#the possibilities are endless with all the great lyrics and the tragedy of it all | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yomogi-mogi-mochi · 1 year

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Lasting Spring

Pairings: Vil Schoenheit x (Orpheus Inspired) MC

Summary: Great expectations are placed on you, coming from a line of extraordinary poets, bards, and musicians. You fulfill these expectations with ease‒ the lightness of your voice illuminating any room with divine merriment through a swift dance of your fingers on your lyre. Your fame is equally matched with the curse swimming through your family’s blood‒ one which announces death and tragedy to your lovers, unless they are your true love‒ your soulmate. However there is no assurance that soulmates truly exist, only the madness that comes as an endless thirst for it. So you extinguish that thirst, settling for quick, messy flings‒ much to the dismay of your childhood friend, Vil Scoenheit. You lament your own tragedy through woeful verses, masked in the sweltering felicity of your music. Vil always trails that sorrow back to you, wishing to embrace you in his warmth to take it away, even for a moment. But the members of your family who had found love unobstructed by the gods were great lovers to heroes, kings, queens, and warriors‒ who was he, seen by most as a villain, to taint that possibility for you?

Notes: Orpheus inspired reader, with a friends to lovers dynamic with Vil, GN pronouns. Continuation of my myth-inspired series

CW: Mentions of death and suicide, references to depression

AO3 Link Here.

Masterlist

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The child of a legendary line of poets, bards, and musicians‒ you were always surrounded by lush sounds of harps, guitars, and voices which trilled of bittersweet love‒ ones which you echoed with your own youthful voice, plucking your golden lyre with what could only be described as divine sensibility. From age ten, you were rumored to have the ability to command flowers to a weeping sorrow, cap mountains with a fury of snow with a single verse. As such, it was given that your house was often host to lavish festivities, one which you enjoyed particularly because you liked seeing your mother up and out from your bed, shining in her freshly ironed dress and combed hair. It was rare to see her talking so brightly with the guests, but the way the room spun as adults pushed questions upon questions onto you made you scurry off from the ballroom, off to find somewhere to practice your melody.

Finding a window tipped towards the ocean, you sat on the ornate bench facing the high moon, plucking your lure and singing a ballad of two star crossed lovers, soulmates, the lyrics specified, and the events which bled into their untimely demise. Their love so endless, spun into the eternity of myth, deathless as the gods themselves. You wondered a bit if they had any relation to your family, bearing the same cursed blood as you to have their tragedy to be the only thing fossilized into eternity like that‒ your blood cursed with similar ill fate in love until they found their soulmate. Even with the sliver of possible paradise, the gods promised heartbreak and woe to be cried from your throat in form of a song. Despite the ease of which you could spill brilliant notes and verses from your heart, your throat was always raw from the cursed blood inside of you, as if it knew of the coming agony that lay before it.

"Do you really believe in that story?" A familiar face crept into the jewel-toned blue of the moonlight.

You greeted it brightly. "Vil!" Koinonos, companion‒ in anything, perhaps the only one you knew that fit that word.

"I thought I'd find you here." He sat next to you with a weary sigh. "And thank the gods I did. It's getting boring out there."

"I could imagine. Bla bla bla finance bla bla bla business. All they talk about these days. Even mother."

"Hm. My father also. Why can't they speak of more interesting, more beautiful things?" When he speaks, he never breaks the thread between his eyes and yours. Unlike the adults or their children who looked through you, tipping their head to the vastness of your family’s legends, Vil spoke clearly to you, the one that was here, now.

"If you want to hear something beautiful, lend me your ear for this lowly bard." You bowed dramatically with a hand in the air. Vil giggled. That was one of your favorite sounds, even competing with the rich colors of your golden lyre, gifted from the gods. When you returned it to him‒ Vil mirrors your sentiment in his head in a clandestine whisper, only known to you in glimpses in the glassy warmth of his eyes.

You spoke of soulmates and heartache once more. When you ended the song in a mixed tune, Vil lulls his head into his hands behind his neck, flashing the cool violet of his eyes at you.

"Do you believe in soulmates?"

"Hah." You hacked out a laughter from your chest‒ taught and stiff. "It would be a wonderful thing wouldn't it? If soulmates existed." Sure, those who found soulmates in your family married kings and queens, heroes and the finest warriors‒ but the rest? They slipped into madness from relentless heartbreak, twisting towards death as they repeated songs which only reflected their own agony. The gods were cruel this way‒ such ripe, sweet fruit bearing on a tree full of thorns swelling with poison. You had so much of your love to give to that sweet morsel‒ but it felt like such a distant thing, a fairy tale of sorts, that even at your young age you broke that fantasy for yourself before you tore yourself apart trying like you had witnessed your mother had. You decided before your sixth birthday, when you were gifted your golden lyre with the title euainētos, well praised, that you would be content picking at the flowers beneath that thorned tree, occupying yourself with smaller loves, smaller heartbreaks without so much as desiring that fruit ripening at the branches reaching the heavens.

"You don't think they do?" Vil almost pleaded. He could feel the desperation tightening of his throat.

You looked up at the portrait of your family above you, just you and your mother, absent of your late father you had known better of his fists rather than his face. Sometimes, you had doubted you were from your mother’s womb‒ bearing little resemblance to her her face‒ but you felt a seed taking root inside of you as you witnessed her heart break over and over again, ensuring that the cursed blood that was beginning to grow in your body was indeed one which beat under her thick skin as well. You plucked the strings on the lyre, weaving a melancholic tune.

Rare‒ Vil thought‒ you had always paired even your most woeful lyrics with the brightest notes‒ but anything that came from your fingers seemed to have a brilliant magnificence to it, divine, was the only word he could think of. The moonlight beads down the strings of your lyre like thin droplets dancing in the air, and it suspends you in a heavenly glow as you close your eyes, spinning a downwards tune. He flushes a bit at the thought.

"No. I don't think so." You answered simply, a narrow smile and eyes reached your face, turning to Vil.

"Oh."

A light laugh escaped your throat, head thrown back to lean against the window. "Don't be so glum Vil." The liveliness in your eyes dimmed, hands slowing to a feathery sound. "I was just speaking for myself. You're beautiful."

A hair had fallen onto his face, you swept it back with lithe fingers, resisting the temptation to trace the delicate features on his face. Tall, slender nose; rosey heart-shaped lips, lavender eyes speckled with sharp arrows of frosted blue. You tried to liken it to something in your head‒ twisting a poem in your mind‒ but no words you knew were big enough to describe his beauty. "I'm sure there's someone perfect out there for you who can recognize that." You curved your lips, deepening the smile in hopes of communicating your candor.

He turned his tinted face away from you, simply answering: "Play louder."

You did, a blithe color erupting from light beaming onto the strings of your lyre as they danced between your fingers‒ your throat the color of fresh blood as you trilled a song of woeful lovers. Vil didn't dare move his eyelids further up, afraid that if his lashes lifted, revealing your entire face to his gaze‒ his lips would betray him into a shameful quiver. Once he had, when he found a deep sorrow in your eyes, as infinite as the prickling stars in the sky, even with your hands which whirled with such an elated melody. He almost heaved with tears that time‒ he was only ten, after all. But you, the same age as him, seemed so much more wiser to tragedy, bearing it with a silky smile.

He hoped what you said about him was true‒ that he would find a soulmate‒ but when your statement before sounded just as certain. Anything that came from your mouth did to him‒ it rang as clear as glorious mountains forged by the gods, and as robust as rolling waves of the holy seas. Like your ancestors, he felt that you had the power to move nature‒ crumble mountains and make the sun know heartbreak. If you said soulmates didn't exist, he would simply believe that as fact. Still‒ a tightness swirled inside him, one with a feverish heat that wriggled inside his chest.

A few months later, a letter arrived at his home, informing him and his father of your mother's death. At the bottom of the letter rested a wobbly signature, your name, written in red ink. You were only ten‒ what ten year olds practiced their signature enough for it to be as elegant and poised as an adult's? He walked to your house, a bundle of lavender from the garden as an offering. You took it with cold hands when you opened the door to the empty house, letting in Vil with that soft smile.

"I have to…I have to sing at her funeral. And speak too." You stared distantly at the soundless waves, facing away from your family portrait. "What…what should I say?"

"You shouldn't have to say anything if you don't want to." He camped next to your body's warmth, wanting desperately to let it scorch him by embracing you. But he thought it would not be a comfort if he had.

"It's in her will." The adults already decided. "What do I even say that's not already known?" A bitter laugh pushes past your lips. "Sorry for all the trouble of gathering here‒ you all already knew this was going to happen? Yeah guys the prophecy is true‒ you can stop gossiping about it? You think they'll let me off the hook if I just don't stop crying?" You paused your chattering laughter. "I could if I wanted to, you know."

"You should cry whenever you want for as much as you want. We’re young, we should be afforded that right." He felt the stillness blistering in the air. After a moment, you answered with a weariness he wasn't used to seeing in your face. Still, it flowered gracefully in your eyes, soft as the cerulean moonglow and the velvety waves which were pulled by it.

"Will you help me write the speech?"

"Me?"

"Who else? I have no other friends. No one."

Vil's eyes flashed through faces which laughed and danced with you. "How about the others from your party?"

"They're not my friends." You leaned against him, rocking your head in the curve of his shoulder. "Not like you are." Koinonos, companion‒ in anything.

His breath stuttered for a moment, before he muffled it with a deep breath that raised his chest.

"Sorry‒ you don't‒"

"No." He tried again, softer. "No. I'll do it. Of course I will."

"Okay." If he were to guess that quiet voice came from your powerful throat‒ he would have guessed wrong by the crackling whisper of your reply. He also couldn't have guessed you were crying from the stillness of your form, but he knew the trick. The heat that rose to your face and the subtle shudder of your inhale was one he knew well. He said nothing, taking your sadness in without any need for words.

The funeral was planned by you, and a few of your mother's friends since you were not yet at the age where you could sign legal documents. They pat your still back in sympathy, especially when they find through the surrounding gossip that you were the one to find her feet dangling above a tilted pile of scores and books of hymns.

"I'm sorry."

"She deserved better."

"I'm sorry."

"She will never be forgotten."

"I'm sorry."

Who are you all sorry for? You thought, standing above her body blanketed in firewood. You wanted to crawl into her arms, but you felt that she would not let go if you had‒ you knew she was tiring of losing‒ dragging down blood of her own blood. The tightness of her decaying skin, the flowers which were delicately placed to hide her bruised, broken neck slammed your chest down to your small feet, which you heaved back up with steady breaths and rapid blinking, and the privacy of your face afforded when you bent down to place a coin on her cold tongue, your hair veiling the affliction in your eyes.

You played her a song on a harp as long and tall as your grief. At ten, you were seasoned with that agony through blood and bone‒ no tears rose to your flesh during the ritual‒ the song, the speech, the mourning. Most left after you had kindled the fire to her flaring tomb, leaving after squeezing you with empty hands and words. You sat facing away from the blazing fire, weaving your hands in the grass poking out from the seaside cliff. Vil sat himself beside you hours ago, watching the waves crash against the rocks, withering it.

"Do you truly think love exists?"

He sat, thinking what words would comfort you. "I do. When you sing of it in your songs, I believe it." He knew his truth would be as much as he could give.

"When I die, Vil." You looked straight at the swelling waves. "Will you be the one to sing at my funeral? Will you speak for me? Ignite my body?"

Funerary songs were reserved for the direct relatives of the deceased‒ mothers, daughters, sons, lovers, husbands, and wives. You had no father, no siblings, no spouse or children‒ and now, no mother. The thought of you dying before you could even make such connections choked him. "I'm not much of a singer." He says, throat wobbling.

"Your singing is divine, Vil." Your smile draws shakily today. "Sing a happy song for me. Let people dance, sing, laugh. Bring people together." He averted his gaze away from the tears that silently trekked down your face, he knew better than to watch you break. "This is way too depressing. It's better to think of happiness and beauty during times like this, isn't it?"

He wanted so badly to look at you when he answered, "Yes. It really is."

"Don't die before me, Vil. I want to hear your beautiful song." You embraced him to hide your face.

"I won't." He knew at the moment, why Orpheus had looked behind to gaze at his Eurydice's face when he couldn't hear her footsteps. He could barely hear your heartbeat, your crying, against the roaring waves hammering against the cliffside. But he felt stronger than your divine ancestors that day, cradling your face behind his own without turning, still as the rocks sinking and appearing from the cold waters.

