#Cass is in the process of learning to speak rn

[glow-worms-are-believers]

Pas de deux

Sam didn’t consider herself to be a liar. After all, you didn’t need to lie if nobody asked you about stuff. At least that was how she had justified keeping her family’s wealth from Danny and Tucker, and also why she hadn’t told them upfront about her playing Doom.

It was also why she’d never told them she did ballet. 

To be clear, she wasn’t embarrassed about it. Ballet was fucking hardcore, and anyone that had anything to say about it could try pointe shoes. She just didn’t think they’d be interested. So, really, there was no point in bringing it up.

Ballet had been the only respectable hobby her parents had tried to interest her in that had stuck. However, Sam had agreed to do ballet only if she didn’t have to be in a class. Hence a private instructor. Camille was a former professional ballerina and was a very good teacher who seemed to enjoy having only one student. She liked Sam’s dedication and determination to get things right. The one thing Sam knew Camille disliked about the arrangement was that Sam having no partners to practice with meant she couldn’t do pas de deux or lifts.

And as any self-respecting former ballerina, Camille had trouble accepting such a badly-rounded set of skills. And she was a very dedicated woman when it was about her students success. It was a trait that had helped many of her students get into prestigious ballet schools and that now left Sam a few states over at a ballet convention about to dance for the first time around other people since she was six.

Sam was feeling so calm about it too.

The man in front clapped twice to get their attention "Hello to all, my name is Juraj." He said before gesturing to the room. "Everyone find a spot, we’ll be starting with a barre work.’

As Sam walked up to one of the barre in the back of the room, she started feeling more and more out of place. What if she sucked compared to these people? She’d never really had the chance to compare her skills so she had no idea if she was actually any good. And that was without mentioning that she didn’t know how to do any lifts, which was embarrassing for someone who’d been doing this for over a decade. 

This was definitively a mistake, and she should never ever let Camille convince her to do anything ever.

Just as she was considering making a run for it, a girl walked by her and broke her out of her thoughts. 

The girl was a bit taller than Sam, and very muscular. She had short black hair and seemed to walk with a unique grace, even amongst ballerinas. They made eye contact and Sam froze a bit under the intense stare. However, she quickly shook herself and looked around, but it seemed like the two of them were the only ones by themselves, as people had already separated into groups. Sam looked back to the girl and felt a sense of kinship, if only because she also clearly knew no one here. 

So, Sam offered the girl a small smile. After a second, when the girl only blinked in response, she started feeling foolish.

But then, the girl’s lips stretched up and mirrored Sam’s expression perfectly. Sam looked at her curiously, tilting her head, and the girl’s face shifted to match hers, her head matching Sam’s tilt. 

Unbidden, a giggle escaped Sam at the sight. The girl halted her copying to study the sound. 

Sam raised a hand to stifle the laughter before she spoke up.

"I’m Sam," she said. "It’s nice to meet you."

The girl’s eyes narrowed in concentration.

"Nice," she finally repeated.

Sam smiled again. 

Maybe this would be more fun than she’d thought.

[bestworstcase]

I was reading the newest chapter and I think Rapunzel sees Moira as a threat because she's like the only one to challenge her (and not relent) and because she sees her as turning Cassandra away from her.

yeah!

vbhjdfdsf thank you for sending this because a) yes and b) calibrating this was actually one of the two things that made this chapter SUCH a struggle [the other thing was the first scene with cass and moira whew i went through like 10 drafts of that] so it’s good to hear that that all landed the way i wanted it to.

but like

im gonna ramble under a cut rip i hope you like to read

you know the bit in KAQOH where rapunzel is like. [clearly projecting her mixed-up feelings about cass onto her parents] “if the king and queen fall apart, other couples will follow their lead, and soon all of coronan society will crumble. and you know what they say: as goes corona, SO GOES THE WORLD. do you want that to happen, lance? DO YOU?” and then kicks over her easel?

emotionally speaking that’s sorta where rapunzel is in moonless air rn, except more because she is a) only six months and change out of the tower and b) still in the thick of the actual problem vs being miles and miles away and projecting her feelings onto other, smaller problems.

which is to say...

- rapunzel grows up in total isolation and her only human contact until she is eighteen is with a viciously emotionally abusive woman whose sole interest in her was tending to the sundrop. she is trained to be a people-pleasing doormat whose only acceptable feeling is “happy and ready to ask how high when gothel says jump!” 

