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collectsfallenstars · 4 years

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Gravity: A Summary of the Development of Jeong TaeEul’s Feelings for Lee Gon in “The King: Eternal Monarch (Part 1 of 3)

*spoiler warnings for episodes 1-8*

I’m responding to a specific point that critics have raised about “The King: Eternal Monarch having a slow pace while the romance between the leads have happened at an extremely fast pace. That, or there has been no development whatsoever. In the K-drama world, yes it was fast, but in my humble opinion, just because it was fast doesn’t mean it was underdeveloped. I think it had to be that way because of the kind of characters they were created to be. And I am going to try and prove this by tracing the development of Jeong Tae-eul’s feelings from the first episode to the 8th only. I’m leaving Lee Gon out because his emotional journey is different from Jeong Tae-eul’s and he comes into the series with his feelings almost fully developed. The one that needs to catch up is Jeong Tae-eul so I will follow her.

Now, let’s look at these two characters.

Lee Gon is a mathematician and well versed in scientific matters. He is a man of logic, relentless in the pursuit of a final answer to any equation. He comes into the series already half in love with Jeong Tae-eul. Upon seeing that she exists, he pursues her. His character’s conflict now is how to convince Jeong Tae-eul that what he feels for her is real. But before he even gets there, he first has to prove that his identity as the King of Corea is also real. Aside from this, he also has his own emotional journey to take on but that’s another discussion.

This one is about Jeong Tae-eul because it might seem baffling that she spent 6 episodes seemingly annoyed and exasperated with Lee Gon’s crazy declarations of King-ness and her utmost importance in his life, and then suddenly came running into his arms by the 7th episode and ended up confessing to him by the 8th. It’s not that baffling if you take a closer look at her character.

Jeong Tae-eul is a taekwondo master, detective, not very good in math and science, but well versed in chicken and beer. What with her being a detective, one would think that she would be as logical as Lee Gon. She is.

But she and Lee Gon do not have the same kind of logic. Lee Gon can grasp non-material knowledge like theorems and possibilities of other worlds from a theoretical point of view and only cancel them out when they are proven incorrect. Like a mathematical equation. It’s also why, between the two of them, he’s the more romantic one. But Jeong Tae-eul’s logic is that of a flat-earther. I’m not sure if that brand carries the same stigma in South Korea as it does in the west, but I’m sure that the writer, Kim Eun-sook, did not mean to make her look like a nutter by branding her a flat-earther. It just means that she’s one of those people who need to see something first before they believe it. It’s also why she speaks so bluntly. She says what she needs to say as honestly as possible because she demands the same kind of transparency in order for her to believe someone else.

She was also never really good in school, particularly in math. (Okay, science too.) Even Kang Shin-jae knows it as shown by his tired expression during the time they went on a stakeout. This means abstract concepts like square roots, quantum mechanics, and parallel worlds fly over her head. She relies on physicality to navigate the world. That’s what Taekwondo, a contact sport, gives her. She perceives the world through her senses. Eating fried chicken and drinking beer satisfy her body, her sense of taste and smell. They’re real to her and so she likes doing it. But if she can’t hold them, see them, smell them, taste them, and hear them, then they do not exist.

And this is why, when Lee Gon couldn’t produce his identification papers when they first met at Gwanghwamun Square, refused to tell her his name, and told her he lived in a parallel world, it drove her up the wall.

“IF YOU KNEW I WOULDN’T BELIEVE YOU, WHY SAY SUCH BULLSHIT? SHOW ME YOUR ID”

“I DON’T HAVE AN ID BECAUSE I AM WHO I AM”

If she can’t believe that he’s the unnameable King of Corea, how else is she going to believe that she is as important to him as he says she is?

In Episode 2, she gets his money, fingerprints, and DNA tested – methods she knows will work, and trust to do so. In Episodes 3 – 4, the fingerprints and DNA turn up with nothing. The money, despite appearances, is proved to be genuine by Forensics by the 4th episode. But her first clue that Lee Gon might actually be telling the truth was his diamond button. A legitimate jeweler accepted it in exchange for cash in the 2nd episode.

But it wasn’t until the 4th episode that the pieces of evidence began to stack up to support Lee Gon’s claims. When he left to go home and Jeong Tae-eul saw that Maximus was gone from her yard, she actually searched for Lee Gon’s movements through CCTV footage. She found him disappearing into the bamboo forest and that was it. Although she couldn’t confirm that he had an actual home, the fact that he had disappeared into somewhere told her that he must have one. It was also on the 4thepisode when she lost her ID card and it was reissued to her exactly on the date that Lee Gon told her it would be—Nov. 11, 2019. This shakes her to the core because her flat world just wavered. And when Lee Gon reappears at the end of episode 4, she tests him about her ID picture and asked if it her hair was up or down and what she was wearing. He answers correctly and seeing that he was finally getting through to her, he asks the very thing a flat-earther, taekwondo master, detective would want to hear,

“DO YOU WANT TO SEE FOR YOURSELF? COME WITH ME TO MY WORLD.”

She says yes and when she crosses over that barrier, all the flat-earthing walls she put up to protect herself came crashing down. And when she lands in the Kingdom of Corea to the tune of his guards calling him, “Your Highness,” she finally gets the two things she had asked of him back in episode 2.

“I AM THE KING OF THE KINGDOM OF COREA. AND MY NAME, WHICH YOU CANNOT SAY, IS LEE GON.”

He does have a home. He does have a name. He is a king. This means that everything he ever said was true – including the way he feels for her.

Now, I know what you’re going to say. She can’t have fallen in love with him in one day just because he’s got a home and a name. Honestly though, I’m pretty sure most of us have fallen in love with undeserving men for less than that.

Episode 5 may have been very significant when it came to a shift in her feelings but, things have been brewing beneath the surface since their first meeting. She just put a lid on it because she couldn’t properly identify him and what he was. Now that she has no excuse anymore, standing on his kingdom and even brazenly saying his name aloud, she’s now forced to confront this strange pull that this man has on her. It took her 8 episodes to explore this gravitational pull she has with this man and it is developed in an uneven pace.

Episodes 1 – 4 are slow paced but with a huge amount of screen time. By the 5th episode, their interactions become fast and heavy, but they begin to share less screen time together, making all their moments even more bittersweet up up until the 8th episode when Jeong Tae-eul properly tells him that she loves him.

EPISODE 1

On their first meeting, he hugs her with his eyes wide open. He has pined after her for 25 years. What started out as deep gratitude for his savior had grown into a balm for his lonely existence as a young monarch. He wanted to find her and he did. This is probably why he couldn’t even close his eyes when he embraced her—someone he had searched for for so long was finally in his arms and he didn’t want to miss a minute of it.

EPISODE 2

In the precinct, Jeong Tae-eul continues to interrogate him much to her annoyance but didn’t miss the fact that he said, “I have finally met you.” Her brain tells her this is strange, but obviously, not enough to make her fall. Nevertheless, it got her attention. And his answer will continue to boggle her mind.

“I WAS CURIOUS ABOUT YOU AND I THOUGHT ABOUT YOU A LOT. YOU ALSO LOOK BETTER IN REAL LIFE”

She gets a weird answer, and then a compliment. Her brain latches on to the weird answer and sets aside the compliment. However, the weird answer also suggests the pre-existence of a connection between them that she knows nothing about. This draws her into his mad world.

“THE PROOF IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU. I CAME FROM THE OTHER WORLD.”

He fixes his steady gaze on her after saying this. The subtext here is, “I came from the other world to find you. I exist now, because of you. And now you’re questioning my existence when you’re at the root of it all.” But of course, all this is lost on JTE. However, she does notice that something more is bubbling beneath his words and his very still form because she then asks,

“WHY DO YOU LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT?”

“HOW ELSE SHOULD I LOOK AT YOU?”

He answers maddeningly. He says this in a teasing manner, breaking his intense eye contact. But even if the manner is meant to irritate her, it also carries another layer of meaning known only to Lee Gon and the audience, “I don’t know any other way to look at you except with awe and love given that I’ve spent the last 25 years searching for your shadow.”

All throughout this episode he drops heart bombs on her one after another, including a proposal/command to marry.

“ARE YOU LEAVING? WHY? DON’T GO. IT TOOK 25 YEARS FOR ME TO MEET YOU. I HOPE TODAY WILL BE A LONG DAY.”

“I HAVEN’T DECIDED YET. I SHOULD HAVE, BUT I POSTPONED IT FOR LATER. I LIKE BEING HERE WITH YOU LIKE THIS.”

“JTE I TAKE YOU TO BE MY WIFE, THE QUEEN. YOU JUST BECAME THE REASON WHY I SHOULD STAY IN THIS WORLD.”

However, she ignores all this, ridicules him, or changes the subject. Also, she behaves this way because she doesn’t seem to have any romantic bone in her body. However, only this one incident seems to have visibly affected her. He plays up the entire issue of tasting food for poison before he eats their chicken dinner and uses it to tell her this:

“THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING. BECAUSE YOU EXISTED SOMEWHERE, I WAS LESS LONELY FOR THE PAST 25 YEARS.”

For one, imagine being someone’s salvation from a lonely life for 25 years. It was a declaration too heavy and too earnest to dismiss and Jeong Tae-eul stares at him, almost frozen. You can see her lips move so minutely, it would be easy to miss, as if she’s trying to say something, respond or change the subject as she usually does when she’s made uncomfortable by his sudden declarations of affections. But for the first time, she can’t. It is Lee Gon who changes the subject by advertising the chicken he’s eating.

Her inability to dismiss this shows that she listened to him this time. She doesn’t believe his words yet at this point, but something in the way he said them made it hard for her to respond in her usual brusque manner. This stays with her.

Towards the end of the episode, she left Lee Gon standing alone in the middle of her yard, possibly cold and hungry, to grab some chicken and beer with Sin-jae and Eun-sop. However, upon remembering what Lee Gon told her last night, about being the the reason why he hadn’t been too lonely and trying to find a reason to stay in this world, she went back for him. She actually gives up chicken and beer for Lee Gon.

EPISODE 3

Lee Gon’s geeky comparison of Jeong Tae-eul to Zero was beautiful but I’m pretty sure she understood none of it. I understood only half. Having understood none of it, she remains unaffected. His DNA results haven’t been out at this point in time yet so she remains doubtful and issues a challenge for him to take her to his parallel world.

Their walk through the bamboo forest, fruitless of course, irritated her. But three things of significance happened that time. She found out from him that his parents died and that his first duty as king at 8 years old was to bury his father. Just like before, she couldn’t respond to this and it is Lee Gon who changed the subject when her face started showing signs of distress. He doesn’t know it yet, but Jeong Tae-eul’s mother passed away when she was very young so she knew a thing or two about losing a parent. And she just realized that Lee Gon lost both of his.

Being able to put herself in his shoes makes him real person for her, a scary thought for someone who still doesn’t believe anything he says. And because Lee Gon allowed himself to be vulnerable, to be open, with her, it became easy for her to do the same for him.

When he asked her a personal question about why she chose to be a cop, she had actually answered honestly. This event is the 2nd significant event for this episode.

“WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO BECOME A COP? IT’S A DANGEROUS JOB.”

“NOT EVERYONE IN THE WORLD CAN BE BRAVE. SO I DECIDED TO BECOME BRAVE.”

This was probably the first real connection they ever made. It will be later revealed in one of those extended flashback scenes in Episode 4 how they had this actual conversation in the bamboo forest. But as of Episode 3, this detail about one of her most important life choices is revealed by showcasing Jeong Tae-eul and Kang Shin Jae fighting a pack of goons while at work, while the voices of Lee Gon and Jeong Tae-eul having this short conversation are played on screen throughout the fight, as Lee Gon observed them from a distance. This might make him look like a ponce, like a King who would never dirty himself with a street fight. But what this scene shows is how Lee Gon respects her as a soldier, a warrior even.

Now, given that Lee Gon knows why she became a cop and how important it was to her, he had respected her enough to not intrude in her fight, in her work. This is Lee Gon recognizing how capable she was to fight and defend herself, and trusting in her abilities enough to not intervene. And for a woman who prides herself in her strength, this would register in her mind, despite Lee Gon still being a source of annoyance to her at that point.

And lastly, on their way back, he put his coat over her shoulders because in the middle of her frustrated rant earlier about following him on this foolish errand, she said she was cold. This appeared to have touched her quite a bit. She has been helpful to him, yes. But she had also been mocking him, ridiculing him, and doubted him every step of the way. And yet here he was, still being very considerate of her. This also means, he listens to her. How can that not be attractive for any woman? A man who actually listens.

EPISODE 4

“SO THAT’S MY STORY. TELL ME WHAT KIND OF KING YOU ARE. A YOUNG, HANDSOME, AND RICH KING?”