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Despite your busy schedules, you stay in touch through piles of letters, small gifts with even smaller notes scribbled: “This made me think of you”, and sly backstage passes to each other's performances. He knows of the messy, brash flings you have with people, and the ease it brings you‒ after all, where else would you put all the love you have? To a curse that promised something unfathomable to you that would lead towards a path of self annihilation? He knew better than to question your actions in that, ready to silently sit beside you during days where it all weighed upon you. Moments you would lay stagnant in your bed reminded you of the slivers of memories you had of your mother‒ furthering the hope that Vil had not forgotten the promise he made on that burning cliffside.That cursed blood receded, and returned to you like the ceaseless oceans‒ a divine revenge coming closer and closer to crashing upon you as you felt the love inside you threatening to burst open at your seams. However, you waded that thick, flushing blood like water‒ carelessly throwing yourself against bodies that desired to devour such a passionate and powerful beast such as your legacy. The sexual pleasure helped a bit with the “muchness” of it all‒ despite the slight dismay of Vil, who saw the growing amount of alcohol and people you consumed during the nights of festivities at Night Raven College you often hosted. However, that would never stop him from checking on you the next day, bringing you cups of water along with a much needed lecture on alcohol consumption. It’s not like you didn’t stop being his friend after all‒ calming and assuring him during moments of his own doubts and rage whenever he was informed he was selected for yet another villain role. Those were rare times where you returned to the tranquility and delicacy of your childhoods‒ belting funny and melancholic tunes of gallant lovers and beautiful princes, wrapped in the blankets of Vil’s private quarters. There was a valor, a resistance in this happiness, the laughter from Vil’s lips making the moments even sweeter. It almost made you want to reach for that tantalizing fruit, but the poison rooted in your blood made you stop before you could even try.

But moments like that, were again, rare. Most of your time was filled with smuggling alcohol into the Pomefiore dorm, hosting elaborate parties and such that gained you the reputation as “party animal”, a raging appetite befitting one too. Some even joked that you bore a similarity to Dionysus, jolly god of wine‒ ironic, considering your ancient records say your ill fate was because your ancestor angered him, causing the curse to fall upon your family. Nonetheless, the title was one you took with pride, becoming host to hours filled with music, food, and drunken splendor.

"Let's begin the festivities!" You fluttered your hands prettily into the bustling air, the gold twisting around your wrists letting out a merry jingle as you let your fingers dance drunkenly towards a bass guitar.

Vil quirked a brow. "You know how to play? I didn't know."

"No." You tested the strings with lithe fingers, humming. "But I'll learn." A smirk fell onto your lips, immediately echoing onto Vil's own. Your plucking already sounded like the most masterful composition to him.

He kept that same questioning curve to his brows while letting out a huff of laugher. So cocky as always he thought‒ but he knew once you whirled around the floor, throwing your head back with an airy laugh to bask in the light of the gods‒ the instrument would be singing a vivid tune. When that dazzling sound came from you‒ you flashed a crescent smile at Vil‒ leaping into the crowd to create high spirits, doing so with a blinding radiance. The warmth of your songs beamed on Vil's face despite you twirling far away, leaving him to his own devices. He knew you were too bright, too limber to be held only by him‒ and it would burn when he tried. Though he would spring to that blistering feeling like flowers to the sun‒ he knew the gods made you so it was almost unbearable to keep all of your splendor to just himself. He watched with a smile from a distance, admiring how you lifted the crowd into a howling merriness that shook heated bodies against each other. He too joined that swelling warmth in the room, smashing his body against it, the taste of alcohol tipped onto his mouth as he poured the drink down his throat in one go. It made his head buzz blindly, letting him loosen his body to whirling movements.

When you cried his name, hollering a cheerful whoop at the quickness of which he drained the drink, he wondered if it was your music or the alcohol that was flushing his cheeks, bringing hot blood floundering to his prickling skin. He shifted his eyes to you once more, but you were no longer looking at him, flashing between bustling bodies, and he ignored the tugging feeling when he thought he saw you dancing next to a certain Kingscholar, throwing your head back into his chest, spilling your hair and drink onto his skin. Vil almost drinks himself to a stupor thinking about it, but reminds himself of the bloating he would have to deal with tomorrow morning if he did. So he turns from you, closing his eyes to the rhapsody of your music.

The night feels endless, and tomorrow feels far. But the tiredness of Vil’s muscles comes sharply, waking him from that distance. The weariness of his body sinks deep into his face as he finishes his skincare for the morning, and he decides a smoothie would give him the burst of energy he needed for the rest of the day. Padding over to the kitchen, he sees a familiar figure slumped over on the couch, a tangled mess in a flurry of blankets and clothes.

“(Name).”

You give a jumbled response, pressing your head deeper into the crevice of the couch.

“You’re going to regret it if you sleep here, you know. I don’t want to hear you complain about it later.”

Another groan, before you sat up, your head lolling to the back of the couch when you did. The openness of your crinkled shirt revealed violet bite marks and bruises blooming on your skin, before they were tucked under your head once more, a smirk reaching your lips when you caught Vil staring.

“What? Like what you see?” Vil hated when you teased like this‒ because he so badly wanted to answer‒ yes, yes, of course I do you idiot, I have for years. But he deflects your question per usual, turning his back to you to make his morning slurry of fruit and vegetables.

“Ugh. Cover yourself, you drunken bard. Actually‒ please change. You absolutely reek of alcohol.”

“Do I? Hardly noticed.”

“Tends to happen when you’re around it so often.”

“Oi! I’m not the only one who was drinking last night. I saw you down that entire cup of sangria last night.”

“Yes but I don’t come back with bruises on my neck do I?”

You see Vil pour out two drinks‒ you’ve never seen him not do this in your presence. Still, you thank him when he hands you the cup.

“Hey nothing wrong with a little roughness.” You spread a sly smile on your lips, lifting your eyebrows in a suggestive manner. ”Besides‒ easier to just let ‘em do whatever, you know?”

Vil squints his eyes in concern, before he takes a sip of his smoothie to suppress the energy bustling out of him, sparked out of the anger he feels in your statement. Still, he’s careful with his words before leaving the room. “Just…be careful.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

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You tried to sleep that day to prepare for the school week that followed, but you were woken several times in a cold sweat, haunted by images of your mother’s dangling feet in the air. You breathe heavily, heart weighed by the burden of your blood. Would you end the same? Seeing glimpses of your mother in your own moments of despondency had brought this question closer and closer as time passed, as the love inside of you was begging to be displaced anywhere but inside your thin, rupturing skin. Perhaps death would be an easier home than finding a residence for that love somewhere.

The gods were cruel even in times like this‒ bidding: sing, sing, turning your blood hot and writhing in your tired body. You moved your heavy limbs from the crushing weight rippling from your chest, clamoring in your hands the golden lyre. Euainētos‒ well praised. By whom but by the gods who dangled the ripening fruit far from your reach, or by the people who rush to your givings, but never return with any of your adoration? Sure your legacy may be well-praised, but what about you? You try not to think about it, or yourself‒ spinning instead a lament of two lovers, one set off to find their beloved in the land of the dead. Perhaps this score could hold your pain, just for a moment.

The softness of your voice comes as a willowy whisper, the blistering rawness of your throat tipped upwards towards the heavens to cool in the pin-pricked starlights and forlorn incandescence of the moon. The flowers near your window drooped at anguish laced in your low notes, you felt a deathly weight unravel from your lips, unfurling into the crisp night air, turning it to a frosty winter, negating all of the sun's warmth mirrored on the high moon. Even on this temperate autumn night, your music brings frost to the delicate petals of the flowers surrounding your window, seizing the fragrant water that slept in the flora in your chilled sorrow.

Vil hears this bellowing ballad from his window, and feels it in the growing coldness of the air. To him, your music always smelled of late autumn winding to winter‒ it's crisp, unforgiving wind warmed with the spices and colors of the mountains; the scent of decomposing leaves and thrashing dirt; its perfume of smoked wood turning to ashes. It also brought him the salt behind his eyes, the copper taste upon his lips when such a levitious melody trailed a fragrance of setting decay. It was almost masked with the aroma you wore‒ a summery scent‒ fresh, sun bathed dew on candied lavender‒ he could follow its deep scent to the sweet smile that always flowered on your face. But it never did mask the scent of endings, the smell of dwindling, evanescent light. He inhaled all of it knowing he could not escape it‒ the salt, the decaying earth, the sweet florals‒ knowing he could trail that scent blindly in the shackles of hell. But this time, that maytime veil barely masked the frosted musk of your tender, singing flesh‒ murmuring a low tune of lovers fated in destruction. It worried him.

"You awake?" He texts you.

The voice seeping through the cracks of his window stops for a moment, before a reply comes. "Yeah. How'd you know?"

"We literally live right next to each other."

"Oh."

.....

"Yeah. Forgot about that. Sorry if I woke you up from your beauty sleep~ Don't kill me please?? I'm too cute to be murdered"

Vil throws the satin covers from his body, shuffling his slippers on and heading to your door. He barely knocks once before you're opening it, blanket tangled over your body. Your scent washes over him like the mild sun, but is quickly chilled by a wintery aroma that freezes his breath tightly in his lungs. The bags that weighed under your eyes accentuated the hollowness in them, if not then by the your smile that didn't bother to reach past your lips.

"Come on. We're doing face masks as long as you're interrupting my beauty sleep. Those eye bags are going to take care of themselves."

"A way with words, this one." You watch Vil march over to your vanity, pulling out a bottle that was part of a gift he had given you during your many exchanges. "And I thought I was the only bard." You squint your eyes a bit to make the curve on your lips more believable but Vil returns the look with a slather of a cold substance onto your skin.

"Ack! Your hands are freezing you heartless bi‒!" He smacks another glob on your cheek.

"I wonder whose fault that is, hm?"

You look at him perplexed, before he pointed his gaze towards the roses that had begun to wilt at your window.

"Oh did I…?" They weren't like that before. Those blooming buds had been alive just now‒ you swore it. But now, turned gray and cold, they began to behead from their stems onto your floor. "I did it again, didn't I."

"Can you undo it?" Vil asks softly, now spreading the substance onto his own skin.

"I mean I could. Theoretically, yes. But right now I just‒" A sudden pain lurched inside your chest, clutching your throat in a quiver. You quelled it with a thick breath in, swallowing it down the constriction of your throat. "- I‒I just can't‒ I‒"

His gaze softens, and he places a clean hand on top of your own, warming it from the cold metal instrument that sat below your palm. "It's fine. You don't have to. It's okay."

"Okay." Your voice comes small and frail like a newborn bird. It swoops to Vil’s heart, soaring it‒ but he brings it down to earthly terrain, macerating the hunger of his hands, begging to take all of your pain away‒ to squeeze it out with his love. But what right did he have, tainting your legacy, your potential like that? You were meant to intertwine with legends and the blood of royalty, heroes, mighty warriors‒ he felt that you would be deathless in your art as the gods, divine power swelling in your carnal body reaching the eternity you deserved. Then maybe he could break the promise he made by the cliffside, never having to face your own flaming pyre.

But he is reminded of your humanity when you shake silently like a wind whipped oak‒ that trick of yours he knew never to voice‒ for a moment, decorticating the towering facade hardened by the curse, the legacies, the thickness of your blood, withering away until it revealed your small form. He felt small too, returning to similar moments like this in childhood where you cried a whisper louder. But like Eurydice's final footsteps, your woeful imprint on this earth were beginning to sound more and more distant, and it grew the fear in Vil that you would disappear somewhere far off from him. Still, the stubbornness of his doubts and self image tethered to his insides like a quick, sinking poison, suspending him in a moment of paradise and hell. He imagined this was the reality you lived as well.

In a moment of weakness, he determined, he indulges in his grasping notions, hugging a single hand to your bare shoulder, feeling the smoothness of your skin as he rubs it. You sink into this warmth, moving your head to his lap and unwinding into his heat. His satin robes smelled of lavender and rich vanilla, sweet as his plush palms lulling you to sleep.

You hope he stays the night, caging you in this warmth until you wake again, but he never does.

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It's the weekend again, which means yet another celebration hosted at the Pomefiore halls. You begin the preparations at late noon, having slept off the exhaustion of the week's low mood until the last possible minute. It wasn't much effort, it's not like people your age were particularly picky as long as hard liquor and junky snacks were involved. You took a quick swig of the nearly empty bottle, enjoying the dizzy fever it brought to your head.

