#because the director sort of jacked my students and I walked in to her running a staging rehearsal that she decided upon on her own

[sassmill]

My brain is like. Weird right now. Is it related to not taking my Lexapro because I know it doesn’t interact well with dayquil and I needed the post nasal drip to stop? Theoretically but also this has been building for days.

[twistedlymad]

UwU Your writing is amazing !!!!! I loved the puppy and cat escapades \ ^o^ / . Would you be willing to do one in wich the mc is bullied by the extras, because you know, no magic and already a director, how would the boys react?? Will this be the end of the extras?!?? Ill be eternally gratefull. iTs okay if you cant throug. Hope you have a wonderfull day, and dont forget to drink plenty of water, and take breakes. Take care of yourself!!!!

Originally, I had planned this to be another chaos fic, but, I realize while writing this, that bullying is something that cannot be taken lightly. In the Twst Fandom, we also had our fair share of bullying from a few anons and that isn’t okay. 

So, in writing this fic, I made it more sentimental and just so you guys know, if you’re having a bad day or a bad time in general, feel free to talk to anyone, including me! Do not ever hold in your sadness. 

But anyway, I hope this fic lives up to your expectations anon! Thank you for requesting and have a lovely day!

What if you got bullied? (Ft. Everyone!!)

What was supposed to be a great day, turned out to be the worst day you could ever have at Night Raven College.

Your day started off normally, in fact, it started off well! You woke up with a good mood. You saw the furball that you loved so much beside you, sleeping peacefully. You smiled as you gently shook him awake.

“Grim, wake up, it’s already morning.”

“Fgnaaaaa, five… more minutes…” The sleeping creature said, swatting your hand away. You just shook your head at his antics.

“No can do, remember what Crowley would do if he caught us being late again.” You said and the creature’s eyes immediately shot opened and he jumped out of the bed, scurrying about to get ready for the day. You saw his slightly panicking self and giggled to yourself.

“(Y/N)! We shouldn’t be dancing and prancing! If we do, we’re going to be late!” Said the creature as he saw you heading over to your closet in a small waltz.

“Oh, Grim, I woke you up 10 minutes earlier than usual.” You said as you grabbed your uniform and headed to the bathroom. “You have 10 minutes to spare, take your time.” And you left the mumbling little furball in the room, face planting himself back into the bed after hearing your words.

The first half of your day had gone by rather quick and uneventful, not that you were complaining though. It’s nice to not have fights and chaos to settle every once in a while. You had a lot of laughs and smiles here and there with your group of first-year goofballs.

However, your peaceful day was about to turn upside down.

You were walking back to your classroom. Your friends were reserving your spot in Professor Trein’s class while you went to Crowley’s office to take care of some business involving Ramshackle Dorm. You and Grim made your way down the hall to the class.

Some students saw this and thought it was a great opportunity to make you trip and fall. So, one of them stuck out his leg while you were making you were walking. You didn’t have enough time to react and ended up falling for their antics. You immediately turned your body around so Grim, who was in your hands, would be shielded using your body. Your back hit the ground, HARD. A few gasps here and there were heard.

Grim rose his head from your chest to see you using your elbow to prompt yourself up.

“Fgnaaa! (Y/N)!” The furball immediately went to help you up by providing some support.

“Oh, sorry, didn’t see you there.” The student who tripped you said as his friends were laughing.

“School rules say that no magic or fights are allowed on school grounds.” His friends snickered.

“I’m fine… Just… Let me get up.” You said to Grim, who was still helping you.

“Pffft, look at her, so defenseless, she shouldn’t even be at this school!” The student said harshly.

“Hello?! Night Raven College is a place for prestigious mages. Not humans who can’t use magic and defend themselves.” Another student said to you.

“And to think she’s a prefect! Hahahahaha! You couldn’t even compare to the other dorm leaders!” His friend added and they all agreed.

“Looks like Crowley had made a huge mistake in bringing you here, why don’t you just crawl back to that sad excuse for a dorm of yours alongside your lousy furball!” And the group of students cackled at their snarky comments about you.

You just drooped your head down. Even though you didn’t want to admit it, but, they were right.

You had no magic, you were ridiculed at the entrance ceremony but, Crowley still gave you a place to stay and he even made you an official student here. While others struggled in getting here, you sort of knew why they hated you.

You tried your best to hold in your tears as you felt them pricking at the corner of your eyes while your friends defended you.

But, one comment had pushed past your boundaries.

“You’re not even considered to be human in my eyes! To me, you’re just trash. Go find a trash can and make yourself at home!”

Was… Was this what the other students really thought about you? Trash? Useless? No value? You closed your eyes, taking everything in, ignoring everything and everyone else around you. And proceeded to walk away without saying a single word.

Grim shouted for you but you payed no attention to him and just kept speed walking. Your walking slowly became running and you were then running as fast as you could, just letting your legs lead the way. After awhile of running at full speed, you had slowed down and stopped to take a breather. You looked around to see where you were in order for you to get back to school if needed.

However, you were back at Ramshackle Dorm. Your dorm. The tears you had been holding back flowed out as you took slow steps to the dorm you loved. You went in and closed the door behind you. Leaning your back against the door, you cried out your heart as you slowly slid down.

All the student’s words are stuck in your head, reminding you of what everyone else thinks of you. Your tears just kept flowing as you used your sleeves to wipe them away.

‘They’re right, I’m not meant to be here in the first place.’ You thought to yourself. ‘If everyone hates me so, then, I should just disappear.’ You said in your mind as you stood up and went to your room.

You packed some clothing and madol, ready to leave and hopefully start a new life outside of Night Raven College. You stuffed everything into a duffel bag and went to the main entrance of your dorm. You placed your hand on the doorknob, thinking of a route to leave the school undetected. But when you opened the door…

You were faced with everyone you ever knew.

And I mean everyone! Your group of best friends, the dorm-leaders and your seniors. They were all gathered in front of your dorm.

“Ahh! (Y/N)!! I’m so glad we found you!” Ace said as he, Deuce, Epel, Jack, Sebek and Grim came to hug you. You were surprised, too shocked to even register what had happened.

“We heard about the incident today, we already reported it to the headmaster.” Riddle said.

“But the first-years also reported that you were nowhere to be found. So, we came looking for you and your dorm was the only place we haven’t checked.” Azul continued.

“So, we all gathered here after our search!” Kalim concluded. The first-year boys pulled away from their hug and they noticed your bag.

“(Y/N)? What’s going on? Why are you leaving?” Epel asked you. Your eyes slowly travelled to the bag.

“Um…” You started but Deuce cut you off.

“Is it because of those damned students?” Deuce asked you. “Did they threaten you?”

Now, everyone’s eyes were on you. You averted their stares by lowering your head.

“No…” You said, dropping the duffel bag.

“They didn’t threaten me. But, what they said was true, was it not?” You lifted your head to let everyone see your tear-filled eyes. “I am just a human, I don’t possess any magic powers and yet here I am in this school for magicians. Not only that, but I am also the dorm leader for this dorm and I have been made a prefect! Isn’t that unfair to everyone else?” You said out loud, letting everyone hear you.

“I understand why they would have these kinds of thoughts. I understand why they hate me. That’s why I thought that if I have left, no one would have these kinds of thoughts ever again. After, I am the problem, aren’t I?” You concluded.

Truth be told, the boys were shocked. They… They have never seen this side of you. Heck, they never thought you would be capable of producing these types of thoughts. In their eyes, you were always so cheerful and kind, even when things got out of hand, you would remain calm and solve the problem to the best of your abilities. To think someone this pure and precious to them would have such depressing and degrading thoughts is beyond them.

However, this shocked Grim the most. The creature practically lived with you for so long and he didn’t even have a single clue of this side of you was scaring him.

“No, you’re wrong.” Grim lowly mumbled, but you couldn’t hear him.

“What?” You asked the furball.

“YOU’RE WRONG!” He practically screamed at you.

“Grim-chan…” Cater said softly.

“Even if you did leave, their thoughts won’t change! You’re not the problem! It’s them!” The furball yelled to you. Everyone was taken aback by Grim’s sudden outburst. But the first-years were quick to back him up.

“That’s right! It’s not your fault (Y/N)!” Ace said to you.

“Students at NRC are picked by the mirror of darkness. No one can easily come and go in this school.” Leona reminded everyone.

“Exactly, you arrived here for a reason.” Rook said.

“You assisted us with our overblots, not every child of man could do that.” Malleus said, representing every dorm leader.

“You had us working together in sync during the Inter-High Magift Tournament.” Ruggie added.

“You brought us together as friends.” Sebek stated.

“Most importantly, you let me have a place here at NRC. Because of you, we were only able to attend the school as a student.” Grim said. “No one has ever done something like that for me before.” The creature said as he slowly crawled up to you.

Everyone’s words had stunned you. You were so busy thinking about the negative comments about you, you forgot about all your relationships with your friends and seniors.

Like, how you always had tea in Heartslabyul. Riddle would always invite you to have tea with him and the others, you would enjoy the peacefulness of the dorm under the supervision of their dorm leader. Trey would always ask for your help in the kitchen and you would have a fun time with him while making sweets and desserts for everyone. Cater would whisk you away to either a selfie-session in the dorm’s gardens or a photoshoot in any new place that the he had found to be photogenic. Ace and Deuce would invite you to play croquet with them from time to time, of course, you were very careful with the flamingos and hedgehogs as you didn’t want to hurt any of them, but, you couldn’t resist in using the flamingo to bonk on either Ace’s or Deuce’s head every once in awhile. It’s okay though, the flamingo understood completely.

Like, how you always trained yourself in Savanaclaw. Leona would sometimes go easy on you if you were invited to join one of their many Magift activities, although, you weren’t sure if he was pitying you or he was just being lazy in general. You would help Ruggie prepare food for everyone as you knew he could use an extra hand or two, it also meant you could pick up a new recipe here and there and you got to taste test all the food. Jogging sessions with Jack were also a normal thing, hey, if you’re going to be joining in Magift tournaments without magic powers, the least you could do is train yourself physically.

Like, how you always felt welcomed at Octavinelle. Azul would welcome you into the VIP lounge when Mostro Lounge was extremely busy and you couldn’t find a place to sit at. You would also help out around Mostro Lounge when you saw that the place was packed to the brim. Usually, Jade would entrust you with drinks while he and Floyd went to prepare food for everyone else. When Mostro Lounge closed its doors for the day, you would enjoy some tea with the three underwater mermen or you and Grim would play around with Floyd, pranking other students and dorm leaders. Heck, you and Floyd even pulled off a few enormous pranks against the staff members.

Like, how you would be invited to feasts and parties at Scarabia. Kalim would always have a big smile on his face whenever he invited you to go dine with him at Scarabia. Jamil always appreciated your help in the dorm, let it be helping him prepare food for the party that Kalim had just decided to have five minutes ago or just keeping an eye on the dorm leader while he went to settle some other business involving the dorm.

Like, how you would have small makeovers at Pomefiore. Every time you walked past the beauty-queen/king, you were immediately stopped by him, because either your bow or tie was crooked or your hair was a mess, well no matter the case, Vil would fix it for you. When you visited Pomefiore from time to time, Vil would take the chance to give you high quality beauty products to try and he would always go on a rant on how you should always take care of your image. Sometimes, Rook would sweep you away just to go on a mini hunt with him. Although, let’s be real here, you two always ended up spying on Leona at the Botanical Gardens while he skipped his classes. Epel would whisk you away to his room and teach you to on how to carve apples. You managed to carve a few of the staff members and even your friends onto the apples, of course, you would carve on a few extra features onto your masterpieces. Like, say, a moustache for Ace or funky-looking ears for Crowley. You also helped to keep Epel in check whenever Vil and Rook were teaching the first-years on table manners and proper etiquette.

Like, how you would enjoy mini-gaming sessions at Ignihyde. Usually, you would initiate the session with Idia. You two ended up playing both Co-Op and PvP games. While playing games that require you to cooperate, the two of you would discuss your plans and pick out the best course of action. The same cannot be said for Free-For-All games though. A few minor insults here and there are thrown between the two of you. But at the end, the victor will always do a little happy dance before continuing onto the next game. You loved Ortho like your own brother! Always treating him to various desserts and helping him drag his brother out from his room. Ortho looks up to you like a sister as well. There may have been a few times he’s actually called you big sis.

Like, how you would go on quaint little walks at Diasomnia. If you needed a breather, you would usually find yourself at Diasomnia. Due to a large forest surrounding the building and the silent atmosphere the dorm provides, it is the exact place where you would go to take a walk to clear your mind. Malleus would sometimes accompany you on these quaint little walks. You and Tsunotaro would chat about your everyday lives and problems the first-years would create. Lilia would make some tea for you after your walks and you would enjoy the tea and bits of biscuits and crumpets alongside the tea. You would also break up arguments between Silver and Sebek. The two would get into fights about the tiniest of things, from blaming each other for losing track of Malleus to blaming each other for not preparing for a test. Sometimes, Silver would accompany you on your walk instead of Malleus and you two would also have little chats here and there. Other than that, Sebek’s view of you actually improved after befriending him. He used to think you were a powerless human as well but after spending time with him and your friends, he realizes that you aren’t just any human being.

But for Grim, you had the greatest impact in his life. You accepted him, you took care of him, you loved him. And he loved you back, just as much. To him, you were his family since he had never had one.

In conclusion, you matter.

You. Are. Of. Value.

You are precious to them, you bring peace to them, you brought them together as a whole.

Once that thought had nested in your brain, you realized that you were foolish in having these thoughts in the first place.

“I’m sorry…” You said, crying. Grim went and hugged you.

“It’s not your fault… Just know that we’re here for you.” Said the furball as everyone also came and comforted you. You had spent the day with them as a whole, you watched a few movies, horror movies in that case. It was fun hearing the dorm leaders and their members scream shout yell made a loud sound whenever a jumpscare appeared.

You guys also played games together, but, I am not allowed to share any details because I actually know nothing. No, I’m totally not being threatened here Reader-san, don’t worry about me.

Send help pls.

Also, after the bullying incident, the boys were a bit more protective around you when in class/school. Usually, your group of first-years would accompany you wherever you go, let it be from your dorm to the cafeteria or from the class to another dorm, at least one of them will be at your side. And when they couldn’t be there, either a dorm leader or an upperclassman would be near you. Any student who seem like they have bad intentions to either you or Grim, would face unspeakable consequences.

And I mean unspeakable. So, I cannot inform you of these consequences as I am under an oath to not reveal anything. Um. Yeah. Good luck persuading the boys to tell you : )

[shirtlesssammy]

15x04: Atomic Monsters

Then:

Becky was an obsessed, gross fangirl, and it was not awesome.

