#tbh this probably sounds like a lot of nonsense

[magentakat]

Me, trying to get around the screaming and blocks my demand avoidance loves to put on me whenever it can so I can actually write some of the shit stuck in my head because I have so many story ideas (and want to be able to post and share them with others, damn it!), is always an… interesting time.

The latest strat, since a long-time issue of mine is “write a little, then edit those bits to death until i toss it all in the trash because I’m sick of editing but can’t get myself to write more”, is, like pretty much everything relating to getting around demand avoidance, stupidly round-about. How so? Well…

Basically, take advice of “write everything at once without editing, then edit (and revise and all that) once you’ve got it all written out!” but add the reward/rule-bending/getting out of that semi-demand of “…but you can edit anything still visible on the page while you’re writing” to shut up the brain gremlins gnawing at the bars and trying to painfully twist their way out of their cage.

But the important thing with this tactic is that I use typewriter mode in my writing program of choice, which sets the line I’m writing on in the center of the screen. There’s maybe 12 lines visible at most above that so pretty much all I can edit as I go that’s “on the page” is within the last paragraph or two at most as I’m counting from whatever the last stuff I’ve written is.

Get one-upped, silly brain.

[shrekyaoi]

i get a lot of comments on character voice and how vivid i make them and all i’ve gotta say is that if you want to spice up your dialogue you’ve just gotta emulate what i can only describe as “the conversations that happen between drunk dudebros at bars.” this may also be why i keep accidentally writing flirting now that i think about it

[puppys-rhythm-heaven]

i am being so fucking autistic about a video game i've only played an hour and a half of and have absorbed like 99% of my information about through osmosis from my bestie(s. it's complicated) and fanfiction. catastrophic levels of autism. i can't stress this in words i don't think y'all understand. or care honestly sdflkjfdskdfsjsfdkj-

[pix-writes]

for the nsfw request for Stan and Ford (which tbh is more like a question lol also be completely free to not answer in case you don't want to); what kind of noises do they make? or they don't make a noise at all? Thank you!!

No problem, thanks for asking!

Under cut as is 18+

STANLEY:

He seems like the kind of guy who would grunt and moan a little, he's not quiet but he's not loud either, as he wants to hear his partner's sounds most of all, but sometimes he can't be quiet either cause it just feels too good. (Also likes to hear the squeak or rattle of whatever furniture he's got you placed on/bent over when you get into it, has broken a worn out, shoddy table or two in his time!)

Knows from experience that a lot of partners like him to make some noise 😉 (say thank you to the ladies who taught him this). Though the very point where he does come, he's practically silent. Will pant and groan afterwards though.

Stan in everyday life is sorta what you get in bed too, just more unfiltered, he opens his mouth to say all sorts of dirty things and feedback about how good you're doing/feel and things he wants to do to you and praises you when you respond in the way he wants. Depends on the circumstances though, as if he's totally in the moment he doesn't run his mouth so much. Can also be more playful too, so at times he'll try to make his partner laugh or be totally cheesy (cue awfully obvious rp where he pretends you're some beautiful/handsome stranger), you might get a chuckle out of him as well. On the other hand, if you manage to rile him up enough, Stan will practically growl in your ear 🥴

If it's just him by himself though, he doesn't make too much sound at all, just moans a little, definitely has that depressing post nut clarity and feels a bit guilty for taking himself in hand.

STANFORD:

Tries to control his volume. Is not successful!

This guy is painfully touch starved and is making up for lost time once he's with a partner, so ends up being unable to censor all the sounds that come out of him from feeling someone else's touch. I'd say his volume is about medium, though, as he does have some self-control. However, once he starts to feel remotely close to orgasm, he will get increasingly more whiny. Increasingly desperate towards climax and starts begging you or saying things, it's so garbled though you don't even know if it's proper sentences or just nonsensical babble. Cannot contain his cries of pleasure when he finally does climax! 🤭 (Edge this man if you want but get soundproofing if you do, otherwise even the neighbours will be able to hear what you're getting up to!)

Doesn't talk too much during, mostly lost in it, will keep giving you necessary instruction or feedback, though. Mostly moans, groans and whines, praises you for how good you are/feel. Though, I think once he starts to get into a relationship and gain confidence/experience, will be more able to control his volume and will run his mouth more, if that's something you're into. Will pleasure you and not let you touch him so he can focus on talking you through it 🫠 gets a little cocky once he finds out that you like the sound of his deep voice (what have you unleashed upon yourself??!!!!)

Thinks that his self pleasure is about average but is probably below average, sees it more as relieving stress than for indulgence in fantasies, feels alienated by the way most men would talk about it as it doesn't fit his experiences at all (e.g. thinks most men exaggerate their drive and promiscuity... Probably not wrong, but I hc that Ford is on the ace spectrum somewhere, probably demi sexual, but doesn't know until the twins tell him about lgbt+ identities). Helps him to sleep, though didn't feel safe enough to do it much at all during his portal days, as he was often on the run. Is often intentionally quiet when doing it because he often is in places where the walls are thin or he needs to hear if he might be walked in on (because it's likely to happen; is happy that so far he's never been caught) still moans a lot when he comes though.

[h3llenwrites]

Hi hi! Hope your having a nice day

How about our favorite radio host with a reader who owns a newspaper company in hell. They were a reporter when they were alive. They are investigating some of Vox's business and ends up running into Alastor?

Surprisingly I got enough motivation to write again so eat up

Alastor x Reader :

Platonic? Romantic? idk tbh. Just reader and Alastor working together to mess with Vox.

As someone who shares the latest news in hell, owning a newspaper company and all, you couldn't help but peep into the Vee's business. Something about them ultimately seemed unnerving, so naturally, every so often you would be prying at any information and bringing it back to your collection immediately. You often noticed Vox "convincing" his little crowd that gathers everytime he would step out of the comforts of his office, Running the other way when he starts to walk to your direction. Sometimes you would get caught writing your gathered info in the little journal you carry around with you, but you always put it away before Vox sees; Not like he could understand the handwriting anyway. (LISTEN HAVING TO WRITE DOWN A LOT OF INFO IN MERE SECONDS BEFORE HAVING TO BOOK IT FROM THE SOURCE IS GONNA GET YOU BAD HANDWRITING) When these occurences happen, you were lucky enough that he didn't think much of it, even though he noticed you a few steps behind the audience who were so glad to see him often.

You were collecting more information a few days after the last attempt where Big Ol' TV Man actually understood your handwriting and is now VERY wary of your presence. It didn't help that there were cameras everywhere either, you can barely avoid his watching gaze and it frustrated you that you hadn't been able to get anything from Vox or the other Vees since he probably warned them about your watching eye. Alastor was taking a stroll around hell heading to cannibal town, but ever so often pissing off Vox by destroying his cameras or glitching them and disconnecting the TVs that displayed on the stores. Luckily for you, the Radio Demon was headed your way and before Vox could check if you were peeping on him, Alastor had made his way in front of the camera and broke it. Vox cursed in his seat, choosing to get out either way so he can have a 'lovely talk' with the red deer. The commotion got more lively once Vox had stepped out. You smiled to yourself, getting your pen, paper, and camera ready. He did something quite unexpected today. Instead of standing there and giving off his usual speech, he quickly said some promotional shit and let off a light that would distract his crowd and he ran off, searching for the deer and cursing when Alastor was no where in sight. He was so distracted by getting revenge on his little enemy that he hadn't paid you any mind and dismissed the fact that he should've checked if you were present first. Naturally, you were overexcited. I mean you just got some worthy ass information about Vox, so naturally, you ran back to your work place as fast as you could. On the way there, you bumped into Alastor.. oh unfortunate soul. You were hurrying quite quickly, causing the both of you to fall on the dirty pavement below. You were processing what just happened, still a bit dizzy but you already picking up your items that you've dropped. You didn't think of the other person until you were done caring for yourself and suddenly you heard the sound of radio static. You gulped and hoped for the best, but of course, who else could it be? The moment you looked up, your eyes were met with Alastor's. Was he pissed? Please please.. "My apologies.. I uh-" You were quickly cut off by his cheery voice. "Nonsense, Darling! Say, Why are you in such a rush?" He noticed you earlier, seems you piqued his interest. "Um, Well I was just.. doing some research..?" He lifted his eyebrow, wide grin still present as always. "Hmm? Doing some research hiding behind a building?"

"Well I-" He picked up a paper you'd left, or rather used his abilities to make it appear in his hand. "Information on Vox Tech," He read the title on your paper aloud. "Oh! That's mine! haha.." You quickly grabbed it from his hands and stuffed it in your notebook. "It was.. lovely meeting you Mr. Uh.. Radio Demon..!" "Alastor." "Alastor! Right! ..I'd better get going." You quickly walked away, retreating to your place of comfort. He stared at you before continuing to make his way to Cannibal Town. A few days later, you still couldn't get Vox to come out, So you looked for something else to investigate on for a bit before returning. You were looking at some posters around hell when the 'Pointless Happy Hotel' or so was said, caught your attention. The Princess of Hell's beliefs for redemption was intriguing to you, so you grabbed a pen, a notebook and a camera, then headed to the hill where this hotel was located, having absolutely no idea the Radio Demon was there. After a few minutes of constantly avoiding violent sinners trying to behead anyone who passes by, Several explosions and Horny demons, You were at the front door. You cleaned yourself off and knocked. Charlie opened the door, a very bright smile on her face. "Hello! Welcomee~ To the Hazbin Hotel!~" She said in a sing-song voice. "Hi!-" You could barely speak before getting cut off by getting dragged into the lobby. "This is the lobby! That's the bar, the bartender over there is Husk. That's Niffty, she's our housekeeper! Oh! And that is.." The Princess ranted about the hotel, introducing you to the staff, patrons and giving you a tour. You kept trying to interrupt her, saying that you were only going to be staying for a few days maybe weeks for some research for your newspaper, You didn't get a chance to tell her until she reached Alastor's room to introduce you to him. "Actually, I'll only be staying for research to put on my newspaper.. Is that alright?" Charlie blinked before smiling again. "Oh! That's alright! Still glad for you to be staying here! Anyway, Let me introduce you to my.. Business partner I guess you could say?.." You tilted your head in confusion before she knocked and a shadow formed into the Radio Demon. You froze. "This is Alastor!" He turned his attention to you. "Ah, Yes. Pleasure to be meeting you, dear! Quite the pleasure. How is that research project on the Vees of yours going?" You nervously chuckled before answering him. "Quite alright, I suppose! Although.. I decided to investigate on something new since there had been no progress in the past week."

"I see! And what is this new project of yours about?"

"The hotel.."

"Hm! Well, I can certainly help with your research!"

"Research? Which one?"

"Why, both of course!"

"And why.. are you telling me this?" Alastor's grin grew wider. "Oh nothing, really. The topic of your little project just intrigued me is all!"

You accepted his help of course. The both of you work together to document the things you've gathered. He's honestly just helping out for fun. The relationship between the two of you grows (You can think of it as Platonic or Romantic, Idk I don't judge) and he sometimes has you with him, broadcasting the latest news, seated next to him while reading from your newspaper in his Radio Tower. He also often visits you while you're producing new info to feed the public. His favorite part of helping you gather info about the Vees is destroying Vox's cameras :)

A/N: This.. is sort of shorter than I intended it to be. I lost my ideas halfway through writing this because I thought of Alastor with a reader who has a bakery and he visits often or Alastor with wife reader who owns a bakery and she brings him baked goods. Should I write that?

[forwhump]

a/n; :’) I was actually looking for smth caretaking (@ chi if you see this I deleted your ask but I won’t forget I promise !!!) but I found this instead & tbh it’s just kind of a banger so here we are (I also found a fun one that’s just wren literally holding silas’ head onto his body but is that postable ??? I guess we’ll see)

I forgot how much fun the wren pov folder is so big shoutout to the anon who asked for it im having a great time !! & obviously thank you all of y’all you who read my nonsense for coming along for the ride :’)

(fun fact !: the reason Point is called Point is because of the cane he has in this one that I don’t know if I’ve posted about before LOL in the big grand scheme of things it’s almost a reoccurring character)(he calls it “little debbie” if you were wondering)

tw/cw: implied noncon, graphic depictions of violence, caning, skinning, grievous bodily harm, mutilation, misgendering, transphobia, dehumanization, slut shaming, humiliation, point’s daddy kink, major character death (but he dies all the time it’s kind of a thing)

living weapon whumpee, creepy whumper (it’s point again idk he’s not NOT creepy)(he makes wren call him daddy)

There isn’t a lot of Silas that’s still human.

It haunts Wren more than he’s willing to admit.

It sits on his chest, a dead weight. He dreams of getting out of here, of seeing the sunlight again, his mother, his friends, and it’s hard to superimpose Silas into those dreams; Silas, who shares more in common with Michelangelo’s David than any human man.

He’s a weapon crafted from violence and stone, but the parts of him that are still human are so human that Wren aches for him. He thinks of himself as a violent dog, but Wren knows him better than that — he’s reactive. He’s protective. He loves with a ferocity that Wren barely understands.

The way he bleeds is human.

Silas thinks of his own blood as tainted, but Wren knows better than that. His blood is all human. His pain, as well.

He roars and it’s an animal sound, but the look on his face is entirely human. The way his chin drops to his chest and he shudders with blood loss is all human, nothing else.

Wren tries to scream but Gore has a gloved hand clamped firmly over his mouth. He shakes against Wren’s back every so often, bouts of laughter at his expense.

It’s inhuman, is what this is. There isn’t a lot of Silas left that’s still human, but he’s still so much more human than any of these men, these soldiers. They crowd Wren’s room, they block the doorway, they have Silas on his knees in a puddle of his own blood, growing too quickly, covering too much of the floor. They hold a buck knife to Wren’s throat so Silas doesn’t fight them. Not once.

He kneels on the concrete. Point has this cane, long and crafted from iron, heavy and barbed lethally on one end. He swings it again, and the barbs snag the sensitive flesh beneath Silas’ Adam’s apple and tear it right out of his throat.

Silas doesn’t roar this time, he just gurgles, low and pained. It makes Point laugh — that rasping, dead leaves sound that somehow passes as laughter. Almost jovial, he swings his cane around to point the end of it at Wren, but then he isn’t smiling anymore. “Whore,” he says, and he enunciates very carefully. He whips around to swing at Silas again and the jagged hooks of metal catch on the puckered hollow of his empty eye socket. Silas makes a rasping sound, probably as much of a roar as he can manage, and Point grins like a cartoon supervillain and rips Silas’ eyelid off his face.

Wren thrashes and Gore’s chest rumbles with laughter as he holds him a little closer.

“I warned you,” Point says, and he’s speaking to Wren but he throws his cane at Silas again, rips a chunk of flesh and muscle off his chest, “no dogs on the bed.” The barbed end of the cane sinks next into the hollow beneath Silas’ sternum. A noise is knocked out of Silas like nothing Wren has ever heard. Point has to brace a boot against his chest to pry the cane free, and he’s particular about shoving it deep into the skinned meat of his ribcage as he wrenches it out of his flesh with a sound like suction.

“But you just can’t keep your legs closed, can you, cowgirl?” Point asks, sickeningly conversational as he swings his cane again, peeling the muscle of Silas’ bicep clean away from the bone in his arm. “You just can’t help yourself. You’ll even let the dog fuck you.”

The heat burns in Wren’s face, blistering.

Point grins at him, grotesque. “Good girls don’t fuck dogs,” he says. “Whores fuck dogs. What does that make you, baby?”

Silas makes a low noise, kind of groan, still disturbingly wet. Point looks down at him quickly. Sometimes the way he moves is sickening, unsettling, too jerky to be human. It’s cruel, but it’s also just unfair; this evil marionette, wearing the skin of a man, gets to carve a place for himself in the outside world, and Silas doesn’t?

Point’s grin stretches across his face, each time more grotesque than the last. “What was that, boy?” He asks, and cups a hand behind his ear. “I think Lassie’s trying to tell me something.”

Silas makes another rumbling groan of a sound and Point leans in a bit closer. “Your girlfriend’s a filthy whore?” He mocks. “I think so, too.”

His one arm, bicep severed, is limp at his side, but his other arm is still functional, and Silas is strong. Wren doesn’t think he can even quite grasp how strong Silas actually is. With his other hand, he grabs Point by the windpipe with so much force Point’s face changes colour three times in less than a second; red, then blue, then purple.

Point croaks, which makes Silas grin. Wren sobs.

Letting the cane start to slide through his hand, Point curls his fingers around the middle, sturdy, before he cracks the barbed end into the inside of Silas’ elbow with all his weight. It sinks all the way through flesh and viscera, and when Point pries it free again, he peels the skin off his forearm, a flap of bloody tissue that sways at Silas’ wrist.

Silas snarls as Point quickly covers his bruised throat with his other hand. That marionette grin is gone, replaced by the simmering rage he always keeps boiling just beneath the surface. “Fucker,” he spits.

He doesn’t kick him, not really, so much as he cracks the bottom of his boot into Silas’ face and puts all his weight into it. Blood sprays from Silas in an explosion of clotted red mist and Point spits on him, fuming. “No dogs on the bed,” he snaps. “I won’t keep repeating myself.” He swings his cane back over his shoulder, looking at Wren, too close and too intense. The way Point looks at him has always made him shudder. “And you,” he says, softer, in the sickly sweet mocking he reserves just for him, that rage flickering on his face. “Why won’t you just behave?”

Wren scowls at him from beneath Gore’s hand, but he’s crying and he’s helpless and it only makes Point grin, wide and mean.

“If you don’t smarten up, cowgirl,” he says, “I will put your dog down. I’m not playing with you anymore. I will put it down, carve it open, and fuck you in its carcass. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

He scowls again, but his eyes are burning.

