#But seriously I got to watch this film in its entirety a couple of hours ago and I Have Not Recovered

[thepiecesofcait]

I had the unimaginable delight of partnering with @shitpostingfromthebarricade and @thecandlesticksfromlesmis for @thebanguette this year and am so extremely hyped to share the sum of our efforts!

You can read the (phenomenal) fic here and watch the (incredible) short film here.

This project was something so far outside of anything I’ve ever attempted before and it’s just been an utter joy to work with such a spectacular crew. I hope y’all enjoy it!

#Is this? #The greatest thing I’ve ever been a part of? #Highly likely #But seriously I got to watch this film in its entirety a couple of hours ago and I Have Not Recovered #it’s SO GOOD #I will not be chill about this #Barricade Day #Les Miserables #Les Mis #Modern AU #Enjolras #Collab #TheCandlesticksFromLesMis #ShitpostingFromTheBarricade

[eagles-translated]

Answering Eagles questions before the season 3 finale (Part 2/2)

I've received a bunch of questions since 3x08 and 3x09 dropped, so I compiled all the questions into two posts. I had to split them up because Tumblr only allows 10 images per post. Anyway, keep reading to see my answers and enjoy! 👇

There might be some kind of collaboration between Amie and Ludde like last season—we have only heard snippets of Ludde's song submission to the music school and it wouldn't surprise me if we saw Amie perform the song in its entirety in the last episode. I touched on this a little in part 1 of answering these questions.

It seems like Amie singing at the end of the season has become kind of a recurring theme. She performed “Follow” in 1x08 and “Second Sight” in 2x10 (on the radio, but my point still stands). I wouldn’t be surprised if they followed this trend by having Amie perform a new song in the season 3 finale.

I'm not sure if she'll recommend Ludde to the record label, though. I honestly still feel like Amie's whole storyline with sending in a rather basic demo written by two teenagers with little to no experience and then getting praised on it with comments such as "it's going to be a real summer hit" felt so unrealistic to me. Maybe they only said that so Amie would accept their offer or something, but that's still very strange because she would have still said yes without a doubt.

I can understand that they thought Amie was marketable as a person and there was this bonus with her having gone viral before on Felicia's Instagram, but that demo did not seem good enough for me to be immediately released as a single and then have them decide on the spot that Amie would be given a contract.

I mean, come on. It never felt earned because we never really saw Amie struggling with her songwriting journey to achieve this dream. Sending in one demo to one record label and having them immediately want to make a whole album with you just doesn't happen in real life unless the song is extremely good or you have a very unique voice. Amie is really talented but there are hundreds of people just like her, if not thousands. I was never convinced by her getting signed so quickly in season 2.

I understand that they wanted to establish her as a successful artist, but that felt so rushed. I was so sure that the record label would screw her over and steal the song rights to record it with another artist who was already established, and that we'd have to see Amie work even harder to achieve her dreams. But we didn't get that at all. Where was the struggle?

Anyway, I'm getting a little off-topic here. To be honest I have a lot of problems with the writing sometimes, even if I still love the show and its characters. Of course I wanted to see Amie achieve success (and I was happy when she did), but the journey there was so bizarrely easy.

She didn't start to seriously work on making her music career become a reality until season 2. Amie had dabbled in music prior to that, like when she auditioned for the school band and did that performance of Follow, but she didn't truly start to work towards it until season 2 when she decided to have her work sent to professionals in the business. And then, just five episodes later, she gets contacted by the record label in Stockholm.

To put this into context—season 2 took place somewhere around March, and episode 5 around three weeks into April. So when Ludde first started helping Amie it took less than two months for her to get signed. You could argue that the song was just that good or that Amie is just that talented, but it never felt like a realistic storyline to me.

So, back to your question! I need to stop getting so sidetracked while answering these haha. I don't think it would be realistic for the record label to hire a teenager with no professional songwriting experience, likely a very small portfolio of his own work in both size and variety, having a criminal record, and on top of that being infamous in the press for abusing his ex-girlfriend. If Amie offered the ultimatum to her label that she'll only return with Ludde, who has an incredibly bad reputation right now, it feels like she would be running the risk of losing the contract entirely.

There's only so much her label can put up with. We've seen Amie ignore their calls with no intention of reassuring them that she's coming back soon. Honestly, with the way things are looking right now it makes the most sense for the contract to be dropped. By Amie or by the label, I don't know.

The episode description for the season finale says that Ludde will get some sort of justice and it could be about his music (or something related to whatever Andreas is doing).

I believe Amie will be doing a live performance of Ludde's song at a New Year's Eve party in episode 10 but I doubt that Ludde will be picked up as a producer. If he actually does I would find that to be a very unrealistic plot point, to be completely honest with you.

This is an issue I had with 3x08 and 3x09 as well. I had a hard time actually enjoying the moment between Felicia, Klara, and Amie knowing that her family was getting increasingly worried for her and even thought for a short moment that Felicia was lying dead at the bottom of the ocean. All that could've been avoided.

To add, it didn't make a lot of sense to me that when Klara finally decided to call someone she called Amie instead of Elias. An ex-friend of Felicia's instead of her brother who could've helped a lot more. What was Amie supposed to do when she showed up at the hotel, exactly?

I know there was the thing with Klara only knowing Amie's number off the top of her head, but there is no reason why she couldn't have gone down to the reception while Felicia was sleeping and asked to use a computer just to get a quick message to Elias. Like, "hey, Felicia attempted something bad but she's safe with me, we're at this hotel in this room but she didn't want me to call anybody, I don't know what to do". That would've been so much better than keeping quiet about the situation for nearly 24 hours.

I know that Klara probably has trauma from leaving her dad at the hospital after his suicide attempt and that she probably didn't want to go against Felicia's wishes. I understand the first part 100%. But Felicia was in a very bad place emotionally and was thinking that her whole family hated her when that wasn't the case. I feel like in a situation like that you kind of have to be the bad guy just to ensure the family that Felicia was safe. Even if everything turned out alright in the end, it could've gone so much worse if Felicia had wanted to be kept hidden for longer.

The ending of 3x08 was super tough to watch and I can't imagine the feeling of thinking your only daughter/sister drowned herself after you just yelled at her and showed no support. Klara couldn't have known any of this, but I feel like she should've at least contacted Elias if she wasn't taking Felicia to a hospital.

Elias calling Amie would've been an easy solution to this whole debacle but we would've lost the drama. It's still somewhat of a plot hole though, like you said.

Thank you for reading that whole post @detectivejulesohara!

The clip you're referring to was posted on Yandeh Sallah's Instagram account, so not in a trailer for this season.

I think that was either just fanservice or it will appear in season 4 since it was posted in May of this year, and I believe the filming of season 3 had already wrapped by then.

It might indicate that Elias and Amie will be a couple by season 4 (this actually seems very likely regardless if this is actually part of a scene or not).

I think Elias is getting increasingly frustrated with hockey and the fact that he doesn't really have any other ambitions to strive for. He was raised with nothing but hockey surrounding him and it's in his blood. Elias got drafted to the US at around the same age as Mats, but Elias left after a year because he just wasn't progressing.

That must feel like a huge step back, and on top of that Mats was probably thriving in his successful career around the age that Elias is now. It's a tough difference in success to have weighing on your shoulders when you're in a team that's second to last in the rankings.

There's even the accusation in the press that Mats paid for Elias to advance in the rankings, and I'm sure that's going to affect his career negatively.

I think Elias overworking himself could also be the result of him feeling like he has to prove that returning to Eagles—a small club that is probably having their worst season ever—was in fact the right choice and not the death of his elite hockey career. That choice was very questionable from the very start and his agent advised against it. Even Mats found it strange. Elias said that he didn't really have a choice most likely because of the clause in his contract, but then he also claims to Mats that things just turned out that way.

Ludde: You don’t regret coming back [to Eagles]? Elias: I didn’t really have a choice.

The idea that he didn't have a choice in the matter doesn't seem accurate. His agent told him there were other alternatives like Jokerit (a professional ice hockey team based in Helsinki, Finland) and that they could find something better than Eagles. Elias seemed kind of defeated already and the decision to return to Eagles didn't feel thought-through at all. It's almost like he just didn't care.

Agent: [...] Jokerit has called and I’ve had a great conversation with them, so they’re on. Elias: You know what? Let’s skip all the trouble. Let’s go with Eagles, it’ll be great. Agent: What? Elias: I’m so tired of moving all the time anyway, plus I’ll be close to my family. Agent: Wait, I thought that you— Eagles has big economical problems, and… Sorry, but their season started awfully. We can get a better team. You understand, right? Elias: Yeah, but we can’t get a team that needs me as much. Plus— If they say they want to see development, I’ll give them that. Agent: Wait— They’re under the line. We’re talking about qualifying down directly. You can’t in earnest believe you’ll change that on your own. Elias: It’s perfect. I’ll only go up, as you like to say.

It also seems like he's maybe realizing that hockey isn't everything and that there are other things he might want to explore and pursue in his life. I think Elias is feeling kind of stuck right now. He's been training his whole life for one purpose which is a professional career in hockey, and maybe he feels like Mats wouldn't allow him to quit. That option doesn't exist to him.

Like you said, Mats had that comment where he labeled Ludde a "quitter" and Elias stressed the fact that there shouldn't be anything wrong with losing interest and deciding to pursue something else.

Mats: Can you imagine that he’s just quitting? I mean, I’m completely— He really didn’t strike me as a quitter. So fucking close. [...] Elias: [...] Ludde, he’s… He’s not a quitter, he’s just didn’t want it anymore. That should be fair.

However, quitting is seen as failure to Mats. Mats dropped everything when he got drafted. He left his relationship with Petra seemingly without a second thought, because hockey comes before everything for Mats. Felicia even mentioned back in season 1 how her father was just a voice in a telephone for most of her childhood. He barely had any presence in her life because he was busy with hockey.

When Klara tells Elias that he's always putting hockey first, he gets angry but he doesn't outright deny it. In fact, he kind of changes the subject to shift attention away from Klara's claim.

Klara: This— You haven’t changed at all. You’re always putting yourself first. Elias: Excuse me? Klara: Yes, it’s either you or hockey. Elias: Stop! What the— Klara: I can’t take this. Elias: Are you leaving now? I wasn’t the only one you dumped. You’ve been acting like shit to Felicia. Yeah, and Amie and Ludde too, for that matter. You haven’t thought about that? So don’t come here and say I’m the egoist.

This is kind of an interesting thought—that maybe Elias subconsciously knew that was Klara is saying is true to some degree and that he has been putting hockey first. He decided to get on the train to the draft combine in Seattle instead of staying with Klara, and a year later he realizes that things didn't turn out the way that he'd planned and he returns to Eagles.

Maybe Elias is trying so hard to be someone who he just isn't, and it's affecting so many aspects of his life negatively. He lost Klara, he had to repeat almost his whole last year in high school because of moving to the US, and now he seems to be stuck in Oskarshamn. He's previously expressed to Amie that this isn't necessarily where he wanted to end up.

Elias: [...] Hey, is it just me or is there something about this town that… It sort of feels like no matter how much you try to get away, it… It pulls you back somehow.

It's kind of strange that he doesn't want to be in Oskarshamn, and yet he was the one who chose to return. Maybe he somehow feels like he has some purpose there because it keeps pulling him back. He just doesn't know what that purpose is.

Elias tried coming back to Eagles to turn things around for them, and they did win a game against the Capitals but that victory was later tarnished by the fight that broke out between the two teams (and to add to this, the loss of Ludde who used to be one of the star players and Klara as a sponsor). That kind of overshadowed their whole victory. Elias was very determined to do something to help and it very much feels like he needs Eagles to succeed—he needs to sort of "redeem" himself.

Elias: [...] Can I do anything? Can I go talk to— I could go talk to the sponsor. Mats: Let’s deal with it later. I’ll solve this. You have to go to school now. Elias: But we can finish talking— Mats: You can— No. Try to think of something else. Alright?

I think that Elias's desperation for Eagles to do well could absolutely lead to him eventually deciding to be a coach. He doesn't really seem to want the life that Mats had after seeing how success turned out for him—a broken family that he barely cares about because hockey occupies his mind more than caring for his children or repairing the relationship with Leila.

I think Elias being a hockey coach could suit him, but I would also love to see him exploring things outside of hockey—maybe even his interests outside of sport entirely.

I kind of agree with you on this. Klara has apologized to Felicia and been forgiven, but we've never seen her properly apologize to Amie for filming that video of her and posting it on social media. Amie and Ludde were in the wrong, yes, but that video being posted was humiliating for both of them. They had to deal with the ramifications of that for months after with the whole school judging them in silence.

To be fair, the video was posted a long time ago in the show's time frame (nearly two years ago if I'm right?) and they all kind of moved on from it. To add to this, maybe she felt it would've been kind of awkward to apologize with Felicia in the room.

Felicia was so hurt by that video being posted and I think it would feel very weird for her that Klara would apologize for posting the video when it's the sole reason Felicia found out what had been done to her. Without that video, she would've probably gone a few more months without being told what happened at the Halloween party.

I'm waiting for a Klara and Amie reconciliation in this season finale. I feel like this is something that should be discussed between just the two of them, and maybe they'll sneak in some blessing from Klara with the whole budding Elias and Amie relationship? I'd be happy with just a reconciliation, though, but I'm unsure if we'll get one. I have a feeling they'll start the season finale with a time jump and I don't know if Klara is even going to be in Oskarshamn by that time.

If we don't see them reconnecting in the season finale I will be pretty disappointed, to be honest.

Thank you! I really appreciate you too @lunawedlers (your gifsets are absolutely magical)!

This question was sent in a while ago but as season 3 had just started airing I was very excited to see the development of Elias and Amie, mostly because the director had been hinting on Twitter that something would happen between them this season. I've been really interested in them ever since 1x03 and so far the wait has been worth it.

I think all episodes have great visuals, but if I had to pick one I would probably say 3x06. All those shots of Elias and Amie on the walk through the park, the drone shots, and then the view from that bench spot were so gorgeous visually. That answer is more of a scene rather than a whole episode haha, but I think they really made the beauty of Oskarshamn stand out in those shots.

I think Amie will have some sort of performance in the final episode of a new song and that Elias will be watching her! After reading the episode description for the final episode and seeing that there will probably be some New Year's Eve party going on, I have a feeling that Amie will be performing. She's always had a performance of a new song in every season finale and this one should be no exception.

They tricked us a little in the season 3 trailer with us thinking that Elias would be at one of Amie's concerts in Stockholm, but now I'm sure that this scene fits in at the New Year's Eve party.

I think we should keep our expectations low for a kiss between Elias and Amie. They just started developing their relationship, and I like the slow pace they're going in. They're not rushing anything. I also have this feeling that their development has deliberately been so slow because they're sort of "saving the best for last".

Elias and Amie are fan favorites and their relationship has been very talked-about from the beginning. I can see the writers maybe having decided to push their relationship more towards the end of the show, which is why we haven't really gotten any Elias and Amie content until now. That's frustrating if you're impatient and I've seen some people thinking that maybe Elias and Amie won't happen at all, but I don't think we need to worry at all. The fact that Elias and Amie's development has been so slow should indicate that they're much more likely to be endgame.

A kiss in episode 10 could definitely happen, but I don't know. Maybe they'll drag it out further. As I've said before, if they don't get one in season 3 they will absolutely be getting one in season 4. I've noticed that it's always best to keep your expectations low when it comes to this couple.

The episode description for the season finale said this about Elias, which some have interpreted to be about Amie.

New Year’s Eve is here. [...] But is Elias brave enough to say what everyone else already knows?

This could mean anything, really. I'm actually leaning more towards this being about an individual thing rather than Amie being involved. It could be about Elias admitting that he's been overworking himself and not eating properly, or coming clean about the fact that maybe he doesn't want a career in hockey. This is something that everyone else already knows, so I think it might be about hockey.

Felicia has observed the overworking, Mats has told him to stop with it, and Ludde might've had some inkling about it while he was still on the team. Even Amie has probably also noticed that he's been spending a lot of time at the gym lately.

I could absolutely be wrong about this though.

Thank you for the question @lunawedlers!

This is a hard one because season 3 has had so many strong episodes already, and usually my favorite episode ends up being the season finale because it's basically the culmination of the whole season. I really loved 2x10 for this very reason since the ending montage was so well done.

If I had to pick between 3x01 - 3x09 though I would probably have to say it's a tie between 3x04 — Date night and 3x05 — Wounds! These two episodes showcased what Eagles should be all about so well, which is relationships plus the struggles you go through as a teenager in a small town, and then of course hockey. The hockey game episodes are really good, even if I don't think 3x05 topped 2x05 (the game where Ludde got tackled and knocked out).

I loved the contrast in Date night of the budding relationship between Elias and Amie and then that fight between Felicia and Ludde on the cliff. That whole scene between Felicia and Ludde on the cliff was actually really beautiful, especially when the sun had gone down.

It was interesting to see how this sweet gesture from Felicia turned into a fight between the two of them. I thought that was very realistic, because no matter how big of a gesture Felicia made to apologize there were still underlying problems that they needed to talk about.

I also loved the "non-date" between Elias and Amie in this episode. It was cute to see them goofing off before the movie started and then talking about it on the way home. I liked how Elias could connect to her on how they had both returned to Oskarshamn.

The recent episodes that dropped last week (3x08 and 3x09) were very strong and discussed some important subject matters, but I had a few problems with them that I discussed in a question above. They were dark, but not necessarily bad because they needed to happen.

However, I have to say that I prefer Eagles when it's about hockey and teenage relationships. 3x04 and 3x05 made me kind of nostalgic for season 1 and I liked the vibe they both had.

I agree, but I think we could maybe get a combination of both! Relationships can have all these romantic and sweet traits like you described, but also be more passionate and show public displays of affection.

I think Elias and Amie fit the more laid-back and sweet characteristics, but we have yet to really see what Amie is like in a relationship. We've seen her with a crush on Ludde and we got a glimpse of that thing she had with Robin (which was apparently a relationship but I did not pick up on that at all), but we don't really know what Amie is like in a relationship. Maybe she's never really had a "real" one, either.

Nevertheless, I'm excited to see what's in store for Elias and Amie. I'm very positive that they will eventually become a couple in season 4.

#eagles svt #svt eagles #after writing this i kind of want to do a separate post discussing the writing in eagles because i have a lot more to say about it

[katnissmellarkkk]

Gravity

Hi! Okay, so here’s chapter two of my growing back together story, inspired by the prompt “I won’t hurt you” @rosegardeninwinter sent me. I also posted this fic on AO3 under the title Gravity (like the Sara Bareilles song), if that’s where you prefer to read. And here’s a link to chapter one of this fic if you wanna read and haven’t yet.

