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stardusted-bookworm · 7 months

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It ain't the being alone.

She'd been alone all her life. Had grown comfortable with it. Had known loneliness like an old friend. Had known. For never had loneliness wounded her the way it did now. She now knows that loneliness had left her long ago and had not been her companion since he walked into her life.

It ain't the empty home, baby.

She looks around at the house they'd called home. She is haunted by a memory. A memory of the rafters being filled with laughter and joy as he waltzed her around their dining room. A memory of the smell of spiced meats and mouth-watering dishes. Memories of endless hours of talking, of enjoying each others' companies as the fire crackled and the rain poured down outside.

These memories fade, leaving her in the cold, desolate house she had built for them. Portraits smile at her from the walls, cruel remembrances of a time no longer present. The fire no longer crackles. The stove no longer houses their cooking. And the floors remain un-danced.

You know I'm good on my own.

As she stares at a dent in the wall, she also remembers the endless fights. Him complaining that she was always gone. Shouting that she was never around. Her yelling back that she was around. All the time. That she should be allowed her own time and space. That she shouldn't need to be so firmly attached to him at all times that they fuse into one person. They had been born separate for a reason.

She remembers the silence after that. Should've predicted what came next.

You know it's more the being unknown.

He did not speak to her again, except for short words, curt answers. He was never in the house unless it was to sleep, and somedays, he did not even return for that. He no longer remembered the secrets they had shared with smiles. He no longer cared to remember her favorites, her laugh, her song. It was as if he was methodically un-remembering her.

And oh, how her heart broke at that.

And there are some people, love, who are better unknown.

She presses a hand to her chest, surprised to see it come away clean. The pain of her heart is so acute she believes she should be bleeding.

For it was not just the un-remembering. She had found out later, after he had left for the last time, that he had found someone new. Had wooed and courted this other with as much fervor as he had her. Had made them laugh, had danced with them, had enjoyed their company as ardently as he had with her.

It was then her heart cleaved. Was rent in two. Never to be mended. To be removed completely from his memory... to be treated as if she had never existed... No, there was no coming back from that.

It would've been better if she had never met him, she thinks to herself. For the good did not outweigh the bad.

She thinks back to how often he would dismiss her. Would not share in her excitement the closer they got to the end. Was it her fault? Should she have tried harder?

No. Her resolve hardens. The blame is not hers to carry. Not when he left the way he did. Not when he abandoned her before she even knew it was over.

She stands and looks at the match burning in her hand. She lets it fall to the ground and walks out of the burning house, burning the memories of him with it.

Nothing would grow on that patch of land again. She had ensured it. Had coaxed her magic back to her after years of suppressing it to make him happy. Never again would she debase herself the way she had allowed him to debase her.

She is the most powerful witch of her age. And the world would remember her power once more.

Starting with him and his pretty new bride.

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whydoeseveryonewanttobangchan · 1 year

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🌸 Hold me in your arms… 🌸

✎ Pairing: Chan x reader

✎ Genre: Fluff / Romance / Song-fic

✎ Summary: After years of stolen glances and undisclosed desires, something finally happens between you and Chan after a show.

✎ CW: Quick mention of being in a crowd of people, Ed Sheeran music 💀

✎ Word count: 977

❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥ ❥

With a tight grip on your wrist, your friend guides you through the crowd at the end of a Stray Kids concert. Hundreds of people push in different directions, headed for the exits, but you’re headed backstage.

Felix was one of your best friends growing up, and you haven't seen him or his new best friends in what seems like ages. You loved all of them, but you've had a huge crush on Bang Chan for the longest time.

You finally make it out of the sea of people and navigate to the hallway where Felix said a security guard would take you and your friends back. You find the man without much trouble, and you’re directed into a small-ish room filled with the sweaty post-show performers and some miscellaneous furniture. For some reason, an old Ed Sheeran album is playing from some speakers on the far side of the room.

Your friends head over toward Felix but you make your way to the small loveseat, where Chan seems to be headed, too.

