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blackbatpurplecat · 5 years ago

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Catwoman 80th Anniversary

In 1940, one of the now most popular comic book heroes of all time got his very first solo run. It would become a milestone in comic book history. But he wasn’t the only one who had a chance to shine. In that premiere issue, even TWO of his most famous antagonists would be introduced: The man who laughs and the woman who steals.

That woman was intended to become the love of the hero’s life. The good guy and the naughty girl, the appeal was palpable. However, she wasn’t just a love interest or a generic thief or only another villain in the ever growing gallery of rogues the hero would face over decades to come, no - she was quite the character.

Her first alias was “The Cat” which would ultimately become Catwoman. Selina Kyle, the best thief in the world, a literal cat burglar, a classy seductress and queen of sass. And fans loved her so much that over time, she grew to become just as famous as the hero.

Her story has had its ups and downs. Mostly ups. ;) Going from the pages of the comics to the little and the big screen in the 60s, then she disappeared for a while, then made a comeback. She married the hero and had a child, though that marriage was later rebooted and was followed by a depressing origin story a sexist author made up for her in the 80s.

The 90s then turned out to be her decade! She found herself on the TV screen again, animated this time. She was portrayed by a Golden Globe winner on the big screen again. And she finally got her very own solo run in comics.

Her solo title was successful enough to run for over 20 years, a time in which her development from antagonist to anti-heroine would pan out. She would be a member of several teams, dance on both sides of the law, and even have another child. The screen called her back in form of a movie and a tv show. In one she was a thief with a love for killing, in the other a teenager. And we already know that her movie career will soon continue with two more projects.

In 2016, DC rebooted their entire universe. Catwoman’s origin story was changed, her relationships were lost, her solo run got canceled. No one knew what was real anymore - and fans didn’t like it. Only a year later, a retcon followed in a pathetic attempt to restore a status quo fans were familiar with and approved of. Even her solo run came back and today, in June 2020, we celebrate her 80th anniversary!

Catwoman is my favorite DC character ever. She’s clever, she’s funny, she’s stubborn, she’s classy, she’s confident, she plays by her own rules. When written right, she is such an entertaining character, unpredictable and fun.

In 80 years, there have been countless appearances, so many incarnations and interpretations of her - sure, I didn’t like all of them but you can say there’s something for each one of us. You don’t like her in the 2010s? Check out the 90s. You don’t like her in the 40s? Check out the 80s. There’s a version of Catwoman for many different tastes. She never goes out of fashion.

So to celebrate one of DC’s most famous women, they published a collection of 10 stories in total, written and drawn by people who have had touched her character over the past years.

Did Catwoman 80th Anniversary - Celebrating Eight Decades of Beauty and Burglary do her justice?

Warning: Spoilers!

Let’s check out each story and see what the writers came up with for this very special occasion. Except for one, none of these are meant to be canon, it’s just a collection of shorts meant to emphasise why Catwoman is so good. Something I noticed was that each writer had not picked any Catwoman to write but “their” Catwoman. A nice detail. Consistency, why not? Write what you feel comfortable and familiar with. This can only help with the quality of the stories, right? ... Right? ...

Strap in folks, this is going to be a LOOOOONG post!

Story #1: Skin the Cat by Paul Dini

Selina’s just living her normal life with her cats, occasionally stealing some money and jewels. Hey, a girl’s gotta eat. ;) What catches her attention are news reports about stolen big cats. I’m a cat lover myself and this series of crimes would worry me just as much as it worries Selina. She deduces where in Gotham someone could hide those wild cats, breaks in, and is welcomed by an eerie voice - as well as the taxidermied cats. Fucking bastard... The villain Taxidermist, quelle surprise, is behind the cat murders. He now intends to gas Selina and add her to his cat collection but Selina reveals that she’d already turned off the gas before breaking in. She escapes his long knives and watches as three big cats she had brought with her attack and kill him.

What an intro! A story about Selina’s love for cats and her strategic thinking. I really liked the first half! But once the Taxidermist shows up, it loses itself in drawn out exposition. Selina goes on a long monologue to explain to the reader who the Taxidermist is, how she knew it was him, how she turned off the gas, and how she replaced three of the dead cats with alive ones. I would have preferred to actually SEE her preparations for the face-off in flashback panels instead of having to read it. It didn’t feel natural at all. Also how the fuck did she bring 3 wild cats and switch them for the stuffed ones?! How?! And when?! I’m also quite sad that she didn’t get to save the cats. That was a bummer. So all she basically did was bring 3 big cats to kill a killer.

The art’s gorgeous, nothing else to say here!

6/10

Story #2: Now You See Me by Ann Nocenti

Ann Nocenti’s name immediately made me go uh-oh... Her bad and convoluted writing style made readers drop the Catwoman books which eventually lead to the solo run’s cancelation so you can understand why I was concerned.

So Catwoman is hiding a little pouch in a pigeon loft on a roof while pondering who to sell her stolen goods to - as well as where to vacation afterwards. She then notices a surveillance camera. The scene cuts to two cops on surveillance duty. They’re both bored as hell so when one spots Selina, he quickly distracts his colleague and leaves to find her. He takes the pouch out of the pigeon loft and a fight between him and Catwoman ensues. He reveals that he wants to become her partner. He wants to feed her any intel he can see on his screens so she could steal and sells some goods, and they’d split the money. When Selina refuses, he tries to blackmail her into complying. Selina presses a button on a little device and whatever’s in the pouch the cop sacked, explodes, sending him over the edge. Luckily, he lands on an umbrella Penguin had sent off apparently because we see him in one panel, angered that his plan was foiled. I’m not entirely sure what his “brilliant plan” was supposed to be. Something with gas tanks that were strapped to the umbrella I assume? I have no idea.

This one is missing too much context for my taste. What was in the pouch? Did the explosion kill the guy? What was Penguin doing there? What was his plan? Why did we need the second cop? For a super obvious but unnecessary parallel between Catwoman vs. corrupt cop and random woman vs. random man on one of the surveillance screens? Why give Catwoman so little “screen time” and so little dialogue? Is this short story referencing anything from Nocenti’s awful run and I just forgot? To quote Val Kilmer Batman: “It just raises too many questions.”

The art’s okay, nothing too special.

3/10

Story #3: Helena by Tom King

Oh boy. This is the big one. The one everyone’s been waiting for, I guess. The man who not so long ago had promised us a BatCat wedding just to shove a huge middle finger in our faces, promised us a pregnant Selina this time. I was skeptical of course. Also other readers were convinced he’d just let Selina have a miscarriage. Well, the good news is it wasn’t a miscarriage. The bad news is he almost makes Selina seem like she would have preferred a miscarriage.

The story goes like this: Selina hasn’t been feeling well so instead of going to a doctor like a normal person, Bruce scans her head and checks her vitals and blood (I can only assume because we’re not shown). Selina’s convinced that she’s seriously ill but a gentle, hopeful smile on Bruce’s face reveals the actual truth: She is pregnant. And her first reaction is shock and denial. We cut to BatCat fighting Tweedledum and Tweedledee (I think, you can’t really see them but the two men they knock out look identical). Selina then bends over and says that she’s about to throw up. Followed by a Batbucket joke. I’m getting so tired of all the forced self-awareness, guys. We cut to Catwoman, now sporting a baby bump underneath the skin-tight leather, sitting on a roof. She prepares a glass of wine while telling the baby that it is just like Bruce and it’s such a dick for taking away her freedom. After one sip, she chucks the glass away and curses. We’re then treated to a montage of BatCat fighting several rogues while Selina’s belly grows with each panel until it’s an 8, maybe 9 months along belly. I... I have no words. Except for yes, this was written by a man. BatCat are then standing on a roof and Selina laments that she’s a thief, not a mother, and the baby will derail her life and plans. The scene switches to Bruce and Selina in bed, arguing because she’s in labor. Bruce is ready to roll while Selina is STILL in denial, crying that she’s not a mother, that she’s not a hero or a good and brave person like him. Bruce tells her she didn’t run off so that means she’s a good person and they agree that it’s time to have the baby. Another cut to Selina having to take care of a crying baby Helena, asking why she’s crying when it’s Selina’s turn to stay at home and not Bruce’s. Selina talks to Helena, saying she’s luckier than Selina was because Selina’s mom ran off. She fucking FINALLY says something nice about her own child (”You’re a cute little kitten.”) and wonders what they’re going to do with her. The last page is old Selina and grownup Helena after Bruce’s death. Selina’s complaining about the pretty cemetery while Helena likes it. Her daughter’s ability to not shit on just everything and not be a total killjoy all the time causes Selina to say again that Helena is like Bruce. Upon Helena’s question if she’s anything like her mother, Selina answers that she’s just as stubborn as her. If she wants something, she steals it. Helena asks what she ever stole and Selina delivers the last predictable cliche of the story: “You stole my heart.”

Ugh. King’s Selina is just such a boring read. She’s not charming or interesting or sympathetic. Maybe I’m too used to a fun Selina but this one’s just a drag. A heavily pregnant Catwoman fighting Joker, yeah sure, totally not absolute bullshit. And the way Selina keeps distancing herself from the child inside her? For over 9 months?! Is she going out in that ridiculous catsuit because she wants to cause a miscarriage, is that it? So she doesn’t have to make a decision like abortion, adoption or leaving the baby with Bruce? Her constant cussing over the situation and crying and whining turns the pregnancy of my favorite DC couple into such a depressing ordeal.

The art is very pretty! Thank God.

4/10

Story #4: The Catwoman of Earth by Jeff Parker

After the depressing pregnancy of Catwoman, we switch to the wacky 60s version of her. Catwoman and her henchmen are robbing a science fair when suddenly, a UFO arrives. WTF?! Four aliens and a robot are beamed down to the surface and the group’s leader, an arrogant jock-like guy proclaims that they will take over the planet and enslave humanity. Catwoman angrily stands up to him. Turns out the evil aliens are sexist too when the male one tells Catwoman females have to ask for permission to speak and the female alien in the group unhappily agrees. The jock alien tells the muscly male alien to dispose of Catwoman but she’s not easy to dispose of! She fights off the brawler, she cuts the tentacles off the tentacle alien (someone WILL jerk off to that one panel), dodges the jock’s laser gun, steals the laser gun with her whip, shoots the robot to bits, and lets the police take the males away. The female alien seems much happier now and invites Catwoman to a flight around the world in the UFO. Catwoman suggests a trip to Paris so she can loot the Louvre.

Aliens and Catwoman don’t mix. I didn’t really care for this story. I mean it’s great to see Catwoman in action and taking down four guys on her own but... aliens and Catwoman just don’t mix. It was a bit jarring to me. Also the aliens’ designs weren’t super interesting. They were basically pink elves.

The art is beautiful. Catwoman looks like Julie Newmar and the entire color scheme is very 60s.

4/10

Story #5: A Cat of Nine Tales by Liam Sharp

Catwoman’s caught stealing a diamond necklace by an armed security guard. He seems a bit scared of her but knows it’s his job to stop her. She’s not engaging in a fight - of course not, he has a gun pointed at her! So instead, Catwoman relies on her talking skills. And intimidation skills. She tells the guard that there are 9 ways their situation could play out: 1. The guard lets her tie him up and escape with the necklace. 2. She beats his ass. 3. He kills her. 4. She scratches his eyes out. 5. He slips and gets knocked out. 6. He fires his gun, misses her, and the bullet ricochets until it kills him. 7. They team up. 8. She gives up. 9. She kills him. However, the story ends with the guard fainting because Catwoman’s just so damn scary.

Very short, very simple. Even the art is simple, on one page there are 3 very similar panels with only minor changes. Nothing memorable but not too bad. It shows how Catwoman can take someone out even without touching them. It’s okay.

The art reminds me of a comic from the 80s or maybe 90s. Hard to describe why. Guess you have to see it. Again, it’s okay.

5/10

Story #6: Little Bird by Mindy Newell

Selina learns from a news report that a priceless mezuzah has been found at a flea market. It’s currently at the Jewish Museum of Gotham City and Selina immediately steals it. Later, Batman shows up at her place and asks why she wants the mezuzah. She doesn’t give him much of an answer so he leaves. Pretty pointless scene I would say. A flashback reveals that a young Selina used to live with a Jewish lady. I dunno, I guess she’s a foster mother? And the woman liked Selina so much and considered her family so she gave her that mezuzah to pass it on to her own kids one day (even though Selina doesn’t want kids, is not related to the lady, and isn’t Jewish). Back to the present, Selina’s punishing a client. That prostitute background made an unwanted comeback for this story because Selina’s resisting and denying herself love so she’s “whoring”, to prove to herself how despicable she is. Okay...? There’s an inner turmoil going on, she’s torn between selling the artefact or not. Eventually, she decides to bring the mezuzah back to the lady she used to live with. The lady’s grown old and demented, lives in a home and is at the verge of dying. Selina places an envelop between the lady’s hands and leaves. The home’s director finds the envelop which contains the mezuzah, an official document which basically ensures that the lady will be taken care of before and after her death, and a poetic note from Selina.

My least favorite story out of them all - and that is quite an accomplishment when there are King and Nocenti in the same book! It had that Frank “I’m an insane sexist racist asshole” Miller prostitute bullshit in it and Selina hating herself again. This time, the “whoring” (and this word is not me, it’s from the actual story) is used as a way of self-punishment. Because it’s disgusting and wrong and Selina only does it to torture herself. Dunno if that’s the right message you wanna send here... The Jewish lady was kinda random to me because Selina’s not Jewish and never has been Jewish. This is not a negative point, it’s just so random. And the Batman scene was pointless, I have no idea what purpose it served. Except for showing us Batman pay Selina like a john and having Selina make jokes about “whoring.” Ugh.

The art was great, very clean.

1/10

Story #7: Born to Kiln by Chuck Dixon

Going from my least favorite to my favorite story in this book!

Catwoman knows there’s a diamond in a safe on a boat that is set to leave the harbour in the morning. So she climbs aboard at night to steal the gem. She finds several dead sailors and they’re all covered in mud. Who could have done this? Yes, you guessed right - it’s Clayface! He’s already at the safe, opens it, and retrieves the big stone. Catwoman reveals herself and aims a fire hose at him. Her confidence, however, dies the moment the hose doesn’t work. Clayface swallows the diamond and starts chasing after her. There’s apparently a machine to spray-paint cars on the boat so she lures him inside, activates the paint to blind him, and the hot lamps for the drying process immobilise the big pile of mud. Now that he’s nothing more than hard clay, Catwoman takes a wrench to him and takes the freed diamond.

FINALLY a story I really, really like from beginning to end! First off, IT’S PURPLE CATWOMAN!!! Selina is wearing my favorite costume, the iconic Jim Balent suit from her 90s solo run in this story - and I LOVE IT!!! Yeah, her boobs are quite loose in it and sometimes dangle in strange ways but fuck it! LOL I prefer hanging boobs over a tight corset that should reduce her agility or a back breaking pose anytime! We get sneaky Selina, we get playful Selina, we get over confident Selina who has to think fast and run even faster, and she gets what she wants in the end without killing anyone.

The art is gorgeous! It’s very fluid and alive. I also absolutely adore the cute facial expressions on Kitten’s face, especially when she locks Clayface in. I miss Catwoman being fun. In this, she’s just adorable and not sexualised at all.

8/10

Story #8: Conventional Wisdom by Will Pfeifer

Selina finds herself at a Bat Con and is supposed to give autographs. The whole scenario seems weird and confusing to her, she doesn’t remember how she got there or what is going on. Bruce, Joker, Riddler, and Two-Face being there with her to give autographs is even weirder. And why does no one except for her react to that unconscious, bloody man on the floor?! On her way to her panel, she runs into several cosplayers which is basically only fan service. But you will find the male, dark-skinned version of me at her panel, asking when the fuck she will finally put that 90s suit back on!!! The dialogues keep breaking the fourth wall, pointing out that this story is about to end. One of the panel’s attendees looks like Marvel’s Taskmaster and another is Selina herself in her Catwoman suit. Selina slowly remembers what happened: The Taskmaster dude is Doctor Destiny, she broke into his lair and stole his reality distorter, a little machine she’s been carrying around for the entire story. She smashes the machine to wake up back in the lair and cracks her knuckles, ready to take down Doctor Destiny and his goons.

And it was all a dream! That twist has never been a favorite of mine. Even though it’s not really a twist; you know immediately that it’s a dream. We don’t learn anything new about Selina or see anything Catwoman-y in this. It’s really basically fan service. They wanted Selina to see and interact with real life fans of hers so they made it happen. She also comments on various versions of her costume. It’s cute but kinda forgettable.

The art is good, it’s rare to see light and bright colors in a Catwoman book so it was a nice change. And the cosplayers looked nice. But they could have used different body types to make the fans more diverse and visually appealing.

3/10

Story #9: Addicted to Trouble by Ram V

And here we are, the premiere of the duo that will take over Catwoman’s current solo run from #23 onward. We get a first taste of the writing and art and I must say it’s a good taste.

This short story serves as a continuation of Joelle Jones’ #21 issue where at the end of the arc, Selina and her sister Maggie left Gotham in a purple car. So we see a short recap of how they got the car and where they were headed but unfortunately, the engine dies. They hitchhike to Memphis. Selina’s frustrated that Maggie doesn’t talk to her. They get drunk and start a fight at a bar. The cops show up and arrest them. While sitting in the back of the cop car, the girls start laughing together and steal the car. They leave behind their luggage which only contains stuff they won’t miss - including Selina’s cat funeral dress. They drive back to Gotham, Selina steals food and drinks on the way, and they cuddle on a rooftop overlooking the city. The story cuts to Selina and Leandro, a character I would know if I had continued the Jones run. She tells him she wants to lay low for a while and stay out of trouble. When he asks “Oh? Really?”, Selina throws a naughty smile towards the reader. Yeah yeah, lay low my ass. :D

First off, I have no idea what happened before the road trip, I don’t know why they took it or why Maggie doesn’t talk or what the purpose of all of this was because all they do is get drunk, fight an entire bar, and go back. No idea what that accomplished. And I feel sorry for the car because it was so gorgeous. Anyway, I am happy to say that Ram V has a great writing style! He gave a good voice to Selina, it sounded very natural and like a human would talk, no forced exposition or fake deepness.

The art was good, there were a few expressive faces and the bar fight was well executed.

5/10 (because I don’t know the context)

Story #10: The Art of Picking A Lock by Ed Brubaker

Instead of ending with a transition to the next Catwoman issue (which I would have preferred), the collection offers one more story and it’s written by the man who successfully handled the second half of Selina’s first solo run. He turned her stories more into the film noir direction and gave her sidekicks. The run also gave her a fugly suit and made her have sex with old men and Brubaker wanted to kill her off and have her not know who the father to her unborn child was so... yeah, I’m torn about that guy.

The last story shows us Catwoman breaking into a warehouse full of Joker goons while thinking about the thrill of breaking locks and how she learned how to do it when she was at a juvenile detention center. She beats them all up and demands to know where “he” is. Later, her friend Holly is on a motorcycle chasing after a cab while Catwoman is riding on top of a subway. Both reach Gotham’s harbor. We see that the cab is filled with Joker gas and the driver is laughing maniacally. Holly can’t reach the cab in time and it drives off into the water. Catwoman swings down and jumps after it. She breaks the trunk open and reveals a handcuffed Slam Bradley. Cut to the three back on dry land. Holly chides him for going after Joker alone and not waiting for backup. He admits that it was dumb, then shares intel on where Joker will strike and Selina should tell “her friend.” She says she will and Slam ends the book with the words that he could really use a cigarette. NO, this book was not that good that it would warrant a cigarette at the end!

This short obviously takes place during the second half of the first solo run. We see Catwoman in action, that’s cool. Taking down almost a dozen of armed Joker henchmen, that’s pretty badass! And a woman saves the man damsel in distress at the end, that’s a nice ending as well. However, I don’t care about the costume so the visual appeal wasn’t there and I really don’t care about Slam Bradley so the reveal at the end was pretty ugh to me.

The art is great! It’s like a modernised/smoother version of Darwyn Cooke’s style, the artist Brubaker worked on the Catwoman title in the 00s with. So that gives it a pretty nostalgic feel.

5/10

In addition to the 10 stories we’ve now covered, there are pages to show off the Catwoman costumes of each decade as well as pinups. The costume pages are designed in the decade’s style (the 40s are black and white, the 60s psychedelic etc). But what I don’t get about the 90s one: It’s purple Catwoman grayed out in the background and gray BTAS Catwoman in color in the foreground - why make the purple outfit gray when you have an already gray outfit?! Just switch them! Also who put together the 70s one, couldn’t they find better costume examples?!

The seven pinups are pretty, unfortunately the majority feature the black outfits. I was surprised that even Tim Sale drew the black costume and not the purple one from his Long Halloween series. We get one of the gray BTAS costume and Jim Balent thankfully gives us BatCat with his purple creation. Nice!

Well, looking back at my personal scores for this collection of stories, Catwoman’s anniversary issue reached a total of 44/100 points in my book. Wow. That’s... not that good.

Most of the stories ranged from average to bad. Nothing spectacular, nothing memorable. There’s a lack of witty dialogue, Catwoman’s rarely fun to watch. In six stories she’s seen fighting, in three she’s seen being chased so I’m missing the variety here. I would assume you can do more with Catwoman than that. She often rather fights instead of using her wits and smarts. And actual cats are only featured in two stories but in one they die and in the other, Selina says she should drown them. -_-

A collection of 10 new stories was a great idea but celebrating the character this is not. I’m happy that the next writer for Catwoman left a positive impression on me and the story feat. Balent’s Catwoman was a delight. However, the writers didn’t really bring their “A” game for this anniversary issue which is disappointing.

Would I recommend it? Hmmm. It pains me to say: not really, no. You don’t miss much by skipping it. You don’t miss sassy lines or breathtaking art, you don’t miss out on funny scenes or emotional depth. This anniversary issue is merely average and I highly doubt I’ll go back to reread it.

(a huge THANK YOU to everyone who read this entire, way too long post! i highly appreciate it 💜you’re a real trooper!)

#catwoman #review

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louiseisfucked · 5 years ago

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Sexy White Men in The Wilderness— What Could Go Wrong?

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve seen an attractive buff white male roaming around a jungle, I could hire experts to write my English essays. Joking. Well, not really. But, you got my point. Hollywood seems to cannot get enough of churning out this fever dream of paternalistic imperialism and colonialism. They all have the same motive: a white guy, remote areas of a forest or an island and a group of indigenous people. Whether they have been familiar with this area or not, these white men seem to always find a way to be superior or get their way through problems.

Okay, but what are these movies mentioned? First off, let's talk about our beloved wild man in the loincloth, Tarzan. He started off as a character written by Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1912, titled "Tarzan of the Apes" which ended up being a series of twenty-four books revolving a story of an aristocrat's son, who is abandoned in Africa when he was just a baby and was raised by a group of apes in the jungle.

In Burroughs' racist-stereotype-filled story, the ape had given Tarzan his name which means "white skin" in Burroughs' made-up ape language. Implying that the apes were aware that Tarzan had been different than them. Yet, supposedly being raised by a group of apes, Tarzan had a human-like behavior and granted his superior Anglo-Saxon genes, he was stronger and smarter than any African man he encountered. Besides being able to speak with animals, he is capable of climbing up trees, swinging through them, and learning new languages within a short period. On the contrary, all the Africans were portrayed as savages and racially inferior.

This idea in itself is racist and supports the mindset of colonial superiority. It promotes the "ooga-booga" stereotype around African people, which can be seen in films like "King Kong," 1931's "Trader Horn" (which features a white blonde jungle queen fighting a hostile tribe), and 1965's "The Naked Prey" (in which a white man who offends a native tribe is first tortured, then hunted for sport.)

Oddly enough, Burroughs' character has based off 50 on-screen films, not to mention stage plays, documentaries, and video games. The latest version of it was a 2016 movie distributed by Warner Bros., titled "The Legend of Tarzan." The plot involves a Tarzan (played by Alexander Skarsgård) based in Victorian London who is ready to shed his clothes and fight greedy explorers in the Congo. Though I have to say, the newest adaptation film should receive some credits for at least showing a sophisticated African society and casting African actors. Nevertheless, we can't escape the fact that it is still a story with the paternalistic idea that it takes a white man to save Africa. But I mean, hey, they did include Samuel L. Jackson—the go-to actor for films to claim inclusivity— right?

This "white man in the jungle" narrative could be seen played out in movies over and over again, from Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness to Sam Worthington in Avatar. They all are spreading the implicit message "put a white man in the wilderness and he will rise to the top." Another form of literature with this message would be the tale of Robinson Crusoe. It is hard for me to understand why some countries have the 1st of February as the day to celebrate this Daniel Defoe's character from the 18th century when really? Crusoe's tale is a handbook for colonialism.

There was a part where Crusoe was captured and enslaved by the island's local residents. He managed to escape with the help of another slave of color only to sell his helper off to a Portuguese man that conveyed him to Brazil. In Brazil, he got involved in the slave trade where they would capture slaves from Africa. On the journey, his ship got wrecked and left him stranded on an island. He lived there for 28 years only to find out that there are "cannibals." He then "rescued" one of them and named him Friday and have him subordinated himself to Crusoe and voluntarily became his servant out of "gratitude." Crusoe's tale blatantly shows off racial supremacy and defends the idea of slavery.

