#Back in high school I had a film class and it was like special I had to apply for it so I could have been denied but I was accepted | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

vladajwrites · 1 year

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Razor’s Edge

Part One || Part Two || Part Three || Part Four

Summary; Reader moves to Woodsboro for her senior year of high school. This story take place in the setting of the Scream 4 movie. This story is dedicated to all of the girls living through the current Rory Culkin revival. I love and see you. <3

Also available to be read on AO3 here

It's imperative for me to mention MAJOR trigger warnings for this story; blood, violence, sexual content, alcohol usage, and mentions of abusive situations and suicide. I will add and edit tw's as needed.

WC; 5,043

Notes;

Part 3 should be available soon. Thank you for any and all support! It truly means the world to me. Check post comments after reading chapter for additional statements.

As you had anticipated, Irina was truly overjoyed to learn how your first day of school had gone. She asked so many questions; the conversation went well into the night after she had returned home from work.

“Could you see yourself becoming friends with any of the other students?” Irina asked from the kitchen table as you cleared remnants of dinner from the counter.

You set a plate down in the sink and contemplated her question. Thinking back on the people you met over the course of the day, a few names came to mind. Kirby seemed kind. You had exchanged numbers after film club had ended. Her other friend, Jill, seemed a fine enough person as well, though a bit more reserved.

You thought back to any of the other conversations you had throughout the day. Robbie’s awkward invitation played over, albeit a brave gesture, it didn’t seem like likely grounds for a friendship. Your thoughts then shifted to Robbie’s counterpart.

Charlie seemed to keep much more to himself. It felt special to have someone, practically a stranger, come to your defense in any sort of situation. Charlie could be a friend, possibly. A half smile slipped up your lips. What did you know, though? Maybe it wasn’t really a possibility at all.

“I don’t know, maybe. I think it’s too soon to tell.” You spoke over your shoulder, holding your hand under the kitchen faucet, waiting for the water to warm.

“Hmm,” Irina began, you peered over at her. Her bottom lip caught between her teeth, concealing a knowing smile. “Well, I have hope for you. Don’t count anybody out just yet.”

You nodded, loading glasses and silverware into the dishwasher.

If it were meant to happen, you figured it would. The only real matter of importance to you at the moment was pushing through your classes, giving yourself an opportunity to move you forward in life. It wouldn’t be long until college applications and standardized testing would be consume most of your free time and thoughts.

The next few weeks passed by as most did when beginning a new school year. The teachers, thankfully, kept most assignments and quizzes simple to build back the tolerance towards regular class work that had been lost over the summer break.

As you had also expected, the introductions and sudden interest other students had towards you started to fizzle out as they fell back into their usual routines. Although Kirby had become a welcomed energy in your space. She went out of her way to speak to you in classes you shared. She had even recently began to invite you to join her and her small circle to leave campus during your lunch period. It felt nice to be included, even if you had yet to be around them outside of school hours.

Charlie had continued to walk with you to film club most days. The two of you shared very little actual conversations. Most moments were filled with a comfortable silence.

You really began to pick up on things in the club. You’d write yourself small lists of the movies mentioned during that hour and return home to watch as many as possible while you worked on your homework. It was nice to have things to fill your time, distractions to push any memories away from before your return to Woodsboro.

The air had started to chill and change as September crept its way to the present day. It was a cloudy Friday, nearly two full weeks had passed since that first day of school. You were walking your usual route towards room 120A, Charlie in step beside you. Just before you were able to make it through the classroom doors, you heard your name called from the opposite end of the hallway.

You looked up to find Scotty Anderson gawking his way towards you. ‘Shit,’ you rolled your eyes. You had done a pretty good job of avoiding him and his group since the sports equipment bag debacle. You glanced over at Charlie. His frame was unusually rigid, no discernable emotion in his expression.

You sucked in your cheeks, debating on just turning into the classroom. It was better to just get this over with than put it off; you decided.

You took a few steps forwards, meeting Scotty in the middle of the hallway. You held both hands in front of you, tapping your foot as you thought of what he could have to say to you.

“Hey, I know we haven’t had the opportunity to speak.” Scotty began, moving the same bag of equipment up onto his shoulder. “I just wanted to apologize for running into you the other day. Definitely not cool.” It was clear in his tone he didn’t actually mean a word of what he had just said.

You nodded, biting the tip of your tongue. You never expected an apology, and after as much time had passed, you really didn’t care to have one. You were more confused about why he had apologized now, after days had passed.

“It’s fine man, don’t worry about it.” You replied, turning on your heel to head back towards the classroom. Scotty’s hand gripped its way around your upper arm, spinning you back towards him. You were visibly taken aback by the sudden motion and intrusion into your personal space.

“Look, let me make it up to you. Give me your number, I’ll take you out sometime, show you around Woodsboro.” He practically demanded, a sly cocky grin plastered across his face. He was just plainly handsome, the athletic and popular type you imagined some girls would go for. You might’ve given him a chance too, if things hadn’t started out the way they had. He was still somehow able to make his chances even worse though as he continued to talk. You weren’t the least bit interested.

You glanced over your shoulder. Charlie was still standing in the doorway, his eyes flashed quickly between you and Scotty. A disgusted frown clung to his lips as he watched the situation unfolding before him.

You looked back up at Scotty, shaking your arm out of his grasp. “No thank you,” you replied, barely above a whisper.

His eyes widened in disbelief, as if he’d never heard those words before. “What?” His mouth hung agape.

“I said no. I’m just not interested.” You replied, this time more sternly.

Scotty scoffed, surely attempting to conceal his bruised ego. He stomped his way down the hallway like a toddler. “Ugly bitch.” You could hear him mutter as he grew further away.

You slapped a hand over your mouth, trying to conceal your shocked laughter. You turned back around. Charlie was gone from his spot. A stupid smile plastered on your face as you entered film club. If Anderson truly felt that way, he would’ve never made an attempt to come onto you in the first place. You found your seat next to Kirby and looked up at Charlie, believing he’d be laughing with you too over the situation, only he didn’t seem amused at all. He wouldn’t even look up to meet your eyes.

His cold shouldered treatment continued into the next week as well. You figured things would just be as they were before as the last bell rang that following Monday. Before you had the chance to grab your things, Charlie had brushed past you, disappearing into the crowd of students in the hall.

You weren’t sure why it hurt your feelings so much. He didn’t owe you anything. You were perfectly capable of making it to the club without him. But still, you couldn’t help but feel anxious as the next few days unfolded in the same way. He’d barely look at you, let alone speak to you. You were trying to wrap your head around why he was acting this way. You had done anything wrong to your knowledge, but then again, maybe you had. You couldn’t bring yourself to push the matter, though. You had no idea what to say to him.

That following Friday, during your second to last period, your biology teacher announced the outline for the first heavily graded project of the semester. It was a group project. He’d assign the groups and specific topics each trio would be required to present. The classroom mumbled and huffed at the announcement.

You listened carefully as the teacher made his way down the list of students he held in his hands. You glanced around the room as the group of prospective partners grew smaller. You hoped you would be paired with people you at least vaguely knew.

The teacher then called your name. Your head snapped to meet his finger dragging across the list he held in his right hand. You waited intently for the next names to be called.

“You’ll be in a group with Mercer and Walker. Your topic is genetic pedigree.” You sunk down in your seat. Eyes flashing towards Robbie, who gave you a smile and thumbs up. You couldn’t bring yourself to look towards Charlie, who sat beside him.

You dropped your head into your hands, letting your hair cover your face. You knew you’d have to muster the courage to say something to Charlie. The project was important, and you didn’t want any made-up qualms to affect the way you all worked together.

As class concluded, Robbie stopped you in the Hallway. You watched Charlie walk past without looking behind him or waiting for his friend. You followed his frame carefully until losing him as he turned down the hall.

“Hey, if it’s alright, could I grab your number?” Robbie asked. You’d nearly forgotten he was standing there. “For the project, of course. We’ll have to work on it outside of school, and just if you- or I, have any questions..” You watched as his cheeks turned a soft shade of red.

You tried your best to give him a reassuring smile and nodded. “Of course Robbie, yeah, that makes sense.”

“Awesome!” He sighed in relief, handing you his cellphone to type in your contact information. “See you in film club?”

You nodded again, watching Robbie turn on his heels and vanish into the crowd of students headed towards their next class.

Your last class of the day felt like torment, the minutes passed by so incredibly slowly. It seemed as though the second hand on the clock was frozen in place as you waited and listened for each tick it made.

You could feel eyes stuck to you as you sat, unfurling the hem of your sweater. You glanced behind you. Charlie met your eyes, he was mimicking your own movements, heel tapping on the floor below him.

He looked absolutely miserable, pained even. He looked down at the ground as your eyes lingered for just a moment longer. You suddenly felt incredibly guilty. Maybe there was something going on with him completely outside of school, outside of you, and you had been so entirely selfish to believe his change in demeanor was a direct result of anything you had done.

You sat at your desk now braiding, unbraiding, and rebraiding the same three strands of hair near the front of your face. How could you have not attempted to reach out to him sooner? You felt like an absolutely sorry excuse for an acquaintance, let alone a friend.

You had your belongings packed and together before the final bell rang, you’d make sure to catch him this time. As soon as the clock rang to dismiss the class, you were up from your seat, headed to the doorway to catch him in the hall.

He was quick to step past you, head fixated on the crowd in front of him. You worked faster, grabbing the strap of his backpack and pulling him through the doorway of an empty adjoining classroom.

He looked shocked as he spun to face you, his mouth held agape, before snapping his lips into a tight line.

“What is wrong with you?” You asked, surprised even by your own hasty actions. As soon as the words left your lips, you regretted them. What’s wrong with you? Really? There wasn’t a better way for you to ask what was going on? You silently scolded yourself.

“What?” He asked, taking an immediately defensive tone, understandably so.

“I mean, what is going on with you? Is everything okay? You’ve gone through quite the effort to act like I don’t exist this past week.” You replied, amending your original question.

He looked you over, scoffing. You brought your hands up over your chest, suddenly feeling incredibly self-conscious.

“Look, if it’s attention you’re looking to get from somebody, don’t bother me about it.” He spoke just above a whisper, as if he could barely get his own words out.

His words made your eyes prick up. You felt your body heat flush as your jaw grew increasingly tense. What was wrong with him? His glare faltered for a moment, his hands dropping to his sides.

“I just mean…” He paused before continuing, “you’ve got Anderson. I don’t understand why you’d want me around.”

Your eyes widened in shock, realizing he hadn’t stuck around till the end of the conversation you had with Scotty the week prior. This was really the reason he had become so cold towards you? It was ridiculous. He was so-

You couldn’t hold back the astonished laughter, the absolute nerve. Charlie’s expression morphed into confusion. He seemed almost hurt to have you laughing in his face. Good.

“You really thought I wanted anything to do with that asshole? I didn’t even give him my number.” You exclaimed, throwing your hands back towards your thighs.

Charlie’s face bore the full front of sudden guilt. Your hurt turned to anger. He could’ve asked, but he just assumed. Even then, what issue could he possibly take with you speaking to or seeing another man?

You took a step forward, closing the distance between the two of you. Charlie took a deep breath, eyes glancing between you and the pointer finger you now dug into his chest.

“I thought you were a friend, you fucking prick.” You whispered just beside his ear. You could feel his heartbeat wildly pound against your finger, could nearly hear it from the proximity you shared. Or maybe that was your own heart you were hearing. You couldn’t have been sure.

Before giving him a chance to respond, you stormed your way out of the room. Making a beeline to your car.

Fuck. Fuck that stupid fucking film club. And fuck Charlie Walker.

You sped home, slamming the front door behind you. You rushed up the stairs, hearing your aunt call your name from the living room. You stopped in your tracks, shouting down to her, “I’m fine, I promise. Just need a moment alone.”

You waited for a second to hear her response. You were surprised she was home from work so early. After a few moments, Irina responded, “Okay.” She didn’t sound entirely convinced, but knew better than to pry.

You shut your bedroom door, falling flat onto your bed. It didn’t matter, none of it mattered. You didn’t need him around.

An hour passed by, and then another before you heard your phone ringer buzz twice.

You scrambled for your phone, which was still in your bag on the ground beside your bed where you had thrown it earlier.

Two text messages from an unknown number flashed on the screen.

“Hey, didn’t see you in film club. Everything good?” Your heart skipped in your chest. Could it be-? Your question was answered by the second message. “Robbie btw.”

You sighed, rolling onto your back, holding the phone above your face. You thought for a moment before responding. “Wasn’t feeling well, all good, though.” You added Robbie’s name to his contact info before setting the phone down beside you.

Another minute passed before your phone buzzed again. “Cool. Would you be down to meet up later to start on our project?” Robbie’s message read.

You thought about it for a moment. The idea didn’t seem particularly great, but it would be nice to just get it all over with. You responded with a simple, “Sure.”

Almost instantly, a new message was sent. You opened it to find another phone number beside Robbies. In a new group chat Robbie asked, “Where and what time do you guys wanna meet up?” The other number had to be Charlies. You rolled your eyes, chewing on the inside of your cheek.

Your fingers hovered above the keyboard as you thought up a response. You knew Irina would be more than happy to host, and it’d save you a trip from going elsewhere in town.

“My place, 7pm?” You replied.

“We’ll be there.” Robbie responded.

You sent your address to the pair and locked your phone, shoving it in your back pocket.

You figured it was time to face your aunt, let her know people would be coming by the house later. You called out to her, hearing her reply from her bedroom. You stopped in her doorway, watching her pack clothing into a small black suitcase.

“Where are you going?” You asked, walking up beside her.

She looked up from her work. “I have a few meetings in Sacramento this weekend. I fly out tomorrow morning. I should be back by Monday though.” You nodded your head in response. She was always so busy, always had places to be.

“I’m sorry for slamming the door earlier.” You said quietly, picking up a t-shirt on the bed and folding it over for her.

Your aunt looked over at you, waiting to see if you’d continue.

“I’m okay. I just-” You paused, trying to find the right words. The entire thing wasn’t really worth getting into or being upset about, as you thought about it.

Irina’s eyebrow raised. “Boy troubles?” She said half-jokingly.

You smiled then, handing her the folded shirt. Yes, to put it plainly, just boy troubles.

“You know what I think about men,” Irina began.

“Better off without them.” You answered in unison, laughing with one another.

You stopped in the doorway, hand wrapped around the frame as you left Irina’s bedroom. “Oh, by the way, I’m having a few people over in a couple of hours to work on a project for school. If that’s okay, of course.”

Irina peered over her shoulder, a wide grin on her face. “Of course. Let me know if you kids need anything.”

It was hard to keep your nerves in check as the next few hours passed by. It would be fine, you reminded yourself over and over again. It wasn’t going to just be you and Charlie. Robbie would serve as a much needed buffer.

You heard your phone buzz on your nightstand; you picked it up quickly, reading the message aloud. “Pulling up now.” You quickly made your way down the stairs, kicking a pair of your shoes further down the entryway.

You swung the front door open without recalling whether you had heard a knock yet. You were met by Robbie and Charlie on the front porch. Charlie’s head was towards the ground, his hands in his pocket. Robbie looked around himself, mouth agape.

“You were totally right dude,” Robbie said, elbowing his friend in the side. “This was her house.”

