Jordan - She/He/They - 33 Out here simping for Himbos, Demons, and Messes Header by Erstwhilesky-art <3 Sidebar by Maeofclubs <3 Icon by Pianta <3 My Ko-Fi
Class didn’t last much longer after that. Roman slipped out right at the bell and strode off towards football practice.
It was winter, so there weren’t any big games coming up - which he was thankful for. The season ended not long ago, and he felt like he was still trying to calm down from it. But the coach wasn’t going to let them rest on their laurels.
The burn of exercise combined with the sharp chill in the air would at least be a good distraction from thinking about what a disaster he was.
Roman Prince was the university’s up and coming quarterback. The theatre’s leading man.
He was also far more awkward than anyone seemed to realize.
It was probably the acting. He’d always been good at it. It was one of the reasons he was able to keep a lot of his knee-jerk reactions off his face.
And sure, he was a generally confident person. He was popular. He had a lot of friends. He was excelling in the areas he spent most of his time in. He worked out a lot. He wasn’t trying to brag, but denying that he was conventionally attractive would make it seem like he was just fishing for compliments.
He was quite aware that quite a few people had little crushes on him.
And if he was especially interested in any of them, it would have made his life so much easier.
But no.
The boy who had caught his eye had to be aloof and clearly immune to his usual charms.
He’d had crushes before. Usually they were easy enough. Maybe someone was pretty, they’d talk, flirt a little, go on a date or two. Maybe something would come of it, maybe not. Either way, he’d tried and he was happy enough with that.
But for some reason, this time? This boy? It was just… Different somehow.
For one, Roman had no idea how to tell if he liked him back or not.
For another, he couldn’t help but notice things about him.
The way he dressed. From each particularly selected article of clothing to the purposeful placement of each accessory. His outfits were always completely on point. He wore things that Roman would never dream of pulling off.
Well… Not pulling off himself, in a-
Nope.
Stop that.
Not doing that right now.
His clothes looked good on him. That was the point. His fashion was daring yet understated in a way Roman barely knew how to describe.
For a third thing, he was so talented. He knew so much about backstage and how all of that stuff worked, and that wasn’t even mentioning how good he was at art. That backdrop he’d been working on was mind-blowing. It genuinely looked like stone, with actual greenery snaking across it. He’d seen some of his work before, but never really from that close up.
And a final thing, Roman just wanted to talk to him. To get to know him. He hadn’t heard him say very many words before. He’d given it a try that day in class, seeing if he could start talking to him about his painting, but he hadn’t really seemed interested. Then Roman gave him the out to stop having to talk to him, and he’d taken it.
So, maybe he just wasn’t interested.
That was the main issue.
The other was that Roman didn’t know his name.
He wanted to know it.
He wasn’t necessarily going to doodle it in his notebook or come up with a ship name for them or anything, but he still wanted to know. He just didn’t know how to figure it out, exactly. Not smoothly. Not in a way that didn’t draw attention to the fact that he’d managed to never learn it.
Roman made his way home after football practice, heading into the apartment he shared with his brother and one other roommate. He closed himself into his room, dropped his bag on the floor, and threw himself onto the bed.
He stared at the ceiling, absently picking up the football he kept near his bed and throwing it up in the air while he thought. He’d always thought better when he was doing something with his hands. It was how he got into doodling, and eventually drawing.
Oh, crap. He needed to get some drawing done. Especially since neither of his roommates would be home for a while longer.
Roman tossed the ball a couple more times before setting it aside and rolling over to grab his tablet from the bedside drawer.
He’d drawn up a huge backlog of pages for his webcomic so he wouldn’t fall behind when he was busy with practice or rehearsal, but that only continued being a buffer if he kept drawing pages when he had the chance.
Roman felt a little silly about the webcomic he drew. It had started as just a little story he’d been writing, and eventually he’d decided to draw it out instead. He couldn’t even remember when he’d decided to start sharing it, but it had been years now, and he had a little bit of a following.
It was just a simple little story about some characters living their lives in a small town, but he enjoyed doing it - even if he hadn’t told a soul in his real life that he did it.
He wasn’t sure if he was embarrassed about it, exactly. But it just felt silly compared to all the other things he did, the things people knew him for. This was just a little outlet for him. Where he could control the story and the happenings, play around in this little world he’d created with the characters he’d become wildly attached to.
