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atlafan · 5 years

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She’s Like No Other - Part One

a/n: rucas multi-part fic. Everything takes place during the fall of their sophomore year. This picks up after Texas part 3. (a little something special in the spirit of valentine’s day)

“I can’t be your brother, Riley.”

“Then what will you be?”

The two had a stare down that seemed to last forever.

“I don’t know, anything but this. I feel like you’re gonna slip away.”

“‘I’m supposed to go to the movies now, I need to go. You’re on a date too, remember?”

“I wouldn’t call this much of a date.”

“Gee thanks.” Maya says.

“Well, you haven’t said a word to me this entire time!” He says turning to her.

“Why did you even come out with me tonight, because she said so?” Maya says, pointing at Riley.

“No. I wanted to see if what happened between us was a result of Texas or if it was real…”

“Okay, I really need to go now, I don’t wanna hear about your big kiss or whatever.”

“Riley, you’ve got it all wrong.” Says Lucas.

“Believe me, we didn’t kiss.” Maya says.

“Then what the hell happened out there?!”

“Okay, here’s what went down. You walked away from a situation. Farkle followed you. I was trying to get Maya to open up and talk about what was happening because I was confused about the entire thing. But she started rambling on and on, so I grabbed her face like this.”

Lucas grabbed Riley’s face and pulled her in close.

“And I thought for a second I was going to kiss her to make her stop, but I stopped myself.”

“Why did you stop?”

“Because it wasn’t you on the other side! I realized what I was about to do, and it didn’t feel right.”

“I don’t know what you expect me to do with that, I told you how I felt.”

“I don’t believe you. I still think you have feelings for me.”

“Lucas, I told you what my feelings were, and if you can’t accept that-mmm.”

Lucas had still been holding onto Riley’s face. He pulled her in closer for a deep, passionate kiss. Then her let her go. Riley put a hand over mouth and took a step back. She looked at him, shocked and stunned that he would make such a bold move in front of everyone. She looked back at Charlie, then Lucas looked at Charlie, then back at Maya. Everyone was silent.

“Sorry. I should go.” Lucas says, leaving quickly.

Riley walks over to Charlie.

“I am so sorry. I think it would be best if I just go home now.”

“Bay window?” Maya asks.

“No, I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

Riley rushes out, leaving everyone there stunned.

The Matthews were surprised to see Riley home so early.

“I thought you were supposed to go to the movies.” Cory says.

“I was, but something happened, so I came home.”

“Riley, Maya just called my cell phone, she wants to come see you.” Topanga says. “Is everything alright?”

“I don’t want to see her right now, I just want go to my room.”

“Honey-”

“I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!” Riley stormed to her room and slammed the door.

“Wow, her first true outburst.” Topanga says looking at Cory.

“That’s not like her to not want to talk about something.”

“I know, let’s try to give her some space.”

Riley sat on her bed, crying, face in hands. Everything that just happened felt like a bad dream. She wiped away her tears, put on some pj’s and got into bed. She let out a big sigh, and decided to just watch a movie on her laptop until she fell asleep. Both Lucas and Maya kept trying to get in touch with her between texts and calls. But she meant it when she said she didn’t want to talk about it. She wasn’t ready to admit that all of this mess might be her fault.

Riley spent the rest of the weekend in her room. The only times she’d come out were for food and to use the bathroom. She locked her door so her parents couldn’t come in, and locked her windows and closed the shades to ward off anyone who might try to visit. She just wanted to be left alone.

By the time Monday rolled around, Riley was trying to think of every excuse to not go to school. But she knew her parents would make her go. She threw her hair up in a messy, loose bun, and put a little makeup on. She put on a pair of black jeans and a white, tight, t-shirt. She grabbed her jacket and her backpack.

“Breakfast honey?” Topanga asks.

“No thanks, I’m not very hungry. But I will take something for the road.”

“Maybe you should go to work with me today.” Cory suggests.

“That’s alright, I’m just gonna head to the train.”

Riley leaves, leaving her parents in wonder about what could be wrong. As Riley waited for her train to come she saw Maya approach. They made eye contact as they got onto the same car. Riley quickly opened the door to the other car, and closed it right when the train started moving again. Maya tried to get through as well, but there were too many people crowding the entry.

Riley looked down at her feet and took a deep breath. She felt horrible for avoiding her best friend. When she looked up she saw an open seat, but next to the open seat was Lucas, looking right back at her. She walked over and sat down next to him without saying a word.

“So, um-”

“I’m not ready to talk about it.”

“I understand. You could have at least texted me back.”

“Did Maya text you back?”

“Honestly, I didn’t even reach out to her. I was more concerned about you. That’s terrible to say, I know.”

“Why did you even go out with her if you didn’t have feelings for her?”

“I don’t know, I wanted to see if anything was there between us. I thought it might help me move on from you.” He smirked to himself.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, it’s just the face you made after we kissed…”

“You mean after you kissed me?” She said with a tone.

“Yeah, your look of shock didn’t seem like it was stemming from the fact that I kissed you, it was more like-”

“Where did you learn to kiss like that? Yup, you know exactly what I was thinking. You know what I was thinking next? Maybe they really did kiss in Texas, and now he has all of this experience.”

“Riley, I swear to you, the only girl I’ve ever kissed is you.” He tried to put his hand on hers, but she took hers away quickly.

The train got to their stop. Maya saw the two of them walk out together, and immediately got in their faces.

“I see how it is. You saw him on that car and wanted to go be with him. So what, did you two make things official over the weekend?”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about! This is the first I’ve seen or spoken to either of you since the other night.” Riley says. “I don’t want to talk about any of this, I just want to go to school.”

Riley storms off, and heads up the stairs to the street. She rushes to her locker so she can put her things away. She goes into homeroom to find Charlie before her dad gets there. Maya and Lucas walk in behind her, and sit in their sits.

“Hi Charlie.”

“Hey.”

“You have every right to be upset with me. I was wondering if you’d have some time to talk after class? I want to apologize and explain myself.”

“Sure, we could do that.”

Lucas makes a scoffing noise, which prompts Riley to walk over to his desk and lean in.

“Is something funny?”

“Yeah, I think it’s hilarious that you’d rather take the time to make amends with him than with me, or Maya!”

“Oh please don’t pretend like you suddenly care about my feelings.” Maya says getting out of her seat. Lucas stands up as well.

“I do care about your feelings!”

“Yeah, it sure looked that way when you frenched Riley in front of everyone the other night!”

“I did not french-I did not french your daughter.”

The girls whip their heads around to see Cory standing there, fuming.

“Dad-”

“Everyone take your seats. I’m going to take attendance, and then we are going to have a quiet homeroom this morning. You can thank these three for that.”

The whole class groans, and then sit in silence until the bell rings. Riley and Charlie walk out together.

“I’m so sorry. I should have never agreed to go out with you. I was trying to move on, and it was wrong of me to use you for that. We had so much fun at the dance, I figured we’d still have fun. You didn’t deserve anything I did.”

“I understand, and I forgive you. It seems like your friends put you in a pretty difficult situation. But, I think you and I should take a step back from each other for a while, at least until you figure everything out.”

“That seems fair.”

Charlie smiles at Riley and walks away. Lucas swoops right in.

“I have to go to class, and so do you.”

“So, is he mad?”

“No, he was very understanding.”

“Why did he get a formal apology?”

“Are you saying that I owe you some type of apology?!”

“Yup.”

“For what?!”

“For putting us into this situation in the first place! If you hadn’t started in with all of that ‘you are my brother’ crap, we wouldn’t be in this situation. I was going to ask you to be my girlfriend, I thought we were finally ready!”

“I know you were gonna ask me out! I could feel it, and that’s exactly why I stopped you. Do you know how hard it was to put my feelings aside for her?!”

“Why did you have to do it?”

“Because she did the same for me.”

The second bell rang.

“I swear if I get a tardy because of you I’m gonna be even more pissed!”

Riley runs to her class. Lucas runs to his.

By the time lunch rolled around, Riley didn’t want to fight anymore, so she decided to go eat in her dad’s classroom.

“I see you got my note to come here.” Cory says.

“Actually, I came here all on my own.”

“Are you gonna tell me what’s going on?”

“What’s there to tell? There’s some drama and we’re having trouble dealing with it.”

“Did Lucas…”

“We did not French kiss, he’s a gentleman...but we did kiss, well he kissed me.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, it just sort of happened in the moment. But it happened in front of everyone, while he was on his date with Maya and while I was out with Charlie.”

“Why did the two of you even go to the bakery?”

“Charlie said we’d save money on snacks if we bought the candy there, and I agreed. I didn’t realize that’s where Maya and Lucas would be. The three of us have been arguing all morning. That’s why I avoided them all weekend, I just don’t want to deal with this.”

“It sounds like the three of you just need to sit down and have a conversation without screaming at each other. Save it for after school. Lose one friend, lose all friends.”

“I hate it when you’re right.” Riley smiles and gives her dad a hug.

The bell rang and she sat in her seat, waiting for the others to file in. Once Lucas and Maya sat down, Riley turned to them.

“Come to my house after school, we need to sit in the bay window.”

The two nodded their heads yes. They made it through the rest of the day, and were silent on the train ride home. They went into Riley’s room, and she closed the door behind them. Maya sat in the bay window, Lucas stood, and Riley sat on the edge of her bed.

“I thought we were going to have a bay window chat?” Maya said.

“I want to be able to look at you both clearly without craning my neck.” Riley said. “So, who wants to start?”

“I would like to start off by saying I would prefer for this to not become a screaming match. We did a lot of yelling at school, and I feel like we can talk through this calmly.” Said Lucas.

“Welp, that just solved it, you two should be together.” Maya said.

“Maya stop. Okay, I’m going to own up to some heavy stuff. Even though I realized that Maya had feelings for you, I shouldn’t have felt like I needed to push my own aside for her. And I shouldn’t have pushed you two together, especially since you hadn’t really figured out all of your feelings, and Lucas, I’m sorry I never considered how you’d feel about her. I knew you were going to ask me out in that moment, and I should’ve let you. I’m sorry.”

“What I want to know is, Maya, why did you let Riley step back? I mean, you didn’t see right through what she was doing?” Lucas asked.

“I guess for once I just wanted to see what it was like. I wanted a chance to know what it would be like to have that special bond with you. But when we sat down together, you didn’t know how to talk to me, which is weird because when there’s a group of us you know how to talk to me. I dumped that smoothie on your head that day because I was pissed off. I couldn’t believe you were going to tell me that dumb horse-birth story when you knew I already knew about it. Was it like a test to see how I’d react?”

“No, it wasn’t a test. But those are the types of stories I like to tell, and the things I like to talk about. I mean, what did you wanna talk about? The fights I used to get into?”

“Well...yeah. I mean that’s definitely an attractive side to you.”

“Maya, I’m not that person anymore, and talking about that part of my past doesn’t make me feel good.”

“Why did you agree to go out with me? Was it because Riley basically said we had to?”

“No...not entirely. I wanted to try to move on from her, and you were sort of starting to act like her. You had been a little nicer, more caring. It just seemed like the logical next step.”

“You know what really made me mad? When I said I’d never speak to you again if you rode that bull, you didn’t even seem to care. You asked Riley to stay and watch, you never even came after me. It was like our friendship meant nothing to you. Then later that night….”

“Yup the face grabbing, we don’t need to relive that.” Riley interjected.

“Maya, I didn’t go after you because I did what I came to Texas to do. And what you said came out of left field. You had never really spoken up like that before. I obviously care about our friendship, I mean, you’ve been my friend since day one.”

“So has Riley, but she’s the one you want.”

“And you think that’s because you stepped back?” Riley asked. “We had an instant connection.”

“Oh please, I pushed you onto his lap.”

“Actually, I pulled her onto me.”

“What?” The girls asked in unison.

“Riley would’ve fallen flat on her butt. I saw her coming, so I pulled her on top of me.”

Riley got off the bed and walked over to Lucas.

“Wh-why would you have done that?”

“I don’t know, I saw you two looking over at me before, and...I was drawn to you. Maya, I want you to know how awesome I think you are, and I care about you so much.”

“I know you do, that’s why you never wanted to hurt me. But you know what? When I see you two together, I don’t feel hurt, I feel happy. You two should be together. I’m not going to stand in your way anymore.”

“Maya…” Riley says, sitting next to her in the bay window.

“I’ll be okay Riley. Don’t step back anymore.”

Riley starts tearing up and the two hug. They wave over Lucas, and the three of them share in an embrace.

“I’m gonna head out now. You two have some more stuff to talk about I’m sure.”

Maya leaves. They wait until she’s all the way down the fire escape to talk more.

“Hey.” Lucas says inching closer to her in the seat.

“Hey.” Riley could feel her face burning.

“Hi.” Lucas says centimeters away from her face.

“H-”

Lucas kisses Riley slowly. The two sink into each other. Riley couldn’t believe their moment was finally happening. She didn’t have to feel guilty about she felt about Lucas anymore.

“Riley? It got really quiet in there, are you three alright?” Topanga says from outside Riley’s door.

“Uh, yeah mom! We’re fine!”

Riley got up and opened the door. Topanga looked surprised to only see Lucas there.

“We worked everything out. Maya left a minute ago. Lucas and I are gonna be together.”

“Oh sweetie that’s great. Just so we’re clear, the door can’t be all the way closed with boyfriends over.” She hugs Riley and walks away to tell Cory.

“She is so conservative sometimes.”

“I don’t know, it’s a pretty fair rule if you ask me. We could get into some serious trouble with that door closed.” He winks at her.

“Oh stop it. Do you wanna stay for dinner? I think my dad made spaghetti and meatballs.”

“Um, I think I should probably go home for dinner. My mom doesn’t like last minute plans. But maybe tomorrow?”

“That’d be great.”

Lucas kisses Riley on the cheek, and leaves out her window. Riley takes a big sigh. She had never felt so relieved.

#gmw #girl meets world #rucas #lucas x riley #riley x lucas #lucas and riley #riley and lucas #liley #topanga #bmwgram #boy meets world

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ambitionsource · 5 years

Photo

AMBITION Season 1 ♫ “Special Snowflakes” [ 1.04 ]

CREATED BY Esther (rapunzles) & Maggie (quincywillows)

BABY, IT’S COLD OUTSIDE – The performers hustle to make a statement at the annual winter showcase. Hoping to bridge the divide, Riley endeavors to make friends with the techies. But getting in good with Isadora and Lucas may ask more than she can handle.