“What?” You asked from the doorway, not sure you had heard him right. Robbie looked flustered, as if he were surprised to see you standing there.

“Oh. I meant Charlie recognized you on the first day.” Robbie tried to clear the confusion by simply adding to it. You looked between the pair. Robbie immediately cowered in response to Charlie’s shocked glare.

You waited for Robbie to continue. You couldn’t possibly understand what he meant by that. To your knowledge, you had never met either of them before that first day of school.

“Charlie’d make me ride circles down your street for hours. He said you had to be the same girl we saw when we were kids. We totally thought you just died one day after you stopped appearing in the window every summer.” Robbie said laughing, pointing at the sun bay window.

You were frozen in place; the air seemed to be sucked out around you as you thought hard back on those memories. Certain things suddenly started to click and piece themselves together in your mind. You glanced over at Charlie. He was looking at you almost pathetically, knowing there was nothing he could have done to stop Robbie from spilling any of that information.

Robbie began a string of ‘I’s and Um��s’ as he noticed your expression. You willed yourself to pull it together for a moment; lesson the deafening, horrible ringing in your ears.

“Oh, I think I remember you two, actually.” You stated. You had always had a distinct memory that fell in line with Robbie’s sentiment. You weren’t sure you’d have ever been able to place them both in that memory without Robbie’s over-share. You’d let yourself process this information at a later time. You watched as both boys relaxed a bit more into themselves, awkward glances still passed between the three of you.

“Would you guys like to come in?” You stepped aside, motioning towards the entryway.

“Please.” Robbie replied and stepped past you.

Charlie nodded, following behind him. You caught and held his gaze for a moment as he slipped in so close beside you.

“We can just hang out in the living room, if that’s cool.” You said, motioning towards the living room couch. The two men followed suit. You took a seat on the sofa, Robbie sat on the opposite end, while Charlie took a seat on the floor by the coffee table in front of you.

It was quiet for a moment as everyone pulled out their laptops, notebooks, and pens. You weren’t sure who would be the first one to break the silence. To be completely honest, you didn’t mind it. You were terrified that Robbie would somehow dig himself another hole, and you had absolutely nothing to say to Charlie. You hoped you’d be able to just get the majority of the project finished tonight so that the remaining meetings would be minimal.

Just then, you heard your aunt’s light footsteps coming from down the stairs. You sighed a heavy sigh of relief as she entered the living room. She wore a bright smile on her face as the boys rose to their feet to greet her.

“Robbie Mercer.” He held out a hand to her. “Good to meet you, Robbie.” She replied in her usual sing-song voice.

Her smile faltered for a moment as she turned to shake Charlie’s hand as well. “Charlie Walker, thanks for allowing us over.” Charlie said, giving her a courteous smile.

You looked between your aunt and Charlie, watching the corner of her lips twitch into a small frown before she replied. She looked almost off kilter. You took careful notice of your aunt’s unusual etiquette. “Anytime, Charlie.” She replied, placing her left hand over their conjoined right hands.

The gesture didn’t seem to phase Charlie much.

“If there’s anything I can get for you all, please don’t be afraid to ask.” Irina spoke before heading back up the stairs. The three of you responded in a short chorus of ‘thank you’s.’

The next few hours went by as well as you could have hoped for them to go. Once you were all busy at work, the awkwardness slowly dispelled itself. It was nearly midnight, and you were all beginning to experience the early stages of screen fatigue from your work. You all mutually decided to try to wrap everything up tomorrow.

As you led the two out, Robbie spoke over his shoulder. “I honestly think it’ll only take another day to finish this. Maybe one more after that for revision.” You and Charlie both nodded. “But, honestly, if I have looked at another fucking punnet square after this project, I think I’ll kill myself.”

You laughed as you turned the door handle.

The boys filed onto the porch. Robbie was quick to make his way towards his car that was parked halfway in the driveway and halfway onto the street. He stopped after realizing Charlie was still standing on the porch. You glanced between the pair.

“You coming man?” Robbie asked, fishing for his keys in his back pocket.

You watched Charlie, waiting for his response.

“Nah, I feel like walking.” He responded.

Robbie cocked an eyebrow, looking at his friend. He seemed slightly surprised, but didn’t bother trying to convince him to come along.

“Alright, I’ll see you two tomorrow.” Robbie said, as he opened his driver’s side door. You watched him pull all the way down the street before turning around to face the closed front door. Your hand had just started turning the handle when you heard Charlie speak up.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” You turned your face, dropping the handle.

You really had almost no interest in anything he had to say at all, at this point.

“Make it quick.” You replied, stepping in front of him. Your words clearly hurt him, and he did little to hide his grimace.

“Look, I’m sorry.” He started softly, eyes flickering between your own. You sucked in your bottom lip, leaning on your hip as you crossed your arms in front of you. You scanned his face in search of sincerity.

“It’s fine, Charlie. It’s done with.” You replied.

He took a step closer to you. You fought the urge to take another back, to keep just a bit more distance from him. You held your ground.

“No, I’m being serious. It was horrible for me to just assume…” his voice trailed off for a moment. He glanced behind you at the window bay to your left. He met your eyes again. “And the whole attention thing. I never really felt that way. Regretted it as soon as I said it.” His hand flexed at his side as he shook his head.

“Okay.” You replied breathlessly. It was all you wanted him to say. You both stood there for a moment. The sound of crickets filled the air. There always seemed to be something filling in the lapse of conversation you had with Charlie, in a way you had never noticed with anyone else before.

You were the one to speak up. “I can give you a ride home if you’d like.”

A small smile crept up his lips as he followed your gesture towards your car parked in the driveway.

“It’s alright. Thank you for the offer. I just live on the next street over.” He motioned towards the road.

“It’s really not any trouble…” you began. You weren’t sure why you felt such a need to insist.

He reached up then. His thumb ran across the small braid in your hair that had been forgotten about and left to slowly unravel since last period. You left out a breath of surprise at the sudden contact. He was so incredibly close. That pounding in your heart returned rapidly as your hands dropped to your side.

Your eyes darted wildly across the features of his face. His eyes were stuck on those strands of hair between his fingers.

There were no more crickets, no rushing blood, just silence.

He had pulled away before you could process the proximity. He was headed down the front porch steps in a matter of seconds. “Goodnight, I’ll see you here tomorrow.” He called, turning over his shoulder to say goodbye.

You refused to let yourself watch him make his way down the street. Your feet carried you mindlessly up the stairs until collapsing you onto your bed. You stared up at the ceiling, reaching for the disheveled braid. Your fingers traced themselves along the same spot he had. You had just about pulled the braid apart when your aunt called your name from the doorway.

You shot up in bed to face her, pulling you from your thoughts.

“Didn’t mean to surprise you,” Irina began. Her face was splotchy and red in ways that it never was. “I just wanted to tell you goodbye, in case I didn’t get the chance to before I left in the morning.”

You nodded in response. You rose onto your feet, walking over to give her a hug. You pulled away as she began to speak up again. “He looks so much like him.” Irina seemed to say more to herself than you.

“Hmm?” You urged her to explain what she meant.

“The Walker boy. He looks so much like his father had at that age.” She began trailing off, looking at the wall behind you before meeting your eyes again.

“You knew his father?” You asked. This shouldn’t have been surprising information to you, Irina seemed to know everybody who had spent any amount of considerable time in Woodsboro.

Irina nodded.

“Just be kind to him, if you can be.” She said so softly, you barely caught her last words. This took you aback. You were sure your confusion was apparent on your face. “It’s only been a few years since he passed. I’m sure it’s been difficult for Charlie.”

Her amending statement made your heart sink low into your chest. A resounding buzz quickly filled the space between your ears.

“I am.” You replied. You thought you were, at least.

Irina nodded, seemingly satisfied with your response. She turned to make her way to her own bedroom at the end of the hall. Just before she disappeared through the door, you called out to her.

“How? How did he die?” You asked. You immediately felt bad for even asking. It wasn’t necessarily anything you needed to know.

You could tell, even from where you stood, that your aunt’s eyes began to well with tears. “Suicide,” she whispered without looking back at you. It only took a single moment before Irina stepped into her bedroom, closing the door behind her.

You weren’t sure how long you stood stuck in the hallway. It was a horribly long night.

#fanfiction #fanfic #charlie walker #charlie walker fanfic #charlie walker fanfiction #charlie walker x reader #charlie walker x y/n #scream 4 fanfic #charlie walker smut #rory culkin fanfic #rory culkin fanfiction

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jen-with-a-pen · 5 months

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ALL TIED UP - THREE

Previous ⊹ Series

summary: Steve already feels like a fish out of water at the gym. An encounter with a girl and Bucky leaves him gasping for air and grasping for what the hell is going on behind Bucky's frat boy facade. At least he gets some sweet relief, some coffee, and some courage, when he see his favorite barista.

pairings: Art Student!Frat Brother!Steve Rogers x Film Student!Sorority Sister!Reader

word count: 2.5k

warnings: implied misogyny (Bucky and Sam really are Frat Bros™), gym gains + weight mention, Steve's just trying his best, fake crying, possessiveness + demanding obedience, Steve should try to listen to his gut more, successful attempts at flirting

a/n: i'm pleased to be able to finally introduce our reader from steve's pov! i can't wait until i can share her side of the story with you all ♥ enjoy! also a just-in-case thank you to those who have been patient with my posting. i know my masterlist currently has a schedule, but after an abrupt work trip and conference following, i got thrown off by a week. shoulda known better 😅

The most specialest of special thanks to two of my loves @vonalyn and @lunarbuck for helping me flesh out this idea and enable me in my destruction ♥ i owe you both a beefy alpha soon

gif by @/paliaphrodite | additional graphics + dividers by me ♥

my ao3 | my masterlist | all tied up masterlist Read this fic HERE on ao3! ♥Reblogs and comments are highly appreciated as always♥

Last Tuesday.

Sweat drips down Steve’s neck as he finishes out his bench presses. Endorphins and dopamine ooze into his bloodstream as his face flushes, driving him to push one more time to beat his personal record. His heart races from excitement as his arms extend, biceps bulging under the 210-pound barbell, pushing it up for the final rep of his set. At last, he reracks the weights and a proud smile spreads easily across his lips.

Going from 175 lbs to 225 lbs in the span of only a month was the last thing Steve expected upon coming to Richards. He wasn’t scrawny by any means before– in fact, as his mother consistently had to remind him, puberty had been exceptionally kind to him, going from five-foot-eight to a cool six-foot-two in just the last two years of high school– but, thanks to the daily regimens Bucky and Sam personalized for each of the brothers, Steve began to see real gains. Real changes. For the better, even he would admit. His jaw became sharper. His chest grew broader. His arms were now just a tad too tight for his own t-shirts.

“‘s all thanks to those prime Sigma genes!” Sam once told Steve while spotting him during one of the first sessions of the semester. Steve couldn’t tell if he was joking about their greek letters or not, so he shook the comment off and chalked it up to ‘Sam being Sam.’ Him and Bucky constantly preached the superiority of ‘Sigma Males,’ regardless if anyone was listening.

Steve never believed in that bullshit. His Ma would keel over if he ever even thought about that kind of concept.

Steve sits up, grabbing his sweat rag and water bottle next to the bench. Taking a long drink, his mind flips through through the schedule for the day: Drawing, then Astronomy and Art History back to back; a mandatory check in with his advisor; lunch or dinner somewhere in between; finally, some sports event-party-thing that Bucky and Sam were adamant the entire house hosts. On a Tuesday.

Steve huffs, rising from the bench and mopping the beads of hot sweat trailing down his temples. He needs to shower quickly in order to make it to class on time, especially if he wants to stop for coffee in the quad.

Not that the coffee is worth the detour on the way to class, in all honesty, but the comforting sight of the usual barista behind the counter is.

Since his first day on campus, something about her has drawn him to the cafe as often as possible. Eventually, they began small talk– well, she started the small talk. Gradually, they started chatting about more than just the weather. Then it became ‘what’d you get on the calc test?’ or ‘hey are you going to the football game?’. Her voice, her laugh, her quiet humming as she prepares orders regularly echoes in Steve’s mind. Her soft, kind eyes and warm smile is burned so deeply into his memory that he’s started drawing her. He doodles in the corner of his notes, sketches on napkins and newspapers, paints watercolor daydreams covering certain pages of his sketchbooks. All of them are her.

He can’t recall for the life of him how it came to be this way. It all happened so suddenly, so gradually.

Over the last few weeks, Steve found himself walking just a touch faster, leaving just a couple minutes earlier, to make sure he can stop by and see her before class. To him, she’s a breath of fresh air, a break from the cloud of testosterone and stress the frat house always keeps him in.

No matter what, she always makes his day just a little bit brighter.

She knows his order before he even makes it to the counter. She knows which classes to ask him about and on what days. She knows writing his name with a smiley face on his cup will make him tip just a little extra, just because she drew it.

She knows him.

Yet, he can’t exactly say the same about her.

Steve bites his lip, so incredibly caught up in thoughts of his coffee shop crush, he doesn’t realize where he’s walking until he runs smack into another body. Hard.

“Oof–Hey!”

The girl in front of him falls to the floor, dropping her phone, rag, and water bottle. Her headphones slip off her head, landing amongst the scattered remains of what she’d been holding.

“What the fuck–!”

“Oh, shit! I-I’m so sorry, lemme–” Steve bends down, offering her a free hand and genuine concern on his face. The girl’s eyes widen and she freezes when she looks up at him. The next thing Steve knows, she’s opening her mouth and getting ready to scream. Panic surges through him and he, too, becomes frozen in place, unsure of what else to do when there’s a soon-to-be-screaming girl in the middle of a crowded gym of frat bros.

Before her scream spills out of her throat, Steve hears a familiar voice behind him.

“Shay? What the hell happened?” Bucky appears, jogging from a machine around the corner. The moment he sees Steve bent over her– Shay, apparently– there’s a darkness that falls over his face as he approaches them.

“He–he–!” Shay hiccups from the ground, bottom lip stuck out in a pout and trembling ever so slightly. Her jacket hangs off her shoulder, half-zipped and barely covering her tanned and toned stomach, and her neat, platinum blonde hair remains in tidy braids plaited down to her shoulders. It’s as if she merely tripped on a rogue water bottle or an untied shoelace. Steve’s throat tightens.

“Bucky, I-I bumped into her, it was an accident, I was just helpin’ her up, I–”

Bucky stops. His shoulders are heaving, chest puffed out, and hands balled into tight fists at his sides. His dark expression makes him look terrifying. Steve’s never seen him like this before.

Steve swears he hears Bucky growl.

It takes a moment, but upon finally realizing it’s only Steve, Bucky backs down and calms almost instantly. His expression neutralizes into his usual suave smirk as he runs a hand through his cropped hair.

“Shay,” Bucky turns his focus to the girl still splayed on the floor. There’s a commanding undertone in his voice, something more dominant, more forceful, than Steve’s ever heard.

“B-but h-he,” Shay babbles on, “he pushed me!” Her cheeks are dry, eyes white without bloodshot or fresh tears. Her lip stays pouting, mimicking a stubborn toddler as she blubbers to Bucky.

“No, he didn’t. He didn’t do anything other than bump into you.” Bucky takes a step forward. “Right, Stevie?” His hand clamps onto Steve’s shoulder. His grip digs deep, tighter than usual. Steve nods quickly.

