#this video idea has been eating at my brain for aaaaages now and it feels so nice to finally have it all worked out

[foreveralwaysanauthor]

I know you said in your comments on my last post that I didn't need to make you anything as congratulations, but girl, I've been concocting this thing in my head for the better part of a month and finally had the time to work it all together the last day or so. You're getting this thing one way or another! It's not perfect, but I've been watching edits for all sorts of fandoms with this song on TikTok for a while now, and it was too great of an opportunity to miss. Plus, this trend came about with perfect timing, so it works for both a mental plot eraser and a graduation gift all in one!

Now, although I'm sure you can piece it together yourself as it comes from your idea of what I've been calling The Playhouse Playoffs, I'm going to kind of explain how I thought things would go down/why I used the clips I did. However, first, please take a minute and fourish seconds to watch this thing that's been festering in my head for the last... I don't even know how long, honestly. Also, Tumblr screwed up the timing a bit in certain parts if you're watching it on a computer, but if you're watching it on your phone, it should be fine.

My take on the little story within the clips:

Part 1 - The camp is the gun.

If they're not riding together to camp, Riven and Vivien have a yearly race to the grounds to not only see who can get there first, but also who can be the one to claim Lakeside. Lakeside isn't a first come, first serve type of deal as their group (friends and family) always stays there, and Grandpa George and Nonna Dawn know this, but the person who claims it first gets to pick out group activities outside of planned events. Riven has beaten her almost every year, even when they were just riding down from Hill House on their bikes. In this case, Riven gets there first and is quick to see Nonna to claim Lakeside, but Vivien is more concerned with getting there with her friends for once and doesn't really care until he begins teasing her about it. Given her already rough start to the summer (as you saw in my preview of the first chapter), she finds it hard to take his light teasing as light.

Part 2 - The playhouse is the gun.

As the only two senior staff members who actually enjoy anything related to theatre (sadly, Carrie doesn't count as it's only her second year working there), Riven and Vivien are tasked with figuring out what show to put on. When neither can come to a clear choice in their meeting, Nonna suggests they do both - a battle of sorts to see who could take seniority for the next year based on ticket sales. Vivien, in a desperate attempt to prove herself capable so that her grandparents know the camp is in good hands when they eventually hand it off to her, agrees despite dreading how hard she knows she's just made her summer when she wanted nothing more than to enjoy her time with her friends.

Part 3 - Carrie is the gun.

As you've established (and I love), Riven steals Carrie away before Vivien has the chance to. Frankly pissed off by her lack of opportunity, she takes out her frustration on Riven, who reminds her that she had the chance to snatch Carrie up early, but was too caught up with everything else to even try. Despite her reluctance to admit it, she knows he's right and backs down, but the stress of everything is mounting, and she refuses to return to Lakeside that night as she knows Riven will have his show's crew over for a script-reading party, resigning to watching from afar.

Part 4 - The shows are the guns.

In my opinion, a lot will have happened between the initial reading party and the actual shows - apart from the obvious passage of time, I mean. While Riven’s been gliding through things without much stress due to having Carrie and a few stragglers from Vivien’s group on his side, Vivien’s been struggling with making things as perfect as possible. On top of this, things have been rocky in her personal life. She-who-must-not-be-named has been poking her nose where it doesn’t belong, rumors have been spread like wildfire, and the people she cares about have been keeping so many secrets that she feels like she’s drowning. Now, two days before the weekend their shows are set to perform, she finds all of the handmade costumes she and her group have worked so hard on sitting torn to shreds in a mud puddle after a particularly rough storm. The only person other than herself who has access to the locked area of the playhouse where they're keeping the costumes is Riven, making her believe that he must have had something to do with it despite his claims that he had no idea. Things get fiery between them as Vivien unleashes all of her previously withheld thoughts and emotions, and Riven argues that if she thinks he had anything to do with her show crashing and burning like the literal fire in the script, she must not know him at all. Riven walks away to pour his feelings into making his show great while Vivien picks up the pieces of the mess she's created and tries to figure out a way to get things back on track.

Part 5 - The actual performances are the guns, and it's not just the two of them reaching this time. The casts are reaching too.

After everything blows up between their directors and neither returns to the cabin that night, the two casts join forces the next morning to fix things without their directors' knowledge. They find ways to repair the damages done while Butchy and Miles try to talk Vivien out of her lockdown at the Hill House, and Carrie works on prying Riven out of his basement. Butchy convinces Vivien to at least try talking to Riven after his show's final rehearsal and, despite herself, she allows them to drag her back to the camp and waits out back for the cast to leave before slipping inside to talk with him. They've never really had a falling out before, and it takes a while to work through things with Vivien on the brink of an emotional breakdown and Riven sitting there, stonefaced, but they talk nonetheless and decide to work everything out as much as possible before the weekend so that they can comfortably enjoy each other's shows and go back to something resembling the "normal" they're used to.

I'll leave it at that for now, but just know that I have a lot of ideas for that storyline and really needed to get them all written down so they wouldn't bounce around in my head for the foreseeable future. I hope you enjoyed my little video and the thoughts behind each part, but honestly, El, I love this idea for Camp Wanamaker and am so excited to finally be able to post something for it!