"Drinking already? Honestly (Name)..." Vil sighs as passes by the hall, returning from his workout.

Feeling color rise to your cheeks as your eyes glaze over his exposed body, you decide it was a perfect opportunity to chalk up to your growing alcohol intake. "Uhh yup. You know me." You smile tightly, as he enters the ballroom, emptying the water bottle in his hand in huge gulps, ripping the mound on his throat in a rhythmic wave. The way his hair curls messily at his neck, sweat beading down his chest makes your head spin some metaphor likening his stature to mighty marble masses‒ but the sound of your heart thundering away at your ears makes you deaf to your own song.

"What? Like what you see?" He mirrors your exact words from the other day, a mischievous glint in his eye. As much as you detested the teasing, you loved the look of his face. Not Vil Schoenheit, the actor; or Vil Schoenheit, loved by all‒ just, plainly, Vil. Your Vil‒ Koinonos, companion‒ in anything, your heart blared. But you killed that voice as soon as it rose, busying your head with the ecstacy of boozy daze with another swig of another bottle. This would be your companion for the night.

"Suck my‒" You began, but was met with a solid chest right as you swiveled on your feet to exit the room, the intoxication reaching your movements when you knocked back onto the floor on your behind.

"Elegant." Vil responds with a raised brow.

"Sorry!"

You recognized the face but not the name, prompting you to scramble through your memories for one. "Hey Uuh…" Blank. Nope. Nothing. "Sorry‒ what was your name again?"

"Oh! Yuri, remember? We uh‒ you don't remember last week?"

It clicked in your brain. Shit, why was he here? Usually your flings knew to avoid pursuing or meeting you again because of the whole curse situation. But situations like this happened now and again, you were just hoping it was resultant from a lack of knowledge of your bloodline than some extravagant declaration of "love". You answer, with a poised smile on your lips. "Yeah, I do, sorry my memory gets foggy sometimes. Can I help you with something?"

"I…" His eyes sway from yours to Vil's. "I was just‒ here!"

To only your slight surprise, an envelope is shoved in your face. His hands shake a bit from his nerves, ears tinted dark while his face hides in the deep bow he positions his body in to hand you the paper. Inhaling a mulled breath, you wrap your hands softly around his wrist, tugging it to raise his face. He doesn't meet your eyes‒ you don't blame him.

"Hey." You begin, setting the bottle of alcohol on the table. "Let's talk in the hall, okay?"

He nods, retracting his hand from your back to his chest. Vil shoots a concerned look at your now completely sobered expression, but you just smile and wave, shutting the door quietly behind you.

"I appreciate it. I really do. But you know about my bloodline‒"

"I do! I'm ready to make that commitment! I think‒ know I know this is love! Don't you feel it too? Isn't that why‒"

"Do you honestly believe true love exists? We're strangers. We forever will be." You notice his eyes that look distantly through yours.

"When you sing of it, I do."

You blink. Somehow, those same words from Vil sounded less believable when this man‒ declaring his unflinching commitment‒ utters them. There’s a certainty that is embedded inside you that you’re not used to, that says you’d believe Vil’s words hell and back over any other person in this world‒ even over any other arduous confessions of love no matter how much you wanted to seize an opportunity, a chance, any glimpse of serendipity in love. But you placate that hunger, bury it deep in your darkened stomach, killing it kindly with the fragrant flowers that seat beneath that tangling tree of ripening fruit. There’s a whiff of lavender which trickles from above, but you pull yourself from it to focus on the moment.

"It doesn't exist. Neither for you or I, or anyone. Do you want to know what happened to my ancestors and their lovers?"

He shakes his head. "I don't care about any of that, I‒" You take a hand to his pulse, measuring it’s speed with the stilled rhythm of your own.

"Some die horrifically, ripped apart by furies. Some go mad and take their own lives because they can't stand the thought of potentially suffering a death like that. Others have been killed, poisoned, struck and tortured by the gods. You’ll become their little plaything, like me." Relief floods you as his pulse begins to quicken, stuttering at your words. But, these words come as a generosity. "Are you ready for something like that? A fate worse than death? For something as flimsy as 'true love'?" His eyebrows furrow, he squeezes the envelope between his clammy fingers.

You decide to make this easier for him, taking the words from his heart and whirling them on your tongue. You've heard it plenty before from your days of romantic pursuit, despite the sacred promises to yourself when you were younger. But you're glad it gives you the script for times like this. The words roll off like practiced notes on your lyre.

"You're fun, you're beautiful, I like you and all…" A smile crept on your lips, like an infinite curse, widespread and flowering on your face. 'I know, I know' it says, the muchness of it all, I know. What else could you do but smile in the face of such heavenly concocted absurdity? "But we both know how this ends, right? Put your love somewhere else. Somewhere precious, yeah?”

He nods silently, and you afford him the dignity to leave as such. Vil’s eyes flicker to your expression, then back to his phone when you slip back into the ballroom, which fills with silence. You take another swig of the bottle to beat the growing heaviness pounding a crater inside your chest.

“Carter called, says he’s bringing his friends over soon. With the amount of people that were on the call you’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“Correction‒ they will have a lot of work to do. They’re going to help me.” You drop your back onto the couch, sinking into it and Vil’s shoulder. He flashes you an annoyed look, but he doesn’t budge.

“In that case I’m going to get changed. Don’t want to have a drunken bard ordering me around.”

“Okay, I’ll let you know when my servants finish up with preparations~” You reach to your lyre and strum the strings carelessly. You imagine the giggle that would emit from Vil’s throat, but you’re met with a stiff laugh, his usual vibrancy between you two smothered by the concern of his eyes. You play a merry tune to soothe this expression, relieved when his posture seems to relax a bit. This silent language is thrown between you at all times, and it forges a weltering tension in your chest, something you try to pacify with the bright song erupting from your lyre. But the music seems to dull when Vil leaves, relaxing your smile into an empty gaze to the skies in his absence.

——————————————————

Preparations are done just in time (much to the resistance of Carter and his friends) before people begin flooding into the dorm, reaching immediately for the alcohol that loosens their nerves. You're quite drunk by then, babbling on about some ancient heroic hymns and the process of which ambrosia is dedicated to the gods, dancing your fingers across a lute with a whirling fervor. You swing your body with a feverish madness, throwing it against the vivacious bodies bouncing across the room, sinking your mouth into the bitter lips of a bottle once more‒ hoping to jostle and boil the ache in your body with some lunatic passion. But soon, that cavity in your chest grows too heavy for you to move your body with such vigor‒ and you excuse yourself out of the room onto the balcony, despite the pleas for another song. Even with their roaring solicitation, begging for another intoxicating melody, promising a dimness in the room if you leave it‒ the space remains hot and lively as you turn from it, sobering you with the chilled autumn evening, and the darkened blueness of the world.

You find the golden lyre in your hands, your florid fingers grazing the engraved wreath composed of the many titles your ancestors bore. Orphéfs, Aoidan Patēr, Tælætárkhis, Kælefstís, Khrysolýris ,Prophítis, Khrysáoros, Onomaklyton, Chrysolyrēs, Paian, and finally, Euainētos. It spans the entire arch of the metal, beginning from the coiled head of the instrument, ending with your title at the opposite tip, filling the space with each letter‒ E U A I N Ē T O S‒ to leave no capacity for another. Perhaps it was all fated in the beginning, to slowly chip away at your bloodline‒ until someone like you remained, alone, and ended your legacy in that way as divine punishment. Even on these nights you sung wonderful merriness into, you retreated like this‒ helpless to the waves of pity and the axis of despair that spun you dizzy‒ whipping and cracking against your crumbling heart as you were reminded of the burden of the gift, the kindness, the everything you had to keep giving while killing any sort of expectation for anything. But at times that hunger for that tantalizing fruit swelled, the sweetness of looking into the face of love gathering the pieces of your heart and molding it together in its temporary warmth. Surely, it is not bravery, but perhaps blindness, stupidity‒ that reeled you back like this every time, whispering against bruised flesh‒ the hurt would be worth it this time. You really never knew if it was, having a seasoned sense to extinguish that voice when you remembered the poison that would lay in your path because of it.

During times like this, you were careful not to weave your own poetry‒ afraid that if you had unleashed all of this emptiness at once, the world would decay and pulverize into stardust, quieted from all of its life and launched every which way into the eternal cosmos‒ the gods, tipping their ears to your destruction, and punishing you with another effortless thrust that hurdled you off the cliff of your mountain of love into the endless pits of your grief. So you recited a hymn of two star-crossed lovers, encrusting the roses that weaved onto the balcony with a white frost.

“Hey.” The gentleness of that voice for a moment brought a stuttering warmth to your song‒ breathing a lifted radiance that bloomed into the flowers. But you quelled the muchness, the everything even as it burns in the tightness of your throat, managing to return a small, “Hey” back to Vil.

“Tired already?”

You scoff with a slight smile on your lips. “You wish.The night is still young.” You make room for Vil on the bench, dangling off nearly half your body when you do. He sits with a delicate grace, his sweet perfume reaching your nose with a twinge of alcohol melded in.

“The air feels nice. Reminds me of back home.”

Home. You try to imagine it, and you're just met with dusty, barren rooms‒ and Vil, Vil, Vil. He is everywhere in your memories and tethered to home, filling that empty house with his laughter, his warmth. Like your memories, you allow yourself to sink into him, filling your chest with his sensation. The bench is not meant for two people, but you manage.

“Tell me, which one of your stories were you babbling on about?”

“Oh nothing, really. Just some old tale, not any of mine. I’m tired of having to thread something from myself.”

“All these old tales‒ they all end the same don’t they.” He recalls his career, strife with the same, fairytale endings over, and over, and over again. The villain, no matter how bright, how cunning, how beautiful‒ will fall, slain at the feet of the hero. He understood your sophistication to this tragedy at a young age, bearing this destruction over and over. Still, your back remained ever brighter than anyone he knew despite being whipped against this ceaseless death. “Why don’t you sing of something more bright, beautiful, happy in your life?”

You chuckle. “What, like you?” The air cools the slight flush of your skin. Raising your hand to the skies like a muse, you lift your body to the balcony railing, lunging towards the heavens. “Oh gods lend thy ears to my hymn dedicated to very best companion‒ Vil Schoenheit‒ his beauty surpassing all those on this land even you dreadful creatures‒ kindness penetrating all of sentient beings; hair silky smooth as Galatea's skin‒ whoa!”

Vil catches you by the waist before you tip over the edge of the rail, almost melting in your mild aroma if it wasn’t for your loss of balance. He swings you down to the balcony floor.

“You.. half witted, drunken bard. I’ll kill you if I start wrinkling at this age because of your antics.”

You lean back onto the balcony, afraid of the soaring feeling his touch engraved in you. Your breath stinks of liquor as you let out a laugh, throwing your head back off the rail. “The god won’t hear anyway. The story I must tell is already composed in the stars by their hands.” The corner of your lips weighs into a softer, mathematical smile‒ one which ensured it warranted no pity, no kindness, no woe. “I have no true say in what I sing. It doesn’t matter. None of it does.”

You avoid Vil’s face, but your eyes heave over to them in a covetous gaze. There is no pity, no kindness, no woe‒ but understanding‒ something which makes you want to fall deep into the earth, all the way to the chamber of Hades, to bury yourself deep into the cold ground to shackle down any desire that may arise for that dangling fruit. But you yield to the celestial warmth in them, one which reflects the heat of your fluttering heartbeat in the tender lavender of his eyes. A warmth that did not burn, or was fed by taking your own, one which glowed with sublime beauty and touched like warm flesh. It takes an agonizing effort from you to sink and sabotage your heart from enjoying that tender touch, instead reaching your hands to the wintery, still metal of your lyre.

“...I understand that feeling. It's the same when you get type-casted over and over again." He stares at your hands plucking a wistful tune. "It's like you have no story to tell but the ones people keep deciding for you."

Your hands move ceaselessly to twist a sorrowful song, so shamelessly in front of Vil. You plucked with mulled, languid fingers, aching to play something much faster, much lighter than the weight licking against the strings of your heart. But a growing force born of your own flesh, would not let you, seizing control of your body and its movements, intoxicating it with a rupture, a breaking, a splitering that followed the lines of old scars.

“You’re so beautiful, Vil. And so diligent, resilient too. You could command the seas and the stars if you pleased.” You giggled to squint your eyes, hoping it would shade the absolute adoration within them. “You’ll be whatever you want to be. That’s the Vil I know. I don’t care if you’re a hero, or a villain. You’re…” everything. All of it. “...you’re always that beautiful Vil to me.”