And yes, maybe some of the background characters had slowly begun to look more like people he knew or saw around school. It was just easier to take inspiration from actual people than to make up a million one-off background people.
Besides, what were the chances any of them would ever see it?
Most of the time, they’d appear once or twice - depending on the scene they were filling out - and then pretty much never specifically return.
Most of the time.
One character in the background had started showing up very consistently.
It started with a coat.
It had just been an interesting coat. The shape and the cut were so unique that Roman had wanted to draw it. Then that character began always wearing a hat. Sometimes suspenders.
By the time he’d painstakingly drawn the precise pattern of a yellow cable knit sweater in several panels and made sure the scar just to the side of his eye was consistent every time, a few of his commenters began asking about the character.
Clearly they were important if the artist was spending so much time drawing their details.
Roman had nearly sworn the first time he saw a comment like that. And then again at the resulting reply thread, full of speculation about who the character was and what their role in the story might be.
What was he supposed to do at that point? Fade him out and just make it seem unintentional? Let everyone forget about him?
…Honestly?
Yeah, probably.
That probably would have been the reasonable thing to do.
But Roman and reasonable rarely went in the same sentence.
Unless it was that exact sentence, explaining that exact point.
So he’d found a way to weave him into the cast.
And now he had an OC based on a boy he had a crush on who he didn’t know much about besides his fashion sense and talent for art.
Naming him had been a nightmare.
No name felt like it would live up. He knew he’d wanted to pick something unique, with a dramatic fancy feel to it. And seeing as his own name, along with his brother’s and his roommate’s, were rather out there - Roman, Remus, and Virgil - the threshold for outrageous was pretty high.
Roman had almost chosen Octavius.
Then Nathair.
He’d eventually landed on Lysander.
Roman opened the last page he’d been working on on his tablet. Of course, the current small arc featured Lysander heavily. He’d stopped because he wanted to remember exactly how his hair was supposed to look. In this particular moment, Lysander wasn’t wearing his hat, so Roman had put off finishing the page until another theatre class happened.
And now, the way his hair parted was fresh in his mind.
Thankfully, his crush had taken off his hat to work on his painting.
Or, it would have been a happy coincidence if it mattered what his crush had been-
Yeah.
He really couldn’t even deny it.
Lysander was one hundred percent his theatre-class crush.
As the pages continued, it had become more and more obvious. And now, he was the spitting image of him.
Roman’s art style was a little cartoony. It wasn’t like he was going for perfect realism when he had to draw panel after panel, after all. But it was still undeniable who Lysander was meant to resemble.
His outfits. His mannerisms. The way he did that cute thing with the end of the paintbrush in his mouth when he was deciding what he was going to paint next…
God, he was such a disaster.
He spent so much time picturing this guy, drawing him, ensuring he captured every detail of the damn cable knit sweater he wore when it was cold enough out -
But he still couldn’t even figure out how to ask his name.
And he was supposed to be this charismatic university heartthrob?
Roceit/mentioned Intrulogical
College Theatre AU
WC: 8000
AO3
Janus notices a character in a webcomic he's been reading starts to look very familiar, and then has to figure out why.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Here's my last thing for this fun writing event I've been doing, and now I'm going to take a little break from writing for a bit lol. I wrote something like 70k over the last 9 weeks or something. But I had fun!
Anyway -
Roceit, mention of Intrulogical, creativitwins
College!Theatre!Au
A character in a webcomic that Janus reads starts to look far too familiar and he has to figure out why that is.
AO3 - Masterlist
Janus settled into the large red armchair that he always claimed when he got to class early - which was most days. It was one of several pieces of seemingly random furniture that had accumulated in the backstage area of the university’s theatre. And seeing as he had the time, he decided to do what he generally did and fuck around on his phone for a few minutes.
Nothing interesting had happened on social media since he’d last checked. No new emails, his group chats were quiet - probably because almost all of his friends were also in class.
Oh, it was Wednesday. His webcomics should have updated.
He’d been following a few of them for years, random series that he’d stumbled across online in different places. A couple of them were newer. The website he used to read them had a feature that let him sort by location, so he’d added a few based in the city where his school was to his rotation.
