Diana Vilar

Diana Vilar y Marín

Di, Dia, Dee, D, Doc

Female

32

28th December

Somewhere near Barcelona, Spain

Spanish

Spanish/Catalan

64kg (141lbs)

175cm (5'8ft)

Dark ashy brown

Dark greenish brown

TW: MENTIONS OF INFANT DEATH, ANIMAL DEATH, DEATH IN GENERAL, TRANSPHOBIA, MEDICAL PRACTICES, AND WORK ACCIDENTS.
Diana was born in 1844 under the grey skies of a small industrial town near Barcelona, Spain, and assigned male at birth. She was the second child in a middle-class family, daughter of a foreman in a factory and a housewife. Her older brother, Lluís, was actually her parent’s second child: the first, an unnamed kid who she wouldn’t hear of until she was an adult, had died days shortly after birth. Due to the tragedy, Di’s parents found comfort in the only thing they had: religion. Her mother specifically was a very strict Catholic and made her and her siblings, Lluís, Nàtalia (b. 1848) and Salvador (b. 1850) follow a rigid routine, praying around five times a day and attending mass every afternoon. Due to her mother’s harsh rules, Diana would eventually come to hate religion, especially given how restrictive it would be to her in her teenage years. Her father, on the other hand, was a man who valued more his job than his family and known among the factory workers for his short temper and stubbornness, which also translated into his personal life.

Young Diana grew up expected to be the heir of the family’s wealth after Lluís. At school, she was a top student who was loved by teachers and got the best grades, but also a lonely kid who was a weirdo in the eyes of her fellow classmates. She especially was interested in knowing how things worked, from science to language, and could understand them very easily; however, there was something that piqued her interest, medicine. Studying how the human body worked kept her entertained for hours, staring at diagrams and notes.
Seeing her intelligence, her parents placed very high expectations on her, envisioning her future as an important owner of a factory, which only made her stressed. She couldn’t afford to fail: doing so meant being a disappointment and triggering her mother’s wrath, which was something she was afraid of. The ever-changing Spanish political scene didn’t help, too, since her father risked losing his job when a new government was in charge.

During her early teenage years, Diana came to the realization that she was trans. Even though she was afraid of the consequences that it would entail, she finally gathered the courage to tell her parents. And when she came out of the closet… Well, it went as well as you would expect. Despite her folks not reacting violently, it was clear that they weren’t accepting of her identity. And so to avoid any rumors or stares, they sent her away to live with her uncles Xavier and Gerard in Cuba in 1857, when she was fourteen, who had found fortune.

Having to adapt to a totally new environment was hard at first. Diana had barely met that side of her family and didn’t get along well with her cousins. But it all changed when she discovered her uncle Xavier’s library. Despite being a businessman, the man used to work as a surgeon, and he had plenty of medical books. Saying that she became obsessed with them was an understatement: when she wasn’t in school, she used to spend hours and hours locked in her room, looking through illustrations and explanations of the human body, memorizing every single word and fact. Eventually, her passion became so big to the point that she asked her uncle to tutor and teach her all he knew; but he refused, saying that it would be a waste of time. However, Diana didn’t give up. She started gathering the bodies of dead animals she found and dissecting them, taking notes about how everything worked in a notebook that Xavier eventually came across. Surprised at her dedication, the man took her under his wing and finally accepted to teach her what he knew. Even though he wasn’t a surgeon anymore, he made sure that his niece knew everything about diseases and their treatment, hoping to see her flourish one day. It’s also notable the fact that her relatives there were way more accepting of her identity, and treated her as a woman as soon as she came there.

As she was in her childhood, Diana was a loner at school too. She did well, but had few friends: she usually hung out with her cousins Clara and Aaron and a rich boy named Silvestre Ciurana whose father was an acquaintance of Di’s uncles. Their friend group was small, but they had fun together and often went for long walks at the beach after class. And as the years went by, Diana found himself becoming too intimate with Silvestre. The two had much in common: he, as she did, had moved here after spending his early years in Spain and lived with his grandfather and aunt. And being the homesick hormonal teenagers they were, soon they fell in love, sneaking as soon as the night fell to visit each other.

