I want you guys to tell me whether you think this Degrassi-Glee crossover fanfic is an accurate portrayal of Tristan.
Hummilligan: Summer of 2013
Chapter 1: Kurt Hummel
I go to the most competitive performing arts school in the country, the New York Academy Of Dramatic Arts (NYADA), along with my friend and roommate Rachelāalthough she might drop out to be in a Broadway revival of Funny Girl, her all-time favorite musical.
So that means that even though Iāve always wanted to go to Paris (and now, during summer vacation, I finally have time), Rachel canāt go with me, and neither can any of my other friends as far as I can see. Dad said heād be willing to pay for my airline ticket, but thatās all heās willing to do. So Iāll have to find a friend who can also afford to pay for their airline ticketā¦
Day of my departure
...and I found one in my fiancĆ© Blaine! He surprised me at JFK Airport today, and said heās been wanting to go to Paris too. Weāre likely to discover fashions that even I have never heard of before, and Iām obsessed with fashion.
So we arrived at our hotel in Paris, and we saw in the lobby what looked like a school group. I decided to ask where they were from, and one of the girls, Maya (who was sitting next to a guy, Tristan, who was looking at me in a suspicious way) told me that they were from Degrassi Community School in Toronto. I asked if theyād all be on one floor (because I did not need Tristan hunting me down in my room, not when Iām already engaged to Blaine) and Tristan told me they wouldābut he could tell from me and Blaineās fashions why we came to Paris. He then introduced himself and Maya (thatās how I know their names now); however, I did not see Tristan again until Blaine and I went clothes shopping, and Tristan came up and told me he liked a purple suit jacket I had just picked up.
We started to talk, but then Blaine reminded me that I should also get a fake leather jacket, as Rachel is a vegetarianāand knowing her, with me and Blaine away in Paris, she might give away all my real leather jackets (I left them all at home). Now that I think of it, I thought she had a fur coatābut Iāll have to ask her whether itās real fur or fake fur. Tristan even overheard that conversation, and said he knows all sorts of interesting people at Degrassi Community Schoolābut heās never met any vegetarian students there, which Iām sure Rachel would be quite surprised to hear.
The next morning, in the breakfast room, Blaine and I saw Tristan and Maya working on their computer as they ate. I heard Tristan say to Maya that a vegetarian diet might be the weight-loss method heās always been dreaming of, to which Maya replied āYeah, you know how badly it went when you and Tori went on a cleanse. Tori is such a sheepāwhy does she think she needs to lose weight? Why in the hell did she go on that cleanse diet with you? You know that my older sister Katie used to struggle with bulimia, right?ā Tristan seemed not to be paying attention, though; he was making sheepās eyes at meāI had not wanted to tell Tristan that Blaine and I were a couple when I had just met him. But I finally felt forced to admit it, which isnāt too bad as Tristan is obviously gay himself.
I asked Tristan and Maya if Blaine and I could sit with them, and they said I could. I told them it sounded like some pretty crazy stuff had been going on in their lives, and Tristan said his cleanse diet wasnāt even the worst of it. He said that the cleanse diet was done to impress a guy heād met while starring in the school musical, and asked if our high school did musicals. Blaine said that theyād recently done Grease, in which he was offered the lead role of Danny Zuko, but didnāt take it because we were having some pretty bad problems in our relationship at the time. (Iād rather not go into detail.) Those problems boiled over when Rachel and I went back to Lima to watch Grease; Rachel was also having problems with her ex-boyfriend Finn (also my stepbrother), and we figured that Lima no longer felt like home to us, which is why I havenāt been back there ever sinceānot even to see Dad, although he and I have quite a close relationship. (There is one exception to that, which I did not feel like mentioning to Tristan and Maya: Dad had prostate cancer a few months ago but is in remission now, and there was one time that he requested for me to come back to Ohio and go with him to a doctorās appointment, where we found out that he was cancer-free.)
Tristan asked if Blaine had ever successfully starred in a school musical, and Blaine told Tristan of how he (Blaine) portrayed Tony in West Side Storyāalthough, I interjected, I auditioned for that role myself, but Blaine interjected that I was really not a good fit for that role. Maya said sheād heard that West Side Story was a modernized version of Romeo and Juliet, which a student director at her school had also re-done so that it featured two guys and was re-titled Romeo and Jules (and Tristan was one of the leads). Tristan told us how homophobia at his school is much worse than visitors can see, because his Romeo and Jules co-star Dave Turner is straight in real life and only reluctantly agreed to play a gay role. We talked about how usually, itās the opposite: gay guys get asked to portray straight characters in musicals, as had happened to Blaine when he was recruited for the role of Tony in West Side Story (which he had not originally auditioned for).