“Y-yeah, I, uh, wasn’t lookin’ where I was goin’ and I-I just didn’t, uh, see her.”

Bucky gives him a once over, his vice-like grip weighing on Steve like a two-ton barbell. He slowly nods to himself and takes his eyes off Steve, turning to Shay. Steve holds his gaze on Bucky, however, studying him for a second more. He notices the extremely subtle way Bucky is almost looking down on her. Something about Bucky’s eyes, the shift in his jaw, sends a phantom chill up Steve’s spine.

“C’mon, Shay. Get up.”

“But! But, Bucky! He–!”

“You heard me. Get. Up.”

Shay sucks her lip back in and reluctantly obeys as she collects her things and stands. Even with his eyes closed, Steve realizes he wouldn’t have been able to notice Shay’s petite, five-foot-something frame standing in front of him. She barely came up to the middle of his chest. How had he not seen her in his way?

“Now,” Bucky continues, “apologize to Steve.”

Shay scoffs, breaking her show of obedience. She gives Steve a not-so-subtle once-over. Her nose ring wrinkles in the crevice of her nostril as her lips curl into a snarl. She crosses her arms, cocking a hip and copping an attitude.

“Why should I–”

Bucky abruptly lets go of Steve’s shoulder and moves swiftly to stand directly behind Shay. His large hands snake around her waist and Steve can tell he squeezes her, hard, by the sudden, sharp inhale she takes. Her smug, bratty expression disappears immediately as Bucky leans down to the cusp of her ear, lips brushing against the silver rings and studs of piercings littering her cartilage.

“Steve is a brother, Shay. Now, apologize so we can let him leave and we can start your workout.” Bucky’s hands dig tighter into her waist. Steve’s stomach churns.

“I,” Shay sucks in another sharp breath and plasters on a forced smile. “I’m sorry, Steve.”

Bucky releases Shay and steps in front of her. Her hands fold around her stomach to cover the fingerprint marks bruising the sides of her stomach, gaze turning down to the floor at Bucky’s feet. Steve can see over Bucky’s shoulder that her lip is trembling. Genuinely, this time.

“Hey.”

Bucky’s tone snaps Steve’s focus back to him. Steve feels like a deer caught in front of a stopped car as Bucky studies him. The corners of his tight smile twitch into a smirk.

“I’ll see ya tonight, right, Stevie? Don’t forget, it’s baseball night.”

“Erm, yeah. Right. I’ll be there, Buck.”

Bucky winks at him, confirming some undisclosed agreement between them. Steve’s stomach backflips again.

Steve turns to finally leave, quickly making his way to the locker rooms, desperately wanting to shower off the uncomfortable ick clinging to him after whatever the hell that interaction was.

◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌ ◌

The door to the café chimes as Steve swings it open. The short line of customers turn to face him along with the barista at the counter. Steve stops mid-stride, panting from his sprint over from the gym. Sure, he’s got class in ten minutes, and it’s a fifteen minute walk to the art school, but he’s convinced himself he needs coffee and his daily dose of sunshine before continuing on with his day– especially after the whole ordeal in the gym earlier.

The barista grins at Steve. She mouths a ‘hi’ as she scribbles down the name for the current customer’s cup. Steve sighs, waving back and taking his place in line.

Admittedly, he was more worried than he thought about catching his favorite barista today. He chalks the anxiety up to the weird encounter with Bucky and Shay– the whole thing felt so wrong, so off. Everything about the way Bucky treated her, talked to her, how she acted before versus after Bucky got behind her– it rubbed Steve wrong in so many ways. He’s never seen or heard Bucky talk like that to anyone before. Not to Sam, not to Tony, or Clint, or even any of the random girls that show face at parties. He doesn’t know if he’s ever seen Shay around before, either. Something about the way she stood after, the stark contrast in her behavior, the way she tried to blame Steve for something he didn’t do.

“Can I help ya, stranger?”

The familiar voice brings Steve back from his clouded thoughts. She smiles warmly at him and he melts on the spot.

“I, uh–”

She giggles.

“I know your order already, silly. Is there anything else you’d like today?”

“N-no, uh, I’m good,” he stammers, sliding his card into the chip reader. “I just, uh–”

She cocks a brow, looking up at him from writing his name on the cup. Steve clears his throat, unsure why he’s suddenly stuttering at someone he sees everyday.

“Just, ah, needed to see you, honestly.”

He feels his cheeks automatically burn as he fumbles to put his card back in his wallet. He pulls out a couple ones and drops them in the tip jar for extra brownie points.

The barista’s eyes sparkle, holding her gaze on Steve. It’s a nice change, to see warmth instead of ulterior motives behind someone else’s gaze. He can tell she’s biting back a smile of her own as she finishes writing on his cup.

“Well, the feeling is mutual,” she says. “I honestly was beginning to think you weren’t comin’ in today.”

A fake pout crosses her lips before returning to a soft smile. She moves to the espresso machine and begins to make him a double shot. Steve scoffs a laugh, cheeks still burning. He shoves his hands in his pockets.

His heart skips, flips, in his chest.

“Ha, I, uh, got caught up at the gym.”

“Ah, so you’re one of those meathead gym bros, huh?”

Steve places a hand over his heart, jokingly wounded.

“Ouch! Wow, you’re really hittin’ where it hurts this mornin’, huh?”

She giggles, prepping the milk for his drink. “I kid, I kid. I respect the grind! Especially when steroids are in such high demand these days.” She flashes him a knowing smirk as she continues to move about the coffee bar.

Steve grins, shaking his head. He can’t believe her. He can’t get enough of her– her laugh, her voice, the way she looks at him. He stares at her for a moment, admiring the focus in her eyes as she meticulously finishes his drink, the curve of her lips when she’s satisfied with her work.

Steve is still staring when she appears at the counter to give him his drink.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

Steve flushes again and presses his lips together, muttering an embarrassed apologizing. Before she turns to go, before he’s forced to continue on with his day until he sees her again tomorrow, a thought pops into the forefront of his mind. Before he knows it, his voice is working faster than his brain can.

“Hey, my-my frat is throwing a party this weekend at, uh, our house,” he starts, mouth instantly going dry. “Would, um, you like to maybe come?”

She stops. Her brow arches, mouth opening and closing without a word. She looks at Steve, really looks at him, studying him as an answer brews on her tongue.

Steve panics. “I-if not that’s totally fine, I, um, I just thought that–”

“Yes.”

Steve’s train of thought instantaneously derails.

“You–you… yes?” He repeats. She scoffs a laugh and nods.

“No promises, but yes. I’ll try to be there.”

Steve’s face hurts from smiling.

“Awesome! Great! I, uh, yes!” Steve confirms again.

Before he can say ‘yes’ for the tenth time, she pulls a marker out of her apron pocket and grabs his cup again, scribbling something on the backside. As she turns back to the coffee bar, Steve picks up his cup and turns it over. His eyes land on a smudged phone number followed by a tiny, smudged heart. He looks up, finding her gaze again, and melts as she bites her lip.

“Text me, meathead.”

Steve beams. Any and all words he’s ever known disappear from his mind.

“I can do that.”

As Steve leaves the cafe, he doesn’t care about being late to class as he enters her number into his phone. He doesn’t care about what the brothers will say come Friday when he introduces the first girl– the first person– he’s ever brought to a party.

He sips his drink, smiling to himself, knowing it’s the best damn cup of coffee he’s ever had.

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cloveroctobers · 7 months

Text

OCTOBER PROMPTS 🎃 — 3. Fezco

A/N: I always loved writing for fez so here’s a cute moment from me to y’all this fall season + I can’t wait to see Angus’ unreleased films—just saw a trailer for one the other night 🧡

PROMPTS are from here + I’m using: back to school/university + studio ghibli + “here take this!” “It’s a white sheet.” “Yeah, put it on.”

WARNINGS: language + doing weird couple things inspired by the fall season? :)

<- read my previous october prompt here.

⛧☾༺♰༻☽⛧ ⛧☾༺♰༻☽⛧ ⛧☾༺♰༻☽⛧ ⛧☾

He’s all open arms with a duffel bag on his shoulder, dark auburn hair grown out a bit from the usual buzz cut, single gold chain shining underneath the evening light, and when he catches your eye, seated on the top of the table outside on this fall Friday night, laughing it up with most of your new friends he can’t help but to smile at the sight. Fez was proud to see that most of the worries that you once had about lacking friends at college seemed to be a thing of the past.

“If they don’t see how special you are then fuck ‘em, you don’t need them. And you always got me and ash, remember that. I’ll even slide through and sit in on a class if you want me to.” He often told you when you weren’t having the best days adapting to your new environment, which was a hour and some change away from east highland and you knew Fez always means what he says. He’s always ten toes down for you and the feeling was surely mutual. However Fez wasn’t much of a school person himself preferring street smarts over anything but he never steered you away from getting your education, even when you wanted to give up but he knew you were never serious. It was of course sweet to hear Fez say these things but it didn’t completely erase the feeling when you’re out here on your own dealing with social anxiety. You had to do what you had to do and that’s on Tommy pickles!

It’s only been close to two months since you were back in school.

Taking a gap year—or two after graduating high school to figure out what you truly wanted to do, which did include working since your parents weren’t having you sitting around for a year not doing shit. Thankfully they allowed you to focus on your studies and you didn’t have to work throughout high school a couple years back. That gap turned into two with you going through two jobs and settled on a third before you took your chances again with UCLA.

Y’all don’t want to hear all the details but you made it back around to school at twenty, dreading the thought at the beginning and a little bit more once you set foot inside these huge classrooms but at least you kinda had a better idea of a major now than at eighteen. The dread kicked in even more because it always felt like you were behind especially when you talked to some classmates that were a little younger and more guided. The stress actually had you crying about it to your boyfriend fez over lengthy phone calls and FaceTimes more than with your own parents, who did check in, but you felt like they just didn’t get it.

To see Fez here unexpectedly had your heart thudding in your ears and you wasted no time, jumping off the table to run into Fez’s arms.

“Wassup ma? You miss me?”

“Always.” You nuzzled your head against Fez’s cheek, who chuckled, circling one arm around your body, tugging you right to his.

When you finally broke apart, you felt your eyes burning as you gripped his face just staring at him.

“C’mon man, you got time to drool over me later.”

Which made you playfully roll your eyes before intertwining your fingers with his, Fez giving your hand a gentle squeeze before you pulled him over to briefly introduce him to the friends you made. He was exactly what they were all expecting and they approved, although fez didn’t get the chance to put his stamp on them face to face because you were pulling him away to head back to the dorms.

“Hey! Make sure you put the scrunchie on the door for me!” Your roommate, Jasmine called out to you while the rest let out a chorus of ooo’s, which made Fez give a faint dimpled grin with you shaking your head.

Fez said from behind you as you practically dragged him through the leaf covered campus, “oh word? That’s what y’all be on here? I’m finna come up here every weekend then.”

Scoffing you slowed to walk beside fez instead, enjoying the feeling of him being beside you again. It was hard when you’re used to being around someone if not every day then every other day. Sure you ended up with one best friend during your senior year—that wasn’t fez but she was also one of the ones that always knew what they wanted to do with their lives. As soon as graduation hit, you spent maybe a few days out of the summer together before she started spending her time hanging out elsewhere with other people that decided to do the same schooling as her instead during the end of summer. Then she was gone off to college abroad on a ship with those said friends, yeah that shit must be real nice!! but you were always prone to motion sickness.

But hey! At least you still followed each other on Instagram and you liked each other’s photos from time to time. There really wasn’t any beef, that’s just the way life goes sometimes. You fall out of sync with old friends; although your mind starts to play tricks on you, making you question if the friendship was ever really genuine or just temporary. Nonetheless you tried to get over that as you welcomed new people in your life and they accepted you in return.

You still never planned on forgetting about Fergus O’Carroll, even if your brain tried.

“I see somebody’s ready for Halloween and shit,” Fez comments after dumping his bag on the desk chair, then moving back to the center of the dorm room to spin the hanging witch from the light on the ceiling.

Plopping down on your side of the room you sigh, “that’s all Jas’ doing. She basically forced me to get in the spooky spirit with this blanket and stuffed pumpkin. Otherwise than that, all these decorations are her doing. We both know I’m more of a Christmas person.”

“That’s coo though, ain’t nothing wrong with that. You like what you like.” Fez shrugged before hopping up on the bed with you, “although I must admit, I packed my road dog, Chucky with me.”

Fez and Ash loved Halloween for as long as you’ve been in their lives. “Child’s Play,” happened to be one of many of their favorite horror movies, which also didn’t surprise you as much when it came down to the deranged shit talking redhead of a doll. They got a kick out of him and Ash even tried to prank you seasons ago, dressed up as such one night when you fell asleep on their couch cramming for a test the next day, that’s until you pranked him right back during his prank; by faking unconsciousness deciding that you were getting sick of his pranks after awhile.

You showed that little shit but it was always all love.

Shoulder to shoulder, Fez bumped yours making you laugh a bit after you kicked off your shoes.

“So you’re here.”

“Shit, I think so.” Fez slowly blinked at you, patting all over his torso before the both of you laughed into each other’s faces, “yeah, happy to be here wit you.”

You’re scratching at his beard, then running your fingertips over the growth of hair on his head, to scanning the soft freckles all over his skin until you’re leaning forward to press a kiss right to his lips. Fez licks his bottom lip when you pull away, resting his hand right on your thigh now, “damn that little kiss is all I get? It’s been like twelve-fifty days since I last saw you.”

“That doesn’t sound right but I believe you,” you laughed still caressing his jaw before placing your lips right back on Fez’s.

It seems as if all the stress of whatever maybe going on in your lives burns away with the both of you in each others faces again. Phone calls can only get you so far and you knew Fez was busy getting to the bag while you were getting to the books. Yes those were his words, not yours. However you still made time for each other the best way you knew how, after all this relationship was not something either of you imagined letting go of.

“I’d say put the hair tie on the door but nature is currently doing its thing.” You whispered to fez, after the both of you broke apart to bring some air back into your lungs.

Fez squeezed your hip, “don’t even worry about it, I’m fine doin’ whatever you wanna do.”

“Movie night?”

“Right up my alley, what you thinking?”

A slow smile split over your lips then as you met Fez’s lighter eyes and he already knew as the both of you echoed, “Studio Ghibli.”

That’s how the two of you ended up, backs against propped up festive pillows by the wall for cushion, spiderweb black fleece blanket tossed over your laps, laptop stand placed on a side table you dragged to the center of the room, debating on which out of the batch to watch. You were aware that, “Grave of the fireflies,” was Fez and Ash’s movie to watch together along with their own personal favorites on the side and you also had your own so you both tried to come to terms with another.

As the intro to, “Howl’s moving castle,” began you jumped up, pausing it and alerting a low-lidded fez immediately.

He couldn’t even get to ask what you were doing, as you jumped off the bed and crouched down underneath the bed, dragging something out beneath it to dig through before you stood back up with a huff.

“Here, take this!”

Fez took the material from you, confusion digging into his brows, “Issa white sheet.”

“Yeah, put it on.” You motioned with your hands while fez lightly shook his head at you.

You moved back to your roommate’s side of the room, flicking her candy corn lights on while fez questioned, “for why tho?”

“We’ve been missing out on doing coupley things this fall being away from each other so… maybe now I’ll be in the mood.”