Point lifts his chin at Gore, who’s hand slides from over Wren’s mouth to around his neck. Point grins at him. “Say it.”

Wren doesn’t. He opens his mouth and the best he can do is a sob.

Point raises his eyebrows. “What did I just say?” He asks sharply. “Say it.”

Wren tries to look away but Point grabs him by the jaw, forcing his face up, forcing Wren to look at him as he whispers, just barely, “yes, daddy.”

Point pats his cheek twice. “Giddyup.” He motions at Gore, who drops Wren into an ungraceful pile on the concrete. With a whistle, he angles his head towards the door, and his men start to file out of the cramped space of Wren’s bedroom. Point lingers last in the doorway, watching Wren pull himself up from the floor. “If I find out you fucked this thing again,” he reminds him, “I’ll fix it, and I’ll make you swallow its testicles. Y’hear?”

Wren doesn’t consider himself a particularly violent person, especially not amongst such violent people. Point, though — Point brings out something in Wren that Wren is almost ashamed of. Point makes him violent. Wren had never wondered what it would feel like to crush a human head until he met him.

But Silas’ blood is seeping through Wren’s joggers, warming his skin, so he’s good. For Silas’ sake, he’s good. “Yes,” he whispers, “daddy.”

Point winks at him as he leaves. Wren wants to watch him die.

Before the door has even closed completely behind him, Wren lurches closer to Silas, kneeling in a pool of blood so thick it isn’t red, but a sickening, shimmering black, an oil spill.

“Hey,” Wren breathes, cradling Silas’ face, almost impossibly gentle. “Hey.” Carefully, he lifts his chin from his chest.

Silas looks like a scene from a horror movie. Half of his face had been stripped to raw meat and his empty eye socket is leaking a sick, yellow fluid. The bone of his cheek and his jaw on one side have been stripped completely of meat and muscle, a sickening flash of bone beneath the gore, a bit too white to be entirely natural. He looks at Wren, and he looks dazed.

Wren thumbs slowly over a bloody cheek. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers.

Silas opens his mouth like he wants to speak and vomits blood all down the front of Wren’s chest and his lap. Wren makes an involuntary sound, something panicked, a hiccup. Silas must mistake it for disgust, because he tries to pull away, he tries to lift his head on his own. “M’sorry,” he slurs, so wet Wren can barely understand him, “m’okay,” and he isn’t, his skin is hanging from his meat in bloody ribbons and he can barely hold up his own head, but he’s speaking, however wet, he’s breathing, his heart is beating, he’s alive. He’s bleeding and he’s hurting but he’s alive. He’s okay. He’ll be okay.

Wren is gentle as he bats away Silas’ hands, reaching back up for him, cradling his face. “Silas,” he says softly. Silas blinks down at him, something dazed, maybe dizzy, and vomits again with a pained, gurgling cough.

They’d come in the middle of the night, Point and his favourite men, all his most cruel soldiers. Wren doesn’t need to guess to know exactly why they’d come to see him, or why Point was so furious to find Silas already there. They’d been sleeping — Wren can’t sleep if Silas isn’t with him, and Point is the reason why. He’s more scared of Silas than he likes to admit or than he wants his men to realize, and it makes him deranged. It makes him violent.

He’d woken Silas in the middle of the night by opening his gut with the barbed end of his cane. Silas, who didn’t do anything wrong. Silas, who didn’t do anything but indulge Wren and sleep beside him.

They can’t get to medical in the middle of the night. There’s nobody at the door to let them through. Point and his team have watch tonight, and if Wren were to hit a panic button, nobody would answer him. They’d punished Silas and left him alone to bleed.

“I’m so sorry,” he breathes again.

Silas has his good cheek leaned hard against the palm of Wren’s hand. There isn’t a lot of Silas that’s still human, but there are parts of him that are, and Wren can see one of those parts in his face, in the very slight crease of pain between his eyebrows. Silas would never complain, and especially not to Wren. For a long time, Wren didn’t think he was even capable of feeling pain — it was Medic that told him otherwise. Silas feels pain, and the way he feels it is almost entirely human. He has no special tolerance. He’s desensitized.

But his head is leaned hard against Wren’s palm and Wren can’t imagine how heavy it must be. He can’t imagine what it’s taking for Silas to hold himself up.

Still, Silas slurs, “m’okay.”

He isn’t. He vomits again, blood that’s getting darker and darker in colour. His head kind of sways against Wren’s hand, and he doesn’t open his eye before he throws up more blood, too dark, too quickly.

“Silas?” Wren breathes.

He coughs, and he throws up more blood. Too much blood.

“Hey,” Wren says softly, touching his cheek, a little firmer.

There’s just enough of Silas left in him that he lurches away so he doesn’t crush Wren with his weight when he collapses, face first, to the concrete. His blood is everywhere, pooling on the uneven ground, and Wren can hear the way it bubbles, sickening, beneath Silas’ face as he gurgles for breath and vomits more blood, acidic amongst the oil spill, dull amongst the shimmer.

“Hey,” Wren breathes, and his voice breaks. He kneels quickly next to him, putting a hand at his back, slick with blood. “Silas.”

It happens really quickly. It happens so quickly. Silas stops heaving. The pool beneath him stops bubbling. His back stills beneath Wren’s hand. All at once.

“Silas?”

And he dies, skinned, on the floor of Wren’s bedroom.

He’s dead for all of three minutes before Point returns. He’s grinning.

[cherrygorilla]

Ok, so you may or may not have inspired me with your Outsiders post to interrupt my usually sparse story post schedule and indulge in my own obsession with a certain musical. And as chaotic and random as it sounds, I promise it is good haha. But even if you disagree, please just let me vent and get all this out of my brain so that I can go back to writing the next part of TMM 😂

Alright, I've loved Starlight Express ever since I saw it when I was around... 7 or 8, maybe? It used to be my favourite show for years, and (fun fact) it was actually how I found out about fanfiction haha. I never wrote anything properly for the show, just like one or two pages in a random notebook when I was, idk 11 ? But it was around that time that TBM then came out, which I was obviously more drawn to writing-wise - I suppose because it gave me more freedom with stories and characters, since this show is just...you know...about trains lol.

And from the few times I've mentioned it before, I know it probably sounds insane, but if you just suspend your disbelief and accept it for what it is (a bunch of trains singing and falling in love), it is a lot of fun hahaha. I like to think of it like a mix between Cats and Cinderella, but the basic gist of the story, so you can have at least somewhat of an idea of what's going on lol, is that Control (a little kid - I don't think they have a name, they're literally just known as Control) sneaks out of bed one night to hold this big race between all his toy trains to find out who is the best - so the story essentially takes place within his imagination, as all the trains come to life to tell the story. It's like Cats in the regard that most of the first act is everyone kind of introducing themselves in turn. There's Greaseball, the champion diesel train, Rusty, the little steam engine who wants to race with the big trains, and Electra, the electric engine of the future - and a bunch of other trains and coaches, but I won't bore you with all that (just yet 😉). So, to cut a long story short, it's basically a big competition between those three main trains to see who's fastest, with Rusty being the obvious underdog, and hence the centre of the Cinderella story element.

The plot itself is nothing groundbreaking, and neither are the songs tbh, but it's just such a fun show that I can't help but love it anyway. I mean come on, the whole thing's done on roller skates - that's pretty damn cool! And although I've loved it for years, it had taken quite a backseat for a while, but the recent revival that has recently opened in London has really reignited my obsession with it all over again 😆 Because how do you make my favourite pairing in the whole show even more iconic? ...you turn them into lesbians 😎 Plus the costumes were all reimagined by Gabriella Slade, who did the costumes for Six, and they look SO cool!

Now, a big part of why I loved your Outsiders post so much was all the story ideas/similarities for characters you included, but I can't really do that here because (once again)... they're all trains, and none of them are really that deep or serious anyway. BUT, what I did think might be fun, would be going through who I think each of our characters would be good at playing if they were (for some bizarre reason) to ever put on the show - because I do have some strong opinions about that haha. And, as a little bonus, I have written some little random one-off story snippets that are Starlight Express adjacent that I'll throw in at the end lol - more as a reward for you wading through all my nonsense than anything tbh. But they were fun to write too haha.

So yeah, welcome to the insane workings of my brain - and pull up a chair; this could take a while 😅

Ok, I think the best place to start would be with going through the characters in the show and, like I said, matching them up with potential characters of ours I think would be good at playing them. I'll sort of elaborate on 'why' for each one too to help keep things entertaining from an outside perspective lol - and hopefully to help back up my arguments for each lmao. Because, let's face it, none of our characters have particularly...train-like characteristics. 😂

First up we've got Rusty, who's essentially the show's main character. Most of the conflict in the show centres around him; the 'better' trains all totally disregard him, a lot of the coaches tease him, and although he loves Pearl, she's more interested in the newer, more exciting trains than boring, quiet little Rusty. BUT, as with all Cinderella stories, he comes out on top in the end; he wins the race (I would say spoiler alert, but it's also like...duh 🙄😂) and gets his dream girl. He's a really likeable underdog character throughout the story though, and he does put up a good fight to come out victorious, which I appreciate - he doesn't just lay down and let everyone walk (well, roll 😉) all over him.

Now, who do I think would be good to play Rusty? Well, as I mention later on in the one-shots, and have potentially mentioned elsewhere too, I weirdly feel like Riven would really like the show. Maybe he has some childhood nostalgia linked to it like I do - maybe his dad took him to see it when he was younger since it involves skating? I don't know all the details, but something within me tells me Riven would like this show lmao. And so, in the spin-off scenario where our characters put on this show (which is the one I'll always lead with in these things), I think he'd want to take a leading role in the directing side of it - and probably spear-headed the campaign for putting it on in the first place tbh haha. BUT, I feel like a lot of people at Camp (because yes, I think they'd do this at Camp; I don't know when else they would all want to put on a show like this lmao) would think the whole thing was an insane idea, and wouldn't want anything to do with it (because it kind of is an insane idea). SO, I think that Riven would not only end up directing most of the show, I also think he'd have to step into Rusty's skates - which wouldn't be as daunting as he initially expected since he knows the show so well already. Plus, besides the backstory element, I just think he'd be a really cute Rusty; his auburn hair is perfect for it, he's a quietly determined guy, and he's an experienced skater, so he'd have no trouble taking on such a demanding role in terms of the skating.

So yeah, Riven would be my first pick. BUT, this new revival of the show that's being performed in London is playing Rusty and Pearl (his love interest, who we'll get to in a minute) in a much more innocent, shy way - and it's freaking adorable. And I think if we were leaning into more of that version of the show, Royce would make a brilliant Rusty if Vivien could be his Pearl. I don't know how likely he'd be to take on another leading role after being thrown into Hairspray like he was in your last Camp Wanamaker story, especially one that required him to be on roller skates the entire time, but I think he'd really nail it with that more innocent, down-trodden interpretation of the character.

But if everyone was willingly getting involved in the show, and they wanted to lean more into the old-school portrayal of Rusty and Pearl, that feels a little older, and more heavily romantically driven, then I feel like Miles and Carrie make SO much sense for those parts. The whole 'chasing after a girl you think is out of your league' thing has both Miles and Rusty written all over, and I think Miles would, again, play that fluctuating determination and defeat really well. Plus, I know this doesn't really mean anything, but his struggles for money do parallel Rusty being this rundown, tattered, but persistent little steam train pretty well... 😂

Ok, now we'll move onto Pearl. Pearl is the newest coach in the little kid's collection, and is therefore the most sought-after racing partner (since all the trains need to race with a coach - idk why, it's just part of the story I suppose lol). Sometimes she's a 'first class' coach, sometimes she's an 'observation car', it doesn't really matter - all that matters is that all the trains want to race with her, and although she has a soft spot for Rusty, who has loved her all along, she gets seduced by the flashiness of his competitors, and it takes her almost getting wrecked in the final race for her to see sense. She can be a little naive sometimes, or will sometimes just blatantly play the field (depending on how you play her), but her heart is always in the right place, which is what still makes her so likeable.

Again, for Pearl I've got multiple options for who could play her, but I'll start with Juliet. The new all-white version of Pearl's costume that they use in the current Bochum production just screams Juliet to me: that sleek sophistication and quiet confidence, but also a touch of flirty, girly charm is so her! And I think she'd make a great leading lady - which is why she's my pick for that spin-off scenario version of the show. Pearl has some great songs, which would be perfect for Juliet to show off more of her voice, with her wanting to be a singer eventually, and with you hinting at Riven and Juliet maybe having a little bit of a fling or something in your last STDP post, having them play the two leads here seems like a perfect fit for them! Rusty thinking Pearl's way out of his league, but Pearl falling for his kindness and good heart anyway - that just screams Riven and Juliet to me! Pearl also has a strong sisterhood-type friendship with the other coaches, which I think really works for Juliet too. And Pearl does try to stand up for what she thinks is right when the bigger trains start taking the competition a little too far - so I think Juliet could bring a great deal of her own strength to her portrayal of the character as well.

Now, my second choice for Pearl, links with the second choice for Rusty above, which is, obviously Vivien. I feel like the new London revival Pearl was MADE for Vivien to play; the whole space-y vibes of the show, the fact that they made her purple, and the fact that they made her this happy little ball of excitement, with a touch more innocence than previous Pearls - she's perfect for Vivien. And the awkwardly adorable, friends-to-lovers arc Rusty and Pearl have in this new revival was practically written for Royce and Vivien lmao - I just think they'd be able to play them brilliantly. And again, like with Juliet, I think Vivien's fiestiness would allow her to bring a lot of strength and determination to Pearl's character that isn't always there - she can sometimes be played quite airy and 'damsel-in-distress-like', but I think Vivien would really ground her.

And my last choice for the role is Carrie - she's not my favourite pick for the role, and I think she'd be better at other parts (as we'll see in a minute lol), but as I said earlier, if Miles is playing Rusty, I think Carrie would make an amazing Pearl opposite him. Their dynamic just fits them so well - Miles pining for her but not feeling like he's good enough, Carrie being blinded to her true feelings by other options (in this situation I feel like Eric would make a great Greaseball lol) but coming around in the end - it's just perfect! And, I truly believe that the song Pearl sings in the original London production, Only He, can only be bodied in the way it deserves to be bodied by my girl Carrie haha. I'm not a big fan of Next Time You Fall In Love, but I do quite like I Do (the replacement options for Only He), and I think Juliet and Vivien would do great renditions of them, but there's just something about the thought of Carrie singing that song that just makes so much sense. I've got an idea for her to sing it in a legitimate story too (that's how obsessed with that song I am lmao), probably linked to the heartache referenced in the little drabble I'll post below, but I feel like she needs to sing it for an actual audience too haha. It's just such a beautiful, powerful, swelling theatre ballad - she'd kill it!!

Alright, now we're getting to the good stuff. This is Greaseball: arguably the main antagonist of the show because, although most of the characters rag on Rusty, a lot of them do so to show their support for Greaseball. They're the reigning, undefeated champion when it comes to the races, so they have quite the ego on them. They're brash, and cocky, and a little brute-ish, but they're also incredibly competitive, which often gets in the way of their better judgement, resulting in a total disregard for everyone else (including their undeservingly loyal girl, Dinah). They're a total showboat and narcissist, but they do have a dopey, lovable side that Dinah helps to bring out towards the end of the show, which does help redeem them haha.

Now, there are two ways that Greaseball can be played: the traditional way, or the new way. For the traditional way (the sort of wannabe-Elvis, old school rockstar portrayal), Butchy feels like an obvious pick. And although I don't think he's anything like Greaseball's character, you know if he had to play him he'd take to the greaser caricature like a duck to water lmao. Plus, if Mick was playing Dinah (which, you'll see in a bit, I think works perfectly for her), they'd make an adorable duo in the show, and I think they'd have a lot of fun hamming up the roles to make them even more ridiculously cartoonish. And if Mick was his Dinah, I think Butchy would do the whole 'crawling back to her with his tail between his legs' schtick soooo well - he'd just melt into a puddle for her the second he apologised for being such a brute haha. The only thing that's holding me back with Butchy is that I don't know how good he'd be at being so mean to his friends - especially if someone like Miles or Royce was playing Rusty haha; he's just too nice! Plus, I don't know how well he could roller skate lmaoo.

OR, the other way Greaseball can be played is like how they've done it in the new London revival of the show: by making her into a fiesty little lesbian. And this is the role I feel like Carrie could really excel at. I just think she'd have sooo much fun with all the showboating and playing up the bravado. It's so different to anything else she's played before that I think she'd have a great time getting to try it out too - and I think she'd really enjoy getting to lean into playing a villain as well. I'm just obsessed with everything about the London revival Greaseball - her costume is so cool, her attitude is so iconic, the way she's adapted the character I just, uh- it's brilliant! And as cool as it could be to try out a male Dinah by getting Miles into some frilly gingham (lol), I think having either Juliet or Mick be her Dinah would work really well. I'll get into why I think Juliet would be a perfect Dinah later, but her dynamic with Carrie if they were to take on these roles would just be perfect; Juliet's mild scolding of Carrie's bruteish behaviour, but her unwavering loyalty regardless, Carrie's brushing off of her affection for the sake of winning, but then realising she didn't know how good she had it with Juliet by the end - aaaah, I love them. But for the spin-off scenario, where Juliet would be playing Pearl, my pick for Dinah would have been Mick - again, I'll elaborate more on why that works so well for her in a bit, but there's something about Mick and Carrie being paired up romantically like this that just entertains me so much, and low-key kind of intrigues me too haha. In my head, the way it would have played out was that they'd approached Butchy with the offer for the role first, hoping that if they also offered Mick to be his love interest, he'd be more likely to accept it. But after he dismissed it so blatantly, and they couldn't get anyone else to convincingly fit the role, Carrie was called upon to take his place - and to get back at Butchy for not even considering the part, Mick decides to take the Dinah role anyway, but doesn't tell him. Because imagine his face when he realises that this role they'd said couldn't be played by anyone but him was not only being played by Carrie, of all people, but that his wife was playing her love interest (and was practically throwing herself at Carrie the whole show)! They'd have so much fun torturing him with it, I just know it haha. And omg Carrie would have a whale of a time with Pumping Iron lmao. Plus, her skating skills can finally come in handy for something lol; she'd be throwing in all the tricks.

