The Best Friends You'll Ever Have | 19: En pointe

[luxken27]

Chapter Title: 19 | En pointe
Prompt: #066 – Ballet
Universe: Post-canon
Genre: General
Rating: K+
Word Count: 1,980
Summary: Claudia designs the costume for Jessi’s senior dance recital.

Links: FF.net | DW | LJ | AO3

Written for lionessvalenti, for the 2015 fandom_stocking holiday exchange. This was her request for the BSC fandom:

BSC: Any of the baby-sitters, including Abby and Shannon. Cary Retlin, Laine Cummings, Sunny Winslow, Ducky McCrae, Amalia Vargas, Pete Black, Alan Gray. High school fics are my favorite. College/middle school are okay. Adult/families of their own type future fics don't interest me. I love friendship fics for the baby-sitters, especially outside of the "best friends" combinations they have set up. I love seeing the girls interact with characters outside the club.

Hmm. I was pretty sure I could work with that.

I was especially intrigued by the idea of writing the girls outside their "best friends" combinations. I immediately thought of Jessi, for some reason - maybe because she feels like the least developed of the main characters? I have been wanting to write some fic for her, but was feeling uninspired. However, when I was thinking about her (and how I'm pretty bad at writing Pike fic) I decided I'd write something with her and Claudia. Off the top of my head I can't remember any time in the canon that they had exclusive or even close interaction with each other, but if you think about it, they both have a lot in common: specifically, they are both artists.

Upon deciding that I'd write Jessi fic, I read the last regular series book book that she narrated, #115 Jessi's Big Break. In this book she has the chance to enter an exclusive ballet program, Dance NY, in Manhattan. She so impresses the director of the company that she's offered a full-time slot at their academy, and she is seriously tempted to take it. I always thought it kinda sad that she decided to stick around in Stoneybrook because she felt comfortable there with her friends, only to turn around and have her best friend abruptly leave. I can definitely understand why they had such a big fight about it. Even at 11, you don't expect such a shitty thing to happen.

I'm intrigued by ballet (probably because I am hopelessly uncoordinated), and the idea of Jessi actually taking up that slot after the BSC breaks up during their HS years. I think Dance NY would be the perfect place for her (I've always found it difficult to believe Quint was already attending Juilliard at 11, tbh), and would be the perfect place for her to take her studies more seriously and contemplate continuing into professional dance. So, I decided to write just that: a senior comprehensive exercise that combined one part research paper with one part performance piece.

I chose Swan Lake because I fell down the rabbit hole of classic ballet (and because I am such a sucker for Tchaikovsky's music, OMFG). I thought about maybe going down the Black Swan route (that'd definitely be different for our squeaky-clean BSC characters!), but the more I learned about the original ballet, the more intrigued I became. I especially enjoyed watching this documentary from BBC4 about it:

"" (Watch on YouTube)

There is much discussion about the duality of Odette (the White Swan) and Odile (the Black Swan), which is where the idea for the solo combining the two came into play. Of course, their costumes are really starkly different, so then I had to solve the problem of costuming.

Enter Claudia, LOL =)

The idea for the costume first took shape when I sought out the variations that have been worn by premier ballerinas. I especially liked Pavlova's, with the feathers. They are supposed to be swans, after all - and what better way to convey that than with goose feathers?

In this fic, I decided that Claud was a student at the Rhode Island School of Design pretty much by happenstance. I wanted to get her out of Connecticut and as far away from her sister as possible - plus RISD has an amazing reputation as an art school. I looked it up and they do offer costuming courses, so I was well on my way towards this fic :D

It was a lot of fun to write Jessi, exploring the facets of her character that are so often bulldozed by the end of the series. She's serious about her art, and confident in her talent, but even she can still get nervous after years of performing. And Claudia being the one to reassure her? Even better. If there's one thing Claud has unwavering self-confidence with, it's her art. I think she could possess genius-levels of expertise for it, too, considering her own dedication to her craft as a teenager. (Janine can be left-brained and Claud can be right-brained, LOL.)

lionessvalenti enjoyed this fic, as well as others from fandom_stocking, which definitely made *me* feel better about writing a character I hadn't really played with in any way. This was the first of four fics I wrote for fandom_stocking this year, and definitely the one that was the furthest out of my comfort zone. I enjoyed the experience, though, and definitely want to write more Jessi!fic. After all, I *do* have some experience writing about Juilliard, haha!! :D