Now:

We open to the bunker under attack. Dean is in full beard and kicking ass. Boy, the director of this episode sure knows how to make Dean pretty. He makes it to the bunker’s kitchen to find Benny (!!!!) on the floor dying. 

I don’t rewatch Taxi Driver for a reason, Show. I loved Benny and Dean’s friendship, so while this was great just to have him back for old time’s sake, it still makes me sad that he’s still gone. (And spoiler, this is Sam’s dream. I just like to think about how Sam still thinks about this friendship he didn’t want Dean to have and it haunts him to this day.)

Dean’s looking for someone. He walks into the war room and finds him: Sam, all powerful on demon blood. Dean tries reasoning with his brother, but he’s past all that. Sam kills another hunter sneaking up on them, and then he kills Dean. 

Sam wakes up from his nightmare, gasping. SAM!

He heads to the kitchen to find Dean looking for cases, drinking coffee, and eating a plate of bacon. Dean says it’s veggie bacon when Sam tries to turn down eat some. Sam also tells Dean that his self-proclaimed nickname “Meat Man” isn’t what he thinks it means. Dean apparently knows exactly what it means and he’s standing by it. Ahem. Dean also calls Sam out on not handling their recent losses. The Just Brothers show is a real bummer.

Anyway, the case Dean found is in Iowa. There’s been a string of cattle mutilations and a young woman’s body found ripped to pieces. 

Also, it was real bacon and Dean’s a dick for trying to trick Sam into eating it. 

At Beaverdale High School, Sam learns Susie, the vic, was a popular girl and there’s going to be a prayer vigil for her at the school. Two parents show up asking about the game getting canceled --or rescheduled. They’re just can’t have that happen. There was going to be a scout coming to that game for their son, Billy. 

Sam is appalled (and I’m sad for him, so close to losing family he cared about.) The vice principal shuts down the pushy parents, and after they leave mutters, “I swear, the parents are worse than the kids.” 

Sam meets back up with Dean (eating again). Dean was just at the morgue and found a vamp fang. This one’s a weird one. Vamps don’t usually tear their victims apart. Also, she didn’t even try to fight off her attacker. 

Later that night, a fellow student leaves the school only to be attacked by the camera in the bushes!! 

Sam and Dean check out where Susie was found. No blood means she was killed elsewhere and her body was dumped in the woods. Sam soliloquies about how taking care of the monsters is their job and they carry the weight of everyone. Dean drinks from his flask. They are coping SO WELL, guys!

Sam gets a call that another girl is missing. 

WHOA. Becky, fangirl and Sam kidnapper extraordinaire, is married with kids and is looking forward to having the house to herself for the day. Just as her husband and kids pull away, she sees her old ex, Chuck, across the street. Run, Becky, Run! Chuck wants to talk. UGH. 

The VP fills the brothers in on the new missing teen. 

Chuck checks out Becky’s maquettes and learns that she’s a successful Etsy seller of Supernatural merchandise. She fesses up to how wrong what she did to Sam was, admitted to counseling. She kept writing. She wrote the good stuff, amirite? Chuck disagrees and thinks that people like the monsters. (Natasha: raises hand.) Becky’s a busy person so Chuck better cut to the chase here. Chuck won’t let the whole monster thing go. 

Chuck admits to having a falling out with the Winchesters. He also tells Becky that his sister won’t help, because “she sucks.” Becky can’t believe that Chuck thinks he can come crawling back to her. She’s got a good life now. She doesn’t need him. 

Becky’s nice though (can’t believe I just wrote those words), and asks Chuck, what makes him happy. Writing. She tells him he has to write. 

Back at the high school, Dean is interviewing a man in a beaver suit while eating a hot dog. 

JESUS CHRIST ON A CRACKER. (I’m conducting an experiment with my GA co-worker about Dean is bi-Dean/Cas. I can’t wait to hear what she says about this. She did call The Breakup a “bro-fight” so I’ll keep you all posted.) 

In the school gymnasium, Billy and Veronica bond over losing Susie. Billy’s mom interrupts and he runs away. 

The third-in-line-to-the-throne cheerleader practices her eulogy alone in a gym. I obsessed over this scene in this post about stories, because it was such a strange beat in the episode. The Winchesters confront her. They ask her to head off with them alone (GURL never do that with anyone you don’t know) when Sam notices that she wears braces. 

Sam and Dean leave the gym in a huff. Vampires don’t wear braces! Foiled by braces yet again! They go back to the drawing board. 

We finally get a peek in the happy lacrosse family’s home. Everyone’s argumentative and on edge, and when we get a closeup of the dad he’s washing blood off his hands in the sink.

The camera pans through the house to the garage where the kidnapped cheerleader, Tori, lies bound and gagged. UGH.

Chuck experiences the downside of Becky-in-momland: no booze! Chuck complains that he can no longer see Sam and Dean in his head and subtly touches his hidden bullet wound. Ooooo. Becky lays out some truths for Chuck. “You’re a writer. A writer who’s not writing. And when a writer’s not writing, they feel sad and they get lost. Why do I feel this way? Why am I so sad and lost? And what is all this naval gazing and hair pulling amount to in the end? Procrastination. Distraction. Just one million ways the writer avoids doing the one thing that is guaranteed to make the writer feel better. Which is…”

“Writing,” Chuck finishes the thought. Go Becky! Except…um…now Chuck is inspired to write again. And when Chuck writes? The world ends.

Chuck takes over Becky’s computer (RUDE) and starts his next opus on supernaturalstory-onebillionparallelworlds.com. 

Sam and Dean check out the security footage from the night Tori was abducted. They nab a suspicious vehicle and a license plate which lands them at...Billy’s house. 

At Billy’s house, strife continues to be the word of the day. The parents argue that they want what’s best for Billy - whatever that is. Sam and Dean head inside, looking as dangerous as panthers.

Sam heads for the garage while Dean cues the dad into a little fun fact: they’re not FBI. No, they’re considerably scarier than the FBI. Dean pulls out a machete which is probably NOT FIELD ISSUE OKAY. 

Sam discovers that the girl has been hooked up to an IV - she’s become a slow-release food source. The mom interrupts them with a GUN. 

Danger mom escorts Sam and the cheerleader back to the living room where they have a gun vs. machete stand-off. Obviously Dean would win this matchup, okay? He’d probably, idk, stop the bullets in his teeth or something.

Becky reads over Chuck’s work. She adores it! Chuck pushes for some notes. She asks for higher stakes and while we get distracted by her rambling about the lack of classic rock and Cas, Chuck’s expression grows GRIM and DARK and VERY SCARY. (Good job Rob, you talented cinnamon roll!) 

“You want jeopardy? You want danger? I’ll give you danger.” Thanks for the trip to CREEPY TOWN, Chuck. 

Billy heads downstairs and witnesses the confrontation between the Winchesters and his parents. Dean does his usual monologue, explaining how the dad got turned into a vamp, tried to eat cows, and started eating teen girls instead. But Sam observes Billy and points out something very different. “It’s not the dad, it’s the son.” Billy confesses: he was kissing his girlfriend when he lost control and ate her instead. Man, I HATE it when that happens. 

Billy told his parents, who covered it up. They kidnapped Tori as a longer term feed option. But now their son lays it all out. He’ll take the fall for everything, including Tori’s kidnapping and assault. And he’ll take a one-way ride with the Winchesters. 

UGH now everything is terrible. Dean executes the son in a dark wooded area as the rest of the world washes any trace of the supernatural away. 

Back with Chuck, Becky finishes reading his higher-stakes take. She’s disturbed. “You can’t,” she pleads. “This is just an ending.”

“Yeah,” Chuck says, pleased. “I don’t know how I’m getting there, but I know where I’m going.” That destination, to be specific, is just a tombstone with the word WINCHESTER on it. (Can I get a hell yeah for this meta-awareness and roundabout promise that we WON’T get this ending?) 

“You can’t do this to the fans!” Becky insists. But she’s prevented from saying more by her husband’s sudden return. She starts to explain the presence of Chuck, when Chuck just ZAPS her husband out of existence. Her kids call out and BOOM they’re gone too. I start to get worried that we’re gonna have some sort of icky reverse-Misery situation here when Chuck decides to zap Becky away as well. (Can’t wait until Becky kills God at the end of the series, guys!)

In the car, Sam directly parallels Billy to Jack. Dean admits that he wanted to “cash out” in the crypt, but that Sam’s insistence that they matter pulled him back. (Me: RLY?) Sam’s bitter. Dean’s tense. “We still do the job,” Dean says. “We do it for Jack. For mom. For Rowena. We owe it to anybody who has ever given a damn about us to keep putting one foot in front of the other. No matter what.” 

Dean goes on to say that with Chuck gone, they’re finally free to “move on” and EXCUSE ME while I go throw myself into a Destiel trash bin at that phrasing. Sam’s not in the Destiel trash bin with me, because he tells us he still mourns Jessica and now we’re HURTING for other reasons. SAM BBY! 

Back at Becky’s house Chuck continues to write...INSIDIOUSLY. I can’t wait for Chuck’s next book: Sad Boys in the Impala.

______________________________

Read These Quotes Backward for a Demonic Spell:

The end of the world is the end of the world

They have no idea what’s out there

But people LIKE monsters

I need wine

Why am I so sad and lost? And what is all this naval gazing and hair pulling amount to in the end? Procrastination. Distraction. Just one a million ways the writer avoids doing the one thing that is guaranteed to make the writer feel better. 

Nobody even mentions Cas

To see your child in pain rips your heart out

We can bury them out back. Under the peonies. Everything is going to be FINE

Fans are gonna love it

Oh, Becky. I can do anything. I’m a writer

We do the ugly things so that people can live happy

Monsters are cool. What? They’re all teeth!

______________________________

[aion-rsa]

Boy Meets World’s Slasher Episode Was Scarier Than it Had Any Right To Be

https://ift.tt/31fmu6t

Blood-curdling screams. Taunting phone calls from a psycho killer. Creepy, ominous music with lyrics like “Here’s a knife. Here’s a gun. There’ll be fun for everyone. Death is on the menu tonight!” Elements of a forgotten ‘90s slasher classic? Nope. Just some highlights from the most memorable episode of ABC’s family sitcom Boy Meets World.

With the launch of Disney+ and ample time to get nostalgic and revisit old movies and TV shows due to the pandemic, many older millennials are diving back into Boy Meets World, which ran for seven seasons from 1993 through 2000 as a staple of ABC’s TGIF lineup. The show centered on Philadelphia teenager Cory Matthews (Ben Savage) navigating life with his best friend Shawn Hunter (Rider Strong), his love interest Topanga Lawrence (Danielle Fishel), and brother Eric (Will Friedle), while perpetually receiving life lessons from longtime teacher and eventual principal Mr. Feeny (William Daniels). 

Boy Meets World had no shortage of standout moments and episodes, like WWE wrestler Vader appearing as the father of a misunderstood school bully, a young Linda Cardellini being the girl who almost destroyed the Cory and Topanga love story for good, and Peter Tork (who briefly played Topanga’s father), Micky Dolenz, and Davy Jones staging an impromptu Monkees reunion. And who could forget when Ben Savage’s famous brother Fred guest starred as a creepy college professor and was shoved through a glass door? 

But perhaps no other Boy Meets World episode made a bigger impact to impressionable young minds than the fifth season highlight “And Then There Was Shawn,” a format-breaking homage to the popular slasher films of the moment, like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer (the latter of which hit theaters just four months earlier). Serving as a metaphor for the fear and uncertainty Shawn feels over the recent breakup of Cory and Topanga, the episode is a mini-horror movie that operates in dream logic and features shocking cast deaths, zeitgeisty jokes, and a big ‘90s teen idol cameo. Many young fans were genuinely frightened by the scares conjured up in the episode, while older fans loved the campy, winking references and the change of pace storytelling.

“And Then There Was Shawn” writer Jeff Menell was typically happy to do what was asked of him on the series, but he jumped at the chance to write a horror-influenced episode. “I’m a diehard movie fan. I have been my entire life. But as a writer on set, I just did whatever I was told,” Menell said in a phone interview with Den of Geek. “I never went after anything. But I begged to write this one because I just knew I could do it.”

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By Alana Joli Abbott

The episode finds the high school-aged cast members serving detention with Mr. Feeny after a fight, springing from Cory and Topanga’s recent breakup, disrupts the class. Things quickly take a turn when the kids see a message in blood written on the chalkboard that reads “No One Gets Out Alive!” and hear a discomforting jingle with menacing lyrics playing over the high school’s PA system. Initially, the kids believe that Mr. Feeny is playing a prank on them, but things take a turn for the serious — and scary – when classmate Kenny is murdered in the dark by the masked killer wielding a pencil (prompting a very timely “You Killed Kenny!” reference). None other than Mr. Feeny himself bites the dust shortly thereafter via scissors to the back.

“You know, usually you go off for two weeks and you go write this draft and you bring it back, and then the room rewrites it. That always was the process. I wrote this one like in two days, and I had to pretend that it took longer because if you’ve written the script in two days, they assume it sucks, or that you didn’t really care or make an effort,” Menell says.

When Menell brought the initial draft to the writer’s room, however, there were minimal changes to his script. The episode’s director, Jeff McCracken, was impressed. 

“Jeff (Menell) went out and wrote his episode and when it came in it was perfect. It was an absolutely perfect flow of the script. He just nailed it.”

Emulating classic slasher film elements, McCracken had to approach the filming of “And Then There Was Shawn” differently than a typical episode. 

“It was so much fun,” McCracken says. “Because it had all these special sequences, we really had to shoot it like a film. We rehearsed for two days, then shot it for three, and then we showed it before a live audience. The film style is generally single style or two cameras, but I shot a lot of it with three to four cameras so that we wouldn’t have to do multiple retakes. You couldn’t have done the whole thing in front of a live audience because it would have taken too much time to set everything up and run through a show with an audience sitting there.”

The pencil kill is the most memorable moment from the episode, but McCracken nor Menell can take credit for it. “I remember the one gag that was not in the script, the one gag that Michael Jacobs (creator/executive producer) came up with, which was genius, was the pencil dynamic,” McCracken recalls. After classmate Kenny is shown impaled through the head with a pencil, his body slumps down the wall, leaving a lead pencil mark behind him. Cory quips, “We’ll always remember he was this tall.”

Kenny and Feeny’s deaths are bloodless, but they leave a mighty impression for a network family-friendly series. Both writer and director knew that they’d have to tread lightly if they were going to be faithful to the slasher genre (“I’m surprised they let us have Feeny with (scissors) in his back, to tell you the truth,” Menell says) but they both made a concerted effort to surround the kills with humor. 