47 Minutes (8.5K words) || No warnings apply.

[ ← Under Pressure ] [ S1 Synopsis ] [ Extra, Extra → ]

( Follow along with the music on Spotify here! )

INT. AAA - HALLWAY - DAY

The holiday season is upon us at AAA! Spirits are high and the students are chipper as they wander the halls in their best sweaters. Small gifts are exchanged, books are haphazardly thrown into lockers. Temporary academic freedom is soon upon them!

On the wall outside the black box theater, focus is drawn to one poster in particular. It’s an advertisement for the annual winter showcase, a four-night event in which each class gets to show off their stuff after a busy semester of honing their craft.

INT. AAA - BLACK BOX THEATER - DAY

Inside the classroom, all our usual favorite performers are assembled to discuss the event. CHARLIE GARDNER is back with his usual harem of girls, a safe distance from his former tutee. In the corner, FARKLE MINKUS searches Hanukkah gifts for his family, working through a lengthy list. This is the week where performance slots are divvied up, and all of them are eagerly chattering about who is going to get the closing number. RILEY MATTHEWS, naturally, doesn’t see what all the fuss is about, questioning it as YINDRA AMINO stands behind her and braids her hair.

Riley: Don’t we do a group closing number? What’s the big deal?

Farkle: Haven’t you been here for like months already? How are you still not caught up on how things work around here?

ZAY BABINEAUX, seated up on one of the desks nonchalantly, pays Riley the courtesy of explaining why it’s such a big deal who gets placed where.

Zay: It’s the standard rules of performance memorability. You either want to open or close: if you go first, everyone else will be subconsciously compared to you throughout the duration of the show. If you go last, though, you’re freshest in the audience’s mind and are able to essentially blow everyone else out of the water.

Maya: Which, as we all know, is my calling card. So it would be an honor to do so this year, thank you very much.

Farkle disputes this, claiming the closing spot is his to behold. Yindra leans over and points out to Riley that this bantering is the exact reason they all have to audition and get placed in a specific order, rather than just volunteering for placements. Riley raises her eyebrows, still not totally on the same page as her more ambitious classmates.

Zay declares that they’re both wrong, he’s got it in the bag. When Maya and Farkle express skepticism, Zay hops off the desk and steps up to the plate to prove his point.

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Santa Tell Me” as performed by Ariana Grande || Performed by Zay Babineaux (feat. AAA Sophomores)

Zay kicks off this upbeat and dance-worthy Christmas contemporary, loose and playful with it. He sings around each of his classmates in the classroom, concluding with Riley and giving her an affectionate tap on the nose, before leading the brigade out into the halls.

INT. AAA - HALLWAY - DAY

The sophomore class takes to the halls, following Zay and his pop hit and collecting fellow students along the way. It’s refreshing to watch a number in which everyone involved is just having fun, and everyone is actually participating.

JACK HUNTER spots them from down the hall, conversing with CORY MATTHEWS. But it’s the holidays, and he just wants the week to be over, so he doesn’t bother to reprimand them for dancing in the hallways. They make their way to the auditorium.

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

The performers enter the theater and disrupt the quiet that the techies were enjoying, LUCAS FRIAR, ISADORA DE LA CRUZ, and the others conversing at the center of the stage. As they get closer Lucas makes a quick exit, hopping off the stage and disappearing before he gets inevitably pulled into the chaos.

DAVE WILLIAMS, DYLAN ORLANDO, ASHER GARCIA, and NATE MARTINEZ aren’t so lucky, but it’s honestly not a problem. The holidays allow for momentary truces, and they join into the fun and energy of the number as the full assembly claps and dances together to the conclusion of the song. Shawn and Angela enter together as Zay is showing off some impressive vocal runs, more so surprised by how everyone actually seems to be getting along for a second.

As the number comes to its end, Angela commends Zay for such an impassioned performance. On the flip side, Shawn shuts it down with a swift “NO ARIANA” for the showcase. They’re going for classic, he states. Zay is offended. Maya and Farkle are like ha ha.

Cue title sequence.

INT. AAA - ERIC’S OFFICE - DAY

Riley has a new initiative in mind as far as leaving her mark on the school. Clearly, this performing thing is rigged and stacked against her, so performing is not going to be how she wins people over. But she’s been more attune to the cultural divide than anyone else considering she’s not so deeply entrenched it, and she can’t get her mind off it – especially considering the kindness Isadora extended to her and the weird conversation she had with Lucas.

So her mind is made up. She is going to befriend the techies and bridge the divide.

To do this, however, she knows she will need help. So she goes to her uncle Eric and essentially lays out her grand plan. She’ll befriend the techies, and hopefully doing so will allow her to find the key to bringing the school back together.

Eric: I do support this notion, but I have to warn you it’s not going to be easy. Grander men than you have tried.

Riley: Well, maybe it doesn’t take a man. Maybe it takes a scrappy, plucky gal with cute brown eyes and… questionable hand-eye coordination.

Eric can’t help but smile at that one. Riley continues, explaining that she’s already had good moments with a good number of the techies one-on-one, and she really believes she could make something happen. But she needs to know any relevant information about them going in, so she wonders if Eric has another history lesson up his sleeve about the tight-knit cohort. She requests any pertinent information she should know about them going into this, deeper than the brief overview we got in the pilot.

Eric agrees, giving her a little more on each of them by flipping through the yearbook again and finding their photos. As he points to each of them, he gives us a little more about each of them. It’s the first verbal establishment that Dylan & Asher are a couple (and basically inseparable), first hints that Isadora isn’t neurotypical, and some silly commentary on how Dave is just… a special human being.

When Eric begins detailing Lucas’s misbehavior and track record with the school, Riley ventures the question of what Eric really thinks about him.

Eric: And all that was just last month.

Riley: So, what? Do you think that’s all he is? Is he a lost cause?

Eric: No. No, I don’t think anybody is. But it’s difficult to figure out just how much good there is inside a person when they won’t meet you at the same level.

Riley absorbs this, her wheels turning once again. Finally, it’s time for her to do what she’s always done best – meddle.

Angela appears in the doorway, asking if Eric is ready to go. When Riley questions what is going on, Eric explains that he is stepping is as an impartial guest judge to help figure out what the order of the winter showcase performances should be. Riley once again is impressed by how intense all of this stuff is around here.

When Angela asks if she has any special requests for them to take into consideration as far as her placement, Riley waves her off. She’s not going to add any more trouble to the situation, and she’s got bigger fish to fry. Riley glances at the open yearbook one last time, looking at the photo taken of the sophomore techies.

INT. AAA - HALLWAY - DAY

Riley catches up to Isadora on their way to the auditorium, approaching cautiously and waiting for verbal acknowledgement before she approaches. She wonders if it would be alright for her to join her at lunch that afternoon, a request that surprises Isadora. She’s inherently distrustful, trying to find the ulterior motive at play.

Isadora: What, bored with your starlit classmates already? Really have to slum it already?

Riley: No, no. No, not slumming. No, I just – you were really nice to me the other day.

Isadora: I gave you a paper towel.

Riley: And a paper towel was exactly what I needed! It would be an honor to repay the kindness and join you for lunch. Not that I’m – not that me hanging out with you is a kindness. I’m not saying… I only mean –

Isadora: We eat at the corner table. If you’re truly that desperate.

Isadora opens the door to the auditorium, disappearing inside. Riley does a little dance to herself, before catching the door and jogging in after her.

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

Angela, Shawn, and Eric have taken seats in the center section of the auditorium, the remainder of the class scattered in front and behind them. Up on stage, Maya, Zay, and Farkle stand waiting for permission to begin – the only three that desperate to scrap for the closing slot. When Maya makes such a commentary about how they must be the only three that care enough, Yindra fires back with the sentiment that it’s more like there’s no point in trying because they have a mysterious way of always getting what they want.

Angela asks if they all understand how this audition will work and have had enough time to study the song. All of them scoff, expressing varying levels of confidence and cockiness.

Zay: Please. I could do this number in my sleep.

Farkle: I only got the sheet music this morning and I’m still certain I can sing circles around the rest of these dumb-dumbs.

Maya: Can we just put our money where our mouths are already? Standing so close to mediocrity is making my mascara run.

Eric gives Angela a nod, gesturing for the three of them to begin. They take their places, the three of them lined up and facing away from the audience.

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” as performed by Brenda Lee || Performed by Zay Babineaux, Maya Hart, and Farkle Minkus

The three divas split up the lines, taking turns spinning around and launching into the song. Although the track is relatively innocuous and certainly not a diva number, they somehow manage to turn it into one. While performing choreography together, they’ve got their full wattage smiles on but are also lowkey elbowing one another and working to stand in the front the most. It’s well-performed and honestly so humorous to watch.

As they finish the number they strike a pose, the three of them close together and out of breath and grinning through their teeth. But they also sneak a few choice words in to each other, smiles unmoving.

Farkle: I’ll eat both of you alive.

Maya: You say that as if you could beat me in a fight and I wouldn’t easily break your twigs-for-arms.

Zay: I’m seriously going to vomit all over you and your designer shoes.

Charming! We love a trio of polished performing divas ready to tear each other to shreds.

INT. AAA - CAFETERIA - DAY

The techies are seated at their usual table, the rest down the row while Lucas and Isadora take their usual spots across from one another at the end of the table. Life is proceeding as normal… until Riley floats towards them and plops down next to Isadora, commenting on how wild that diva performance was and launching into chatter.

Isadora isn’t fazed by her presence considering she knew it was coming, but Lucas is floored. He freezes with his fork halfway to his mouth, staring at Riley as she engages Isadora in conversation. It’s impossible to tell whether his reaction is negative or not, but he’s definitely not breathing anymore. Isadora snaps him out of his shock.

Isadora: Lucas, did you forget how to use your limbs? Either eat it or don’t.

Lucas clears his throat, dropping his fork. Riley can’t help but smirk a little bit, sort of reveling in the feeling of having the upper hand. Isadora raises her eyebrows at his weird behavior.

Isadora: What? You act like you’ve never seen another human being before. You know Riley. What, do you need me to introduce you two?

Lucas: No, yeah, I know her. I just didn’t… realize she would be joining us.

Riley meets his gaze, not allowing herself to be intimidated. She offers him a smile, waiting until Isadora is done talking to take the reins of the conversation again.

When she asks about their holiday plans, Isadora mentions the small party that the techies are throwing. It’s a tradition they’re attempting to start off after a successful run last year, and they’re already eager to start prepping for it. At this suggestion, Riley lights up. She fancies herself a bit of a party planner, and offers her services in helping them plan the festivities.

Essentially, she inserts herself into the techie party plans, and Isadora and Lucas don’t care enough or still don’t know how to react properly enough to refuse, respectively. So they’re like sure… fine. You can help. Riley has found her in.

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

After deliberating and based on an inscrutable variety of criteria, Eric has the honor of announcing that the closing slot will be going to Maya this year. Everyone is like woo, big surprise. Angela also informs them that the remainder of their slots will be posted on the wall outside the black box, before Maya jumps up and interrupts the news bulletin.

Maya: Thank you, Miss Moore and Mister Matthews. It truly is an honor to have been chosen.

Zay: No one asked for a speech!

Maya: Now, I know that my selection may be a bit of a bummer to some of my less talented but equally driven classmates. Fear not, hopefuls, because as it turns out my closing number may just need a dance partner. Thus, I’ll be holding auditions to see who can actually keep up with me.

This actually intrigues them. Then, she turns to NIGEL CHEY, pointing at him and gesturing him towards her.

Maya: Chey, front and center. I’ve got a proposition for you.

The class departs, buzzing with this new opportunity. Eventually they all shuffle out, and soon enough it’s just Angela and Shawn remaining. They take to cleaning up the auditorium in silence like they usually do, but in the spirit of the season Angela decides that maybe she’ll broach a conversation. She asks him what his holiday plans are.

Shawn is gruff in his response, stating he has none and that he’s always hated this time of year. Angela is like “well, with that attitude,” but Shawn goes on to point out that he hasn’t had anything to celebrate since like the early 2000s, so what does she expect from him? Considering part of that lack of cheer is her fault, Angela is a little stung by the guilt she suddenly feels.

Still, she’s not just going to let this drop. She states that he shouldn’t spend the holidays alone. It’s not right. He shrugs her off, but there’s a seed planted there. Wonder what it will harvest…

INT. AAA - CLASSROOM - DAY

Riley joins Isadora after school to help Dave and JADE BEAMON make decorations for their party. They’re all homemade, and as they work together Riley gets to learn more about the two of them. Most importantly, she learns that Jade is a wicked talented costumer and basically single-handedly makes most of what they perform in during class. Riley is stunned to learn this, and it’s clear that she is fiercely underappreciated by the performers.

Dave asks if Riley is going to come to their party this year. Riley isn’t sure how to answer, but Isadora steps in and basically claims it’s up in the air, “as people say”. This isn’t a flat no, so Riley will take it.

INT. AAA - DANCE STUDIO - DAY

The class is assembled in one of the available studio classrooms, crammed up against the mirrors while Maya and Nigel stand front and center. Maya thanks them all for coming, before throwing focus to her potential three dance partners – Farkle, Zay, and Charlie. She also gives a special thanks to Nigel for agreeing to perform with her this afternoon, carrying his violin with him. Now, it’s time for the games to begin.

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” as performed by Lindsey Sterling & Sabrina Carpenter || Performed by Maya Hart (feat. Zay Babineaux, Farkle Minkus, and Charlie Gardner)

Nigel launches us into the auditions, playing his violin to the classic holiday tune with a vigor. While Maya is orchestrating all of the nonsense, Nigel is clearly the musical star of the number. Maya theatrically surveys the three boys, before pointing to Charlie and wiggling her finger at him. Come hither, auditionee #1!

Charlie and Maya dance together ballroom style while she launches into the song. Charlie is a great dancer, and they’re not a bad match. But she has other dance partners to test out, Farkle practically chomping at the bit to show his stuff. So when she wraps the first verse she spins Charlie away, moving onto the next one.

Farkle steps up next, the two of them continuing to waltz. On the lyrics “you’re a monster, Mr. Grinch,” Maya looks very pointedly at her partner and Farkle makes a snarky face in response. They continue their pas de deux as Nigel launches into his violin solo, Maya transferring to Zay halfway through and allowing herself to be swept away. She gives Farkle a sassy little wave. He rolls his eyes, waving the two of them off and marching back over to stand with Charlie.

Zay and Maya work effortlessly well as dance partners, evenly matched. They’re energetic, polished, and almost a given pair considering Zay is the best dancer in their class. Maya spins him away and back towards the other two, coming to stand in front of the three of them and surveying her options (“Now given the choice between the two of you, I’d take the…”).