“So what we are gonna be? Two snuggling ghosts?”

Thinking about it for a second with a tilt of your head, you nodded as you picked up the second sheet, “yeah, I guess so.”

You slip the sheet on first, your eyes and mouth picking out of the two holes Fez wasn’t aware were even cut into the sheets until he rolled the other sheet around, “Yo?! Where’d you go?”

Groaning you held out your arms towards fez who slid the sheet over himself as well. “Oh that’s better, now I can see your sexy ass again.”

Posing for him underneath the sheet, you laughed after awhile before sitting right next to him again, covering yourselves back with the spiderweb blanket before letting your hands disappear again.

“You comfy?” Fez asked.

“Much better now,” you replied tucking your head into Fez’s sheet covered shoulder, thankfully because that vibrant wool sweater surely would itch the mess out of your skin.

It’s happened before! You still loved your man down but it had to be said—or thought?

Silence filled the dorm until Fez cleared his throat, “now how we supposed to watch the movie when you done paused it and your hands vanished, Casper?”

“Watch and learn my powers Stretch,” kicking your foot out, you attempted to point your toe to tap on the space bar like the bow wow meme but the stand the laptop was on happened to be a little too close on the edge of the night table, slipping right off and onto its side on the carpet.

Fez snorted, “your ghost powers suck, bro.”

Ready to retort, three knocks at the door halted you in doing so as they sounded along with a brief pause before it became unlocked, revealing a Afro haired jasmine standing in the door way peeking through the open gaps of her fingers.

“…not what I was expecting but whatever floats your boat!”

“Listen, I know this maybe weird as hell right now but it’s just us.” Fez spoke while Jasmine shrugged her shoulders, heading to her wardrobe to peel her jacket off.

“Oh this is a complete no-judgement zone from me, believe that! You can ask how many times they found me in here doing weird shit of my own. Please don’t let me interrupt, carry on.” Jasmine answered, pressing her hands on her hips afterwards.

Fez nodded.

You blinked, “jas…can you do us a huge favor?”

She deeply exhaled, “Are you gonna kick me out now because you want to have sex with the ghost sheets on?”

Fez raised his brows at that…you could never say your roommate wasn’t upfront about anything.

“What? No. Could you pick up my laptop for me and press play for us, please? Movie night got a little delayed.”

Jasmine sighed with relief, “oh hell yeah. Thank god because I did not want to crash at Anita’s again, she’s been farting and sleep talking like crazy lately and I have to get up for work in the morning.”

She moves through the room, picking it up and balancing it in the center of the table top and winks at you two. She halts over the spacebar suddenly asking the ginger in the room, “so fez…what do you think of our humble abode?”

“It’s straight. Knew it would be with the whole warning on the front door.”

“Right answer! Next year I plan on sneaking animatronics in here and scaring the poop outta people as soon as they enter, regardless of what Ilian says, our cute ass RA.” Jasmine beams before hitting the spacebar, “I’m gonna head down to the showers and I’ll be back in a bit. Enjoy your movie night love—ghost birds? Yeah that sounds good. I’m gonna write that down and revisit that for my creative writing class.”

Both you and fez watch as jasmine closes her eyes briefly and turns a makeshift key to the side of her temple before grinning. Mumbling to herself she goes through the room collecting her things to exit, leaving the two of you alone again.

“…and she says we’re doing weird shit when she does things like that?” Fez pointed making you snicker.

“She’s just different, a true Aquarius. Real smart though. Let’s not judge her since she didn’t judge us in our ghost glory.” you told fez from underneath the sheet who lifted his shoulders in surrender.

He wasn’t, “I swear I’m not. I’m just a guest observing it all.”

“Not uh, you’re home with me.”

“Well shit, let me get out these pants then and get real comfortable!”

“Nobody wants to see those hairy chicken legs.”

“Whoa, stop the cap! We know as soon as the temp drops tonight you’re gonna be playing footsies with me to keep warm.”

He’s not wrong but Fez didn’t have to be so loud about it.

Sighing you placed your head back against fez’s shoulder and he moved to rest his right on yours. Together you turned your attention back to the movie playing on the laptop, enjoying each others company like you never left.

Fez suddenly murmurs from beside you, “I love you, scholar.”

Your response was instant hearing the teasing but heart felt nickname, “And I’ll love you even more tomorrow, lucky.”

⛧☾༺♰༻☽⛧ ⛧☾༺♰༻☽⛧ ⛧☾༺♰༻☽⛧ ⛧☾

Continue with my October anthology prompts here.

#euphoria #euphoria hbo #fezco euphoria #fez #fezco #fez euphoria #fez x reader #fez x black! reader #October prompts #fall prompts #queued #angus cloud #fezco x f! reader

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f4nrir · 1 year

Text

Selcouth Chapter 1

steven grant x male reader

note: this is a student au! I decided to give this story a little twist where they are both in college and the two make an appearance eventually. I have limited knowledge of DID, feel free to educate me if i get something wrong! This is the first part and will be a series. special thanks to @xenizo for helping me edit.

Summary: You move to London and attend a new college where you meet a timid classmate. word count: 1.1k Chapter 2

The last semester at your previous college had been nothing but a mess. Grades dropping and frequent absences, you had become a truant. Living with your parents was so distracting that it ruined the routine you tried to keep in place for yourself. It was impossible to get anything done without the two of them breathing down your neck all time. "[Y/N] get those grades up, do the dishes, don’t forget to tidy up,” it never stopped, they were constantly telling you what to do and making sure it all gone done perfectly.

Your parents tried to shape you into someone you didn't want to be. They served in the military together, that’s where they probably developed their perfectionistic and strict mindsets. Growing up, you were constantly changing schools. Your environment was always changing, you didn’t get to make close friends and bond with others like everyone else did. You never really developed a close bond with anyone, it was always time to move right when you started getting comfortable.

You hoped that by choosing a school away from your parents, things would be different now. Now, you get to take the steps to achieve your goal of becoming an archeologist, rather than following in your parents footsteps and joining the military. Archeology and the study of Egyptology have been a passionate interest of yours ever since you were little. Watching historic films and reading about different gods, it all fascinated you.

But if only you were as good at English as you were at Egyptology. Grammar, context clues, essays, it all made your head hurt. You were, understandably, very nervous for your English class. The school was considered prestigious so the expectations were high. You hoped that you would meet their standards.

Walking to your first class of the day, you had felt a rush of anticipation and excitement because Egyptology was your biggest interest. The school’s list of classes gave a brief description of what this course is like and how the class works. It was a bit different from the rules at your previous school and that's what excited you, this was a huge opportunity.

You opened the doors to your class, greeted by several faces looking over at you. You walked around to find a seat but each row was either full or someone would let you know that spot was “taken.” You could feel yourself growing anxious, it felt like everyone was rejecting you or didn’t think you were worthy enough to be sitting near them.

Then at the very top row, you noticed a (clearly very shy) person, sat with his hands on his lap and head down to avoid eye contact with anyone. He has curly, dark brown hair and rough facial features. You decided to take a risk and ask him if you could sit next to him. He looked up at you, "yeah, of course," he responded with a nervous smile and a thick british accent. You finally got a good look of his face and he looked handsome, his eyes were sunken in and had obvious eye bags but god, he looked good. A blush developed on your face as you sat down next to him, placing your bag on the floor and taking your notebook and pens out for the lecture. "My name is [Y/N], by the way," you said as you looked back over at him. After a moment of (very awkward) silence, he replied, "My name is Steven, with a V.” You let out a small chuckle at this detail. You held your hand out for him to shake and he timidly shook it after realizing what you were holding your hand out for.

Steven was nervous, he wasn’t expecting anyone to approach him. He wasn’t sure of what to say, he had always spent a lot of time by himself, or a lot of time with Marc and Jake. Growing up, he had Marc and both of them were happy with that, until Jake came along. Although, they did still get lonely occasionally and interacting with others was difficult.

“So.. you like ancient Egypt? Steven asked and you perked up, surprised that he chose to initiate a conversation. “I mean, since you’re taking this class, I figured you take interest in it but I-“ You cut him off with a gentle laugh and nodded your head, “I’ve found this captivating since I was little. I watched all the films and read every book I could find. I’ve always wanted to be an archeologist, figured this might be a start to getting there,” you replied. Steven was giving you his undivided attention as you spoke. It felt like he was coming out of his shell after finding out you guys have something in common.

A few more minutes went by and then your lecture began. You both began writing down some notes, jotting down all sorts in interesting information. You looked over at Steven, who was writing everything your professor had to say about the Ennead. He seemed to be very fascinated by that.

A few more pages of notes and a stump of a pencil later, you looked up at Steven and asked, “What’s your next class?” as you took out the paper that you had your classes written down on it. You intended to write down his next class so you would eventually get a sense of his schedule. He replied, “I’ve got English with uh.. Professor Monroe, that’s my last class of the day. How about yourself?” as he began carefully putting his items back into his satchel. You smiled and told him you had the same class next. You felt as if luck was on your side, that you and Steven were meant to meet and be friends. “I’ve got Monroe too, would you like to walk together? Class doesn’t start for a bit, I figured we could chat and get something to eat since I’m a bit hungry,” deciding to take a risk and get to know him better because you truly found him interesting. Steven blinked a few times and stopped before he spoke, looking confused which had you wondering if you had said something wrong. “Me?” he stammered, “I mean, sure! I don’t mind, I just didn’t think you’d want to hang around with me” awkwardly laughing and clutching onto his bag. “Of course you! We have a lot in common and I could use a friend. It’s my first day here..” the last part of that sentence made him perk up, remembering the fear and anxiety he felt when he first arrived here on campus. “Oh.. thank you. That means a lot to me,” he paused for a second, “There’s this place I know near campus, a nice little place, they’ve got vegan options as well, which I appreciate because, well, I’m vegan. But anyways, they have a lot of options so hopefully you’ll find something that you fancy. I’ll show you,” he gave you a small, awkward smile and made his way down the steps and you followed him out of the room.

#— zeppelin’s files 📁#steven grant #moon knight #marc spector #male reader #jake lockley #khonshu #steven grant x reader #marc spector x reader #jake lockley x reader

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creepswrites · 1 year

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Mixing Slushies (Stu Macher x Reader)

oof I've been craving to write a solo for this boy for a WHILE so I hope you enjoy!! I feel like this story has a slightly different tone from what I usually write so please let me know if you liked it.

Stu Macher x AMAB!Reader (he/they)

Summary: He'd seen you crying in your bathroom over your parents fighting, seen you high and so out of your mind you had struggled to even talk, and knew you got slushies in both red and blue flavors but always poured red first and you never stirred it up. You let yourself hug him back, trying to avoid smudging the eyeliner you wore all over his shirt. WARNING: 18+, rude language, period-typical homophobia, recreational drug/alcohol use, discussion of murder, knifeplay, fearplay, mild choking

Living in Woodsboro had come with certain... challenges. Your dad being on the police force had been one of those challenges, since being the chief's son and openly gender non-conforming came with a special kind of bullying. Kids your own age and adults your father worked with seemed to almost take turns giving impolite-but-polite comments about how you dressed or just straight up insults on your general person. It was all just a part of growing up for you, something you believed you'd be doomed to accept if you didn't conform.

Your father was certainly of no help, whining to your mother constantly how he didn't want a "sissy" for a son and only shouting at you when you tried to argue with him. So, you resigned yourself to being bullied, believing that to be your fate till you could blow this fucking town. Get out and never look back.

Until you met Stu Macher.

The two of you met properly when you were both freshmen in high school, but you'd known him since your father transferred to Woodsboro the previous year. Though he'd never really caught your attention then. Too-tall and gangly, the class clown sort of guy. You'd only had one class together in eighth grade so it wasn't like you had to deal with him often. You didn't hate him, he just didn't stand out. He'd notice your outfits though and the friends he hung out with at the time would point and laugh, even if he just smiled at you.

Thankfully, by the time high school rolled around, kids generally had better things to do than give a shit if you wore a skirt or eyeliner to school. Besides, it was fun, fuck all of them. First week went by easy but on the second week, some of the seniors were giving you shit, trying to pull on your hair and trip you up. It was quick to stop after Stu Macher punched one so hard he broke his nose. You still fondly remember the sickening crunch, the waterfall of blood, and the bright smile Stu had given you. Like he'd been holding that in for months.

No one ever really bothered you after that. But Stu still did.

He'd always be trailing after you, asking about your new skateboard or trying to steal your headphones to see what music you were listening to on your Walkman. At first it was annoying but you slowly began opening up to him, especially after he'd defended you. Only reason he didn't have detention was because the guys he hit didn't want to be humiliated by losing to a freshman half their size.

So you two started to hang out as friends. You'd drag Stu to some abandoned train tracks and teach him to skateboard or he'd take you to his house to watch movies. Horror movies quickly became your favorite, the two of you spent hours gushing over how the movies were filmed, the stories, everything. Even rewatching movies you'd seen was fun with Stu. He had an interest in becoming a director so he would always try to explain how the scenes were shot but you'd both become overexcited at the blood and gore.

It was common knowledge to most in your neighborhood that your parents fought. They'd have screaming matches well into the night and the cops had even been called to investigate 'domestic disturbances' that your neighbors phoned in. Whenever the screaming started now, you'd just sneak out your window and head to the Macher farmhouse or sneak the lanky boy in through your window.

He never judged you when you sobbed when the fights turned aggressive, shouts and the shattering of plates making their way under your locked bedroom door as they fought. He'd lay against your headboard with you in between his legs against his chest and let you listen to music, tracing idle patterns on his arm as you zoned out. By the time red and blue lights flashed outside, you'd both be asleep.

You remembered one night in particular, the last fight your parents had before the divorce, how he'd come crawling in your window after the shouting had died down and your dad had left for a bar and mom was sobbing in her room. How Stu had lay beside you in you bed for hours, the two of you pressed together on the twin mattress. You'd buried your face in his chest and he rubbed circles in your back, only pausing in his motions when your sobs shook your whole body. He'd whispered reassurances to you, promises that he'd kill them if he could to spare you the pain, and soft little jokes to try and get you to laugh.

You hadn't, but his efforts were appreciated.

You spent most of that school year with the Macher family. Mrs Macher adored you and was relieved her son had a friend like you. You helped out around the house way more than any of her actual kids and she understood what it was like to deal with divorced parents. She and Stu's biological dad had gotten divorced not long after he was born but her new husband was so much better for them. She hoped you'd find the same comforts if your parents remarried.

You didn't tell her how Stu still called his dad some nights. How he'd drag you to pay phones after school to call him all the way in Europe. He missed him, just didn't know how to cope with that. The dial tone you were met with broke his heart a little more every time and you'd take him to get slushies afterwards to cheer him up.

Taking Stu into town to raid convenience stores had been the most fun you'd ever had. He always got blue and you'd get red and blue, scolding him whenever he tried to mix your drink to see if it'd make purple. Eventually, his curiosity got the better of him and he'd drink his own mixed up slushies with you on the side of the road. The summers were warm and it was easy for you two to stay out late, eating low-quality food and bathing in the LED lights outside wearing t-shirts and shorts, and holding hands as you ventured down the dark, empty Woodsboro streets together.

"I never want to go home," you'd told him one night while you sat on the curb outside the little store. "I just want to stay here with you forever."