He believes every word from you, he always does. Anger sparks in him. "What about you, then?" Those words came fast, escaping his throat without a hesitance prickling through it.

"Hm? What about me?"

"You're the same‒ you could shake the earth with your songs, and you do." A heated temper welled inside him, buzzing, swollen like a burn. How dare you speak like this? How dare you speak so lowly, so carelessly to the one he loved? "What about you? What will you become?"

"It is already decided‒"

"By who exactly?" He demanded, louder.

"By the gods of course. The ones which my family dishonored‒ "

“I am asking about you‒ what do you want? What will you do with all your love?” What about us? He wished things were a certain way so he could have tasted the sweetness of those words. But he bit his tongue.

A hollow laugh thrusts past your lips. "But why should I try? Only few have returned from the trials of love with someone to share that victory with. Many take their lives‒ you know‒ my mother did." You rested your hand on top of your instrument. "It all ends the same. They all leave.”

"But they're not you."

"The same blood flows within me." He was being so persistent tonight. You wished he’d give up, but it would also break you if he abandoned you at this moment.

He can’t help the sarcasm lacing into his voice, rising from the rage swelling inside him. "I wasn’t aware you passed down the same heart too, is it a family heirloom?”

The silence hurt your ears like a bitter, frosted wind, matching the feeling in your chest that ached so freshly at those thrashing words.

“They don’t.” You answered finally. “But this heart is neither theirs nor mine. It is for the gods to ravage. And I don’t know where to put it. All this love.” You turn towards the sky, sparing him the sight of your tears.

“Okay, fine.” Vil sucked a breath in, he was feeling brave now‒ perhaps it was blindness, stupidity. “Then let me have it.”

"...what?" He sees the tension grow in your shoulders, the heave of your white breath against the inky, cold air.

"Give it to me." He said with more greed, hunger rumbling, plump in his veins.

"No." You gripped the gilded gold handle of your lyre. "No. I cannot do that to you. I won't. You're‒ you're‒" Everything. Love. My memories. My love. My everything. The words came tumbling from your mouth. "You're too precious, Vil. What would the world do without you?" No. You felt those weren't quite the right words. "What would I do without you?"

Vil swallows the space between you two with one step.“You won’t have to live without me. I’ll be here. With you.”

“You don’t know that! Don’t‒ don’t say things like that.” You shake, those words sharpened at him, lashing against his sweetness. “I can’t lose you. You’re different, you’re unlike anyone I’ve met. Even the gods cannot tear you away from me. I…” I love you. “...I could not bear it if you sunk below this mortal sea‒ if I robbed you of your life. Don’t do this. Stop.”

He embraces your form. You want to lurch away from his tender arms, but you can’t. His arms station themselves like ancient stone around your body. “The gods have always been merciful to you when they brought us together. But you have not been the same to yourself.”

You thumbed your title on your lyre numbly, pleading. “Stop. Don’t do this. Don’t say things like that.” Don’t, don’t, don’t.

“Don’t take me for a fool, tell me why, then. Did all of these years mean nothing to you?“

“Because it will fade. Love is ephemeral, it dies, it withers. Do you truly believe it is eternal? Like some stupid fairytale?”

He remembers your words towards him. You could command the seas and the stars if you pleased…You’ll be whatever you want to be. “When you sing of it in your songs, I believe it. You make eternity out of love. You’re more of an idiot than I thought if you won’t do the same for your own.”

You don’t answer him, leaning the back of your head against his flaying heartbeat, trembling.

“It seems I can’t get through to you in these flowery words, you stupid bard.” He turns you to face him, a smile reaches his lips despite him seeing, for the first time, those greedy, fat tears that fall from your face. “I love you, dumbass. I will plow my way out of heaven and hell for you to hear this.”

“I…” You want to run, hide, thrash against his grip with the decaying vehemence of your song. Instead, you force out thick, hitching breaths with a burning in your lungs. “Is this‒ are you‒”

“I’m certain. I’ve had about an excruciating decade to be certain, (Name).”

In your lifetime as a balladeer, you’ve trained your throat to trill the highest notes, sung your muscles raw to commit epics to memory, thickened the flesh of your lungs to cry bellowing poetry for colossal crowds. The world knew a thousand words from you. But the sun had never touched the words spilling from your mouth, pouring out corroded and rusted with the heat of your heart. It comes as a babbling rustle, rough as a child’s cry. Your arms move on their one, tangling into his neck and burrowing your face into the curve of his shoulder. It's warm, so warm. “I love you too. I love you, I love you.” You feel suspended in the heavenly, prickling starlights in his embrace.

"Tell me this isn't a dream‒ some cruel dream spun by the gods. Please?" The metal of your lyre sings as it hits the ground. You would not let the gods interrupt you this time, holding his face to look for any semblance of betrayal, cruelty‒ anything that would tear down this moment like the gods had promised. But it never came. This was your Vil.

"Can I show you instead?" He peeled your lip forward, exposing the flushed color to his eyes. Was this the color of your blood? Your throat? Perhaps he could taste it if he tried hard enough.

Your breath was already mixing with his when you begged. "Please‒"

His lips molded against yours‒ you tasted the faintest twinge of candied apples sticking against his plush flesh. He pulled you closer, hoping to color his insides with your smell, your taste‒ more, anything that would bring you closer to him. When you separated to breathe, you greedily gulped the air scented with his sweet fragrance, before diving back to his lips. Again‒ one more time‒ just to make sure this was all real. The bruising of your lips and feverish fluttering of your breaths made you believe, indeed, that this was reality. You grinned‒ your cheeks throbbing.

“There is so much you have to make up for.” He says, smiling against your grazing fingers against his lips, committing every curve and grove to your memory. You would fill yourself with him like this. “Or‒ we have a lot to make up for.”

You enjoyed the way his eyes flushed with a sea of violet as they squinted, crushed from his brimming cheeks. “I’m sorry. I will. As much as time will let me, I’ll make it up to you again, and again.”

“Show me.”

You dip your mouth onto his once more, tasting the fountain of sweetness spilling from his throat. A smile, one for yourself and no one else, flowers on your face. "I'll have to shape us into a song. I'll make sure they'll paint of us, sculpt us, sing of us‒ they'll remember us. Two lovers, you and me, a constellation of love." The lightness of your laughter almost pulled him up to the heavens. Finally.

"You have such a talent of making everything sound so stupidly splendid."

"Because you make it so.”

You strum your lyre, lacing your adoration into the notes, each finger weighted by the love in your heart. The roses of the garden grow fragrant, fruit and flowering buds swung from the trees, lavender sprouting from between the crackling veranda floor. An everlasting spring of your love, infinite as the elements that grow, and wither, and die, and rebirth into the earth allows you to plant your feet next to Vil’s. You look to him, finding mischief, kindness, and tenderness swirling in the violet, speckling with the glassy blue. It was as if the whole expanse of the sky lay within each of his eyes‒ infinity‒ you thought. Your infinity, a garden of lasting spring you would grow with each loving note from your throat. There would be frost, there would be decay‒ but not even the gods could lay their hands upon this infinite season. You titter, filled with its warmth, listening to the beat of his heart, spinning a song, an eternity from it.

——————————————————

Notes:

Title inspired by Shakespear's poem "Orpheus" “Orpheus with his lute made trees / And the mountain tops that freeze / Bow themselves when he did sing / To his music plants and flowers / Ever sprung; as sun and showers / There had made a lasting spring.”

Euainētos is an epithet for Orpheus, meaning well praised. I thought it would be interesting for an MC who has many people who love them for what they can give, rather than love them as a whole (the whole “people love me but don’t like me” dilemma). Love an angsty epithet.

Lavender has historically been a symbol for both lesbians and gay men‒ an overarching mark of queerness. I try to be as inclusive as I can with my language and writing‒ but all art is a self portrait of their creators. So, because I'm queer, my writing will inevitably be queer coded too. I thought it was a nice touch to add because I do headcanon Vil as queer‒ both in his gender and sexuality. The pronouns he uses in the Japanese version has a historical connection to the "Okama"/"transsexual" and contemporarily, queer people in Japan. Our culture I think often twists gender expectations and language because of the rigidity in our language and social structure as an extension of ourselves (language = very strong way to express the self = entices subversive use of this powerful tool). We also have a great history in queer gender performance in our performance arts‒ such as Kabuki and Takarazuka which have deep influences in our overall society and culture. Though western literature and society has not seen these people explicitly "queer" I think westerners (and Japan as it is affected by Western ideology) need to expand their definition of queerness so that it is culturally inclusive. So to me I think Vil falls within that definition of queerness (also, his dress/uniform slays) on the gender and sexuality spectrum and I thought lavender was a good, subtle nod to that.

Also, the hanakotoba (flower language) for Lavenders is "I await you", silence, hope, hesitancy, elegance, "love that forgives'', and "please answer to me"- it has both positive and slightly sorrowful sentiments, and an aspect of yearning that I love lol. I love flower language so fucking much I use it with every chance I get

Title is also inspired from this plus, yes you guessed it, our lord and savior Mitski (First Love/Late Spring)

Your mother's body is burned because cremation was popularized by the Athenians and became common practice by the Homeric era. Coin placed in the mouth (Charon's obol) is the payment for Charon to carry you across the river of the dead.

Why are there so many convoluted parental relationships in my fics? Easy! I have mommy AND daddy issues. Yes ladies you really can have it all

All the names I mentioned that are engraved onto the lyre are different epithets of Orpheus

Working on the Azul x Siren hanahaki fic soon~ Here is the post of myth-inspired ideas if you haven’t seen it

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allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 3 years

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Dear Evan Hansen

You may have seen some ~online discourse~ about the film Dear Evan Hansen, an adaptation of the 2016 Broadway musical, and you might have wondered what all the hubbub is about. I mean, it’s a feel good story about a senior in high school, Evan Hansen (Ben Platt), who has some pretty severe anxiety and depression. While trying to fulfill an assignment from his therapist to write a letter to himself, his letter gets picked up by another student, Connor (Colton Ryan) - and later that day, Connor kills himself. Connor’s grieving parents and sister Zoe (Amy Adams, Danny Pino, and Kaitlyn Dever) are desperate to learn more from the boy they think was Connor’s best friend - after all, Connor’s suicide note was a letter addressed to “Dear Evan Hansen.” And, as you can imagine, Evan tells them about the unfortunate mistake and sits with them in their grief as they struggle to pick up the pieces of their lives.

Just kidding! He lies to them, repeatedly, elaborately, expansively for months, constructing an entire false friendship with Connor that never happened, and ingratiating himself into the wealthy nuclear family he never had, in large part because he wants to get into Zoe’s pants! THIS IS THE PROTAGONIST OF THE STORY. Oh, and it’s a musical so there is a lot of singing and crying and singing WHILE crying and sometimes crying and not singing at all. But the #inspiration, you guys.

Things I liked:

Pretty much everything but the story and Ben Platt’s performance. The supporting cast is stacked, and all of them do a great job at elevating material scraped directly out of a diaper worn by someone who just chewed their way through a copy of the DSM-5.

A couple of the songs are damn catchy - “Waving Through a Window” and “You Will Be Found” are standouts for a reason - and here’s the thing, Platt sings them well. But as you’ll discover, there’s a lot more to a movie musical than just singing your part.

Stephen Chbosky, the man behind every deep thought I and a lot of people in my generation had in 2006 after he wrote The Perks of Being a Wallflower, is a pretty good director. I particularly enjoyed the fanvid-type cuts in “Waving Through a Window” in conjunction with the lyrics, and his use of interstitial shots to flashbacks (and sometimes flashforwards!) is a neat little bit of shorthand that I thought was used sparingly enough to be effective.

Amy Fucking Adams. She’s holding on so hard, so desperately to the idea of who her son could have been, rather than the reality of who he was, and she is full of such deep pain that is masked by an almost endless supply of patience with Evan and relentless positivity. All this made me want was Enchanted 2 even worse than I already did.

Super into everything Zoe wears - the costuming department did a great job, and now all I want to do is live in mom jeans and baggy sweaters.

Did I Cry? I teared up a couple of times because I’m not a completely heartless bastard and when Amy Adams offered Evan Connor’s college money, my heart broke for the lie Evan had thrust upon her, and Julianne Moore’s song got me good, because she’s just a single mom to Evan who is doing her goddamn best.