“We had to make it funny,” McCracken says.” I mean, you put (scissors) in someone’s back, it can be very disturbing for a young audience. You can’t traumatize them. We did it with some sense of humor and it wasn’t so graphic.”

Part of the humor was derived from the very specific references made in the episode. Like Scream standout character Randy, Shawn makes meta references to the rules of the horror genre, telling his friends that virgins are the only ones who are safe. Eric says, “I’m dead,” Jack says, “I’m dead,” and Shawn says, “I’ll get as sick as you can without dying.” 

This slightly scandalous joke wasn’t anything new for the series, but the violent nature of the episode led to “And Then There Was Shawn” receiving the show’s first TV-PG-V rating. According to Menell, Michael Jacobs had a way of pushing the boundaries with network executives. “He got away with a lot more stuff than most people because he could really browbeat some network executives at times to get what he wanted.”

One major addition to the cast for “And Then There Was Shawn” probably helped Jacobs catch the network in the right mood. Jennifer Love Hewitt, coming off Party of Five and at the height of her scream queen powers, guest stars as new John Adams High student Jennifer Love Fefferman. Hewitt at the time was dating Will Friedle and it’s believed their relationship inspired her cameo. 

“We maybe asked him to ask her, because obviously she was in I Know What You Did Last Summer, so having her there just adds horror film credibility to it,” Menell says. “She was great. She was such a great sport, and it was fun having her on.”

McCracken concurs: “It was such a pleasure. It was one of those things that you don’t know how a major star walking in on your set, how they’re going to be, what their demands are going to be, what their personality is going to be like, what their disposition for the script’s going to be like, and she just came in full guns blazing and just had a blast and that made everything just wonderful. She was game for anything.”

One thing that Hewitt was game for was a big makeout scene with Friedle’s Eric, that may or may not have been improvised. “I don’t think we wrote that in, I think they just wanted to do it and we let it,” Menell laughs.

Amongst all of the horror homage fun, the episode ends with Shawn removing the killer’s mask to find himself starring back, having gone through this whole slasher bit just to get his friends back together. It’s quite the philosophical ending for a show primarily aimed at tweens and teens. 

“When it did get serious with Shawn at the end, it was more poignant than it was scary and it was also a great reveal that it was him,” McCracken says. “It was metaphorical in the sense that that component of Shawn is in us all and it’s always lurking and it’s always out there. And so, be vigilant.”

The Jeffs knew that they had a special episode on their hands with “And Then There Was Shawn,” but who could have guessed the episode would have this sort of longevity 22 years later?

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

“We got a few letters from people that were so scared, couldn’t believe we would kill Feeny. And we got some people that were upset,” Menell says. “But we had no idea until years later when the internet came on how popular that episode became. We did some crossovers, some time flashbacks, and some other really cool episodes, but this was a show that was nothing like any other episode we had aired or would air. It was probably the most fun … it’s certainly the most scary.”

The post Boy Meets World’s Slasher Episode Was Scarier Than it Had Any Right To Be appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3nTOAOB

[xiaq]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15446814/chapters/35854725 Lucifer was an angel once.

That’s what Nursey thinks, the first time he sees William Poindexter.

Because the boy is beautiful even though he shouldn’t be. Even though he’s doubtless the kind of person who would punch you in the face if you said the words “you” and “beautiful” to him in the same sentence.

His skin is choked with freckles. It’s potentially more freckle than skin, really. Not just his face, where his nose and cheekbones are so hyper-pigmented they look tanned, but his collarbones and forearms and the knuckles of his calloused hands. The close-shaved dark ginger stubble of his hair should make his ears look too big or his mouth too wide but instead it accentuates the long curve of his throat, the cup of velvet skin between the tendons in the back of his neck. It makes his cheekbones sharper, his eyes—so light brown they look almost gold—more stark under pale spiky lashes.

He’s wearing boots and jeans and a leather jacket that could either be beat to shit for aesthetic reasons or just beat to shit, and a permanent scowl that will likely give him wrinkles at an early age but right now is just terribly flattering.

It all adds up: the interesting face, the long, wiry frame and taut, fight-ready stance, to create a body that casting directors for edgy photoshoots would salivate over. The sort of photoshoots that, if they involve teeth, it’s not because people are smiling.

The point is, he has a carefully curated look and that look is fuck off.

Nursey wants to touch him.

Nursey has never touched someone with that many freckles before and he doubts this particular someone would let him close enough to try which is, he thinks a little despairingly of himself, perhaps why he finds the boy so damn compelling.

The grass is always greener.

You always want what you can’t have.

Etc.

Etc.

Etc.

Regardless. That’s Nursey’s first impression: An angry, pigment-spangled, potentially once-divine being. An angel trying very, very, hard not to be.

Nursey reminds himself, standing in line at the administration office, trying not to stare at the nape of the other boy’s neck—the freckled knob of his spine, pushed hard against the skin just above his collar, that Nursey is at Samwell to focus on hockey, not admire transfer students who are undoubtedly straight and probably won’t share a single class with him and who he’ll likely only see from a distance for the next year and then never see again and that’s a good thing because he’s here to focus on hockey.

Except then, the new kid steps up to the receptionist’s desk and says in a rough, surprising drawl. “I’m a transfer. Poindexter. I need to pick up my dorm keys.”

And Nursey knows that name.

Because it was in the email that Coach sent out over the summer. It was the name that was written in sharpie on the scratched DVD on Coach’s desk that he’d pushed toward Nursey the day before. Coach had tapped the DVD with a blunt finger and said, “I’ve found you a new D-partner, Nurse.” And Nursey had taken the DVD back to his yet-unpacked room and played it on his laptop, stretched out on the bare mattress of his shitty lofted bed. The footage was grainy, badly spliced together and clearly shot unprofessionally from the stands, but it was enough. Poindexter was good. Big, but fast. Aggressive, but smart. Together, Nursey thought, they might be great.

So when Nursey hears the name, he doesn’t even think. He just speaks:

“You’re the new defenseman?” he asks. “William Poindexter?”

And the boy turns around and considers him with what might be contempt but what might just be the way his face looks and says, “Yeah?” like its a challenge.

And Nursey thinks:

Oh no.

***

William Poindexter has his mother’s eyes and his father’s nose and on his face they’re still a family.

He considers his reflection in the filmy bus-station bathroom mirror, rubs his thumb down the raised line of scar tissue bisecting his chin—pink and new and only partially hidden in the drip-paint collage of his freckles, and then rubs harder, more habit than intention.

After spending the summer as a stern man on his uncle’s lobster boat—sorting, banding, baiting, re-setting, trying his best to repair the limping hydraulic trap hauler that probably should have been scrapped a decade ago—layers of sunburn have turned into a tan, multiplying the pigment across his nose and cheeks and shoulders to a point where he looks constantly dirty. Like he’d been working in his other uncle’s garage and absently smeared an oiled forearm over his face.

His cousin, Saoirse, the one who’d left for New York at eighteen, got a job in marketing and now only returned home for shorter and shorter visits at Christmas time, had once said that Dex looked like a Jackson Pollock painting. He thinks she was trying to be mean. Or elitist. Or both. But he’d sort of agreed with her. He didn’t know who Jackson Pollock was, at first, but when he’d gone with his aunt into town the following weekend he’d used the library computer to google him.

At thirteen, with new calluses on his palms from his first ever boat haul, constant peeling skin over his nose and shoulders, and the kind of secret that scrapes your insides hollow, he’d found the paintings, grainy and pixelated as they were on the old computer monitor, strangely familiar.

Maybe he was like a Jackson Pollock painting: a dark, incensed, anxious, spatter of reds and yellows and blacks and blues. Too much color for one canvas. Too much feeling for containment. Too much, maybe, in general.

Someone bangs on the bathroom door and he stops glaring at his reflection because there’s nothing much he can do about it.

He uses a paper towel to dry his hands, runs his fingers, still damp, over his buzzed hair, and shoulders his duffle bag.

Samwell is waiting.

He’d googled Samwell at the same time that he’d googled all the rest of the best hockey prep schools in the country.

Same library.

Same shitty library computer.

Initially he’d wanted to try and play for a junior team, he was good enough, he’d been scouted, but now, money issues aside, billeting would be all but impossible considering his legal situation. So he’d spent stolen hours at school and after work searching boarding schools with prep hockey teams, comparing stats and rosters and course offerings, before he sent in his game tapes and paperwork with scraped together application fees and letters of recommendation from his former and current coaches.

He’d applied to six schools and was accepted at two.

Samwell was the closest, not that he really cared about staying close, but his lawyer said it would make things easier for possible future hearings if he was within a few hours drive of home. If he could even call it that anymore.

Samwell was also the cheapest, which he did care about, and it routinely produced D1 and NHL prospects which was his primary concern. A full scholarship with housing, a meal plan, and a chance to elevate his game to the point that maybe, next year, he could get a scholarship to college? Or even get drafted?

An easy decision.

After getting a handful of salt-crusted 100’s from his uncle at the harbor early that morning—payment for his summer of work—he’d hitched a ride with another stern man from Port Marta to Brunswick and then took a Greyhound from there to Boston, and then another bus from Boston to Samwell.

And now he’s here, standing outside the station with a paper map from his library’s equally shitty printer, a duffle bag from the army surplus store full of abused hockey gear, and an address written in permanent marker on his wrist.

He does have a newly-purchased cellphone, an unfamiliar weight in his back pocket, but he doesn't want to call an Uber because according to the map, Samwell’s campus is only a mile away and he’s not ready to start spending his money yet. Definitely not when there are more important things he’ll need soon. Like new skates. Books. Clothes.

He shoulders his bag and starts walking.

When he gets there, the campus looks exactly like the online pictures: Sun-dappled and idyllic with people lounging under trees and throwing footballs and weaving colorful bikes in and out of foot traffic on immaculate sidewalks.

He’s too hot in his leather jacket and the strap of his bag is rubbing the side of his neck raw but he walks with a purpose and doesn’t make eye contact when people look at him.

And people do look at him.

He’s six-foot-two, will probably hit six-three soon, dressed all in black and carrying a bag over his shoulder that’s nearly as big as he is. Doubtless, he stands out like some sort of hulking freckled raven among songbirds.

By the time he finds the administration building his palms are so sweaty it’s hard to get the stupidly ornate door open, and, once inside, standing in line on the marble floors, looking up at the vaulted ceiling, the whispered assertion that’s been following him since he stepped foot on campus gets louder:You do not belong here.

He’s felt that way for most his life, though, wherever he was, so it isn’t that disconcerting.

He clears his throat when it’s his turn, stepping up to the counter at the student center, trying to muster a smile.

“I’m a transfer,” he says, “Poindexter. I need to pick up my dorm keys.”

Before the receptionist has a chance to answer, though, the person behind him speaks:

“You’re the new defenseman?”

Dex turns to look at the speaker and pauses.

Because he recognizes the boy’s face.

He’d seen it on rosters and game footage.

During his furtive research, he’d memorized the names of three players at Samwell. Three players he thought were exceptionally good. Maybe NHL good. These would be your peers, he’d told himself.

The first was Jack Laurent Zimmerman. Center. Senior. Number 1.

The second was Christopher Franklin Chow. Goalie. Junior. Number 55.

The third is now standing in front of him:

Derek Malik Nurse. Defenseman. Senior. Number 28.

What he hadn’t anticipated is that, off the ice, Derek Malik Nurse looks a lot less like the goon he does on the ice and a lot more like the kind of boy his father warned Dex against becoming, sometimes with words, but sometimes with fists.

Because apparently off the ice Derek Malik Nurse wears cuffed skinny jeans stretched tight over the bulk of his thighs and half-unbuttoned floral shirts and pale, stretchy, yellow headbands to hold back his curls. His dark skin is clear and pore-less and the delicate gold chain around his neck should look out of place on someone so broad but it doesn’t.

He is irritatingly well-groomed.

He’s also waiting for an answer.

“Yeah?” Dex manages, and it maybe comes out more aggressive than he intended.

“I’m Nursey,” Derek Malik Nurse says, extending a hand and smiling: straight white teeth and the easy confidence that comes with money. “I’m on the hockey team too.”

Nurse’s hand is warm and dry and the torn callouses on Dex’s own chapped hand scrape jarringly against Nurse’s soft palm.

“Dex,” Dex says, because if there’s one thing hockey has given him it’s a name that his father didn’t.

Nurse squeezes his fingers, holds on a moment past comfortable, grins wider so the skin around his grey-green eyes crinkles, and says: “Dex. Chill. Coach says you’re going to be my new D-partner.”

And all Dex can think is:

Oh no.

You can find the rest of the story (all 74k words!) on A03 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15446814?view_full_work=true

[jekyll-hyde-transformation]

Let's be honest.

I had already posted this here but I lost everything in that big mess in this month and I didn't have a copy saved in English.

So as my laziness is consuming me I will post it again, but everything wrong without any revision.

For the sake of laziness.

Maybe later I fixed the text but for now blame the Google Translator.

Jackson Jekyll in Wonderland Ever After High

(Sorry for any grammar mistakes).

Jackson Jekyll walked through an open field with slightly crumpled clothes. Holt had been in control all night and now he had to go home.

Jackson could only think how exhausted he was and how likely he was late with his homework until he took a false step and fell into a hole, or rather in the hole. He could never have imagined that such a great hole existed, and if he had not stayed nearly all the time with his eyes closed he could have sworn he saw random objects flying around him.

Jackson ended up sitting down, his knees on the ground on a bush. The scenery around him was simply so surreal that he could not describe it.

Attracting the attention of a girl with white and blue hair. She pointed a sword at him, but came down when she saw a cute little boy who seemed to be an incarnation of the nerd stereotype with a disoriented look and with leaves and branches stuck in her hair.

- Are you all right? She asked.

- Yes, I already have been worse. He replied.

- I do not think that's a good thing. My name is ... What's your name? She said helping him to stand up.

He failed to pick up her name correctly was something like adjectives, and it seemed that there were some voices talking about her, but he ignored this fact.

- Jackson.

- Nice. Are you the son of which Jack? However, you won't answer me? What is your name?

- No, my name is Jackson. He replied confused.

- Ah, ok your name is Jackson because of your father. My family also does not have much creativity for names.

Jackson was really confused and the voices talking about the girl did not help at all so he said his name was Jackson, but that had nothing to do with my father was just a name.

The girl looked extremely confused.

- Then your name is Jackson. And this has nothing to do with your father.

- It's kind of that.

- Then whose son are you?

- This is an extremely long story please do not make me tell.

- Okay, but what happened to you to stop at this bush?