Even though these are all characters in books or movies, they perfectly illustrated the beliefs of society at that time. Society then viewed whiteness as equals to civilization. This is not a justification, rather an understanding towards their point of view and a reason not to condemn these works. We can't sanitize history and pretend it didn't happen. Though, it is such a pity to see Hollywood tried to retell and do the Tarzan story just with their 2016 movie. It only emphasizes the fact that it is quite hard to move on from the belief of white supremacy and the familiarity of reigning over a no-man island. The movie did nothing to rectify the issues surrounding the original plot, and instead, they were glorified. We, as a society, could only learn from the past and change for the better.

A way to cover these issues on a screenplay or a novel without seemingly being racist or imperialist would be by giving the right representation of the indigenous people and tribes. They are often depicted along with their exotic set-dressing, as savages and inhumane. They glorify the idea that a clever white man can bring order to the “dark continent." When really, it's not them that should be feared. It's those "saviors." However, there's no right way of representing a culture that is not yours.

#colonialism #tarzan #racisim #indigenous #african #robinson crusoe #white man #people of color #imperialism #edgar rice burroughs #racist #english essay #i didnt get enough sleep #slavery #writing #culture appropriation

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ambitionsource · 5 years ago

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AMBITION Season 2 ♫ “We’ll Be the Stars” [ 2.11 ]

CREATED BY Esther (rapunzles) & Maggie (quincywillows) || S2 Tag || Official Page

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER – Tensions are set aside in honor of a promenade, and some students opt for a change of pace. A clever ruse forces Eric and Jack to team up. Unfortunate circumstances make for odd couples, but stars always know where they’re supposed to go in the end.

66 Minutes (18K words) || No content warnings apply.

[ ← Rarely Pure and Never Simple ] [ S2 Synopsis ] [ Final Run → ]

( Follow along with the music on Spotify here! )

INT. AAA - DAY

A series of shots guide us into the episode, displaying the school in the midst of preparing for promenade. Banners are hung, student council members work the ticket booth. The halls are decorated according to the theme, “We’ll Be the Stars,” small stars seemingly glittering on every visible surface. A promposal wraps up in the hall outside the auditorium, senior students applauding and cheering as the girl says yes and the other girl wraps her in a tight hug.

Yes, it’s prom time at Adams Academy for the Arts. Let the insanity commence!

INT. AAA - HALLWAY - DAY

FARKLE MINKUS opens his locker. We’re looking at him from the inside, giving us a look at it as he rearranges some things. Its decor has been updated after a long detour of being trapped in sophomore year -- there are fewer photos, but they are newer and more representative of the way things actually are now. A couple photos of him and Maya are the focal point, but there’s a few scattered notable mentions. A photograph of the full Junior A Class; a picture of his whole family; a rare capture of him and Isadora.

From outside the confines of the locker, we hear RILEY MATTHEWS speak.

Riley: And you’re sure you can handle it? I’m sure if you wanted, we could work out something else --

Perspective shifts back to its usual framing, showing the two of them hanging by his locker. Farkle stems her worrying from the start, holding up a hand.

Farkle: I’m going to stop you right there, Riley. Do you know what you’re doing to me right now?

Riley: … demonstrating concern as a good friend?

Farkle: You’re neuro-splaining me. [ off Riley’s expression ] I get it, you’re concerned about my health. Mentally, above all else.

Riley makes a face, obviously not sold on the concept of “neuro-splaining.” As if she hasn’t had her own mental health experiences… but she figures it’s not worth the argument.

Farkle: But trust me, as much as I appreciate it, I will be fine. [ a beat ] I don’t want to miss out on anything else essential to my junior year experience, and prom is one of those things. Not to mention, I certainly won’t be able to graciously receive my prom king crown if I’m not there to accept it.

It’s clear he’s joking, although with his dry delivery… either way, he’s made up his mind. Farkle will be in attendance at the upcoming event, come hell or high water.

Farkle: Besides, it’s bold of you to assume I could avoid it anyway.

Riley: How come?

Farkle: Prom isn’t just an event around here. [ pointedly ] It’s a contagion.

As he closes his locker --

INT. AAA - CLASSROOM - DAY

For how alight with excitement the halls seem to be, classes are still in session and there’s still work to be done. The energy is tamped down in Cory’s classroom, where everyone is completing silent reading for the last few minutes of class.

Still, Farkle was right, and the junior class has been bitten by the prom bug. Everyone is jittery as they sit at their desks, unable to keep still. Under the desk, ZAY BABINEAUX taps his foot to an unheard rhythm. MAYA HART flips her pencil in her fingers, adding to the rhythm against her desk.

CHARLIE GARDNER glances up at the clock, impatiently watching the seconds go by. Tick, tick, tick… as the percussions slowly evolve into an actual beat...

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “You Should Be Dancing” as performed by Glee Cast || Performed by AAA Juniors

The bell rings about 7 seconds in, releasing the class from their academic torture. CORY MATTHEWS cringes as the energy in the room skyrockets, papers flying as the energetic juniors are free to succumb back into the groove.

Zay kicks off the vocals, the number staying in the classroom for the first verse as he volleys lyrics back and forth with Maya. As they escape into the halls…

INT. AAA - HALLWAY - DAY

Charlie takes over, leading the charge into the rest of the school. The three of them are the front of the pack, but they pick up other junior students as they go. The whole atmosphere of the halls has changed, feeling groovier in the midst of the twinkling stars and amped up music.

Around a minute and a half in, they pass by Riley and Farkle and pull them into the dance. The movements become less chaotic and more choreographed at that point, truly a spectacle only AAA could pull off.

As they pass by the techies hanging out on the stairs outside the auditorium, it seems even they aren’t immune to the allure of prom fever. They jump up and join in the parade, JEFF MONROE in particular worth spotlighting due to his breakdancing ability.

And away they go again…

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

By the time they make it into the auditorium and onto the stage, the vibe of their collective imagination has completely succumbed to fantasy. The stage is basically a disco floor as they dance their way up there, the only thing still remaining commonplace their outfits.

And by this point, they’ve paired off. Farkle and Zay stay front and center -- a fun little duo to witness tolerating each other again, if nothing else -- with Maya and ISADORA DE LA CRUZ to their left and Charlie and YINDRA AMINO to their right. In the back, ASHER GARCIA and DYLAN ORLANDO are grooving together, while Riley Matthews gets LUCAS JAMES FRIAR to at least do something.

As they finish out the jam, Farkle and Zay theatrically toss their heads back and raise a hand to the sky. Declarative, with a flourish, what a dynamite finish. One thing is essentially guaranteed on this prom week, that’s for sure.

There will be no shortage of drama.

Cue title sequence.

INT. AAA - HALLWAY - DAY

Zay is at his locker, swapping out his dance duffle for his classwork. When Maya practically jumps him and surprises him at his locker, he’s not fazed -- he might be the only student at AAA who she doesn’t strike instant fear into in one capacity or another.

Zay: What do you want, mini Britney?

Maya touches her hand to her chest, faux flattered.

Maya: You’re so sweet. I was just thinking that you and I have a real opportunity on our hands this week.

Zay: Must everything be about an “opportunity?”

Maya: Ugh, would you stop being such a damp toilette? Your mood has been totally subbasement the last couple of weeks and it’s really harshing the vibes.

Well, Maya, he did just break up with his boyfriend. But people not knowing about them was kind of sort of the whole problem, so he says nothing as he allows Maya the floor again.

Maya: Chin up, Zayby. It’s promenade. And you and I are going to come out of it as royalty.

Maya makes her grand pitch: they should go to prom together. Not out of any romantic interest -- although, as she admits, Zay is by far the most eligible male in the walls of AAA -- but because the two of them would be a shoo-in for junior prom king and queen if they team up.

And like everything else at Adams, there is an opportunity attached. Every year, the duos crowned as prom king and queen in both grades get to perform at graduation. It’s a time honored tradition, one that Maya believes they should not pass up.

Zay: I don’t really see what the big deal is.

Maya: Oh, Zay. Isaiah! Wake up! Snap out of whatever quarter-life crisis funk you’ve succumbed yourself into and smell the potential right in front of you! [ matter-of-factly ] You know that there are always college representatives at Triple A graduation. Of course, it’s to honor the students they’ll be bringing into their ranks, and to hopefully snag some quality time with a celebrity family member or two -- I mean, think how many people are going to be swarming our graduation next year when Valerie comes to support Isadora --

Zay, flatly: Yeah, I’m sure she’s so excited about that.

Maya: But it’s also to scout the next crop of graduates. That’s us. It’s almost cosmic that every junior prom king and queen end up going to amazing schools for the arts -- there was even that junior prom queen in ‘96 who got a straight up recording contract.

Zay: How the hell do you know this stuff?

Maya: Because I do my research, Zay. And I know you do, too. Which is why once you’ve shaken off the ennui and have your head back on straight -- or, bi, whatever -- you’ll realize we have prime real estate in front of us. And it’s ours to take… if we step up to the plate. [ backing away ] You know where to find me.

Well, that’s certainly a proposition. Maya floats away as Zay contemplates it, slinging his bag over his shoulder. It’s a good point, he can’t argue with that, and yet…

He glances to the photo of him and Charlie, still taped up in his locker innocuously amongst the rest. In some ways, it seems, it’s just hard to let go of the way you hoped things would be.

Zay closes his locker, heading on his way to rehearsal.

Dylan, pre-lap: We’ll boycott.

INT. AAA - TECHNICIAN’S BOOTH - DAY

Dylan and Asher are following Lucas into the booth, obviously in a heated discussion. Dylan continues to make bold declarations.

Dylan: We’ll stage a full-on protest. You know, when I was in middle school, I was renowned for my poster-making skills in environmental club. They usually lasted like, nine days longer than usual before people tore them down. And Cory is always saying how loud and annoying I am -- that has to be helpful for a protest, yeah?

Asher: He said that to you?

Lucas: Guys --

Dylan: Or even better --

Asher: I swear, I’m going to report him. Like, sorry Riley --

Dylan: Let’s stage a riot. That’ll really show ‘em! They think they can bar Lucas James Friar from prom? Not when we’re there to literally blow the roof off this place. I bet we can get Isadora to sing “Bad Reputation” -- I think we’d need music to be taken seriously here, so --

Lucas: Hey. Hello. Earth to Asher and Dylan. [ clapping ] Let’s cool it, alright?

Lucas waves off their concerns about his ban from prom. He doesn’t want them wasting energy on him when it hardly matters. All things considered, being barred from stuff like this for the rest of the year seems like the best he could’ve asked for given all the bullshit he’s done this year. He slouches into his rolling chair, shrugging.

Lucas: I mean, it’s not like I was really psyched to go anyway. I think I’m more lucky I didn’t get expelled.

Dylan, under his breath: Would’ve boycotted that too.

Lucas: You guys have been looking forward to this for the last three years. It would be stupid for you to blow it just for me. Especially when we consider everything else you’ve already sacrificed for me. Like your sanity. And your clean legal record.

Dylan: I wasn’t mad.

Lucas, bluntly: You should have been. Asher was, but then, he’s always been the smartest out of the three of us.

A beat of quiet as that truth lingers between them. Lucas reiterates the point -- that he doesn’t want them to give up something they care about just because of him. They do enough of that already. Asher and Dylan exchange a look.

Dylan, softer: … well, we love you, man.

Lucas: I know. [ looking at them, then slowly ] And I love you guys, too.

Well, there’s a breakthrough! Dylan beams, looking to Asher in excitement. Asher is smiling too, although a bit more bashful. Lucas elects to move past the vulnerability quickly -- he can give it, but only so much at a time.

Lucas: Which is why I’m not letting you do this. You’re going to prom, and you’ll have a great time without me. Besides, someone has to give whatever posh performers are gunning for prom court a run for their money.

True enough. In fact...

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

That’s exactly what the rest of the techies are discussing as they start doing end of year inventory. It’s a long process, so they have to start early. Rather, they’re complaining as Jeff and DAVE WILLIAMS pick their way through the furniture and wood supplies under the prop loft. NATE MARTINEZ is supposed to be taking notes, but he’s not doing a great job.

JADE BEAMON is seated on a stack of wood pieces, nodding along as she feverishly works on the finishing touches to a wardrobe piece. It doesn’t look like a costume for any sort of production, however…

Nate: It’s rigged, anyway. Every year the most popular performers win so it’s not like the institution means anything.

Jeff: Does prom court mean anything… anywhere? Ever?

Dave: My parents were prom queen and king when they were seniors. They got a free dinner at Waffle House.

Jade: [ tearing a thread with her teeth ] Sounds like a better prize than performing at graduation.

Inspired by their complaints, Nate lights up with an idea. He claims that they should start a new tradition to go with their holiday party, and should throw a techie pre-prom bash. That way they can celebrate their year together and have real fun before they have to go deal with the performers all night.

Jade: You know, I think that’s the first idea of yours I’ve liked in months.

Nate bows, then enthusiastically gives Dave a high-five.

Their tomfoolery is interrupted by Isadora entering, all of them growing uncertainly quiet. She hesitates but then marches onward anyway, greeting them with the best attitude she can muster. She just came by to drop off some paperwork for them -- she already went ahead and inventoried the wood and set building supplies. This is good, because Nate definitely wasn’t doing it.

Jeff accepts her record, looking it over.

Dave: When did you do that?

Isadora: Oh, I just skipped Matthews’ class. [ offhandedly ] I could ace that class with my eyes closed, so. And probably brain damage.

It’s a nice gesture, and they’re not going to refuse it. Jeff awkwardly thanks her, silence settling over them once again. Isadora clears her throat, clasping her hands together. She expresses that she knows she messed up with them, and she is going to put in the effort to get back in their good graces.

She spins and escorts herself out without waiting for a response, leaving the four of them to contemplate her promise. Interesting development…

Dave: So… we don’t have to count the wood?

INT. AAA - CAFETERIA - DAY

Charlie is having lunch with HALEY FISHER and CLARISSA CRUZ, although he doesn’t seem nearly as enthused about prom as they are. On the other side of the cafeteria, applause erupts again as another promposal between seniors gains public attention. So happy, so romantic!

Clarissa: I swear, nowhere in this school is safe right now.

Haley nudges Clarissa, claiming that she should be less cynical. It takes a lot of bravery to ask someone to prom in front of everyone else.

Clarissa: Yes, well, then they could just have a conversation about it. Or make a big deal about it, but like, between the two of you.

Haley: I think it’s romantic.

Clarissa: You think everything is romantic. You’re the most hopeless romantic I’ve ever met.

Haley: Charlie is too -- you agree with me, don’t you, Charlie?

In all honesty, Charlie was not listening. He blinks himself out of his daze, blankly agreeing with whatever Haley said. Clarissa rolls her eyes.

Haley goes to explain how much courage it takes to do such a public proposal. It demonstrates what you’re willing to go through for the other person, how much you like them. Charlie admits that it’s not exactly an act of bravery to ask someone who you know will say yes -- especially when there’s no stakes involved for either of you.

Haley: Well, there’s always stakes. You know, even if you think you know someone, they could always say no. And there’s a lot at stake with a rejection… you know, especially if it’s… [ looking at Charlie intently ] between good friends…

Whatever hint Haley is trying to lay down, it’s going right over Charlie’s head. He shrugs, claiming he might not even go to prom. He’s just... not feeling it this year. Haley is mortified, Clarissa looking between the two of them apprehensively. This seems like a recipe for disaster.

Meanwhile, the techies are enjoying lunch at their usual indoor table when NIGEL CHEY approaches. He greets them before turning his focus to Jade.

Nigel: … hey, Jade.

Jade, shy: … um, hi.

Nigel: I, uh… I just had a quick question. I was wondering if, uh --

All of the techie eyes are on him, making this whole situation a lot more intense. Dylan is watching with wide eyes, wondering if what he thinks is going to happen is about to happen. Jade might be holding her breath. Nigel pushes up his sleeves nervously, clearing his throat.

Jade: … yes?

Nigel: I was just… [ quickly ] I had a question about the costume you made for that number last week. It’s actually… it’s nothing, I’ll just ask you about it in class. Sorry, ha ha. Didn’t mean to interrupt.

Jade: … oh. Okay.

Clearly not what he actually intended to ask. Nigel backs off awkwardly, making a quick escape. Jade tries to hide her disappointment. Asher and Dylan exchange a look across the table, shaking their heads. Pathetic!

All of the missed prom-portunities are forgotten, however, as soon as Maya and Zay arrive to kick off their pronouncement of going together. Evidently Zay agreed, because here they go…

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Greedy” as performed by Ariana Grande || Performed by Maya Hart & Zay Babineaux

It’s been a while since we’ve endured a good old disruption in the cafeteria during lunch hour, and this time Lucas is less likely to pull the fire alarm than ever. So Maya and Zay take full advantage of it, bringing up the energy with their talent and an undeniable bop.

They make a point of pulling other people into it at their tables, and of course, Maya is going to climb up onto the tables in her heeled boots. It’s not quite the same full-blown jam session as “Looking At Me” from earlier in the season, but people seem to be into it and in the general prom mood. Spirits are high!

Well, mostly. There is one pointed shot of Charlie forcing a smile as everyone else grooves along, likely wishing he could be anywhere else.

It’s not so much a promposal as it is… a spectacle, but boy, do they know how to put on a show… once they wrap, Maya makes the official statement that they’re campaigning for prom royalty, and if people have any taste, they sure know who to vote for come prom night.

Given how naturally glamorous the two of them are, up high on the table top and looking fresh as ever, it’s hard to argue with that!

INT. MATTHEWS APARTMENT - MASTER BEDROOM - NIGHT

Riley is hanging up her dress for prom, a classic and simple lavender floor-length number. She’s fretting over it as she vents to Maya, expressing that she’s still debating the whole upstate move thing Topanga has saddled her with.

Maya: Well, do you want to move?

Riley: I… it’s not that simple.

Maya: It should be. Either you want to go, or you don’t.

Riley: Yes, but… I mean… there’s lots to think about.

Maya: She said it was your choice.

Riley: Yeah, well, my mom says a lot of things she doesn’t mean, so…

Maya: Have you talked to Cory about it? He might have some insight. Or like, Eric?

Riley chews her lip, avoiding the question. Maya straightens up, asking if anybody knows about this potential move other than the two of them. Riley has plenty of excuses ready as to why she hasn’t mentioned it to anyone else, but Maya isn’t interested in hearing them. She claims she at least, at least, needs to tell Cory. He deserves to know, lest another life-changing thing get sprung on him with no warning.

Maya: Believe me, as the girl with no parents because of sudden life-altering moves, you owe him that decency.

Youch. Well, that’s tough to debate. Riley absorbs it, focusing back on her dress and smoothing it out nervously.

INT. GARDNER HOME - ROSIE’S ROOM - NIGHT

ROSIE GARDNER is chilling on her bed with her laptop, listening to pop music and humming to herself. Charlie comes and knocks on her door, pointedly until she takes out her earbuds.

Rosie: Ugh, yes? Can I help you?

Charlie: You’re so nice. How about, hey, Charlie? How was your day?

Rosie: I’m fourteen, I have the right to be obnoxious.

Charlie: I wouldn’t say it’s a right so much as an active choice.

Rosie groans, asking him what he even came in here for in the first place. He asks if she has anything going on this weekend -- perhaps they could go do something together. It’s been a minute since they did some brother-sister bonding.

Rosie: I dunno. I guess we could go see that new Chris Evans movie. I think it’s coming out next weekend, and I’m probably free Saturday --

Charlie: … well, I was thinking more this weekend. Specifically. Like not next weekend. This weekend.

Rosie: I know what this weekend means, weirdo. [ looking up movies ] Why are you so set on that? Isn’t it prom this weekend?

Charlie: … well, you know, it’s not a big deal. I was thinking I probably wouldn’t even go anyway, so.

Rosie, offended: Charlie! Ew, no, you can’t not go to prom. Don’t be lame, you’re embarrassing me.

Charlie, scoffing: This has nothing to do with you! You don’t even know anybody I go to school with.

Rosie: Yes, but by Gardner law, I’m associated. Just go with your friends! It does not have to be that deep.

Okay… fair point. Charlie questions if her blatant disgust means they’re not going to the movies, and she claims next week… after he doesn’t embarrass their family name by going to prom like everyone else. So much for finding a clever way out.

INT. AAA - JACK’S OFFICE - DAY

Speaking of clever escapes, JACK HUNTER is still struggling to find a way out of the Bradford debacle. So much to the point that he’s now elected to share the issue with Lucas, sitting opposite him with ERIC MATTHEWS as they get him up to speed.

It’s obviously not the kind of thing you want to hear. Lucas is hiding his head in his hands, cursing to himself before turning back to Jack.

Lucas: How long have you known about this?

Jack: … a couple months --

Lucas: Months?

Eric tries to keep stress levels at a manageable level, taking over for Jack in explaining exactly what the suit entails and what the Bradfords are hoping to gain from it. Essentially, they’re hoping that publicly printing Jack’s “questionable” enrollment processes will force his hand. Either he’ll cave and let her enroll regardless, or public dissent will push him to oust Lucas, making room for her in his vacant spot.

Jack, reassuringly: Which will not happen.

But for it to gain any traction, it needs to smell somewhat of a scandal (even if it isn’t) -- which is why they’ve targeted Lucas as their student to blame. They’ve obviously done their research. And between Lucas’s unique situation for enrollment, his lack of participation in the more showcased elements of the school, and his behavioral record…

Lucas, exasperated: I’m guessing stealing a car didn’t help!

Jack frowns. It’s clear he didn’t want to get Lucas involved if he could help it, and seeing this stressed reaction from him is exactly why. But Eric placates them both, reminding them that the fight isn’t over until it’s over. They will be able to brainstorm a way to fix this -- it’s just going to take a concerted effort.

Eric: We will be able to make this work. But it’s going to take a team effort, and total cooperation. You have to trust us, Lucas, and you have to be willing to cooperate. Can you do that? Can you work with us?

What a question, and posed to the notorious school troublemaker at that. But Lucas doesn’t want to leave AAA -- let alone be forced out. He sighs, tilting his head back and swallowing his pride before nodding.

Lucas: Okay. Yeah. [ serious ] Just tell me what to do.

He looks to Jack, meeting his eyes. Ready to do whatever it takes.

INT. AAA - HALLWAY - DAY

Charlie is at his locker, relaying the rejection by his own sister to Riley. She’s leaned back against the lockers, listening sympathetically as he points out another crappy addition to what has been a crappy last couple of weeks.

Along those lines, Riley questions if Charlie still thinks he might transfer to a different school. He hasn’t heard back from Haverford yet, but is he still seriously considering the notion?

Charlie, diplomatically: Given that Zay and I were able to lay everything out there and at least confront the reality of our situation, I don’t think it’s really a necessary maneuver anymore. I mean, the situation is far from ideal, but that I can deal with. I’ve been living in far from ideal my whole life.

Riley: Sad, but sort of inspiring, I guess.

Charlie: I will admit though… it was kind of nice, going through that whole process. Just going out there, you know, proving that I could do things. That I was capable. [ smiling to himself ] If anything, at least I came away with that.

Riley mirrors his smile. Then they’re back on the subject of prom, Charlie lamenting that he doesn’t see what the point is of going if he can’t be there with the person he would actually want to spend it with.

Riley: Considering my ideal date has literally been banned from all school activities and therefore can go nowhere near it, I think I can say I relate.

Charlie: Tragic.

Charlie mentions what his sister said about not making it that deep and just going with friends, and this seems to strike something in Riley. A smile drifts onto her face.

Charlie: Oh no. I know that look. What are you thinking?

Riley: Just that dear Rosamund might have a point. If we are going to be miserable and repressed all night long, then we should at least be miserable in good company.

Charlie: … I don’t know if I like where this is going…

Riley turns to face him, a mischievous smile on her face. She leans in conspiratorially -- her delivery would be more convincing though if she wasn’t so inherently cute.

Riley: Charlie Gardner! [ in a whisper ] Will you go to prom with me?

Charlie stares at her, expression betraying nothing. She matches his gaze, wiggling her eyebrows. Then he can’t help but crack a smile.

Charlie: Well when you look at me like that, how could I say no…

Riley grins, bouncing on her feet and lightly punching him on the shoulder.

INT. AAA - BLACK BOX THEATER - DAY

The first step to putting Lucas in less jeopardy -- actually participating in class. He’s meeting with HARPER BURGESS to discuss how to make his optics better in that regard. Unfortunately, there’s really only one thing he can do…

Harper: If you do even one performance, then at least you’d have something to point to if the case attempts to jump down your throat.

True. Although he looks like he’d rather die, Lucas reluctantly accepts that point. So it’s official -- he’ll be performing a number this week!

Harper: It’s for the best, actually. Everyone else is so consumed with prom fever, they won’t even remember it happened.

Zay: Are you kidding? It’s Lucas James Friar. No one is ever going to forget this.

Lucas: Yeah, um, [ pointing to Zay ] what is he doing here again?

Harper gestures Zay forward to join them. She explains that considering Lucas is literally starting from scratch, he’s going to need help when it comes to choreography. And singing. And well… basically all of it. She figured Zay is one of their best performers and far more willing to lend a hand than, say, Maya. If Lucas wants a chance of pulling off a decent performance, having his help would be his best bet.

Harper: That is, of course, if you’re up for it, Zay.