Alright, so here's where I started grouping people together because I realised I was rambling far too much about the rest lol. As cool of a character as Electra is concept-wise, I don't think I can talk about them in that much depth haha - they're just not one of my favourites! I don't feel like they have that big of an impact on the story tbh; it feels mostly Rusty/Greaseball centred to me, but it's nice to give Greaseball a bit of real competition in the races I guess haha. Their futuristic, diva-ish vibe is really interesting though, and the fact they have their own entourage is pretty iconic too. But with that all being said, I just don't think there's any of our characters that really fit their archetype, even just in terms of who'd be best at playing them - especially males, since that's what Electra has typically been played as (even though they're nonbinary in the new London revival). I thought it might have been fun to get Donny to play them in the spin-off scenario, because I like to think he's a good enough actor to pull off any role haha - and like with Carrie and Greaseball, I think he'd have a lot of fun with doing something totally different to any of his other roles. I don't quite know how it would come about that he'd ever get involved in an amateur production like this, but in my head I thought it would be cute if, besides Carrie's constant begging and pestering about how they don't have enough people to fill out the cast, he's swayed by the fact that his son's in his 'train' phase at the moment - and so he agrees purely for shits and giggles and getting to make his son excited hahaha. Plus, I think he and Carrie would have a lot of fun getting to play rivals for once instead of lovers lol. And I just know they'd really lean into the comedic side of One Rock 'N' Roll Too Many. But besides Donny, I really have no other good picks. I thought if it was maybe the situation where Butchy was playing Greaseball they could do a female Electra and cast Carrie - because she'd do a fabulous job at selling the glitzy, diva vibes and overall over-the-top dramaticness of the character, and a female Electra would be incredible - but like with Pearl, it's just not my favourite pick for her. More out of necessity than anything haha - although it would be perfect to have Butchy and Carrie playing enemies like that lol.

And then the second one on this list is Poppa/Momma McCoy, who's an old steam engine that takes part in one of the races to help encourage Rusty and prove that steam trains aren't outdated after all. The role has been played by both male and female actors, but it tends to lean more female lately. And whilst I'm sure Grandpa George would happily help the kids out with their show, I have much stronger feelings on different female characters taking on the role.

Firstly, how iconic could it be if Nonna Dawn surprised everyone who wasn't helping out with the show by rolling out to sing Momma's (Poppa's) Blues?? Because that's my main pick for the spin-off scenario and I feel like Viv's face would just be a picture lmaoo. She helped out quite a bit with the stuff in the playhouse in Camp Wanamaker too, so she obviously likes theatre, and she just has that kind of fun, mischievous charm about her, so I feel like when Riven and Carrie would approach her with the idea, she'd love it - especially with that added element of surprise for the audience. And the whole mentor/advice-giver role Momma takes on in the show would work perfectly for Dawn; she's like the embodiment of the voice of reason haha.

My second pick, if you wanted to play Momma a little younger, like the London revival has done (with her playing both Control's mum, and Momma), would be Charlie, because she took a big role in helping out at the playhouse in Camp Wanamaker, and obviously cares a lot about theatre. And she has a really close relationship to Carrie and Riven, so I feel like they'd be able to talk her around to taking part eventually. My only thing holding me back is that part of my feels as though she'd want nothing to do with the production because she'd be too scared someone was gonna get hurt since the whole thing's done on rollerskates - her pseudo-motherly instincts couldn't cope with the stress lmaooo. And if it's in the spin-off scenario, where in my head Vivien's organising a rival production (probably of The Outsiders since you're enjoying it so much atm haha), I feel like Vivien would have already snagged her to help with directing on her project.

And my last potential pick for Momma, in an AU version, and one where Royce or Miles was Rusty, would, of course, be Mrs Murphy. I don't know how she would have done with performing, but Momma obviously takes on a motherly role to Rusty, and the freight/fuel trucks too - so Mrs Murphy taking on that role opposite one of her actual sons, and helping to give them the confidence they need to succeed, just makes so much sense to me! Pretty unlikely scenario, but a fun one to consider nonetheless haha.

Ooh ok, more of my faves again haha. Dinah used to be my all-time favourite growing up, so I have lots of opinions about her. But basically, she's another of the 4 coaches (along with Pearl), and her main role in the show is that she's Greaseball's racing partner (and therefore, essentially also their romantic partner). They have a kind of strained relationship most of the show, because Dinah's totally head-over-wheels (😉) for Greaseball, but Greaseball's also being fawned over by pretty much every other coach, and is reluctant to give in to Dinah's affection for fear of showing any weakness to their opponents - so they can be pretty mean sometimes. BUT, they do have a really cute moment when Greaseball loses in the end and goes back to Dinah to apologise, realising that they still love each other without all the glory of being champions.

She's a pretty confident character though, and is good at standing up for herself when she doesn't think something's right - but she's still able to show her softer, more vulnerable side, which makes her a really well-rounded character imo. There are a few good options for who I'd want to play her though, and although I mention later that Carrie would be a good Dinah, I only think she'd really get cast in the role if she it was an externally produced show, since she only ever lands secondary parts haha. I think she'd be a great Dinah, don't get me wrong, but I just think that if all our characters were in the show, there are better choices for her.

My first one, as mentioned earlier, would be Mick. The brunette hairstyle she's been given lately, as opposed to the blonde, works for Mick so well, and with red being her favourite colour, taking the red from the new London costume but applying it to the more traditional gingham style - aaaah, she'd look adorable. Plus, like I said above, having her play this role opposite Butchy just makes so much sense - but, having her play it opposite Carrie (like she would in my spin-off scenario) would be brilliant. I just think they'd have so much fun with it, especially knowing how weird it would make Butchy feel watching them together, and oddly, I feel like it would help their friendship grow even stronger😂 It's just such an iconic pairing, and I really think they'd do it justice. I think she'd make a really strong-willed Dinah, and as unsteady as I think she'd be on roller skates at first, I think that'd make everyone all the more impressed when they saw her racing and dancing around with everyone else haha - Riven and Carrie would work their magic with teaching her.

And with Dinah being typically played as a sort of 'Southern Belle' type, the obvious pick for Dinah, and one that also makes a ton of sense to me, would, of course, be Juliet. And if she wasn't playing Pearl, this is definitely who I'd have her play. I think she'd be able to lean into the more sensitive, emotional side of Dinah, whilst also keeping a bit of the strength that Mick would bring to her - and you just know that if Carrie was her Greaseball they'd be in their element playing lesbain lovers 👀😂 They'd peak here, I feel. This and Maureen and Joanne in Rent - they'd be untouchable.

I didn't even know whether to include CB in this or not since he's been taken out and put back into the show so many times, but I reference him in one of the one-shots so I thought it was best to. Basically, he's a caboose coach that, in the second act, reveals that he's got a little evil streak behind his oh-so innocent appearance, and that he's actually notorious for wrecking the trains he races behind. So, (although I don't think it's ever actually explained why lol) he teams up with Greaseball and Electra to trick Rusty into racing with him, only to try wrecking him in the big final race. Naturally, it doesn't work, but hey, he acts as a zany little extra antagonist, which I'm never going to complain about haha. 

Like I mention later on, I think Riven would feel kind of drawn to this role - especially because of the softer side we see with him when he comforts Dinah after Greaseball ditches her (for being too moral for their dirty racing tactics lol). Plus, there's that 'red' motif again that would work with his auburn hair - and I think he'd be able to play that coolly sly, kind of crazily sadistic twist well because of how chill he is normally. That switch would be so jarring! But, perhaps an even more jarring option, I think Bentley could also do this part really well. He'd be the perfect, innocent mask to begin with because he's so little and smiley - but then I think he'd have a lot of fun getting to flip that on its head and be the complete antithesis of his usual ball of sunshine personality to be a little crazy criminal instead. Obviously he's nothing like that normally, but acting-wise, if he felt confident enough with it, I think he could really do it justice! And it'd make an even cooler contrast if one of his brothers was playing Rusty; that betrayal would be even harsher!

Alright, now onto the coaches. Let's try to speed through these because I already know I've wasted far too much of your time lmao. If you're still reading at this point, I'm actually pretty impressed 😂 The coaches have changed a bunch over the years, mostly for things going out of fashion (*cough cough* Ashley the smoking car lol) - but the current ones in the London revival are Belle the sleeping car and Tassita the quiet coach. Since these are smaller, more generic parts, I don't really have as much to say about them. But, for Belle I thought that Jade might be a good pick, because I know she can sing since she's in Riven's band, and idk, maybe she naps a lot? 😂 Either way, even though she's said before that she can't act to save her life, I don't think she'd have to act a great deal in this role - but she can sing and skate, and that's enough to give her the confidence to agree to help out in my book haha. And for Tassita, who's the first coach to ever be played by a male performer, which is pretty cool, I thought August might be a fun pick - you know, because he's such a quiet guy himself lol. Besides that though, I've always thought he'd be a good performer (he was originally going to have a part on Find Your Voice after all), and although, like Jade, I don't think he'd have a great deal of confidence at first - especially in a role that still appears quite feminine when he's not totally secure about his sexuality - but I think they'd be able to tweak both the part and the costume until it was something he'd feel comfortable doing. And once he started working on it, I think it'd be really good at bringing him out of his shell! Plus, I like to think he's got a really good voice hidden behind all that shyness - so this is an excuse to finally bring it out into the open hehe. 

Other coaches that could be worked in from other productions are Buffy the buffet car, Duvet the sleeper car (an alternate to Belle), Carrie the luggage car (what a coincidence lol), or, the original Belle the sleeping car, from the original London production way back in the 80s. Belle didn't really do a great deal plot-wise besides help motivate Rusty, and Dinah and the rest of the coaches in the second act when they're ditched by the trains they race with (please, Starlight Express producers, bring back the Rolling Stock reprise; it's iconic lmao) - but if for some reason they wanted to use her in the show, I think Charlie would be a great pick for her. She'd give her all the old-school glamour and girl-power she deserves haha. And I think she'd look iconic in that red costume. 

Finally, my last category: the freight/fuel trucks. Well, actually just the fuel trucks. I thought about including the freight trucks too, but tbh, I don't really have any strong opinions on any of them, and this post is already far too long, so I just left them out lol. But, like the coaches, the fuel trucks are just more racing partner options for the trains. Some have bigger parts than others, but their main purpose is providing fuel (shocking, I know ha). They're new to the London revival though, and tbh I like them more than the freight trucks; they feel more central to the plot - even if it did make the song Freight significantly worse lmao.

And speaking of central to the plot, Hydra, the hydrogen fuel truck is the new reason why Rusty wins the final race (because before it didn't really make that much sense tbh lmao); he's now powered by hydrogen steam, which gives him the advantage over his opponents. And throughout the show, despite the other fuel trucks ragging on Hydra for being too new and dangerous in comparison to their more reliable fuel sources, he ignores them and stands by his belief in his fuel. The only pick in my mind for Hydra because of this though is Ethan - and although I have no idea if he'd ever have any remote interest in acting, especially in a musical theatre production, you know he's so loyal to his friends he'd do anything to help them out if they asked. And, I think he'd just think the idea was so weird he'd be down to participate just for the hell of it lol. But Hydra's way of not caring what anyone else thinks of him, and sticking to his own beliefs, is so Ethan to me - plus, they just have that same, chilled, laid back vibe. And, naturally, they both have that kind of green motif 😉🍃 So yeah, for me, Ethan has to be Hydra - and no matter who's playing Rusty, I feel like he'd vibe enough with all of them for him to jump at the chance to help them out like Hydra helps Rusty in the show. And it'd finally give him an excuse to use those roller skating skills I know he's hiding somewhere despite his usually terrible clumsiness ha. 

For Porter (the red coal truck) I think Zack could maybe play him? Not completely sold on that idea because I don't think he'd really vibe with musicals, but if August roped him into helping out I think he'd begrudgingly agree - and Porter basically does nothing anyway, so he couldn't really complain lol. And for Lumber (the blue timber truck) I picked Erica - not only because her blue hair would look sick with an all-blue costume like that, but also because the thought of Jade and Erica flirting as their characters during the little bickering section between the coaches and the fuel trucks in the song Freight had me weak at the knees. So if they were both in it, their characters would 100% be in love, no questions asked - I need flirty trucks and coaches hahaha. 

So then the final role I'm passionate about is Slick, the oil truck, which is the new London revival's answer to CB, since she not only takes on his main song, but also the whole concept of wanting to race with Rusty to wreck him and help out the competition. This revival also gives her a monetary aim though, which is good for giving her more of a motive, I suppose. I don't really know how trains are supposed to use money, but it's at least a reason, which is more than we had before lmao. I think Abby would be such a good pick for Slick though - I'd want to make her a little more girly, giving her some different hair (like my little reference picture, or maybe something like some fun bubble braids or something - like oil bubbles 👀) and a more feminine costume - but I think having a pretty important role like that would help bring out her confidence with performing a lot, without totally throwing her out of her comfort one with a big main role. I think she'd like the added challenge and fun that the villainous twist Slick has would bring though; it'd give her something a bit different to play with. And with Slick's colour palette mirroring Greaseball's, and her being an oil truck, makes me thing that Abby would really want to lean into making Slick a little Greaseball fangirl, who is constantly looking up to her and wanting to impress her (and hence giving her even more motivation to wreck Rusty and help Greaseball win the race) - which I think would also nicely mirror how much Abby would look up to Carrie (an established actress already) if they were to ever meet. I just think it works really well for her, and I love how the show's leaning more into mixing the genders of the coaches and the freight trucks - even if the costumes are still leaning more feminine and masculine respectively, I think our characters would have more fun tailoring them to each performer's preferences. Because come on, Abby being a pretty girly, but still menacing, little secondary villain would be so cool - she needs to let her rebellious side shine!

Excuse the TMM spacer lol, I'm too lazy to go make a new one lmao. Anyway, if you made it through all that, you really are a true friend haha - because that was soooo much insane rambling. But, I do feel better for dumping it out of my mind and onto a page. Maybe now I can finally stop obsessing over it and get back to writing the stories I should be working on. But hopefully this was a little fun post to switch things up a bit! And hopefully you at least liked it half as much as I enjoyed your Outsiders post haha. If, for some bizarre reason, you actually are interested in the show, then just let me know because I have a slime tutorial (*wink wink*) of the new revival I'd happily send you the link to, because I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. But even if not, like I said, this was just a bit of silly fun to give all these ideas a home. It's not a complex show, and it doesn't have particularly elevated songs or characters, but the orchestrations are clever, the costumes and theatrics are amazing, and it's all done on roller skates - so it'll always have a special, fun spot in my heart hehe. I've linked a video of the megamix at the end of the new London revival for you to get a bit of a vibe of what the show's like without having to watch the whole thing too if you want hehe - at least this way you can see some of the skating and costumes in action! And, as promised, as a reward for sitting through the insanity of this post, here are two little drabbles with our characters as a reward.

The first centres around the song There's Me, and a pairing I think works particularly well for it, that I'm dying to see/write more of - it's also plucked out of that Camp Wanamaker spin-off I wanted to do that I'm not sure will ever materialise. But consider this a sneak peek into what would have gone down lol. And the second is a litle bit of what the chaos the concept of Riven and Vivien putting on rivalling productions would have brought about haha. For context, I think although Riven would have bagged Carrie for his show straight away, Vivien would have furiously retaliated by claiming everyone else in their cabin for hers - hence the competitiveness that ensues. Enjoy! Hopefully they're not too weird to not still be enjoyable anyway 😅😂

The dusty deck creaked as a scuffed, black Converse nudged into her periphery. But her eyes never left the lake - as grey as the thick blanket of clouds overhead, and as bleak as her outlook. 

"The laundry house, really?" the voice demanded, pausing to give the girl a chance to explain herself. 

She did not. 

Sighing, the guest realised this was going to be harder than he expected. After all, he wasn't used to her being this…subdued. "You know, I just think it's a testament to our friendship that I was the only one who knew to look for you here," he offered with a playful smile…that went completely unnoticed. Frowning as the girl continued to ignore his very existence, he let out another sigh, this one as he lowered himself down and took up the space beside her, nudging the sole of her now off-white sneaker with his knee to draw her out of her thoughts. "Come on, Carrie. I'm trying here," he said. But when he leant forwards to try to get a clearer look at her face, and found her cheeks marred with glistening tracks in her foundation, and her puffy eyes speckled with remnants of her mascara, his frustration waned. "You can't hide from them forever," he gently added.

"I want to," Carrie murmured.

"You don't mean that," he tried.

"I do; at least that way I wouldn't be able to fuck things up any more than I already have," she limply insisted.

"You didn't-"

"Don't give me that, Riven; I know I did," Carrie said, cutting him off with an exasperated huff. "I shouldn't have done it, I shouldn't have yelled at them like that. But I was just in such a bad mood after that class, and I was so fed up with everything, so then to come back to all that I just…"

"...Let all those years of bottled up frustration out?" Riven offered.

"Something like that," Carrie mumbled, dropping her gaze to her lap, knowing that if she actually made eye contact with the boy her resolve would start to crumble in an instant. 

"Hmm," he began, murmuring his understanding as he took his turn to look out across the lake. "I heard it wasn't pretty."