Also I know I said in my first author’s note that there will be three chapters, but there might be a bit more.... we love an over-writer, right? 🤷🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

I don’t know if you’re “supposed” to post every part of a multi chapter fic on here? Or just post the link to it on AO3? But for now I posted it in its entirety on here 😊.

Anyways, hope you like it! And thanks to anyone who reads! 💖💖💖

/

A couple months later.

We slide back after that. I don't know if that night-the night he had a nightmare that I died and we slept locked in each other's embrace-moved too quickly for Peeta or if he thought he was protecting me from him, but when morning light came, he was gone from the bed.

I didn't see him again until the following evening, helping Haymitch feed his rambunctious geese in the yard. He didn't speak to me for four more days after that, and when he did, it was to ask what kind of bread I wanted him to bring for lunch the next day.

I pretended to his face that it didn't hurt. That waking up in a cold, empty bed, in a house he all but abandoned until I had evacuated, that sleeping in his arms and awaking so abruptly alone, didn't hurt. I did what I had taught myself to do as a child and I turned my features into an indifferent mask, shutting off all access to my emotions. Destroying any possibility of anyone witnessing my vulnerabilities.

But I knew deep down, it did hurt. It hurt badly.

I didn't speak to him directly the first week he showed up for lunch and to work on the memory book again. I got by fine without addressing him directly, as Haymitch somehow sensed the bubbling tension between us and stayed sober just enough to remain alert for all our shared meals. He helped with the memory book, helped by adding in a snarky comment here or there to reel our focuses onto him instead of each other.

I wanted to say thank you but I never knew how. I doubt Haymitch needs me to verbalize it anyway. One night, as he follows behind Peeta to leave, his hand grazes my shoulder and gives it a squeeze and I know he's much more aware of the dynamic between his old tributes than he leads on.

But weeks after the night in question, the night that set Peeta and my friendship back months, we receive a telegraph from Effie. A telegraph that shakes the small amount of stability we've managed to build in the time since the war.

Apparently President Paylor has decided to move forward with arena destruction, an idea mentioned a few times by Plutarch on Caesar's talk show. An idea I didn't take seriously until now.

Paylor has decided to build a memorial for each of the arenas, for each year the games ever took place, to immortalize our history, so Panem can never forget how cruel and inhumane things once were. But first, she wants to eliminate the actual Hunger Games arenas, once and for all, before putting the memorials in their place.

My initial thought, months ago when Delly showed me Plutarch and Caesar discussing the idea, was that this would takes years to happen.

I was, once again, so clearly wrong. The plans have been expedited and the order in which each arena will be decimated has been swiftly decided.

All that alone doesn't sound terrible. I'd like to see those death pits crushed, burned, torn down, eradicated, or all of the above, by any means necessary. Only downside, initially, is that this will extend me—and Peeta and potentially all the other victors—remaining in the forefront of the public's mind.

Since the war, all I've ever wanted was for everyone in the country to forget who I am. I don't want to be known anymore. I just want to be left alone, to a quiet and peaceful and relatively simple life, without anyone ever recognizing me again. Without anyone thinking of me as the girl on fire, as the Mockingjay, as the sixteen-year-old who volunteered for a sister who was doomed to death anyway.

But, of course, there's a catch. There's always a catch.

Plutarch thinks it would be great to have the living victors be there—televised—in the Capitol and see the arenas before they're bulldozed.

Even with this dreadful proposition, I thought I had time to think of a way out of it. When Effie first sent the telegraph, I thought that I would have years before having to worry about going back to the places where my nightmares started.

Well, some of my nightmares, that is.

After all, it takes time to destroy something as large and as vast as an arena-excluding the way I destroyed the one in the Quell, that is. I figured-I rationalized, really-that by the time they got to number Seventy-Four, I would have a solid excuse to get out of attending.

I guess though they wished to start with the big years and the first decade of the Hunger Games wasn't very eventful, apparently—lucky them—so the first arena they wish to bid farewell to is the one from the second Quarter Quell. The Fiftieth Hunger Games. The one that was so strikingly beautiful and almost entirely poisonous.

The year Haymitch Abernathy, from the lowly District Twelve, won.

And being also from Twelve, my presence, along with Peeta's, suddenly became of the utmost importance as well.

At first, I still try to opt out of the event. Even after Effie chastises me over the phone, like not a day has passed since she was my escort, and even after my mother claims in her letter that it could be cathartic for me, I do not relent.

Delly and Thom and a few of the others in the community, like Kanon who runs the candy shop two stores away from the bakery, and Greta, who helps with the dusting and mopping all over town, try to say that it could be good for me. Greasy Sae claims it can't be worse than actually living through the games, and I silently appreciate her much more blatant statement than the comforting platitudes others try to provide me.

But it all falls on deaf ears in the end.

Because the only person I truly listen to is Peeta. Even bitter and wounded, the only person I really hear is him.

Unfortunately, as irritating as it is sometimes, his voice will always reach me when others can't.

But we don't ever have an actual conversation about it. Five days after Effie calls to announce the news, to tell me unequivocally that my presence is requested, Peeta sways me to go with just a look.

He comes over later than usual and brings extra bread and pastries to go with the deer meat I hunted. We feast silently, the air between us still incredibly awkward, when, without warning, our old mentor comes crashing through the door unceremoniously.

I don't know how much alcohol he consumed, but it's enough to knock even someone with Haymitch's tolerance off his feet.

By the end of the hour, the older man is practically beating his head into the wall of my dining room, screaming the names of dead children and about force fields and axes. And from across the kitchen table, Peeta touches my arm—the first time he's voluntarily touched me in weeks—and my eyes meet his, blue pouring into gray, and silently he begs me to go for the goodbye ceremony to Haymitch's arena.

And I give in. Not just for him. But also, in large part, to repay the caustic, miserable drunk that kept us alive. To support the unpredictable, temperamental man that I do consider my family somehow.

The ceremony is set to take place weeks later and the time does little to alleviate my anxiety. Peeta and me still don't speak much, but come time for lunch or dinner, there he is, in my house like clockwork.

When I point out, a few days before we're due at the train station, that there's a very realistic possibility that the Capitol won't let me go to the ceremony, Peeta casually says, "I already cleared that with Effie and Plutarch."

I shoot him a look of surprise. "You did?"

Shrugging nonchalantly before turning back to the rabbit on his plate, he murmurs quietly, "Thought it'd give you one less thing to worry about."

The ceremony is nothing like I expect. Somehow I figured there would be an obnoxiously large television crew, loud speakers, prepared speeches on written cards, awkward directions and crowds upon crowds of people surrounding us, asking pointed questions, shooting invasive stares and pressing for reactions to their nosy accusations. I expected those accusations to be directed at me and Peeta especially.

Instead, there's none of those things. There's no crowd at all, it's just us victors. Just Enobaria, Johanna, Annie, the three of us from Twelve and Beetee—who I still can't make myself so much as look at, reminded of my sister's absence and his role in it every time we so much as stand in five feet vicinity of each other.

The camera crew consists of Mitchell, Pollux and Cressida, along with two unfamiliar, but seemingly non-threatening faces. There's no directions, no prompting, not close ups or reshoots.

All that happens is Paylor makes a statement that the crew films, stating that the arenas will be destroyed one by one, and in the place of each there will be an individual memorial made, as we victors stand in an unorganized, crooked line that will surely make Effie cringe when she sees the footage on television later.

It's almost peaceful, I think to myself in surprise, as I look around at the location. The sky is a stunning cobalt, even more brilliant in person than in the video Peeta and I watched on the train so long ago. The meadow looks like the grass is fresh, like it was just watered yesterday. The mountain is so breathtaking I have to physically tear my eyes away from it and even the woods look rather cozy. Or maybe that part is just me.

There's also arraignments of flowers, just like in the footage we watched, that spill every which way, filling our noses with soothing, floral scents. It feels unnatural to say about a place set up for murder, but with the deadly poisons lurking at every turn eviscerated, I almost can find this arena truly beautiful.

Of course though, it's not my arena.

It's Haymitch's and he looks like he's about to be sick. He's white-knuckled it for a few days without any sort of drink—to my, Peeta's and, even Effie's, visible shock—and I can see plainly now that he's absolutely regretting it. His eyes are hallow and wild at the same time and I can see his shaking palms beneath the sleeves of his jacket as he stares out at the source of his every nightmare for the last quarter century.

It shocks me that he didn't find a way out of this. Actually, it shocks me still that these ceremonies are even possible.

I never knew they kept arenas after the games were over each year. I never realized they kept all seventy-four death pits, haunted by child sacrifice, the way you keep old vases on a shelf.

At this point though, it's just another thing to add onto the growing list of horrific and unthinkable issues that the Capitol doesn't even grasp. Keeping the haunted graveyards of children as souvenirs shouldn't sit right with anyone, I don't care how you're raised.

I tell myself to not be so quick to judge, as I can't know who I'd be if I had been born in the Capitol instead of the districts. Still, the idea of condoning the things they have without remorse or shame seems unthinkable.

I'm torn out of my thoughts when Cressida speaks. "Is there anything you'd like to say, Haymitch, before we finish filming?"

Once again, catching me off-guard entirely—he's full of all sorts of surprises evidently—Haymitch clears his throat and looks down at his leather boots before speaking. "Ardor. Garnett. Dolan. Silver. Ryker. Artemis. Slayte. Pistol. Lex. Mac. Lumen. Gig. Brook. Aqua. Mary. Ripley. Lyme. Watt. Rocky. Gio. Belle. Raven. Kia. Mecko. Barker. Jack. Holly. Briar. Essie. Stitch. Coco. Paul. Mira. Miller. Coop. Harvey. Butch. Cutter. Bea. Skinna. Basil. Sunny. Rip. Spring. Oaker. Terra. Maysilee." He lists off the names in a way that is so matter-of-fact that it would almost be robotic if it weren't for the hoarseness in his tone that grows stronger with every name he utters. He hesitates for only a moment before adding, "Corentine. Alannah. Alastar."

There's a long stretch of silence, where no one speaks, no one blinks, no one even breathes. We all know instinctively who these people are—I know solely from Maysilee Donner's name being called—but we still wait until Haymitch speaks again, to confirm our assumption.

"Those are the names of all the people this arena killed." His eyes grow glassy and his brow furrows in anger as he fights desperately to repress his emotions, and suddenly I have the strangest urge to hug my mentor, to make him feel better like he tried to do for me once when Peeta was stuck in the Capitol and I was distraught. But I know it wouldn't be appreciated or wanted, and quite honestly I'm glad for that, because I don't even know what to say.

The last three names Haymitch said stick in my head for some reason I can't explain other than an odd gut feeling. But then he speaks again, an in a voice growing gruffer by the second, he says right into the camera, "that's every single person who was killed because of the second Quarter Quell."

And, like I should have known all along, it hits me the last three names are the names of his family who were murdered to punish him for the stunt with the forcefield.

The last three names are the murders of the last people he loved. Until me and Peeta came along.

As if his thoughts matched mine, Haymitch suddenly shakes his head and his eyes widen again as he stares past all the rest of us, as he continues to take in the exact place in which life as he knew it, twenty-six years ago, was altered forever.

His reaction is more understandable and genuine than I imagined he would ever allow it to be, especially on camera, and I want to say something but me and him both aren't good at saying anything, and I find myself looking to Peeta, hoping he'd know what to do.

Peeta doesn't meet my gaze though. He's solely focused on our mentor and just when he opens his mouth to speak, the older man to suddenly shake his head in our general direction and clears his throat.

"I'm done. Tell Plutarch I'm done with this crap. Just hurry up and bulldoze this place so I can go back to Twelve," is all he says to Cressida as he storms off, but his voice is rough and caustic once again, and I can only hope he recovers from this event soon enough.

Somehow, witnessing Haymitch relive his games, even through the shield he so obviously puts up to the outside world, triggers me though. For some reason, I feel my eyes begin to water as I look around at the meadow, at the mountain, at the golden cornucopia, and wonder how anyone could build a place where kids would eventually go to die? How could anyone have ever been so inhumane? How could a country just accept it? How did we live for so long with the Hunger Games overtaking our lives and still remained complicit? I don't understand. The more time passes, the more days I'm separated from the war and from the old world and the old way of life, I just can't comprehend anymore how we ever lived in a place so horrific.

I feel my eyes spill over and I'm grateful that Cressida has stopped filming already, because if Plutarch saw any tears on film, he would make certain it ended up on television.

I wipe my tears with the heel of my hand, trying to go about it as subtly as I can, hoping no one else notices. For the most part, I'm golden. Enobaria is already exiting, with Beetee following not far behind. Jo's back is to me while she speaks to Annie, though as per usual, she seems to be irritated.

Of course, it's too much to ask for everyone to remain oblivious to my waterworks. Even as I rid myself of them before they become widely noticeable, I feel Peeta's eyes train on me and know, despite the distance between us for the last few weeks, he isn't going to ignore my upset.

To my surprise though, he doesn't speak. He doesn't utter a single syllable.

Instead, I feel his large, warm palm slip into mine and squeeze tightly, lacing our fingers together, in a way we have done thousands of times before. Like two puzzle pieces coming together to complete a picture, like two indivisible teammates that will fight against anything that is thrown their way, like two halves of a whole finally finding each other, his hand grasps mine with a vengeance and I know I won't be the one who let's go.

He's still holding my hand when we board the train, hours later.

//

A couple weeks later.

"Yes, Mrs. Greenstead, I will get the chocolate nut loaf and a platter of the cranberry cookies wrapped up for you... Yes, it will be ready by the time you arrive... No, I promise they won't be cold," Peeta assures through the bakery telephone—a new addition that Thom and his wife thought was necessary to run a proper bakery. So necessary they bought it for Peeta as an opening gift.

It's not that the gesture wasn't nice or that Peeta didn't deeply appreciate it. I personally saw that he did, wholeheartedly.

But seeing it on the wall every day was just another reminder to me of my own personal vendetta against the integration between the Capitol's way of life and the districts'.

The only place telephones used to exist, outside of the Capitol limits, was the houses in Victor's Villiage, and if I'm being honest, I wish it would have stayed that way.

Maybe I'm being selfish, as I happen to still reside inside a house that once belonged to the said village, therefore I already had experienced this luxury prior to the new world. But I just can't make myself break the association between the items that had recently become readily available for all and the horror that was the Capitol.

Still though, the change was inescapable Telephones, cameras, heating pads, curling irons, quick bake ovens, cars and so many other items, were all growing in popularly across each district. Not that I was able to see a lot of these changes personally. But letters from Annie and my mom, and the occasional—unprompted and yet still begrudged—call from Jo, all kept me informed. Sometimes more informed than I wished to be.

Maybe I would feel entirely different if these inventions were brand new to me. But they aren't. I'd seen and used every one of them before. Their novelty had always been lost on me, perhaps because my only experience them was while inside the Capitol, surrounded by tacky colors and strong rose scents and itchy materials, headed for a death match, my life and the lives of those I cared always at great risk.

Of course, the new item in the bakery did make some things easier. Days like today are a perfect example.

Harvest Day is only one day away and everyone is coming in for their breads and their desserts. Peeta says it was always one of the most popular days, for as long as he can remember. Only difference is, before the war only Peacekeepers and town folks could afford to purchase anything. And generally, most citizens who even did come in, could only purchase a limited amount of items.

Not now. I don't know where everyone in Twelve was coming up with the money or if Peeta's prices are just a drastic drop from that of his mother's, but today, I swear I've seen every citizen in town inside the bakery.

Makes me glad that the portrait of me is hanging in the back, where no one else can see it. As pretty as it may be, as talented as Peeta is, I don't want a giant version of me displayed for all to see.

"Here you are," I politely say, handing two loaves of warm bread to a man who must be new to Twelve, as I've never seen him before. I'm debating on asking if he moved here recently when he passes a bill to me over the top of the pastry display.

"Thank you, hon." He smiles at me, looking at me a little too closely for my liking, as he swiftly walks out the door. His exit is met with the arrival of Val, a boy Peeta and I went to school with, who definitely was more Peeta's crowd than mine.

Val is a regular customer at the bakery, having always genuinely liked the Mellark family. His parents owned a small carpentry shop four spaces down from the bakery, and even with both them dead, he and his two sisters rebuilt the store, taking over their parents' legacy.

Peeta though is more focused on me now than Val's order. "Give me a second," he calls to his old friend, a little less polite than he had been all morning. "Katniss, what's wrong?" He asks urgently, seeing the look in my eyes.

I shake my head and push away the anxiety threatening to close in on me. "Nothing, just..." I hesitate, not even wanting to say it. Peeta's gaze refuses to lessen though and I sigh before finally mumbling, "That guy. He creeped me out. The way he was looking at me so closely..."

Peeta's hand touches my arm for a brief moment before pulling it away, making it obvious that he regrets the small act of even so much as touching me. But his words are still calming and they relax me a little. "He's gone now, Katniss. And if he scares you, I won't let him come back, okay? There's nothing anyone can do to you or me anymore. We're safe."

I nod, knowing the words like the back of my hand at this point, as it's the same mantra we always repeat to each other, every time one of us begins to panic or flail. But still, I open my mouth to refuse his offer. I don't want Peeta to turn away any sort of business. Not with the unpredictability and uncertainty this new world still rests on. We never know if the bakery will sell anything tomorrow or if all sort of income will soon dry up.

And we're the lucky ones, financially speaking, who were rich before the war and allowed—in a generous declaration by President Paylor—to keep the entirety of our money after. I don't have to imagine the anxiety others in the country must be in, knowing the curse of poverty all too well. I wouldn't wish that feeling on anyone.

"I don't want you to turn away people," I say quietly. "Not on my account. You need business to keep this place afloat."

"I have plenty of money, Katniss," he reminds me, a little darker than I expect. "And I'd rather you feel safe than own a popular shop."

His words unexpectedly touch me, unexpectedly cut right down to the depth of my bones, exposing my soft underbelly. I'm about to do something stupid, like touch his hand, when Val makes his presence known again. "Your shop is already the most popular in the district," he points out, not even a little ashamed for having listened to our conversation. "And besides, why don't you just look at the guy's name? Maybe you can look him up, see if he's alright or not."

Peeta gets a glint in his eye. "That's a good idea, Val, thank you." As he moves towards the register to, I can only suppose, look for the man's receipt with his name and signature, he gestures to his school friend. "Katniss can get your order."

I shoot him a glare, only half kidding. I did come to help out, here and there, today but I did not intend to be an actual expected employee. For free, no less.

Instead of saying anything though, I just grab Val his three cinnamon rolls, his two snack cakes, four bagels, white chocolate donut and a loaf with raisins and cranberries.

Val, like Delly Cartwright, was always one of the few people in Twelve who had a few pounds to spare.