Zay: Honestly, I would welcome the distraction. It’s been… an interesting few weeks.

So that’s that. We’ve got the team, we’ve got the plan -- time to make shit happen! Even if it kills Lucas in the process. As the backbeat floats in…

INT. AAA - HALLWAY - DAY

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “I Think He Knows” as performed by Taylor Swift || Performed by Dylan Orlando (feat. Asher Garcia)

Two AMBITION firsts in one, as Dylan kicks off his first mostly solo performance by bringing Taylor Swift into the song catalogue. He starts off at his locker, giving us a glimpse into the interior which despite the mess is basically as bursting with love as he is -- full of photos of his friends, his family, and Asher.

Of course, there’s Asher.

And that’s what he’s focused on as he slides into the pre-chorus (“He’s got that boyish look that I like in a man, I am an architect I’m drawing up the plans”). When he sings “It’s like I’m seventeen nobody understands,” he sure means it, because he is seventeen, and nobody does understand. Whew, Taylor really just knows how to write ‘em!

Then he launches into dance, strutting his way down the halls with a definite spring in his step. It’s nowhere near as elaborate as performer choreography would be, but it’s charming and just sharp enough that it’s clear Dylan’s got some real talent.

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

Dylan takes the number into the auditorium, making his way over to the prop loft where he’s guaranteed to find Asher. There’s a brief sequence he basically serenades Asher from down below, scaling the fence around the set pieces until he convinces him to come down. The whole thing is dynamic and fun and a little bit theatrical, humoring their classmates as they watch from the stage before class.

On the bridge, Asher takes over the vocals, taking Dylan’s hand and leading him through the backstage areas. Dylan follows along happily, waiting until they’ve reached the other side of the stage to pull him back towards him. Asher presses their foreheads together (“Where we gonna go… I whisper in the dark… where we gonna go…”), then drifts away as Dylan belts out the note that throws us back into the chorus.

The final swell of the song takes place center stage, surrounded by classmates and with nothing but good energy. The techies are laughing along, cheering, and even the performers are enjoying the rendition. Dylan and Asher sway together in a circle with the beat, doing a final spin under Dylan’s arm before falling back together and breaking into laughter to take it home. The A class breaks into applause, Asher pulling Dylan down into a quick kiss.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you prom-pose!

In the high energy after the performance, Nigel casts another glance towards Jade across the stage. It seems like he really might do something, and she definitely acknowledged his eye contact… but then nothing.

Isadora also notices the exchange, curiosity piqued. She raises her eyebrows, Sherlock brain turning before Maya pulls her into a conversation about how the twink performance was clearly not better than hers and Zay’s… right? Right?

INT. MATTHEWS APARTMENT - MASTER BEDROOM - NIGHT

Isadora brings up the notion while hanging out with Maya and Riley, the three of them spending an evening together to map out prom logistics. She questions if either of them noticed it too, or whether Nigel has ever even shown interest in their classmates before. Maya claims he’s never dated anyone in their class, and Riley states that maybe he’s just shy.

Maya scoffs, focused on painting her toenails a shiny silver.

Maya: Look, Nigel is lean meat. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he’s talented, but the boy has no moxy. He has let Farkle walk all over him for three years, when if he just put like, a crumb of effort in he may have already had a lead by this point.

Riley: You know, it could be that he just… doesn’t care that much.

Maya: Well that was his first mistake.

The point is, if Nigel does have interest in Jade -- which Maya doesn’t get, because she forgets who Jade is half the time -- then it’s more than likely he will do absolutely nothing about it.

Isadora: That’s too bad.

Maya: I mean… I guess.

Riley: Maybe they just want to go with their friends. Prom doesn’t have to be inherently romantic, you know. [ off Isadora’s nod ] I mean, I’m going with Charlie, and --

Maya: Wait. [ sitting up ] You and Charlie are going together?

Riley: Yeah. But, like, just as friends.

Maya: Oh… oh. That’s… interesting.

There’s a plot twist. If Riley’s unnerved by Maya’s tone, she has the right to be. It’s an odd moment, and it’s only subdued by Cory calling for the girls from the living room. There’s a surprise here for them!

INT. MATTHEWS APARTMENT - NIGHT

And what a surprise it is. Maya practically screams when she finds KATY HART in the living area, having just arrived with VALERIE DE LA CRUZ. She runs over and launches into her arms, the two of them hugging tightly.

Maya: Oh my God, what are you doing here?

Katy: Val helped me. Paid my way, so that I could be here for prom.

Isadora: No way?

Valerie: Oh, it was nothing. Hardly a penny out of my pocket. I know how much it meant to me to be here for this weekend -- figured the least I could do would be to allow a good friend the same opportunity.

Certainly no arguments here. Maya and Katy hug again, elated. Cory and Riley exchange smiles, Cory pulling her to his side and into a hug.

Valerie pulls Isadora aside, greeting her and stating that she wants to do something special after prom. Like a girls night, deglam and rejuvenate and catch up. Deglam being key, because Valerie knows Isadora is going to look stunning. She can’t wait!

Isadora is totally open to the idea. She nods, matching her enthusiasm.

INT. AAA - JACK’S OFFICE - DAY

Jack is at his desk, going through the Bradford paperwork. He’s flagging and highlighting every potential point he might have to refute in an argument, emails open on his desktop of pitches he’s going to send to school board members for support if the complaint breaks.

Eric pokes his head in and knocks on the door pointedly.

Eric: Knock knock.

Jack: Who’s there?

Eric: Stop obsessing.

Jack: Okay, we’re done with the bit --

Eric smiles, leaning against the doorframe. He knows Jack is concerned, but he’s already thought so extensively about this problem. He needs to take a mental break from it, before he burns himself out. Besides, there’s always the chance that it won’t even ever go public.

Yes, a chance… but a chance isn’t a guarantee. Jack claims he just wants to be prepared for the worst, which Eric can’t exactly argue against.

What he can do is change the subject. He states he wanted to double check that they’re both still on for chaperoning the dance on Saturday. Jack confirms, wondering why plans would have changed.

Eric: Well… you know, given your own personal circumstances, I just figured you might not want to --

Jack: Eric, I’m fine. [ with a shrug ] After all, what better distraction is there from the shambles of your personal life than watching out for a bunch of rowdy, dramatic teenagers all night long? Can’t think of anything better.

Eric: At least your humor is still intact.

Jack makes a face, accenting the point.

Zay, pre-lap: Okay, literally, what the hell is the matter with you?

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

Zay is attempting to teach Lucas choreography, but it’s clearly far from easy. Not that that’s surprising, but it’s evident that Lucas was not meant to be a dancer. It’s a challenge unlike anything Zay has ever confronted before, regardless of how hard Lucas is trying.

Zay: I don’t -- like, is your brain connected to your limbs? How is this not clicking?

Riley enters, brightening when she finds them both. She asks how everything is going, and the look that both of them give her basically answers her question for them.

Riley: I hope I’m not interrupting.

Zay: No, you know what? It’s good. I need a break. Rome wasn’t built in a God damn free period. [ pointing to Lucas ] Don’t go anywhere with your two left feet, Fry Pan.

Lucas holds out his arms. What do you want from me? As Zay marches off, Riley tries to hold back her smile as she joins Lucas at center stage.

Riley: So seems like it’s going good, then.

Lucas: Oh, haha. [ making a face ] You know -- and this may shock you -- I’m not a dancer.

Riley, gasping: No. You’re kidding?

Lucas: I know, I know. Brand new information.

Riley smiles, asking to take a look at Zay’s choreography sheets. Lucas hands them over, Riley hopping onto the stacked acting blocks and reading them over for herself. He watches her as she reads, only shifting his gaze to his feet when she glances up to look at him.

She says that all things considered, the choreography isn’t so bad. He just has to keep working at it, and the whole thing is pretty low stakes anyway.

Riley: What even made you decide to do a performance? I have to admit, I never thought I would see the day.

Lucas: … well, with everything I did this year, figure it’s the least I can do. Just putting the karmic cycle back in balance.

Riley: You believe in karma?

Lucas: Could be. Either way, mine is shit. Objectively speaking.

Riley gives him a look. She glances back down at the papers and then states she’s sure he’ll be fine, and she for one is looking forward to the show. He rolls his eyes.

Lucas: You know, they have words for people who demonstrate ridiculous belief in unreliable things. It’s called blind faith. Usually it’s reserved for important things though. Gods, governments. Conventional belief systems.

Riley: Well, I’m nothing if not unconventional.

Lucas, quietly: Yeah.

The tension between them is palpable, even with the fair amount of space between them. They hold each other’s gaze, another one of those moments where they can’t seem to look away from one another. If it were possible, they might just stand there and look at each other forever.

Fortunately -- or maybe unfortunately, depending on your perspective -- Zay keeps that from happening. He reenters and tells Lucas to get ready to run it again, totally oblivious to their lingering moment. Riley hops off the acting blocks as Lucas clears his throat, directing his attention back to Zay.

Riley: I’ll get out of your way. Good luck. [ smiling ] Both of you.

Zay waves her off, sending her on her way. Once she’s gone, he turns back to Lucas and lets out a grand sigh.

Lucas: Now you’re just being a bitch.

INT. AAA - COSTUME LOFT - DAY

Jade is in the costume department, ignoring the task of organizing the leftover fabrics from this year and painstakingly attempting to fix the project she’s been working on all week. When someone enters she jumps and tries to hide the garment, straightening up and nervously looking towards the doors.

It’s not who she was expecting. Isadora enters, pushing a costume rack.

Isadora: Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.

Jade: No, it’s okay. I’m just um… it’s fine.

Isadora nods, bringing the rack all the way in. She explains that she got a head start on the inventorying of the costumes, and all the ones on the rack here are finished. She intends to put them back after theatre lab, if that’s alright.

Jade, surprised: Um… sure. Yeah, that would be helpful.

Isadora: Great. [ a beat ] I really am sorry, Jade. It wasn’t intentional, but I know I dropped the ball when it comes to pulling my weight on our team. [ hesitant ] And our friendship.

Well, Jade isn’t going to tell her otherwise. She shrugs lightly, acknowledging the apology but not necessarily accepting it quite yet. It’ll take time, and Isadora gets that. But she’s said her piece, and now all she can do is keep working to make reparations.

As she’s heading out, though, she decides there’s one more thing she wants to say.

Isadora: About Nigel.

Jade: Huh?

Isadora: Nigel. If you want to go to prom with him… then you should just ask him yourself. Don’t wait around for some boy to do the job right when you’re perfectly capable of doing it -- and probably better. He’s chicken, but the way he’s been looking at you… I’m pretty sure he would say yes.

Something to think about, at least. Jade considers it as Isadora exits, leaving her alone with the costumes.

INT. AAA - CAFETERIA - DAY

Riley has joined Charlie, Clarissa, and Haley for lunch. As they chat the notion of Charlie and Riley going to prom together comes back up, Haley visibly taken aback by the reveal. She starts to question how that came to be, obviously struggling to accept it, when their conversation is totally derailed by Maya paying a visit to their table.

Although she’s all bright smiles, the tone is mildly threatening as Maya confronts Riley and Charlie. She also is questioning their union for promenade, wondering if their admittedly perfect cookie-cutter image is intent on also campaigning for prom court. Because it would sure be a shame for them to have to go head to head…

Maya might be built like a pixie, but the threat behind her words resonates loud and clear. Charlie shakes his head, stammering to correct her thinking.

Charlie: Oh, we’re not --

Riley: We weren’t planning to --

Yeah, no. It’s a no. This seems to appease Maya, who relaxes and turns back on the charm. Still, her friendly laughter still feels ominous as she wishes them the best, and reminds them not to forget to vote for her and Zay for prom king and queen come Saturday evening.

Clarissa shakes her head, reiterating her former stance.

Clarissa: Nowhere and nothing is safe.

INT. AAA - ERIC’S OFFICE - DAY

Eric is putting on his most encouraging counselor smile, sitting across from Isadora and Farkle. He’s just wrapping up a pitch, stating that considering they’ve become such good friends in the last few months, he thought maybe it would be a good idea for them to go to prom as a duo. Just as friends. Pals, looking out for one another! Good, old, promenade buddies.

Farkle seems entertained by the mere suggestion. Isadora looks unamused.

Isadora: So you want me to babysit him.

Eric: That’s -- that’s not what I said.

Farkle: That’s basically what you said.

Eric tries to save face, but he forgot he’s dealing with the two most intuitive (and judgmental) students in the junior class. They see right through his facade, recognizing this tactic for exactly what it is.

Isadora: Also, what makes you assume I don’t already have a date?

Eric: … well do you?

[ Farkle looks to Isadora, raising his eyebrows. When she huffs, he cracks a smirk. ]

Isadora: No, but that’s not the point.

Eric relents, talking to them straight. Yes, they want Farkle to have company at the dance due to his history over the last few months. Ideally, this would be a small ask, considering they are friends and would likely be hanging out at the event anyway.

Eric: You are friends, yes?

Isadora: Request pending.

Farkle: I think of it more as intellectual sparring partners.

There’s really no good way to respond to that. Eric requests that they consider the option, as it would be a favor to him if nothing else. Give him a little peace of mind.

That’s just the selling point he needed to flex. Isadora glances between them, then sighs, claiming Farkle will pick her up when she decides he will.

Eric is thrilled, and Farkle doesn’t look all that opposed either. This, he claims, is a good thing. They’re thwarting problems before they even arise. No problems for junior prom this year!

INT. AAA - HALLWAY - DAY

Clarissa runs into Charlie, concerned. She takes his arm.

Clarissa: Problem. Big problem.

When Charlie asks her what the heck is going on, she states that Haley has finally broken down. She’s up in the costume loft and is refusing to talk, and she’s effectively decided she is not going to prom. Whatever crazy plague is running through their class, it’s finally hit her.

Charlie sighs, nodding and telling Clarissa he’ll handle it. He takes off at a jog towards the auditorium.

INT. AAA - COSTUME LOFT - DAY

Haley is sitting amongst the costumes, wiping tears from her cheeks. When Charlie pulls himself into the loft it almost makes it worse, Haley shaking her head and telling him to go away.

Haley: As if this could not get any more humiliating.

Charlie: Hey, don’t worry, I have had… my fair share of breakdowns up here.

He settles down next to her, in the exact spot he was crying just an episode ago. He waits patiently for her to acknowledge him again, asking her why she’s so upset. Clarissa told him she wasn’t going to prom -- what’s that all about?

Haley shrugs, huffing and avoiding eye contact with him. She shakily admits that some part of her always thought… maybe it was stupid, but he really doesn’t get it. They can be friends for years, spend all this time together, and he still has no idea. And she just… she feels like such an idiot. All of this is just so stupid.

Charlie pauses, searching for how to tread cautiously.

Charlie: If we’re being honest with each other… I know.

Haley: You -- you know. You know that I --

Charlie: Yeah. I have for a while.

Haley: Oh God. [ hiding her head in her knees ] That’s even worse.

Charlie: It’s not, Hales. You can’t help who you like. [ a beat ] Although, still being honest… I don’t really think you do.

Haley lifts her head, frowning at him. She asks what he means, and Charlie tries to figure out the best way to articulate what he’s thinking.

Charlie: Believe me, I speak from experience here, but I think it’s… really easy to become in love with the idea of something. Things that seem easy, and perfect, if they could just work out a certain way. So we fall in love with those ideals, rather than the way things actually are.

Haley: So, what? You think I’m just making everything up?

Charlie: No, I believe some of it is real. I believe you love me -- and that makes sense, because I love you, too. We’ve been friends for years, like you said, and I can’t imagine what my time at Triple A would be like without you. I don’t want to.

[ Haley wipes her eyes. ]

Charlie: But I think, realistically, that’s all we’re ever going to be. And I think you know that, too -- it’s just safer to keep things the way they are now. Where you never get what you think you want, but then you never get hurt, either.

Haley: … okay, you’re kind of freaking me out here. Get out of my head.

Charlie, laughing: Like I said, talking from experience.

A quiet moment passes between them. Charlie goes on to state that Haley shouldn’t give up her junior prom, especially not over him. They’ll both be there, and they’ll still get to spend the evening together with Clarissa and Riley and the rest of their friends. It’ll be fun, even if it’s not the fantasy they imagine in their heads.

Charlie: And as for the rest of it… I guess you and I will both just have to see what the future holds. Rather than hiding behind expectations we know we’re never gonna meet.

A tough pill to swallow, but important. Haley exhales and then nods, giving up. Trading out the fantasy, but perhaps for the better. She gives him a smile.

Haley: I do love you, Charlie Gardner. That much is true.

Charlie returns the beam, accepting the hug she gives him.

INT. AAA - BLACK BOX THEATER - DAY

Jade is standing outside the black box, watching Nigel chat with Yindra and NICK YOGI. Dylan and Asher stand behind her, hyping her up as she gears up to do the impossible.

Asher: Just be yourself. Be straight-forward.

Dylan: Go in there and get what you came for.

Jade: Right. Sure. [ a beat ] What if he says no?

Dylan: Sock him.

Asher glares at him, Dylan shrugging before smiling to himself. Asher takes the more serious approach, bracing Jade’s shoulders from behind.

Asher: If he says no, then it’s his loss. You’re Jade Beamon --

Dylan: Jade motherfucking Beamon!

Asher: And he would be lucky to get even an evening of your time. [ patting her shoulders ] Go get him, queen.

Dylan lightly nudges her forward, Jade taking a deep breath. Then she marches into the classroom, approaching Nigel and tapping him on the shoulder.

When he turns around and meets her eyes, for a second it seems like she’s going to run. But she squares her shoulders, clears her throat, and speaks as confidently as she can.

Jade: Nigel.

Nigel, surprised: Jade?

Jade: We should go to prom together. If you want to. I mean -- you should want to go with me. But only if you do. The point is -- will you go to prom with me? Maybe?

The back and forth between assertive and timid is jarring, but also quite charming. Nigel takes a moment to fully absorb what’s happening, but the smile that blooms across his face is near instantaneous.

Nigel: Yes. Yeah, I’d -- I’d like that a lot.

Jade: Great! I mean, um, great. Good. I’ll text you with details.

Nigel: Okay. Great.

Jade: Great. Okay… great.

Jade spins on her heel and marches back out, Yindra and Yogi exchanging wild looks. But Nigel is fully endeared, obviously not at all opposed to this turn of events.

As Jade escapes back into the hall, Dylan and Asher mob her with congratulatory hugs and pats on the back! She did it! Jade Beamon is going to prom with Nigel Chey, baby!

In tone with the celebratory mood, the bold brass opening floats in…

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “I’ve Gotta Be Me” as performed by Glee Cast || Performed by Lucas James Friar (feat. Zay Babineaux)

Another AMBITION first for the bucket list, Lucas gives his first almost solo performance, with a Broadway number, and that isn’t fueled by pure rage. Zay is on stage with him to help with the choreography, but in some ways that’s a nice way to help take the pressure off. It’s sort of like a dress rehearsal rather than an actual performance.

And look… it’s not great. Lucas is not a performer, and he was never pretending to be. But it’s passable, and honestly the vocals aren’t half bad. There are even a couple of rare, fleeting moments where it seems like he might actually be having fun.

The real fun is for the audience though. His classmates are near entranced by the spectacle, having watched Lucas do nothing but grump and roll his eyes for three years straight -- and especially the majority of this year. Farkle is watching with his jaw dropped open, blankly stunned. Riley is hiding her fond grin behind her hands, shaking her head. Isadora is openly laughing, but with him rather than at him. Even Jack and Eric came to watch, thoroughly amused, and maybe a little bit proud.

The techies are cheering along the entire time, and when Lucas gets through that last note and hits those last steps with Zay, they leap to their feet and give him a standing ovation. Given the year he’s had, the uproarious applause sort of feel well-deserved.

He survived, God damn it, he survived!

INT. AAA - COSTUME LOFT - DAY

Jade is leading Asher into the floor level of the costume department by both hands, the latter having been instructed to keep his eyes closed. He’s playing along, but nervously, reminding Jade that he hates surprises and also hates not being able to see.

Asher: You know going blind is one of my anxieties.

Jade: Everything is one of your anxieties. But hold on, we’re almost there.

She gets him right in front of where she’s hung up her latest project, pulling back and instructing him to open his eyes. He does, seeing the surprise and expression growing shocked.

It’s a pair of suit jackets, custom-made for junior prom. They align with the theme in terms of the subtle allusions to stars and shimmering elements factored into the design, but they’re inverse in terms of colors -- one mainly creme-colored with darker accents, and the other dark with lighter accents. Matching, but unique. And clear labors of love, from a seamstress who knows her craft.

Jade explains how she got the idea to make them, how she wanted to make sure they were clearly a matching set like Asher and Dylan, but also distinct from one another.

Jade: We just used to talk all the time about how fun it would be to have custom stuff for prom, when we got there one day. And you used to always talk about what you and Dylan could wear, but then would get all embarrassed, as if that was silly. Like it would never happen, that you couldn’t last that long. [ a beat ] Well, we got here, and I just figured after the hell year we’ve had…

Asher is staring at them, speechless. He’s tearing up, at a loss for what to do. Jade takes the impending waterworks as a bad sign, searching for a way to recover.

Jade: I mean, if there’s something you’d like better, you can just tell me. Or if you already picked out tuxes, that’s totally fine too, you don’t have to wear them --

Asher interrupts her nervous rambles, barreling her with a hug. The embrace is tight, and although there are tears the tone in his voice conveys that they’re happy.

Asher: I love you so much.

Jade beams, getting choked up too. She hugs him back.

Jade, teary but laughing: I love you, too.

INT. MATTHEWS APARTMENT - NIGHT

Prom night is upon us! There’s a flurry of activity at the Matthews apartment, making it more lively than its been in months.

AUGGIE MATTHEWS is there to help Riley get ready and spend the weekend with Cory. Riley is obviously happy that he’s there, grinning when she emerges from the hall in her gorgeous lavender gown and he jumps up in excitement. She questions where their dad is and Auggie nods towards the fire escape, Cory visible through the window.

EXT. MATTHEWS APARTMENT - FIRE ESCAPE - NIGHT

Riley delicately climbs her way out onto the balcony, Cory going to help her through when he notices she’s trying. Once they’ve got her upright, he gets a good look at her and goes soft with fatherly pride.

Cory, softly: You look lovely.

Riley smiles, both of them adjusting further out onto the fire escape. They take a moment to look at the scenery of their street, throwing a couple of jokes back and forth about how she’s going to prom with Charlie and whether or not Cory should be worried (he should not at all).

After a moment of quiet, Riley pecks up the courage to speak on what she really needs to say.

Riley: When mom called a couple weeks back, it wasn’t just to check in. She, um… [ off his wary expression ] She wants me to come upstate, too. For senior year.

Cory: … oh. [ swallowing hard ] Oh.

Riley: I’m not telling you because I’ve made any sort of decision, yet, or anything like that. I’m going to take the time to really… really think about it, and make sure I make the right choice for me. [ a beat ] But I just… wanted you to know what was going on. And also that no matter what happens, I’m still with you. I’m not going to leave you alone.

Cory nods, trying his best to accept it. Riley hesitates, deciding if she wants to continue.

Riley: Regardless of what I choose though… I need to be clear that I can’t be in the middle anymore. I love you both, but I am tearing myself apart trying to keep up with the constant back and forth. Trying to keep things civil in this family when I don’t think that’s supposed to be my job.

Cory: It’s not… Riley, I never meant for --

Riley: I know. And part of it is me -- feels like I’m always looking for other things to focus on and fix rather than myself. [ with a deep breath ] But I can’t keep living like that. I need to start focusing on myself… and that comes with setting boundaries. I love you, dad, but I can’t carry your baggage with mom anymore. It’s your fight, not mine.

Cory hesitates, obviously feeling guilty. Then he nods, assuring her that he’ll try his best to remember that. He doesn’t want to make this any harder for her than it already is. And if she’s trying to get him to hear her, then he’s listening. He really is going to try.

Riley smiles lightly, leaning forward to pull him into a hug. He returns the embrace, stating that he’s grateful he gets to be here with her on this important night. They pull apart, Cory fixing a piece of her hair.

Cory: Absolutely beautiful.

She smiles again.

INT. MATTHEWS APARTMENT - MASTER BEDROOM - NIGHT

Katy and Maya are sharing a similar bonding moment. Katy has taken over eyeliner duties, adjusting Maya’s makeup with her expert hand. She claims Maya has a tendency for overdoing it, which makes her laugh.

Maya: Tell me something I don’t know.

When she’s all finished, Katy looks at her daughter lovingly. She looks stunning, in a beautiful silver and white dress and blonde hair glossy as ever.

Katy: Like bona fide royalty. [ touching her chin ] No matter what the votes say.

Maya grins. She pulls her into an embrace.

INT. MINKUS HOME - NIGHT

JENNIFER MINKUS is nitpicking at Farkle, brushing off the shoulders of his navy suit jacket. He tells her to stop fussing, but she requests just one more second. She reaches up on instinct to fix his hair then remembers there’s not as much there as there used to be. Then she smiles, bracing his shoulders.

Jennifer: Beautiful boy. Perfect.

The housekeeper claims that the driver is downstairs, so Farkle should start heading out. STUART MINKUS shares an exchange with him as he’s in the entryway, offering him a Minkus good luck charm. It’s a silver lapel pin, a little crest shape related to their family coat of arms.