- I have no idea I was walking in a field and I ended up falling in that bottomless hole and well I'm here. Said Jackson barely managing to keep his dirty mouth shut because of the voices. They were giving him a headache.

- Oh, so you're not from Wonderland? I really was finding you too normal to be from here.

- Wonderland? Jackson asked with the headache growing louder due to that annoying murmur.

The girl looked at the boy who had a huge face of confusion he was really cute, but there really was not any kind of knight in armor or prince enchanted. So she thought he was some kind of cute little assistant.

She then said she would take him back to his school.

Then he started to walk beside the girl. She started talking a lot of confusing things that Jackson did not understand and was not really struggling to understand. Something about how Wonderland and Oz were just an extension of the land of fairy tales.

Until they got back to an even bigger and more frightening hole than what Jackson had dropped. She told him to jump on him and obviously he did not want to, but when he refused, she simply pushed him away.

A new trek began in a forest after Jackson recovered from the stunned and repressed anger. He had not liked being pushed.

Then the girl began to speak and this time Jackson paid attention:

- I've never had seen you around. You're a new student, are not you? So I'm going to leave you in the director's room and he'll help you. I'm sorry I can not keep up with you anymore. I have to deal with my brothers now.

- OK then. Jackson said hiding the despair of realizing that he was not in Monster High yes in what appeared to be a fairy tale version of it.

(He really had to stop being pushed into schools that were not his one.)

Jackson was practically thrown into the director's room, being left by a girl who just told the director that the new student got lost in Wonderland.

The director then approaches the door.

- I do not remember any new students. You look like my brother's thing.

Jackson being raised as the son of a Fire Elemental and a Jekyll and Hyde knew exactly how to lie, though he was extremely nervous about it. But with his head almost exploding and understanding nothing of what was around he deduced that the best would be to be honest after all if they were to kill him, they would kill anyway.

- I have no idea where I am. Study at Monster High. I ended up stopping at that strange place the girl I do not remember her name called Wonderland. Which does not make the slightest sense. So I thought she was going to take me to my school, but I ended up here.Help me please!

The director made a frightened face then gave a dazzling smile

"Oh, I understand you're from the realm of horror tales, and it's here.

- I guess so. Said Jackson insert.

There was no way Jackson knew this but the director had deduced from his appearance that he must be the son of some sort of Monster Hunter assistant or potential monster victim.

"Sit down, kid, there are several Worlds. You came from the realm of horror tales going to stop in Wonderland then came here, meaning it's in the world of fairy tales. This world is different people have the fate of their parents. We have a student from your kingdom here.Maybe you even meet her, however she went to visit the family so I'm sorry. The spell to return to your kingdom is a bit difficult and by your reaction I do not think you have any family here so I think you're going to have to study here for a while until we figure out a way to send you back.

It was too much information for Jackson, the director had to explain it for another half hour until he understood the logic of what had happened to him. Apparently a rabbit had left an open hole that led to another world if that made sense.

At the end of the conversation the director said where Jackson was going to sleep and asked,

- Then tell me who your parents are?

Jackson Jekyll was on the board talking about his fate. Jackson is from the realm of horror tales they do not have a destiny, but stories tend to repeat themselves then sort of considered a kind of different destination by the land dwellers of fairy tales.

Director Grimm, his brother and Snow White were meeting in the room to decide what classes Jackson should stay in. Jackson is treated with affection (he had even won a hot chocolate) mainly for Snow White after all he is a boy apparently delicate and cute. And apparently to avoid confusion Jackson had turned Jack.

Since Jackson does not have a destiny he then begins to tell a confused, half-hour story of how his father is a fire elemental and how his mother is a human with a supernatural disease. But afraid he does not explain about Jekyll and Hyde. So he ends by saying that his fate can be interpreted as being the next Doctor Jekyll already fire elementals does not come from any specific history.

The director's brother arranges a book version. None of them had ever heard of Jackson's family book. So they started reading in the office.

They were all unfamiliar with the dark cloak, title, protagonist ... Jackson was getting more and more nervous. When they finished the book what would they think about it?

In the middle of the book Jackson was forced to hear a comment from the director saying that he would probably stay in a helpless maiden class. What was interpreted as a way to mock him not knowing that this class really existed.

Snow White, which Jackson was still trying to get used to the idea of ​​actually being Snow White, would occasionally look at him affectionately and run his hand through his hair like a teacher saying good work. That did not leave Jackson less worried.

On each page of the book they seemed more and more surprised or in the case director simply bored, since the book is extremely wordy.But at no time in the head of the three did they think that perhaps the doctor was evil and not simply evil, but the real villain of history.

Being Jackson a smart boy soon realized that being a villain's son was not a good thing. Relying on the comments about Lord Hyde throughout history. And from what he knew in the fairy tale, some characters were villains for reasons far lighter than physically assaulting a little girl, killing an old man with nothing but a stick and scaring a man to death (not to mention the fact that Jekyll lying compulsively) so he was really screwed.

When they got to the part where the body had been found they really got confused and it was not long before they got to the part where the secret was finally revealed. They did not say anything, but when they reached the part of Lanyon's letter his features had a slight tone of disgust. And Jackson's face became an expression camouflaged with despair.

In the end the headmaster closed the book and put it to his side with an extremely serious face. Jackson realized that Snow White was farther away from him and with the look of someone who had been betrayed.

"Well, that was unexpected. This really is not the kind of story we're used to in this place ... but you know wolves in sheep's clothing exist.It is a relief to know that you are following your destiny. By your behavior and your appearance I would have never guessed that you are a villain.

In the end, Jackson ended up getting all the classes that involved villainy, magic, cheating and lying to the victim, plus lessons on how to be charming and on the label.

Jackson found this completely unfair was not his fault that his ancestor was a villain.

Jackson was then practically kicked out in the living room. Just getting to hear slight whispers coming from the room as they had been cheated and if it would not be a problem.

Jackson, or Jack as everyone was calling, strolled aimlessly through the school until he found a mirror and when he looked he saw that things were a little different ...

It was a bit difficult to explain his appearance. He was more ... how could he say? Fairy tale? His exaggerated geeky looks had always caused him strangeness, but now it seemed like something more ordinary just too right.

His blue eyes were never so intense. There was no sign that one day he would have had a piercing. His outfit had a more natural trim and his black hair was brownish tones without his characteristic yellow fringe. His face was a bit childish, sweet. Monster High monsters would probably say he looked like a kid.

Everything in him seemed softer and lighter as if in pastel tones.Even his thick, black-rimmed glasses appeared more subtle. It was simply bizarre ... It was as if he had all adapted himself to that world.

Jackson had never been the kind of person considered attractive, at most being described as having a handsome face, and he was not yet and probably never would be, but he had something in his present appearance that disturbed him. It was as if everything in his appearance was made to please ... to be approved. It really bothered him. It all gave him a feeling of unpleasant familiarity. Something in his appearance reminded him very much of a certain Dr. Henry Jekyll.

If Jackson was not admiring his appearance in the mirror, trying to ignore and get a logical explanation for that maddening, indecipherable murmur, which by the way was very loud. He would have noticed what the high school speakers were playing a song that Holt would certainly appreciate and that a blond-haired boy approached him from behind.

Jackson continued to watch his own face in the mirror, his ivory skin reflected. He was a bit pale by the standards of the landlords of the land of fairy tales Jackson bit his white lips as he stared at that delicate and disconcerting figure. He had probably never faced each other so much. He began to focus on his vibrant blue eyes and try to pay attention to the voices. Paying attention to them and getting used to it a little easier it was much easier to understand what they were saying. They seemed to come from above this is the only indication he had of a likely source, but other than that seemed to come all over. In reality it was usually only one, but occasionally they alternated with each other. They all had a certain pompous intonation, but they showed slight differences between them. They were ... were they narrating? Were they simply narrating what was happening? Why would they be talking about him ...? No this would not make sense there was no one behind him ...

Jackson's thought was interrupted by a blond boy putting his hand on his shoulder. Jackson almost had a heart attack. He lived his entire life with creatures monsters and things that would make most humans run away, but he was really taken aback. He did not scream.Which he inherited from the world of Monsters. Shouting to scare was a lack of education, well at least when it came to someone with a human appearance, but he can not help but acquire the posture of a frightened cat.

The exaggerated blond-haired boy who apparently did not notice his fright said,

- We heard you had a new student. I just came to introduce myself to the newbie. I hoped it was a girl. What a disappointment, but let's leave it there. I am….

More names with adjectives that Jackson could not process. The other continued with an extremely narcissistic conversation without ever asking for his name or anything of the sort. He remembered Cleo a little.

It was only then that day that you did not realize that there was another boy with him this time with brown hair.

- Hi, it's Dexter. Sorry for my brother, he's always like this.

Jackson internally celebrated. Finally a name he could handle.

- What is your name?

Jackson stammered a little afraid with all the explanation he apparently had to give to every person he introduced himself. He decided to be as simple as possible:

- My name is Jackson and although my name having a son after Jack is just a prefix and it has no relation to me being the son of someone named Jack.

"Ah, different. That really should fill you up.

Jackson smiled and thought a rather wicked thought:

"And on top of it, there's a brain that's a gift."

"Then you're heard to say you're not from this realm." That you are from the kingdom of Cupid. You know her?

- CA Cupid?

- That's right.

"I do not know her well, but she was from my high school.

- Ah cool.

"Do not people really care that she's a monster?"

- What? No, she's a great person.

"No, not that kind of monster I'm saying literally a monster.

The boy made a huge face of confusion as if he did not understand what he was talking about. Then Jackson realized that Cupid probably did not fit into what they considered to be a monster. This could be a point she would not want to be mentioned. And as someone who understood very well about secrets and things that are uncomfortable to touch, he decided to change the subject.

- Forget. I'm talking nonsense. I do not know this college and it seems to be huge. Could you guys help me out a bit?

As if previous conversation had never existed the boy smiled and said,

"Of course we'll have lunch in the cafeteria now, and then we'll show the classes a bit.

- That sounds great to me. Jackson said.

He then started walking with the boys down the hall. The blond boy just stood admiring himself in a hand mirror. He was definitely like Cleo.

They sat at a table in the cafeteria and Dexter asked,

"So I've never said much about Cupid, but since you're both from the same realm ... well, the director said you're from the realm of horror stories." Tales of terror is where all horror stories lie. This does not look like a place where Cupid's story would come from. Kind helpful couples. How does this work?

Jackson took a deep breath and said,

"I think the specter that the realm of tales of terror covers is far greater than the realm of Fairy Tales."

Daring said nothing, but saw that when Jackson ran his fingers across the table he answered them they released some small sparks of fire.

Jackson pulled his cell phone out of his pocket to check the time.Even this had changed it was not the same he had no longer shaped like a coffin instead had a black coffin shaped hood.

- Wow! Your cell phone has a coffin cap you really take this serious horror business there! Dexter said suppressed.

- You have no idea. Jackson answered.

It was then that the girl he had met earlier in the day approached the table to join the boys and upon seeing him she said:

"Hi, if you're not my favorite damsel.

Jackson gave a shy laugh then replied sarcastically:

"And what would become of me without my prince charming?"

She laughed as the two boys stared in confusion as if they had missed an inner joke and they had.

The four of them talked for about 10 minutes largely asking questions about Jackson's kingdom, which he responded evasively for fear of retaliation as with the director.

Jackson could not stand it any longer and he created the courage of his soul to ask.

- Can I ask you something strange?

- Can you? Darling and Dexter responded.

(Although the blond boy was technically participating in the conversation he had never stopped looking at that mirror).

"What are these voices?"

- What voices? The two answered in confusion in unison. Even Daring's attention had been won.

"Those voices that have not stopped talking ever since I arrived in Wonderland and continued when I came here. I do not know, it's like I've been telling it all. They're driving me crazy.

The three, including the boy in the mirror who had removed the object from the face, gave a strange look and the blonde said in a low voice:

"Not another one.

Before the conversation could take any turn the signal rang and they had to go to their classes. In fact, Jackson was not yet required to attend classes. The headmaster had given him two days to adjust, but as he was dying of boredom he decided to attend some.

The girl then asked to see the paper with his lessons.

"Maybe we have some class." She completed it.

Dexter and she looked and automatically wondered when they saw a role with practically only classes of villains like cheating people, portions for evil and so on. The lessons did not match that handsome, handsome, innocent looking boy.

"Who did you say you were, son?" Dexter asked

Jackson replied,

"I never really did."

- OK. So asking now. Jack, whose son are you? Darling asked.

Dr Jekyll. He replied.

- Oh, okay. Can you track us down a bit?

Jack took a deep breath and then he explained:

- Okay. The world terror works differently technically Dr Jekyll is my no matter what grandfather, my mothers are descendants of him and Lord Hyde who is of the same story. Even though my father has a certain mythology about people like him, he is not of any specific history. Dr Jekyll was the perfect gentleman of almost no fault, but by the end of the story you find out he was not such a cool guy even though technically he is an allegory for good. So I'm the son of Dr. Jekyll, Mrs. Hyde and Mr. Burns.

Everyone's curiosity about Jack (son) being a villain was basically erased and focused on something else.

"Do you have two mothers and a father?" Everyone asked.

- Well technically they are 2 ½. Jackson answered with a shrug.

- What? They said in unison.

Everyone was confused, but decided not to question anymore. The last thing anyone with a good boy's title wanted to do was judge someone's family setting.

So they decided to take Jackson to his first class. On the way, Jackson noticed something. He was a tall boy, but that was ignored by the other Monster High students already in Ever After High that was much more apparent.

Then they reached the door and saw an entire class crowded with the scum of the world of fairy tales. Everyone was afraid to leave someone with the harmless appearance of Jackson there. He would be devoured.

But he went quietly into the strangeness of all. That place was not even close to a class in Monster High. For him, it was normal.

They all stared at him wondering what he was supposed to be doing there. Even the teacher.

She stared at him and asked if he would not be in the wrong class.

Jackson replied with an imperceptible sarcastic tone that sounded more like a sweet and polite phrase:

"No, the director himself sent me here for what he says I am a wolf in sheepskin."

Everyone kept staring at him as he sat, seemingly unconvinced.

"So what the character you're doing sent you here." Jackson was totally embarrassed and with difficulty replied:

- Well, nothing much. Well ... you just find out he's the real villain at the end, but .... Summing up the story was this Mr. Hyde guy and he ... well ... murder ... he means he killed an old man with a piece of wood and there's that little girl ... then aggression ... there's that friend of his ... that scares him ... well ... to death ... He kind of hides his crimes behind this guy .... Ah ... he also has that thing of ideological falsehood besides lying deceiving everyone around him.

The attempt of Jack to soften the crimes of ancestor was extremely flawed.

