were focused on making his life hell at least they weren’t picking on someone else. He was also thankful that Stelle didn’t have it the same way. She made it through school unscathed, usually with a date or a party on the weekend which was the opposite of Dante who had books to keep him occupied. He also wrote, but the only person who saw that was Jon, who encouraged him to show his talent off more, but Dante lacked the confidence to do that, no matter what his best friend told him. Jon had the confidence to walk up to the girls he liked and tell them outright, but Dante was the awkward one who just bumbled through everything, dropping things and making a fool of himself more often than not. If he didn’t have Jon to help him out or make him laugh about it, then he might not have made it through the teenage years in one piece.

When it came to college, Dante moved away from New York for the four years, and he thought he’d put his writing talent to use and study journalism. He moved to Florida, get a bit of sun in his life. The years flew by, and away from Jon it instilled a bit of confidence in the awkward young man and he learnt to stand on his own two feet for a change. Plus, there were no bullies knocking him to the ground anymore. During this time, Jon caught a break with his music, too, and things began to look up for both of the men. They remained in touch, and Dante still considered Jon his best friend. Jon would ask if Dante would write him some songs, but Dante still didn’t feel like what he had was good enough for the world to hear, no matter what Jon told him.

He ended up back in New York after college, writing for a local paper. His articles were fine, but they were just that. He was forever being told off by the editor for glamorising the truth or making things sound too fantastic. This went on for a few years until eventually, with some layoffs, Dante’s name was among those being told to pack up and leave. His boss, taking pity on him, suggested he try his hand at fiction writing. He pointed out that Dante’s best work was the stuff that ended up getting cut from his published pieces for sounding too made up. In this brink of unemployment, Dante found himself at a loss, working at Hard Rock as a host. It was all he could get in the time he needed to keep a roof over his head without asking his parents for a hand out. A few weeks later, his sister announced that a short fling had resulted in a pregnancy that the father wanted nothing to do with. Dante told Stelle he’d support her, and he did. He was the brother at the appointments and at the birth when his niece came along and being an uncle filled him with a sense of purpose again. He announced to his family that he was going to go back to school in the fall and take a creative writing course. He told them it was time he focused on his strengths and did something with his life that he could be proud of; not everyone else.

That’s where he is now. Dante says that he’s working on a novel, which is the truth, but he’s also hoping that college and writing more publically will help him garner the confidence he needs to give into Jon’s whims and put his songs out there for his best friend to turn into a hit for the nation. Dante still feels like he has a long way to go for that though.

YOUR ALIAS: Kim.
RULE WORDS: kidnappedbykim.
WHERE YOU FOUND US: Under my bed.
SAMPLE:

I think I’d rather not!

[kim]