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bukojuiice · 3 years

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the wedding booth — eren jaeger

ೃ pairing: (eren jaeger x fem! reader)

ೃ after being unwillingly dragged to plan and create a wedding booth for your first university festival, eren accompanies you to a bridal boutique. there, he contemplates about the future and all of the cheesy romantic stuff he wants to do with you.

ೃ genre and warnings: college au, lots and lots of fluff!

ೃ my nav → my aot masterlist

ೃ 1k words

My Big Fat Greek Wedding, My Best Friend's Wedding, The Wedding Planner, Wedding Crashers... hell, even Mamma Mia.

If having to be forced to watch these romantic comedies about weddings doesn't give you the sudden urge to get hitched and run away to some tropical island, then you don't know what will.

For your very first uni fair at Shigashina University, your friends had proposed a Marriage booth. To be more specific, three of your friends did. Jean, Sasha, and Connie are the masterminds behind this stupid idea and it's all because of three things:

1. Jean is pining over Mikasa so so bad. So many years have passed and yet he still hasn't found a way to confess. And so, due to his pompous ass binge-watching stupid rom-coms recently, he thinks that if "fake dating" can bring two people together, then having a fake wedding with his unrequited crush of 12 years could finally make her fall for him too. He wants the booth to be as iconic as a wedding straight out of Las Vegas. Problem is, he's never been to Las Vegas, and his terribly unrealistic basis for wanting it to be as iconic as a "Las Vegas Wedding" is that one scene from The Hangover and that episode from Friends.

He was delusional and yet, he wanted to push through with this proposal no matter what. Nothing was going to stop him... not unless it was one of the three seniors whom you would be proposing this project to in the first place.

2. Sasha's goals are much normal. A bit odd, but still normal and not as desperate as Jean's. All she wants is to get Ymir, the captain of the school's soccer team to confess to Historia, the freshman Bio-Chemistry student who works part-time as a library assistant (and whom everyone secretly fawns over for. she's just that damn cute.) However, the real reason as to why she helped [rp[pse this stupid marriage booth to get them to finally confess to each other is anyone's guess.

3. Connie thinks he's gonna get clout from this. Rise up the university hierarchy perhaps? He's treating the entire festival like it's high school all over again. He prays that the marriage booth will become the hottest thing in the festival, then he'll instantly become that cool and bad-ass freshie whom everyone wants to be friends with. Either way, if the booth is going to be a success or not, you know for a fact he's never going to be a part of the "cool kids" (good lord, can you believe people still use that term in college?) and he's gonna be stuck with you and your other friends for the rest of the years to come.

It didn't take long before they finally finished their elaborate PowerPoint Presentation (despite Connie insisting that Powerpoint is boring) that they were going to pitch to three of the principal members of the student council. Namely, Erwin Smith, Levi Ackerman, and Hange Zoe.

It was gonna be an automatic no for Levi, obviously. Nothing could ever get past that man. But if they can somehow convince Erwin and most especially Hange to get on board with their stupid scheme, then the booth was good to go.

Now, here you are, in a bridal boutique. Purchasing some simple wedding dresses that will serve as your rent-a-dress service for the Marriage booth.

It wasn't originally a part of the plan. Not at all.

However, Hange would only approve of the project IF the wedding booth was going to be made into something more elaborate and memorable. They didn't want something as simple as printing out fake marriage contracts, cheap tulle fabric wedding veils, fake plastic bouquets, and wedding pictures that came out of a polaroid camera.

Oh no no no. They wanted it to be extravagant. The cream of the crop. The absolute bomb. The best booth at the festival.

Hange saw potential in the idea and with an approved budget by the student council, you could make anyone's wedding dreams come true.

Fast forward to a week before the event, you are currently on a shopping spree with Armin, Mikasa, and your boyfriend, Eren (because Sasha insisted he had the right proportions for the rental groom outfits. She totally did not ask him to come along so that he can see you try on wedding gowns.) to buy supplies, props, decorations, and everything else needed.

"(Y/N), we'll meet you and Eren at the bridal boutique, okay?" Armin proclaims, looking at the time on his wristwatch and struggling to balance the shopping bags on his other hand. Mikasa notices how much he's been struggling and offers to hold the bags for him.

"Sure! Don't forget about the list that Jean sent!" You shout back, turning to Eren as his fingers interlace with yours, making your merry way to the boutique whilst Armin and Mikasa go off the other direction.

"Don't get too excited." You joke, nudging Eren on the arm. "I'll just be trying on these dresses for the booth."

There's a particular glimmer in Eren's emerald eyes, chuckling at your quip. "Sheesh. Did you really have to remind me? Of course I know that. Besides, we're too young to even think about marriage right now. What's important is that I'm spending the best years of my life with you."

"Eren Grisha Jaeger, it is too damn early for you to make me a blushing pile of mess with your flirty comebacks." You deadpan, the heat rising up your cheeks as you try to hide your embarrassment from him.

The both of you laugh it off, shuffling into the store. The chiming bells of the shop door echo around the area as you look in awe at the luxurious dresses occupying every available space. The wafting smell of a vanilla pinecone scent and the soft sound of a sewing machine doing its work. There was a homey and rustic feel to this boutique that made you feel like you were sent back in time.

From great flouncy pieces adorned in layers of lace that rolled like ocean waves to more humble designs, albeit of the finest cloth.

This plethora of finery- reminds you strongly of the many genteel ladies depicted in those books and historic romances you used to read and watch. Like that of Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility.

Having the opportunity to enter a boutique such as this was a dream.

"Welcome! May I help you find anything?" A seamstress appears from the register. She looks at you from head to toe, as if trying to guess your measurements.

"W-we're looking for wedding dresses. Anything within the 200 to 300 dollar range? We don't need anything extra fancy, though! We'll just be needing them-"

Her eyes shift from you to Eren like she's suddenly a love coach, sizing the two of you up. "Yes, yes, young love! How sweet!" She chirps, breathing out a dreamy sigh. "Of course! For couples on a tight budget, we have-"

"We're looking for wedding dresses that can be used as costumes! Not too short and not too long either. W-we're not getting married or anything." You dismiss the seamstress with a wave of your hand. "I'm sorry if you thought of it that way..."

Although her shoulders visibly drop, the saleswoman still manages to smile. "Oh! I would like to apologize for assuming anything too!"

"Actually, mam, we do have plans sometime in the future." Eren grins cheekily, pulling you close to him. "Not today, of course, but we'll make sure to drop by in a few years!"

The saleslady's eyes lit up at Eren's vow. "Over here are some of our best-selling pieces! Ones that will certainly attract the eye of any groom!" She beckons you over to some mannequins lined up in the middle of the store, your gaze is drawn to the myriad of dresses on display as you walk throughout the space.

You turn back to Eren, studying him closely as he walks a few paces behind you, you thoughtfully wonder if the dresses you would pick out would match his taste.

She leads you to the back of the store to show the other garments and dresses embroidered with simplicity and yet elegance. You then pick two gowns up from their respective racks, satisfied with your purchase and making a beeline to the register to pay. However, the seamstress stops you from your tracks.

"How about this one, dear?"

You turn your attention to her, doe-eyed and curious as to what she was going to show you next.

"It is indeed a wedding dress, although not what you had asked for, the handsome young man did say something about your marriage plans. Perhaps this might help you visualize it? Give you an idea for the future, hm?" She hums wistfully, drawing your attention to the mannequin she placed in front of you. "It would be a shame if you left the boutique without trying anything on."

"(Y/N)?" You hear Eren's husky voice call out for you from the front of the store, "Armin just texted me. They can't find a specific prop in the crafts store so we might have to wait a bit longer for them."

"Okay! We can spare more time in the boutique, anyways." You answer back, before turning your attention to the seamstress once more.

"Alright. I think I'll try it on then."

"Trying it on" turned out to be more than you had imagined. You thought you could just slip inside the dress and show it off. But nope. You needed a few adjustments to dress, adornments in your hair, and had to wear a wedding veil.

It was almost as if you were actually preparing to be wed.

"Good sir, your lovely missus is ready!" Yup, even the words of the seamstress made you feel like you were living in the 17th century right now. Did she really have to use such fancy words?

"Please, watch your step." The seamstress takes your hand and leads you out of the dressing room and right towards—

Eren who had been waiting in the shop proper.

"Doesn't she look beautiful?" She giggles, glancing at Eren for a response. "Well, I'll leave the two of you here first and bring the dresses you've chosen to the cash register first." In a wink, she's gone and had disappeared into the back almost before the words left her mouth.

The unfamiliar yet elegant garb makes you feel shy and the fact that Eren was gaping at you did not help at all. He was absolutely entranced by your beauty.

You unconsciously lower your head, tucking a strand of hair beneath your ear, unable to bear the thought.

"God, you're not just beautiful. Y-you look breathtaking."

He says in a barely audible whisper, pulling you to him once more.

Placing his hands on your waist, Eren plants a soft, tender kiss on your chest, the low-cut dress affording it easily. In a heartbeat, you feel your cheeks grow hot.

"Heh. Guess I got you again." He grins wolfishly, still admiring your beauty and tracing circles on the back of your hand. "I-I don't deserve you... I really don't."

"If you didn't deserve me, would you be here right now?" You say jokingly, raising your eyebrow.

"I mean it." He buries his face on the hem of your dress, his voice is muffled and soothing. "I can't believe you chose to love me." He looks up at you, eyes practically welling up with tears. "God, I honestly can't believe I'm crying right now, but, yeah... I am. That's how much I love you and how much I want to marry you right now."

You giggle at the expression your boyfriend has shown before you, stroking his hair and burying your fingers into his long brunette locks. "I love you too. But... why so sudden? You already told the saleswoman that we'll be back in a few years. She'd be surprised to hear you change your mind so easily."

"Well, if that's the case, then I better tell Jean to have us first on the list of the wedding booth then. We worked our asses off for this, might as well be the first to be blessed with the luck of that stupid booth."

You giggle once more as he continues to hold you so close. You feel his breath and his heartbeat. Each exhale and pulse brings you to the realization that Eren is the one. The man you want to be with for the rest of your life. The man who will help you through all your faults and mistakes, your burdens and troubles, through all the ups and downs... he will be there.

Just as you will be for him.

Guess those stupid movies centered around weddings weren’t so bad after all

.taglist: @crapimahuman

#snk x reader #aot x reader #eren jaeger fluff #eren jaeger x reader #eren x reader #aot #attack on titan #attack on titan x reader #shingeki no kyojin x reader #eren fluff #eren x y/n

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lemmesimpinpeace · 2 years

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Holiday Headcannons for the Moriarty trio!!!💚❤💜

Albert James Moriarty 💚💖💚

• Albert's favorite holiday would be Christmas🎄🎁 Once again, he is able to share his wealth to those in need (e.g. donate funds to churches/orphanages, buy presents, foods, and other necessities for the children and adults).

• He would take time off from work to volunteer at some churches and/or orphanages.

• He tends to go all out with the decorations. He spares no expense.

• Some years he even dresses up as Santa days before the holiday, so the children can sit on his lap and tell him what they wish for. And afterwards, he'll do his damnest to make their dreams come true if it's within his reach.

• YES, Albert looks hot as hell dressed as Santa. Tailored and custom fit, he out here dressed to the nines 😤😫 And NO, he doesn't allow grown ass people onto his lap...damn it 😒 🙄 🤣

• Louis and Williams are dressed as "Santa's" helpers or elves. They look immaculate as well. Von Herder came through with the costume designs. They have the pointy ears and everything. LAWD HAVE MERCY! ❤😉😫

• Albert enjoys himself immensely. He is also trying to make up for the fact that he is unable to personally go down there anymore to help out like he used too as a child. As he grew older and inherited more responsibilities as an Earl and military officer. & now as a secret agent of the state it became extremely difficult.

William James Moriarty ❤💖❤

• William would choose Halloween as his favorite. He is very into spooky stuff 🎃👻

• He might have even said at one point, if him and his brothers have to host another event at the manor, a Halloween party would be ideal.

• Oh and all the weaponry and other questionable items they may have lying around due to LOC business, they're props and toootally meant for decorational purposes😉 (people would totally believe them too.)

• Everyone would help decorate the manor. Louis would do most of the cooking and baking. Von herder would be asked by William to create realistic looking ghouls, monsters, and other scary looking contraptions for decor 🤡👹👽👾👻

• Their manor would look like a true haunted house by the end 😳 😱

• Everyone would dress up in costumes because absolutely. And Liam dressed up as the lord of crime 😉

• William is also the event planner of the entire thing. He created all the games and mystery puzzles for the children to solve. No, he does not go easy on them, well until Albert stepped in and kindly reminded him that not every child was as smart as he was so to be more mindful i.e. to "dumb it down." 🤣

• William would be into telling scary stories. Lowkey it's hilarious watching the children and maybe even the adults squirm a little or a lot. But fret not, he does comfort them at the end and tells them not to be scared. He'll always be there to watch over them and protect them from all of the scary people or monsters in the world. **hint, hint**😉

• Don't tell louis but he also has a sweet tooth and would be totally down to mess with him. He'll plot with children to find the candy that louis rightfully hid from them because they "haven't had dinner yet. And eating the candy beforehand would ruin their health."

Louis James Moriarty 💜💖💜

• For Louis, let's see...I feel like this is a cop out answer. But it's only because I genuinely can't think of a holiday for him specifically. Nothing stands out right now. Louis was established as a very family oriented person (well brother(s) oriented, let's be real) so honestly, he would enjoy any holiday where he is able to be together with his family.

• They appear to hardly have the time in canon to spend time together, so honestly any holiday would be enjoyable for him if it meant he can be surrounded with his loved ones.

• This also involves having Moran do most of the cleaning and dishes at the end because, holiday or not, he'll be damned if this man thinks he can show up to eat and lounge for free. If I do think of one in particular that fits him then I will add to this. 👀 😇

P.s: I found this in my drafts, I meant to post this a long time ago but I forgot about it lol... I hope someone enjoys this 😆 😅

Happy Holidays Everyone! 🤗❤

#my ramblings #yuukoku no moriarty #moriarty the patriot #albert james moriarty #william james moriarty #louis james moriarty

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garbagevanfleet · 3 years

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Brightest Blue (series)

PART EIGHT

Pairing: Josh x reader Warnings: snuggling, tiny amount of bodily injury Summary: Things are changing. New state. New school. New roommate. You just pray things are going to click into place. Notes: I’ve been on a tiny bit on a hiatus, but here you go! Thanks for all of your support! I love you

taglist: @valleyd0ll @satingrass-maidensfair @guitarfingers @thebohemianpenguin @peaceisouranthem @oblvions @hansonobsessed @myownparadise96 @lara-gvf @anditsmywholeheart @kill-fear-the-power-of-lies @bigblack-catattack @myownparadise96

MASTERPOST

Kate was missing from class on Friday, to your deep dismay. You had been hoping to tell her about how shitty Trevor had been, but instead, you received a text that she had overslept her alarm and decided to just stay home.

That left you and Josh alone at lunch, just like you had been at the beginning of the year. He was excitedly explaining that there were a few kids in his production that you would “absolutely love”, and you had to agree.

“They’re catching on so fast. Rachel gave them some not-so-easy routines to the choreography, and they’ve almost got it down. I feel like that’s tough for kids so young, you know?”

You couldn’t help but grin as he spoke with such candor.

“I was doubtful that they would be able to get it, but she insisted that they could,” he finished, grabbing his bottle of water and lifting it to his mouth.

You had your lips open to reply until you caught sight of his hand; the knuckles were bruised just lightly enough that you couldn’t tell if it was just the lighting or not. As soon as he caught you eyeing it, he went to set the bottle back down.

“What happened?” You laid your hand down on the table, palm up as a gesture for him to take it. Reluctantly, he did, and you took a moment to inspect.

“It’s nothing, I’m just clumsy,” he said, pairing his assurance with a sweet smile.

You frowned at him in disbelief. “No, you’re not; I saw you make that shot across the room with your sucker stick the other night. You’re very well coordinated.”

He stared into your eyes for a moment as he gauged your reaction, and then hummed amusedly. “It’s really not that bad, it just looks gross. Just a musical mishap.” You shot him a look, to which he quickly replied, “Don’t worry about me, ‘kay?”

Not sure what else to say, you pushed forward the ziplock baggie of apple slices you had been munching on. He reached in and plucked one out for himself.

“Do you want to have a movie night with me tonight? You could invite Kate if you want.”

The offer made you genuinely smile, though you hadn’t quelled the long list of questions you still had.

“That sounds lovely. I think we have string cheese, so we could make homemade mozzarella sticks or something.”

He was looking at you in an oddly serious fashion, and you weren’t sure what he was going to say until he opened his mouth. “Hell yeah.”

+++

You hadn’t considered that you’d have to see Trevor again so soon, or rather - you did, but you had been pushing it to the farthest corner of your brain, not at all ready to think about it. So that’s why when you were sitting in class and he walked in, your stomach lurched.

You tried to keep looking straight ahead, but it only lasted so long before you couldn’t help yourself. He was sitting as far away from you as he could get, but it still wasn’t terribly far.

He had his eyes firmly on his desk, head tipped down. His posture was crumpled in on itself, and you could only imagine how embarrassed he was - or at least you hoped he was. At the very least, you knew he should be.

Until the end of class, you kept yourself busy - even tried to actually pay attention, but when you were dismissed, you let out a relieved breath.

You stood and collected your things, then promptly headed for the door.

On the way out, he looked up and met your gaze, and the sight of his face made the air catch in your lungs.

The skin around his left eye was stained a purplish-grey, his brows tipped down into a scowl.

You hadn’t hit him that hard, had you? A whole cocktail of emotions flooded your brain, and you bit your bottom lip, ripping your eyes away from him as you exited the room.

Your pace was a bit faster than usual, which is why you beat Josh to the B doors by a couple of minutes.

Could slapping someone give them a black eye? You thought yes, but there would have to be some real force behind it. You were pretty sure that you’d have to wind up to get him that good.

“What’s wrong?”

You hadn’t even heard Josh approaching you, so it made you startle just enough for him to notice. He put his hand on your back in a comforting gesture.

“Ah, sorry. I was just thinking,” you replied, giving him a weak smile.

“About what?” he chanced softly.

“Nothing - not a big deal.” You started off walking, him right by your side, matching your pace.

“How are things going with the play? You haven’t even told me what it’s about yet.”

His face lit up. “You haven’t asked. We’re doing Alice In Wonderland. Some of the songs are original.”

“What, like you wrote them?” you asked, looking over at him with a shocked expression.

He nodded, laughing under his breath. “Rachel is working on the wardrobe; costume design and all of that. I have the sculpture class working on the props and set, but they can only come like once a week.”

“Do you need any help?”

He looked over at you, surprised. “Do you want to? Can you paint?”

You shrugged. “Kinda. I mean, I can make it work. I’m not perfect, but it’s manpower, at least,” you admitted.

“No, no - any help would be amazing but don’t overexert yourself. You need to still work on your stuff.”

“I won’t,” you promised. “I’m happy to help.”

+++

You had texted Kate at lunch asking if she wanted to come for a movie night, as Josh had suggested, and she had eagerly agreed. You were still surprised, however, when she showed up with a handbag full to the brim.

You watched her pull out a bag of kettle corn, a few little glass bottles of nail polish, some packets of face masks, a stack of DVDs, and a bottle of white wine - all while chatting you up about her morning.

“This looks like just a girl thing, so I’ll leave you guys to it,” Josh said, not a shred of animosity in his tone, but you frowned up at him from the couch as he stood.

You went to open your mouth to protest, but Kate beat you to it. “Oh, no, you should stay. I brought three masks.” She fanned them out like a deck of cards in her hand.

He raised his eyebrows at her, looking rather impressed. “Oh.”

“You do want nice skin, right?” she prompted.

“He has very nice skin,” you replied in his defense, making her shoot you a look.

“Everyone has room for improvement,” she quipped back, as Josh just shrugged at you.

“I’m down,” he agreed, taking his seat again on the couch. “Are we watching a chick flick?”

“Well, I brought some choices. Otherwise, I’m open to suggestions if you guys have any good ones.”

“Maybe we should let Josh pick,” you suggested. “Since he’s going to be the one really watching it while we do nails.”

She smiled at you and then him. “You heard her - gentleman’s choice.”

“So, if I pick Human Centipede,” he started through a shit-eating grin.

You lovingly rolled your eyes at him. “If you own Human Centipede, I’m going to be moving out.”

He tipped his head back and laughed unabashedly.

In the end, he picked a rom-com, which you knew he would, and took a seat next to you on the couch. About a quarter of the way through, you realized that Kate didn’t have a lot of intention of actually watching a movie, per se. It seemed that she was more interested in using it for background noise.

The night was therapeutic. Everything felt easy. You found yourself laughing genuinely, leaned in to watch as Kate dabbed a wet washcloth over Josh’s nose, causing him to scrunch it up in distaste. She immediately scolded him, explaining that it had to be wet for the mask to work right, and he needed to sit still.

Once it was on, you couldn’t help but snap a picture of him as he play-pouted at you, his bottom lip jutted out.

It wasn’t until your nails were finished that you started to feel a chill. “Does it feel cold in here to you?” you asked.

Both of them looked at you questioningly.

“Maybe just a little bit,” Kate agreed.

Wordlessly, Josh stood and grabbed a thick blanket from the basket by his side of the couch and then spread it out of your laps. You had thanked him, and that had fixed the problem for then, but by the time Kate was packing her stuff up and ready to leave, you had a chill you just couldn’t shake.

As soon as she was gone, you turned to him and frowned. “You really aren’t cold? Like at all?”

“It’s a little cold, yeah,” he agreed, but you sensed it was mostly to make you feel better. “Do you want a sweatshirt?”

You nodded, giving him a grateful look.

“I hope I’m not getting sick,” you mumbled.

He frowned at you, rubbing at your shoulder. “Hang on, I’ll check the thermostat.”

His feet made a patting sound as he crossed the hardwood; a sound that had become a comfort to you.

“Hmm, it is colder than usual in here. I’ll turn the heat up,” he replied, and then a moment later, he finished. “The heat isn’t kicking on for some reason.”

You shot him a concerned look, suddenly terrified you were going to freeze.

“Hang on, I’ll be right back.”

“Wait, where are you going?” you asked as you watched him make his way to the front door.

“Just into the hall, sit tight.” With that, he disappeared.

You pulled his sweatshirt on and sat back onto the couch, your knees tucked up to your chest and the blanket up to your neck.

When he got back in, he gave you a sympathetic look. “Apartment 4 said that theirs is working just fine, so I think I’m going to call the landlord.”

“It’s 9:30 at night,” you reminded him, brows tipped up in concern.

“Yeah, but heat is kind of an emergency here in the winter.” The phone was already up to his ear as he spoke. You could hear the line ring and then someone pick up on the other end. He explained the situation to her with ease at first, but he seemed to quickly lose his patience with her.

“That’s absolutely ridiculous,” he snapped, filling a tea kettle with water. “It’s going to get freezing in here tonight.”

Then a pause, and you could hear her responding pointedly.

He let out a huff. “We don’t have the money for that. What are we supposed to do?”

You could hear him relent, just by the tone of his voice. He thanked her and then promptly hung up. You waited for him to come over, two cups of tea in hand, before you threw any questions at him.

“Well?” you asked, knowing full well that nothing had been accomplished.

He exhaled a long breath. “She said she’ll get someone on it later tomorrow, and if we wanted it fixed tonight, we’d have to pay for it upfront and she’d pay us back minus the emergency fee.”

You frowned but still reached your hand out of the blanket to set comfortingly on his knee. “It’s okay. Thank you for trying.”

“We’ll pile the blankets on you tonight,” he promised.

But even with - what you were sure was - twenty pounds of blankets, you were cold in your bed. You laid, staring at the ceiling for nearly an hour, trying to will yourself warm. You even tried moving around a bunch under the blankets, hoping to produce enough heat from friction, but it was no use.

You had known what you were going to have to do just moments after settling under the covers, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it until you started to shiver involuntarily.

You let out an annoyed huff and pushed the covers off. It wasn’t until you were out in the open air that you realized how much warmer it actually was under the covers.

You crossed the hall, poking your head into Josh’s doorway.

“Josh,” you whispered into the dim room, and he stirred instantly.

“Yeah,” he responded, a rasp in his throat.

It took you a second to work up the courage to ask, “Can I sleep in here tonight? I cannot get warm for the life of me.”

“Yeah, of course.” His reply came after a moment of him shifting over for you.

You rushed back to your bedroom, snatching the blankets off of the bed. They were too thick to really bunch them up in your arms to carry, so you ended up half-dragging them over. When you returned, he held the comforter open for you.

“I hope I’m not intruding.” You climbed in, quickly pulling all of the blankets over you as he helped you situate them comfortably.

He shushed you assuringly.

“Why is your bed so warm?” you complained, shuffling down until the blankets were up to your chin.

The smile on his lips could be heard through the hum he let out. “I’m used to the cold. I’m sorry to tell you that this isn’t even close to the coldest it’ll get here. You probably haven’t had to make your own body heat much back home.”

“This is literally like body heat donation for the needy,” you teased, turning in bed until you were facing him. “Can I lay where you were laying?”

“What, no,” he said through an incredulous laugh.

“I bet it’s so warm though,” you whined. “Feel how cold my feet are.”

You shifted until you could press your toes against his bare ankle, making him jolt.

“Jesus,” he hissed. “If you want the heat you’re just going to have to come over by me.”

You took a second to gauge that response, trying to find any evidence of teasing in his tone. “Really? You wouldn’t mind?”

“How do you wanna do this?” His tone sounded like it was inching toward disbelief.

Through a frown, you asked, “What do you mean?”

The sound of him quietly clearing the sleep from his throat filled the otherwise quiet room. “Just. I don’t know, do you wanna put a blanket between us?”

You giggled breathily at him. “No, I’m too cold to be worried about modesty, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Okay, I’m just going to lay here and you just situate yourself however feels comfortable for you.”

Without any hesitation, you scooted toward him until your chest was flush to his side, your chin rested against his shoulder.

