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#she was just seventeen
ilovedig · 2 years
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So Paul likely wrote "She Was Just Seventeen" because of Sound of Music and "I am Sixteen Going on Seventeen."
Paul covered "Till There Was You" because he loved the Music Man.
John was inspired by West Side Story's "There's a Place for Us" to write "There's a Place"
John was inspired by Snow White's "I'm Wishing" for "Do You Want To Know a Secret"
But in 1969 Paul lied to Mal and said he'd never seen Wizard of Oz. And we know it's a lie because early on in interviews he was talking about the movie (if someone wants to find those quotes, be my guess)
Also because of this tape from god knows when in the early 60s
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And by 1984 he was such a fan of Oz, he went to the filming of Return to Oz.
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Paul was proud of his love of musicals, except Wizard of Oz.
Why?
"Friend of Dorothy"
Which, btw, John wrote a demo about
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And if you don't know what "friend of dorothy" is
It's some of the oldest gay slang. Paul pretended to be clueless about shit like that, but he wasn't.
He was so scared of someone making the connection he literally said he'd never seen the movie.
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jeonwon-wonwoo · 10 months
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minghao: dazed photo shoot behind
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leonardcohenofficial · 9 months
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the more i rewatch twin peaks i am reminded more and more that albert rosenfield (and to a lesser extent bobby briggs, though he doesn’t quite articulate it as clearly as albert with the exception of him breaking down at laura’s funeral) is THE only character to recognize laura’s death for what it was—completely avoidable, unromantic, and caused by human evil that nobody recognized the signs of or did anything to stop
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nonranghaes · 5 months
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"it's just me."
you barely get a chance to roll onto your back before soonyoung's already climbing onto the bed and somewhat on top of you and your blankets, and it's only seconds later that he crashes. it's far from the first time this has happened (soonyoung is clingy and cuddly, especially when he's sleepy), but he manages to knock the wind out of you nonetheless. he rests his head on your chest, and you wiggle an arm out to curl around him as best as you can in your semi-trapped position.
"soonyoung--"
"just go back to sleep," he murmurs. "everything's fine."
you stroke his hair, thumb dipping down to graze his cheek at one point. "soonie--"
"i mean it," he says, eyes peering up in the low light to see yours. "i'm fine. just need to nap." his hand finds yours, and he wraps your arm around him as he snuggles in. he plants a kiss against your chest before resting his head against it again, eyes fluttering shut. "you can rest a little longer, too."
you settle back down after a moment, arms wrapped around soonyoung as you shut your eyes again. sometimes you swear this tiger is a teddy bear, but regardless of which he is, he's yours.
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i hate golden child Dick Grayson. everyone ignores how ANGRY this kid actually was. We rarely get accurate dick grayson, all the teen titans shows have been so off on his personality (you cannot tell me they accidentally made the character tim and realised halfway through wrong robin) and the fandom sees him as "oh everyone finds him attractive + he's Bruce's perfect angel and Jason hates him because of that"
no he literally killed the joker.
why do we skim over that he KILLED THE JOKER. He didn't even know Jason; bruce was his father and he not only refused to kill the joker, interfered when someone else tried to but hit jason in the same way after he came back. His SON. But dick felt so strongly about a kid he regretted not getting close to that he killed a man.
and then if you think that was a one off
in that panel where he fully BEATS Bruce's ass in gotham war? served. ate.
people dumb him down way too often like he wasn't the first robin. you cannot out do the doer so they gotta drag him down to bring others up.