More of their conversation in the bamboo forest is revealed in this episode. This line is significant for both Lee Gon and Jeong Tae-eul. By asking him this question, sincerely, without any trace of sarcasm or ridicule, she opens herself up to the possibility that he has been telling the truth about who he is all this time. She openly acknowledges his identity as a king, for the first time. And if you look at her eyes, they are a little softer now, not as sharp as when they bicker. (Of course, the bickering can be considered foreplay or unresolved sexual tension.) Anyway, this goes without saying that her question was sincere too, in response to his earlier sincerity. She genuinely wanted to know what kind of king he was. Furthermore, she also openly acknowledges his handsomeness. She has eyes, of course she knows. She stated it as an observation. Now, it’s supposed to be a compliment, but she cleverly sandwiched it inside a question, so it doesn’t look she gave it at all. This could very well be a very very mild case, of Jeong Tae-eul flirting. But just a mild one.

Deeper into the episode, we see her in the library, reading up on the existence of a parallel universe. So now, she’s also acknowledging the possibility that he could have been telling the truth about where he lived. So she sits there, trying to learn his world. An episode ago, he sat in the same library, on a chair opposite hers, trying to learn about her world. And then we are treated to a beautiful split screen of Lee Gon, sitting in the same library, but in his world, missing her, not knowing that across the universe, she was doing the same thing. She’s not exactly missing him with the same fervor as he is with her. But she is making leaps in bounds in the romance department here because she is essentially trying to learn more about him. You know when you have a crush on someone who likes Star Trek, and you’ve never seen an episode, you start to look up stuff about it, trying to learn something that is of interest to him so you can have common ground? That’s kind of what she’s doing here. She is trying to understand him. It is ironically at this point where they are farthest from each other, that they were actually becoming closer.

By this time though, all the evidence Jeong Tae-eul has of Lee Gon all point to the fact that he was telling the truth (button, DNA, fingerprint, money bill, disappearing into the bamboo forest from the CCTV). Then the last piece of the puzzle came to her in this episode – her ID card issued on Nov. 11, 2019. So by the time Lee Gon showed up at the end of this episode, she had no excuses left. Everything he told her had been proven true, and all pointed towards an existence beyond her world. She tried to test him one more time by asking what she wore and how her hair looked in her new ID picture. HE answered both correctly in the most tender way possible, because he wasn’t just answering her question. He was reliving every day he had spent staring at her picture for the last 25 years!) Anyway, when he answered both questions correctly, the flat-earther in her was left with no more questions except for the first two that she had ever asked of him. His name. His home. And because he had waited until he had gotten rid of all her other questions save for those two, the moment he asked her,

“DO YOU WANT TO SEE FOR YOURSELF? COME WITH ME TO MY WORLD.”

there really was nothing left to do but to give in to whatever was pulling her to Lee Gon and his world. She wanted to know those answers. She wanted to know him. And of course, the start playing Kim Jong Wan’s “Gravity” in the background. A song about surrendering to an undeniably pull you feel towards someone who is destined for you.

#thekingeternalmonarch #lee gon #jeong tae eul #jung tae eul #kimgoeun #leeminho

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animebw · 4 years

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Binge-Watching: Run with the Wind, Episodes 1-3

And so we begin! In which I consider the inevitable comparisons to Haikyuu, things get off to a slow start, and I remain interested to see how this slow burn will pay off.

Perfect Form

Confession time: I hate running. Detest it. Loathe it with every fiber of my being. Ever since quarantine kicked in, I’ve been making an effort to hop on the exercise machines on a daily basis to keep from turning into a congealed lump of sloth. So even though I’m far from an active person, I’m alright at finding ways to work up a sweat. But straight-up track and field-style running? Can’t do it. My endurance is just too shamefully low to keep up such strenuous full-body activity for such extended periods of time. I remember back in high school gym class, they made us all run a mile in under seven and a half minutes, and it just about fucking shredded my lungs. I hate how much stress running puts your body under. I hate how it feels to be gasping for air hard enough to hurt your windpipe. You couldn’t turn me into a runner if it was the only way to save my life. So it’s an open question what kind of experience I’m gonna have with Run with the Wind, a show all about running and the people who engage in it. On the one hand, it’s about as far from my comfort zone as humanly possible. On the other hand, it’s also brought to life by the team behind Haikyuu, which won me over hook line and sinker despite me having no interest whatsoever in volleyball. Haikyuu was proof that you don’t have to be a very active person, or even care about sports at all, to get invested in stories about physical activities and the people who participate in them.

Thankfully, the talent poured into bringing the good boys of Karasuno to life is still very much on display here. What always stuck out to me about Haikyuu was its attention to realism in all its aspects; the stakes were never so high that there was no way the characters could lose, the conflicts never so extreme that they felt divorced from reality, the characters and their interactions never so larger than life that you couldn’t picture actually spending your high school career with them. It was exceptional at grounding its hype shonen action in a world that still felt recognizably our own, down to the smallest details. And Run with the Wind captures that same kind of lived-in authenticity, from the nuanced, fluid running animation to the naturalistic camaraderie between the characters. You get a really strong sense of who everyone in this boarding house is just from visiting their rooms, a clever way to establish such a large cast and make them stick out in such a short span of time. And the specificity of their interactions makes it incredibly easy to believe these are people who’ve all been living together and have gotten used to dealing with each other. Not to mention the character designs, which capture Haikyuu’s sleek handsomeness to a T. Protagonist Kakeru is such a Kageyama it’s almost hilarious, right down to his discomfort sharing his sport with other people. The landscape may be different, but we’re still in very good guiding hands.

Morning Quiet

That said, I’d be wrong to put too much emphasis on the Haikyuu connection, because despite all the stylistic similarities, Run with the Wind is a very different show with very different intentions. Instead of a high-energy shonen sports show about rowdy high schoolers learning the value of teamwork and effort, it’s a slow-burn drama about college students who are all a little too old for this shit already. It takes its time introducing you to the characters, getting you acquainted with their camaraderie, slowly offering up pieces of their motivations and pasts. And the characters themselves are all far more subdued, less uninhibited with their feelings but also more comfortable in their own skin. Their stand-offs and emotional confrontations hit not with the rush of a spike slamming the ground behind you, but the quiet puffs of wind that whistle through your ears as you round the second lap. It’s a fitting change, considering the difference in the sports themselves; track and field requires different considerations than volleyball, different priorities for the players to engage in. It asks a lot more of your stamina, your endurance, your ability to keep a steady pace without wearing yourself out. Thus, Run with the Wind is itself a very steady, measured show, not as instantly arresting as Haikyuu’s dynamic showdowns. It’s a subdued, subtle affair, trading the high-impact spikes and saves of yore for the steady rhythm of measured breathing along a track course at dawn.

As a result, I’m still not sure where my opinion of Run with the Wind will ultimately lie. It’s building up a lot of interesting characters and motivations, with Haiji’s still-healing injury pushing him to take this last chance to achieve his dream and Kakeru’s unresolved issues with his own high school track experience coloring his unwillingness to open up. Judging by the former classmate who shows up at the end of episode 3, it looks like we’re about to get a lot more info on what went down that soured him on running. And it intrigues me how neither of these at-odds athletes are necessarily the best people. We’re introduced to Kakeru as he’s running from a shopkeeper he stole from, and we later find out he apparently lost his previous apartment’s deposit in a gambling mishap. Meanwhile, Haiji’s pretty coercive about roping everyone into his plan of running the Hakone marathon; not telling them what he wanted from them until it was too late to back out is a dick move no matter how you swing it. Though maybe that’s just my baked-in dislike of running coming through. Seriously, if someone tried to sucker me into joining the track team, I would hold a grudge for the rest of my life. And I totally get why Kakeru’s so unwilling to play along; this is a huge investment of time and energy Haiji’s asking of them. Then again, Haiji has taken the time to learn their specific interests, and he tries to make running a benefit to those interests, so maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all. But I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

And that’s where I’m at with Run with the Wind as a whole right now: I guess we’ll have to wait and see. It’s making an honorable choice to stick to this deliberate slow-burn, slowly unveiling its characters and ideas piece by piece. It’s not trying to bowl me over straight away; it’s simply asking for my trust as it finishes its warm-up stretches before it finally picks up the pace. So while I’m not sure exactly where it’s headed, or exactly how well it’s heading there, the talent and craftsmanship on display is impressive enough that I remain hopeful for what’s to come. After all, if anyone has a chance of getting me invested in a track and field anime, it would be the lovely folks responsible for making me fall in love with sports anime in the first place.. You’ve got my attention, Run with the Wind. Now let’s see if you can keep it.

Odds and Ends

-aksdhaskd fucking hell Haiji you can’t just teleport like that

-”I can’t believe my first case after passing the bar will be my own civil trial.” snrk

-”It’s prejudiced to think black people are fast runners!” WELL ALRIGHT THEN

-Not sure how much I like all this jumping around in time. It makes the story flow weirdly.

-”He’s domesticated us, hasn’t he?” aldhakjsdad

-Man, Haiji’s been chasing this dream for all his college career. Wonder why it means so much to him?

-God, I’m getting uncomfortable just from how much this kid is slumping his shoulders. That’s such bad form, dude, you’re gonna murder yourself!

-I feel ya, running down a step slope like that is crazy.

-Okay, but did it have to be a high school girl? Really couldn’t even do her that dignity? Blegh. This is Kiyoko all over again.

-Okay but Prince is just collecting more and more butterflies as time goes on and honestly I feel that

And with that, we’re on our way! I’m definitely interested to see where this one goes, and I hope you can forgive me for all the running puns I’m sure to make over the next twenty episodes. See you next time!

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #run with the wind #kaze ga tsuyoku fuiteiru

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goldenclasp · 5 years

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title impending ;3

for the 2019 @zutaraexchange!

my Giftee is @artmages-rebirth

and the prompts I ended up using are Sports AU and Oblivious Pining

also, I inferred that my Giftee wanted a happy relationship! (no violence related angst or jealousy drama) so here is the fic I wrote- a cheerful (?? tried my best 😅) sports au with lots of Zuko madly in-like!

Summary: During a soccer scrimmage with their college’s team, Zuko finds himself literally struck by love (a strong kick of the ball by Katara)! Pining Zuko and sporty Katara play with like in this good-feels fic <3

Aprox. 2400 words

***

Crouching in the goal, feet spread wide and body tense, Zuko kept his eyes glued to the ball’s progression down the field. The players out there were giving it their all today! Defense on his side could be doing better but it wasn’t every day Katara played with them, and she was generally on their team. Toph and Katara were formidable opponents but when they joined forces? Oh, boy, all other teams had better watch out!

With an unparalleled energy Katara barreled toward him, the way a lioness might chase down her supper. Eyes locked on to the finish line and feet dribbling the ball in a tight guard, she neared. Sokka was there too. He was trying to get the ball away, but she wasn’t having it. He kept jumping into her space and sticking his feet where she’d trip on them but like a true sibling Katara was keeping out of his reach. Not letting him topple her. As she ran, she ducked by her brother, chest heaving and face shining with sweat.

On the other end of the field, Zuko bounced in place: watching, guarding. He would not be distracted. He would not be distracted! He wouldn't notice… the way her smooth, shapely legs pumped as she ran or how her long, curly hair swayed with her moving body- Straightening, he tried to wipe the dumb smile off his face. And the sweat; it was insufferably hot out.

Be respectful, mind on the game.

He shook his head and tried to focus. In front of him was an exciting game, it was! More than enough to keep his attention, but stupid thoughts were stupid. And although he should really be watching for- Katara passed the ball to Toph on the left, but kept herself between it and Sokka, jogged along next to the players struggling for it. She was getting closer. And- he couldn’t keep his eyes off her!

Zuko, buddy, focus. Focus. Don’t watch her. Don’t watch her!

Katara had the ball again and now he had an excuse. She was dribbling, kicking, swaying, panting from the exertion and her approach was unreal. He zeroed in on her face again. Taking his time admiring her. Like the way her eyes scrunched up when she was concentrating hard or how she moved so gracefully, so fluidly. Even now: her body tensed, but she cocked her knee back in a smooth, practiced motion, twisting so that her feet had the best angle. Katara swept her foot forward, striking the ball. It flew through the air- WHAM.

Something hard and round connected with the side of his face and Zuko dropped like a sack of mud.

Someone was shaking his shoulder. Someone was pinching his face. Someone was calling his name. Several voices actually. And man... his head was throbbing like crazy, blood pulsing through his skull in a frantic rhythm.

“Is he okay!”

“Are you okay??”

“Stop yelling, please!”

“Is he dead?”

“No, you idiot. He’s not dead!”

