#take it as you like it

[it-happened-one-fic]

Bolero - Able to Manage - Strictly NRC Dancing

Author Notes: I'm not gonna lie, I honestly didn't know there was a dance called the bolero until I started this little AU/series. The dance in this fic was very much inspired by a Bolero dance by Pedro and Luísa for ABDS at Salvado. You can watch it on Youtube on the ABDS channel if you're interested. I listened to “You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine” by Michael Buble feat Laura Pausini while writing this fic which is also the song that was danced to in the Youtube video. Just like the rest of this AU/series the reader is female for this fic. I hope you enjoy!

If you would like to read more this AU/series, the fics can be found here: Strictly NRC Dancing AU Master-List.

Type: Dance AU/ female-reader/ fluff/ kind of romantic but can be taken as platonic as well

Word Count: 1330

I was being totally honest with Crewel and Trein when I said that I had absolutely no clue that there was a dance called the bolero. I’d honestly always thought of the open-waist jacket when I’d heard the word bolero, which showed what I knew.

It turned out that, other than just being the name of a waist jacket, the bolero was also the name of yet another Latin dance. One that was often mistaken for the rumba. 

The bolero itself reminded me of a strange mixture of the waltz, tango, and rumba. 

It was a slower dance than the rumba and was, according to Trein, often viewed as more romantic. It didn’t possess the tango’s aggression, though, and had Latin elements that the waltz lacked. Additionally, lifts were allowed in the bolero style.

After learning it, I realized that there was also a certain drama to the bolero, usually caused by lengthy arm motions. These exaggerated motions accented the sweeping motions of the dance.

As for being romantic….  Well, I could certainly see where that description came from. The dance allowed plenty of time for the couple to cook up a wonderfully soupy atmosphere between the two of them as they stared into each other's eyes.

Which was why I was delightfully amused to see that my partner was none other than Jamil. One of the least soupy individuals I’d ever met.

Nonetheless, as we took to the floor for the performance, I had no doubt that he would do well and make a stellar score. His grades had skyrocketed after the Scarabia incident as a show of the new supposed rivalry between him and Kalim.

Jamil was no longer holding himself back in any fields, and that included dance. And if Jamil loved anything, it was dancing. So, Jamil would naturally excel in a dance class, even if the subject dance was a particularly mushy one.

The music started with neither of us on stage. A slinky jazz beat that I would have expected more from one of the Octavinelle boys than Jamil. But I didn’t question it too much as I sashayed across the stage to meet Jamil in the middle, where I threw my arms around him in what no doubt appeared to be a loving embrace.

“Think you’ll be able to manage?” His voice sounded in my ear just as he slowly stepped backwards, his charcoal-grey eyes flicking over to meet mine as I frowned slightly. Briefly miffed at the thought of him implying that I wouldn’t be able to keep up, before I realized his actual meaning.

 I’d already danced three times today. First, during my grading with Trein. Next, during the two performances with classmates, first Jade and then later a Pomefiore junior who’d attempted to crush all the toes on my left foot.

I nodded as he slowly began to turn me freely with my barely lifting one leg so that my foot was mere centimeters of the ground and he could spin me without any trouble, “I’ll be fine; this dance isn’t as exhausting as the others.”

 For a brief moment, the young man remained silent as he spun me slowly before he at last nodded.

“Alright,” Was his only response before I looked away and extended one arm and our spinning was accelerated to better enhance the opening of our performance.

The music was still faint, adding a soft, vaguely dreamy feel to the entire performance even as I wrapped my arm back around his shoulders and stepped around in an incredibly small circle with our two bodies pressed infinitely close together.

But we didn’t stay so impossibly close since, as soon as the vocalist’s crooning began, I was spun out so that the two of us were only joined by our hands.

 We looked over towards one another on the spot-lit stage as we both braced for what was going to be a stupidly mushy performance.

But as we slowly began to shift along the floor, the elegant nature of the bolero began to show. It was a dance filled to the brim with graceful sweeping motions that showed how the waltz had its part to play in the formulation of the bolero. 

Ours was an odd performance, though, since the bolero was one of those dances where you stayed very fixated on your partner. And, to be fair, we were very fixated on one another, but me and Jamil didn’t really speak much during our dance, despite the slight urge I felt to snark at the young man who often tossed random jabs or smart remarks my way whenever possible.

Similarly, there were also no soupy looks to be seen between the two of us. Though there was an innate tie that bound the two of us together as we spun elegantly across the floor.