The teacher looked at him with wide eyes, not believing that the little boy with the face of who would not hurt a fly would be the son of someone like that.

Teacher decided she would talk to director later.

"Then whose son are you?"

"My fate is to be the next Dr Jekyll.

I never heard of it. Teacher spoke up with the conversation.

It was the weirdest class he'd ever had. They were basically telling him how to be evil as if he had an instruction manual for it.

When he finished his class he decided to go after the principal after all, he had no other clothes to wear and he wanted to see if the director could fix it.

As he approached the director, the director swore he was going to try to fool you and was surprised when he just asked for a change of clothes. A director gave him a look and said,

"Well with all that family stuff you can not just ...?"

Then something strange happened Jack could not contain himself and shouted to the director in a voice that did not belong:

"I'm not a witch, you idiot!" I'm just asking for some clothes !!!!! God it's not because an idiot in my family did a lot 200 years ago that I can do those shits of spells !!!!!!

The director looked at him in horror.

Jackson's eyes were red and he let out a little smoke. It took him a few seconds to realize what he had said.

- Oh my God. I'm sorry, I do not know what that was. It was not me.

Jackson had just been acting like Holt. It was he who had a reputation for hot-headedness, he was the one who would go to the board because of these things. Why had he acted like this?

Jackson hated when adults got mad at him, but the director just smiled and said, whispering the last phase so that Jack could not hear her:

"I should have expected that." I should know you're still too young to be a wolf in sheepskin all the time. The book itself said you should be wee bit wild when you're younger. I think this is not much encouraged in your kingdom, but you are simply acting as you should. Like a villain. Just do not get into a mess too big. I'll see what I can do with the clothes. Maybe something approves of fire ...

Then he told him to wait for 5 minutes.

Jackson was totally confused. What did that have? He had lost control ... and the director had been complacent about it. He really had with talk to Holt later.

[papersandkeyboards]

5/23-30: A Week of Hangouts

35th WEEK, MAY 23-30, 2016.

Seniors at Rainier Beach High School skip so much in general, I thought there would be no Senior Skip Day like in other schools.

Speaking of which—Senior Skip Day, I guess you could say, is some sort of unofficial agreement between seniors to skip the whole school day on an agreed day. And yes—it is indeed a thing, apparently.

But as I said, seniors—if not students in general—at RBHS skip so much, it doesn’t seem like Senior Skip Day would be a thing to be excited about. In my fourth period—which is IB Lang and Lit for seniors—there are suppose to be, like, 24 kids or something, but there are only 10ish students in average every day. One day the number hit 14, Mrs. Shaw got so excited she could’ve cried.

Tuesday, another sparsely populated fourth period. We were in the middle of something when a couple of seniors got into the classroom and handed out papers to us that turned out to be a permission slip to go to Seward Park on Friday.

“...what’s this?” I asked Imi.

“Oh, it’s Senior Skip Day,” she said.

Well—turned out we did have a Senior Skip/Ditch Day. Unless that it was school-approved, chaperoned-by-teacher Skip Day... quote on quote.

Call me a nerd, but I didn’t want to skip first period on Friday. If it were a normal first period I would probably be delighted to skip, but since mid-end May until mid-June, there’s this big event called Seattle International Film Festival, which is one of the most famous film festivals in the world. A whole bunch of films from some one hundred countries around the world, different styles, different genres. One of the films from USA is called “The First Girl I Loved”, and the director was coming to my first period on Friday. The world of filmmaking has always been interesting to me, so no way I would pass this opportunity, although he wasn’t a big block-buster movie director.

So I went to first period. Which I think was worth going. However, on the way to and during second period, I started getting down for not going to Skip Day. I didn’t even turn in the permission slip. I was so ready just to skip fourth and sixth on my own and finish reading The 5th Wave in the library (ok now I really have no defense if you call me a nerd).

I walked to third—Tomchick—and welcomed by his question, “Aren’t you going to Senior Field Trip?”

I shrugged. “I don’t want to miss first period.”

“You can still go. They haven’t even started yet.”

That lit up a speck of light in my face.

I still endured third period, then went to the Activity Center as Tomchick instructed, where he said I would find a ride there. I ran into Mr. Henderson instead—Henderson and Tomchick were the chaperones. I asked him, then he told me to go to the main office since there were also other seniors who would be getting a ride to Seward Park. I met Sadia there, she turned her and my permission slips, then get a ride with her and Naimo to Seward Park.

In front of the park, right at the sign, a white poster that says “RBHS Seniors—follow the balloon!”. There were balloons tied up to road signs along the way, until we found a clearing filled with people.

Seward Park is a really nice park. It’s wide, it has open plains and tree-shadowed plains, benches, a shelter, a big swing set. I saw Mr. Christopholus by the shelter preparing the grill. The tables in the shelter were filled with unopened food, drinks, and utensils, and the benches outside were packed with backpacks. I got out of the car and Price shouted my name... which I totally didn’t expect would happen since we never really talk.

Anyway, I looked around. I saw people in the grassfield, playing frisbee. Some people in the shelter. Some people by the benches playing ping pong and bean bag toss. I put my backpack on one of the benches and slowly joined the others playing bean bag toss. Me, Nina, Alex, Jeremiah, Rony, Mr. Jefferson—the ceramic teacher—and later, Bobby.

Honest opinion—in second period, I was so close to giving up and hoping I won’t miss anything. I thought it would be boring (since when I asked what’s going to be there, Tomchick said “just hanging out”), I thought there would only be people I wouldn’t connect with (baca: anak-anak berandal hits), but it turned out to be really fun. Seriously, it was really fun—it was worth skipping a whole school day for.

(playing this game Tomchick dubbed “Chinese numbers”--which, apparently, is also a game I happen to know later back in Indo, also dubbed “angka Cina”)

Kapan lagi bisa bolos bareng-bareng seangkatan? Kalau niat sih, aku juga bisa bikin ginian di angkatan sekolah Indo. Bedanya 1) bakal susah buat ngerayu semuanya, dan 2) kepsek dan guru bakal marah besar sebesar-besarnya, rapor/SKHU bisa ditahan, seangkatan bisa dijemur seharian pas upacara (which isn’t new to us, hufft), dan beragam jenis kemurkaan guru lainnya. Belum lagi di angkatan memang ada anak yang superduper baik dan santun dan 99% bakalan nggak mau dirayu (mengacu ke poin 1).

Oh, satu lagi. Kalau memang kejadian, aku—sebagai anak AFS dan pioneer ‘hari bolos’—bisa lebih berabe lagi.

Uh. Okay.

I should’ve realized things like this always have an advantage—and one big major advantage that I would totally skip school for is getting to know people. There are people I have the same class with, people that also went on the Salish Sea field trip but were in a different group than me so I didn’t really talk to them, people who were just in the hallways—on this day I got to talk to them if I haven’t, and if I have, I got to socialize with them more (this might sound petty to you social butterflies, but as an introvert, I felt happy with it).

So yeah. Thanks for that.

Aside from that, this week really has been a week of hangouts—referring to the title. With friends, with family, and with myself.

Hey. I love me some me-time.

I wrote about this in the last post(s). Last week, I watched CA: Civil War, but before then, I had an hour to kill, so I went to Barnes and Noble. And I discovered this book, read the back of it, read a few first pages, and just like that, I was hooked.

Since then, I’ve been going to Barnes and Noble just to read the book without actually buying it. (well only three times since it’s a short read) On Monday I went there and finished the whole thing. I was dying. I went home empty-hearted, needing a closure.

(please refer to the previous post)

Not a perfect book, but then again, I’m not a perfect book reviewer, I was mostly just there for the emotions and intense storyline. If you like intense thriller books that wring your soul out of emotion, you probably will like it.

(“why not borrow it from the library?” you might ask—well, it’s a newly published book, that’s why, plus I looked it up on Seattle Public Library website and found jack)

On Wednesday, Kira and Tania and Victoria and I hung out downtown. Mostly because Tania is leaving on June 8th and Tania and Victoria’s school is close to my and Kira’s school so we gotta hang out after school at least once. So we did.

And on Thursday, Livia (this Indonesian girl I met in SCC) and I went to Chihuly Garden and Glass in Seattle Center. A good catch-up session, plus she’s transferring to San Francisco after this summer quarter.

Friday, after that senior skip day, my host parents and I went to Whidbey Island with Tommy and Anna—their friends—and their kids and rent a vacation house for the long weekend (Monday, May 30, is Memorial Day—which means no school and work). We didn’t go there right after my school day, so even though it’s not too long of a ride, we got there at around 9.30pm, where Tommy and Anna and their kids were asleep already.

In the morning, I woke up, went downstairs, and was welcomed by a 4-year-old and 2-year-old running around the house excitedly, stark naked.

“Naked baby!” that’s exactly what they said, over and over, until like an hour later Anna successfully put a shirt on Colin, the 2-y.o.

Cute kids. Typical loud, running-around, cute kids. Good thing the vacation house we rented had a huge sand box as its front yard (apart from the fact that the houses around were facing the beach, where there was... well, sand), plus the pails and sandcastle-making tools and all. There was also a bunch of tree trunks which unexpectedly formed some sort of cave (or maybe people in the past made it on purpose?) in which Colin and Anna liked to play.

It was probably the chillest weekend I’ve ever had. No planned activities, mostly spent walking along the coast, playing with the kids, reading (and finishing) my book, chilling in the front yard under the bright sun but cold breeze, and tagging along with Karen to shop for groceries and other trinkets (<--referring to the time she took me to a quilt shop).

OH WAIT. We also spend the nights watching Lord of the Rings. Hehehe.

Another thing that is the highlight of this weekend was how it has planted the first seed of what would affect my future life decisions since, which I will always be grateful for. But that part shall come later.

---

There it was. A week of hangouts. With fellow seniors, with AFS friends, with Indonesian friend, with my host family, with little kids, and of course, the most important, with myself.

Salam dari pelajar yang bermental main (in my defense, guru aku pernah bilang kalau punya mental main itu penting!),

Nabila Safitri.

[ambitionsource]

AMBITION Season 1 ♫ “Black, The Color of Techies Scorned...” [ 1.07 ]

CREATED BY Esther (rapunzles) & Maggie (quincywillows)

YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION – Fed up with their treatment, the techies fight back… by doing absolutely nothing. Attempts to mediate go sour when Farkle and Isadora can’t relinquish control. Riley makes an effort to break the strike, but it may be her who gets broken instead.

50 Minutes (10K words) || No warnings apply.

[ ← Stripped ] [ S1 Synopsis ] [ These Boots Aren’t Made For Dancing → ]

( Follow along with the music on Spotify here! )

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

With acoustic week concluded and the performers back in full intensity mode, the techies find themselves hard-pressed to keep up with their demands. Over a buzzy, intense acapella, the sophomore performers throw every task imaginable at them with limited patience and even more limited gratitude.

DAVE WILLIAMS is running back and forth backstage with NATE MARTINEZ and DYLAN ORLANDO, attempting to play runner and keep up with everyone’s needs. Dave makes a pointed effort to avoid going near the curtains. JADE BEAMON is in another heated discussion with MAYA HART, CHAI FRESCO, and DARBY WINTERS – that is to say, they’re heated and full of opinions and she’s just trying not to get overwhelmed and start crying.

ISADORA DE LA CRUZ is marching around the stage, trying to get ZAY BABINEAUX or CHARLIE GARDNER to pay attention to her and get the performers to cool it, but they’ve got their own projects to focus on and aren’t very receptive. JEFF MONROE is jogging along to keep up with her, nearly getting clocked in the face by her clipboard when she tosses her arms out in frustration.

FARKLE MINKUS doesn’t help matters.

Isadora: Does anyone around here have a damn shred of decorum?

Farkle: Wow, poor little director. Is this really too overwhelming? Doing the basic expectations of your job?

Isadora: Don’t patronize me, Minkus, you don’t want to see what this “little” director is capable of.

It’s not a very threatening statement in theory, but the way Isadora delivers it gets the point across. Farkle isn’t deterred, but he’s smart enough to back off for now while he’s still ahead.

While they’re running themselves thin, RILEY MATTHEWS watches from the sidelines. She discusses stepping in to help with NIGEL CHEY and YINDRA AMINO, considering they are the three performers with the most technical experience. Riley points out that Lucas was supposed to be back by now. It’s Tuesday, and he was supposed to be back on Monday, but for whatever reason he’s still nowhere to be found.

Yindra claims he’s probably just blowing it off, and WYATT LIVINGSTON, back from his own suspension and clearly not over the bad blood, asks why they should give a shit anyway. He can stay gone for all he cares. Riley holds her tongue as he stalks back into the shadows of backstage, before jogging out to join Isadora.

When she asks if she’s okay Isadora doesn’t even have the bandwidth for a response, and when she asks where exactly Lucas is she’s like “you tell me!” The whole sequence is chaos, and it serves to prove just how hard the techies work on a day-to-day basis and how quickly expectations can pile up on them. The tension doesn’t come to an end until SHAWN HUNTER and ANGELA MOORE call time and dismiss them for lunch, all of the air immediately coming out of the balloon. As the performers disperse, the techies are left dazed and exhausted center stage, sort of at a loss for what to do.

The moment they stop, the whole machine stops running…

INT. AAA - HALLWAY - DAY

Riley steps out with Charlie and Zay, the three of them commentating on how intense it’s gotten in there. Not just content wise, but between everyone. Kind of almost feels like there’s no room to breathe. Riley says it’s funny they say that as if it’s not always like that.

Zay: [ with a blithe shrug ] Welcome to Adams.

EXT. AAA - DAY

Suffice to say, we can tell there’s a big storm coming. The winds of change are imminent, and from the way a familiar pair of big black boots are stomping up the steps towards the school, it may very well be en route in the form of a very grumpy and very sarcastic hurricane.

INT. AAA - ATRIUM - DAY

The boots continue to make their trek through the halls, squeaking against the pristine floors of AAA and leaving dust in their wake. Over the visuals, the techies discuss how exhausted they are and how they don’t know how they’re going to keep up the rest of the year like this. There’s just no way. Especially not without their most aggressive teammate.

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

Thus, when LUCAS FRIAR walks through the house doors of the auditorium at the late lunch hour and finds his usual crew crashed in the back seats, he is immediately accosted by Dave who tackles him with a bear hug.

Dave: Thank God you’re back, we’re dying!

Lucas takes the hit, allowing Dave to hold onto him like a life preserver. His expression conveys how weird this display of affection is for him, and when he locks eyes with the rest of them over Dave’s shoulder the message is clear – what the fuck?

Baby, let the games begin.

Cue title sequence.