“Call me an idiot again you idiot and I’ll knock your teeth out!”

“Everyone, shush!”

“Is he okay???”

The people were whispering again. Or were they shouting? He couldn’t tell. And his head hurt! The shoulder shaking intensified. Suddenly, ice cold water splashed into his face and he jerked up off of the moist grass. Katara was there, holding his shoulder and looking panicky.

Squinting, mouth open, he blinked up at her. Even the shock of the water hadn’t shocked sense into his scrambled brain.

“What?” Zuko’s voice was a mumble in his own ears.

“Are you alive?”

Blurrily, he recognized a few shapes, Sokka and Toph of course, but even little Aang who wasn’t old enough to join games was there.

Katara stooped down to cradle his face in her hands. Gently, very gently, she felt around his face, fingers feeling for… damage? Her warm hands pressed against his temples and she leaned in very close to examine his eyes.

Her large beautiful blue eyes stared at him, so close that he could count her lashes. And they were glorious lashes, long and dark and full. Lashes fluttering with every blink. And each blink felt an eternity, each second a millennia, heartbeats stretching out. His pulse once again thrummed deafeningly in his ears. Even her hair was glorious, a large section tumbled down from a hasty ponytail, a thick curl swayed against her perfect round cheek.

Katara leaned in even closer, so close that her lips were inches from his eyes.

Zuko fainted.

He came to on a flat, hard... bed? It must have been one because it was not a chair, but was it a bed? No. As he became more aware of his surroundings he realized that it was a table.

“...?” groggily, Zuko sat up wincing at his stiff back. A groan tried to crawl its way from his throat, but it didn’t get that far.

He jumped as Toph’s gruff voice sounded from the left, “Are you alive sparky?”

“Toph! What- where am I-” The room was empty except for her. His face flushed. “Where is-”

“Katara? Not here. She left when I said I'd stick around till you woke up.”

A tiny twinge pinched at his pride but a thought replaced that faster than he could process the surfacing embarrassment. Sitting up straighter, he couldn't contain his question, “She was going to stay?”

Toph rolled her eyes and blew some bangs off her nose. “Yeah. She was going to stay.”

In a flash he was standing. “And you let her leave!”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Why not, what should I have done?”

He didn't have an answer, “I don't know, but anything else.”

Toph pushed off the wall and crossed her arms. “You seem well enough to yell at me so… bye.” Without any ceremony whatsoever, she was out the door, didn't even look back.

Zuko stood still for awhile staring at that traitorous door. He didn't know what to do anymore and now that any distractions were out of the way, his mind drifted to thoughts of Katara. In his head she looked like an angel or something: her face was tilted down at him light hitting it just right, hair falling into her eyes. Zuko squeezed his own eyes shut and tried to shake the image. But trying not to think about her was useless. Sitting back down on the table, he rubbed his eyes and sighed. It was totally useless.

But was that? Yup, there the embarrassment was.

It crept up his spine and settled softly between his shoulder blades, tickling the back of his neck so that his skin started to burn as though there were actually something there. “I’m such an idiot…” One of his hands slid up to hold his face. Bad move. Where the ball had connected with the side of his face had swollen and was tender, just brushing the bruise hurt!

His blush darkened, he was an idiot. Even as he sat here on a random table in the sports equipment closet he could be out there looking for Katara. Only, he didn’t have a reason to be looking for her, so this was as good a place as any to be. His body sagged with a sigh, “I’m such an idiot.”

“Zuko?”

Startled, he tried to stand but tripped on the space between his feet and the floor. Katara’s beautiful face, haloed by her fluffy mane of hair, poked around the door frame. She looked equal parts concerned and amused but averted her gaze to hide it. Picking himself up off the floor where he had fallen, Zuko scrambled to look casual. “Hi.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Hi.”

Even his neck was burning. “Welcome…” gesturing vaguely around the room, “to my humble home.” he finished lamely. Katara let out a surprised laugh, and though it was just as disconcerting as a projectile ball it was not unpleasant.

Zuko looked at her directly, “Toph said you left. I thought you went home.”

“Oh? I really couldn't do that. There’s no way I could just after-” She stepped into the room fully, “I actually went to get an ice pack. And… You’ll never guess this one, but I also got us fries. You don’t mind? You're not on a diet? You don’t hate potatoes or anything? Sokka claims to be allergic to literally anything if he doesn’t want to eat it-” She was rambling. Maybe it was nerves.

Interrupting with a wave of his hand, “No! No, that's so nice of you!”

She smiled in a friendly way, yet as her eyes focused on him, her hand began inching up to touch his face. She stopped. “Are you really okay? That looks terrible.”

“Oh this?” Not meaning to touch the lumpy bruise, he sucked in a breath. “Yes, yeah.”

“I really have to offer you this now!” She shoved the paper bag into his hands.

“Oh, no you really shouldn’t.”

“Oh, yes I really should.”

Widening his eyes, willing her to cave, he pushed the bag back at her. Katara’s glare was enough to make his knees go weak.

They ended up sitting on the curb next to his car.

As he pressed the sweating blue ice pack to his cheek, drops of condensation dripped down his chin but he was oblivious to it.

“I’m really sorry about your face.”

He was tired of saying this, “It's fine. I’m fine.”

She didn't answer, just rummaged around in the paper bag he held, extracting a fry and munching on it daintily.

“Do you want more of this?”

She looked sheepish. “Yes.” And accepted the bag from him.

Even after accepting the fries from him, she didn’t really seem to want them, she was just sort of picking them out one by one. Nibbling absentmindedly. He watched her though and his neck warmed as he watched, this wasn't the most noble thing he’d done in his whole life, but… as long as she didn’t notice, he wasn’t going to stop. “Do you like it here?”

Scrunching her eyebrows at him, “Here as in right here where we’re sitting or…”

“Here as in this school.”

“Sure.”

Carefully he tucked his arms under his knees, letting the ice pack rest on the pavement, waiting for her to say more.

“Tuition is fine and the professors are fine. Classes don’t mess with my schedule either.”

“Is that all?”

“Sure.”

“But the soccer is better than fine?”

“Oh definitely!” She nodded, “The social aspects are the best-and the athletic stuff, like a soccer field and an outdoor court on campus? That’s amazing!”

He looked away, trying not to smile, “But the classes and all that school stuff is just fine.”

“Yes.”

“That’s fair.”

“Thank you.”

They sat in silence for a long time after that. As she continued to pick at the fries she became less shy, eating several at a time. She must not have had anything to add, but he had lots of questions he wanted to ask. In the very front of his mind a single question swam in circles. He really wanted to ask, and he realized he was speaking. “If the field and everything are so great how come you never practice with us? Or play in actual games?”

“Busy.”

His ears felt warm, “You should come around more often. I- we… can always use you on our team. And if you don’t show up, Toph crushes us- every time!”

She glanced at his face, checking for an ulterior-motive or something. But the corners of her mouth started to slide up, “She just rocks, she can’t help it.”

“Even if she’s a terrible sport.”

Katara laughed again, and Zuko realized that he needed to hear that sound more often.

“You know what? Right now, right this very instant we should call up Sokka and have a rematch. You have to know that taking out the goalie with the ball has to be an illegal move, right?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose!”

He made a face, “Sure.”

“Alright then! You’re on, but Toph stays on my side- and Aang gets to play this time!”

“Sure.”

“Deal?”

“Deal.”

“But…” She slipped her phone from a pocket and looked from the time to the darkening sky. “But not today. Next Tuesday?”

“I- Yeah, that’s sounds good.” He swallowed.

She stood up and stretched. “Need a hand?”

Leaning down, hand extended, the setting sun glowed in her hair that soft halo framing her pretty face. All the breath in his lungs was missing, gone, and he swallowed again but his throat was just so dry. “Yeah.”

She hauled him to his feet and he brushed the crumbs and salt and grass from his lap. “I can’t wait you know?”

“And next time I won't, you know… hurt you again.”

He nodded, but he wasn't listening, just looking at her. In his stomach a knot twisted and everything he felt for her danced a frantic contemporary dance in his gut, the kind with all the writhing. She in turn was looking up at his face. A strange light lit her eyes, and she reached to touch his cheek. He didn't stop her, not even flinch. And this time her cool fingers came to rest on his cheek. She was so close. So close that he could feel the heat from her skin.

His heart beat fast in his chest, thumping in his ears. Gently, her fingers stroked his chin. Her touch lingered. And as he stood frozen his skin burned hot, this heat was completely different from when he burned with embarrassment.

But then she stepped back, all the swirl of emotions popped like a soap bubble and suddenly the air was just warm and smelled of grass and lawnmower gas. Even if she was no longer touching him, she was still right there, still so close. And the feel of her fingers lingered. As the evening fell, the sweat on his skin was cooling and the air had a soft smell.

“That game’s still on, right?”

She nodded, and took a deep breath.

“Walk you to your car?”

She nodded again.

“Alright then.”

They set off across the athletic facilities parking lot, gravel crunching under feet. Not yet, they weren’t there yet, but he had all semester to be with her. This thought soothed his beating heart as they walked to her car.

***

I really hope that was something like what you wanted ArtMages Rebirth and that you enjoyed it

also am really happy that I got to participate in this event, and am very glad that I finished. because I’m going to be honest, (I don’t generally write cheerful/upbeat things and) at the end there I was REALLY struggling to finish! but in the end it all worked out and I had fun- so yeah <3

#zutara exchange #artmages-rebirth #zutara #zuko #katara #atla #fanfic #a bit angsty?#a bit fluffy?#sports au #college au #soccer au #modern au #oblivious pining #toph and sokka and aang mentioned #glad to be done and posting!

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intoxicatedwisdom · 5 years

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So if we watch movies and have netflix night, what are your top 8 movies of all the last 4 decades combined? Including all genres, types, ratings, feedback and reviews, what are the ones that defies everything for you in a historical sense? I like your opinions on the things I ask, you're real cool to talk with and know alot.

80’s

The Shining (Horror) 5. To me the shining is an experiment in trust. To me it’s explores how much can you really know about a person, and what that person really capable off. It’s a confusing film, that doesn’t really follow the plot of the book but got damn is it effective. Isolation, distrust, and the supernatural and the effect that has on the human psyche. From the drive in you know something is amiss it’s just a bloody good film and when I say bloody I mean that literally.

Raising Arizona (Comedy) 4. One of my faves. Before Nicholas Cage became a weirdo. The acting is great, the writing is simplistic and hilarious. It’s pretty much a modern western. The couple is childless, and they steal a baby and all hell breaks loose, it’s damn funny.

90’s

Fresh (Drama) 2. Starring the brilliant Sean Nelson (who also starred in the prequel to the wire, The Corner). It’s about a kid who is neck deep in shits creek and he uses his prowess in chess to formulate a plan of action to get himself out the drug game. The film is ridiculously underrated, and it features one of my favorite quotes. It’s a quote I live by till this day,“anything lost can be found again, except for time wasted”.

American Beauty (Drama) 7. A movie about life and death. In the movie the protagonist decides to live his life as he’s sees fit. He extorts his boss for high dollar severance, discovers his wife is having an affair, starts working out, smokes weed, and taking chances. And just as soon as he starts to awaken and starts doing the things he enjoys it’s gone.

00’s

The Cell (Sci-fi) 8. The film is set in the future where there is a technology that allows one to enter the mind of another person. The films protagonist enters the mind of a serial killer, and try’s to help the fbi find information about the location of the killers latest victim (who’s trapped in a tank that fills with water at 1 hours intervals). It’s a dark film with draw dropping cinematography.

Friday Night Lights (Sports Drama) 6. I am by no means a football fan. I don’t like football whatsoever but this is a movie that is so emotional that it can pull on the heart strings of any person football fan or not, and I think the film scoring has a lot to do with it. Also I’m from Texas and I know how much football and winning means to the boys down here in this state. The writer and director of the film manage to make this movie into more than a movie about football. It’s a movie about friendship, it’s a movie about the moments in your life that you’ll never get back, it’s about mistakes, and moving on.

10’s

Black Swan (Drama Thriller) 3. This was just a disturbing disturbing fucking film, no way around that, but the reason why it’s one of my favorites is because it really addresses the darkness that lies within the depths of us all that floats up to surface during trying times and takes over. I don’t think any man or woman is all good, even if you’re a good person there’s still something lurking beneath the facade of virtue. And the film kind of just explores that battle between good and evil, and what happens when you finally let that part of you, that you suppress, take over. When you succumb to your darkness and give up on all that’s good about you.

Interstellar (Sci-if) 1. A sprawling space epic. It’s a movie I watched in theaters 3 times. The science for the most part checks out. It’s a movie that’s as thrilling as it is contemplative. The movie scores are fantastic, some of the better ones I’ve heard. It’s a movie that made me think about the importance of my life and existence not only in this world but amongst the stars. And from the conversations I’ve had with other people who watched the most and understood it, it had the same effect. It was a very powerful film that I could watch over and over and over again and still be moved by it.