Peeta has a type of friend.

"Found it," Peeta now calls, bringing over a slip of paper to where I'm handing Val his three bags of treats. "His name was Rod Catamaran."

Me and Val, for the first time perhaps, exchange a look between us. "That's an odd name for Twelve."

"I've never even heard that name before."

"He may not even be from Twelve, guys," Peeta says.

I roll my eyes. "Because a bombed out district is really a tourist attraction."

"Hey, none of that," Thom calls as he walks through the front door of the bakery, with Kanon Bagley on his heels. "We've rebuilt this place beautifully and negativity is not appreciated here."

"Yeah, Katniss," Peeta chimes in, teasing me. I'm about to kick him in his only real leg, as we're the only two behind the counter and no one else will see, when Kanon speaks up.

"Can I buy a couple of pastries?"

"Of course," Peeta says kindly, walking around me to personally grab the two items Kanon requests.

Kanon is new to Twelve. One of the few new additions this place gained after all that went down. He's a large man in his early twenties, with dark skin and dark hair and eyes to match. But the only times I've ever interacted with him, he's quiet as a mouse, his eyes a little forlorn at all times and he offers more discounts then he should at the candy shop he recently opened next to the bakery.

He's from District Eleven originally and it takes no real critical thinking to realize he had a hard life, even before the war.

I'm far too familiar with the look of scars etched across the eyes. So is Peeta.

That's why, when Kanon looks down at the money in his hand and realizes he doesn't have enough to afford both pastries, Peeta immediately brushes it off. "That's okay, they're on the house," he instantly promises, handing the small bag over to Kanon with a gentle smile.

"No, I don't want to take it without-"

"I made way too much," Peeta insists, lying outright to make it appear Kanon would be doing him a favor. I know he didn't make too much, because we've been flying through everything today and keeping the ovens hot in case more is needed.

Still though, I back up the fib. "He did. We've been wondering all day how we were gonna sell enough stuff so we don't have to feed the leftovers to Haymitch's geese."

Kanon glances between us shyly, before taking the bag from Peeta's hand and slipping the few dollars he does have into his pocket again. "Thank you," he says softly and turns to leave.

Thom pats Kanon on the back as he passes him, before turning to follow. When the other man isn't looking, he turns back to us subtly and mouths, "thank you."

I wanted to tell him not to thank me. I only watched Peeta make this food, I didn't assist by any stretch of the imagination. I didn't own the bakery or do anything with the money or finances. It was not my choice to give things away for free.

But I'm far too focused on the boy in front of me to say any of that. The boy with the bread, the boy who isn't really a boy anymore. The boy who just gave away food for no reward at all, even on the most demanding and strenuous day all year for his business. The boy who just showed Kanon Bagley the same kindness I begged someone-anyone-to show me at eleven-years-old and not one single person did.

Except for him. He did for me all those years ago what he did for Kanon just now, and I suddenly have the most inexplicable, irrepressible urge to kiss Peeta right then and there, in the middle of the bakery.

I don't, however, and it's for once not because I lost my courage. It's because the door swings open again, just as Val exits right behind Kanon and Thom.

It's the same man from earlier. "Hi," Peeta greets, this time not at all sweet. Clearly recognizing the man as the one who made me nervous before. "Can I help you?"

"Yes," the man affirms, his tone brighter than you'd expect given our chilly reception. And our blatant wariness for anyone new. "I forgot to get a pecan butter cake before?"

There is a beat where me and Peeta exchange a look, before I awkwardly move towards the display case and begin to pack up his item. Peeta waits for me to decide to help the man before starting to ring him up.

"That was a nice thing you both just did," the man says as he patiently watches me fold the white waxy paper over his pastry. "For that guy."

"You were watching?" Is the only thing that comes out of my mouth.

"Only for a moment," he explains, his tone still friendly. Either he doesn't know how to read people at all or he's the most even keeled person in Panem.

Because I know I'm being rude, to a man who maybe doesn't even deserve it, I force myself to say one thing conversational. "This is my mom's favorite dessert," I offer, gesturing to his cake.

The man raises his eyebrows in an act that looks almost feigned. "Really?"

I instantly regret trying to be even slightly pleasant. Even his mannerisms seem fake. I'm contemplating if I should say anything else or go hide in the back room with the warm ovens and my portrait, when Peeta presses a button and the register dings.

He's about to say the total when the strange man shakes his head and hands to me directly an unfamiliar bill over the display case. "Have a nice day, you two," he calls, grabbing his cake and swiftly walking out.

It's not until he's gone, not until I have a moment to process the second weird encounter with the odd person, that I even glance down at the crisp bill he handed me.

It's a bill with a larger number on the back than I've ever personally seen before. I knew these kinds of dollars existed—I'm sure I could have gotten plenty after my first games—but I'd never seen one in the flesh.

Peeta sees my reaction. "What is it?" His voice sounds alarmed and he's stepping closer to me, but all I can do is gasp out his name.

"Peeta, look." I hold up the bill and point to the number on the back.

His eyes widen too, taking in the amount with a dizzy smile. Of both relief that nothing's wrong and excitement at the digit.

"Do you think it was a mistake?" I ask suddenly, looking over my shoulder towards the window, wondering if we should track the man down and give him his money back, before he evaporates into thin air.

"No?" Peeta shakes his head, the wheels in his mind turning quicker than mine. His face turns to that of elation, as the large bill takes some pressure off the bakery's sales. "No, he said he saw us give Kanon a break. He was giving us something in return."

I'm about to say something else, I don't even know what, but it all flies out of my head when Peeta suddenly wraps his arms around my waist and swiftly pulls me into his embrace.

My entire body goes into lockdown and hypervigilance at the same time. I can't move an inch but it feels like every nerve in my body is abruptly tingling and on fire.

My sweater lifts up slightly and his bare arms graze my lower back, eliciting a shiver to run involuntarily down my spine as his face buries into my hair.

I wrap my arms around his neck after a beat when I can make myself move again, and I feel him smile against my skin. I'm so glad at that moment he's holding me up, because if he wasn't supporting my weight I'd probably crash to the floor, unable to even feel my legs beneath me.

And, as a rush of heat shoots out from the place where Peeta's lips brush my collarbone, I suddenly feel only gratitude, not irritation, at the strange Rod Catamaran.

//

Four days later.

The world surrounding me is green. Green and brown and fire-bitten and scorched. Every which way I spin, there's embers soaring from that direction too, waiting to lick me with their burning flames, ready to decimate me once and for all.

But through the smoke and haze, I still can see between the trees two blonde braids. I still can see a small figure standing on the other side of the fire. I still can see her shirt that's come untucked in the back, creating a duck tail that I desperately want to fix.

Just as I notice her, she whirls around to face me, her blue eyes big and bright and terrified. "Katniss!" She screams, the same way she did the last day she was alive. "Katniss, help! They're coming!"

I don't know who's coming or what's happening or where we even are, but all I feel is relief somehow. Relief that she's here, that I'm in her presence again, that she's almost within my reach. Instinctively I call out, "Prim!" Just so I can finally get a response to the name I've been shouting into oblivion for almost a year now.

"Katniss, help me!" She cries again and then looks over her shoulder. She's not talking about the fire between us, as it doesn't seem too intent on heading towards her.

I don't know what's coming or who she's afraid of, but my instincts now go into overdrive. My body suddenly snaps into alert and I whip my head around, to see if I can find an opening in the fire closing in on me, if I can find a way to get to the sister I lost what feels like only yesterday, if I can find a way to save her this time.

There's no gap in the fire though. It's crowded around me, front, back and side to side. The more seconds that pass by, the closer the fire folds into my proximity, and I have to brace myself before making a split-second decision.

But it's not really a decision at all. Prim needs me and I cannot fail her. I have to save her this time.

I take a bold step directly into the fire, with every intention of running through it somehow. Of running past the wild embers, scorching myself no doubt, but still making it over to my distressed, frightened little sister. But it doesn't work like I expect.

But really, does anything?

These flames are nothing like the fires I've encountered before. And I've been around more fire in my life than anyone ever should.

No, these flames don't burn me. They don't hurt me or put me through agony or singe me to pieces. They don't melt off my makeshift coat of skin and they don't further decimate it either.

Instead the fire feels like almost nothing. Like something almost itchy, something almost irritating, something almost painful. Something that make me want to squirm and scream and escape all at the same time.

Which is real ironic considering what else it seems these flames do.

They seem to hold me into place. The second I'm in their hold, instead of the horrific pain I thought I'd be in, I'm trapped in a series of almost nothing.

I'm not in excruciating pain physically, but seeing my sister standing ten feet from me, and not being able to move any closer, not being able to protect her from whatever she's terrified of, is worse than any amount of injury this fire could have inflicted.

"Katniss!" Prim screams now, her voice only growing in its frantic nature. "Help! Why won't you come help me?"

I try to scream, try to tell her I want to but I can't move. But it turns out that these flames also paralyze vocal muscles.

"Peeta's dying!" Prim yelps out, looking behind her again, her hands beginning to shake in a way she almost never let them in life. She always tried to keep it together, to remain calm and rational in a crisis.

Her words elicit something entirely new inside of me though. "Peeta?" I yell in confusion, my voice suddenly no longer paralyzed.

"They're killing him! Katniss, please, why won't you come here? We need you!" Prim is close to hysterical now and frankly, so am I.

"I'm trying! I just," I move my hands down my body, trying to push the flames away as they rises up to my chest, trying to just break free from these fiery chains once and for all. "The fire, Prim! I can't get out of the fire."

Prim's voice drops then, loses all source of fear, every ounce of panic. Loses any semblance of emotion. "Katniss, there is no fire," she states blankly, her eyes looking directly at the embers covering my stomach and legs. "There's nothing there."

I just look at her for a moment, completely speechless. Her words are inconceivable, her eyes are haunted now, her facial expression is unrecognizable. Even her voice doesn't sound like hers anymore.

Before I can comprehend what's happening, in the distance a gunshot goes off.

Prim delicately glances over her shoulder now, her blue eyes cold as ice. "He's dead," she informs clinically, before sighing deeply, her tone almost disappointed. "And so am I."

I don't know what happens next or how it occurs, but I fly upwards in my bed with such a start, I give myself whiplash.

I hear a loud screeching noise hanging in the air, a hoarse trepidation that almost makes me feel better. I don't know why but someone else screaming in the middle of the night gives me hope, as sick as that may be.

Only it's not someone else, I realize, as my throat burns raw. I realize with startling clarity that I'm the only making all the noise. I'm the one shaking so tremendously. I'm the one who is sobbing.

"Shhh," a voice whispers against the darkness, and I flail involuntarily at the shock. "Sorry, sorry," Peeta instantly apologizes, his hands gripping my arms with a little too much intensity, trying to still my shaking. "It's okay, Katniss, you were just having a nightmare."

His words do precious little to calm me down though. "She was there," I cry, the image, the feeling, of Prim standing only ten feet from me and not being able to reach her too painful for me to unsee.

"Who was there?" He asks tenderly, his hand coming up to cup my cheek. "Katniss, breathe."

I don't even bother listening to his advise. I haven't exhaled since I was eleven. "Prim was there. She was begging me to save her and then I couldn't, I was trapped but-but," I cut myself off, unable to form coherent words and thoughts any longer.

Peeta gets the gist though. "Come here," he whispers and pulls me into his arms, like he used to on the train, when my nightmares woke us both three times a night. "I'm so sorry, Katniss," he says softly now, and rubs my back in a way that elicits goosebumps. His way of trying to soothe my shaking. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

"You died too," I blurt out then. I don't even know why I feel inclined to tell him.

"What?"

"I was stuck and I couldn't speak and then Prim said you were going to die and I got scared enough that I could talk again and I thought-I thought," I stumble breathlessly, my tears pouring out against his shoulder now.

I feel his lips touch my cheek and I'm too upset to revel in the feeling of blood rushing there. "It was just a nightmare," he promises.

But my sentiment is unfinished. "I thought I could break free, that I could-"

"Katniss," he halts, still holding me in his embrace, rocking me slightly. "It wasn't real. I promise you, it wasn't real."

Those words, the words so often said to him by me, ring a bell that I didn't want to ring. It snaps me back into reality abruptly and without warning, I feel like my chest is going to collapse.

Because this means Prim wasn't really there, that she still is as dead as she was yesterday, that I still watched her explode into pieces all over the bombsite in the Capitol.

I still failed to protect her.

Peeta pulls back slightly then and rests his forehead against mine. "It's okay, Katniss," he says again, trying to calm my trembles by rubbing my arms up and down.

"How are you in my house?" I realize, with an intense sudden clarity. "How are you here? Are you real or am I still-"

He quickly puts me out of my misery. "You gave me a key, remember? A long time ago? We gave each other keys to our houses."

Oh. Right. I forgot all about that when he had his nightmare, didn't I?

Good thing he's an idiot who keeps his door unlocked at night.

He's explaining further before I can think to ask. "I heard you having a nightmare from my house. That's why I rushed over here."

I'm caught between embarrassment and gratitude. "Sorry, I really don't know what brought it on."

"Hey," he quietly reprimands, lifting my chin now to meet eye contact. "Don't apologize. No one understands nightmares like me."

I nod, accepting his words, though still a little uncomfortable with screaming for all the district to hear at two in the morning.

Then again, our entire neighborhood is Haymitch and the two of us, and our mentor was drinking like a fish last night so really, the only person who could have heard me is already sitting directly in my eye line.

To punctuate his words, when I don't respond verbally, he lifts my hand up and brings it to his lips tenderly.

And I don't know what comes over me or why. I don't know if it's because we've been growing closer again lately or if I just haven't felt his arms around me since days ago in the bakery and I miss the feel of it desperately, but I find myself abruptly throwing my body around his before I can talk myself out of it.

He catches me easily, like he anticipated my reaction and sways me for a long moment, until my breathing begins to even itself out.

"Will you stay?" I rasp into his neck, as I feel his hand tangles in my matted locks.

"Always."

#everlark #thg #the hunger games #everlark fic #fanfic #prompt #everlark fanfic #fanfiction #growing back together #userreese #i think thats what you meant when you said to tag you???? #gravity ♥️ 🌅 🥖

[bubmyg]

sweater paws - jjk

pairing: jeongguk x reader

genre/warnings: youtuber!au, the fluffiest fluff, jeongguk says to adopt don’t shop i heard him say it at least twice

word count: 1,874

summary: “these have been done before but I don’t care I love her” - a series on gcguk in which jeongguk tackles old, cheesy YouTube couple challenges. episode three: the ‘where am i?’ challenge or the responsibly adopt a dog for my half unsuspecting girlfriend challenge 

a/n: technically part 3 of idcilh but mostly just a part of the general youtuber!guk series (all of which are linked on my masterlist!!)

“Do you have any guesses where I might be taking you for your last location?”

Jeongguk couldn’t help but laugh at your indignant, non articulate response that was instead a series of disgruntled noises through pouted lips. Your arms were folded tightly to your chest, one knee curled inward and he could tell by the knit of your eyebrows and the scrunch of your nose that you were glaring behind the bandanna tied carefully around your eyes. 

“Ice cream, maybe?” You tried, tone hopeful until you added sharply, “You owe me, to be honest.”

In an effort to fulfill the requirements for the Where am I? challenge, Jeongguk had led your unsuspecting figure into the depths of Jimin and Taehyung’s apartment, letting you believe that he’d just driven you in circles for an hour only to end up back at your own apartment. When you ‘locked in’ your guess as the living room, Jimin and Taehyung had appeared wielding unlit lightsabers and promptly scaring the shit out of you while Jeongguk just cackled behind the lens of your camera. 

Your second location had been the park where you and Jeongguk often walked, the pond at the park to be exact, the bank of it where the tiniest bit of water lipped onto the inclined sand. It eventually soaked through the toes of your tennis shoes when Jeongguk had said, quote, you’ll be able to guess if you just take one more step forward, yeah, there— only to elicit a startled squeak from your throat and a pout to your lips when Jeongguk sat you down in the passenger seat of the car and carefully rolled new socks and shoes on your feet that he’d packed specifically for that part of the video. 

His surprise locations hadn’t been nearly as shocking as yours. You’d taken him to mall, forced him to wander through at the guide of only your hand, and then guess what shop you’d placed him inside. He’d guessed Urban Outfitters when it was instead a specialty toy shop. His second location had been the tattoo shop of one of his close friends, the one who had slowly been adding to the little pieces of ink all over his knuckles. It was no exception and he guessed it immediately after a tiny yelp with the first touch of the tattoo gun, even allowing the artist to etch out the last of the tiny heart on the bend of his thumb after he’d pulled the blindfold off. 

“Why do I owe you?” Jeongguk wondered innocently, only to have to duck into himself when you swung a searching arm to smack his chest and scold goodnaturedly stop trying to hit the driver. 

“You got a tattoo and that new Overwatch figurine you were wanting out of this challenge,” You settled back into your seat with a huff, “I’ve got Jimin’s lightsaber that doesn’t work anymore and a pair of wet socks.”

He continued to beam, cheeks hurting from the stretch of his smile as he rested a wrist on the steering wheel at a stoplight, glancing at you again. “I think you’ll like this last place,” He tried to soothe, careful in not startling you when he touched your thigh to give it a soft squeeze, “It’ll all be worth it.”

“Is it the apartment? Please tell me it’s the apartment.”

Jeongguk laughed, palm on the wheel as he accelerated through the intersection and flicked on the turn signal, “I’ll give you another free hint this round. No, it’s not the apartment.”

He angled the car down the long gravel drive, catching the way you perked in his peripheral at the sound caused by the change in terrain. Carefully, he guided the vehicle into the parking spot directly in front of the door to the building, hands shaking in bubbling anticipation as he turned off the ignition and passed his keys into one palm, gathering his camera off the dash into the other.

“Stay here, I have to go make sure they’re ready for us.”

“Jeon Jeongguk you better not leave me in here by myself.”

“I’ll be no more than thirty seconds. Count. If I’m not back, you can take the blindfold off and come find me.”

There was a visible cheer in Jeongguk’s stride as he bounded up the stairs of the building, nudging his way inside with the camera carefully balanced. 

He’d planned this for weeks, communicating with the staff members on various occasions, confirming fees and applications and waivers and consent for filming. All of which came to a head when three staff members greeted him at the exact same time, only for one to warily confirm, “Jeongguk, right?”

He nodded, sticking out a straight arm for them to shake his hand, “Hi. Nice to meet you.”

“She’s all ready for you…” The staff member’s eyes shined gently at the excitement of the man on the other end of their clasped hands, “We’re ready when you are.”

Jeongguk rushed out something about I’ll go get her, be right back, only to dash back out the door with shaky camera work in fear that you’d taken his promise seriously and had ditched the blindfold. You hadn’t, and he found you the same way he’d left you, still pouting but slightly curious in the way you tilted your head and then jerked it when he opened your door. 