At odds with the other performance that had been laugh-inducing as the dancers had attempted to cook up the right atmosphere, mine and Jamil’s performance was more like how Trein had described the bolero.

As the teacher had put it, the idea of the bolero was to be one with your partner throughout the dance and thus attain that soft, romantic feeling that was supposed to permeate throughout the dance. 

I would never say that me and Jamil had, ‘become one,’ whatever that entailed. But I would say that the two of us did attain a sort of peace and soft tenderness that was usually not found in my interactions with the young man.

But it was strange that once my gaze found Jamil’s, it was oddly hard to look away from those dark eyes of his. 

If a person truly could have a conversation through just exchanged looks and shared glances, then that person would be Jamil. Because even though I’d never noticed it before, he had an incredibly pointed gaze that contained many varied emotions.

Concentration was in that stare, no doubt since we were performing his graded dance. Jamil would never forgive himself if he failed a dancing class of all things. Not when he was so passionate about this art.

But concentration wasn’t the only thing in the charcoal-colored depths of his gaze. No, Jamil’s eyes also held a sort of reassuring steadiness to them that had me growing still more relaxed.

 I hadn’t exactly been on edge before, but as I swirled around the room with Jamil, there was a certain ease to the motions.

As the song came to its lilting end, my hands slipped out of his, and I looped my arms around his neck so that we were spinning a loose embrace where he had one hand placed firmly against my back. And then, as he extended one arm, I let our steady spinning slowly lift me off the ground. 

As our spinning gradually managed to slow even more, I touched back down. He twirled me lightly in front of him until he caught me with his free arm, and I draped myself backwards in a dip just as the final notes faded out of existence and silence filled the room as the spotlight dimmed. Leaving me and Jamil in the darkness, with me still draped over his arm and him leaning over me, his eyes still on mine. 

Applause filled the room as the lights clicked back on. Not the raucous kind that would have left me deafened, but rather the appreciative sort that brought a not-so-subtle smirk to Jamil’s lips as he pulled me back upright, “Looks like you were able to manage.”

 I snorted at his words as I stepped away from him, smiling slightly all the while, “You’re not the only one who can dance, Jamil. Crewel and Trein are very good teachers, and I told you I’d be fine.”

He let out an almost silent snort before we turned, meeting the judges' gazes and receiving approving head nods that already told us that Jamil had, indeed, met expectations and passed.

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[faeriekit]

"This fic was ai generated—" Cool, so lemme block you real quick

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Knowledge Revenge.

[lazylittledragon]

can't believe we're all adults being forced into the club penguin level of censorship in 2024

[eastgaysian]

[mrtequilasunset]

Listen man, you guys can't be like "you guys need to be normal about asexuality" and then turn around and get weirdly judgemental when you find out someone doesn't have sex by choice. Like that's weird that some of you do that.

[midnight-coffee94]

No single line has ever wrecked me as hard as this one from the Good Place and I think about it constantly

[roninkairi]

You can only reblog this today.*

*PLEASE READ THE TAGS

[stil-lindigo]

frankly, the people whose kneejerk reaction to bisan asking for a global strike form the 21st-28th is to say that it takes years to organize a general strike are really unhelpful! no one is saying otherwise, but palestine will be a smoking crater if we all wait for years to do anything - bisan is asking us to do something now. Like are we only supposed to do something if we can do it perfectly??? At some point it’s a valid critique about the work that goes into social movement, and at another point I feel like some people are just trying to absolve themselves from not putting any effort into observing a week of economic inaction.

like idk! I get it, okay! People have bills to pay that don’t magically go away for a strike, we don’t have nearly enough social infrastructure in place to support people to fully stop going to work for a week. But fuck, dude! Stop immediately responding in such a defeatist way! Cut out unnecessary purchases! Try to shop local! Put more effort into promoting Palestinian voices online! Attend a protest, call a local rep, do something!

[songofsaraneth]

every time i ask people if they do any new years resolutions its all ooooo i dont like making them bc i fail or ohhhhh no i couldnt keep up wiht that and then when they ask me and i tell them about Pasta Quest (i am eating as many different pasta shapes as possible in the space of a year) or when i did Fruit Adventures (every time i saw a fruit i had never eaten before id get one and eat it and read the wikipedia article about it) theyre like hang on i forgot you can make Fun Ones i want a fun one

[wewontbesleeping]

the weirdest fucking thing to me is how men will be like "it's so hard being a man. no one cares that i'm sad. the loneliness we experience could NEVER be understood by a woman" and then also be like "btw i never talk to my friends and i don't know their names and i love hanging out with men because they don't talk about their stupid emotions all the time. women could never understand a bond like this." like ???