not to mention the fanon portrayal ignores the trauma he has from liu, mirage and tarantula. it looks at that and goes "ok! cool but he IS a flirt :3" he isn't allowed to grieve in the comics either because SOMEBODY (devin) won't let him because he "didn't say no"
and give jason his own friends DC please stop giving him handmedowns he deserves more (i do love him and roy i just wish they also maintained the roy dick friendship because it's usually one or the other)
thabk yoau and gooenight
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hwiyoungies · 1 year
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it’s ok wonwoo we’ve all been there
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exigencelost · 4 months
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everyone telling me that it's not fair to talk shit about peter animorphs needs to raise their bar on relationships
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anna-scribbles · 1 month
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h-how do you ever finish any of your work? genuine question because you seem to be productive despite your agreste syndrome and I need to learn your ways. but also how do you ever finish any of your work
unclear. last night i stayed up and finished a report worth 25% of my grade at about 5am, arrived on time for my 9am lecture, and spent about half of it zoned out while thinking about seventeen year old emilie agreste. and i was one of the most active participants in the class discussion
#in some ways it IS the move to go to grad school right out of undergrad#because your body can still sort of operate like a college kid#i’m on about 3ish hours of sleep rn and this morning it felt SO over but now i’ve eaten something and we’re so back#i also don’t really do caffeine. except sometimes i’ll go get one of those panera death lemonades#i might be able to snag a short nap before work#but anyway about seventeen year old emilie. i was thinking abt how she was in that movie solitude and adrien said she was seventeen#WAIT. NO. HE SAID SHE WAS SEVENTEEN IN THAT PHOTO ON HIS DESKTOP NOT IN THE MOVIE#well. okay whatever i’m gonna tell you what i was thinking about anyway#OKAY i’m back i just checked the wikipedia page and then i watched the end of gorizilla. to make sure i’m not lying. because i’m normal.#anyway i was thinking about the solitude film and how it’s super rare and old and obscure and whatever. and how apparently#emilie wrote it herself and andre produced it#and i’m thinking about how gabe was discovered by audrey and that’s how he got his start in the fashion industry#so now i’m like?? did gabe and emilie first meet on the set of solitude? because gabe was designing costumes or whatever?#and that’s how audrey found him? have people already thought about this??#also i just checked and it doesn’t say emilie’s last name in the credits and also it’s ‘graham films’ with the twin rings logo m#so i’m assuming she’s still emilie graham de vanily at that point#anyway it comes back to seventeen year old emilie because i started imagining seventeen year old runaway emilie having her new life in pari#after escaping her british nobility life#and the first thing she does is write and star in an original movie. of course.#and she meets this repressed bisexual punk upstart costume designer who is so the opposite of everyone she’s ever known#and he’s immediately so unhealthily obsessed with her. which she appreciates.#and then they proceed to have the most toxic doomed evil relationship of all time#also she gets cheated because once gabe gets money he represses himself SO hard that he is now exactly like all the people emilie grew up w#but at least he’s still obsessed with her#this is what i was thinking about during class today. i don’t know how i get anything done either.#ml#anna rambles#asks
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bericas · 11 months
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teen wolf scenes that make me remember they're teens: allisaac edition
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sorchasolas · 5 months
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Another random thought:
(Disclaimer- I’m not saying this SHOULD have happened I’m just. Confused.)
Why did Jasnah betrothe Shallan & Adolin, where Adolin is the most eligible bachelor in Alethkar basically and they have a SIX YEAR AGE GAP. (shallan is 17 adolin is 23 NEVER forget this.)
And not— Renarin. Two year age gap. Shallan would still be tied to the family.
Did Jasnah like sense his gayness or what.
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Astarion(ascended) and Gortash are fighting over who's the worst character in my canon
meanwhile Raphael is standing in the background with a metal pipe
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gyunetwork · 1 year
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min9yu_k: 동생한테 훔치고싶은 카메라가 생겼다 (My little sister has a camera that I want to steal)
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pushing500 · 8 months
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You have no idea how upset I am that Wookshys is such a good partner to Albina. This proposal is the nicest one so far!! It looks like he planned it out and everything, set up a cute little hot-tub date for just the two of them before he popped the question! Baz proposed to Zonovo in the freezer!! Why is Wookshys so darn good at what he does? This is tragic!
also, congrats to the happy couple and stuff, I guess
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In brighter news, I have a quest that could give me a healer mech serum to cure Wendy's dementia! Huzzah!
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We left pacifist anxiety-ridden Vu at home to look after the kids, Andy and Henry, as well as Wendy, who is still in bed with resurrection sickness.
I like to imagine lil' Hussar Henry is upset that he doesn't get to go on cool raids despite being my third-most-competent melee colonist alongside Kawoo.
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Here's everyone heading back to the shuttle after finishing their "aerial assault". I did not get screenshots of the actual fight going down because I forgot about it in my panic, but basically:
Candlelight shot her T'au Rail Rifle at the wall until the Wasters came out to fight us
Albina used her bramble maze psycast to grow a patch of thorns and slow the Wasters' down as they advanced
Hazrov, the absolute legend that she is, used her long bow to take out two of four Wasters in less than a second
Brennan used her flameball psycast to kill another Waster, but not before he'd thrown a tox grenade which caused a bit of coughing for Albina, Zonovo, Debby, and Barghest
Tamarind used her skip psycast to pop Irwin and Xanxalbur next to the last Waster who was shooting at us with a bolt-action rifle, Irwin took him out quickly but got a bruise on his torso first
Irwin then destroyed the only turret and the door of the base to see if there was anything interesting inside (there wasn't)
Tamarind used her waterskip psycast to put out the fire from Brennan's flameball
Everyone piled back into the shuttle to head home while Vu and the kids gathered the rewards inside and waited for the returning heroes
So now we have a healer mech serum! Hooray! No more dementia for Wendy.