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khalifaalsuwaid1 · 6 years

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Drag Race Winners Ranked

I should start out by stating two things:

1) This is not a “least favorite to favorite” list. If it were, these would be in a completely different order. I’m ranking the queens based on their runs on the seasons they won in, the queens they were up against, and their overall C.U.N.T.

2) These are my opinions, and mine only. If you disagree, fantastic! People have different opinions, it’s what makes us human.

Edit: Updated with our Season 10 winner, Aquaria!

13) Trixie Mattel

Trixie isn’t a bad or mediocre queen by any means, despite undoubtedly being the most undeserving Drag Race winner as of yet. If it weren’t for All Stars 3′s (one of the most disappointing, soulless Drag Race seasons, but that’s another post entirely) ridiculously flawed jury twist, where previously eliminated queens decide the top two All Stars, and BenDeLaCreme eliminating herself, she wouldn’t have won. Her performance on All Stars 3 was mediocre in the first half of the season, but she turned it out in the second half. There were, however, other queens that did much better than her throughout the season, and were solid all the way through. I think Trixie’s great, but her win felt extremely anticlimactic, and it wasn’t really her fault.

12) Sasha Velour

“Four challenge wins, four challenge wins..

Then the finale comes and the crowned queen is?…”

Sasha is a great queen. She’s intellectual, artsy, unique, annoyingly endearing with her history lessons that pop out of seemingly nowhere, and her run on Season 9 was relatively great, landing in the bottom once and never having to lip sync for her life. She’s winner material through and through. Why is she this low on the list, you might ask? Two words: Shea Couleé.

Let’s be honest, Season 9 was Shea’s season. She won four challenges, a record which she shared with two queens at the time, Sharon Needles and Alaska Thunderfuck (AS2), both of whom won their respective seasons. Even the editors weren’t expecting Sasha to win, since Shea was very clearly getting the winner’s edit. Season 9 felt like Season 8 most of the way through in terms of how obvious the winner was. “There’s no way in hell Shea isn’t winning this” the majority of people thought. Then it happened. In one of the most iconic moments in the show’s history, rose petals came flooding out of Sasha’s wig during her lip sync against Shea, and it all came crashing down.

“It’s not right but it’s okay” was the perfect final lip sync song, indeed.

11) Violet Chachki

This is where things get tough, because from here on out, I genuinely believe every single winner deserved the title of “America’s Next Drag Superstar.”

Oh, Season 7. Such a great cast wasted on a stupid amount of acting challenges. It’s a shame Violet never got the chance to REALLY shine during the non-runway parts of the season, because she’s a fantastic queen. Interestingly, her best moment came from an episode of Season 8, not 7. At the end of Season 8′s crowning episode, she came out wearing what is, in my humble opinion, the best thing to walk down a runway in the entirety of the series, stealing the three finalists of Season 8′s thunder.

She might not have always been at the top during the challenges in her season, and she can come off a bit rude, but when it came to the runway, she never under-delivered. Being up against, in the words of Trixie Mattel, “a partially sedated twink from Brooklyn” might have helped her win the crown, though. Ginger Minj was stiff competition, but in the end, Violet prevailed. Thank God she did, because she gave us one of the most iconic moments of Season 8, one which I’m obviously still not over.

10) Tyra Sanchez

Let’s get this out of the way: No, Raven was not robbed.

Look, Tyra can be mean-spirited, hateful and rude. Tyra on Season 2 was, in all honesty, a bitch. But you know what? She fucking deserved the crown. Her reasoning behind being a bitch was that she was focused on winning the season, and while I’m not sure if that’s true or not, she definitely slayed the game. Tyra delivered in almost every single episode of her season, and has her fair share of iconic moments (”DIS GROOB IS FOR MAH GIRLS” remains one of my favorite Drag Race moments ever!) She unfortunately gets a lot of unwarranted hate from “fans” of the show for “robbing” Raven of her crown and being a bitch.

Being nice is great and all, but Tyra showed us that you don’t have to be Miss Congeniality to be America’s Next Drag Superstar.

Unfortunately, Tyra has lost her way recently. It’s extremely unfortunate, because she’s extremely beautiful and talented.

9) Chad Michaels

I’m going to try my best not to reference The Hunger Games during this section.

If there’s one thing the Drag Race fanbase can universally agree on, it’s that All Stars 1 is objectively the worst season of Drag Race ever, because of its oh-my-god-this-is-so-stupid-who-thought-this-was-a-good-idea teams twist. This is why Chad’s win is usually swept under the rug in the community, but in all honesty, I’m just glad Chad won something.

During Chad’s run on Season 4, he showed us how a professional drag queen acts, dresses and talks. If it weren’t for Sharon Needles, Chad would have probably won the season. There’s really not much else to say other than Chad was a really polished queen that deserved to win something, even it was the worst season of a great show.

8) Bebe Zahara Benet

Dubbed “The Lost Season,” Season 1 of Drag Race is kind of a mess. The best kind, of course. The budget was paper thin, they had that awful vaseline filter throughout the whole thing, and nobody knew what they were doing. Not Ru, not the producers and definitely not the contestants. In a way, Season 2 was actually the first season of Drag Race, whereas Season 1 felt like an elaborate pitch. There was no “Snatch Game,” a challenge that would become a staple in the series, for example.

However, Season 1 has something later seasons lack in a major way: genuineness. The contestants of Season 1 didn’t really come in with catchphrases prepared, or cared how “fans” would harass them on social media. They were a bunch of men in wigs having fun. One of those contestants, Bebe, really stood out. Born in Cameroon, as she likes to remind us (she really, really likes to remind us) she had and still has a sense of presence none of the other contestants on the show have. When she walks on stage, you really feel like a Queen is walking down the runway. To this day, she is the sole queen that gives off those vibes.

She is sadly always forgotten, despite having a stellar run on Season 1 and being the OG winner. Thankfully, All Star 3, where she had another great run, put her back on the radar. May she never be forgotten again. Cameroooon!

7) Aquaria

In all of my years watching Drag Race, I’ve never done a complete 180 on a Ru Girl as hard and fast as I did on Aquaria. Rewatching her “Meet the Queens” video, I still have no idea why she presented herself the way she did. Going into the Season, I saw Aquaria as a bratty look Queen that was extremely full of herself, and to be quite honest, the first few episodes didn’t change my viewpoint.

As the season went on, however, she started to show her true self. Aquaria went from a brat to a sweet, awkwardly endearing dork, and I loved every single microsecond of it.

I’ve failed to mention her runway looks, which were nothing short of excellent. Every time she walked out on the runway, all you saw was polish from head to toe. Her Mermaid, Hats Incredible and Evil Twin looks are absolutely breathtaking. Her performance in the challenges was just as good. If you had told me Aquaria would win Snatch Game at the beginning of the Season, I would have laughed in your face. But she did. Week after week, she defied expectations and was always full of surprises.

She didn’t deserve the crown, the crown was deserved by her. It truly is the dawning of the Age of Aquaria.

6) Bob the Drag Queen

I’m paraphrasing, but Thorgy Thor, a contestant on Season 8 of Drag Race, said something along the lines of knowing she wasn’t going to win when she saw Bob walk into the werkroom for the first time in an interview.

Season 8, perhaps more than any season of Drag Race, had the most predictable winner, and yet, nobody was really mad about it. The reason being is that Bob deserved every single fake jewel on that crown. Season 8 had a fantastic cast, but Bob was so much better than the rest of them, it bordered on being unfair. You could sense that the moment he walked into the werkroom.

Fashion and Makeup is where Bob usually faltered, but more than made up for it by being absolutely hilarious in acting challenges, killing Snatch Game, and all around just being a good sport.

There’s this thing about Bob that other winners lack but I can’t quite put my finger on it. He feels…”Real,” I guess? I don’t really know how to put it into words, but whenever Bob talks, he exudes friendliness, whereas most of the other winners have an “aura” around them. It makes him very, very special.

5) Jinkx Monsoon

Everyone loves a good underdog story!

For the first half of her season, Jinkx mostly flew under the radar, despite constantly doing great in challenges. The other queens started realizing that she was a threat around halfway point of the season, when it was a little too late to be able to do something about it.

Because of this, Rolaskatox, a clique created by Roxxxy Andrews, Alaska Thunderfuck, and Detox Icunt, started going ham on Jinkx, bullying and hating on her every time she did as much as draw a breath. It felt very similar to Season 3′s “Heathers vs. Boogers,” except this time, “Boogers” was made up of one person. Seeing Jinkx take them down one by one felt fantastic and oh, so satisfying.

Jinkx, out of all the winners, is probably the nicest and most innocent one. She’s kind and completely unbothered by any kind of drama whatsoever. She marches to the sound of her own drum, and it’s honestly so refreshing.

4) Raja Gemini

Raja gets major props for winning hands-down, the most difficult season of Drag Race yet. Queens frequently say that Drag Race is the “Olympics of Drag,” and rightfully so (Yara Sofia wouldn’t have broken down during a lip sync if it weren’t. Season 3 in particular was pretty bad.) But other than that, Raja served some of the most creative and iconic looks to ever grace the runway. Her Marie Antoinette and Native American looks, I imagine, are engraved in everyone’s minds because of how beautiful they were. Her drag is extremely different than everyone else, especially than the ones that were on her season.

She also gets props for beating Manila Luzon, who is undoubtedly the most talented runner-up in the show’s herstory.

To this day, Raja still delivers some of the most gag-worthy looks to come out of Ru girls, and managed to stay relevant by being the co-host of “Fashion Photo Ruview,” a show where she and Season 2′s Raven Toot and Boot looks from episodes of Drag Race.

3) Sharon Needles

When Sharon walked down the post-apocalypse runway dressed up as a half zombie, half mummy thing, with blood pouring out of her mouth, she made an impact on the entirety of drag. Up until that point, drag, especially on Drag Race, hadn’t gone there.

This is why Sharon is celebrated, because she showed everyone that drag wasn’t just about looking fishy, pretty or anything of the sort. Drag can be spooky, disgusting and horrifying. I don’t believe Sharon invented this kind of drag, but she certainly brought it to the forefront. I honestly believe that Dragula, another drag competition, would not exist had Sharon not won Season 4.

She was also a part of one of the best Drag Race storylines, if not the best: Sharon vs Phi Phi. No matter how hard the show tries, it just can’t replicate the legendary rivalry between those two girls. Sharon obviously prevailed at the end, but it was a story for the ages.

2) Alaska Thunderfuck 5000

I’m going to say something a bit controversial here: Alaska isn’t really one of my favorite queens. She comes off as a bit of a perfectionist, something I personally despise. Why is she this high on the list, then?

As I stated at the beginning, this isn’t a “least favorite to favorite” list. It’s a list based on queens’ strength, and I struggle to find someone as unapologetically talented as Alaska.

She is, in my opinion, the most well-rounded queen in the show’s herstory. She can act, sing, lipsync, serve looks, read…I could go on. She’s the epitome of “Jack-of-all-trades, master of all.” She absolutely swept the floor during All Stars 2. Yes, it might’ve been rigged for her, but even if it weren’t, she’d still easily sweep the floor and win.

She’s also a Drag Race superfan, and will probably get any sort of reference you throw at her.

1) Bianca Del Rio

Pretendstobeshocked.gif

I mean, was there really any other choice? We’ve reached a point where I personally believe we’re never getting a winner as good as Bianca, and a season as good as Season 6 of Drag Race, and I’m at peace with that.

Bianca is the living embodiment of C.U.N.T. She’s charismatic as all hell, unique and unlike any other queen, can and will read a bitch whenever she gets the chance to, and she’s out-of-this-world talented.

She sailed through her season, never landing in the bottom 3. Just like Bob, everyone knew Bianca was going to win the moment she walked in, but nobody cared because it just felt right.

It felt right.

#rupaul's drag race #rupauls all stars #trixie mattel #sasha velour #violet chachki #tyra sanchez #bebe #chad micheals #bob the drag queen #jinkx monsoon #Raja #sharon needles #alaska thvnderfvck #bianca del rio #Aquaria #Drag Race #Season 10 #Rupaul

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gurguliare · 6 years

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hey i’m putting this whole dumb mariner’s wife maunder under the cut because tumblr’s glitchy apostrophes really bother me, thanks

One thing I love about "The Mariner's Wife" is that it's as close as Tolkien gets to like, utopian drama, in that no one in the story is making decisions based off immediate need---poverty, war, et al obviously still exist, but they aren't the kind of threats they are in any other part of the legendarium. Even Valinor! once Morgoth is released. to quote Andie’s meta that I personally slid her $20 under the table for, "very few choices made in Numenor would lead to evil. Probably the worst thing that would happen due to bad human choices in Numenor were mass accidents." All external pressure, positive and negative, (let's say Middle earth’s tempting resources vs Sauron) is at a huge remove, enough so that the characters have almost perfect freedom in how they want to deal with it---except that that their actual reach is limited, and the combination is paralyzing, of course.