This is where the number turns on its head. Rather than making a choice, Maya opts for the “seasick crocodile” and dances away from all three of them. They stand there for a moment, bewildered and trying to figure out who she chose – Charlie nudges Zay and points indicatively to Farkle, seeing as he must be the seasick crocodile. Farkle holds his arms out, offended.

But no, none of them are the seasick crocodile, and none of them are going to be her dance partner. The whole thing was an elaborate ruse, and Maya will be taking to the stage for the closing number on her own. She dances around the rest of the number gleefully, dancing out of reach of the boys who try to stop her after they realize they’ve been duped.

As each of them approach her, she dodges and essentially knocks them to the floor.

Maya: The words that best describe you are STINK! [ Charlie hits the floor ] STANK! [ Zay hits the floor ] STUNK! [ Farkle falls and she steps over him delightedly. ]

The class is in hysterics, no group enjoying this spectacle more than the techies. Lucas and Isadora are in stitches, leaning into each other and trying to stifle their laughter. Riley is just in shock, somewhat amused but also mortified on their behalf.

Maya finishes out the number with a flourish, dancing with Nigel as he continues to play. Zay doesn’t even bother to get back up, crashing onto the floor and flipping Maya the bird.

Maya ends with a cheeky little laugh, coming to Nigel’s side as he plays the last note on his violin. She leans up and kisses his cheek, hitting their final pose. She snapped!

As the kids are clearing out, Farkle grumbling to whoever will listen about how ridiculous this whole scenario was, Riley hangs back and waits for a moment with Charlie. She makes sure no one else is around before approaching him, telling him that she thought he made a great dance partner and didn’t deserve the ridicule. He waves her off, claiming it’s not that big a deal and worse could’ve happened.

Riley asks him if he would consider doing a duet together. She’s still got Lucas’s words rattling around in her brain about the real her, and she’s taking plenty of steps lately to be a little bolder. As she points out, just because they don’t have the closing number doesn’t mean they can’t vocally blow the roof off this place, so to speak. They don’t have to be divas to put on a dazzling performance, especially if they combine their efforts.

Charlie doesn’t need to be asked twice. Charmed and more than happy to comply, he agrees to a duet with Riley. Maybe a little too eagerly, all things considered.

INT. MATTHEWS APARTMENT - DAY

That afternoon after school, Christmas decorating is on! This is a normally coveted tradition in the Matthews household, but due to how on the rocks Cory and Topanga have been as of late, even the holiday spirit is dwindling a bit. Auggie doesn’t notice so much, but Riley is well aware of the chill that has settled in between her parents.

Thusly, it’s a relief when she gets a text notification from Isadora that they’re here for their next techie party errand. Riley informs her parents that she has to run, Cory only getting to question where she’s going for a moment before she’s out the door. He probably wouldn’t much prefer the answer anyway, so he should be grateful.

INT. SUPERMARKET - DAY

The next task for the techie party is in full swing – grocery shopping! Riley joins Isadora, Asher, and Dylan as they cruise through the store, stocking up on all needed supplies. That is to say, Riley and Isadora have the list and are doing all the work while Dylan pushes Asher around in the grocery cart and they keep adding extraneous, unnecessary items to the list.

Asher: [ reaching for an obnoxiously sized jug of apple cider ] Oh, dude, we definitely need this. Isa, can we get this?

Dylan: Yeah, Isa, we need to get the cider!

Isadora: We already have our listed drinks, put that back. Would you stop picking up whatever is in arm’s reach? We’re not shopping with Rockefeller.

Riley utilizes the opportunity to be as helpful as possible, reaching for whatever Isadora states next from the list and keeping up conversation. She tries to get a little bit of dirt on the techies, mostly as to why they’re so grumpy and constantly at war with the performers.

Asher: It’s really not that much of a mystery.

Dylan: Yeah, you’d be this way too if you were constantly ignored.

Isadora: Or put in a ton of effort just to see it get disrespected and disregarded.

Dylan: The performers have no idea how much we do for them, and the teachers perpetuate it.

Asher: And they never say thank you.

Isadora: Do you have any idea what it’s like to have no one acknowledge all the hard work you do?

Riley: Oh, I’ve got a hunch or two.

Dylan and Asher change the subject as they get to the candy aisle, reaching for a specific type of chocolate and claiming to Isadora that they have to get this. They have to, because it’s Lucas’s favorite and it is technically on the list. Technically. Please, Isa, pleeeeease?

Isadora: Alright, alright. Whatever. Gremlins.

Isadora off-handedly explains to Riley that Lucas never adds anything to the list and lets everyone else decide what food they’ll have but he only has one necessity – chocolate. There’s something slightly endearing and unexpected about that.

Riley: Yeah, I noticed he hasn’t exactly been around much on these party planning trips.

Isadora: [ defensively ] Well, he’s got a lot going on. But also, he’s got the most difficult job at the end of all this, so we don’t really push him to do much more.

Riley isn’t sure she wants to know what that means or entails. But Isadora has already moved past it, chastising Dylan and Asher for adding like five things to the cart that they didn’t account for and directing them towards checkout.

INT. JACK’S APARTMENT - NIGHT

Shawn is over at Jack’s house for dinner, a tradition that seems to be semi-regular between the two of them. Over the meal, the two of them are reminiscing about what Christmas used to be like back in the good old trailer park. This is where Jack’s reputation as a man who built himself from the ground up is truly reiterated, but he does not hold as much bitterness in his heart over it as his half-brother.

Shawn: Christmas was shit, don’t you remember? I mean, there was the year that dad gave us each a basket of used clothes from the thrift store, and he didn’t even wash them.

Jack: Well, that’s what the laundry basket was for.

Shawn: Or when he used to volunteer as Santa at the mall and we’d wake up on Christmas morning to him passed out, still in costume, on the floor in front of that scraggly piece of crap we called a tree.

Jack: Oh, come on. I always liked hangover Santa.

Shawn: Why is it such a big deal that I let the holidays back into my heart or whatever? This isn’t a Dr. Seuss book, my heart isn’t going to grow three sizes just because I elect to plan some stupid festivities for the break.

Jack isn’t sure what advice to give him, but he points out that it’s less about the holiday and more his heart. Like, he thinks Angela is just looking out for him in regards to getting out of the rut he’s been in for the last few years. Yeah, the holidays don’t mean much, but maybe they can be the first step. Shawn doesn’t look convinced, but it’s a thought…

INT. AAA - BLACK BOX THEATER - DAY

The sophomores are assembled before class, working on homework and other projects before the bell rings for lunch. Farkle declares to whoever will listen that he’s figured out the trick here, the reason Maya was selected over him. It’s because he’s Jewish.

Farkle: I mean, why would they give the closing slot in a largely commercially Christian dominated showcase to the Jew? It’s problematic, but not inherently surprising.

Zay rolls his eyes. He’s so tired. In any case, Farkle has decided that rather than complaining about the problem but not doing anything to remedy it, he is planning to write a Jewish holiday song of his own. Enough of this dreidel, dreidel crap. He’s going to dedicate his showcase slot to singing something truly Jewish… as soon as he writes it. That can’t possibly go wrong.

INT. AAA - CAFETERIA - DAY

Riley is with Lucas and Isadora at lunch again. She is keeping track of all their party preparation tasks in an agenda, and it’s clear that Lucas finds this amusing. Isadora admits that she’s been a lot of help so far, prompting the question yet again whether or not Riley will be invited to attend this shindig. They’re warming up to the idea, but there’s still hesitation. They just don’t know if Riley will be able to handle what it requires to be in attendance, that’s all.

Riley: Oh, I can handle it. Whatever it is, it’s handled. It’s not even a thing.

Isadora: It’s more a matter of whether or not we think we can trust you.

Riley: Well, okay then. Let’s prove it. Take me for a test drive.

[ Lucas chokes on his water. Isadora gives him a look, and Riley of course never realizes when she says something potentially questionable. She’s got a knack for it. ]

Isadora claims that before deciding any of that, they still have a couple of tasks to complete. Mainly, getting a Christmas tree. This surprises Riley, who is still in the dark about where this party is even taking place. Isadora clarifies they’re only looking for a small one, but won’t divulge more information than that.

Throughout the exchange, there’s a quip between Lucas and Isadora that hints at the fact that she’s autistic. Riley takes this information in stride.

Riley: Oh, you’re autistic?

Lucas: Is that a problem?

Riley: No, no, not at all. I just didn’t know. I’m a very huggy person, so let me know if that bothers you.

Isadora: It does. Don’t hug me.

Riley: Got it. No hugs for Isa. Make sure to tell me if I do anything like that subconsciously, okay? I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.

Isadora obviously appreciates this sentiment, and Lucas seems mildly impressed. He’s like wow, someone respecting my best friend and being generally considerate? In this school? That’s hot.

This all bodes well for Riley. She might just get her in with the techies yet.

INT. MAYA’S APARTMENT - DAY

Maya is hard at work going through lists of Christmas songs, narrowing down which song she’s going to do at the winter showcase. Her mother enters from her room, dressed in her uniform for work and in the midst of tying up her hair. Maya asks if she has a moment to help her narrow it down, Katy sliding into the seat across from her at their table.

Maya: I’m thinking “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” because you know, classic. But there’s a lot of potential in taking “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and really amping it up from the lame low levels that Andy Williams kept it at.

Katy: Both good options. But you know, [ reaching out and taking Maya’s hands across the table ] my favorite Christmas song was always “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Don’t know why, it just always made me truly feel the holiday season.

Maya: Yeah, it’s a great song. But it’s not going to blow everyone else out of the water.

Katy: … does it have to?

Katy doesn’t get time to elaborate on the question, already going to be late for work. She leaps up and gives Maya a kiss on the top of the head before fluttering off. Maya absorbs this sentiment, clearly not prepared to get philosophical and change her whole way of thinking on such short notice. She looks back to her shortlist, dissatisfied.

EXT. CHRISTMAS TREE FARM - DAY

A light snow is falling as Isadora, Riley, and Lucas make their way through the rows and rows of fir trees. Isadora leads the charge while Lucas sort of lags behind, rattling off a very specific list of criteria to Riley and explaining her full-proof process of finding the perfect tree. She’s a tree expert, essentially, so really they should be in and out in no time. No waiting up! Isadora marches onward, clearly a woman on a mission.

Riley watches her go, glancing over her shoulder towards Lucas. She debates whether to say something, hesitating before striking up a conversation. It’s clear that Lucas isn’t nearly as scary as he comes off at school, but he also… really doesn’t know how to interact with people. Let alone Riley Matthews.

Riley: How about you?

Lucas: Huh?

Riley: Would you consider yourself a tree expert?

Lucas: Oh, uh… no.

They’re side by side now, walking at the same pace. Riley explains that tree shopping is all part of the celebrations with her family, to which Lucas doesn’t have much to say (Lucas: Oh, we don’t celebrate. Much). But Riley’s a rambler, so she just starts nervously going on about what Christmas preparation at the Matthews entails.

Lucas is a little like oh so she’s still talking, okay. But he listens anyway, stuffing his hands in his pockets and torn between glancing at her and staring at the ground. She’s really hard to look at, for some reason. And snowflakes keep getting caught in her hair and her eyelashes…

Lucas: [ interrupting her ] You’ve got snow.

Riley: I’m – I’m sorry?

Lucas: Snow. It’s… you’ve got some on your –

[ He gestures noncommittally to her face. Riley sort of reaches up, towards her eyes, and he gives her half a nod. ]

Riley: Oh. Oh.

[ Riley works to wipe her eyes. Lucas glances away, sort of embarrassed for no reason. Feeling bashful is unfamiliar to him. ]

Lucas: Yeah, you got it.

Riley: [ After a moment. ] You’ve got some, too.

Lucas: Huh?

Riley: Snow. Just there –

[ Riley, not thinking, reaches up and almost goes to… what? Wipe at his eyes? But he backs away from her. ]

Lucas: I’ve got two hands.

Riley: Oh, yeah. Right. For sure. Yeah.

Well. That could’ve been worse. Lucas wipes at his eyes while Riley looks away, pressing her lips together and trying not to overthink that whole awkward conversation.

Isadora saves them both, running back up to them and claiming that she’s found the perfect tree. Her excitement is palpable and totally divergent from the persona she puts off at school. As she darts away, Lucas jogging off, Riley looks after them. After a moment, she smiles, before following in their direction.

INT. MINKUS HOME - NIGHT

Farkle is up after dinner, surrounded by crumbled pieces of paper and struggling to finish his song. EZRA MINKUS comes over to bother him, questioning what the heck he’s doing. After Farkle explains his grand pursuit to right the wrongs done to their Jewish culture by the American Christmas commercial industry (which Ezra definitely doesn’t get), his brother begs him to sing the song for him. And so he does.

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Jewish Holiday Song (Original Composition)” || Performed by Farkle Minkus

The number is well put-together but unpolished, and continues to reflect Farkle’s perfectionist nature and he continually interrupts himself and changes lyrics, rewriting as he goes. Ezra doesn’t care at all, totally enthralled and encouraging his performance.

The longer he has to just perform it, the more Farkle starts to loosen up and get into it. Halfway through he’s on his feet, at full energy levels, and Ezra jumps up to spin and dance around with him. Certainly more humanity and genuine love of the craft from Farkle than any of his classmates might ever see.

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - DAY

The sophomore class is assembled, spending their class time preparing the stage for the holiday break. Half the class is out in the front of the school, where the showcase will be held.

Most of the techies are gone setting up outside, but Lucas and Isadora are inside with Riley. They’re sitting at the bottom of their usual crop of seats up in front of the technician’s booth, Riley standing in front them but not quite yet allowed to cross the threshold. Behind them, Dylan and Asher are goofing off.

Riley sighs, watching them deconstruct the sets from the first semester. Although it’s been a special kind of hell, she claims she’s going to miss the auditorium over break. Isadora tells her she doesn’t have to say goodbye yet, which confuses her.

Lucas and Isadora exchange knowing looks, before she goes on to explain the final task of the party. Tonight, after the showcase when everyone has left, the techies are going to sneak back into the auditorium and have the party there. Riley is floored by this.

Riley: You mean you’re going to sneak back in after hours. Like, break in. You’re going to break into the school.

Isadora: We warned you. Figured you may not be able to handle –

Riley: No, no, um. I’m not – and how exactly do you plan to do this?

A moment of silence. Riley looks between them before letting her gaze drift to Lucas, who is avoiding her gaze and smirking, twirling a pen in his fingers. Oh, right. Of course he’s going to break them in. Silly her.

