it's my party and i'll cry if i want to

by screaming internally

Jane, the precious cinnamon roll that she is, and the film Descendants, from her point of view. (feat. a childhood friendship with Chad Charming, Jane's self-esteem issues, and Fairy Godmother's well-meaning, but not very good, parenting.)

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to (I'll cry until my pity party's in flames)

-0-

You're born in Charmington a week after Chad is. He's the amazing second son of Cinderella and Prince Charming, and you're the 'pretty-cute' baby of Cinderella's Fairy Godmother. You grow up as the adopted younger sibling of Charlemange and Chadwick Charming, and the older sister of Cindy Charming, calling King Kit and Queen Ella 'uncle' and 'aunt'.

You and Chad are best friends until Auradon Prep.

Chad forgets you pretty quick, once he's found all the princes and princesses like him. He has no room in his life for the girl he called 'Sis', if he's gonna be the star of the tourney team.

You kind of expected it – you're not beautiful, or royalty, or particularly interesting. Why would anyone bother spending time and effort trying to be friends with you?

-0-

To be fair, Chad did try to stay close, promising to meet up, or study together, or work on a project together in class. But then . . .

"Emergency Tourney training, I'm sorry!"

"Some other plans came up with the guys, let's do it tomorrow, okay?"

"Ben and Audrey wanted me to be part of their group; you can work with Doug or Jessica, can't you?"

The plans kept changing, and Chad changed with them. Pretty soon Chad seemed to have forgotten your whole existence, as if they hadn't spent their childhood running around the Charming cottage with dirty clothes, or sliding in their socks down the castle's marble halls, or staying up late telling stories of the Villains of the Isle of the Lost.

You learn to stay away from Chad at school pretty quickly, but the rejection still hurts. You miss him. You miss your brother.

-0-

Auradon wouldn't be so bad if you had any other good friends. You have your roommates, Li Lonnie, who's really nice, and Ally, who's rather . . . strange. But you don't really feel as if you fit with people.

Your mother tells you to smile, that true beauty can only be seen when you smile. You try, but people you don't know, beautiful people, smart people, perfect people, they look at you, and it seems as if they are looking through you. You might as well not be there.

Your grades slip from what they were in middle school, and your mother tuts and hmms, and you know you're not good enough. You're not smart enough, athletic enough, pretty enough. You'd cut your hair to a pixie cut before Auradon Prep, because Cindy had to have her hair cut short too, and you wanted her to fell better. She did, but the hair is still short when you go to high school, and you could feel the beautiful girls on the cheerleading squad smirk and snort at your hair. It's strange. You hadn't felt this self-conscious in Charmington.

The day you realise you are ridiculous is the day everything becomes awful.

You failed a history quiz (formerly your best subject). You dropped your books leaving science, and everyone stared. Your favourite skirt got a stain in the seat of it, and as you were desperately trying to clean it in the bathroom (after being laughed out of the cafeteria), you looked up at your reflection, and realise that you see nothing good in it.

Your face is too round, and your nose seems squashed, smaller than it used to be. Your lips seem dry and fat, like two slugs pressed together, and your mouth so big that you could stuff a tennis ball in it. You're so short, and your legs are too fat. Nothing about your appearance is beautiful. Your hair, once so long and thick, sticks out from your head like you've stuck your finger in an electrical socket. Your clothes are frumpy, unflattering and old-fashioned, like you've borrowed your mother's wardrobe from when she was thirteen.

You end that day crying on the bathroom floor, your skirt still stained, still failing your classes, still the furthest thing from beautiful and perfect.

-0-

You compensate for your flaws by pushing yourself to being the top of your classes. You have not friends, no style, and you're too shy to try and do anything about that. But you are capable of studying until you drop.

Sometimes you try to do something about your social status – a failed attempt at joining the cheerleading squad resulted in being the school mascot – but for the most part, you live in the library, learning all you can about your classes.

You're lonely, but you learn that crying in the shower means that no one notices just how painful it is.

(You never notice the worried gazes that follow you sometimes.)

-0-

Sophomore year, however, things shake up.

Prince Ben (Ben, who is perfect, with sunshine for a smile and is the nicest person you could ever hope to meet) decrees that four children will be coming to Auradon Prep. Four villain kids. The school vibrates with shock and horror, and tries to stop the kids from coming, but nothing the students say changes Ben's mind.

(You try not to be envious of Ben's conviction. His determination could destroy Auradon Prep from the inside out, if his plan goes wrong.)

-0-

The villain kids arrive, and they're nothing like anything you've ever seen.