He'd given you the softest look imaginable, half his face illuminated by the harsh blue lights leaking through the huge windows of the store behind you. "Yeah?" He'd had a particularly soft look in his eye when he spoke, voice all quiet.

You'd nodded, taking a loud slurp of your drink. "Everything's better with you around." You'd said it so plainly, brushing off the feeling of your own heart pounding at the admission.

He'd looked away, cheeks tinted pink, and you'd punched his arm gently for it and smiled when he laughed. The two of you sat drinking slushies alone together on the street. You'd only looked back over when Stu looked over his shoulder. When you followed his gaze, you raised an eyebrow. Why the hell was he staring at the cashier?

You got your answer when he quickly leaned over to kiss your cheek, a chaste thing that had your face heating up so fast that even holding your chilled hand to your face afterwards did nothing to cool you down. "You bastard!" You'd laughed, kicking at him while he stood up, giggling.

"You like me, you like me!" He taunted and you chased after him, the two of you laughing against the darkness, worn shoes hitting hard on the pavement.

It was that summer between freshman and sophomore year when you realized you were in love with him.

It had been an average summer day, lounging in Stu's room in a t-shirt and boxers. He'd gone out to grab snacks for you two and should've been back about half an hour ago. When he finally came home with a black eye, bloody nose, and bloody knuckles, he'd barely sat still long enough for you to bandage him. He wouldn't give you a straight answer about what happened to him or tell you what happened to the other guy.

But it was at that moment you'd wanted to kiss him and you felt so sick after the fact you couldn't even eat dinner, no matter how much Stu's mom pressed you to.

You did your best to keep Stu from finding out. Hanging out with him was still normal enough but it always left you with butterflies in your stomach.

It felt horrible. It felt like lying to him.

By the time sophomore year was in full swing though, Stu was all over Billy Loomis suddenly, leaving you alone most of the time. Which was fine, you told yourself. It was fine. So you made acquaintance with the skater kids, spent time smoking weed, and did whatever possible to avoid spending time at home, your's or Stu's. You ate alone outside the cafeteria and still wore skirts and eyeliner. You convinced yourself you didn't give a shit about Stu Macher. It was fine.

It wasn't.

The last time you saw him was when your mom was loading up her belongings into a small moving truck. The long, drawn-out custody battle had belongings split up appropriately, your dad being left the house while mom got the truck. So she wanted to move to pursue her dreams of becoming a famous Hollywood actress. You'd been helping load up boxes into the truck when you saw Stu watching you from across the street.

Once you'd set the box in the truck, you made your way over to him, frowning at the wistful look on his face. "So you're really going?" He hadn't looked at you as he spoke, just staring longingly at your empty bedroom window.

You crossed your arms over you chest, the fleece jacket you wore suddenly feeling too hot. "Guess so. Mom's found this shitty little apartment in Hollywood she wants to move to. Dad didn't want custody of me so... I'm going with her. Order of the state, I guess." Soft green eyes fell on you, unshed tears lingering.

You looked away from him when he spoke up. "I'm gonna miss you, y'know? Wish you could stay..."

You remember that you both had cried a little but you don't remember who had moved in to the kiss first. What you do know is you definitely kissed Stu Macher outside your shitty house in a shitty, bitterly cold November winter. And for the first time since you'd moved to Woodsboro, you didn't want to leave.

At first, you were incredibly supportive of your mother's dreams, a little happy to be away from your dad in Woodsboro and painful memories of the divorce, the bullying, and your unrequited-maybe-requited love for Stu Macher. Sure, you missed him like hell and it was annoying to change schools halfway through a semester, but the kids at your new school paid you little to no attention. Even when you'd let your hair grow down to your shoulders and cut yourself bangs with safety scissors in the school bathroom with some girls' help. You started selling weed and whatever stuff you could get your hands on to the older kids for cash and you were content for awhile.

You let yourself admire pretty boys in LA and made superficial friends with kids a grade above you that you didn't give a shit about but were fun to pass time with. One of the junior girls, Becky, had even taken you to their prom so you could all hang out. The rest of sophomore year and your entire junior year was mostly uneventful for you, thank god. Your older friends skipped their senior prom and took you out to McDonalds with the sole intent to get high later.

You were happy. As happy as you could be, anyways.

Until your mother stopped coming home. Always off to some rehearsal that was never always a real rehearsal and sometimes just her going off to get shitfaced with friends she'd made. Like mother, like son, perhaps. You rarely had food in the house anymore so you had to get a part time job in order to feed yourself. Most days, dinner was whatever you could steal from the cafeteria at school.

Things got harder when you both got evicted. Mom hadn't been paying rent. So you packed up your things and called your dad.

He had been... hesitant to let you move back home. After all, you only had one more year of school. But with your eighteenth birthday coming up, your dad agreed to let you stay with him for the last year of schooling. Your mothers drinking and drug habits eventually cost her custody of you. Most of the summer was spent packing your room and driving with your dad back upstate when he came to collect you.

If you closed your eyes, you can still hear her haunting wails as she begged you to stay with her.

Moving back to Woodsboro was... well, easy honestly. You settled back into your old room and had a chance to redecorate. Of course, dad tried to set harder limits with you but when you agreed to just pay part of the rent like you were a tenant, he relaxed a little. He didn't have to parent you, he could just be your landlord instead. It was an acceptable arrangement. You got a part time job at a records store nearby that summer, you turned eighteen, and you were surviving. Even if you had to buy your own food, that wasn't new for you. Thanks mom, you had groaned internally to yourself as you ate at Burger King more nights than not.

Senior year was going to be stressful, you knew that. A part of you had kind of assumed Stu wouldn't even remember you, that he'd likely gotten a girlfriend, joined some sports team, or had just plain moved on with his life. You two hadn't even kept up over the past few years, despite the fact you could have called to him or written to him.

You just... didn't.

You'd spend hours staring at the phone trying to will yourself to call him but it was too hard. It would be painful to listen to him gush about a girlfriend at school or talk about how successful he was compared to yourself. Though in hindsight, had you known you'd be coming back after a year and a half, maybe you would have just done it anyways.

Regardless, you showed up to senior year skating. You'd always loved skateboarding and had kept up the hobby while in Hollywood. Plus it made moving around faster. Your hair was still messy and intentionally unkempt, you had an oversized graphic t-shirts, and a worn flannel tied around your waist. The ripped jeans and dingy shoes you wore were the icing on the cake. You bailed off the board when you got close to the steps, carrying it under one arm as you made your way up to the front doors, ignoring the looks the freshmen kids gave you. The staring wasn't exactly new to you.

What was new was how fucking tall Stu Macher had gotten.

Seeing him leaning against a locker chatting with some girl made your stomach feel weird and tight. You'd recognize Casey Becker anywhere and suddenly found yourself wishing you could set her head on fire with your mind. You may have liked Stu when you were fifteen, but surely things were different now, you told yourself. Still... that didn't mean you had to like how goo-goo eyed he got while talking to her. So you looked away. You didn't see how he lit up when he saw you nor how he trailed off talking to Casey fucking Becker because he saw you. You just pressed onwards through the bustling hallways, headphones tight around your head and your eyes on the floor.

Until Stu lifted you up in his arms and spun you around.

"Fuck!" You screamed in shock, headphones falling off your head as he hugged you.

"You're back, you're really back! I heard you were back in town but I thought Randy was bullshitting me!" He was smiling at you with that bright look he always had when he was excited. "Hollywood not work out, superstar?" His snickering made you roll your eyes, mostly out of fondness. Same old annoying ass boy...

"More like mom crashed and burnt. I'm only back so I don't have to live on the streets," you shrugged but Stu's hands didn't leave their spot on your shoulders. "Didn't, uh... didn't think you'd miss me so much."

"Didn't miss you!?" He stared at you like you'd grown two heads. "Dude, I was fucking crushed when you left!" You bit your lip nervously and avoided his gaze. Neither of you were going to talk about the kiss, you knew that much. At least not in public. "I missed you more than anything. Missed you every fucking day." His soft tone had you staring up at him with wide, shocked eyes. He pulled you in for another hug and you immediately deflated, dropping the hard act you always put on for everyone else and wrapping your arms around him.

Stu wasn't like everyone else. He never had been.

He'd seen you crying in your bathroom over your parents fighting, seen you high and so out of your mind you had struggled to even talk, and knew you got slushies in both red and blue flavors but always poured red first and you never stirred it up. You let yourself hug him back, trying to avoid smudging the eyeliner you wore all over his shirt.

"I missed you too..." You mumbled, slowly becoming aware of the feeling of eyes on you. When you pulled back though, it wasn't the students lingering by their lockers or walking past you that were staring. It was Stu's friends, giving confused looks at you and each other. You recognized Billy Loomis and Randy Meeks at least but the two girls that followed them took you a minute to recognize. "They, uh, are they all your friends?" You gestured over his shoulder to where they were, which got Stu to turn and look when they approached you two.

"Oh! Hey guys, when'd you get here?" He grinned at you and you raised an eyebrow.

"Just arrived," Billy smirked and looked between you and Stu. "Tatum was looking for ya, actually." The ginger girl crossed her arms over her chest and was giving you a suspicious look.

"I thought you hated Tatum Riley." You mumbled to Stu's back as he led introduced you to the group: Billy Loomis, Sidney Prescott, Tatum Riley, and Randy Meeks. The latter couldn't seem to help his staring at you in particular.

"Nice, uh, style?" Randy tilted his head curiously at you. "What's the shirt for?" You glanced down at yourself and the shirt you had on. A sharpened candy cane with blood dripping down from it.

Smirking at Randy, you tugged the fabric of your shirt down a bit to let him see better. "It's for Black Christmas. A horror movie about a killer at Christmas who kills a whole sorority of girls."

Stu leaned up against the wall of behind you, peering over your shoulder. "That was always your favorite. We watched that at least, like, a million times." You shrugged lightly at his teasing with a soft smile. Of course he remembered, you made him watch that movie with you at least a dozen times in December alone.

Randy crossed his arms over his chest, looking smug all of a sudden. "Well, did you know that Black Christmas-"

"-was the inspiration for Halloween? Was filmed in Canada but the lead actress was British? Had so many people playing the killer that the director had no idea who did the iconic body-shot?" You cut him off, smirking at the clear surprise on his face. "Yeah, I'm not just pretty." Stu cackled at Randy's blush, obviously trying to hide how impressed he was.

"Ugh, not another boy obsessed with horror movies," Tatum rolled her eyes, nudging Sydney with her hip. "You and Randy will be like peas in a pod if you know trivia like that."

Something flashed over Stu's face briefly when she said that. "Well, sucks for Randy, I got dibs years ago." He said, straightening up.

As the group began chatting, you looked over at Billy Loomis, who had stayed particularly quiet the entire time, and were surprised to find him staring back at you. You raised an eyebrow and he tilted his head with a slight smile. It didn't strike you as strange immediately but you got the feeling Billy was sizing you up somehow. You didn't particularly care one way or another about the guy. He was friends with Stu, sure, but thats where it began and ended with you.

Not to mention you were still a bit jealous and bitter Stu had picked him over you all sophomore year up until you'd moved away.

But you got the impression Stu would be dragging you to group outings more. Maybe it would be better to get along with the rest of his friends.

The sound of rocks at your window was almost nostalgic, you thought, as you made your way to your window and slid it open. Stu was standing down in your front yard, his car parked in the driveway. Your dad had been called out for a night shift so you had been alone at home doing homework. The sticky September heat was getting to your head and you felt agitated and tired.

Seeing Stu boosted your mood a bit. "What brings you here, stranger?" You teased, crossing your arms on the windowsill as you leant against it.

The taller boy grinned up at you. "Wanna get out of here? Like old times?"

You scoffed. "Old times? Like, a year and a half ago?"

"Is that a no?" Stu pouted dramatically and you rolled your eyes fondly.

"Gimme a sec to change." You shut your window and blinds and started rooting around your room. A plain white tank top and high waisted jeans would be cute, you hummed to yourself. But it was too warm for pants, so you settled on a navy blue knee-length skirt you had in your closet. You usually went for darker colors when dressing but Stu wouldn't care how you looked one way or another. As if he knew a thing about fashion, you snorted to yourself as you recalled how he'd go days wearing the same pair of jeans.

Running a brush through your hair, you huffed at yourself. You could do your eyeshadow but with how dark it was, it wouldn't really be worth it. Instead, you put in your various piercings and made your way downstairs. Grabbing your wallet and keys, you made sure to lock the door behind you. Stu stood dressed in his classic jeans and a blue t-shirt, looking you up and down teasingly.

"Some things never change though, huh?" He gestured to your style and smiled wider when you flipped him off.

"You're still a jackass, so maybe you're right, yeah." You shot back, Stu laughing at your snark and watched with amusement as you took shotgun next to him. "Do you still have shitty taste in music?"

Stu balked at your tone as you started checking the radio stations. "I've never had shitty taste! Maybe if you had stayed, it could be to your standards." You knew he was joking but you still picked absently at a loose thread on your skirt, resting your feet up on the dashboard.

"I'm... you know I'm sorry about that, right?" Your voice was quiet as Stu started up the car. "I didn't get a say in the matter, dad didn't fucking want me."

Stu was quiet for a moment before reaching over the center console to squeeze your hand. Neither of you said anything but you let your fingers lace together in your lap and you blushed. Feelings for your friend hadn't really faded, just got put on a back-burner. It was... difficult to tell if Stu felt the same. On one hand, you suspected he was dating Casey Becker but on the other hand he was way too touchy with you to be completely disinterested.

The drive to the 7-11 was mostly silent except for the soft, tinny music leaking from the car's speakers. Some song by Nirvana, you recognized, but it was too quiet to make out the lyrics. Stu squeezed your hand as he pulled into the parking lot and the two of you stepped out.

The bright fluorescent lights felt more like home than your actual house.

"So, what trouble have you gotten into while I was gone?" You teased Stu as you followed him down the chips aisle. "Nothing I'd miss, surely?" It was mostly a jest but a part of you was a little worried he had more fun with you gone.

Stu just laughed, grabbing a few small chip bags and tossing your favorite flavor to catch. "Nah, nothing's as fun as causing trouble with you," he gave you a playful wink and you lightly kicked at his ankle. "Though... I guess something weird happened when you left."

"Oh?" You tilted your head curiously and followed him to the desserts aisle, grabbing Hostess sweets and a cup of mini Oreos. "What happened?"

Stu rubbed the back of his neck, glaring down at a Twinkie in thought. "Well, uh, Sydney's mom got murdered."

Your head snapped around to stare at him, horrified. "...weird isn't the word I'd use to describe that Stu! Christ, what happened?" You pestered him, poking him with a Twinkie.

"No one knows," the taller man shrugged, "got killed by one of her many, many hookups. Police didn't give too many details." You whistled, shaking your head in disbelief. You'd heard of Sydney's moms... history. You didn't really care that much, it wasn't like it was your business. "Killer's been sent to death though! Injection, according to the news." Stu continued as he followed you towards the slushie machine.

"Sounds... really fucking horrible, god," you said almost breathlessly. "Is Syd okay?" You were never very close to Sydney Prescott or her parents but you still felt a pit in your stomach hearing about the horrors she'd experienced only a year ago.