Stuart carefully pins it to Farkle’s lapel.

Stuart: You know, I wore this when I went on my first date with your mother -- and look where we are now.

Farkle, scoffing: It’s not -- this isn’t that kind of…

He doesn’t finish the sentence, letting it trail off. Stuart’s expression is amused, claiming he doesn’t quite buy it, but relenting for now.

When he finishes and smooths the lapel to crisp perfection, he takes a moment to really take in his son. Still with him, still standing in spite of everything that’s unfolded. It’s clear that there’s something he wants to say to him, heavy with the same weight that him sleeping at his hospital bedside all through his recovery held.

Yet, the words still don’t exist. Emotional expression has never been paramount in the Minkus household, and old habits die hard.

Instead, he pats his shoulder bracingly and wishes him luck. Jennifer comes to join Stuart as Farkle steps out, both of them wishing him a good time. Have some fun! This is your night of freedom, soak it up for all it’s worth!

Isadora, pre-lap: I don’t see how much fun it could be when we’re being watched by faculty all night long.

INT. ERIC’S APARTMENT - ISADORA’S ROOM - NIGHT

Isadora is seated at the vanity in Eric’s guest room, the space she’s taken over while staying with him. It seems that per their last conversation, Eric is keeping to his word with Valerie and is giving Isadora an actual legitimate place to stay in the mean time rather than Blue’s couch.

She’s sitting impatiently as Lucas stands behind her, braiding pieces of her hair to complete her prom look. A hidden talent, perhaps? It looks pretty, to say the least. He plainly states that she’ll be having more fun than him no matter what, there’s little doubt about that.

As he wraps up the last braid, Isadora pulls on her Converse and carefully gets to her feet.

Lucas: What, no heels?

Isadora: Are you kidding me? I think I’d break my ankles.

Lucas: Very “I’m not like other girls” of you.

Isadora: This is not about faux-originality, this is about my comfort and safety. As well as the safety of others.

The shoes hardly put a dent in the overall ensemble anyway. She’s in a gorgeous dark blue number, accented with a sheer layer of star patterns and custom designed by one of Valerie’s designer friends. It’s certainly not her typical ensemble, but she makes it work. Beautiful, but still a force to be reckoned with.

Lucas smiles, lightly punching her shoulder. He tells her she looks good, and she nudges him back before saying thanks.

Lucas, more serious: Sorry I can’t be there. To be there for you.

Isadora: It’s whatever. Be sad for your own sake, not mine.

Eric calls for Isadora from the hall, the two of them heading towards the door.

INT. ERIC’S APARTMENT - NIGHT

Eric is adjusting his suit and tie in the hall mirror when there’s a curt knock at the door. He goes to open it, delighted to greet Farkle on the other side. He gestures him inside, Farkle awkwardly making his way in and stuffing his hands in his pockets.

Both of them soften when Isadora emerges from the hall, obviously exceeding expectations. Eric tells her that she looks great -- Farkle says nothing, because he has no words. How are you supposed to react when your intellectual sparring partner shows up looking like that?

For a moment, all of them just hang awkwardly in the living area. Lucas clears his throat, scratching at his neck. That’s as good a cue as any, and Eric claims they should get going if they’re going to get there early to help set up. The price they pay, carpooling with a chaperone.

Eric ushers them out, giving Lucas a pat on the shoulder and telling him he’ll drop him off at his destination for the first half of the evening. And away they go! As their door closes…

INT. GARDNER HOME - NIGHT

Another opens, Riley standing bright and smiling on the doorstep of the Gardner home. AMBROSE GARDNER takes care to greet her cheerfully and help her inside, asking if there’s anything he can get her.

She should be grateful that the sanest member of the family met her first. ELEANOR GARDNER excitedly comes in from the kitchen moments later, greeting her enthusiastically and wanting to know a million things about her. Of course, they’ve heard so much about her already -- feels like Charlie is always talking about her!

From the living room, Rosie and DAISY GARDNER watch curiously.

Daisy: She’s pretty.

Rosie: Yeah.

Daisy: How did Charlie manage to get that?

Rosie: Shh.

As if summoned, Charlie rushes down the stairs. He looks charming in his relatively simple tuxedo, the touches of purple in his tie and pocket square perfectly accenting Riley’s dress. She gives him a hug as he reaches the bottom of the stairs, all of the Gardners eyeing them as they interact in front of them for the first time.

And to be fair, they look lovely. They seem near classic, the picture of prom perfection… but it’s so… boring. Whatever spark of flirtation Eleanor thinks she’s seeing between them, it’s absolutely nothing.

Still, she insists on getting some photos before they go. Charlie is embarrassed, but he allows it. As they’re assembling against the wall by the door, he leans over to whisper to her.

Charlie: Sorry about this. You look great, by the way.

Riley: Thanks. You too. And it’s fine. These’ll be great pictures to show my kids someday.

The choice of “my” rather than “our” is very pointed. Charlie gives her a look, elbowing her and earning a giggle out of her. Eleanor captures the moment, claiming that’s the perfect one.

Then Charlie tries to plot their escape, claiming they really should get going. Ambrose thanks Riley for driving -- Eleanor jokingly warns them not to stay out too late! A-wink!

Charlie looks like he’d rather be dead. Riley holds back her laughter as they escape into the night, the whole family sending them off cheerfully.

Once they’re gone, Ambrose and Eleanor exchange thoughtful looks.

Ambrose: She seems nice.

Eleanor, “knowingly:” Mhm… pretty…

Yeah, she really thinks this is something else. As she saunters back towards the kitchen…

INT. ORLANDO HOME - NIGHT

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “That’s What I Like” as performed by Bruno Mars || Instrumental

The techie pre-prom gathering is in full swing, the techie jams playlist on shuffle as they get ready together and mingle. Some of their parents are also in attendance (and likely to have a party of their own once they get them the hell out of there), namely LEVI GARCIA, EMILY GARCIA, and of course RANDALL ORLANDO.

Randall subtly interrupts a conversation between Lucas and Jade, where she’s just finished commenting on how nice it is for this gathering to be snapback free. It’s true that Lucas does stick out like a sore thumb, in his plain old blue flannel and jeans rather than dressed up like the rest of them.

The two of them exchange a bit of small talk before Randall gets to the point, asking Lucas about how things are going. Considering the last he heard about everything was literally picking up Dylan from the police precinct because of the joy ride, it stands to reason that he would be interested in knowing since he’s let Lucas back in his home since then.

To his credit, Randall has also been more of a dad to Lucas than his own, in spite of how avoidant Lucas can be. So he tells him the truth, stating that it’s been better but it’s also definitely been worse. He apologizes for what happened with the joy ride, and assures him that he’s banking on that sort of thing never happening again. Randall gives him a nod and a pat on the shoulder, approving.

The moment is interrupted as Nate gets their attention, using a cooking spoon as a faux microphone as he plays MC. He thanks them all for coming (which Dave and Jeff jeer at) before claiming he has the distinct pleasure of introducing their host and his paramour for the evening, showing off their custom-made, never before seen Jade Beamon originals.

Nate: First up -- you know may know him as Dyl Pickle, vlogger extraordinaire, the deviant who once stuck a whopping thirty-two sticky notes to Shawn Hunter’s back in one class period. He’s as gay as they come, in every sense of the word. Host of the evening and renowned “kissing expert” --

Asher, from upstairs: NATE!

Nate: What? He told me to say it! Anyway, let’s give it up for the one-of-a-kind Dylan Blake Orlando.

All of them cheer theatrically as Dylan comes downstairs, sliding down the banister and hopping onto the bottom step. He shows off the suit jacket Jade made, looking even fresher and fun actually on him than just hanging in the costume loft. He spins and hams it up for a moment, then backs off so Nate can continue.

Nate: Equally as effervescent, our other star of the evening is not to be discounted. He’s smart, he’s sharp, he’s the scariest person you will ever meet if you piss him off or forget to organize the paints in alphabetical order. King of production design, prop mix master, puts the Ash in Ash Cash Money --

Dylan, taking the spoon: The love of my life --

Nate, taking it back: Hey, this is my gig! I didn’t ask for ad-libs.

Jeff: Drunk on power…

Nate: Anyway, let’s give it up ladies and gentlemen for the only one of us with any class, Asher L. Garcia!

Asher jogs down the stairs, looking equally as iconic in his custom suit jacket. He does a small spin as well to give the item it’s due moment, Dylan cheering the loudest of all of them.

Randall: Very nice, very good. Now, could I get a moment with my “gay vlogger sticky note” son?

The techies all cheer and laugh at his take, Dylan sliding across the hardwood to meet him. Jade and Asher link up, the former taking his hands and practically bouncing as she proclaims how good the suits turned out. They look amazing!

Lucas looks around at all of his friends, glammed up and excited. Distinctly left out of the excitement, only this time not by his own choice. Somehow, that’s worse.

He’s pulled out of it as Nate declares they still have one order of business, the seven of them regrouping. Dylan slips back into the circle between Asher and Lucas.

Nate: Now, as with any good tradition, we have some firsts to establish. And this shit is important -- it may be the most important thing we do in our lives at Triple A.

Jade: Speak for yourself.

Nate: As we know, the prom court institution at Adams is royally corrupt. It’s the same shit every single year.

Dave: Nothing new.

Jeff: Same old shit.

Nate: And to that, the techie tots say no more. We will be crowning our own reigning royalty this year, and that honor happens tonight. Without further ado --

For what it’s worth, the only two that don’t seem to know what’s happening are Asher and Dylan. They watch in confusion as Dave retrieves two pin cases from his interior pocket, handing them to Jade and Lucas respectively. Then they turn to face them, grinning wide at the stunned expressions on Dylan and Asher’s faces.

Nate: Congratulations, Pickle and Bird Bones. You’re fucking royalty.

Jade and Lucas move forward, pinning the brand new charms to Asher and Dylan’s lapels, respectively. The pins are small medals, the band being monochrome like techie uniforms and the metal piece a small crown.

The true kings have been crowned. Whatever happens next hardly matters.

Jade: Okay, we have to get out of here before Asher cries again.

Randall and the parents swoop in, insisting on one group photo before they all head out to wreak havoc. At first Lucas steps out of the photo, allowing them their classy group photo, but then all of them shout for him to get in the picture as well.

EXT. ORLANDO HOME - NIGHT

Dave leads the charge down the steps to the “party van,” i.e. their techie van they use for Home Depot runs. On the steps, Dylan and Asher hang back and check in with Lucas one last time.

Asher: You sure you don’t want to come?

Dylan, sing-song: We could sneak you in...

Lucas knows they damn well mean it. But he waves them off, assuring them that he’ll be fine. They need to go have fun and not worry about him for a night.

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Good Love (Feel Like This)” as performed by Sir, Please || Performed by Nigel Chey (feat. Dave Williams, Nick Yogi, and AAA Juniors)

And so it is. Asher gives him a pat on the arm and then they’re off, leaving Lucas on the steps alone. He watches his friends head out without him, bittersweet smile on his face.

As the groovy rock hit floats in…

INT. PROM VENUE - NIGHT

Prom roll up! The event is hopping, the large ballroom space beautifully decorated towards the stars theme and everyone’s appropriately matched outfits shimmering under the low lighting. The brightest lights are geared towards the DJ stage, which alternates between a sound system and live performances.

At present, Nigel is giving a riveting vocal performance while the junior and senior class parties on the dance floor. Dave is backing on guitar, Yogi on the keyboard, and other B Class students filling out the rest of the band.

Jade, Dylan, and Asher are right by the stage, Jade watching him perform with a mix of shyness and excitement. Every once in a while, he’ll look over at her and crack a smile.

Dylan and Asher are distracted when Isadora wanders over to join them, all of them immediately complimenting one another on their one-of-a-kind outfits. Dylan gives her a hug. Asher asks how it is being accompanied by Farkle Minkus, which Isadora claims isn’t terrible -- but it’s not particularly enchanting either.

Meanwhile, Farkle has just met up with Riley and Maya. They ask him how his evening is going so far -- is he having fun? It’s not too overwhelming, is it?

Farkle: Oh, yeah. Sweaty room, loud music, constant surveillance, date who didn’t even want to go with me. Time of my life, girls. Undoubtedly.

On the opposite side of the room, Charlie has just made his way over to the refreshments. He reaches for the ladle for the punch just at the same time as Zay, their hands brushing before they look up and lock eyes.

For a moment, neither of them say anything. They just take one another in -- well-groomed, nice tuxedos, the most they’ve even really seen of each other since the break-up -- before Zay manages to say something.

Zay: You look… classic.

Innocent enough. Charlie laughs nervously, nodding.

Charlie: And you look…

He can’t finish the sentence. What’s he going to say? No word is good enough. And where they are right now doesn’t allow for him to say what he’s actually thinking.

Thankfully, Maya swoops in and unwittingly throws him a life preserver. She interrupts their conversation, claiming that she needs for Zay to come dance with her lest people get the impression she can’t hold her own on the dance floor. She pays Charlie the same compliment in that he looks nice, before reminding him to vote Zay and Maya for prom king and queen!

Charlie: Okay, if you keep saying that, someone is going to murder you by the end of the night.

Maya: Attempted assassinations are just part of the job description.

Farkle regroups with Isadora, finding her amidst the crowd. The two of them stand in silence for a moment, absorbing the chaotic scene around them. Farkle eyes Jack and Eric across the room, talking to one another and not paying any attention to them, then leans down to whisper in Isadora’s ear.

Farkle: You wanna get out of here?

Isadora looks around at her classmates and teachers before her gaze lands on Farkle. She smiles, somewhere between a smirk and genuinely sweet.

EXT. COURTHOUSE - NIGHT

Valerie emerges from the courthouse, seemingly in much better spirits than the last time she was there. She inhales a deep breath of fresh air, blithe smile on her face.

INT. HOTEL SUITE - NIGHT

Katy opens the door to her hotel room, surprised to find Val standing on the other side. She’s carrying a bottle of champagne and doesn’t wait for an invitation to march inside. She tells Katy to grab a couple of glasses, they are celebrating!

Katy, uncertainly: Good news, I’m guessing?

Valerie: You know, in this industry, they tell you the most important thing is to hang on. Hang on by the skin of your teeth, dig your fingernails in, and never let go. Who would’ve known that applied to the rest of this crazy, mixed up world too?

Valerie pops the champagne and pours a glass for her and Katy, raising her glass.

Valerie: I persevered, and only good things have come from it. [ sublime ] Isadora is going to be mine. We’re going to be a real family.

Katy happily cheers to that, both of them taking a drink from their glasses. They settle down on the couch in the suite, Valerie absolutely giddy with the news. She can’t wait to tell Isadora. Katy can imagine -- she knows how important it is, having time with her baby girl.

An idea seems to strike Valerie in that moment, eyes widening. She reaches out and touches Katy’s arm, excited.

Valerie: You’ll come stay with us.

Katy: Wh -- what?

Valerie: Yes, yes, you’ll come back to New York and you’ll stay with us! You, me, Maya, and Isadora. The four of us will live together, four rough and tough, talented women surviving the concrete jungle as a team.

Katy: Oh, I don’t… I couldn’t --

Valerie: Katy, you belong here. In this city, with your daughter and your dreams. If I have proven anything in this endeavor, it’s that it’s never too late to change course and achieve something you never thought possible. [ a beat ] You belong in Manhattan, with Maya. Talent like yours shouldn’t be wasted in the farmland of Vermont.

Katy processes that, taking another sip of her champagne. If a Hollywood starlet is telling her she’s meant to be here, then who is she to refuse it?

Katy: Alright. Alright, then!

Valerie claps excitedly, already abuzz with so many new ideas.

Valerie: Oh, this is so exciting. This is amazing! Isadora and Maya are going to be over the moon. This is a bigger deal than when my good friend and mentee Lizzo basically single-handedly saved the R&B industry.

She raises her glass again for another toast. Katy grants it, their glasses clinking together.

INT. PROM VENUE - NIGHT

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Dance Again” as performed by Selena Gomez || Instrumental

The lighting is more aesthetic and dimmer as the prom goes on, the junior class out grooving on the dance floor. We get shots of different combinations of them dancing -- Charlie is with Haley and Clarissa, Jade and Nigel are giggly as they get comfortable with one another, Dylan and Asher are upholding their reigning title as cutest couple.

In the midst of the festivities, Eric grows concerned as he realizes he can’t find Isadora. Farkle is nowhere to be found either -- and that’s because they’re not there. They’re long gone, someone having disappeared right under his nose.

Eric grabs Riley from the edge of the dance floor, asking if she’s seen either of them. She claims not since they first got here… is everything okay? Eric doesn’t respond, pushing through the crowd to try and get a better look.

He’s surrounded by teenagers, and yet none are the two he’s specifically supposed to be keeping an eye on. Just as he’s on the verge of panic, Jack comes to his side and asks what’s going on. What’s with the look on his face?

Eric, breathless: Isadora -- and Farkle -- they’re not -- I can’t find --

Jack: Okay, relax, alright?

Eric: Relax? I lost two children!

Jack: Okay, we’ll find them. Alright?

Jack drags Eric out of the center of the room, passing by HARPER BURGESS as they go. He tells her she’s in charge, guiding Eric out of the venue.

INT. LUCAS’S APARTMENT - LIVING AREA - NIGHT

Lucas emerges from his room with a box, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and clearly down to business. He and GRACE FRIAR are operating with relative ease, indicating that their third household member isn’t home at present.

He places the box on the table in front of her, claiming that he’s gone through it and he needs her to go through it too so they can decide whether or not to donate it. Grace seems intrigued, but not opposed to the idea.

Grace: Spring cleaning?

Lucas: Something in my life might as well be in order.

She chuckles a bit at that, although the joke is admittedly somewhat dark. She starts going through the contents, hesitating before telling Lucas she’s sorry that he didn’t get to go to prom. He shrugs it off, but his aloof facade has worn thin over the week.

Grace gives him a warm smile, stating that he’ll be able to go next year.

Lucas: Yeah, let’s see if I make it through this year first.

Valid point. Lucas leaves her to keep going through the stuff, agreeing they should get rid of it either way before Kenneth gets back.

INT. LUCAS’S APARTMENT - LUCAS’S ROOM - NIGHT

Lucas steps back into his closet of a bedroom, sighing at all the junk there still is to go through. He frowns when his phone vibrates in his pocket, growing even more confused when he sees who is calling. He answers.

Lucas: Hello?

Jack is on the other end of the line, already on the road with Eric.

Jack: What are you doing right now?

Lucas, flatly: Crystal meth.

Jack: Okay, you jest, but you’re really not in the position to be making those kind of jokes right now.

Lucas asks what’s going on, and Jack explains the situation. He asks if Lucas has seen or heard from Isadora, and he says no. When Jack requests that he go search that side of town, just drive around and take a look, Lucas seems skeptical.

Lucas: Aren’t you forgetting? My license is suspended.

Jack, unimpressed: Am I really supposed to believe that makes a difference?

Lucas: … fair enough. I’ll do whatever.

Jack assures him if he gets into any trouble, he’ll help him out of it. They just need to get a trace on them so Eric can breathe again. Lucas grabs his denim jacket, heading out.

INT. DINER - NIGHT

Isadora and Farkle, thankfully, are not engaged in anything remotely nefarious. They’re just making an evening out of it all their own, having escaped prom to seek refuge at a non-descript diner across town.

Farkle is way more enthused by the prospect than Isadora. He’s practically jittery, tapping his fingers on the table and unable to stop grinning. He claims this is the most fun, the most freedom, he’s had in months.

Isadora: Okay, calm down, edgelord. It’s not that deep.

Oh, but perhaps it is, Isadora. Farkle leans further into the theatricality, dramatically stating that he doesn’t think there’s ever been a night quite like this. Full of this… energy, and mystery, and potential. Can’t she feel it? In homage to the number that’s just about to come into play, Farkle sits up so that he’s sitting on the booth seat, rather than in it.

Isadora: Okay, what are you doing? Sit down.

Farkle: Can’t you just feel it? And how… how we start thinking --

Isadora: Start thinking what?

Farkle: How wonderful it all is.

Isadora: How wonderful what all is?

Farkle: Everything.

Isadora: Now you’re just talking nonsense. Did you take too much medication this morning? What are you on?

He, Isadora, is on life. The freedom of tonight, how good it feels to just be out and adventuring and… alive. In fact, he thinks, it might need some expressing…

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “A Lovely Night” as performed by Cinderella Original Television Cast Recording || Performed by Farkle Minkus (feat. Isadora De La Cruz) [ starting at 4:20 ]

Farkle pushes his way out of the booth and starts sauntering through the diner, Isadora leaning out after him and whispering for him to come back. But he’s already on his way as the instrumental comes in, meaning there’s no hope. This singing train has left the station!

So he kicks off the first verse, singing the fantastical lyrics about how absolutely perfect the evening is. Somehow, it actually works, brightening up the drab, everyday diner and adding a splash of something special and unique.

It helps that Farkle is crazy and completely unapologetic as he takes over the space, the other patrons hesitant at first but then endeared by the performance. Farkle sings the first line about a “charming prince” to a gaggle of middle school girls, who all collectively lose their shit when he turns away from them. To them, for all intents and purposes, all suave in his prom suit and singing so elegantly, he is a prince charming.

Isadora might be starting to figure that out too, as she watches in disbelief while Farkle pulls other diners and workers into brief stints of choreography. By the time he makes it back over to her table in the second verse, he leans forward on the table and sings the lines “darling, I love you” while looking right into her eyes.

Part of the whole act? It’s impossible to tell.

Then he pulls her up from the booth, into dancing with him through the diner as the dance break commences. Although she’s hesitant at first, Isadora is more surprised by how not averse to the experience she is. Farkle is a good dancer, at least this kind of dancing, and it’s not long before she finds herself grinning and laughing along.

They spin their way towards the front, right out the doors…

EXT. DINER - NIGHT

And out into the city, the world aglow with nightlife and even more emphasized by the unreal quality of the dance. It feels very La La Land. They continue the pas de deux through to the end, Farkle picking up the lyrics again for the final rendition of the chorus.

They end it spinning in a circle in the parking lot, Isadora laughing and Farkle truly free as they round out the performance. If there’s going to be any true spectacle this prom season, then Icarus and the fallen Techie Queen dancing together in what may as well be a fantasy sure takes the cake.

INT. JACK’S CAR - MOVING - NIGHT

Eric is not feeling the fantasy, a nervous wreck as they drive through the streets looking for signs of Isadora and Farkle. He relays that she has not responded to any of his texts, and Jack states that’s it. He pulls over, allowing him to give his focus to Eric as he parks on the side of the road.

Jack takes Eric’s phone, out of his grasp.

Jack: Enough. You’re driving yourself crazy.

Eric: Yeah, you’re one to talk. [ trying to snatch it back ] Mister obsessive civil suit --

Jack: Oh, I’m not saying I’m innocent. But you have got to give yourself a break. It was their choice to sneak out and go wild, not yours. You can only do so much. If they choose to be idiotic, that’s on them. Regardless of how much we care.

Eric knows that Jack is speaking from experience. He sighs, slouching back in the passenger seat. Jack tries to comfort him, reminding him that Isadora and Farkle are two of the smartest students at AAA. They’re not going to get into trouble. Besides, if they are, then at least they have their best troublemaker on the case.

Jack: He’s like a heat-seeking missile. If there’s mischief afoot, trust me, I believe he’ll find it.

EXT. NEW YORK STREETS - NIGHT

Maybe so, Jack. Maybe so. Somehow, Lucas manages to catch up to Isadora and Farkle as they’re walking along the streets, slowing down in Grace’s car and coming up next to them. He honks, startling them both.

Lucas: Hey! Lunatics!

Isadora: Lucas? What the hell are you doing here?

Lucas: I could ask you the same question.

Farkle: Isn’t your license suspended?

Lucas holds up a finger to silence Farkle, not acknowledging his question. He keeps his focus on Isadora, who is similarly confused.

Isadora: Isn’t your license suspended?

Lucas: You tell me. You tell me what the hell you’re doing walking around like freaks and sending Eric so postal Jack had to send me out here risking future legal penalty to come find you.

Farkle: Hey, I mean, we snuck out of prom. [ holding his arms out ] Don’t I get a little credit for that, Lucas James Friar?

Lucas glares at him, unimpressed.

Lucas, sharply: Don’t talk to me like you know me.

Farkle raises his hands in surrender, turning away. Lucas turns his focus back to Isadora.

Lucas: Tell Eric where the hell you are and that you’re not dead. At least pay him that decency.

Isadora: Alright! Alright, I will. Sorry you got dragged into it.

Lucas: You’re so lucky I have no life.

Lucky, indeed… Lucas drives off, leaving the two of them alone again. Isadora shifts awkwardly, Farkle hesitating before giving her an unbothered smirk. Woo, reckless freedom!

INT. JACK’S CAR - NIGHT

Jack gets the text from Isadora on Eric’s phone. He smiles and then passes it back to him, telling him that now he can breathe again.

And so he can. Eric lets out a huge sigh of relief, falling back against the seat and rubbing his face. These kids, are they ever gonna let them live? Once he’s pulled himself off the ledge, Eric drops his hands and asks what they’re supposed to do now.

Now that they’re already out? Well… Jack shrugs.

Jack: You like bowling?