Some were technically more interesting - complicated plots, branching storylines, lots of action - while others were quieter, though still good. More slice of life.
He was still catching up on some of his newer additions, reading a handful of pages whenever he checked in as he worked his way toward the present.
“Good afternoon, my fellow theatre enthusiasts!”
A booming voice had Janus’s eyes flicking up from his phone. None other than Roman Prince had entered the backstage area.
Who else could it have been? He always announced himself in some grandiose kind of way.
Everyone knew him. He was the theatre major who got the leads in just about every show they did. He was also on the college’s football team, the second-string quarterback. In a year or two, he’d probably be their starter, once some of the more experienced players graduated. Roman was only in his second year, Janus was pretty sure. Like he was.
Roman had started greeting everyone more individually as he passed by, some by name, some more generally. When his eyes landed on Janus, he smiled softly and gave him a greeting nod.
“Afternoon!”
“Afternoon.” Janus nodded back, then flicked his eyes back down to his phone.
He’d never really spoken to the guy. It was just impossible not to know who he was. Especially since Janus was minoring in theatre tech, he saw Roman fairly often. Some of his friends were actually jealous of that fact.
He was hot, Janus would admit - internally. There were several reasons he was their go-to leading man. Beyond the singing voice and the charisma, all that football practice had clearly had an effect on him as well.
It was almost frustrating how perfect the guy was. It probably would have actually been irritating if he wasn’t so damn friendly and genuine. He easily could have been an absolute asshole and no one would have been surprised.
But no. He had to be sweet and encouraging and willing to help out anywhere he could.
Having a bit of a thing for him was almost cliché.
But there Janus was, keeping his gaze trained pointedly on his phone.
They’d never really talked, besides the occasional greeting or when Roman happened to walk by when the techs were struggling to find their step ladder or had a box of props that was too heavy to get onto a shelf.
Roman could have anyone. The odds he’d be interested in the standoffish theatre tech with the odd fashion and the ugly facial scar weren’t even worth mentioning.
He didn’t even need to think about it. He shouldn’t.
He should think about anything else.
Huh. One of the background characters in this comic had a really neat coat, that’s interesting.
…Actually, hold on. It was pretty detailed for a background character. And it almost looked familiar? Was that-
“Alright class! Let me get backstage over here, front of house out on the stage. We have work to do.” Their professor called out.
Janus slipped his phone into his pocket.
Class would be a much better distraction.
It was. …Mostly.
Roman’s voice carried. It wasn’t even entirely his fault. He just had one of those voices, and the good acoustics were part of what made a good theatre. So every time he laughed or joked or playfully sang something he absolutely didn’t need to sing, Janus could hear him.
Even getting in the zone, getting to do his favorite thing - painting a big backdrop by himself - didn’t shield him from having to hear Roman periodically.
Which was unfortunate. Because Janus liked listening to him. He liked watching him, too, but those were problems for another day.
He stepped back from the backdrop, squinting at the section he’d just finished. The colors weren’t quite there just yet. He mixed another shade and worked it carefully in until it was perfect.
This was what he liked to do. The quiet concentration, taking something flat and making it look real.
He’d always been better at realism than anything else. Give him a reference and enough time and he could make something that looked almost like a photograph. He could do pretty well with colored pencils and oils too, but his favorite medium had always been paint.
Not that he hadn’t tried every other kind of art, but paint was always what he came back to. Digital art completely eluded him. Maybe that was why he liked webcomics. It was a kind of art he just couldn’t do, so maybe he just enjoyed appreciating it. Storytelling also wasn’t his thing, so that probably added to it too.
“Holy shit.”
Of course, Roman’s voice was still pulling him from his concentration.
Janus glanced behind him, maybe to see what thing had Roman so thoroughly surprised.
He was standing directly behind him, eyes glued to the backdrop Janus was working on.Oh.
Oh, he was reacting to what Janus was doing.
Oh, shit.
“...What?” He managed, turning to face him.
“Did you just…” Roman asked, flicking his gaze down from the painting to meet Janus’s eyes. “You just did all that? Just now?”
“Yeah?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Dude.” Roman gestured at the backdrop. “This is incredible. How do you just… Do that?”
Janus absolutely did not blush. Not even a little bit.
