Want You to Stay - Collab Dirty Laundry and Deleted Scenes vol 1
Spoilers for Want You to Stay below (read it on AO3)
Also we won’t be posting to the main Chenford tag after this initial post, so if you’re actually interested in this nonsense, follow us via #want you to stay collab and well... let us know so we know whether we should keep posting this ridiculousness.
Want You to Stay - Collab Dirty Laundry and Deleted Scenes vol 2
Spoilers for Want You to Stay below (read it on AO3)
So here’s more of @poppypickle Jill and I being up our own asses (Jill’s words, but accurate 😂) by sharing random tidbits (and long ass essays) about our collaborative writing experiment!
This one got looong, so let us know if it’s super boring.. LOL
And so it began...
The One Where We Decided on a Title
Chapter One
The One Where Lana Had Strong Feelings About the Eggs
Jill had some amazing fix-it ideas for the conversation in Chapter One, one of which was around the egg freezing and giving Tim a chance to be a little more supportive than he was in canon. It wasn’t necessarily a topic that I was super excited to revisit, and thus I realized that fix-it is maybe not my forte...
Original Draft...
“I guess they don’t,” his voice is different somehow, huskier, and Lucy follows his gaze to their intertwined hands, warmth rushing into her cheeks as she realizes just how intimate the moment has become.
Tim clears his throat, abruptly pulling his hand out from under hers and running it back through his hair as he leans back in his chair, eyes returning to the shadowy view, “So what did you decide about that egg freezing thing?”
Ultimately, Jill helped me fix my fix-it (or so we hope! 😂)
The One That Started the Great Sergeant’s Aide Debate of 2021
In Jill’s words, this one could also be called “Should Lucy still be Tim’s aide, and other things that felt super emotionally fraught at the time and now feel chill in retrospect” --- A new story by Lana Pickle
(also Lana insisted on spelling aide as aid and Jill had to correct it 15 million times)
Jill on 12/20 - this feels off ... Lana changes one word ...
Jill on 12/21 - this is maybe too harsh ... Lana changes half a word and disagrees....
Jill on 12/22 - I'm just gonna fix this in Ch 2 when I’m primary 😂
So this was a fun one - it was our first major disconnect...
Lana’s POV: But it was also super enlightening for us both because, in my mind, Tim immediately addressing the aide thing was just something that had to happen; it wasn’t a line I thought about at all, so seeing that Jill had a fairly strong response to it forced us into one of our first conversations about how we saw the characters and their motivations differently.
And the back and forth on this definitely continued into Chapter Two and how the Escape Room conflict ultimately unfolded. It took quite a bit of convincing, I think, for me to even believe Lucy would want to stay on as his aide, and it probably wasn’t until we landed on framing it as both about her career and her emotional state around not wanting things to change that I got on board — not sure that Jill is even aware of this now, but I think this was one of the early decisions that helped me get my arms around where Lucy was emotionally and what was going through her head in the aftermath of sleeping with Tim.
Jill’s POV: The aide topic is so interesting to look back on, because even at that time in the season it seemed like maybe the show would do more with the decision to keep them riding together. And then it just....didn't. Until the recent dance episode, it really wasn't a thing. So in addition to us both having valid, but different, perspectives on what it would mean for Lucy to not be Tim's aide anymore, for me it felt like a bigger deal, storyline-wise, than it actually was on the show until very recently.
See where we ended up at the bottom of this (absurdly long) post...
The Ones Where Lucy Had Too Many Feelings Too Soon
Some of these early back and forth exchanges were super foundational in terms of how the story ultimately unfolded… two original cuts on how Lucy felt after learning that Tim was, in fact, seeing someone and that someone was was Ashley. These ultimately got scrapped as we tried to zero in on where she we wanted her to be emotionally in Chapter One…
Jill’s POV: I sound really chill in the chat about Lucy comparing herself to Ashley, but I felt really strongly about not having Lucy as a non-size 0 woman of color compare herself negatively to Ashley, a thin, conventionally attractive white woman. That would have been our second big fight of 2022 if you hadn't been so open to the edit. 😂
Lana’s POV: I love hearing Jill’s perspective on this now because it wasn’t something we discussed a ton when it came up. I think this was an instance of us looking at something through the different lenses of our experiences and backgrounds (and, per Jill, a reminder that we don’t actually know each other in the real world).