INT. PROM VENUE - NIGHT

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Magic” as performed by Gabrielle Aplin || Performed by Yindra Amino

Things slow down back at the prom, allowing the students to shift into a slow dance. Before Riley and Charlie can make any decisions, Zay swoops over to them to cut in. For a second it seems as though he might ask Charlie, in front of everyone… but he simply requests a dance with his favorite girl at AAA. Charlie relents without an argument, allowing him to steal Riley.

Riley: Sweet of you to say all that. And…

Zay: And I will give anything not to slow dance with Maya, yes.

Charlie shifts his sights to Haley, offering a hand to her. With their former conversation having cleared the air, the two of them are able to simply enjoy a dance together rather than twisting themselves up over what it might mean.

Yindra’s vocals truly help set the mood. The types of slow dancers are all across the spectrum. The soft familiarity of Dylan and Asher, whispering in each other’s ears and smiling and tilting their heads against one another; the timid beginnings of Nigel and Jade, more distance between them but equally as happy to be sharing the dance. Then there’s Maya, not bothering to slow dance at all and continuing her campaign amongst the other single prom-goers.

While Zay and Riley dance, they softly discuss how the evening is going. Riley subtly makes it clear that she is no way moving in on Charlie -- they should both be well aware how unlikely that would be. Zay holds no such suspicions. After all…

Zay: Think you and I are both here while our hearts are somewhere else.

Couldn’t have said it better, Isaiah. Tellingly, while Haley and Charlie are having a swell enough time dancing together, he cannot seem to keep his gaze from drifting towards Zay over her shoulder…

Yindra brings the number home, delivering yet another dazzling performance.

INT. BOWLING ALLEY - NIGHT

Pow! A bowling ball knocks over a volley of pins, shattering the dreamy melancholy of prom.

Jack and Eric have already played one game, crashed in one of the tables by the lanes and sharing some cheap bowling alley snacks. They’re also drinking and… okay, they might be a tad tipsy. They’re laughing as they chat about the evening, more relaxed than we’ve ever seen them. They could almost be teenagers themselves, just wasting away prom night at a bowling alley and blowing off expectations.

Eric complains about Isadora and Farkle’s actions, still not over the sleight. Like he gets it, they’re teenagers, but really? Jack chuckles, shrugging and claiming it’s just that kind of night. He can remember how he used to be -- Lucas really isn’t that far off from how he was at that age, although the kid is way more ballsy than he was.

Besides… there’s something about prom night, man. It makes people do crazy things.

Jack: I was never super into it, but… ha. I remember senior year, me and the guy I was going with --

Eric nearly chokes on his drink. Jack raises his eyebrows, handing him a napkin in concern.

Jack: You okay?

Eric: Yeah. Yeah, I just -- [ clearing his throat ] Guy? You went with a guy?

Jack: Oh, yeah. Administrators weren’t thrilled about it at the time though. [ off his stunned expression ] Oh, come on. You know I’m bisexual. We’ve totally discussed this.

Eric: Um. No. No we have not.

Jack: We definitely have.

Eric: Jack, I would not have forgotten that. Believe me.

Jack shrugs, smiling to himself and taking another drink. Eric just stares at him, trying to reconcile this new understanding he has of his friend and co-worker in his head. He starts to say something, then thinks better of it. Lost for words.

The music on the sound system of the bowling alley saves him from having to speak. As soon as the song starts playing, both of them react with joyful acknowledgement.

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Bye Bye Bye” as performed by *NSYNC || Performed by Jack Hunter & Eric Matthews

At first the two of them just reminiscence, talking about how classic this song is. Speaking of hits of their youth, this was it in the college days. But as they casually start singing along in their seats, just like their students (and maybe thanks to the alcohol), the groove overtakes them.

Eric jumps to his feet first, crouching on his seat and launching into the second verse. Jack cracks up and claps, encouraging the dramatic performance. Eric manages to pull him into it as well, the two of them delivering the rendition with the same gusto as their overdramatic students.

INT. BYE BYE BYE DREAMSCAPE - NIGHT

In their folly, it would only be fair to give them the same imaginative scape as their students. Part of the performance is a fantasy tribute to the “Bye Bye Bye” music video, Jack and Eric dressed as if they’re back in the early 2000s and dancing around a tilting room.

INT. BOWLING ALLEY - NIGHT

We cut back and forth between that and them wreaking mild havoc in the bowling alley, and gosh dang is it a fun performance.

That’s one way to cut loose for a night. Let’s go principal and counselor!

EXT. HOTEL - NIGHT

Farkle walks Isadora to the front stoop of the fancy hotel Valerie is staying at, although she tells him that he didn’t have to. He claims as her date it was his duty -- even if their arrangement wasn’t exactly by choice.

Isadora: Well, impressively, I did actually have fun.

Farkle: Oh?

Isadora: Yes. I don’t expect the enchantment to last past midnight, but it was fun while it lasted. [ a beat ] I suppose I’m glad that I had to babysit tonight.

Farkle rolls his eyes. Isadora looks at him for a long moment, and then stands on her tip-toes to give him a quick kiss on the cheek.

He blinks, obviously not expecting it. After a moment he kind of smiles, caught between a confused frown and a pleasantly surprised smile. He looks at her, narrowing his eyes.

She gives him no explanation. She just tilts her head in a nod and marches through the revolving door, leaving him on the sidewalk. He glances up at the building, smile widening as he spins on his heel and saunters down the street.

INT. PROM VENUE - NIGHT

Clarissa and Haley are just wrapping up a performance, dismounting the stage as Harper heads up to the microphone. She warms up the crowd by asking how everyone is enjoying prom, which is met with resounding cheers. The time has come, she announces, for the crowning of their junior and senior prom court!

Amidst the cheers, Charlie shifts his focus to Riley next to him. She’s zoned out, glancing over her shoulder and not paying any attention. Looking for someone who isn’t going to be there, no matter how many times she looks.

After a moment, he elbows her lightly.

Charlie: You should go.

Riley: What? What do you mean?

Charlie: I appreciate what you did for me tonight. But we both know… you don’t want to be here. Not really. [ nodding towards the door ] So you should go. Don’t waste the rest of your night on me.

Riley examines him, thoughtful. Then she smiles, taking his arm and leaning forward to give him a kiss on the cheek. She squeezes his arm.

Riley: Never a waste.

Then she’s gone, weaving her way through the crowd and on a mission. Charlie watches her go, and when he turns back to the crowd and the excitement of the senior prom court being announced he suddenly feels very detached. Like he’s a fish out of water, as if he shouldn’t even be there at all.

It’s claustrophobic. Charlie starts to push his way through the crowd as well, searching for an exit. Needing to get out of there.

From where he’s waiting with Maya, Zay notices Charlie’s frantic escape. He frowns, hesitating for only a moment before darting out after him. Only Maya notices him go, looking after him in confusion.

Maya, in a whisper: Zay. Zay!

He’s already gone. And her attention is stolen anyway, as Harper gets a drum roll going for the announcement of junior prom queen and king. It goes, unsurprisingly… to Maya and Zay!

Only Zay is nowhere to be found. Lucky for him, Maya is an expert showman and covers as if it’s nothing. She hops up onto stage and happily accepts, claiming her king had to dip out for a moment and she’ll be accepting both on his behalf.

Once she’s found a way to balance both crowns on her little blonde head, she takes to the microphone and gives a small speech about what an honor it is to be selected. And in return, tonight, she’ll give them a prom slow dance really worth remembering. As the track cues up --

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “At Last” as performed by Beyoncé || Performed by Maya Hart

As obnoxious as she is, there is no doubt about the fact that Maya Hart can sing. Her vocals are damn good on the romantic classic, truly creating a perfect final slow dance for the evening. And she’s milking every second of it, glamorous as ever in her elegant gown and dual crown glory.

EXT. PARKING LOT - NIGHT

Charlie has made his way to a mostly vacant section of the parking lot, inhaling as much fresh air as he can. He holds his breath, then lets it out, fighting off whatever strange panic was prickling at him.

It doesn’t truly fade until Zay joins him, approaching casually and claiming that he’s missing Maya’s big performance. Isn’t that what he came all the way out to prom for anyway? Charlie can’t help but laugh, even though the vibe between them is still uncertain.

Charlie: Oh, naturally. Everything’s about Maya Hart, after all.

Zay: Absolutely everything, yeah.

Charlie: [ just looking at him ] … shouldn’t you be in there too, then? Far as I recall, you were her running mate.

Zay, with a shrug: I didn’t really care much about it.

Zay is stepping closer with every word that passes between them.

Charlie: … no?

Zay: Nah. I mean, can’t blame Maya though. She knows how to pick a winning candidate.

Charlie: Well, no arguments here. Sure you don’t want to get your crown, though? Think that would be a nice prize regardless.

They’re standing right in front of each other. Zay swallows, meeting his eyes.

Zay: I can think of something better.

Charlie lets that sink in, not sure how to respond. Knowing that they’re the way they are for a reason… but then there he is, right there in front of him…

Zay doesn’t ask for much. He gently takes Charlie’s hands, pulling him towards him and into a slow dance. There in the parking lot, alone, where nobody else is going to bother them.

Charlie is stiff at first, then slowly he relaxes into it. The familiarity, the ease, the way they seem to just naturally fit together... especially when it comes to dancing.

Still, something in his expression is conflicted. It’s obvious he loves it -- being so close to Zay, sharing anything with him regardless of what their status is -- but then that’s the problem, isn’t it? As long as Charlie is around him, he’s never going to be able to let it go. They’re going to keep drifting back to each other like this, and Zay is never going to be able to move forward.

Charlie realizes all of that… and yet.

For now, he chooses to live in the moment. He tilts his head against Zay’s shoulder and chooses to soak it up for all it’s worth, the dance and the closeness and the way he continues to choose him, even when he pushes him away.

Everything else, he can deal with another day.

INT. VALERIE’S HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT

Isadora has changed back into more comfortable clothes, Valerie hanging her dress up so that it stays nice and unruffled. After all the hard work Stella McCartney put into it, she would hate for it to only survive one use!

Then Valerie settles on the bed with Isadora, telling her the good news. The paperwork went through -- they’re on their way. She just has some things she needs to go wrap up last minute in Los Angeles, and then they’re going to do it. They’re going to be a proper mother and daughter, she’ll move to the city, and everything is going to change. For the better, she’s sure.

Isadora is stunned just to hear it said -- she can’t begin to wrap her head around it in reality. But she manages action, leaning forward to initiate a hug with Valerie.

She hugs her back, tight, so excited about the next steps they’ll be taking together.

INT. LUCAS’S APARTMENT - LUCAS’S BEDROOM - NIGHT

Well, for only a night’s work, Lucas has made substantial progress on organizing his hell bedroom. You can actually see the floor now in most places, which is a step up. Maybe one solution to not having horrible mental health is to not feel like you’re living in an abandoned storage closet. Music is playing from his phone, shuffling the playlist Riley made him last year.

He finishes clearing the floor by the actual closet door, finding Riley’s gala shawl. He holds it in his hands, delicately, trying to decide what to do with it. It’s survived this long, in spite of all the times he’s thought about destroying it -- to get rid of it now would almost be a disservice.

He’s distracted from the decision for now, his phone buzzing. He settles onto his bed, putting the shawl to the side towards his pillow and opening the message.

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Ebony Eyes” as performed by Jamie Scott || Instrumental

It’s from Dylan, a group picture of the techie crew in the midst of the glitz of prom. The caption underneath it is simple and to the point -- “We miss you!!!!!!!”

Lucas can’t help but smile, but after a moment it shifts to something more muted. The disappointment is clear on his face now, fully realizing how much he might be missing out on. How much he’s missed out on for the entire year, while he was busy fighting to survive his own personal hurricane. And there’s no way to get that back -- there’s no way to know if it’ll ever stop hurricaning, given how up in the air everything feels.

He’s distracted once again from his own internal musing, this time by creaking from outside his window. At first he glances towards his door, worried it might be someone coming home, but an additional creaking confirms it’s coming from outside. It’s coming from the fire escape.

Cautiously, Lucas gets to his feet, edging towards his window. He nearly jumps out of his skin when Riley appears from the ladder below, scrappily climbing her way up to his level.

EXT. LUCAS’S APARTMENT - LUCAS’S FIRE ESCAPE - NIGHT

Lucas scrambles out the window to meet her, eyes wide in disbelief. She smiles at him as he emerges and she manages to pull herself fully onto the fire escape. There’s barely room for them both to stand, Lucas taking her arm and pulling her as far from the window -- and his apartment -- as possible.

Lucas: What the hell are you doing here?

Riley blinks at him, trying to catch up with her own choice of actions. She’s changed out of her fancy gown, hair and makeup still done up but having opted for a pair of high-waisted jeans and a thrifted tee. Better attire for building scaling, at least.

She explains that she couldn’t stop thinking about him and how he was missing out, so she decided to bring some of the fun to him. She shrugs off her backpack, unzipping it and showing off some of the snacks and movies and junk she threw in there along with her laptop. She didn’t have a lot of specific ideas, or anything, she just thought… who knows. She just knew she wanted to be here.

Lucas is in shock. He can’t believe any person would ditch prom without some other grand plan, and definitely not for him.

Lucas: That’s… that’s nice, but you shouldn’t have to do this. You should be at prom, having fun. Least of all worrying about me.

Riley, shaking her head: Wasn’t the same without you.

Oh. Well then. Riley glances towards his room, recognizing the music playing and smiling to herself. She comments that at least he has good tunes to get him through the night, and the slower, rustic song playing now is better than about half of the songs they played at the dance.

In fact… she did say she was going to bring the evening to him…

Dropping her backpack by the window, Riley cautiously takes Lucas’s hands. When he doesn’t complain, she gently guides him into a dance of their own -- a promenade on six square feet of metal with a shitty outdated iPhone speaker acting as the DJ.

Even still, it might be the most authentically romantic duet of the night. The music quality shifts and improves to be more encompassing as they settle into the dance, once again supplemented by that fantastical quality of the evening. Secluded enough for Lucas to ease into it, more intimate than a room full of their peers would allow.

After a minute or so, Riley adjusts their posture and presses their foreheads together. For how soft the moment is, the energy between them may as well be electric. They’re inches apart, one or two breaths and a bold choice away from another kiss. And maybe they could…

But not tonight. Not yet.

Riley shifts and rests her head against his shoulder, Lucas closing his eyes and tilting his head against hers.

For now, what they have in this moment together is enough.

INT. AAA - ATRIUM - DAY

Crazy how in the aftermath of such a whimsical weekend, life is expected to proceed as normal. Jack is in good spirits as he jogs his way into the school building later than usual, pushing through the doors at the same time as Lucas. Lucas comments on his late showing.

Jack: You know, for all the times you’ve shown up to class tardy with no good excuse, I think you can zip it on this one.

Touché. Jack does remember to thank Lucas for his help with Farkle and Isadora though, expressing that it was a big help. He asks how he spent the rest of his evening -- aside from the crystal meth.

Lucas, nonchalantly: Nothing much. And you?

Jack: Got kicked out of a bowling alley.

Lucas: … fun. Respect.

Jack grins, nodding him on his way. He makes his way back into the office…

INT. AAA - JACK’S OFFICE - DAY

Where the real world is waiting for him. Jack is surprised by the gift-wrapped item on his desk -- until reality slams into him like a freight train. He drops his briefcase and jogs towards it, lifting the ribbon-bound local newspaper into his hands.

There it is. The Bradford case, front page Monday morning news. Likely paid a fortune to make it front page news, if he knows his adversaries.

It’s officially gone public. The fantasy is over. Another day has arrived, and now it’s time to deal with all of the challenges ahead.

Now, it’s time to take action. For better or for worse.

END OF EPISODE.

#S2 #211 #episodes #y'all.... we really in it now

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knightofbalance-13 · 6 years ago

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what are your thoughts on the dragon prince

Ironically, I got done with Dragon Prince a few days ago so my thoughts are pretty fresh:

The story is…standard. It reminds me of Avatar in how the characters will need to go from place to place in their adventure but with how fast the story is paced I get a feeling like nothing has really been accomplished. Oh yeah, the pacing of the story is really fast, like in the span of 9 episodes we’ve gone from a castle to the top of a mountain, burned through an arc about Rayla and trust and we’ve been in about several events that, in just one per season, would be fantastic but all together it all feels lesser for it.

The show is moving way too fast, completely skipping over key build up points like showing more of the relationship between King Harrow and Callum, showing ANY relationship between King Harrow and Ezran, showing more of Callum’s insecurities, showing more of Rayla’s issues with killing, giving us more time with Harrow and Viren to understand both the characters individually and their relationship before it deteriorated, showing more of Viren’s kids (especially Claudia since she’s being billed as Callum’s Love Interest), showing Ezran talking with animals more, show Ezran finding the Dragon Prince Egg and ESPECIALLY the world itself.

Oh yeah, the world is barely explained before we get terms thrown at us. The Moonshadow Elves are mention about a minute past the introduction or so and they never explain what exactly a Moonshadow Elf is, what they are usually like, what makes them so dangerous ect. This is only an example of the show’s issues with it’s worldbuilding, where terms that exist in the world are said so casually but never expanded upon or explained enough to make the audience feel the impact.

Moving on from the world, we have the characters. Prince Callum is…Sokka. He’s Sokka basically, even has the same voice actor. He jokes around as much as Sokka, He’s the butt of jokes like Sokka. He has hidden potential like Sokka. He has insecurities due to not being like the others like Sokka. Not to say Callum’s a bad character but this single aspect shows a big problem with Dragon Prince I’ll get into at the end.

Next is Prince Ezran. Ezran is…a wise kid. He shows some wisdom at times and some cleverness but overall he has the generic child traits of simplistic acting, treating animals like people and immature mistakes. He has a mischievous side but it’s shown only once and I dunno if it’ll ever come up again.

Rounding us out is Rayla. Rayla is a Moonshadow Elf who is an assassin but doesn’t want to kill the innocent humans. Thus she is trying to guide the humans to the Dragon Queen and resolve things between the humans and the Dragons. As a character, Rayla feels…a bit confused. She begins the series not killing a human because of his fear of her, then she steels herself to go help kill Ezran because of her failure to her team ( a team we…barely see before this, let alone connect enough to understand what she was feeling), then she doesn’t want to kill them after finding the egg. This sounds like a normal thing but this basically takes place over three episodes so it just feels insubstantial. There’s also a point where she calls the two princes her friends but she hasn’t actually known them that long, she had refused to disclose her dislike of water the previous episode and here she constantly acts insulting and demanding, far beyond what the situation would reasonably allow.

Speaking of her dislike of water, we never get an explanation as to WHY she doesn’t like water so much and instead we get an explanation of her parents, which were focused on far less in the episode. And her explanation of her parents, basically them being cowards, doesn’t really work when Rayla herself would have been a coward by her own standards by not killing that human in the beginning. Not to mention how out of place that felt where her dislike of water would have flowed in with the episode better and that tidbit could have been saved for a better reveal.

I could go into the other characters more but a lot of them have the same issues as Rayla or Ezran: seemingly confused writing or not much there. Like how King Harrow in the first episode shows a closeness to his court mage Viren with him joking about having Viren executed but then we have Harrow snapping at Viren for trying to call him ‘brother’ and has him kneel before him in a humiliating fashion despite them having only one real conflict before this (and it was rather subdued in comparison here). Or how Viren is suppose to be the antagonist but he displays far too many likeable and understandable traits (trying to save King Harrow, being frustrated at his stubbornness, his reasoning behind taking the throne actually being rather solid considering the events) to actually oppose him. On the opposite end we have both of Viren’ s kids, Claudia and Soren (who both embody Quriky Smart and Quirky Dumb respectively and that’s about it really.) And EVERYONE has the issue of their dialogue switching between a serious tone you’d hear in an old myth or the more modern, casual snark you had in Avatar The Last Airbender and unlike there: these don’t mix well in Dragon Prince, causing tonal whiplash all the time.The only character I’d like to point out in this whole mess is Amaya who is the general deaf Aunt of the princes. She’s badass, she’s nice, shes caring, she takes no shit. She’s just a general fun and great parental type character. Too bad she isn’t around for too much and her deafness does cause issues since there are moments where her translator isn’t around and I can’t tell what she is signing. There really needs to be subtitles for her.

And now…the animation and art style. Look, it’s been well documented how bad the animation for Dragon Prince is. NOTHING moves like it should. Slimy or jelly like textures look really off, water looks inky and unnatural next to the 3D models and move unnaturally. And everyone clips and freezes like they’re in a glitching Bethseda game. This issue actually affects the rests of the series as it becomes harder and harder to see the characters as people with such unnatural animation and the animation gets on your nerves more and more. Not to mention the fight scenes. It’s the exact same issue in RWBY Volume 4, where nothing seems to have the weight and speed it should have, only cranked up to 11. And while the artstyle does look nice on it’s own, it wasn’t made to mesh with the 3D models and thus anything that isn’t a close up shot of the characters make the models look out of place and awkward.

And-there are a lot of little gripes I have with the show as well so I’ll just close up.

I had high hopes for Dragon Prince since the title looked so good at first. But as things went on, my feelings went down the drain and I just felt empty and bored. Worse yet, I kept thinking about what other shows I’d rather be watching. For a dark fantasy setting like this one, I would rather read Berserk. For a show trying to make it’s own fantasy setting with snarky likeable characters, i’d rather watch ATLA. And for a 3D animated show with snark and action, RWBY in it’s entirety is better.

Dragon Prince’s biggest issue is that, with all these little issue, what little good doesn’t justify watching it over something else.

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alemoncakelife · 7 years ago

Text

SANSA STARK WAS NOT A STUPID BRAT. HERE’S WHY

So I see this a lot where people tend to describe Sansa as ‘no longer being the stupid bratty child she was’ and of course they’re talking how she acted Season 1. Now, I will never dispute that Sansa Stark was naive, because every single child character in the series is naive. This is because they are children. However, I will argue against any statement that claims Sansa was ever a ‘brat’ or ‘stupid’, because it’s a terrible misinterpretation of her scenes. So just to be sure I was making a legit argument, I looked up the actual definitions of these words:

Now I’m going to argue why Sansa Stark is not - and never has been - these 2 things...

NOT A BRAT

Yes, Sansa is a child. She is 13 in the show. But she is renowned for being an exceptionally well behaved lady who prioritises manners. Take the scene where Sansa is trying to act like a real Southern Lady with Septa Mordane. She is trying to act like she is too grown up to need a Septa and ends up being rude, and she regrets it. This is her face after she says “Oh wait. I just realised. I don’t care.”

In this scene she is so clearly trying to imitate Cersei as she believes that this is how a true Queen should speak and act. This is naive of her. Yet when Septa tells her, “Now you are being rude” her expression changes to this:

It’s the face of a guilty girl!! She’s upset that someone finds her rude. She doesn’t want to be rude! She is just trying to prove to everyone that she would make a good Queen.

Also, this moment is literally Sansa at her worst, and it’s really nothing to hate her for. All she does is make some snarky remarks and regret them almost as soon as she makes them. Heck, if anyone is badly behaved it’s wild child Arya who physically attacks her sister in front of the royal family and stabs a table repeatedly with a knife when she’s angry. Yet Sansa seems to be the Stark Child referred to by fans as a brat?

A lot of people also criticise her for being spoiled and wanting to be Queen, which links to her supposedly bratty behaviour. This criticism seems to come from the scene with Catelyn where Sansa claims that marrying Joffrey is “The only thing I’ve ever wanted”.

I can understand why people would think this makes her spoiled. But in truth, all of the Stark children are spoiled. They are children to the most powerful family in the North and Cat and Ned are not strict with them imo. For example, when Catelyn sees Bran climbing she firmly tells him not to, but then when she sees he’s lying about obeying her, she just makes a joke out of it??! And when Arya uses a bow and arrow which goes against all her Septa’s efforts to make a Lady out of her, Ned simply applauds her. Ned also lets her keep Needle. For goodness sake they let their kids have direwolves for pets!! My point is, Ned and Cat seldom really say no to any of their children. So for Sansa to say it’s the only thing she ever wanted is actually pretty clever, because she knows that if she says that, they’ll probably say yes. (and they did.)

SIDE NOTE: It’s never the fault of a child if they are spoiled. It’s the fault of the parents. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory teaches us this. But Sansa is NO VERUCA!! A lot of fans say they don’t feel sorry for Sansa when she suffers because she was spoiled before. That was a part of her life that was caused by her parents. Not by her. And how does getting spoiled mean you deserve to be stripped, beaten and forced to stare upon your father’s rotting severed head? I can’t even use Google Maps to find logic for that.