“Is this okay?” you inquired, snuggling deeper under the sheets.

The warmth was heavenly.

“Your skin is fucking freezing,” he mumbled, clearly close to sleep again already.

“Good, so you see that the situation is dire,” you quipped, wriggling your fingers until he let you slip them between his chest and his bicep. His muscles jumped, and you could tell just how cold your skin was just from the way he felt hot to the touch.

He breathed a laugh, and in a teasing tone, agreed, “Life-threatening, I’d go so far as to say. Wake me up if you need anything, okay?”

You agreed, pressing your nose against the sleeve of his shirt, and drifted off.

+++

When you woke, it was to the sound of his alarm. You felt him reach a hand out of the covers and flick his phone off, putting a stop to the shrill ringing instantly.

It took you a second to realize you were borderline hot. You couldn’t figure out why it was so dark until you realized that one of the sheets was almost completely over your head, blocking out the sun that shone through the slats in his blinds. You wiggled until your head was out from under the blanket, but quickly pulled it back up to your chin when you felt how the cold room made your skin prickle.

Once you got your wits about you, you wiped the sleep from your eyes, popping them open in shock when you realized the position you were in. You weren’t sure if it was him, or you, but somehow he had shifted in the night so that your chests were pressed flush together.

In his sleepy state, he placed his hand on the back of your head, pressing your face back into his neck where it was positioned - unbeknownst to you.

With your nose touching his skin, you could feel his pulse on the tip of it, slow and steady - like he wasn’t really awake. The smell of his cologne was familiar to you now.

“Josh,” you whispered, tipping your head up until you realized the limited mobility you actually had.

He hummed, and you knew the second he was conscious because his muscles tensed all at once before loosening enough to release you.

“Sorry,” he mumbled as you untangled your legs from his. “I must have really been out.”

“It’s okay, I was too.” You looked up at him with a smile. “We survived the night.”

He hummed through tilted up lips. “That’s good; I would have been really upset if you died in my bed.”

After a moment, you groaned a complaint. “I do not want to get out of bed. I know it’s going to be fucking freezing. If we move out of here, can we go somewhere warm?”

He tilted his head over to meet your eyes with a subtle smirk.

“What?” you asked.

“Nothing,” he replied. You were contemplating pressing further, but he spoke again. “I’m staying home today from school so I can be here when the repairmen come.”

You frowned. “Do you want me to stay instead? Or with you to keep you company?”

“No, I’ll be good. You need to go to school and stay warm.”

You grimaced at him, secretly wishing he had asked you to stay so you didn’t have to get out of bed.

“Okay, you’re sure?”

He laughed at you. “Yes, you should get moving. Feel free to wear any of my warmer clothing.”

You shot him a grateful look before closing your eyes and throwing the blankets off of yourself.

#brightest blue fic #josh x reader #josh kiszka #josh kiszka fic #Greta Van Fleet #greta van fleet fan fiction #greta van fleet fic #writing

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why-this-kolaveri-machi · 3 years

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chin fucking up, amigo.

Titans 3.02

... eh?

SPOILERS ahead.

1. you know that music video for billie jean where michael jackson would dance along the pavement and the tiles would light up under his feet in different colours? yeah? me too.

titans hasn’t met a table top or a support arch that it doesn’t want to light up in a headache-inducing blue like the world’s most boring nightlight. i mean, i’m not an expert on lighting or cinematography or just... colour by any means, and the quality of the video i’m watching is poor given that i can’t access hbo max, but all the orange and teal and neon is making it very difficult to really differentiate between say, the batcave and the gotham police department and hell, the titans tower. i feel like there’s oftentimes a gap between idea and execution with titans, with gotham being this almost otherwordly hellscape with an aesthetic pulled from a gothic horror novel, but the colours and design just... leave it flat and dark and dull.

1.5. like what really frustrates me is that titans has a delightful mix of tones--the fights often remind me of schumacher-era batman camp, with the contrived quips and the start-stop rhythm and krypto just sallying in and ending the fight with a fucking SuperBark (tm) but in the same episode you have red hood just casually pulling out severed heads out of a duffle bag and desperate people blackmailed into killing themselves out of drug overdoses. I MEAN. it’s wonderful! but it looks all the same. it sounds Absolutely Bonkers on paper but on screen both Quip and Murder happen in the same washed-out blue and i wanted to be excited about the batcave, dammit!

2. things re: red hood have happened at such a breakneck speed that it feels like there’s so much that’s happened off-screen that we’re not privy to. a real proper mystery!

things that are intriguing about the red hood arc so far:

a) what was that chemical he huffed just before going to fight the joker? is it a regular old performance/adrenaline booster or is it something more lazarus-juice adjacent? if it’s the latter, i can’t imagine he got that much information from a lone chemistry textbook. and where is he getting the resources to set up his little chemistry lab? is somebody else orchestrating things behind the scenes?

b) the red hood persona, costume and mask, plus the elaborate plan he’s putting in place to both string along gotham’s rogues and enact his revenge against the titans seems too... fully-formed and elaborate to have been concocted in just a few days. how long do you think jason’s been planning this? just... stewing in resentment and building rage, dismissed and passed around and underestimated and realising that the power he thought he would get by being robin is no power, no protection at all, but something that’s left him even more vulnerable than before?

c) do we think that the scarecrow is at least partly behind this transformation? because yes, it was batman that set up this whole hannibal lecter-esque situation with him, and he would be irresponsible enough to have jason-as-robin go talk to him regularly regarding “~profiling~” criminals. it’s not too far of a leap to assume that scarecrow could’ve been manipulating jason at a very vulnerable time, and that he could’ve passed along some of his chemistry know-how, too.

d) ... or fuck, i wouldn’t put it past titans to introduce ra’s al ghul in a fucking ten second aside

e) anyway, the thing that won’t leave me alone is jason seeking out the joker not necessarily to fight him, but to orchestrate his own death. the whole thing has to have been part of a bigger plan. he broke batman with it, after all. and he’s starting to break the titans, too.

f) i love it! i mean, it does re-tread some of the storybeats we had with deathstroke last season (turning the titans against each other as revenge, etc) but it’s... tighter, this time, and at least for now seems better-executed. and as a red hood story it’s different enough to be really interesting, and i appreciate the ways in which its reframed the revenge story to focus on the titans rather than just the batman. like fuck everything up, i say! turn it on its head! slash the innards out of that sacred cow and strew it like garlands in the path of the Story You Want To Tell!

(and yes i am fully aware that by the time i post this review, there will be a whole lot more information out but if i come across like a fool then goddammit i will be a fool!)

2. i love how every season of titans starts off with, ‘oh dick, you thought you were settling into a role and a life and a pattern of relationships? well fuck you, here’s a terrible and traumatic thing, tons more responsibility, and circumstances that will lead you to uproot your entire life and move somewhere else.’ and dick’s just like, ‘well, ok. fuck you, but all right’.

can you imagine? the man was just settling into leading a team in sf and smiling for the first time in years, and now he has to deal with jason’s death, bruce experiencing a full fledged breakdown, coming back to a city that represents more bad memories than good, red hood, and a frightening new case that seems to be targeting him and his team. it’s a testament to dick’s growth that he’s not reacting to this stress like he did last year, shutting everybody out, making irrational decisions and experiencing sharp, short bursts of anger. (not to mention a full fledged psychotic episode.)

2.5. but i’ve also talked about dick performing a fair amount of unwarranted emotional labour for his team(s) in that he just lets them take out their frustrations on him and... does nothing. be it his team exploding at him for jericho (both in flashback and present-day) or donna and hank needling him for handling deathstroke poorly or barbara berating him for not handling the bank situation as well as she thought batman would though just the previous episode she had talked about how fucked up it was that bruce just expected dick to step up and replace him in gotham without any real notice. i mean it’s all perfectly understandable and sympathetic from their end--and i’m not trying to bash them here!--but hank, my man, the same chin you’re asking your amigo to keep up is the one that you punched last year and never apologised for. just sayin’.

2.75. @superohclair did a wonderful breakdown of what the ‘fear’ contract could imply here and there’s not too much i could add to that. it’s just really interesting that fear ended up being such a defining feature of their lives, albeit it’s the fear of seeming less than invincible in the face of bigger, more tangible fears. am i making sense? dick feared loss, and abandonment, and the more existential concept of turning into something that he didn’t want to. bruce so feared being alone that he’s scouting kids to replace robin within days of jason dying.

it also goes some way in explaining the tense sort of... restraint that bruce and dick show in the wake of loss and tragedy, like anything less than complete control of your emotions can lead to tragedy. it’s conditioning that dick couldn’t shake off when he was at his lowest in detroit, hating his legacy but unable to let it go either.

2.775. but i definitely appreciate the softness that dick displays with his team now, checking on them after a mission-gone-bad, welcoming back old members with no caveats or resentments (and kory’s delight in seeing hank back! hank and dick hanging out together and hank trying to prop dick up!), and appreciating their teamwork in solving cases. that’s always been the essence of dick as a person, and the beating heart of this show: flawed and traumatised people coming together to a place that will always be open to them, where they can be their worst and be supported still, allowed to make mistakes and grow from them. that’s family.

2.8. coming back to bruce for just a sec, it’s interesting how that gotham rogue was so certain when he said that ‘batman doesn’t kill’ but it’s not a rule that either jason or dick put much store by when they were robins. the ‘no-killing’ rule clearly didn’t mitigate dick’s fears about turning into batman and jason’s never been seeing giving two shits about it. it seems to me of a piece with bruce’s distant, second-hand sort of parenting that we see in dick’s flashbacks from s1 where the fear was never about personally disappointing batman, but taking lessons from him on finding a place in gotham’s hellish ecosystem and surviving.

3. kory having waking flashbacks! i don’t buy the bullshit parasomnia episode explanation from fake!HPG (because c’mon, justin has to be some sort of tamaranean ruse) because for one, you have to be actually asleep for that diagnosis.

(and here i was, hoping against hope that HPG would actually end up as the team’s therapist)

curiouser and curiouser! i wonder if these flashbacks are from the time between kory landing on earth and the beginning of season 1, when she was completely amnesiac? it’d be cool if the show was considering repercussions from that time, and if kory hasn’t gained all her memories back.

4. i just love the vibes between gar and conner and kory. gar Having Things To Do is only one part of my wishlist for him, however: other parts include having an actual story arc, and actually bonding with members who are not conner and kory. (dick! dick! hank! dick!)

anyway. time to move on to watching ep3 and seeing this family bond and nothing terrible and tragic happening at all, nope, nosiree.

#titans #titans spoilers #meta #dick grayson #jason todd #red hood #koriand'r #garfield logan #bruce wayne #his name is justin.#a byronic cupcake #a tragic jalebi #badass strawberry truffle #manic pixie pop tart

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rwbyconversations · 4 years

Text

RWBY Volume 7 Review

Two weeks out from Volume 8 and I finally cared enough to write this. Go team I guess.

Part of it came down to my feelings on Volume 7. It’s a complicated season that’s made me realize a lot of my overall feelings on RWBY as a series, particularly a lot of the less flattering feelings. Volume 7 is just... frustrating in general, as for all the good that it does have, and it does have a lot of great elements to it, it’s let down by a frustrating script and writing choices that feel distinctly amateurish, especially as the series moves on and gets better and better looking each year. There’s elements and kernals here of great character writing, season-wide arcs that land in a really good way and get me emotionally invested in the characters. But on the other... Ren only has two hundred words the entire season and you can tell!

Volume 7 is a season of dizzying highs, some of the best moments of the entire franchise... and some of the series lows. It’s a season where there’s no production reason for its shortcomings... it just comes down to an awkward script that focuses on the wrong elements far too often. Let’s talk about that. In a very long and drawn out manner.

Thanks to @jamesbranwen, @h-e-m-o-goblin and @retro-riffraff for help with GIFs and consultation on this review.

1) The Good Stuff!

A) Atlas is very pretty!

I cannot stress enough how on a set level, Volume 7 is leaps and bounds above the other seasons in sheer environmental detail and setting dressing. Mantle has a great atmosphere with its New York influences, the smog covered backgrounds and oppressive streets and alleys. Ironwood’s office which is deliberately designed to evoke astronomy themes to represent James’ love for the stars. The cold oppressive atmosphere of the Schnee Manor and how Jacques has begun warping it to glorify him with only lip service paid to Nicholas in public. Penguins!

There’s a lot of great set design work that went into this season and the crew deserve props for it. Genuinely.

B) Ironwood’s arc is the best character arc in the entire franchise

Yeah just wearing my heart on my sleeve there, I fucking love Ironwood and his character arc here in Volume 7 is the best written arc of the show. I simp for the tin man who just wants to do the right thing. This one season of content is better than a lot of the series-wide material being honest. I went back to James’s big volumes in the last month to rewatch the show and it’s interesting to see the early seeds in retrospect for where his arc goes. His need to protect everyone he can and the brutish measures he considers necessary for such an act, his conflicting loyalties towards Ozpin that manifest in both frustration at Oz’s seeming apathy to the growing conflict, but also desperate desire for validation from Ozpin that what’s he doing is the right call. After the Mistral seasons set up James as going off the deep end following Volume 3, having him open the season with an earnest smile, an immediate apology for the team’s arrest and trusting them with his plans for Amity and Salem is a jarring but pleasant surprise. He’s not been slacking off, he’s been trying to keep the world together in the way he thinks is best. He lets his guard down around the heroes and we see the good man underneath, which makes the moments where he raises his walls hurt all the more. While Em and Merc are still probably my favorite characters period, James is absolutely my favorite character in Volume 7 and Top 5 favorite characters series-wide. I’m very eager to see where he goes from here. He also rocks the beard and fixed his T-Rex arms so James came out of the washing machine that is Volume 7′s costume design. He truly is the Best Boi, and I cannot give Jason Rose enough credit for his performance this year. He hit every note of Ironwood’s character perfectly and I wish the fandom would give him more credit for giving James as much life as he does.

Oh, and as the obligatory comment on mlm rep that I am known for getting obsessively weird anon hate over: IronQrow hug nearly had me crying on a convention floor from how goddamn soft it was. Remember conventions? Ah good times.

This just... hits me... ya know? Seeing him lower his guard so much to come in for a hug just shows how isolated he’s let himself become to let himself have this moment of contact... Godamnit James. Also this is the second time after Martial Arcs that two guys hug and I really liked their ship for the following hiatus.

C) Soft Qrow hours are nice

Qrow’s a good guy, he went through a lot of bad stuff in Volume 6 but now he’s on the other side and purged his voice of the demon within. I think Volume 7 was a very good year for Qrow overall. It was great to see him interacting with more characters his age and lowering his own guard. His moments of letting the facade drop around James and Clover especially are great expansion for his character. Jason Liebritch hit the ground running as Qrow and gave him a far more dynamic range than I think Vic could. While I wish Qrow going off alcohol had been given more of a focus as it’s kind of done off-handedly that he’s gone cold turkey and otherwise doesn’t get brought up barring his revulsion at the wine in the Schnee Manor, he overall had a great year. And trust me I’ll get to the fights later, I have a lot more I can say about the bird boi there.

D) I liked the Ace Ops!

I was ambivilent towards the Ace Ops on first watching. They’re kinda underdeveloped in the context of the season at large and most people immediately pegged them as a miniboss squad/fodder for Salem to kill. But in rewatch they do still get to shine, if not as brightly. They’re very enjoyable. Clover especially is just really fun in retrospect, I love cocky fighters in general, and he was infectiously enjoyable (I’ve already covered the FG stuff in the past, not doing it again). Marrow came a close second because... well it’s Marrow, he is The Best Boi. Harriet got points for being a punchgirl which is always cool, I liked how her Semblance was shown and being cocky while being able to back it up is always a win. Elm and Vine are tied for dead last, I like the body diversity Elm introduces with her muscles and Vine... existed... but overall I think with the time they had, they did get to establish themselves well. I wish I could say that about their relationship with Team RWBYORNJ but this is the Nice Section so we’ll leave it there for now.

This is one of the best shots of the entire season. I adore it. God I like the Teryx design.

E) God the villains rocked this year!

I am a villain whore. I own that. I will embrace that monkier. But when they’re as cool as this, I feel validated in this Chilli’s tonight. Watts and Tyrian really make the season shine and don’t have a dud scene all season. They have great chemistry together, shining bright in even the weakest or most mediocre episodes. Watts went from “Oh yeah you exist” tier to “Oh yeah you rule” tier. His vendetta against Ironwood feels so real and pre-established, even though this season is the first time it’s ever come up. Watts just ozzes style in everything he does. The animators bring him to life and make every step, every flick of his twist and even just how he moves his eyes all bleed contempt. He’s such a rat and I love him! Chris Sabat finally gets to stretch his wings after a few years playing Watts as just Evil Scientist Guy, and he makes the most of it.

And Tyrian remains an absolute treat. He didn’t get much in V6 but here he takes center stage with Watts and also gets so much impact because of it. All the little twitches, and tilting of his heads, and dramatic gestures, he’s still just so goddamn cool to watch and we even get a little backstory of him. I know he’s irredeemable. But I just want to watch Tyrian kill people and scream. Like hot damn his line “THE GRIMM SHOULD HAVE DESTROYED OUR ENEMIES, NOT MADE THEM FRIENDS!” is so fucking raw. He’s having fun destablizing a nation with his boyfriend!

“You want more chaos than a Grimm invasion?” “If anyone on Remannt can do it, wouldn’t it be you?” There is no heterosexual explanation for how these two look at each other and yes this is me outing myself as a Nuts and Volts fan.

Watts and Tyrian really do become the absolute highlights of the season alongside James. They have a great dynamic and even during their more slower moments there’s so much care and thought put into their every mannerism. Animators, seriously, great job, I love what you did. And their fights... we’ll get there. But they’re so goddamn good.

Look they even run the same! They’re soulmates!

Honorary mention to Salem by the way. She’s only in two scenes but her presence is felt throughout Ironwood’s arc and his growing fear of her and she damn well delivers when she shows up. That shot of her arriving in person is a killer shot to end on as well.

Oh and I guess Cinder and Neo exist don’t they? Eh, we’ll come back to them.

F) Oscar got a character arc!

Finally! He did it! He got an arc that began, continued and ended all onscreen! It only took four tries!

But yeah Oscar had a really good set of scenes in Volume 7. I like him being the first to confront Ruby on the Ironwood lie, bringing up the hypocrisy after their condemning of Ozpin just last season. I like him having a more forward role (outside of not getting to be part of the celebration in episode 4 what the hell guys), and that he’s the big link between RWBY and Ironwood was a great call. Having Ozpin shelved for one more season so Oscar can take center-stage was an inspired choice. I love his dynamic with Ironwood, and how James closing himself off emotionally gets reflected in how he begins slipping in how he refers to Oscar, starting off as treating him and Oz as separate, ending with him gunning Oscar down as he doesn’t care anymore to differentiate the two.

My big issues with Oscar’s arc are that I’m first of all annoyed at the lack of followup on the Oscar stuff from V6, I’m still waiting for Qrow to apologize for punching Oscar guys! I also really wish Neo’s first attack wasn’t offscreen. CRWBY’s cliffhanger fetish meant I got to break out the Offscreen Pine jokes again. And of course, the Neo hallway punch was a bit bullshit.

G) (Most of) The fights are amazing

There’s no punchline. These fights are great, two of them are in my Top 10 Series Wide fights list and at least the duds aren’t Volume 5 bad.

If you’d told me before Volume 7 that Watts would get an extended firefight with James, I’d have felt that a bit cheap as Watts to me doesn’t feel like a fighter, more a planner who hides behind armies of mechanical soldiers. But damn if they didn’t sell me on Watts “You’ve yeed your last haw” Watts whipping out a Glock just to spite James.

This is another one of my favorite shots in the entire series.

Ironwood vs Watts is potentially my favorite fight in the entire series, and if it’s not, it’s easy Top 3 alongside Yang vs Mercury and Pyrrha vs CRDL/Mercury. It makes great use of Amity in the abandoned gravity biome meant for SSSN vs JNPR, with Ironwood and Watts deftly moving around in a manner that very easily could have been difficult to track with the constantly shifting gravity, but the crew do their best to keep it coherent as to who’s where. The credits showed their dedication also stretched into visual continuity, as James and Arthur’s route throughout the Arena was carefully considered so they’d loop around organically.

This is what I mean when I say the crew went above and beyond to keep things clean.

Ironwood vs Watts could have easily failed to impress, given its lack of choreography on the level the series usually does, but the team’s efforts went instead into showing a situation that lets Watts get a dragged out battle: James wins whenever he closes the distance here, so Arthur’s constantly on the run and being forced to tamper with the arena. Great camerawork, a GOD TIER song from Caleb Hyles that I’m still listening to today, and two characters with a fantastic history coming to blows makes for easily the best fight of the season and a series-wide highlight. Watching it develop from storyboards, to mocap, to animations and the full version is a delight to see. This is what CRWBY can do when everything comes togehter. The orchestra’s all tuned. It’s a goddamn symphony.

THIS is my favorite shot of the season.

Tyrian also gets to shine with his two battles this year. His alley fight with Qrow, Robyn and Clover is short but sweet, the corvid and the scorpion especially trading brutal blows in the cramped space. Qrow goes full Devil May Cry with his style-switching here, Harbinger being swapped between sword, tonfa and gun forms freely alongside Qrow applying The Power of Punching. His 1v1v1 with Clover and Qrow though is the true highlight of the season in terms of choreography. It’s lighting-fast, and has some impeccable shot work. Qrow gets to use his scythe with deliberate nods to the Red Trailer, Clover gets to shut up everyone who doubted his weapon, and Tyrian is just along for the ride and he makes the most of it. It’s frentic, it’s heart-pounding, it’s everything a fight should be.

Honorary mentions as well go to Ace Ops vs the Geist, which is just really fun and has a great backing music choice, the opening battle with Sabre having Ruby’s obligatory ten seconds of fighting that come at the start of every new era of the series, and the Ace Ops vs RWBY fight which has some good choreo in places.

H) Winter and Penny have good chemistry

I don’t have a ton to add here, I just like their dynamic and how they advance each other’s arcs. It’s nice writing. I also like Winter apologizing to Penny when she’s angry at Jacques and takes it out on Penny by accident with the “You wouldn’t understand” line.

Penny as a Maiden is a nice idea, I think her new design is cute. Penny says trans rights.

Those are a lot of my favorite things about Volume 7. It’s a killer season when it’s firing on all cylinders but unfortunately... it often misfires in frustrating ways, many of which are unfortunately due to core emblematic problems with the series that won’t go away.

2) The Bad Stuff

A) The costumes

It’s been a over year. It’s low hanging fruit. I don’t care. Most of them are still not good and they’re ludicrously over-designed.

Blake’s in a fetish suit and I wonder how she even goes to the bathroom. Weiss just looks like an abino Sabre alt, Yang is what a Halloween costume site would describe as “Sexy UPS Driver,” (why does she have a thigh window) Ruby... looks fine, it’s one of her better costumes. Jaune’s hair is silly, Ren’s model has lost some muscle definition and he looks like an e-boy, Nora’s costume really doesn’t fit the Atlas visual design and looks like a rejected Kingdom Hearts costume. Cinder’s is too black and I actually can’t track her in darker scenes because of it (which is kinda bad during... a fight scene... where I need to know where she is...), Neo looks like a Ren Fair cosplayer doing a bit for her OnlyFans, Winter’s is anatomically weird with super skinny arms and legs, and Blake’s hair is a fucking hate crime.

Qrow’s is one I liked at first but in retrospect it does feel like a downgrade. To quote @h-e-m-o-goblin from a Discord chat:

in a show like rwby, where color is such a vital defining aspect of every character, a cohesive colorscheme goes a long way. qrow's original outfit works great in this regard. neutral tones. greys, whites, and blacks, with red accents that pop against the otherwise sparse color. it's good! it's distinctive! it doesn't feel cluttered and it doesn't look like a clown vomited on him! the subdued colors really lend themselves to the grey, cynical energy qrow seems to carry with him. a literal lack of color in his life. the outfit itself feels like something he would wear; a combination of "clearly trying to look cool" and "a little disheveled and laid back." the design breathes, it isn't cluttered. let's contrast this with his vol 7 outfit. a lot of outfits in vol 7 suffer from this problem, but first and foremost it doesn't look like something he would wear. where his old outfit had a casual feel to it, his new look feels like someone dressed him up for a family christmas dinner. it's too... tidy. now of course you could argue this is him "cleaning up his life," but i dont feel like you have to sacrifice his own personal style in order to convey that. if that's really what they were going for, they easily could have just, oh i dont know, given him a cape that isn't tattered???

remember how i said qrow's original outfit really made his colors pop? how less is more when it comes to having a character with a specific color theme? vol 7 butchered that. we suddenly have articles of clothes that are tinted with greenish blue tones, browns, and with gold trim? on TOP of the old colors he already had in his design. it's muddy. it's ugly. the burgundy vest is fine, if they wanted to work more color into his outfit they should have done it that way throughout, shades of grey and different tones of RED. his COLOR. it just feels like they tacked so much on there without a second thought and i really think he deserves better. its just. such a mess.

The ones I did like were Watts’ new coat (I like the puffy hood), Penny’s is fine, the Ace Ops look great, Ironwood’s new outfit is stellar (those last six are great examples of how to do a lot with just primary colors of white and red), Neon’s Jolyne cosplay is cute and Flynt is slick. Otherwise, Volume 7 feels like it’s taken a lot of the wrong lessons from the costume design of the earlier seasons. Less is often more but now it feels like they have a pathological aversion to empty space on the costumes, leading them to feel like... costume vomit for lack of a better word. I didn’t love the Mistral outfits, but their modifications at least were carried by how many of them called back to the Fall of Beacon and emphasized the themes of loss in Volume 4. The new Atlas outfits... don’t have that shared theme. It feels like a hodgepodge of different design influences without trying to find a way to unify them. It’s like putting Baki the Grappler beside My Little Pony, they just fail to mesh.

Also for fuck’s sake already CRWBY just give the girls muscles already.