“Do I hear dogs barking?” Was the first thing you asked, curious in expression but tight in the way you gripped his hands that aided you out of the car. 

“I’m afraid I can’t disclose that information.” Jeongguk muttered something to you about there being stairs, easing you across them and then underneath his arm as he held open the front door for you. 

Cupped hands on your shoulders situated you in the center of the lobby area and he could no longer contain any fraction of the giddy grin that overtook the entirety of your features as slowly the pieces began to fall together for you. 

“Can I guess yet?”

Jeongguk directed the camera at you as the staff member from before came out from one of the back rooms cradling a golden ball of fur with a neat red bow perched on top of its head. “Go ahead, babe.”

“The animal shelter? Wait!—” You turned in the general direction of his voice to correct, “—specifically the animal shelter we visited a few weeks ago. The one on the other end of the city…”

He traded possessions with the staff member, letting them takeover his camera while he delicately adjusted the puppy in his grasp, moving to stand directly in front of you. “Okay,” He said, “You can take the blindfold off.”

You were tentative in crooking your fingers underneath the bandanna, tugging upward in short, gradual spurts until it was hanging limply off the end of your index finger. You blinked, bleary for the first few seconds of adjusting to the light, adjusting to your surroundings, adjusting to what was standing directly in front of you. 

“I was right…” You trailed off, squinting at Jeongguk while some of the staff members began to laugh among themselves. Your pointed gaze shifted to the puppy in his arms.

Dumbly, you said, “That’s a dog.”

Jeongguk just grinned while the laughter of the staff grew a bit louder, “Mhm. Your dog.”

You stumbled on the words my dog? as they came off your tongue, accepting the puppy when Jeongguk placed her in your arms. You held her close, disbelief still evident even as your heart began to roar in your ears and you nuzzled into the puppy’s soft fur with your nose. 

“I…” You squinted at him this time to dispel some of the involuntary tears that had gathered in your water line but rather than them disappearing, they began gentle tracks down the slope of your nose, “You adopted her?”

“Technically we adopted her,” He subconsciously reached for your face, thumb brushing away the tears as they came, “Yes. She’s ours now.”

You mumbled something about not fair and something jumbled about what his last location was supposed to be and how it didn’t even matter and didn’t compare anyway before silent tears began to fall more freely, tucking your chin into your chest as you hugged the puppy a bit closer. Jeongguk motioned to the staff member with his camera and they cut the direction of the lens to the floor, a fond smile on their lips as they gave him an encouraging thumbs up and began to step aside with the other people who’d appeared to watch the scene unfold. He wrapped an arm around your waist and behind your shoulders, coaxing you into his embrace with more soft laughter. 

“Don’t cry, baby girl,” Jeongguk’s lips touched your wet cheek, holding you gently as you nuzzled into his sweater, “Do you like her?”

A noise of affirmation rumbled softly in your chest as you adjusted the dog in your grip, peering down at her as her tiny pink tongue came to stretch for your cheek. It only made you cry and smile harder, something Jeongguk laughed unabashedly at as he settled his chin on your shoulder. 

“Thank you,” You murmured, leaning your cheek against his. 

“Alright,” His voice shifted back into vlogging mode once you’d settled back into the car, the puppy in your lap and wrapped up in a slew of blankets you hadn’t registered Jeongguk packing into the backseat before you’d taken off on your filming adventure. He tilted the shot toward you, “So have you figured out that the challenge was just a lie to get you here?”

“You made me step in a pond for a puppy?” Your attention directed to the puppy who placed a tiny paw on your chest and stretched to lick toward your chin again. “Honestly? Worth it.”

Jeongguk grinned, stretching the camera again until it sat on the dash to capture both of your figures beyond the steering wheel. “Glad to hear it,” He leaned over the middle console, “and what do you think, little girl?”

She turned her attention from trying to lick you to successfully licking Jeongguk, planting a series of fat stripes of his scrunched nose until he pulled away. 

“You think that means she’s cool with becoming a member of our little family?”

The question made you unwillingly emotional as tears began to well over in your vision, blurring the way Jeongguk panicked and leaned closer again to plant his lips on yours before fishing for his camera. 

“I think that’s it for this video. No, before you ask, we don’t have a name yet... All the links for the animal shelter will be in the description if you’d like to check them out and please do check them out, there are so many animals in shelters who need homes…”

“And other than that?” Jeongguk glanced over his shoulder to where you were cooing quietly at the puppy, heart inflating then seizing in his throat and the onslaught of tears still visible on your cheeks began to seep over into his own being.

“I guess my girls and I will see you in the next video…”

#bts reactions #bts imagines #bts scenarios #bts fluff #bts x reader #jungkook imagine #jungkook x reader #jungkook fluff #fic: ytber jk #IT'S FINALLY CANON UWU

[liskantope]

Some brief (and sometimes not-so-brief) reactions to major Disney films 1937-1967

Around a month ago I made a temporary switch from Netflix to Disney+ with the goal of watching all major Disney movies in order, roughly paced so that one year of Disney film-making equals one day of real life. I should clarify here that by “major Disney movies” I mean mostly just all the animated ones plus a few hybrid live-action/animated ones, and a few of the most popular live-action ones (at least the ones I remember having a song considered good enough to feature on one of the Disney Sing-Along videos, a staple of my video-watching as a kid growing up in the 90′s). I would have been interested to see Song of the South, which I’ve never seen in its entirety, but it’s not included on Disney+ for fairly obvious reasons. As I get further into modern Disney, I’ll probably skip over most of the sequels and other features I strongly expect not to like (with the exception of Belle’s Magical World, which is said to be so legendarily bad that I just have to see what the fuss is about).

This time range of three decades happens to include more or less exactly those Disney productions that Walt Disney himself took a major role in (he died shortly before the final version of Jungle Book was finished). I’d like to do this again in another month, when I will have gotten up through the late 90′s, but honestly this post wound up way longer than I was imagining and took several more hours than I expected (or could really afford), so I’m not promising myself or anyone else that.

Looking at Wikipedia’s list of Disney productions, I’m a little taken aback at what a low percentage of these are animated features, which to me form the backbone of that company’s legacy; visually scanning the list makes the line of animated films look shorter than I had always imagined, but really what this is showing is that Disney produced far more live-action movies than I ever knew about, including (and perhaps especially!) in its early days. Right now I’m continuing on through the 70′s films, but this set of mini-reviews represents the first month of watching and three decades of Disney magic.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1937

This is the full-length feature that began them all and which had the burden of defying contemporary skepticism that a full-length animated feature could be taken seriously at all. We are already far beyond the earliest days of animation and have progressed lightyears beyond the quality of “Steamboat Willie”; throughout the film I marveled at the sophistication of the animation with a newfound appreciation of how groundbreaking a lot of the sequences must have been.

I know I watched this at least a couple of times in childhood and I think once when I was a bit older, but even that was long ago.

Snow White is based on one of the simpler classic fairy tales, and the writers had to come up with ways to flesh out this very short story enough to occupy well over an hour. This was done not by exploring the character of Snow White or the Queen or even filling in extra plot details (the fate of the hunter is never addressed) but by spending a lot of time on the dwarfs. The detail spent on individuating them took a lot of work from the animators, but I think their efforts paid off. I can’t say the same about the attention paid to Snow White or the Queen (pretty much the only remaining characters). Snow White has an almost entirely flat personality, with no sense of curiosity or concern whatsoever about the Queen’s designs to have her killed, just having literally only one goal in mind: to marry this Prince who she’d only seen for about two minutes and run away from out of shyness. (This is of course a trend we’ll see with Disney princesses for a long time.) The Queen similarly only has the goal of being “the fairest in the land”. Something about the particular harshness of her voice strikes me as The Quintessential 1930′s Female Villain Voice (“I’ll crush their bones!”), whatever that means -- maybe I got my idea of what this should be from the movie Snow White in the first place.

I still think “Heigh Ho” (which I’ve known well since early childhood) is an excellent song in its utter simplicity, especially when complimented with the “Dig Dig Dig” song (which I did not remember at all until a few years ago when a Tumblr mutual posted the excerpt containing it!). I’m not enormously fond of “One Day My Prince Will Come”, although I did enjoy playing it on the violin at a couple of gigs with one of my musician friends back during grad school -- I was convinced then, and up until watching Snow White just now, that it belonged to Cinderella.

Pinocchio, 1940

This was a favorite movie of mine in earlier childhood; we owned the VHS and I watched it a lot. As a child, I had no sense of one Disney movie coming from a much earlier time than another one; it was only much more recently in life that I understood that Pinocchio really comes from all the way back eight decades ago. Pinocchio taught me the meaning of “conscience” (both in the dictionary sense and in a deeper sense), and it shaped my notion of what fairies may look like -- for instance, my mental picture of the Tooth Fairy, back when I believed in her, was inspired by the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio.

It’s amazing just how much the quality of Disney animated features improved from the first one to this one, the second. It helps that both the story and the characters are far more complex than those of Snow White. The plot from the original book (which I’ve read in Italian and English) was more complex still, of course. There is one gaping hole where it’s never explained how Gepetto somehow found himself in the belly of a whale (I don’t remember whether or how this is explained in the book), but I’ll forgive that.

It’s interesting to see the 1940′s caricature of “bad (early teenage?) boy” shown in the animation and voice of Lampwick. Phantom Strider talks about the turning-into-donkeys scene as a notoriously dark scene for adults who didn’t find it as terrifying when they were children -- count me in as one of those adults! It’s especially terrifying to see the whole mass of boys-turned-donkeys being treated as slaves in the hellhole known as Pleasure Island and realizing that this is never going to be resolved in the movie -- it’s rather unusual in Disney stories for some great evil to be left unresolved with no recompense even for the chief villain. In fact, Pinocchio is pretty much the only Disney story I can think of where the worst villain doesn’t meet some kind of dire fate. Really, the range of Pinocchio’s view is much narrower: it’s just the coming-of-age story of one puppet in his quest for Real Boyhood. (And yes, I still giggle at how intricutely Jordan Peterson analyzes particular scenes from the movie to support his beliefs about neo-Marxism or whatever.)

Disney+ heads many of the descriptions of the older movies with “This program is presented as originally created. It may contain outdated cultural depictions.” I’m a little surprised they don’t do this with Pinocchio, given what appears to me a rather derogatory depiction of Gypsies.

“When You Wish Upon a Star” has become a timeless hit, for good reason. And I still find “Hi Diddle Dee Dee” extremely catchy.

Fantasia, 1940

I saw this one multiple times growing up (for earlier viewings, I was not allowed to see the final number “Night on Bald Mountain”). My mom, for her part, saw this in theaters at the age of around 4 (even though it originally came out long before she was born) and thought for years afterwards that there was no such film in real life and her memory of seeing it had been just a pleasant dream.

I have nothing much more to say about this one except that, representing a very different approach from most animated films, Disney or otherwise, 1940′s or otherwise, it succeeded exquisitely. The “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” number was particularly perfection; it was as though the composer originally had every motion of the story in mind when writing the music. At the same time, having the main character appear in the form of Mickey Mouse in some way seems to cheapen the effect.

The Reluctant Dragon, 1941

I watched this for the first time, not having known it existed. There isn’t really much to say. All that stuck in my mind was one of the shorts, “Baby Weem” (amusing in a disturbing way), and the longer segment which gives the movie its title (also amusing, in a different kind of disturbing way). It was especially interesting to see a 1940′s cartoon portrayal of a very effeminate man, or should I say, male dragon.

Dumbo, 1941

I saw this maybe two or three times growing up, and not in very early childhood. It was never one of my favorites. Later on, I learned that it was done very low-budget to make up for major financial losses in the Disney franchise. This definitely shows in the animation. However, if there’s one thing I can say in praise of Dumbo, it’s that it’s incredibly daring in its simplicity, not only to have such elegantly simple animation but in having a mute title character (instead the main “talker” in the film is the title character’s best friend, who had much more of a New York accent than I’d remembered).

In some ways I find this film incredibly cold and dark by Disney standards, for reasons I can’t entirely explain, and I remember feeling this way even on earlier watchings when I was much younger. The stark cruelty of the humans running the circus, as well as the elephants other than Dumbo and his mother, just really gets to me. (I vividly mis-remembered one of the lines I found most memorable in childhood as “From now on, Dumbo is no longer one of us.” The actual line is, “From now on, [Dumbo] is no longer an elephant”, which in a way, is even more chilling.) In this regard, there was no need to make a modern, woker remake of Dumbo containing an explicit anti-animal-exploitation message -- the 1941 version conveys this message loud and clear. Now that I’m writing this, I suppose it could be argued that this is another instance of what I described under “Pinocchio” of leaving a major evil unresolved in a Disney film. And apart from that, while the ending for Dumbo is meant to be a very happy one, as an adult I find it incredibly naive: Dumbo is now super internationally famous for his extraordinary gift and is entering the life of a child celebrity, and it’s just going to be smooth sailing from now on? I hate to say it, Dumbo, but your troubles are only just beginning. (I was glad to see Dumbo reunited with his mother in the last scene, however, which I hadn’t remembered happening at all.)

“Look Out For Mr. Stork” is a skillfully-written song I’d completely forgotten about for two decades or so but remember knowing well when I was young. I still think “When I See an Elephant Fly” is a fantastic song, especially with all its reprises at the end -- I’d had some bits of it confused in my memory but had kept the main chorus with me over all the years. Now it’s widely decried as racist, or at least the characters who sing it are decried as racist caricatures. For whatever my opinion is worth, I’m inclined to disagree with this, in particular on the grounds that the crows seem to be the most intelligent, witty, and self-possessed characters in the movie. I’m also pretty sure I heard critical things about it over the years which are false. For one thing, not all of the crows are played by white actors -- only the lead crow is, while the rest of the voices are members of a black musical group called the Hall Johnson Choir. Also, I’m not clear that the lead crow was actually named Jim Crow by the time the movie came out (no name is given in the movie itself). Now an earlier, much more forgettable song featuring black men singing about how they like to work all day and they throw their pay away... yeah that seems awfully racist.

Bambi, 1942

I have surprisingly little to say about this one -- it’s just very distinct from other Disney films of the time, in its story’s lack of magical elements, its characters all being animals and animated in to realistically model animals’ movements, its lack of musical numbers, and its plot reaching the same level of simplicity as that of Snow White. Not to mention actually having a benevolent character die, which I don’t think had been done up to that point. I remember watching this a couple of times as a kid; I was never terribly eager to watch it again and I feel the same way now, despite having majestic beauty that I can really appreciate.

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, 1949

This is the first of Disney’s animated features that I never had seen before. What a strange movie, or should I say, two smaller, unrelated movies rolled into one. I liked Mr. Toad’s half better than Ichabod’s half, or at least I found it more entertaining. I was brought up with the book The Wind in the Willows and recall seeing a non-Disney animated rendition of it (which was better and somewhat more thorough than this half-movie-length rendition). I was kind of excited when the “The Merrily Song” started because it unlocked a song from my early-childhood memory that I’d forgotten about for more than twenty years but knew from one of the Disney Sing-Along videos. I still think it’s a not half bad song, especially with the harmony.

The Ichabod story was not at all what I expected, not being familiar with the original book version (I had always assumed that Ichabod must be the name of a villain). I found it completely boring until the final horror sequence. As a child I would have found the courtship part even more boring (at least now I can muse on how man-woman courtship dynamics were shown in the late 40′s), and I would have found the horror part at the end very scary (in fact, maybe this is the reason my parents never showed the movie to me). It is a little shocking in being the only Disney story I’ve seen so far with a decidedly unhappy ending.

Cinderella, 1950

This one I only ever saw once or twice as a child. This is not counting a very vivid memory I have from around age 6 or 7 when I was watching a part of it over at another family’s house and their child, who was almost my age and nonverbal autistic, rewound and repeated the same 2-minute sequence involving the mice for probably about an hour (I was impressed because I at the time didn’t know how to work the controls of a video player).

I suppose this could be considered the second in the main trifecta of the most conservative fairy tale princess stories that Disney did in the earlier part of its history. I think one can argue that Cinderella has the strongest and most fleshed-out character out of those three princesses. I like the spirited internal strength she reveals in her very first scene. That said, like the other earlier princesses, she seems to have one singular goal in life, and that is to find her true love, not, say, to escape her abusive stepmother and stepsisters.

My reaction to this movie is overall positive. The mice were fun (I also like how their voices seemed a lot more like how mice “should” talk than in most other Disney cartoons); the dynamic between Cinderella and her evil relatives, and the dynamic between the stepmother and stepsisters themselves, was shown in a rounded way; and the fairy godmother is a great character despite having only one scene. The character of the king is pretty odd (very selfish yet his main dream is of getting to play with his future grandchildren) while not especially memorable or well fleshed out. There are certainly some great classic songs in this one -- not the most stellar that Disney has ever produced, but solid.

Alice in Wonderland, 1951

I was curious about what I would think of this one, since we owned the video of this at my home growing up and I watched it many times during childhood but as I got older I fell in love with the original Lewis Carroll books which, together, I often consider my favorite work of written fiction ever. I had not seen the Disney film Alice in Wonderland for around two decades, although I made the mistake of catching parts of more modern, live-action adaptations of the story more recently. I wondered what I would make of the old animated Disney adaptation after getting to know the books so well.

There is simply no way that any movie can recreate the true flavor of the books, but Disney’s Alice in Wonderland does a fine job of creating the general nonsensical, sometimes bewildering dream atmosphere, and, perhaps more importantly, capturing the essence of Alice’s personality. I give a lot of credit to Katherine Beaumont for this -- she has the major girl’s role in the next movie on this list as well, but she especially shines as Alice. Two other very distinctive voices, Ed Wynn as the Mad Hatter and Sterling Holloway as the Cheshire Cat, also add a lot to the cast of characters.

While mixing around some of the scenes of the original book Alice in Wonderland, with some scenes of Alice Through the Looking Glass inserted, the progression of the plot is a long, dreamlike sequence of strange situations with only a few common threads, true to the original first book (Looking Glass had a little, but only a little, more structure). In the movie, everything breaks down at the end with many of the previous scenes and characters swirling together and Alice frantically trying to wake herself up. One could object that this is not how the dream ends in the book Alice in Wonderland, but there is a similar sort of breakdown at the end of the dream in Looking Glass and it feels very real somehow, as in my experience this is sometimes how vivid dreams disintegrate.

Oh, and did you know that Alice in Wonderland has a greater number of songs in it than any other Disney film? There are nearly 25 that made it into the film, even if lasting just for seconds, with a around 10 more written for the film that didn’t make it.