Things I hated more than the time I dropped a frozen gallon container of fruit cocktail on my pinkie toe in my parents’ garage and it turned black and I thought it was gonna fall off:

Ben Platt is 28 years old. He originated the role of Evan Hansen on Broadway, so in many respects it makes sense that he plays the role in the movie, except for the one kinda sorta important thing where he looks like a wizened old crone standing amongst a sea of children doing his best twitching, cringing Hunchback of Notre Dame impression. If you want someone to convincingly play 20 years their junior, hire Paul Rudd. Otherwise, please don’t ask me to believe that this supposed 18-year-old has crow’s feet.

And that twitching nervous energy is a huge part of the black hole at the center of this film - he’s playing to the cheap seats and walking through the halls of his high school like a wet chihuahua. It’s an excruciating acting choice to watch - he doesn’t just have anxiety, he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown seemingly every second of every day. Like honestly, where is only-mentioned-never-seen Dr. Sherman, because this young man’s meds are NOT WORKING DR. SHERMAN.

There’s such a lack of self-awareness on behalf of the writing, directing, and performance by Platt. There’s one song, “Sincerely, Me,” that offers the only glimpse of commentary about what Evan is doing, by pointing out the malicious ridiculousness of him writing a series of fake emails as proof of his and Connor’s friendship.

Also what high schoolers email this much?? I know this was written in probably 2014 or so, but has a bitch never heard of a text? Even a DM? This whole plot is constructed around the premise that high schoolers are just constantly, constantly emailing each other.

Everything - and I mean EV-ER-Y-THING - about Evan’s relationship with Zoe is so creepy and disturbing that with a soundtrack change, this could easily be a horror movie. He attempts to get her to like him by describing to her all the things her brother noticed about her - oh wait, I’m sorry, all the things HE noticed about her while he was skulking in the shadows following her around for years, watching every move she made, and it ends with him singing repeatedly “I LOVE YOU” because following a girl around and never having a conversation with her or knowing her at all is love, right? This was clearly written by the same people who chose “Every Breath You Take” as their wedding song because Sting is hot and they never actually listened to the damn words.

And it gets about 10 billion times worse when Zoe goes to Evan’s house alone, takes him up to his room, and sings “I don’t need reasons to want you” and that was the moment I was that person I hate in a movie theater and I pulled out my phone to Google who wrote the music and lyrics to the musical (we were in the back row of the theater no one was behind me THIS WAS AN OUTRAGE EMERGENCY) and of motherfucking course it was written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, 2 men who heard about meeting an actual human woman from a friend one time but otherwise are unfamiliar with the concept.

Lastly, enormous serial killer vibes from Evan sending unlabeled flash drives anonymously through the mail with no note in an attempt to right his wrongs. That’s not catharsis, that’s how the next installment in the Saw franchise starts, with Evan in a Billy the clown doll mask showing up on the screen and asking if you want to play a fucking game.

Also, I know it’s not possible for the narrative to justify this in a way that could be satisfying based on Evan’s actions, but what is with this thing where single working-class mom Julianne Moore is turning down rich people’s money for Evan to go to college? Like, obviously we can’t have that happen in the movie but in real life, fuck your pride! Take those rich people’s money!

I also know how movies work but nothing annoys me more than a giant group of high schoolers all getting beeps and boops to indicate text notifications all at the same time because I don’t know a single person under the age of 55 who keeps their ringer on. That shit is on vibrate AT MOST, and I feel like that’s a millennial thing.

The emotional climax of the film is obviously Evan’s WAY TOO LATE confession, but the idea that it’s prompted by Connor’s family suddenly getting a lot of internet hate is, frankly, laughable. If Sandy Hook taught me one thing, it is that no tragedy is immune from trolls who live only to cause other people devastating emotional pain on the internet. That shit starts day 1. Apparently no one involved in this production has ever been on Twitter?

Also it feels like there should have been a dog somewhere in this movie and there was no dog, so points off for that too.

Perhaps Dear Evan Hansen isn’t nearly as deep as it aspires to be. Perhaps it’s a morality play, a simplistic message of “Don’t lie, kids, lying is bad!” Major studio movies wrap themselves up with a nice bow at the end so everyone can feel good about themselves and leave with a happy ending, but the moronic cruelty on display here makes that feat feel impossible. We’re left with Evan in an orchard, reading Connor’s favorite books and staring into the big blue sky with all the self-actualization he’s earned now as a lil treat. And if Evan Hansen looked like an actual 18-year-old, it would be a lot easier to extend more empathy to him and his not-fully-developed prefrontal cortex, but it’s a little harder with this fully-grown, weathered man who was old enough to remember seeing Liar Liar in theaters.

Dear Evan Hansen,

Get some actual help and a haircut and maybe you can grow up enough to have an actual healthy interaction with any other living person, ever.

Sincerely,

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

#121in2021 #dear evan hansen #dear evan hansen review #dear evan hansen 2021 #ben platt #amy adams #kaitlyn dever #julianne moore #colton ryan #danny pino #movie reviews #film reviews

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imgonnapanic · 3 years

Text

Third gym squad with a theater kid s/o:

Kuroo Tetsurou

Tbh, he knew what he was signing up for when he started dating you.

He’s just not used to it, because he doesn’t have many extroverted friends who aren’t annoying pieces of-

I can envision you both going on the hub to watch pirated musicals. Hamilton, Heathers, Dear Evan Hansen, you name it.

He loooves your singing voice, even if it’s your nervous purposely bad one.

You love the musicals that include allll the good stuff (trauma, death, tragedy, etc.)

Or the iconic ones. You can’t forget about those.

So you’re less-than-thrilled when your school chooses “Honk! The Musical” for this years play.

It’s a spin off of the ugly duckling that no one has heard of.

And when you come up to Kuroo sulking about this boring play you’re emotionally obliged to do, he can’t help but laugh a little.

But his laughter stops when he sees your eyes down at your shoes.

And then he shuts the fuck up because you’re actually upset.

After assuring that you will still be Broadway material even if you’re dressed up as a goose, you feel a little better.

In the two weeks leading up to auditions, Kuroo is starting to get caught humming “A Poultry Tale” at practice.

I mean, his Spotify feed went from Kendrick Lamar to Legally Blonde within one month of dating you, so cut the guy a break.

The day of auditions, you’re a bundle of nerves as you go over the dumb song again and again.

And Kuroo is like “calm down babe you’re gonna do great.”

That sure did a ton.

“Shut up Heather”

...

“Sorry Heather”

He’s also a bundle of nerves at practice, though. He just couldn’t let you see it.

By now, all of the Nekoma team knows you’re auditioning today, and the minute he walks in he just holds up a hand.

“They’re auditioning as we speak”

He’s not surprised when you get the lead.

He looks like the cat who ate the canary he’s a little amused when he figures out the lead is named “Ugly” but by now he has learned to keep it on the inside.

Your schedule is now jam packed, but that’s okay, because Nationals are also coming up for Kuroo and needs to put in some extra hours at the gym anyways.

You better believe two months later Kuroo is making his entire team buy a ticket.

Kuroo didn’t even get to see you on opening night because of dress rehearsals, but that’s okay.

He cleared his entire schedule that day and now has time to wallow in his own excitement and buy you some flowers.

He’s there with the squad team at 6PM sharp, dressed up, and trying to keep his dignity.

When you first walk on stage, the team snickers a little bit at your costume, but Kuroo was completely enraptured by your singing voice, your blocking, your makeup, everything.

This was much better than the demo CD that they had given you.

Afterwards, he gives you your flowers and is glued to your side for the rest of the night, babbling about how proud he was of you, and how talented you are, Nekoma team be damned.

Tsukishima Kei

Tsukki-poo already had a soft spot for the arts before he met you.

Not that he would tell anyone, ever.

When you started dating him though, it gave him an excuse to share his favorite soundtracks.

“you can hit that note, you know.”

*cue the arguing about how you aren’t Barbara Streisand*

When you two are walking through the hallway with him and you see the poster reading “Auditions for Karasuno High School’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ are open!” You start freaking out.

You love that movie! And Kei tolerates it!

Kei honestly thought you would be Ariel/Prince Eric when he first heard you singing “Part of Your World”

Like, you have the voice of a fucking lark. The directors have to be batshit crazy not to cast you.

In his humble opinion.

So he’s a bit taken aback when you get the role of Flounder, but he’s very proud anyways. Especially after you explain that there’s musical numbers that you’re in that aren’t in the movie.

He just hates your director for no reason now.

Practicing your lines with him in your free time becomes almost inevitable because you both have nothing else better to do.

And he can see how into it you are.

And let me just say that you are killing it.

Seriously. You have no problem getting into character, and Kei doesn’t say this much but-

It’s fucking adorable, okay? He has little goth moths in his stomach.

And he can’t wait to see the show, because then he can show you off.

That doesn’t mean he likes the other first years prying at your progress.

Hinata’s incessant questioning about theater anatomy and the memorization of your lines gets really annoying.

Even for someone with a normal temper like you-

“Yes it’s called the right wing. NOT wing spiker. Yes they’re off book. Now will you shut your trap already?”

Dress Rehearsals come, and you’re spinning around his room, face morphing from complete concentration to happy, go-lucky Flounder.

You, Kei, and Yamaguchi (your little third wheel-) all know the soundtrack pretty much up and down, left and right, backwards and inside out.

He still shivers remembering the time you just walked into his house not registering that Flounder’s makeup looks kind of scary up close-

All of his pride was sacrificed that day. All of it.

On the morning of opening night, Kei was walking you to the school, pretending to be bitchy about it being on a Saturday.

“C’mon, what am I supposed to do all day?”

As luck would have it, he’s stuck sitting next to one Hinata Shoyo. Lovely.

So he sat down next to him, and ignored him the whole show. I mean, it worked, he shut up after thirty seconds.

After the show, Kei has to wait a bit for you to take your makeup off, but when you come running out, he can’t hold back a tiny grin.

“That was good. I’m proud of you.”

And then he took you to dinner because singing makes a bad bleep hungry 😌

Bokuto Kotarou

Listen, you’re loud, Bokuto’s loud-

So basically you two are on a mission to not annoy Akaashi for as long as you can before inevitably getting yelled at for your affection and love and shit.

Now, both of you would love for this to be possible.

But the Frozen soundtrack makes it too difficult.

Especially when you can edit the lyrics just to piss off Konoha.

“Turn away and slAm the door *on Konoha”

“The wind is howling like the storm inside *of Konoha”

The possibilities are endless, really.

The game changer is when you two are belting out the song where Elsa and Anna are arguing.

And you accidentally hit the “I-i-I CANNNNT”

Akaashi is like for the love of GOD just audition for the play.

He quickly realizes that his suggestion was not a good idea.

Since guess what the musical is.

You’re auditioning as a joke, okay? You love Frozen, but this is a Fukurōdani Academy level play.

You didn’t expect to land the role of Olaf.

Your director sat you down and bluntly told you that he thought that you had the charisma and energy to be Olaf, but he knew that you were auditioning for a joke.

He needed you to be committed.

And hell yeah, you were gonna be committed.

At first, Bokuto was super proud of you! His s/o as a lead role? So impressive!

You even taught Bokuto your choreography for “In Summer”

He only retained half of it, but eh.

He’s a volleyball player. He tried.

As rehearsal times became longer and longer, Bokuto was a little upset at himself because he didn’t realize how committed you were until it hit him in the face.

Akaashi is there to get him out of his funk when you aren’t, though.

“They feel the same way when you need to be in the gym longer. It’s just a part of having a passion. Just utilize your time with them wisely.”

This bitch knows full well Bokuto doesn’t do ‘wise’ though, so he also sets to him a little more.

Dress rehearsals start, and Bokuto is always waiting for you to come out of the auditorium to ride the bus home.

You’re just bubbling over with stories about the magic of being on stage.

The lights, the microphones, the costumes, just talking about it makes you nostalgic already.

On opening night, Bokuto and Akaashi are there in the front row, going through the program.

“There’s y/n!!!!”

And you can’t see him because of the blinding spotlight, but you can hear Bokuto cheering for you after you finish “In Summer”

Afterwards he gives you a big hug, and you guys go home and watch Frozen.

Akaashi Keiji

When you start dating Akaashi in your second year at Fukurōdani, you’ve been on stage for the last ten years of your life.

Singing, acting, dancing, you love it all.

You’re even considering making it your career.