2) JNR suck and Ren’s arc is glorified character assassination

I don’t love JNR. They’re fine, but the show has arguably not needed them for a while and while I’ve liked them all at different points, it’s never been adoration outside of Ren in Volume 4. I was cool with the idea of them staying in Argus to help cover Mistral after its Huntsmen were wiped out, and Volume 7 has... made me wish they did that.

Jaune is just comic relief, and it kinda blows for later reasons but the big one is that he’s just not very funny. His big role in Volume 7 is basically to crosswalk some kids so we can have a joke scene during the Mantle Battle where Jaune uses his tactical genius to teach people to walk in single file. I feel like at this point Miles is just actively trying to kill Jaune’s fandom out of spite for how badly Jaundice was received. He’s never allowed to be cool or try and redeem himself. His hatedom aren’t going to stop hating Jaune because he gets more comedy guys. They’re going to stop when you write Jaune well. It’s a bummer he got some genuinely great upgrades for his sword and shield and never gets to use them outside of the opening.

Nora exists. She got a surprising amount of focus this season in that she got focus of any kind. I liked her confronting Ironwood over his choking of Mantle because we know she was once the kind of person Ironwood would have been stifling. I like her being the one to realize the loophole in Jinn’s “You can’t” line. I don’t like much else about Nora this year, or at least the Nora the writing team are pushing. She’s not funny like Jaune but Nora just absorbs so much screentime in the first half with her constant shrieking. Sam Ireland has good range but making Nora into Discount Harley Quinn is pushing her out of it. She sounds shrill, making Nora sound like she has no heart outside of the election rally. A shrill voice is one thing. A shrill voice that never lands a single joke? Yeah that character is tainted by association.

And Ren... oh God Ren what happened to you.

The Volume 7 commentary confirmed a suspicion of mine that Ren’s arc was heavily cut down from what was planned. Even watching V7 I could tell his arc was bare-bones at best, and it’s downright character assassination in places. Why is he suddenly so cold to Nora? Why is he now so obsessed with training? Why does he side with Ironwood for all of... one line which is this last between episodes 7 and 11. Ren only has two hundred words of dialoge in Volume 7 and they feel so weird in places. Ren goes from seemingly disliking Nora, to kissing her, to never referencing the kiss, to partaking in the Worst Scene Of The Season, all with no consistency. It’s not even threadbare. Ren’s arc just has no connecting tissue for so much of it! It’s insane how badly Ren was hurt by this, and I shudder to wonder how bad his Volume 8 arc will be because you know that was one of the first plotlines they cut down on when they inevitably overreached again.

I don’t know how they made Renora kissing feel unearned? But by God they found a way with how much of a trainwreck Ren’s writing is in regards to tainting this.

If Ironwood is an example of RWBY doing character writing well, Ren is the mirror image of how badly they can do. JNR really suffered from Volume 7 (also fun fact, Ren has about 200 words of dialogue? Ironwood has 4400). Maybe not to the level of irredeemable dislike? But very close to being on the same tier as Cinder of “Just go away already.” I’m not looking forward to their content in Volume 8.

3) RWBY themselves are poorly handled in Volume 7

It’s unfortunate that the actual title characters of the series are also some of this season’s weaker links. RWBY feel... superfluous to this season in a way they’ve never felt before. It’s baffling how much of the season doesn’t change if you just don’t include them, and apparently Volume 7′s first draft? Was even worse.

The commentary says that many of the RWBY moments were added later in production. Stuff like Ruby and Renora at the rally, Blake and Yang’s talk with Robyn and Ruby and Qrow’s chat were all either added in near the end of the writing or were “low priority” enough that they could have been cut which is... veyr alarming that’s stuff even the main protags have to worry about!

Ruby feels half-baked. I was looking forward to her in V7 after how V6 gave her a more dynamic personality and the focus she got in Brunswick, and having Penny’s return had me interested in seeing Ruby grapple with her emotions about it. She watched Penny die, how would it influence her to see Penny back and OK? Good question, we never get to see it. Ruby’s just OK with Penny’s return, the one time they touch on it Penny immediately glosses over it. Ruby just goes back to her old happy go lucky persona where any and all negative emotions are immediately forced down instead of confronting them and growing from them. I’m getting a little tired of Ruby bottling her grief and being teased about finally getting her snapping like a Twix Bar. We finally got her crying and it lasted all of ten seconds. And it doesn’t help that Ruby’s still getting shafted for fights. Her scythe choreography has no excuse being as flacid as it is now after Qrow vs Clover showed they can do scythe fighting! Why is Ruby being upstaged by (let’s be real) a supporting character! Why is she being limited to ten seconds of good combat then nothing for the rest of the season outside of flimsily swinging it or shooting. It’s disappointing, especially after how good V6 Ruby was.

I swear, Gravity’s not just my favorite episode of the season just because Ruby finally cries in it.

Weiss was kinda just done dirty though. At least Ruby has a good outfit. Weiss confronting her father has been a long standing plot thread for the series, it’s been Weiss’s Big Thing since the White Trailer. And when Jacques finally appears, he’s very... bland. He’s just evil corporate dude who exists less as an obstacle for Weiss and more just a roadblock for the plot through the election. Weiss finally gets a chance to take her father down and work to redeem her family name... but instead of earning said victory and it being treated with the same gravitas and emotional weight as Blake defeating Adam... Weiss has her victory handed to her. And it’s played for comedy by her abusrdly attractive mother.

Listen, I like I Willow Schnee. I think she’s a fascinating character and I like the idea of a person who is aware of the harm they’ve done by accident but is too broken to fix the issues she accidentally left. I love her calling Weiss out on her treatment of Whitley. But she is absolutely a Deus Ex Machina that exists to get Jacques out of the plot as fast as possible. You mean to tell me Hackerman Watts never once made sure Jacques had hidden cameras? Or that none of the staff found Willow’s cameras and reported them under the assumption they were White Fang spies? It’s so... convenient. It’s handing Weiss her victory on an unearned platter. Which sucks. I was really looking forward to Weiss beating Jacques. Instead she just gets given the plot device while JNR engage in the Worst Scene of The Season in that Whitley food stunt.

Me whenever I’m asked to rewatch Cordially Invited

Blake and Yang have much the same problems, in they never separate. I know they’re going to be together. I know CRWBY are making it canon (get it over with already). I still would like Yang and Blake to have individual character scenes. I’d like Blake and Marrow to talk about being a Faunus Huntsman in Atlas (another thing that got cut thanks to Robyn Hill). I want Yang and Ironwood to discuss their PTSD and have Yang thank Ironwood for his trust in her that he commissioned the arm despite Yang attacking Mercury. I want Blake to be well animated in fight scenes so she’s doing more than just jobbing so Yang looks better. I want Yang to stop hogging all the good Team RWBY choeography. I want them to interact with other characters and continue to grow instead of feeling like two halves of one character. And no, making a meta joke of how Blake and Yang don’t talk to other people doesn’t make it OK. It just means you’re self aware about your own faults.

(Also give Yang better merch or quit the favoritism. If you’re gonna milk her, put effort into it beyond crapply overpriced flannel. RT’s merch store is actively making me hate Yang.)

Team RWBY’s biggest contribution to the season is the Ironwood Lie which is... a can of worms. They certainly had a point in withholding some of the bigger truths from James but I feel by Pomp and Cirumstance he’d proven himself truthwrothy enough to warrant being told the truth about Salem. But then when he’s finally told the truth, it’s offscreen’d and the consequence isn’t “Why didn’t you tell me earlier” but “Fucking Ozpin man.” Gravity has it bite them in the ass, but it’s more an accessory to Yang and Blake telling Robyn about the Amity tower. I wish more had been done with the team disagreeing on whether the lie was a good choice or not, maybe have Yang be hardline against it due to her own “No more lies and half truths” policy instead of... having Yang tell more lies and half truths (Commentary confirms she never told Ruby and Weiss about the Robyn stuff BTW). But that’s a wider problem where RWBY aren’t allowed to disagree beyond surface level “I don’t know if this is the right call” dialogue. There’s never a threat of one of them cracking and just spilling the beans to James, everyone just blindly trusts Ruby and Qrow tells the audience “No this is different from when Ozpin lied. Trust us.”

This is the most RWBY get for content in the season finale: Ruby just nuking Cinder with no difficulty after having trouble with the eyes three episodes ago. Kinda lame tbh.

Team RWBY are just disappointing in Volume 7. They’re not given good animation, their story roles are largely insignificant, the impact of their roles on the story is threadbare and... well most of their costumes suck don’t @ me even CRWBY have admitted Blake and Weiss’s haircuts looked bad. It’s a whole barrage of a letdown for the main girls. And it’s really sad that the best scenes of the season... are usually the ones where RWBY are nowhere in sight.

Why the hell didn’t Yang get to keep the sunglasses come on guys. One job.

4) Robyn, the election plot, and the Happy Huntresses

Oh God, Robyn Hill is... not great. I could and likely will write a full meta on her character and how they bungled it but I’ll just be blunt here: I don’t like her design, the colors don’t mesh well, he head’s too small, Christina Vee is sleeping through the role and her weapon’s lame. Introducing her in a scene where she threatens to attack our heroes, and her agents are actively sneaking up on them to do it, is not a great first impression for a hometown hero. And that the commentary thinks she’s meant to be the hero in that scene is... staggering.

RWBY’s greatest threat yet is a wine mom Karen and her Home Owners Association army.

The election plot is less a misfire and more the engine just exploding. There’s so little good content between when it’s introduced and concluded, with it usually being individual scenes that are more good in spite of their connection to the plot (such as Tyrian’s massacre). It drags in pacing, going on for nearly half the season between episodes 5 and 10, and it purely exists as a roadblock to keep RWBY spinning their wheels while Watts and Tyrian keep going with the main plot. I don’t know why CRWBY went for this plot. They could have easily had something else fill the gap that also allowed for a lot of the character beats (such as Marrow and Blake’s talk and Ren’s entire arc) to shine, or at least condensed it to the important elements instead of letting it become bloated. It ends in such an unsatisfying way where Willow just shows up and goes “We have four episode left, here’s the plot device to beat Jacques, get back ot the main plot.” If they wanted to do the election plot, the best route would have been to give Volume 7 more episodes or stretch out its events to two seasons, but neither is realistically possible while RWBY lives off the teat of AT&T.

Jacques and Robyn are just boring. Evil corporate man and a lame adaptation of Robyn Hood who only has fans because of thirst who also like downplaying Robyn making a racist remark at Marrow (to say nothing of that weird subsection of Robyn fans who make her a Fox Faunus who cut her tail off to join Atlas Academy which is... certainly a creative choice especially when Marrow and Neon are punching holes in that angsty BS backstory). They can’t carry this plot and the artifical attempts to make it seem more exciting with the two cliffhaners ending on Mantle under riot or Grimm attack are laughably cut short by the next episode in each case opening the morning after. On binge watch it becomes weirdly funny more than anything and that’s not a good reaction. The dual cliffhangers being cheaply resolved is a short but succint example of V7′s pacing issues, and they almost always loop around to the election plot being too bloated, slow and just boring.

Also the Happy Huntresses are just... lame. I like their Semblances but that’s it. Fiona’s OK because she gets some screentime but May’s just “the surly one” and Joanna doesn’t even get her Semblance or much dialogue (oh wow she really is just a female Sage Ayana isn’t she). Robyn should not have been leading the HH and running for Council. That’s really stupid. And kind of wrong. Having May or Fiona be running instead while Robyn leads the team in relief efforts would have been better and could have split the focus more effeciently instead of leaving May and especially Joanna feelng like roster padding. There’s also some delicious irony in the show trying to frame the HH as the resistance fighting for the people and representing individuality, only for them all to have the same boring outfit and weapons (I think even the exact same model just with different sizes) while the Ace Ops are meant to be the military drones who are “Just following orders,” only for them to be more racially diverse, more diverse body-type-wise, and have more unique weapons. It’s another one of those odd creative dissconnects between what the writers wanted and what the artists/animation teams chose to do.

The election plot is overall toxin for Volume 7, and Robyn in my opinion, has one of the worst introductory scenes of any character in the franchise (and CRWBY have tacitly admitted that V7 had a character they were surprised at how controversial they were, which has to be Robyn). In a year where they were already juggling so much content and characters, adding in this bloated subplot was something I don’t think anyone wanted, especially now that we know we lost so much content on the sacrificial altar for this. It’s a black mark on the season and I don’t really care for the return of the Happy Huntresses or Robyn in Volume 8. None of them are interesting enough to care for outside of meta reasons like “cute.”

Also fuck you Fiona, can’t believe you got a shirt before Ironwood.

5) Cinder and Neo sure exist

To be fair, this is one of Cinder’s best years, easily her best since Volume 3 but that’s more because Cinder in the Mistral era was crap. (And if I wanna be cruel, because Cinder wasn’t in two thirds of the season)Her fans were finally vindicated after years of telling anyone who dunked on Cinder that “nooooo she has a super covert backstory that’s gonna be amazing when it’s revealed! You’ll see!” And well they finally got it. All of one line during a fight about how Cinder “refuses to starve.”

It’s still something so I guess we have to take it. Seriously... how do we still not have Cinder’s backstory.

There’s just not a ton to say about Cinder and Neo in V7 barring I that don’t think they needed to be here. They feel very superfluous and just here to have a big boss fight in Cinder’s case alongside continuing her streak of ending the odd numbered seasons fighting a female side character... which for me became an exercise in tyring to find during Cinder during the damn fight.

And this is why when most people saw Cinder’s V6 outfit they went “It’s gonna be hard to see her in darker environments,” then were vindicated when it became legit difficult to see Cinder in this scene. God if they at least just made the inside of the cape red it’d be easier.

Neo is Neo, which means she makes funny faces and mocks Cinder (I like that), but she doesn’t get a super good fight which uh... we’ll get to. I’m interested to see her finally exploding at Cinder and going for a backstab, but really Neo in V7 was kinda hit hard by the double whammy of the Oscar Hallway Punch and how humiliating ORNJ vs Neo was for ORNJ. Cinder’s definitely had far worse years and after how aimless she was in Mistral this feels like a sep in the right direction, but at this point CRWBY just need to shut up and tell us her deal. It’s been seven years guys. Come on. At least make her interesting if she’s gonna say around. They’ve had worse years, but unfortunately Cinder and Neo’s role in the finale leads into...

6) Some of the fights weren’t good

I wanna be clear, I like most of Volume 7′s fights. It’s just a bummer the worst ones are back and back and make up a chunk of the finale. ORNJ vs Neo is just crap. It’s the worst fight since the Battle of Haven. There’s nothing else I can say, it’s poorly animated, paced, choreographed and written. JNR especially are made to look like complete jokes after they spent all season training, to the point where it looks like V2 Yang could solo V7 JNR after this. Oscar I expect this from because he’s not allowed to have fun stuff onscreen after accidentally stealing the Haven budget for his fight with Hazel, but JNR were just done dirty. There were ways to make the fight work in a way where Neo still won but JNR looked good. They went for the worst possible outcome that just leaves Neo looking like she got fan-wanked and JNR looking like they’re just not allowed to be cool due to Miles’ spite at the Jaune-Self Insert stuff (and that’s not even getting into JNR being forced to run from lame rent a cops who can’t even handle a single Grimm). Cinder vs Winter and Penny isn’t much better, with her dark outfit making it very hard to track the fight because she blends into the background too well. It’s not a great showing for Winter or Penny given their earlier feats but, hey, some random female character had to fight Cinder in this odd numbered volume, carrying on Glynda, Pyrrha and Raven’s tradition. It’s at least better than ORNJ vs Neo, but that’s really not saying anything. At least Cinder’s VA work isn’t too bad this time but this fight commits the cardinal sin of a finale fight: It’s just not super interesting because we know Cinder can’t kill both Winter and Penny and she’s not becoming a Maiden, while Winter’s been too blatantly set up so it has to be Penny.

RWBY vs the Ace Ops also gets a dishonorable mention due to the choreography on display here... and the lack of it for Weiss, Blake and Ruby. Ruby never once swings Crescent Rose the entire fight and is just reduced to getting the tar kicked out of her by Harriet. Weiss barely gets to use her sword and largely just sticks to her summoning and glyphs which makes for a very visually uninteresting fighting style at the best of times. Blake just swings around and gets caught by the bad guys so Yang is motivated to fight stronger. She never dual wields (again) and her best moves are just setting up Yang to do all the hard work while Yang gets to personally KO two of the Ace Ops. There’s a lot that can be said about whether or nor RWBY earn the win, but while the animation team try to sell the Ace Ops landing heavy hits, having only Blake’s Aura even flicker really undercuts the idea from the commentary that this wasn’t meant to be a stomp for RWBY and they had to work together and be in synch to win.

Which is why Yang solos two of the Ace Ops whle Blake plays support, Weiss beats Marrow alone and then kill steals Harriet from Ruby, all while the song playing is an extended diss track from RWBY to the Ace Ops about how badass they are now, and the commentary itself says the Ace Ops are hard carried by Clover’s Semblance (because you gotta love basically saying four POC were only competent because a white guy led them, and then have them lose because said white guy wasn’t around to carry them!). Great job guys, you really sold it.

And talking of Clover, I feel it worth mentioning Qrow vs Clover vs Tyrian. It’s animation wise near perfect, but unfortunately I do feel it would be remiss to not mention that I feel the writing really has to bend over backwards to justify this fight. A lot of it is stuff I would say in that hypothetical Robyn essay, but I feel Robyn, Qrow and Clover all have to become massive idiots for this specific sequence of events to occur, and for Clover especially every retroactive attempt to explain why he prioritized Qrow over Tyrian just sounds more and more desperate. Between the references to MCU Captain America (a person whose entire arc is about learning when it’s OK to defy bad orders) or the attempt in the commentary to say “Oh Clover thought it would be easier to take out Tyrian alone instead of Qrow,” none of them land and just further drive home how much the plot had to stretch and reach to get that moment of Tyrian killing Clover. I like the fight. But I hate the road the show took to get there.

Some of the misc fights are also weak like ORNJ vs FNKI and elements of the Mantle Grimm battle, but those are the big offenders. Otherwise, again, the fights are largely good.

7) The soundtrack wasn’t... great

I mean the vocal songs only, don’t crucify me. Trust Love is just lamer Let’s Just Live/Triumph, Celebrate and Let’s Get Real are so boring I thought they were the same song until the OST dropped, Brand New Day is boringly peppy and Jeff’s vocals are dreadful. I completely forgot Touch the Sky until I was checking the tracklist to make sure I didn’t forget any songs. War has good singers but tries to sell the RWBY-Ace Ops bond as way deeper than it was. The lack of a villain song did really sting though, those are always the highlights.

There are good songs. I really like Fear, I feel it encapsulates the themes of the volume well and serves as a good condemnation of Ironwod’s mentality. Until The End is finally the Ruby song I’ve waited for since Red Like Roses 2 and I enjoy that she got a melancholic song, and Hero is easily, hands down, best track of the record and probably best RWBY track, full stop. Caleb killed it, I loved the second verse, opening opera was strong, guitar riffs were a plenty. Stellar work all around for that one.

The OST has great work from Jeff and Alex as usual, but the Jeff and Casey songs are really starting to lose their appeal. Going for a peppy feel this year didn’t help cover the cracks that are beginning to show with RWBY’s vocal songs (especially Jeff’s vocal range), and while a few standouts remain such as Fear and Hero, they are the slim minority in an otherwise very boring vocal tracklist that barely scrapes above Volume 5 for weakest set yet.

8) It wasn’t as funny as it thought it was

Comedy is subjective but man a lot of these jokes didn’t land. RWBY really needs to realize that does work in traditional 2D does not translate into 3D and just comes off as making official reaction GIFs for your Twitter account. Making characters SUDDENY SCREAM LOUDLY is not good banter. Please stop making Nora into Harley Quinn. Marrow was probably the most consistently funny character but that was it. Also I dunno why CRWBY thought Forrest was funny or what the deal was with that FRWBY crap.

“Honorary” mention to the JNR food scene in Cordially Invited which is genuinely one of the worst scenes in the entire show and I hope whoever animated it has their save files deleted for a game where they were about to beat the final boss. Nothing sums up JNR’s pointlessness in the series more perfectly than this.

C) Conclusion

See what I mean about Volume 7 being frustrating?

It’s weird that I overal think of Volume 7 as a mid-tier volume. There’s so much here I genuinely adore, with some of the best stuff to do with the show coming out of this season (barring lame, overpriced merch that feels like clothing gacha), but simultaneously the whole thing is let down by outside circumstances that unfortunately are ones the show can’t ever really recover from. Put bluntly, Volume 7 is the most technically proficient season of the show with the best lighting, backdrops, (some of the) character models, etc. CRWBY definitely didn’t slack off this year, but the problem isn't with them. It’s with the writing. A wider reaching problem is just that Miles and Kerry can’t really improve to the level that the series now requires. Eddy and Kiersei’s first season could have gone far worse, but it definitely was notable whenever they took over. Volume 7’s core problems are fourfold: The comedy is terrible and none of the jokes really land, the season focuses on the wrong plots and gives them too much effort, too many episodes are spent building up to new plots only for them to be weakly resolved (especially the Mantle Riot/Grimm attacks that are shoved off-screen), and the character bloat strikes hard here and leaves a lot of the cast feeling like dead weight. CRWBY don’t need more writers. They need more editors willing to tell the team what has to go instead of them hemming and hawing themselves on if they if they can include a plotline. The election never should have gotten past its first draft, there was too much already in this season before adding that.

When this is an unironic shot in your series... you’ve got character bloat issues.

At this point, I think JNR need to go. The show had no idea what to do with them throughout the season, leading to Jaune just being comic relief while Ren and Nora became characters I actively dislike. Renora was the easiest ship in the show to land, and they still managed to blow the engines and ram at least three icebergs just to prove that RWBY can’t romance to save its life. Team RWBY themselves are little better, with Ruby’s feelings about Penny’s return being shelved, Weiss’s victory against Jacques feeling un-earned and undercut by comedy, while Yang and Blake are benched for the volume and become a singular entity with how tied at the hip they are. Maria basically yeeted herself out of the show and I didn’t notice, Pietro is just a death flag, and while the Ace Ops had a good intro, it was undercooked by how they had to play the villain role to give RWBY something to do in the final hours. Cinder and Neo didn’t need to be here. Robyn had one of the worst introductions for a character I’ve ever seen, I never enjoyed her moments and it genuinely feels like she only has a fandom because RWBY’s community are in fact that desperate.

On the brighter side, Ironwood’s arc is fucking perfect and Jason Rose deserves all the love. Great fight, great song, great design, love the beard, it was a perfect downfall for Volume 7’s true protagonist. Qrow had a fun volume and I loved his dynamic with Clover (I don’t see the ship stuff but that’s more because I’m an IronQrow main so my blinders were on). Clover was also way cooler than I remembered. His fights stood out but the guy’s just really cool at the end of the day, with Chris doing great work as a VA. Oscar even managed to do stuff this year which was a shock and a half, but a welcome shock and a half. I didn’t mention it, but the Ozpin fear monologue is one of my favorite scenes in the entire show and it and the Ironwood/Oscar confrontation in the vault save the finale. And of course, Watts and Tyrian were the MVPs. I don’t have a bad word about either of them, they fucking nailed their roles and I can’t wait to see them again.

And that’s kind of what I mean when I say Volume 7 flummoxes me. It’s frustrating at times with how it handles seemingly easy tasks and drops the ball. Renora went from “everyone liked that” to wondering how badly Ren’s stuff got butchered for him to be the way he is. RWBY themselves could be almost entirely cut and so little would change, and the fact that the finale basically hinges its entire emotional stakes on Winter, Penny and Oscar is a staggering call. And it really feels like the season was compressed beyond necessity because they decided going in that Volume 7 had to end on Salem’s arrival. There’s two volumes worth of material here, and maybe it would have been best to have broken up these events. Volume 7 does too much in too little time, and RWBY especially suffered from it. But when it works… it’s good. Never close to the highs of Volumes 6 or 3, but there’s genuinely good material here. The fights are mostly getting better with far less missteps than previously, the acting (mostly) continues to improve and it’s obvious that RWBY is a very good looking show at this point. Ironwood’s arc is franchise-wide highs, I loved Clover, and Marrow remains the best boi. But it’s frustrating that despite all the tech advances Volume 7 has made, it still makes such threadbare, rookie writing mistakes in cast management, comedy and character arcs. I’m glad Miles and Kerry finally realized that they needed more writers, but it won’t mean anything if the show just continues to circle the drain on the core mistakes it’s been making since 2013. Volume 7 has good in it. But I can see where it could have been great.

Thanks for reading, stan IronQrow and please get Whitley a therapist.

And for the love of God already make an Ironwood vs Watts shirt!

82 notes · View notes

wisherbysharlight · 4 years

Text

Can’t Deny It, Who You Are Is What You’re Feeling

Word Count: 5685

Pairings: Demus, LAMP(and all variations thereof)

Janus is trying to settle into his new role as the makeup artist for a small off-off Broadway production, but he can't seem to figure out the relationships going on in the troupe, let alone what he has going on with the eccentric set designer...

AO3 Link

Janus squinted at the side of the stage. He should definitely be trying to make himself useful, it being only his second day, but he had just finished an eye test on Valerie and he was fairly certain he could pass off his staring as making sure it looked right where she stood in the spotlights. Hell, that’s what he’d been doing originally, before getting side tracked by the male lead sliding off the stage to the crafts table, where he’d sidled up to Patton, the costume designer Janus had met yesterday. Patton had beamed like Christmas had come early and promptly started breaking off pieces of his muffin to feed over his shoulder to the man who was now firmly attached to his back with his arms around his waist, visibly giggling the entire time. They looked carefree and besotted with each other in a way that made an ugly curl of envy build up in his stomach, but he couldn’t look away once he’d started. At least, until the props master interrupted him, that is.