What seemed to be a mere teenage romance quickly became something more. Despite going through some ups and downs, it was clear that their relationship was deeper than simple puppy love. The two were separated in certain moments, with Diana starting a job as a nurse when she turned eighteen and Silvestre having to travel around for business affairs, but managed to stay in touch despite being busy and in Diana’s case, having a fair amount of suitors. And eventually, Silvestre popped the question. While on a dinner, he got down on his knees and showed her the ring.

They got married five months later in a big ceremony.

Twenty-five years old and happily wed, Diana was living a good life. She did what she loved (helping other people), lived in a nice flat with views of the sea and was married to the most amazing man ever. When the inevitable question came and people asked when they were having children, they just replied with the (white) lie that they were unable to have children. Silvestre knew of Diana’s identity, though, but he didn’t care. He was and would be in love with her no matter who she was, and their relationship would stay as strong as it was when after a revolt exploded in 1868 and having their financial stability threatened, they managed to flee to the US and relocated to Philadelphia.

However, luck had seemed to abandon them. As a trans immigrant woman who spoke okay English, Diana couldn’t find a well-paying job, and the same went for her husband. All that they could do was to start working in a crummy textile factory, trying to make ends meet and barely getting paid enough to afford an apartment, food, and wood for winter. Di also sometimes brought money in from performing (illegal) medical procedures on coworkers or acquaintances that asked them, such as abortions, even though she tried to make her services as affordable as possible and even for free on occasions.
Compared to her previous life in Cuba and Spain, the big city was rough. Diana, who was kind of a neat freak, couldn’t stand the dirty streets and the squalor of the flat she lived in. But at the same time, she was free from her family’s reach and living with the person she loved the most, getting to go to sleep every night in the arms of her loving husband. But the happiness she felt every time the two got to cuddle wouldn’t last long.

May 12, 1870, would become a fatal date for her. The day started as usual, with the three waking up early and going to work. But it also started with a suspicious smell in the factory, with a fire starting somewhere. With a wire placed in the wrong spot. And with a machine collapsing and falling on Diana, slashing her face and making all fade to black.

She didn’t wake up until three days after, gasping for breath, putting her hands on her face and realizing that she was bandaged everywhere. Diana got the news as soon as he was conscious. A fire had erupted in a wing of the factory, killing almost all the workers there and making the machinery malfunction on the other. That was what had happened to her: she had been injured when one of those fell on her, breaking her foot and leaving three ugly scars on her face. But no wound could compare to the pain of hearing that Silvestre had perished, of seeing his mangled corpse in a pile.

After burying them in the outskirts of town, Diana packed her things up and left Philadelphia since there wasn’t anything in the city worth staying for. Managing to get some money while traveling the country, she decided to buy medical supplies and resume her true passion: surgery. She went west and made a living out of helping people for a small price or for free, making sure that everyone had access to good care, and resuming her research and notes. She has been doing this for six years now, learning all kinds of survival skills.

1843: Diana is born in a town near Barcelona.
1848: Natalia, Diana’s sister, is born.
1850: Salvador, Diana’s brother, is born.
1857: Diana comes out as trans. She’s sent to live in Cuba with her uncles.
1861: Diana becomes a nurse in training in a hospital.
1867: Diana marries Silvestre Ciurana, her teenage sweetheart.
1868: Diana and Silvestre flee Cuba to go live in the United States, settling in Pennsylvania and working in a textile factory.
1870: Silvestre dies in a work accident in which Diana is badly injured, giving her her facial scars. She leaves Pennsylvania to become a traveling doctor, moving around the country and helping those in need.
1876: Diana meets and joins the Mayfield gang of outlaws.