Akaashi doesn’t know much about theater at all, but he makes sure to do his research since it’s such a big part of your life.

The company you take acting classes with is having their winter show soon, and you couldn’t be happier when you figure out it’s ‘Into the Woods.’

Akaashi makes the mistake of asking the plot of the story.

“So basically there are these two infertile bakers with dead parents and there’s this witch that’s old and wrinkly and she comes to their house because fifty years ago the bakers dad stole her veggies and took the magic beans that made her look old and wrinkly-“

(A/n: this isn’t even half the plot)

He decides he’ll figure it out when he sees the play.

Akaashi knows that it’s a difficult one, though.

Sondheim doesn’t fuck around.

So you shouldn’t be beating yourself up about cracking on some of the high notes and screaming into your pillow.

He feels like an idiot every time you ask him to give you constructive criticism.

He doesn’t know what to say. “That was good” is obviously not what you want to hear.

When the date of your audition rolls around, he has early morning practice.

So he sends you a text saying how far you’ve come already and he’ll be proud even if you end up being a tree and break a leg (he’s very proud of that part. Theater lingo with Akaashi 101)

He’s very pleased to hear through your extremely fast and animated chattering that you killed it.

You were going to be Jack from “Jack and the Beanstalk.”

He’s still not sure how that correlates with infertile bakers, but he’ll go with it.

You also have a notoriously hard solo, “Giants in the sky.”

Akaashi is very impressed.

All you two do is practice that song, until Akaashi is half sure he could sing the song if he really gave an effort.

(He tries seriously one time. He can’t sing. To save his life. Sorry Keiji and RIP y/n’s ears.)

“Maybe you’re just not a soprano?”

“I’ll leave the limelight to you.”

Rehearsals always leave you drained. There are so many dance numbers in the play that you have to go over.

And songs, oh god, the songs are pieces of work.

But you wouldn’t trade it for the world, so Keiji stays close, and is endlessly supportive.

You sent him a picture of your Jack costume, and Keiji is like that is kind of adorable ngl-

He walks into the auditorium you’re performing in, and even he’s nervous to be in there. It’s huge.

But when you walk on the stage, and start belting, all the breath leaves his lungs.

Oh. Ohhhhhhh. He understands the plot now.

#kuroo #haikyuu headcannons #tsukishima #akaashi #bokuto #kuroo x reader #tsukishima x reader #akaashi x reader #bokuto x reader #kuroo headcanons #tsukishima headcanons #akaashi headcanons #bokuto headcannons #haikyuu

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matildainmotion · 4 years

Text

The People Apart: not a blog, a story.

The below is a flash fiction piece, from a longer series called “Other Peoples, Other Worlds,” but this one is lockdown-inspired. I am sharing it here as part of Mothers Who Make’s art exchange project, “Letters in Lockdown.”

Are you sitting comfortably? Do you have space around you? How near is the nearest person? Right beside you or an arm’s length away? In the next room, or maybe on the floor below? When you are at the right distance, the one with which you feel most comfortable, read on - I want to tell you the story of a people who spend their lives apart.

They live alone. Like herons they are to be seen standing by a river, or in a lane, or crouched in their gardens, on their own. Far back in their history it is said that they once touched. Once upon a time – and many believe it is no more than a fairy tale – there was an era when the people lived close to one another. Close enough to feel each other’s heat, for whispers to be heard, close enough to see the colour of each other’s eyes with ease. At this time touch was ordinary. People held hands, hugged, put chest to chest, arms slung over necks and shoulders, around waists, legs were stroked, backs rubbed. They touched faces. They put their mouths close to one another, sometimes so close no words came out. They said things to each other with their mouths closed but their lips touching.

But this close time came to an end, for as the people who live apart know, touching leads to violence, sickness and to death. The close-up people shared, but they did not share everything with everyone. They could not agree on what was whose and how much each should have, or for how long they should have it. They made vows, promising to share everything with one another, but they broke them. Even though they were so near, they did not hear each other clearly. With their closed lips they touched each other and did not understand the messages that passed between them. They tried to share their very selves, their bodies, with each other, but in doing so they forgot whose body belonged to whom. And so their touching became violent. Not strokes but blows. They clawed, pounded, punched and tore. They killed each other with hands tight around each other’s throats, or using knives, dug into the skin that they had stroked.

But worse perhaps even than the conscious killings of the close people, was when they killed each other by mistake. They did their lip-touching, skin-stroking, hand-shaking, breath-sharing, and they grew ill. They infected one another. They died, all because they could not bear to live apart, even by a short distance. They died until there were only a few people left, and these began a new way of life. Or so the story goes. Others believe none of this – they think people have always lived apart and these stories are just told to frighten them. For it is obvious that drawing close is dangerous and touch cannot be trusted.

Each person lives alone, in their own home. Their homes are simple, small dwellings, suited to solitude. Each home is surrounded by a moat of land, a garden that extends from the house on every side. In their gardens they grow food as well as flowers. Between each garden runs a path of generous width, so that it is possible for two people to stand at the outer edges of their land and still to be at a safe distance from each other.

Whilst self-sufficiency and autonomy are prized above all else in their society, it is recognised that some exchange of goods and services is unavoidable. At one corner of each garden, outside the garden fence, is a wooden box, big enough to hold not only letters but other items that the owner of the box wishes to swap or share - paints, paper or ink, for example, for they are great writers and painters. Speech when it occurs is always public, conducted across the paths at the ends of their gardens. Anything more intimate takes place in writing. They have no actual currency, wishing to minimise the number of physical objects that pass between them, held by one hand, passed into another. However, they keep long and detailed records of their exchanges, which are kept on scrolls of paper, slid into a fabric pocket in the lid of every box.

Of course they know that, like other lonely animals, like bears, black rhinos, leopards, there is a moment in their lives when they must come together if life is to continue, and future generations born. Whilst courtship can commence between gardens, with a glance across the pathways, it is continued in correspondence. They enter into arranged couplings, yet the arrangements are made by no one but themselves.

Besides each box, in each garden, is a gate. Usually this is opened only for the purpose of collecting items from the box, or delivering an item to another box. But there are a few other moments in their lives when this gate opens. One of these is if a coupling has been arranged.

The couplings take place at night. One person will meet the other at their gate and is allowed inside. Each meeting is preceded and then followed by a great act of cleansing. They come together, they touch, and then they wash away all touching. If a child is conceived after a coupling then the person bears and births her child alone. Often it is the one who has birthed the child who raises it, but not always. Once the child is born it can be agreed, by letter, which parent will take it into their home.

Then comes another moment in their lives when the gate at the edges of their gardens open: if a person has raised a child, once the child is old enough to live alone, they leave. There is no set time for this, but it is often after about ten years – a much longer period of care than many species offer to their young. The young person then goes to find their own home, with their own garden, gate and box.

One of the first things they will do when they take up their life alone is to begin to work in their garden, and specifically to dig, for in every garden, every person has a hollow and, beside it, a small hill. Let me explain.

Despite the lengths to which the people go to protect themselves from the dangers of touch, they are not afraid of death. They are matter of fact about it because they know that when it comes it will arise only from themselves, not forced upon them by another, their death meeting them at their own time. Every day it is their practice then to work on their hollow and their hill. They prepare this place within their land for their life’s end. They die alone, lying in their hollows. This is not a tragedy. Their loneliness is not a sadness to them – it is a way of life.

They are watchful across their gardens. They are respectful, never prying, but acutely mindful nonetheless of the movements of their neighbours. They know when someone has died, when they no longer collect things from their box, work on their garden or stand beside their gate. When this happens one of the others will enter through the gate of the one who has passed away and complete the burial. The neighbour fills in the hollow with the hill. Afterwards the land is level again – no hollow, no hill. Then they go into the deceased’s home, and by the door there is a white flag. They hoist the flag to let others know that this home is now empty and a new person can take up residence. Near each hill and hollow, each person also builds a bonfire. Onto this bonfire the neighbour will gather possessions, ready for release - letters, clothes -items that it is hard to clean or that are intimate to the deceased. The bonfire is lit and the possessions of their life are burned away. The home is cleared, ready for the new person when they arrive.

There is an occasion, once a year, when the people who live apart, come together. They leave their gardens, and like trained dancers file down the pathways, keeping the precise distance that they know so well within their bodies - the distance which will keep them safe. They know it by sight. They know it by sound. They can measure and adjust their pace by listening to the footfall of the people in front of and behind them. In this way they walk smoothly to the plains.

At the plains they stand like carefully planted trees, beyond each other’s shadows, none encroaching on the other’s sunlight. There, at the edge of the plains, years ago their ancestors built a huge amphitheatre- a giant hollow in the earth, and beside it a huge hill. Onto this they file. It is vast enough to encompass the distances that they must maintain from one another. The hill has ridges built into its side around which the people arrange themselves to view the spectacle.

By letter, beforehand, the performances have been arranged. Alone they have practiced and rehearsed, in their homes and gardens. Then, at their annual gathering, their pageant, they stand and sing. They play. They perform great speeches, penned alone and on this day shared aloud. The performances are passionate, profound, but never wistful. Never do they show any self-pity or longing for things to be other than they are. The taboo on touch is strong enough within them that it holds. They weep. They laugh. They cheer. They clap. They stay till dusk. And then, without regret, they turn and they return, as if in migration, each to their solitude.

It is worth stating that they are not all the same. Whilst they observe the same distance there is great diversity across their gardens and their homes. A huge range of styles and designs. Their letters, their quiet outpourings and endless daily poems and paintings are likewise eclectic. Their presentations at the annual pageant are wide-ranging – comedic, epic, lyric, experimental. They have no such thing as the internet, no world wide web. Although a life online does not necessitate touch, it also does not arise from an imagination and a culture constructed around solitude. They see no need for phones or digital connection.

Will they live happily ever after? Are they even happy now? Are bears happy, or other solitary animals that we know of in this world? I suspect happiness may be an idea that comes from touch, or at least our idea of it is so informed by this that we cannot understand a happiness that is so different in meaning to the close, sweaty, heart-thumping, kissing kind we know and to which we are committed.

The truth is I do not know if they are happy, for I am one of those people in whom they don’t believe – one of those that need to touch, and to be touched.

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musicallisto · 6 years

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Bonjour Belle✨, Can I know more about your ES MC with the MC ask game? ✨

Thanks for asking! I love talking about my OCs until I annoy the heck out of people ^^

#01. Name? Any nickname? Taylor Hera Montgomery-McKenzie, although she doesn’t know she has a middle name. It isn’t written on any of the paperwork involving her since her birth, adding to the mysteries surrounding her. Hera, in addition to being a mythological figure, of course, is also said to derive from the Greek ‘ηρως (heros) “hero, warrior”; ‘ωρα (hora) “period of time"; or ‘αιρεω (haireo) “to be chosen”. Those three ideas combined pretty much sum up her personality and fate.

#02. Birthday? As her file says, she was born on January 1st on La Huerta.

#03. What’s their family like? She has lost all rememberance of her family. It started bothering her more and more as time passed on the island. When she got on that plane, she clearly remembered her parents, her father’s kind smile and her mother’s warm eyes, her little brother’s cheerful enthusiasm, but the more time she spent on La Huerta, the less she thought about them and the more those colors and laughs started to blur as though the island was having some tricky effect on her mind - or perhaps it was revealing the true nature of what she deeply considered as her memories and her history. She has only confessed those doubts to Jake during their honeymoon, but brushed it off lightly, not wanting to kill the mood between her husband and her, and aware he could do nothing about it.

#04. Relationship status? She is handfasted to Jake McKenzie, which can be considered as a marriage despite not being one in the Western norm.

#05. Top 3 songs?

3. Enrique Iglesias - Bailando2. Amaral - Alerta1. Muse - Unintended

She’s definitely one for what people would consider “guilty pleasure music”. She loves all genres, but has always had a soft spot for reggaeton and hispanophonic music in general, whether it be from South America or Spain. Spanish is a language that she’s always felt drawn to, maybe because of its warm and sensual sound. Alerta is a song she finds utterly beautiful, despite not understanding any of the lyrics at first. If you hear her humming a tune, that’s probably the “ale ale, ale ale alerta”s from the chorus. And Unintended… Unintended reminds her of her adolescence, when she went through her rock phase like almost every 90′s kid - the thing she’s never quite gotten out of it, and fell utterly in love with this band and this particular song when she was fifteen. It reminds her of her relationship with Jake every time she listens to it and always manages to soothe her.