“They’re tooth-rottingly sweet, huh?” Janus would deny the sound he made til his dying day, but he was fairly certain it could only be described as a yelp. The prop master cackled, holding their hand out to shake, which Janus took, grateful for the distraction. “Hey, it’s Janus right? I’m Talyn. Could you come back this way and give me a hand with moving some of these bigger pieces over to the wings for the next scene?”

“Oh sure Talyn, I don’t have anything until my next stage test in an hour or so,” he assured, carefully pasting a smile on his face that he hoped looked genuine.

Talyn threw a thumbs-up over their shoulder as they went towards the workshop and Janus took the opportunity to look back over at the crafts table where Valerie had now joined the two during a break and was laughing brightly as the actor playfully picked Patton up, throwing him over his shoulder to head over to the drinks table, and Janus could hear the shrieks even from his distance, “Rooooman, oh my goodness, you put me down right now, you big show-off!” Huh, so Mr. Leading-Man was named Roman. Good to know.

“You’re just so easy to toss around, Patton-cake. Maybe stop being so cute and I won’t be so tempted,” Roman shot back, opening a can of apple juice with an overexaggerated casualness.

“I’ll get you back for this, you heathen,” Patton cried, changing tactics to poking and tickling at Roman’s sides.

The laughter could still be heard even in the back wings of the auditorium where the workshop was, and Talyn had to raise their voice to be heard as they worked to finagle a fake-flower covered arch through the doorway, “Thanks for the help. The set designer, Remus, is out shopping for supplies today and he’s usually the one who actually moves this kind of stuff, but the director needs this for some sort of choreography today.”

“No problem at all,” Janus assured again, eager to prove his usefulness. “Happy to help when I can.”

By the time they finished getting the bulky prop to the proper side of the stage, the break was over, Roman was back onstage with Valerie, Patton had gone back to the far wings of the stage to continue working, and Janus had a new actor to meet and a fake scar to attempt to do in a transition that lasted less than 10 minutes.

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Less than a week later and Janus once again found himself squinting to the side of the stage, but this time it was up higher in the sound and light booth. Actors were scattered throughout the theater, running lines with each other, and the Technical Director seemed to be taking the opportunity to work with the Lighting Technician on setting up a few cues. Nothing out of the ordinary, most of the productions Janus had worked on in school worked the same way, no, the interesting part was just how close the Technical Director was to the Lighting Technician in the booth as they worked. They seemed to be able to communicate without speaking at all, effortlessly moving around each other and flicking different settings and somehow coming out with the correct configuration without ever saying a word.

The ease around each other was palpable, and that was what caught Janus off guard. He’d worked with the TD, Logan, once, and that interaction had been succinct, professional, and brokered no nonsense. Now, though, Logan’s shoulders seemed to loosen up the more time he spent up in the lighting box, and every once in a while, when the technician was triple or quadruple checking a light, Janus could see the TD huff and roll his eyes teasingly, then dodge an equally teasing swat to his side or shoulder. And he’d smile , a real smile, not a smirk or a placating pleasantry, and Janus felt that nasty longing that was tinged green with jealousy snake up into his throat again.

He forced himself to look away, finally, just to see Roman sitting in the makeup chair looking thoroughly amused and he was suddenly glad he’d chosen to wear a full face of makeup today, not just covering his left side like usual, because now he could at least hope that his thick foundation would cover up the way his face flamed up at getting caught staring at a couple again . “Hello Roman, did you need something?” he asked, going to his workstation to avoid having to look at the actor’s smirking face anymore.

“Hmm? Oh. Yes, yes, yes, I did, I was wondering if I would be able to offer up my time for you to practice the second act’s possession effects, as I know you were saying it would be difficult to practice on a dummy, and I am much further ahead in my memorization than the others,” Roman rattled off, and when Janus turned back to him, he quickly averted his eyes from the lighting box. Hm, so apparently he wasn’t the only one looking, that was interesting…

“That would be great actually, thank you. Getting that pallid coloring done three times in one intermission is going to be tough unless I do it a few times ahead of the show, I appreciate it.” He brought his rolling cart over to the makeup chair and crouched in front of Roman, watching carefully without giving away that he was focused on anything other than the makeup. After the third time Roman’s eyes strayed towards the light box he decided to speak up, “What’s the lighting technician’s name? Haven’t met him yet.”

“Oh you mean Tall, Dark, and Moody? That’s Virgil, him and Logan grew up together so they’re pretty used to each other by now, it’s really great to watch them work,” Roman enthused, and that made more sense, Roman was just appreciating the well oiled machine. “We all send Logan up there when it looks like he’s ready to murder the next person to say ‘slightly behind schedule’. Or when Virge gets new cues and gets so overwhelmed he starts gnawing on that giant hoodie he’s always got on. They really good at chilling each other out.”

Janus absorbed all of this as he brushed a small test bit of gray over Roman’s cheek bones, mulling it over and ultimately content to just let Roman talk. By the time he was done with the ghostly sheen, he had learned that Logan, Virgil, Patton, and Roman all went to college together and all joined the budding troupe together straight afterwards, even though they all had offers for separate larger companies scattered across the country. It was clear that Roman would talk about his little group forever if he were allowed to, had spent almost 10 minutes alone enthusing about some cosplay work Patton did in college with this adorably smitten twinkle to his eye, but Janus had to let him up from the chair eventually. When he stepped back to admire his work, though, Roman didn’t make any moves to get up. “Spent all this time talking about us, how about you? What brings you to our humble little company instead of some larger agency?”

Janus startled a bit, not used to getting asked anything about himself. “I suppose I was intrigued by the premise of the play, and wanted to do more hands-on work than most agencies allow new graduates.” It wasn’t quite a lie, and Roman didn’t need to know that this particular theater had been Janus’s saving grace growing up, how he owed the owner, Thomas, everything, how…

“My brother is the exact same way. Not happy unless he has full, creative control over his sets,” Roman laughed, and Janus tilted his head curiously. “I mean it’s better that he has an outlet for his thoughts. You don’t wanna know what he gets like when you try to stifle him, woo boy. Much better he swing a hammer at the scenery than at my head.”

“It was a wiffle ball bat, I only hit you once, and you didn’t even have a concussion. And beside that, you practically dared me to.”

Janus spun so quickly his beanie tilted slightly, and he fidgeted with his gloves to hide the fact that his heart was racing, but his face remained carefully even, “Remus. Speak of the devil and he shall appear.” The man had a way of blending into the shadows until you least wanted him to jump out at you. Janus had been too startled to even react the first time, but Remus had taken it as though he wasn’t scared at all and was now determined to make him scream. Luckily, Janus had great experience controlling his expressions, the few times he’d been caught daydreaming observing relationships around the theater notwithstanding.”Were you looking for Roman or are you just here to bother me?”

Remus swooned dramatically, “Bother! You wound me! Nono, Joan sent me, they want Roman on stage to help Virgey-poo calibrate the acoustics after I, er, nudged one of the speakers over. Accidentally, of course.”

Roman rolled his eyes and scoffed, “You pissing Virgil off has never once been an accident. But I’ll head over there before Tickle-Me-Emo has a heart attack.” He turned to Janus, patting him on the back, “Good luck with him, don’t let him near anything sharp or he’ll try to cut his own bangs in the name of creating a new hairstyle.”

“I can handle him just fine,” Janus drawled, and pointedly ignored the suggestive look Remus gave him in return. Instead, he focused again up on the lighting box where Virgil seemed to be ranting, hands flying in front of his face, as Logan patiently listened. Roman finally got up on the stage and Virgil started messing with the sound board, forehead creased in concentration, and Janus pretended there wasn’t a tug in his heart when Logan leaned over to smooth the skin out just between his eyebrows with his thumb, earning himself a small but genuine smile, before heading back down to work.

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Three weeks into rehearsals and Janus was really getting the hang of his new life. He and his roommate, Remy, the publicity manager for the theater, had moved into a new apartment closer to the theater with Remy’s boyfriend Emile, as between the three of them they could now afford more than what basically amounted to a shoebox. He’d made friends, something he’d thought was somewhat of a pipe dream before. He absolutely adored his job. Two to three times a day he would snag actors to do test runs of looks and see how they turned out on stage, tweaking things here and there when he could. The rest of the time he would help out around the theater, helping Logan with keeping Remus in line and on schedule(Remus would sometimes demand only Janus be allowed in his studio, and Janus had found that Remus was much more bearable when he felt he was paid attention to. Pleasant, even, if a little random and impulsive), shopping for props for Talyn, running lines with Valerie or Roman or Terrence or the background actors when the others were busy, or, most often, assisting Patton in costuming.

Apparently, Patton was supposed to have an assistant but they’d had a family emergency and Patton had brushed off the idea of trying to find someone else on short notice. Janus had noticed, of course, that Patton came in earlier and stayed later than almost anyone else and so he went out of his way to help where he could. He had some basic sewing experience and worked well as a sounding board for Patton to bounce his ideas off of while he worked, and Janus was thrilled to be able to be helpful. He had also noticed Patton was more willing to take breaks if he thought Janus needed one and Janus was not above being a bit dramatic with his yawns to get Patton to relax for a few minutes. He’d become fond of the guy.

He’d just gone to the craft table to grab something Patton would eat, intending to goad him into taking 15 minutes off. He’d gotten a bit sidetracked when Remus decided to “stumble” into him, leaving a large forest-green handprint right in the center of his chest and loudly declare that he needed to take it off (Janus made a note in his head to spend the next day in his workshop, he was definitely looking for attention, and he was missing the rowdier man a bit besides), but he had still only been gone about 20 minutes, so he was surprised when he heard another voice coming from the sewing room aside from Patton. “- and we need to make sure Valerie’s weighted dress is done before next Wednesday, she needs to rehearse the choreography with the added material-”

“Lolo, relax. I’ll get it done, I promise,” came Patton’s voice, light and almost teasing in a way Janus had never heard before. He’d almost describe it as… flirtatious? But that didn’t make any sense… “You’re starting to sound like Virgil with all that fretting. You know me, you know I never break a promise.”

“Y-yes,” and now Logan sounded flustered, which really was out of character, “Of course, Patton, I just wanted to make sure you had all the resources you needed and were not overextending yourself-”

Patton cut him off again, and this time Janus got the impression he was very amused, “I’ve got everything I need, right here, Mr. Berry. I even promise I’ll do something to relax tonight, sound good? Pick up a bottle of wine and have a night in, maybe watch a movie, something to really decompress…” Janus got the distinct feeling he was missing something, because Patton was speaking as though he had a completely different meaning behind the words, but they seemed completely innocent.

Janus finally decided to head into the studio then, feeling like he’d been eavesdropping on something private, and when he saw Patton he was leaning against his desk casually, no indication in his body language at all that he’d been flirting like Janus thought he’d heard. He thought maybe he’d been mistaken, but Logan was adjusting his tie even though the knot was perfect, like always, and had a very faint pink to his cheeks that he would have missed if he weren’t paying attention. He lightly cleared his throat before speaking, “Hello Janus. I was just heading out. Thank you for assisting Patton with keeping to the deadlines, it is much appreciated. Patton, we can continue our discussion later.” Patton smiled brightly, looking like the picture of innocence, and waved as Logan headed back towards Remus’s workshop and Janus repressed a wince. Yeah, he’d definitely visit tomorrow if Logan was going to get on his case about deadlines too.

He pasted a smile on, making sure not to indicate he’d heard anything before coming in, “Hey Pat, I grabbed some cookies and tea from the craft table. Remus sends his regards.” He gestured wryly to the graphic tee shirt he held in his hands, still grateful he’d worn an undershirt today.

Patton beamed and took a cookie, looking all the more innocent when he bounced a bit on his toes, curls catching in the light as they moved with him, “Woo! You rock, we definitely earned a few cookies today!” He tilted his head curiously at the stain, then nodded like he’d decided something, “I can definitely get that out, by the way, just need some vinegar and washing soda. Re does stuff like that to Roman all the time. Leave it with me and it’ll be perfectly fine by tomorrow!”

Janus smiled again, feeling taken care of in a way he hadn’t in a long time, and it felt more real this time, “Thanks Patton.”

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Janus was making good on his promise to himself the next day, lounging on a chair next to the open door of Remus’s workshop even though it was technically his day off. He came into the theater every day no matter what just in case anyone needed assistance, but it was nice to not feel guilty for not doing his own work. He people-watched between the points where Remus would ask for his opinion on a piece or start up a seemingly unrelated conversation, letting the silence fall when Remus needed to focus. He’d been watching Virgil up in the tech box, messing with the settings for the lighting of one of Valerie’s solo scenes while she rehearsed. He had that focused crease in his brow again but he didn’t look nearly as murderous as when Remus screwed around with his speakers, so Janus didn’t feel the need to get Logan yet, but when the door opened behind the engineer he’d still been expecting the technical director to come in.

What happened instead was much more confounding to Janus. Patton burst through the door, looking worn down and cranky, and paced the room a few times with his hands waving around. Virgil took his headphones off without turning around and nodded along, not breaking focus at all but still responding from what Janus could see. Then, seemingly out of steam, the costume designer maneuvered around cords and computers over to Virgil’s chair and promptly ducked under his arm and threw a leg over Virgil’s before burrowing his face into Virgil’s neck. Virgil didn’t flinch at all, continuing to focus on the lighting of the scene by simply arranging Patton slightly on his lap so he could tuck his own head over his shoulder.

At some point in the performance on stage, Valerie and the director aimed a thumbs up at the light box, and Virgil gave a self satisfied smile as he leaned back and finally wrapped his arms around Patton in return.

“Jannie?” Remus called, sitting back from his stage setting, a beautiful star-lit grove, “Do you think you could make me look like a werewolf?”

Janus blinked at him for a couple moments, not knowing how to respond, before he just shrugged, “Sure. Might look a little weird with your mustache though.”

Remus nodded, once, with finality to it, “How about a tentacle monster?”

“Same answer,” Janus replied, quicker this time now that he knew where Remus’s head was at.

“Huh. I think I’d like to try being a tentacle monster at some point. Could probably terrify the shit outta Roman. Not to mention all the benefits of tentacles.”

Janus laughed, charmed as always by Remus’s ability to just say whatever he felt like without hiding anything, “You name the time and place and I’ll be there, Remus.”

Remus gave him a blinding smile and Janus felt his breath catch a bit. God, this whole thing was so stupid but he couldn’t bring himself to care at all. He found that he’d do just about anything to make Remus smile like that again. “It’s really nice to have a partner in crime now,” Remus enthused, twirling his paintbrush without a care in the world if he splashed himself with paint.

“Yeah, Re, I get what you mean.”

By the time Remus had gone back to work splattering a blood stain artfully over a tree in the middle of the otherwise beautiful landscape, Patton had left the tech box and Virgil was back to his computer with his headphones on.

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It was one week til opening night, and Janus had been sent to find Remus, who had apparently announced he was going on a quest for inspiration which alarmed pretty much everyone who knew him, but instead he’d stumbled upon Logan, alone in the orchestra pit, looking like he was ready to scream as he tugged at the padlock on a crate. Janus made his way over and tapped Logan on the shoulder lightly, “Hey, everything alright?”

Logan’s eyes were fiery as he responded, and Janus was just a little bit taken aback, “The previous production group left the alternate curtain ropes in this container, nicely labeled and everything, except the box has this godforsaken lock and I do not want to have to pay for bolt cutters. Or have the time to buy them before dress rehearsals. It’s rather… infuriating.”

Janus laughed a bit and knelt down next to the box, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket and taking a long thin piece of metal out, “You don’t have to do that, rotation locks like this are ridiculously easy to pick.” He manipulated the piece of metal up under the last rotation dial and pressed up, trying to listen for the click even though Roman and Valerie were rehearsing their final duet up on stage. He finally got the lock to pop open and turned to show it to Logan, only to find him thoroughly distracted by the scene on the stage.

Janus could understand, he had no interest in Roman Prince( his brother on the other hand...) but even he thought the way he was waltzing Valerie around the stage was a bit hypnotizing, the lyrics soft and sultry and romantic for the final number of the performance. Logan seemed to be completely entranced, singing along under his breath to Valerie’s piece and following their movements carefully. His eyes were filled with nothing short of adoration as he swayed to the music and as Janus watched carefully, the movements matched up fairly evenly to Valerie’s part in the dance as well. Logan didn’t look away until the director had called for a cut for adjustments. He shook himself slightly, seeming to remember all of a sudden that Janus was there, and flushed brightly as he took the lock from Janus, “Oh. Um. Thank you, very much. Where did you learn to pick locks like that?”

Janus could practically envision his mask slipping into place, covering the memories of manipulating the door to the theater open for what must have been the hundredth time only to come face to face with the new owner…

“Oh it’s barely a party trick, just something I picked up along the line. Let me know if you need any more street-rat techniques,” he brushed off with a wry grin, waving a hand dismissively, “Anywho, any chance you’ve seen Remus around?”

Logan eyed him a bit critically for a moment then seemed to choose not to push it further, “Yes, I believe I saw him lurking back by your station actually.”

Janus repressed a disappointed sigh at himself. Of course, Remus had come looking for him if something had upset him. He took off for the makeup room quickly, leaving Logan behind to stare up at the stage again while Roman began rehearsing the solo piece of the song. He didn’t miss the small wink Roman aimed down at the pit when the director had turned to answer a question, and filed that bit of information away with Logan’s admiring gaze to analyze after he’d made sure Remus was alright.

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Janus was not used to anyone being in his station before him, but he was starting to become used to being surprised, so he didn’t even really react to seeing Roman and Virgil commandeering one of his makeup chairs, Roman’s hands buried in Virgil’s long black and purple hair, twisting it into intricate braids as they argued fiercely. “No, Virge, you don’t get to say ‘American Idiot’ is your favorite Broadway song. That doesn’t count.”

“It totally counts. You wouldn’t say ‘Honey, Honey’ doesn’t count, even though that’s just an ABBA song!”

“Don’t you dare bring Mamma Mia into this, that is a classic!”

“So is American Idiot!”

“Girls, girls, you’re both pretty,” Janus droned, smiling at the Venti Iced Mocha sitting on his rolling tray, ice not even melted yet, with a little doodle of a green dragon blowing fire at what he could only assume was Roman on one side, and a python wearing Janus’s signature beanie on the other. Virgil and Roman both turned to glare at him and he smirked back, lounging back in his chair and taking a long sip from his coffee in a loose impression of Remy, “What are you two doing in my domain aside from attempting to drive each other up the wall?”

“Princey was having a minor meltdown about opening night tomorrow, so I told him he could braid my hair,” Virgil told him, squinting curiously at the cup like he was trying to make out what the doodles were.

“Not true! Virgil was freaking out about opening night, not me, and he asked me to braid his hair,” Roman whined, though Janus noted that the whole time Roman’s hands never stopped moving and Virgil seemed to lean further and further into them, both their shoulders relaxing more and more as the braids took a more concrete form, “Though I will admit it is somewhat of a ritual for us at this point. Been doing this since freshman year of college when Virge first started growing his hair out.”

“Barely had enough for one braid back then, you would just do it and take it out over and over again while I ran lines with you,” Virgil commented fondly, fidgeting with the end of a piece which was left down.

“And I didn’t have the skills which I do now, of course.”

“Oh, no doubt. Maybe I’ll cut it so you could test that theory.”

“Don’t you dare!” Janus looked up from his thank you text to Remus(he’d responded with a giant squid emoji, followed by a dirty joke about proper thank yous which Janus found unreasonably funny), tilting his head curiously at Virgil’s smirk and Roman’s blush. “I-I mean, it’s your hair, obviously, but it definitely suits you being grown out.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll leave it be. Just for you,” Virgil shot back, and Janus felt like he could see the years of friendship in his smile.

Roman and Virgil stuck around for another hour until the director got there, ribbing each other over everything from music preference to sleeping habits to, bizarrely, the dark undertones of Disney movies, not even noticing when Janus slipped off to Remus’s workshop to have his own minor meltdown about opening night, lost in their own little world.

(Remus already had a hammer and some messed-up pottery out, actually encouraged him to smash stuff, cheering him on enthusiastically, and Janus thought he might have found his own pre-show ritual. He didn’t even realize he hadn’t felt envious of Roman and Virgil’s easy camaraderie and teasing affection at all until he was lying in bed that night.)

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Janus made a downright embarrassing shriek when he felt a mustache rub against his neck and Terrence broke off from their conversation to the living room with a playful eye roll, leaving the other two in the kitchen. “Come on Re, don’t start anything you can’t finish in public,” he teased lightly, patting Remus on the cheek, the adrenaline rush from three successful shows, the pure joy at being officially offered a full time position within the theater troupe from Thomas (from Thomas , who took a chance on the high school dropout who snuck in to the theater to use the big mirrors and the real theater makeup and listen to music echo through the empty stage. Thomas who so generously gave him the recommendation letter he needed to get the scholarship to cosmetology school. Thomas who found him a roommate so he wouldn’t have to stay with an older brother that didn’t understand him at all. Thomas who had seen his talent for deception and pushed him to turn it into art. Thomas who Janus owed his entire life to...) and the three vodka sodas in his system making it difficult to even begin to hide his flirtation, especially since he was fairly confident at this point he wouldn’t be rebuffed.

He felt more than heard the laugh that followed as Remus pulled away, still leaving his arms wrapped around Janus’s waist, a testament to the comfortable something (Janus refused to call it a relationship, even in his head, lest he burst the perfect bubble of happiness) they’d fallen into, “Come on Jan, you can’t deprive me of finally getting revenge on my brother for the years of cast-party-brand PDA he’s put me through.”

Janus stiffened and he turned to face Remus quickly, bracing himself on Remus’s chest when he started to trip a bit out of tipsiness. He also blamed the tipsiness for his lack of ability to cover up his curiosity, “PDA? What do you mean? I’ve spent the last 6 weeks trying to figure out who would end up with who in that group, but Roman’s already seeing someone?”

Remus smirked at him, clearly enjoying a less-inhibited Janus, and didn’t audibly answer. Instead, he laced their fingers together(Janus was not blushing like he was a middle-schooler. He wasn’t. If his foundation just so happened to help hide that lie then so be it.) and led him back towards the living room where a particularly rowdy game of beer pong was being played with Logan and Virgil on one side with only one cup in front of them and Joan and Talyn on the other with two, all four of them looking like a giant weight was off their shoulders with the last show of the first weekend over and done with and four whole days before the next one. Patton and Roman stood behind Logan and Virgil’s side, alternating between making ridiculous and distracting movements and singing along to whatever was playing through the speakers. The other team missed both their shots and Virgil snagged the balls, handing one to Logan before holding the other behind him. Patton leaned in and blew on the ball, then leaned further to press a kiss to Virgil’s cheek with a visible giggle while Roman mimicked his motions with Logan. Oh, ok, that kinda made sense for how the pairings worked out, he supposed…

Janus’s head tilted in confusion as Roman and Patton promptly switched positions and repeated their actions before they actually fell back. Logan and Virgil then glanced at each other from the corners of their eye, smirked, and sent both balls flying in unison. They didn’t even circle the rim, sinking easily, and the room erupted in chants to “chug” that Joan and Talyn took good naturedly on one knee as they emptied their cups.

Janus wasn’t watching the prop master and stage manager, though, instead focused on where Logan had apparently flung himself into Virgil’s arms in celebration, wrapped his legs around his waist, and promptly kissed him like he was trying to devour him, glasses tilted with no attempt being made to adjust them. Patton laughed brightly and tugged on Virgil’s sleeve to bring them both over to the couch with a practiced ease that said this was a fairly regular occurrence, Roman practically skipping as he followed. Logan transferred to Roman’s lap once they were settled, kissing him with the same amount of barely-restrained hunger, and Patton took his place in Virgil’s, pressing small kisses up his throat at the same time as he hooked his pinky with Logan’s and nudged his feet under Roman’s thigh, at which point Janus looked away, blushing furiously at just how shameless they all were.

He turned back to Remus with wide eyes just to find him openly laughing at him, “How long have you spent trying to figure that out, hm? For someone so smart you’re kinda a dumbass sometimes.”

Janus pouted, still feeling flustered and embarrassed that he’d somehow missed the idea of polyamory, but in the back of his mind he was delighted that the angry green jealous monster was no longer clawing at his insides at seeing so much open affection. He finally had someone who replaced that nasty curl with fluttering butterflies. Someone who gave a shit about him, and who was darkly hilarious and creative and didn’t hide anything but didn’t push Janus to be completely open in return. Someone Janus could truly see a future with, someone he felt he could trust.

He made a calculated decision, and his mouth turned up in a smirk as he grabbed Remus’s wrist and tugged him over to the pong table, “Tell you what, Re-Re. You help me win and you can have as much revenge as you want.”

Remus’s eyes went dark but his smile was blinding, “And if we lose?”

Janus grinned back, sharp and wicked, and easily sunk his first ball despite Remy’s boyfriend Emile jumping around ridiculously on the other side, “Guess you’ll just have to keep up so we don’t.” Remus’s grin widened even further at the challenge and he nodded resolutely, focus zeroed in.

For all the talk of revenge, they didn’t even notice Roman’s indignant squawk when Remus pinned Janus to the wall before Remy could even take the last cup off the table.