Isadora states that Riley has been a big help and is more than welcome to come to the party – if she doesn’t rat them out. It freaks out every goody-two-shoes notion in her body, but she knows what she set out to accomplish this week. She squares her shoulders, ready to be bold. She claims she’ll be there and that she’s looking forward to it.

EXT. AAA - FRONT ENTRANCE - NIGHT

The night of showcase is here, audience members filing into the seats set up outside the school. The front of the building has been decorated for the holidays and lighting systems have been set up to allow for the top of the steps to act as a stage. It’s a pretty cool set up.

Most of the Minkus clan is searching for their seats, Ezra holding onto JENNIFER MINKUS’ hand as they make their way. He looks up towards the building and his face lights up, waving eagerly.

INT. AAA - ATRIUM - NIGHT

Farkle is looking out the doors, catching the eye of his brother. He sees him waving and lightly waves back, before the students are called together for pre-show circle.

Angela gives them all a rousing, energetic speech, telling them to close their first semester out with as much vim and vigor as possible. Everyone nods along, that holiday season acting as a powerful source of energy. With that, they put their hands in and countdown together, launching us into the showcase.

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” as performed by Pentatonix || Performed by AAA Sophomores

EXT. AAA - FRONT ENTRANCE - NIGHT

A montage ensues of the first half of the showcase, all of our recurring characters performing their songs and numbers. Zay opens the showcase, although with what song we don’t know. He definitely performs it with less enthusiasm than Ariana, though.

Haley and Clarissa play their cellos. Chai, Sarah, and Darby do a trio song and dance, dressed in cute holiday outfits. Nigel plays his violin. When Farkle takes the stage to perform his Jewish song, the audience clearly loves it.

No more so than his family. Jennifer is all smiles, and Ezra is dancing along from his seat. Only one thing could dampen this moment – the absence of Farkle’s father, who hasn’t shown up. This stings a little bit, but Farkle knows he’s a busy, important man. He tries not to let it get to him, finishing the performance with a flourish and not letting it show on his face until he’s back safely behind the doors of AAA.

INT. AAA - ATRIUM - NIGHT

Riley is staring out at the assembled crowd, trying not to go back on her decision to be more bold. Shawn approaches her and asks if she’s nervous, which yeah she is, but in front of him it’s more because she’s planning to break into the school later tonight behind his back. She keeps it together, but barely. Shawn wishes her luck, patting her shoulder.

Charlie approaches her, raising his eyebrows and asking if she’s ready. Riley takes a deep breath, then nods. Together, she and Charlie step through the doors.

EXT. AAA - FRONT ENTRANCE - NIGHT

Charlie makes his way to the microphone first, Riley hanging off to the side to wait for her entrance. He gives her a smile. Maya comes up behind Riley, asking when the two of them decided they were going to do a duet together. Riley shrugs, claiming they’re just trying to put on the best show possible.

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “The First Noel” as performed by Josh Groban & Faith Hill || Performed by Charlie Gardner & Riley Matthews

And boy, do they keep to their word. Charlie and Riley sing well together, and their chosen duet is a powerhouse all its own. It gives Riley the chance to truly show off her vocal ability, keeping true to her conversation with Lucas and trying to share that level of passion with the rest of the world. She isn’t going to spend the rest of her time at AAA hiding in the background.

The divas are shocked, totally not expecting the new kid to end the semester by actually posing a challenge. The techies look impressed, Dylan and Asher huddling together to exchange a whisper about it. But given the smiles on their faces, it’s nothing negative. Isadora seems impressed too, but when she looks to Lucas next to her, he doesn’t seem surprised at all.

Their performance is met with resounding applause. Riley sort of goes to nudge Charlie in congratulations, but he takes a step further and hugs her instead. Hey, it’s the holiday season. Riley hugs him back, grateful that he agreed to be her duet partner.

INT. AAA - ATRIUM - NIGHT

Maya is preparing for her closing number, doing vocal warm-ups and pacing to herself. Her phone ringing distracts her, and when she picks up it’s Katy on the other line. She explains that something has come up at work, and she’s going to have to close because the other waitress didn’t show, so she doesn’t know when she’s going to get there.

Maya is shattered by this, looking for alternatives, asking if someone else can, wondering if she’s going to make it at all. Katy apologizes profusely before explaining she has to go, quickly. She hangs up, Maya left side-swiped by this news. But the show must go on. Zay comes up to tell her it’s her turn to close the show, but he can immediately tell something is up with her. When he ventures the question, she puts her cool facade back together and claims everything is fine.

EXT. AAA - FRONT ENTRANCE - NIGHT

Maya runs up to the pianist first, whispering to him before taking her place at the microphone. She gives a little introduction to who she is and asks for one more round of applause to everyone else who has come before her – a classic diva courtesy. Then she explains what she’s about to perform.

Maya: I originally had a different planned for this evening. And I’m sure my classmates could’ve told you how in character it was for me. But um… someone really important recently asked me if everything had to be about the performance. And I thought the answer was yes, but I think tonight, I want it to be about something different. Tonight, it’s about her. But I hope you all enjoy.

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” as performed by Sabrina Carpenter || Performed by Maya Hart

Maya launches into her mother’s favorite Christmas tune, starting off soft and sentimental. But of course, she is still Maya Hart, and as the song progresses she ramps up the vocals and totally kills it. Everyone is honestly surprised she didn’t go for the big blowout finale, but somehow this was just what they all needed. Somehow, this was exactly right.

As the showcase comes to an end, the full performing class assembles outside the school while Angela and Shawn take center stage at the microphones. The techies are standing off to the side, still sort of in the shadows but present. Angela thanks everyone for coming and for their continued support of their students at AAA, and then rouses the audience for one more round of applause.

Shawn is about to jump in but Angela beats him to it, encouraging a round of applause for the techies as well. The techies seem surprised by this, but everyone happily gives it. Riley is clapping very enthusiastically in the front row of the performers. Farkle and Maya look confused at the shout-out, sharing a look but clapping along anyway.

Then Angela invites them all to join in for one last number, passing the stage off to the students.

Song Cue ♫ ♪ “Sleigh Ride” as performed by Pentatonix || Performed by AAA Sophomore Performers

The true closing number to the showcase is upbeat, fun, and a true demonstration of their combined talent rather than how they always seem to be pitted against one another. Our often forgotten students – Yindra, Nigel, NICK YOGI, CLARISSA CRUZ, and CHAI FRESCO – take the solos.

At the last second, Katy manages to make it and catch the final number. She slides into a seat in the back, meeting Maya’s eyes and giving her a big smile. Maya is… soft, grinning even wider as she performs.

Out of focus, the techies are dancing around and sort of mockingly singing along, so happy that another hell semester is done. Asher and Dylan each have an arm around Lucas, essentially forcing him to sway with them. Isadora isn’t being goofy, and she’s like… you’re all so stupid but you’re my crew so I guess it’s fine. So it’s endearing.

EXT. AAA - NIGHT

The clean-up has wrapped, another winter showcase come and gone. Maya and Zay are hanging around outside in their cutest winter attire, waving goodbye to Angela as she heads out and congratulates them on a great performance. Riley and Charlie exit the school together, Maya and Zay giving them an intrigued look as they approach.

Riley congratulates them all, Charlie approaching and giving Zay a nudge on the shoulder. Maya asks Riley if she’s coming to the after party at Chubbie’s – more out of curiosity than an invitation – and Riley stammers, explaining that she has other plans. But she won’t say what those other plans are, and kind of runs away before they can ask any more questions. Oh, Riles.

Farkle exits the building and comes down the steps, approaching the remaining three. He congratulates them all, as is courtesy, and Charlie commends him for his original song. It was a real crowd pleaser. Farkle tells Maya he thought she did a fantastic job with the closing number, and it’s genuine… even if she was a bit sharp. Maya lets this slide, thanking him for the compliment.

Farkle makes some subtle commentary about how he’s sure they’ll all have a great time at the diner… without him… totally nonchalant. Maya exchanges a look with Zay, before turning back to Farkle and being like “Farkle, would you like to come?” Farkle acts casual, brushing it off, but then he’s like “well if you INSIST.”

Maya shakes her head, leading the way down the street. Farkle is clearly excited, jogging to catch up. The four of them head out in their cute little winter coats and hats, we love them.

EXT. AAA - BACK ENTRANCE - NIGHT

Shawn makes his way to his car, the last one to leave. As soon as his car leaves the parking lot, Lucas pops his head out from behind the side of the building, followed by Isadora, then Riley. Riley asks if the coast is clear, to which Lucas lightly shushes her. The rest of the techies poke their heads around, showing that the full brigade is present. It’s break-in time.

As the opening score of Home Alone underscores, Lucas leads the skilled and effortless break-in for their after party. Riley is nervous, but she didn’t rat them out. She passed their tests. So when Lucas is holding open the auditorium doors for them to dart in and it gets to Riley… he doesn’t turn her away. She heads inside, Lucas glancing over his shoulder before shutting the door behind them.

INT. SHAWN’S APARTMENT - NIGHT

Shawn settles into the lonely and plaintive silence of winter break, dropping his bag and keys on the chair by the door with a pronounced thud. He sighs, making his way into the kitchen and hardly bothering to turn on the lights. That is, until a knock at the door disrupts his silence. He pokes his head around the corner, evidently not expecting anybody.

When he opens the door, Jack greets him cheerfully, holding food for a potluck and swooping his way inside. Before Shawn can object, Eric, Cory, and another half a dozen teachers flutter their way inside, giving him warm greetings and setting up stuff in the kitchen and living area.

Angela enters last, clearly having arranged the whole thing. Shawn is like what the hell is this – although with far less bite than his bark would have you believe – when Angela gives him an affectionate head tilt.

Angela: I told you. No one should be alone during the holidays.

There’s a moment where it’s unclear whether Shawn is going to accept this aggressive form of care or kick them all out… until he steps back to let Angela in fully. She smiles, entering as he closes the door behind them.

She actually isn’t done though, as she claims she has something for him. She pulls out a simple gift for him – a book of poems that alludes to one of the reasons they initially fell in love. Reparations, maybe?

Angela: I figured, if we’re working on your frozen heart, maybe a little more culture could help. You used to love these, after all.

Shawn is touched by the gift. He takes it tentatively, before lighting up with an idea of his own. He asks her to hold on, disappearing back into the small hallway that leads to his bedroom. When he returns, he’s clutching something in his hands rather than the poetry. It’s a beautiful artfully crafted seashell. It’s not wrapped, but it was definitely meant for her at some point.

Shawn: I saw it at a flea market a couple years back when I was traveling, and couldn’t help but think… I don’t know why I actually got it. But it was always meant for you.

He holds it out for her, waiting for her to take it. Now that’s tea. Angela takes it tenderly, the two of them exchanging uncertain but soft smiles. Then, Angela nudges them to go mix and mingle with their co-workers. As “Jingle Bell Rock” floats in…

INT. AAA - AUDITORIUM - NIGHT

The techie party is in full swing, the music playing over the sound system considering they’re the ones who know how to run it. Their tiny tree has been set up center stage with a few chairs sprawled around it. The majority are seated around it, laughing and eating and exchanging small gifts with one another. Dylan is seated on the floor in front of Asher’s chair, a string of garland worn around his neck like a scarf. Jade is showing Jeff the quality of the colored pencils she got as a gift in her sketchbook. Isadora is finishing the final touches on the tree decorating, attempting to direct Dave.

Riley is standing a bit away, just absorbing the warmth and marveling at the family dynamic of these oddballs that seem so standoffish at first glance. It’s a wrong perception, that much she’s sure about. The practical king of this very sentiment, Lucas comes over to join her.

He asks her if she feels like a badass or not after her first little taste of danger. She admits that she does, but she’s far more entranced by the little tradition they’re attempting to establish here. Riley makes some soft commentary about their crew and how he’s clearly a major part of that… Lucas waves her off, but she insists that it’s true.

She says something else slightly flirtatious, giving him a smile before floating off to join the main group. It takes Lucas about three seconds to comprehend the fact that that conversation actually happened, during which Dave hisses to catch his attention. He and Jade point above Lucas, where mistletoe has been set up. He and Riley were standing underneath it the whole time and didn’t even realize it.

Lucas, weirdly bashful again and embarrassed, huffs and walks away. Dave and Jade are trying not to laugh, gesturing him towards them to rejoin the group. Thus, the techie celebration ends nice and cozy, warming all of our hearts. God bless us, everyone!

We’re going to need it.

END OF EPISODE.

#S1 #104 #episodes

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me-youhaveme · 7 years

Text

The Girl in the Mirror Pt2

AU: Riley Matthews is a small town girl and Lucas Friar is your typical rich boy. One day their worlds collide and a single lie takes them on a life changing journey. Can you love someone if you don’t know who they really are? Or can love help you become who you are meant to be? Riley Matthews was a small town girl until she met Lucas Friar, your anything but typical rich boy.

A/N: Here it is finally, the second part of The Girl in the Mirror. I want to thank you all for the feedback I got for the first part, I really hope you will like the whole story. I am still mapping out some key points, trying to figure our what exactly to do with it but don’t worry - I won’t stop writing for the Rucas fandom anytime soon. I also accept suggestions on who do you want to see in the story - I tried to include everyone in The Riley Diaries but if there’s something you want to see here, feel free to say it. I hope you like this part and that you are still interested in the story. xo

Part1

________________________________________________________

“I can’t believe you’re at school before the third period,” I laughed walking out of class to meet Maya, who was standing at the hallway, “Is it Christmas or something?”

“It’s September, you silly,” Maya laughed, linking our arms, “I came to make sure you are okay.”

“That’s really sweet,” I put my hand on top of hers, “But I am fine, except one guy collided in me on my way to class.”

“Riley Matthews, boy magnet,” Maya laughed and nudged me, “Who is he, tell me all about him.”

“His name is Lucas,” I was looking around, trying to not sound interested, “Blond hair, green eyes, not able to walk properly.”

“Well, well,” I heard a familiar voice behind us, “I see that my reputation precedes me.”

“I,” I started stuttering, nervous that he heard what we were talking about, “I am right, you can’t walk.”

“That’s a very interesting observation, but how about we see if I can dance,” Lucas smiled at Maya and then looked back at me, “How about you come with me to the school dance tonight?”

“Me,” I was shocked but also starting to get excited, “You just met me, I can be a serial killer.”

“Is she,” Lucas looked at Maya and she shook her head giggling.

“You’re not, it’s settled,” He smiled at me, not even giving me the chance to deny – not that I was trying to.

“Okay, I guess,” I laughed.

“Just so you know,” Maya chimed in, “She is a professional dancer so things do not look good for you.”

“How do you dance, Klutz when you barely walk,” Lucas smirked, “Now I definitely have to check you out.”