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thebluestbluewords · 26 days
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a pirate by any name +
"Samson Smee?" Ben asks, tapping the name on the list. “Is he related to Captain Hook’s sidekick?” 
Evie leans closer on instinct. She doesn’t need to see the paperwork to know who Sammy is, but it’s a habit now to press close to Ben and tilt her head just-so to see the paper lists and forms when they’re working on VK matters together. It a comfort, to know that she’s not in this fight alone, and Ben certainly hasn’t complained about the increased contact with his girlfriend’s girlfriend. “Yes. He goes by Sammy. He's probably not going to want to come over without his brothers, but we can still make the offer." 
"Can we bring the brothers?" 
The last time Evie saw the littlest Smee children, they were sobbing over a pirate’s body before the adult crew members tipped them over the harbor for the sharks to take their share. They couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old, and what Evie remembers the most is the way their tears had carved clean tracks out of the dirt on their faces. 
She hums her consideration. “They're young. Elementary age, maybe ten or so now. I think they'd be okay to come, but they're shy, and I'm not sure how they'd do at school. As families go, I think all the Smee boys would do well in terms of goodness integration, but they may be difficult to integrate on a social level unless they can come over with someone they already know." 
"Alright. Who do you think they'd do well with?" 
Their father. 
“Their father,” Evie says, bitingly, before she reigns her tongue back in again. Not that it matters around Ben, who is handsome and kind and just listens when Evie needs to shout at somebody about the horrible unfairness of it all, but it’s good practice. She’s a politician now, just like her mother wanted. She’s got to be the best, because she’s an isle brat, and she cannot afford to make mistakes. Anything she says, anything she does wrong will reflect on the isle as a whole, so she’s got to be flawless. She will prove herself not just for her mother’s sake, but because she’s got a thousand hungry kids waiting for her to mess up and snip their only thread of hope at getting off the isle. “But that’s exactly the problem. Sammy has a crew, but the twins just tag along with him or their father all the time, and I don't think Auradon Prep, or any other high school for that matter, wants to have a pair of kids following their new high school student everywhere,” Evie sighs. She’s so fucking tired.  “We have schools on the isle, obviously, but Sammy doesn’t attend very often. The pirates usually stick with their ships and learn what they need from the older members of their crews. It’s not a traditional Auradon education, but the pirates are actually some of the better educated kids on the isle. It works for them, but it won’t work if we bring them here.” 
Ben puts a warm hand on her arm. It’s all Evie can do not to sink into the touch. She’s so, so tired of this. Of begging for any scrap they can get. Any concession to the norm comes at the price of another sliver of her own sanity, it feels like, and there’s so many children who won’t be able to handle the pressure of Auradon Prep, who will need more exceptions than the system is set up to give them, who won’t be able to thrive without the attention that nobody is able to give them. 
“We can ask the charter school,” Ben says softly. “There's integrated schools, all ages sort of places. My mother’s village has one. We can reach out. She provides a grant each year, they might decide they own me a favor.” 
Evie presses into his touch. Gods below, but it’s nice to have somebody who knows better than her the networks of favors and family histories that keep the kingdom governments running. “Or if we could find a family who would be willing to keep them together and send them to separate day schools, they might get used to being on their own like that,” Evie suggests. “Sort of slow and steady. A gradual break.” 
Ben makes a note, a shorthand scribble on the side of his list. Evie’s eyes are swirling too much to read it exactly, but she knows their code. Foster family, special education, sibling unit. That’s what they need to know in order to place the Smee boys. A whole life, reduced down to three shorthand scribbles. “That could work. What are the brothers called?" 
Evie laughs, exhausted. “Squeaky and Squirmy, but I believe their birth names are Sawyer and Simon. They're not bad kids, they're just shy. They would do better here, I think. Where there’s less adults around to bully them into staying quiet.” 