There’s also a lot of hypocrisy by some fans as many hate Sansa for wanting to be Queen (for like 1 year) and hail Daenerys, Margaery and Cersei who devote their lives to gaining power and wearing crowns. Sansa’s reasons for wanting to be Queen are very different to the others however. Sansa Stark wanting to marry a Prince and be a Queen is not unlike a teenage girl today wanting to marry a famous footballer and be a WAG. It’s not a desire for political power and superiority. Sansa probably shares her ambitions with hundreds of other noble girls in Westeros. Her want to be Queen also never meant she wanted to betray her family, which is another common gripe some have with her. Sansa simply wants to spread her wings like any other teenager and fly out into the world and do well in the world. She believed that being Queen was the ultimate honour for a woman and she’d make her family proud of her! She acknowledges the power she could bring to her family if she were Queen. “He’d be the 2nd most powerful man in the kingdoms”. This is what she says about her father when she’s considering how she may be travelling South to marry Joffrey. If her want to be Queen was linked with a want to betray her family, she’d probably say something like, “I’d be marrying the most powerful man in the kingdoms.” yet she doesn’t say this, because she doesn’t want power for herself, but for her whole family. When her father was arrested, Sansa literally begs Joffrey to spare his life in front of the whole court which puts her at enormous risk of being charged with treason herself. In that moment, Joffrey could have easily charged her refused to make her a Queen. If Sansa truly put Queen Life above family, why would she risk lsoing that title to save her father? Notice that she only wrote that ‘treacherous’ letter to Robb because Cersei told her that the fate of her Father depended on her writing to Robb. That letter wasn’t Sansa taking the Lannister’s side, that was her saying what she had to say to keep Ned alive. I’m done with people suggesting she wasn’t loyal to her family from the start.

Now let’s talk about the importance of Cinnamon Roll/Direwolf Lady.

This is easily the most misinterpreted story and aspect of Sansa’s character EVER. Sansa loves Lady, just like all the other Stark’s love their wolves. Lady loves Sansa and the two have such a sweet, pure relationship and a bond that’s much deeper than Ned, Septa Mordane or anyone else for that matter can understand.

Lady was unfairly killed, and it was not Sansa Stark’s fault. This. Is. A. Fact. When asked by King Robert who was in the wrong (Joffrey/Arya) she takes nobody’s side. This is because Arya is her family and she won’t betray her, but Joffrey is her betrothed (and she’s seen his temper now) so she won’t betray him because it could lead to a lifetime of misery for her family. Either way, whoever side she would take would cause a massive problem somehow. She Sansa says “I don’t remember...I didn’t see”. Nobody suspects for a minute that Lady’s life has anything at all to do with this situation. So Sansa’s answer is not something that condemns her pet. It is then Cersei who suggests killing Lady as punishment for Nymeria’s attack which is ridiculous but Robert agrees and Ned fights against it pretty feebly. He could have followed him and pestered him to change his mind but nope. And Sansa puts up a FIGHT.

“No. Not Lady. Lady didn’t BITE ANYONE SHE’S GOOD!” is what Sansa yells at both Cersei AND Joffrey. This is very unusual behaviour for Sansa because until now she’s tried extra hard to get this pair to like her but now her direwolf’s life is about to be taken by them she is more than willing to snarl at them.

This isn’t bratty behaviour. This is a girl who doesn’t want her best friend wolf to die.

Then when Ned does kill Lady, however humanely, Sansa is rightfully furious with him for many episodes. Her coldness towards him isn’t unjustified. Imagine if your own dad killed your pet! You can’t tell me you wouldn’t be saltier than the Dead Sea about it for a long long time. It’s not like Ned just broke his daughter’s favourite toy. He took the life of a creature who had an almost spiritual connection to his child.

This is why Sansa doesn’t appreciate the doll Ned gets her. He tells her it’s made by the person that makes all of Princess Myrcella’s toys. But she doesn’t want to be like the little Princess. “I haven’t played with dolls since I was 8″. So that’s 5 years Ned hasn’t been paying attention. She doesn’t want to be a little girl anymore. She is due to be a Queen. She wants to be seen as an adult. It’s also a piss poor compensation for Lady’s life. A doll couldn’t make her feel safe. A doll is fragile and lifeless. If anything it just makes Sansa more sad. Yet she never threw a tantrum. She never wrecked the doll. She simply gave her dad an icy look and left the table. Need I mention that she didn’t leave the table without asking “May I be excused?” Wow. What a BRAT!! •rolls eyes so intensely people think I’m warging.*

So to conclude the section about Sansa being a brat. She isn’t. She’d be a brat if she was crying about not getting to eat lemon cakes in King’s Landing. She’d be a brat if she tore up her Northern dresses because they didn’t look as pretty as the Kings Landing Couture. But Sansa stark is courteous and dignified at almost every moment, even when she is angry or heartbroken. When she lashes out, it is not because of trivial things, it is because her innocent wolf was killed by the very Man she trusted most. Her unhappiness is more than understandable.

NOT STUPID

There are plenty of characters who call Sansa stupid, but that doesn’t mean they’re right. There is a difference between being naive to the world and just being downright dumb. Sansa is a very intelligent 13 year-old.

Many think that Sansa only got smart when Ned died or Littlefinger took her under his sleazy wing. I disagree. Sansa knew the role she had to play and she played it. So she learns that King Robert plans to wed her to his son. Then when Cersei summons her during the feast, Sansa smiles, makes eye contact, stands confidently and uses all her courtesies despite probably being nervous because she knows it’s important she builds a good relationship with the Royals. Sansa also keeps her cool around Joffrey. On the Kingsroad when he lashes out at her, she never again brings it up to him. She knows she’ll have a better relationship with him if she acts like the incident never happened, and since she’s going to be his wife for life at some point, it’s vital that they have a relationship that at least comes off as a good one.

Furthermore, Sansa is not a character that’s aware of the game of thrones. She’s ignorant to it. So it Arya. So is Joffrey. All the kids are ignorant to this game at the start. So it’s not like Sansa was the only one who doesn’t get how Kings Landing really works. Joffrey only learns to play it a little when Cersei attempts to teach him. “Everyone who isn’t us is an enemy.”

Sansa may not get the snaky side of the city. But she understands politics, and she knows her history. The scene in the throne room between her and Septa Mordane shows us that Sansa is smarter than anyone knows! She tells the Septa who built the iron throne and who built the Red Keep. But she surprises Septa by stating that her Grandfather and Uncle were murdered here by the Mad King. She also knows that there’s a lot of pressure on her to give birth to male heirs. She knows what may happen if she could only provide Joffrey with daughters. She knows her responsibilities and the stakes. A stupid girl would just be excited to be Queen, but Sansa is looking at all the possibilities and risks. Septa Mordane tries to protect her by avoiding discussion about the Mad King and what would happen if she only had girls. But Sansa pushes her to discuss it. If she was truly an idiot, she would let Septa tell her how great it will be when she sits by her husband’s side.

Then she tries to utilise the good relationship she’s built with Joffrey and Cersei to keep Ned alive.

This whole scene reinforces how smart she is!

First off, this is the most Southern she’s ever looked, this is because she knows that she needs to make the court believe she is loyal to the South and the Lannisters. She wears Joffrey’s pendant to remind him of her loyalty to him. She then drops to her knees to assure the King that she deeply respects him. It’s almost like she’s praying to him. She’s really appealing to his pride! Then she blames everyone who’s betrayed the crown for Ned’s treason. She implies that Renly or Stannis lied to him. She suggests that the milk of the poppy clouded his mind. She reminds everyone how loyal her Father was to Robert and how much he loved him. She says everything and anything that may deter her Father from truly being treasonous. This is one of the bravest, most intelligent things Sansa has ever done, and if Joffrey wasn’t so capricious, it would have saved her Father’s life.

A dumb girl wouldn’t have paid such close attention to her appearance and word choice. A dumb girl probably would have just believed that her dad was a traitor because a boy she fancied and a woman she idolised said so. But Sansa doesn’t believe them. She even asks to speak with him. The moment he’s arrested she constructs a plead for his life. If she was stupid, she wouldn’t even know how to do that.

So there we have it. A super long post about how I disagree with the notion that Sansa Stark has ever been a stupid brat. I see her as an intelligent child who knew what was expected of her and learnt all she could to best play her role in the world. She loved her family despite their quarrels and was and always will be loyal to them. And if you think I’m wrong, cool... and I guess the look she gives Joffrey after he kills Ned Stark means she still wants to be Queen and have his babies. #TRAITOR

#sansa stark #my opinion #game of thrones #gotsansastark #long post #just my feelings

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drundertalescum · 7 years ago

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Hey for the mini fic thing, how about Underswap pap been unable to sleep for some reason so he sits on his bed, smoking because why not and thinks about something, like a really bad joke thing that his tired mind thinks is hella hilarious so he bursts out laughing and almost drop his cigarette onto his bed, maybe?

This went somewhere else entirely. Blame it on me being tired and my sleepy mind thinking it was funny. It’s probably not. I am very sorry.

Warnings for some vague potential emetophobia triggers and rated D for Drugs. Also extraordinarily bad decision making.

(Also this ended up WAY longer than I wanted it to be because i had sleep-deprived ideas and I couldn’t resist my USPapyrus-is-the-biggest-dork-of-all headcanons.)

——-

It was 3am again, and Papyrus could not sleep a wink.

That wasn’t unusual. He’d always had trouble sleeping, and once upon a time, he’d accepted that completely. Night had always been working time, where he’d take himself to the shed and build prototypes and personal projects and things to impress his bosses… but those days were long gone.

Plus, Sans had really been after him lately about sleeping more, eating better, making healthy choices, etc etc etc. So, Papyrus figured he should at least try to sleep for once.

Healthy choices. Healthy, healthy choices. For his health. Which was important.

…

Papyrus was gonna do drugs.

Yeah. Yeah, he was going to take a drugs now. Or… uh… okay, he didn’t know the “lingo” for doing illicit substances, but he was going to do it.

See, there was this guy in town, Doggo, who ran the Inn. Super nice guy, never once laughed at him, and sometimes they smoked together. Papyrus was hesitant to use the “F word” and risk making it weird, but they had become pretty good acquaintances over the years they’d known each other. They would talk sometimes in Muffet’s, or Doggo would let him stay in the Inn for free sometimes when he was ducking responsibilities he couldn’t quite face right then and there.

Doggo and him would usually just share cigarettes together, but on occasion, the innkeeper would pull out something else to smoke: a dog treat. He’d offered him a try, said they were great for relaxing, unwinding, great for the “bad days” and Papyrus… well, he’d been very tempted. He did have a lot of bad days, though he didn’t like to admit it, but he’d declined at the time for fear of embarrassing himself. What if it was like the first time he smoked, coughing and choking and looking decidedly uncool?

No thanks.

But he’d been intrigued, and a few days ago, he nervously went into the Dogi’s shop to grab a few things, but really just the one thing (the others were distractions, a clever ruse!): Dog treats. He didn’t know which ones were the good kind, so he just bought the cheap ones, trying not to draw attention to himself and his illicit items (which were sold over the counter? In broad daylight?? The whole town had to be in on it… a drug conspiracy right under the Queen’s snout! And now he was a part of it! He felt dangerous! And cool! And a part of something! It was awesome.) He did a good job. C+ for effort, he thought. Maybe flinging himself out of the window to leave quickly and stealthily was not the best option, in the end. He’d thought it was open? It wasn’t. So he’d had to stumble back in and sheepishly offer to pay for a new one. They hadn’t been too mad about it, though. He guessed they were used to it.

He had intended to smoke one that very night, but he’d chickened out. And again the next night, and again, and again.

But now, well, they helped with bad days, right? Well, while the day had been fine, the night had been miserable, and he really could use something to unwind.

So tonight was the night. Papyrus was going to do drugs. Illegally.

Wow… he really had fallen, hadn’t he? No. No, no, nevermind, that didn’t, he wasn’t going to think about that. He was going to think about how cool he would look when Doggo offered him a treat and he accepted. He was going to think about how much sleep he was going to get once he finally unwound. Sleep champion. Sleep master. Master of the sleep. And the illicit substances.

Sans was hoping to be so disappointed if he ever found out… No! No no no! Not thinking about that! No! Stop! Bad thoughts! Begone!

Shoo!

Okay. Okay, this proved it. He needed it. He couldn’t turn his mind off no matter how much he wanted to sometimes, and this was probably what he needed.

Forcing himself to move quickly before he lost his nerve again, Papyrus pulled out his lighter and lit up the treat. This part came with practiced ease, though the lighting part took quite a bit longer than lighting up dry leaves and paper. This thing was kinda thick and slightly oily (and the thought of that made him feel sick, but he wouldn’t think about it. He just wouldn’t think about it.) which made his task a bit harder, but it didn’t last long enough to let the doubts back in.

Those waited until after he took his first drag, and it was exactly as awful as he’d imagined it might be– and then some.

Bleh!!

But… he forced himself not to think about it as he took a second, longer, slower drag, trying to savor the intense flavors. And… it… was…

…still awful, but maybe an acquired taste? And maybe he could acquire it. The texture wasn’t quite as bad on second try, and he was feeling… maybe a little more relaxed? Just a bit. But these things took a bit to kick in (probably. At least they did on TV.) and if it helped, then…

Yeah, actually, yeah. He felt calmer. Lighter, now. Suddenly the stress about this all wasn’t so bad, and he wasn’t as nervous, and that was a very great result to have.

Papyrus leaned back on his bed, thinking pleasantly about very little besides just how nice this was, to not have to worry about every little thing, if only for a little while. How long did these last, anyway? He didn’t know, and maybe that should have scared him, but it didn’t. He could accept waiting a little while, being a little more mellow for a bit, instead of just pretending to be all the time.

Yeah, that was a really nice thought. Wowie, all his thoughts he’d had since he started smoking this had been really nice! He got the appeal now, even more than he already had.

It still tasted awful of course. His expression with every drag was likely rather uncool, so trying this alone had been a smart move (at least a smart move for his cool, casual reputation. He wasn’t far gone enough to not realize that this decision was in most other ways not a smart move.), but he was becoming more used to it, and his winces were getting easier and easier to hide.

Maybe the next time he did this, he would look really cool, really practiced and great, and everyone would think he was a seasoned veteran of drugs. King of the drugs. Or was that technically treasonous to say? At the very least, it wasn’t very nice, the real king being missing and all. Duke of the drugs? He didn’t think there was a duke anywhere that he would be insulting by taking on that title, so that was probably a better fit.

Duke Papyrus, Duke of the Drugs. Drug Duke.

Drug Duke Papyrus!

He giggled to himself. He didn’t know why it was so funny, but it was. It was so, so funny.

The giggles escalated into chuckles, then full-on laughter, and it only got worse, until he clamped his hands over his jaws to stop the sound from getting loud enough to wake up Sans, and for some reason that made it even funnier still, because how the heck was he going to explain this one? That he was cracking up laughing at a dumb name he just came up with because the letters both started with D. Was that even why he was laughing?

Nyeh heh heh!!! He didn’t know but it was funny! It was funny that it was so funny and it was funny that being so funny was just so funny to him because it normally wouldn’t be funny if it wasn’t for all the hardcore drugs, and “drugs” just made him think it the words once again, and thus the cycle repeated until he was crying, fully aware in the back of his mind that this was dumb, this was ridiculous, this was just stupid and incredibly uncool no matter how many drugs were involved, but the rest of his mind (the drugged part? Probably) refused to let reason in on this moment, because it was a good, nice moment, free of self-consciousness and anxiety and restlessness and self-conscious anxiety about restlessness.

So he ignored that voice for a while and laughed. He nearly lost the treat through the giggles, catching it only at the last second and falling off the bed in the process with a clatter of bone on wood.

And normally, that would be the part where he thought about how stupid he must look, how ridiculous and uncool. But instead, he thought about how stupid he must look, how ridiculous and uncool, and he laughed. Because it was funny. He was being silly, and it was actually funny.

A knock came at the door, jerking him out of his laughter but not quite out of hit nice mood.

“…Papyrus? You okay in there…??”

“YES I AM PAPYRUS I AM FINE!!!”

“… Did you fall off the bed?”

“YES BUT IT– I’m fine! I just… um. Well I guess I just fell. Huh.”

“Did you… did you have a nightmare again?”

“Nah, just… I swear, I’m fine, brother. Bro. I’m totally fine.”

“… alright, well, just make sure you get some sleep, okay? Healthy choices, like we talked about?”

Papyrus glanced down at the treat in his hand, feeling the joy roll over in his soul into something more akin to guilt, mixed with nausea, elevated mood crashing down into something murky and awful.

“YEAH bro. I was JUST laying BACK down. GOOD NIGHT, SANS!”

He thought he heard a sigh from the other side of the door. Was he really that obvious? “…Night, Papyrus”

He heard the slippered footsteps padding down the hall and let out a sign of his own. What the hell was he doing? Sitting around in his room, doing this stuff? This was dumb. And now he felt sick. And he didn’t really feel quite so goofy and giddy and light anymore. Just tired and guilty and sick.

Really sick, actually.

He shoved down a feeling that threatened to come up. Oh no. What if he was going to die?

Oh no. He was going to die.

He quickly weighed the options in his head, and again, and again, before finally deciding to swallow his pride. He pulled out his cell phone. It was, marginally, better to be alive and uncool than dead and (perhaps) somewhat cool.

Marginally.

He called up Doggo. If anyone would know what to do, he would.

It felt like it rung forever, but finally the answer came, and he immediately attempted to explain the entire thing, from misguided start to his imminent death, blathering on incoherently and with no real direction, but talking faster than he ever had outside of the laboratory.

He cursed the drugs for making him sound so inarticulate. Normally, he was articulate as heck when he needed to be. Sort of. He was better than this, at least!

(…God, he was better than this. He was so much better than this.)

“Whoa, whoa, pup, slow down. Take it easy. Breathe with me. C’mon. Deep breaths, okay?” Doggo demonstrated and Papyrus nodded, only to feel a flush of what was either embarrassment or illness when he realized Doggo couldn’t see him through the phone. That wasn’t a normal thing. At least he couldn’t see his blushing. “Good, good. Alright. Now, you said you took something?”

“D-DOG TREAT,” he replied, not even trying to suppress his natural tone, only quieting his volume enough to ensure that Sans wouldn’t hear, even if he hadn’t gotten back to sleep. The walls weren’t very thick.

“ Okay, okay good, I see why you called me, then. You made a good decision, okay? I can help you through this,” Doggo’s mostly-soothing voice broke into an inaudible mumble for a moment, and Papyrus could just barely read out the words “bad trip” from out all. Oh no. He was having a bad trip. That couldn’t be good. He didn’t know what that meant but it couldn’t be good at all. “Where’d you get it?”

“D-DOGI.”

“…you what?”

The guilt was too much. “I KNOW, I KNOW. I PURCHASED ILLICIT SUBSTANCES IN BROAD, OPEN DAYLIGHT FROM THE LOCAL GENERAL STORE. I’VE GONE ROGUE; I’M SORRY! IF I SURVIVE I WILL NEVER TAKE A DRUG AGAIN.”

“… The Dogi don’t deal, Papyrus.”

“WHAT? OF COURSE THEY DEAL? THEY DEALED! RIGHT THERE IN THE OPEN! IN FRONT OF THE COUNTER! AT EYE LEVEL WITH CHILDREN! DRUGS! THEY DEALED ME RIGHT THERE, AND THE DEAL WAS TOO MUCH FOR ME, DOGGO. THE DEAL WAS TOO MUCH! I AM DYING. I AM HIGH AND I AM DYING.”

“What was the name on the label?”

He paused to think. Why did that matter? “…CHEWY-CHEWY GOODBOYS.”

Doggo rolled his eyes at the name, a look of disgust on his face. Oh no. He didn’t pick the cool drugs. Doggo thought he wasn’t cool.

“Those ain’t drugged. They aren’t even good.” He mumbled, “they take the name of the Good Boy in vain,” too, but Papyrus didn’t hear it, caught up on processing the first part of that.

“… What exactly do you mean, they aren’t drugged? They're… they’re dog treats?”

“Papyrus… my ‘treats’ aren’t actually… they aren't… they’re special. I buy them out of town from some crazy guy in Waterfall.” Papyrus wondered for a split second before he cut off the train of thought. He wasn’t going to even consider that possibility. There were probably plenty of crazy guys who lived in Waterfall. Besides he was dying, so that was something he needed to focus on right now. “It’s good stuff, but they aren’t actual dog treats. They just look like it so I can keep em hidden. I don’t actually smoke dog treats; they’re dog treats.”

“Then why do… WHAT… uh… WHY ARE THE dog treats SO popular, thEn? If THEY AREN'T…?”

“Because we’re dogs, Papyrus. We like treats.”

Papyrus blinked. “Uncool” did not come close to how he was feeling right now. It was all so obvious. “…S-SO… THE REAL DRUGS WERE INSIDE OF ME ALL ALONG?”

Doggo laughed, then, strong and loud, but Papyrus got the impression, at least, that he was laughing at his words and not directly at him. “I guess you could say that! Something like that!”

“I AM AN IDIOT.”

“Nah, trust me, I been there. You just made some mistakes. Listen, you good to walk down here to the Inn?”

“Uh… WHY?”

“You said you were sick, right? And they may not have had drugs in them but you still smoked everything else that was in that crap. You might have imagined the high but you probably didn’t imagine the sickness, and you probably don’t wanna explain this one too that brother of yours, do ya?”

“N-NO. No, I really don’t. I’LL UH… I’ll pack an overnight bag and head over. I’ll be there in a little under 12 minutes.”

“Alright, I’ll keep the back unlocked for you.”

Papyrus smiled weakly, feeling the roiling in his core again. “Thanks, Doggo. You’re a really good dog!”

“Heh, hey no problem, Papyrus. That’s what friends are for, right? See ya in 12.”

“S-SEEYA!!!”

The call ended.

Papyrus smiled again, a little stronger, this time. The F word hadn’t made it weird at all! It had already been too weird to make weirder! A success story!

He didn’t really have much time to enjoy that, though, because he was definitely very much about to be sick.

…maybe he would look into this “healthy choices” thing a little closer after the mess that was tonight.

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kitten1618x · 8 years ago

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GoT Afterthoughts 7x03 The Queen's Justice (Jonsa Edition) SPOILERS

I’m sorry for the delay, but ffs this is LONG! Well ...now we know that this week's episode title was def. referring to Cersei, let's get to it.

We begin this week with foreboding music -Jon and Davos riding the crashing waves onto the shores of Dragonstone -which I still highly prefer the exterior to the interior -though, I suppose it fits the "mood". Little bit of banter between the boys, and after a friendly introduction and a smiling face, Missandei asks for their weapons. A skeptical and non-to-pleased looking Jon obeys, then turns to watch warily while the Dothraki take their rowboat as well. Okay Gendry, you can row up at any time now ...we may need you as the getaway boat.

So they proceed up the long winding staircase (which has more steps than Dany does titles) and not even a full 3 minutes into the episode, Sansa is already brought up in conversation. I'm dead serious - 02:30 minute mark on the dot. I actually only know this, because at this particular moment, I paused the DVR to grab a snack -but I like how in what is supposed to be such a J/D-centric episode (er-meh-gerd they're finally meeting!!!), Sansa takes precedence. Good call D&D ...I see what you did there.

Now about that conversation -is it odd that Tyrion would bring up Sansa in passing conversation with Jon? No, not at all -she is a connection that they both share, but ....

T: Sansa, I hear she's alive and well?

J: She is.

T: Does she miss me terribly? (clearly he's attempting a bit of a joke here).

J: *silence as he stares down at Tyrion like he damn well better explain himself*

T: *looks over his shoulder, to see that Jon is not amused, quickly explains* A sham marriage, never consummated.

J: I didn't ask.

T: Well it was, it wasn't. Anyway, she's much smarter than she lets on.

J: She's starting to let on.

T: Good.

So, what exactly was the point of this conversation? If Tyrion just wanted to know if Sansa was well, and the narrative wanted to establish how clever Sansa is, they could have done that without all that "missing me and marriage sham and unconsummated" banter in between. We as an audience already know all of these things, so how does that little nugget of information help in furthering the narrative? To put it quite simply -it doesn't. Again ..I see you D&D, I see exactly what you did there.

A bit more banter between the boys -Tyrion's ironic statement about Starks not faring well in the South, as to which Jon replies that he's not a Stark (shut up baby, yes you fucking are!) and BOOM! Cue: Drogon swooping down over the crowd, and Jon and Davos hitting the deck like a bunch of dropped wet rocks. You will NEVER convince me that was coincidence. Dany is in full control of her Dragons now, and that was a total (cheap) intimidation tactic.

PS: Jon is wearing leggings! Show me tha booty!

Cut to Varys and Melisandre perched high above on a cliff and watching the welcoming committee march up the guests. Varys prods her on why she won't greet them considering she spoke so highly of Jon Snow. She replies with how she's "brought fire and ice together and she's done her part" -I believe this is a deliberate misdirection from the writers. We already know that Jon is fire and ice on his own -the characters do not, and you know the dark ship is going wild over this line right now, but don't any of you pay it any mind. It's like a magicians trick -slight of hand ..look over there, while we do this over here.

Varys still has a healthy skepticism of this religion and these priestesses -and I'm still 1100000% with him. Melisandre is going back to Volantis (spelled right??) it seems -but will return to die -just like Varys. Ohhhh prophetic. And damn but these red witches get under his skin! Why???? I must know!

Poor Jonny-boy walking into the throne room looks nervous AS HELL, with the Mad Kings daughter perched on that wiggy-ass throne, and half of Dany's face is bathed in shadows, and she's once again cloaked in all black -shadows, darkness = symbolism at its finest folks. Hiding ones face half in shadow is a popular trope to emphasize that someone has a "sinister side" , and wearing all black is also a trope - "evil wears black."

Now, for arguments sake (and because I like to play devils advocate -the Nights Watch also wear all black, and Jon did too -however, Dany's wardrobe went from bright white (innocence and purity) to black upon coming to Westeros.