“...Practice, I guess?” He answered slowly.
Roman nodded. “Makes sense. …Still though, I could never do something like this. You made it look like real stone. From over there,” Roman gestured back to the stage where he’d presumably been standing before he wandered over, “it looks like those vines are really growing on it.”
“...Thank you. That is… Uh, what I was going for.”
Roman suddenly smiled, his grin stretching from ear to ear. Then he gently clapped Janus on the shoulder.
“Well hey! You succeeded! It looks awesome, man.”
Oh god, Roman was touching him. Why was he touching him?
Roman removed his hand after only a moment.
Aw, Roman stopped touching him. Why did he stop touching him?
“Anyway, sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I just…” Roman rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess I got distracted from what I was doing when I saw it. I’ll, uh, let you get back to it.”
Roman took a half step backward, pausing slightly.
“...Okay. Sounds good.” Janus nodded and turned back to his work.
Roman nodded once and then finished turning around, making his way back over to the stage.
Being critical of your interests is sooooo fun when you have the critic gene & then you sound kind of insane to the average tv watcher when you're like "this is my favorite show, It's Racist" & then you try to clarify what you mean & get that [Speech (legendary) - FAILURE] "the racism is really interesting though"
[Speech (legendary) - SUCCESS] I find the sociopolitical context of pulpy old sci-fi born circa the civil rights movement really fascinating to analyze especially when it was progressive for its time but still reveals the writers' unexamined biases in the subtext
Now to the untrained eye you might be thinking. Wouldn't you rather watch a show that isn't racist? But that's the fuck of it all, nothing is free of The Context and The Subtext. Everything is lowkey racist. And I like star trek
I feel a lot of people are taking this post to be about "I like xyz *despite* its flaws" but I'm talking about the much harder to explain "I actively enjoy the specific way this thing sucks" like it's part of The Experience that it kinda sucks. Criticizing it is fun for me. You know ? I'm studying it in my bug jar
this is a metaphorical thought experiment about the nature of love. doing yuri with your toaster may lead to severe burns. do not do yuri with your toaster
one time i was making potato soup and i needed broth for it but i was out of broth. but in my dog food cabinet there was a carton of chicken broth that i had bought for my dog. now the box did say HUMAN GRADE and the ingredients were just bog standard chicken broth. it did say something about joint health for dogs on there. but the ingredients were normal. i even compared the ingredients list to some normal person broth and they were the same. so i did put dog broth in that soup and it did taste completely normal. but i did use the dog broth.
I had this idea that I've been obsessing over that I have not had any idea at all how to write out, but the fun writing event I've been doing for the last several weeks has a challenge to write a fic in the style of a recipe/recipe blog, so I decided to take a crack at that.
Theatre AU, gen, familial/parental royality, Hairspray!
Patton shares the steps to get his dad to play the best role ever.
word count: 604
AO3
Hey friends! I’ve had a few ask me how I managed to make last week’s big surprise, so I thought I’d write it all out!
I had the idea a few weeks ago based on some things I know about my dad. I’ve talked before about how I’ve been doing community theatre in the same theatre where my dad grew up, and how he’d performed the lead in just about every show they’d done. In one of those, when he was my age, he played Link in Hairspray! And then when the theatre brought Hairspray! back around again, he was cast as Corny Collins! (He was a little too old by then to play the teen heartthrob lol)
Well he hasn’t had time to be in the last couple shows, with work and stuff, but I’ve still been there! So when they finally brought Hairspray! around again, I knew I had to get him to be in it with me!
So here’s how I made it happen!
Ingredients:
One neighborhood theatre
One stage-loving dad
(Dad traits that will help but aren’t technically crucial)
Confident
Loves to dance
Great singer
One son he’s never been able to say no to (lol, he can’t even deny it)
A super sweet theatre director who’s known both their whole lives
Three productions of Hairspray! across about twenty years
A surprisingly well-made costume
Lots of sequins
Very large high heels
Spectacular wig
Instructions:
Go to the theatre director when the show is announced and ask if they have anyone in mind for the role you want your dad to play. (She’ll probably know exactly what you’re up to just based on the look in your eye - she’s apparently seen it a thousand times on both you and your dad.)
Get the green light for that.