#06. Fave book? Taylor is one for mystery, thriller and science-fiction. She’s in love with Agatha Christie’s books, always been, so it’s clear that her favorite book of all time is Ten Little Niggers, a novel that is so different from everything she’s ever read before. The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux is a very close second though. She didn’t think she would like it that much when she first picked it up, usually not that interested in romance nor historical fiction, but it became her number two through the years thanks to the deep, complex personalities of the characters and the mystery surrounding the phantom.

#07. Fave movie? Although the Phantom of the Opera adaptation from 2001 holds a special place in her heart because of how much she adored the book, her favorite movie is Silence of the Lambs.

#08. Fave show? She’s never watched a lot of TV-shows, but if she had to choose one, it would be Black Mirror, which she never finished because of her life-changing trip.

#09. Hobbies? Swimming. She’s a very strong swimmer, it’s her favorite sport and what she’s always done when she needs to get her mind off of things a little bit. She’s never participated in any competitions though. She also used to practise horse-riding when she was little, but stopped when she entered middle school.

#10. What Perfect Match type would they be? She is the Leader. She has that little something that makes all people instantly confide in her and trust her to make the best decisions and guide them through the storms. She’s most comfortable when in command.

#11. Biggest guilty pleasure? As I mentioned before, it’s all about Latino music! She doesn’t personally consider it a guilty pleasure, just songs that are often played at parties and nowhere else, but she loves to have a little Gente de Zona dance party on her own. She’s a terrible dancer, but that doesn’t stop her from enjoying it, right?

#12. Deepest darkest secret? Apart from being the Endless, she doesn’t remember anything very huge, and her life as she remembers it has always been pretty uneventful and calm. Nobody knows that she has stolen money from some of her classmates in high school when she was in very tough times. It’s not something she’s proud of, and wouldn’t really mind if that shameful memory turned out to be a scam.

#13. Fave childhood memory? She remembers when she went to Disney World in Florida with her parents and her brother - she must have been six or seven, and insisted on going on every. single. ride. much to her parents’ dismay, they were dragged by her brother and her all around the park, but that’s still Taylor’s most prized memory.

#14. Sweet or savoury? Savory, and if possible, spicy.

#15. Hogwarts house? She is a Gryffindor through and through!

#16. Fave food? Argentinan parrilla! More commonly known as grill, but Argentinan parrilla sounds better to her, and Argentinan steak is definitely the best of all.

#17. Fave drink? She doesn’t like sodas, so she would stick to water or lemonade most of the time, but she is also a great mojito fan.

#18. Most treasured possession? A quartz necklace her mother offered her when she turned eighteen, something that has passed through her family for generations and generations. She doesn’t know if everything in her past is false, but at least the necklace isn’t, securely resting on her neck.

#19. Their goals for the future? She wants to escape this hell of an island, spend a few years away from everything by the shore with her husband while helping him clear his name and attending college to finally graduate - then find a stable career and maybe have kids.

#20. Dog-lover or cat-lover? She’s a dog lover! Dogs are better than anything or anyone in her opinion. She doesn’t necessarily hate cats, but she does dislike their tendency to be very independent and snobbish at times.

#21. Early bird or night owl? She’s a night owl. She has no trouble being awake past midnight, but is unable to wake up before seven in the morning. Ever. E v e r.

#22. How do they relax after a bad day? She takes a bath, a long, hot shower or goes swimming in the pool. As I said before, she’s literally a fish in the water and that’s her element.

#23. What do they see as their biggest flaw? She’s aware of her tendency to be quite bossy. Accostumed to being the leader of her group of friends or in school projects, the respected older sister, and with lenient parents, it’s understandable that she would develop the tendency to think that she’s in the position to give orders to anyone. When meeting other strong, commanding personalities like Sean, it was obvious it would clash at first.

#24. And their greatest strength? On the other hand, she is cold-blooded and knows how not to lose her temper when facing a dangerous situation. She knows a lot about survival and feels at ease with responsibilities.

#25. Tragedy strikes! How do they handle a crisis? At first, she shuts everyone off, isolates herself and tries to think about it on her own, but not for long or she’s bound to go crazy or do something stupid. Most of the time, she tries not to show the effect it has on her, but it’s sometimes difficult to hide her feelings from people she’s with all the time.

#26. Coffee shop order? I’m not sure she really likes coffee, or at least, if she can avoid drinking it, she will. She often orders a hot chocolate instead.

#27. It’s Friday night and they’re home alone, what do they get up to? Probably go clubbing with friends or throw a party at her place! She loves music, she loves dancing, she loves being surrounded by people, so it’s the best alternative to concile those three things.

#28. Fave pizza toppings? There’s this pizza that has BBQ sauce, lardons and mushrooms… it’s her ultimate favorite.

#29. What would their superhero name be? Harley Quinn. She’s always liked the tortuous comics character and her complex relationship with the Joker, and their partner in crime-like dynamic reminds her of her complicity with her friends and especially with Jake - besides, Joker was the first nickname she gave him.

#30. What would their ideal day look like? Something adventurous, ourdoors, something out of the ordinary, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Something like paragliding over the bay, or one of her biggest dreams: swimming in the open sea with marine animals.

#31. What did they want to be when they grew up? Has it changed? Believe it or not, when she was little, she wanted to be a firefighter. She’s always been attracted to the idea of helping other people and being in the heat of the action. After she grew up, she abandoned that idea and thought about becoming a doctor. She doesn’t mind what field, she’s sure about the fact that she wants to save people, whatever the cost is.

#32. Do they believe in ghosts? I mean, after being repeatedly saved by one, it’s a little hard not to. But even after La Huerta, a part of her always believed in them.

#33. Do they like amusement parks? oh YES she adores them and would spend DAYS in there if she could.

#34. How many pillows do they sleep with? Three. She likes to be comfortable when she’s sleeping and bury her face in the soft fabric.

#35. What song always gets them dancing? Bailando by Enrique Iglesias. No matter the context, she will always try a few flamenco moves (and fail).

#36. Fave boardgame? Mafia! She’s the one who proposes a game of Mafia at literally every party ever and therefore kills the mood with her childishness lol

#37. If they play Monopoly, what token are they? The ship. To blow up her enemies better, she says.

#38. What does their laugh sound like? High-pitched, a little airy and always with her infamous flirtatious notes.

#39. Describe their aesthetic. Dancing until four in the morning, summer nights and their infinity of stars, tipsily walking down the streets in the unholy hours of the morning, neon lights, cocktail umbrellas by the beach.

#40. Do they exercise? Yeah, she loves running and as I mentioned before, swimming, so she does both on a daily basis. She’s quite athletic, but absolutely not gracious or flexible. So forget everything about dancing or gymnastics.

#41. Fears? Waking up before seven a.m., essentially. Also, she’s terrified ogf being alone, she cannot stand solitude. And she’s never told anyone about her phobia of bugs. Especially wasps. Those creatures deserve hell. She will lose her mind if a wasp is around and try to find the closest source of water to avoid it. They’re the worst for her, and she’s already had panic attacks when being bothered by a wasp when she was little.

#42. Proudest achievement? Surviving La Huerta is already a good one, but apart from that, running 500m in 1′31 minutes when she was eighteen. She hasn’t been able to beat that record ever since, and it’s safe to stay she will never do it again… unless she’s chased down by a horde of zombies.

#43. Fave type of weather? Sunny! She hates the cold and can’t stand foggy weather.

#44. Fave animal? I can see her really liking small monkeys, malicious and clever, but her favorite animal of all of them is the tiger. There’s something so majestic and venerable about them.

#45. Do they like fairytales? She loved them as a kid, but they remained in her childhood. Let’s say she doesn’t care about them that much.

#46. Describe them in 3 words. Fierce piña colada. That’s it. That’s Taylor.

#47. Biggest pet peeve? Slow walkers. she’s always moving, jumping, hyperactive, she has to have space to move.

#48. Hobbies? Swimming, dancing, running - she used to take some guitar lessons when she was younger, but basically only remembers how to play the intro riff of Come As You Are and it’s a very, very painful process.

#49. Extrovert or introvert? Extrovert! That doesn’t mean she can’t be shy in some situations, but she feels more at ease when she’s around a large group of people.

#50. Random headcanon She’s never been to a music festival, nor a concert for that matter. She promised herself she would go one summer to Reading Festival or Coachella with Diego, but never got the chance to do it. It’s one of her biggest regrets when she’s stuck on La Huerta.

MC questionnaire!

#mc appreciation week #pixelberry #playchoices #endless summer #ask

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fransiscasdominicanlitblog · 4 years

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10 Interesting Fiction Novels

1. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents- Julia Alvarez

“ Acclaimed writer Julia Alvarez’s beloved first novel gives voice to four sisters as they grow up in two cultures. The García sisters—Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía—and their family must flee their home in the Dominican Republic after their father’s role in an attempt to overthrow brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo is discovered. They arrive in New York City in 1960 to a life far removed from their existence in the Caribbean. In the wondrous but not always welcoming U.S.A., their parents try to hold on to their old ways as the girls try find new lives: by straightening their hair and wearing American fashions, and by forgetting their Spanish. For them, it is at once liberating and excruciating to be caught between the old world and the new. Here they tell their stories about being at home—and not at home—in America.” (Amazon.com)

2. Soledad: A Novel- Angie Cruz

“At eighteen, Soledad couldn't get away fast enough from her contentious family with their endless tragedies and petty fights. Two years later, she's an art student at Cooper Union with a gallery job and a hip East Village walk-up. But when Tía Gorda calls with the news that Soledad's mother has lapsed into an emotional coma, she insists that Soledad's return is the only cure. Fighting the memories of open hydrants, leering men, and slick-skinned teen girls with raunchy mouths and snapping gum, Soledad moves home to West 164th Street. As she tries to tame her cousin Flaca's raucous behavior and to resist falling for Richie -- a soulful, intense man from the neighborhood -- she also faces the greatest challenge of her life: confronting the ghosts from her mother's past and salvaging their damaged relationship.

Evocative and wise, Soledad is a wondrous story of culture and chaos, family and integrity, myth and mysticism, from a Latina literary light.” (Amazon.com)

3.Geographies of Home- Loida Maritza Perez

“After leaving the college she'd attended to escape her religiously conservative parents, Iliana, a first-generation Dominican-American woman, returns home to Brooklyn to find that her family is falling apart: one sister is careening toward mental collapse, another sister is living in a decrepit building with her abusive husband and three children, and a third sister has simply disappeared. In this dislocating urban environment Iliana reluctantly confronts the anger and desperation that seem to seep through every crack of her family's small house, and experiences all the contradictions, superstitions, joys, and pains that come from a life caught between two cultures. In this magnificent debut novel, filled with graceful prose and searing detail, Loida Maritza Pérez offers a penetrating portrait of the American immigrant experience as she explores the true meanings of identity, family--and home.** “(Amazon.com)**

4. Song of the Water Saints- Nelly Rosario

“This vibrant, provocative début novel explores the dreams and struggles of three generations of Dominican women. Graciela, born on the outskirts of Santo Domingo at the turn of the century, is a headstrong adventuress who comes of age during the U.S. occupation. Too poor to travel beyond her imagination, she is frustrated by the monotony of her life, which erodes her love affairs and her relationship with Mercedes, her daughter. Mercedes, abandoned by Graciela at thirteen, turns to religion for solace and, after managing to keep a shop alive during the Trujillo dictatorship, emigrates to New York with her husband and granddaughter, Leila. Leila inherits her great-grandmother Graciela’s passion-driven recklessness. But, caught as she is between cultures, her freedom arrives with its own set of obligations and dangers.” (Amazon.com)

5. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao- Junot Diaz

“ Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fukœ—the curse that has haunted the Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim.