Although Riven was no longer looking at her, he saw her dark blonde curls trembling out of the corner of his eye as she shook her head.

"I'm so embarrassed," she admitted, voice barely above a whisper. A fresh tear plopped onto her thigh as she kept her watery gaze steady, praying she'd be able to get a handle on her waterworks for once. "They hate me for sure now."

"They never hated you, Carrie," Riven promised, turning back to her again as though it would persuade her to believe him. 

But Carrie proved to be as stubborn as ever, completely bypassing the comment with a mournful smile she still couldn't bring herself to lift from the floor. "All that time I spent trying to win them over…down the drain, all because I had a shit day and lost my cool."

"I don't know, I'd still say you're pretty cool," Riven tried with a playful lopsided grin, bumping her shoulder until she turned to see it for herself.

When she did finally turn to face him though, it was with that flat, annoyed frown that always just egged him on more. "This isn't a joke," she grumbled, but Riven's little chuckle said otherwise. 

"I'm not saying it is," he countered. "I'm just letting you know it's gonna take a hell of a lot more than one dumb argument for me to stop thinking you're cool. Come on, you're Caroline Cole: entertainer extraordinaire-"

"Why are you doing this?" Carrie stopped his playful bolstering in its tracks with a weary sigh.

"Because I want to," Riven said, standing firm in his optimism. "Come on, I hate seeing you like this," he pressed on fitfully, uneasy with her uncharacteristic despondency. She was usually the life and soul of the party in that playhouse, now she had all the energy of a wet paper towel. Hoping to distract her with a little healthy competition, he added, "We should be out there crushing Erica's cabin at volleyball right now."

"Well forgive me, but I'm not really in the mood," Carrie flatly retorted.

"What are you in the mood for?" he challenged, with a primarily jovial tone, but a hint of creeping frustration. "Moping about like a kicked puppy?"

"Yes, actually," she snipped. "Hate to be the bearer of bad news but I can't be the 'smiling showgirl' 24/7…" Her frown twitched into the faintest of wistful smiles as her voice trailed off, carrying her focus back into the turmoil unfolding within her own head. "I'm allowed to have emotions, I'm just not allowed to show them," she went on to explain with a quiet, self-loathing huff. "'Cause that's when things always turn to shit."

All Riven's teasing intent slipped away, seeping into the damp wood beneath them, as it began to dawn on him that there may have been more to her dramatic disappearance than what he'd initially thought. "...This is about more than just you yelling at the boys, isn't it?" he slowly asked, treading carefully, as though to not set off a bomb.

And yet, Carrie dropped one on him anyway.  

"I think Miles and I are gonna break up, Riv."

The words hung in the muggy air between them, not daring to be believed.

Stunned, hazel eyes settled on Carrie's profile, unable to tear themselves away until she explained herself. So, she began to talk. Slowly but surely, she unravelled the tangle of thoughts in her head, laying them out before her friend, praying that his sensible, perceptive mind could help her make sense of them. "It's just…not felt right this summer. It's like he's…pulling away, or something," she started, still avoiding eye contact at all costs. At least that way she could keep a handle on her tears, even if her mouth did start to run away from her instead. "And the arguing with Royce never helps, but it's just been getting worse instead of better and I can tell he's getting frustrated with it, but I'm trying and nothing's working and I don't understand why and that's making me frustrated, which makes the bickering worse, I just-" She stopped to snatch a breath, only to blow out all her remaining self-confidence with it. "I feel like I've got no fight left anymore. I can't see it getting better. And when I know Miles would always side with his brothers, and everyone else would side with him if things went south… I don't know, it just kind of stings, I guess; one wrong move and I lose them all. No matter what I do, I'd still be left out on my own."

"Don't lump me in with that."

Startled, Carrie lost her focus and turned to the boy; she'd been so lost in her own thoughts she'd forgotten she wasn't alone anymore. But even when she searched his expression, his comment still made no sense. "What do you mean?"

"Well don't say I'd never speak to you again if things with you and Miles didn't work out," he explained as though it was the simplest thing in the world. "Which they totally will by the way, but that's beside the point," he tacked on as that playful chuckle of his started creeping back into his voice. "Of course I'd still speak to you; you can't get rid of me that easily."

"Really?" Carrie asked, wary despite the hopeful glint in her ocean eyes. 

"Yes, really, idiot," he snorted. "I'm not just friends with you 'cause you're dating Miles, you're my drama buddy," he went on to explain with a grin holding nothing but fond sincerity. "You're the only one that keeps me sane in that playhouse, and even then you're so ridiculous I can only take you seriously like 60% of the time. Plus, I did see you naked that one time-"

"I was not- it was just my top."

The frustrated tone shining through in the way she had cut him off, and the way she had hurriedly returned to avoiding his gaze, struck Riven down. "Oh my god, you didn't even laugh at the bikini story. This really is bad," he said - again, half-joking, half-genuinely-concerned. Reaching behind him, his fingers closed around glossy wood as a teasing smile started to tug at his lips. "I didn't want it to have to come to this…"

Hearing fingers start plucking at guitar strings, Carrie's bewildered frown deepened as she turned back to him. "What are you doing?"

"I can't help it, you've left me no choice," he chuckled, cheesily grinning back at her and continuing to lazily pluck out a melody. "I'm not leaving until I've cheered you up - even if that means resorting to music."

"Come on, Riv," Carrie wearily groaned, not nearly as amused by the offer as he'd hoped she would be. "Stop, I'm not in the mood. Can't you just leave me alone?"

The plucking stopped and Riven sat the guitar fully back in his lap, his own brows now starting to furrow. "They really got you this time, huh?"

Carrie sighed as she dropped her gaze to her lap again. "I don't like to show it normally 'cause I know they don't always mean it, they just want to get a rise out of me," she slowly confessed. "But it was…different last night. It's felt different since we arrived."

"I really thought you guys were getting somewhere," Riven softly mused, just as perplexed by the sudden nosedive in amiability as the others in the cabin.

"So did I," Carrie agreed, smiling painfully down at a knot in the wood. A million things she wanted to say swirled in her head, but none of her thoughts were quite able to be fit into words - nothing that could make a coherent sentence anyway. She didn't know whether to get mad, and let the rest of her pent up anger spill across the deck until she'd rid herself of it completely. She didn't know whether to just push it to the back of her mind again, put on a brave face and swan back into camp as though nothing was wrong at all. She didn't know whether to stay hidden, avoiding everyone at the cabin and all her problems at the same time. At least that way she wouldn't have to face them again, or have to try to explain herself and her inexcusable temperament to Miles. God, he was probably so mad at her right now. 

More and more thoughts flew through her mind, hitting the walls of her skull like rabid animals until her head pounded and her resolve broke down. Helpless tears started to slip from her eyes as the hopelessness of her position washed over her all over again. She felt a hand on her back that brought her back to her senses in an instant though - having forgotten, yet again, that she wasn't alone out here. She sniffed and hurriedly patted away the tears, trying to salvage what little of her makeup still remained. "Guess I'm not such a heartless bitch after all," she offered, managing a melancholy chuckle at her predicament that, although was an improvement, still did nothing to show Riven that she was feeling more like her usual self. 

In fact, he just felt more concerned than ever. Carrie was strong-willed and stubborn, bold and exuberant - not the shying, insecure, tearful shell of a girl before him. He'd already suspected that her confidence had been knocked this summer thanks to the rather personal disruption at the playhouse, but this was worse than he thought. And he couldn't stand by in good conscience and watch her fire be extinguished. 

Setting his guitar back into position, he began plucking at the strings again. Carrie shot him another questioning look, with a slightly annoyed huff, but he stuck to his guns and kept playing, offering her nothing but a cheesy, comforting grin in response. "Complain all you want," he chuckled. "But I'm not gonna stop playing." 

Although Carrie just rolled her eyes, she did manage a small, resigned laugh as she gave up on the pushback. And soon, to her surprise, lyrics began to accompany his playing - as gentle and reassuring as his own intent.

All alone, you think you're on your own You think there's no one in the world who cares for you That isn't true, there's me May not be, the one you want to see But if you need someone who's kind then look behind And then you'll find, there's me

I'll be near, standing by Never fear, you can cry But in a while, you will smile And I'll be there to see

By yourself you have to cry yourself Nobody else can cry the tears you have to cry But I will try, there's me Until then, when you're okay again You'll look around, find I'm no longer there I'll still be near somewhere You're not alone, there's me There's always me

I'll still be near somewhere You're not alone; there's me There's always me...

The soft, yet cheeky smiles Riven kept shooting the girl as he sang, paired with the meaning behind the words, and the added special meaning to them both, meant that by the time his strumming faded to silence, Carrie was finally grinning back at him. 

"You really came all the way out here to serenade me with a musical theatre song from the 80s?" she asked with a teasing chuckle, wiping away the last traces of any tears with the heel of her hand. 

"It worked, didn't it?" he teasingly fired back with a satisfied smirk. 

"Touché," she giggled, before hitting with a further pointed eyebrow raise. "But Starlight? Really?"

"Again: it worked, didn't it?" he retorted with a snort of laughter she was all too happy to reciprocate.

"You are way too attached to that show," she chuckled, teasingly bumping his arm.

"It's about roller skating trains - how can I not be attached to it?"

"I don't know, ask literally anyone else at camp," Carrie snorted back, referring to the many attempts the pair had made to try to get even just one of their friends to give the show a chance.

Knowing exactly what the blonde was talking about, Riven just shot her a grin. "They'll come around eventually, trust me."

Giving an equally confident, yet slightly more playful grin back, Carrie conceded with another giggle before continuing. "And when they do, I think you've proven you'd make an excellent CB."

Riven pressed a hand to his chest. "I think that might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me," he said with a comically dramatic earnestness that just had Carrie rolling her eyes again.

"Shut up, I compliment you all the time," she retorted, and her smile only broadened when Riven showed no signs of pushing back. "I'm serious though; if you ever manage to convince Nonna you don't need to be sectioned for suggesting we stage the show, I think you'd be great."

Biting back a laugh, Riven instead decided to lead with sincerity. "Only if you'd be my Dinah," he bargained with a fond, yet knowing grin she, again, gladly shared. But it wasn't long before he started rambling again. "But I'd sacrifice that if it meant you could be Pearl…"

With an affectionate shake of her head, Carrie playfully sighed, "I never play the lead - I can't break my streak now, you know that."

Taking his turn to roll his eyes, he retorted with. "Pearl is not the lead; the whole show's about Rusty."

"Ok well maybe you can play Rusty then, Mr Know-It-All," Carrie teasingly fired back as the pair fell back into their typical, theatre-based ramblings - idly chattering away without a care in the world as the wind pulled the clouds across the sky.

It wasn't until Carrie saw the sunlight skittering across the lake, and heard the distant chatter of counsellors start up again, that she realised her head had finally stopped pounding, and her chest no longer felt as though someone had carved a giant hole into it. Astonished, but grateful nonetheless, Carrie turned back to Riven with a smile. "Thanks for coming to find me, Riv."

Grinning contentedly back, he replied, "Well, I don't like thinking of you being sad. You're like my fun, crazy, big sister - I can't have you moping around like a sadsack."

"You really think of me like a sister?"

"Of course. We don't always understand each other, and I tease the shit out of you at every opportunity I get, but that doesn't mean I don't care about you. You always make me laugh, you're insanely talented, you give the best advice, but you're honest when you need to be - you're everything I'd want in a big sister. Plus, like I said, you're my drama buddy. The shit we put up with from those campers has bonded us for life, whether you like it or not."

Unable to hold back her laughter any longer, it spilled out from her grateful smile as she reached out and wrapped him in a big hug, nestling her face into the well-worn cotton of his hoodie. 

"And you give great hugs," he playfully added, mumbling through her mane of frizzy, golden curls.

"Thanks, Riv," she murmured between giggles, letting herself melt into the comforting reassurance of his embrace.

"Any time, Care Bear."

Sitting back, scouring his half-finished painting with an acutely analytical gaze, Bentley didn't even hear the door to the art barn open, let alone the footsteps that followed. He squinted his eyes, tilted his head from side to side, screwed up his mouth in concentration… And then his vision went dark.

Blinking, eyelashes brushed against an old t-shirt masquerading as a blindfold. But before he could try to question the ambush, a quiet voice broke through his haze of confusion.

"Alright, listen to what I say, or this is not gonna be pretty."

A chuckle couldn't help but slip from Bentley's lips, immediately relaxing as he recognised the voice. "Is that your attempt at sounding threatening?"

"I was actually trying to be reassuring," August countered with a bashful chuckle of his own.

"Oh, well then consider me reassured," Bentley laughed, still idly toying with his paintbrush. "As reassured as anyone can be when they're randomly blindfolded on a Wednesday afternoon. What are you doing anyway?"

"I need to take you somewhere, so put the brush down and get up - but don't go too fast; I've gotta make sure you don't bump into anything," August ordered, tying the old t-shirt in place before clumsily helping the blonde stand, taking him by the shoulders and leading him towards the door.

"Where the hell are we going?" Bentley asked, after they had navigated the stairs in a (somewhat) successful manner - consisting of only one giggling fit, and one almost-total-collapse - as he felt them move from the wooden deck to the uneven grass. 

"I'm not allowed to tell you, but it's nothing bad, trust me."

"Who's forcing you to kidnap me and parade me across camp like a prisoner?"

"You'll find out in a minute," August chuckled, steering him around a tree stump. "But just know that it's nothing bad."

"Well I'd hope not - I'd hate to think you'd willingly be involved in leading me to my demise," Bentley snorted, before continuing with his idle rambling. "Who's roped you into taking me captive anyway?"

"I don't know if I can say; they didn't give me much briefing, and I don't think they expected you to be this…chatty."

Bentley laughed. "Well then they should have sent a more intimidating kidnapper."

"They didn't want to scare you, they just needed you away from Vivien," August admitted, immediately falling silent for a few steps. "...I don't know if I was supposed to say that."

"Ohhh, ok then, so I'm being taken hostage by the competition?" Bentley chuckled through a smirk as he began to piece the puzzle together.

"...Maybe," August confirmed as he rounded the blonde and started to lead him up a new set of steps from the front to make sure he didn't lose his footing. "But if they ask then you figured it out on your own - you didn't hear it from me."

"Well it's not like I had many options; it was either that or some weird camp event I didn't pay attention to the announcement for," Bentley laughed to himself as he blindly stuck his foot out, almost completely missing the step until August repositioned him. "What do they need me for? Information about how our rehearsals are going? And how are you in cahoots with them anyway? Are you abandoning our show for theirs?"

"What? No, just… Hang on, gimme a second," August fumbled through his excuses, fighting to nudge the door open with his foot before carefully pulling his friend inside. "Alright, we're here. Just sit down and listen to what they've got to say, they'll explain everything," he continued, keeping his voice down as he offered the boy further reassurances he was sure he wasn't supposed to. 

Once Bentley was situated on what felt like a metal fold-out chair, August gave his shoulder one last reassuring squeeze before untying the old t-shirt and lifting it away from his eyes. Oddly though, even with the blindfold removed, Bentley could hardly see a thing; whatever cabin they were in had black-out cloths draped across the windows, leaving the room in complete darkness. Well, at least that explained why it had taken August so long to navigate him across the room. 

"Uhh… Hello?" Bentley tried, calling out into what felt like a completely empty room if the thick silence he was met with was anything to go by.

But before he could question his situation any further, a light sprang to life beside him, so bright he had to jerk his head back to save himself from temporary blindness.

Wincing, he tried to take in his now significantly more illuminated surroundings, only to find that he was sitting at a scuffed, fold-out table, occupying the very lamp that seemed to give off more light than the sun itself. Other than that, the rest of the room was swimming in darkness, creating a rather effective interrogation set-up, which he suspected the masterminds behind his kidnapping had hoped for. 

And speaking of these masterminds, just as the afterimages were finally starting to fade from his vision, a figure rolled out of the darkness and up to the table. Yes, quite literally rolled. 

They set their hands on the tabletop in front of him and presented the boy with a smug smile. "Hello, Bentley."

"What are you doing?" Bentley asked, snorting out a laugh at the surreal nature of the entire situation. 

"We have a…preposition for you," Riven slowly explained, his smug smile only broadening. 

"We?" Bentley questioned. "There are more weirdos than you tied up in this thing?"

Suddenly the lamp head was wrenched back, sending the beam of light directly at his face, once again making him jerk his head back. "And just who do you think you're calling a weirdo?"

Eyes watering from the visual assault, Bentley squinted through the brightness until he found a tanned hand clamped around the lamphead. Following it up, he found an all-too-familiar, shadowed face, framed by a mane of unruly golden curls. "Not you?" Bentley offered with a lopsided smile.

Thankfully, the gesture was enough to appease Carrie, who tilted the lamphead back into position - but not before she shot the boy a satisfied smirk in response. 

"You got any other questions? Or can we get down to business?" Riven asked. 

"Uh, yeah: what's with the kidnapping?" Bentley fired back, sporting an amused smirk of his own. "You so worried you'll lose the bet you're turning to torturing the competition?"

"What? No! We just needed you away from the boss," Riven laughed, his comically threatening act disappearing in seconds as he referenced his pint-sized figure skating partner. "Like I said, we've got a preposition for you."

"Couldn't you have just asked me in the dining hall? Or in my room or something?" Bentley went on to ask, still having to squint from the light.

"Well yeah, but where's the fun in that?" came Riven's snorted reply, to which Carrie just grinned and nodded in agreement.

Bentley shook his head at the pair, evidently equally matched in their passion for dramatising the most menial things. "This is so dumb," he breathed, fighting back a smile at the ridiculousness of their whole set-up. "What do you want then? What's this preposition thing?"