#ts lamp #analogical #logicality #prinxiety #moxiety #royality #logince #demus #sanders sides #sanders sides fic #sorry if you saw this on ao3 already lol #i wanted it in this format too #my writing #dukeceit

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sanstropfremir · 3 years

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kingdom episode 3 baby!!!!

listen. i’m not gonna lie i was nervous as hell for this episode. i saw that preview like everyone else and unfortunately i have ears so i was convinced the ateez stage was going to be a trainwreck. i was absolutely banking on sf9 and skz to do something even mildy interesting to save me from the ear damage and having to talk to extensively about why that disaster happened. but somehow i woke up in an alternate universe and you know what? with the exception of that high note the ateez stage fucked. i know. i don’t believe it either. i think i’m still in shock.

i’ll do individual breakdowns in order of favourites within the episode and then at the end i’ll put my personal ranking of all six. thank god i don’t have to do a stage breakdown again; if they change it again for next week i will scream.

ateez

a miracle happened. i don’t have to fight any of the staff at kq. i don’t understand either. jongho is so fucking lucky that the rest of the group pulled all that energy out of their asses because if they had been even a single iota less serious about it that stage would have flopped worse than a dead fish. i can’t believe we got this level of camp b movie schlock in the first full stage, and they stuck the landing. incredible.

fine i’ll address the elephant in the room. personally, i don’t think jongho is that good of a vocalist. he’s not bad, and he does have the potential to be a good vocalist, he just doesn’t have the training, and this is the issue with all of ateez. hanya talked about this before and i’ll say it again: he can’t switch to his head voice and he’s destroying his vocal cords by attempting to hit notes in his mid range that he should just jump to head voice for. frankly i’m surprised he got anywhere close to that note in his mid, but his technique is just not there and he’s gonna do some real damage to his voice if he doesn’t take a break and also get a good vocal coach. you can already hear the degradation in sound from their debut stage to now, and that’s in less than three years. ok i’m done talking about vocals that’s hanya’s turf, i’m pretending that that high note doesn’t exist and we’re moving on. also im in love with btob’s reaction it was fucking priceless.

costume

look, i have a one track brain and that brain can only think about seonghwa corset. seonghwa corset? seonghwa corset.

i know it’s not a real corset nor is it properly laced and i know this would never happen in a million years but a kpop mr pearl trend? i would die. just fully expire. there’s no coming back from that for me

yes i have laced boys into proper corsets before and yes it is as hot as you think it is (when it’s not work related, obviously)

ok now that i’ve got that out of my system for the moment, the costumes are actually pretty good. i’m a little obsessed with hongjoong’s coat although I know it’s stupid. fur? always, I love it, you’ll never change my mind it makes everything better. i own a lot of it and i wear it all the time. this is also a pretty good example of how to do a more modern styling within a very specific and recognizable genre.

i don’t hate the backup dancers’ costumes either, even though they would look a lot better in a not-pirate themed hiphop stage. because there is already a modern tint with the boys’ costumes, it’s not that much of a leap to the dancers, and they actually use the dancers and the camera really strategically to not put much focus on them.

the only real standout issue is the blacklight/contortionist moment, which is too gimmicky for me and doesn’t fit the rest of the theme. i do understand the purpose of them: you need a transition point from the upper deck to the more fantastical inner ship area, and blacklight paint is a really easy, cheap, and fast way to get four new costumes instantly. do i think they could have done something better though? yes.

set

this was actually a smart reuse of that pirate ship set. i know i clowned on them in the first stage that they could move on from the pirate gimmick but honestly? i’m glad they didn’t. this was fun as fuck. but also two stages was enough you can move on now.

i love how they actually used the weird double stage function that the false prosc creates for an actual architectural and narrative effect, instead of just sort of operating as though it’s just another place to travel just because you can. we are on the deck of the ship, and then we go inside the ship. it’s simple and effective. you don’t need to do a crazy amount of crossover to establish a dynamic sense of place.

i hate the ateez kingdom logo. i hate the ateez logo in general. get it out of there, at least you could have made something more fun and pirate themed.

would have loved to have seen them return to the hourglass at the end, especially if they got one that was specifically set for 4 minutes. would have been a nice bit of symmetry but i suspect it was struck before the kraken bit.

the kraken bit??? i was not at all expecting that and honestly? dope as hell. that big tentacle is just a custom inflatable santa claus that you see around christmastime and what a brilliant use of such a simple mechanic, especially to have it come through that weird little triangle arch they have upstage. smart way to use the existing architecture.

yes it is a gimmick but here’s why it works rather than just looks tacky like every other gimmick we’ve seen so far: it had a function within the narrative. this is so important. show us there’s a reason it’s there!

lighting

i didn’t love it but they did actually make some smart choices. the outer deck is warmer toned and has some good atmospheric effects, and the inner deck is cold tone and specifically lit with pin lights to imitate the light coming through portholes in an actual ship, which is so smart thank you lighting designer

also a very clear arc with the lighting, blue -> orange -> blue/red -> orange/multiple -> blue

sound

i actually kinda liked this remix? it fit theme and had a very clear dramatic arc. also i like wonderland, so sue me.

staging

WE DID IT, WE FINALLY GOT A CLEAR NARRATIVE FROM AT LEAST ONE GROUP! wonderland was actually a great choice for them because it’s a really good indicator of exactly how hungry they are. i was a bit worried that it would fall flat because it kinda rides on mingi but they actually pulled it off. i have literally no idea where they pulled all that energy from but holy shit you can practically lick the attitude off the screen. i’m also very impressed by the amount of information they managed to fit into that four minute narrative. we had a full conflict/climax/resolution, as well as a really clear understanding of the tenacity and drive of the group, as well as the desire to support one another in achieving their goals. bravo.

ok so like i said in the set section, they used that pirate ship bridge really effectively to create two different but connected spaces. this is a really smart way to make it seem like you have two spaces while having to only build one set. it was also one of the best ways to utilize this dumbass stage so it doesn’t just look like you’re running arbitrarily from area to area because you can.

also levels! levels are so important for staging but also hard to do in this context because you have to be able to move really quickly in and out of full group formation, but I think they did a really good job here.

continued point: the kraken arm worked because it was the conflict they needed to overcome in the narrative, so it had a function within the performance. also related: all the tricking and jumping also served a purpose within the narrative too. it was either used for fighting (yeosang kicking all those dancers on beat) or a demonstration of teamwork (jongho flinging yunho around on the floor). also frankly excellent use of choreographic formation with the backup dancers, each formation had a specific function and was meant to highlight ateez without being overbearing.

not a whole lot of camera choreo, but a fairly good long take at the beginning and the editing wasn’t too obnoxious which I think was more chance than intent, but i’m not gonna look a gift kraken in the beak.

sf9

i actually really liked this stage, and i really like that sf9 has established their colour as effortlessly elegant, which does set them apart from the rest of the groups. this stage was really choreographically complex and they made it seem so easy, so real props to them. however, like with ikon’s stage, there were a lot of good ideas that just weren’t followed through enough for me.

like ateez, song choice and theme were very well intertwined with this one, there was a lot of thought put into this stage. the pun with ‘jealous’ and ‘jilleosseo’ and having a fairytale/magic mirror narrative? fuckin GALAXY BRAINED. incredible. the implication that not only taeyang but the entire group is the evil queen from snow white? chef’s kiss. should have committed harder and put one of them in massive cloak à la king taemin mama 2020. instead it was subtle enough to not try to step on ateez’s schlocky camp toes but still just as serious and i love that. do i wish they pushed it farther though? also yes.

costume

not gonna lie, i had my reservations on the costumes when we saw the previews of them in the waiting room, but the thing about stage costumes is that they always look bad when not on stage. if they look good in the waiting room you’ve done something wrong. and i loved them on stage. big fan of that quilted vest/pseudo stomacher. please can we have a corset trend? y’all already adopted bondage harnesses, c’mon a little corset won’t hurt. also a good example of a modern spin on a recognizable genre.

i wish the backup dancers weren’t in all black but i am fighting single person battle against the entire entertainment industry on that one.

set

extremely simple with a few smart utilizations. had a feeling this might have been a budget thing, as it had a similar kind of vibe with ikon’s stage, but the use of the mirrors was smart and a fun device that served the purpose of the narrative.

working with mirrors on stage is really fucking hard, so kudos to them for giving it a go. for the most part it was pretty effective. especially with the combo of moving mirrors and moving lights AND moving camera, you’re kind of asking to either blind your audience or at least give them a headache. i once saw a production of the magic flute that had a rotating mirror setpiece and i swear i nearly went blind due to the constantly flashing reflections. you have to really be careful with directionality and reflection, especially with the added element of a camera. also you never use real glass mirrors on stage, it is unbelievably bad luck and theatre people are the most superstitious demographic on the fucking planet.

i kinda loved the draped gold dais. i have nothing else to say about it other than fun!

lighting

a lot of this was very weirdly lit and i’m not sure why. the quality on youtube is terrible and cameras already have trouble picking up detail in low light, and throwing a whole bunch of primary red over that (the colour with the longest wavelength and therefore disappears the easiest in the dark. also human eyes are not very good at distinguishing variations in the red spectrum) and the red costumes made it extremely difficult to tell what was happening.

i will give them props for dramatic lighting usage, especially for the two way mirror trick and for using the floor as a primary lighting source at the end, which i think groups should be using more of. how often do you have a lighting source in your floor!!! almost never!! use that opportunity!!

sound

i actually enjoyed this remix too. it was well suited to the dramatic nature of the stage. i think the sound byte at the beginning is ‘mirror mirror on the wall who’s the worthiest of them all’ but it also could be ‘who’s the worst of them all’ and that would be also fitting and kinda funny.

staging

again, not a lot of consideration for camera choreo in a meaningful way, and like the tbz stage I think the clarity in the actual choreo got hampered by the editing. because there was a lot of choreographic precision that went into making this work and it wasn’t totally obvious from the way mnet edited it.

a lot of them are actors so it works that they’re leaning more towards dramatic stages rather than the sort of performance type stages we’ve seen so far. i like this choice for them as it gives them a very obvious colour but they’re almost on the verge of making it look too easy, which does them some injustice.

next to ateez, using that long uninterrupted traverse was my favourite use of this stage. doubles as an easy way to build the atmosphere of a palace corridor/throne room with the rug, and to feed the drama of the piece.

skz

ok i have some…..things to say about this stage. so far i have not been kind to skz which makes me look like i hate them and i don’t, i promise. there were a lot of really interesting things happening in this stage and there some really successful ones, and i liked this a whole lot better than their intro stage, but their overall choreo and thematic dedication is really killing me. i’ll explain.

costume

I don’t hate them but also…….why? I got the good self vs evil self/internal struggle theme but the costumes don’t really have anything interesting to say about that. as far as modern style costuming goes i think they’re on the more interesting end, but they don’t push it far enough. there’s a few western art history visual motifs and honestly? they should have gone whole hog and whited out their faces/hair and made them look like classical sculptures. that would have been hella fun, especially with that little statue and marionette sequence, plus the shadow/leash manipulation.

this time it was actually intentional that the backup dancers were in blacks and i appreciate that.

why on EARTH did they have that ridiculous makeup that didn’t read on stage? theatre makeup and tv makeup are different, you can’t just do a light purple eyeshadow and expect to read under blue and red light. someone needs to bring an actual theatre makeup artist in and get these boys in some real crazy looks. see previous point about full-face white pancake. more extreme makeup please and thank you!

set

i liked the use of internal architecture within this massive weird stage space and they used the corridors quite well. i didn’t really like the mix of baroque scrolling and also graffiti, it wasn’t quite connected for me. this has been a common theme among this round and i think it comes from budget/props pulls rather than anything else.

also there was a distinct feeling of trying to fill the main stage space with bodies as opposed to atmosphere. this can work in some specific cases but the intent wasn’t strong enough for me. it just felt like a lot of people on stage, especially in the end choreo.

lighting

the general lighting was fine but not particularly inspired. the low light in the beginning was actually quite well done, especially combined with the fog, but in my opinion was not dramatic enough. you have a pseudo art history theme happening, pump that contrast and push the chiaroscuro!

ok stay with me, i’m gonna say something extremely controversial that might actually get me cancelled. s*per j*unior’s burn the floor did everything this stage was trying to do on a smaller scale and better. look i know ok, this is a like, a double atom bomb hot take. just forget everything you know about them and watch the performance video. tell me that’s not some of the most interesting choreo you’ve seen in kpop. if you’re going to work with practical light you need to COMMIT. not just steal the solar lanterns out of my mom’s back garden.

i have a lot of opinions on using practical light and alternate light sources in performance because it’s a huge part of my practice and this just....wasn’t interesting enough for me. push it further!

(I will wait for the subs on the full episode because there has to be a reason they chose that specific shape of lamp. if not i gotta ask jyp why he’s raiding my mom’s garden)

sound

god’s menu has such specific imagery associated within the lyrics and choreography that this stage was a bit dissonant for me. especially when seen in conjunction with two stages where the narrative was tied explicitly to the lyrics of the songs. i think maybe if it hadn’t been grouped with these other two stages i would have felt differently. the other groups chose to do songs were a little more abstract and allowed for more visual experimentation, but to go so blatantly against the food metaphor didn’t really work for me and i had a tough time divorcing the association. I found the arrangement to be a little lacking in energy for me towards the end but otherwise it was pretty interesting.

staging

Definitely a better performance overall that the intro stage. almost all of the gimmicks this time had relevance to the theme which i appreciated. the marionette bit and the shadow/mirror were probably the most interesting but i wish they were better lit.

there was a lot of back and forth in the blocking that made the stage feel repetitive and also aimless? like there wasn’t a very clearly established directionality within the internal space, so it felt like treading over the same ground for no purposeful reason. and again, not a lot of intentional camerawork.

i really liked having the dancers under the big sheet, it fit well enough within the ‘war between internal selves’ theme, but also had a loose tie to the art imagery. again, i really wish they had stuck to a clearer visual theme. it makes them stick out especially in this grouping of stages, but also across all the groups as whole because almost everyone had a clear(ish) visual idea.

holy shit that’s a lot of backup dancers. i don’t really feel like that many were necessary and the sheer number of them took away from the emphasis of the group. with all of the other stages (except for tbz) it was very clear who the centre of attention and emphasis was, and with both skz and tbz they got swallowed by the sheer scale they were trying to operate at. bigger is not always better.

---

this is a tough round to rank because none of these stages are bad, there’s just some that are, in my opinion, more successful than others. all of these stages do very well in specific elements but fall short in others which also makes this ranking difficult. i’m evaluating these based on whether they were successful to me, as i’m pretty sure this ranking will probably not all be popular opinion, but whatever i like to live on the edge.

btob – visuals, vocals, narrative, swords? what more do you want me to say? also i watched the full episode and minhyuk did rehearsal with a real bokken and i think i am in love with him now.

ateez – honestly not sure if i would have ranked this first if that high note hadn’t been a mess. i love camp nonsense and i genuinely think this was a well designed stage. i can’t believe i keep saying that but it’s true.

sf9 – this stage was really solid, just could have been pushed farther. i think it has a really good sense of drama and it’s a pity that sf9’s colour is more subdued, because i think they’re going to be stuck around the 3rd/4th position for the rest of the show.

ikon – ikon is only ranking this high because although i am disappointed in the wasted potential of this stage, they NAILED the camerawork and actually brought in someone to block the steadicam into the choreo. also they’re incredible performers. i say this every time, but their stage presence, although maybe lower energy that they normally would be, is still not to be fucked with.

skz – i think this one is the most ‘meh’ for me. while i liked a lot of the elements here they just didn’t push it far enough and the lack of narrative and general aimless choreo led to me not having any strong feelings yea or nay.

tbz – to be quite honest the lack of costume unity is a big hit for me. all elements of design are equally as important but because of my personal practice and experience i tend to put a lot of weight on good costume and spatial design. i don’t actually like game of thrones also, so I feel mildly offended on behalf of michele clapton, who had did a fucking incredible job and doesn’t deserve to be slandered like this. also the lack of cohesive choreography and the overblown lighting made this difficult to watch, no matter how good i thought the rear projection/stretch fabric dance was.

any questions or opinions you wanna share hit me up! see you next week!

#im ready for the angry asks about that s*ju opinion because that is a spicy one #kingdom #kingdom review #kpop analysis #im so surprised by these stages i cant believe ateez stuck the landing #i saw the preview for next week also and the new round looks wild so im ready #text

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scorlettimagines · 3 years

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Thoughts on Part 4

So last night I finished Part 4 and put out this post asking if you guys wanted to share your thoughts on the last season of our beloved show. I woke up this morning to quite a few responses so I decided to culminate all of the ones I could respond to onto this post and share my own opinions.

If anyone has anything else they would like to share, please feel free to do so either by sending me an ask or reblogging this post (this is a side blog so replying to the post, as much as I appreciate it, doesn’t let me respond as @scorlettimagines). Okay, here goes:

@fearisholdingmedown: lol the whole season didn't make any sense and the ending skdnmgh Sabrina and Nick?????? and Zelda questioning Hecate? and just. left me really underwhelmed

I agree with this. I was extremely underwhelmed with the season; don’t get me wrong, some parts were great and really made me smile, but other parts? To me, and to my Dad who watches it with me, it felt like the writers tried to cram too much into it. There were definitely plot lines that didn’t get wrapped up, and things that seemed out of character for some.

Zelda questioning Hecate: I kind of understand, because wouldn’t you obviously question your Goddess after you prayed to her to save your niece/daughter and she didn’t? It is out of character for Zelda to question her faith, but I don’t blame her; she’s never lost Sabrina permanently before and I imagine it’s broken her a fair bit.

Sabrina and Nick at the end: Okay, so when Nick showed up at the end, my first thought was that a lot of time had passed and Nick had had a sort of happy, but long, life. When he said he went swimming in the Sea of Sorrows, I was disappointed. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed with Nick’s character this whole season; it feels like the writers didn’t put enough effort into him and just reduced him to a love interest. (I felt that with another character too but we’ll get to that later). Yay they got reunited, but also not yay for the way it happened at the end.

@screechingexpertpruneneck: I loved the ending. I loved that Sabrina saved everyone but sucks she died. I think we can all agree that Ambrose is by far the smartest character on the show. Caliban obviously deserved better. Nick proved himself worthy of Sabrina this season and I’m glad there together now. I still can’t believe he killed himself just to be with her.

I did actually like the end; yes it was sad that Sabrina died, but it was a nice way to wrap up the show. I think her heroic qualities got detracted from in the last season with the whole Queen of Hell thing so it was nice to see her get those back. Kiernan smashed it with the death scene, and that whole montage of her birthdays had me in tears.

Ambrose is 100% the smartest character on this show. To me, he was the best thing about this season, as he was one of the only ones who seemed not to have changed at least slightly. Ambrose has been my favourite character since the pilot. I don’t write about him because his character is so complex, so eccentric, so fully-fledged that I don’t think I could do that justice. It was nice to see that Ambrose remained that way until the end, and I’m not going to lie, I could watch a whole spin off show about him. This is me being calm before I get to the next point. Oh God, I’m running out of things to say here. Prepare yourselves guys, here goes.

Can someone please explain to me how the fuck-fuck-fuckity-fuck-fuck Caliban went from Prince of Hell, main villain of last season to well, that? Like when he showed up dancing, I was so confused. Like, they missed out the whole section about what happened after Sabrina literally turned him to stone? The wedding was bizarre; I wanted Calbrina a few months ago, but I don’t anymore. Then in episode 3, when he was sitting on the throne and revealed his plan (you can bet your bottom dollar I’m going to be using that for imagines) hope was restored. He was still the crafty little shit that I fell in love with back in January. But then, it was never mentioned again? Like, he was just there. As Sabrina Morningstar’s husband? For me, it was cringy and I feel like the writers definitely didn’t put enough effort into him- it was like they didn’t know what to do with him. Although, his part in the AU episode made me laugh. Considering that I’ve been following Sam Corlett’s career over 2020 and I know how well he can act, I was disappointed to see him reduced to basically a prop for a bit of eye candy. His “death” was anti-climactic and a bit shit. Anyway, Caliban to me is always gonna remain the Caliban he was in Part 3 (and tiny little bits of Part 4) because there’s character development and then there’s just taking the mick.

Nick, yeah. He did prove himself worthy of Sabrina, and I cried when they got back together, but as I mentioned before, I feel like that’s all he was used for this season. He didn’t really get a proper arc like previous seasons, and the fact that he killed himself just to be with her grated on me a bit, because that’s not what I would have expected from a character like him.

@robinisthebestfellow: Can we just talk about how random some of it was I mean like oh he’s good and honest annnnd then no

Assuming you mean Caliban? Just to add to the above rant, I didn’t want him to be nice. Yes, I write about him being nice in my imagines, but I always try to keep some of his actual character in my work (at least, I hope I do). But yeah, for my rant on Caliban see above.

@eyebagsarebetterthanhandbags: Whoever was on costume design for prudence knocked it out of the park she was gorgeous every millisecond of screen time- wished her and Ambrose made up tho at the very least😔 they were my fave couple

Prudence was another favourite of mine this season; she didn’t change in her character and she was, of course, absolutely stunning. For her and Ambrose to make up would have been lovely, but I have a feeling from how close they were in the final episode that the writers were planning on it.

@itscoldinwonderland: Lilith, Zelda and Ambrose all deserve so much better.

Okay, starting with Lilith. I agree here. I feel like the whole Hell family (Lucifer, Caliban, Lilith etc) was just used and abused this season. I think she got better as the season went on, but for me, killing the baby was a bit extreme. Her last scene was mental; I don’t think she deserved to go as insane as she did, but well done to her for finally taking down Lucifer. Fuck the patriarchy.

Zelda. Yes. Yes. Yes. She deserved to be happy. Miranda Otto killed it this season with the emotional side of things. The whole thing with Vinegar Tom made me sob harder than anything else this season; it was something I relate to and well done to Miranda for getting that across perfectly.

Ambrose. I would have liked to have seen a more rounded ending for him rather than just standing at Sabrina’s graveside. But discussing seeing more of Ambrose’s character would open up a whole can of worms, for example, WHY did he try to blow up the Vatican?

@supportstudies: it was so weird?? I guess it’s because the writers had to rush the ending but now I have more questions- also sad bc I wanted more caliban

I was under the impression that this was written before the show got cancelled, but if they already knew then this makes more sense. For me, a lot was rushed and there were a lot of questions that were left unanswered.

Caliban? You’ve seen the above rant, you know how I feel about that.

@lizmny3: Mambo Marie really had me there

Same, lovely, same. More for Zelda than any other reason.

Okay, so that’s it for now. Again, if anyone has anything else they would like to share please do. Requests are open again now and you should be getting another Caliban imagine next week (fingers crossed). I’m off to write two bibliographies now. Wish me luck!

#caos #caos spoilers #Chilling Adventures of Sabrina #caos imagines #chilling adventures of sabrina imagines #Caliban #caliban imagines #nick scratch #nick scratch imagines #Nicholas Scratch #nicholas scratch imagines #harvey kinkle #harvey kinkle imagines

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writethehousedown · 3 years

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Things Are Really Cool (In Nazareth) (Ninex)- Ortega

a/n: wow hi, welcome to whatever the hell this is? this is a sort of a kind of a n19f verse/masp verse crossover set some years after the originals take place (but you don’t need to have read either to read this), borne out of the semi-autobiographical experience of my last few weeks at work trying to teach five year olds mid-pandemic. basically Nina’s a stressed primary teacher and Monet is her primary teacher girlfriend. this is fulfilling the prompt “Nice” only ten days late and also probably has one million and one typos in my haste to get it out in time for at least Christmas xo regardless, i hope u all enjoy and in the words of boyband JLS, “mewwy cwistmas”.

disclaimer: there are a couple of lines i’ve yoinked out of tv shows here- “lesbian having a panic attack” is adapted from Kimmy Schmidt and the “what are you, forty?” ones are from Always Sunny. leave me alone i’m too tired to be funny at this time of year xo

fic summary: When Nina’s headteacher asks her to pull a Nativity play out of thin air with only a week to organise it, Nina is simply too nice to say no. As a consequence, she is blindly oblivious to what her girlfriend Monet is planning, with useless lesbian results.

Nina knew she was a people pleaser. Always had been, always would be. She was simply too nice to say no to anyone. She had never been one to say no to anything.

She’d never taken the last remaining teabag for herself way back at uni; she’d always elected to leave it for Brooke or Yvie, knowing that Brooke would be grumpy all day if she didn’t have her morning cup of tea and not wanting to deal with the caffeine crash Yvie would experience if she made coffee as a substitute.

It had even started way further back in her life than her twenties. The most rebellious thing she’d ever done in high school was to pull out one of the cables of her German teacher’s computer at the back so she’d spend the whole lesson fixing it instead of teaching their class. In Primary, she was the stereotypical, insufferable goody-two-shoes: didn’t ever lose a minute of Golden Time, finished both her set tasks and the extension work that accompanied them perfectly, and was the worst kind of tell-tale.

(At the time, she thought her teachers loved that- the fact that she acted as their five-year-old corporate spy, ready to report any wrongdoings to headquarters. Contrarily, now that she was a teacher to five year olds, Nina thought that if she heard one more story about who skipped who in the line she would climb very slowly and very carefully into the staffroom microwave and blow herself into fifty million partially-heated bits.)

So when her headteacher ducked her head into her classroom on a cold, wet, rainy Wednesday after all the kids had been dispatched home, Nina panicked. Her eyes darted up to the displays on her walls. Fuck, there were still Halloween pumpkins blu-tacked up there. There was, so far, nothing on her December learning journey wall. And there were still Very Hungry Caterpillars made from bottle tops pushed into dollops of paint stuck to bright green backing paper which had been there since the kids’ first week at school back in August.

Well. Red and green were Christmassy colours. Right?

But Mrs Del Rio didn’t seem all that interested in the state of her wall displays. She’d come to ask Nina if she could film a Nativity play with her class.

“It’s for the parents really,” Bianca had rolled her eyes, folding her arms in her usual no-nonsense way. “Just something they can watch and share with the families since we can’t do a real Nativity. It doesn’t need to be anything big- just a few songs…one, two…say four. And then just have the kids in their costumes with a couple of lines. With a backdrop, y’know, there doesn’t need to be props. Just the baby Jesus…the gifts for the three Kings….maybe a couple of no vacancy signs for the innkeepers…that sort of thing. Just for before we finish up term. Maybe if it could be done by next Friday. That okay?”

And Nina, because she was a people pleaser, had nodded and said yes! and of course! and Bianca had nodded curtly at her in the frostiest thank-you the world had ever seen before leaving.

It had only taken the time in which Bianca’s heels had slowly disappeared from hearing distance for the reality of the situation to sink in for Nina. She’d just agreed to do a whole Nativity play, with songs, and costumes, and props, in the space of eight days.

She was going to be sick like little Jack had done that day he’d come into class and projectile-vomited halfway onto the carpet and halfway into Nina’s outstretched hands.

