Work Text:
Being the star of a Hollywood blockbuster film despite her only acting credits being a couple commercials and an off off off-Broadway role as a princess when she was still in grade school, whereas every other member of the cast and crew was a living Hollywood legend was one thing - one big thing, but having to do all the press and promote the film was entirely another.
These interviewers were used to talking to people who've done the whole thing a million times - professionals - and not Luz Noceda. And when you put interviewers and Luz Noceda in a room, or coke and in a bottle, together, you're going to get an explosion. It wasn't even that Luz was trying to be difficult; she'd actually tried to be professional and practice so she didn't seem like a complete idiot, but the fact that the interviewers did not like her.
Luz could think of thousands of reasons for people not to like her - she even vaguely remembered making a list at one point when she was a teenager, but all these interviewers disliked her for the some reason. She wasn't Hollywood royalty - she was a no-name actress with no-experience making her debut in a movie that the whole world wanted to be in. They didn't want to talk to her, they didn't care about her.
They wanted to talk to Edalyn Clawthorne, the screenwriter and director, about Kiss Me Goodbye, her first project in a decade, since she'd disappeared from the world of Hollywood without a trace, and they wanted to talk to the biggest stars of the generation - the established household names they could gloat to their friends about interviewing, not the girl who'd been just like them before she was cast in the Clawthorne comeback at the ripe age of 18 years old.
But still, Luz Noceda found it all to be a fair trade. She got the opportunity to do something special, she found a place where all of her quirks became her strengths and talents and she was in a position to help others - thousands of them, maybe millions one day, and the price she had to pay was just that - as well as her time, sanity and privacy.
However, not all of the interviews made Luz feel like that. In fact, there had been a few interviews that Luz had actively enjoyed. Not at all surprisingly, these were the interviews she had with Amity Blight, her on-screen best friend, former celebrity crush and Hollywood royalty. Amity Blight was the daughter of A-List actors Odalia and Alador Blight, whose most famous film was the first one they did together - although it was frankly terrible, Luz found that nostalgia did it for most people. Amity also had older siblings - twins Edric and Emira Blight, who had oh-so-conveniently been Luz's bisexual awakening, and were also famous in their own rights. The twins were former child-stars and had been in 10 of the 100 highest grossing films of all time before they were 12, that had turned to music (in the case of Edric, who had recently released his debut album) and fashion design (in the case of Emira, who had teased her involvement in fashion on Twitter). It was safe to say that the name Blight was associated with immense success, glamour and poise in millions of households - it was quite the juxtaposition, to be honest.
Despite all that, Amity Blight was surprisingly down to earth, and became a fast friend of Luz Noceda's - though that definitely had more to do with the fact the pair were spending twenty-three hours a day together than the pair naturally connecting, given a few mishaps that had led to PR involvement and were more or less connected to a certain girl named after a plant.
By the time they wrapped the film, Luz could safely consider Amity Blight one of her best and closest friends - alongside the girl named after a plant and Gus Porter, whose dad was conducting one of the two interviews that Luz and Amity were doing together that day.
The interview ended up being one of the best interviews Luz had done, definitely more than partially because she had genuinely enjoyed it. Perry Porter was a great dad and an even better reporter, who made both Luz and Amity feel very welcome. Of course, it certainly did help that for the entirety of the interview, the pair were given puppies to play with.
And if Luz looked at the way Amity was struggling to get her puppies to stay still or calm down for a few seconds too long or a few too many times, she knew it'd either be edited out or dismissed as the friendship their characters shared translating well into their real lives. There was also the fact that the whole world loved Amity Blight, so who could blame Luz for falling for the newly-purple haired girl too?
The two girls left the studio, waving goodbye to Perry Porter, smiling and laughing - they enjoyed being in each other's company. They had to, obviously - although the movie had finished filming, the two girls still lived together and spent most of their days together, aside from whenever Amity had outings with the Blights or some other Hollywood royal, or when Luz had interviews without her, or would call her mom and tell her that things were going well and that she really liked it out in LA. They were headed to the car, which would take them to their second - and thankfully, final, interview of the day. As much fun as interviews with the youngest Blight were, Luz really needed to lie down and sleep for as long as she could.