“I already said yes,” I laughed and put my hands in front of my chest, “But you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“Can’t wait to find out,” He winked at me and then smiled at Maya, “Ladies.”

“You work fast, missy,” Maya started poking me while Lucas was walking away from us, “You put a spell on the most popular guy in the school?”

“What,” I looked at her, “Is Lucas the typical rich stupid jock that everyone wants to be with?”

“Rich yes, jock yes but he is not stupid,” We started walking again, “I mean, he asked you out, how can he be stupid?”

“Come on, Maya,” I frowned, “You know who I am and what my parents do. How do you see me with this guy?”

“Hm, let’s think about it,” Maya put her fingers under her chin and put on her thoughtful face, “I definitely see you with that killer dress you made the other day.”

I looked at her and let out a laugh, making her laugh, too.

“It’s going to be okay,” She assured me with a smile, “Don’t think too much, just go to the dance with him.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Okay, Klutz,” Maya laughed and let go of me, “Go to class.”

“You’ve seen me on the dance floor,” I spun around, “You know I am the furthest thing from a Klutz.”

“Get lost,” She laughed and turned around, making her way to the classroom at the end of the hall.

My first day flew by pretty quickly – I don’t know if it had anything to do with Lucas or the fact that I had a date for the dance but I was feeling pretty good about myself. I got a message from my dad that he’s going to pick me up from school and I headed to the parking lot.

“Hey, daddy,” I ran into his arms as he was leaning over the car, “I had the best first day ever.”

“I am really happy about that, honey,” He let go and smiled, “Hop in the car now so that you can tell me and your mom all about it.”

“Okay,” I was just about to open the front door when my father stopped me.

“Get in the back,” He said while he was getting in, “There are some things in the front seat.”

“Okay then,” I smiled and got into the backseat with a huge smile, “I have a date for the dance tonight.”

“Wow, you are fast, young lady,” My dad looked at me in the mirror as we were driving off, “Who’s the lucky guy?”

“That’s a whole other story,” I looked down at my phone, “I will tell you about it after tonight.”

“Wow,” Maya said, walking into my room, “You really listened to me and put on that dress.”

“Well, I trust your judgement,” I smiled as I looked into the mirror at my white and gold two pieced sequin dress, “I just can’t decide about the shoes. Black or nude?”

“Nude,” Maya smiled and hopped on my bed, “Always nude.”

“You look pretty incredible yourself,” I put on my shoes and tucked my straightened hair behind my ears, “I love these colors on you.”

“Thank you, my young fashionista,” She laughed and looked at me thoughtfully again, “The only question is, how are you going to dance in this tight thing?”

“You know me,” I laughed and grabbed my clutch bag, “I can dance in anything.”

“You and me both sister,” Maya got up and stretched her hand out, “You ready to win Lucas’ heart?”

“Can we just call it going to the dance,” I laughed and took her hand.

“Whatever sprinkles your donuts, honey,” She turned off the lights in my room as we left.

“Wow, this school is not afraid to spend money, is it,” I looked around when we walked into the gym, “It’s beautiful.”

“Of course it is,” A beautiful dark haired girl appeared behind us, “I organized the whole thing.”

“Hi, Izzy,” Maya hugged her friend and I recognized her from pictures I have seen.

“You must be Riley, I’ve heard a lot about you,” The smiley girl stretched her hand out, “I am Isadora, Izzy for my friends.”

“It’s nice you meet you, Isadora,” I smiled and shook her hand.

“Izzy for you,” She winked and looked around, “A little bird told me Lucas Friar is your date for tonight.”

“What,” I looked at her and laughed, “Is there a newspaper around here – if so, they report fast.”

“I have sources,” Isadora laughed, “Isn’t he supposed to the do the whole limo experience?”

“Yes,” Maya turned to me, “Wasn’t he supposed to take you from your house and all that cheesy stuff.”

“I would, but I didn’t know where she lives,” Lucas said in my ear, and I jumped a little scared.

“Lucas,” I said laughing, turning around.

“Sorry for scaring you,” He smiled and looked me up and down, “Wow, you definitely are the most beautiful girl here.”

“Hey,” Maya and Izzy said in unison and we all laughed.

“She is,” Maya winked at me and grabbed her friend’s hand, “We will leave you to it, be careful with my friend.”

“I will,” Lucas nodded and then looked back at me, “That dress is incredible.”

“Thanks, I made it,” I looked at it and smiled, I was really proud of my work.

“You made that,” Lucas looked surprised, “Have you been to some fashion school abroad or something?”

“I, um,” I looked at my hands, “My parents know some designers and they lend me an internship.”

What are you talking about, Riley? Why does lies come out this easy around this guy?

“That’s neat,” He smiled and offered his hand, “How about I check out if you dance as well as you sew in sequins?”

“Okay,” I laughed and took his hand, slightly relieved, “But I warn you, there’s a chance you won’t keep up.”

“I’m willing to take it,” Lucas nodded and took me to the dancefloor, putting his hand on my back and pulling me close to him.

“So,” He started off, “Can I know more about you, Klutz?”

“What do you want to know,” I said, putting my hand around his neck, getting lost in his perfectly green eyes.

“Like, where are you from, where do you live, how do you know Maya?”

“Wow, Horatio Caine, slow down,” I laughed, “This sounds a lot like and interrogation.”

“I just want to know you better, that’s all,” Lucas smiled, not moving his gaze from my eyes.

“Okay,” I smiled, “I was born in New York but my parents travel a lot so I grew up all over the place.”

“Where are your parents now,” He asked, pulling me a little closer.

“They are, on a business trip so I am staying with Maya this year,” I looked down because I was lying, again, “So yeah, that’s it.”

“Well they should get back faster because I saw you hugging your driver today and I don’t think they will be okay with it,” Lucas laughed but I stopped dancing, just looking at him.

Maybe I was foolish to think that the most popular rich boy in this school actually has a heart.

“What’s wrong,” He asked concerned, “Did I say something to offend you?”

“No,” I let go of him and forced a smile, “I am actually not feeling well, I think the whole dance thing is done for me.”

“Wait, Riley-“

“I’ll see you at school, Lucas,” I nodded and turned around, shaking my head at how stupid I was.

“Hey, where are you going,” Maya stopped me as I was on my way to the door.

“I am going home,” I looked back at Lucas, “It’s time Cinderella gets in her pumpkin and leave the ball.”

“What happened, Riles,” Maya looked at me, holding my hand.

“We’ll talk when you get back,” I kissed her cheek and started walking backwards, “Have fun.”

“Hey, honey,” My mom said surprised when she came into my room, “Aren’t you supposed to be dancing right now?”

“I felt a little sick and came home,” I smiled, not wanting my mom to worry.

“I know you, Riley,” She sat on my bed, “What happened?”

“Let’s say I don’t actually fit in with these children,” I nodded, looking at my dress, “No matter how I dress, how I act – I will always be the poor girl living in the big house she doesn’t own.”

My mom looked down and I realized what I have said.

“I am sorry, mom,” I sighed, “You know I don’t mean it like that, I have you and dad – I don’t need anything else.”

“I know, sweety,” She looked up and half smiled, “Just keep being you, if they don’t like you – it’s their loss.”

I sighed as she kissed the top of my head and stood up to leave the room. I already lied to Lucas, I guess I couldn’t even be me.

“Hey,” A knock on my door made me turn around, “Can I come in?”

“Sure Maya,” I let out a little laugh, “I guess it’s open hours – also, it’s your house.”

“Lucas wanted to know where the daughter of the traveling parents went,” She climbed on my bed, “Is there something I have missed?”

“He asked me why I was hugging my driver, what was I supposed to say,” I looked down, “I don’t fit into your world Maya, I don’t know why I thought I could in the first place.”

“Oh, Riles,” She put her hand on top of mine, “Look, Lucas is not like the other rich kids you think you know.”

“What do you mean,” I looked up.

“Well, he is not some spoiled kid – his parents gained their wealth 2 years ago, until then he was like you, no offense,” Maya smiled innocently.

“None taken,” I let out a quiet laugh.

“I think that you should tell him the truth, I am sure he was just joking about the driver part – I am pretty sure he is in love with his butler, they are really close,” She laughed, trying to cheer me up.

“Is his butler an attractive girl?”

“If you call a 58 years old man an attractive girl, sure,” She laughed and playfully hit my shoulder.

“I guess I shouldn’t have lied,” I sighed, “I will make things right first thing in the morning.”

“Maybe you can make them right now,” Maya looked out the window of the house by the pool I was staying in.

I saw Lucas just standing there, awkwardly waving.

“Go and tell him everything,” Maya pushed me off the bed, “I will wait for you in my room.”

I put on my slippers and slid open the door, not caring that I was just in an old t-shirt and shorts.

“Hey,” I said smiling.

“Hi,” Lucas smiled too when I got to him, “I am really sorry for being here this late.”

“It’s okay,” I nodded, “Sorry for running off like that.”

“I just wanted to apologize if I said something wrong, I didn’t mean to offend you,” He made a step towards me.

“You don’t have to apologize,” I shook my head, “I am the one who should.”

“Why is that,” Lucas looked confused.

“Well, I wasn’t completely-“

His phone rang and he looked at the caller ID.

“I am really sorry, I have to take this,” He picked up the phone and I just nodded, waiting for him to be done.

“What,” He sounded surprised and worried, “What do you mean they stole it? I told you not to hire these people, mom – people like them always steal from the rich people they work for.”

I sighed and looked down – there is no way I am telling him the truth after this. Maybe he was like me once but as we all know, money change people. And sadly, they had changed Lucas.

“I will take care of it when I get back, don’t worry,” He looked at me, “Mom, I have to hang up now but I will be home in a few.”

“Is something wrong,” I asked in a quiet voice.

“Our cook stole some of my mom’s jewelry,” He shook his head, “I told her not to hire these people, how can they live in our house and still rip us off, I can’t understand it.”

“Yeah, me too,” I looked down.

“Anyway,” Lucas’ voice became softer again, “I interrupted you, what were you saying?”

“Nothing,” I smiled, “I just wanted to apologize for leaving like that. It’s getting late, you should go.”

“Oh, okay,” He had the same expression he had at the dance, “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, sure,” I nodded and made a few steps back, “Goodnight, Lucas.”

“Goodnight,” I heard his as I was turning around.

“This is not a fairytale, Riley,” I whispered to myself when I got back into my room, “Lucas is not a Prince Charming. You don’t belong in his world, you never have and you never will.”

#the girl in the mirror #rucas fanfic #rucas fanfiction #rucas #liley #riley matthews #lucas friar #gmw fanfic #gmw fanfiction #liley fanfic #my fanfiction #girl meets world #gmw

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perfectcomputerclasses4 · 4 years

Text

Ten Tips For Choosing a Good Digital Marketing Course

Are you looking for a course or master to learn Digital Marketing?

The advantages of doing a Digital Marketing Course and managing the online presence of your business or company yourself are undeniable: doing so yourself saves you from paying another person or agency and also controls the development and, if you do well, the result.

Sometimes, when you hire an expert in Digital Marketing, the process becomes somewhat complex because the professional may not understand your goals and needs and thus does not satisfy your aspirations. The result is frustration at having spent your money and not having achieved the stated goal. And let's not fool ourselves, there are times when you do not have the necessary liquidity but you need to start your business, especially in the beginning of your business or entrepreneurial project.

If you have a business or are a freelance professional and still have no presence on the internet, surely you've already asked: How can I learn Online Marketing? How to Choose a Digital Marketing Course in Chennai?

In this article I will list what I consider indispensable requirements when choosing a good Digital Marketing Course that will help you manage your social networks, create Online Marketing campaigns, Design a website, optimize SEO positioning, get subscribers , Earn followers on Twitter, etc:

1. Experience of teachers

It seems obvious, but it is not always so. When you are going to choose a Digital Marketing Course, find out before who your teachers will be. Are they currently employed? Do you manage the online presence of brands? Do you know the ins and outs of the profession?

An experienced professional will know a lot more than the theory that comes in the books: he will give you all kinds of advice, tricks that do not appear in the manuals, recommendations when drawing up a budget to a client and his own techniques that serve to squeeze to the maximum the tools.

Having a teacher who is both online marketing expert or experienced Community Manager and currently managing professional projects really makes a difference.

2. Cost

That a course is more expensive does not mean that it is better. Not much less. The quality of a course is in the people, in the organization and in the enthusiasm with which they transmit their knowledge. At the time of choosing, forget the titles and certificates, in a changing world and live as is the Digital Marketing only serves to decorate a wall. From experience, when I graduated as a specialist in Digital Marketing I realized that there are schools that put expensive courses because they have to pay for their high investment in advertising.

3. References

We are fully engaged in the 2.0 world. Just like when you buy any product you inform yourself on the internet and look at opinions of other consumers, when you look for a course, find out on the internet what people think about the Training center and the course. Use Google to find opinions, search social networks, ask alumni directly. They will better tell you the real value of the course.

4. Practical approach

Analyze the content of the course carefully. What is more important to learn Digital Marketing Training in Chennai? Do you theoretically tell all that you can find on your own by documenting on the internet or that teach you in a practical way to apply the theory about your own real project? It is about learning how to work as an digital Marketing professional, not about getting an opposition.

A course that is not practical will be a frustrating experience: you will have filled your data head but you will not know how to apply them to do your work with guarantees. See if in the course they propose practical exercises, if they send you homework, if you are going to "tighten" the nuts a little. The work of Community Manager and expert in Digital Marketing is learned with practice, with real projects.

5. Resources

To learn Digital Marketing you will need a good amount of resources: tools, graphic resources, images, video tutorials, etc. Without these resources, no matter how hard you try you will not get a really professional result. So make sure the school has a site where you can download resources that will be served during the course and after the course, when you are managing your clients' accounts and yours.

6. Schedule

Look closely at the course syllabus. Is it adapted to current trends? Does it contain everything you are looking for? A good Digital Marketing Courses in Chennai should prepare you comprehensively so that you are not only able to use Community Manager tools, analytics or advertisements, but also to design and plan real campaigns in social networks and manage all aspects of Online Marketing in a practical way .

If the syllabus is huge in proportion to the number of hours of the course, perhaps that is an indicator that there are parts that cannot be dealt with in depth and therefore you will not learn them with guarantees.

7. Monitoring and flexibility

We are people. Aside from the course, you are sure to have other occupations, and it is very important that the school understands that one day you may be presented with any unforeseen, a personal matter or a job to attend. When this happens and you fail to see a class, it would be frustrating if the institute does not offer you alternatives so that you can get back to class or catch up with the class on another shift or even with personalized teacher support so you do not fall behind other colleagues.

