#nottesilhouette is just hamelton

[musicfren]

They’ve got a bad reputation (they’ll get a standing ovation) part 2

HI HAVE I, TOLD YOU, THAT, @nottesilhouette IS THE MOST FRIGGEN AMAZING WRITER IN THE WHOLE WORLD? God...why do we do this to ourselves, friggen 3400 word story in the span of 2 days...this is entirely exclusively my fault pay no mind  Read part 1 here. Happy @felinettenovember y’all, time for slep!

...oh, dear gods, why is Felix here? The spotlight burns into his face like shame, regret bubbling up in his stomach. He doesn’t remember challenging Marinette but he has, apparently, and now everyone’s watching and he has to-- he has to-- fight. Defend himself. 

Or breathe, if he can manage it.

One seems easier than the other. Well, here goes nothing. Felix steps forward and calls engarde. 

“Ophelia did nothing but obey the men in her life!” He cries, stepping forward, gesticulating wildly. The crowd gasps, and Felix doesn’t understand why until he realizes he's still holding the sword prop, white-knuckled grip around its hilt. Marinette’s eyes go wide with surprise and Felix nearly blurts out an apology right there. But then a glint of something sharper flashes in her gaze, burning with determination and suddenly Felix isn’t feeling quite so confident. It’s too late to quail now. He steps forward and matches her, still talking. “She’s hardly enough of an independent person to qualify as a character.” 

“What would she be, then?” Marinette’s voice is steady, calm, and Felix is wildly, irrationally envious of it. He can’t work out how to make his statements come out smooth, suave like she’s managed, so he goes for the next best weapon: rage.

“She’s little more than a symbol, a prop,” he spits, and the crowd reacts appropriately. Something in his chest loosens at the idea that he’s performed correctly. Something in his heart wrenches.

Marinette sends him a snide look. “You would know. You’re a model mannequin.” 

They’re circling each other now: Felix is brash, forceful, cutting broad slashes through the air with each sweeping generalization he makes. Marinette is steady, precise, pulling apart the stitches of his defense with needle-fine precision. His pulse quickens; a glance at the audience shows she’s winning their favor. This isn’t the clever riposte and quick banter they expected, and Felix is coming across as dim-witted at best. 

“Well, what is she then? You have so many judgements, it’s time you raised an opinion of your own-- or do you have no policy but to raze mine?” Felix pushes her back, scrambling for repost. He needs to be interesting, he needs to be clever, he needs to-- turn it back onto Marinette before the crowd realizes he’s faking, that he doesn’t want to be here, that he’s… scared. 

His tongue sours at the words, and he hates himself for saying them. Marinette shoots him a glare full of challenge, and for an instant he considers conceding right there. Marinette believes so strongly in her cause, and Felix is desperate to apologize, to reconcile, to just acknowledge the points she’s making. But he’s trapped now, caught in the reputation he’s built for this audience and his own pride, and he has nowhere to go but forward. 

Or backwards, apparently, because with each point Marinette makes, crisp and concise and clear, Felix finds himself frantically retreating further and further.

“Ophelia is the only person in the play who recognizes that Hamlet needs help.” 

“That’s not true--”

She cuts him off with a slice.  “She’s the only person who notices and tries to stop him, who cares enough to call him out on his actions, to hold him accountable to the promises he made before his mad plan, to who he used to be.” 

“The entire argument is milquetoast--” He stabs desperately.

“They speak of beauty and reputation, of expectations and the way one’s actions will never outweigh the image others have of them.” 

“They speak of madness and prostitution!”

They’ve become locked in combat now, their blades darting in the scant space their words leave behind. The crowd presses forward, squeezes the stage almost to bursting. Nino presses his face to the camera lense, not wanting to miss an instant.

“The argument is framed against women but its themes are centered on Hamlet’s own realization of the position he’s found himself in. It breaks the adrenaline rush long enough to show him, in all his grief and desperation, the reality he’s constructed for himself. They speak of agency!” 

“Ophelia has none!”

“Ophelia reminds him that he does!” Marinette’s voice finally raises. “Ophelia reminds Hamlet who he is, what he has, if only for a moment. Ophelia grieves for him, for his loss: of his father, of his sanity and dignity and agency. She acknowledges that he is a liar, but remembers the man he used to be, the person he put work into being.” 

“She laments the loss of his attention, nothing more.”

“To write her statements off as such discounts the tone and the manner with which they are intended; she is returning his madman’s accusations with compassion and reason, she is the only person who has done so, who will ever do so.” 

“Why should I take her seriously when no one else does?!” It’s a mad, desperate response as he finds himself teetering at the edge of the stage, and he’s unbalanced. He swings again, unhinged. 

“None of the men in her life-- not her father, not her brother, not god himself-- take her seriously until she dies.”

“She trips into a river.” Finally, Felix is in charge of this conversation; this, Marinette cannot deny. It is his strongest point, and the only point that matters. He steadies himself, holds his sword like a shield to defend his statement. 

