#musebts

She was the kind of girl who knew the world would fall in love with her — and still only cared if he was watching.

★ MUSE!READER who takes polaroids on set. not of herself, but of the crew, James’s coffee left on a monitor, moments between takes. she keeps them tucked in her bag like lucky charms.

★ MUSE!READER who secretly rewatches their earliest films. even the ones that never made it out of university. sometimes she mouths along to his direction. he never knew how much she listened.

★ MUSE!READER who wears rings like armor. at least one is always James’s —a wrap gift from their first indie project. she never acknowledged keeping it, and he never asked.

★ MUSE!READER who keeps the scripts James writes for her. marked with dog-eared corners, scribbled notes, and ink-smudged hearts in the margins — but she'd deny it if you asked.

★ MUSE!READER who’s a little moody before shoots. she doesn’t like talking in the makeup chair. she chews her lip while reading sides, tugs her sleeves over her knuckles, needs silence to focus. but the moment the camera rolls, it’s like something divine clicks into place.

★ MUSE!READER who doesn't wear perfume on set, but James always knows when she’s been in a room. something about the air changes. like a page being turned.

★ MUSE!READER who smells like cinnamon and old books. costume designers try to bottle it. James once wrote it into a script: “she smelled like autumn nostalgia and things he didn’t have the language for.”

★ MUSE!READER who has a thousand expressions, but James’s favorite is the one she makes when she’s pretending not to be jealous. slight tilt of the head. a fake yawn. sharp, sarcastic sweetness that covers up something bruised and tender underneath.

★ MUSE!READER who’s always cold. she keeps a rotation of oversized sweaters on set — most of them not hers. one of them still smells like the first short film they shot together, all student-brewed coffee and dusty theatre curtains.

★ MUSE!READER whose email signature is blank. but every message to James ends with “—your problem” or “—your muse (temporarily).” Sometimes she adds a little black cat emoji.

★ MUSE!READER who reads fan theories late at night, curled in bed with her phone dimmed low. she never comments. but sometimes she smiles.

★ MUSE!READER whose mom used to tell her she was made for the stage, but she always liked the camera better. on stage, you're big. on screen, you're bare.

★ the first time MUSE!READER realised she was falling for FILM DIRECTOR!JAMES, it wasn’t during a scene or a late-night edit. It was when he fixed her necklace before a take, hands shaking just a little.

who never cuts the scene

He filmed the way other people fell in love — quietly, insistently, and always with her at the center of the frame.

★ FILM DIRECTOR!JAMES whose laptop background is blurry from a coffee spill but he refuses to change it because it’s a photo of her mid-laugh during a screen test. he says the blur adds “atmosphere.”

★ FILM DIRECTOR!JAMES who hates interviews. loathes the press tour circuit. but when she’s seated next to him, when she smiles at the host and leans just slightly toward him, he forgets to be nervous.

★ FILM DIRECTOR!JAMES who owns exactly one cologne, which he rarely wears. she once said offhandedly that it smelled like the kind of man a poem would leave lipstick on. he’s worn it ever since.

★ FILM DIRECTOR!JAMES who keeps a folder titled “almosts” on his desktop — scenes that were cut, alternate lines, ideas he’ll never shoot. most are about her. he doesn’t open it often.

★ FILM DIRECTOR!JAMES who doesn’t believe in fate but films like he does. like every soft gaze, every brush of hands, every almost-kiss is the universe leaving breadcrumbs.

★ FILM DIRECTOR!JAMES who always writes with a pen she once borrowed. It’s a habit now, even if it runs out of ink. he refills it. keeps it with him at every shoot.

★ FILM DIRECTOR!JAMES who edits late at night, lit by the glow of the screen and a single desk lamp. the rest of the world falls away — except her. he can’t bear to cut frames where she looks at the camera like that. like she knows what he’s hiding.

★ FILM DIRECTOR!JAMES who has a ritual before every shoot: checks the light, the lens, then scans the space for her. if she’s already there, something in him settles. he doesn’t even realise he’s holding his breath until she looks up.

★ FILM DIRECTOR!JAMES who’s known for being calm and thoughtful on set, but she’s the only one who can tell when he’s spiraling. the twitch in his jaw. the way he taps the edge of the monitor twice, then again. she always finds a way to quiet it — a hand on his shoulder, a small joke only he understands.

★ FILM DIRECTOR!JAMES whose notebooks are a mess of crossed-out dialogue and lines circled in frantic ink. the best scenes always start with her name at the top.

★ FILM DIRECTOR!JAMES who always quiet panics when she signs onto another director’s project. he supports her. he applauds her. He tells her she’ll be brilliant — and she will be. but some part of him, the part he doesn’t admit exists, counts the days until she’s back.

★ FILM DIRECTOR!JAMES who remembers the first time she walked onto his set — not what she wore or said, but how loud everything felt before she spoke. How everything quieted after.

★ FILM DIRECTOR!JAMES who once spent three hours adjusting the lighting for a single close-up of her face. “It needs to look like dusk,” he told the crew. “like the moment the day remembers it’s almost over.”

★ FILM DIRECTOR!JAMES who says he doesn’t write romance. but every story he writes is about longing. about the love you almost say. the hand you don’t take. the kiss you never film.

★ FILM DIRECTOR!JAMES who believes that everything in his life is about her.