 Ben slips his hand up her arm, around her shoulders, pulls until she can rest her head on the side of his own. He’s warm and sturdy and if they weren’t in the middle of important work, Evie could fall asleep just like this. And then cause a scandal when the service staff come in to wake them both up, and find the young king sleeping on a girl who is not his girlfriend, no matter how many interests and people they share between them. 
"We can ask. If Sammy's willing to come over without them, who do you think we could bring with him?" 
"Anthony. Dizzy's cousin. They run with the same crew, and they'd do well together. I would say that we should bring over Harriet, but knowing her, she's not going to come over unless we can get the rest of her crew out first, and she's got one of the biggest crews on the isle." 
 Ben skims the list of kids, running his pen down the side as he goes. “Harriet?" 
She’s not on the list. 
“Hook,” Evie explains. “She’s one of the eldest pirate kids. We didn’t add her to the list because she won’t come until we can bring her crew with her, and we can’t promise that yet.” 
“Hook.” Ben echoes, voice flat. “As in—?” 
He’s encountered Harry, and came away with almost as much vitriol for him as Mal. 
Evie presses herself closer to him, so that he can feel her heat, and maybe remember that they’re in her office, not the wet deck of a ship. That he’s not tied to a mast, waiting to die anymore. “Yes. There are three Hook kids, and they all hate each other. We only hate Harry, the middle one, so Harriet and CJ are our allies. Sort of an enemy-of-our-enemy kind of thing."
"Harry's the one who's involved with Uma.” Ben says, so softly that Evie can barely hear the words. “The one who tried to kill me.” 
"Yes. He's....” Evie hesitates. She’s safe to hesitate here, in her own little office that smells like citrus wood polish and old papers. She doesn’t have to preform just for Ben, because she can trust him. Her sweet, kind king.
Trust doesn’t mean she wants to tell him everything. Understatement is a tool that Evie is well practiced at wielding, so she lets herself close her eyes, and forges ahead. “He’s a lot. We don't like him." 
Ben smiles, small and sweet and almost sad. "I take it there's a history there?" 
"Just a bit." Evie agrees. "There's been a few incidents."
"Would it be useful for me to know?"
Evie breathes in, and out, and relaxes her shoulders in an attempt to let go of the anger that she's still holding in her body. "I suppose so. Yes." 
"Do you want to tell me?" 
Honesty is the foundation of good relationships. "No." 
Ben nods. He's too good to them. "You could tell me later. If you'd like." 
The memory of blood spills over Evie's hands. The slippery, awful feeling of insides that were never supposed to become outsides against her leather gloves. The gritty feeling of dirt in her eyes that she can't rub out, blown up from the shattered crates they'd been aiming to take back from the pirates. The blood though, that's the part that she can't forget. She's been a medic since she first started sneaking out of her mother's house, but she's usually restricted herself to broken arms and legs and noses, some shallow stitches, fever medication, abortifacients and concussion care for the kids who can't take the dubious mercy of the barrier's spell. She's done medications for the kids who cared to try them, all sorts of poultices and remedies for the ailments that are within her power to fix. 
She's never been able to fix someone once they start bleeding out. 
She knows the theory of it. Blood transfusions, tourniquets, ways of stopping arteries without killing the patient. The problem is that she's never had to do it firsthand, because they've always known that the spell on the barrier was there to catch them before they died for real. The spell heals the killing blows, so it's easier to lean into the death than it is to staunch critical bleeding. Evie's killed kids herself, those who wouldn't die quick enough on their own, so that they could have the mercy of the barrier and the spell healing them back into a body marginally less broken than the one they'd left from. 
"He killed us." Evie manages, around the memory of blood spilling up from her throat. "They made it a game. Him and Uma and their crew. We killed each other." 
They've told Ben enough. He can figure out the rest, and he's smart and good and kind, so he does, and she can see him go white when he figures it out. 
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kbandtrash · 7 months
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I Don't Dance (I Know You Can) (Hoshi x Reader)
~Rachel~
Masterlist
You're hopeless as a dance trainee, and dance teacher Hoshi isn't sure that teaching you will be worth it for either of you in the long run.
Content: dance teachers!Hoshi and Minghao, enemies to ?lovers?, Hoshi yells at you and apologizes, a general feeling of hopelessness about life, fluff
Word Count: 3.8k
“No. I’m done. I can’t stand her,” Hoshi huffed. “She makes no improvement and she can’t see what she’s doing wrong. I’m done, Minghao. If you want to keep her on, then you take her.”
Minghao smiled wryly. “If you can’t teach her, then no one can.”
“I don’t need to waste my time on a student that’s going nowhere.”