There's a boy with white and black hair, wearing leather and fur, covered in freckles and big brown eyes. There's another boy with more muscles than you thought possible for a sixteen year old to have, and he's so attractive it almost hurts to see his smirk. The girls are two of the prettiest people you've ever seen. They both have flawless skin, and hair that makes envy boil in your gut.

They're dressed like personality can be worn on skin, and all of them are beautiful. You want to be like that.

But they're villains, if only because their parents are, and you stay away. You don't speak to them, but you don't really speak to your classmates, so your silence is nothing new.

-0-

You first see them up close when you need your mother's signature. You have to walk through where they're sitting, and there is nothing you want to do less. You can feel their eyes follow you as you walk, and it's like a nightmare, because you hate being the centre of attention, and despite their appearance, they're still villainous, and it feels like their eyes are picking your skin apart, staring straight at the flaws underneath.

Your mother tells them your name, and you feel like crying, you're so tense under their gaze. You make some noises; probably say something, as they watch you. You get out of the room as fast as possible, and hope that that's a close you'll get to them.

(You never realise that they were bored until you walked in, their eyes calculating how much of a soft innocent you were, how little you knew of real cruelty)

(You learn of true cruelty later, when they tell you the truth, and you realise that your demons are so much lesser than theirs)

-0-

The daughter of Maleficent (Mal, her name is Mal, like the Latin for bad) corners you in the bathroom after your math class, and starts talking about wanting to be your friend (what? why?) and how you must have lots of friend (no, no you do not), even with your mother being who she is (as if that matters to teenagers), and you can see her trying to compliment you (again, why? What is there to compliment – but you do hope for something nice to be said about you for once) and your nerves overflow and babble comes from your mouth.

You say something about wanting to be pretty, and tell Mal that you like her hair (it's eye-catching and stunning and looking at it makes you jealous of the self-confidence that it would take for you to pull it off), and Mal pulls out an honest-to-god spell book (where did she get that? Your mother is Fairy Godmother, and you've never even seen a real spell book before), and says:

"Beware forswear, replace the old with brand new hair."

And your head is being jerked around like its on a leash, and Mal is smiling like a cat does at a canary, and your head is jerked down, and up and –

You look in the mirror. And . . . your hair is amazing. Your hair is long, and thick, the way it was when you were younger, and still had friends in the Charming kids, and were happier, and you are beautiful.

You ask (beg, demand, maybe) that Mal continue to fix you, make you beautiful, even more, so you look like Audrey, or Evie (who is stunning and turns heads for reasons other than who her mother is), but Mal shoots that down.

Instead, she suggests asking your mother. Your mother, who tells you constantly that you aren't good enough, that worrying about your looks is silly, that true beauty comes from the inside, never mind that she used to make a career out of making people look their best, but never bothered to try the same for you. But . . . you're happy, because you're beautiful, and you promise Mal to ask your mother to use the wand, because Mal has helped you, and maybe she'll be your friend (a real friend, who might actually stay, and spend time with you, and maybe teach you magic the way she seems to inherently know, the way you don't, but wish you did.)

-0-

Your mother shoots you down harder than Mal did, telling you the same rhetoric you've been hearing for years.

"True beauty is on the inside, Janie, and any boy who doesn't see that simply isn't worth the effort."

(Its like she doesn't remember being fifteen and ugly – but then, she is almost two hundred years old. Maybe she doesn't. Or chooses not to.)

You go back to Mal and Evie, and they tell you that boys aren't all they're cracked up to be (you've figured as much, you're best friend was a boy until he realised he had other options, you know the pain of rejection from someone you like, but having a boyfriend would mean that someone actually thinks you're pretty, and desirable, and that could give you the feeling of self-worth you know you lack.)

Lonnie comes in, all sunshine and smiles, the way you wish you could be, and asks Mal to change her hair. She says its because of how Mal did yours, and – you get a slight flutter in your gut, the surprise, because you're setting a trend, and that's one thing you never thought you would do in your life – and Lonnie's hair looks great, like the way her hair should look. She completes her change by tearing her skirt, and its so impulsive, and daring, that you go over to the mirror and do the same to your own skirt.

And promptly freak out, because your mother loves the dress you're wearing, saying that you look like a "proper lady", and oh god she is going to lose it when she sees the damage you've done to the seams.

-0-

Life continues, and Prince Ben's coronation comes closer, as well as the Tourney Championship, and Family Day, and suddenly the 'Villain Kids' are a fixture in your life you hadn't had before.

Your hair has set a precedent, and suddenly all the girls have had Mal change their hair, and you don't seem quite so pretty anymore, not so much attention, but it's okay, because you fit in better, and people include you in their conversations, you're part of the group, and it's everything you've wanted.