The only thing was that the second interview of the day was exactly the type of interview that Luz had been stressing over and dreading. She knew that the interviewers would ask invasive questions, about both her and her movie - sometimes lighthearted, born out of genuine curiosity, and other times mean-spirited, as if they were actively trying to get Luz fired and blacklisted.
At least, Luz had Amity by her side, to help her through it.
The interview started off pretty tame and wasn't anything noteworthy - it was simply the same questions the pair had been asked a thousand times over.
"Did you know that this movie was based on a book?" The interviewer asked, almost coyly.
Luz nodded, knowing that anything she said would've been used against her - even if what she said was the truth. Luz had been too young to see the Clawthorne sisters in their prime, but she'd read both Lilith's books and seen Eda's movies, and now she was going to be in an adaptation of one of Lilith's books, adapted for the screen and directed by Eda.
"Lilith Clawthorne was actually one of my role-models growing up," Amity said, breaking the silence. "I always admired her characterization and prose."
"Did you have a favourite book of hers?" Luz inquired.
"I'm Not That Girl," Amity answered, surely, as if there wasn't a single Lilith Clawthorne book that could compare. "Growing up, I always wanted someone to be the Georgia to my Eleanor," her cheeks flushed at that last admission, and Luz felt her stomach flutter at that, because she always wanted an Eleanor to her Georgia.
"A classic," The interviewer said with a smile, and Luz knew that something is up. "So, if you could cast anyone in the world as Georgia, who'd it be?"
"This girl right next to me of course," Amity beamed at Luz. "She is the Georgia to my Eleanor."
What's a seven word, twenty-six letter way to say 'I love you', said the little voice in Luz's head at that admission, the one that makes Luz's entire face flush red as if she was the purple-haired girl next to her and not herself.
"I'm sure you're a great actor, Luz, so I don't mean any offense when I say this," The interviewer paused for a second. "But why her? Out of everyone in the world, you'd still pick her to be your Georgia?" The interviewer gave Luz a not-so-subtle once over and Luz could feel the interviewer's disgust when they looked at her.
"Yes," Amity said, not budging. "Luz is one of the most refreshing and dynamic talents of this generation and she's the only one I can see as Georgia."
"Moving on," the interviewer said, almost seeming as though they were taken aback. "Your characters have a very interesting relationship. In the original book, their relationship is left ambiguous - I know people have seen them as best friends, platonic soulmates and I've even come across theories that the pair were long-lost siblings. Can you tell me more about their relationship in the movie, without spoiling it, of course?"
"Well they're certainly not siblings, that's for sure," Amity blurted out without thinking.
Luz laughed lightly. "Really? I could've sworn that they were."
The interview didn't last much longer, and the interviewer didn't have any notable questions, so Luz and Amity didn't have any notable answers. There were only only a couple of weeks until the premiere, so it was a busy time for the whole cast and crew. It seemed as though Perry Porter showed Eda and the producers the puppy interview and they had really liked it, so most of the press that Luz did in those last couple of weeks was with Amity - which made it immensely more enjoyable. She didn't really give any of them that much thought, or any for that matter, until a few months later, after the movie was released in theatres and became a box office success, breaking a number of box office records in the meanwhile, when Luz and Amity had been sitting on the couch in their apartment, on their phones, when they got a call from Eda.
"Hey Eda," Luz greeted, bubbly as ever. "You're on speaker,"
"Hi," Amity said, mostly so that Eda would know she was there too.
"Check your texts," Eda said, in place of a greeting.
"Did you call Luz just to tell her that?" Amity asked.
"No," Eda said, "but please do check them, eventually."
"Aye-aye captain," Luz said, giving Eda a mock salute despite the call having being audio-only.
"I called to ask you - both of you - to read for Eleanor and Georgia in the adaptation of I'm Not That Girl that Lili and I are making together."
The entire apartment was silent for a minute - Luz was holding her breath to keep herself from screaming, whereas Amity was staring a hole in the wall.
"When do we start?" Amity broke the silence, having blinked before the wall collapsed in on itself.
And Luz did end up checking her texts, to see that Eda had sent her a compilation of her and Amity doing interviews for Kiss Me Goodbye. She guessed that was Eda's way of telling her that she didn't completely and totally fail at doing press and promo.