“But I do?”
“That’s why I’m saying we need to drop her!”
“Oh that’s very growth mindset of you,” Minghao drawled sarcastically. “I thought we believed in the potential of every student.”
“I did. I really did.” Hoshi sighed. “But there is something wrong with her.”
“I don’t know, when I sat in today, I noticed she’s actually pretty good at keeping with the beat. Her limbs are like tree branches in the wind, but they’re always in time.”
Hoshi cocked his head. “That is true,” he admitted.
“And her hands are very graceful.”
“Yes,” Hoshi agreed.
“Her facial expressions are pretty natural, too.”
“Yeah, she got that from vocal training.”
“She just got a late start,” Minghao said with a shrug. “If you keep working with her, she’ll be a pro in no time.”
“Yes!” Hoshi exclaimed, pounding his fist into his hand. “It’s not that she’s bad, she’s just inexperienced.”
It was that easy every week. However, the truth remained: you hadn’t a dancing bone in your body. Minghao just liked to watch from the sidelines, and if you ended up getting dropped, he wasn’t sure when he would find his next favorite source of entertainment.
“My favorite student!” Hoshi welcomed you warmly to your private lesson.
You glanced at Minghao in the back, who gave you a wink and an okay sign. “My favorite teacher?” you returned uncertainly.
“Did you review the steps we learned last week?”
You nodded energetically. “I made sure to practice every day in front of a mirror like you said.”
“Good, good!” He clapped his hands together. “Let’s start with our warm up moves.”
You moved almost like a mannequin, no fluidity in your joints. Hoshi kept his temper in check, and offered you some suggestions.
“Like this?” you asked, repeating the same clunky motion.
Hoshi smiled only because he had no other expressions left. He modeled the move. “Do it with me slowly.”
It was incredible how intently you watched him and how poorly you managed to perform on your own. If you did get it right once, it was usually pure luck.  You apologized over and over, to which he responded through his teeth with a fake cheerfulness.
When it came time for you to leave again, Hoshi managed to keep his cool, even told you that you did well today! You both knew that was a lie, but you also both knew you were giving this your all. There was just nothing to show for it week after week. For you, it was disheartening, but for him, it was infuriating.
“You did well today,” Minghao complimented Hoshi. “You didn’t even raise your voice once.”
“I can’t do this anymore,” Hoshi whispered dangerously. “I’m going to snap.”
Minghao smiled and prepared his next lecture on positivity.
“Get out.”
“Hoshi, I told you—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” he said, looking you directly in the eyes. “You’ve wasted my time for too long.”
“I’m trying so hard!” you begged. “I promise I’ve been practicing every day and I felt like I had made improvement!”
“You’re just as miserable as the day you walked in here. We need to reconsider the future of your lessons with us.”
“Hoshi,” Minghao interjected. “I didn’t want to bring this up again, but we’re getting paid twice our usual rate from her company.”
“It’s not worth it anymore,” Hoshi said with a shake of his head. “I don’t know why you bothered trying to learn if you had no talent to back it up.”
“I don’t know either!” you fired back. “I just wanted to sing and play my instrument, but the president said I wasn’t worth anything if I couldn’t dance. Guess he was right.”
You stormed out of the room and grabbed your bag on your way out. Minghao could have sworn he heard you choke back a sob as the door closed.
Hoshi immediately felt hollow inside. He had never messed up like this, and there was no way to take back his words. It wasn’t that he really believed you weren’t worth the time, but he had never had a student learning this slowly, or this late in life, or…
…It was all excuses in the end. No matter how frustrated he got, he shouldn’t have snapped in your face.
He squatted on the floor with his head in his arms. “Why did I do that…?” he mumbled. “I’ve never…never talked to anyone like that before.”
“I don’t know, but you need to apologize immediately,” Minghao said, standing up and pointing at the door. “Go and find her now.”
Hoshi looked up at Minghao through his arms. “And what am I going to say, that what I said wasn’t true? I’m not going to keep lying to her about any potential she has.”
“Are you stupid?” Minghao said exasperatedly. “She thinks she’s worthless because she can’t dance. She can’t dance, that much is obvious, but she’s not worthless. You get your butt out that door and tell her that.”
Hoshi stood up again and started pacing. “If you know what to say, then why can’t you go and say it?”
“I’m not the one that just told her she wasn’t worth my time.”