So as Missandei rambles off all 101 of Dany's titles (like I swear they do this purposely to annoy us at this point), Davos shoots back with "This is Jon Snow and he's King of the North". (See this juxtaposition they just shoved RIGHT IN OUR FACES???). LMAO -by the way, I just fucking adore Davos! He is a damn precious dewdrop, and I will fight you if you say otherwise!

D: You are here to bend the knee?

J: I am not.

Who else screeched with glee here? Huh? Huh?

Bend the knee. Bend the knee. BEND THE KNEE.

I'm not going to rehash this entire exchange, but a few important things that stuck out to me:

Jon's primary focus is "us", "we" -he's concerned about saving people.

Dany's primary focus is "Me, me, me!!"

It is interesting how she asked that the father's sins not be passed onto the daughter -reminiscent of Jon's own words regarding the Karstark and Umber children. I wonder if this is a sort of foreshadowing that by not being more wary of Dany's Targ temper, it just may bite him in the ass later.

Also Dany is a hypocrite. "Don't blame me for my ancestors -blah blah blah, but bend the knee because of my ancestors." Sigh.

I'm insanely curious why Jon didn't want Davos to tell them he'd been resurrected -or why Melisandre left that little tidbit out too???

Jon is now essentially Dany's prisoner.

Dany's narcissism is growing by the day. I can't believe people don't understand what GRRM (D&D) are deliberately doing with her character! This is an actual quote: "Do you know what kept me standing all those years in exile? Faith. Not in any god, not in myths, and legends. In myself. Daenerys Targaryen. The world hadn’t seen a dragon in centuries, until my children were born. The Dothraki hadn’t crossed the sea, any sea. They did for me. I was born to rule the Seven Kingdoms. And I will."

Varys delivers the news that Dany's fleet is gone, and then Theon is fished from the sea by his people. And let me slip in here that if you're one of the people bashing Theon for jumping overboard because he so clearly suffers from PTSD -you're a shit, and you need to stop. That's not something that just suddenly disappears ...he will struggle with that for whatever is left of his life. He's gonna rescue Yara ...I just know it.

Now we're in Kings Landing and Euron is parading Yara and the Sand Snakes through the city. Like, I'm so torn, because I hate this dude, but I also kinda love him? His teasing of Jamie is PRICELESS, if not highly inappropriate. It's also pretty clear to me that Cersei has no intent on marrying him. In typical Cersei fashion, she'll keep him at arms length while she uses him, and then dispose of him when he wears out his usefulness -clever girl that she is.

And now we're in the dungeon where the Sand Snakes are chained -after a bit of tormenting them, she takes Tyene the same way they took her daughter -with a kiss of death. As a mother, I truly feel for Cersei here as she talks about Mrycella -for both of these mothers actually. Say what you will about Cersei, but Lena is a fucking GODDESS! She owns this role so well. Like, I can't stand Cersei, and yet, I literally cheer for her sometimes. One thing is for certain -people better stop underestimating her ruthlessness. And my God, the Sand Snakes -magnificent acting with no dialogue!

After a romantic romp with her dear brother (and damn, Jamie has a sweet ass), she boldly allows the servant to see them together -she's queen now, and apparently has no more fucks to give. It's time for the Lannister's to pay their debts, and she's off to meet with a rep. of the Iron Bank. Using the sharp negotiation skills she inherited from Tywin, and the same "foreign invader/mad Kings daughter" approach that she used to sway the Lords, it appears she gets what she wants and the Iron Bank will extend her the credit she needs - "gold wins wars."

We jump back to Dragonstone, where our brooding prisoner/hero is staring forlornly at the sea. He's a Northern fool who didn't listen (to Sansa). Tyrion tries to appeal to Jon's good side, and talks up Dany a bit, while simultaneously trying to help him. He's looking to strike an alliance -"use each other to further your own needs approach", and after a somewhat comical conversation with Dany (thank God because we need a bit of levity surrounding her scenes) -he urges her to let Jon mine the dragon glass. I think Tyrion does truly believe Jon is telling the truth. The knife in the heart comment comes up again -and again, I wonder why Jon didn't want them to know about his resurrection -but clearly, it's important because it was brought up again.

Now Jon approaches Dany who's gazing off towards the sea and watching her Dragons soaring in the distance. Sounds kinda romantic, right? Well not really, as during most of this conversation they stood facing opposite directions, barely making eye contact -save for a few moments. Shipping goggles are fully affixed here, but compare this to the way Jon and Sansa are always staring into each other's eyes (usually in softly lit rooms). Just sayin'.

Jon comments on Dany's Dragons, and she tells them that she named them for her brothers -Viserys and Rhaegar. This made me smile. And what I find so amusing about this, is just a few nights ago, I had a Nonny send me an ask referring to the general audience possibly forgetting that Rhaegar (Jon's daddy dearest) was Dany's brother --well, there you have it, Nonny, the narrative just delivered your reminder. Heh heh heh. ;) I don't think that Dany believes Jon about the WW/NK yet (and really, we can't fault her) but he is getting his dragon glass, and in the meantime, it keeps Jon hanging around -more time to woo him to their side.

And we head North to Winterfell (finally) to see that the Sass QitN is pretty freaking good at this ruling stuff. Like really, did we ever have any doubts? She's preparing for the enemy coming from both sides, because she's clever as hell (and I'm so proud of her!!!). Can't-take-a-hint Lord Creepyfinger is at it again -whispering in her ear with his creepy-creep-ness, and our girl once again, deliciously puts him in his place. Look, this constant talk of Cersei with Sansa, and the fact that she's lived and learned from her -plus this emphasis on how well she's taken up the helm at "ruling" and caring for her people, all while Tyrion, Jon and LF are all saying how smart she is ...I'm really starting to get the feeling that Sansa is THAT queen. Ya know -the one from Cersei's prophecy ...

"You'll be queen, for a time. Then comes another, younger, more beautiful, to cast you down and take all you hold dear."

I usually try not to get tin foilish in my recaps, but this is the Jonsa edition after all, so bear with me. Sansa has literally learned from the master of ruthlessness, and I truly believe all this emphasis on that this season, is setting up the fact that Sansa will be the only one clever enough to see through Cersei's scheming, won't underestimate her, and in fact, be the one to bring her down. Sansa, if not indirectly, could be linked to all of Cersei's children's deaths (all she holds dear):

She was betrothed to Joffrey, who after he cruelly tortured her for a time, discarded her for Margaery. Being the clever old bird that she was, Olenna got Sansa to open up about Joffrey's cruelty, which ultimately led to his death.

Thrusting Sansa into a marriage with Tyrion who then were both accused by Cersei of murdering Joffrey. Sansa escapes due to LF's scheming, leading to Tyrion's trial by combat with Oberyn as his champion. When he is killed by the Mountain, Ellaria exacts revenge on the Lannisters by killing Mrycella.

Due to Joffrey's death, Tommon becomes king, and takes his brothers widow for a wife -the same family responsible for Joffrey's death -who only murdered him because Sansa confirmed his cruelness. Tommon falls hopelessly in love with Margaery, and upon her death, commits suicide.

It's also important to note, that Cersei is technically the one to blame for the deaths of all of her children, although she will never see it that way. While I was studying up on this prophecy, I also stumbled onto this from one of the book wiki sites:

When will I marry the prince?

Cersei is talking about Prince Rhaegar, whom Tywin Lannister intended to offer her to for marriage. Maggy tells Cersei that she will never marry the prince, but will marry the king. This foreshadows King Aerys refusing Tywin’s offer, Robert’s Rebellion, and Cersei eventually marrying Robert Baratheon after he is crowned king.

I just find highly coincidental that Cersei was almost wed to a Targaryen prince (and Jon Snow's father, to boot), and if we're all correct in our assumptions that Jonsa is in fact endgame (it is, by the way) then Sansa will take that from her, too. Which also strangely ties Sansa to -going from in the beginning of the story, wanting the prince who was actually a bastard, to getting the bastard who is actually a prince. Just sayin' ....

Okay, back to the show.

Bran has arrived at Winterfell! I repeat BRAN HAS ARRIVED AT WINTERFELL!! And we are treated to yet another beautiful Stark reunion -minus "the nuzzle" -I repeat MINUS THE NUZZLE!!

They are catching up in the Godswood, and the first thing out of Sansa's mouth (when she's in what she perceives is a safe space, and she's allowed to be vulnerable) is "I wish Jon were here". Ship them or not, there's a reason that they both mentioned each other in this episode -if only to remind us (the general audience) that they are, indeed, on each other's minds.

Bran is quite emotionless, and I guess I get it. He needs to disconnect and emerge himself completely in this whole 3-eyed Raven deal, because the NK is coming, and he doesn't have much time to hone his powers. In light of their reunion, the writers chose to have him bring up the horrors Sansa suffered at the hands of Ramsey Bolton -to prove his power. I've seen some speculate that this was in fact Bran seeing a future Sansa wedding, and this very well may be, as he admitted himself that it all comes to him in bits. Part of me REALLY wants to believe that, but I think this had more to do with choosing something that would shake Sansa enough to know that what he says is true (cuz come on, he does seem a bit eccentric and cray, peeps). Or maybe it's both? Take it for what you will.

Jorah has been successfully cured of his greyscale, and he is off to find his Dragon queen -and just ffs, I ship them so hard !!! They (Jorah/Sam) will meet again -although, I hope it's not on different sides of the battlefield. *cough* Targbowl.

Sam doesn't get rewarded, but you can def. see that the Archmaester IS proud of him. Oh my heart!

And we're back to Dany's war room. Two allies are down, her armada is gone. She wants to take her Dragons and go burn Euron's fleet -oh, I'm so shocked! But, her wise council talks her out of it, and Tyrion narrates the scene of Casterly rock being taken, while quoting his bro, Bron (like -I can't wait for these two to reunite). The siege is successful .....or is it? Well, NO -because Cersei is a BOSS!

Euron has effectively taken out the rest of Dany's ships, and trapped GW and the remaining Unsullied at Casterly Rock (which by the way, is gorgeous, and it's about time we see it) -with limited supplies, and no one to come to their aid, they will likely die.

So where is the rest of the Lannister army? Capturing High Garden, of course (and now Cersei will have their riches, as well). The battle scenes are skipped, and we see Jamie seek out Lady Olenna, who admits to being outsmarted. She warns Jamie that Cersei will be the death of him, and calls Joffrey a cunt (lmao, I love her), before swigging down the poison Jamie offers her. And right before the credits roll, she SAVAGELY admits to Jamie that she was behind Joffrey's murder, and she wants Cersei to know that. Daaaaaammmmmnnn!

And that concludes my Afterthoughts ...see you next week.

Oh, and Jonsa is endgame -spread the word.

#got afterthoughts #got recap #jonsa #jon x sansa #got season 7 spoilers #spoilers

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eledritch · 8 years ago

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MY VLD S3 NOTES

firstly: SO MANY SHOULDER TOUCHES BETWEEN SHIRO KEITH & LANCE THIS SEASON KILL ME

ALSO ALLURA CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT & GOOD HUNK MOMENTS

THANK U & BACKSTORY EXCELLENT SUPER HELPFUL FOR US FIC WRITERS THANK

enjoy this absolute mess I wrote while watching

Episode 1:

"I'm coming HOME" KEITH CALLED THE CASTLE HOME

"Maybe not from the front" *explosion* HUNK ILY also is that an innuendo

"I'll have a pizza roll"

Keith's angry storm off from the table :(

"Exiled brat"

"Your own aggression is your undoing" foreshadowing to when lotor fights Keith??

"I remember what a thrill it was to meet him for the first time" OK LANCE

Episode 2:

"Keith would be the worst leader of voltron" (Keith doesn't argue)

"*scoffs* are you joking" KEITH SMILED

Hunk: "Keith, make me a sandwich, stat! Yep, you heard right, I'm the leader now, dang it!"

Lance: "this is your moment" "how long are we gonna let Lance stay in there" omg :'(

"But I'm not you. I can't lead them like you"

Lance: "get some alien diversity on the team"

"This ones for you, Shiro"

LANCE FLIRTING WITH THE BLUE LION FURRY CONFIRMED

Zethrid getting excited to blow shit up

Keith: "be careful with red!"

Pidge: "wow we're really kind of a mess"

Hunk: "yes awesome!!!" GOOD KIND SUPPORTIVE BOY

"On Altea we wear pink to honor our fallen warriors" BC FUCK YA GENDERED COLORS

Episode 3:

Keith: everyone stay out of my way! Lance: great. Great leadership.

"I'm not really feeling that voltron feeling" HUNK

"They'll be blind - no offense, Narti" is Narti like evil toph bc yes please

Keith listens to Lance!!!

Hunk being scared of the green lion

Allura: "what would Lance do? *immediately starts flirting with blue*"

THE SONAR MAP IS SO COOL, ALLURA KICKING LOTOR'S ASS MY QUEEN

Keith: "look I'm glad we're all makin fun of lance"

Allura: HUNK, IM A LEG!!

Keith learning leadership skills :'D

Episode 4:

Hunk: "ready to abort immediately"

ALTERNATE REALITY OMG AU’S ARE REAL PLUS SVEN AND SLAV

Pink haired Altean chick can kick me in the face (commander hira)

ALTEAN EMPIRE HELL YES NVM HOKTRIL IS BAD BAD BAD

Hunk: "you mean...slave labor" CALL THEM OUT

DID KEITH JUST THROW A SWORD AT ONE OF THE ALTEANS

Sven saving Lance's life like in the original BLESS UP SPACE HOSPITAL

"I love this reality!" & I love you, Slav

Episode 5:

LONG HAIRED STUBBLY SHIRO THIS IS NOT A DRILL

operation kuron????? kURO????

ahahaha his hair looks like a troll doll's when he's upside down

This skintight black under armor is a real Look for u Shiro

DID HE JUST CAUTERIZE HIS OWN WOUND WHILE INSIDE A GIANT RIBCAGE? JESUS WHEN DID THIS SHOW GET SO DARK

o no it's the bumpy whale of terror don't fall for it shiro tHAT IS NOT A WHALE

@ the showrunners can Shiro ever, maybe, idk, CATCH A FUCKING BREAK

does it have tentacles tho

SWING BOY

Why does Lotor have the same smirky eyebrow face as Lance

SHIRO IN THE SHIP ALONE IN SPACE RESIGNED TO HIS DEATH NO THANKS

*lotor delivers a severed arm to haggar* "but I am not my father" you, uh, you sure about that buddy

SHIRO FLASHBACKS BYE

Episode 6:

Hunk's thumbs up omg

Allura with a whip is my everything

gOD SHIRO IS SO RIPPED

"hey, Keith? How many times are you gonna have to save me before this is over?" "As many times as it takes" BE STILL MY HEART

lance: "you're lookin better!!" his wide eyes I die

Shiro looks so much like Mako oh my god SO YOUNG LOOK AT THAT SHARP BOY

HUNK IS SMART HUNK IS SMART

HNNNG LANCE IS IN KEITH'S ROOM IM

Keith's face when he says "leave the math to pidge" I dieeeeee

"A little mouse shower" *rapid electronic beeping* hunk is a gift to this world

actual married couple k&s saying stuff in unison

BLACK LION WHAT R U DOING LET KEITH HAVE RED LION MOM

"this might be the worst post but it's MY post!" LOL THROK

season 3 more like constantly walking into traps DO Y’ALL EVER LEARN

what kind of title is King Groggery the Infirm

KEITH, BUDDY, DROP THE LOTOR THING

Lance: "I got you, buddy!" *lil dopey Keith smile*

Zethrid: "I'm going to enjoy crushing you" I'd enjoy it if you crushed me please

KEITH U CLEVER BOY ILY WHEN UR NOT BEING AN IDIOT

"I'm proud of you Keith" ugly sobbing

Lotor you sneaky lil bitch

Episode 7:

HAGGAR WHAT HAPPENED TO U YOU WERE ADORABLE

"Oh dear" Alfor u cutie

"That's what I keep you around for Zarkon" "well perhaps a bit of discipline erosion would do you good zarkon" CONSTANT ALFOR FLIRTING OK

Space Cat Kova Haggar was a cat lady I die Honerva ahhhhh

Is. Is Zarkon flustered LMAO

BABY HELMET allura better have that helmet still

Ok but why is allura's mom basically just her....could y'all have been any lazier with the design

ZARKON MARRIED HONERVA

"I'll stick with being your right hand" ok but....have the black and red lions/Paladins always had a close relationship 👀

This monster thing is some princess mononoke shit

AM I A LEG

can I marry trigel just asking for a friend

IMMORTAL CAT

Ok Zarkon actually being sweet and holding Haggar's hand wtf cute......Also they have a sweet ass bed just sayin

"I only hope it is not too late to heal the rift in my planet...and our friendship" soft zarkon, nice

Are the creatures like the corruption in the quintessence???

RIP planet daibazaal damn thanks alfor

tHEYRE ACTUAL VAMPIRES RISING FROM THE DEAD N SHIT WITH SPARKLE EYES TURTLE BOY IS BACK BITCHES

#vld season 3 #vld s3 #vld s3 spoilers #vld season 3 spoilers #voltron

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cielizzydefencesquad · 8 years ago

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Claudia Phantomhive headcanons

I know this is late but here it is @midnight-in-town! :)

- As the Queen’s Watchdog, Claudia is composed, ice-cold, efficient, and deadly. Her associates know her as the fiercely clever, terrifically independent swordswoman with an even sharper wit. The Undertaker knows that behind closed doors, this blue rose is actually quite affable, with a sterling sense of humor that has just the right amount of cheek and saucy wit.

- Despite her strength and self-sufficiency, Claudia is delicately feminine and always insists on looking immaculately put together. (“Don’t you know? There is power in beauty. It may not have the sharp edge of the sword or the sudden death of a bullet but you must not forget—beauty has toppled empires and started entire wars. It has destroyed, cultivated, maimed, and ruined kings, princes, and sovereigns alike. Those who overlook beauty as a superfluous trifle are the same ones who have lost their battles to me.”)

- The very first time she met the Undertaker, she made him laugh using just one line.

- Eventually, the Undertaker became so intrigued by this elusively charming young woman he purposely interfered in one of her cases, just so he could have a chance to talk with her honestly and without precedence. Needless to say, Claudia was not pleased. Or:

“Ah, I’ll admit, perhaps my actions were a bit hasty—“

“My not-so-dear Undertaker, you let a rogue assassin escape. The same rogue assassin who attempted to murder the prince of Wales, poison the duke of Marlborough, and burn down an entire marquessate.”

“Why, you do have to admire his ambition, don’t you?”

[cue fight scene and Undertaker falling head over heels in love]

- Claudia’s favorite scent is that of fresh violets—the kind that grow wild in the secret wood just outside Lancashire—with the morning dew still clinging onto their indigo petals.

- Her mother died of septicemia following the birth of Claudia’s younger brother. The boy only lived for six months before he too passed away—this time from scarlet fever.

- Claudia wears a blue butterfly pin in her hair. The pin is made of tungsten, an incredibly hard and rare earth metal. If she’s ever in a tight situation, the pin can be used as a dagger to slice and dice her enemies, giving her enough time to escape.

- Even though Claudia was a woman, she was allowed to keep her family’s surname because of her connections to the queen and her duties as watchdog.

- Her “official” husband was a wealthy businessman who was part of the gentry but not the aristocracy. They had a polite working relationship though it was mainly a marriage of convenience—Claudia needed to marry for the sake of respectability and her husband, while rich, desired a title and a place in the House of Lords.

- Claudia and the Undertaker like to tell jokes in German just to see how long they can stretch out a pun before it becomes ridiculous.

- Claudia once visited the Undertaker on a particularly rainy day and fell ill. She spent the night with him wrapped up in blankets, drinking tea from glass beakers, while the Undertaker entertained her by telling wildly random stories and selective gossip he heard from the prostitutes in the streets. That was also the night Undertaker got those signature braids in his hair: while the Undertaker was lying next to her she just picked up a few strands of his hair and began braiding. The Undertaker never took them out.

- One Christmas Claudia gave the Undertaker a Grecian funeral urn as a joke but he thought it was the best present he’d ever received and promptly began storing his cookies in there.

- During Claudia’s tenure as watchdog the Aristocrats of Evil used to meet at the Phantomhive country manse once a week to exchange information and play poker. Just a group of the most notorious men and women in the entire world, sitting around a velvet card table while Tanaka dealt the cards and they played outrageously complex games of poker and blackjack. The air would be thick with cigar smoke, women’s perfume, and the scent of decades old bourbon.

- Claudia liked to collect hand painted teacups from all around the globe. Hence why Phantomhive Manor is chock full of porcelain tea sets and why Ciel never uses the same teacup twice.

- It was Tanaka who taught Claudia the art of the sword and, as she improved, their sparring sessions would invariably leave the training room, with servants just nonchalantly moving out of the way as Tanaka and Claudia dueled across the hallway, down the stairwell, and into the dining room.

- Claudia read Norse mythology to Vincent and Francis when they were children. (The illustrations in the book were watercolors done by the Undertaker.)

- The Undertaker’s favorite thing about Claudia are her hands—soft, delicately boned with slim, agile fingers and sharp, femme fatale nails. She wore no jewelry save for a simple diamond band on her ring finger. She, in turn, loved combing her fingers through the Undertaker’s hair.

- Claudia almost signed a marriage contract between Francis and Aleistor Chamber before meeting the viscount’s only son and heir and deciding that her daughter might actually kill the overly loquacious and flamboyant boy if she ever had to talk to him, never mind living with him.

- Claudia once had to go undercover as a carriage salesman named Ted.

- Claudia and the Undertaker used to ice skate on the Thames when it froze over during the winter. This would always have to be at night when no one was there and the Undertaker would perform a series of ridiculous tricks while Claudia pelted him with snowballs.

- She is an avid amateur art historian with a special interest in landscapes and aquatic paintings.

- The Undertaker oversaw Claudia’s funeral. Her body is preserved in a marble mausoleum located underground, beneath the Phantomhive family plot. The scent of dried violets and orange blossoms permeate the dark, still air as the Undertaker makes it a priority to replace all the flowers in the mausoleum once every month.

#claudia phantomhive #undertaker #claudia x undertaker #vincent phantomhive #francis midford #ciel phantomhive #headcanons #black butler #kuroshitsuji

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justvibesbro · 8 years ago

Text

A Captain & Her 1st Mate~

A/N: This fic is a spur-of-the-moment fic I felt like doing, so if you follow my other set of fics on my blogs, then note THAT THIS DOES NOT IN ANY MEANS RELATE TO THEM. It’s just me being a trashy Huma shipper. <3

Word Count: 5,572.

Warnings: Angst. (Grab some Tissues.) /Slight Swearing./ Harry x Uma/

Uma stepped out the doors of her fishy school, Serpent Prep. As she walked out, her face was greeted with the usual dreary look of the isle. The very same depressing hate-filled look she’d see everyday. Uma sighed in frustration as she took in the very scene. She, along with tons of others, got tired of seeing this 24/7. She was tired of being imprisoned at this hunk of rock, along with every other villain. This is what kept her going, the determination to somehow leave. That very determination was all she had left on the isle to keep her sanity tame.

Uma stood at the stump of her school watching some of her fellow villainous classmates flee. Each one of them either fighting, screaming, laughing manically, or crying. It was the same ole’ same ole’ for her eyes, though. Every second a new kid would run out doing one of the actions and Uma would watch them. All of them except a certain one that Uma didn’t see coming. As she was facing forward, she felt an individual bump into her from behind. Uma reacted quickly thinking the individual was trying to start a fight. She swiftly turned around and clenched her fists ready to fire a punch. Until she had saw that the person had been no one else but her first mate, Harry Hook who was polishing his fake hook.

“Ugh, Harry watch where you’re going!” Uma sighed dropping her fists.

“Aye, calm down, Uma, I was jus’ polishin’ me hook, no need to throw any hands.” Harry smirked.

Uma rolled her eyes and walked off leaving Harry at the stump. Harry cocked an eyebrow.

“ ‘old on!” Harry shouted walking towards to Uma. “What’s the ‘urry, huh? Ye usually stay to walk with me.”

Uma rolled her eyes again. “The big hurry? The big hurry is to get off this damn place, Harry, that’s the big hurry!” Uma sassed.

Harry grinned slightly. “Uma we will get outta this place soon, just give ‘er time.”

“Harry, I gave it all that valuable time I could possibly give! I’ve spent seventeen years growing up here hoping for a revelation! And all I got was nothing.” Uma frowned.

“Look, Uma, I know ye feel that way, I’ve feel that way, tons of us feel that way. Though, ye have to realize that our time will come, we will get outta this place and reign o’er bore-adon. In the meantime, ‘owever, it would be best that while we remain ‘ere, I say we rule it. Like ye said, yer the Queen of this town, correct?” Harry smirked.

Uma couldn’t help but smirk back at his spiel. He was right and she knew he was. Uma was truly thankful to have such a clever first mate on her crew to have her back and encourage her, even though she wouldn’t admit it.

“You’re right,” Uma said grinning. “Our time is coming, and my reign will shine over all those bore-adon snobs! And I will take both the titles of Queen of the isle and bore-adon!”

“And..I s’ppose, I can take both titles of king, ye?” Harry smirked.

Uma giggled. “Hm, I’ll think about it,” she said pinching his cheek in a joking manner.