Nina was so consumed by the all-encompassing panic that she didn’t even flinch when there was a loud, jaunty knock at her classroom door.

“High Court Enforcement,” came a loud, brash voice, Nina finally turning to see who was there with glazed eyes. Willam leant against the doorframe, her messy blonde waves falling over the shoulders of her dark blue jumper like curly vines. She was the only teacher who could match the sass levels of the Year 6s and was a colleague that Nina both loved and feared. Loved because she was straight-talking and blunt and altogether hilarious, but feared because her girlfriend was the deputy head of the school and anything Nina said to her would definitely be reported back as gossip.

Also because she was, for all intents and purposes, a pint-pot riot.

“Nina. Nina. Nina,” Willam said repeatedly, her voice monotone and her persistence irritating. Nina mumbled something out.

“What?”

Nina raked her hands through her shock of frizzy blonde curls and sighed, her stress levels already rising. “I said I’m a lesbian having a panic attack.”

“Oh, that’s a mood. I was sent round to do the collection for the support staff but I’ve already spent forty minutes chatting to Alyssa instead of doing what I was asked. Got a grand total of a fiver so far,” Willam shrugged blithely, coming into Nina’s classroom and perching on one of the tiny munchkin-sized tables. “What’s up?”

The pressure-cooker that her mind was rapidly becoming told Nina to throw caution to the wind and vent, so she told Willam everything in a series of babbles barely comprehensible in the English language.

“So you’ve just agreed to doing a full Nativity video in the space of a week?” Willam cocked her head, pulling a confused face. “Why didn’t you just tell Bianca to fuck off?”

Nina paused, feeling all her panic momentarily leave her body as she fixed Willam with a glare. “Are you expecting me to answer that?”

“No, no. Shit, wouldn’t it have been amazing if you had, though? What d’you think would’ve happened? Maybe she’d’ve shouted so loud at you her lungs would’ve just exploded.”

Nina couldn’t help but blurt out a small laugh. “That’s way too dramatic. She wouldn’t even fire me on the spot because that would mean management having to go in and cover my class tomorrow while they tried to find my replacement.”

Nina regretted the small barb at their management team as soon as it was out, but Willam seemed nonplussed.

“Yeah. Court’s way too impatient to deal with your lil’ rugrats.”

“I’m too impatient to deal with them. I’m too impatient to deal with them on a day to day basis. How I’m going to teach them four Christmas songs in the space of a week, fuck knows.”

Willam cocked her head again, her smile becoming patient. “Well if anyone can do it, it’s you.”

Willam’s words were a small source of comfort to Nina. Suddenly everything seemed doable. She matched her colleague’s smile, glad she’d arrived in that moment. “Thanks, Willam.”

As soon as her words were out, she saw the small, playful twinkle in Willam’s eye. “Because nobody else would’ve been mad enough to agree to the damn thing.”

***

Getting her class sorted and organised for the day couldn’t really be likened to herding cats. No, this process was far more chaotic than that. At half past nine each day what could only be described as a minor tsunami of children hit Nina’s classroom: throwing their jackets into the designated tubs with wild abandon and subsequently knocking anything and everything off her adjacent desk, unloading every possible snack in their lunchboxes into their trays and Nina’s pleas for them to only take one snack out falling on deaf ears, spilling their water bottles and getting the zips on their jackets stuck and wanting to tell Nina a billion and one things that seemed to have happened in the 18 hours they had spent outwith her care.

During the month of December this chaos only intensified. Hats, scarves and gloves littered the classroom floor as they fell off the kids like baubles off a dead Christmas tree, shrieks filled the air as they discovered a new chocolate in the advent calendar, and at least half the class surrounded Nina like festive zombies as they all battled to win the competition of “Who can tell Miss West about what their elf on the shelf had got up to overnight the loudest”.

Nina hammered the little bell she kept on her desk with the palm of her hand, stress levels already rising. “Okay, Reception! Jackets in tubs, snacks in trays and bums on carpet!”

As her class giggled about their teacher’s use of the word “bum”, Nina sat down in her wheely chair and waited for them all to join her on the little strip of carpet in front of her smartboard. It was moments like these where she’d be hit with a sort of out of body experience; she was someone’s teacher, she was this class’ first teacher. She was sitting in front of her class waiting to take the register and start their day. It was slightly overwhelming, even though she’d been doing the job for a number of years now.

Eventually her kids were all organised and she’d taken the register and made sure they all had a lunch to eat that day. Nina made sure to put on her best excited face as she prepared to tell them about the Nativity.

“Right, Reception!” she said, injecting lots of mystery into her voice like a storyteller. “I have got some very exciting news for you all today!”

Their little faces all grew equally excited as they were expectant, and Nina’s heart almost popped. Just then, Harry, a boy with enough gel in his hair to single-handedly keep Brylcreem in business for a year and huge bottle-top glasses’ hand went up.

“Yes, Harry?”

The boy bounced on the carpet, incredibly eager. “Can I tell you what my elf did last night?”

Ten more hands immediately shot up, and Nina’s heart sank. Great.

But she was still teaching four and five year olds and this was truly the most important thing in their little lives, so she fixed a bright smile on her face and tilted her head inquisitively. “What did your elf do?”

Harry was now sitting on his knees, towering over the other children and threatening to knock himself over with every passing second as he swayed in the nonexistent breeze. “He did a poop in my Dad’s shoes!”

The rest of the class shrieked with laughter in response. Internally, Nina was rapidly reaching her wit’s end. Love it. A bit of toilet humour to start off the Nativity rehearsals. Great. Exactly what’s needed. “Oh my goodness! What a cheeky elf!”

“He did three poops! And you know what else? They were cola jellybeans! I ate them!”

Sophie, a girl with long ginger hair in a low ponytail and a gap in her smile where two baby teeth once lived, gasped in horror. “You ate the elf’s poop?!”

The rest of the class fell about laughing. Nina had to get control back of the situation.

“Well thank you very much for sharing, Harry! Okay everyone, let’s pop our hands down.”

There were still ten hands waving proudly in the air like rebellious flags.

“We can do more elf stories at the end of the day if there’s time!” Nina lied. There would not be time. There was never time. But it placated most of her class enough for them to follow the instruction. There was, however, one remaining hand up which belonged to Jason, a boy with hair so platinum blonde it seemed otherworldly.

“It’s not an elf story! I’ve got a question,” he insisted, shouting out despite the fact his hand was already up. Nina relented, just in case he did have something important to ask. Maybe he was about to pee himself. Highly likely with the Reception kids.

Jason, pleased as punch that Nina was allowing him to speak, put his hand down. “Can I tell you a rhyming word I’ve just thought of?”

Nina’s smile grew all the more gritted, and the muscles in her face all the more tense. This was going to be the longest week she had experienced in living memory.

***

Nina would never get tired of living with Monet. The sound of her singing as the shower provided a backing track, the unholy racket she seemed to make when she cooked (a symphony of swearing, the banging of kitchen utensils, and the clattering of saucepans and baking trays). The smell of the Dior Sauvage she used instead of perfume and the Cantu hair custard she combed through her hair after she washed it. The fact that Nina could get a cuddle from her any time she wanted and the soft squash of her arms around her.

But living with Monet was best at Christmastime. The endless arguments they got into about their Christmas decorations and what looked best where, both stemming from a fierce loyalty to their own family traditions. The way they’d write their Christmas cards to their friends with a Christmas film playing in the background, and the way Monet would tease her about having such picture-perfect, font-like, primary-teacher handwriting. The way Monet would get too excited in the supermarket and load party food into Nina’s shopping basket like a child trying to sneak chocolate.

Even though Nina was completely exhausted, she still felt herself smile as she turned her key in the lock and heard her girlfriend loudly singing along with Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, paired with the blast of the extractor fan.

“Hello?” Nina sing-songed as she closed the door shut, shedding her heavy jacket and her scuffed trainers and her backpack full of jotters that had been haphazardly stuffed in as she left work.

“Hello!” Monet chirped back, in what had become their tradition since moving in together all those years ago. “Your timing’s perfect, I just finished dinner.”

“Ooh. What is for dinner?”

Monet gestured to the pile of grated cheese, pan of bubbling baked beans, and loaf of white bread. “Beans on toast.”

Nina snorted and leaned against the counter. “Wow, don’t I have the most perfect domestic housewife! That must’ve taken, what…two hours?”

Monet reached over and squeezed her side, eliciting a yelp that would probably give their downstairs neighbours the wrong idea. “Shady bitch. It’s this or two rice cakes that’ve been in the cupboard for so long I swear they’re turning fossilised.”

“No, I’m kidding. Of course I’m hungry, thanks hun. I’ll make dinner tomorrow,” Nina promised, sliding into one of their second-hand wooden dining chairs as Monet plated up.

“No you won’t,” Monet frowned. “You look dead. What’re your kids doing to you, beating you with their tiny little chairs?”

“The fucking Nativity,” Nina sighed, pausing to thank Monet as she placed two slices of golden toast covered with beans and flakes of grated cheese down in front of her. Admittedly it did look like absolute heaven.

“Have you told Bianca to piss off yet?” Monet scowled, stabbing her toast so hard she threatened to break the plate in two.

“What kind of fantasy-land school do you work at where you can tell your headteacher to piss off and she actually listens?” Nina cocked an eyebrow at her, and Monet shrugged in agreement as she chewed a mouthful. “No, of course not. I’m going to make it happen, though, even if it kills me. We started learning the songs today, which you would think was a simple enough endeavour. Except my class, who usually can’t shut up if their lives depend on it, have all the singing volume and skill of one of Yvie and Scarlet’s cat’s chew toys. They don’t even sound like cats being strangled, that’d probably be louder. It’s like trying to have a sing-song with a room full of laryngitis patients. Except it’s not a room, because apparently we’re not allowed to sing inside because of covid. But I can teach Phonics and the kids can all make the ‘p’ sound at me until their hearts’ content and shower me with their spit like the world’s shittiest production of Singin’ In The Rain? Anyway, we have to rehearse outside. In December. I think my feet actually fell off.”

As Nina finally finished what had unintentionally become a fully-fledged rant, Monet attempted to compose herself as she wiped away a small tear of laughter from her eye and clutched at her belly. Nina watched as her girlfriend took a few deep breaths, then fixed her with a humoured grin. “But apart from all that, how was your day?”

Nina stuck her tongue out at her in response. “Shut up. How was yours?”

Monet rolled her eyes as she speared a bean. “Awful. Tried to assess time with my class today. God I love them, Neens, but they’re so bad, how can they be that bad?”

“If anyone can help them progress, it’s you,” Nina smiled encouragingly, only getting a shaken head in reply.

“No, I can’t. Nobody can. They’re beyond help. Some of the answers I got today wouldn’t even be believable if they were part of some TV comedy show. What month is Christmas in? ‘Santa’. The kid answered Santa. How many months are there in a year? ‘Sixty six’. How many days are there in a week? ‘Two’. TWO!” Monet cried, outraged. Nina couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled up in her throat, and Monet pointed warningly at her in response. “Don’t you dare laugh. This is my reality.”

“Hey, you laughed at my Nativity nightmare!” Nina giggled, to which Monet chuckled guiltily. Nina paused to swipe a bit of toast around the plate with her fork, mopping up any stray tomato sauce. When she looked up from her plate, she saw Monet tapping at her phone. Nina frowned disapprovingly. “Hey. No phones at the table.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Monet apologised quickly, though didn’t put her phone down yet. “Monique’s just sent me a screenshot of her friend that’s getting engaged. Look at the damn size of this ring.”

Monet turned her phone to show Nina. Pictured was a diamond the size of a small Pacific nation and a band encrusted with tiny gems on the finger of somebody she’d never met. Nina couldn’t help the way she screwed her face up, which made Monet blurt a laugh in response. “Not a fan, then?”

Nina pulled a face in thought. She was sure that kind of ring made some girls happy, but to her it just seemed tacky and over-the-top, not to mention heavy. “I’m sure she likes it, but I wouldn’t want something that huge. Imagine working in a Reception class with that?! Play-dough stuck in all the little crevices. And Jesus, what if you lost it? Nah, it would stress me out owning that. I would just want one simple little gold band and one singular tiny diamond. Much less of a burden.”

Monet snorted a laugh as she finished her last mouthful of dinner. “You are the only girl I’ve ever met that would consider an engagement ring a burden. Christ on a crucifix.”

“Well!” Nina protested, before realising she didn’t really have anything else to defend herself with. Then, she narrowed her eyes at her girlfriend playfully, kicking her under the table. “Why’re you so interested in my engagement ring opinions, anyway? You asking?”

Monet chuckled as she put her phone face-down on the table. “Bold of you to assume I can afford council tax, never mind a diamond.”

Nina smiled, shrugging in agreement. “Yeah, fair. What should we do tonight? I have Maths jotters to mark but then that’s me done.”

Monet tilted her head, her expression thoughtful. “I would say fucking our shit days out but I don’t even have the energy to operate a vibrator.”

Nina almost choked on her food as she laughed. “Christ, that’s a mood. Finish dinner, pyjamas, rewatch The Office for the ninety billionth time then bed at 7pm?”

“Sounds good, babe,” Monet smiled, lifting her glass of water up to cheers with as if it was sparkling wine.

***

“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way! Oh McFun it is to ride in a waffle sofen sleigh, HEY! Jingle bells, Jin-”

“Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah,” Nina cut in, waving her hands frantically and stopping the twenty-three five and four year olds that had previously been singing their little kidney bean-sized lungs out. “What are the words?”

Her class stared back at her as if she’d just asked her what twenty-eight times thirteen was. Although Jeremiah, who was already working at Year 5 level, could probably have worked that out given enough time.

“Oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh,” Nina said, rhythmically and clearly. “You try.”

The children all parroted it back to her in their little voices, word-perfect. Thank God, thought Nina. Jingle Bells seemed to be the only song they recognised, so if they turned out to not know it after all then Nina would very probably need an inhaler despite the fact she wasn’t at all asthmatic.

“Let’s try it with the music!” Nina said cheerfully, making sure the bluetooth speaker she’d brought outside was still on.

“Miss West,” a small voice piped up belonging to Amber, the human embodiment of a whine. “I’m cold!”

“We’ll get inside soon!” Nina replied patiently. “Just let’s practise it one more time!”

“I’m cold too,” piped up Joshua, Amber’s male counterpart.

“I’m freezing,” Amber offered again.

“I know, it’s very cold outside!” Nina smiled sympathetically, even though her teeth were gritted. “But we can’t do our singing inside because of the virus!”

“Why not?” Amber pouted.

Nina didn’t really know. The answer was because of the care inspectorate guidelines, but that was incredibly far beyond the realms of a five-year-old’s comprehension. Just then, an idea struck her.

“Well we need to sing our songs outside so that Santa can hear them when he’s taking his sleigh out for a test drive!” she said animatedly. The wide eyes and ohhhh-s she received in reply made her feel like a genius. Move over, Steven Hawking. “Okay, one more time with Jingle Bells. Nice and loud for Santa!”

“Miss West?”

Nina blinked slowly and heavily, taking a small breath before answering the newest child that demanded her attention. “Yes, Sophie?”

“I’m cold.”

“I’m cold!! We’re all cold!!” Nina replied quickly, just that shade away from snapping so that her class knew she meant business. “We’re doing the song one more time and then we’re going inside! So nice big smiles, nice loud voices, and here…we…go!”

Nina pressed play on the song before any more children could regale her with tales of how their body temperatures had dropped to that of a snowman’s.

“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way!” they all enthusiastically sang. “Oh McFun it is to ride in a waffle sofen sleigh!”

Nina rubbed so hard at her tired eyes that she thought they might disappear into her skull. She was momentarily glad of the fact that she didn’t have a teaching assistant to help her, as to have any other adult witness this would be embarrassing in the extreme.

Just then she noticed around five parents queued up at the nursery adjacent to the playground, watching with wry smiles on their faces as they waited for their children.

“One more time!” Nina cried, as she stopped the music with freezing cold hands.

***

“So Nina, when you gonna wife your girlfriend?”

Nina very nearly spat out her tea, a horrifying milky brown hurricane only just avoided. She hadn’t been expecting to answer deep, meaningful life questions in the staffroom during a lunch hour, but Willam was the human incarnation of petrol on a campfire and with her around things were always in danger of going from zero to a hundred very quickly. To Nina’s relief Courtney was also in the staffroom, and she whipped around from the countertop and gave her girlfriend daggers.

“Willam!” Courtney chastised her in a hiss that Nina wasn’t quite sure was meant to be audible. Willam only gave her an incredulous glare, affronted that she seemed to be the voice of reason in the conversational chaos.

“What?! Just askin’. I mean you’re what…twenty-nine? Twenty eight?”

“Twenty-six,” Nina replied. She was now at the age where being assumed she was older than she was was a curse, not a blessing. (If she’d told seventeen-year-old Nina that one day she would be disappointed at no longer being ID’d for wine at Sainsburys she’d have laughed in her face.)

“Exactly. That’s wifeing age. Mid to late twenties.”

“Hey, I passed that stage long ago, where the hell’s my ring?“ Courtney asked Willam, stirring the coffee she’d poured into one of the many, many “World’s Best Teacher!” mugs that littered the staffroom cupboards. Willam responded by turning around in her chair and positioning her pencil skirt-clad ass in the air.

“Right here, bitch!”

“Christ Almighty,” Courtney turned away from her, rolling her eyes so hard they looked like little spheric dice. As Willam gave her best impression of a seal on laughing gas, Nina cast her eyes over to Sasha who was sitting at the other end of the staffroom. As they caught each others’ eyes they shared a long-suffering smile that mourned the death of peace and quiet.

Nina was glad the conversation had been diverted from the subject of her perceived lack of marriage plans. Until Sasha opened her mouth, that is.

“I wouldn’t worry, Nina. Me and Shea haven’t had that conversation either. I mean we’d both love to, but there’s more important stuff for us right now, you know? We’re saving for a house and I think we’d rather live in a place we’ve chosen for the foreseeable future than just having one singular big lavish day.”

“It’s all about what you want to do with the person you love the most, isn’t it? Not just doing what society wants you to do,” Courtney chipped in, her voice warm and kind. “Like me and Willam used to be total party girls before we got our shit together. And now, like…there’s nothing I’d rather do of a weekend than curl up with her on the sofa and get all cosy with a film and a blanket and a cup of tea.”

Willam scoffed affectionately. “That’s your ideal weekend plan? What are you, forty?”

“Yes? As are you?” Courtney replied incredulously. Nina heard Sasha snort in her chair. As she turned her gaze back to the other two girls she realised that Willam was still looking at her expectantly. Nina sank back into her seat, a little reserved.

“It’s not really something we’ve spoken about? Well…no, we have spoken about it, obviously,” she babbled, watching as Willam took on the look of someone witnessing a victim of cardiac arrest. “Like we both want to get married. To each other, of course. But teaching is just such a busy job all the time and…you know, we only bought our flat last Summer and…I don’t know, it’s nice not to have everything happen all at once, right?”

Courtney nodded emphatically in agreement. “Of course! And I mean, if she asked, you’d say yes, right?”

Nina had to stop herself from pulling a face. How am I having this conversation with my boss? “Well, yeah. God, I couldn’t imagine life without her at all.”

Willam pretended to gag, which Nina thought was pretty rich from the woman who had begun the entire conversation. Courtney seemed to pick up on her girlfriend’s distaste.

“I don’t think Willam has ever said anything that cute about me!”

Willam turned around to look at her girlfriend, disbelief on her face. “Yeah, I only left my damn husband for you. Fuck me, right?”

Nina’s eyes widened as Sasha gave a yelp from across the staffroom. That was a small piece of workplace gossip she hadn’t expected to learn today. As Courtney’s face turned red and she shot Willam a warning glare, she turned to Nina once more.

“Nina, how’s the Nativity going?” Courtney beamed artificially at her, moving the conversation along with all the grace and decorum of a one-wheeled snow plow.

Considering the question, Nina thought that she’d rather be discussing marriage plans with her boss and colleagues again. “It’s going.”

“That’s a ringing endorsement. I’m sure that was on the poster of Titanic too,” Willam chipped in.

“It wouldn’t be any less disastrous than the actual fate of the Titanic, at least the passengers could’ve probably remembered the words to fucking Jingle Bells,” Nina deadpanned, causing Willam to break into fits of clubbed seal laughter.

Sasha pouted sympathetically from the other side of the room. “It’s those cute bits that the parents love, though, isn’t it? They won’t mind if they get the words wrong.”

“I’m sure there needs to be a foundation of at least an audible tune though, Sash,” Nina smiled resignedly back at her.

“If Bianca wants a Nativity so bad, just tell her to come teach your class,” Willam half-suggested, half-yelled. “Or get Court to teach them! They prolly don’t need to be in tune anyway!”

Courtney’s expression appeared to be the same as Nina’s after her morning’s rehearsal. “Do you ever stop talking shit?”

“You think I’m bad? That bell is going to go for the Comp’s lunch break in five minutes, Bob is gonna arrive, an’ then it’s RIP our eardrums,” Willam said, pointing to the staffroom door for dramatic effect.

“At least Bob has never presented his clothed arsehole to his partner in front of his colleagues,” Courtney cut in at once, her tone deadpan and making Nina splutter a laugh.

“Aw, c’mon Court! That’s just banter. These girls don’t mind.”

“It’s unprofessional!” Courtney clutched her chest. Willam only snorted in response.

“Unprofessional? What are you, forty?”

“We’re the same age!!” Courtney cried in response, her incredulous tone only setting Nina off in a further fit of laughter.

It was only later on that night once she had driven back home, parked, and approached her and Monet’s flat that Nina remembered the staffroom conversation. She cast her gaze up to their first-floor window in their red brick building, almost being able to feel the way her heart gave a swell at the sight of their Christmas tree framed proudly within the glass. And as she got in through the front door, Monet greeted her with a hug and a takeaway leaflet.

“We’ve got nothing in the fridge, so I thought we could get noodles? This came through the door today and I think-” Monet raises her eyebrows, slapped the leaflet into the palm of her hand decisively. “- it’s a sign from God.”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Nina laughed, shrugging off her coat and feeling grateful for not having to cook.

It was only when they were both curled up on the couch, empty pad thai containers in front of them, that Nina turned to Monet and saw the lights on the tree reflected in her eyes. She turned to her girlfriend, threw an arm round her and snuggled in to her side.

“What’s up?” Monet asked, her voice soft and sleepy and a little concerned.

“Nothing,” Nina sighed. It was true. There wasn’t really anything up, and she was the happiest she’d ever been. But she still turned to Monet, tilting her head up inquisitively. “You don’t feel under any pressure at all, do you?”

Monet snorted. “I feel under pressure to get fifteen children who can’t write the word cat on their own to magically be able to write a sentence by the end of the year, yeah.”

Nina rolled her eyes. “No! I mean, like…in life. You didn’t just…buy this flat with me because you felt you had to, right? You wouldn’t do anything because you felt obliged to?”

Monet raised a single eyebrow back at her. “Yeah, I decided to piss my life savings away on a deposit for a flat because I felt I had to. Jesus Christ, Neens.”

“No, no, I know,” Nina chuckled, realising how silly the whole thing now sounded. “But I just mean…in life, like milestones and stuff. You’d never do stuff because you felt you had to keep up, in some way? Reach some goal by a certain age?”

Monet brought an arm around Nina and cuddled her closer, kissing her hair and resting her chin on top of her head. “Everything I do in life, I do because I want to. Especially when it comes to you. Promise.”

Nina gave her girlfriend a squeeze, happy. She took a deep breath, smelt the fabric softener on Monet’s jumper that they both used but just seemed to smell better and feel softer on everything Monet wore.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

***

Nina sat in a child-sized chair with her knees practically up to her chest, a crumpled, printed-out script on her lap that she’d hastily typed up on her work iPad’s notes app the following evening. Her class sat behind her in costumes pulled on over their school uniforms, with books and pens and pieces of paper with botched photocopying on the back under strict instructions not to talk until the whole thing was filmed.

“Okay, Amber!” she smiled breezily at the small girl whose school blouse was sticking out under her angel costume. “You’re kicking off the video. So your line is two thousand years ago, an angel came to a woman called Mary. Practise it for me?”

Amber gripped the hem of her taffeta skirt in two tiny white-knucked fists. “I don’t want to.”

Nina bit her lip. Great start. Fantastic. “We can give it a try together?”

Reluctantly, Amber parroted the words in tandem with her. So far so good.

“Okay. Now do you want to go up against the backdrop and I can film you doing it?”

Amber’s ponytail full of flyaways swung wildly as she shook her head. Nina thought for a moment. Then her eyes came to rest on Hazel- the class’ Mary and, coincidentally, Amber’s best friend.

“What about if Hazel stands with you?”

That seemed to change things and, only slightly hesitantly, both girls got up in front of the hastily staple-gunned silver tinsel.

“Okay Amber. Two thousand years ago, an angel came to a woman called Mary. Ready?”

A nod in reply.

“Go!”

Amber took a deep, shaky breath in. “Two thousand years ago….a woman called Mary.”

Nina stopped filming, fixed the girl with a kind smile. “An angel came to a woman called Mary. Try again?”

The iPad was back in filming mode, and Amber went again. “Two thousand years ago, a…a…a little cute angel came to Mary.”

Nina stopped filming, fixed Amber with two thumbs up. That’ll do.

Things seemed to be going well as Hazel and Oliver (or, Mary and Angel Gabriel) got through their lines without too many bumps in the road. Then, it was time for Amber to take to the stage (or blue curtain with a tinsel border) once more.

“Okay Amber, so your line this time is…Mary told her husband Joseph. Want to practise?”

“Mary told her husband Joseph,” Amber repeated, with all the enthusiasm of a patient about to undergo a colonoscopy. With two days til the deadline, this would have to suffice.

“Perfect! Ready? Three��two…one…go!” Nina smiled encouragingly, as she hit record.

Amber stood beside Mary and Joseph, a little grin on her own face. “Mary told her husband Joyce.”

“…Joseph,” Nina reminded her. Where the fuck had Joyce come from? She hit record again.