***
Luz knew, on some level, that making her debut in Kiss Me Goodbye, a Clawthorne film and immediately getting cast in another read like favoritism to more than just the Hollywood reporters who had nothing better to do than torment her, but she really had tried to turn it down. She'd auditioned for several other projects, and had even gotten some roles, but none of them had the same film/release schedule as I'm Not That Girl did - they knew better than to get in the way of the Clawthorne legacy, Luz figured.
However, I'm Not That Girl was in no way an easy book to adapt - in fact, Lilith Clawthorne, in previous interviews had said that she did not want to make it into a movie, because she was worried that a film wouldn't be able to capture the characters internal monologues and unreliable narration, amongst other things. So, as the I'm Not That Girl movie was written and re-written and written again, Luz and Amity had the opportunity to be a part of some other projects.
They were truly on their way to becoming household names, and because of her last name, in Amity's case. As they grew in popularity, they found themselves being considered a dynamic duo by more than just the people around them. One night, the pair had been sitting on the couch in their shared living room, just like they had been when Eda had called them to talk about her and Lilith's adaptation of I'm Not That Girl, only in a larger and more expensive apartment they had moved into. Once again, the pair were on their phones.
"What in the world is a Lumity," she said, tilting her phone towards Amity, who flushed bright red.
"Us, I think." Amity answered, her face still vaguely resembling a tomato. "What's the article say?"
"It's just this celebrity I think, talking about their favourite movie, Kiss Me Goodbye. They said they're a big fan of Lumity, ever since their daughter showed them a compilation of Lumity moments."
"Lumity moments?"
"They linked the video," Luz said, "of said Lumity moments. I know these kinds of videos, I used to watch them before I was famous. Sometimes people get weird with them but I always used to admire the relationships these mega-talented people had, and hoped I'd have something like it one day."
"And do you?"
"What?"
"Do you have something like those relationships you used to admire?"
"No," Luz said, a smirk creeping onto her face. "I have something better."
"You're so corny," Amity said, "I hate you,"
"No, you don't," Luz said, and what she said was confirmed in the way Amity looked at her: as if she'd hung the stars as nightlights because Amity had once said she was afraid of the dark.
"What do you think's gonna happen?" Amity asked, leaning her head on Luz's shoulder, cuddling up to her.
"I don't know," Luz wrapped her arm around Amity and closes her eyes.
***
Eventually, the time came around again for Luz and Amity to do press and promo for I'm Not That Girl, but this time around, Luz had a better feeling about it. It could've had something to do with the fact that she was more confident and comfortable with press now, or it could've just been the fact that she'd be doing each and every one of them with Amity.
"How would you had to describe I'm Not That Girl to someone?"
"How much time do we have?" Amity said with a small laugh.
"A sentence, maybe two."
"Can it be a run-on sentence?" Luz joked.
The interviewer laughed, but said nothing. Amity looked over at Luz before picking up her fancy interview microphone. "I'm Not That Girl follows two college students, Eleanor Throppe and Georgia Goode who become unlikely friends when Eleanor's little sister goes missing, as do a bunch of other students."
"Can you tell us more about the unlikely friendship between Eleanor and Georgia?"
"Should I take this one?" Luz picked up her microphone and looks over to Amity, who nods. "Upon first glance, Eleanor and Georgia are polar opposites - Eleanor stands out with her bright green hair, dry wit and how closed-off she is from everyone around her. Georgia also stands out, but that's mostly because of how she's a human ray of sunshine, and like her last name suggests, she's good and her main goal in life is to help as many people as she possibly can. But when you learn more about them both through their perspective in the chapters they narrate, you see that they're two sides of the same coin. So when you take the inciting incident that forces them together, you can see how their need to be liked and the way the seek approval from authority figures draws them together and then bam! They're best friends forever and ever!"
What Luz doesn't mention is the fact that the unlikely friendship between Eleanor and Georgia closely resembled the unlikely friendship between Luz and Amity.
"So, you mentioned that their perspectives in the different chapters of the novel is how you realize that Eleanor and Georgia are actually really similar, or as you put it, two sides of the same coin, and since you can't really do this in a movie, does this change the iconic beginning of Eleanor and Georgia's friendship in the movie?"