Stu nodded. "Yeah, she and Billy have actually been dating for a few years now! Got together after winter break in sophomore year actually, she's pretty nice." He handed you a slushie, made exactly how you liked it. You gave him a slight smile and followed him to cash out, absentmindedly sipping on the drink and staring out the glass doors.

Once you both were back in Stu's car, he started driving. The cool night lit up by the city lights was pretty. You admired the way the lights got smaller as Stu took you both up a bit into the mountains. "Where are we going?"

"There's a pretty sick spot just up here. Gives you a good view of the town, I think you're gonna love it." He gave you a mischievous look and turned up the music. The soft indie music washed over you for the short drive up the mountainside until you reached a clearing. Tall grasses enveloped a few picnic benches that sat not far from where you parked but Stu didn't move towards them.

The car had AC anyways so the two of you caught up in relative peace while you ate. You told him about your weed habits, going to junior prom in sophmore year, and your inebriated mother that was probably still trying to drink her way into a job. He told you about his relationship with Casey Becker and how she'd dumped him not long before school started to date Steven Orth.

"Steven Orth?!" You gawked, disgusted. "He's, like, a total fucking douchebag!"

"I know!" Stu lamented, burying his face in his hands. "Honestly, all the football players are asshats, you have no idea!"

As was tradition, the two of you had been debating about A Nightmare on Elm Street when you'd felt the energy shift. You'd been in the middle of explaining how the police should have known Rod Lane couldn't have killed Tina Gray because he was absolutely spotless while the rest of the room was a bloodbath when you noticed Stu's looking you over. Closely.

"Do you ever think about it?" He interrupted you quietly.

"Think about... what?" You asked innocently, tilting your head. You both were sitting awkwardly in the backseat, cross-legged and facing each other. Stu lay his head a bit on the headrest of his seat as he stared at you, blinking slowly.

"You know what." He mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck.

You did. But you wanted to hear him say it. "Nightmare on Elm Street? I mean, not usually, it's nowhere near my favorite-"

Stu smirked and nudged you lightly with his knee. "Not the movie, dumbass. I mean... the day you left."

You gave him a quick glare. "Say it."

Stu frowned, chewing on his bottom lip. "When we kissed." His voice was barely a whisper.

You folded your legs up to your chest, wrapping your arms around them as you both avoided looking at each other. "Yeah, sometimes." You felt his eyes on you when you spoke. "Thought about it the entire drive to Hollywood too."

"Do you want to..." Stu trailed off and you gave him a look. "Do you want to do it again?" He was suddenly fascinated by your shoes, staring intensely to avoid looking at you.

The silence felt deafening as you weighed the pros and cons in your mind, of which there were only a few cons you could think of at the moment.

Quietly, you pushed his back up against the seat so he was now facing the front of the car and you straddled his lap, blushing when his hands instinctively moved to hold your hips. His eyes were as wide as dinner plates when you leant in to kiss him, effectively answering his question.

Pulling back and pressing your foreheads together, you were both effectively out of breath and you could feel you both were half hard. The two of you had been making out for the better part of half an hour and you felt your blood singing. Stu had one hand under your skirt, toying with the hem of your underwear, and another hand gripping your hips to help maintain a slow grind with you. Your hands were tight on his shoulders and your head felt heavy. "How," you panted softly, "far are we taking this?"

Stu pressed his forehead to your chest, grinning wildly. "As far as you want, honestly." He huffed before gazing up at you with bright eyes. "Would love to fuck you though." You felt your face heat up and you whined in response, rocking harshly against Stu. "Yeah?" He teased you, running his hands up your left leg and caressing your inner thigh. "You want that?"

"You're a bitch," you whined, tilting your head back. Stu took the opening to kiss your neck, biting down gently. You tightened your legs around his waist and tried to avoid hitting the horn on the steering wheel. He lifted your skirt more to give himself easier access to you, his hands reaching down to cup your ass.

"I'm your bitch," he countered with a giggle. You kissed him, biting on his lower lip to try and gain entry to his mouth. Pressing your tongues together was sultry, made your cock throb with need. When you scraped your nails down Stu's arms, he groaned into your mouth. "Oh god, fuck," he gasped as he pulled away, thrusting his hips up involuntarily as little pink lines popped up on his skin. "Fuck, please say I can fuck you babe, please."

You hummed, nodding enthusiastically. "Okay," you whispered to him, burying your face in his neck. "Just- Just be gentle, okay?" You didn't want to tell Stu you hadn't had sex before, but you hoped he could just tell. He pulled your shirt up and over your head, tossing it to the backseat. You kissed him again, tugging on his shirt as well. "Off." You said defiantly and he relented, letting you pull off his shirt.

"So bossy," he teased and kissed you again. "Missed you more than anything." Stu ran his hands up your flanks, hiking your skirt up.

The laugh bubbled in your throat, threatening to escape. "You jus' saying that 'cause you're gonna get laid?" You teased.

Stu pressed kisses to your throat with a thoughtful hum. "Obviously," he smiled, sarcasm oozing from his voice, "been waitin' to do this since we were, fuckin', fifteen or something. Sooo, obviously, once we're done 'm gonna go get a girlfriend or something." He joked, kissing you softly.

You just rolled your eyes when you pulled back. His words took a minute to set in. "Wait, that long?!" Your eyes widened almost comically.

Stu rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly looking shy. "Yeah, I, uh, I've liked ya for awhile, baby." For some reason, that was what made you blush.

"Gay," you grumbled, kissing him again. "You gonna fuck me or not?"

"Oh, such a romantic!" Stu fanned himself dramatically, fake moaning. You smacked his chest playfully as he shifted you off his lap. "One sec," he huffed, reaching over the center console to open the glove box. He pulled out a bottle of lube and sat back down.

You blinked. "You have a habit of having sex in your car?" Stu blushed and you raised an eyebrow.

"Nah, uh, just a habit of jerking it when I skip class." He shot you a wink and unbuttoned his jeans. You rolled your eyes, moving to pull your skirt down but Stu stilled your hands. "Uhh... can I uh- can I fuck you in the skirt?"

You stared at him. "Yeah, s-sure." You swallowed and tugged your underwear down, setting it aside before climbing back in Stu's lap. He looped his arms around your waist with a content sigh. "What, you got a thing for skirts?" You joked, running a hand through his hair.

Stu looked up at you, resting his chin on your middle. "Just got a thing for you."

The two of you stared at each other for a long moment before you sank onto his lap with a whine, kissing him deeply. He ran his hands up under the back of your tank top and pulled it off over your head. Slowly, he ran his hands slowly up your thighs and you felt yourself jump. "Cold," you mumbled, pressing your face into his neck.

He leant his head against yours with a soft chuckle. "You do this before?" Your deafening silence made Stu still. "Wait, really?"

"Who would I have slept with?" You pulled back to squint at him.

"I dunno!" He pouted. "Maybe I thought you got a boyfriend or somethin' out in Cali!"

Softening, you cupped his face. "No. Just- just you..." His eyes widened and you felt your face heat up. "Wait-"

"I'm your boyfriend?" Stu's voice was soft and you felt his arms tighten around you. You couldn't bear to look at him, face hot and embarrassed tears pricking your eyes. "Hey, don't cry- Baby, look at me."

When you finally looked at him, tears falling down your cheeks and burning your eyes, he was staring up at you like you were the only thing in the world. He brushed his thumb under your eyes and kissed you. "I'll happily be your boyfriend. If ya want, y'know." You giggled wetly at his attempts to be nonchalant about it. Nodding, you sniffled and he kissed along your neck.

Leave it to Stu to make you weepy and then immediately return to wanting to fuck you.

He bit down gently, sucking small hickies into your neck and making you writhe in his hold. "Stu-"

"Look, if I'm your boyfriend, I gotta make sure everyone else knows." He gave you a wink and your blush got worse somehow. His hands ran back up your skirt and you ground your erection against the rough material of his jeans. "Aww, want me that bad?" He taunted you.

You heard the cap of the lube bottle crack open and you tensed instinctively. "Shh," Stu whispered in your ear and let you hide your face in his neck. "It's okay baby, easy." His words soothed you a little bit but you still tensed up a bit. "Lemme love on ya a lil, yeah?"

In hindsight, Stu should have probably held the bottle in his hands a bit before prepping you. In hindsight, had you known the two of you would be having sex in his car, you would have moved to the back in the first place to prevent you accidentally setting off the car alarm when you leant back.

But neither of those things were considered. So, here you two were: in the backseat of his car, both now undressed minus your skirt, with you on your back and him leaning overtop of you, one of your legs hooked over his shoulder and the other pushed aside into the open space behind the driver seat. Stu's face was flushed red and you swung an arm over your eyes to avoid being looked at.

Gently, he brushed your arm away and pinned your arm above your head. You shuddered when he pressed the head of his cock against you - closing your eyes at the phantom feelings his fingers left behind inside you. He was shockingly gentle and thorough during the prep, pulling you apart to a begging mess with his hand alone. Biting and kissing on your neck as you rocked your hips against him, pleading with him for more, faster, anything-

"Lemme look atcha," Stu chuckled once your face was in view again. You whined and rocked against him, wordlessly begging. "Ask me nicely, baby. Tell me whatcha want."

You let out a helpless moan. "Fuck me, please, Stu. Need you so bad-"

"Anything for you," was the only warning you got before he pressed the head of his cock inside you. You threw your head back instinctively with a soft moan at the feeling of being opened like that. Hot and wet and-

"Fuck, please-" You begged, blindly reaching for your boy. He held your hand - because he was good like that - and kissed your knuckles. He gave you what you wanted and slid in deeper. Slowly. Making sure you feel every inch. Quickly, you snapped a hand over your mouth to muffle the loud moan.

Stu put a hand against your throat and squeezed. Not hard enough to choke you properly, but enough to make your body tense instinctively. "Don't do that baby, c'mon, you're doin' so well."

You dropped the hand and let out a moan, biting on your lip. Stu seemed pleased by this but he kept his hand on your neck as he moved his hips slowly. He hadn't bottomed out yet but he'd already begun a slow back and fourth, in and out of you. Working his way inside you, letting your insides get hot and gooey from the lube and from his pre.

When he finally, finally, bottomed out, you were shaking from the sensations of being filled, of being fucked. Stu leant forward and kissed you, squeezing harder at your neck to make you squeak. "That's my pretty boy," he said breathlessly. "Fuck, you're jus' made for me, huh? Made to take my cock, look at you."

You turned your head to the side, feeling yourself burn under his gaze - blue eyes completely eclipsed and making you feel seen. Your eye caught a glimpse of something metal reflecting the moonlight seeping in from the car's window. As soon as you realized what it was, you felt yourself clench down on the cock inside you.

Stu followed your eyes with a slow smile. Gently reaching over under the passenger's door, he pulled out a sharp hunting knife. Clean - too clean, your logical mind tried to scream but you were too focused on being fucked to care - and a mask. A white face that reminded you of Scream painting you'd seen in an art class in Cali.

He turned the knife over in his hand, looking you over almost curiously. "You like it?" His voice was practically taunting. "Just like those horror movies. Wanna be the cute slut who dies first?" His voice had a menacing edge to it, making you whimper. "Nah," he said softly, kissing you again. "You're my final girl, without a doubt."

"Stu-" You choked out, clenching your thighs around his hips.

Slowly, he looked at the mask, then the knife, and then back at you. You writhed under his gaze, wanting him to move. Slowly, he put the mask on over his face. The white mask combined with the black hood completely obscured his face. You could hear his heavy breathing as he turned the knife over in his hand.

You helplessly let out a moan as he snapped his hips forward.

"Please-" you begged, feeling the knife drag up and down your spread thighs. A featherlight touch but a touch nonetheless. It was fucked up. You knew that. You should tell him to stop, that this was insane.

But fuck if you didn't like it anyways.

Stu tilted his head - it reminded you of Michael Myers observing prey - and you rocked back against him. "Is this how my final girl survives?" His voice was lower, muffled by the mask. "Caught by the killer and offers him sex to survive?"

You nodded frantically, letting the fantasy of the words wash over you, and you felt his hand around your throat again.

Overtop of you, Stu barely looked like himself. Hand at your neck, knife at your thigh, and empty eyes of the mask boring into you. He picked up the pace, fucking you faster and tracing the point of the knife up over your abdomen. "God you're gorgeous," you heard Stu say to himself. "I wanna carve you open and keep you all to myself. Rip your heart out so no one else can have it."

Despite how fucked up it was, you only moaned louder.

The wet squelching sounds from the copious amounts of lube as well as Stu's own precum made the sex sound foul. Like you were some helpless final girl, caught and pinned by her own killer. But you liked it. And wasn't that the sick, twisted part of it all.

Because you knew it was Stu. Who would never hurt you really. Who you were pretty sure didn't have a killer bone in his body, much less against you.

"G-gonna- Gonna cum-" You gritted your teeth to hold back another moan.

"Go on princess, cum for me. Show me how good you feel." You felt the point of the knife teasing your cock and the cold shock of the metal was what did you in. You came helplessly, back bowing, and all but gushing over the knife and on your skirt. "Fuck, such a good boy." Stu growled, fucking you through your orgasm and reaching his own.

Cum pooled inside you, hot, sticky, and you fucking loved it. You felt drunk off the feeling, trembling in Stu's hold.

The mask came off then. Stu's hair stuck to his forehead a bit from sweat but his eyes were bright and he was smiling at you like you'd given him the world. You gave him a soft smile back and winced when he pulled out. "Damn, babe, I knew you had it in ya! You'd make a killer final girl." He shot you a wink before reaching for the center console to grab wet wipes.

You scoffed. "Obviously. I'm built for the role. Unless I'm the killer and then you're my final girl."

Stu seemed to light up at that. "Aww, that's the sweetest thing anyone's said to me," he fanned himself dramatically, making you laugh. He was methodical in cleaning you both up, letting you enjoy your afterglow. Once he was done, you snagged his shirt and pulled it on over your head.

That got a reaction. His eyes widened ever so slightly and you beckoned him towards you with a finger. "C'mere," you mumbled, "I wanna cuddle before we have to go back." It was late after all. And you still had school in the morning, as tragic as it was.

Stu held you in his lap, playing absentmindedly with your hair as he stared at the mask and knife he'd returned under the seat in front of him. Maybe he'd tell you. Let you in on his and Billy's plan for later that fall. Maybe you'd help out, join in on being Ghostface. Or, at the very least, know to stay out of their way to avoid being killed. Or maybe he wouldn't tell you.

But the thought of you getting hurt made his stomach hurt.

Later, he'd call Billy and tell him. That either you were completely off the table or you were going to be involved. Billy would listen to his rambles quietly the whole time. Once Stu was done, Billy would tell him they'd talk about it at school tomorrow - face to face. And Stu would recognize that Billy's wasn't that angry tone he sometimes had when Stu frustrated him. And Stu would hope that he could still have you, when everything was said and done.

But right now? Right now, he just closed his eyes and kissed the top of your head. He felt you huff, content, and stared out the foggy car window at the faint lights of Woodsboro below.

It really was a nice view.

#🔪 creeps writes #slasher x reader #slasher x s/o #slasher fanfiction #scream 1996 #stu matcher x you #stu macher #ghostface x reader #ghostface

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tmbgareok · 1 year

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Hi John,

I'm dusting off ye olde tumblr for this one.