Carrie and Riven exchanged a glance, giving each other a confirmatory nod before turning back to the blonde. "…We need your help."

"With what?"

"With the show," Riven clarified.

"The show? Your show?" Bentley spluttered, eyes darting between the pair, looking for any evidence of jesting, yet finding nothing. "I don't understand," he slowly continued. "Why do you want my help? I've got no idea what I'm doing with all this theatre stuff. I'm out of my depth with Viv's show as it is. Plus, I already agreed to be in her's - I can't help out the competition."

"Why not? I am."

Bentley's ears pricked up as a new voice entered the conversation, and to his amazement, when he turned to follow it, he saw a grinning brunette emerging from the darkness on Carrie's right. 

"Mick?! You jumped ship?" Bentley asked, gawping at the grinning girl as though she'd just grown a second nose. "Does Viv know?"

"No, I didn't jump ship," Mick chuckled as she perched on the edge of the fold-out table. "I'm helping out with both."

"What? Why?"

"'Cause I wanted to," she snorted simply. "It's not like there's rules against it. This whole thing's just for fun anyway."

"Yeah, it's not actually a competition - we just both wanted to put on different shows," Riven added.

"Well could you let Viv know that? She's treating this like we're at war - we've all been sworn to secrecy," Bentley said, chuckling at his friend's competitive spirit.

"Oh we know, we already tried to get Mick to squeal but she wouldn't budge," Carrie said, sharing a knowingly playful glance with the brunette.

"And luckily, they had a cool job for me besides just being their spy," Mick cheekily added. "Or else all the effort it took to brainwash me would have been for nothing."

"Which is…?" Bentley tried.

"I'm building the stage," Mick revealed with a proud grin. 

Bentley's eyes went wide. "You guys need to build your own stage?"

Riven and Carrie shared another knowing smirk. "If we want the show to be as awesome as it deserves to be then yeah, it needs a custom stage," Riven confirmed.

"And since Butchy and Miles refused to even hear us out, Mickie stepped up to the plate to handle it all on her own," Carrie added, looping her arm through the brunette's with a fond grin. "And she's doing a way better job than either of those two bozos would have done anyway." 

"Well, I don't know about that…" Mick said with a roguish chuckle. "But I am doing a pretty damn good job."

"Does this mean you're helping with both shows too?" Bentley then asked, turning behind him to look for the friend who'd brought him here, who could do nothing but offer him a sheepish smile. 

"...Yeah," August slowly admitted, before adding a quieter: "You know I'm terrible at saying 'no' to things."

"So your solution is just doing twice the work?" Bentley asked incredulously, the information just serving more of a purpose to fuel his growing need to help August grow a backbone. 

"Well they're not big parts-" he tried to reason.

"You're actually in both of them?" Bentley demanded, his eyes practically popping out of his head when he saw the knee and elbow pads the boy was sporting. "But you don't know how to roller skate."

"They're teaching me," August chuckled, shooting Carrie and Riven a grateful smile. And when Bentley's disbelieving gaze found theirs, they just offered him smug grins and little waves, showing off their own elbow pads as they did so.

Bentley's shock jumped to a whole new level when he spotted Mick's elbow pads though. "You're in it too, Mickie?!"

"Well I didn't like how quickly Butchy dismissed them when they asked him to take part," Mick began, smirking at the very thought. "So I thought I'd teach him a lesson about not judging things at face level."

"Well, we should have known not to expect his neanderthal brain to be able to comprehend such complex concepts as 'having fun'," Carrie retorted with a cheeky dig Mick luckily started to laugh at.

"I've gotta admit, it did sound really corny at first. But once you get past the fact it's all about trains, the show is pretty fun," Mick confessed.

"Duh, of course it's fun, we're directing it," Carrie added, gesturing to the auburn-haired giant behind her, who just laughed in his approval. 

"The whole show's done on roller skates - I still don't understand how anyone could know that and not automatically think it's awesome," Riven said between his chuckles. 

But at that revelation, Bentley's eyes started to grow wide again. "Hold on, you're not expecting me to have a part in your show too, are you?" he asked, horrified at the very idea. "I barely have a handle on what I'm doing in Viv's already, and that's just one show. Plus, I can't even roller skate so-"

"No, we don't need you to be in it," Riven cut in with a chuckle before the blonde's anxious ramblings could make him run out of breath. 

"Unless you want to be in it, then we'd totally find you a part," Carrie tagged on with an encouraging grin. 

"And teach you how to skate," Riven added with a mischievous smirk. "If we can teach Mick, we can teach anyone."

And although Mick's playful whack of Riven's arm did help him relax a touch, Bentley's stance on their offer was still firm: "No thanks, I'm good." But his curiosity was still running rampant as the others giggled at his reaction. "Well if you don't need me to have a part in the show, then what did you need my help for?"

"We wanted to see if you'd be willing to help us with designing and making the costumes," Riven explained.

Bentley thought he had to have misheard him. "The costumes?"

"Yeah," Riven chuckled at the boy's expression. "What's that face for?"

"I don't know the first thing about making costumes - I've never worked with fabric in my life."

Riven and Carrie exchanged another glance. "That's kind of why we need your help," Carrie started.

But when Bentley just looked more confused than ever, Riven went on to explain. "None of the stuff in the playhouse storage bins will work because, well, they're just regular people clothes, so we need to design our own stuff. Juliet's already said she can help construct any actual clothing garments we need, but our main problem is how to actually use the outfits to make us look like trains."

Bentley's thoughts came to a screeching halt. "Wait…you guys are the trains?"

"Yeah."

"You're acting as trains? Singing trains?" They had to be pranking him, right?

"Uh, yeah," Carrie said, sharing another quick glance with Riven.

"What did you think the show was about?" he snorted.

"I don't know, I thought you were just like people working on a railroad or something," Bentley retorted with an incredulous splutter.

"Well we're not, we're the trains," Riven chuckled.

"Yeah, why else would we need to do the whole thing on wheels?" Mick added with a playful wiggle of her skate-clad foot. 

"So what? You want me to…make you look like trains?" Bentley warily asked. "Like with big chimneys coming out of your heads and stuff?"

Fondly rolling her eyes at Bentley's poor attempts at stifling his laughter, Carrie stepped in to try to explain the proposal a little more clearly. "No - we just need to capture the vibe of trains - you don't need to shove us all in cardboard box models. We can show you the costumes of the official productions so you can get an idea of the sort of things we're looking for, but we don't have a huge budget, so we're gonna have to get creative - hence why we came to you," she finished with a proud grin. 

"All we want you to do is draw up some concepts that make us look enough like a train to sell the illusion to the audience. And as long as they're moveable enough for us to skate in, and can be constructed from stuff we've got access to, the rest of the design can be totally down to you," Riven added.

"So basically you've got free reign to make us look as ridiculous as you want," Mick tacked on with a chuckle. 

"But try to be a little nice with it," August gently offered from behind, which just set Bentley off to laugh more.

He did have to admit that the offer sounded quite tempting. After all, he'd never worked on anything like costume designs before - and from the sounds of things, this concept would let him get pretty creative with it; these weren't just average costumes - in fact, they were probably more sculpture than costume anyway. But there was something still holding him back. "I don't know, guys. I don't know if I've got the brain space to work on two shows at once-"

"Oh please, Bentley - come on," Riven pleaded. "We'll look like complete morons out there if we don't have good costumes."

"We will," Mick earnestly confirmed. "Trust me, It's not pretty."

"Well if I'm on Vivien's side then don't I want you guys to look like complete morons?" he asked with a mischievous giggle.

"Maybe, but where's the fun in a landslide victory?" Riven countered with a smirk. 

"Come on, Benny, please," came Carrie's attempt at begging. "I'll sit with you and help you learn all your lines whilst you work on the costumes."

Bentley's ears pricked up. "...Really?"

"Mhm," she confirmed with a kind nod. "And I can give you all my tips for breaking down the script into easier parts to manage; I know they can seem really daunting when you try to go through them all at once."

Now that sounded like an offer he could get behind. He'd already been toying with the idea of asking Carrie for help with the seemingly impossible task of learning his lines, but had chickened out every time. There were just so many - it was like they all blurred into one every time he'd even open a page. And he hated the thought of letting Vivien down because he couldn't get his brain to work how he wanted it to, so if Carrie could actually help him get through a scene without having to look at his script the entire time… Maybe it'd be worth giving up a few pages of his sketchbook to designing train-transformer-wannabes.

But he couldn't let them think he was that easy of a target… "I don't know guys, it just doesn't feel right going behind Viv's back like this-"

"Oh come on, Benny, please," Carrie tried again, with a touch more dramatic desperation.

"I'll do your dish duty for the rest of summer," Riven attempted to bribe.

But that just spurred on Bentley's reluctance even more. After all, he was rather curious about what else he could squeeze out of the pair to help sweeten the deal. "...I'm listening."

"You can have the rest of my pudding cups with dinner each night?" Riven offered. "And you don't have to go behind Viv's back," he added. "Don't go and tell her outright, but if she asks you about it then you're totally free to tell her. And if she's not happy about it, you can back out any time you want."

"Well, okay, but I still don't know if I'll have the time to-"

"If you say 'yes' we'll get you that rare Spiderman comic you want," Riven threw out in a moment of sheer desperation.

Bentley's heart skipped a beat. Damn, they really did want his help.. "...Seriously?" he breathed, eyes widening at the very prospect.

"Sure, Carrie'll cover it - won't you, Carrie?" Riven confirmed with a smirk as he gave the blonde's shoulder a squeeze. 

Shooting him a sharp glance, she hissed a tight: "I will?"

"Of course you will," Riven verified, his mischievous smirk only broadening as Carrie's mildly murderous glare was replaced with Bentley's whole-hearted satisfaction.

"Alright, done. Pass me a pen and some paper," he said, sealing the deal with a barked laugh and a cheesy grin before either one of them could back down on their offers again. 

"Welcome aboard, Bentley," Riven replied, shooting him a victorious smile as he reached across the table and shook the boy's hand. 

But just as Riven and the others were starting to unload all their ideas for potential costume concepts onto Bentley, with what he found to be startling levels of enthusiasm, the room's main lights flickered to life, illuminating a seething head of green hair in the doorway. Before Bentley could question the girl's sudden appearance, or could let his eyes adjust to the drastic shift in brightness though, she called out to her band partner with thunderous urgency.

"Riv, you've got a hell of a lot of explaining to do; I just looked up this 'Belle' character you want me to play - care to tell me why she's described as 'ancient' and 'peeling'?" an outraged Jade demanded. "Or why you thought I'd be so perfect to play her?"

Rolling his eyes and just laughing off the girl's anger, Riven quickly tried to appease her with a teasing: "That's not the version of her we're using, dummy. And don't you dare try to tell me you're not perfect for her - you nap all the fucking time."

As Riven and Jade broke off into their own friendly spat, and Mick and Carrie started up their own conversation about what Mick had been practising last on her skates, Bentley found himself turning to August - this time taking his turn to wear the awkwardly sheepish smile. "Why do I get the feeling I've signed up for way more than I can handle?"

"Oh come on, don't worry, it'll be fun," August reassured before offering a joke to further set him at ease. "And hey, at least you're getting a backstage job and a comic book out of it - all I'm gonna get is on-stage embarrassment and massive quads."

The guffaws spilled from Bentley's lips before he could stop them - and after glancing around to watch Carrie clumsily catching Mick (who looked as if she'd just stepped on a banana peel in an old cartoon) before she could fall, and Riven playfully bickering with Jade in the doorway, he started to think that working with them on this project might not be so bad after all. Plus, a whole costume concept all to himself? He could definitely have some fun with that…

[wonderful-magician]

OK do you ship dinahboose and if you do I NEED YOUR THOUGHTS. ( I saw you where analyzing ceeb’s characterization sooo) if not just use this as a free space to ramble about something else idk 💀

it is 1:am but I am so desperate to ramble and I also will take any excuse to draw any ship I like ever which is almost too many so excuse me if I sound nonsensical

^^!!

OKAY I LOVE DINAHBOOSE obv I've been into this musical for a total of 2 weeks or so- so I'm still scrounging every bit of Information on these guys that I can. And I've done wayyy more research on CB than I have Dinah ( he has a lot more to look at though ) but these two just make sense to me. They just make sense. Opposites but not opposites. They are confusing and they are both confused. But at least they can hold hands while confused.

Personally I struggle to ever hate or dislike ships unless there's like a blindingly obvious reason to dislike a ship. But dinahboose is probably my second favorite ship so far for StEx ( Electraboose has 1st place and Krupp/purse has 3rd )

Totally not gonna use this to talk about my personal rewrite of StEx.. specifically C.B. because I don't want to make a post just for it LMAO.

So yeah I've been basically studying C.B. ( or, I guess caboose because he hasn't been called C.B in a long time... but C.B has more personality.. ) and my version of C.B. is probably a horrible amalgamation of OLC and 2015 Bochum. Because I love radio aesthetics and the Dinah friendship but I also love the toy soldier aesthetic and absolutely batshit laugh ( I also love it when C.B. is played by somebody too flexible for their own good ) hes just a glorified circus clown on wheels with a radio set strapped to his head.

And I wish I could pretend that I understand cutting him but I do and I don't and I do. Because I honestly feel like C.B in the original does more than Electra lmao. But I don't think cutting people is the solution most the time tbh.

Okay onto more half asleep rambling that is likely to change because I'm still in the early stages of this rewrite. But. I recognize that C.B. has some issues. The one most of my friends point out is that he seemingly has no motive. He just... Is silly I guess. And I think this is a bit funny because I do like an antagonist with the motive of " it would be funny " , but at the same time. Kind of hard to make that character very ...er... Well I'll just say it does get a bit boring.

Something I also heard was that in the reasons C.B. has been cut was because caboose's aren't exactly used anymore, which is totally fair!

But could also totally be a motivation! Think about it, why is C.B still working? Still working with the freight despite essentially being useless? Because greaseball wants to keep him around to use him for cheating. Easy! Obviously none of this could easily be translated to the show. But for some comics/writings? Yes. Yes.

Think about it. Rusty is struggling, he feels a bit useless because steam is falling behind! So he tries to win and prove himself. But who else feels useless because of their job being replaced? C.B. but unlike rusty, C.B takes the other path, instead of trying to be a role model and win or prove himself. He just goes down the path of crime. And hey, he's probably a crazy adrenaline junky too so he's still doing it for the fun!

And why does he betray greaseball? Plenty of reasons. C.B might dislike greaseball because of poor treatment, he might dislikes greaseball for his treatment of Dinah, he probably just wants to get the adrenaline high of betraying him in the first place. Maybe to prove that he's important and needed because if he doesn't help, greaseball will lose. And he wants to hold it over him for his own personal desire of self importance. Who knows. He's a complicated little clown he is.

Ok anyway yeah I'm like the #3 Dinahboose supporter I will draw them more hehbehehehee

[papatundespainknife]

based on the backstory and personalities of the Mikalesons, do you have any headcannons about Mikaelsons + religion?

oh HECKIE YEAH

i think it's honestly SUCH an interesting topic and concept seeing as how their all you know immortals n shit and magics real and etc etc. unlike say, btvs where Willow literally invokes Osiris, tvd doesn't really make any solid references or claims about the whole Deity Situation until apparently legacies but I haven't watched it yet and sounds Kinda Dumb so I'm ignoring that lol. But the rule of thumb with shows like these seems to be that once you say draculas and witches are Super Real then it's open season for Zeus enter stage right like it's an episode of Xena. Which when you look at the Mikaelsons....... Wild.

I think that Freya, Finn and Rebekah are the most unironically straight-forwardly religious and I think they've stuck to the norse/scandinavian beliefs they grew up with. Freya both because of the 1,000 years of Napping Nonsense but also because she's a witch and that's the school she was taught in so she's sticking with it. Finn for similar naptime reasons and also because he doesn't see a reason to change and didn't even when they were in France and hanging out with christians. For Rebekah it's like pure sentimentality. She likes a lot of the aesthetics of mainly catholicism (the swagiest of sects) but at the end of the day she's still out here making offerings to Freya (the goddess not the sister fdjkgdfsdfs) because she's a sappy little sentimental bitch and that's what brings her comfort. I don't think she's particularly religious which I think Freya and Finn are but she enjoys the celebrations and finds comfort in the actions/words/rituals/prayers/etc.

Kol and Elijah are more wiggly in their beliefs. Kol still calls back to his roots a LOT but he's also expanded out over the years since he's still a witch at heart and a curious cat. He's less interested in following any one religion and more in what resonates with him. So his believe system is very eclectic. What he believes in he believes in 10000% and is dead serious about. He's also experimented and educated himself about world religions the most out of all of them. Dude could probably teach a clss tbh.

Elijah is the one who's actually been the closest you can be to an atheist in a world like this. He's had periods of like, religious nihilism and periods were he's a little more hopeful about it. He's just spent so much of his life trying to be the Good Reliable Son and like Niklaus praying for divine intervention both with their father and with Niklaus only to get shit in return that it broke him and he just stopped and abandoned all religion/spirituality and focused only on the tangible. Hope's birth fucking shakes him to the core lol. Generally tho even after her he's still more in the like, "not my scene but i do love a good festivity" camp.

Niklaus is an evangelical's idea of an atheist where it's not "i don't believe in god" but instead "i feel god personally slighted me at my bday party so now i'll hurl rocks at him for the rest of my life out of pure spite". his sense of abandonment, unwantedness and paranoia doesn't stop at the threshold of religion. Ofc, he's old as dirt and literally has his own coven that bitches KEEP FORGETTING HE HAS so he's not in doubt that the divine exists. But Thor didn't protect him from his father's abuse so fuck that guy and jesus didn't fix SHIT for him so equally fuck him.