He sits down first, placing his hands next to his legs. As you lower yourself onto the couch, Chan’s hand accidentally brushes against your thigh. Both of you blush almost immediately.

Your stare is just long enough for you to briefly examine his dark eyes before you turn your heads down to your respective laps. You try to hide your growing smile and refocus your attention on the rest of the room.

The group conversation carries on steadily. You discuss their tour, how everything's going with the new album, and reminisce on memories from your childhood and years before. Through all of this, you and Chan have small seconds of contact: his arm against yours, his hand against your arm, your hand on his knee, his hand on yours.

The conversation slowly dies and smaller groups branch off to discuss who knows what. You and Chan continue to sit in your original spots in comfortable silence, with his thumb lightly massaging the top of your right hand.

Then the next song comes on. It’s a romantic one you loved as a teen. You immediately feel a shift in the air around you, and it’s clear Chan does too. His thumb stops massaging the back of your hand, and he’s looking at you timidly.

Settle down with me. Cover me up, cuddle me in.

You look at each other more intently now. From a distance, the dark brown of his irises can almost appear completely black, blending in with his pupils. But this close to him, you can make out the different shades of deep brown.

Lie down with me.

Chan swallows deeply. You see his Adam's apple bobbing up and down in his throat, almost in slow motion. He sees your eyes move down for just a second. He blushes and a small smile forms on his lips. He's so beautiful.

And hold me in your arms.

Chan’s thumb restarts the circular motion on the top of your hand. You turn your upper body to face him and he does the same. This moment seems so intimate, so fantastic. How can no one else in the room feel this?

And your heart's against my chest, your lips pressed to my neck.

Chan runs his left hand up and back down your right arm; goosebumps rise there immediately. His right hand moves towards your face, but hovers just above your skin. You close the distance so his fingertips lightly brush your cheek. His touch is electrifying.

I’m falling for your eyes, but they don't know me yet.

You take a quick, deep breath to steady yourself. At that moment, Chan seems to realize that he hasn't been breathing at all and takes a deep, shuddering breath. You try and fail to hold back a smile.

Eyes intently watching your face, Chan moves his right thumb across your cheek and pushes some stray hair behind your ear. His left hand moves toward the middle of your back, pulling you closer. It feels like there's no one else in the room, the building, the Earth; just you two.

And with a feeling I'll forget, I'm in love now.

Your arms quickly and smoothly slide to his chest, resting just under his collarbones. Chan runs his right hand back across your cheek, resting it right under your left ear. His thumb traces back and forth right above your jawline.

He tilts his head down so his forehead touches yours. His mouth is so close — you can feel his warm breath on your lips.

Kiss me like you wanna be loved, you wanna be loved, you wanna be loved.

Your lips barely touch, but Chan leans in to maintain contact. It's sweet and still for a few seconds until you lower your jaw, parting your lips to give him access to your mouth. He eagerly accepts.

This feels like falling in love, falling in love.

Your lips move together slowly, settling into a rhythm. Everything fades away. You can only hear the music and Chan’s heartbeat. Or is that yours? Probably both. You can't concentrate on anything other than his lips. They're so soft, so perfect. He's so perfect.

The kiss doesn't last long in reality, but it feels like a hundred years have passed since you sat down on that couch. With one last peck, you pull back, eyes still shut tight.

You take a deep breath and slowly open your eyes. They meet Chan’s instantly. He rubs your cheek once more, and the most beautiful, genuine, excited, loving smile you have ever seen crosses his lips — and you can’t help but beam right back at him.

The kiss was perfect. The moment was perfect.

He was perfect.

Falling in love.

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livgr3 · 20 days

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Roundtable: Glee (2009-2015)

Oh dear. Where to even begin....

What we now know and love (or hate) as Glee began as a screenplay for a feature film of the same name by Ian Brennan. The screenplay then circulated to working TV writers Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, and the three soon began writing a full television season based on Brennan's original screenplay. The series was very quickly picked up by FOX, following the success of another musical-themed program: American Idol.