A good training center keeps track of your progress and offers you alternatives to get the most out of the course.

8. Facilities

Look for a Digital Marketing Chennai that has good facilities where you feel at ease, because it will be the place where you will spend a lot of hours when you start the course. It has spacious classrooms, modern equipment, projectors where you can see the teacher's screen, wifi connection if you want to take your laptop, spacious tables and comfortable chairs, have outdoor lighting and some recreation area where you can stretch out a little at the breaks And even do some networking with other students, comment impressions, exchange projects, etc.

Also check where it is and try to make sure that the school you choose is located in a well-connected place so that later you do not feel lazy to go very far.

9. Feeling

A Training institute is also a company where people work. Each company has a peculiarity and a spirit of its own that come out of its philosophy and its circumstances. Look carefully at the atmosphere in the school. Before signing up, get to know the people and teachers working on it and look at the details. If you see a teacher, try to empathize and look if you are stressed or on the other hand you feel happy with what you do. A company where people are comfortable and know their function and goals is a happy company. And happiness is contagious and stimulates creativity.

10. Attention after the course

Nothing worse than an institute that will forget you at the end of the course, Ask ex alumni. Has the institute worried about what they have done after the course and has tried to help them achieve their goals or on the contrary have felt like a client more that at the end of the course happens to become a figure and little else?

A educate is more than a company that sells services and must worry about the future of its students, who finish their projects, find a job, get customers, who feel satisfied. Find out if they offer tutorials or some kind of guarantee that you can return when you want to ask questions. The success of an academic center is measured by the particular success of its students.

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junker-town · 6 years

Text

Aaron Maybin’s fight for Baltimore schools won’t end with turning the heat back on

A day with Aaron Maybin in the wake of his viral moment that helped give Baltimore school kids heat in the middle of winter.

A woman Aaron Maybin calls his sister, Catalina, walks into her beauty of a row home in West Baltimore. The house is adorned with nods to civil unrest. Posters of Martin Luther King Jr. with the phrase “Aids Is A Civil Rights Issue” line a shelf in the room next to the kitchen. The walls have pictures of black trumpeters and black amazons with jutting Afros. Angie Thomas and Maya Angelou novels scatter the floor along with Maybin’s own books and flyers for art shows.

A baby is running around the kitchen in blue pajamas, nibbling a green apple. Maybin is on a stool trying to unwind, but his eyes are on his phone, watching an interview that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ben Jealous is giving about Baltimore’s frigid public schools.

“I’m so tired of these promises, man,” he says, before putting his phone down and walking to another room to do what he says is his 10th interview of the day. He finishes and walks back to the kitchen, relieved to be done. It may be the first time I’ve seen him happy all day.

The night before, Maybin got drunk after dealing with the barrage of his viral moment. It was all too much. The notifications, the messages, political banter, everything.

“How would you feel if your kids sat in a refrigerator for eight hours?”

“Most of the time in Baltimore, we gotta self medicate,” he says. “You’re giving your energy to everybody. You gotta sometimes take care of you.”

Maybin, a former NFL first-rounder turned Baltimore school teacher, often spends his mornings readings to kids at Matthew A. Henson Elementary in Sandtown. Last Wednesday, however, he couldn’t ignore that kids were shivering. The temperature in the room dipped below 40 degrees. Many didn’t have coats. “We can’t be in this space and have a normal day,” he tells me.

Maybin started taping a conversation with his kids on his phone.

“What’s the day been like for you guys today?” he asked them.

“Coldddddd!” his kids responded.

“Very, very, very, very, very, very cold,” a girl said.

“Super, super cold,” another boy said.

“Yesterday I had frost bite!” one last kid said.

Maybin tweeted the video of the exchange and was met with an overwhelming response. Publications swooped to his inbox, and thousands interacted with his Twitter account. He wasn’t expecting the reaction. He thought he was just venting. Maybin was disgusted with Baltimore’s unenthused response to freezing kids. He was fed up with his city.

“How would you feel if your kids sat in a refrigerator for eight hours?” he says. “Like, how do you think my kids are doing? They aren’t doing well.”

The city of Baltimore hasn’t been able to properly heat its classrooms, filled with mostly black children, for years. Baltimore’s heart has always had to fight for a better city — from the 1968 riots, to a fight for school integration in the ’90s, to the Baltimore Uprising after Freddie Gray’s tragic death. It is a city whose history is shaped by activism. People here have seen many calls for change before Maybin’s.

So, it’s not hard to imagine folks asking: “What’s different this time?” when they’ve seen it all before. Maybin is asking for Baltimore’s trust, to believe he can be one of the city’s good stewards.

“Any time we have black men, as teachers, especially in Baltimore, it’s a very powerful thing,” says Kwame Rose, a friend of Maybin’s and prominent activist in the city. “If more black, male athletes came home and did that, it gives kids real-life role models. If one of these athletes comes home and is now their teacher, that’s powerful. That gives kids hope. My hero ain’t on TV. My hero is right in front of me.”

Maybin doesn’t mind being a symbol, but he’s worried about being seen as only that. That’s the crux of his frustration in the days since his viral moment. He got the world’s attention, but attention is fleeting. Maybin wants results.

“We aren’t marching. We don’t have signs. It’s sitting and talking and planning and spreadsheets for the greater good of helping these kids,” Maybin says during the day while typing on his phone. “This is what leads to policy change, to me. This ain’t the sexy side of activism.”

The Washington Post/Getty Images

Kindergarten students at the East Baltimore Community School.

The sun is trying to trick Baltimore into believing it’s warm out. It feels subzero as I wait for Maybin at the bank. He’s coming to deposit money he has collected that will buy hats, coats, and space heaters for children until the school’s heating units are fixed.

“Damn, man,” I say. “It’s cold out here.”

Maybin is slender for a 6’4 former linebacker. His dreads are layered in fourths, an intricate fishtail design, accompanied with a full beard partially covering the scar on the left side of his face.

He grins.

“Ay, man. That’s Baltimore.”

Maybin walks into the bank with two women, Samierra Jones and Valerie Arum.

“We might be at $50,000 right now,” Maybin says. “I think someone about to make a sizable donation. My friend who’s a stylist for Chris Brown said so.”

Truthfully, Maybin has no blueprint for how to do this. Maybin was called well after the GoFundMe was started and became the face of the fundraising effort. Jones, a senior at Coppin State who grew up in the Baltimore school system, began the campaign. “I don’t think people understand,” she says shuffling with her phone at the bank. “We’ve been working at [this] non-stop.”

Jones called Arum, the stepdaughter of a Baltimore school teacher and organizer who helped lead a successful lawsuit that got additional funding for Maryland’s HBCUs, for help. By the time they were posting on social networks, Maybin was going viral. The trio knew each other before the campaign, and Jones and Arum reached out to Maybin. Black women, like many times across America’s organizing history, led this action.

“A lot of people were skeptical that it was two young, black women who started it but that doesn’t matter,” Maybin says. “At the end of the day we know where [the money] is going.”

No one wanted to begin the project without all of them being present for financial transactions. Arum stressed that the important thing is the children.

“There’s a lot of neglect when it comes to city schools, especially in the poorer neighborhoods. Poor neighborhoods don’t benefit the government and the growth of the city,” Arum says. “They are just a liability (to them).”

Since 2009, Baltimore city schools have lost around $66 million in state funding for repairs, according to The Baltimore Sun. Approved projects were more expensive than assumed. Repairs took too long. And any money allocated for new heating systems vanished overnight.

The Maryland Public School Construction Program listed Baltimore City as only having 17 percent of its schools in “good” condition. A 2012 Jacobs Report revealed that only 3 percent of the district’s 18.5 million square footage was built within the last 25 years, 74 percent of which was built between 1946 and 1985.

The result is hundreds of black children being condemned to a bad educational environment, making it harder for them to reach their potentials. And cold kids are only one of Maybin’s fights. Baltimore schoolchildren still can barely drink from water fountains because of a decade of lead contamination in their schools.

“For a long time we’re saying, How is it that you don’t get it?” says Monique Crowley, a 7th grade teacher at nearby Montebello. “For someone to stand up and say, unapologetically, This is what’s happening in the school system and what can we do to fix it. Someone like (Maybin) might be the someone who opens their eyes. He doesn’t have anything to gain or lose.”

The deposit at the bank must wait for another day. Some wires have gotten crossed and the transaction is taking too long. There’s another appointment to get to if he’s to deliver supplies to the city. Three coat drop offs that the trio organized via email just ended. If Baltimore schools are going to warm up any time soon, plenty needs to be done. Maybin buttons up and heads out into the cold.

Facebook

Aaron Maybin teaching a group of kids on a field trip to his exhibition at the Frederick Douglass Museum in Baltimore.

Maybin’s life since the viral moment has been frenetic. He’s constantly checking his phone, scrolling through Twitter and texts from unassigned numbers, as we swerve through Baltimore in the back of an Uber.

“Damn I haven’t been able to put this phone down in days,” he says. “If I showed you all the shit I missed, you wouldn’t believe it.”

In addition to a life of fatherhood, painting, and teaching, Maybin has added the balancing act of being a public face at a crucial time. Yes, the money is the reason we’re here. The children are the forefront of this charge. But if he stops checking Twitter, will the kids lose funds? Will J.R. Smith, whose camp is calling him right now, send the food these kids really need? Would Chris Brown, who Maybin met at Art Basel a few times, post about this online?

That’s unknown, but what he’s doing has seemingly yielded results. Bart Scott, the 11-year veteran, sent money. Adam Jones of the Orioles, Torrey Smith of the Eagles, and, yes, Brown, all donated, some calling Maybin personally.

There is no obligation for black athletes to give to troubled communities, but many do. Some donate money. Some donate time. Some donate platforms and voices. There are no perfect protesters; there’s just a need to have consistent ones, especially when no one is watching.

“Guys are always in their communities like this but no one cares,” Maybin says. “They don’t care until it’s a big enough stage and they wanna celebrate it. People love to fetishize poverty. And we’ve accepted that as the societal norm for how we see black people. When you do that, it marginalizes the position of the oppressed person. You trivialize the reality of that person.

“You can see the video of students freezing and cast blame. But who cares whose fault it is? What are we doing about it?”

That’s the crux of Maybin’s fight. He’s often impatient. He dislikes waiting for anything that doesn’t serve whatever he believes is a greater purpose. He enjoys seeing major networks discussing Baltimore. He smiles watching ESPN bring Baltimore’s education crisis to the national public. Ultimately, he cares about the kids, his family, and Baltimore — yet, he knows that publicity is necessary.

Driving along W. Franklin street Maybin stops checking his phone to point toward a barren field. “I grew up that way.”

Maybin grew up in West Baltimore off Edmondson Avenue. His grandfather was a sharecropper who migrated from the South to work in the shipyard of Bethlehem Steel. All of his uncles followed suit. His grandfather had 14 kids and fed the family off his salary, keeping fresh produce at their home from his farm.

Maybin’s father, Michael, wanted him to leave Baltimore and play football in Howard County. The idea was that there might be better somewhere else, if there wasn’t better here. Even if, as his father said, those counties were never made for black people. Though the decision reaped athletic gold, it made Maybin uncomfortable. He’s never felt stable anywhere but Baltimore.

“I don’t wanna be a part of the political machine,” Maybin says. “I feel like it’s hard to trust these people.”

The county life led to State College, an All-American career at Penn State, a first-round pick, and pro stints in Buffalo and New York. Maybin retired his parents with his rookie contract and got them homes in Hilton Head, S.C. He told them to design their dream house. And, ever the artist, he etched and “built that shit.”

This is his first full year as a teacher. He’s not yet full time. He wouldn’t have much time to be at school five days a week, anyway, because of art exhibitions, book signings, and speaking engagements. When he started his Project Mayhem foundation in 2009, he centered it on schools that lost art programs to budget cuts.

Maybin left football because he said he was unfulfilled. After being released from Cincinnati, teams still wanted to meet. He was packing his bags to visit Indianapolis when everything in him told him no.

“I didn’t wanna convince a whole locker room of dudes I didn’t bang with that I was gonna help get a Super Bowl,” he says. “My heart wasn’t in it.”

He was more passionate about artwork and grassroots organizing. He had made enough money to survive. His parents had a new house. What he was doing off the field felt more important.

“It’s always been a game to me. It was a kids game I happened to be good at,” he says. “What I’m doing now is fighting for kids to fight for the same opportunities I was blessed to do. This is now where my heart is at.”

Detractors have attacked him and the GoFundMe — some with legitimate concerns, he admits.

Some have said that buying and placing “dangerous” space heaters in classrooms isn’t a viable solution. Power outlets can short circuit, though Maybin says he has scheduled fire crews to do walk-throughs of certain schools to see what is possible.

Some have said that his effort isn’t doing anything, that this is too short-sighted. Some schools have more issues than just temperature. The kids need books, too, and less lead in their drinking water. Many items donated cannot be approved without the agreement of the city.

Given that, it’s easy for cynics to say that his efforts are useless. That thinking implies, to Maybin, that black lives are secondary, and he has no patience for it.

“There’s a lot of work here. I’ll drive myself crazy making sure we have to do what we said we can do,” Maybin says. “When I put my name on something, if I’m asking for folks to donate, I’m in it for the long haul.”

His first step is raising money. The next step is meeting with the lawmakers of the city. Maybe they can match his donations. Maybe they’d be willing to hear a new voice. He’s desperate for anything, really.

“We can’t have this be a singular solution.”

Maybin grapples with worry. He has it himself. Change might not be coming to Baltimore, but Maybin cannot afford to believe that.

“What should I do? Would you rather me teach these kids, look them in the eye, and let them shiver?” he says. “No. My students will never be cold again.”

Instagram

Aaron Maybin and his daughter, Tacori.

We pull up to Celestial Cafe, a beauty salon turned cramped political fundraising camp, on Belair Road. Marques Dent, a man running for delegate in Baltimore, invited Maybin to speak to donors.

It’s a room full of black people discussing Baltimore’s school district. These are voters, fundraisers, and suits of the city willing, at least during election season, to care about the issues Maybin has organized around.

Wale plays as folks eat salmon cakes. Maybin is thanked by people he has never seen. He feels an obligation to meet donors, but this isn’t really his scene. People pull him in every direction for hugs and handshakes. The colorful ascots and velvet jackets clash with his pea-colored bomber. This is often the job of the advocate, to schmooze and booze with the best in the city in hopes that they’ll care about the fight of the day.