The next dayā¦
As Blaine and I had breakfast with Tristan and Maya, Rachel texted me and told me that she wanted to know if it was okay for her to give away my leather jackets, as our new friend Elliott āStarchildā Gilbert had come to visit our apartment in Bushwickāand thought Rachel was lying when she said that she was a vegetarian. (My other roommate Santana is out of town, too; otherwise she would have explained that the leather jackets didnāt belong to Rachel, who Starchild likely wouldnāt have believed if Rachel herself had explained this.) I told her that she was welcome to give away my leather jackets; Starchild is friends with all of us, and I donāt want him to think weāre lying about something so important.
I also told Rachel that I honestly thought she might try to give away my leather jackets without my permission; she has been willing to play dirty to get what she wants before, as shown when we were in a glee club together in high school, and Rachel sent a potential new member named Sunshine to a crack house instead of our auditorium for Sunshineās audition. (I guess we only have Rachel to blame that Sunshine was later talked into joining a rival glee club, Vocal Adrenalineāand that this was part of the reason why we lost Nationals that year.) In any case, I did go clothes shopping with Blaine and Tristan today, and I was able to find everything I wanted, including a vegan wool jacket. (Tristan got one of those for himself, too.) Rachel will be quite impressed that, despite not being a vegetarian myself, I didnāt buy any non-vegan fashionable clothes in Paris.
Toward the end of our trip to Parisā¦
Weāve gotten to know Tristan and Maya very well (for those who donāt know, theyāre just friends)āso well, in fact, that Tristan is inviting us to come home to Toronto with him! He thinks we might enjoy meeting some of the people at his school who didnāt come to Paris. So of course I texted Dad and told him to buy me a plane ticket to Toronto, and Blaine got his mom to do the same. To my surprise, Dad said he was going to come up to Toronto himself, along with my stepmom Carole, because they were curious to meet my new friend (with whom Iām sure they think Iām cheating on Blaine; it doesnāt help that this is apparently what Tristan would like).
But Dad said that before he bought my airline ticket, he wanted to know if Tristan might enjoy meeting him, Carole, and my friends in New York, as itās right on the way to Toronto. I asked Tristan about this, and he says heās always wanted to visit New York, especially to see a show on Broadway; I told him that if he was in New York a month from now, we could see an especially great show: the production of Funny Girl in which Rachel is starring. (Rachel idolizes Barbra Streisand, the original star of Funny Girl.) Dad was glad to hear that I agreed to his idea of going back to New York, because heād rather not travel to another country that I donāt even live in.
So we all went back to North America...
I was a bit surprised when Maya said she wanted to come to New York with me, Blaine, and Tristan; are she and Tristan really that close? But as we were waiting for our flight to New York, Maya pulled me aside and explained to me that she has previously seen Tristan develop unhealthy obsessions with guys he has crushes on, and she didnāt want him to go so far as to break up me and Blaine. āWere you even paying attention when I reminded him of how badly it went when he and my old friend Tori went on a cleanse diet?ā she asked, in order to support her point about Tristanās unhealthy obsessions. āHe did that just to impress a guy he had a crush on. Iāve had some pretty out-of-control relationships myself, but Iāve never gone that low.ā I told her I hadnāt been paying attention when she reminded Tristan of that event (because I was distracted by the way Tristan was looking at me), although I did tell her the story of a brief period in high school when my friend Mercedes and I were on the cheerleading squad together, and Mercedes was forced to go on a crash diet by our highly perfectionist coach (and fainted in the cafeteria at the end of it; she then quit cheerleading.)
Chapter 2: Maya Matlin, guest-starring Owen Milligan
As Tristan and I got into our hotel room on our first night in NYC, Tristanās older brother Owen called us. He asked how things were going for Tristan in New York, and Tristan said that he made a great friend in Parisāand thatās how he got to visit NYC in the first place. Owen said that heād recently seen a former classmate of his, Riley Stavros, with a new boyfriend; Tristan seemed surprised that Owen could say that last word so casually. Tristan asked what the name of Rileyās new boyfriend was, and Owen said that Rileyās boyfriendās name is Dave Karofsky (who, while we were all in Paris, apparently visited Toronto to attend a new-student orientation at the University of Toronto.) For some reason, that name sounded familiar to both me and Tristanāand then I remembered that Tristan, Kurt, and Blaine had been discussing the extent of homophobia in high schools; Kurt had a lot to say about that, as Karofsky, a former classmate of his, stayed in the closet for his whole time at Kurtās old high school. The next part of the story brought back some unpleasant memories for me; Kurt told me and Tristan that after Karofsky transferred schools, he (Karofsky) was outed at his new school, and then attempted suicide. (My old boyfriend Cam actually succeeded in taking his own life last year; I donāt know if Iāll ever recover from that.)