Wouldn't be shocked tho to see him "ironically" do rites/sacrifices to Odin via shit like the death of an enemy/creatively using old school practices for physical/psychological torture bc he's Like That. Does he also end up carving a mjolnir into Hope's crib and giving her a little one on a necklace? yes but this ain't about that hush.

Kol and Niklaus are also the most likely to have an affinity for gods like Loki and his children for reasons I feel are obvious lol. The holiday arguments this creates between them and Finn are unhinged.

[bohemian-nights]

Once more I’m quite unsure as to why everyone feels the need to ignore the source material. Season 3 not being about Benophie still boggles my mind because why???!??!! Not to be a hater but Colin is uninteresting and unattractive (no hate to the actor he’s just not my type) to me. And I personally can’t stand Penelope (once again no hate to the actress) so I’m not really interested in this season tbh. On a side note there is a possibility to make Sophie a illegitimate granddaughter of Charlotte especially since in Queen Charlotte she says along the lines of how there are 50 illegitimate grand babies that [she] the crown ignores.

I know what you mean anon. Nothing against either of the actors playing the characters or the fans who like the ship, but Polin just isn't my cup of tea.

We all have our faves and mine is Benophie. I’m a Benophie and then a Franchael girl through and through.

That being said, despite me being a Benophie girl I don’t mind that they’ve skipped over Benedict. I mean I was initially pissed the hell off about it, but I think I understand now why Shonda did what she did.

This is gonna sound nonsensical, and weird, and is probably going to piss someone off(lol I’m the queen of that apparently👑), but there have been back to back to back interracial couples in Bridgerton.

I’m almost positive Sophie is going to be Black(🤞🏽) and while this show prides itself on diversity, I think they wanted to give white audiences a bone. So for that reason, she chose to push Polin’s season ahead.

Plus I think Shonda sees herself in Penelope(writer, “working woman,” the wallflower, and hater of other women💀).

I’m kinda glad she did push Polin’s season forward given what happened with the strike situation…

I do not mind waiting another two years for Benophie. I’ll “suffer” through this season for them and who knows, this season may surprise me and I may end up loving it 🤷🏽‍♀️

Now regarding, Sophie’s parentage, it would be interesting if they made her an illegitimate grandkid of Queen Charlotte and see how she has to deal with that. How the queen interacts with her, as well as the rest of the ton.

(I don’t think that in this scenario her being a bastard would be hidden or not common knowledge).

I know some people aren’t too fond of Sophie being Black🙃 a maid while Benedict is who is.

Her being QC's illegitimate granddaughter would be a way to kinda pivot from her being a maid while keeping the fact that she’s a bastard without a proper place in society.

I feel like the former is less important than her being the latter. She’s more than just her employment.

Sophie has to deal with the fact that she was robbed of a proper childhood, protection, financial security, love, and a sense of belonging. Yet she still manages to be a kind considerate human being with staunch morals and principles.

(I love girls who’ve been through so much, but still manage to survive and thrive. I blame Jane Eyre).

As long as Shonda tackles those issues and we see Benedict falling head over heels for her(even when he thinks he’s fallen for two different women🤣)I’m good with whatever happens.

The show has already made a lot of changes to the book. Some good some bad, but making Sophie one of many bastard grandchildren of the crown makes the most sense and has the potential to be the most interesting(for me at least).

[kokomelt]

I think it's very obvious I'm a Genshin enjoyer, but also I must mention I'm an avid Inazuma Eleven enjoyer too, and I will never get over the fact we have a nation literally named "Inazuma" (I know it's because it's the Electro nation, but still...let me be unu) so...how come Inazuma Genshin AU isn't a thing?? It probably is but I haven't seen much about it. Genshin has an element system and so does Inazuma Eleven, Archons can equal to keshin right? Or maybe the Go coaches? Imagine Endou or Kidou as Archons–

Ahem...wait, you must be wondering (sadly, I think you're not), who's this random person? Howdy, I'm Coco/Mimi, and you are watching me yap and gnaw at this AU's messy concept because I can't write to help myself (because English isn't my first language, sorry) and I'm in no way cohesive nor make much sense most of the time while trying to explain stuff.

Now let's get back on track under the cut...

When I say Inazuma Eleven Genshin AU I don't mean that it should follow the original plot, because who could even be Aether and Lumine??? But conceptually the Visions, nations and Archons just click to me for Inazuma Eleven, somehow (and if it doesn't you'll have to pry this AU from my wimpy, damp hands)!! Besides, most hissatsus could be translated to elemental powers so they can keep them even in Genshin (some of them at least) and it'd still work.

Before I dive into this any further, for those fans of Inazuma who are unfamiliar with Genshin, if you're wondering how much of the lore/basics you need to know to understand this, don't worry, not much really...i think?. I won't say anything that's not like very well-known regarding Genshin and/or common knowledge about it, any other thing I'll try to badly explain it without losing the flow (this is a mess, so spoiler: that's not likely to happen, i'm so sorry).

For any fan of Genshin who ended up here without knowing much about Inazuma Eleven... I'm not going to tag this under the Genshin fandom, because without context of Inazuma Eleven this will be even more of a bigger wall of nonsensical text.

For the sake of making this somewhat understandable I'll separate it into different topics, it won't make it more organized but at least it would be split into parts so no one gets (more) lost + with cute pastel dividers to try and be aesthetic about it...

Also I can't promise this is spoiler free, I doubt it so if you don't want spoilers for Genshin and/or Inazuma Eleven I think you should stop here.

꒰ The General Plot of this AU kinda ꒱

As I mentioned above, I don't think this AU can or needs to follow the original plot for Genshin, at least not the one with Aether and Lumine because again, I don't know who could fit the role so let's just say this is an AU who only grabs the concepts of Genshin (set in Teyvat, 7 elements and nations, Archons, visions, The Abyss, etc) and throws Inazuma Eleven characters into the setting.

However, some things make sense to me and I think can be equated to certain events in Inazuma Eleven but tbh, I don't even know which timeline would this follow. For example, Fatui being akin to Teikoku, and Kageyama Reiji being the Cryo Archon could fit. But also the Fatui sound a lot like they could be the equivalent of Fifth Sector, and the SEEDs are the Harbingers.

That's why I say I have no idea really what timeline this could follow, personally when this nonsense came to me while daydreaming I thought of it being set on the Inazuma Eleven Go timeline because idk, in Genshin the first element the player gets is Anemo (wind), and who other than Tenma could be both a protagonist and had an Anemo vision? But I won't jump into the vision headcanons yet.

So I think if that's the case, maybe The Fatui were indeed the whole of Teikoku. Archons are deities, ok, but one can ascend to become an Archon, so my take on Kageyama Reiji being the Cryo Archon stays but...what if he died like what supposedly happened in Galaxy? Basically...Kageyama was the Archon, but died, and who could succeed him? Well, I was thinking Kidou could, therefore that would make him the new Cryo Archon on Tenma's timeline.

But if the Fifth Sector is like the Fatui (somewhat, it's just because they're the main "evil organization"), and Fifth Sector was something created by Goenji, why would he bring back a group that's so related to Archon!Kageyama?

Also the whole Aliea incident could be tied to the Abyss Order or something, because the Aliea Stone and the Abyss corrupt people.

So yeah, that's what I mean with "it should follow the original plot yet not exactly". But I'm not that meticulous to actually try and make this make sense.

I still support my version where this AU is set during the Go timeline, but that's because I'm biased towards Tenma (and because Endou as an Archon sounds fun to me).

꒰ Everyone has Japanese names + why I won't use the dub ones ꒱

As you may have noticed by now, I'm using exclusively the original japanese names, nor the dub ones. This part is mainly a quick explanation about why I would refer to them with those names in the rest of the post about the AU.

Even though in Genshin there are 7 Nations based on mash-ups of different cultures (Fontaine is France + England, if I recall correctly, but basically you get what I mean) and characters are named accordingly, I physically can't use (nor recall all) the dub names, so let's just assume that while everyone here will be referred with Japanese names, they may be from different nations.

But whoever decides to develop this whole idea can do whatever, I just ask you to please, throw the link to me so I can read/see it because I'd love to >3<

꒰ Genshin Elements vs Inazuma Elements ꒱

I'm not going to develop this much...I hope??

I'm just going to mention that Elements in Inazuma are a beautiful mess (Wind encapsulates Ice, and Wood element somehow is tied to Darkness and Space...and I don't even know why???), but honestly I don't see logic (not much at least) trying to give the characters the same element they have in the games.

How am I supposed to translate the fact Hikaru uses Wood element? Cryo? Dendro because it's literally Plant so Plant = Wood? But his hissatsus are clearly Darkness and/or Space themed so I don't see how that fits.

I have read countless theories regarding the criteria to give someone a certain Vision, most of them revolve around ambitions or desires strong enough that Celestia acknowledges the individual who has them. I like the theories though, and it somehow makes sense even if it's not something set in stone (yet), so I guess we can still follow it a bit. I'd explain any theory but some are lenghty to sum them up, at least I, myself, can't.

Now with Inazuma Eleven. It doesn't have a similar elemental assignation system (again, there's Wood encapsulates Music, Space, Darkness and so on, while Genshin has just plain Dendro element for Plant powers) so I can't really give them their exact element + I think some visions' descriptions fit some characters that coincidentally don't have that same element in the canon source.

Who are the Archons though? Once again, I don't know, this whole post is a big "I have this idea, is making me tweak and roll, but I have no clue on who is what or what is who." so yep.

At some point I thought Daisuke Endou could have done the same as Zhongli. He was the Geo Archon and faked his dead (like in Inazuma, you know?) but also the idea of Endou being a normal human and ascending to Archonhood sounds epic, because he was a normal guy on the Inazuma Eleven series but upon reaching Inazuma Eleven Go he's a whole icon for the rest of it, he's the basis of new Raimon and now Tenma carries the torch.

Yes, I don't know what to do to develop this, moving on to the following point to tackle...

꒰ Aliea Stone = Abyssal Power? and much more ꒱

This is going to be long because to address this I need to explain Genshin stuff to show how it makes some sort of connection (to little delulu me, at least).

First off what is 'The Abyss' aka 'The Void' and to some extent Khaenri'ah, because both are tied deeply.

The Abyss originated because Celestia destroyed Khaenri'ah, which was a former nation of Teyvat without a deity (because they didn't need one (?)). Also the Abyss wants to destroy and/or corrupt all the other nations (the main 7 Nations) in revenge.

But according to the wiki it refers to four different things too, which are interconnected. However, I'll use just two mainly when referring to it: The Abyss as one of the Three Realms and the region beneath (and beyond) Teyvat that's considered a different world entirely.

To sum it up badly, The Abyss I'm talking about was a nation but became what it is nowadays after its destruction.

Why do I relate it to the Aliea though? Because Abyss power is purple, or at least that's the main color we can see in the Abyss' Mages floating runes and most importantly: the upside down corrupted statue of The Seven.

The whole purple power that corrupts people it's very reminiscent to the Aliea Meteorite, who glows in purple and alters the mind of people who use its power (just look back at what it did to Kazemaru).

But I did mention The Abyss is considered part of 'The Three Realms'...well, this section isn't also called "and much more" for nothing, because I'll have to bring Desuta and Sein into this AU...

You may not remember them, but don't worry my sweet little jellyfish. So...remember when Inazuma Japan had a match against literal angels and devils because Haruna and Rika were abducted by them? Hope this has unlocked a few memories from that chapter.

The Three Realms in Genshin are basically The Human Realm, The Light Realm and The Void Realm.

In the past The Void and The Light existed opposite to each other until the Human Realm was created.

In any case, the point is that The Void Realm could be akin to Desuta and his team, the Makai Gundan Z. and The Light Realm would be Sein and his team. Because, you know, Dark Void vs Light dynamic.

Also we have the Abyss Order right? That should have its own equal thing but I couldn't come up with anything, at least not Inazuma Eleven related.

꒰ Genshin characters that remind me of Inazuma Eleven ones ꒱

For no particular reason, maybe vibes, maybe personality idk. This doesn't mean I'd give them the same visions, nation, and/or species but rather that I find parallelisms between them somehow.

However, my fish brain can't pinpoint all the similarities they have and it's not good at analyzing. Also, I'll be mentioning from most seasons (if needed, also Ares/Orion timeline).

Charlotte and Haruna. Yes, it's probably the camera/reporter thing they have going on.

Scaramouche/Kunikuzushi and Kariya. Trust issues, both are very cat-like and they are most likely sassy (Scaranation, please don't chase me down, I know he has a lot of depth, I just tried to be extremely concise about it)

If you prefer, I also consider Scaramouche could have parallelisms with Fudou.

Dottore/Capitano and Kageyama Reiji. It's the unapologetically evil guy vibe I guess.

Bennett and Endou. I feel like these two have an unyielding positivism, sometimes they can get overtaken by doubts about themselves but on the end, they're sweet guys that deserve happiness.

Alternatively, Bennett and Tachimukai also work.

Thoma and Taiyou. Both of them have very warm vibes, they're rays of sunshine but at the same time I think both know more than what they let on. Also it's canon that both are popular.

Sucrose and Hayami. It's the glasses indeed, but also both of them are intelligent individuals who seem kinda shy or easily flustered.

Keqing and Natsumi. It gets easily overshadowed in Go!, but we should always keep on mind that Natsumi is incredibly smart (didn't she solve a case that was left on the drawers by the police or something?). Also, they both have kind of a tsundere-like attitude.

Ningguang and Koumei. Both of them are elegant, powerful and smart women.

On a side note, we have our own iteration of Koumei in Genshin. Koumei is Kongming, aka Zhuge Liang, and Kokomi has a reference to Zhuge Liang in her constellation.

Also not a comparison in itself but dragons who can take human form exists in Teyvat. Hakuryuu being one would make sense.

Amber and Nae. Cute bunny-themed girls, spirited and extroverted. Amber is excellent at gliding, Nae was the best runner in the track team.

Dehya and Midori. Fiery, untamable and strong girls. Midori somehow fits Dehya's title "Flame-Mane".

Shenhe and Minori. Both of them seem cold at first, and have a serious deadpan expression. However, Shenhe has quite a temper and so does Minori when she's not being possessed by Potomuri.

Yaoyao and Shinsuke. Small and warm-hearted balls of sunshine, they care deeply about those around them.

Raiden Ei and Tatsuya/Hiroto Kiyama. Albeit not quite the same, their situations are similar in the fact they ended up taking the position of their respective siblings (because yes, I consider Tatsuya and Hiroto brothers), and physically look like them (I'm not taking into account how grown-up Hiroto Kira looks in Ares/Orion. Both Hiroto and Tatsuya looked a lot like each other when they were younger in the og series).

꒰ Some Vision Headcanons ꒱

I want to think if someone read through this was at least to get to this part. I won't say my Headcanons on who gets which Vision are permanent (I'm always willing to listen to suggestions or just read your own Headcanons), they are open to change if I reconsider some.

And as I said above, not all of the characters I'll mention have a Vision that matches their canon element in-game.

Also I'll be choosing some based on the theories regarding what criteria do the Archons follow to hand out the Visions. I'll explain it (badly and super simple) to make it more understandable.

Credits to this post because it's what made sense to me for the Vision's criteria. At the same time, since it's rather ambiguous it makes sorting them somewhat easier.

► Anemo: Had past failures, struggles or suffered from unspecified problems, maybe a loss of some kind. Hardworkers with a sense of duty who do –or prefer to do– their own thing and follow their own pace.

► Geo: Care and worry deeply about others. Could take the lead in certain specific situations based on their talents. Rather single-minded and/or simple-headed. Very committed to what they believe or want.

► Electro: Lonely people or they just have a small circle of interactions. Some of their life matters could be too important that they affect other's lives. Prone to awkwardness or second-guessing themselves. Sometimes quirky or just unique, they may have accomplished great deeds.

► Dendro: Scholars or people oriented to knowledge. Good thinkers even in dire situations, sometimes creative. Some want to expand their field of knowledge and can get themselves in over their heads.

► Hydro: Highly specialize in certain skills or areas that others may not have or show. They're role models in what they do or strive to maintain it as such. Tend to weather their own hardships and seek excuses for it, wether they're self-sought hardships or not.

► Pyro: Ambitious people who will keep going even if others oppose them. This also applies to people who may hurt themselves in the process and fully acknowledge it, either for their own sake or because of others. Some keep people at arm's length, not always intentionally.

► Cryo: People who feel lost, specially after a life changing or impactful event on their lives. They may be stuck in the events of their past, so it influences what they live for or what they think they should do next. Some aspect of their life comes back or gets in the way of their goal.

I would also want to mention that while these may be criteria and I refer to them as such. I also believe the theory that says Archons will give out Visions based on each person's ambition/desire and of they support it. However, considering in this AU we don't have the same Archons and they may not have the same personalities as the originals, I decided to not follow that rule.

In addition, it is somewhat confirmed that it may not be that Visions follow a personality checklist to decide who should have which one. Apparently, Lisa's personality changed after receiving her Electro vision, and since it's always mentioned that stars guide the fates of Teyvat denizens (hence, constellations being a gameplay thing but also something important within Teyvat's beliefs, as shown with Mona being able to read people's lives/personalities on them), maybe Visions are also linked. Basically, we could conclude that Visions also shape someone's mind somehow, as mentioned in this post (which is rather old and doesn't feature Dendro, sadly). I recommend you also read the comments of that post to see further of my reasons for some of these headcanons.

But let's get into some Vision Headcanons, shall we? I'll try to be clean and make this in order but I don't know if I will be able to, and they're just a few because Inazuma has a lot a LOT of characters and I couldn't just think about every single one >.<

Tenma: I already said this but I'll also add it here because it's one of the Headcanons I refuse to change. Tenma gets Anemo vision just because wind is his thing, I always relate him to it regardless of wether it makes sense or not. I think he does fit the fact he's a hardworker but he goes at his own tempo, but what matters is the journey to reach any goal he has.