"Well, I'd like to think that the movie is still faithful to the book, and since their relationship is kind of central to the plot and book in general, I don't think we really ended up changing anything that would impact the iconic start of their friendship," Amity said, "And of course, I grew up on I'm Not That Girl, and if we're being honest here, unadulterated loathing, the chapter I'm sure you're referring to when you talk about the iconic start of their friendship, was my favourite in the entire book-,"
"Even over because i knew you," Luz said , her hand flying over to her heart with a mock gasp, "how dare you?"
This elicited a small chuckle out of the interviewer.
"Moving on," Amity said, trying to mock frustration, but the grin on her face is all too telling. "And since even having the opportunity to be a part of the movie is a dream come true, I would do anything to make sure that my favourite part of my favourite book ever was the best it could be - and luckily for me, Eda and Lili, the co-writers and directors of the movie were just as passionate about making sure that each and every aspect of the famous friendship between Eleanor and Georgia was the best that it could be, which, with this girl right here as Eleanor," she said, reaching out to pat Luz on the shoulder, "wasn't hard at all."
"That's great to hear," the interviewer said with a professional smile. "But," the interviewer continued, turning to Luz, "Luz, you've always said that you related to Georgia, and Amity, you've said the same about Eleanor, and yet, Luz, you were cast as Eleanor and Amity, you were cast as Georgia. Could you tell me more about that?"
"It's so cheesy," Amity said, sounding almost exasperated.
"Guess that means I'm telling this story," Luz grinned. "But as I'm sure you know, Amity and I have known each other for a while-"
"Ever since your debut in Kiss Me Goodbye," the interviewer filled in.
"We actually met before that," Luz started, and Amity put her face in her palms and Luz held back a laugh. "At a chemistry read for another movie we never ended up doing,"
"Scheduling conflicts," Amity supplied.
"Can I ask what the movie was?" The interviewer asked.
Luz lit up at that. "It was Flying Solo, Flying Free. I initially auditioned for Willow Park's role, and Amity auditioned for her opposite."
"Are you a fan of Willow Park?"
"Yes, I'm actually her biggest fan," Luz said, "I'm kidding. Not really, I mean, I am her biggest fan but we're friends - we actually met in high school and I'm really glad that she ended up getting the role."
"What about you, Amity, what are your thoughts on Willow Park?"
Amity plastered on a smile. "We also went to school together, not when she and Luz knew each other though, back when we were in kindergarten and first grade. She was my first best friend, and she was phenomenal in the movie, I'm really glad that they ended up casting her."
"I've seen it, and I totally agree," The interviewer said, "but back to the chemistry read where you met - that had to be at least a year before you started filming Kiss Me Goodbye, right?"
Luz and Amity shared a look, before Amity started. "I think the chemistry read was in the fall, so let's say it was in either October or November, and we started filming for Eda's movie in June two years ago, so it was only seven or eight months after we met."
"If I may, how'd the chemistry read go?"
"Well, this is our second movie together, so it couldn't have been awful."
"You know those actors who always say they met in the audition room and had an instant connection like, 'even if we don't get the part, I know we're gonna be best friends,' but they obviously got the part, since they're doing an interview where they bring it up?" Luz asked.
The interviewer nodded.
"That's kind of what happened with us, except we actually didn't get the parts. And I'm glad, because no one could've done it better than Willow Park,"
The interviewer nodded again. "In some of the interviews you did for Kiss Me Goodbye, you two mentioned that you lived together during filming, I'm assuming because of how close you'd gotten since you met at the chemistry read eight months before you started filming?"
Luz and Amity both nodded, hoping the interviewer wouldn't asked if they still lived together, because they weren't quite sure how to explain that - they definitely had enough money for their own apartments by this stage in their careers.
"Did you live together again while filming I'm Not That Girl?"
"Director's orders," Amity said. "Since Eleanor and Georgia are roommates for a lot of the novel - and movie - Eda really wanted us to know every uncomfortable detail about each other."
"It was fun though," Luz added, and Amity had to agree with that.
Later that night, the pair found themselves on the couch again.
"You know, you never did tell that interviewer about how you got cast as Eleanor and I got cast as Georgia," Amity said.
"Did you want me to?" Luz asked, not entirely sure if her question was genuine or sarcastic.
Amity smiled in response. "One day."
Apparently, that one day came not long after I'm Not That Girl was released.
Whenever Amity had talked about being a big fan of the book when she was younger in interviews, she always left out the fact that her attachment to the book stemmed from the way Eleanor and Georgia's friendship could have easily been interpreted as romantic.