“Three…two…one…go!”

“Mary told her husband Joyce.”

Nina couldn’t stop herself from bursting out laughing. “Joseph, Amber!”

The little girl nodded earnestly. “Joseph Amber.”

Nina spluttered. “No…Amber is your name. Joseph is Mary’s husband.”

“Ohhhhhh.”

Nina shook her head, amused. This was what she loved about teaching. None of the other girls working from home could say that they got to spend their day feeling like they were stuck in an episode of You’ve Been Framed.

“Go again. Mary told her husband Joseph. Three…two…one…”

“Mary told…em…um…I can’t remember,” Amber giggled. Nina could feel her own giggles bubbling up inside herself, but she had to stop otherwise it would set her whole class off.

“Mary told her husband Joseph,” Nina repeated, both Amber and Hazel now giggling to each other. “Shh shh! Okay…three…two…one…”

Amber composed herself, took a deep breath. “Mary told her husband Joyce.”

Christ Alive. Nina gasped incredulously, unable to help herself from laughing now. The whole class, Amber herself, and Nina was pretty sure God, were all doing the same. She put her head in her hands, her whole body now shaking with laughter. “Joseph!!”

She already couldn’t wait to tell everybody she knew this story. Not least so she could cement in her mind that it was something that actually happened to her, and not just simply the script of a comedy show she’d dreamed up. Miraculously, mercifully, she managed to get the rest of her class settled down and for Amber to say the correct line on film, even if Nina could be faintly heard frantically mouthing “Joseph!” in the background.

Eventually they reached the innkeepers. Easy enough, in theory.

“Okay, Carter,” Nina smiled encouragingly at the first innkeeper. “When Mary and Joseph ask for a room, you say ‘no, sorry!’. Okay?”

Carter nodded, half a finger stuck up his nose. Nina gestured to him to put his hands down, then began filming. As directed, Mary and Joseph asked if there was any room at the inn.

“YES,” the little boy shouted. The whole class burst out laughing. Nina did not.

Just then, Willam walked past the open door with her class. She gave her a look of inquisition, shooting her a tentative, questioning thumbs up.

Nina put her head in her hands in reply.

***

By some miracle of nature (although it could also have been Nina giving up on work that afternoon) Nina had made it back to the flat before five o’clock. This never happened- five pm was usually the time she left work, but a day full of recording Nativity clips and then putting them together on iMovie while her class played (read; caused havoc) had been tiring and she needed Monet, chocolate, and Merlot.

Only the first thing she heard when she opened the door to her flat wasn’t Monet singing, or the hum of the extractor fan. It was the grainy crackle of a Zoom call and an incredibly distinctive voice.

“So when you doin’ it? Do it tonight. Do it when she gets home from work.”

Monet’s voice- humoured, long-suffering. “I’m not doing it then, Vanj, she’ll be exhausted.”

“That was honestly your best suggestion? When she gets home from work?” Brooke’s voice. “Aren’t you the pinnacle of romance!”

Nina had realised that Monet was on a Zoom call with all the girls, from the way Vanessa had obviously kissed Brooke on camera was being met with half a dozen cries in protest from the others. She excitedly shrugged off her coat and unwrapped herself from her scarf, eager to see her friends again. Part of her was intrigued, though. Why were they all calling each other without her?

“My question is how you’re going to do it,” Akeria’s voice came, as questioning as always. “It needs to be good but it better not be too damn cheesy.”

“An’ you better make sure she got her nails done, she might say no if she ain’t got her nails done!” Silky came shouting through Monet’s Macbook speakers.

“Yeah, you better make it as romantic as you can, Mo,” Scarlet added, making Nina wonder what the hell it was they were all talking about. Before she could wonder any further, she heard Yvie’s distinctive snort of a laugh.

“You are in no position to speak about romance, I mean, need I remind you how you asked me?”

“Shut up,” Scarlet replied, her tone a little bashful as the other girls laughed.

“Monet I could hire you a plane if you really wanted,” Plastique offered, making Nina snort despite the fact she had no idea what the conversation was about.

“Shut up, bitch,” Nina could practically hear the roll of Akeria’s eyes.

Nina toed her shoes off and finally padded through to the kitchen, where Monet’s eyes grew wide when she saw her, her body visibly flinching.

“Hey, babe!” she smiled, looking a little startled. “You’re home earlier than usual!”

“Oh sorry, am I interrupting your Zoom call with all your side chicks?” Nina deadpanned, forcing her way onto Monet’s lap to see her friends on the screen.

“Ninaaa!!!” Vanessa’s face popped up first, her friend waving excitedly as she sat on her sofa in Brooke’s arms. “How are you, girl?”

“Shattered,” Nina sighed, rubbing her eyes harshly. “Just filmed the whole Nativity with the rugrats today. Think it took ten years off my lifespan. How’re you?”

“Good,” Brooke smiled back through the screen. “We ordered our Christmas food today. Trying to convince this one that we don’t need twelve pigs in blankets between two people.”

Vanessa scowled back at her from their position on the sofa. “Uh, yes the hell we do!”

“Twelve pigs in blankets as well as the turkey, stuffing, and all the veg? Y’all are gonna explode,” Akeria said disapprovingly.

“Kiki! How are you?” Nina cried with delight, seeing her friend’s tired but smiling face appear on screen.

“Good. Don’t stop work for a while yet, but it’s fine. Still flat hunting.”

“How’s Pri?” Nina asked, heartened by the way Akeria looked down, trying and failing to suppress a smile.

“Yeah, she’s good. Still batshit crazy. Horny all the time.”

“The ideal girlfriend, really,” Yvie said, a wry smile on her face.

“Nina!” Silky suddenly cut in, yelling. “Did you hear any of what we were talkin’ about before?”

Nina frowned, shook her head. “Something about planes and nails. And cheese. I’m too exhausted to have paid enough attention. Why, were you having a mad bitchfest about me?”

“Trying to ask the girls how best to dump you,” Monet deadpanned. Nina shot Monet a look and squeezed her leg, resulting in her girlfriend yelping and cracking her knee off the table.

Whatever the previous conversation was was soon forgotten about as excited catchups took over. Silky was excited as she was interviewing some singer that Nina had never heard of and wanted the girls to help her work out what questions she was going to ask her. Yvie and Scarlet were lamenting the fact they had to host both of their families for Christmas and had bought a turkey so big Scarlet wasn’t sure it would fit in their oven, and Plastique was telling them the weirdest things she’d been gifted by companies desperate for her to endorse them on Instagram.

“I got a box of sex toys from LoveHoney. That was probably the most random. Me and Naomi had a wild fucking night that night.”

“STOP BEIN’ GROSS,” Silky had yelled down the line, causing Nina to hammer Monet’s volume down button.

Eventually the call came to an end, but not before lots of promises to catch up soon once the situation across the world was better than the shitshow it was currently. As Monet closed her laptop, Nina threw her arms around her neck and nuzzled into her side.

“I miss them,” she sighed, and Monet patter her back comfortingly.

“I know, babe. I miss them too.”

There was a moment of pensive silence, and then Nina spoke again, the Nativity never too far away from her mind.

“I can’t export this video.”

“What?”

“The Nativity video. I can’t export it,” Nina muttered pitifully against her girlfriend’s shoulder.

Monet kissed her hair, making to stand up. “You get a cup of tea. I’ll fix your video.”

“You’re the best,” Nina sighed gratefully, walking over to the kettle.

It was only after she’d sat down with a cup of tea and Monet had promised she’d sorted her video that Nina thought about the conversation she’d walked in on earlier.

She had a strange feeling that it had something to do with her.

***

When Nina arrived at work that morning, she could tell something was…a little different. She couldn’t really tell what it was. It started with the slightly knowing smile Tatianna shot her from across the corridor.

“Congrats, Nina!” she shouted down to her before she ducked into her own classroom.

“Uh…thanks,” she replied a little too late. Okay, the Nativity process had been stressful, but did she really need congratulated?

She supposed she appreciated it. It had been a whirlwind of a process, after all.

Only the odd thing was, it continued. The congratulations came pouring in; Alaska, Ivy from the Nursery school, Alyssa had cooed and gushed for ages about how exciting it was and how happy she was for her.

Nina had only blinked in reply, a little bewildered. “Thanks, Alyssa. It was a stress, but they managed to pull it off in the end.”

Alyssa gave her a funny look, then realisation seemed to dawn on her. “Oh…they’re non-binary! You know I never knew that, sorry sugar. Well congratulations to you both.”

With that, Alyssa hurried away only leaving Nina more confused than ever.

What in the fuck?

When the bell rang and Nina went to collect her class from the line, things only got weirder. Before she could hurry her class inside, Harry’s Mum waved at her from behind the school gate, beckoning her over. Nina’s heart began to sink- she was going to ask her why Harry was only a shepherd, wasn’t she, or why he didn’t get a solo during Little Donkey, or some-other-bullshit-like-that.

To Nina’s surprise, she held up a sparkly gift bag.

“Hi, sorry for bothering you!” she beamed at her. This was already unheard of- a parent apologising for taking up her time? Nina was beginning to question if she had slipped through a crack in the fabric of reality while she’d been sleeping when Harry’s Mum spoke again. “Me and the other parents had a quick whipround and got you a couple of things and a little card to say congratulations! We thought it was the least we could do given your lovely news.”

It was only after Nina had thanked her profusely, taken the bag and led her children into class that her words sank in. What lovely news was she on about?

Nina taught that morning in a daze. Well, ‘taught’ was pushing it; the last few days of term were always movie days or games days, and today was the former. Nina had decided to inject a bit of an educational element to it by showing her class Nativity and then asking them if they thought the film’s play was better than the one they’d put on. Despite it being one of her favourite Christmas films, though, she still wondered why everyone had been congratulating her today. Maybe her Nativity video had really been so amazingly good that people just had to comment on it. Nina decided that this was the only plausible explanation, and so was feeling particularly spirited as it reached breaktime and she sent the kids out to play.

She was sitting in her classroom reading all the messages she’d missed on her group chat when Willam practically crashed through her door.

“Oh my God!” she yelled, practically vibrating with excitement. “Congratulations, you lucky fucker! That’s gotta be the cutest damn thing I’ve ever seen. I mean Bianca probably wants your head on a plate for keeping it in, but still! How’re you celebrating? Should we go to the shop at lunchtime and get prosecco? I mean it’s the last few days of term, I’m sure drinking on the job’s allowed. Court wouldn’t tell anyone.”

Willam was talking with such speed that it took a few seconds for Nina to register everything she’d said. “Why…would Bianca want my head on a plate?”

Willam snorted. “I mean it’s kinda obvious. You don’t think she’s gonna be pissed about it? Then again, maybe she won’t. I don’t know, I can’t get inside her head. I’m not on that Honey I Shrunk The Kids kinda bullshit.”

Nina felt her head was so clouded that even if she possessed the brightest fog lights in the world she still couldn’t see what Willam was trying to say.

“Willam,” she asked, slowly and carefully as she rested her head in her hands. “What the hell are you talking about?”

There was a pause as Willam froze, then as her eyes became huge and wide as she slowly raised a finger to point at Nina. “Jesus Harvey Christ. You…you don’t know, do you?”

Nina frowned, bewildered. “Know what?”

“Oh my God. You don’t know. This is the best thing ever. You don’t even know!” Willam howled with laughter, then, before Nina could ask what she was meant to not know, Willam had dashed out of her classroom and had begun yelling into the hall. “Courtney! Court! She doesn’t know!”

Nina began to feel her heart beat in heavy thuds as the bell went to signal the end of playtime. What didn’t she know?

Eventually Nina managed to reach the end of the day. How, she didn’t know. She was so confused by all the different odd events of the day that she felt she didn’t properly make sense at any point to her class, but that probably didn’t matter as they were all so wrapped up in Christmas nonsense that Nina could’ve left the classroom and they wouldn’t have given a shit.

She was just getting ready to leave work for the weekend when Bianca stuck her head into her classroom and made her almost jump fifty feet in the air.

“Nina,” she began, in her own blunt, abrasive way. She didn’t wait for Nina to greet her as she continued. “I know you must be wandering around with your head in the clouds at the moment, but next time do you think you could maybe just run the video by me first? I mean you’re very lucky that the parents took that well. I mean it’s really about the kids, y’know?”

Nina could only blink at her wide-eyed like a deer in the headlights, getting into trouble but not entirely sure what for. Loath to say anything in response, she simply nodded.

“I mean you should’ve really kept it out,” Bianca frowned. She let the awkward, tense silence hang in the air for a few moments before a humoured smile appeared on her face. “But congratulations. I’m very happy for you.”

Without stopping for Nina to reply, Bianca had turned on her heel and left her classroom. Nina could only look at the space she’d previously been standing in. Maybe all of this was a dream. A fever dream. She’d probably contracted some sort of illness and was experiencing some hallucinogenic vision.

She didn’t know how she made it home without causing a crash, but she managed, and as soon as she was through the door she began to vent to the person she loved most.

“Monet!” she called through to the kitchen, hanging her belongings up. “I’ve had the weirdest fucking day in living memory. So first all the teachers were congratulating me…then I got a present from the parents…then Willam was screaming about me not knowing something…and then Bianca gave me a row at the end of the day…but I still don’t know exactly why…but then she said congratulations to me too?”

It was only when Nina stopped and walked through to the kitchen that she saw the kitchen table all done up with candles and laid beautifully, Nina’s favourite meal (slow cooker beef and buttery mash) on two plates, and Monet sitting at the table with her makeup done, dressed in a backless blue bodycon that Nina had once very nearly broke the zip of trying to rip it off her one weekend away.

“Uh…” Nina frowned, more confused than ever. Slowly, as a smile spread across Monet’s face, she began to connect all the dots of weird and the picture it presented illustrated that somehow her girlfriend had to be behind it all. “Okay, what’s going on?”

Monet got up and leant against the kitchen counter. She very gently took both of Nina’s hands in hers. “You didn’t watch the whole video once I exported it, did you?”

Something like dread crossed with excitement began to pool in Nina’s gut. She narrowed her eyes. “Monet…what did you do?”

Wordlessly, Monet reached back across to the table where she picked up her phone and loaded up the Nativity video. Skipping to the end, she got past the end of Jingle Bells and showed the video to Nina. The screen faded to black, and then, Nina watched as another little title card faded into view.

To the teacher that always gives so much of herself to others, I now want to give all of myself to you.

Miss West, will you marry me?

Love, Monet x

And suddenly everything in Nina felt as if it was made of fire, adrenaline and jet fuel. Her eyes flew open, her hand smacked against her shocked, gaping mouth. Her pulse raced and her heart hammered and all of her limbs turned to jelly to the extent she wasn’t sure she was able to stand any more. When she took her eyes off her phone screen and looked at Monet, her girlfriend was down on their kitchen floor, down on one knee like in every princess movie Nina had ever seen, her hair soft and curled and loose on her shoulders and a bright smile on her painted taupe lips. Gemstone tears brimmed in her dark eyes and hung from her lashes like icicles, and there, in her outstretched hands, was an open navy box.

Inside was a ring - gold band, one small diamond - and it was when Nina saw it that she gave a sob, her own tears springing from her eyes like a broken fountain, uncontrollable and erratic.

“Oh, baby, c’mere,” Monet gave a small laugh, shaking her head and immediately rising from the floor to wrap her arms around her in a hug. Nina took a few shaky, shallow breaths, pawing at Monet’s chest to release herself from her grip and look her in the eyes.

“You! You knew…all this time, and you…you put it in the video, oh my GOD, Monet, I could’ve got in so much trouble…I did get in so much trouble, oh my God…and you didn’t even tell me-”

“I thought you’d at least watch the damn thing through before you uploaded it!” Monet burst out laughing through her tears, and Nina joined in in a lightheaded, giddy way.

“I can’t believe this is real. Fuck. My whole body feels like that time we did poppers in Crete. Oh my God. Is this happening? You want to marry me?”

“Well, I would love to marry you, but I’m waiting on an answer,” Monet smiled bashfully, bringing her arm out from around Nina’s waist and holding the ring up so Nina could see it.

The diamond only seemed to glisten more when she saw it through the tears in her own eyes, and the gold shone warm like the brightest star. It was an engagement ring- her engagement ring- and it was real, and it was surreal, but Monet was in front of her waiting for an answer with tears in her eyes and hope in her heart that matched her own.

And Nina had never been one to say no to anything.

#rpdr fanfiction #ninex #background witney #monet x change #nina west #willam belli #courtney act #things are really cool in nazareth #ortega #fluff #kidfic #proposal fic #ficmas 2020 #day 14: nice #tw: coronavirus reference #submission

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post-itpenny · 3 years

Note

“ Am I fonder of dolls or of goblins or shoes? “

Ok, tagging @grodygabe because Bastian is here for a moment as well. Some slight angst for you.

Primadonna

The lobby of the theater looked as vibrant and new as the day it’s doors first opened. A polished wood floor with rich red carpets draped over it. Velvet curtains covering windows and the bottles that lined the bar sparkling with whatever substances they held from their corner of the lounge. Plush chairs and couches touched with the slightest scent of smoke. Around the walls was cream colored wallpaper with gold filigree as a border.

It looked lovely and new, which meant it was a collection challenge.

Perhaps that was one nice thing about this map. They could tell what they were in for based on its mood, it’s state of grandeur or decay.

Granted, several killers had collection-type challenges. Collect the thing- bring the thing to a designated spot- win an escape for your efforts.

But Thomas was with the group this time and he shivered the moment he walked in. So… they knew.

“So you just know?” Their newest one-a girl named Chloe asked. “Just get a vibe?”

“Only if it’s the killer you came with.”

She nodded, seeming to relax a little now that she knew how to spot her’s. Thomas almost felt bad for her, should he tell her what was coming?

Mary beat him to it.

“The old hag is a handful and she can get you at a distance. But you just keep running and it’ll be just fine.”

“She’s a hag?”

Mary laughed. From where he stood, Bastian gave a small snicker as well. “You can call her that if you want, just be ready to dodge.”

“Does she throw things?”

Thomas frowned, “no.”

Before he could elaborate the doors to the theater opened with the slighted squeak, the Edison bulbs above flickering out.

Show time.

…………………

“What the hell is she wearing today?”

“I have no idea, but that’s a lot of pink.”

Mary and Chloe hissed to each other as they snuck around the diva. Climbing through a tunnel formed by stacks of clostume trunks and crates.

They froze as The Muse turned in their direction, head tilted to the side as she floated just slightly off the ground. Chloe holding tight to the photograph in her hand. In an instant, she was gone, chasing after someone else.

………………….

One thing Thomas could never figure out was just how lucid Irene was in a match. Between trials she was clearly with it, at least enough to be an absolute bitch to anyone within 20 yards. But it was here that he honestly had no clue. Sometimes she was, yelling at Mary or taunting him, but other times she seemed so focused… but also not. Looking at them like she didn’t know who they were (which couldn’t be true by this point) but so intent on killing them. And then there was moments like right now-

From his hiding spot, Thomas watched as Irene chased Bastian as if she was moving through a dream. Perhaps it was because of the photograph held tight in his hands. Her movements slow but fluid. Her body flickering in and out of existence. She caught him in her strings, only for the new girl to purposefully crash into her.

Irene felt herself slamming back into her own skin at the sudden impact, reeling at the sound of fabric tearing.

“You stepped on my dress why?!” She screeched before turning the swipe at the intrusive nat with her weapon. The girl yelped in pain as the blade nicked her shoulder. The boy- Bastian. His name was Bastian, she knew this by now- grabbing her arm and pulling her to safety. Irene felt a tug at the back of her brain, screaming in frustration before the overwhelming feeling of being yanked back out and to wherever she had come from consumed her.

………………………..

You could hear her yelling in nearly every corner of the theater. The diva’s presence was constant, regardless of whether she was in the room with you or not.

They were rehearsing for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the very unfortunate girl playing Peasblosom having stood too close to Irene and stepped on the hem of her skirts.

“You stepped on my dress!” Irene screamed down at her. “Idiot girl, do you not have any sense of space! Do you know where your feet go?! Or are they with wherever your brain left?!”

The younger actress was crying by this point, looking wildly around for someone to do something. But even their so-called “director” was suddenly very preoccupied with his notes.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” Irene snapped. “I swear I-“

“And I swear I can hear you all the way from the street my dear.” A gentleman said as he hooked his arm with Irene’s and pulled her away from her victim. “My dear there’s no need to ruin your voice with so few days before the opening night.”

Irene snatched her arm back, “you! You don’t get a say in this! You’re late!”

“Only 15 minutes.”

“Where were you?!”

“Forgive me Renie sweetheart, but why fret over such trivial things?”

Irene sneered, “I’ll give you trivial you-“

“Irene.”

“Charlie.”

Charlie sighed with a smirk as he fished a box from his pocket. “I need a smoke, come join me dearest.”

He liked arms with her again and pulled a still bickering Irene backstage. Looking over his shoulder with a wink towards the relieved younger actress.

…………………..

Charlie casually blew a cloud of smoke into the air as he skimmed back over the script. looking up occasionally at his friend as she carefully stitched the torn hem of her dress. Whispering the opening verses of The Habanera from Carmen. When and why she took the time to learn it Charlie had no idea, but he wasn’t surprised.

They lazed on a set of plush chairs, leftover props from some long forgotten production. The crew left them out knowing they were the preferred seats of the primadonna and her co-lead..

“You know, if you went to one of the seamstresses in the costume department, they could fix that for you.”

Irene hummed in response but did not otherwise comment.

He watched as she sewed, noting just a few wisps of gray hairs on his friend’s head. Musing that she shouldn’t frown so much less she gain wrinkles from it.

“You know I do wish we could adjust the lines.”

“It’s Shakespeare Charlie, the lines stay the same.”

“But the part between Oberon and Titania-“

“The lines. Stay. The. Same.”

“The mention of India seems so out of place though.”

“Did you read the books I lent you?”

“Books?”

Irene arched an eyebrow. “Yes, the ones on Celtic and Geek cultures? The ones I asked you to return to the library when you finished?”

“Ah.”

“Ah. So you’re paying my late fees.”

“I bet you were once quite the precocious child.” Charlie teased.

Irene smirked, “I used to lay on my bed and wonder am I fonder of dolls, or of goblins, or shoes?”

“And what were you the fondest of Renie?”

She looked up at him with a smile. “Silence, in a small house with so many people, I was fondest of silence.”

……………………….

The sound of heels clicking broke the early morning. Even before sunrise, stagehands milled about and janitors polished and dusted fixtures. But this woman moved with purpose. Cradling several items in her arms, any of which threatened to spill should she make the wrong move.

She made her way backstage, finding a particular pair passed out on a set of plush armchairs.

Irene and Charlie were deep asleep, legs tangled together as they shared the same automan. Charlie with his hat covering his eyes and Irene using Charlie’s coat as a blanket.

The woman sighed in annoyance, kicking Charlie’s foot. “Charlie Devough how dare you sleep at work again.”

Charlie sat up with a shout, Irene grumbling as she crawled out from under Charlie’s coat and snatched one of the coffees the woman carried. Making a face at the first sip. “So bitter.”

“Because that one wasn’t meant for you,” the woman chastised as she traded coffees with Irene and passed it over to Charlie. “Only this oaf here is foolish enough to not appreciate cream or sugar.”

“Why add sugar when I know you bought danishes? I can smell them love.”

The woman sighed again and handed over a paper bag she had also been carrying. Taking over the automan as she sipped on a coffee of her own. “Did rehearsals run that late?”

“We were running lines and lost track,” Irene murmured as she rubbed at the ruined mascara on her face.

Charlie leaned over to kiss the woman, “thank you for the breakfast Evelyn dear. I’m sorry to worry you.”

“You should have let me know.”

“It’s my fault, Eve.” Irene yawned.

“No it’s not you liar, how dare you cover for him.” Evelyn teased. “Irene, you look like you’ve been crying with your makeup like that.”

“Irene?”

……………………………

Irene looked up.

She hated collecting trials. She never knew what memories it would send her mind tumbling through.

She sat now in her dressing room, roses in various states of decay filling every free space.

The trial was a disaster, her new dress torn thanks to a new brat. She still remembered that young actress. Three productions later and she seems to think she could replace Irene since she was casted as lead once.

Irene also remembered the feeling of shoving the point of her stiletto through the girl’s throat.

Irene sat in her dressing room and tried to wipe her makeup off. For a moment she looked normal, even despite her bluish skin. But then she felt a stinging sensation in her eyes as black tears fell and stained her face again.

She growled in frustration and stormed out of the room, making her way backstage till she found her destination- a set of worn, plush armchairs. Sitting on the floor next to what would have been Charlie’s.

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everybodylovesrand · 4 years

Text

Raje Judkins answered some questions about the show. Filming spoilers for the show below:

Q: What part of the books should you be caught up on for the first season?

A: Depends on if you like to read something before you watch it or not.

Q: What are you finding most challenging about going from book to screen? A: The hardest thing is the physicality of production. In the first book alone they go to more than 20 villages and cities. To try to do that is physically impossible for the show, so most of the work we don in the room is geographical, figuring how to condense the story and move it through places we can physically create.

Q: Do you have a favorite chapter from the whole saga? Mine is Veins of Gold. A: So many. But Honey in the Tea is the one off the top of my head.

Q: We can’t wait to see Elayne, Aviendha and Min

A: Me either. Three of my favorites.

Q: Has any post-production work begun or does that not start until filming is completed?

A: Nope! We do it simultaneously. Before the corona hit, I was prepping 2 episodes, shooting 2 episodes, in post on 4 episodes and writing Season 2 simultaneously :-0

Q: Will there be a soundtrack? Who’s the composer? A: Of course! David Buckley. Plus a few incredible musical guests we’ve already had.

Q: Are Min/Elayne in season 1? A: The Wheel weaves as the wheel wills

Q: Are you going to merge Min and Elayne? A: Hell no

Q: First moment you were speechless on set? A: First time walking into Emond’s Field with my mom

Q: Is mat fluent in the old tongue yet? A: We’ve had a couple cast members speak in it already and they NAILED IT

Q: Which character has your favorite costume so far? A: Ooo this is tough. Probably Geofram Bornhald.