- upon escaping this situation rapunzel had a grand total of, like, three days of being a relatively normal person before she got whiplashed into this position of enormous social power; as a princess whose return is/was considered nothing short of miraculous, she became entirely surrounded by people who adored her without question and were invested to an unusual degree in pleasing her.

she then begins the long process of learning that the way gothel treated her was exceptionally abnormal and cruel, but... what she doesn’t grasp, because how could she when she has no frame of reference, is that her experiences as a princess are equally as abnormal. 

meaning... rapunzel learns gradually that it is okay for her to feel what she feels even if she’s discontented/unhappy/upset/mad, which is correct. but because she is a princess she is surrounded by people who are, by and large, just going to cater to her whims unless directed otherwise by her father. this does not equip her to figure out what a normal, equitable interpersonal relationship looks like at all.

this is why she screws up on boundaries so much both in benighted and now in moonless air, but it’s also the reason she is struggling SO MUCH with navigating this delicate sort of detente she has with cassandra now. like, prior to this point the sum total of her experience in interpersonal conflicts are: 1) the spat she and eugene had after his botched proposal [when eugene was clearly in the wrong, and came to her to apologize, which fixed everything], 2) cass blowing up at her after unification day [which came a little bit from rapunzel stomping on her boundaries but mostly from cass wrongly taking out her anger with herself on rapunzel, and which again was fixed by cass coming to rapunzel to apologize], and 3) monty being curt with her at the goodwill festival [not resolved, but also overshadowed by all the chaos that happened immediately after]. 

so... based on her own life experience, rapunzel effectively only has two models for how interpersonal conflicts go: either 1) the other party is an evil manipulative liar whom rapunzel needs to stand up to [like gothel] or 2) the other party made a mistake and it’s on them to apologize/come talk things out [like eugene and cass in benighted]

and her current issue with cass... for a lot of reasons does not fit into either of those models. and it’s all wrapped up in this OTHER thing where cass is telling her corona sort of sucks and her father did this horrible thing and the people who attacked rapunzel/injured her/brainwashed her have a valid point, actually.

so rapunzel flounders around trying to figure all this stuff out and she is ABSOLUTELY NOT EQUIPPED TO DO THAT because exactly zero of her past experience with navigating conflict has any relevancy to her current situation... and the only person she feels able to turn to for advice is eugene, who is himself totally disconnected from the issue and also, where saporians and the separatists are concerned, emphatically does not know what he’s talking about. 

and on top of that, bubbling under the surface is the lingering side effects from sugracha digging into rapunzel’s brain and stirring vigorously, namely: she broke some mental boundaries that rapunzel built for herself and that is allowing certain feelings (such as anger) to bubble up to the surface more easily. [similar to how zhan tiri crawling around in cassandra’s brain knocked a couple early childhood memories loose]

and then!!! to make matters worse!!! rapunzel’s love for cass is the hook sugracha hung all the magical manipulation on. so rapunzel is coming down from the high of this magic-induced obsession with cassandra and that is mixing with her real love for cass in fun new ways which is to say rapunzel is nursing a hell of a crush on cassandra rn, right at a time when she and cass are having a rocky time of it and cass is getting closer to this other woman who is blatantly flirting with cass and goes out of her way to be nasty to rapunzel and seems to have suddenly supplanted rapunzel as cassandra’s best friend. so rapunzel feels very threatened by moira and does not have the experience/emotional intelligence to identify that a lot of that stems from romantic jealousy so she’s trying to find an explanation that makes these feelings “rational” and like, makes sense of her Inexplicable Desire to pry cass away from moira with a crowbar sljkdflkjsdf.

and as if that wasn’t enough rapunzel is now surrounded by people who have zero reason whatsoever to give a damn about her personal baggage and very little incentive to be patient with her while she flails around making a mess because she has no idea what to do... and all of these people like cass, are friends with cass, would take cassandra’s side over rapunzel’s in a heartbeat. so there’s this goodbye and goodwill vibe too where rapunzel is feeling this surge of resentment because she doesn’t. know how to handle not being liked in general. 

which all puts rapunzel on this slip-n-slide down the path of least resistance, which is: dig in heels and jam the square peg of the current situation into the round hole of her past experience and try her best to make it fit and then work from there. this creates a) a strong incentive to find a narrative where cassandra is somehow misguided/a victim in all this and b) a likewise strong incentive to view moira as a gothel-like figure, i.e. an enemy to be overcome.

so rapunzel’s brain rn is like [fork in garbage disposal noises] 24/7 and that is why this section of the story is very much her lowest point. she hasn’t quite bottomed out yet but it’s gonna happen in the next like, two or three chapters. and then she’s got a hell of a hole to dig herself out of. she is trying so hard but she is being asked to fly when she has barely learned to crawl so RIP