-0-

Ben dumps Audrey the same time he tells Mal that he's in love with her, after the Tourney match that Jay won, and Audrey tells Chad that he's her boyfriend now, and Jane can see the shock and joy in Chad's eyes from next to the stands, with her knight helmet half-covering your eyes.

(Chad's been half in love with Audrey since you were both eleven, and she and her parents came to Charmington for a week holiday. You've known about it because he told you, the night they left. He told you when you were both huddled under the chair and blanket fort the two of you and Cindy had made in the theatre room in his castle, and Cindy had fallen asleep as you all watched a movie.)

(You wonder if Chad had ever imagined being Audrey's boyfriend in a situation like this one.)

-0-

Family Day is one of those school things that the other students get excited about, because they get to see their parents, and their parents are proud of what they've achieved at school – but it isn't for you, because your mother lives at the school, you see her all the time, and she is rarely ever seems truly proud of you.

(You know she loves you, but you can't help but feel that she has a tendency to break down parts of you that you like, and tell you that you shouldn't enjoy those parts.)

(You don't ever tell her this, because arguing with your mother is like playing chess with a pigeon, in that no matter what moves you make, the pigeon will knock over the pieces, poop on the board, and act like it won everything.

You hate arguing with your mother, because every argument you make goes in one ear and out the other, and she just barrels through your point of view without listening to what it is you're saying and it makes you want to scream.)

Family Day is fine, right up until Mal meets Queen Leah, and Queen Leah starts yelling and screaming about evil, and dark magic, and not raising her child, and everyone starts saying the same – that Mal and Evie and Jay are cruel and manipulative and Evie sprays something in Chad's face, and Chad passes out right on the croquet field, and the Villain Kids march off the field, and Ben's parents, the King and Queen tell him that the trouble is his fault.

You join Audrey in taunting Mal, because Audrey is talking to you now and the Villain Kids are fair game to make fun of, apparently, and despite what you feel, you'd rather be liked by popular people than re-join your loser social standing.

(But what you mean doesn't matter, because mal takes away your hair, your beautiful hair, the hair that makes you beautiful, and everyone screams in shock and you can distinctly hear Chad say "Ew" at the sight of you.)

(That might be what hurts the most, because you've seen him covered in mud, and with bedhead, and looking his absolute worst, but the sight of you with a bob is apparently utterly revolting.)

(You tell yourself later, when you're back to crying in the shower, that expecting anything else from him, no matter how much of a brother he was to you not three years ago, was foolish.)

(You can't help but think that Charlie and Cindy probably wouldn't have reacted like that, though, and you miss them more than ever.)

-0-

Ben is being crowned King, and you'd spent almost three hours trying to look your best, because this is the most momentous occasion you'd ever been to, and your mother looks more beautiful than you've ever seen her, and you just feel a bubbling of resentment in your gut, because your mother and everyone else looks wonderful, and you are merely lacklustre in comparison.

(You hear Snow White covering the news from across the hall, and she, the most beautiful woman in the land, says that your hair is bad, ugly and strange, and you want to sink into the floor.)

You grab the wand during the ceremony, because you are desperate, and ugly, and just want to feel as beautiful as you felt when Mal changed your hair, and you don't even care that what you're doing is being filmed across the country, or that you're being ridiculous in the grand scale of things, because you feel hideous, and people don't talk to you, and you just want to feel good again.

You don't succeed, and the wand changes hands, and Mal ends up with it, and says that her mother wants the wand, and then Maleficent appears in the ballroom, and everyone freezes.

You don't see want happens, because whatever Maleficent does means that no one can see or hear, but when you come to, Maleficent, the most evil fairy in Auradon, is a lizard the size of a shoe, and Mal is hugging Ben, and everything seems fine. Your mother starts to scold you, and you can feel yourself shrink, but Mal stops her, and says that you're beautiful, inside and out, and that may be the best compliment anyone has ever given you, in the fifteen years of your life.

-0-

You weren't expecting to really enjoy the after-party of Ben's coronation, but you do. You dance with Carlos De Vil, who is lovely and sweet in a way you've never seen in a real person before, and with Jay, and Evie and Mal and Lonnie and Doug and Ben bring you into their group, and you truly do dance the night away, and fall asleep with a smile on your face.

-0-

Mal offers to change your hair back to what it was, but you decide to keep the bob, and grow out your hair the way you had for the last few years. You've found the benefit of effort. Evie helps you style it better, though, so it feels less like you've got a mop of hair on your head.

The Villain Kids turn out to be firm friends, and Carlos and Doug and you team together to become the science whizzes of the school, with Evie becoming pretty close to being fourth.