Diaz immerses us in the tumultuous life of Oscar and the history of the family at large, rendering with genuine warmth and dazzling energy, humor, and insight the Dominican-American experience, and, ultimately, the endless human capacity to persevere in the face of heartbreak and loss. A true literary triumph, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao confirms Junot Diaz as one of the best and most exciting voices of our time.”** (Goodreads.com)**

6. This is How You Lose Her- Junot Diaz

“The stories in This Is How You Lose Her, by turns hilarious and devastating, raucous and tender, lay bare the infinite longing and inevitable weaknesses of our all-too-human hearts. They capture the heat of new passion, the recklessness with which we betray what we most treasure, and the torture we go through - "the begging, the crawling over glass, the crying" - to try to mend what we've broken beyond repair. They recall the echoes that intimacy leaves behind, even where we thought we did not care. They teach us the catechism of affections: that the faithlessness of the fathers is visited upon the children; that what we do unto our exes is inevitably done in turn unto us; and that loving thy neighbor as thyself is a commandment more safely honored on platonic than erotic terms. Most of all, these stories remind us that the habit of passion always triumphs over experience, and that “love, when it hits us for real, has a half-life of forever.” (Goodreads.com)

7. Dominicana- Angie Cruz

“Fifteen-year-old Ana Cancion never dreamed of moving to America, the way the girls she grew up with in the Dominican countryside did. But when Juan Ruiz proposes and promises to take her to New York City, she has to say yes. It doesn’t matter that he is twice her age, that there is no love between them. Their marriage is an opportunity for her entire close-knit family to eventually immigrate. So on New Year’s Day, 1965, Ana leaves behind everything she knows and becomes Ana Ruiz, a wife confined to a cold six-floor walk-up in Washington Heights. Lonely and miserable, Ana hatches a reckless plan to escape. But at the bus terminal, she is stopped by Cesar, Juan’s free-spirited younger brother, who convinces her to stay.As the Dominican Republic slides into political turmoil, Juan returns to protect his family’s assets, leaving Cesar to take care of Ana. Suddenly, Ana is free to take English lessons at a local church, lie on the beach at Coney Island, see a movie at Radio City Music Hall, go dancing with Cesar, and imagine the possibility of a different kind of life in America. When Juan returns, Ana must decide once again between her heart and her duty to her family.” ** (Goodreads.com) **

8. Drown- Junot Diaz

“With ten stories that move from the barrios of the Dominican Republic to the struggling urban communities of New Jersey, Junot Diaz makes his remarkable debut. Diaz's work is unflinching and strong, and these stories crackle with an electric sense of discovery. Diaz evokes a world in which fathers are gone, mothers fight with grim determination for their families and themselves, and the next generation inherits the casual cruelty, devastating ambivalence, and knowing humor of lives circumscribed by poverty and uncertainty. In Drown, Diaz has harnessed the rhythms of anger and release, frustration and joy, to indelible effect.” (Goodreads.com)

9. Yo! - Julia Alvarez

“At last! A zesty, exuberant follow-up to the wildly popular How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, full of Julia Alvarez's keen observations and tender affection for her characters.The Garcia Girls are back, most notably Yolanda, or Yo, who has grown up to be a writer. In the process, she has managed to get kicked out of college, break more than a few hearts, have her own heart broken many times, return for extended visits to the Dominican Republic her family fled when she was a child, and marry three times. She has also infuriated her entire family by publishing the intimate details of their lives as fiction.This brilliant novel is a full and true exploration of a woman's soul, a meditation on the writing life, and a lyrical account of the immigrant's search for identity and a place in the world. !Yo!'s bright colors, zesty dialogue, warm feeling, and genuine insight could only come from the palette of Julia Alvarez.” (Goodreads.com)

10. Let it Rain Coffee- Angie Cruz

“Esperanza risked her life fleeing the Dominican Republic for the glittering dream she saw on television, but years later she is still stuck in a cramped tenement with her husband, Santo, and their two children, Bobby and Dallas. She works as a home aide and, at night, hides unopened bills from the credit card company where Santo won't find them when he returns from driving his livery cab.When Santo's mother dies and his father, Don Chan, comes to Nueva York to live out his twilight years with the Colóns, nothing will ever be the same. Don Chan remembers fighting together with Santo in the revolution against Trujillo's cruel regime, the promise of who his son might have been, had he not fallen under Esperanza's spell. Let It Rain Coffee is a sweeping novel about love, loss, family, and the elusive nature of memory and desire.” (Goodreads.com)

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custommasseffect · 7 years

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Questionnaire for Nancy Shepard

Physical/Aesthetic Characteristics What color is your character’s hair? black like the endless void What color are your character’s eyes? shade of violet vaguely resembling the stardust in Serpent nebula What color is your character’s skin? ivory white with cool undertones What special aesthetic characteristics does your character have? several facial scars, somewhat “boyish” body shape, high cheekbones Does your character have any piercings? Tattoos? Nancy wanted to get a tattoo when she was younger, but she never really had the opportunity or a good enough idea. piercings always seemed too troublesome for her What’s the sexiest physical characteristic of your character? her expressive eyes, both because of the color and the way she looks at people (or aliens, you catch my drift) What’s the ugliest physical characteristic of your character? dark eye circles and the glowing scars on her face probably can be considered rather unappealing BONUS: What element of their appearance is your character most insecure about? nothing. she’s not the type to care about her appearance that much, although sometimes she wishes she could look more healthy What does your character wear? mostly military uniforms and very casual clothes, like plain t-shirts and hoodies; she’s not very fond of overly feminine outfits and would never choose to wear a dress or a skirt voluntarily BONUS: Why does your character like wearing that outfit? because it’s comfortable and practical, but also suits her personality and aforementioned body type

Expressions of Emotion When your character smiles, what does their smile look like? Nancy’s smile is usually rather subtle, although still obvious. she never shows her teeth while smiling What does your character’s laugh sound like? more like a soft chuckle rather than actual laughter BONUS: What sort of things would make your character laugh? mostly Joker’s jokes and a lot of things Garrus says, which sometimes happen to be unintentionally funny What is your character’s normal style of speech? Nancy often speaks with a good amount of sass, even if she tries to sound neutral. that being said, she’s very expressive, so usually it’s fairly easy to tell how she feels judging from just the tone of her voice BONUS: What are some memorable things your character has said that showcase their unique voice? “sorry, I’m having trouble hearing you. getting a lot of bullshit on this line.” How does your character express/handle anger? being either brutally sarcastic or vaguely threatening. or both. occasionally punches people, shoots them or even throws them out the window Does your character cry? yes, sometimes she cries quietly when no one is around. she wouldn’t want anyone to see her in this state, being so weak and vulnerable BONUS: What sorts of things would make them cry? mostly deaths of her friends (like Anderson, Mordin or Legion), bonus points if she blames herself for being unable to save them. events of the Reaper war in general probably made Nancy cry for a few times, as well as the conversation with Catalyst/activating the Crucible How easy is it for other people to read your character’s emotions? fairly easy. Nancy’s voice and face are both rather expressive

Character Beliefs Is your character religious? not at all, no How does your character view those of other faiths? Nancy is very respectful about it. she believes it’s not her place to judge other faiths and cultures as long as they don’t cause any harm to others What are your character’s core values? freedom, friendship, bravery and determination How willing is your character to fight for those values? she’s committed to all of the above and more than willing to fight for what she believes in

Character Likes and Dislikes What is your character’s favorite food? smoked salmon with fresh herbs and some lemon juice What is your character’s favorite color? Nancy is fond of blue in general, her favorite shade being steel blue; it reminds her of our galaxy and the first Normandy What are your character’s sleeping preferences? usually sleeps for 5-6 hours a day. while she’s more of a heavy sleeper, some loud noises can wake her up. she started to suffer from insomnia since investigating the Collector ship BONUS: What position does your character typically sleep in? on the side, with legs curled up What is your character’s sexual identity? heterosexual, 0 on the Kinsley scale What are your character’s sexual preferences? rather conservative. she will have sex only with someone she loves and cares about; casual sex with random people is off the table What type of music does your character like? she appreciates both classical music and the kind you could expect to hear in Afterlife on Omega. she’s also fond of movie soundtracks BONUS: Does your character have a song that is “their song”? “M4 part II” by Faunts. I know, not a particularly creative choice, but I couldn’t resist, the lyrics are very fitting. alternatively “Battlefield” by Svrcina, for the same reason

Character History What is your character’s birthday? April 11, 2154 BONUS: Does their astrological sign seem to fit them? it does. she is a good leader and doesn’t lack bravery. while she tries not to make too many rash decisions, her impulsiveness sometimes gets the better of her What family structure did your character have growing up? nuclear family. she’s the only child, raised by both parents to an extent How well did your character get along with their family? even though they didn’t have as much time to spend together as they would like to, Nancy loved her parents dearly. nowadays she doesn’t hear from her father very often if at all, but she stays in touch with her mother What is the worst thing your character has ever done? while she’s made quite a few morally questionable decisions in her life, the thing she regrets more than anything else is letting her whole unit die on Akuze, even if it wasn’t her fault. for some time she thought she managed to get over it… until she found out that Cerberus played a significant role in this tragedy. and that’s only one of reasons Nancy will never be able to trust anyone in Cerberus; working with them seemed almost impossible at times What is the best thing your character has ever done? making peace between quarians and the geth. sure, killing the Reapers is great, but nothing made Nancy more proud and happy than what she accomplished on Rannoch. she always had some amount of sympathy towards the geth, especially after learning more about their history from Legion, whom she considered to be her friend. seeing quarians and the geth helping each other was about the most heartwarming thing she could experience during these dark times What is the most significant romantic encounter of your character’s past? she didn’t have any brief relationships. every time someone tried to get more romantic with Nancy, she would just refuse to go any further and insist on keeping their relations professional/friendly instead Has your character ever been in love? yes, with a certain turian vigilante. at first she wasn’t sure if it’s even going to work, but it was definitely one of the best things that happened to her Has your character ever been in lust? not really What is your character’s level of sexual experience? well, Nancy is a one turian kind of woman, so her only experience is with him What is your character’s most embarrassing moment? oh, it would be the time when two of her squadmates confessed their feelings for her at roughly the same time and seemed to be jealous because of each other. it was really awkward, because Nancy wasn’t interested in either of them romantically and never intended to give them hope, so to speak

Character Introspection What is your character’s biggest goal in life? technically Nancy’s biggest goal was to save the universe. once that’s done, there’s not much more left, aside from more “normal” assignments. she’ll just continue doing her job, going on whatever mission she needs to. even though she could use some rest, it’s difficult for her to even think about retiring What does your character believe is their greatest virtue? determination. no matter how bad things are, Nancy still believes she can do it. this woman never gives up, she’s going to either accomplish her goal or die trying. others agree with that, seeing their commander so determined gives them new hope and motivation What does your character believe is their greatest vice? possibly her tendency towards excessively violent behavior or taking her “failures” (like failing to save everyone) too hard. others would probably say it’s the fact that Nancy blames herself for things that weren’t her fault and she wouldn’t be able to change them anyway What motivates your character most? mostly the fact that she makes the difference. Nancy wants to save the world and make it a better place, even if it sounds too idealistic. believing in her strenght and ability to accomplish the impossible is very motivating as well Is your character objective-oriented? yes, you could say that. her objectives are usually the missions/assignments though, not something she just came up with on her own Would your character rather be a great person or a good person? a great person. Nancy realizes that it’s impossible to always be good. sometimes you just have to make some hard choices and questionable decisions in order to achieve your goal. sacrifice something for the greater good, if you will. that being said, she would never go as far as the Illusive Man, for example Would your character rather be hated for being who they are or loved for pretending to be someone else? definitely hated for being who she is. she’s not the kind of person who cares about other people’s affection or approval. she knows who she is and what she wants, and that’s all what matters Is your character an introvert, extrovert, or ambivert? ambivert, but slightly more on the introvert side. she does enjoy a good conversation and likes to hang out with her friends and crew, but she also needs some personal space and a reasonable amount of alone time Is your character creatively expressive? well, the only vaguely creative thing she does is her makeup. she’s not an artist and never really tried to draw, sculpt or make music. it’s just not for her What’s your character’s disorder? PTSD, insomnia and depression What is your character’s standard emotional state? serious, despite often talking in a sarcastic or even relatively humorous way. she recognized the importance of her duties and doesn’t intend to let her emotions get in the way, so most of the times she tries to stay calm and rational (“tries” is the keyword though) Is your character materialistic? not exactly. she values material things like weapons or other useful equipment for purely practical reasons, but at the same time she won’t grow too attached to something that could be easily replaced. the only exceptions are probably her trusty sniper rifle and the N7 helmet, for sentimental reasons BONUS: What are some of your character’s prized possessions? aforementioned rifle, the M-97 Viper. I’m not sure if the ship counts as “possession” but there’s that What is your character’s major learning style? mostly visual What question isn’t on this questionnaire that your character is just burning to answer? ”don’t you ever give up?” I am a soldier. Life is an act of fighting.

#all #femsheps #submission #text #sorry it took so long to post this!!#it's so interesting to read these for everyone's sheps because they're all so different!

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