Smashing his head into the floor seemed like it would be a better option. Hoshi felt terribly guilty, but apologizing to your face felt like lying to you. Agreeing to keep you on also felt like lying to you. He felt more guilty about lying to you about your dance potential than about hurting your feelings.
He still stomped out the door to try and follow you anyway. His head swirled with words that he was supposed to say, but still felt like lies meant to satisfy you temporarily. Wouldn’t it be best for you in the long run if you quit?
You really hadn’t gone far—you hadn’t even left the building. He should have known that you would have to wait for one of the trainee managers to come pick you up, and the lesson wasn’t supposed to be done for another ten minutes. You were sat on the floor in a hallway to the side of the main route to the entrance.
The light of your phone screen, too close to your face, gave you away. He could see you were staring at a message you hadn’t quite sent yet, and he could also see the drying tear tracks down your cheeks.
“You’re not worthless,” he said, and you flinched as he sat down next to you. He noticed you quickly lock your phone and hide it away from him. “I’m the worthless one if I say something like that to one of my students.”
“No, I’m just deluding myself,” you said dejectedly. “I’m not sure why I thought I could make it in this industry if I couldn’t dance.”
Hoshi scrunched his mouth as he tried to think of something to say that both made you feel better and didn’t make him feel dishonest. He kind of agreed with what you said, but he couldn’t say that. “Dancing isn’t everything,” he shrugged. “Half the trainees these days only know how to dance, and they can’t hardly hold a pitch.”
“At least they can learn to rap. There’s no replacement for dancing.”
You needed to stop saying things that were true, or Hoshi was going to have to leave you in your misery. He gulped. “You have your visual going for you, at least, right?” he tried.
That was a weird thing to say, apparently. You looked at him like he had said that summer wasn’t hot enough. “I’m not supposed to be a visual.”
He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Could have fooled me,” he said as nonchalantly as he could. 
That was weird. He definitely thought you were supposed to be a visual, maybe even above vocals. Now that he tried to remember why he thought that, he realized no one had told him—he’d just assumed. It wasn’t personal bias, was it?
“Maybe you should just switch companies,” he suggested. “But you shouldn’t give up on your dream.”
“No one’s going to debut a girl band,” you said. “Or a soloist who can’t dance.”
“So why are you trying if you don’t think anyone will debut you?”
You looked away from him, in the direction he thought your phone might be. “That’s what I’m asking myself, too.” He didn’t say anything, and you waited long enough to feel awkward if you didn’t keep talking. “Why can’t I just give up and move on?”
“It’s too tragic, Minghao,” Hoshi lamented from the floor of the studio. “Who ever said you had to dance to be a good musician?”
“Public opinion,” Minghao answered succinctly, scrolling through his phone from the chair in the corner.
“And that’s the only thing that matters?”
“Uh, yeah.” Minghao blew a stray hair out of his face, not looking up from his phone. “That’s kind of the whole point of the entertainment industry.”
Hoshi turned onto his back, now spread-eagle. “That’s dumb.”
“And? What are you going to do about it?”
What was Hoshi going to do about it? He couldn’t do anything about public opinion, he couldn’t do anything about your dancing skill, and he probably couldn’t do anything about your company’s opinion, either. There wasn’t really anything he could do.
Hoshi took too long to answer, so Minghao finally glanced up from his phone to see him staring at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Are we dropping her? Are we keeping her on? Are we going to try and convince her people to let her go in a different direction?”
“Have you ever thought about teaching a ballroom dance class?”
Minghao actually set his phone down out of sheer confusion. He blinked and shook his head, sure he hadn’t just heard what he thought he’d heard. “Excuse me?”
“I mean, it’s not like it’s going to actually help, but it might be a fun way to pass the time until she makes her decision.” He paused. “Or the company makes it for her.”
“I’m still stuck on the last thing you said—ballroom?” Minghao asked incredulously, sitting forward. “You’re not actually thinking about ballroom.”
Hoshi shrugged and looked at Minghao from the floor, upside-down. “It’s more fun than trying not to pop a blood vessel every week.”
“We’re a K-pop dance studio,” Minghao said. “What is her company going to say when they find out you’ve been teaching her ballroom?”
“At least it’s something,” Hoshi replied, flipping back onto his stomach. “And at least I can lead.”
You were used to Hoshi touching you to correct your position, but not like this. It wasn’t even that he was too close because there was actually a considerable amount of space between the two of you and he had probably been closer before. This just felt so…intimate.