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

The techies have resettled on the stage, standing and sitting around in a semi-circle as they relay how hellish the last week and a half have been. They don’t think it’s just because he was gone either – the performers treatment towards them is just rotting more and more with time because they’re not learning any differently.

Lucas paces as ASHER GARCIA explains the last day and a half in particular, shaking his head at how bad things have gotten in his absence. Asher lays it out point blank – no one respects them, no one listens to them, and no one really cares about what they do. And that’s frustrating, because as Isadora points out, if they weren’t there the entire production would fall apart.

It’s that statement that seems to strike something in Lucas. He hesitates, thinking for a moment. Yes, things would fall apart if they were to stop showing up the way they always do… the wheels in his head are turning…

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Thnks Fr Th Mmrs” as performed by Fall Out Boy || Performed by AAA Sophomore Techies

Asher syncs with his brain wave first, gleaning some of that inherent rebellious energy and launching into the opening verse of the classic angry rock anthem. Dylan joins in at the end of the phrase, leaning over Asher’s shoulder and bumping him playfully.

Lucas doesn’t sing – because, come on now – but he doesn’t discourage them either, raising an eyebrow and smirking as he continues to pace. Still clearly brewing with ideas. As the other techies start to get on board and get the vibe of what might be going on, the tension in the music builds. Oh, yes, Lucas is back, and the world is never going to be the same…

INT. AAA - HALLWAY - DAY

Thus, the techies burst through the stage doors and into the school, belting out the chorus with a true power that only comes from not giving a fuck anymore. They’re done, they’ve had it, and they’re not taking anymore bullshit. It’s a rare sight to see the techies doing any sort of group effort that remotely resembles performing, even in such a loose arrangement, but gee is it fun.

Lucas and Isadora lead the charge through the halls. The group of them are a tornado, leaving chaos and shock in their wake. The choreography is simple but energetic, exactly the kind of thing you’d expect from a march of protest thrown together in a bout of restless, rebellious energy. Dave knocks a binder out of Wyatt’s hands. You get the idea.

Reaction shots of the performers watching them as they parade through the halls makes it very clear how unprecedented this is. Isadora takes the solo on the slightly slower bridge, before we bring it on home with a flourish.

So it’s settled. The techies are officially revolting.

INT. AAA - JACK’S OFFICE - DAY

This, as expected, does not go over well from first glance. Lucas is back in Jack’s office once again, which the latter is clearly none too happy about.

Lucas, on the other hand, looks pretty pleased with himself. He looks a little too comfortable sitting in that chair opposite the principal’s desk, as if its his to own. He’s relaxed, slouched and outwardly agreeable and not the least bit worried.

Jack: It’s been an hour. You’ve been back for an hour, and yet you’re here across from me yet again. [ off Lucas’s shrug ] You realize you were supposed to come back… yesterday, right?

Lucas: Oh, yeah. But I was having such a good time having Dora nag me over missed homework and being ignored by my parents that I thought, you know, how about another day.

The sarcasm aside, Jack jumps to the subject at hand and questions what exactly Lucas thinks he’s doing getting all of his classmates riled up like this. Getting himself into trouble is one thing, but pulling everyone into such a scene?

Lucas: [ with a scoff ] As if the performers don’t make a scene out of everything every single day?

Jack tries to argue the point, but Lucas is on a roll. He states that this has been a long time coming, and they all know it. He’s no leader – he would never claim that – he’s simply the spark. It’s his friends’ anger running this engine, not him.

True as this may be, Jack is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Although he gets where Lucas is coming from, he can’t just openly condone a full on rebellion.

Lucas: So suspend me. You’ve done it once, you could do it again. But you know, I don’t think you will.

Jack: And why’s that?

Lucas: Because you and I both know that we’re in the right here. No one cares about the technical students working their asses off, and we’re sick of it. It’s just like academics, constantly taking the back seat. Only now, we’re saying not anymore.

Jack really is running out of arguments. And it’s clear from how impassioned Lucas is that he’s certainly not putting down the sword any time soon. The only thing worse than a rebel without a cause is a rebel with one.

Lucas: This is how all great rebellions begin, Principal Hunter, sir. I think you’ll want to be on the right side of triple A history. [ Rising to stand. ] It’s like they say, you know. “If we burn, you burn with us.” That’s classic literature, right?

Jack, deadpan: The Hunger Games.

Lucas: Same difference.

Lucas turns to go. Jack gives him a look, scoffing.

Jack: I didn’t dismiss you!

Lucas, already out the door: [ with an offhand wave ] We’ll see each other soon enough, I’m sure.

Jack sighs, rubbing his temples. He glances towards the door where Lucas left, wondering how much trouble this week is going to cause. But also wondering, a little bit, if maybe his most difficult student is on to something. As the orchestration of “Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)” floats in…

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)” as performed by Hamilton Original Broadway Cast || Instrumental

Meanwhile, rehearsal without the techies is, of course, much harder than the performers ever realized. They’re attempting to practice the choreography for “Yorktown,” which Zay has been fighting for them to do for weeks and finally succeeded in getting into the syllabus. But there’s no good lighting, and they’re all just in their usual workout clothes because no one has presented costume ideas. They’re playing the music off of someone’s phone because they don’t know how to work the overhead speakers and no one has been in communication with the orchestra students.

Naturally, the performers are very frustrated with this state of affairs. After unsuccessfully running through the number and ending with Farkle running into Maya and nearly knocking half of them over, Zay snaps at them to get it right. Farkle claims he couldn’t hear the beat because their current sound system is garbage. Impatiently, all of them turn their attention to the audience.

The techies are sprawled out leisurely in the front and center section of seats, well within plain view but making no efforts to do… anything. Isadora is sketching storyboards for a short film. Lucas has his feet up on the back of the row in front of him, arms stretched behind his head.

Zay: Hey, techies, pardonne-moi. [ off their amused expressions ] Yeah, hi. Could you all get up here and maybe, I don’t know… do your jobs?

Lucas: I don’t know… I don’t really feel like it.

Maya: Who the hell let you back in here? Honestly.

This sparks a group-wide argument, both sides of the feud stepping up and launching into complaints about the other half. Choice words are thrown in either direction, but it’s also a little bit funny.

Dylan: You don’t even know our names!

Farkle: Sure I do. [ pointing to Asher ] Thing 1. [ pointing to Dylan ] Thing 2. [ pointing to Lucas, with vitriol ] Jackass –

The snaps continue until Shawn and Angela come to break them up, sending them to separate work spaces until the end of the day. The techies don’t seem miffed at all by this change of pace, but the performers are ticked. Riley watches all of them disperse, eyeing the new tension and bristling with the urge to make it right…

INT. AAA - ERIC’S OFFICE - DAY

Which she states the minute she’s in ERIC MATTHEWS’ office after school. She tries to get the read on what’s going on from him while expressing her own perspective, all while trying not to be too openly clear on what may be motivating her. Sure, she wants the angst at school to cease for once, but she’s also still reeling with the news of her parents and desperately needs to fix something. To put something back in the order the way it’s supposed to be.

Eric states that according to Jack, this problem isn’t going to just go away. It’s going to take both sides coming to the table to make this nonsense come to an end, a proposition that feels downright impossible. Riley though is like, okay, workable. Off Eric’s surprised reaction, she hastily begins throwing out her reasoning. Speaking it into existence, as if that will guarantee it to be true.

Riley: Really, I think I can make it happen. At least getting everyone to the table. I’m good friends with Isa now, and Lucas and I…

[ She’s not sure how exactly to describe the two of them. She hesitates, searching for the words. ]

Riley: We dabble. In one another. Now and then.

Eric: [ confused and a little bit wary ] And that means…?

[ A beat. Riley realizes the odd ways her phrasing could be construed. ]

Riley: Never mind! Never mind, I don’t know what I’m saying. But the point is, I can fix it. Let me fix it.

Still seems like a long shot, but Eric isn’t going to turn down assistance. He grants her the best of luck, willing her to do whatever she thinks needs to be done. Riley exhales, brimming with confidence that only a new found purpose can bring.

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

Only this task is going to be much easier said than done. As Riley tries to go and have a neutral chat with the techies the next morning, she finds herself completely barred from their usual hangout in the back of the auditorium. They’re hidden away in the booth, and Dylan and Dave are blocking the stairs like the royal guard.

The two of them explain that there has been an embargo placed on all techie and performer relations. No communication allowed. Riley points out that that seems somewhat counterintuitive to negotiations, but Dave and Dylan are adamant.

Riley: But I’m your friend?

Dave: NO EXCEPTIONS!

Perhaps this operation will be a little more complicated than anticipated.

INT. AAA - BLACK BOX THEATER - DAY

Farkle is back in his worst form, demonstrating his obsessive and diva-like tendencies in an argument with Angela. He laments how the techies clearly aren’t doing their one job, and it’s totally screwing up his world order. Can’t they do something about this? There has to be something. Like threat of expulsion. Or corporal punishment.

It’s evident that Farkle is certainly going to be the most difficult performer to convince that techies like… deserve rights. Angela claims that she understands his frustration, especially given current circumstances. But she is not the person he should be negotiating with, and has no power over what the technical students do or don’t do.

Farkle makes a snide comment about how she likely has some pull with Shawn considering how that has developed over the last few months, but he makes a quick escape before Angela can berate him on it. Despite the rude nature of the statement, he does have a point. Perhaps there is more Angela could be doing…

INT. AAA - CORY’S CLASSROOM - DAY

Riley visits Cory during lunch, as the cafeteria is way too tense to enjoy a meal in right now. As she pulls up a chair and settles in across from him at his desk, she can’t help but notice what he’s reading through as he eats. Divorce papers.

It’s chilling to see them in actuality, right in front of her. She probes the question of whether or not this is really happening, to which Cory is like “I’m afraid so.” He kind of talks to her about how sometimes things just don’t work out no matter how badly you want them to – also attempting to give a pep talk to himself – but Riles doesn’t get the intended message.

No, she’s in repair mode at the moment, so all she can glean from the conversation is that she needs to work even harder to make things run right. She needs to dig her heels in and fight until everything is back in order and back in control, and all of that is on her shoulders. Riles… take a nap, honey.

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

AAA Confessions is back for more, featuring a post about Lucas for the first time. It essentially gripes over how bullshit it is that Lucas can get away with so much and still continue to come back and do absolutely nothing, before going on a very unkind tangent about how pathetic he is. It’s clearly submitted by Wyatt who has his axe to grind, but it’s harsher than anything the AAAC has ever posted before so it’s not aiding the tension at all.

The techies are examining the post over lunch in the auditorium, nervous about how Lucas is going to react to it. But when he descends from the booth and they show it to him, he doesn’t even blink. Outwardly, he’s cool as a cucumber. He claims he doesn’t care.

Dylan: Are you sure, man? I mean, this is like… brutal.

Lucas: Believe me, when I care about something, you’ll know.

Not sure what the hell that is supposed to mean, but Dave pushes past it anyway. He comments that their revolt is clearly going well, because the performers are miffed. The others agree, but Lucas doesn’t seem satisfied. He argues that they’re going to need to kick it up a notch if they actually want this movement to get any traction.

Isadora, smart as she is, suggests that they give the performers a taste of their own medicine. When Lucas prompts her to elaborate, she simply states that part of the reason it’s so easy for them to ignore their hard work is because they’ve never had a pinch of what it’s like to be on the other side of the apathy. Now this, this sounds interesting…

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

And thus, the techies do exactly that. At the next rehearsal for “Yorktown,” the performers struggle to work their way through another fumbling rendition. In the midst of the number, while they’re all crashed in the seats, Lucas and Isadora exchange a nod before getting up and gesturing for the others to do so as well. It’s a technician walk-out.

Farkle is the first to notice, immediately being torn from the rehearsal and focusing on them instead. He marches to the front of the stage, demanding where the hell they think they’re going.

The techies stop in the middle of the aisle, turning around and feigning surprise.

Lucas: Who, us?

Maya: Yes, you. What the hell are you doing?

Isadora: Oh, well, we were just leaving. Actually.

Charlie: [ stunned ] Leaving? You can’t do that. They can’t do that, right?

Lucas: Oh, it’s so funny, because I think we are. I mean, my legs are working, at least.

Isadora: Yeah, you all clearly don’t need us. So I think we have better things we could be doing with our time.

They continue to head towards the exit. Angela watches them go, getting the sense that this problem is only going to get worse. Farkle snaps, obviously stressed at this turn of events.

Farkle: You can’t ditch us! Who is going to put all this shit together?

Isadora: Think you can handle it. It is just one job, after all.

Zay: But we don’t know how –

Dave: Sucks for you, huh?

The techies laugh, parading out of the auditorium with Lucas leading the march. The performers are clearly pissed. Riley watches them exit, shell-shocked and already grappling with how she’s going to fix this new development.

INT. AAA - SHAWN’S OFFICE - DAY

Angela enters Shawn’s office in a flurry, immediately launching into an impassioned explanation as to how this current state of affairs is not good for any of them and they must work together to find a solution on how to fix it. Shawn, to her relief, is completely on board, gesturing for her to take the chair across from him. She sighs, relaxing and settling in. This may be easier than she thought.

Only not quite so. Because while Angela was expecting him to just go along with her and get things to go back to the way they were, Shawn believed that Angela came to brainstorm how to improve the situation and meet in the middle. Shawn is on the side of his students, here, and isn’t just going throw them back under the bus.

The discussion quickly spirals into an argument, both of them clearly operating on behalf of their own students. It brews up some old resentment between the two of them that remains untreated based on how they view one another’s students – and in theory, one another – making them question if rekindling their relationship is actually the best idea. What are they even doing? Are they destined to fall right back into the same traps all over again?

The conversation deflates from the anger, but ends on uncertain terms. And no progress is made in the negotiations for either side. The two of them agree that in this instance, they might need a neutral outside party to step in and help mediate.

INT. AAA - ERIC’S OFFICE - DAY

So Shawn and Angela go straight to Eric. They lay out the situation, which of course he already knows, and ask for him to step in and do some peer counseling. Eric heartily agrees, but considering the scale of this issue, it’s going to take more than just the sit-down-and-chat approach. No, they’re going to need to get creative to solve this problem.

Luckily, he has just the technique.

EXT. AAA - REAR PARKING LOT - DAY

Eric hands a loaded water balloon to Zay, who stares down at it and then gives him a look.

Zay: Paintball?

Eric: Not paintball. Paint balloon.

As we ease out, the scale of the event becomes clear – all of the students have changed into plain clothes, and are wearing pseudo tactical vests as if they’re playing paintball. Only they’re using balloons filled with paint instead of guns, because this is America and even the thought of gun paraphernalia on school property… bad. But balloons! Very fun.