Start working on just the right plan for how to get your dad interested - this will probably involve reminding him he’s been in every performance of Hairspray! by this theatre, that it would be a great memory to do a show together when you’re playing the same role he did, and that he’d do such a great job. (If it really seems to not be going your way, call Grandma)
Get lucky and find some size 14 kitten heels in a thrift store - if not already, these will need to be painted red.
Encourage him all the way up to audition. (He might be a little hesitant since he hasn’t performed in a little while)
Wait until the final cast list is posted, then continue to encourage him and assure him he definitely will get the role, and promise to help him with rehearsals and makeup.
Celebrate that you both got the roles you auditioned for!
Start rehearsals - probably encourage him a bit more, going from “leading man” to this is going to be a bit of a jump for him, but remind him he’s going to do great!
Have an amazing show!
Remind him when he tells you that you did a great job and that he’s proud of you that he did too! And you’re proud of him too! This is very important!
(Bonus step: Get a picture of him as Link to put next to a picture of you as Link in a frame.)
(Bonus Bonus step: Get Grandma to give you pictures of him from the first two performances to put in a frame with a picture of him from this show. ((Be prepared that this one might go to Grandma’s house.)) )
Anyway, that’s how I got my dad to play Edna Turnblad!
I had this idea that I've been obsessing over that I have not had any idea at all how to write out, but the fun writing event I've been doing for the last several weeks has a challenge to write a fic in the style of a recipe/recipe blog, so I decided to take a crack at that.
Theatre AU, gen, familial/parental royality, Hairspray!
Patton shares the steps to get his dad to play the best role ever.
word count: 604
AO3
Hey friends! I’ve had a few ask me how I managed to make last week’s big surprise, so I thought I’d write it all out!
I had the idea a few weeks ago based on some things I know about my dad. I’ve talked before about how I’ve been doing community theatre in the same theatre where my dad grew up, and how he’d performed the lead in just about every show they’d done. In one of those, when he was my age, he played Link in Hairspray! And then when the theatre brought Hairspray! back around again, he was cast as Corny Collins! (He was a little too old by then to play the teen heartthrob lol)
Well he hasn’t had time to be in the last couple shows, with work and stuff, but I’ve still been there! So when they finally brought Hairspray! around again, I knew I had to get him to be in it with me!
So here’s how I made it happen!
Ingredients:
One neighborhood theatre
One stage-loving dad
(Dad traits that will help but aren’t technically crucial)
Confident
Loves to dance
Great singer
One son he’s never been able to say no to (lol, he can’t even deny it)
A super sweet theatre director who’s known both their whole lives
Three productions of Hairspray! across about twenty years
A surprisingly well-made costume
Lots of sequins
Very large high heels
Spectacular wig
Instructions:
Go to the theatre director when the show is announced and ask if they have anyone in mind for the role you want your dad to play. (She’ll probably know exactly what you’re up to just based on the look in your eye - she’s apparently seen it a thousand times on both you and your dad.)
Get the green light for that.
Start working on just the right plan for how to get your dad interested - this will probably involve reminding him he’s been in every performance of Hairspray! by this theatre, that it would be a great memory to do a show together when you’re playing the same role he did, and that he’d do such a great job. (If it really seems to not be going your way, call Grandma)
Get lucky and find some size 14 kitten heels in a thrift store - if not already, these will need to be painted red.
Encourage him all the way up to audition. (He might be a little hesitant since he hasn’t performed in a little while)
Wait until the final cast list is posted, then continue to encourage him and assure him he definitely will get the role, and promise to help him with rehearsals and makeup.
Celebrate that you both got the roles you auditioned for!
Start rehearsals - probably encourage him a bit more, going from “leading man” to this is going to be a bit of a jump for him, but remind him he’s going to do great!
Have an amazing show!
Remind him when he tells you that you did a great job and that he’s proud of you that he did too! And you’re proud of him too! This is very important!
(Bonus step: Get a picture of him as Link to put next to a picture of you as Link in a frame.)
(Bonus Bonus step: Get Grandma to give you pictures of him from the first two performances to put in a frame with a picture of him from this show. ((Be prepared that this one might go to Grandma’s house.)) )
Anyway, that’s how I got my dad to play Edna Turnblad!
origamiaround
germansingergirl
theartofmadeline