His hand was on your waist, your hand was on his shoulder, and your other hand was held in the air by his. You had only seen this stuff in western period dramas and cartoons. Only when you did it, you didn’t really feel like high society in your sweatpants.
“Feet together,” he instructed, modeling for you. “I’m going to teach you a box step.”
You put your feet together, tapping the rubber sides of your shoes together. “Like a jazz square?”
“No. Well, maybe. Yes, but not really.” He let go of your hand momentarily to fix his hair. “Don’t worry about it. First, you’re going to step back when I step forward.”
He picked your hand back up from where you let it drop to your side. He moved his left foot forward, so you moved your left foot backward.
“Nope, try again. Like a mirror,” he said. “My left foot, your right foot.
You reset to try again. He stepped forward with his left foot, and you moved your right foot back. He froze, so you didn’t make another move.
“Good! Next, move your left foot down so it’s level with your right foot, but shoulder-width apart.”
“Huh?”
He swept his right foot up in an arc to its next place. “Like that, but back. Make your feet mirror mine.”
You tried to follow his fancy arc, but you must have curved it the wrong way. It felt awkward, even though your feet ended up in the right place. “That can’t be right,” you worried.
“Hmm, not quite,” he agreed. He let go of your hand and your waist, so you took your hand off his shoulder. He stood next to you, his hands still up as if you were across from him. “Copy me.” He stepped his right foot back. “One.”
You left your arms down and stepped your right foot back. “One.”
“No, no, keep your arms up. One,” he said, demonstrating the first step again.
Fighting back a sigh, you held your arms up as instructed and took another step back. “One.”
“Good, now two,” he said, sweeping his left foot back and across.
This time, the curve of the path felt much more natural. “Two.”
“See? Not so hard,” he encouraged. He picked up his right foot and placed it down next to his left foot. “Three.”
You copied him once more. “Three.”
“Okay, great! That was the first half,” he explained. “The second half is the same, but forward.”
You scrunched your eyebrows, watching both your feet and his. “Right foot forward?”
“Mirrored and forward,” he corrected himself. “It’s called a box step because we make a box with our steps. Left foot forward—one.”
“One,” you repeated, setting your left foot in front of you heavily.
“Keep your arms up,” he reminded you, pushing your elbow back up.
“What’s the point if you’re not even there?”
“To keep proper form. Now right foot up and shoulder length apart for two.”
You stomped your right foot up. “Two.”
“Stay light on your feet; it’ll help you move. Then feet together again for three.”
Much lighter, you brought your left foot back over. “Three.”
“And that’s the other half. Easy, right?” He looked at you expectantly.
You returned his smile with a grimace. “Simple and easy are different.”
To your surprise, he laughed at that. As in, it seemed genuine and not forced. “Alright, touché. Let’s try it a couple more times side by side and then we can try it together?” he suggested.
It was hard not to accept with his enthusiasm back up like the first few times he had taught you. Maybe he was like this because he had to care much less about your performance and more about making sure you had fun.
You mirrored him a few more times through the steps, with less separation between the steps every time. Just when you felt like you had it, he decided it was time for you to dance together again. You could already feel the six steps shuffling their order in your mind.
Once again, his right hand was on your waist, your left hand was on his shoulder, and your other hands were intertwined. There was a respectable distance between the two of you, still, but it felt like this was the closest you had ever been. Your heart was pounding in your ears, and you sure hoped he couldn’t hear it.
“Go ahead and watch your feet if you have to, but just for now,” he warned you. “You’re going to have to look up sooner or later.”
You snapped your head up faster than you could think. “At what?”
“At me.”
The actual distance between you might not have changed, but boy, oh boy, did it feel like it shrank to almost nothing.
He must have felt it, too, by the way his ears started to flush pink. “I mean, traditionally, you look at your partner in ballroom dance,” he clarified unconvincingly.
You nodded, deciding to believe him rather than make this any worse than it was for you. 
“Ready?” he asked. You nodded again. “Okay, I start forward with my left foot, and you…” He picked up his left foot and froze, waiting for your move.
If he was going to step forward, you would have to move if you didn’t want him to step on your toes. “I step back with my right foot.” You took the step, and he followed through with his.
“Next?”
“I move my left foot to the other corner?” You weren’t guessing, but you still marked uncertainty in your tone.
“Good—let’s try it.” His foot followed yours up to the next point. “Excellent. And then?”
“Feet together.” You didn’t wait for him to confirm this time, but he still moved in time with you. “And then…left foot forward.” It was like his foot moving backward pulled yours forward into place. “Right foot up…and feet together again.”