Taiyou: This boy gets a Pyro vision and you can't tell me that's unreasonable. He's the very definition of "will keep going even if it hurts him". Also going with the personality theory, I feel like Taiyou would take initiative of things (he's the captain of Arakumo after all) and openly expresses himself.

Kirino: I'd go for Electro vision for him, but this has a reason and that reason is Chrono Stone. Mainly the fact I thought it was very clear that Kirino has a tendency to doubt his actions or decisions, sometimes feeling like he's falling behind in regards of Shindou.

Shindou: I decided to give him Hydro, it makes sense to me and I think I can try to explain it. I wish the fact that he's a good pianist was brought up more in the anime, because it's one of the reasons I chose Hydro, since he comes off as your typical case of gifted child when it comes to music. I also think he's a role model to his teammates and strives to meet the expectations they may have about him.

Kurama: One of my fav characters, sadly we don't have much info about him but I tried my best to pick a vision for him. I ended up going for Cryo because of certain reasons. Kurama seems like a blunt person, but at the same time some episodes make me see him as someone who also doesn't expresses himself that much, like...he's not all that honest, but he's rather harsh in the process. Think of him like Diona or Eula, were they are fairly nice and caring but inevitably end up acting in a way that makes others perceive them as rude somehow, or just crabby (?).

Minaho: I'm bringing Minaho here just to at least mention Dendro (and because I like him a lot). Maybe he doesn't directly pursue knowledge but I have always perceived him as an extremely curious person that wants to uncover as much as he can, and that's somewhat tied to wanting to know. Also, owls are associated with wisdom and Minaho has an owl motif. I'm open to hearing thoughts about this though.

Akane: After considering it, I chose Anemo: for her. However, unlike Tenma, she's an Anemo: user not exactly because of accomplishing any journey or goal, but because I feel like she really does her own thing at her own pace and chooses that willingly. Most Anemo: users care more about the journey in itself, or have a recurring theme of freedom of choice. Akane overall expresses her interests very freely and doesn't seem to mind what others may think.

Goenji: Yet another one who getsPyro, because I feel like Goenji also has a bad tendency of being very stubborn and marching forward towards his own goals (mainly for other's sake) even if he gets hurt in the process. I think he'd definitely be a Diluc Case, were his personality doesn't exactly match the stereotype associated with most Pyro users (bubbly, energic and outgoing).

Endou: I would say he fits Geo, he has many of the traits mentioned on the theory. He's a very caring person overall even with rivals, I have always considered him simple-headed but with a clear goal and purpose somehow and it's commited to it. He's also a legit hardworker.

Kidou: He was hard to decide, and he's still one of the many I'll hear suggestions about. Anyways, I think he fits Cryo. AU wise he may have been a Cryo user even before meeting Kageyama Reiji and experiencing everything that entailed. I feel like Kidou works behind the scenes for strategies but that's an outloud secret somehow, he may come off like Shenhe or Rosaria at first because to me he has always seem a bit hard to approach, maybe the type of person you would define as stoic or something. Again, Kidou being a Cryo user isn't set in stone for me, I just wanted to make the break trio all have different elements.

Nosaka: I thought a bit about this but ultimately decided on Electro for him. Mainly, because Nosaka seems like unique in some sort of way, not only that but he has accomplished things to be able to stand out as "the tactical emperor" after all. Also, I feel like, despite how popular he may be, he has a small group of friends.

Fuyuka: I think Cryo is fitting for her, which is ironic considering that she lost her memories of her past, and Cryo users may be stuck in events from their past. However, Cryo users also have self-contradiction as a common theme. In Fuyuka's case I think her self-contradiction is the fact that the shocking event of her past shaped how she is now but at the same time she can't recall it. Also, she fits the stereotype of Cryo users being introverted.

And this concludes this long, messy, nonsensical but well-intended post, made with love but not much logic (and probably some grammar mistake I overlooked somewhere). If you reached this point, thank you very much for trying to pay attention and understand my chaotic rambling and Genshin fixation n.n ♡

This is just the outline of what I think this could develop into. I have messy headcanons that I couldn't really fit here nor wanted to as to not made this even longer, like races such as the Katzlein or Adepti, I may post them randomly, who knows? Keep in mind a lot of this was biased or subjective so not everything has factual points to support my ideas about it. In any case, my asks are always open if you want to throw in ideas or suggestions or just want to say anything at all.

[furballfaggot]

What do you Know about the not-gerbil-theyre-actually-monkeys new kids on the rock post. what can you tel me

ok bear with me here a lot of this is gonna sounds like total nonsense. in my defense i have no defense

from the original source that i know far less about: the monkeys are from a channel called max design pro. basically its little youtube shorts animations that eventually ended up featuring that one chicken nugget with the roblox man face and now thats a main character of the channel iirc. its your usual youtube shorts kid-friendly stuff to my knowledge but afaik its actually pretty tame and pg stuff in comparison? which is a nice change of pace tbh. feels less outwardly content-farmy than most channels like it. but yeah the nkotr post is 3 monkeys (probably based on max specifically bc of how hes The One Everypony Knows) and the nugget

from how i learned it even existed which maybe isnt relevant to the specific post you reblogged: an ironic fnf song/small mod was made using max (main monkey from max design pro) and the nugget that was meant to parody another funkin thing called jeffys endless aethos (which is a far longer and worse* story for a far later time)

theres also been a trend going around where creators will put really fuckin good lyrics into their fnf songs Just Because. thought to be started by aethos, but rumors say that it was actually silly billy from the hit single real mod that started it. as in "aethos had lyrics because of a leak for hit single real and got rushed out to beat it to the punch" started it

naturally this meant that the max design pro song in question (named twiddlefinger) (certified good shit unironically) got lyrics mainly to riff on aethos. the song promptly got popular as hell and ended up spawning an unironic max pro design fanbase in the process

and when i say popular i mean POPULAR. as in CREATOR OF THE MAX DESIGN PRO SERIES NOW FREQUENTLY REFERENCES IT popular. as in TWIDDLEFINGER IS MDP CANON popular. which is fucking baffling to me??????

thanks for dealing with the semi-irrelevant infodump i just needed to be weird about fnf again. tldr max design pro is a youtube shorts channel and its gotten unironically popular recently because of friday night funkin

[devastatinglygreen]

hmmm, after seeing these rumours (I'm choosing to disregard those rumours about 7&8, they seem a little absurd) about a potential carriage scene pt2, I remembered some filming leaks about a potential stunt double for LN on a horse that was theorized to be his big return in episode 1, but now I'm thinking it might be Colin chasing down Pen's hack for the LW reveal!! Or the stunt guy lied about who he was a double for lol. Or that was a planned sequence that got cut for whatever reason?

idk what's going on anymore, the polin brainrot is real- so I think the responsible thing to do is to simply walk into the ocean until pt 2 drop day o7

i feel like there's been a few cut scenes so it very well could be something they cut but i also feel like i heard luke newton say something about a horse. not being on one or i don't know tbh, they started showing polin kissing and and i let go of all info held in my head before that moment.

gonna put the 7 & 8 stuff under the cut so people can skip if they want:

so, here's the thing about the 7 & 8 nonsense that i know. it looks like a mix of 3-4 different things. none of which have any proof to be what people have assumed.

there was a twitter thread of someone saying they thought this new ambrosia character would be a sex worker, added in with that interview that he would go to a brothel after the fight. they also posted or commented on on reddit when the info was found months ago that they thought she'd be a sw. there's nothing to suggest this so far and the only thing we know is she would be opposite of luke. apparently both luke and the guy who plays will follow her on ig.

here's the reddit thread of spec saying that she was actually part of the reshoots under the director for 7 & 8. also the winking, garden party, probably a brothel scene or both, idk, a lot was reshoot for pod person colin apparently.

add in the girl saying she has seen things through someone (this is hotly debated because obviously, i have no idea if she's given any sort of proof yet but it's just her word at the moment) but she doesn't say he cheats, she said people will be mad at him and it takes half an episode for colin to come around, people will be mad at some other bridgertons, and micheal is a girl (also hotly debated because for fran's story would be extremely changed if that was the case and people have said that the actor they're saying is micheal plays a different character (not sophie tho)). i can't say if they're wrong or right because there's no proof to say anything about any of it. grains of salt are needed.

followed by an interview where one sentence made everyone decide that he must do something. listen, i get why the framing of the sentence sounds off. it could be any number of things, a scene reshot later, added later, something totally unrelated, it was about the first half and it was worded badly, etc.

so you know, i know we're all sensitive to stuff but also let's remember how people flipped out with the brothel stuff and how sensationalized it was. they acted like he was going out every night to take part in a threesome. they literally had context for why he was doing it and still managed to be totally wrong in the scenes themselves.

remember how many theories of red flags came out about colin after that info and he was the literal worst only to be met with "demisexual colin is true actually"?

that's just my take on it anyways.

[iraprince]

hey ira! i was wondering if u have any tips on coming up with those types of unusual names that we normally wouldnt consider names for ocs, like cooking with gorgeous, damned if i do, dearly-come-by, bc i rly wanna name some ocs in that manner but i just cant come up with anything i vibe with, i think mostly bc i have no idea how to approach it since normal name methods r not necessarily gonna work for that typa name also-

(if there's a second half to this, i haven't received it! so i'm just gonna go ahead and answer what's here)

tbh w names like that, 99% of the time it's just the product of me pacing around the house making noises at myself under my breath. i don't really have a process i go through or anything specific i can think of that helps out!

sometimes they're meaning-driven -- like, cookie's whole concept as a sapphicworld pc is that he's built his social empire (in sapphicworld there is no class- or power-based aristocracy, so to be the 'noble' character type just means people love being around u enough to form a court) by basically being the fantasy version of a bubbly food blogger; so "cooking with gorgeous" just kind of spilled out of that, bc it sounds like a blog title. she's gorgeous! she wants to cook with you! there we have it! (i actually only realized when my wife pointed it out to me that 'cooking with dog' is a well-known youtube channel!! so that was a fun coincidence too, seeing as cookie is also a were-borzoi.) it's an added bonus that it shortens to either "cookie" or "george," names that are cute and either food-themed or kind of aristocratic sounding; whenever i make unwieldy names like this it is important 2 me that they have usable nicknames bc otherwise it quickly becomes a pain in the ass

but a lot of times they aren't! damned-if-i-do/dandy as names don't really fit that character in terms of meaning very much, i just like how they sound; dearly-come-by doesn't mean anything at all (iirc i named them just 'dearly' first, and then slapped on the remainder bc i wanted them to have a longer/'full' name but i didn't want a surname or anything like that; i don't remember at all how or why i cobbled it together the way i did.) tbh when i do names like this it's 90% just about vibes and what sounds good, and if there's any resonance w the character beyond that it's just icing. they're all mostly nonsensical which is probably why "mutter random words and sounds to yourself until you hit something" is the only process i ever use lol

[halucynator]

Hellllooo,

Omg I really needed more swiftie mutuals <3

Please rant about all things you like, i love rants, gosh we seem to have so many close interests, I am not a writer tho, but I do read, effectively making me a reader which doesn't sound as cool, now that I think about it.

My fav Taylor song at the moment is "Slut!". I cannot get that out of my head. I mean "got lovesick all over my bed", I die a little everytime I hear that.

Fav Olivia song at the moment is logical (kinda like you username aah). I still CANNOT get over "can't take a joke, can't get you off". Like please kill me already.

Fav Sabrina song at the moment is probably "because i liked a boy". (damn who hurt me?)

And fav conan song at the moment, "Lookalike"

Tell me yours?

Nyc.

xx

hiiii

omg thank you thank you thank youuuu <33

okay so i love a lot of things some of them are pretty questionable but I'm questionable literally ask anyone on the discord server so its fine. anywhoo, i love taylor, maisie, gracie, phoebe, alix page, lucy (dacus not myself I'm not THAT narcissistic), olivia hardy (from wasia project) julien, conan, liv, sab (and @loserdiaz but that's a known fact) and so many other people to the point that even i cant keep track. oh and i love laufey, mitski and lyn lapid just bc.

my current fav by wasia project is petals on the moon but ur so pretty especially live from the studio is so gooddd

anywayss, reading is really cool thats how i got into writing (which is the best thing ever ik /hj) i also really really like reading bc it makes me smart and it's super fun

which is your favourite book series?? mine is lockwood and co as if you couldn't already tell by the amount of times I've mentioned it i also really love agggtm series bc why wouldn't it its so good. I'm sure i love so many more book series but my memory sucks (it does not but I'm lazy so I'll use that as an excuse)

anywhooo, i love scream which is weird bc i watched the first one when i was 10 (i know, who let me do that???) and i... liked it? (I'm very questionable i know) but i also tend to rant about it as if its real life (like WHY DID THEY KILL OF *insert name of dead character* IM SO MAD) and not a movie so I'm a bit annoying sometimes but pls don't tell me that otherwise I'll start crying /j

hmm my favourite taylor song atm would be "is it over now?" or "now that we don't talk" bc at the moment i resonate so well with those songs (ikr my life sounds like a nightmare: it is but it isn't really? idk) at yes i totally agree with the "got lovesick all over my bed statement but" also "love thorns all over this rose" and omg "you're not saying you're in love with me, BUT !! YOURE !! GONNA !! DO !!" like who gave taylor the right to be such a mastermind (funny, right? no? okay.) like the entire song, heck the entire album is so GOOD. HER ENTIRE DISCOGRAPHY IS SO GOOD. (this is totally normal fan behaviour btw)

favourite liv song atm is probably lacy but i love all of the songs all the album (and yes logical is soooo good i mean i have to love it otherwise my url is meaningless) but my favourite lyric from the entire album is probably "we both drew blood but man THOSE CUTS were NEVER EQUAL!!" from the grudge (also one of my top 3) bc that hits DEEP. (bc the cuts were deep, i know I'm so funny /j)

favourite sab song atm is prolly cindy lou who / opposite (been there) / a nonsense christmas. i cheated but i simply cant choose one shes too good. also super funny bc cindy lou who and opposite are like sad vibes and then a nonsense christmas i want you to [redacted] and [redacted] me on the couch while we [redacted] presents (sorry i just think I'm so funny when I'm not but dont tell me that i wanna be a stand up comedian no I'm just kidding I'm not a failure. IM JOKING) (also regarding bc i liked a boy, I agree. who hurt you???)

anyways, my favourite conan song atm is prolly the best known option "heather" BUT i also like "the cut that always bleeds" the entire of kid krow tbh

okay i wrote a lot asdxcasdcvafd sorry

alsooo, you didnt ask this but my favourite gracie abrams song atm is "where do we go now?" and "cedar" (you arent mine) bc its such a heartbreaking song especially when you can relate to it. ooh and i also love camden, painkillers, rockland and long sleeves but they're all pretty depressing so if you don't like sad songs they're prolly not for you.

and THANK YOU for this ask this was so fun send me more sometimes <333

[a-soft-hornytiny]

Competition of hearts.

Summary: Working together with a competitor in a competition sounded like nonsense to you. Why should you risk losing your perfect score? At least that's what you thought before a tall golden boy made his way into your heart.

Word count: 4.5k+

Genre: Not sure tbh slight hurt comfort, mostly fluff, a bit suggestive in the middle haha

Pairing: Yunho x neutral!reader

Warnings: y/n's actions can be a bit annoying, making out, light fighting, a lot of nonsense (let me know if i missed something) be careful while reading.

Notes: ok wow, this is the longest story ive written on here. Half of it has been chilling in my drafts for like a year xD this is the story i published a teaser for ages ago and i finally had the motivation to finish it! I hope yall like it. Im not sure with it because long fics are not my specialty haha

Taglist: after the cut (let me know if you wanna be added)

-----------------------------------------------------

Dance was your dream. There was nothing you loved more than giving in to the rhythm and letting your body move along the beat. And there has never been something you wanted to do more.

So when all of your school friends decided to go to university, you went your own way. 

Yes sure, you could’ve studied dance. You could’ve gone to college. But you had enough of school and learning and exams and all of that stuff. 

And after running around and auditioning for all kinds of dance academies and dance studios, you got street casted through one of your free shows. It was nothing big. You always wandered around, a speaker in your pocket, settled down in a random place and started to dance. 

It was simple and you wanted nothing for it. 

But it eventually got you a step closer to your dream.

Ever since you were small, you participated in competitions. You loved being seen. Loved being in the spotlight. The applause made your heart beat faster and completely filled you with euphoria. 

And that was how you earned your first money. The first rewards and prices were small, fit for kids and teens, but the older you got, the bigger the prizes for winning were. And after leaving school, you did nothing but train, work part-time and fight for 1st place. 

But at one point you slowly realised that you needed a sponsor to get into better competitions. They didn’t accept you anymore and you couldn’t even pay the entry fees. And that was hard because you had tried getting into academies and other dance focused companies. But you were rejected.

Until that one day this lady came up to you after you finished your street-performance, handing you her card and telling you that you should call her. Which you did. 

“What do you mean “collaboration”? Where is the competition if you have to work together?” You croaked after hearing the alighting news. 

About a week ago, you had entered a pretty anticipated competition which costed a lot of time and money to get into. Many famous dance academies and companies sent their best representatives to compete and you were one of them. 

Your company was by no means big or famous but when you told them about the competition and especially about the winning prizes, they helped you to get into it. And you did really well.

You passed the first four rounds at ease and you had to acknowledge that you weren’t the only one there that would deserve to win but you were confident in your skill and completed every stage with perfection. Because you danced alone. 