I really enjoy the fatalism of Tolkien’s base worldview as applied to the problem of maintaining rather than restoring peace: it’s one of his bleaker stories exactly because it’s ~pre-Fall, post-another-Fall, and tearing itself to pieces while worrying about, essentially, the wrong problem---“what weapons do we need to face the crisis that’s surely coming” rather than “what tools can we give our heirs?” Say that the usual conflict in utopian narrative is “how does the utopia survive,” with the added caveat that the utopia needs to preserve its identity plastically, and not become super-resistant to change---or, put another way, the utopia has to avoid being compromised by “realism” without sealing itself off from reality. Which can be the outside world, but which can also be the strains of rupture and change already present within the utopia, part of its heritage, and naturally produced within it as a society of actual people.

And it seems revealing to me that this bubble is the precondition for Tolkien writing, also, a domestic drama, knowing as we do his mixed opinion of character-driven literature (“stage-plays”). Obviously Aldarion and Erendis are each deeply concerned with How To Save Numenor: and although they're sort of obvious mouthpieces for transformation and conservation respectively, it’s not black-and-white---Aldarion recognizes the need to offer aid and tend old alliances in Middle-earth, but Erendis is the one aware of fissures within Numenor and the ripeness for conflict between unequal groups: men and women, shorter- and longer-lived Numenoreans, and, yes, elves and humans. These are problems that demand serious intervention, even with a status quo in all other ways worthy. So like... there’s enormous scope in which to work, despite the appearance of equilibrium there’s tons to do to keep alive the body paradisiac, and yet it’s exactly this relative innocence and freedom that makes it easy for the characters to suspect one another of perversity, and insincerity, in their respective choice of causes. Everything is equally urgent, and everything is also equally, secretly unreal. Erendis hates the sea and loves trees to spite me, thinks Aldarion; Erendis assumes that Aldarion’s voyaging is born of discontent with Numenor (but really boredom with her). Because Numenor is, in the moment, perfect---because the stakes are semi-abstract and it’s incredibly easy to dissociate intellectual possibilities from present risk if you don’t already feel the threat on an emotional level---it’s the most natural thing in the world to accuse the person with different priorities of playing games with facts, out of pure self-interest.

Hence Erendis’s speech about men; hence also why Ancalime thinks her parents fight for the “promise of sport,” not for considerations ideological or personal. In part because Aldarion and Erendis both consider themselves objective and think that objectivity alone will serve to carry the day eventually, they’re totally unable to communicate their respective visions to their heir, and they only ever get a partial glimpse at one another’s. Which sucks! Like, part of the tragedy of the Tree Subtweets is that Erendis herself represents something as irreplaceable as the trees: a loving devotion to the land and its people that needs no rational basis, precious exactly because rationality is in some sense inadequate to the momentous task at hand. Aldarion is a good steward of resources because he’s personally farsighted and has a basic grasp of logic---but he can’t make his descendants into equally sensible stewards, or rather, he can’t do so simply by being perceptive and expecting the same from others. Insert joke about cult of priests devoted to scaring people away from nuclear waste zones in the far future... but that’s the thing, right: some information is safer culturally embedded than it is passed down literally. Aldarion is born in the wrong time for even his longest-term preparations to be relevant, meaning that if he wanted any control whatsoever over the future, he needed to be forming close, trusting relationships within his own family, for even a hope in hell of continuity.

Which... it’s interesting, right? Tar-Meneldur does it; he abdicates because he lacks Aldarion’s perspective on the situation in Modern Middle-earth and because he (Meneldur) recognizes that action or inaction on his part are both choices he simply doesn’t have the moral license to make. But the thing is, that generosity doesn’t teach Aldarion, in turn, to be generous. I think we’re supposed to understand the abdication comes too late. The feeling I get from both Erendis and Aldarion is that part of the reason they’re so convinced of their own superb rationality is because, for their whole lives, their parents have been telling them how proud and willful they are, without regard for actual progress these stiffnecked children have made toward thinking adulthood. (Note: we see less of Erendis’s side but what we do get is the wayyyyyyy more concentrated version of this, unsurprisingly. One other big problem here is that Aldarion identifies Erendis as an equal opponent with all the same weapons he has, and she isn’t. But this post is already so long) ...The fact that Erendis and Aldarion are proud doesn’t make them deluded, and they know that; they have evidence no one else has, they see things no one else sees. They’re so smart! But then they take pride in pride, moreso as they’re scolded for it; they both develop this protectiveness toward the “right” to pride itself, because despite all the warnings, despite the condescension and doubt from outsiders, this burning self-reliance led them to the most important things in their respective lives (until, coincidentally, it became the most important thing in their respective lives). Ouch.

And pride without purpose (except self-protection) is the one thing that descends to Ancalime, and that sense of alienation persists in the Line of Elros without any final antidote. The one institutional takeaway is the wrong one: “don’t marry outside the Line” wedges open the split between Numenor’s “levels” of reality, again, if we say there’s a utopia-within-the-utopia---the changing present inhabited by its people and the dream of eternity, political and later personal, that haunts the kings.

...I would speculate here about the parallel to the Valar’s handsoff approach to “advising” Numenor but that would get boring fast! And isn’t really fair, or indeed, interesting---the thing that gets me is this entirely human plane of action, even the wasted potential of which is going to change the world. The point is, Tolkien does a really good job setting up personality cascades, and it’s funny. I could ... man I want to talk a bit more about the parenting thing because it’s obviously also connected to, uh, Meneldur and Almarien and Nuneth’s relationships to Numenor! and Numenor’s hypothetical future. But this post is so long and meandering and unedited already and I’m sick of it. GOD. SORRY. GOODNIGHT.

#somehow the shorter of two non-essays i started yesterday at walgreen's #silmarillion #aldarion #erendis

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5hfanfiction · 7 years

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mean girls pt. 1

summary:

“Lauren will finish this last year of high school drama free if it’s the last thing she does.”

AU where Camila is the queen bee and she’s used to the school bowing at her feet until a new girl that refuses to play by the rules comes along.

Greenwich Academy.

Lauren stands in front of the prestigious high school, staring at the name hanging above the entrance in big, bold letters.

Everything about the school from the large gates, to the trimmed planes and large trees screams of money and privilege.

Lauren is used to that; she isn’t, however, used to wearing a fucking uniform. She looks down her frame and grimaces - pleated skirt and a fucking tie.

She bites in the bitterness and reminds herself that this ridiculous uniform is a small price to pay for a fresh beginning - God knows she needs it.

And she can’t ignore that this school offers the education and opportunity she needs to get into her dream university. Besides, it’s her senior year so she just has to endure it for one year and she can continue on with her life.

There are students milling around and Lauren has honestly never seen so many polished and preppy kids looking like they’ve got life all figured out in one place.

She watches a pair of girls with shining platinum blonde hair squeal and embrace each other as they reunite after a long summer apart. Lauren looks away. She isn’t familiar with being the new kid but she frankly isn’t worried about making new friends. Her plan is to get in and get out as fast as possible with top grades that’ll land her a sweet spot in her dream university. Maybe even with a sports scholarship if all goes according to plan.

It’s with this mindset that she enters the school and she isn’t expecting much, the least being befriended by a small, overly friendly and bubbly girl right after her first class.

She’s standing by the locker attempting to organize the heavy books she got from the school library when a sudden voice exclaims,

“Hi!”

Lauren startles and spins around, staring at the girl who popped out of nowhere. She’s a tiny thing, a good few inches shorter than Lauren, with long straight brown hair and a smile that seems to glow brighter than the sun.

“Hi,” Lauren says after a pause and blinks. “You scared me.”

The girl giggles. “I’m so sorry,” she says, “I didn’t mean to. Hi, I’m Ally.”

Lauren smiles because she can’t deny that Ally’s smile is quite infectious, “Hi, Ally. I’m Lauren.”

“I know,” and wow, she really loves giggling, “We just had Physics together. Nice to meet you, Lauren!”

She pulls Lauren into an unexpected hug and Lauren’s got issues with personal space and strangers, so she almost pulls away but then she realizes how freaking soft and warm Ally’s hug is - and she smells good. So Lauren lets herself be hugged as she pats Ally half-awkwardly on the back.

Ally pulls away after the little-too-long hug and beams at her. Lauren smiles back and closes her locker after getting the books she needs for her next class.

“Nice to meet you too, Ally,” she says politely before she turns on her heels and walks down the hallway.

Ally follows her and struggles to keep up with her long strides, “What class do you have now?”

“Biology.”

Ally lights up. “That’s my class too! And oh, you’re going the wrong way.” She giggles as Lauren stops.

“I’ve got no sense of direction whatsoever,” Lauren says with a soft laugh.

“No problem. Come, we’ll walk together.”

By the time lunch rolls around, Lauren’s head is swimming with the amount of workload their teachers poured onto them on the first fucking day.

“Is this normal?” she asks Ally as they buy lunch from the cafeteria, and Lauren is pleasantly surprised by the food - not only is it edible and tasteful, but it doesn’t look like something that’ll send you straight to the nurse’s office with an aching tummy either.

Ally laughs. “You haven’t seen anything yet,” she says and when she sees Lauren pale a bit, she strokes her arm-Ally loves to touch, Lauren noticed pretty early on. “You’ll get used to it once you get into the swing of things. Just make sure to write a lot of notes, it’ll save you the headache for the midterms.”

Lauren likes Ally. She doesn’t think she’s ever met a person who’s as positive and sweet as Ally is, and she’s been incredibly helpful and welcoming, contributing to Lauren feeling like this is a good start - despite the ridiculous workload.

After they finish buying their lunch, Lauren mindlessly steers right for the closest empty table but she doesn’t get far before Ally wraps a hand around her arm and yanks her back.

“Where are you going?” Ally asks, wide-eyed. She looks a touch anxious which in turn makes Lauren anxious.

“What do you mean?” she asks, genuinely confused and gesturing towards the table she’d been heading to, “I was just going to sit down over there.”

Ally shakes her head briskly. “No, you can’t,” she says and without further explanation, she drags Lauren to the other end of the cafeteria where there’s a free table. She pushes Lauren down into a seat and takes one for herself across from Lauren.

Lauren stares expectantly at her.

Ally looks around conspiratorially, then leans in to whisper, “That’s the Clique’s table. You can’t sit with them.”

Lauren stares. Then blinks. Then stares some more.

“The what now?” she asks with a soft snort. “Did you just say the Clique? Are they the school mafia or what?”

Ally dramatically spills her eyes wide open. “No, they’re worse.”

Lauren sobers up a bit, because Ally seems to be that person who has something positive to say about anyone no matter how much of a scum they are, so if there are people in school that are this bad,they must be the devil. She leans into Ally, reluctantly curious and intrigued.

Ally holds a pause for dramatic effect and Lauren nearly rolls her eyes.

“There are three of them,” she says eventually, “And they’ve run the school for a while now. There’s Dinah Jane, Normani Kordei and of course, Camila Cabello.”

“Okay, so what, they’re the school’s mean girls?” Lauren asks unimpressed, because she doesn’t tolerate that shit and she definitely doesn’t have time for that shit either.

“If you cross them, they’ll end you,” Ally says darkly. Then she sees something over Lauren’s shoulder and shoots up straight in her seat, fingernails digging into Lauren’s arm. “There they are!”

Lauren turns around and it feels like the whole damn cafeteria turns their eyes on the trio that has just arrived. It’s three girls, all of them ridiculously gorgeous in their own ways, oozing confidence and nonchalance as they strut into the cafeteria with their perfect skin and shiny hair. They’ve all somehow gotten away with customizing and accessorizing their uniforms, making them look more like something out of a fashion catalogue than the boring, dull uniforms they’re supposed to be.

Lauren wishes it was an exaggeration but the whole cafeteria seems to stop what they’re doing to watch the girls, some even stopping mid-bite.

“Who are they?” Lauren finds herself asking.

“Okay, so the tall one is Dinah and she’s the captain of the girls’ soccer team,” Ally says, sounding almost giddy as she shares the information, “She’s the nicest of the trio. She’s easygoing and laid-back except when she’s on the field playing soccer - she plays like she’s fighting a war. And may God save your soul if you ever imply that the girls’ soccer team is any less than the boys’ soccer team. She once knocked this guy out for calling them a joke. And if you mess with her friends, she’ll end your life like this,” Ally punctuates by snapping her fingers together.

