Nicki Bratton

Category: Roots & Remnants

  • ⚓ Sea of Thieves: My Forever Voyage

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    Every Gamer Has a Comfort Game Mine just happens to be one where skeletons try to murder me and strangers chase me across the sea for fun. ☠️🏴‍☠️ Sea of Thieves isn’t just a game. It’s my game.It’s the one I always come back to.It feels like home. Salted and sunburned and chaotic—but home. I…

  • 💌 A Love Letter to Ollie Bug

    (Because some cars are more than just cars) 🚗 Love at First Vroom I have a habit of making big purchases when I get emotionally impulsive—like I’m possessed by a teenage demon with a debit card. So it’s no surprise that when I was approaching my 16th birthday, I decided I needed a car. Not…

  • High School Was a Vibe—and I Was the Weird Alt Girl Living It 🖤🎭

    📦 Packing Up, Starting Over The summer before freshman year, I packed everything I owned into boxes—my journals, my band tees, my lingering insecurities—and moved to Charlotte. My parents had finally separated (a long time coming), and honestly? I was relieved. After being bullied relentlessly through middle school, I was desperate for a fresh start.…

  • Not All Attention Is Flattering: A Spell for the Girls Who’ve Been Followed

    🎬 Freshman Year, New Script? Freshman year. New school.Fresh start… right? I was kind. I always am. ✨But sometimes, kindness gets mistaken for consent. Or worse—invitation. 👤 The Shadow I Didn’t Cast There was a boy.Not a classmate. Not a crush. Just someone I was polite to. And he latched on like a shadow. He…

  • 🖤 School Sucked. Except When It Didn’t.

    A Spell of Survival from a Former Target 🎭 Before the Curtain Fell I was aware of bullying before I was ever bullied.The summer before 5th grade, I even wrote a little play about it. My teacher had this charming marionette theater in her classroom, and I was absolutely enchanted watching older students put on…

  • 🎬 Movie Monday: The Bay Theatre — Suttons Bay, MI

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    🕯️ From Family Legacy to Community Magic Originally owned by the Bahle Family until 2018, The Bay Theatre was a beloved landmark until the owners announced they’d be shutting it down. The town of Suttons Bay wasn’t about to let that happen. They rallied together, transforming The Bay into a nonprofit — and in doing…

  • 🎓 From Spotlight to Studio Light: How College Became My Backstage Pass to Everything Else

    Rejected in Act One Let’s rewind the tape. 🎞️ Western Michigan University said “pass” to my theatre dreams, and that moment hit harder than a dramatic closing monologue in Act II. I was devastated. Curtain call? More like credits rolling on my Plan A. Truthfully, even if I had gotten in, we couldn’t afford it…

  • 🎬 Movie Monday: Eaton Theatre – Small-Town Magic on the Big Screen

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    A Family Legacy in Film The year was 2000. My mom had just lost her job at The Rapids Theatre in Eaton Rapids—after the owners drained the business account and skipped town. Curtain closed, end scene. But fate rolled the reel forward and cast her in a new role. About twenty minutes up M-50 sat…

  • As You Know, I Was a Theatre Kid 🎭 But You Might Not Know Why I Walked Away

    Act I: The Curtain Falls You already know from last week that the stage raised me.You know I handed out spotlights like Halloween candy and summoned casts from thin air like a teenaged show witch. 🪄 But what I haven’t told you… is why I stopped. It happened on a perfectly unremarkable day — the…

  • The Girl Who Directed Herself Into the Spotlight 🎭✨

    Act I: Finding the Stage In middle school, drama club was where I got my first taste of the spotlight — and I devoured it. I started as Charlene Bumiller in A Tuna Christmas — sassy, starstruck, and full of teen angst. Then came my role as the Gatekeeper in The Wizard of Oz —…