So, does the Disney film do a good job of conveying one of my favorite books of all time, within the confines of being a children’s animated film? I would say yes. For reasons I described above, and from the fact that it manages to avoid working in a moral lesson for Alice, or depicting Alice as a young adult, or manufacturing an affair between Alice and the Hatter (ugh), like some film adaptations, I would say that this classic Disney version is the best Alice in Wonderland adaptation that I know of.

Peter Pan, 1953

Although I never knew this one super well, this movie has a special place in my heart from the way the flying sequence enchanted me in early childhood. I have to differ with the YouTuber Phantom Strider when he dismisses the 40′s/50′s-style song “You Can Fly” as just not doing it for him, because that song along with the animation of the characters’ journey to Neverland had a major hand in shaping my early-childhood sense of magic and wonder and yearning. I distinctly remembering a time, around age 6, when I just didn’t see much point in watching other Disney movies, or movies at all, which didn’t have flying in them, because what could possibly top the sheer joy and freedom of feeling able to swim through the air? I’ve had hardly any exposure to Superman, and so the kind of bodily flight I imagined in fantasy or performed in dreams was almost entirely shaped by Peter Pan. (At the same time, the crocodile in Peter Pan influenced my nightmares at the same age.)

I only ever saw this one a few times, but I distinctly remember the most recent of them being when I was a teenager, perhaps even an older teenager, and I remember thinking at the time that it was a pretty darn solid Disney movie. I still think the same now, while granting that some aspects of the movie seem a little antiquated and certain sequences with the Native Americans are quite cringe-worthy from the point of view of modern sensibilities. Only a couple years ago, when visiting my parents’ house, I finally took down the book Peter Pan from the shelf and decided to give it a read and found it a beautiful although slightly strange and offbeat story. In particular, I was shocked at how nasty and vengeful Tinker Bell was (particularly in trying to get Wendy killed), when I had remembered her as sweet and naive in the movie. It turns out I was wrong about the movie -- Tinker Bell tries to get Wendy killed there also! -- but somehow the tone is moderated well enough that in this version I never really feel horrified at her behavior, nor do I feel disturbed at the situation of the Lost Boys in the way the book made me view them. The song of the lone pirate who sings about how a pirate’s life is short, right before Captain Hook fires his gun and we hear a dropping sound followed by a splash, is one of the more masterful executions of dark humor that I’ve seen in Disney animation for children.

While most of the songs in Peter Pan, considered as songs on their own, are pretty good, I think the best one is the one whose lyrics didn’t make it into the film: “Never Smile at a Crocodile”.

Lady and the Tramp, 1955

Despite being more obscure than most of the old Disney animated classics, I used to know this one quite well since we had it in our home. I’ve always considered The Great Mouse Detective as the most underrated Disney film of all time, but I think it has serious competition here. Lady and the Tramp is an absolute gem. While not quite as Disney-fantasy-ish with its lack of magic and other fairy tale elements, in my opinion Lady and the Tramp is, in most ways, superior to everything else on this list save Mary Poppins. Beautiful animation which shows Lady and most of the other animals moving realistically in a way we haven’t seen since Bambi*. Everything visually and conceptually framed from the dogs’ points of view. Great voice acting. Consistently solid dialog without a single line too much or missing. A story evoking the dynamic between humans and pets, class inequality, and deep questions about the place of each of us in society and choices between a stable existence among loved ones and striking out to seize life by the horns. Our first female lead who stands on her own two four feet and whose sole goal isn’t to get kissed by her true love (one could argue that Alice was the earlier exception, but she is a little girl whereas Lady is actually a romantic female lead). When Lady is approached by her two best (male) friends in a very awkward (perhaps especially from a modern sensibility) but sweet scene where they offer to be her partner, Lady makes it clear that she doesn’t want or need a husband just for the sake of having a husband to make babies with -- her standing up for her own wants in this way doesn’t in the least turn into a Moral Stand that dominates the movie. Excellent music all the way through.

Oh, and this movie was my very first introduction, in early childhood, to the Italian language (”Bella Notte”), which some 25 years later sort became my second language of sorts.

Criticisms? Well, the baby was animated rather stiffly and unnaturally, but that was like half a minute of the movie at most. And there’s the whole segment with the Siamese cats, which produced a great song purely music-wise (fun fact: Peggy Lee provided the voices of the cats) but nowadays comes across as rather racist. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it, but I will say that I’m sure in the minds of the creators this was no different than having animals of all other nationalities (Scottish, Russian, Mexican) appearing in the film with voices reflecting the respective accents.

*There may be a few exceptions, like Peggy, who seems to be modeled after the musician Peggy Lee and moves like a sexy human woman. The way that human sex appeal is conveyed through the animals’ movements in this movie is quite impressive: my mom confesses to having somewhat of a crush on Tramp growing up and not quite understanding how that could be possible when, well, he’s a dog.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, 1954, and Old Yeller, 1957

I don’t want to say about these movies, as they don’t really fall under the category of animated classics. I just want to say that, while I saw each of them once growing up, on seeing them again I recognize each as a great movie in its own adult point of view way that is not necessarily very Disney-ish.

Sleeping Beauty, 1959

I think this was the movie I was watching at the time I decided it would be fun to write a bunch of mini-reviews for Tumblr, as my reactions were changing a lot as I was watching. I went into the movie very curious, because while I only remembered enough of the fairy tale story to know that it was another of the very simple ones, and I remembered the one song as a waltz by Tchaikovsky, and I knew I had seen the movie once (and probably only once) as a kid, I couldn’t remember anywhere near enough to possibly fill a full movie time. What was actually going to happen in this hour-and-a-quarter long film?

I wasn’t watching long before I came up with the description “spectacularly forgettable”, in part to justify why I’d managed to forget practically all of my one previous viewing. The story doesn’t have much substance and feels sillier than even the other fairy tale Disney plots, like even minor twinges of critical thought, even granting the magical rules of the universe, are liable to make the plot topple. There is some filler to flesh out the movie, but (unlike with Snow White’s dwarfs) none of it is as amusing as the creators seemed to think it was. The only characters with actual personality are rather boring -- the capers between the members of royalty and the jester are a bit on the annoying side in my opinion. Maleficent seems to have no motive whatsoever. She actually calls herself something like “the mistress of evil” later in the movie. This is pretty black-and-white even by Disney standards, where the bad guys usually at least want to think that they’re on the right side of things or justified in their aggressive behavior. Aurora (the title character) has the least personality of all the Disney princesses. Literally all I can say to describe her is that she has the Disney Princess Trifecta of characteristics: she has a good singing voice; she is friends with all the “nice” animals; and her only goal in life is to be reunited with her True Love who she met once for all of a few minutes. The reason why I couldn’t remember any songs other than the Tchaikovsky one is that there aren’t any.

The one thing I consciously really enjoyed while watching was the fact that the score throughout was Tchaikovsky; the idea of having one work of classical music as the entire score seems like a bold one for a Disney film. As I was digesting the movie afterwards (and watching the short documentaries supplied on Disney+ helped here!), I came to realize that this classical music backdrop was complimented in quite an interesting way by a fairly unique animation style. I had been disappointed by the animation early in my watching, disliking how a lot of the figures in the beginning castle scene (for instance, various people’s faces), looked very “flat” somehow. But I’ve come to see this as part of a style where everything looks almost like a series of cut-outs superimposed on each other, to incredibly beautiful effect in a lot of the outdoor scenes.

My conclusion? If you watch this the same way you watch most Disney animated movies -- focusing on plot, characterization, action, and meaning of the main story -- it will just be kind of forgettable at best. But if you watch it as more of a purely visual and musical piece of art without trying to make much “sense” out of it (so, more like I would watch a ballet), you may find it uniquely beautiful among Disney classics.

One Hundred and One Dalmations, 1961

Whew -- what a complete and utter contrast from its predecessor! I can hardly imagine a film that’s still distinctively Disney while being more different from Sleeping Beauty in every aspect.

I remember seeing One Hundred and One Dalmatians a handful of times in childhood (when I was around 5 and it had just come out on home video, my mom almost bought it for me but decided to go with Beauty and the Beast instead explaining that it had better music -- I grew up knowing the preview for Dalmatians that showed at the beginning of our Beauty and the Beast VHS than the dalmatians film itself). I remembered a number of scenes very distinctly, including a lot of the Horace and Jasper bickering and Cruella smashing one of their bottles of beer into the fire and knew Lucky’s line after getting stuck behind in the snow almost word for word, while I had entirely forgotten all of the country/farm characters and entire sequences involving them. I had forgotten, but soon remembered, the television scenes including the Kanine Krunchies jingle. (Some years later, I think as an older teenager, I read the original book with some interest.)

Although I wasn’t around in 1961, everything about this movie’s style strikes me as very contemporary -- the animation in particular seems like the current style for 60′s cartoons. Something about the dialog and humor feels that way as well, as though it closely represents a sort of 60′s young-people-in-London culture that I’ve never seen myself (I was struck for instance by Cruella being asked how she’s doing and cheerfully answering, “Miserable dahling as usual, perfectly wretched!”). It was a little strange and offputting to see television so prominently featured in Disney animation from so long ago, and to see such a decrepit bachelor pad (with the accompanying lifestyle and attitudes) as Horace and Jasper’s in a children’s movie. The crazy driving in snow at the end startled my adult sensibilities (as I now have some memorable experiences driving in snow) in a way that didn’t affect me as a child -- scenes like that just didn’t feel like Disney after having just watched all the previous films. All in all, these novel features made the whole movie a wild ride.

I’m bemused by the fact that, despite taking place in London (which I hadn’t remembered -- I thought it took place in America), the only accents which are fully British are those of the villains Cruella de Vil, Horace, and Jasper.

Main criticisms: I found all the stuff with Rolly being characterized by his body shape and only ever thinking about food to be in poor taste (although not surprising for the times). And while “Cruella de Vil” is a great jazz number, the movie has no other music to speak of -- my mom was quite right to choose Beauty and the Beast over it.

(I realized when finishing this review that this is the only one of all the movies in the list that I’d actually enjoy seeing again sometime soon. Not sure what to make of that. Something about it is more interesting than most of the others? Especially the human-centric parts?)

The Sword in the Stone, 1963

I never saw this movie until later childhood or maybe even early teenagerhood, when I quite liked it. On watching it again, I was overall pretty disappointed. This movie has some decent songs and some fun aspects to the story, but a lot of it is kind of weak and forgettable and it’s all just sloppily done.

The story has a clear moral message which is generally pro-education and about reaching one’s full potential, but in my eyes it comes out kind of muddled because the story shows Wart ending up as a legendary king only out of the arbitrary happenstance that that happens to be his divine destiny. Merlin’s motives seem kind of inconsistent as well, with him sometimes seeming to support Wart in his desire to become a squire, then flying off in a rage when Wart chooses squirehood over fulfilling a “greater” destiny, then joyfully returning after Wart pulls the sword from the stone and is now set on the fixed path to being king, even though this involved exactly zero change of attitude on Wart’s part. The message that actually comes across looks more like, “We have to just follow whatever fate has in store for us” than “We must strive to be the best we can be”. And, it arguably even comes across as subtly disrespectful to more mundane lifestyles and career paths.

The animation is not great by the high standard of full-length Disney features (I noted how I especially disliked how tears were shown). Wart’s voice seems to change a lot, sometimes broken and sometimes not yet broken. I found out after watching that this is because the character was played by three different actors, sometimes with more than one of those actors in the same scene! This was purportedly because the voice of the first actor cast for the role started to change, but then why does Wart sometimes sound like his voice has already changed anyway? Sloppiness all around.

Still, some parts of The Sword in the Stone are fun even if none of it is stellar, and it entertained me more when I was younger, so worth watching once, especially if you’re a kid, I guess?

Mary Poppins, 1964

I came into this one far more familiar with it than with most of the other Disney movies, including the ones I watched many times when I was young, so it feels a little strange to try to summarize a similar-length review of it. Mary Poppins is in my book without a doubt one of the top three Disney movies of all time, in some respects the very best, and certainly the masterpiece of Walt Disney himself, the culmination of literally decades of determination on his part to turn Pamela Travers’ children’s works into a movie. (I would feel sorrier for Travers about how strongly Disney twisted her arm to turn her books into a movie whose style was entirely antithetical to hers, if it weren’t for the fact that the Disney version of the story is just way better than her rather weak set of stories. I give Travers ample credit for having created an amazing character in the person of Mary Poppins, but for coming up with good stories, not so much.)

I didn’t see the full movie Mary Poppins until later childhood (although I knew many of the songs) and it quickly became a favorite of mine. I went a gap of a number of years without seeing it before I copied the soundtrack from someone when I was in college, which spurred me to go out and rent it (back when Blockbuster was a thing) and so I managed to reconnect with it at the age of 20. More recently I’ve become somewhat of a Mary Poppins enthusiast -- feeling pretty alone among my generation in this regard, with the possible exception of the theater subculture -- having seen probably most or all of the documentaries there are on its production and learned a ridiculous amount of trivia about it, not to mention knowing the whole soundtrack pretty much in my head.

Mary Poppins seems to be Disney’s longest children’s classic, at 2 hours and 19 minutes. All it lacks, really, is an animal-themed or classic fairy tale atmosphere and a proper villain. But what can you get out this movie? Stellar child acting (especially for that period) and excellent performances all around, apart from some awkward but endearing aspects of Dick Van Dyke’s acting (while his singing and physicality is superb). A complex and multi-layered story combining magic, comedy and a little tragedy, appreciable in equal measure from a child’s level and from an adult’s level. Revolutionary special effects which include the first extended hybrid live-action and animation sequence. Timeless words and phrases which have permanently entered the lexicon. One of my favorite extended musical sequence of all time in any movie (”Step In Time” takes up 8 minutes and change, and I’m glad they didn’t go with the “common sense” measure of cutting this “unnecessarily long” number). The Sherman brothers at their very best, in a musical soundtrack that easily scores in my top two out of all Disney movies (the other one being The Lion King). A beautiful message (among several big messages) about the little things being important (or at least, that’s a very crude summary), exquisitely encapsulated in the most beautiful song of the movie, “Feed the Birds” (this apparently became Walt Disney’s favorite song ever, and I’m pretty close to feeling the same way -- I’m determined that one day when I finally have a piano I’m going to learn to sing it along with the piano). I could go on and on here.

If I try really hard I can come up with the sole nitpick of feeling that maybe the parrot head on the umbrella’s handle shouldn’t only reveal itself as a talking parrot head in only one scene right at the very end -- this should have been shown at least once earlier. Even granting that, this film is still practically perfect in every way.

The Jungle Book, 1967

(Let’s get the Colonel Hath in the room out of the way first: “The Jungle Book” is a terrible title for a movie. You know, when you base a movie on a book you don’t have to give it the same title as the book...)

I saw The Jungle Book several times as a kid and, despite not considering it nearly as good as Mary Poppins, similarly reconnected with it in adulthood (particularly the soundtrack). Only several years ago I found myself thinking of getting hold of a double album of classic Disney songs that I thought I’d heard about but couldn’t seem to find online. It soon occurred to me that mostly what I really wanted was some of the songs of The Jungle Book, so I got that movie’s soundtrack instead. I soon learned for the first time that The Jungle Book’s songs were written by the Sherman Brothers*, precipitating an “Ah, that explains why I remember them as so good!” moment. (“I Wanna Be Like You” seems like the clear winner among the songs.) Of course hearing the soundtrack made me curious about the movie, which I did eventually get hold of several years ago; thus I had seen this film exactly once already since childhood.

It says a lot about the music and the overall technique behind this film that I still look back on it as one of the great classics, considering how weak the story is. In particular, I consider a story arc to be pretty flawed when characters that seem significant and/or memorable come in without really living up to their expected big role: the wolves who raised Mowgli play a crucial role in the beginning before more or less disappearing (and it doesn’t entirely make sense to me why Bagheera, rather than they, is guiding him to the man village), and King Louie (who is a well-formed character that I particularly enjoy watching) really ought to come back into the story later somehow (an alternate, and much more complex, ending had him make a reappearance). The villain Shere Khan is not especially well developed in terms of his character and motives, but I do enjoy his menacingly bass voice. Still, the voice acting, the action, the animation, and the overall setting are all very solid here.

I’ll end with some random observations about the song “That’s What Friends Are For”. I think the likeness of the vultures to the Beatles was mostly lost on me as a kid (along with the recognition that this movie came out in the Beatles’ heyday). More interestingly, even when I was old enough to understand how vultures eat, the fact that every single line of the song is a clever macabre double-entendre went completely over my head. I do think it was a very obvious mistake, by the Obvious Standards of Cinematography, to give Shere Khan the last line of the song and begin that line with the “camera” on him, rather than have his voice come in “off-camera” and Mowgli and the vultures looking thunderstruck before panning to him, but maybe I shouldn’t be pushing for overdone techniques here.

* An exception is “Bare Necessities”, which was written by Terry Gilkyson, the original songwriter Disney received submissions from, who wrote two hauntingly beautiful other numbers which were deemed not Disney-ish enough to be put in the film.

Some general stray observations:

These older Disney films love gags involving alcoholism and drunkenness, a bit of a questionable emphasis given that the audience is children. This trend continues into the 80′s at least, but I don’t think one sees it much in modern Disney movies.

Watching these animated films I often find myself flinching as characters’ heads smash into things or gigantic objects smash over their heads, feeling almost surprised when they come out of it pretty much fine. I guess this a staple element of cartoon action throughout the decades, but I can’t recall a more recent Disney animated film where we see this (guess I’ll soon find out!)

There is a certain style of vocal music, with unified rhythm and lyrics but complex harmony and a capella, which seems to have been immensely popular in the 40′s and 50′s and distinctively appears in practically every single one of the 40′s and 50′s films above (“You Can Fly” is a typical example). I recognize it also from some non-Disney-related old records my parents have that were passed down to them. I’m curious about whether this style has a name.

For years I thought the Sherman Brothers did only the soundtrack for Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks, only discovering they did The Jungle Book songs rather recently as I explained above. It turns out they were involved in most of the major Disney films around that period, including The Sword in the Stone and The Aristocats (although not its best-known number “Everybody Wants to Be a Cat”).

There is a particularly sad instrumental passage, played by the string section starting with a minor-key violin melody going downward and joined by lower string instruments, which I knew well from my Jungle Book soundtrack (partway through “Poor Bear”) but was surprised to hear in desperately sad moments of several of the other movies around that time (including One Hundred and One Dalmatians and Robin Hood, or at least a close variant of this passage with slightly different endings). I have no idea who wrote this or how it came to be reused so many times.

I knew the name Bruce Reitherman as the voice of Mowgli in The Jungle Book, but in watching all of these other features back to back I’ve noticed that there are some other Reithermans in the front credits of quite a few of them.