“The black girl is Normani Kordei. She’s the cheerleading captain. A lot of people find her intimidating but I talked to her once and she’s really sweet! She even shared her pack of gum with me and called me by name! I didn’t know she knew my name.” Ally sounds a little too excited and Lauren has to turn to face her, surprised by the almost dreamy look in her eyes. “She changes her hair all the time and she rocks every hairstyle. I personally liked the pink tips she had last year.”

“And the last one?” Lauren asks as she looks at the smallest of the three, a petite thing, obviously Latina, with pitch black long, wavy hair and a cute little bow tie instead of a regular tie, an expensive designer bag hanging from her arm.

“Camila Cabello,” Ally says, “She’s-”

“The Queen Bee?” Lauren interrupts, and Ally looks at her, surprised.

“Yeah. How’d you know?”

Lauren rolls her eyes hard and sits straight on her chair, turning her attention back from the Clique and onto her appetizing tuna sandwich instead.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Of course there’s gonna be a Queen Bee.” Lauren decides then and there that she doesn’t care for the Clique and whatever they have going on. She will finish this last year of high school drama free if it’s the last thing she does.

“Dinah is the soccer team captain, you say?”

Ally nods. “Yeah, why?”

Lauren shrugs. “I played soccer at my old school. I’d like to sign up for the tryouts.”

The soccer tryouts are held by the end of the first week and Lauren is excited - it’s only the first week and she already feels like she’s going to drown in homework and assignments, and she desperately needs a release. Running down a field with the soccer ball by the tip of her feet and the breeze in her hair has always done wonders to relax her.

It’s the brief break before the last class of the day and she’s standing by her locker. She feels all the kids around her buzzing with energy as they whisper secretly with each other, everyone looking excited and somewhat scandalized. Lauren doesn’t know what’s going on, but she doesn’t have to wonder for long, because the next second Ally pops up next to her.

“Did you hear?” she asks, wide-eyed.

“Hear what?” Lauren asks, vaguely curious.

“Camila Cabello broke up with her boyfriend, Liam Payne!” Ally whisper-hisses and Lauren turns to look at her.

“The left winger of the boys’ soccer team?” she asks. Although it was her first week, she already knew about all the popular kids and their gossip since this school thrived on it, including Ally.

Ally nods her head eagerly even if Lauren suspects she isn’t in on soccer lingo. “Yes, they’ve been together since sophomore year! They’ve been voted most-likely high school sweethearts to get married a dozen of times! Everyone’s shocked! No one knows what happened! But most people think that it’s Liam’s fault - I heard someone say that he cheated on her!”

Lauren rolls her eyes. “Why does everyone care so much?”

“Because if their love didn’t last then is love even real?” Ally sighs dramatically as she leans back against the lockers.

Lauren closes her locker and gives Ally a ‘really?’ look.

“They didn’t seem that much in love.” She shrugs. She’d seen them a few times together, holding hands as they walked down the halls soaking in the neverending attention, admiration and jealousy of their peers. The few times they’d crossed paths, Liam had heart-eyes as he looked at Camila Cabello while said girl just seemed downright bored.

Ally gasps, scandalized as if Lauren has insulted her mother. She shakes her head briskly.

“You’re new. You wouldn’t know.”

Lauren rolls her eyes again. “And I hope I never know,” she mutters under her breath. “I’m going to the soccer tryouts after school.”

Ally nods, “Do you need me to show you the way?”

Lauren shakes her head, “How hard can finding the soccer field be?”

Very hard apparently, when your name is Lauren Jauregui and you’re gifted with exactly zero sense of direction. By the time she makes it to the grassy field, she doesn’t even have time to admire the beauty and size of it, because she has to duck into the changing rooms where a gaggle of girls are already in the middle of noisily chatting and changing into more appropriate clothes.

She’s met with the thick smell of girly perfume and about a dozen curious eyes. Lauren smiles back stiffly as she shuffles to an open space.

“I haven’t seen your face before,” a girl says as she’s bent over her duffle bag, racking through it, her thick blonde hair obscuring her face from view.

“Yeah,” Lauren says, and pulls her shirt over her head. “I’m new.”

The girl straightens up and flips her hair over her shoulder, looking curiously at Lauren with a pair of startling blue eyes. “Welcome to Greenwich, you got a hair tie?”

Lauren blinks. “Yeah,” she says easily and rolls out one of her extras, watching the girl pull her hair up in a high ponytail.

“I’m Hailey,” she says, “Junior.”

“Lauren. Senior,” Lauren replies, discreetly eyeing the girl up. She’s got almost the same slim built everyone else in this room has.

“You’re lucky the captain didn’t see you come in late,” Hailey snorts. “She would’ve thrown you out on your ass without a second chance.”

Lauren raises her brow and responds dryly, “Hm, lucky me, I guess.”

Hailey gives her a look Lauren can’t quite decipher and she opens her mouth to say something but before she can, the door springs open and a girl enters.

The team captain - Dinah Jane. She’s wearing the blue and white soccer kit and Lauren has to admit, it makes her look tall and commanding. She surveys the soccer hopefuls with narrowed eyes.

“Ladies, hurry yo asses up!” She says in a volume that’s a lot higher than necessary. “You aren’t dressing up to prom! Whoever isn’t out on the field in the next two minutes is out!”

With that, she leaves, slamming the door behind her and the room is consumed by an air of urgency as the girls hurry out of their uniforms.

“I thought the tryouts started in 10 minutes,” Lauren mutters under her breath as she ties her soccer shoes.

Hailey hears her and snorts, “Dinah Jane runs by her own clock.”

Lauren grimaces as she follows the girls out on the soccer field. They gather in front of Dinah Jane and an older woman clad in an adidas tracksuit and wild hair that looks like she just rolled out of bed.

“Alright, girls,” she says energetically as she claps her hands together, surveying them with eager eyes. “I’m pleased that so many of you turned out but we’re only looking for a few. I’m your Coach Kelly and this is your future captain, Dinah Jane. She will be running the tryouts.”

Dinah steps forward with a grin, her gaze floating over the lined up girls.

She rolls her shoulders back and says, “Listen up, girls. I know that every single one of you has heard some sexist bullshit - sorry, coach,” but the coach doesn’t look scandalized, just amused, “-about how girls aren’t as fast or strong or athletic as boys.”

“Yeah, that is some real bullshit,” the coach interjects causing the girls to laugh and Lauren finds herself nodding, a grin on her face.

“So today, I’m looking for girls who are ready to prove the naysayers wrong. I’m expecting a lot of you. I’m expecting perfection. I only want the best.”

Hailey shifts nervously next to her and Lauren feels it creep up her spine. She reminds herself that she’s a superb soccer player and that she will prove that to Dinah and Coach Kelly.

The tryouts are simple and nothing Lauren hasn’t tried more times than she can count; running drills, shootouts and ball-handling.

Lauren is confident. That is until the tryouts begin and she realizes how competitive these girls are, and she’s forced to up her game so she isn’t left behind in the dust.

She does excellently at first, she’s the second first at the running drills, her feet are quick and coordinated under the ball-handling going whichever way she wants it to, but then come the shootouts and she doesn’t score a single goal, causing frustration to flare up inside of her, only making it worse.

“Hey! New girl!”

She turns around to face Dinah, who’s approaching her.

“My name is Lauren,” she responds, breathless from the physical exertion.

Dinah raises a brow, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. “Did I ask?”

Lauren is a bit thrown off by that and she stares at Dinah as she tries to come up with a witty response. Before she has the chance to, Dinah continues, “You played before?”

Lauren feels a little sour at the question, surely the skills she just displayed would be enough of an answer - except the shootouts, she supposes. And no one would come to the tryouts if they hadn’t kicked a ball before.

She nods and attempts not to look as offended as she feels. “Yeah, I have.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Dinah says as she writes something down on the clipboard in her hands. “You can’t even get the ball in the net.”

Lauren swallows. “I’m having an off day.”

Dinah smiles almost indulgently, “Is that so? How inconvenient.”

Lauren takes a deep breath, “Look, I’m good. I’m really good. You won’t regret putting me on the team. I think you’ll regret not doing it.”

That’s a bold statement, she knows and she can see it on Dinah’s face, in the way she tilts her head and looks at her with a raised brow.

“You’ve got nerve,” she says, and for a moment, Lauren doesn’t know what to make of that but then Dinah laughs, “I like you, new girl. Go out there and show me what I could be missing.”

Lauren nods and jogs back on the field. It takes a couple more tries but she finally gets a goal and it’s a fucking good goal - the ball shoots through the air with a force that reverberates across the field and the poor girl standing as goalie has no chance as it whizzes past her into the net.

Lauren jumps excitedly on her feet, spinning around, hoping that Dinah was watching and she was, smirking at her from where she’s sitting on the bench, scribbling something down on her clipboard.

Maybe her year at Greenwich will be better than she’d expected.

———————

A/N: hey, everyone! welcome to this enemies-to-lovers/rivals au that no one asked for, but hopefully everyone wanted! be forewarned: there will be a lot of mean girls references.

feedback is always appreciated :)

Can also be found on wattpad (under the username sipthegreentea) and ao3 (under the username mjfeelz and/or kordelicious)

#UPDATE #series #AU #slash #camren #angst drama #humour #submission #mean girls

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jasonmcgathey · 4 years

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Riots Of Passage

Well, like everything else, this book has taken much longer than expected. But Riots Of Passage is finally complete, and now available for Kindle. A paperback version will soon follow at all of your favorite retailers. So though it always feels tremendously awkward, I’m forcing myself to insert a little self-promotion here – although considering it documents a year of living on OSU campus, this book counts as legitimate Columbus history, and so might a little bit about its creation, too.

I finally got around to getting this in shape for publication in December 2017. The first draft was finished clear back in the fall of 1998 and the second in the summer of 2003. More than fourteen years would pass, then, before I even looked at this stuff again. Most of the delay was due to working on other projects, but any time I would think about this book, I was having a tough time mentally sorting out the length and the structure.

For eons I’ve been telling everyone that the campus years would be a trilogy (the first installment, One Hundred Virgins, was published in 2006). But I could never quite figure out a division point that felt right between two and three, so Riots Of Passage ended up being both. The most natural seeming break occurs after coming home from the New Year’s party, and that was always the plan, except I didn’t like where this meant starting off the last book. It would kind of leave the middle book as one long preamble, as just about all of the payoffs seem to happen in the last half of this finished project.

The major cuts all came with this third draft I began in 2017. That second draft from 2003 clocked in at over 900 full size (8 1/2 x 11″, that is) pages, something like 940, whereas the third one came in at exactly 500. So I wound up cutting out or condensing nearly half of the material. But even throughout this process, which took a year and a half almost to the day, I was still kind of stalling on the decision whether to split this into two books or not, telling myself I would know the answer and could make that call when the draft was complete.

But the truth is, you’re never entirely certain you made the right call on anything. In this instance, it felt too short for a pair of books yet too long for just one. It helps considerably with the editing process, though, that I would say – somewhat unexpectedly – that I really don’t care about any of the personal dramas now, stuff which seemed so important at the time. This is one advantage of taking so long to put something together, I suppose. In some instances entire people got the axe, along with subplots which dragged on for a month. The only consideration was whether or not it seemed essential to this central story, and if not, it got the heave ho.

Some of the decisions were pure pacing ones. In the beginning and the end especially, I was going for more of a breezy clip, therefore condensing was unavoidable. This meant that often highly interesting occasions were reduced to single sentences, or maybe even deleted altogether. In two instances I can think of, complete paragraphs which were among my top five favorites, I had to conclude didn’t fit, however painfully, and got rid of them. It sucks, but you can always console yourself with the knowledge that they might find use in other projects down the road.

These decisions, though, make you realize that you can’t really term anything the “definitive” history of an era or a subject. This is just one minuscule slice of history from that time and place. For a while, and this was true of the first book as well, this whole notion of cutting out people completely was bothering me. It feels like you’re trying to alter history based on personal preferences. Except one day I had an epiphany of sorts – I happened to be reading a Civil War book at the time, though it could have been anything – that, you know, they couldn’t possibly mention every single soldier who fought in a war, in the course of the narrative. Attempting to shoehorn in every name even if you have nothing interesting to say would make it clunky and unreadable. This doesn’t make it untrue, or mean that you are attempting to alter history.

One great example of this would occur near the end of this third draft, when I realized that an extremely entertaining cook we worked with at Damon’s hadn’t been mentioned at all. His name just hadn’t come up in any of my writings. Some of his specific episodes I had in my head the whole time, and kept thinking they were going to crop up at some point – after this many years, it’s hard to remember what you included and what you left out of a previous draft – but they never did. Instead of backtracking, though, and attempting to figure out where they belonged, I took this as a sign that these detours probably weren’t needed. And nothing personal against the guy, they just weren’t essential to these particular chapters.