“Her death is not an accident. Her death is the culmination of the climax. Her death is the reason anyone stops long enough to notice how far gone Hamlet is! Her death tethers Hamlet to the person he used to be, who loved her once, who remembered what it felt like to choose what he did and who he was.” 

“That makes her nothing more than the physical manifestation and harbinger of Hamlet's descent into madness,” and Felix puts on a smirk because he knows he should. 

Felix wishes he was being honest, passionate the way Marinette is being. Felix wishes her voice didn’t seem so far away, calling from a world he remembers existing in but can’t find his way back to anymore. Felix wishes he was talking to her in a realm even close to reality instead of the mirage he’s operating in, desperate not to fall through. 

Instead, he steps forward from the edge of the stage and keeps his sword aloft. “She’s trapped in the societal confines of traditional womanhood. She’s nothing more than a woman in a world where that doesn’t matter.”

“You’re right.” 

Marinette stops moving forward to meet him, drops her arm. Felix is thrilled, and sick and confused, doubly so when he notices the ferocity in her expression. It is not one of someone who has given up. It is one of someone who is about to pounce.

“You’re right, she is nothing more than a woman in a world where that doesn’t matter. No one cares what she has to say. So she makes it matter. She dies, and she is finally heard. You’re right, and she’s a genius for the way she wields it like a weapon.” Marinette smirks, matching his smugness with self-assured pride, and taps his wrist with her sword. His own slips easily out of his grasp, and he trembles; with what emotion, he cannot place. “Being able to do the work of all these men in 58 lines doesn’t make her less of a character, Felix. It makes her more of one, and more power to her for what she’s able to notice that no one else will. It’s not her fault men can’t manage it.”

 Felix finally snaps. “My sense is not less than yours!”

Marinette pauses, and very very slowly, grins. It’s terrifying, predatorial. She rakes her gaze down his body, and he shivers. “I had thought to agree but this battle of wits has proven very much so the opposite. When she blows him a kiss and winks, Felix collapses where he stands. 

It’s over. The tension the assembled students have been holding in their collective lungs for the last five minutes erupts into cheers and thunderous applause.

“Bravo, bravo.” says Nino, pushing through the crowd, most of whom are still frantically scribbling in their notebooks. Felix can scarcely bring himself to look up, his face burning with humiliation. The room around him is rapidly becoming a confusing blur of angry lights and prying eyes.

“You guys were amazing, I’ve never seen anything like that before! Honestly I should turn this in just like that.” Nino moves around to get a few more shots of their faces, lit up under the harsh theatre lights.

“No way!” shouts someone from the crowd, “I’m turning it in first!” “--can’t believe how easily Marinette just eviscerated Felix! I thought he was good at literature but--” “--she’s so clever, he could barely keep up--”  “--he’s not very good at this, is he--”

Someone else laughs and soon the whole crowd is bickering, arguing over who will lay claim to Marinette’s mental prowess and Felix’s mortification. 

“Enough, ALL of you! That was completely uncalled for. This wasn’t for you to take advantage of. None of you-- none of you-- bothered to state your own position, your own opinion. All you did was encourage my attacks, which were honestly in poor form.” Marinette hardly stops to breathe. “And anyways, I’m only more coherent because I’ve done weeks of research on this character. Felix kept up to someone who wasn’t just thinking on her feet, and his points still had credibility-- do you know how many literary analyses I’ve read on his position just to try and work out how to defend mine?” Marinette leans over and offers Felix a gentle smile and an outstretched hand. He gratefully accepts.

Felix takes her hand and pulls himself up with it, and stands shoulder to shoulder with her, looking out at the sea of chastised faces. “And now you think you can turn in our work-- her work, really-- and our performance as your own as if you have any claim to it-- it’s disgusting. Marinette poured herself into caring about this, and… and I should’ve listened to her, but I don’t get to take credit for the work she’s done to be this person. I need to do the work myself. You’re manipulators and thieves if you think you deserve any part of what she’s done.” 

“Hey, everyone is manipulated by something. Hamlet, Claudius, Horaito… you would know, right?” Marinette looks at him again, soft and shy and concerned through her lashes.

Felix swallows hard, glances at the cameras still rolling. Yeah, he would know.

“Thank you.” He says, stumbling and trying to hide the way his legs are shaking. “I, um… I guess I’d better put these swords away before someone stabs themselves.”

Nino slaps a hand on his shoulder so hard he nearly falls back down again. “Felix, my man! Get that grumpy black uniform off you!”

“Um… what?” Felix turns in confusion, head still spinning.

“You, my friend, are stage-hand no more! We’re still missing a Hamlet, and I know I’ve found the perfect one right here!”

“...WHAT?!?” 

As the world around him starts to blur, Marinette slips her hand into his and squeezes, shooting him a fond, amused grin. “You’re going to do great, Felix. I’ll see you on stage.” She presses her lips to his cheek, soft, warm, and… the scene fades to black to the sound of cheering.