#walt disney #disney films #snow white #pinocchio #tooth fairy #Jordan Peterson #fantasia #dumbo #bambi #cinderella #Alice In Wonderland #peter pan #lady and the tramp #sleeping beauty #one hundred and one dalmations #sword in the stone #mary poppins #jungle book #Italian language #fatphobia #the beatles #alcoholism

[detectivesplotslies]

Passengers on the Road to Nowhere

Saioumota Week 2019 - Day 2: Road Trip & Long Distances

Description: Kaito, Shuichi and Kokichi pile into an old car and drive away from their troubles. Word Count: 2189

Read on AO3 here

The sun beat down on the bill of Shuichi’s cap as he leaned against the window, watching the signs flash by. The map was loosely grasped in his hands until they got closer to their next exit. He crumpled it a bit, tightening his hand, then letting it go again, staring at the tiny creases, like new markings on the face of the region. Maybe making somewhere new, just like they were hoping to find. His half lidded eyes drift to the driver’s seat, where Kaito sits at the wheel. His overly large sunglasses and gel free hair made almost look like a stranger, but the big grin on his face despite everything and his hand tapping along to the song playing through the crusty speakers gave him away.

Shuichi shifted his shoulders with a wince, and turned to glance into the backseat. Sprawled across the entirety of it was Kokichi, seemingly asleep. The hoodie he had been wearing was pulled off and thrown over his face to blot out the sun. He hadn’t said much since the argument about seatbelts, and the middle one was still awkwardly clipped around his waist, even sideways. A bump in the road bounced him up, and Shuichi heard a groan under the fabric.

He turned back to the map, and then out the window. A rest stop was coming up. His tired eyes widened a little.

Coffee.

Carefully, Shuichi folded the map and quietly spoke, low enough so maybe not to alert Kokichi as he got back to his nap.

“Kaito, can we stop?”

He must have been too soft to be heard under the buzz of the radio as Kaito kept tapping along with his eyes on the road. Should he poke him? What if he startles him and they swerve. Shuichi cleared his throat a bit, and tried a touch louder this time.

“Kaito?”

“Hm? Everything alright, Shuichi?” This time he turned ever so slightly towards him, and Shuichi could feel the inspection he was getting behind the shades even if he couldn’t quite make out his eyes. Shuichi smiled and nodded.

“Yeah, I’m fine, but could we stop? There’s a rest stop coming up-”

“Hey we weren’t gonna stop until it was dark, you know that, it was your suggestion.”

“I know that but… I don’t think a quick little stop to get some snacks or something to drink would be-”

“Shuichi, is this another coffee stop?! We are gonna get spotted for sure one of these times!”

“No we won’t! It’ll just be real quick stop, I’ll be in and out before you even know I’m gone and-”

“We’re stopping?”

Kokichi sat up like a zombie rising from the grave in an old horror film, hoodie still wrapped around his face. He clawed it off quickly and poked his head up between the front seats, grinning ear to ear.

“We are NOT, and even if we were you are not getting out of the car again,” Kaito grunted.

“Come onnnnnnnn, puuuhleeease. My legs are gonna wither away to stubs before we get anywhere, and then you’ll have to carry me. Do you want that on your conscience?”

“Oh so you don’t like to be carried? Good to know.”

“HOLD ON, that was NOT the point! I’ll be good, I just wanna get some air!”

“I’ll crack a window.”

“I need some exercise!”

“You can probably do sit-ups from how you’re lying back there if you want to that badly, Kokichi.”

“Ew.”

Shuichi couldn’t help but laugh at the exchange. He knew that last time was a mess, but for once he was on Kokichi’s side. The quieter boy gently placed his hand on Kaito’s where it held the steering wheel, and the other boy’s grimace smoothed over. He glanced back at his navigator.

“Please Kaito, you could probably use a stretch too, you’ve been behind the wheel for hours. It’s not safe, you know.”

“Yeah! Just cause you can pilot a spaceship doesn’t mean you’re allowed to coop us up in here and crash!”

“That’s not what I said,” Shuichi hurriedly added. He could hear Kaito exhale a long held breath and sigh.

“Fine, but we’re sticking together, okay? That means you too, stub legs!”

“Yes sir!”

Kokichi snickered as he pulled his hoodie over his head, dark locks reemerging moments later under the hood. Shuichi adjusted his hat and checked his wallet. Kaito pulled them over into the off-ramp and toward the sign proclaiming Gas, Restrooms, & Food. The old car’s engine made some ominous clicking sounds as they dropped in speed, but steadily came to a halt in the parking lot. There were only a few spots taken, a good sign really. The trio piled out of the car. Despite his claims Kokichi was the least shaky on his legs as he bounced from foot to foot, and tugged the drawstrings on his hood tight, so only his nose and eyes showed, with a stray bit of purplish hair sticking out like a whisker. The three of them shared a quick look, checking each other over for anything obvious they may have forgotten. Then as one they started towards the little rest stop shop.

The ease they’d had in the car dissipated instantly. The tight knit trio bunched together. Shuichi’s shoulder brushed against Kaito’s arm. Kokichi’s finger hooked on Shuichi’s belt loop like a tether. Kaito kept pace with the both of them while watching the lot over their heads. This was how they were together in public. How they managed crowds, comments, and stares.

The troupe broke apart at the door to go in single file, Shuichi first. The bell at the top of the door chimed, announcing new customers. He made a beeline for the counter while Kaito held the door for Kokichi. It didn’t take long to spot the coffee machine, nothing fancy just the regular and decaf options behind the cashier. There was a line that Shuichi stepped into it while fidgeting with his hands. He turned to watch the other two while he waited.

Kokichi walked down one of the aisles plucking colourful snack packages up with excitement and handing them to Kaito who trailed behind him. Once his arms were full, Kaito started putting one back every time he was given another to avoid a juggling situation. He was nowhere near as good at it as Kokichi was. At least not yet. Both of them had promised Kokichi they’d practice their juggling when they got time to. As they stepped out before turning to the next row Kokichi skipped over to the line and handed him a package of Oreos and winked. Shuichi couldn’t help but smile as he hopped away with an exasperated Kaito in tow.

Shuichi turned his attention back to the line as the person at the front finished their purchase and left. One more person and then he was up. His eyes drifted to the tv behind the cash, it was playing some ads on mute while music played over the actual speakers. He swallowed. The same ad that had been haunting him for weeks popped onto the screen. He reached up and adjusted his hat self-consciously. Despite that his eyes were glued to the screen as the Team DanganRonpa logo spun on it.

Even though it was muted, he knew a remix of the theme music was playing while the convention date and location popped up in big letters. Then the words were shot to pieces. Clips of each fan favourite participant that was announced as a special guest played, one after another in a reel. He hoped Kokichi was still looking for snacks and not watching this like he was. He’d seen it plenty of times. The mute remained a blessing. Shuichi knew that each ‘character’ was introduced with their own voices. And on cue, there was the latest favourite, in his iconic checkered scarf. He remembered the day Kokichi had been called to the recording studio for that one. He had come back entirely drained. Closed off. It’d been a long taxing one.

That’d been the day they decided they were getting out of there. Contracts be damned, they weren’t here to be paraded around for show.

Finally, Monokuma popped up at the end to wave goodbye. The ad was over. Something innocuous about a fruit juice with a cute girl in orange dancing took its place. Shuichi finally was able to look away. He glanced over his shoulder with concern, trying to be sure the other two boys were okay, but he didn’t see them anywhere nearby. He turned quickly, trying to find them but that was just as the woman in front of him was leaving. They collided, her purchase and his hat falling to the floor.

“Oh I’m sorry, I-”

Shuichi froze mid-sentence. On her shirt was show’s logo, big in black, red and white. She hadn’t looked up, having bent to pick up her bag and mutter. His hat sat on the floor beside it. Shuichi’s hands shot up to his face automatically, dropping the Oreos as well in the process.

“Watch it this could have broken,” she was saying. “Seriously…” Shuichi nodded from behind his hands, trying to think. She hadn’t moved. Was she staring at him? He didn’t want to dare look. What if she recogni-

Shuichi felt the hat slide down on his head.

“Hey you dropped this right?” He heard Kaito say, playing up a gruffer voice to his side as he removed his hands. He got a pat on his back. “No harm done, right?” Behind the shades and the grin he could just be a concerned stranger, but if she noticed the goatee she might-

“C’mon, c’mon, you were gonna buy these for me, right?” Kokichi swooped in on his other side, linking their arms and tugging Shuichi towards the cash, past the woman who’s attention was now on Kaito. The fallen Oreos were already in his hand. He slid them onto the counter and through the still-pulled-tight opening in the hood he asked the cashier for a black coffee as well. As his thoughts finally caught up with the transaction Shuichi fumbled with his wallet.

Behind him he heard the woman huff and head out the door with her gathered things. The bell chimed. Kaito slid a couple of the snacks he was still holding onto the counter as well, putting it all together.

They paid cash and left. Kaito carried the bag, Shuichi held his coffee, and Kokichi clinged to Shuichi’s arm the whole walk through the parking lot. They didn’t say another word until they reach Kaito’s old car, and pile back in.

The doors clicked shut. They collectively let out their held breaths.

“‘It’ll just be real quick’ you said, ‘in and out before you even know’,” Kaito sighed, kneading his forehead behind the shades. The heavy moment hung in the air. Shuichi looked down at his coffee.

“I’m sorry, I-”

“Talk about a deer-in-headlights, jeez Shumai. You’re so lucky you brought us huh? And what was all that about definitely not needing wanting me out there, hmmmm?” Kokichi leaned into the front seat and sprawled himself across Kaito’s shoulder. He poked Kaito’s cheek. “You should have seen this idiot’s face until I went to get the cookies. You two matched! Frozen like statues!”

Shuichi’s eyebrows shot up and he glanced up at Kaito’s reddening face. “H-hey this is serious, Kokichi, we could have-”

“But we’re fine. We stuck together like you said and we’re fiiiiine.”

Shuichi chuckled and reached out to loosen Kokichi’s hood, and swiping away bits of hair from his face. They really did look like whiskers stuck like that. “You’re right, we’re fine.”

In return he got a brief soft look that broke into mischievous smirk. Kokichi gave Kaito’s face a light pap with his hand and rolled off of him to the backseat again. They heard the fizz and pop sound of the unscrewed cap of a soft drink.

It took the other two boys a moment to realize the snack bag was unopened in the front seat.

“Kokichi! We talked about this!”

“We have more than enough just to buy it-”

“No one noticed, don’t worry about it~”

“We don’t need more risks! You-”

“Can’t hear you over the bubbles!”

The squabble continued as the car pulled back out onto the highway. Shuichi fell out of it after a bit to sip his coffee, enjoying the light mood’s return. This cramped vehicle may not be the best living situation, but for the time being it was their safest place. Where they were themselves. Where there was no audience. Shuichi wasn’t sure how long it would last, but he had a new shred of hope. The ad had still listed Kokichi as appearing at the convention. The company wasn’t telling anyone they’d gone. Any search they were doing was internal and hushed. They were trying to save face, and the public didn’t know to watch for them.

That they could play to their advantage. This might just work. Their getaway might have a destination after all.

#saioumotaweek #saioumotaweek2019 #saioumota #shuichi saihara #kokichi ouma #kaito momota #road trip #my writing #my content #hope you guys like iiit :'D #vr au #postgame #fic

[primadonna-girl-yeah]

The Top 5 Reasons We Love Retro Gaming

1. Games Were Simpler Back In The Day

Computer games have undeniably gotten progressively aggressive and amazing as of late. At the point when you take a gander at any semblance of The Last Of Us, it's difficult to exaggerate exactly how far computer games have come since individuals were playing Pong forty-odd years prior. Be that as it may, for every one of the advancements inside the medium, and for all the brand new thoughts and progressively expand control conspires, there's undeniable value in the amount all the more straight forward things were in the games we played as children.

Gaming today can be hard for individuals without the muscle memory that originates from long periods of committed gaming. Give your mum or father a PS4 controller and in the event that they're in any way similar to mine, they'll invest a large portion of the energy playing the game looking down, endeavoring futile to recollect where every one of the catches is. Utilize the left simple stick to walk, hold X to run, or tap X to run. L2 is point and R2 is shoot, yet R1 becomes shoot in case you're driving on the grounds that in a vehicle R2 is the quickening agent. R3 (that is the point at which you click in the correct simple stick) allows you to look behind you, and to open the menu you have to hold down the touch cushion. Furthermore, that is simply part of the control conspire for Grand Theft Auto 5, extraordinary compared to other selling games, time.

In any event, for prepared veterans, the expanding multifaceted nature of games can turn into a mood killer. Super Mario World is still as instinctive as it returns in 1990 on the grounds that the innately basic structure and get and play nature of the game made it ageless. You can give a child who's never played a Mario game the controller and inside seconds they'll have turned out how to play. This effortlessness is an alluring idea, which is a very likely a piece of the explanation that retro games like Shovel Knight and Axiom Verge are so mainstream today. The more straightforward a game is to play, the more comprehensive and quick the good times. Retro gaming possesses a great deal of that, and that is the explanation despite everything I'm playing Super Mario World twenty-six years after discharge.

2. Retro Games Have Better Music

As gaming generation esteems have expanded throughout the years, we've seen the medium change from numerous points of view. We made the bounce to 3D, we presently have voice acting, and expand cut-scenes recount to muddled stories that adversary those found in TV or on the big screen. Games today include completely organized scores or soundtracks highlighting mainstream music that are just as great as what we'd see in different mediums, yet it feels like we've lost something en route, as well.

I can in any case murmur the signature music to Treasure Island Dizzy on the Commodore 64. I was playing that game about thirty years prior and I haven't played it from that point forward (I've still never beaten it, damn it) however I can even now recollect the signature music that plays out of sight completely. I messed around a week ago and I couldn't let you know whether they had music by any means.

As a result of the straightforwardness of early games, and without voice acting to recount to a story, the music must be great. Other than a couple of terrible audio effects, the music of the game was the main aural incitement that the games gave. There are as yet incredible game soundtracks today, yet they appear to be rare when contrasted with the rounds of my childhood. Uber Man, Castlevania, the early Final Fantasy games, and notorious titles like Zelda, Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog - these all included exceptionally essential tunes that stick with us long after the last time we played them. Regardless I recollect how the music for Commodore 64 exemplary Prince Clumsy changes when you spare the princess toward the finish of the game like I was playing it yesterday. We can't generally say that regarding Shadow of Mordor, can we?

3. Games Used to Work Right Out of the Box

One thing that games from days of old irrefutably showed improvement over the rounds of today is that they, well, worked. You'd imagine that it ought to be an entirely principal part of any item discharged to the market, yet it's genuinely amazing what number of games in 2016 ship broken, requiring either days or long stretches of server changes to get the multiplayer working, or gigantic the very first moment patches to fix the entirety of the bugs that made it onto the circle. Today, on the off chance that you don't have an OK Internet association in your home, a few games are really unplayable, and numerous others seriously hampered.

Road Fighter V discharged recently, with Capcom promising that the single-player Arcade Mode, a staple of the arrangement, would be accessible to download in July. Consider the possibility that you don't have an Internet association. All things considered, at that point, you have a large portion of a game. That is not an issue we confronted when Street Fighter II discharged on the SNES in 1991. In those days, we had no Internet going about as a wellbeing net for engineers. Games needed to work directly out of the crate.

Returning and playing Global Gladiators today is as straightforward as popping the cartridge into your Genesis and turning on the power. It works now as it did at that point; precisely as it should, and with no object. This is a numerous extraordinary aspect concerning retro gaming; in the event that you have the game and the equipment, you're practically great to go. You don't have to download drivers, or updates, or fixes. You put in the game, and afterward you play. Much the same as you should.

4. Games Used to Be More of a Challenge

Today, anyone who stays up with the latest with the most recent patterns in gaming will probably know about Dark Souls and Bloodborne, and the notoriety these games have for rebuffing trouble. Gamers rushed to the Souls arrangement in large numbers, eager to play a title that tested them and would not hold their hands. There are no all-inclusive instructional exercise segments. There's little in the method for help. You can't delay it. What's more, every foe can make mincemeat out of you except if you gain proficiency with their assault examples and act in like manner. It's energizing for a game to furnish us with a daunting task this way, however, at that point, I'm mature enough to recall when each game was this way. What's more, more terrible.

Present-day games tend to illuminate things to the player, regularly to a practically offending degree. Popping a plate into a PS4 in 2016 methods hanging tight for the introduce, at that point the very first-moment fix, and afterward when you at long last get a controller in your grasp you go through the following two hours being strolled through the beginning periods of the game like a child on his first day of school. Everyone prefers a touch of help from time to time, yet there's undeniable value in simply being tossed in at the profound end and being advised to do or die.

5. Sentimentality

Sentimentality may appear to be a cop-out the answer; all things considered, thinking back on the past with rose-tinted displays is frequently what enthusiasts of anything retro is scrutinized with. It's anything but difficult to reject sentimentality as a method for advocating the conclusion that everything was simply much better in your day, yet truly wistfulness is a colossally amazing specialist and it shouldn't be overlooked.

Today, we watch refuse motion pictures and weep over the utilization of evident CGI, however, we'll joyfully endure Raiders of the Lost Ark and not try referencing that the liquefying Nazi toward the end resembles he's made out of plasticine. We tune in to the shocking popular music of our young people with an intelligent grin on our countenances while looking down on Justin Bieber's most recent video. What's more, we'll talk about Final Fantasy VII just as it was second happening to Christ, totally overlooking the entirety of the blemishes in the game that we'd hang an advanced game out to dry for. Sentimentality is a sufficient impact to cause us to accept that Sonic the Hedgehog was very great. Presently, that is not kidding.

The explanation a great deal of us like playing old games is essentially a result of the inclination we get playing them. I've played hundreds, if not a large number of games in my time as a gamer. What's more, I'm sufficiently keen to realize that in that time computer games have improved in pretty much every manner. In any case, that doesn't change the way that on the off chance that I load up Street Fighter II I recollect the times of playing it during the school summer occasions with every one of my companions. I recollect the day I finished Toejam and Earl with my sibling each time I hear the initial barely any bars of its ludicrously astounding signature music. Furthermore, I recall the overjoyed rushes we got when we initially got the fatalities chipping away at Mortal Kombat II.

Playing old games, similarly likewise with watching old films or tuning in to old collections, transports us to a period in the past that we like to recall. Regardless of whether its recollections of old companions, friends, and family, individuals we may see each day or might have put some distance between, each old game we load up is a window to the past and that is unique. The most recent Call of Duty is never going to rival that.

#retro gaming

[hairringtonsteve]

good.