The two left chuckling away and walking down the wretched streets of the isle away from the school. The chatted all throughout their walk until they reached a building towering over them. A giant sign read, “Ursula’s Fish and Chips.” Uma let out a sigh as she approached the building not wanting to start her shift. Harry patted Uma on her shoulder and gave her a grin to encourage her. Uma reciprocated the grin by giving one of her own and entered the building.

After clocking in, Uma tied her apron around her waist and went to work as a waitress. As she stepped out of her kitchen to serve the customers she only took notice to Harry sitting down at a table alone eyeing her. Uma smirked and walked towards him.

“Could ya quit looking me down, Hook? I’m not an item on the menu,” Uma chuckled.

“Hm, could’ve fooled me.” Harry joked.

Uma rolled her eyes and giggled. “So, what would you like to order, huh?” Uma asked raising her notepad and pen.

“Eh, I’m not feelin’ all that famished, could I jus’ have the waitress instead?” Harry flirted.

Uma laughed rather loudly at Harry’s flirt and Harry did as well. The two always loved to jab at each other subtle little flirts like that to kind of “spice” up their friendship sort to speak. However, despite being so flirtatious, the two never had any other relationship besides being just really good friends. That of which was rather odd since the two were so close. Both Harry and Uma were still laughing until an old pirate took notice of the laughter.

“Hey! Would you two love-birds quit your smooth-talk and hurry up with that order?! I’m starving over here!” The pirate shouted.

Harry’s quick temper took a toll on him and he rose up in a millisecond ready to claw the old pirate’s eye out for shouting at the both of them, most importantly Uma. Uma saw him rise and she immediately put a hand on his arm to calm him down. Harry saw the arm and he slowly sat back down still glaring hard at the pirate.

“I’m on my way, hold on!” Uma angrily replied. “And don’t take no tone like that with me, I’m the co-owner of this place and I could just throw you out of here right now if I see fit, you don’t run nothing!”

Harry smiled like a dork at Uma’s sass. Uma turned back to face him.

“I’ll be back soon, gotta serve these idiots right quick.” Uma sighed.

Harry nodded still smiling hard as he watched her walk away. Moments passed as Uma kept taking orders and giving them. And Harry kept watching her do so as if she were some sort of goddess. A slight moment passed as the doors of the restaurant swung open revealing Gil and a female in his arms. The female was Sophie, the intern of the powerful sorcerer Yen Sid who stayed on the isle as a professor, and Gil’s newfound girlfriend. She was clothed in a red sorcerer’s robe and glasses. Her arm was wrapped around Gil’s waist and Gil’s was wrapped around her shoulders.

“Sorry, I came by so late, guys, I had to pick up Sophie.” Gil said.

“Yeah, and I was still finishing up some work for the sorcerer.” Sophie replied.

“Yeah, yeah, we don’t care ‘bout what ye two were doin’ “ Harry frowned.

Both Gil and Sophie scowled at Harry and sat down next to him at his table. Uma saw both of them and started heading towards the table with her notepad and pen.

“So, what would it be?” Uma sighed.

“Ooh, how about we order those delicious clams again, sound good babe?” Sophie asked. Gil nodded in response.

“Two orders of clam for me my clam” Gil requested smirking at Sophie.

Uma and Harry both groaned over those two. They were both happy Gil found some love on the rather love-less isle, though they could care less about the public affections the two shown. As Uma took the order Sophie took notice to Uma’s necklace, or rather, Uma’s mother’s necklace.

“Oh! You found Ursula’s necklace, huh?” Sophie asked.

“Yeah, it still works like a charm too.” Uma said toying with it.

“Heh, hopefully not too well, don’t want another sea disaster occurring again like it did when your mother had it.” Sophie joked trying to lighten the mood.

Uma just stood there and stared at her, not finding her joke funny what so ever. An awkward moment of silence passed and Sophie’s head started to sweat.

“U-Um, Uma? You know if you don’t mind could you just put those clams to go? I gotta hurry back to Yen Sid soon anyways.” Sophie asked trying to end the awkwardness.

“Geez, what’s the hurry, babe?” Gil asked.

“Uh, well, Yen Sid’s teaching me magic lessons soon. And if I’m lucky, he’ll give me my very own wand, like his!” Sophie replied.

The word, ‘wand’ struct hard into Uma and Harry’s heads and made their eyes shot open.

“Did ye say..wand?” Harry asked now tuning into the conversation.

“Um, yeah..why you ask..?” Sophie replied.

“Oh, no reason..” Harry said smirking at Uma who was smirking back at him.

Sophie looked at both of their faces in confusion and so did Gil. Uma went back into the kitchen to get Sophie’s order together. A moment passed and she came out a box in hand full of clams. After payment, Sophie left. Once the coast was clear, Harry shot up with a giddy grin etched on his face.

“Oh, Uma, do ye know what this means?!” Harry asked joyfully.

“Oh yes I do, who knew it would be this easy?” Uma replied.

“Who knew what would be easy..?” Gil asked.

Uma and Harry turned to him and each gave a slight smile.

“Who knew our escape would be this easy, lad.” Harry replied.

“Oh! We’re gonna escape? How?” Gil asked again.

“Through Yen Sid, of course.” Uma said, “With his magic we’ll rip a hole in the barrier and make our escape!”

Gil’s happy expression soon died down at Uma’s words.

“Oh..” he said, “do we have to do it that way, though?”

The other two frowned at Gil’s words.

“Yes we have to! Why do ye care?” Harry questioned.

“It’s just..Sophie and I started dating just recently, and..I really like her, if she sees me using her boss as an escape route, wouldn’t that be..wrong?” Gil asked.

The other two paused.

“No it wouldn’t, because if yer ‘lil girlfriend was just as smart as she lets on on, she’d know how the struggle o’ being a villain kid on the isle!” Harry said.

Gil still looked sad at thought of it, though.

Uma sighed. “Look, Gil, I know you love her and all, and you’re worried she’ll dump you if she were to find out, but, what if she didn’t?”

“…Didn’t what?” Gil questioned cocking an eyebrow.

“What if she didn’t find out, genius..” Uma frowned.

“Oh. Oh! Oh, yeah what if she didn’t find out?” Gil said a smile growing on his face at the thought.

Both Harry and Uma face palmed each other at how dimwitted their crew member could be sometimes.

“Look, mateys, all we need to do, is get passed both Sophie and Yen Sid and snatch that wand, then freedom shall be ours!” Harry shouted and both him and Uma cheered both hand in hand.

Gil didn’t however because another thought dawned on him.

“Wait, guys..” Gil started.

The cheering between other two stopped as they looked at Gil sighing heavily waiting for another dumb thing to come out of his mouth.

“If we’re gonna get passed both Sophie and Yen Sid..how exactly are we gonna get passed both Sophie and Yen Sid..?” Gil finished.

The other two paused as their eyes widen. The words that came out of Gil’s mouth weren’t dumb in the slightest, in fact it was the very opposite. How were they gonna accomplish this task? Harry groaned and laid his head down upon the table in frustration. Uma sat back and tried her hardest to brainstorm an idea. Nothing came to mind. She soon did the same as Harry and laid her head down in frustration. As she did, a clank of her necklace sounded as she went down. She gazed down at it and an idea shot in her head.

“I’ve got it!” Uma sprung up, “This! This necklace will help us, boys!”

Harry chuckled sitting up. “Sorry, Uma, but I don’t think a teensy pretty necklace would solve anything,” he said.

Uma grinned at him, “that’s where you’re wrong Harry, this little trinket helped my mother hypnotize Prince Eric, and won him over to her. All she had to do was sing a hypnotic song to have him in her grasp, and we all know I see pretty well, right?”

“Yup!” Gil replied.

“Like an angel,” Harry added.

“If I sing to Yen Sid, I could hypnotize him to simply hand the wand over!” Uma said.

“Okay, but what about Sophie?” Harry questioned.

“Hmm, aha! Gil you’re gonna pretend to take her on a date to distract her!” Uma ordered.

Gil sighed again, “ugh, do I have to? This just doesn’t seem right to have this whole, ‘fake love’ thing going on.”

Uma frowned. “Yeah? Well it also doesn’t seem right for us villain kids to be left imprisoned on this stupid island, while those snobs live a life of lavish and luxury, also! Life ain’t fair, Gil!” Uma shouted.

Gil sighed and nodded agreeing to the both the plan and Uma’s point.

“After I finish these last round of orders, our time will come, boys, we ride with the tide!” Uma decreed.

Harry cheered loudly at Uma’s decree. Gil just sat down still thinking about the plan. Time passed and Uma served her last customer. Harry and Gil remained seated at their table as Uma served the final order. After the last customer left, Uma closed the restaurant and gave a devious look at her crew members still seated.

“It’s time~” Uma sung in a cheery voice.

Harry chuckled and grinned hard at his captain. Gil continued to sit straight faced.

“Okay, like we planned earlier, Gil you go after Sophie, I go after Yen.” Uma ordered.

“Aye, but what do I do?” Harry asked still grinning.

“I guess you come with me,” Uma replied.

“Oh, captain, my captain, ye don’t need to make up an excuse fer me to join ye~” Harry winked.

Both of them giggled, and the three headed out the door to Yen Sid’s tower. Minutes passed, and they finally approached the tall tower. To their fortune, the three saw Sophie walking by.

“Ah, perfect,” Uma said, “Gil, you know what to do.”

Gil took a heavy sigh and walked towards Sophie.

“Uh, hey, Sophie..” Gil muttered.

“Oh! Hey, Gil!” Sophie smiled, “What brings you here?”

“I-I, wanted to take you on a d-date.” Gil replied.

Sophie paused, “Oh, okay then?” Sophie said giggling.

The two walked off hand in hand and Harry and Uma gave each other a grin and ran in the tower while Sophie was distracted. The interior of the tower was very dim and was only lit up by the candles that hung on the walls. One of the candles lit up what appeared to be a staircase. At the very top of the staircase, an elderly voice was heard humming. Smirks etched themselves on both Harry and Uma’s face and the two slowly crept up stairs. After what felt like hours of walking, they finally found the entrance of the sorcerer’s room. They took a slight peek and saw Yen Sid with his back turned.

“Ooh, ye know, how ‘bout I hook him instead? He surely won’t see it comin’.” Harry offered raising his sharp hook.

“No, Harry, let’s stick to this plan. Though if it fails, then be my guest.” Uma replied giving a sinister grin. She then placed a hand on her necklace. The necklace started to glow at her touch. Uma then started to sing a little tune. Harry watched as the melodic tune left Uma’s mouth. Despite not being the target of being hypnotized, Harry couldn’t help but be in a trance. His mischievous smile faded and turned into an agape mouth that was in awe as he watched his captain do her work. With every octave, Harry slowly felt something. Something he never thought he would feel. He was in love. Sure he made flirts and what not at her, but it was just innocent joking around. Now, however, it was for real, he was in love, and he couldn’t be more happier.

A golden magical wisp left Uma’s necklace and traveled to Yen Sid’s cranium. The wisp went into his ears and Yen stopped what he was doing and turned around eyes clouded in yellow. He was hypnotized, the task was done. Uma stopped her singing, and Harry got out of his trance. Uma got up and slowly walked to Yen. Yen’s face was straight and his eyes lit up yellow as Uma approached.

“Give me..your wand.” Uma commanded.

Yen slowly nodded and crept to a case on his bookshelf. He took a key and unlocked it revealing a glistening wand. Yen took the wand and walked towards Uma. Uma put our her hand and took the wand. Uma’s face lit up immediately. This was it. She won. She turned to Harry who was smiling just as hard as her. Harry ran towards Uma and wrapped his arms around giving her a big bear hug.

“We did it, Harry, let’s do finish this once and for all!” she said walking towards a balcony that went outside of the tower.

Uma raised the wand and pointed it towards the barrier.

“Break it!” Uma shouted at the wand.

Silence. Nothing but silence occurred after. Uma and Harry grew confused at the wand’s incompetence.

“Are ye kiddin’ me?! It doesn’t work?!” Harry asked approaching Uma.

“I have no idea! Ugh, this can’t happening! Not right now, please!” Uma shouted tears slowly accumulating in her eyes.

Harry took notice to the tears and walked slowly to her wrapping her arm around her shoulders to provide a little comfort.

“S-S-Spell..” Yen Sid started.

Uma and Harry turned to look at him.

“What?” Uma questioned.

“S-S-Spell..b-book..” Yen Sid finished pointed at thick book on his shelf.

“That’s it! We need a spell in order to work it!” Harry announced.

Harry then ran to the shelf grabbing the book and ran back to Uma. After a moment of page turning, Harry found a helpful page.

“Look! Look! This page ‘as a spell written by the old geezer specifically made for ripping the barrier! He must use it for when he makes to Bore-adon and back!” Harry exclaimed.

“Give it! Give it!” Uma asked with a grin.

Harry nodded and handed the book to her. Uma tried to figure out what the words read but it being night time at the time, it was obscured in the darkness. Harry saw Uma struggling and went in to help her.

“Wait, ‘ere bring it into the glow.” Harry said whispering in Uma’s ears as he was behind her. His hand grabbing hers that was gripping the book raising it towards the glow of the necklace; his other hand gripping around her waist and his head resting on her shoulder. Harry rested this position intending to just be helpful to Uma, though, he rather enjoyed it. And Uma kind of enjoyed it too, she always enjoyed his company and help even if she wouldn’t admit it.

Uma gazed down at the words that were now illuminated.

Uma spoke, “Rise and live or die within, to this saying it shall begin. Set it free and make it fall, break this cursed barrier wall.”

The wand shook in her hands. Seconds later a giant beam of energy shot out and struck on the barrier. The barrier then started to tremble causing a slight earthquake all around. Eventually, the barrier slowly shattered revealing open waters straight to Auradon. Uma and Harry cheered loudly and Harry scooped Uma up and gave her a giant victory bear hug out of happiness. They won. It was their time.

Meanwhile with Gil and Sophie:

“So, where are you taking me, huh?” Sophie asked hand in her boyfriend’s.

“Uh, I-I don’t know.” Gil replied.

Sophie giggled, “wow, seriously, Gil?”

“U-Uh, hey! We could..go for a long walk around the isle!” Gil suggested.

“Hmm, fine, I see no harm in it.” Sophie replied.

The two walked around still hand in hand chatting nonstop for a little while. Eventually, the walk grew boring as they had no real destination for their supposed, “date.”

“So, um, no offence, but can I go back to the tower?” Sophie sighed.

“W-Why? You not enjoying our date?” Gil asked.

“Oh no, I am, but..I need to catch up on my magic studies if I’m gonna get my wand by the end of the night.” Sophie replied. She then started to head back to the tower.

Gil’s eyes shot open and he ran and grabbed her arm.

“Hold on! Hold on! No need to rush, heheh..” Gil said trying to stall for time.

“Um, okay? I guess I won’t rush back, then..?” Sophie replied confused, “Gil are you okay?”

Gil nodded as sweat droplets appeared on his forehead. “You just need to not be headed to the tower, now.”

“Why?” Sophie asked crossing her arms.

“It’s just..it’s just..um, I-I love you so much I don’t you want to me just yet..!” Gil lied.

Sophie’s eyes went wide and a smile grew on her face.

“Aww, okay then, cutie I won’t leave you just yet,” she said walking back to him.

Gil sighed in relief and put his hand back in hers and they both continued their walk. Their walk was cut short when a sound echoed across the isle. It was a sound of heavy impact.

“What the heck?” Sophie said covering her ears.

GIl knew what that sound meant and instead of turning his head to Sophie he looked at the tower. He saw what appeared to be two silhouettes on a balcony, one holding a flashing wand. He grinned at the sight.

“They did it.” he grinned.

“Who did what?” Sophie asked looking at Gil.

Sophie then looked in the direction of Gil and saw the tower. She squinted in her glasses and saw the two pirates standing on sorcerer’s balcony. Her mouth dropped at the sight of both Uma and Harry. She then turned to Gil who was still staring at the both of them grinning.

“You set me up!” she shouted at Gil, “This was all just a stupid set up!”

Gil stopped grinning, “I-I, don’t know what mean!” he answered lying to himself.

Tears grew in Sophie’s eyes and she ran off towards the tower. “Yeah, whatever! We’re done!”

Gil’s heart sunk and the same amount of tears fell out of his eyes as Sophie’s. He couldn’t try to defend himself, because she was right. He deliberately had set her up. All he could do was walk off after her to the tower and claim his soon to be victory, that of which. didn’t involve his love.

Meanwhile with Harry and Uma:

Harry and Uma continued to celebrate cheering and shouting not knowing that they attracting Sophie back. The two finally finished their celebrating and started to walk out. Harry placed the book back and Uma gripped the wand in her hands.

“Sayonara, you old geezer.” Uma said patting Yen’s back as she walked out with Harry.

The two almost were almost down the stairs until they were cut off by an exhausted Sophie.

“Stop..right..there..!” Sophie said panting hard between her words from her long run. Gil entered behind her.

“Too little too late, I’m afraid.” Uma grinned. “The wand is ours now, and your little boss or whatever, is under my control now.”

Sophie grew more angry one part from Gil’s betrayal and Uma hypnotizing her master. Sophie became furious and lunged at Uma reaching for the wand. Uma slightly screamed at the action and got tackled by Sophie her back down on the floor. Sophie latched on the wand and both girls tugged at hard at it. The wand soon escaped their grasps and flew onto the ground. Uma rose up quickly and started to run after it. Sophie did then same and stuck her foot out tripping Uma. Uma fell hard face forward to the ground. Unfortunately to her expense, shattering her necklace on impact. Uma saw this and became both angry and sad at the image. Harry quickly ran in to assist his captain, raising her up by her arm and dusted off the shattered pieces off her chest. Uma wanted to thank him, but her anger took a toll on him and she ran again after the wand, only to find that Sophie had it in her hands.

“Stop right there!” Sophie said aiming the wand at Uma’s head.

Uma panted hard, “Give me..that wand..” she said her voice cracking.

Sophie shook her head grinning. Harry then became angry at Sophie’s smug look to his captain and he slightly growled while gazing at Sophie. Uma heard the growl and turned to Harry. She saw the look on his face and grinned.

“Go..ahead..” Uma said granting him to do his work.

Harry ran straight for Sophie, hook in hand ready to swing. His hook swung hard almost hitting Sophie’s face, until something blocked it.

“NO!” Gil shouted holding Harry’s arm.

“What are ye doin’?!” Harry replied.

“Saving her!” Gil replied back, “I betrayed her and I need to make up for it.”

Sophie slightly grinned at Gil’s words.

“C’mon guys, just face facts we failed. I rather fail and stay here with her, than go over there and be lonely.” GIl added.

Harry and Uma frowned at his words. Sophie’s smile grew and she ran up and gave Gil a kiss wrapping her arms around his neck. Harry groaned at them both and rolled his eyes. Uma looked at Sophie’s tangled arms and saw one was still holding the wand, rather loosely as well. She then went right back for the kill and ran to the wand grabbing it straight from Sophie’s hands.

“Ahahaha! I’ll take this!” Uma said, “C’mon Harry, we’re outta here!”

The two ran out and approached the exit of the tower only to find it swing fast and close. Harry and Uma pulled at the door hoping for it to open, sadly, it did not.

“Why? Why? Why?!” Uma shouted.

She then pointed the wand at the door. “Open, now,” she commanded.

“It shall not open for a miserable soul such as yourself..” a voice said coming up from the top of the tower.

“Cometh to me!” Yen Sid commanded, and the wand leaped from Uma’s hand to his.

“H-How?! How is he back to normal?!” Harry asked panicking.

Uma looked down at her chest. “ The necklace, it’s broken, and so is the spell..” she said her voice sounding soft and scared.

Yen Sid then grabbed his spell book and started to recite a spell to fix up the barrier. As the spell’s words left his mouth, Uma’s eye became more and more teary. Yen Sid finally finished his spell and unlocked the door.

“Leave at once and do not return!” Yen Sid commanded pushing them both out with his magic.

Harry sighed, “Well..that ‘appened, ‘uh?” Harry asked looking at Uma.

Uma didn’t reply, she didn’t want to reply. She had failed. She was a once again prisoner. All Uma did was get up and ran. She ran long and fast and didn’t look back tears falling out of her eyes like waterfalls. Little did she know Harry was right behind her the whole time. Eventually Uma’s legs got tired. She stopped running by an alley and just sat in the darkness to not be seen knees up to her face and face in her hands bawling out over her failure.

Harry heard the cries and found her sitting in the darkness. He sat down next to her and draped his arm around her shoulders. Her head fell on his shoulders still damp from her tears. Moments passed as Uma kept crying eventually she spoke.

“I lost..I lost, Harry.” Uma said red eye’d from her tears.

Harry sighed. “No, no ye didn’t.”

“Harry! Give it a rest! I lost, we lost. We failed..” Uma pouted.

“Well, it’s like they say, ye win some, ye lose some..” Harry replied.

“Well I’m tired of losing some,” Uma raised her voice getting up. “We deserve our victory! We deserve to get off of this wretched place, do we not!?”

Harry remained silent, deep in thought.

“Well?! Do we not, Harry?!” Uma repeated.

“We..don’t.” Harry finally spoke, making Uma cock an eyebrow.

“What do ya mean, we don’t?” Uma shouted.

Harry turned and saw the fury in Uma’s eyes, and sighed as he got up and walked out of the darkness of the alley into the moon’s dim light. “What I mean is, we literally sabotaged a happy relationship for our own selfish desires.”

Uma raised both of her brows and furrowed them back. “You mean Gil? Who cares about his little relationship? I wanted off of this isle and his little relationship was not gonna stand in my way! I’m the captain and I call the shots, don’t I?”

“Ye do, but ‘urting one of yer crew members was not the way! A real captain wouldn’t do that! A real captain would’ve tried to make a plan to work ‘round Gil’s relationship! A real captain would’ve actually applied sense in ‘er actions! Ye did none o’ that a while ago!” Harry exclaimed.

Uma looked at him for a good moment. Her head started to slowly nod in agreement to Harry. “You’re right..” Uma spoke tears forming once again. “Ugh! Damn it! I am just terrible at everything I do!”

“Oh, don’t say that, now..” Harry said slowly approaching his captain.

“Oh, but it’s the truth, I always try to act like I’m the boss and that I run everything here. How could I even call myself the Queen of this town when..all I’ve been was just the jester? I don’t deserve that title.” Uma pouted.

“Oh, but ye are a Queen. Yer a Queen to me.” Harry said gently wiping away her tears with hook.

Uma giggled, “Harry, stop,” she said grabbing his hook.

“Stop what? It’s the truth. Uma I always stood by yer side through thick and thin, even as a young lad. I always felt happy ‘round ye, I always felt happy in yer company.” Harry said in a soft sincere tone, hook still lightly stroking Uma’s cheek.

“What..What are you trying to say..?” Uma squinted slightly blushing.

Harry paused in a slight hesitation. “I guess, I’m just sayin’ that..” He paused again staring into Uma’s curious brown eyes. “I love you, Uma.”

Uma stood silent, her face stayed the same curious look. Silence lasted for a moment or two, before Harry sighed to himself. Harry’s not usually the one to feel embarrassed over anything, he always had confidence in every action he took. This however, was different. He had just admitted his feelings to his newfound crush. If Uma were to be disgusted at his confession he wouldn’t know what’d he do. Harry slowly took his hook off of Uma’s cheek expecting her to lash out at him. His expectation was wrong, very wrong. After he removed his hook he felt a strong grip on his arm from Uma. Harry looked at Uma and opened his mouth ready to speak some words only to find himself being cut off by Uma’s lips meeting his own.

The kiss only lasted for maybe a second or two before Uma broke it.

“I-I, love you too!” Uma said, her face growing red.

Harry grinned wide at her reciprocated confession but a thought came to his mind. “Wait, why do ye love me back? A moment ago ye were angry at me fer defending Gil and going against yer words..”

“Exactly!” Uma started. “I love that about you! You are never scared to voice your opinion to me regardless of the consequence! I know I never compliment you for it..and that’s my fault! I always felt that to be captain to you boys I couldn’t express those kind of feelings..” Uma said in a soft voice lowering her head.

Harry smirked and raised her head with his hook. “Oh come now, there’s no need fer to conceal that.”

Uma grinned, “Yeah, I see that now.” She then wrapped her arms around his neck and went in for a second kiss. This one lasting much longer and being much more passionate on both fronts. The two stood there locked in lips until a sound interrupted both of them.

“Aww!” Two voices sighed.

The two broke apart and gazed to find the voices. Both Gil and Sophie stood grinning like idiots staring at both of them. Immediately Harry and Uma broke apart and blushed giggling to themselves.

“Oh no, no, no, we already saw it and heard it. You two are sooo in love!” Sophie said crossing her arms.

“Yeah, I guess you two can’t make fun of me and Sophie now since you two are a thing now,” Gil stated. “Wait, you two are a thing now, right..?”

Uma giggled, “Yup, I guess we are, I the Queen of this town, have just kissed myself a King.”

“And yer ‘bout to do it again,” Harry smirked.

“Wait, wha-” Uma’s words got cut off as Harry took charge and went for a third kiss.

Both Gil and Sophie aww’d again at the two and laughed after. It was nice to see the two finally being a couple, and watching the blossoming love shared between a captain and her first mate.

#disney descendants #descendants 2 #huma #harry xuma #uma xharry #china anne mcclain #thomas doherty #fanfic #uma #uma descendants #harry hook #gil

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