a college theater au that's been in the back of my mind and just gonna let free for shenanigans because why not
"Bea can do it!"
silence drops suddenly, swiftly, completely throughout the black box. Beatrice doesn't know if she's ever felt the theater be this still as she herself freezes, half-kneeling in the midst of the cables she was arranging, carefully not looking at neither Shannon -one of her oldest friends and the director and the one who can and will see everything on her face- nor at Ava -her best friend, her (supposedly not so, according to Shannon) secret crush- who plows forward with her trademark fervor and lack of grace.
"she’s been helping me with all my lines -"
"helping is a strong word," Bea mutters to herself.
"- and she already knows all the blocking-"
"because that's my job"
"and the audience is gonna love her even more than they love me. Shannon, think of how good it could be!"
Beatrice can feel Shannon wavering but final project or not, Beatrice has to protest. "Ava, i can’t possibly stage manage and act at the same time.”
"it's not impossible," Shannon says thoughtfully, "and it's just for one of the plays."
"we can all help out," Mary chimes in, not even looking up from her screen as she continues programming the lighting. the others are already nodding and smiling encouragingly and for once in her life, Beatrice wants to curse: this production for bringing together her most favorite and the most supportive of people; JC for being a kind-hearted son who'd dropped everything -including this production- to take care of his suddenly ill mother; and Ava for her logic and that pout and that look in her eyes -
breathe, her mind commands, and she does, sharply, deeply. goes over the facts: opening night is 2 weeks away; it's one play in a half-dozen collection of 1-act plays; the production is worth 40% of Shannon's final grade; no one else can help. in her mind, Beatrice tries to argue the last point - tries to suggest one of the other actors but she knows that both Camila and Lilith have their hands full with their roles for the other short plays; tries to suggest finding someone else but how could they possibly audition and rehearse with someone completely new in the time they have left?
then she makes a mistake, a classic one: she catches Ava's eye. finds in Ava's gaze hope and encouragement wrapped up in that warm regard that makes Beatrice do stupid things - like trying every ice cream store within a 10 mile radius of campus and having to deal with Ava's inevitable stomachache; like staying up until 2am watching Beatrice's favorite documentaries because had Ava insisted, because Ava'd said she was interested; like letting herself start to believe - that maybe, just maybe Ava could feel the same way too.
like saying: "fine." sighs for good measure "fine."
Ava cheers and Beatrice doesn't miss the relief that moves through everyone else -she ignores Shannon's swiftly hidden grin- then stands still when Ava bounds towards her and kisses her on the cheek.
"there's more where that came from," Ava giggles, waggling her eyebrows as she shimmies away and Beatrice freezes for a second time that day.
because she forgot.
the kiss.
fuck, Beatrice thinks - knows the only one she curse for this is herself.
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found family as a trope goes so fucking hard. deciding to watch the mandalorian was an excellent choice.
plus grogu is too cute I may melt. S1 E3 when mando hands grogu the little ball grogu was trying to play with...hhhh they are SO adorable i love them both
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darling, call me yours
“Is it okay for me to call you that?” Beatrice asks, her voice only loud enough to fit in the space between them.
Ava’s hands give her away, clenching tightly into Beatrice’s shirt in want but Beatrice still waits, ever patient, ever faithful. And Ava knows it’s not just a question of permission, that sewn within Beatrice’s words is a second inquiry - a prayer, even - for Ava to believe, to believe in what she means when she says it.
or: Five times Beatrice calls Ava 'darling' (and one time Ava says it to Beatrice)
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Because I got sucked into the drama on Twitter, I watched Popstar Academy (would not have otherwise):
First, I hate survival shows. I’m just like keep that stuff within the company and start showing us material once you’ve chosen the people for the group. I know every company goes through that process of selecting people for the debut group but I’m not a fan of seeing it.
Reason I say this is because I understand & get people having star power or certain people always being in the lineup because they fit what the company is looking for. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. In fact I think that’s the industry. But the way this show was formatted and presented to the girls, they went in thinking something else. Which I’m not sure what they were pitched vs if it was naïveté. (Also, it seems like only a small percentage of the girls were actually familiar with or fans of kpop, just an observation).
Having like 8 or so trainees join LATE, and picking trainees that didn’t even have singing or dancing background was certainly a choice. Like the show made the initial training group feel like a pre-training to get the girls where they need to be for the actual training/show. It’s a typical Netflix thing but I feel like some of the later trainees could’ve really benefitted from being there from the start. Especially since the show had some of the girls really starting from ground 1.
It turning into a survival show halfway through was VERY messed up, especially considering how many girls kept asking before they agreed to the program if it would be a survival show. That contract must have either been very vague with the wording or small font or something.
As the program was happening live, I think I only saw the Buttons performance. I wasn’t paying much attention to the program because I wasn’t interested. That said, the survival show didn’t even make sense if it was solely based on the performances & whatever content the girls chose to post on social media. I understand wanting to gauge fan interest in the girls but like idk have test groups? They should know any time there’s fan voting it’s biased as hell. There should always be a percentage taken into account with fan voting vs judge voting. But anyways, what makes this survival show weird is that part of what affects choosing favorites in other survival shows (like p101) is that you get to see the trainees interact with each other. Even though mnet evil edits, you see through the show who has leadership skills, who’s caring, who’s hardworking, who gets along, who’s improved, etc. All of that was missing when the program was live?! (unless I’m wrong) We’re only learning this stuff through the documentary. I’m only using this as an example but the girls were so shocked Manon scored high, but viewers didn’t know about the missed practices & stuff. Had viewers known, would Manon have scored so high? Who knows (she def has it girl + charisma, so very likely, but you see my point)
On Manon, as I alluded to before, I think it def would’ve been better if she were in that starting trainee group. While some things were missed due to covid which is excusable, it seems that other classes/training were missed just because. It has me curious if something serious irl was going on or what the cause was, but I suppose that’s her business. Classes/training are important. Personally, it would affect my choice of a bias if I knew that they skipped a lot and broke rules such as missing curfew a lot. That said, I do appreciate that she does show up & out when the time calls for it. I’m not sure if the girls really did isolate her or if anyone at least made an attempt to check on her. I understand the frustration of someone who consistently breaks the rules not getting penalized in some way. I’m glad Manon held herself accountable and really showed up at the end.
This program being in partnership with Hybe is so…🙃 to me. For example, Bang PD discussing the plateau in trainee growth and urging them to debut faster. Meanwhile Hybe groups are on blast about their short trainee times and the need to develop skills further. We start seeing more & more injuries in the girls and it’s like maybe if they took the time to further their training and learn how to properly do things, the amount of injuries could lessen. And then the emphasis on social media, developing a fandom, and discussing the parasocial relationship — felt very Hybe. Like yes social media skills are needed but the way they discussed creating the fandom was kinda 🙃 to me. Like the fandom is going to form. Those who were less comfortable/confident/familiar with posting on social media were at a disadvantage. And with them suddenly being thrown into a survival show, it’s not like they were prepared to appeal themselves to the public yet. I don’t think it should have been so important for them to necessarily be good at social media yet. That’s something I think could have been saved for the debut group (or maybe if they KNEW from the beginning it’d be a survival show with that type of format, more of the trainees would be those good at social media). But with how this survival show was formatted, social media was the only way to learn anything about their character.
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