Q: How is the cast and crew weathering the pandemic? A: Our team in Prague did an amazing job of getting everyone out and keeping them safe. And now everyone’s home and we all live on Instagram.

Q: Who is your favorite Forsaken? A: Ahhh. I love the ladies. Graendal, Lanfear, Moghedien. And Ishamael holds a special place in my heart the more time I spend with him

Q: What’s been your favourite shooting location so far? A: Slovenia! Spectacular stuff there

Q: Yes or no. Have you had to make any cuts be it a scene or character, that has been painful for you? A: Yes.

Q: How are you planning to handle the visualization of the weaves? Any little tidbits? A: We are trying to stay as true to the books as possible. I’ve been giving a bunch of VFX folks long diatribes about channeling, weaves, threads, earth vs. air, etc and they early stuff has started coming in. It looks FUCKING AWESOME. I screamed when Rosamund started channeling

Q: Similar to Them performing in an old Inn, what other iconic moment filmed stands out to u? A: Rand and Tam walking through the Westwood

Q: Blink twice if Min is in season 1. A: 😉😉

Q: Will Jeff Probst be one of the Aiel? Can you make some calls? A: If he dyes his hair red 😉

Q: Which WOT book title best describes your self isolation experience? A: A Memory of Light…

Q: Can we expect a trailer for the show anytime soon? A: Probably not for a long while sadly.

Q: Can you guys do a big WoT Wed announcement during the hiatus to keep all us fans hyped instead of al A: Yea! It would cheer us all up and we have some fun news

Q: Is Lan going to be as much or an absolute stud in the show as he is in the books? A: You’ve seen @danielhenney right?

Q: If you were an Aes Sedai, what Ajah would you choose? A: Such a good question. They all have merits but GREEN for the win. If only to hang with @priyankabose20

Q: Will we have to wait till season 2 to see any Aiel? (Other than Rand)

A: Nope. And the one you see will shock you. Hah. Amazon shouldn’t let me be on here when I’ve been cooped up for a week.

Q: RJ writes a lot of internal headspace stuff. What’s 1 hint on how the show will handle that? A: That’s the biggest difficulty of any novel adaptation. Figuring out how to make the internal monologue come out clearly to the audience. A lot of the changes we make and stories we tell differently are designed to serve exactly that purpose – showing you what those characters internal monologues from the book are without them just saying it out loud in exposition

Q: Are you using taller actors to portray the Aiel, or camera trickery? A: Trying to get tall folks. But I’m less concerned with height and more concerned with acting ability.

Q: Since JordanCon was cancelled, can we maybe get an extra treat next month? A: Sure! What do you want?

Q: Do you have a favorite Wise One? A: Avi

Q: How many trollocs do I have to take out to become a writing assistant? A: Violence is never the answer

Q: What would you say the CGI to practical ratio is going to be? A: Tring to do as much in camera as we possibly can!

Q: How are you handling sword forms and their names? A: We have a for real sword master on the show who walks into every room and tests out everything as a weapon. He could most definitely kill me with any item in my office.

Q: How are the horses on set? Is Mandarb spectacular? A: They are so great. Honestly I love our horses. Mandarb and Aldieb are downright sexy

Q: When will we get more casting announcements to hold us over? A: I’ll try to get them to put out something soon. A lot of folks in all departments are affected by the state of the world right now though, so I can’t promise a timeline

Q: will we see the prologue from the Eye of the World on screen in season 1 A: You will hear that phrase

Q: What has been your favorite set so far? A: Fal Dara!

Q: Please tell me you’ve cut Narg!! A: Never!!

Q To what extent has Harriet McDougal been involved with the project? A: She’s a consulting producer so she’s been out to Prague to the sets and reads all the scripts and sends me her notes on them. She and Maria are hugely helpful for maintaining the truth of the series and always keep me honest when it comes to things that change too much

Q: Is any aspect of the show still in development, or has it all stalled because of the virus? A: A lot can be done virtually! I’m still doing VFX, editing and the Season Two Virtual Writers Room! And I can do it all in pajamas

Q: Will min, elayne, and avienda have to be combined into a single character?

A: Girl you crazy. I’m not going to combine huge characters like that. Maybe sometimes a minor character folded into a more major one to make better use of our cast but nothing nutso

Q: RJ created 1000’s of character. Given that did you feel the need to create new characters? A: Anyone “new” is inspired by characters in the books or a number of characters combined. If we paid to cast all speaking roles in the book we could only afford to have a radio play

Q: So far, what is your favorite prop in the show? A: Great Serpent Ring. We all want one.

Q: Will Loial portray the Ogier species, or will he be humanised for screen? A: He’s an Ogier!

Q: How involved, if involved at all, is Sanderson in the writers room? A: Brandon is hugely helpful. I talked to him before we started Season Two while he was in Prague to get advice and he reads all the scripts and gives notes. He’s incredibly thoughtful and understands the process of adaptation and what’s required from it. I feel so lucky to have him involved. I would have him do more if I could make him!

Q: What words of hope would you offer a fan afraid that the show will cut out a lot of content? A: I genuinely think we are cutting less than most people think. When I see people ask questions like “are you cutting Min?” It blows my mind. I don’t know how you do an adaptation without some of these characters. I think it’ll be more of the smaller stories you’ll miss. We can’t have Rand and May (sic) travel to many many inns on their travels across the countryside for instance. It’s just not producible. So that will be more of what you miss I think, and the books always exist to read for that 🙂

Q: I think Bella is such an important character, will the same horse play bella through the series A: We’ve already had to have two Belas. It turns out a horse for riding on film is not the same as a horse for pulling a cart and SHE MUST DO BOTH

Q: Can you please make sure you do a great job? Book are so great A: This is are a really good idea

Q: Now you’ve met them, settle the score: who’s better with women? Rand, Mat or Perrin? A: I think they’d all say it’s the other

Q: Will the show be understandable for those who didn’t read the books? A: That’s the idea. If there are little things they don’t get though, luckily google exists

Q: Who is your favorite Aes Sedai in the books? And you can’t say Moiraine/Siuan or the Wonder Girls A: So many rules. I honestly love all of them though (except Galina that bitch) Alanna Liandrin and Verin are probably my Top 3. And Siuan! There’s too many I love. Sheriam! Pevara!

https://www.wotseries.com/2020/03/22/show-runner-rafe-judkins-does-an-ama-on-instagram/

#Wheel of Time #The wheel of Time #Rafe Judkins #answers questions #WOTonPrime

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staylovehearts · 5 years

Text

Check Yes, Juliet

Seo Changbin x Reader

Word Count ~ 4.8k

Summary: In which you suddenly find yourself in the middle of a romance that hopefully won’t end in tragedy.

Tags: college setting, friends to lovers, y/n majors in costume and set design, changbin does sound and set design, so we doing theatrics, mentions of Romeo and Juliet, and bad SoundCould rapping

"So you see, the task here is not to design perfect costumes or draw up a pretty stage plan. What I want you to do here is just plan, organise and most importantly budget a show. You will have to consider everything. From the material you are going to need, to the time that will be required to make the costumes or any custom made props you'll be needing for the backdrop. If you want to make a couple of sketches of the costumes or how you imagine the stage design that's fine but remember that your focus should be on the production. You'll be working in pairs or groups of three, you may pick your own partners and each team is going to work with a Shakespeare play. You have two weeks to work on this task and then every group is going to have to present their work in a ten to fifteen presentation. Are there any questions?"

At the end of her small speech, the professor looks over the rim of her round glasses and sort of gives everyone in the small lecture hall her special you dumbasses better not ask me any stupid questions or I'm going to throw my shoe look. Honestly speaking she's probably a bit of a diva. But then again, who in this department isn't? You knew exactly what you were signing up for when you decided to pursue a major in theatre studies with a focus on costume and set design. Theatre is a world of eccentrics. Of loud personalities and flashy costumes. Everyone is constantly being a little over the top. It's a huge performance and the curtain is never fully drawn. Even though you belong to the people that prefer to stay behind that curtain. You like to admire the colourful spectacle from the distance and let those with a calling to perform do their job while you do yours. Which is to support. You are the one that makes the magic work. The one that designs epic costumes and turns any boring room into a scene straight out of a fairytale dreamland.

"Shh, we're working together on this, aren't we?", Changbin is sort of leaning over to whisper into your ear, he's so close that his shoulder is brushing against yours and you can almost feel the soft tickle of his exhale against your skin. If he were anyone else you'd probably push him away for just invading your space like this with no warning, but since Changbin is Changbin you don't mind it at all. He's one of the first friends you made here in the theatrics department. He's focusing on sound and stage design so you do have a couple of courses together every once in a while and your schedules usually overlap allowing you to take lunch breaks together every other day. Changbin fits right in with the artsy kids that walk this campus. He has a dark red beanie on his head covering most of his undercut hairstyle. One of his eyebrows is gracefully slit and there are small tunnels in his earlobes. And when he is pushing up the sleeves of his shirt like he does now a bit of the tattoo on his right upper arm pokes out. He has the look of a tumblr e-boy with the personality of the cute childhood friend guy that lives next door.

"Of course we are, do you have a play in mind already? We might be able to snatch a good one if we act quick", you whisper back. Most of the other students in the class are still whispering under their breath and trying to find a partner to work with while the professor is watching the mess in mild annoyance, tapping her pointy nails against the chalkboard every once in a while. She's written down the selection of plays in advance and it's pretty much every major Shakespeare work you'd imagine to find on a list like this.

"Your pick", Changbin replies. You nod quickly before you raise your hand to attract the professor's attention. She looks up and gives you the go-ahead to talk with a small wave of her hand.

"Changbin and I would like to work on Romeo and Juliet please", you announce. You can hear sounds of protest from around you from the other student's that probably had their eyes set on the same play. But it's first come, first serve. The professor looks at you for a moment before she shrugs and puts your names down next to Romeo and Juliet on the chalkboard. You silently fistbump Changbin under the table. It's not like you are picking this play for the romance or the story or whatever. You honestly don't even see it as that romantic. It's more of a tragedy actually. After all – spoiler alert – almost everyone dies. Especially the couple that the whole thing is about. If you were going for romance you would probably pick something like A Midsummer Night's Dream. That one at least has something like a happy ending. At the very least no one dies and the couples all end up marrying in the end. But that play also has a bunch of fairies that'll need fancy costumes and a goddamn magical forest as a background that would be hell to plan out on your own. Romeo and Juliet has a rather small cast, it might require some costume designing but the play is so goddamn overdone that there are plenty of resources that can be used as an inspiration. There have been millions of stage productions of this play, research for this one is going to be a piece of cake. Also, you're working together with your best friend. So it's going to be great no matter what.

Things are not really going as great as you hoped they would. You are sitting on Changbin's bed in his dorm room, cross-legged and with your laptop balancing on one thigh. The hot air blowing out from the fans has made your leg feel uncomfortably warm but you also don't really want to put the laptop down in front of you because that would make you hump your back to type. Well, it's not like you're really typing right now either way. Your sketchbook is lying abandoned on your other leg, the pencil somewhere near the pillow and you wish so much to just lie down next to it and close your eyes for a moment. Changbin is sitting at his desk. Spinning around in his chair and not really doing anything productive either. You figured Romeo and Juliet would be easier because there are so many sources and other productions that you can use as inspiration. Not this exact thing is biting you in the ass. There are just too many different adaptions. Too many wildly different interpretations. The day before Changbin and you sat through a movie marathon of every Romeo and Juliet adaption you could get your hands on and there's just... so many of them. There is Romeo + Juliet which has guns and more modern fashion but still sticks to the original dialogue. It also has Leonardo DiCaprio, but that's an entirely different thing. Then there is stuff like Shakespeare in Love which actually somewhat deals with the production of a play. And at least three other adaptions that all use somewhat different approaches. So basically you are getting kind of frustrated already.

"Ugh, I hate this", you complain while dramatically letting yourself fall back onto Changbin's bed. He barely looks up but out of the corner of your eyes, you can see him slightly grinning at the view of you trying to hold onto your laptop with one hand while letting yourself fall back into his messy bed. He didn't bother with folding his blanket so it's kind of bunched up and shoved towards the wall. That way it makes for a perfect headrest. It even smells nice. Like that cologne, you got him for his birthday last year because you’re a grown ass man now it's time you start smelling like one mixed in with the smell of hairspray, black tea that he must have spilt and then not bothered changing the sheets after and the cheap laundry detergent from the washing room. It's comfortable and if you could you would just curl up in Changbin's bed and forget about that stupid project for a while.

"Oh come on, it's not that bad", Changbin says with a hint of amusement in his voice. You raise your head just enough to glare at him before you flip him off with the hand you don't need to stabilise your laptop. He bursts out with laughter for a moment before he switches back into serious work mode. "Okay, so maybe we should just do some brainstorming. You know, collect some ideas, come up with a theme for this. I think once we decided how we want to go about that everything else will just come naturally. Like, do you want to stick to the original more or should we also opt for a more modern interpretation? I think we're pretty much free to do whatever as long as we come up with a proper plan and budget for the production."

"I don't even knoooow", you complain stressing out the last word into a whiny groan. Changbin stretches out a leg to slightly kick against the bed.

"Yah", he chuckles. "Don't be so mopey. Okay, so how do you feel about a more modern version? I think that would also be a lot easier on the costumes. And then we can put more work into the stage set up and stuff like that."

"Like that movie with DiCaprio? What do we do about the dialogue and stuff then?", you ask. You like the idea of not having to design elaborate costumes and then calculate the costs for materials and the time it would take to actually realise these costumes and just put all actors into thrifted clothes. Juliet in a flowy summer dress and Romeo with a dress shirt that has a weird yet oddly endearing print on it. But you also feel like there might be a hitch somewhere.

"We don't have to hand in a script, just a budget and production plan, so it's probably enough if we mention in a side note that what we are going for is a modern adaption", Changbin reminds you. His words sound reasonable, but he still hasn't fully convinced you. He can probably sense that you are still hesitating so he continues with his sales pitch. "Just imagine it. Juliet is some rich chick from a fancy high society private school. Maybe even the daughter of the principal or whatever. And Romeo is also some rich brat but he's kinda the black sheep of the family. They meet when he and some guys from his school crash the prom night of Juliet's school and boom, they fall in love, the parents don't approve and shit goes down."

You laugh at his dramatic description of his version of Romeo and Juliet but at the same time, you can actually kind of picture the version he is going for. It's a fresh take on an old story. Love, disapproving parents, a strict environment and two horny teens that rebel against the system because even though they only met yesterday their love is already better than anything that happened to them in their entire life so far. Also putting everyone into school uniforms would definitely make costume planning and designing a lot easier.

"Okay, let's go for it", you decide. You are still kind of lying down on Changbin's bed put out of the corner of your eye you can see him do a small victory dance in his chair. It's kind of cute.

"Man, I actually really wish we could write a whole script for it instead. That would be so much more fun. Just imagine that dramatic balcony scene but instead Romeo is just sneaking onto their property at night to throw rocks at Juliet's window and then rap his whole love confession."

Changbin starts doing a freestyle version of what Romeo and Juliet could have possible sounded like if it was written by a SoundCloud rapper in the 21st century and you can barely contain your laughter.

Yo yo yo, what's that light that I see

It's Juliet!

She is shining brightly, like the sun

but I'm just a lonely moon boy you see, baby please shine your light on me

You grab your pencil and toss it in his general direction. It flies right past him and lands on the side of the room that Changbin's roommate – who is luckily out with friends right now – occupies. Changbin laughs at your pathetic attempt to get him to stop rapping which at the same time ultimately leads to him stopping.

"No, but honestly, how do you feel about it?", he asks after a moment of silence. You sit up again to look at him.

"It's good", you say. You mean it. You know that working with Changbin would be nice. Not just because he is your friend but also because he's an amazing person to work with. He always comes up with the weirdest but also incredibly creative ideas and whenever you are at the point where you want to just give up and curl up into a ball he is the one to take a step back and look at the problem a bit more rationally and find some sort of solution.

"So, now that we have that figured out how about you spend the next few days trying to come up with a plan for the costumes and I think about the set design and we can go over it together next Tuesday before class so that we kinda already have something to show in case she asks for progress?"

"Yeah, sounds good."

You shut your laptop down and close it, finally taking it off your leg again and the warm spot on your pants feels really awkward. Your skin underneath feels burnt even though you know very well that it's just a little warmed up at most.

"Are we done for today then?"

Changbin shrugs. "I guess so." He pauses to kind of look around the room for a moment before he looks back at you. "Wanna grab some dinner with me though? I'm kinda starving and I think the cafeteria already closed down and all I have left here is some cereal and protein bars."

"Sure, the usual place? I've been craving burgers either way."

"Let's go then."

When Changbin and you meet up on Tuesday before class you have a couple of rough sketches for costumes that you only really made to get an idea what and how much fabric you would need. In the meantime Changbin has come up with how to realise that backdrops and the stage set up and made a list of props you would need for that. So overall some really good progress. When your professor peeks over your shoulder later that day you proudly show her your work. She's a little surprised by your take on the task at first but in the end, sees no problem with you going for a different interpretation as long as you do the budget plan and everything properly. So Changbin and you spend the rest of that session crunching numbers and writing up potential shopping lists and stuff like that. By the end, you have something like an overview of all the costs that would crop up for the costumes and the stage design. Now you just need to kind of organise it all and put it in a more presentable way. Maybe sort by category or necessity of items. Like what needs to be taken off first and what can maybe be replaced in case there is no way of getting the exact thing. You agree to meet up again that weekend to finish up everything and put together a power point for the presentation in class.

Of course you also kind of meet up with Changbin before that. On Wednesday you have lunch together with him. Thursday you run into him in the small coffee shop on campus and you end up talking to him for so long that you almost come too late for your next class. And Friday you have another afternoon lecture together and after that, he kind of tags along with you while you buy some groceries and stuff for the weekend and he even helps you carry them back to your dorm building.

By the time Saturday rolls around you have pretty much finalised planning the production of the costumes for your fictional Romeo and Juliet performance. You are once again sitting on Changbin's bed with all of your sketches and notes spread out around you. He is sitting at his desk while trying to type all the information into a power point and make it look okay.

"Do you think we should add your costume sketches?", he asks without even really looking up from his work. You shrug, even though he clearly can't see it right now.

"If you want to? Do you think it's enough if I just take a picture of them with my phone real quick or should we actually scan them?", you ask back. Changbin makes some kind of half grunting half contemplating humming noise while briefly glancing up from his laptop.

"Probably better if we scan them, hand them over and I'll do it right now."

You pass him your sketches and he gets up with his laptop and walks over to the shelf where he and his roommate keep their old printer. While Changbin puts your sketches in page by page your eyes wander through the room. They get stuck on Changbin's desk. Or rather, an open notebook that is lying on display on top of said desk. You briefly glance over at Changbin but he still seems to be occupied with the printer, cursing under his breath because somehow the scanning and saving as a file option isn't working properly. You silently get up from his bed and walk over to the desk to take a peek into his notebook. You've seen him carry that thing around with him pretty much everywhere but he always made a huge secret out of the contents. You flip through a couple of pages. Terrible scribbles, a few messy lecture notes, shopping lists, reminders. Dentist appointment at 3 pm, next Friday is written on the top of a page, underneath it is a terrible drawing of a cat. Or maybe a dog. Could also be a horse now that you are really looking at it. But every now and again there are words that look like they were written down with more care. The letters are neat. A lot neater than what you are used from Changbin's handwriting. The words are picked carefully. Changbin is writing poems. This is probably not meant for your eyes at all but you can't help feeling curious about this. Changbin rarely talks about his inner thoughts and feelings. He's not really one to let his more sentimental side show. Maybe out of fear of appearing vulnerable and maybe out of a weird sense of pride. So maybe this is the once in a lifetime insight into his mind that you always wanted. You flip through the pages until you have found the latest entry and you stop. Everything stops for a moment. It's the Juliet rap he did last time. He actually worked Romeo's whole first part of the balcony scene into a rap. But what really strikes you is the fact that he has crossed out Juliet's name. And scribbled yours over it. You quickly close the notebook and turn around. Your hands feel sweaty. Your heart is racing. Changbin is standing right in front of you. The look on his face can only be described as heartbroken.

"You saw it, didn't you?", he asks. His voice sounds strained. A faint whisper. A string that is about to snap. You nod your head, unable to even say anything. You bite down on your bottom lip that is suddenly trembling. Changbin lets out a deep sigh.

"You weren't meant to find out. Not like this. Not at all. But I... listen, I know I probably shouldn't say this but I really like you. Like, I'm fucking in love with you and I... ugh, I'm so sorry I wasn't ever going to tell you now that you've already seen this there is no going back, huh. I'm in love with you, y/n."

"I- I don't know what to say." Your heart is racing, your chest is aching, your hands are sweating, your knees are trembling. "I... should probably leave."

You weasel out from between Changbin and his desk and make a dash for the door. You look over your shoulder briefly when you pull the door close behind you. He doesn't come after you.

You manage to avoid Changbin until Tuesday. He texted you right after you left and you left him on read. He hasn't tried to contact you again since. Honestly, the last few days have been terrible. You've only been avoiding Changbin for a whole two days but you already miss him a lot. You're just so used to him constantly being around you and being part of your life that you didn't even know that the empty space he would leave behind would be so big. Now you suddenly find yourself sitting alone during lunch break and walking the halls between classes with your earphones plugged in because there is no one to talk to. For the past years, Changbin has just always been around you even in small ways that you didn't even notice. It's not just that he would go to class with you or that you would have lunch at the cafeteria together. Suddenly there are also no more weird texts to wake up to every morning because Changbin insists that his best ideas happen late at night and he always texts you right away when he comes up with something even though he knows that it will take hours for you to actually reply to that. And then there are also all the small things that are just you and Changbin things. You have certain places you go to that are just your usual place to eat out. There are spots in the university library where you like to sit down when you study together, songs you both like and listen together when you are hanging out, the snacks you know you have to buy when he asks you to come over and bring some. Because you don't even have to ask what he likes anymore. When you're ordering delivery together late into the night during study session he doesn't ask what you want because he just knows. Changbin and you have seen each other pretty much every day for the last years, have worked on every project together, he's cheered you on for every exam and comforted you through every heartbreak. He's been there the whole time and now he suddenly isn't. Because you freaked out and pushed him away because you don't know how to react to his feelings. Or your own feelings for that matter. You have never thought about Changbin as more than a friend. At least while he was around being just that. But now that you've been ignoring him for a whole two days you are starting to realise that you miss so much more than just having someone to eat lunch and do group projects with. You miss having your best friend around. But even more than that you just really miss Changbin.

When you see him Tuesday before class you go straight for a hug without warning.

"I'm so sorry, can we please talk after class", you mumble with your face pressed into his chest. Changbin quickly squeezes you back.

"I'm sorry too, let's get this presentation over with and then we can talk."

The presentation goes fairly well considering you have never actually seen the finished power point. Changbin must have completed the thing on his own while you were busy ignoring him and pitying yourself and now you're just feeling even more guilty about the whole situation. Since you kind of split up the whole thing into parts from the beginning on you can more or less go through your part even though you haven't seen the actual presentation but Changbin jumps in and covers for you every time you kind of lose your flow because a slide is not where you expected it would be or because he added some additional sources. But your professor seems satisfied with the result. She marks both of you down as passed before she moves on to the next group.

You were the one who asked to talk to Changbin and yet here with him sitting right across from you at one of the small rounded tables of your favourite campus coffee shop you have no idea what to say. But as Changbin always does he jumps in to comfort you and help out when you get stuck.

"I'm really sorry about all of this. I really didn't mean for you to find out like this. I didn't mean to tell you at all. And I just hope that it doesn't make things awkward between us now. Believe me when I say that I don't expect anything from you. If you want to we can just pretend that nothing ever happened and move on. Just having you as my best friend already means a lot more to me and I don't want to ruin what we have."

He's so serious. So sincere. And most importantly he is sounding so vulnerable. In all the time that you have been friends with Changbin, you don't think you have ever heard him speak so straight from the heart. He's usually not one to share too much about what he is thinking or feeling. But now that you quite literally took a glance into his journal and uncovered some of his deepest secrets he is an open book in front of you. Sure, you regret that you peaked into his journal and found out about his feelings this way. But somehow you also don't. Now that you have seen this glimpse into Changbin's mind you don't want to turn the page and close the book again. Now that you know you can't imagine losing him again.

"I'm so sorry too, I shouldn't have left like that. I shouldn't have ignored you it's just that I... I just didn't know what to do", you mumble. You can't quite manage to really look up at Changbin's eyes and face him so instead, you are staring on his hands. He's got them lying on the table, fingers nervously fiddling with the handle of his mug. You take a deep breath and reach out a hand to grab his.

"I'm still confused", you admit. And it's true. Your mind is in turmoil. Between trying to comprehend feelings you didn't know Changbin had and coming to realise feelings you didn't know you had everything has been a huge mess and suddenly the whole world is upside down. But with Changbin right here it feels a little less chaotic. You’ve stumbled right into your own dramatic romance story but it’s up to you whether or not this one ends in tragedy. And maybe there is no way of knowing the end without at least trying. So you take a deep breath and try. "But I don't think we can just go back. I don't want to just go back. Listen, I never really thought of you as more than a friend but we've been separated for a whole two days and I'm already more than willing to do something dramatic like fake my own death or whatever just to be with you again. What I'm trying to say is that I really can't imagine being without you and maybe we can just... try this?"

"Do you mean we could try... being more than friends?", Changbin asks hesitantly. You finally manage to raise your head and look at him. There is so much hope in his eyes and you know just why you were hesitant to look up earlier. Changbin has such pretty eyes. You were always afraid to look straight at him. Afraid to fall. But maybe it's okay.

"I'm asking you to go on a date with me, what about it?", you reply by firing a question back at him. Changbin looks a little surprised for a moment. Then he breaks out into the widest smile.

"Well, you're leaving me no choice I guess."

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