So has been said about Glee in retrospect, from recent TikToks dissecting problematic moments in the show to a docuseries addressing speculations of dissent among castmates. While this has been interesting fodder to engage with online, I do feel that we have reached a collective memory of Glee that has strayed from the original tone and intention of the show. This is also thanks to the complete diversion the show took in its later seasons after new writers were hired and the show tried to keep up with its own rapidly growing popularity.

Glee’s initial charm was similar to the central appeal of American Idol: a glimmer of hope in a time of economic hardship through an underdog story. Underneath its surface-level wackiness and off-kilter dialogue, Glee was intended to be a tongue-in-cheek satire; a "postmodern musical" in the words of Ryan Murphy. Based in Ohio, its characters grapple with the ongoing economic recession and try to find hope and resilience in their downtrodden circumstances through the imaginative powers of the songs they sing. The show’s humor and central conflicts in its first season are largely derived from disputes from the “big guys” punching down on the “little guys.” In fact, the rivalry between optimistic Glee Club instructor Will Schuester and absolutely unhinged cheer coach Sue Sylvester can be read alongside the country’s broader economic battles.

The mention of these two crucial characters brings me to an analysis of the show in conversation with the arguments of Robynn Stillwell in her work “Dual-Focus Strategy in a Serial Narrative: Smash, Nashville, and the Television Musical Series.” For this analysis I will refer to the first and last episodes of Glee’s first season, titled “Pilot” and “Jouney to Regionals,” respectively, pulling some contextual elements from episodes in-between if needed.

Dual-Focus Narrative

A defining stylistic feature of an episode of Glee is its introductory monologue, in which a character provides a voiceover of their unique, hilarious perspectives on the events of the episode to come. Throughout the episode, other characters might also provide a voiceover monologue with contradictory opinions, or introduce the episode’s B-plot. It is through these little snippets of each character’s perspective that the show manages its large ensemble cast and creates an advanced version of Stillwell’s described “dual-focus” narrative, with a different dual pairing each episode. This ability to navigate the complex relationships between many characters is something that is unique to Glee’s episodic format, and likely could not be achieved in its fullest in a film or stage musical.

While the show’s “Pilot” sets up the central romances between Finn & Rachel and Will & Emma, these romantic pairings do not completely comprise the “dual-focus” of the episode. Instead, we are given voiceover sequences from Will Schuester, Rachel, and Finn such that the show is dually-focused on the lives of adults versus teenagers in a middle-American high school during the economic recession. In this way, Glee pokes fun at the triviality of high school popularity while also likening these struggles to the conflicts among the adult characters, such as budget cuts to faculty but an increased budget for athletics and Sue’s cheer team. In other words, the concept of an "underdog" is timeless and not age-specific. Through its strange satirical lens, Glee celebrates youth and is reliant on the notion of second-chances, evident though the name Will Schuester gives to his new Glee Club: New Directions.

Inevitable Couplings

In my opinion, the pilot of Glee has an absolutely top-tier set up for its romantic interests, the jock Finn Wolfhard and the geeky theater girl Rachel Berry. The show takes advantage of its musical framework, two characters are set up as opposites through their first ever songs before they even interact in the episode.

To audition for Will’s New Directions, Rachel sings “On My Own,” a musical theater song from Lesa Miserables. She introduces her song with a chipper, contrived introduction and her audition is polished with a clear, classically trained voice. Moments later, Finn’s voice is heard in a much less formal manner, as Will hears him singing in the shower (not even gonna touch that one). His voice is free and imperfect, singing a classic rock song he adored as a child. Through these musical scenes, Rachel and Finn are contrasted in every way, from their personalities to their apparent levels of vocal training to their style of song. The show relies on our instincts to assume that opposites attract without any lines explicitly hinting at the romance with these two characters, so when the two sing together in “Don’t Stop Believing” at the end of the episode (which literally made me cry), their voices complement one another well and there is palpable chemistry as the characters dance together gleefully.