“That’s it! Keep going.”
You could start to see what he meant by leading and following. You were moving at the same time, but it was a bit like your feet were attached with strings and dowel rods. As you stopped narrating each step, he began to count softly and bounce into each step.
“One, two, three, one, two, three—see how you can shift your weight and make it smoother?” he interrupted himself. “Try to keep the weight on the balls of your feet.”
You were taken aback at how simple the change was, but how much more elegant it made you feel. He kept counting softly, and it felt natural when he started leading you to turn a bit with each step.
He did stop you after a few more rounds, but for once, it wasn’t to point out a mistake in frustration. It was instead to congratulate you on your success.
“Shall we try with some music?”
“Is it going to be fast?”
“Not much faster than we’ve already been doing,” he reassured you. “It’s not a hard dance to speed up, though.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” you snickered. “You literally dance for a living.”
“No, I teach dance for a living. Big difference,” he emphasized jokingly. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and a few moments later, some music came over the speakers. “Which means that I know you won’t have a hard time with this. Ready?”
Tuning into the music, you started to count in your head. Hoshi was right—it wasn’t that much faster than you had already practiced. It might have even been a little slower.
“For once, I think I might be.” You straightened your back, but you kept your eyes on your feet.
“Excellent! I’ll count us off. Which foot first?” he quizzed you.
“Um…” You went over it in your head. “My right, your left.”
“And you didn’t even phrase it as a question this time,” he said, genuinely praising you. “Ready? One, two, three, ready, set, go!”
It felt like magic. Really, it did. For the first time in your life, you were moving in rhythm with the music, and combined with the music, you were understanding how the two worked together for the first time, too. Eyes on your feet, it really almost felt effortless.
It felt even more like a period drama now, and you felt a little more like you belonged.
“It’s fun, isn’t it?” Hoshi commented.
“I can’t believe I’m actually doing it,” you agreed.
“What if you try to look up now?”
You hesitated. “I don’t know. I think the only reason this is working is because I can see my feet.”
“Just try,” he encouraged you. “Trust your feet for a second.”
You glanced up and back down, and then raised your head. Earlier he said you were supposed to look up at him, right? You could try.
So you looked up and found his face right in front of yours.
Funnily enough, he was right in telling you to trust your feet; they kept moving in the correct pattern even though your brain was totally short-circuiting. You felt close enough to count all his eyelashes, which was easier with his eyes widened like that.
He was surprised, too—he wasn’t expecting your proximity to shrink like that. However, he kept moving just as you did, too stunned to break eye contact or try to widen the gap.
Minghao dropped something on the floor in his corner, snapping you out of your trance. Hoshi glanced over your shoulder to see what was up, but his eyes were back on you in record time.
You cleared your throat as your senses were returned to you. “I’ll just…look at the wall or something,” you mumbled, trying to look like you were absentmindedly staring over his shoulder rather than fixating your gaze purposefully away from him.
“No, you don’t have to do that,” he tried to brush you off casually. “That was my fault. I promise it’s not as awkward if we’re talking.”
So he was admitting that just happened, and it was awkward. Cool.
Your eyes flickered back over to meet his, which were now much more relaxed, but you ultimately stayed looking away from him. “Are you sure?”
He nodded in one fluid, dramatic motion. “Promise.”
Once again, he was right. He didn’t make you look at him right away, but once he started talking to you, asking about your instrument, what you liked about making music, how your grades were in high school, the makeup products you used, even the color of your toothbrush (what?), it was natural to look at him. The distance didn’t grow back, really, but it became comfortable.
After a while, and probably more than a couple songs worth of talking, he stopped you. “One more thing we’ll practice today,” he introduced.
“Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” you asked suspiciously.
Minghao snorted from the corner. “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” he asked himself in a voice that he only meant for himself to hear.
“No more bad feelings!” Hoshi demanded. “You already learned to waltz, so let’s just add a little trick. I’ll teach you how to spin.”
Minghao narrowed his eyes at the two of you. He glanced at the clock and decided that while, sure, there was enough time to teach you this, it wasn’t part of the original lesson plan. He was right about the bad feeling. Hoshi didn’t look at just anyone like that.
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yandere-daydreams · 8 months
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Fischl is 16
she's sixteen to you. to me she is a freshmen theater major who's still working on her general courses but refuses not to act Like That and founded the only cosplay club on campus a month into her first semester despite not owning a sewing machine. she makes do tho.
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