I research computational creativity for a living, primarily focused on the generation & understanding of stories. I had recently went to an academic conference where Claire Evans (of Yacht fame) gave a fascinating talk about her experience creating an album under the constraints of using AI systems. She also mentioned that apparently David Bowie had used various systems through the years (sometimes very low tech) to help himself come up with lyrics for songs.

As a longtime TMBG fan, I know that you've often experimented with various technologies over the years. Which brings me to my question: Have you ever or would you ever co-create music or lyrics with an AI system?

-Lara

PS - If you are interested in trying something out, I can help introduce you to the appropriate people/tools for the job. https://laramartin.net/

JF: no insult to AI in general--I know we'll all be working for them in a few years!--but the current output of ChatGPT is just not very inspired or surprising to me. If you ask it to "use Shakespearean language" in your request, the ChatGPT just throws in a doth and a thou--hardly Early Modern English. And there is also an ineffably circular quality to texts created via AI (at least what I have seen) that reminds me of the most writing made from the least information or insight. To me (and this is not my original thinking at all, but goes back to my high school English class) the magical effect of lyrics, or poetry, or good writing in general is the compression of thought in the writing--where the exact words match the exact idea.

In his early career (Ziggy-era) David Bowie was filmed using a cut up technique that you can read about here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut-up_technique. I suspect he used it pretty casually (which I don't think was the idea), and more as a prompt or a non-sequitur generator when it worked for him. In general he was cooking up stuff off the dome, and just used cut ups as a special effect.

There are a LOT of techniques for generating prompts, and everybody should explore them because they are fun. But in the end, to me at least, they are more like springs on your sneakers than space-ships made of helium. They work a bit, and can be sparky a bit, but don't really solve big problems or make something that interesting all on their own.

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tnoy-keraxis · 7 days

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💤(A headcanon about their sleep), ❤️‍🔥(A romantic headcanon), 💄(An appearance headcanon), 🪢(A headcanon about their family) with max and kyle and richie ? and maybe. ruth also. if u feel like it <3

yesyesyesyesyes thank you beloved these are such good characters for this. all under the cut because ough theres so much

💤(A headcanon about their sleep) Max: sleeps like a FUCKING LOG. he has slept through every fire alarm ever. he could sleep through a natural disaster. he snores too it is the worst. hes just obnoxious frankly. Kyle: insomniac, he has like a little basket ball hoop on the back of his door and does that to pass the time. he is so tired always. max has woken up in the middle of the night to him doing pushups. Richie: He doesnt get enough sleep he is up til 4am, he sleeps during class, peter shakes him awake constantly. He claims he isn't tired, he is a filthy liar. Ruth: She seems to be nocturnal. she is most active at like 3am texting peter and richie, they don't understand her. But then when they have sleepovers she is out at 9pm, they are so confused and concerned. ❤️‍🔥(A romantic headcanon) Max: he had never properly dated anyone, all the rumours were literally just that. the first person he dated was kyle, promptly followed by richie and peter. Kyle: him and brenda fake dating is so special to me <3 he took it so seriously he bought her a gift for their FAKE 9 day anniversary hes such an odd dude and he committed to the bit Richie: his first date with each of his partners was showing them a movie or a show that reminded him of them/their taste in film, because thats how he shows love Ruth: she falls in love so easy and so quickly she adores her partners with all she has she is the most loving woman to ever exist. no one gave her the time of day for so long, but when they did <3 she was so fucking devoted and i adore her

💄(An appearance headcanon) Max: he has like greyish eyes and i think kyle brings up how pretty they are all the time <3 Kyle: his front teeth have like 3 chips in them from him getting hit in the face (this is kyle being a wrestler again, he got smashed into the mat <3) he has not gotten them fixed and probably will never. Richie: he has so many freckles idk why he just does, and thats it thats the headcanon <3 Ruth: She tried to do the different hairstyle every day thing and gave up after a week <3 it was taking time that cut into her, texting her friends obsessively time (this is based on myself i had the same fucking bad hairstyle all through high school until i just cut my hair, because i didnt want to take the time)

🪢(A headcanon about their family) Max: *cracks knuckles* time to pull out the jagerman-van brunt-walker-swanson family tree-- (in all seriousness I think he is very close with an aunt or uncle of his, just as some kinda reprieve from his dad) Kyle: he has the biggest family imaginable. they have family holidays and reunions every other week and kyle is so close with all of them there is no one he doesnt like. theyre the most obnoxious family. Richie: Richie has a brother (miles lipschitz my beloved) and a little sister, they watch anime together and are the best of friends tbh, the lipschitz household is weirdly peaceful. Ruth: Her parents (and brother) are complete and utter dorks they encourage all of her antics, they are proud of everything she does ever. the whole family dress up as padme, anakin, luke and leia for halloween every year.

#thank you beloved these were the best possible picks <33333 #Im so passionate about these 4

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theshampyon · 1 year

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Holy shit, more Glass Onion thoughts that I have to purge from my brain. Some of these are things I saw others commenting on on other sites. Some are Shower Thoughts. (Can't believe I didn't notice the first one.) Possible SPOILERS ahead...

When we first see Miles Bron he's playing Blackbird on a white guitar. He says it's the guitar Paul McCartney wrote the song on. The guitar is right-handed. Paul McCartney plays left handed.

I think this is one of a bunch of things in the film Bron paid big money for, never knowing he was being ripped off. Blanc solves Gillian Flynn's Murder Mystery before it even begins because it's not hidden very well, but Bron isn't smart enough to realise it. The Puzzle Box features, in Blanc's words, "Children's puzzles", because the puzzle maker knew Bron wouldn't recognise a proper adult puzzle if he saw one. (So who knows, maybe that wasn't really the Mona Lisa after all.)

Everyone calls the chess puzzle an "endgame." It's not an endgame. It's a move called "The Fool's Mate," so called because it can only be achieved if the White player royally fucks up. Basically, it's the dumbest way to achieve mate. It's also not strictly speaking an endgame. But people who don't actually know chess (like myself, I confess) wouldn't know that.

The Fool's Mate is solved by... the fool's mates.

Back to Benoit calling the puzzles "children's games". They really are. None of require analytical thinking or deductive reasoning. Just recognising patterns that are familiar to their friend group and social class. Not riddles, just references.

The first being the most obvious - a Magic Eye, which some people are physically incapable of seeing and thus could never solve. And even those who can see them do not need wit or reasoning to solve it, just the ability to kinda cross their eyes a bit. In the 1990s, when these characters were teens, Magic Eye puzzles were literally sold as a child's puzzle.

And even then, they needed help. Without Duke's mother, none of them would have solved the boxes. Not even head Bron's main technology department head Lionel, who sure as shit should be able to recognise a Fibonacci sequence when he sees one. It's the kind of thing taught in High School. Yet none of these Special People, these brilliant Disruptors, saw an answer that a very pointedly normal older lady did. Because the movie is telling us right from the beginning that they're not special. All of then are in their positions due to Bron's money and influence, not their actual intellect and skill.

But Benoit didn't necessarily know that about the boxes at the time. He'd never seen the box intact, and he didn't realise Bron is actually an idiot until much later. Which makes me think Benoit said it purely to get Bron off balance. (Also, he may not have been able to solve the box if he had one intact, precisely because it's stupid. Benoit admits such simple puzzles are his Achilles' Heel, which is why he loses the Among Us game in the bathtub!)

This is all also why working class Helen can't solve them. She's smart - a better lateral thinker and riddle solver than any of the Shitheads - but she's not part of their social class. She doesn't know their rote cultural signifiers. (But I bet she would have solved the Fibonacci one.)

So she, in keeping with the Greek theme, cuts the Gordian Knot. Presented with the puzzle as barrier to a prize, most assume the solution is to solve it. Like Alexander the Great, she thinks outside the assumed constraints and simply removes the barrier.

The Greek theme, of course, including the naming of the characters. Andy a.k.a. Cassandra, who foresaw great peril but was not believed. Her sister Helen, whose coming brought about the end of an empire - "the face launched a thousand ships" (or in this case, a fleet of police boats).

I gotta rewatch this. There's bound to be a thousand more little details that I didn't catch the first time around.

#glass onion

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antialiasis · 1 year

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Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat/Evita

As you probably know by now, Jesus Christ Superstar is my favorite musical, and the main reason I developed any sort of interest in musicals generally. I have also mentioned before that other popular Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals have not tended to do much for me. The Phantom of the Opera is too florid and lengthy and the characters don’t interest me enough, Cats is amusing fluff but has no real plot or character depth.

But also, perhaps that shouldn’t be very surprising. After all, I tend to be interested in media for its stories and characters more than presentation or spectacle - and Cats and Phantom don’t actually share a writer with JCS. The stuff I love about Jesus Christ Superstar includes the songs, sure, but I wouldn’t care so much about them in a vacuum. The guy who wrote the lyrics, made the story what it is, is Tim Rice.

So a little while back I figured it was high time I actually looked into at least the other well-known Webber/Rice collaborations, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Evita. (I gather abroad Joseph is like, a play every middle school puts on, but not over here; I had never heard of it until I looked up stuff about Jesus Christ Superstar, and never heard a song from it until I went and listened to it recently.)

(Some 5000 words of rambling under the cut, about these two shows, comparisons to JCS, and some character analysis, plus a bit of a digression about the trouble with translating musicals to film!)

Joseph is a pretty amusing one. It’s a show originally written as a fun retelling of a Bible story for kids to perform, before JCS, when Webber and Rice were 17 and 20 years old - specifically, it’s the story of Joseph, not the father of Jesus but Jacob’s favorite son from the Old Testament. Once I listened to it I did vaguely recall hearing the story before, in religious education classes as a kid: Joseph has prophetic dreams about greatness, is betrayed by his jealous brothers and sold into slavery in Egypt, eventually ends up the Pharaoh’s right-hand man after deciphering his prophetic dreams about an upcoming famine, then reunites with his contrite brothers and father.

It’s pretty wild, but you can definitely see the seeds of JCS in it - an isolated story from the Bible, told through a series of songs with very modernized, casual lyrics with a bit of a cheeky satirical energy with regards to some of the source material. But where JCS is a dramatic, emotional reinterpretation, Joseph has very little interest in drawing out the drama of the story it’s adapting, for the most part, and sticks with just retelling it with tongue firmly in cheek and a deluge of indulgent pastiche of a dozen different musical genres. The Pharaoh? A shameless Elvis parody, because why not. The brothers? Sing an over-the-top country song about how Joseph was heroically killed by a goat after they have sold him into slavery, and then later a parody French ballad about how much they miss him.

I quite enjoy just how plainly it presents the whole Joseph being Jacob’s favorite son thing, the narrator talking cheerfully about the coat his father gives him to make it clear that Joseph was the special one, and him telling his brothers about all these dreams he’s having that are clearly symbolic of how much greater he will be than them:

I dreamed that in the fields one day, The corn gave me sign Your eleven sheaves of corn All turned and bowed to mine My sheaf was was quite a sight to see A golden sheaf and tall Yours were green and second-rate And really rather small

What a hilariously smug-slash-oblivious little prick. The brothers are still obviously the villains here, but without exactly commenting on it per se, the musical cheerfully leans into the things a modern audience might find kind of preposterous or silly reading this story, and thus sort of subtextually asks but honestly, wasn’t it kind of dickish of their dad to just pick a favorite son and lavish him with special gifts for it? Isn’t Joseph himself being kind of a dick with this thing of telling them repeatedly about how hey guys I had this dream that I’m way better than you and in the future you’re all going to bow down to me?

And Jesus Christ Superstar does essentially the same thing - though often in a less humorous and more simply speculative way. It asks things like, isn’t it kind of weird and morbid of Jesus to tell the apostles that the bread they eat is his body and the wine they drink is his blood? What if it wasn’t a grand metaphor, but just him expressing his disillusionment with everything, and with them; what if in this moment he just feels like they wouldn’t even care if it was, and he’s right because they don’t even react? Or what if he’s just sort of morosely hoping maybe at least it’ll make them remember him when they eat and drink?

Joseph does have a little bit of a character arc going, which saves it from being entirely fluff. After we’ve seen his (possibly oblivious) self-aggrandizement at the beginning, Joseph gets betrayed and sold into slavery by his brothers, then jailed on false charges, where he goes through a lowest point in the song “Close Every Door to Me”, about how he’s insignificant and it doesn’t matter what happens to him, but he’s holding on to the thought of the Promised Land for strength. After that lowest point, he’s learned some humility - not long after this, when his fellow inmates ask him to interpret their dreams, he agrees to try but isn’t sure he’ll get it right, and is almost sheepish about admitting that well, he hasn’t been wrong before. So by the time Joseph actually gains the glory and prestige that he dreamed of, it feels reasonably earned, not only because he’s been to hell and back, but because he’s stopped being the kind of insufferable, arbitrarily privileged ass he was at the start in the process. (Or, at least, that’s what I get listening to the 1991 London cast recording that I picked somewhat arbitrarily on Spotify. I also watched the 1999 movie with one eye while drawing, and there Joseph honestly kind of felt like he was still pretty smug by the end. I like it better if there’s a character arc.)

At the end, his brothers come from Canaan, which is suffering from the famine, to Egypt to beg for food. Of course Joseph is there to receive them, only for them to not recognize him there in his Egyptian finery. Joseph decides to take them for a bit of a ride, to test whether they’re still the dickheads who tried to kill him and sold him into slavery; he responds to their groveling with angry fake skepticism - telling me that you are hungry! That could be lies! during a famine, sure. They grovel all the more, and he makes a show of saying they’ve moved him and that he’ll give them what they came for and more. Only he slips one of his golden cups into his younger brother Benjamin’s sack, then angrily stops them as they’re trying to leave, theatrically searching their bags until he finds it in Benjamin’s and demands to lock him up and throw away the key. And the brothers throw themselves at his feet to say there’s no way Benjamin did this, and to please have mercy on him and jail them instead.

This whole bit, the brothers groveling and Joseph putting on this charade, probably taking out some justified anger through scaring them and the power he wields over them, while also legitimately trying to test their characters and whether he can forgive them, is my favorite chunk of this show. “Grovel, Grovel” just has a melody I like, the energy and tension of the music for “Who’s the Thief?” is great (and amusingly reminiscent of the motif I dubbed ‘Authority’ in JCS), the character dynamic of what’s happening is just interesting and more layered than anything preceding it, and it sort of drops to a bit of a more serious and tense feel there in general, the brothers genuinely desperate and Joseph pushing mercilessly to learn who they really are and whether he can ever trust them again…

…and then we launch into “Benjamin Calypso”, a sudden jarringly upbeat number where the brothers continue to argue that there’s no way Benjamin stole the cup and he should take them instead in the most nonchalant, utterly unserious way possible. The mood whiplash is something. After that Joseph reveals who he is and the brothers get like two lines to ask if it’s really him, we explain their father came and joined them in like five more lines, and then it’s time to reprise the early number about Joseph’s vision at the beginning of the story for the finale. There’s no followup on the reunion or what just happened at all!

And I guess that’s fair. The entire rest of the show is deeply silly, exaggerated pastiche where the brothers act like the snidest of villains, and we aren’t supposed to care about them. But one way or another, I find myself honestly wanting a more cathartic resolution here. Judah does offer himself up in exchange for Benjamin, sure, but in that song where he’s otherwise busy jauntily comparing Benjamin’s honesty to coconuts and palm trees because Caribbean music, it’s impossible to take that at all seriously, or actually feel like it means anything about his character or ought to move Joseph to forgive them. And then we don’t get any followup, and all in all it just means it sort of starts to present an actually interesting dramatic situation, in its slightly tongue-in-cheek way, and then goes, “Never mind! Anyway, more pastiche!”