As a non-size 0 WOC myself, for me, comparing myself to Western standards of beauty was [unfortunately] just a reality of growing up in Texas / the states at a time where media and culture wasn’t particularly concerned with representation and the self-image issues they were propagating. And, though, as an adult, I rationally see it differently now, it’s still something that is emotionally ingrained in me. So from that perspective, Lucy having that thought in a high intensity emotional moment didn’t feel unrealistic to me. But ultimately, I didn’t feel like canon had really developed Lucy’s characterization on this front enough to defend it, and I wanted to be cognizant of what I might be projecting onto the character.
Ultimately, I do think it was the right call for the story (and Lucy), and I’m glad that Jill provided the feedback.
This one got a little weighty! 😂
See where we ended up at the bottom of this post...
Where we ended up...
“I’m fine,” she finally manages, biting her lip as she tries to get her arms around the magnitude of what they’ve done — all of the lines they’ve crossed. And then there’s that nagging concern that is suddenly back front and center in her mind. “Tim…what you said to Genny the other day — are you really seeing someone?”
He lifts his eyebrows in surprise, like it’s not what he expected her to say at all. “I — yeah. Ashley, Jerry’s daughter.” His jaw tightens as he says it. “I asked her out a little over a month ago. After the treasure hunt.”
Lucy’s face falls, and for a second she feels like she might be sick. It’s not like any affirmative answer to the question could have been good, but the idea that he’s seeing someone she actually knows twists her gut with guilt. “I-I don’t… Shit, Tim, I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for, Lucy.”
She lets out a sound that is halfway between a scoff and a strangled sigh. She tries to find something to say and ends up landing on a feeble, “She seemed really nice when I met her.”
Now it’s Tim who looks like he might be sick. “She is,” he says quietly.
They stare at each other for a few moments, the weight of everything that has happened over the last 24 hours heavy in the air. Tim’s expression is stoic and unreadable, a sharp contrast to the way he looked at her last night with such open, raw vulnerability. He clears his throat to speak, but suddenly Lucy feels like she needs to be the one to say it.
“Look, last night was a mistake, Tim. It shouldn’t have happened. We were drinking and we were both upset.” Lucy takes a deep breath, trying to keep her voice steady. “And I would never want to do anything to jeopardize your relationship. Or to mess up our working relationship. I’m your aide and —”
Tim is nodding slowly, brow crinkled in concern, “I could put in a request for a new aide —”
“NO. No. I don’t want that. I think — this was just a one-time thing. Neither of us was thinking straight. We don’t have to make it into more than it was. Can we just put it behind us?”
Lucy’s gaze is pleading. Tim looks briefly conflicted — he opens his mouth, then closes it again. Finally, he simply says, “If that’s what you want.”
She nods slowly, hoping her expression isn’t as deeply sad and disappointed as she suddenly feels, unable to process the wave of incongruous emotion she is feeling about every single bit of this. This is for the best, she reassures herself.
“Lucy…” Tim is stepping toward her, reaching for her, and she stumbles back out of his reach.
She chokes back the emotion rising in her throat. “I should go,” she tosses over her shoulder as she whirls on her heel, not trusting herself to be here, with him, in his space for even a minute longer.
Bonus (Spoiler: We didn’t actually disagree on this one!):
Happy Belated National Dance Day!Beautiful memory from 1 year ago . . . Happy National Dance Day to YOU, with love from Pallas-Dance! What better way for me to celebrate than by realizing my long-standing dream of attending legendary New York City Ballet ballerina, Jillana’s ballet teachers’ summer intensive, “Technique in Taos”?! Yes, tomorrow I will be traveling to New Mexico for a week of study with Jillana and esteemed colleagues. This is a particularly deeply meaningful coming full circle for me, as Jillana awarded me my very first ballet scholarship from The New York City Ballet/ Ford Foundation, when I was just 11 years old, which covered my studies at the Westside School of Ballet in Santa Monica, California, with Yvonne Mounsey, principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, and Rosemary Valaire, soloist with the Royal Ballet. I feel so thrilled and honored to be meeting Jillana once again! The opportunity to study, once again, with a first generation Balanchine Ballerina is incomparable! Happy National Dance Day! #nationaldanceday #nationaldanceday2018 #jillana #thejillanaschool #techniqueintaos #nycb #newyorkcityballet #westsideballet #yvonnemounsey #pallasdance #pallasonair #pallassridevi #yogapallas #yogajournal #ballet #ballerinas #balletteachers #choreographer #grateful #spirituality #bethechange #art #PreProfessionalDanceTraining https://www.instagram.com/p/B0doR9Rgc-X/?igshid=gyl1xtigj4m