Other times the opposite policy applies, where you figure, you know, I’ve got fifteen scenes at Woody’s in here, or whatever, and these are the ones which felt most crucial. There’s no reason to mention every trip you made to the bar for a solid year. In this sense, some of the lengthier scenes were paradoxically easier to cut out entirely, or categories where I was able to make some kind of broad editorial decision – so for the most part, major concerts, sporting events, and movies attended were easily gotten rid of. Writing sex scenes, too, has always been awkward, and I couldn’t imagine anyone wanted to read about these icky details either.

So it is that, paradoxically, smaller decisions somehow become the most agonizing. These open up philosophical angles that are often unexpected and fascinating. Though this admission might seem monstrous, I can honestly say that while some of the things I did in these pages should bother me, none of it does. Instead what proves cringe inducing is to look back upon what music you were listening to, the dumb stuff you were talking about, and your inane sense of humor at the time.

Somehow we have all grown accustomed to the notion that our clothing and hair choices of the past were usually questionable, and this we are okay with, dismissing them with wry, morbid humor as a fitting commentary on those hilarious times. Other details prove trickier to navigate, however, and among these I would count a) things you no longer find funny, as well as b) things you no longer believe, and c) things you said, but turned out to not be true.

To leave out these sorts of things, you are then wrestling with the notion that you’re trying to make yourself and your friends seem smoother than you actually were at the time. But I think our various personalities are well established and accurate. Omitting some of the goofier, poorly aged wisecracks or whatever isn’t distorting anything. Also, to include them produces the thought, why would I intentionally write a bad book? Sometimes, particularly with point B up above, you can maybe weave around this by explaining, “here’s what I thought at the time, but I now believe this.” Unless this insight actually occurred during the period in question, though, this is also technically assigning yourself a wisdom you didn’t have.

Thornier still are questions of how you’re going to handle behavior and/or remarks which let’s just say haven’t aged so well, yet they are important if you want to be truthful about these times. You can’t just delete them and pretend they never happened…even though including such makes it seem as though you’re endorsing them. I think you just have to try and keep yourself in the mindset of that time frame as much as possible. It always bugs me when you’re watching something that’s supposedly set in an earlier era, but they’re using slang and catchphrases which didn’t exist back then. I tried to avoid that as much as possible, true, but also more importantly to avoid putting a current spin on these old situations. It’s probably not entirely possible, but I really don’t want to ascribe what I (or anyone else) thinks about these episodes now, only what we actually thought about them back then.

Even so, of course, you end up agonizing over specific words. Some of these sentences remain intact as-is from the late 90s, but there are others, I can tell you, I was still tinkering around with yesterday. Some were bugging me as I went to sleep last night. But at some point you have to tell yourself, good enough. Let it go.

But what really has you in knots most of all, is how you say anything negative whatsoever about your friends. You’re trying to write your interpretation of events, which everyone might not agree with. You don’t want to be unnecessarily mean, but at the same time, if you’re going to excise every negative, then it’s whitewashed and toothless and no longer accurate. It’s easy to fall down additional rabbit holes from there and begin thinking, hey, maybe I’ll just leave in unflattering comments if the person in question was a jerk to me, and on the flipside, delete everything less positive if they were cool. Of course, once you start rationalizing like this, you are doomed. Maybe it’s a tie breaker, if someone is in your good graces, determining how hard you try to paint them favorably, but you cannot just start wiping out every unkind comment about your friends.

Basically I think you just have to ask yourself, is this fair? And is this a necessary reference, or can I cut it out? Have I said this as tactfully as I can manage? It does help that, by this point, hopefully everyone understands this stuff falls in the good natured ribbing department, anyway – as mentioned earlier, I don’t actually “care” about this material on a personal level after this many years, none of it. The only question is if it’s important to this book, this little slice of history I’m covering.

In many of these cases, it’s often an accidental blessing to have not captured a ton of concrete information. Sometimes I am being deliberately vague for dramatic purposes within the structure of the book, other times as some kind of strategic decision I’ve stumbled onto in the real world. But far more common are the instances where I just don’t have the details at this point. You can’t exactly Wikipedia who was at some campus keg party, or what was said at the Out-R-Inn on such and such night from 1998. Work schedules are for the most part toast or would never be made available to you, especially if canned from a place, and you can’t trust memory all that well after this many years.

One thing you may notice is that I do have slightly greater detail as the book progresses. This actually did occur to me at the time, and was an unintended benefit of buying a computer about halfway through this epoch. The whole mindset for acquiring one was that it would help me type up my first novel, yet it would soon turn out that detail and speed in future projects like this were of far greater importance. I was doing an okay job handwriting various facts in my journal, what we did and where we went on such and such day. It helped, too, that I had a job – waiting tables – where standing around scribbling things into a tiny notepad was totally normal. I just often wasn’t writing what they might have expected. But the level of detail is missing beyond this, until able to type it up and capture it quickly with a decent word processing program. And the biggie here is actual quotes, real life soundbites from people, which are somewhat lacking early on.

So if I don’t really care about any of these piddly dramas at this point, beyond their structural purpose in my history, what I do find fascinating now is specific details about anything whatsoever from the distant past. Things said, yes, but also prices, menu items, songs on a band’s set list. Which business existed at a certain address. It does make me lament my focus and choices at times, that I hadn’t concentrated more in certain areas and less in others, but there’s really nothing you can do about that.

Ultimately, this is what a book like this ends up being about: the city itself. Although by the nature of this project forced to insert myself into the middle (fun fact: I did try writing this campus period as a novel with invented character names at one point, many years ago. It didn’t work), it helps considerably to recognize that I am not the story. These experiences on the personal level are for the most part anonymous and commonplace. Though some of this weird behavior I guess is sort of amusing in sports, for the most part, I’m just melting into the background – and that’s exactly as it should be. So while it’s easy for all of us to trick ourselves into thinking, which we probably all have at times, “wow, I’m kinda like the Forrest Gump of this scene or something, all this wild stuff seems to happen when I’m around!” that’s not really not how it is at all. It’s more accurate to realize, well, I was present for 100% of the stuff I was present for. That’s why it seems amazing. But there were a million equally crazy things happening all over the place, which I missed. And this swirl of activity, this flood of information and colliding personalities, mixed in with the era and the locale itself, this is really what all such stories are about.

In the end, all you can really control is making a historical record as accurate as possible. Try to make it match what that period felt like as best as you are able to, and move on. The first time around, with One Hundred Virgins, this manifested itself in me thinking I wanted to get the timing right on a typical day. As I was working on that project, it’s true that there were almost no hard decisions whatsoever, as the pacing and flow and questions about which scenes to include almost seemed to be snapping themselves into place, in a way that hasn’t happened before or sense with anything I’ve written. But the one area I made a determined effort to focus upon then was to not include only the fireworks, to deliberately insert some boring stretches because this was more realistic. I do regret some of the florid language used in that book – to read some passages now, even I have no clue what I was trying to say there – but otherwise think it accurately captured, you know, that we weren’t partying nonstop, that there were nights I’d sit at the kitchen table alone for hours with the radio and a crossword puzzle.

The period covered in this second volume, however, is completely different. There is much less information about what else is going on around the city, because our lives have gotten more action packed, and I’m also not exactly sitting around reading article after article about Angsto The Clown or whatever, as I had been in our earlier days. Here I think the length of the book is actually more beneficial and accurate, and if I’ve decided to focus less this time around on making every sentence as artfully complex as possible, I do believe that some situational confusion serves it well, because this is how it was to live it. Therefore if you think it’s a bit brain scrambling that there are five or six Carries in this book and most of them have dark hair but no last name, are often explained away as a coworker, well, trust me, this neatly matches our experience. If sometimes you can’t quite decipher what happened or what’s really going on, yeah…welcome to the club.

Even so, I’ve never been nearly this nervous about anything else I’ve written. There are conversations I’ve successfully avoided having for over twenty years now and am dreading to some degree, once a couple of these episodes are revealed. The reception itself otherwise seems almost not nearly as important – as any of you other writers out there know, though you feel compelled to crank this stuff out for some reason, there are always conflicting emotions about it anyway. Am I hoping that nobody reads it? Of course not. Am I hoping that people do read it? I think so…yet it’s still kind of a terrifying prospect to actually sit around and ponder. I mostly try to block out that thought, too.

That last “S” fell off: original cover for “Similar Shapes” as it looks now.

Regarding the title, and the picture above, it’s true that I’ve been wrestling off and on with these names for over two decades. At one point, I intended to call that first book Similar Shapes. There are still times I wish I had. But somewhere along the line that name began to seem too generic to me, and I also became enthralled with this idea, based around this running joke that Robert Smith (from The Cure, not the legendary OSU running back) always had, whenever asked about the title of their next album: he would say One Million Virgins, though they never wound up calling any of them that. When still intending this as a trilogy, I planned to run with that concept in tying them all together, starting with Hundred and then Thousand, finally Million.

Though loosely based upon discussions we were actually having at the time, this numbering pattern eventually lost its luster. True, I could always pull an Agatha Christie and rename that first book. But really, I think I’m saving Similar Shapes for a day down the road, when I might decide to combine these two projects and issue them as one. Half the time I think that will probably happen at some point. It actually makes the most sense of all, and kind of comes full circle to that maroon binder full of pages.

Anyway, if you’re really worked up into a mad fervor and can’t wait to get your claws into a copy, as I mentioned, the Kindle version is now available on Amazon for 99 cents. I basically plan on jacking up the price by a dollar every week, as some sort of cheap stunt to inspire you to order a copy right now. So here is the link for that:

Riots Of Passage

Let me know if you spot any errors, of course. If caught early enough I might be able to squeak in corrections before the paperback version goes live. Otherwise, I guess they will wait for the inevitable revised edition. As always, thanks for reading this or anything else that pops into my head. It still seems amazing to me that anyone would do so, and I hope to never lose sight of that.

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sipthegreentea-blog · 7 years

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Title: mean girls Pairing: Camila Cabello / Lauren Jauregui Chapter 1 of ?: i. the new girl

Summary:

"Lauren will finish this last year of high school drama free if it’s the last thing she does."

AU where Camila is the queen bee and she's used to the school bowing at her feet until a new girl that refuses to play by the rules comes along.

i. the new girl

Greenwich Academy.

Lauren stands in front of the prestigious high school, staring at the name hanging above the entrance in big, bold letters.

Everything about the school from the large gates, to the trimmed planes and large trees screams of money and privilege.

Lauren is used to that; she isn't, however, used to wearing a fucking uniform. She looks down her frame and grimaces - pleated skirt and a fucking tie.

She bites in the bitterness and reminds herself that this ridiculous uniform is a small price to pay for a fresh beginning - God knows she needs it.

And she can't ignore that this school offers the education and opportunity she needs to get into her dream university. Besides, it's her senior year so she just has to endure it for one year and she can continue on with her life.

There are students milling around and Lauren has honestly never seen so many polished and preppy kids looking like they've got life all figured out in one place.

She watches a pair of girls with shining platinum blonde hair squeal and embrace each other as they reunite after a long summer apart. Lauren looks away. She isn't familiar with being the new kid but she frankly isn't worried about making new friends. Her plan is to get in and get out as fast as possible with top grades that'll land her a sweet spot in her dream university. Maybe even with a sports scholarship if all goes according to plan.

It's with this mindset that she enters the school and she isn't expecting much, the least being befriended by a small, overly friendly and bubbly girl right after her first class.

She's standing by the locker attempting to organize the heavy books she got from the school library when a sudden voice exclaims,

"Hi!"

Lauren startles and spins around, staring at the girl who popped out of nowhere. She's a tiny thing, a good few inches shorter than Lauren, with long straight brown hair and a smile that seems to glow brighter than the sun.

"Hi," Lauren says after a pause and blinks. "You scared me."

The girl giggles. "I'm so sorry," she says, "I didn't mean to. Hi, I'm Ally."

Lauren smiles because she can't deny that Ally's smile is quite infectious, "Hi, Ally. I'm Lauren."

"I know," and wow, she really loves giggling, "We just had Physics together. Nice to meet you, Lauren!"

She pulls Lauren into an unexpected hug and Lauren's got issues with personal space and strangers, so she almost pulls away but then she realizes how freaking soft and warm Ally's hug is - and she smells good. So Lauren lets herself be hugged as she pats Ally half-awkwardly on the back.

Ally pulls away after the little-too-long hug and beams at her. Lauren smiles back and closes her locker after getting the books she needs for her next class.