Maybin is offered food and sheepishly pushes it away. “You sure?” Dent asks. “Yeah. I ate before I came.” Maybin says. He backs out of pictures he doesn’t think are mandatory. He shakes hands only when necessary. As he tries to move out of the way of the crowd, he awkwardly leans on several light switches, inadvertently turning off about half the lights at the small fundraiser.

For now, Maybin has an audience, and that’s all that matters. If a politician can glad-hand his way through a crowd and reassure Maybin that something will be done about freezing kids in Baltimore, then this effort could be worthwhile. That is, if something is done. It may be easier to care about black people in the warmth of a gala than it is in the middle of a cold street.

“I don’t wanna be a part of the political machine,” Maybin says. “I feel like it’s hard to trust these people.”

As he says that, more constituents ask about his latest book, but the conversation shifts.

“Aaron, before you go, she wants you to draw something for her,” one woman says.

“Oh. Uh, I really don’t do that,” Maybin says.

“No, I just want you to sketch this for a tattoo,” the woman says.

“Why, the tattoo artist can’t do that?” Maybin says, giving a strained smile.

The lights begin to shut off and Maybin shakes the last few hands in the place while turning toward the door.

“I need to find the exact stipulations out before I leave the house,” he says. “I wasn’t really cool with this. It strayed from what I’m doing. I don’t need people to pat me on the back. I wanna know how we will fix this as a collective. But I don’t wanna come off as an angry black man.”

It’s nearly 10 p.m. The day has dragged. He starts talking to a man known as “O.”

“We raised $55,000 today.”

“$60,000,” I say, having just checked. (As of publication, the campaign had raised nearly $79,000.)

“Wow.” He leans his head back, then exhales. “Sixty fucking thousand in two days!”

“You the man!” someone yells.

He thinks for a second. “This is incredible. But even with 60 grand we might be able to really help one or two [schools],” Maybin says.

“Even with all this,” he sighs. “This is a Band Aid on a shotgun wound.”

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armpitnoodlejuice · 7 years

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Black girl gone raw on the white cutting board

I'm a black shadow in a tub of milk. My school is predominately white. If I see another black soul it's rare. I'm used to it. What I'm not used to is speaking on it. I'm asked to journal about my experiences with discrimination for my diversity class. My teacher is great. I like her I do. But it's not easier to write while Black. She passed us an article and asked for our thoughts. It's was called editing while white and the topic of using an upper case B or lower case b when writing Black person or people. She asked us to share if we use B or b and why. I just had to write a poem because I can't explain why I think using B is important without pathos. Before the poem I wrote my truth. There isn't a day in my life that I don't wake up and think of the color of my skin. I wake up Black and I am hyper aware of it. I choose particular clothing because I'm Black. I style my hair a certain way because I am Black. I walk with confidence and fear because I'm Black. I think twice bécause I'm Black. I wish I had the luxury of not considering whether or not a door was not held for me because I am Black. . Every one thinks Black is just a skin color. Oh I how I wish it was. Black is a noun, pronoun, adjective, and verb.

It's a story and an experience that you cannot have or compare any struggle to because it is so unique. Don't tell me the gay experience is the same as the Black experience. You can be gay or you can be Black and be gay. I promise you the one attached to black has a harder time. You can be a woman or you can be a black woman. I promise you the one attachéd to Black has a harder time.

Don't you know Black is death, Black is a deep dark hole, Black is awful, Black is the worse. There's porn sites called Blacked. When they write about our body parts you can hear the sexual exploitation. Big Black dick. You know Black girls make more money than any other color on webcams ? I hear ppls say I really want Black dick, I want a Black girl to ride me. I have to be real with you, teacher. I know you're White, but you want my Black honesty. They wanna fuck us 'but they'd rarely bring us to mom and dad. And if they do our Black stain burdens them. Black mark, disgraced by association. Your daughter just got Blacked .... out of the family. But don't worry the mixed kids might be worth it. They're so pretty, but the mixed kids are Black. They're not allowed to be Black and White. 1 drop of Black and you're just not good enough. If you can pass for White, life will be easier. Only mention your Black side if you're good at basketball. That'll make you cool. Chicks might wanna see your dick. I have to sit in a classroom and be the only Black face while watching videos on slavery.

Looking at pictures of women like me being hung, naked and raped. Sometimes there's some types of porn I cannot watch. I have to sit here and either hold my stomach or avoid being numb. I'm so used to seeing this that sometimes It's like drinking morning coffee. Hey teacher this is not easy. But our parents taught us and through life we have come to see that this is part of our reality. The Black reality. Ppls take pills for anxiety. They say life's too hard. Life's too sad. You know the Black community is the least medicated? I mean I'm a walking target. I'm the most loved and fear thing out here. One person that looks like me fucks up and even then I'm fucked too. All eyes on me. The skin I m with is attached with anxiety. I'm as scared of you as you are me. Why don't I use pills? I can't. The anxiety is Within the society. I cannot medicate my Blackness like you can your sadness. There's is too much that cannot be masked and hidden from my mind. My problems start with being viewed as a problem whether im a saint or a sinner.

But hey teacher I do not have hate in my heart. I'm African, my people in Africa still being raped and still enslaved. Being killed, being hunted. Here in the states too. I don't wanna get this deep with you. I know you want us to break down our walls and bias. But you're White and I don't think you can understand it. Do i talk to my Non Black friends about my skin color on this level rarely unless I just got called Nigger and they witnessed it. My non-Black friends who witness it get blinded and hit with a culture shock- racism is still here, what? Sometimes a Black person walks out and forgets their Black and just knows they’re human.. and then that happens.

I've been called Nigger maybe a good 8 times. So I've had 8 talks. Well 7. The first time I got called Nigger I was 6. Second 11. Third time 15. Fourth time 20. Once a toddler called me a Nigger. Now I know her daddy taught her that. So I'm talking like this not for a grade.

You know I will never forget the day I say on the playground with my friend Maya when we were 12 and we said hey, I think we’d be better off dead. There’s no hope for us. The Black race is gonna die out, fuck it. Fuck us, we’re so broken and stomped on and everything we do isn’t good enough. I was 12. Then at 19, my friend Brian called me and we had a conversation and I said man, our Race is dying out and he said, Good we’d all be better of dead anyway. I thought of that talk at 12 with Maya. No, this isn’t right. I’m worth living, I’m worth it, my color is perfect, it’s right, my mom is worth a life, my dad is worth a life. This was before Black Lives Matter. I cannot express the shame in my words at 12. I cannot express the shame of thinking hey little Black child, just die. This mentality will make me the worse mother, the wrose daughter, the worst friend, the worse lover. You know what the problem was and you know where it all came from? It was the belief of thinking racism was something you’re born with. Noooo, nooo, noo this is taught. We were made to believe I am not worth life and they created barriers that have tricked me into thinking I am not worth life.

I'm the only Black face in this class for you. So you want truth, not bullshit with text book terms. I'm giving you truth because I like you and I know you teach diversity because you want it. The feedback on the last journal told me you wanted me to be raw because we're learning from each other. But I will remind you time and time again. The Black experience is similar for all, but unique for all. My thoughts cannot speak for every Black person. Please don't assume that. Keep assigning these journals and I have a good feeling you'll have more students of color. Anyway, I have given you the reason why I must use B and not b. I am Black and all that I have written comes with being Black for me. I cannot use b with something that has shaped everything in my life. Black is a curse, but Black is my blessing. G-d given. So hated and loved. So wanted, yet avoided. Black is heaven in bed, Black is hell in the streets. So painful, so abused, yet so forgiving. This skin Im in has given me some-many gifts. It's taught me to love the loveless, forgive the wicked, want to teach the ignorant, the blind, the deceived, If there's anything your class is doing for me it's teaching me that I can remain sane. The more I sit in your class I learn that this hate was truly taught. That anything learned can be unlearned. That the definitions assigned to us are just that, assigned, but not fact.

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nofomoartworld · 7 years

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Hyperallergic: Yvonne Rainer on How Filmmaking Gave Her Language

From Lives of Performers (1972) (courtesy Zeitgeist Films)

The inimitable dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker Yvonne Rainer is having a retrospective of her films starting Friday, July 21 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. An instrumental force in avant-garde dance and key player in the inception of the art collective Judson Dance Theater, Rainer took to filmmaking in the 1970s, occupying a unique space that both straddled and rejected the modes of performance art, documentary, essay, and film. Her directorial debut Lives of Performers (1972) tells the story of a love triangle between members of a dance ensemble through lovingly captured rehearsals, scraps of text, and dissonant voiceover. Film About A Woman Who… (1974) probes the norms of romantic taboo by telling the story of an extramarital affair in hushed allusions and repressed memories, the characters known only as “he” and “she.” (In that film, Rainer briefly occupies the role of a lady lion tamer, who says “Martha Graham and Jean-Luc Godard were as responsible for my leaving the circus as anybody”). Across the board, Rainer’s films are formally innovative and disinterested in the established strictures of narrative — which is to say, of cliché.

Rainer’s movies collapse safe boundaries between maker, work, and audience, not just once or twice (for easy, cathartic effect) but consistently throughout, drawing you back to square one and insisting that you take a long, hard look at your own relationship to the screen — a relationship which, like so many others, Rainer does not let us forget is about power.

“I must emphasize that it was language that filmmaking offered to me,” Rainer said over the phone. She describes dance as more “limited” in this sense, but that ever since she recently starting choreographing again, she’s been incorporating text, from art criticism to news articles, that she avidly reads. “I put a microphone up and interrupt what the dancers are doing. I’m like this gadfly, roaming around the stage, trying to get messages out. And it’s all live.”

For an octogenarian art-world legend, Rainer wasn’t just approachable; she was self-effacing, unpretentious, and easy to talk to. Time and again, the artist shrugged off theoretical approaches in favor of bringing conversation back to her means of production and, above all else, the work itself.

* * *

From Film About A Woman Who… (1974) (courtesy Zeitgeist Films)

Steve Macfarlane: To quote your own film, Journeys from Berlin: “let’s start somewhere.” In Kristina Talking Pictures (1976), a backdrop of environmental collapse is used to explore the dissolution of a relationship. Around that time you mentioned using the camera to fragment or zoom in on the things that had been unavailable to you as a choreographer.

Yvonne Rainer: Kristina was my third film. Having read this book about oil tankers and the dangers of their capsizing and spreading oil, the havoc they’d cause on the natural world, that was the main topic. My dancing was not narrative; it was abstract, athletic, it had references, perhaps, but to dance history. My M.O. was to deal with a broader range of social, political issues. Filmmaking, the New American Cinema — Hollis Frampton, Maya Deren, and others — it was a way to combine aesthetic concerns with specific social issues. Then there were my contemporaries, Laura Mulvey and Peter Woolen, who made “talking pictures” with a lot of dialogue and didacticism. I knew them; my work was on programs with theirs.

From Kristina Talking Pictures (courtesy Zeitgeist Films)

SM: Where were these screenings happening?

YR: Anthology Film Archives. The same situation as today: small film showcases, universities… I’ve never been in the big theaters that show Hollywood films.

SM: So much of the work plays with annotation: newspaper clippings, unattributed quotes, performers almost possessed by dialogues or texts that “break the spell” of the filmmaking.

YR: I must emphasize that it was language that filmmaking offered to me: I could play around with voice, I could interrupt someone speaking with a title or subtitle. Dance at that point seemed very limited to me in terms of my wider interests.

SM: Tell me about the decision to use that Rolling Stones song “No Expectations” in Lives of Performers.

YR: Oh… I just liked the song. It comes in halfway through a series of tableaux vivants — I probably just felt I had to liven up this staid, silent progression.

SM: So practical!

YR: A lot of choices had to do with duration. My feelings at that time were heavily prompted by John Cage: “if you can stand it for two minutes, try it for four.” In Film About A Woman Who…, there’s a long, slow tracking shot that seems interminable to me now. If I’m ever in an audience when it’s projected, I stay just to see when people will walk out! (Laughs) Sometimes the aesthetic adhered to more conventional standards, and then other times it was subject to disruption — the radical juxtaposition I mentioned earlier. If there’s any hard and fast rule, I guess it’s that one. Which I have continued to do throughout my film career.

From Kristina Talking Pictures (1976) (courtesy Zeitgeist Films)

SM: If that shot took an eternity in 1972, it can only be more radical now: everything’s faster, shorter, louder, more saturated.

YR: There’s a scene in Jean Vigo’s Zero For Conduct where a boy has to stay after school, alone, in the classroom as punishment. He’s there for quite a while — fiddling his feet or his hands — and we have to stay with him. It’s far longer than you would expect in a film, then or today — and for Lives I took that and ran with it, when Valda Setterfield is sitting on the couch. There’s a cat beside her. She’s facing the camera, her back is against the wall. I let her go long twitching her feet — that was fascinating to me. It’s almost like a photograph. So yeah, I was very interested in what one could get away with. I didn’t feel I was violating any traditional narrative rules. The point was: What minimum of movement could keep you, or me, interested, at that particular moment? The end tableaux all had an exact duration of 15 seconds, something like that, timed with a stopwatch. At the end of each shot, the movement comes and you cut to the still. Like a metronome. And “No Expectations” came in exactly two thirds of the way through.

SM: And before that sequence, you see them rehearsing together one last time. The room empties out and there’s one last intertitle: “Emotional relationships are relationships of desire, tainted by coercion and constraint. Something is expected of the other person and that makes him (and ourselves) unfree.”

YR: That’s Jung. I always felt other people could say things more accurately than I could (laughs). Now, since I’ve returned to dance, quotation is almost entirely what I utilize. It’s enabled me to come back to choreography; I no longer dance so much as I read. So there’s a continuity from the way I use language in film to the way I use it now, the kind of radical juxtaposition, to choreographic images. That itself is a quotation from Susan Sontag — films are full of radical juxtapositions — language, enactment, imagery.

From Mind Is a Muscle (1963)

SM: Is that something you’ve taken from filmmaking and put back into choreography?

YR: I made seven films, from 1972 to 1996, mainly through grants. Each doubled or tripled in cost, ranging from five to 10 thousand dollars in the early ’70s to $250,000 for MURDER and murder… I wasn’t about to make compromises in making more accessible kinds of work. I still wanted to make narrative films, and I could no longer raise the money.

And I was never very comfortable as a filmmaker; I loved the writing and editing, but the production, with the hierarchy, there was never enough money, and post-production… It was a nightmare to deal with laboratories where things were always going wrong and I didn’t have the money to reshoot. My work wasn’t very polished technically. I was, am, and will continue to be a techno-dummy! So I always knew there was a limited time I could do this. The economics of it create a preordained ending. I had my fill of the technical complications of filmmaking.