But although she never brought this up in interviews, for a number of reasons, she did bring it up to both Eda and Lilith, which went even better than she thought it would. In fact, Lilith had admitted that she had always wanted to write Eleanor and Georgia as explicitly romantic, but was advised against it, and went for the subtext instead. As a compromise however, they decided that the relationship between Eleanor and Georgia in the movie adaptation would be explicitly and undeniably romantic, just as Lilith had always wanted. And of course, Luz and Amity's chemistry read for Flying Solo, Flying Free came in handy.
One of the parts of being famous that Luz wasn't quite used to was being stopped on the street by fans. It didn't happen often enough for her to become thoroughly annoyed or frustrated whenever it happened, but she just didn't really know what to do when it happened. She and Amity had been crossing the street to get to Willow Park's house, now that she and Amity had (finally) worked through their issues, when someone came up to them.
"Hi, I'm so sorry to bother you, but I'm a big fan," they started and Luz went to say thank you, but they continued. "I'm Anne, and I grew up on Lilith Clawthorne's books and I'm Not That Girl was always my favourite because of how much I shipped Eleanor and Georgia and I just wanted to say that it meant so much to me to see that validated in a movie like this and also to see you two, since you're such close friends in real life be comfortable enough in your friendship to play love interests."
"Of course," Amity said, "But it's not exactly a challenge to pretend to be in love with Luz."
At that, Luz's cheeks flushed red. "She's too good of a girlfriend for her own good," she joked, her face turning even redder as she realized her admission.
"Wait, you're together in real life?"
Amity nodded. "Since before we even started filming for Kiss Me Goodbye."
"So that's why you got so defensive when asked about your characters sibling-like dynamic. It all makes sense now!"
"Could you maybe not tell people though? We'd like to have the opportunity to do that for ourselves."
"Yeah of course, I wouldn't dream of it."
And that was that, the first time that Luz and Amity had ever told someone - outside of their inner circle - that they were together. No one else stopped them on their way to Willow's house and the three of them had a wonderful afternoon of eating popcorn and watching bad movies, which had become something a lot more sacred now that the three of them were on their way to becoming household names and couldn't spend as much time together. So, they took it upon themselves to make each and every one of their sacred hangouts as fun as possible.
And so began Wing It Like Witches, their YouTube channel. The channel didn't have too much of a consistent theme - something they all interviewed each other, sometimes they made short films, sometimes they just sat down on a couch and made fun of each other but what was consistent about the channel is that the viewers loved Luz and Amity together - especially whenever Willow would look into the camera as if to say 'you see what I have to deal with?' Most of the time, Gus Porter would be there too, but he was usually the one behind the camera, providing witty quips out of the viewer's sight.
The most popular video on the Wing It Like Witches channel - in terms of views, likes, comments and how frequently it was referenced by fans, interviewers and news articles alike - was undeniably Knock, Knock, Knockin on Hooty's Door, a twenty-something minute video where Gus (off-screen) would pretend to be Hooty, the house that the characters of Willow, Luz and Amity lived in, who was trying to prove his worth to them. He tried to help Willow keep her plants alive and ended up killing them all, and then started to play matchmaker for Luz and Amity - which, while a disaster, was also kind of funny. Coincidentally, Knock Knock, Knockin on Hooty's Door was the episode in which Luz and Amity revealed their relationship and became Hollywood's newest It couple in the way that was the most them possible - by making a skit about it with their very best friends, which they would watch together every year on the night of their anniversary.
They'd just finished one particular rewatch, which also happened to fall on the first anniversary of the night that Luz and Amity both won their first Oscars for their roles as Eleanor Throppe and Georgia Goode, respectively, and Luz was thinking about how much had happened in her life since her chemistry read for Flying Solo, Flying Free. She was thinking about how much they'd grown and learned, as both actors and people, because of each other. When Luz was younger, her mom used to tell her that people came into their lives for a reason, and the reason that Amity and Willow and Gus came into Luz's life were so that they could help each other feel more loved, accepted and less alone in a very confusing world.
So when she turned to Amity and said, "I'm really glad that I met you, Amity Blight," she meant every word of it.
And when Amity replied, "I'm glad I met you too, Luz Noceda, even if you make me do stupid things," she knew that Amity felt the same.