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The math just adds up!

[fox-mulder-gets-pegged]

I just wanna say bc I KNOW you're somewhere on tumblr, to the teenage girl who attended Take Your Kid To Work Day at an office building in Ontario, Canada circa 2013 and had a conversation with a middle aged woman in which you showed her your Black Veil Brides fanart and fanfics and ship content and told her about different fanfic tropes including a/b/o verse bc she happened to know who Panic! at The Disco and Fallout Boy were and thus you felt the need to show her your bandblr ship art, that was my fucking mother and I had to clarify all that to her including looking my mother in the eye and trying to explain a/b/o verse without sounding like a lunatic.

It's been 10 years and I still regularly sent evil energies in your direction. Since you'd be probably two years younger than me and thus legally an adult now, please know if this post reaches you it's on sight.

[kedreeva]

There's some dude (derogatory) on FB who is PISSED people are pricing their farm fresh eggs at $2 and $3 a dozen instead of $4+, saying it's "disrespectful" and "undignified" and "I'm trying to feed my kids" like Sir, you are on a Facebook group page bitching about your neighbors egg prices because your pet chickens aren't earning you a living wage and you think it's your neighbors' fault, you do not have a leg to stand on here wrt dignity.

Also half the answers are like "I give them to friends and family free" or "I donate them to food banks" or "I'm making them affordable to folks who might not otherwise be able to get them now that they're so expensive in the store" and "if you think you're going to turn a profit keeping backyard chickens you have been wildly misled" and so on, and so forth, and I'm so living for it.

and I can tell you right now, he did NOT like my answer of "if you're trying to feed your kids, I hear eggs are edible."

[artkaninchenbau]

A h-heartfelt reunion..?

Bonus

[talaricula]

Things I've seen tumblr memeing about James Somerton doing à la "How did no one see how bigoted he was!" as if those things haven't been a significant part of tumblr culture for over a decade :

Presenting untrue and bordering on conspiratorial versions of (queer or otherwise marginalised) history without any sources

Completely disregarding and disrespecting any expertise on socio-cultural topics/humanities and distrusting academics and historians (incl. acting as if no academics or historians could be queer or marginalised)

Downplaying the role misogyny played in the historical oppression of queer women and concluding that queer men must have been more oppressed than queer women

Bi women are, at best, not as queer as "real" queer ppl, and at worst, simply equivalent to straight women

Despite nominal trans inclusivity, transmasculine ppl are functionally women when convenient (combined with the above, bi transmascs are functionally straight women)

Despite nominal trans inclusivity (bis), shamelessly attacking, threatening and actively endangering any trans woman who questions them or smth they find important (often by unfairly presenting her as violent or as a threat)

Having absolutely fucking wild and reductive takes about ace ppl, the oppression they face and their place in the queer community

Stating that marriage equality is an assimilationist fight while completely ignoring its direct roots in the horrifying consequences of the AIDS crisis for partners of ppl who died of AIDS

Praising western media creators from the past for queer coding even under censure and in the same breath condemning current non western media creators for being homophobic bc their representation isn't explicit enough

Blaming China for all existing homophobic censoring in western media

Assuming all queer media would be better told by western creators and by western standards

Only out queer ppl get to tell queer stories

Heavily criticising almost all queer media created by women or ppl they see as such (see above points about trans ppl) or involving/starring a significant amount of women for any perceived or real amount of "problematicness", but fawning over and praising and negating criticism of queer media created by and starring mostly or even functionally exclusively men (even when it could be argued that, you know, not involving/seriously sidelining women is a pretty clear example of misogyny which should probably be considered "problematic")

And I'm probably forgetting stuff or there's stuff I have internalised myself and don't recognise as an issue

Like idk but I feel like the takeaway from Hbomberguy and Toddintheshadow's videos should maybe be "be aware of such patterns in your communities bc they definitely exist" and not "this guy is uniquely awful" and I feel like a lot of the discussion I've seen surrounding this has been severely failing at that. Most ppl who've spent any significant amount of time on tumblr prob either have internalised at least one of those thought patterns, have had to de-internalise them, or have had to be extremely vigilant to not internalise them (which is done by, you know, seeking out other sources, which also seemed like an important takeaway from the videos)