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I would also be remiss if I did not mention “Klaine,” the iconic romance between Kurt and Blaine that begins in season two. The show sets this romance up in a very similar way, as Kurt admires Blaine’s suave confidence in an accepting environment which contrasts the homophobic environment Kurt experiences at McKinley High. They are, again, musically opposite, as Blaine often sings pop songs with an entire Glee club of boys while Kurt often sings musical theater ballads alone. Still, these opposites are not as apparent as Finn and Rachel’s, and the show now expects us to anticipate a romance based heavily on the fact that these are the only two gay male characters in the show thus far. While this romance was quite groundbreaking for its time, the show was still able to maintain its mainstream popularity by applying heteronormative frameworks onto queer characters, much like the Western musical frameworks we discussed last week.

Musical Fantasies

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Music is the heart of Glee, adding texture to an otherwise dull environment. As the show progresses musical numbers take many adventurous forms, with numbers outside the diegesis that replicate famous music videos to conversations through song that blur the lines of diegesis.

Even with all the flashiest numbers, I think nothing embodies the escapist quality of music in Glee more than its backstage numbers, where we watch the characters perform as their true selves. At the end of the Pilot, the original six Glee Club members perform “Don’t Stop Believin’” on their own after news of Mr. Schue’s departure from the position. Their singing and dancing is free and uninhibited as much of the secondary characters watch. Most importantly, the number inspires a lurking Mr. Schue to change his mind and continue instructing the club. Music functions within the narrative as a site of hope for characters in unfortunate situations.

Through this, the show also epitomizes its sense of neoliberal progressivism, ultimately suggesting that we can all come together and sing away our differences.

#oxyfilmmusical #@theuncannyprofessoro #televisionmusical #Youtube

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encrucijada · 1 year

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hmm snowflake ❄️ and soup 🍲! (for the ask game)

🍲 soup: share a snippet where a character does something kind.

some quality ezra & her dad content from chapter 1 of evergreen lung

“we’ll get you cleaned up,” caleb said. “i’ll carry you, come on.”

i decided to stand, use my legs, and caleb instead went on ahead to open the door of the bathroom and flip the switch that would make the water hot. “your clothes will be good as new after a wash,” he said, eyes puffy and still glassy and wiping at his face for stray tears. we both knew this shirt was xio’s shirt, she and i fit about the same and to make room in the other wardrobe she put her clothes in mine. the shorts had been a gift from raquel, for my fifteenth birthday, they still fit me. now they were ruined, it was all ruined. seeped with mud and stained with grass.

caleb put a towel on the lid of the toilet and brought me a pair of pyjamas to change into when i asked if he could. he didn’t close the door all the way when he left, like to reassure himself i wouldn’t disappear when his back was turned.

❄️snowflake: talk about a unique trait or aspect of your favorite oc. have they been living rent-free in your brain? it’s time to talk about them!

i'm obviously gonna pick piedad because she has been inhabiting my brain the last few days. my Favourite aspect of piedad is what she is as a character. and that is: being the genre-aware character. in the pjo rp where she originates, piedad is a daughter of urania which allowed me to give her "seeing glimpses of the future in the stars" as part of her demigod powers. it was meant to be a quirky little thing, more akin to reading someone's horoscope for the day. then i made the mistake of allowing her one (1) concrete premonition: luke with golden eyes. piedad can, for all intents and purposes, "see the fourth wall". she knows she's in a tragedy. she knows luke is the hero of the tragedy. she knows luke is going to die. genuinely think she hasn't gone insane like ophelia did in hamlet is because on top of this piedad's fatal flaw is apathy. so she compartmentalises really well. she's cassandra on the steps of the castle telling the chorus she knows she's going to die. she's hermes at the beginning and end of hadestown talking about how "it's a sad song, it's a tragedy". knowing but going through with the expectations of the genre. she's approached by apollo for this very reason, being the god of prophecy and all. she asked him about it and he just shrugged it off. something something knowing your destiny only makes you run towards it faster in your attempt to avoid it. so piedad... she allows herself to be strung along. essentially she's the fleabag of the universe.

#answered #( wip ) evergreen lung #( wip ) greek tragedy!

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