(joe keery x reader) 

request: babes! can I have a joe keery one where y/n works on the set of stranger things and to him she's like the coolest ever and the both have the same style and he falls pretty hard, and when season two comes around there's a tearful reunion and confessions of love xxxx (also can y/n be british?)

summary: turns out joe doesn’t really cope well with his emotions and cries when he’s tired.

word count: 2,393

a/n: okay, so this is going out tonight (sunday), and i won’t be on much at all tomorrow BECAUSE MY AUNT IS HAVING A BABY, so i’m going to queue up a fic that somebody submitted to me, and that’ll go out tomorrow. that is all. there are no warnings in this fic. it’s just nice and fluffy and joe cries a lil. 

It had all started with the slapping.

Well, really, it had started when you’d been hired as a production assistant for some Netflix show. The premise had seemed interesting enough - you’d grown up being into sci-fi stuff - but what had really intrigued you was the fact that it was a paying job. You’d been trying your hardest to get a job in film, on top of trying to get someone to hire you while also providing you a work visa.

Eventually, your uncle had known this dude who’d known a woman who babysat for this person’s cousin who knew someone that worked at Netflix. Which meant that a couple of months later, you were working on the set of an actual tv show.

But the actual fun? That had started with the slapping.

It was day three of shooting, when you’d noticed it. Being a PA meant that you were relatively low on the list of important people, and that you were there to do what you were told and to keep your mouth shut. But you’d started to pick up on the fact that two of the actors, Gaten and Finn, had red cheeks. Not just red cheeks where they were a little excited for the scene at hand, but like… like they’d been hit. You had younger brothers. You knew how stupid kids could be. They’d already shot the scene twice, and a difference like that would be noticeable.

So you took a chance. You approached one of the Duffer brothers - you prayed you’d get the name right - and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Uh, Matt? Gaten and Finn’s cheeks look a little off. It might show up on camera.” You and Matt looked to the boys in question, watching as Finn reared his hand back and slapped Gaten across the cheek.

“What the fuck… Hey, you two! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Matt started towards them, scowling as you hesitated for a second before following behind him. “Are you kidding me? You can’t slap each other before a take. It’s going to ruin continuity.”

“We can’t help it! We’re excited!” Gaten piped up, grinning.

“Well, are you guys going to stop?” Finn and Gaten both looked towards each other before turning back to Matt, shaking their heads, grinning like a couple of idiots. “Jesus,” he muttered. He sighed, running a hand over his face as he turned around. His gaze settled on you. “You, you good with kids?”

“Uh, sure?”

“Cool. You’re being promoted to child wrangler.”

“Isn’t there already a wrangler?”

“Well, yeah, but… You’ll be the actual wrangler. They’re worried about the kids’ safety. You’ll be making sure they don’t do anything stupid.”

Don’t do anything stupid became the mantra for the entirety of filming.

There would be days where it felt like the only things that you said were:

“Finn, knock it off.”

“Gaten, I understood the joke. It wasn’t funny.”

“Caleb, please stop talking.”

“Finn, knock it off.”

“Noah’s my favorite.”

“Finn, knock it off!”

There were more better days than worse days, though. Millie easily listened to you the best, although that was more because you’d both lived in England. But weirdly enough, your favorite person on set ended up being Joe.

“Where is everyone?”

You jerked your head up from your phone, grinning at Joe as he approached with two donuts in hand. He held out one to you, ignoring the way his pulse stuttered as your fingers brushed against his as you took the donut. He wished that he could say that it had crept up on him slowly, that he hadn’t noticed his giant fucking crush for ages until he just realized that he’d liked you from day one. Because that would have been easier. He would have had time to process his emotions and come up with a game plan.

No, he took one look at you and it hit him like a freight train. It hadn’t been his first day of filming, but within those first couple of weeks whenever everyone was slowly meeting everyone else. He’d wandered onto set during the lunch break only to come across you, Finn Wolfhard, and Caleb McLaughlin, all doubled over, laughing hysterically.

“You’re both - “ Laugh. “Such - “ Wheeze. “Shitheads.” You were getting the words out - barely - in between your laughter, Finn and Caleb losing it even more than you had.

“How was I supposed to know that it wasn’t real?” Finn snickered, grinning from ear to ear.

“Gives shithead a whole new meaning, huh?” Caleb smirked, setting the three of you off into another round of hysterics. Joe just stared at you, eyes wide. He wasn’t able to put his finger on it, but it felt like he’d just been hit in the chest.

It fucking sucked.

“The kids have a test today, which means I get some free time,” you replied, tugging him out of his thoughts. He leaned against the trailer, watching as you settled back onto its steps.

“Enough free time for us to go help out the Companions of Jorrvaskr?” He asked you, eliciting a chuckle as you bit into your donut.

“Probably not. Caleb and Gaten are most likely going to be done soon enough.” Joe nodded his head, trying to bite back the frown that was threatening an appearance. “But we could play it tonight, back at the hotel? Shooting says we should wrap up around seven thirty if you don’t suck.”

“Like, in my room?” His eyes widened, and his heart started to beat a little faster. He’d been one of the lucky ones able to get his own room. You just nodded at him.

“Yeah, like in your room? I mean, we could play in mine, but as much as Sara loves doing your makeup, I’m pretty sure she’d hate you if she had to deal with you off hours,” you teased. Joe just nodded his head a little too enthusiastic.

“Yeah, definitely. My room’s cool. Totally cool. We could grab room service or something too? We’re too late into filming, so they can’t fire me for racking up their bill.” At that, you snorted through your bite of donut, causing Joe to grin even wider.

“What’ve we got left, two weeks?”

“Yeah, I think so. Of principal stuff, anyway. Reshoots will be in a month or two, and then it's press all fucking day for the rest of our lives,” Joe said, making a face at the thought of it.

“Come on, Joe, it can't be that bad.”

“I just… I've never done it before, you know? What if I suck?”

“You can't suck at it, though. You're physically incapable of sucking at that. You're nice, charming, funny, attractive. You've got this down pat, man.”

Joe felt his entire face warm at your words. You'd called him attractive. What the hell was he supposed to say to that?

“Yeah, well, thanks for the vote of confidence.” He paused, glancing to the donut in his hand and then back to you. “You, uh, you think I'm attractive?”

You let out a bright, loud laugh as you grinned up at him. You squinted at him in the harsh sun, opening your mouth to respond just as Gaten swung open the door to the trailer.

“I'm free, Y/N! Fucking nailed it, too,” he crowed, grinning wide as you stood up from the steps, giving him space to hop down.

“Dude, language, please. Your mom said that you need to cut down on the swearing.”

“My mom needs to cut down on the shit,” he said, grinning up at you with a sly look. You shot him a glare, and to Joe's delight, Gaten shrunk under it. “I was being funny, Y/N. I was making a joke. My mom is great, okay? She's a wonderful woman.”

“Hey, you wanna go grab some donuts at crafts? They've got the good ones that you like,” Joe suggested, shooting you a quick wink before Gaten saw him.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, let's give Y/N a break for once.”

Joe shot you another wink as he and Gaten walked away, his pounding in his chest. He was so fucking gone for you, it was ridiculous.

Joe: How's London going?

You: I feel like I'm being unpatriotic but         Atlanta was waaaaay more rainy         So it's not so bad         I miss everybody

Joe: Even me?

You: Especially you.

You: Sooooo best friend

Joe: Yessss vest friend?          Best friend          Fucking autocorrect

You: I saw some nice pictures of you online with a model. Nice 👌

Joe: Oh         No         We were walking out at the same time and they made it look like that         I don't even know her name????

You: So you're not dating?

Joe: Nah

You: Good

Joe: ???????????

Finn: okay so is Y/N coming with us for the press tour or what?

Joe: Nope, they got somebody else to wrangle you assholes

Gaten: Son of a bitch

Caleb: Language

Millie: Languaaaaaage

Noah: LANGUAGE

Charlie: So does no Y/N mean that Joe's going to spend the entire time pining?

Natalia: Probably 😂😂😂

Joe: I'm not PINING JFC we're friends

Charlie: Friends don't wanna make out with other friends, mate. Hate to break                that to you.

Joe: I hate you

Caleb: THEY GOT ANOTHER WRANGLER FOR FILMING ITS NOT Y/N

Finn: no one tell joe. he's gonna be pissed

Joe had been sick when you'd told him that they'd already hired somebody else to watch the kids for season two. It made sense. For the first season, they'd been a little overwhelmed, a little under prepared. The budget had been lower, so they'd had to make do.

With season two, though, it was different. There were new actors and bigger budgets and a totally different feeling whenever he walked into set.

But that might have been because you weren't around.

Joe had been up for somewhere around fifty hours due to some travel issues and stress and then getting roped into a Mario Kart tournament whenever he'd finally gotten to the hotel. So he was a little off his game, but his first scene wasn't for another two days. Costume fittings he could handle on little sleep.

What he couldn't handle was seeing you poke your head into the costume trailer, asking for Noah to get on set.

“Y/N?” He breathed out, staring at you with wide eyes.

“Oh, hey Joe! I didn't think you were getting here until tomorrow.”

“They just - they called me in this morning. What are you doing here?” Was he hallucinating you? You'd specifically told him one night while you were Skyping that they'd gotten an actual person to watch over the kids. And if he wasn't hallucinating, then he needed to get it together. His eyes were actually starting to burn a little, like he wanted to cry.

“I'm working? You remember, my job as a PA?” You stepped into the trailer, taking a step to the left so Noah could could get out. The young boy eyed the two of you carefully, giving you a questioning look to which you just shrugged.

“But - but you said that they hired somebody else to wrangle kids?” The confusion from Joe was emanating from him so much it was almost a tangible thing.

“Yeah, but I was originally hired as a PA. I thought you would have understood what I was saying.” You paused for a moment, stepping towards him until you were about a foot away. “Joe, I would've told you if I wasn't coming back.”

Joe just stared at you, shaking his head slow, back and forth as he tried to wrap his mind around what you were saying.

At some point, the two women who had been making small adjustments to his costume had slipped outside to give the two of you some privacy. Neither of you had noticed.

“I guess you're right, I just panicked? I don't - I don't fucking know anymore.”

“Joe, are you - are you crying?” You laughed softly, reaching up to wipe a tear away from his cheek. You let your hand rest against his cheek, offering him a faint smile. “I know you missed me, but not this much.”

“I haven't slept in like fifty five hours, okay? Gimme a break.” His head dropped to your shoulder, his hands resting at your waist as he tugged you towards him. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Why'd you tell me that it was good that I wasn't dating that model?”

It was silent for a few seconds, and Joe's heart felt as though it would burst. That good had haunted him ever since you'd sent it. It was the closest you'd ever gotten to addressing your feelings towards him one way or the other. He'd been dying to ask you, but even over Skype, it felt like it was too important. It needed to be discussed in person.

“Because I don't want you dating anyone, because I'm a jealous twat.” Your fingers carded through his hair as he kept his forehead against your shoulder.

“Why are you jealous?” He lifted his head so he could get a better look at you. Your teeth nipped at your lower lip, a sign of your nerves that he'd first noticed ages ago, soon after he'd met you.

You took in a deep breath, a light pink coloring your cheeks.

“Because I like you. A lot. I've liked you since we first met, but not seeing you in person for months on end sucked, and it hit me, you know?”

Joe nodded his head in response, eager enough that it brought out a small smile on your lips.

“It hit me too,” he murmured. “Really fucking fast and hard.”

“Good, that's good.” The two of you just stared at each other, looks of happy disbelief on your faces before Joe leaned in, pressing his lips to yours. You reached up, tangling your fingers in his hair.

“I'm really into you,” he mumbled against your lips, finding it hard to keep from grinning.

“I'm really into you, too.”

Noah: GUYS            AND GIRLS            YOU WONT BELIEVE IT            [Blurry image of Y/N kissing Joe, shot through the window on the door                 of the trailer]

Finn: but I like emo joe           rip emo joe

#joe keery x reader #joe keery imagine #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington imagin #stranger things x reader #stranger things imagine #stranger things #stranger things 2 #joe keery #finn wolfhard #gaten matarazzo #caleb mclaughlin #millie bobby brown #noah schnapp #reader insert #reader #fanfic #stranger things fanfic #stranger things fic

[jacquessnickets]

If I’m not mistaken this ASOUE meme was made by @lastchancegeneralstore​, so a quick thanks to them for the opportunity! 

Favorite book in the series: The Miserable Mill, believe it or not. Far be it from being the best book in the series, of course, but I’ve got a very soft spot in my heart for it.

When did you read them for the first time: I must have been about 13, because I was in middle school when I really got into it for the first time. Funnily enough, I never actually made it through the whole series -- I got to maybe the first couple chapters of The Grim Grotto, kinda figured out the rest of the story from various online sources, then forgot everything that happened in each book until I finally read them all properly. If I could go back and do it properly, I definitely would.  


Favorite character: Jacques Snicket has stolen my heart. Other all-stars include Charles, Hector, and Uncle Monty.

Kit/Dewey or Kit/Olaf: Kit/Dewey 100%. A good way to make me sad is to remind me that she kept talking and asking about him in The End without knowing he was dead.

Favorite Quagmire: I like all three, though Duncan seems to be sort of underappreciated compared to his brother and sister. Therefore, I shall pick up the slack.--


Favorite Baudelaire: I like all three of them too! I’ll say Klaus because he’s so salty and sassy but at the same time I think he cries the most out of all three kids, and I can appreciate a child character who behaves in ways a child might despite his maturity and intelligence.


Favorite Snicket: Jacques, naturally. ;y 


Did you see the 2004 movie in theaters: No, though I saw it pretty soon after it came out on DVD. I mostly remember the ads for it playing on Nickelodeon.


Thoughts about the movie: I think it’s enjoyable enough as a standalone film, but as an adaptation of a franchise it was a little sloppy. The allusions to VFD are too scarce for a fan of the series to enjoy and too vague for newcomers to understand, and Carrey’s performance was really overhyped in commercials and was played much more comedically than I think it needed to be. Overall it could have done much better, but it wasn’t so terrible I wouldn’t watch it again.


Favorite quote: From Who Could That Be At This Hour?: "If someone wanted to torture me until I told them a critical piece of information, all they would have to do is get my socks wet.” because sAME

Have you ever met Daniel Handler: No, but I would love to.


Thoughts about ATWQ: IT’S SO GOOD. Like ASOUE was a great series I enjoyed very much, but ATWQ is different in its style and substance that it’s a nice combination of fresh and familiar. 11/10 would read again

Favorite ATWQ character: I love so many of the characters, but if I had to choose a number one spot it’d be a three-way tie between Moxie Mallahan, Dashiell Qwerty, and Jake Hix. 


Favorite moment in ASOUE: Oh there’s definitely a few. Klaus saving Charles from the saw, Friday telling Olaf off and the other islanders not buying his disguise, any time an adult was kind and gentle to the children, and Kit driving like a maniac then casually mentioning her pregnancy are some good ones. One I wouldn’t say was quite my favorite but one that was definitely impactful was Dewey’s death. I had been reading the series over Skype to my friend, and it was the first time I’d ever read through the series in its entirety when I finally got to that book. I knew it was coming, I knew how and when and why it was going to happen. And yet, as the words started leaving my mouth, I could hear and feel myself getting choked up over a guy I’d known was a goner for years. I didn’t cry, but it was the only moment I really got physically emotional over something that happened in the series.


Would you ever get an eye tattoo: This is the only tattoo I have ever seriously considered getting. 


Fire-fighter or Fire-starter: Fire-fighter, if only to be the really edgy morally ambiguous one who has no issue suggesting we just assassinate the villains who pose a legitimate threat to people.


Least favorite character: Is Poe a cliche answer? I don’t care, that guy sucked. Dishonorable mention goes to Stew Mitchum.


Did the Quagmires survive: YES, EVERYONE IN THAT HOT AIR MOBILE HOME DID  


In your opinion, what is the great unknown: It’s very tempting to think it might have been the Bombinating Beast, though another interesting idea might be that it’s some sort of submarine. After all, having the Quagmires, Hector, and the Widdershins reuniting just to get gobbled up by some sea monster seems a little lame.


Did you like the way the series ended: I do wish a there had been more loose ends tied up, but I like how the ambiguity gives us opportunity to imagine where the Baudelaires went from there. The Beatrice Letters does a very good job of giving some slight insight as to what happened after they left the island, but not enough that we have any clear, concise answers.


What question do you most want answered by Handler: In the series proper and especially in ATWQ, there’s a lot of focus on Lemony’s relationship with Kit. Yet not nearly as much attention is paid to Jacques; the narrative of his death is kind of gleaned over in comparison to Kit’s, and he doesn’t even show up in ATWQ outside of sparse references. So my question is, what was the nature of Jacques and Lemony’s relationship both in childhood and adulthood? Jacques and Kit? How did his death affect them?

What are you most excited for about the Netflix series: MY SERIES IS FINALLY GETTING A PROPER, COMPLETE ADAPTATION 


Binge watching or spacing out the episodes: I binged. I was a caveman for 8 hours the day it premiered. I will binge again when the second season is released.

I tag: @stuckonswan because she’s the only friend of mine regularly on here who has read the whole series--

#asoue meme #asoue #atwq

[thescarlettongueprojectblog-blog]

United in Anger

Last week, I finally sat down to watch the highly-recommended comedy special, “Nanette” by Hannah Gadsby.

It was so good.

Seriously. Go watch it. This human has an excellent brain, and her messages are super important.

But of course, this wouldn’t be my blog if I wasn’t complaining about something, right?  

The end of “Nanette” kind of broke my heart. For the entire hour +, I was along for the ride, hanging off of every word she said, raising my fist at the TV in solidarity and support.  And then she just….dumped me.

I do want to take a quick timeout to honor that celebrities and public figures are people, too.  Not deities.  You will disagree sometimes, and that’s totally okay.

Nonetheless, I was sad.

At the end of her special, she closes by saying that we must no longer unite in anger, even if that anger comes from a place of love.  But the way she spoke about anger did not sound like the anger I know.  The anger she spoke of sounded more like hate and self-loathing.  I kept saying, “yes, I agree, but I don’t think we use that word the same way, and you’re really breaking my heart right now. Please, please don’t spread this with those specific words; it’s so unhealthy.”

I agree with her, to an extent.  The actions many take out of anger are quite unhealthy, and no, we should not unite over that.  Hate crimes start with anger.  But so do human rights movements.  So let’s be a little more clear—

Anger is simply saying, “nope. This is no good.”  Anger saves lives. Anger creates boundaries and containers for healthy, respectful relationships.