You become happier, and more content with what you have. By the end of the semester, you're pretty okay with yourself.

-0-

You have an invitation to spend the winter holidays with Lonnie, and Audrey, and Doug, and Ben, but you choose to go with your mother back to Charmington over break, because Charmington is home, no matter what you conflicted feelings you have over the company.

You get a hug from both Aunt Ella and Uncle Kit, and Cindy, back for the holidays from the Agrabah Primary School for Young Ladies, and Charlie, back from the University of Auradon in Camelot Heights, both hug you tighter than you thought possible from either of them.

It's Chad, though, that makes you pause.

You'd exchanged some meaningless words while at school, about homework and teachers and, once, the weather, because Chad is friends with Ben and Audrey (because it turns out that Chad is better at admiring from afar and flippant flirting than being in actual relationships), and Ben is dating Mal, and Mal is like a sister to the other Villain Kids, and the two of you spend more time together now. Not much, but you see him more now at school than you have in the last three years.

He knocks on your bedroom suite door as you unpack, and stands awkwardly in the door until you let him.

He fidgets, and looks ready to say something, but no words leave his mouth. You decide to bite the bullet.

"Are you here to say something about how bad I look?" You cock an eyebrow too, for good measure. Sarcasm is the easier way to go when dealing with Chadwick Charming not speaking, but clearly wanting to.

Chad frowns, and says, "There is nothing wrong with how you look, and you know it."

You do. You look better on a more consistent basis, because Evie's been giving you tips on how to look your best with what you have.

"Then what do you want?"

Chad heaves a sigh, and scrubs his hand through his hair, the way he did when you were kids, and was annoyed that he couldn't find the words to say what he wanted.

"I know that I haven't been good to you, not for years. Not since we started at Auradon. I don't know when I started to think that you weren't cool to hang out with-" (That stings) – "But I wanted to apologise now, while we're on break. We've been hanging out more than we used to, and I realised . . . I miss you. I miss spending time with you. I miss the way you look when you're happy, and when you laugh, and the little inside jokes we used to have together, like when we had stories between us that no one else understood. I'd like that relationship between us back, Jane. I want to have my relationship with my sister back."

You're taken aback, and rather surprised, at the admission, but can't help but point out: "You're the one that stopped us from spending time together first, remember?"

You're not afraid of coming across bitter, either. You think you have every right to be bitter about the whole situation.

"Yeah." Chad starts, and then his voice becomes lower, sadder, and more remorseful.

"Yeah, I did. Because I was dumb, and an idiot, and dumb enough to believe it when I was told that being friends with you wasn't worth losing social standing at Auradon. I can't believe that I bought that crap for three years." Chad looks really upset, and looks at you with slightly red eyes, like he's ready to cry.

"I was stupid, and egotistical, and not worth any thought from you. But . . . I just thought I should apologise, because the way I treated you was shit, because I was a shit, and . . . and you deserved better than that. I really am sorry, Janie."

He looks about to cry, and your heart is somewhere in your lungs, because this is the Chad you've missed, the one who is sincere, and serious about the things that matter to him, and you smile because you're something that matters to him again.

Instead of giving a speech about what he did, and what you did, you just say,

"If that's true, and you do want us to be siblings again, then you need to prove it."

"How?" Chad looks like if you say 'run over coals barefoot', he'd do it.

"Can I have an awkward sibling hug?"

"Can it be a sincere sibling hug?"

Your mouth twists into a bigger smile.

"Yes."

He hugs you, and it's like a hug from Cindy, and a hug from Charlie squashed together, like they're the Three Bears, one hug too loose (Charlie), one hug too tight (Cindy), and one hug that's just right. You've missed this more than anything.

"Does this mean that you're gonna talk to me again when school goes back?"

Chad laughs, and you can tell that he's crying, because he won't move his head, and you can feel his tears on your neck.

"Yeah, sis. I'm gonna talk to you."

-0-

You're not perfect, but you're pretty okay.

-0-

I think Jane's biggest problem is how she perceives herself, and that a lot of her self-esteem comes from her appearance, and she tightly clings to the idea that she isn't beautiful, but any time when she believes she is is very important to her, because she is beautiful, she just doesn't see herself that way.

She isn't perfect by the end of the story because getting over having low self-worth isn't something that occurs overnight, and I wanted to be kinda realistic about that.

I got this plot bunny in my head, and decided to write this immediately.

I really wanted to try to work in the phrase "I'm not pretty and I'm not smart. There are no role models for people like me. Yet." into this, but I just couldn't find the space.

title comes from Melanie Martinez's song 'Pity Party'.