When Karofsky was taken off suicide watch, Kurt and his friends went to the hospital to visit Karofsky, whom Kurt encouraged to look forward to everything that his future had in storeāincluding a great relationship. As Tristan and I got on the subway to Bushwick to visit Kurt, Tristan told me that he thought he could see why Riley and Karofsky were in a relationship: they both had problems with their sexual orientations that they would not have had if they had not played football, which does not seem to be a very gay-friendly sport. For that reason, I donāt know why Karofsky or Riley felt forced to continue playing football if they had such an unhealthy relationship with that sport.
When Tristan and I got to Kurtās apartment, we were surprised to see some of Blaineās friends from high school there. Blaine introduced his friend Sam Evans; I was rather surprised to see how large his lips were.
Kurt apparently noticed this, and told us that one time, when his old glee club had to write original songs for a competition, Santana wrote one for Sam called āTrouty Mouthā, to which Sam replied āDonāt remind me.ā Kurt said that Tristan and I had to go back to Toronto on Wednesday as it was kind of expensive for his dad and stepmom to pay for our hotel room, and I told Kurt and Blaine that they were welcome to visit us whenever they had time.
Rilofsky: Winter of 2013
(guest-starring Riley Stavros š³ļøāš, Zane Park š³ļøāš, and Katie Matlin)
Kurt and Blaine are coming to visit us in Toronto for Christmas, and he says heās bringing his and Blaineās friend Rachel (who has a break from Funny Girl for Christmas)āas well as Blaineās other high school friend Joe Hart. Riley invited all of us to his house, where Karofsky is staying as well; Iām interested to know how Kurt and Karofsky became friends given that Karofsky bullied Kurt in high school!
We all got to Rileyās house, where, after introductions, Riley asked if any of us knew anything about homophobia in football. Kurt said he didnāt, as he did not last very long on the football team at his old high school. I later told everyone about my late transgender friend Adam Torres (whose older brother Drew used to be in a relationship with my older sister Katie, on whom Adam himself once had a crush), for whom relationships never seemed go well. Iām not just talking about his romantic relationships, either; Adam even had a strained relationship with his mother, who refused to let him physically transition.
We had dinner with Kurt and his friends the following night; when we were deciding where to go, Blaine mentioned that heād been invited to go to a gay bar with Riley and Karofsky. Rachel suggested that we could all go to a vegetarian restaurant instead, and Tristan gladly agreed to this plan (as did Kurt)ābut Tristan pulled Blaine aside and said something to him that I didnāt hear. Tristan then came back into the room and told everyone that we should get going. As we rode the streetcar downtown, we didnāt notice that Blaine wasnāt on it with us until the rest of us got off; Kurt then dialed Blaineās number, but Blaine didnāt answer, so Kurt got on the next streetcar going back to my neighborhood.
Kurt and his friends are thankfully staying at my house instead of Tristanās (we have a bunch of sleeping bags), but Blaine didnāt get home from Tristanās house until late at night. Katie is home for Christmas; she and I heard Blaineās voice and looked out the window of my room (which faces our backyard)āand I saw Blaine kissing a guy who I didnāt recognize, but Katie did.
She said that in her days at Degrassi, the guy, Zane Park, was the only openly gay student thereāand he was Rileyās ex-boyfriend. I thought, āOh my God, I hope Kurt doesnāt see thisā and told Zane to go away as quickly as he could. I thought that Kurt and Blaine had a pretty solid relationship; I asked Blaine why he had slipped away from us last night, but he kept dodging the question until I gave up.
Not until the next morning did I put two and two together and suspect that Tristan (who has a hopeless crush on Kurt) was behind this; when I confronted Tristan, he said (out of earshot of Kurt and Blaine) that heād convinced Blaine to go to the gay bar with Karofsky and Riley, and if Kurt didnāt want to go with him, he should accept that. Tristan told me that heās never been in a relationship (which of course I already knew), and Kurt would definitely go for him if Kurt wasnāt already in a relationship. I questioned this assumption as not only are we underage, Kurt is 20āso I think of him more as the older brother that Owen never was to Tristan, despite Owen having somewhat gotten over his homophobia.
I later talked to Kurt, and he says that now he knows how his late stepbrother Finn felt (before they became stepbrothers) when Kurt himself had a hopeless crush on Finn (who was straight); Kurt tried to make Finnās then-girlfriend Quinn break up with him by tricking Finn into revealing Quinnās pregnancy to her parents. Kurt achieved that goal, but of course he couldnāt get closer to Finn even when he set up their parents. Kurt said he was going home to New York, and wasnāt sure what heād do about the situation with Blaine. Kurt also said he never wanted to see Tristan again, but I was welcome to visit him in New York since I was the one who told him about Tristanās manipulations. Tristan himself was pretty mad at me: āI canāt believe you told Kurt that I was the one who broke up him and Blaine! What is wrong with you? Why are you so obsessed with stopping me from being in any relationships?ā