In the original story in Genesis, Joseph was explicitly feeling a lot of emotion during all this - he overhears them talking in Hebrew about their regrets over what they did to Joseph, and from there he multiple times has to excuse himself from everyone’s presence to weep, until he’s fully sure that now his brothers would rather sacrifice their own lives than sell another brother. I honestly think that makes sense, and that it would have worked (and probably worked better) to include more emotionality here. But oh well! It’s a pretty fun silly show with some fun songs in it, and that’s all it really wants to be. What If Joseph But We Took It Seriously is basically what JCS is, and I for one am happy with what we got there.

Evita is quite different, a more ambitious and very much adult-oriented show postdating JCS by several years (like JCS, it was first released as a concept album, in 1976). It’s about the life of Argentinian First Lady Eva Perón. I don’t know much about the real-life history or how accurate it is to the actual woman, but the musical at least depicts her with a sort of blend of deep cynicism and a degree of twisted admiration for her sheer ruthless drive and ability to win influence. After an opening framing device, it starts with her as a working-class country girl forcefully persuading a singer she’s had a fling with to bring her to the big city. Once there, she immediately ditches him to pursue her own ends, freely using sex with men for whatever advantage it would get her until she has a popular radio show. After that, she begins a relationship with future president Juan Perón, with the express intent that it would be mutually beneficial to both of them, by leveraging her popularity with the public for his political endeavors while giving her access to further power and influence through him.

(I’d be surprisingly good for you, she proposes; would you be good for me too? In the Icelandic cast album that I found on Spotify, she just proposes that I’d be a pleasure for you, which misses the entire point. Similarly, his subsequent verse where he agrees that I can understand you perfectly / and I like what I hear, what I see, and knowing me / I would be good for you too is rendered as I feel my heart pounding / and I like your words, this sight, and believe me / I’d do anything for you. According to this translation this was just an average love at first sight thing I guess? He’s not even calling back to her own words or acknowledging that he gets what she’s after? Good job, guys. It’s a pretty good translation in terms of the poetry and phrasing and all, but man do they drop the ball on conveying the correct narrative here. Overall I get the impression from the album cover and song choices that the people behind this Icelandic production thought the core of this story was supposed to be the romance between Eva and Juan? Which I truly don’t think is meant to be the point, at all.)

They go on to campaign and win despite that Perón thinks the whole concept of having to get votes to get into power is needlessly annoying (her radio rhetoric for him involves claiming that he loves you, understands you, is one of you; if not, how could he love me?). Eva becomes massively popular in her home country but doesn’t succeed quite as well on a European tour where the Italians compare her husband to Mussolini; they make a bunch of money ostensibly for charitable causes, some of which winds up back in their pockets through secret Swiss accounts (apparently this bit is historically dubious and that verse is cut from later versions of the show), all while Eva is venerated as a saint; but finally she starts to grow weak with cancer and then dies, her life deliriously flashing before her as she thinks about how in the end her choices were hers and hers alone, and she chose to burn bright and briefly, even if perhaps becoming loved by so many didn’t quite add up to being loved more. It ends with a statement that money was raised to build a monument to Evita, but only the base was ever completed, and her body disappeared for seventeen years. I guess the implication is that the monument was a scam to some degree too?

As a plot it’s a bit unfocused. There isn’t really a proper climax to the storyline here; “they make a bunch of questionable money, she goes on a tour that’s neither successful nor a total disaster, and then she happens to die a while later from cancer” is kind of an anticlimax, lacking any kind of cohesive overall punch that’d make it resonate by itself (and to be clear, that’s usually the case with real events, which is why fiction based on true stories tends to change bits around to make them work better narratively; I get the sense from Joseph and JCS as well that Webber and Rice like to stick very closely to the actual series of events they’re adapting even if presenting them liberally, but that can unfortunately be a bit of a detriment when they’re trying to adapt straight-up recent history instead of a myth). Instead, this musical is more about its themes and the general character study going on.

In particular, our narrator is not Eva herself but “Ché”, a man who may or may not have been modelled after Ché Guevara. For the purposes of the musical he is mainly there as a representative of the general Argentinian working class, telling the story after Eva’s death after becoming disillusioned with her and her husband’s reign. In a way he is Evita’s Judas: the cynical POV character observing the eponymous subject of the show from a critical point of view, who is given a chance to comment on them and their legacy with the benefit of hindsight. Unlike with Judas, though, Ché in the musical is speaking only from that perspective of hindsight, not actually present during the story’s events other than when he briefly reenacts attending Perón’s rallies at the time - mostly he’s an immaterial narrator giving sardonic commentary on the events of the show.

(On Wikipedia and Genius, there are both people insisting that on the original concept album he was definitely meant to be Ché Guevara but that element was removed later when it was staged, and also people insisting that he was never supposed to be Guevara originally until the director of the first stage production decided to dress him like Guevara. On the original concept album he has a whole weird unclear side-plot going on, concurrent with the main events of the show, about his efforts to produce and sell insecticide, which Wikipedia suggests is based on Guevara’s life. As best I can tell the point of this subplot for the album’s narrative is to portray Ché as motivated partly by personal spite/jealousy/misogyny in his criticisms of Eva - towards the end of the first half he gets excited about the prospect that surely if some girl can rise so fast by her efforts in the sack then a man who offers more could do the same, and at a later point, during the song “The Actress Hasn’t Learned the Lines (You’d Like to Hear)”, Eva coldly dismisses him when he tries to sell her on his insecticide, which makes the critique that Eva didn’t do much for the working man sound more like he’s just kind of mad about that. I guess in some sense that adds a layer of ambiguity to it, unreliable narrator and all, but it feels very muddled and mostly just serves to make him seem like a dickish weirdo, undermining his character and everything else he has to say; I’m not surprised this subplot got removed entirely in every version after that. There’s another little bit later on the concept album where Ché declares he used to be loyal to his country, but for all he got out of it he might as well have been loyal to some other country, which I guess is imagining that this spurned Ché Guevara into traveling and instigating revolutions in different countries, giving up on his birth country of Argentina. This seems like pure baseless historical speculation and again is just weird and muddled by the whole portrayal of the insecticide thing, and again got ditched from later versions.)

My favorite song here is probably “Waltz for Eva and Ché”, which I’d argue serves as the real climax of the musical, even though it isn’t even a literal thing that happens. (The aforementioned Icelandic cast album does not include it; in fact, there’s barely any Ché on it generally. Again, it feels like someone thought this was supposed to be a grand romance and this guy constantly criticizing the heroine in the background was just spoiling the mood, I guess.) In this fantasy sequence, Ché finally interacts directly with Eva, challenging her on her corruption and broken promises, while the unfazed Eva staunchly defends her actions and approach in her own pragmatic sort of way:

There is evil Ever around, fundamental System of government quite incidental So what are my chances of honest advances? I’d say low Better to win by admitting my sin Than to lose with a halo

[…]

Allow me to help you slink off to the sidelines And mark your adieu with three cheers But first tell me who'd be delighted If I said I'd take on the world's greatest problems From war to pollution, no hope of solution Even if I lived for one hundred years

As far as Eva is concerned, idealistically trying to work on big problems she’ll never magically solve doesn’t actually make anyone happy, so what’s the point? Ultimately, she doesn’t care about causes or governance or politics per se, really, but she cares a lot about being a figure that inspires the common people of Argentina. And sometimes that involves being as glamorous as possible, living the high life as a working-class girl turned first lady, and sometimes it involves charity work that’s very showy and feelgood even if it doesn’t exactly make the best use of the money, and that’s all kind of the same to her; there’s corruption and evil everywhere in every political system, but at least she made people smile to the point that they chant her name. What else is there, really?

In the final verse of “Waltz for Eva and Ché”, she admits for the first time that her body is falling apart, and she wishes she had more time. And in her final lament, where she speaks of how she thought the more that loved me, the more loved I’d be, she wishes she’d had children of her own. She does have some regrets, in the end. But while she lived she committed so hard to everything she did that she’d just suppress any such thoughts out of existence. And as a result she played the game so well she was possibly the most powerful person in her entire country by the age of twenty-six; who else could say that?

As a character she’s a bit of a puzzle, but definitely intentionally so - I get the sense most of this musical is just Tim Rice trying to figure out what might have been going on in this woman’s head. (And, yeah, this is obviously just an interpretation of a woman who was an actual person, and all my commentary on her is strictly about the character as portrayed in the musical, and not about the actual woman, about whom I know very little.) One is never quite sure how much she means of what she’s saying - a distinctive feature of her character is that she constantly says things with what sounds like total conviction and sincerity that we know are lies, or stretching the truth, or are connected lyrically and musically to times she was definitely lying or stretching the truth. You could definitely argue for an interpretation where she’s doing that in “Waltz for Eva and Ché” too - just unflinchingly saying whatever justifies her actions as if she believes it, even in an imaginary confrontation. But my read is it does seem that one way or another it comes to matter a great deal to her that the working-class people of Argentina love and adore her, in a way I’m not sure much else matters to her. She has some base craving for being loved, and even if in the end all the love and adoration of the masses can’t quite satisfy it, she was still driven to a large extent by that craving.

Class is a running theme here. Eva comes from the working class, as I mentioned, and her family were thrown out at her middle-class father’s funeral, as mentioned offhandedly near the beginning of the show (her mother was his mistress); from there, she seems to have developed a determination to show them, to be better and get further and be more known and adored than any of the people who dismissed her for her origins. She climbs the social ladder relentlessly, but continues to be scorned by Argentina’s upper class no matter what she does, simply because of where she comes from, and for all of the musical’s cynicism about Eva herself, that’s one thing that it definitely sides with her on. Similarly, the powerful woman getting where she is by sleeping her way to the top is kind of a misogynistic trope that I can’t help but side-eye a bit (I suspect it’s probably a pretty direct reflection of the apparently very merciless biography that the musical was supposedly based on, given what I mentioned earlier about the way they tend to stick quite closely to the events they’re adapting, but nonetheless), but at the same time the sexism and misogyny that Eva faces wherever she goes are also a recurring theme, both from the upper class, in Europe, and from the soldiers of the Argentine Army who think she should just shut up and spread her legs. Eva’s unrelenting defiance in the face of this adversity and refusal to bow to it, and continuing success despite that, is ultimately something I feel the story kind of admires in her, in spite of the many ways it’s harshly critical of her. She saw something she wanted, and she simply did whatever she had to do to get it in her not very advantageous situation as a woman in the 1940s, and successfully made it to the top that way despite being disparaged and scorned at every turn, without ever giving in.

So that’s the overall picture I get of her character here: the formative experience of being treated as lesser and unworthy at her own father’s funeral spurned this woman into obsessive unflinching determination to make it in the biggest way possible and earn the public’s love and adoration, at whatever cost, with very little regard to what she had to do or enable to get there, and while the deepest core of that drive may have ultimately been a longing for more personal love and acceptance, she channeled it into an incredibly successful drive to be loved by her people. For all its flaws and questionable elements I do think it’s an interesting character study, hence the rambling; I’m often drawn to characters whose actions might seem puzzling at a glance but have a coherent core driving them that makes the character click if you think about it, and while Eva doesn’t press my personal character buttons super hard otherwise, I think she’s definitely an example of that.

We watched the 1996 movie based on Evita, too. It leans away from the Ché Guevara thing, with Antonio Banderas portraying Ché as simply an everyman (he gets whumped a little bit, which was fun). The performances are good overall, and it’s more faithful than I was expecting; aside from lyrical tweaks and adding a song that’s incorporated into later stage productions as well, the main notable deviation is that “Another Suitcase in Another Hall”, a song originally sung by Perón’s mistress (a one-scene wonder), is moved earlier to be sung by Eva as Augustin Magaldi (the singer who brought her to Buenos Aires) ditches her, and is only briefly echoed later by the mistress. This is a significant shift because originally Magaldi is firmly meant to be someone Eva is simply using for her own ends and immediately ditches when she’s made it to Buenos Aires with him, while in the film it tries to make this a sympathetic moment for Eva, and thus implies she actually did naïvely love Magaldi and think they’d stay together - starkly different from her original characterization, where her proclamation that Would I have done what I did if I didn’t think, if I didn’t know, that we would stay together? is one of the establishing moments of that thing where she states things with total conviction that are shown to be not even a little bit true.

I can imagine three reasons for this change. One, they thought having another actress playing a bit character sing this famous solo song before never appearing again would just feel weird in a film, which is valid; it definitely does feel like a storytelling choice that happens in musicals but really goes against what anyone would expect in film. Two, they just wanted to give the more famous actress the song (Eva is played by Madonna). And/or three, they wanted Eva to be more sympathetic and Magaldi less so, which I can also understand, particularly given she is explicitly fifteen years old at the time and “musician who sleeps with a fifteen-year-old girl is the one being used and manipulated actually” is undeniably a bit hmm. But it kind of contradicts the rest of how it all plays out a bit - I didn’t really get the sense from the lead-up in the movie that she actually loved Magaldi or wanted anything from him other than the ticket to the city, and in general Eva is still just as ruthless! All in all, I sort of get the change, and it creates sort of a neat parallel where Eva inflicts the same humiliation on this other girl that she’d suffered herself back when she had nothing, but I’m not sure they entirely pulled it off in a way that makes sense.

I think the film also suffers from a sense that many shots are simply filling time as they want the music to play for exactly as many bars as originally written; the pacing feels glacial a lot of the time as a result. I wasn’t quite devoting my full attention to the Joseph movie so it’s hard to entirely have an idea of how it compares in that regard, but I feel like that one did this more successfully, with more energetic shots and staging.

I’ve come to feel increasingly that musicals are just quite hard to film well; Joseph really leans into being super stylized and framed as a sort of heightened version of a stage production, which is one way that I think can work pretty well, but it’s just a lot easier to get restless watching a film than actors on stage, and if you’ve got a song playing and cut to different shots while it’s happening, those shots really need to be interesting and hold the viewer’s attention, rather than just arbitrary filler. In something stylized along the lines of a stage production, you can sometimes get away with doing that with cool choreography and spectacle, but if you’re going for something more grounded and realistic, like Evita, you need to figure out how to make interesting, meaningful shots out of the moments where a song is having an instrumental interlude or repeating a verse or a chorus (assuming you don’t simply cut those bits out of the song), and that’s just a lot harder than saying it.

(Incidentally, we also watched the 2021 West Side Story film recently, and I think Spielberg absolutely nailed doing this in an overall realistically styled and toned film - it does feature people doing group dance choreography with perfect seriousness as if it’s a normal thing to do, but both there and in other songs it carefully makes sure the characters are always doing something, with a flowing character dynamic that maintains a sense that something is happening and keeps it from feeling like we’re filling space or waiting for the song to be done. Tricky thing to do, but absolutely possible!)

All in all, neither Joseph nor Evita are making it onto my favorite musicals list, but they’re interesting in their own very different ways, and I enjoyed diving into them and rambling a bit. Musical rambling, I have missed thee.

#musicals #joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat #evita #jesus christ superstar #ramble #character analysis

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