“It’s part of the competition! What do you wanna do? Leave?” Your manager and friend aka the lady that casted you on the street, bit back at you.

You had always danced alone. Even though you knew that collaborations were a thing and you would probably have to do one in the future you always avoided them and buried that thought deep inside. 

Being the perfectionist you were, you couldn’t handle it when anything was out of your control. Especially when it came to dance. You had control over your body. That was why you could go up on stage so confidently. Because everything that happens there would be in your control, and if you made a mistake, which you hardly did, that would be your own fault. 

“No of course not! But why are they doing this?! If they do it in pairs they would have two winners!” You knew that complaining wouldn’t change anything but you needed to let go of your anger while you were still coping with the idea of a collab inside of your head.

You would have at least appreciated some warning, some time to think about it. But instead they decided to inform you on the day you should be starting to work on your choreography. 

“‘Your partner will be here soon’ my ass!” You mocked the way your manager came in earlier. “A little more time for mental preparation maybe?!” You threw your water bottle against the wall as you were still raging about the fact that you’d have to work with someone else. 

It was not like you hated the idea. It was just too sudden. You loved to work with others, sharing your ideas and creating something beautiful but in a competition? And so suddenly? It was just a little overwhelming for you. To your demise, you heard a door open.

“Are you Y/n?” A soft voice appeared from above, making you look up from your feet. Your face was red and tears were burning in your eyes, not the nicest picture for the first meeting. 

“I’m Yunho! I will be your partner for the collaboration round. Nice to meet you!” 

You were a little perplexed when you looked at the tall man right in front of you. He had his arm stretched out to you and a big smile on his face.

“Yes I am.. Nice to meet you too.” You hesitated before straightening your body and shaking his hand. 

After letting go of his hand, you tried to fix yourself by redoing your hair and wiping your face. At least you didn’t want to look like you just had an existential crisis. 

“I saw your performances! They were amazing, you are so good! I’m glad I got you as my partner.” Yunho’s energetic voice made you cringe. You didn’t mean to be mean but you were really stressed and couldn’t really understand how someone could be so positive right now. 

“Thank you..” You replied, looking at your manager for help. But Yunho seemed to notice that. 

“So uhm.. I heard you’re not happy with the current situation.” He started, clearly hesitant and careful. “But if you don’t want to drop out, there is nothing we can do. So I hope that we can make the best out of it?” He vaguely smiled at you while tilting his head. 

Oh wow. He heard your little rant. What a good start. 

“See, Yunho..?” You asked, continuing after getting his nod. “I didn’t mean it that way. I am a little… sensitive when it comes to new things. It’s not like I am against working with you, especially not you personally, I was just surprised and overwhelmed..” You explained, scratching your head in the process.

“I know it’s nothing personal against me, don’t worry. I just want to get the best out of this opportunity.” Yunho’s assuring smile was somehow comforting. He looked so innocent, kind and calm. And that helped you calm down before your Managers, Yunho had brought his with him, called you over.

“Have you done a collaboration before?” Your Manager asked Yunho as you sat down together to plan. Yunho nodded. “Good because our Y/n is new to it.” The way your manager talked, showed you that there was no harm intended in that statement. It was just the truth. And suddenly you felt a little childish.

You made such a big deal out of something so usual. 

Being the inexperienced one was weird to you. You had always been good at what you were doing when you worked with others. Of course you were teached as well and you learned a lot but it had been a while since you were the student.

“You’ll have one week to prepare for the stage. No crazy props. They want a performance focused on teamwork.” Yunho’s manager explained while giving you a list of things you could use. “We already talked Yunho through all the details on our way here so he will explain it to you further. We don’t want to steal more of your precious working time.” 

And with that it took five minutes until the studio was empty, except for you and your dance partner. 

“Well.. I guess we should stretch?” You awkwardly smiled at him, causing him to laugh.

Hours passed without you noticing. The studio had no windows so there was no daylight to show you how late it was. The bright lamps kept you from getting tired and the constant movement you were in made you forget about time. 

As the time passed you got to know another side of Yunho. At first you thought he was really playful and lightheaded but you figured out quite quickly that he could also be incredibly serious. 

His passion caught you off guard at first but soon enough you got into working space as well and to your surprise you worked really efficiently.

“So that would be about it for the first minute of the song. I think we should work on the rest tomorrow when we are a bit… fresher.” A smile broke through his seriousness as he wiped sweat off his forehead. You nodded, taking a big sip of water before packing your things. 

But the pace in which he changed from serious and hard working to goofy was just as scary as the other way around. As soon as you had finished packing and tidying up, he was already talking like there was no tomorrow. His voice went through ten different stages as he told you about that one time his friend from his company tried to stir egg whites with chopsticks for three hours, obviously with horrible results.

And if you were honest? It was relaxing. It was not like you were usually quiet. You could be really loud and talkative around the right people but you felt like listening to his stories made it a lot easier to break the ice. Even though it was thin already.

You were glad that he was your partner because you didn’t know if you could have worked so well with someone else. 

“And well. He even tried to get his friend to eat it but he politely declined the offer.” Yunho finished his story of the egg whites just as you left the building. 

“That sounds.. interesting.” You let out a small chuckle. “I bet he was not allowed into the kitchen any longer?” You guessed, making Yunho laugh out loud. “His best friend chased him out with a pan.” He confirmed your guess. 

His friends sounded amazing. 

You had friends at the company and some at your part time job but you weren’t really close with anyone particularly.

“Okay then. I’ll see you tomorrow!” Yunho said while getting in a car. And it took you a minute to realise that he was the one driving. 

You nodded at him before walking off in the other direction. He can drive? You wondered as you walked past the company building. It wasn’t unusual but you didn’t have a license so you were a tiny bit jealous. And maybe impressed. 

The following day was pretty uneventful. You met up at around 10am and started to work on your choreography.

You suddenly had a very good feeling about this collaboration. The day went by incredibly fast and after a shared lunch you even managed to finish the complete outline of the choreography. And you were proud because you genuinely liked what you had created together.

Even though you were extremely tired, looking at the short clips you recorded made your face lit up. 

The choreography was hard but matched the energy of the song perfectly.

“We should stop for today and work on the details starting from tomorrow. Then we’ll have five days to make it perfect.” You suggested, knowing that the hard work will start from tomorrow on. 

You both knew that the hardest part about this collaboration was yet to come so you agreed on having one last relaxing evening before hell would break out. 

“I could drive you home.” Yunho suggested as you walked out of the building. But you politely declined. “I like the walk back home.” You said, waving as you turned around. 

Well technically your way home was really long and quite exhausting, maybe even a bit scary this late, but you wanted to keep a little distance. You had already caught yourself staring at him for a bit too long sometimes and definitely didn’t want that feeling to get bigger. It was just so fascinating when he was dancing. You hadn’t felt this way in a while as you watched someone dance, so you figured that was why you got a little excited.

But you liked how it was right now. And you really wanted to keep this professionalism. How hard could that be?

“What’s wrong with us today?” You nervously laughed as you stood up to get into a normal position. It was the third time in a row that both of you couldn’t stay serious, immediately breaking into shy laughter as soon as you looked each other in the eyes. 

Oh you had been so wrong. How hard could that be? You were internally laughing at yourself. Incredibly hard. 

You thought the chances were low because you could stay in character. Just as good as Yunho. But you both seemed a little off.

“I have no idea.” Yunho laughed, taking a sip from his water bottle.

Giving up on that one particular scene, you continued with the rest of the choreography. And you got through that pretty well.

But you knew that something was off. You weren’t as concentrated as always. You caught yourself staring off into nothing and randomly losing focus way too many times in one day. And that was really scratching your productivity. 

“Maybe we should take a break.” Yunho suggested, making your cheeks heat up. But you just nodded in embarrassment. You were the main problem, and that was a problem for you. 

“Come on! Why isn’t this working?!” You groaned, repeating one of the moves for the 100th time. But it was still not giving you the effect you wanted. 

After finishing practice with an unsatisfied feeling yesterday, you wanted to make extra effort today. But that resulted in you getting upset over that one specific move you just couldn’t get right. 

“No no Y/n, a little more like this-“ Yunho demonstrated your already most hated movement of the month. But you couldn’t get it again. It was already late and you didn’t want to make him stay. It wasn’t his fault that you were failing. You were upset with yourself, not with him, so why make him stay?

“Yunho I think you should go home. It has no use. I don’t think that I will get it right any time soon..” You forced up a smile while lifting your head. But Yunho only tilted his head.

“But I have this bad feeling that you won’t sleep if I go now.” 

Bullseye. You were frustrated. You knew you shouldn’t let it out on him but..

“And what if I don’t? What are you? My mom?” You asked, surprising yourself at how annoyed that came off. You threw your towel against the bench, already feeling your anger rise. He needed to leave, or else this wouldn’t end very nice. 

“Sorry that wasn’t.. please just go home.” You were suppressing the tension in your voice, avoiding eye contact on purpose. 

“But you should-“ “I should what?! God Yunho. Just. Leave me. Alone.” 

You had turned around faster and abrupter than you actually wanted, making him flinch. He didn’t want to do any harm. And seeing his hurt expression made you want to apologise right away. But something inside of you couldn’t. 

Instead you just quietly watched him pack his back and walk out of the room with a “I’ll see you tomorrow…”

You had fucked up. And you knew that. But that didn’t stop you from doing exactly what he thought you would. 

You stood up all night, repeating the choreography again and again. Sure, it was harder alone but you felt freed because you didn’t have to worry about burdening someone. 

But that also made you forget to sleep.. or to drink. 

When Yunho showed up the next morning, finding you in the same clothes as yesterday, he sighed. He knew it.

You on the other hand were not really tired. Once you had survived that tiredness at about 4am, staying awake was quite easy. And it’s not like it would be the first time you worked through a whole night. 

And Yunho let it slip. Because it actually helped. You had overcome your problem and now 98% of the choreography was set perfectly. Just without Yunho. The missing variable. 

This day was rather productive. You went out to eat, meeting one of your co-workers from your part time job which caused a pretty embarrassing “who is that cutie” situation and got pretty far in your progress. And you promised Yunho to sleep when he left. 

But you kinda lied. Because you stayed up all night. Again. 

“Oh! Good Morning y/n! Why are you here so early? I’m usually fir-“ Yunho stopped talking as soon as you turned around. You looked beyond tired. 

“You didn’t sleep, did you?” His face immediately got serious, slowly getting closer to you.

You looked at the ground. You somehow couldn’t look him in the eyes. It felt like you were a little kid and he caught you stealing candy. 

“Listen Y/n.” Yunho’s voice was loud and steady as he grabbed you by your shoulders. You instantly looked up, finding his face right in front of yours. 

“This is a collaboration. It has no use when you can do the choreo on your own. We have to do it together.” He said, looking into your eyes way too intense. You felt ashamed but at the same time didn’t want to acknowledge that what you did was wrong. 

“But it obviously didn’t help when you tried to show me! And now I have the moves down so what’s your problem?” You responded, looking at him with the same intensity.

You shouldn't be fighting. You should just go back to to practice and let it slide. But you couldn’t help but stare at each other. You couldn’t see what he was thinking. His expression was unreadable and the silence between you two started to get more tense with every second. 

It was the moment you felt your eyes wander from his eyes to his lips and back that made you realise that you should definitely stop. You just didn’t notice him doing the same.

“I- we should just continue.” You said, your voice shaking as you broke the eye contact and turned around. But Yunho was definitely not letting you get away with that. You felt him grab your arm, turning you around. But before you could protest, you felt his lips pressed against yours.

Your eyes widened when you realised what he was doing. Why? How? Right now? Suddenly? Yes you had thought about this. Yes you had stared at his lips way too often but what? You didn’t-

You tried to push away as you felt those little annoying butterflies in your stomach but he didn’t let you. You couldn’t like him.. that would only end in problems. But his lips felt so good..

“Was it so bad?” Yunho chuckled as he gently pulled away from you. But you were way too overwhelmed to say anything. Instead you just managed to shake your head. 

Did that really happen? You looked up into his eyes, only to see a soft smile on his lips. 

“I guess we should start practicing now huh?” He laughed gently as he straightened his posture. And you didn’t know what drove you but now you weren’t gonna let him get away with it. He wanted to kiss you? Well then he should at least do it properly. 

“Bad.” You just whispered before grabbing him by his collar and pulling him close. “Come on. You can do better than that.” You smirked before pressing your lips against his again.

And he did better. It didn’t take long until you were pressed against the mirror, hands in his hair, legs around his waist. His lips tasted better than anything you ever had and his big hands that were holding you up were giving you an incredibly safe feeling.

“Fuck..” Yunho mumbled when you pressed your body against his. Your hips slipped a little further down, suddenly hitting something.. hard.

“Are you..?” You asked, looking down his body and up to his red face again. 

He just nodded, instantly letting go of you and turning around. “Sorry.. I didn’t mean to ehm get too invested haha..” He laughed nervously as he took a step back. “Let me go.. to the toilet real quick?” He took big steps to the door when he suddenly heard a thud behind him.

You had wanted to stop him and tell him that it’s alright but when you took a step forward, your vision suddenly got blurry. And then black. A thought shot through your head as your legs gave in. When was the last time I drank something?

You woke up to Yunho shaking your shoulder and as soon as you opened your eyes, he threw a water bottle at you. 

“I told you.” He just said while helping you get up. Looking at the clock showed you that you were only “gone” for about 10 seconds or so but your head was screaming at you as if you drank 6 bottles of soju. Alone.

You swore under your breath while shoving the water down your throat, feeling the headache getting worse already.

“Ok. You sit down on the bench now and monitor me. Get rest.” Yunho said in a stern voice while he began to stretch.

As soon as he started stretching, your mind went on a journey. Did that really happen? Or was it a dream? You still had the picture in front of your eyes, how he was holding you up against the glass, how he was pressing his lips on yours. But there were no signs of it happening. 

“Earth to Y/n, I’ll start now so watch.” Yunho interrupted your thoughts, making you watch him. You sat there for a while, head in the clouds, before you shook your head and interrupted him. He stopped mid movement and tilted his head.

“You’re right Yunho.” You murmured, eyes on the ground. “We only have tomorrow left since the competition is the day after. I shouldn’t have been so stubborn. Now I’m all exhausted and we don’t have enough time to make it perfect.” You felt horrible. Maybe it was the fact that you were heavily dehydrated but you were miserable. You would both fail and it was your fault.

Yunho had kneeled down in front of you and put one hand on your shoulder. “We can win this.” He said with a certainty you couldn’t explain. “I want you to go home now and rest. And I will drive you. No discussion." And you didn’t complain. You were tired. He had helped you pack your things before you went down, got in his car and left.

You don’t remember what happened after but you somehow ended up in your warm and comfortable bed.

The next day went by quickly. You met up. You practiced. You ate. You practiced. All the tension from before seemed to have disappeared in thin air, making you question if his lips on yours had really been a dream. But that was good. Because by sunset you both laid on the floor in your own sweat. Done. You couldn’t believe you had finished your choreography, nor could you believe that the stage was tomorrow. You looked over to your right where Yunho was laying. It was all thanks to him. 

Without him and his flowery personality you probably would’ve gotten more and more frustrated to the point of giving up. But now you were finished. It was complete. You felt complete. And as Yunho turned his head to smile at you, you felt thousands of butterflies in your stomach.

“The next team is Yunho and Y/n.” You heard the announcer through one of the speakers. It was time. You had decided to wear something simple. White shirt on white slacks. As you made your way up to the stage, your hands began to shake. Fuck you were rarely nervous, why now? 

However, all your nervousness disappeared as Yunho took your hand. Yes you weren’t alone, but somehow it felt good to have someone by your side.

“Let’s win this together!” He said in a calm but reassuring tone before you got into position to start. You nodded firmly. And then the music started. Electricity ran through your veins as you danced by his side. Everything around you was floating, you saw everything in slow motion. Every touch felt light and every move was effortless. Your breath was calm. And suddenly it was over.

If someone asked you about your performance afterwards you wouldn’t be able to say a thing. You remembered nothing except for the first beat of the song hitting your body. 

You were breathing heavily as your surroundings cleared up. Everything got louder, brighter, faster. You looked over to your partner. His eyes were sparkling as he scanned the crowd. You couldn’t help but smile. Oh how you loved this man.

Oh how I- you realised your own thoughts when the first jury started to speak. 

Your final score was 98.7. The best so far but there was one more team coming up after you. While you were sitting in the waiting room, watching the last team’s performance you remembered the thought you had on stage.

Love. Such a strong word. Then you looked over to Yunho who was getting water for the both of you. You hadn’t talked to him after you got off stage. When he asked if you wanted water you simply nodded before sitting down. Your competitors were strong. But not as good as you and Yunho were. 

He sat down next to you, giving you a cup, while the score of the last team was announced. Your heart was racing. You gulped down the whole cup. 

97.4.

You won.

In the one second it took you to realise what happened, Yunho had already picked you up and swirled you around. And right when he stopped, it settled. You had won.

Without a single thought in your head you pressed your lips onto his. You had won and it was all thanks to him. He was perplexed at first but kissed you back quickly. A rush of happiness struck your body as you buried your hands in his hair. Even as you separated, your eyes were locked with his. You needed to tell him.

“I love you Yunho.” You whispered, not sure if you said it loud enough. His eyes widened. “I-“ he stuttered. You could see the realization on his face as it lit up.

“I love you too!” You were blinded by the brightness of his smile as he spun you around again. But then you were interrupted by a sudden announcement.

“Congratulations Yunho and Y/n. You successfully made it into the last round of our competition!”

Last round? This should have been the last round! You opened your mouth in shock. Yunho was still holding you tight as you looked at him in horror, hearing the next sentence.

“Prepare to fight. Your next and last challenge is to compete with each other.”

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