When anger is told that it is not allowed to exist, or that it’s the only thing in charge, the human brain goes into wild places, because anger never disappears.  If it isn’t allowed its own channel, it’ll just go hide behind some other emotions or impulses.  That’s when we get stuck in rage, fear, willful ignorance, prejudice, unrelenting sadness, and terrible violence.  Anger says, “I will keep you safe”.  And when you say “go away, anger”, your brain says, “oh shit…now I’m not safe. OVERCOMPENSAAAAAATE!!!” That could be shutting down, dissociating, or lashing out.

It breaks my heart when people conflate anger and hatred.  We are in this mess to begin with because of our misinformed ideas of anger, and the vast efforts to destroy it, particularly for anyone of a marginalized demographic.  Unless, of course, one’s anger can be used against them by those who seek to oppress them.  Consider, for example, this need in our white-supremacist society to hold on to the stereotype of an angry black woman or a violently angry black man to justify racially motivated injustice, and excuse oneself from personal accountability.

Control a person’s ability to stand up for themselves, and you control their entirety.

When I heard Hannah’s words and desires around stopping anger, I knew what she meant.  She was exhausted, and sick to death of bullshit. She no longer wanted to see people hurting themselves or others.  She wants to live in a world that doesn’t hurt.  She wants people to join together in joy, love, pleasure, and benevolent laughter.

This is what I heard between her words. And yes.  Yes, yes, yes, YES to all of this.

But we’re not there yet. We have to work toward that, because we’re so far down and lost that it’s going to take a lot of strong effort by every single person on this planet to do better, to hope for better, to believe in better.  So right now we’re angry.  We need to get angry for things to change.  Not hateful.  Just angry.

In my interview with Aepril Schaile, she mentions that she came across the theory that anger is actually a form of optimism, because in order for a person to be angry, they have to believe that things could, or should, be different.  Apathy and acceptance, I believe, are the greatest dangers to modern social progress.

Think about it—when you’re in a failing relationship and you fall out of love, you fight less, right? Because at the end of the day, you’re just like, “ugh. Whatever. I don’t even like you. I’ll say whatever you want to hear so you just go away.  Fuck my life.”

Or when you’re at a job that is zapping the life out of you, but you don’t believe you have any other options, so you just whither away for years getting kicked in the shins by your miserable boss, setting the timer on Monday for when you can finally go get blackout drunk on Friday before it all starts over again.

Anger, instead, looks like telling your partner that you love yourself, that you deserve better, and that you’re not going to put up with getting screamed at or degraded.

Anger looks like going to HR to report that your co-worker put his hand on your ass for the last time.

Anger looks like asking a child who’s locked out and sobbing in front of his house if he’s okay.

We NEED to unite in anger.

Not hate.

When I started The Scarlet Tongue Project, I felt completely isolated in my anger.  I was silenced, told I was crazy, told I was scary, told I was weak, awkward, quiet, etc.  I wasn’t allowed to use my anger, so I had no idea how to use it when it inevitably came up.  Most of the advice I got was to chill or “let it go”.  Rarely did anyone pause to consider what might be on fire inside of me that was causing this.  At that time, conversations on anger were not flooding in online like they are now, nor were they happening in my various communities of friends.  Now you can’t even flutter your eyes open in the morning without being smacked by someone’s flying rage fit.  Only a couple years ago, you actually had to sit down and do research to find people brave enough to talk about these things.  Now, we can’t escape.

One of the greatest blessings of this project was that I stopped feeling isolated.  I found people I could process with, people who understood, people who would teach me, and people who knew how to harness anger in order to move forward with great love and strength, to create epic change and love in the world. Friends began coming to me and saying, “thank you for doing this. I’m so fucking angry all the time. I just never felt allowed to express it.”  This week, 6 artists are flying into Mexico City to join me for an art residency related to the film.  Our intention is to come together, discuss anger, discuss how to build community, explore how to free ourselves from social constraints, how to support others in their desires to live in truth and openness, and how to create action and change for a more beautiful, just world.  It is anger that is bringing us together.  And it is so profoundly powerful and magical.

When Hannah said that we cannot unite in anger, of course I took it personally, because that is the entire mission of my project—to create communities where people feel safe and inspired to stand up for themselves and others in the face of injustice, to be witnessed in their authenticity, and to move forward to create their best lives with the support of others.

If you are angry, sure, you can use that to fuel an agenda of fear and destruction.  You can also use feeling confident and happy in your skin to go cheat on your partner with 50 people.  Emotions are indicators, not actions themselves.  The energy you draw from your emotions can go anywhere you put it. I encourage you to find others when you’re angry.  Find someone healthy to talk to, find groups to join, go see a show that inspires you and helps you imagine worlds of deeper love, greater tolerance, and goddamn it—FUN.

If you are angry, see if you can push to the other side of the voice that says, “SHUT UP.”  Try to invite your anger in.  Listen to it.  Ask your body what it needs to feel relief.  Then find others who support you, and maybe even share your dreams.

If you separate anger from hate, what does that look like?  Does it have its own space?  Can it lay close to feelings like bliss, pleasure, and satisfaction?

My anger does.  And I’m so grateful to the wise, creative folks around me who can hold that, because they know that on the other side is a super badass world of experiences and ideas that we can’t wait to manifest.

Unite in an anger that flows.  Unite in an anger that doesn’t get stuck.  Unite in an anger that gives you energy to create. Unite in an anger that is from love, and leads back to love.  And if you’re not sure how, then unite with people who do so you can find the help you need.

I’m sorry, Hannah, but the brilliance of your work did, in fact, powerfully unite people in anger.  They learned something.  They felt desire to be better people.  They felt love and compassion for you and for themselves. Thank you for that.  That was a gift.  And now you get to move on to something else, which is the whole point. But please don’t dishonor what brought us to this beautiful place of eye-opening and change.

Anger does not have to be suffering.  Anger can be revolution.  For many of us, anger IS revolution.  And the revolution needs you.  I hope to meet you there.

#anger love revolution film womeninfilm intersectional intersectionalfeminism feminism documentary art artist create

[theramblingonesie]

Uniting in Anger

Last week, I finally sat down to watch the highly-recommended comedy special, “Nanette” by Hannah Gadsby.

It was so good.

Seriously. Go watch it. This human has an excellent brain, and her messages are super important.

But of course, this wouldn’t be my blog if I wasn’t complaining about something, right?  

The end of “Nanette” kind of broke my heart. For the entire hour +, I was along for the ride, hanging off of every word she said, raising my fist at the TV in solidarity and support.  And then she just….dumped me.

I do want to take a quick timeout to honor that celebrities and public figures are people, too.  Not deities.  You will disagree sometimes, and that’s totally okay.

Nonetheless, I was sad.

At the end of her special, she closes by saying that we must no longer unite in anger, even if that anger comes from a place of love.  But the way she spoke about anger did not sound like the anger I know.  The anger she spoke of sounded more like hate and self-loathing.  I kept saying, “yes, I agree, but I don’t think we use that word the same way, and you’re really breaking my heart right now. Please, please don’t spread this with those specific words; it’s so unhealthy.”

I agree with her, to an extent.  The actions many take out of anger are quite unhealthy, and no, we should not unite over that.  Hate crimes start with anger.  But so do human rights movements.  So let’s be a little more clear—

Anger is simply saying, “nope. This is no good.”  Anger saves lives. Anger creates boundaries and containers for healthy, respectful relationships.

When anger is told that it is not allowed to exist, or that it’s the only thing in charge, the human brain goes into wild places, because anger never disappears.  If it isn’t allowed its own channel, it’ll just go hide behind some other emotions or impulses.  That’s when we get stuck in rage, fear, willful ignorance, prejudice, unrelenting sadness, and terrible violence.  Anger says, “I will keep you safe”.  And when you say “go away, anger”, your brain says, “oh shit…now I’m not safe. OVERCOMPENSAAAAAATE!!!” That could be shutting down, dissociating, or lashing out.

It breaks my heart when people conflate anger and hatred.  We are in this mess to begin with because of our misinformed ideas of anger, and the vast efforts to destroy it, particularly for anyone of a marginalized demographic.  Unless, of course, one’s anger can be used against them by those who seek to oppress them.  Consider, for example, this need in our white-supremacist society to hold on to the stereotype of an angry black woman or a violently angry black man to justify racially motivated injustice, and excuse oneself from personal accountability.

Control a person’s ability to stand up for themselves, and you control their entirety.

When I heard Hannah’s words and desires around stopping anger, I knew what she meant.  She was exhausted, and sick to death of bullshit. She no longer wanted to see people hurting themselves or others.  She wants to live in a world that doesn’t hurt.  She wants people to join together in joy, love, pleasure, and benevolent laughter.

This is what I heard between her words. And yes.  Yes, yes, yes, YES to all of this.

But we’re not there yet. We have to work toward that, because we’re so far down and lost that it’s going to take a lot of strong effort by every single person on this planet to do better, to hope for better, to believe in better.  So right now we’re angry.  We need to get angry for things to change.  Not hateful.  Just angry.

In my interview with Aepril Schaile, she mentions that she came across the theory that anger is actually a form of optimism, because in order for a person to be angry, they have to believe that things could, or should, be different.  Apathy and acceptance, I believe, are the greatest dangers to modern social progress.

Think about it—when you’re in a failing relationship and you fall out of love, you fight less, right? Because at the end of the day, you’re just like, “ugh. Whatever. I don’t even like you. I’ll say whatever you want to hear so you just go away.  Fuck my life.”

Or when you’re at a job that is zapping the life out of you, but you don’t believe you have any other options, so you just whither away for years getting kicked in the shins by your miserable boss, setting the timer on Monday for when you can finally go get blackout drunk on Friday before it all starts over again.

Anger, instead, looks like telling your partner that you love yourself, that you deserve better, and that you’re not going to put up with getting screamed at or degraded.

Anger looks like going to HR to report that your co-worker put his hand on your ass for the last time.

Anger looks like asking a child who’s locked out and sobbing in front of his house if he’s okay.

 We NEED to unite in anger.

Not hate.

 When I started The Scarlet Tongue Project, I felt completely isolated in my anger.  I was silenced, told I was crazy, told I was scary, told I was weak, awkward, quiet, etc.  I wasn’t allowed to use my anger, so I had no idea how to use it when it inevitably came up.  Most of the advice I got was to chill or “let it go”.  Rarely did anyone pause to consider what might be on fire inside of me that was causing this.  At that time, conversations on anger were not flooding in online like they are now, nor were they happening in my various communities of friends.  Now you can’t even flutter your eyes open in the morning without being smacked by someone’s flying rage fit.  Only a couple years ago, you actually had to sit down and do research to find people brave enough to talk about these things.  Now, we can’t escape.

One of the greatest blessings of this project was that I stopped feeling isolated.  I found people I could process with, people who understood, people who would teach me, and people who knew how to harness anger in order to move forward with great love and strength, to create epic change and love in the world. Friends began coming to me and saying, “thank you for doing this. I’m so fucking angry all the time. I just never felt allowed to express it.”  This week, 6 artists are flying into Mexico City to join me for an art residency related to the film.  Our intention is to come together, discuss anger, discuss how to build community, explore how to free ourselves from social constraints, how to support others in their desires to live in truth and openness, and how to create action and change for a more beautiful, just world.  It is anger that is bringing us together.  And it is so profoundly powerful and magical.

When Hannah said that we cannot unite in anger, of course I took it personally, because that is the entire mission of my project—to create communities where people feel safe and inspired to stand up for themselves and others in the face of injustice, to be witnessed in their authenticity, and to move forward to create their best lives with the support of others.

If you are angry, sure, you can use that to fuel an agenda of fear and destruction.  You can also use feeling confident and happy in your skin to go cheat on your partner with 50 people.  Emotions are indicators, not actions themselves.  The energy you draw from your emotions can go anywhere you put it. I encourage you to find others when you’re angry.  Find someone healthy to talk to, find groups to join, go see a show that inspires you and helps you imagine worlds of deeper love, greater tolerance, and goddamn it—FUN.

If you are angry, see if you can push to the other side of the voice that says, “SHUT UP.”  Try to invite your anger in.  Listen to it.  Ask your body what it needs to feel relief.  Then find others who support you, and maybe even share your dreams.

If you separate anger from hate, what does that look like?  Does it have its own space?  Can it lay close to feelings like bliss, pleasure, and satisfaction?

My anger does.  And I’m so grateful to the wise, creative folks around me who can hold that, because they know that on the other side is a super badass world of experiences and ideas that we can’t wait to manifest.

Unite in an anger that flows.  Unite in an anger that doesn’t get stuck.  Unite in an anger that gives you energy to create. Unite in an anger that is from love, and leads back to love.  And if you’re not sure how, then unite with people who do so you can find the help you need.

I’m sorry, Hannah, but the brilliance of your work did, in fact, powerfully unite people in anger.  They learned something.  They felt desire to be better people.  They felt love and compassion for you and for themselves. Thank you for that.  That was a gift.  And now you get to move on to something else, which is the whole point. But please don’t dishonor what brought us to this beautiful place of eye-opening and change.

Anger does not have to be suffering.  Anger can be revolution.  For many of us, anger IS revolution.  And the revolution needs you.  I hope to meet you there.

[jasonseligson]

Hello, Friend: Mr. Robot, Decrypted

Mr. Robot is having a moment. Rami Malek, the show’s insanely talented leading man, just won an Emmy—and less than a week later, the show brought its mind-bending, action-packed second season to a close. Basically, it’s a good time to be a fan—or to jump on board with Elliot and the other hackers of f society, if you haven’t already. Last summer, Mr. Robot was one of the most buzzed about shows, and earlier this year, it took home two Golden Globes for its first season, including Best Drama Series. The show is on an upwards trajectory, and there’s still plenty of room to climb. It’s also fantastic: one of the best, most beautifully-directed dramas to come around in a while.

Season 1 of Mr. Robot is a dark, trippy, adrenaline rush, but it’s compelling, nuanced and incredibly entertaining. As a viewer, you can’t look away. The show plays with reality, and therefore occasionally ventures into dream-logic territory every now and then, but it remains surprisingly grounded—not merely by Rami Malek’s phenomenal performance as Elliot, but the supporting cast as well. The cast has some amazing female performers front and center, which shouldn’t be overlooked, and the story is all the better for it. The thing that really resonated with me in those early episodes was how remarkable the show was at conveying feelings of alienation and profound loneliness that aren’t stilted or simplified; things we don’t see much on TV. After a pitch-perfect pilot (and I can’t emphasize that enough), Mr. Robot raised an immensely high bar, one it held throughout the remaining episodes. But the biggest thing that got people talking was the twist that came at the end of episode 8.

The twist, which I won’t go into too much detail about here, would come to dominate the discussion of Mr. Robot (appropriate, for how game-changing it was for the characters). And then in Season 2, another twist came. A lot’s been written about the polarizing twist that happened this season. Quick spoiler alert for those haven’t seen it: after lying to the audience for several episodes, Elliot reveals he was arrested at the end of Season 1 (which many predicted well in advance) and wasn’t staying at home with his mom and attending church group on the side. Personally, I didn’t mind the twist, but thought it could have come a bit earlier. The reveal happened more than halfway through the season, at the end of episode 7, and that felt somewhat dragged out. Furthermore, the couple of episodes after the premiere—which mostly focused on Mr. Robot and Elliot fighting—started out promising, but ultimately stagnated. Subplots and supporting characters like Craig Robinson’s Ray seem like they vanished the minute Elliot got released.

Conversely, one thing the twist did accomplish was to spare us from spending seven episodes with Elliot stuck in prison—and I can only imagine how much fans would have complained if the story had taken that direction (prison by itself can only stay interesting for so long; why not explore Elliot’s psychosis a bit more?) Instead, Sam Esmail and his writers took advantage of developing its core cast. The female characters on the show have always been great, but they had some amazing stuff happen this season: Angela executing the FBI hack; Darlene killing Susan Jacobs in the fantastic F Society-centric episode. the shootout between Dom and the Dark Army in China; and the bloodbath that occurred at the diner. Elliot’s reduced presence did wonders for fleshing out the people around him.

Season 2 also showed viewers that while this is an ongoing story, Esmail is clearly telling it in chapters. Esmail has said that he originally conceived of Mr. Robot as a film, and it’s interesting to keep that in mind when analyzing the overall narrative of the show. The story is still in its early stages, so we shouldn’t expect to have all the big questions answers at this point. Esmail says he plans on the show having between four and five seasons, so we’re just about, if not even halfway through.

The first hour of the Season 2 finale took us to some pretty strange territory (Did that scene with the little girl and Angela evoked Twin Peaks for anyone else?) The second was an equally odd hour that was primarily focused on Elliot’s mental state with regards to Tyrell and Mr. Robot, but we also got a fantastic sequence with Dom and Darlene, and that amazing post-credits scene with Mobley and Trenton. In a post-Lost world, I get such joy when a show relishes in the smallest, quietest character interaction, and where even minor players in an ensemble can be a part of an explosive moment. “Python,” was a solid, if somewhat quiet installment of Mr. Robot. We didn’t get to spend anytime with Phillip Price or Whiterose in the final hour; we learned what Phase 2 of the hack is, but we didn’t learn everything (personally, I really want to know what Whiterose told Angela!)

Whereas Season 1 was more singularly focused on building toward the Mr. Robot reveal and the 5/9 hack, Season 2 has been less cohesive. At times, it’s been difficult to follow, but honestly, I’ve embraced this aspect of the show. As the story’s scope widens, it can occasionally feel convoluted, but it doesn’t really become incoherent—if you’re ever feeling lost, there’s always space to track follow Elliot, Darlene, or Angela’s emotional state. I felt the same way in Season 1. It’s not as though I understand close to the entirety of the hacking that happens in this show, but that shouldn’t affect my investment in the story, and it hasn’t.

Another impressive feat the show has made: being single-handedly responsible for the creative reinvention of a network. As one minor character cracked last night, “this isn’t Burn Notice. Characters are not welcome here.” It’s a cheeky meta-joke about USA, and it’s also a reminder that while Robot might borrow heavily from other films and shows that came before it, it’s also doing its own thing.

I hate to bring it all back to the Emmys, because as we all know, award shows have never been the sole factor for determining what quality television is, but if this year’s Emmys proved anything, it’s that they’re more in tune with what’s current now more than ever. Let’s forget about the fact that Mr. Robot didn’t win for Best Drama series. Game of Thrones had perhaps its best season ever this year, and it deserved the big win. If anything, I lament that Sam Esmail lost out on a writing win for the show’s pilot (seriously, go re-watch that pilot; it’s perfection). But Mr. Robot will be here for a couple more seasons as least, and there will be time for more accolades.

Now that Season 2 is complete, we can let it wash over us, and look at the whole picture with fresh eyes—as happens with some shows, maybe those earlier episodes will play better in binging. For now, we wait until this weird, wonderful show returns. As Elliot would say, goodbye for now, friend. See you in Season 3.