The students are standing on opposite sides of the stretch of parking lot, old set pieces and cardboard having been set up as obstacles and coverage. To start, they’ve been mixed into groups at random rather than along techie / performer lines. As Eric explains it, the goal is for them to engage in a competitive activity that will encourage them to work together towards a common goal with people they don’t normally work with, and get out their aggression in a safe and controlled fashion.

The rules are simple – the team to survive with the least paint-covered member once everyone else has been hit is the victor.

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Come Out and Play (Keep ‘Em Separated)” as performed by The Offspring || Performed by Zay Babineaux & Charlie Gardner

Zay and Charlie perform this grungy track while working together to survive the war, serving to underscore the duration of the sequence. They fist bump to kick off the song, before the paint balloon battle begins.

Although the intent behind the mission is good, the concept doesn’t execute well if the players aren’t fully on board. Despite being given distinct teams, the war quickly falls back into party lines, the performers ganging up on the techies while the techies fight to hold their own. They’re heavily outnumbered, but they’re angry and ready to fight back. Let the real games begin!

Students on both sides get lobbed with paint, making for some fun and colorful slow-motion shots. Maya tries to protect her hair as she avoids blows, but one splatters her right across the face anyway. Farkle gets cornered by techies and gets hit with a barrage of paint, totally smothering him in neon pinks, yellows, and blues. Poor, poor little rich boy.

Zay and Charlie actually work impressively well together as a tactical team. They move back-to-back, cover one another, and make calls just through nods or vague gestures. They’re the key offensive force on the performer side, basically getting a hit in on every single techie throughout and making their win seem inevitable.

Considering the numbers game, the techies are getting throttled. Isadora, already covered in paint but not out of the war, takes out her rage by throwing paint at as many passing performers as she can possibly manage with a war cry that would make Athena herself proud.

The one factor they have going for them is Lucas. Dave and Asher basically act as human shields for him, allowing him to navigate the field and get hits in on anyone who Isadora didn’t already pummel with paint. There’s some wonderfully dramatic slow-motion shots of Dylan leaping into the air in front of Lucas to take a paint balloon straight to the chest… oh, the war-torn drama…

So while the performers have the sheer numbers, it’s clear that the technicians have a greater understanding of how they operate as a team. So they may just take this victory in an upset yet.

The factor keeping the performers going is Riley. She’s not particularly good at the paint throwing, but she’s an expert at dodging and just trying to stay out of trouble, mostly because she’s scared of getting hit. So it essentially whittles down to her and Lucas being the only two left dry and paint-free, meaning any one hit could toss the victory in one team’s favor.

As the battle reaches its climax, it comes down to one moment between Riley and Lucas. They run into one another at the center of the lot, the paint carnage all around them in a wonderful, grisly display of color. Lucas is loaded with two balloons, and Riley has none to defend herself with. They lock eyes, Riley’s wide and uncertain.

For all intents and purposes, this seems like the endgame. In a normal situation, in the old way of the world, Lucas wouldn’t hesitate. But it’s Riley, and she’s been changing the world since she showed up at AAA. So, for whatever reason, he does.

All it takes is that fleeting second of hesitation to flip the stakes. The tension between Riley and Lucas is shattered as he gets hit on both sides, one balloon landing on his torso and the other getting him in the face and splattering blue paint all over him. A final kill maneuver, executed expertly by Zay and Charlie from both sides.

And so the techies lose the battle. The performers erupt into cheers, patting one another on the back and touting their victory. The techies, frustrated and upset, glower. Dylan pulls Asher to his side, trying to get the paint out of his hair. Zay yanks Charlie into a victory hug, and Charlie just about has an aneurysm.

Lucas blinks, reaching up to wipe the paint from his eyes. Riley is mortified, starting to stammer out breathless apologies in utter horror. She reaches forward in an effort to wipe paint from his face… only Maya pulls her back and into celebrating with the other performers.

In an unexpected outburst, Jade is the first to snap on behalf of the techies. Considering her usually mousy and shy demeanor, this is relatively shocking.

Jade: This isn’t fair! We weren’t even supposed to be playing along these teams, but they just did whatever they wanted like they always do and won yet again.

Dave: This is bullshit!

Maya: Oh, come on, guys. You don’t have to be a sore loser.

Isadora: Oh, you wanna be sore? I’ll give you sore –

Dylan and Asher dart forward to hold Isadora back and keep this from escalating into a full-on brawl. Angela and Shawn sense the impending eruption and basically send each team somewhere different to clean up, the techies staying outside while the performers retreat to the dressing rooms.

They turn to Eric, who is clearly bummed his technique didn’t work. But hey, he tried his best. He offers them a plaintive shrug. Back to square one…

INT. AAA - GIRLS DRESSING ROOM - DAY

The girls revel in their victory as they clean paint off of themselves, laughing about how badly they creamed the techies and how nice it felt to finally just let loose on them. Riley doesn’t find the conversation amusing, and actually speaks up against the rhetoric. She claims that they just made everything worse, so congratulations. She hopes they’re really pleased with themselves.

But now, she has to clean up their mess. She storms out, still covered in paint. The others watch her go, sort of laughing awkwardly at the tirade but with the lingering sense of doubt that maybe she isn’t wrong.

INT. AAA - BACK ENTRANCE - DAY

Riley heads towards the back parking lot to find Lucas and Isadora, hoping for another chance to talk things through with them without all the colorful warfare. She spots the techies just outside the building cleaning up, starting to head towards the doors to join them but hesitating when she gets a better look.

Dylan is using the heavy duty hose to clean off Dave and Asher, but Riley is focused on Lucas and Isadora. They’re seated on the benches closer to the doors, and Isadora is painstakingly working to wipe the paint off of Lucas’s face.

It could be nothing, just pals being pals, but after everything Riley has observed between the two of them and how Isadora is willingly touching his face to help him clean up she’s like… okay. I’m clearly inserting myself in something I shouldn’t be. I don’t belong out there. What am I even doing? It’s nothing, all this is nothing…

But it doesn’t feel like nothing. And emotions are high because tensions are high, so the revelation sort of feels like the end of the world.

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Cry And You Cry Alone” as performed by Lesley Gore || Performed by Riley Matthews

As Riley saunters away from them and back down the hall, she dejectedly sings the 50s crooner while trying to keep her emotions in check and not overreact. But she’s a theater kid, and being melodramatic is in her bones.

INT. AAA - HALLWAY - DAY

She makes her way through the halls, lamenting how foolish she was to let herself get close to the techies, especially Lucas, when he’s evidently so much trouble – for everyone else and for her heart. The whole thing is even more endearing and ridiculous considering she’s still paint-splattered.

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

As the song progresses and the other sophomore performers take over the chorus, it’s a brand new day. Everyone is clean but not in much better spirits. Riley sits on the edge of the stage and watches forlornly as Isadora and Lucas work together to scheme with the techies. So close, and yet so far away.

Rounding out the final chorus, Riley falls back onto the stage and stares up at the catwalk and lights above her, inviting the world to laugh with her rather than cry alone as the song states. Oh, Riles, you wonderful little dramatic hooligan.

Although Shawn has managed to wrangle the tech students back into the theater for class, it’s not much of a better scenario than before. Now they’ve taken to heckling, making the divide between them far more pronounced than before. Given how cynical and grumpy they are on the daily, they make excellent hecklers.

Lucas: Boo, get off the stage!

Riley: [ whipping around, giving him a glare ]

Lucas: (:

Isadora makes a snide comment and Farkle is about ready to pop off, launching into a fit and starting to rattle off some not-so-nice things. Maya pulls him away and gets him to back off, redirecting his focus and trying to keep the whole situation from imploding. It’s a vivid indication of how Farkle reacts when he feels like he’s being unfairly persecuted and put under pressure… noted. Maya declares they’re taking five.

INT. AAA - BOYS DRESSING ROOM - DAY

All the performers are assembled in the space, sans Nigel, Yindra, and Riley. While they embark on a potential quest of their own, the rest of them vent freely about how unfair this whole situation is and how overdramatic the techies are being. And they think they’re melodramatic, well, they’re certainly proving their own ability to be so.

Zay is done with the theatrics, weirdly irritated at the whole group of them. He snaps at all of them, stating everyone is being dramatic and it’s so stupid, because all they’re doing is wasting rehearsal time. And of course, it’s the one week where they’re doing a number he actually cares about. He storms out, leaving the room a little bit stunned.

Maya rouses them from the off beat, claiming that this is all part of the journey and they’re going to have to stick together if this drama is going to endure. They’re on the same team, and for once they need to band together and really act like it.

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Team” as performed by Lorde || Performed by Maya Hart (feat. AAA Sophomore Performers)

Maya leads the group in a groovy and sharp rendition of the Lorde hit, making for a fun and low-intensity break from the tension of the episode as they dance around in the dressing room together. So, there!

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

Dylan and Dave are still gatekeeping as Nigel and Yindra approach – the two performers outside of Riley who dabble in technical arts and thus have a good showing and rapport with them. They claim they have a “meeting,” to which the bodyguards exchange subtle eyebrow raises before backing up to let them through.

Nigel and Yindra exchange a look. Boy, the theatrics. Then, they make their way up the stairs towards the technician’s booth.

INT. AAA - TECHNICIAN’S BOOTH - DAY

Lucas and Isadora have set up camp in the booth, using it as their base of operations. Isadora is pacing, Lucas seated in his usual rolling chair by the soundboard. Asher is operating as their secretary, taking notes as they throw out ideas. The others are seated further back into the space.

They cease their discussion as Yindra and Nigel enter, Lucas turning to greet them. They explain that, as medians between the two worlds, they have come to hear what exactly it would take for the techies to come to the table and start figuring out negotiations on how to fix this. It’s chaos, and it’s not doing good for any of them. Lucas starts off playing hard to get.

Lucas: Who said we were interested in ceasefire? I’m kind of enjoying a little bit of chaos. Spices things up. Don’t you think so?

Yindra: You are enjoying this way too much.

Nigel: Yeah, don’t let anybody ever tell you you’re not capable of being theatrical, Friar.

Lucas: (:

Isadora gets the conversation back on track, agreeing to meet with the performers and have a non-confrontational open dialogue – but only if they can get the most important (and demanding) performers to be present. Nigel and Yindra state this is a hefty challenge, but they’ll see what they can do. If it works out, Isadora states, they’ll send details on where and when.

INT. AAA - CAFETERIA - DAY

Yindra and Nigel share this new development with said most demanding performers at lunch. Charlie is all for it, but the actual two in questions – Maya and Farkle – aren’t sold. In fact, Farkle vehemently vetoes the idea. He claims they’re just toying around with them like business deals he’s seen his father have to negotiate, and he’s not taking orders from them.

Maya isn’t convinced either, but she’s also aware of how tired everyone is getting of the tension, herself included. She barters with Farkle that the two of them should just go to at least have the conversation, and they have the right to back out at any time. Farkle considers, but doesn’t give a definitive answer.

Nigel: Remind me when it was that I dropped out of high school and entered a courtroom drama? Because I don’t recall making that decision.

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

Riley has forfeited her lunch hour to take one last crack at getting her own negotiation in, finally able to catch Lucas alone. She follows him through the stage doors and onto the stage, pleading her own case and attempting to appeal to his softer side in an effort to call off the strike. She knows it exists, she’s seen it before, she just has to figure out how to elicit it from underneath all that anger.

He humors her as he makes his way down the stage and towards the back of the auditorium, tidying up small details as he goes. It’s clear that even with the current strike in progress, he’s is still instinctively protective of the place.

Riley opens by checking in with how he’s doing after the nasty confessions post about him. When he shrugs it off, she takes the topic opportunity to broach a slightly different subject.

Riley: Just out of curiosity… how, um… how often do you check the page?

Lucas: Never.

Riley: Oh! Oh, that’s great. You know, good for you. That’s good. I just, um, you know it’s said some… interesting things about me lately.

Lucas: Right.

Riley: And I just wanted to clarify that they aren’t, you know, true. The things said. About me. And what I may or may not be doing. Or who I may be – it’s false. It’s not true. All of it. False.

Lucas: … okay.

That awkward exchange aside, Riley plows onward in her mission to end the revolt. She tries to get Lucas to call it off, pointing out he is the one who definitely has the power to make it happen.

Riley: You’re their leader.

Lucas: You’re wrong. That’s Dora.

Riley, diplomatically: I am not one to ever dispute the notion that Isa is amazing, in many aspects. And she may be the face of the operation, but you, you’re the engine. You’re what motivates them.

Lucas hesitates, actually listening to what she has to say. Riley seizes this opportunity, trying to convey as genuinely and passionately as possible just exactly how important he is.

Riley: They look up to you, I mean, you’re the one they march for. They take comfort in you, you inspire them. And that’s certainly not nothing.

Lucas is moved by the speech, despite how good he is at concealing it. And although he acted as though he didn’t care, it does help to combat some of the negative feelings the confessions post instilled in him. Not to mention, Riley is so sincere, and gosh if she isn’t so damn cute… for a moment, it seems like he may be weakening…

But no. He’s not calling off the rebellion.

Lucas: I appreciate the sentiments. But I’m not ending the revolt.

Riley: But –

Lucas: This is our one chance to change things. For us and for all the techies that are going to come through these halls after us. I can’t just give that up. No great moment in history ever happened because the fighting party put up their hands and surrendered.

He steps up to walk past her towards the booth, hesitating on the step below her. Mirroring their stand-off in 1.02, only far softer this time around.

Lucas: I’m sorry, Riley. But I’m not throwing away our shot.

He leaves her there to stew in it, frustrated that she can’t seem fix yet another broken entity in her life. She waits until he’s gone behind the booth, huffing and jogging back down the stairs.

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Another One Bites the Dust” as performed by Queen || Instrumental

EXT. AAA - BACK PARKING LOT - NIGHT

The same scene of the battle, the asphalt still splattered with paint residue and eerie in the glow of the street lamps. Maya and Farkle are there, dressed in their best “shady showdown” attire and anxiously peering out into the night. Riley and Charlie are also present. Farkle snaps that they’re late, to which Riley assures him that they’ll be there. She knows they’re not just going to blow this off.

And they do not. A few moments later Lucas and Isadora roll up with Dylan and Asher in tow, hopping out of Dylan’s jeep and making their way towards them. They are also dressed in their black leather best, but the whole situation is like… a little bit ridiculous. Like, it should be really intense and shady, but it’s just them all standing around in the empty school parking lot at 9PM.

Lucas and Isadora step to Farkle and Maya, sizing each other up and trying to figure out how this conversation is supposed to go down. Dylan and Asher mirror Charlie and Riley, hanging back as reinforcements only if needed.