I remember arguments with Babette Mangolte, who taught me all about editing and was camerawoman on my first two-and-a-half films. She said, “You’ve done this twice, don’t do it again!” Sometimes I listened, sometimes I didn’t. Peter Wollen always used to say: “They let you make five.” Well, they, whoever they were, the powers that be, let me make seven. And I felt very lucky. But in a way I was very happy returning to dance. I never did my own camerawork, that’s part of my technical inaptitude.

I was always overly dependent on other people. As a choreographer I can relate to the dancers, I can feel more comfortable — to me it’s a much more direct situation in terms of creating something.

From Lives of Performers (1972) (courtesy Zeitgeist Films)

SM: Lives of Performers struck me as this quintessentially collaborative, 1960s effort. Then I looked at your book of screenplays, published in 1989, and realized how meticulously your work is written ahead of time.

YR: But Lives was different from all my other films. In the few places where it might seem to be in sync, the speech was dubbed. This process entailed making a rough cut without sound, letting the performers all look at it, and then recording their responses — laughing, commenting. I also assigned them various instructions in this kind of makeshift script: read this. Paraphrase this. So you’re hearing variations in the way they speak. And I was still dancing then. I had a performance at the Whitney: one side of the space I projected a rough cut without sound, while the performers sat in front and read their lines, while other live performers did the same things that you saw in the projected images. I never made anything like that again. The scripts were much more detailed and better adhered-to than that one. So now I am very fond of Lives — it has a kind of impromptu, ad hoc aspect I never tried to duplicate again.

SM: The first film of yours I saw was The Man Who Envied Women.

YR: Where the main character, Jack Deller — as in, “Jack, Tell Her” — is played by two different actors.

SM: Tell me about shooting the lecture scene, wherein Jack (or the two Jacks, as it were) are lecturing on Foucault and Lacan. The camera slowly wraps around the lectern, back to the audience, past the audience, into the other rooms of the apartment… Students are splaying light on them as they ask questions, the audio tracks are blending, the dynamics are all out of whack, untenable.

YR: Oh, the impossible lecture scene. That came verbatim from my friend, the philosopher Thomas Zummer, who had been a disciple of Foucault. I just put his lecture in the mouths of the two actors in front of this very bored classroom, and ran with it. A funny scene, but in hindsight I’m critical of it. Not for the lecture, but because it was in a huge, newly renovated loft I was borrowing from an artist, who hadn’t moved in yet. One of the themes of that film is artists buying abandoned tenements in the Lower East Side. We move from the lecture space to this empty, new kitchen area, and then this glass, brick wall, into the bathroom… I was exploring these icons of real estate development in lower Manhattan. But I don’t think that’s clear enough. If I were to do it again I would put a big banner on the wall: “MOVE UP TO DOWNTOWN.” I saw that banner traveling in Seattle — the real estate agents were encouraging people to buy these newly developed co-ops.

From The Man Who Envied Women (1985) (courtesy Zeitgeist Films)

SM: You use yet another framing device when Jack sits and talks about his sex life, and scenes from Hollywood movies from his generation’s childhood are playing behind him. There’s a lot of choreography in that, too.

YR: Well, these are film noirs — all films about women either putting themselves down or being put down, condescended to, by men. Even after Barbara Stanwyck finally shoots Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity, she’s apologizing for it! I was very influenced by my becoming conscious of the role women play in patriarchy. All those films behind Jack reflect that.

I was trying to deal with different power relations — the power of the community in the Lower East Side, to shoot down the city’s attempts at making money off of middle-class artists, selling them property, and then the other events going on at that time.

SM: The film also uses Jack’s milieu to interrogate artist communities during the Reagan Administration — there’s a through-line about death squads in Central America, and the ineffectiveness of artists, of “high culture” at large, in standing against something like that. Were you at a point of frustration?

YR: Oh. I never expected my work to change the world in any way. The best I can ask of anything I do is that it gives support and encouragement to like-minded people. Certainly I don’t rule out art’s possibility to intervene, especially in the situation we’re in now. We have to keep making moves against this appalling presidency — I’m signing six petitions a day! Artists have to stay awake, and not belittle small moves. You have to try, to join with other people and get resistance into your work, whatever way you can — even in dance (laughs). I still find that harder to do.

SM: What’s harder?

YR: I’m interested in movements and by moving people around, but it’s still restricted by the norms and history of choreography. Again: language is where I can still make inroads and make allusions to a larger world. I love to switch gears, to keep you guessing, pulling them in and then pushing them away — a Brechtian device. You so easily lose yourself in narrative conventions, the shot-reverse shot; even in the later films, I always try to break that up. And wake you up, so to speak.

SM: Your work is always self-aware in the sense that it shows how film images lie.

YR: Language lies, but there’s a lot of irony to the language I use. Outright description, commentary, etcetera. When quotations are being juxtaposed to the dancers, it’s interrupting what happens on stage. If I were still making films I would probably present this Ghosh quote in a rolling title. I don’t know what the image would be around/before/after it, but you know — sometimes I would have someone read it, or…. But I would get this message out, somehow.

SM: It’s hard not to think of your “No Manifesto” (1965), which included: “No to the glamor and transcendency of the star image”; “No to seduction of the spectator by the wiles of the performer”; and “No to moving or being moved.” Your filmmaking was never about pretty pictures. To you, what is the value of beauty today?

From Film About A Woman Who… (1974) (courtesy Zeitgeist Films)

YR: I’m as susceptible to beauty as the next person. A little bit goes a long way, maybe? I just saw The Beguiled, with Kirsten Dunst and Nicole Kidman. The way Sofia Coppola cuts away to these southern, misty, cobwebby, moss-ridden landscapes over and and over again — well, I thought she overdid it a bit. But, it’s not my aesthetic. It is surprising though, how that male character who seems so seductive and sympathetic in the beginning, all of a sudden he becomes a monster — and I’m such a realist or a literalist, you know, I don’t believe Kidman’s character character would have the expertise to cut off his leg without him dying of sepsis. I found that very unlikely. But that’s what conventional films do: they condense what might be a much longer narrative and you have to go along with it. The devices do draw you in, but I like fewer and fewer movies being made today.

One film I saw recently which excited me was Streetscapes by the German filmmaker Heinz Emigholz. It was an ambitious and captivating survey of his obsessions and personal history with architecture and film. I’m still processing it.

Film noir was wonderful for me — on TV I would sit and binge every afternoon; around 3 o’clock, they were showing film noirs. And before that, in San Francisco, my father, who was trilingual, would take me to see French and Italian art movies. Those were the days! But when you’re younger you’re much more susceptible to those kinds of things — then you undergo a kind of stiffening that prevents you from enjoying what younger people enjoy. After all, I’m 82 years old — I can’t expect to enjoy what a 20-year-old is inspired by.

Talking Pictures: The Cinema of Yvonne Rainer is at the Film Society of Lincoln Center (70 Lincoln Center Plaza #7, Upper West Side, Manhattan) July 21–27.

The post Yvonne Rainer on How Filmmaking Gave Her Language appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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krystltruth · 7 years

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This morning was refreshing and a reminder of who we are as women, under God

Had a ladies tea this morning, and thank you God for such a blessing.

It was just filled with beauty, creativity, simplicity, sharing, generosity. I need to remember that first and foremost we are adopted princesses under our King, who cares for us so much. Ashlee asked us “How as God blessed you this week?”

And I talked about how I struggle with comparing myself with others, and feeling “off track.” God blessed me in that He has put people in my life who were vulnerable with me and shared stories of their roadblocks in their life, hitting that bottom, or going off detour. A phase in their life where they were brought to question their worth, their competence. Bianca, Craig Hadley, Pastor Quish, Jess, Kevin. And how they struggled with God, looking for His guidance, and how they were able to take that first brave step. A transition into a different turn than they had expected.

Bianca- was with her abusive ex husband, had been out of school for a while, was home making and not sure of her identity. At Crosswalk while I was manning the table, she was like, “that’s when I finally told myself that I have a mind of my own, and no one can take that from me. Women are so intelligent and capable. I lost who I was but God made us so wonderfully and beautifully.” She shared at the table “I’m 28, I have a son, and for a while, I hit a bottom, I had to shut myself in for a while. In that time, God surrounded me with my family, who were so supportive. That’s when I just finally said, ‘God I need your help, use me.’ It’s that moment when you finally put your hands up in surrender.”

Craig- His Christmas sermon, letter to Maya, he talked about how he had a 7 year plan for his family that just all came crashing down. Then he talked about after a year of disappointment, dreams crushed, struggle, he realized he wasn’t accepting grace. He didn’t know how to accept grace. And this is so important.

Pastor Quish, way back, didn’t even really know if he was to pursue pastoring. His wife had divorced him, and he had a child. Well that time, he taught somewhere he didn’t really feel right, but then transitioned into the opportunity to teach junior high, where whatever he learned in his old job helped him teach better and enjoy his classroom even more, and marrying again.

Jess- she had pursued med, took the MCAT, applied to medical schools, didn’t get in anywhere, “I had to just take a break and think about if I really wanted to do this. It was in this time that I looked into dentistry and I went on a mission trip. I saw that what I was really interested in was the dental part- these kids teeth were falling off, that’s what I wanted to help, so I decided to pursue dentistry.”

Wayne- He had went through a divorce, which was a hard time. He taught me about the importance of quiet time with God and listening to Him, every day. And He will answer us.

God had really blessed me with these stories, and how often God just works with us where we’re at, we just have to relinquish our plans to him, as Ashley said, “this doesn’t mean he just wants us to be idle, or promote laziness, but like in Exodus 14

“Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”

Ashlee: “Being silent and still, I realized, is so important, because you realize things you don’t with all the distractions. You talk to God without all the noise, and God communicates with you. I realize things I had been praying for had been answered.” Bianca says, “I agree, I was at work and listening to Christian music in my head phones. And then I thought, what if I just took these out and had silence. And there’s so much communication and revelation that comes out of that.”

Bianca then shared how she didn’t have a laptop when she started school, so she just gave it to God. “God, you know what I need, I really need a laptop and I’m putting this in your hands.” Then she went into work, they were asking how school was, and he says, “Get your wallet, let’s go to the car. And we went to Best Buy and I got a laptop that day. I didn’t even have any emotion because I was just so in shock.”

Even Caila Quin’s openness and vulnerability!

Bottom moments, from SING, Lalaland, people carrying on and being resilient, wow God communicated with me through these musical movies! Expressive places I love.

Caiti- teaching in San Bernardino, having so many issues she wants to work on and not being able to focus on one. Going so many places, and then finally she has settled in Crosswalk, being able to meaningful work. This taught me that it is okay to work through options, no time is ever really wasted as long as your learning and trying and going.

The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent. I must remember this. I am so obsessed with having control of my plans, and it’s good to have plans, but it has brought me to a place where I am fearful of rejection, of not making it, and not even utilizing my resources, not pursuing things. Do I trust that the Lord will fight for me? Apparently not enough. I’m afraid to take that first step, and I don’t know why. I am scared that weakness is defining me, and I’ve prayed so much to God to rescue me and just pave the way, He’s just telling me to lean into His power and go for it. I’ve been so in love with this text:

8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I feel like I relate to it so much. I’ve pleaded so many times. What is God saying? His grace is sufficient for me, his power is made perfect in my weakness. Wow, how awesome that I get to expect God’s power as I work- He with unlimited ability, unlimited resources. I shared this with the group, “I love how each of these stories, people talked about how God pulled through and gave Him glory, and that’s what it’s really all about, allowing God to use our bottoms and our weaknesses to manifest His power, and give Him the glory.”

“And honestly,” Bianca said. “It’s those rock bottom moments that are so important, because that’s when you learn, and you change, and you become stronger. That’s when God changes you.” And I agree, I thought I knew myself but in the last 8 months, I learned SO much about myself. “At first we think these phases are weakening, but it’s actually so liberating. You learn more about yourself that you wouldn’t have when you were in full drive mode, when we don’t just pull over and park.”

Anyways, from these stories, from everyone I’ve talked to, I have come to learn these few things:

It’s okay to not be okay

Embrace the little moments in the present around you. Because the problems really are never gonna go away. Slow down, and breathe in the blessings and beauty placed around you.

We underestimate our ability to reinvent ourselves, to forge a new path

There really isn’t a individualized detailed masterplan, script that we have to follow. (Yes, we need to be obedient to God, His masterplan of the kingdom, and being usable to HIm, submitting our decisions and ways to Him, and seeing how He can use us to bear fruit, and having Him guide our directions) but we have the beauty of freewill, to make decisions and choices, this is how we know we are not robots, but individual creatures, fearfully, beautifully, wonderfully made, with a father that loves us. But we have the ability to create our own futures and fates. And best of all, we have the grace to ask God to walk with us, to work with us, to be fruitful, to abide in Him in our walks, to ask Him for help, but that overall He will not forsake us. Like ate CK said, “it’s like a parent playing legos with their child. They let their child to the building. They have the instructions and they guide them, but they kind of let their child learn, and choose which blocks to put together, let them create, but let them ask for help.”

We are all worthy. Bianca said “never let anyone say you are not worthy, never let them question your worth. I am worthy of the opportunities I seek

Everyone is going through struggle of some sort

No, the whole world is not watching you, waiting for you to succeed or fall, talking about you behind their back, pointing and laughing. They are all just working on themselves and trying to get through.

Being in a rut and “working on yourself” is not an excuse to let go of the responsibility to help others, to be accountable to other people’s struggles, to be loving to others.

Find ways to harness what you do have in the present for good. To still bring glory to God even in the confusing moments.

It’s all going to be okay! You’re never stuck as long as you’re still going, still trying, still moving.

People can relate to you more than you know. We have different experiences but the human experience is universal.

You can question what you want to do. You can take time and figure out what you’re really all about, where your duty is on earth.

Find out a goal you can focus your energy on, stick to it

Good habit and routine is actually so powerful and important

(whoa. Literally the girl next to me at Bricks and Birch is saying; I am saving money by being home, at the same time it’s too comforting. I’m a different person when I’m with him, communicating lies, and he’s giving me insight on what to do. Because he’s ambitious.) I have to be sure that this degree is what I want to do, and not waste money. her friend: how are you going to do that? her: through work. taking workshops.

Anyways, now I have to work on my personal statement. I have been putting this off for so long, and am scared of writers block. I am going to this today. God, I put this in your hands, please make your power sufficient in my weakness, and make this a form of glory and praise to you. These experiences I have, and my passion to help others. Give me courage, Lord that’s what I really need, courage, diligence, badass-ness to do this.

You are badass. You got this girl. <3

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