"Nice to meet you too, Ally," she says politely before she turns on her heels and walks down the hallway.

Ally follows her and struggles to keep up with her long strides, "What class do you have now?"

"Biology."

Ally lights up. "That's my class too! And oh, you're going the wrong way." She giggles as Lauren stops.

"I've got no sense of direction whatsoever," Lauren says with a soft laugh.

"No problem. Come, we'll walk together."

By the time lunch rolls around, Lauren's head is swimming with the amount of workload their teachers poured onto them on the first fucking day.

"Is this normal?" she asks Ally as they buy lunch from the cafeteria, and Lauren is pleasantly surprised by the food - not only is it edible and tasteful, but it doesn't look like something that'll send you straight to the nurse's office with an aching tummy either.

Ally laughs. "You haven't seen anything yet," she says and when she sees Lauren pale a bit, she strokes her arm-Ally loves to touch, Lauren noticed pretty early on. "You'll get used to it once you get into the swing of things. Just make sure to write a lot of notes, it'll save you the headache for the midterms."

Lauren likes Ally. She doesn't think she's ever met a person who's as positive and sweet as Ally is, and she's been incredibly helpful and welcoming, contributing to Lauren feeling like this is a good start - despite the ridiculous workload.

After they finish buying their lunch, Lauren mindlessly steers right for the closest empty table but she doesn't get far before Ally wraps a hand around her arm and yanks her back.

"Where are you going?" Ally asks, wide-eyed. She looks a touch anxious which in turn makes Lauren anxious.

"What do you mean?" she asks, genuinely confused and gesturing towards the table she'd been heading to, "I was just going to sit down over there."

Ally shakes her head briskly. "No, you can't," she says and without further explanation, she drags Lauren to the other end of the cafeteria where there's a free table. She pushes Lauren down into a seat and takes one for herself across from Lauren.

Lauren stares expectantly at her.

Ally looks around conspiratorially, then leans in to whisper, "That's the Clique's table. You can't sit with them."

Lauren stares. Then blinks. Then stares some more.

"The what now?" she asks with a soft snort. "Did you just say the Clique? Are they the school mafia or what?"

Ally dramatically spills her eyes wide open. "No, they're worse."

Lauren sobers up a bit, because Ally seems to be that person who has something positive to say about anyone no matter how much of a scum they are, so if there are people in school that are this bad, they must be the devil. She leans into Ally, reluctantly curious and intrigued.

Ally holds a pause for dramatic effect and Lauren nearly rolls her eyes.

"There are three of them," she says eventually, "And they've run the school for a while now. There's Dinah Jane, Normani Kordei and of course, Camila Cabello."

"Okay, so what, they're the school's mean girls?" Lauren asks unimpressed, because she doesn't tolerate that shit and she definitely doesn't have time for that shit either.

"If you cross them, they'll end you," Ally says darkly. Then she sees something over Lauren's shoulder and shoots up straight in her seat, fingernails digging into Lauren's arm. "There they are!"

Lauren turns around and it feels like the whole damn cafeteria turns their eyes on the trio that has just arrived. It's three girls, all of them ridiculously gorgeous in their own ways, oozing confidence and nonchalance as they strut into the cafeteria with their perfect skin and shiny hair. They've all somehow gotten away with customizing and accessorizing their uniforms, making them look more like something out of a fashion catalogue than the boring, dull uniforms they're supposed to be.

Lauren wishes it was an exaggeration but the whole cafeteria seems to stop what they're doing to watch the girls, some even stopping mid-bite.

"Who are they?" Lauren finds herself asking.

"Okay, so the tall one is Dinah and she's the captain of the girls' soccer team," Ally says, sounding almost giddy as she shares the information, "She's the nicest of the trio. She's easygoing and laid-back except when she's on the field playing soccer - she plays like she's fighting a war. And may God save your soul if you ever imply that the girls' soccer team is any less than the boys' soccer team. She once knocked this guy out for calling them a joke. And if you mess with her friends, she'll end your life like this," Ally punctuates by snapping her fingers together.

"The black girl is Normani Kordei. She's the cheerleading captain. A lot of people find her intimidating but I talked to her once and she's really sweet! She even shared her pack of gum with me and called me by name! I didn't know she knew my name." Ally sounds a little too excited and Lauren has to turn to face her, surprised by the almost dreamy look in her eyes. "She changes her hair all the time and she rocks every hairstyle. I personally liked the pink tips she had last year."

"And the last one?" Lauren asks as she looks at the smallest of the three, a petite thing, obviously Latina, with pitch black long, wavy hair and a cute little bow tie instead of a regular tie, an expensive designer bag hanging from her arm.

"Camila Cabello," Ally says, "She's-"

"The Queen Bee?" Lauren interrupts, and Ally looks at her, surprised.

"Yeah. How'd you know?"

Lauren rolls her eyes hard and sits straight on her chair, turning her attention back from the Clique and onto her appetizing tuna sandwich instead.

"It's obvious, isn't it? Of course there's gonna be a Queen Bee." Lauren decides then and there that she doesn't care for the Clique and whatever they have going on. She will finish this last year of high school drama free if it's the last thing she does.

"Dinah is the soccer team captain, you say?"

Ally nods. "Yeah, why?"

Lauren shrugs. "I played soccer at my old school. I'd like to sign up for the tryouts."

The soccer tryouts are held by the end of the first week and Lauren is excited - it's only the first week and she already feels like she's going to drown in homework and assignments, and she desperately needs a release. Running down a field with the soccer ball by the tip of her feet and the breeze in her hair has always done wonders to relax her.

It's the brief break before the last class of the day and she's standing by her locker. She feels all the kids around her buzzing with energy as they whisper secretly with each other, everyone looking excited and somewhat scandalized. Lauren doesn't know what's going on, but she doesn't have to wonder for long, because the next second Ally pops up next to her.

"Did you hear?" she asks, wide-eyed.

"Hear what?" Lauren asks, vaguely curious.

"Camila Cabello broke up with her boyfriend, Liam Payne!" Ally whisper-hisses and Lauren turns to look at her.

"The left winger of the boys' soccer team?" she asks. Although it was her first week, she already knew about all the popular kids and their gossip since this school thrived on it, including Ally.

Ally nods her head eagerly even if Lauren suspects she isn't in on soccer lingo. "Yes, they've been together since sophomore year! They've been voted most-likely high school sweethearts to get married a dozen of times! Everyone's shocked! No one knows what happened! But most people think that it's Liam's fault - I heard someone say that he cheated on her!"

Lauren rolls her eyes. "Why does everyone care so much?"

"Because if their love didn't last then is love even real?" Ally sighs dramatically as she leans back against the lockers.

Lauren closes her locker and gives Ally a 'really?' look.

"They didn't seem that much in love." She shrugs. She'd seen them a few times together, holding hands as they walked down the halls soaking in the neverending attention, admiration and jealousy of their peers. The few times they'd crossed paths, Liam had heart-eyes as he looked at Camila Cabello while said girl just seemed downright bored.

Ally gasps, scandalized as if Lauren has insulted her mother. She shakes her head briskly.

"You're new. You wouldn't know."

Lauren rolls her eyes again. "And I hope I never know," she mutters under her breath. "I'm going to the soccer tryouts after school."

Ally nods, "Do you need me to show you the way?"

Lauren shakes her head, "How hard can finding the soccer field be?"

Very hard apparently, when your name is Lauren Jauregui and you're gifted with exactly zero sense of direction. By the time she makes it to the grassy field, she doesn't even have time to admire the beauty and size of it, because she has to duck into the changing rooms where a gaggle of girls are already in the middle of noisily chatting and changing into more appropriate clothes.

She's met with the thick smell of girly perfume and about a dozen curious eyes. Lauren smiles back stiffly as she shuffles to an open space.

"I haven't seen your face before," a girl says as she's bent over her duffle bag, racking through it, her thick blonde hair obscuring her face from view.

"Yeah," Lauren says, and pulls her shirt over her head. "I'm new."

The girl straightens up and flips her hair over her shoulder, looking curiously at Lauren with a pair of startling blue eyes. "Welcome to Greenwich, you got a hair tie?"

Lauren blinks. "Yeah," she says easily and rolls out one of her extras, watching the girl pull her hair up in a high ponytail.

"I'm Hailey," she says, "Junior."

"Lauren. Senior," Lauren replies, discreetly eyeing the girl up. She's got almost the same slim built everyone else in this room has.

"You're lucky the captain didn't see you come in late," Hailey snorts. "She would've thrown you out on your ass without a second chance."

Lauren raises her brow and responds dryly, "Hm, lucky me, I guess."

Hailey gives her a look Lauren can't quite decipher and she opens her mouth to say something but before she can, the door springs open and a girl enters.

The team captain - Dinah Jane. She's wearing the blue and white soccer kit and Lauren has to admit, it makes her look tall and commanding. She surveys the soccer hopefuls with narrowed eyes.

"Ladies, hurry yo asses up!" She says in a volume that's a lot higher than necessary. "You aren't dressing up to prom! Whoever isn't out on the field in the next two minutes is out!"

With that, she leaves, slamming the door behind her and the room is consumed by an air of urgency as the girls hurry out of their uniforms.

"I thought the tryouts started in 10 minutes," Lauren mutters under her breath as she ties her soccer shoes.

Hailey hears her and snorts, "Dinah Jane runs by her own clock."

"Alright, girls," she says energetically as she claps her hands together, surveying them with eager eyes. "I'm pleased that so many of you turned out but we're only looking for a few. I'm your Coach Kelly and this is your future captain, Dinah Jane. She will be running the tryouts."

Dinah steps forward with a grin, her gaze floating over the lined up girls.

She rolls her shoulders back and says, "Listen up, girls. I know that every single one of you has heard some sexist bullshit - sorry, coach," but the coach doesn't look scandalized, just amused, "-about how girls aren't as fast or strong or athletic as boys."

"Yeah, that is some real bullshit," the coach interjects causing the girls to laugh and Lauren finds herself nodding, a grin on her face.

"So today, I'm looking for girls who are ready to prove the naysayers wrong. I'm expecting a lot of you. I'm expecting perfection. I only want the best."

Hailey shifts nervously next to her and Lauren feels it creep up her spine. She reminds herself that she's a superb soccer player and that she will prove that to Dinah and Coach Kelly.

The tryouts are simple and nothing Lauren hasn't tried more times than she can count; running drills, shootouts and ball-handling.

Lauren is confident. That is until the tryouts begin and she realizes how competitive these girls are, and she's forced to up her game so she isn't left behind in the dust.

She does excellently at first, she's the second first at the running drills, her feet are quick and coordinated under the ball-handling going whichever way she wants it to, but then come the shootouts and she doesn't score a single goal, causing frustration to flare up inside of her, only making it worse.

"Hey! New girl!"

She turns around to face Dinah, who's approaching her.

"My name is Lauren," she responds, breathless from the physical exertion.

Dinah raises a brow, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. "Did I ask?"

Lauren is a bit thrown off by that and she stares at Dinah as she tries to come up with a witty response. Before she has the chance to, Dinah continues, "You played before?"

She nods and attempts not to look as offended as she feels. "Yeah, I have."

"Could've fooled me," Dinah says as she writes something down on the clipboard in her hands. "You can't even get the ball in the net."

Lauren swallows. "I'm having an off day."

Dinah smiles almost indulgently, "Is that so? How inconvenient."

Lauren takes a deep breath, "Look, I'm good. I'm really good. You won't regret putting me on the team. I think you'll regret not doing it."

That's a bold statement, she knows and she can see it on Dinah's face, in the way she tilts her head and looks at her with a raised brow.

"You've got nerve," she says, and for a moment, Lauren doesn't know what to make of that but then Dinah laughs, "I like you, new girl. Go out there and show me what I could be missing."

Lauren nods and jogs back on the field. It takes a couple more tries but she finally gets a goal and it's a fucking good goal - the ball shoots through the air with a force that reverberates across the field and the poor girl standing as goalie has no chance as it whizzes past her into the net.

Lauren jumps excitedly on her feet, spinning around, hoping that Dinah was watching and she was, smirking at her from where she's sitting on the bench, scribbling something down on her clipboard.

Maybe her year at Greenwich will be better than she'd expected.

#camren #camren fic #lauren x camila #camila x lauren #honestly i have no fucking idea what's the policy for tagging when it comes to c*mren and 5h #i don't really go here i just ship them hard and met leyana and started writing this ~~oneshot~~#(lmao sweet summer children)#anyways this is an au where camila is often awful #(and also often awfully smitten with lauren)#and where lauren is a smart confident motherfucker who takes no shits #(she just throws them shits back at camila)#please give it a shot it just gets better and better promise :)#mean girls 5h fic

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