Lucas: What, no Zay?

Charlie: I texted him. He just said… [ reading from his phone ] ‘white nonsense.’

Isadora: Tell him I said offended… but true.

The four of them discuss the problem and their terms, the techies explaining their desire for like… basic decency and a little respect, while the performers have arguments of their own to make. It’s clear from about the first minute in that this meeting of the minds likely isn’t going to go anywhere productive. They’re just too polarized.

While everyone expects Lucas to be the one to blow everything up, it’s actually Isadora who loses her cool and derails the negotiations. She provokes Farkle with snide remarks until he lashes back at her, totally disrupting the limited productivity of the meeting and threatening a full-on scrap if things go any further.

It’s a stalemate, and no negotiations will be made today. The revolution wages on. Riley decides she definitely needs to chat with Isadora, maybe even more so than Lucas.

INT. MINKUS HOME - DAY

Farkle is up late doing homework, still awake when STUART MINKUS comes home after a long day of work. From the way Farkle perks up when he enters and enthusiastically greets him, it’s clear how much he cares about the attention and approval of his father. In fact, there’s the distinct sense that part of the reason Farkle is so extra at all is because he’s desperate to get the focus of his very busy and very distracted corporate leader of a dad.

Stuart is happy to see him and settles down to chat with him for a moment, but he asks why on Earth he’s still awake. Farkle offhandedly claims that an unexpected meeting pushed back his homework time, and it was somewhat of a waste anyway. After a few brief words, Stuart starts to go but Farkle grasps at a way to keep his attention, asking him for advice.

His dad claims he won’t be much help with the performing stuff, but Farkle lies and claims it’s a… business issue. He then lays out the situation going on at school but in theoretical marketing terms, explaining it like a business negotiation gone awry rather than two sides of the performing arts world going to war. He asks his father how he would handle the situation.

When Stuart expresses that he would take the diplomatic approach and attempt to go to the table to get the best deal for all parties involved, Farkle seems apprehensive. Doesn’t that not end up with the best deal for him? Stuart goes on to explain his business philosophy about how you have placate all parties to get an effective machine running, but it just seems difficult for Farkle to grasp.

Stuart kisses the top of his head in a goodnight gesture, telling him he’s proud of him even though Farkle is sure he couldn’t say what for.

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Control” as performed by Halsey || Performed by Farkle Minkus

Not satisfied with how that conversation turned out and not sure why he can’t seem to let go of his perception of the situation anyway, Farkle launches into a haunting and emotional rendition of “Control.” It’s one of the first clear expressions of his… questionable mental health, and displays part of what he’s constantly inadvertently taking out on the techies.

Interesting…

INT. AAA - JACK’S OFFICE - DAY

Jack has called in Shawn and Angela to discuss how the techie and performer feud is progressing. It’s the end of the week, and he’d like to know what they think is the next necessary step. They claim that both of them are on board to make changes, but they’re worried about the mental ecosystem of some of their… touchier students. That’s what is causing the blockade, and they’re not sure how to navigate it.

As Jack reiterates, they need all parties to be willing to come together for this treatment to be at all effective. He states that they better do it fast, and whenever they’re ready he’ll be here and ready to mediate.

INT. AAA - BOYS DRESSING ROOM - DAY

The drama continues, the male performers discussing how this whole drama has really lasted an entire week. NICK YOGI wonders if it’s ever going to stop, and Wyatt makes more bitchy commentary about how if they had just expelled Lucas like they should have ages ago, this never would’ve happened.

Zay continues to roll his eyes, fed up with all of the pettiness. He wishes they could just focus back on rehearsal. He excuses himself pointedly, Farkle hesitating before deciding to investigate and following him out.

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

Farkle traces Zay’s footsteps to the behind the curtain area of the back of the stage. Zay is practicing the routine by himself, clearly passionate about it even though it got totally derailed by the week’s events.

Understanding at least the notion of using rehearsal as an emotional escape, Farkle approaches Zay and tries to get him to talk about what his attitude is all about. He questions why he blew up at the rest of the performers the other day, to which Zay is like, you? Asking me about diva meltdowns? Please. Farkle admits his own proclivity for theatrics, but points out that Zay isn’t like that. In fact, he is usually looking at down at them from a high horse because of it.

Zay avoids the topic at first, before breaking somewhat and admitting that part of the reason he gets so irritated with Farkle and Maya’s behavior is because he feels like he can’t use the same sort of tactics. He’s trying to navigate these waters as best he can being a queer man of color, he’s got enough things that draw attention to him and make him different. He doesn’t need to put any more targets on his back by being demanding or overdramatic. The two of them, they can get away with that. He can’t when he’s just fighting for a shred of hard-earned respect in the first place. So even if he wants to throw a tantrum about how they’re finally doing a number he really cares about and no one is paying attention, he can’t. Not really.

Farkle had never considered this angle before. It gives him a totally new perspective on Zay, and in some ways, the techie revolution as well.

INT. SVORSKI’S COFFEE - DAY

Riley and Isadora are seated in the window table at the local coffee shop, having found neutral ground to tread to be able to talk freely with one another. Riley is grateful that Isadora showed up at all, but it takes a bit of needling to get her conversing.

When Riley questions why Isadora got so heated at negotiations last night, Isadora is defensive at first. Who wouldn’t be, she claims. But when it’s clear that Riley’s intentions in the conversation are completely genuine, Isadora lets down her guard and opens up a bit.

She explains that she’s been fed up with the behavior of the performers for so long, and they’re always like this. Performers, that is. Look at her mother. The diva behavior, the carelessness, the neglect – all of them are like that.

Riley, softly: All of them?

Isadora: [ gazing at her, sheepish ] Maybe that’s a bit of a generalization…

Riley prods further, and Isadora gets to talking about her behavior the last couple of episodes. She admits that part of the reason she’s so sensitive to everything right now is because she’s still adjusting to having Lucas back at school. Last week was way harder than she let anyone know, and she’s still trying to get her world back in working order. The performer attitudes and demands didn’t help with that, certainly.

Considering her own world being in disarray, Riley can empathize. Isadora is word vomiting at this point, stumbling into a hasty explanation of why Lucas is so important to her.

Isadora: He’s not just my friend, he’s like… he’s my rock. Joining Adams last year was crazy and overwhelming, and he was there to help. To ground me. He makes sure I stay out of my head, that I don’t get too wrapped up in my thoughts. When he’s not here… I don’t even know how to explain it. He’s the most important person in my life, he’s pretty much my brother. I don’t think I’d survive at school if he left permanently.

It’s a lovely statement, and definitely illuminates many things about the relationship that Lucas and Isadora share. Their importance, but also, the nature of their relationship. Yes, Riley definitely catches the “he’s pretty much my brother” bit. Ah, if that doesn’t clear things up…

Isadora goes on to state that if anything, she’s ready for this embargo to end so that she can hang out with Riley at school again without having to go into hiding. Riley, touched, returns the sentiment with full fondness.

INT. AAA - SHAWN’S OFFICE - DAY

And perhaps, maybe that end is within sight. Isadora goes to Shawn and claims that she’s willing to come to the table if the other side is. That’s one difficult domino down…

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)” as performed by Hamilton Original Broadway Cast || Performed by AAA Sophomores

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM

Isadora takes this initiative and walks it straight into “Yorktown,” launching one of the most elaborate concept numbers in the series to date. While half of the performance is the performers doing their routine (in plain leotards, no lighting, etc.), the other half is the techies “prepping for the final battle” in a sense. Isadora, thusly, takes most of the Hamilton bits.

[ Lyrics specific to characters – follow along here! ]

The number opens with Yindra coming to meet with Isadora and Lucas, operating as the Lafayette of the trio. She and Isadora declare the phrase “techies, we get the job done,” before she salutes them as the final battle unfolds. As the chorus begins, the performers take the stage and kick off their routine.

Farkle takes one section of the verse, harping on the sentiments of imagining death so much it feels more like a memory and at least having friends now if he’s going down in war. Then Isadora takes back over, instructing the other techies as to how they should move in this dance going forward (“Rochambeau! You’ve got your orders now go man, go!”)

When we get to the Hercules Mulligan bit, our “spy on the inside” is Nigel! He takes the verse and rails it impressively. When he “gets knocked down and gets the fuck back up again,” Dylan and Dave jokingly knock him over before he break-dance jumps back upright. Iconic!

As the dance break ensues, each techie is choreographed into facing off with a major performer, their interaction sort of emulating what the nature of their dynamic is like. While Dylan and Asher each take either Maya or Zay, Jade takes Charlie which mostly means her dodging him while he does expertly choreographed high kicks.

Considering they’re not even exactly at odds, Lucas and Riley’s choreography mostly consists of them sort of dancing around each other – especially given that he doesn’t dance. No, the big maneuver for them comes at the end of the sequence, when Lucas finishes the “fight” by scooping her up and tossing her over his shoulder. She’s totally taken by surprise, and if she wasn’t sure whether or not he had feelings for Isadora, well, now…

Speaking of Isadora, she and Farkle are perhaps the most aggressive of dance duets. They’re the ones with true beef to parse out, and that’s clear in the way they execute the choreography. As the sequence ends and everyone else is shuffled (or carried) off, the stage is left with just the two of them staring one another down. Sizing each other up, trying to determine if one or both of them are going to break this stalemate.

Farkle backs off first, not breaking eye contact but sauntering away towards the wings. Isadora watches him go, holding her ground as best she can.

INT. AAA - BLACK BOX THEATER - DAY

Farkle enters the classroom, locking eyes with Angela and clearly there on business. She rises from her desk, nodding him in. He steps inside, closing the door behind him.

INT. AAA - ATRIUM - DAY

While the techies await, “wondering if this really means freedom,” their queries are answered as Shawn and Angela emerge from Jack’s office. The entire sophomore class is waiting outside, eager to see how the negotiations have panned out. As they “see George Washington smile,” Shawn gives Isadora and the techies a subtle wink.

The techies watch as the performers begin to stagger away, the war truly having reached its conclusion. It almost feels unreal…

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

As the marching drum comes in and “the world turned upside down,” each of the main performers steps forward onto the stage to finish the routine. Slowly, as the music rises again and we near the climax of the song, pieces of the tech start to come back into play – the lights come back up, Jeff happily operating them from the booth. Dave and Nate push set pieces into place, high-fiving one another as they pass behind the dancers.

From different corners of the stage, the techies revel in their victory. Jade, Isadora, Dylan & Asher, Lucas – all declaring with ecstatic joy that they won.

The world did, indeed, turn upside down!

INT. AAA - SHAWN’S OFFICE - DAY

With their sides of the school back in order and a whole new world order at play to explore, Shawn and Angela reconvene. They decide that yes, in spite of all the differences and challenges that are bound to await them, this relationship feels worth giving another shot.

They kiss, rounding out their journey back to one another. Can’t wait to see what happens next…

INT. AAA - BOYS DRESSING ROOM - DAY

Farkle is alone in the dressing room, still attempting to get all the paint out of his hair from like two days ago. Maya and Zay enter and find him there, laughing at his lackluster attempts to rid himself of the battle scars before shifting into more serious conversation. They ask him if he was the one who pulled Angela into negotiations.

Farkle: Although it took every ounce of kinetic energy in me to force myself to do such a thing, yes. I put down my metaphorical sword and opted for the truce. Hope everyone is damn well pleased about it.

Zay, sarcastically: Oh, you’re so brave.

Quips aside, Zay genuinely compliments him for putting his ego aside rather than letting the urge to be melodramatic win once again. Maya seconds the notion, pointing out that they have no idea what this new world is going to bring. They’re going to really have to stick together as a diva front united if they’re going to survive the change.

Farkle, starting to warm up to the idea, agrees. Oh, these divas… their friendship…

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

Lucas is alone in the auditorium, re-familiarizing himself with the terrain now that the dust has settled. He finishes striking the set from the Yorktown performance, hanging in the quiet for a moment and taking in the peace. It’s clear that he genuinely holds love for that musty auditorium, even if he hates everything else.

Riley enters through the dressing room stage doors, watching him fondly for a moment before stepping into the lights and interrupting his quiet. She commends him for a successfully led revolution. He brushes off the compliment, pointing out that she may have had more of a hand in its victory than she’s admitting.

Riley: Suppose it’s a good thing you didn’t listen to me when I begged for a ceasefire.

Lucas: Well, I don’t think you completely lacked the war-mongering spirit. From what I hear, you did a lot of negotiating on your end for the cause as well.

Riley: [ with a shrug ] No great moments in history happen because the fighting party put up their hands and surrendered… nor without help. Just goes to show that maybe you don’t have to do everything alone.

Lucas: … no, maybe not.

The sentiment hangs in the air between them. Lucas breaks the tension, clearing his throat and claiming that if she means to keep good on that offer, she can start by helping him clean up. She laughs, playing along and happily stepping up to finish the tidying.

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Rumour Has It (Instrumental)” as performed by Adele || Instrumental

As if it’s the theme of the AAAC, the abrasive drums and ominous tones of “Rumour Has It” preclude our final scene.

INT. WYATT’S ROOM - NIGHT

We’re with Wyatt, holed up in his bedroom alone. He’s still looking pretty rough from his beatdown in 1.05, and while we’ve been able to ignore it while he’s in the background most of the episode, it’s hard to ignore the remnants of it up close. The emotional scars are still present too, as he’s clearly brooding with unaddressed anger.

He starts a direct message with the AAAC, essentially asking to be a part of their operations. He doesn’t want to change it or shake things up, he just wants a piece of the chaotic pie. So he’s clearly not the moderator of the thing, but he definitely wants to be a foot soldier.

The AAAC responds affirmatively, but first requires that he read their three rules of conduct. The last rule is, as it claims, the most important:

All submissions are to be posted unless otherwise expressed by the moderator. No edits or changes allowed. The page is equal opportunity, so that all voices can be heard.

No submissions are to be deleted after posting. If the sender is bold enough to say it in the first place, then they better be bold enough to handle the repercussions. Especially given that the posting is anonymous.

We don’t start things – we only state them. Our classmates say what they want to say, we are merely the messenger.

Once Wyatt agrees, he ventures the question we’re all wondering. “Who are you?” A text bubble pops up, indicating that the other side is typing a response.

In a quick series of cuts, shots of all of our main cast of suspects – Isadora, Farkle, Maya, Zay, Lucas, Charlie, Dylan, Asher, Yogi, Dave, Chai, Yindra, Jade, Sarah, Darby, etc. – show them on their phones at home or wherever they are. It could be any one of them typing the response in that moment.

Finally, the account responds.

“Welcome to AAA Confessions, Wyatt. Get to work.”

END OF EPISODE.