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#how did i know there was a russian musical version but not a movie
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Excerpt from a Time Travel Fic I Probably Won't Finish
(This is completely unrelated to my time travel fic You Me Her. In this version, Steve and Robin go back to summer 1983 together from 1986 after the death of most of the other characters. Robin ends up fake-dating Steve to hide her sexuality and give her a reason to be around him.)
Robin was sitting out at the picnic bench in the woods, waiting for Steve’s afternoon practice to finish. She probably should have been sitting in the bleachers, watching them practice and playing the role of the good girlfriend. But she hated spending time around the other jocks. Tommy H never said anything disparaging in front of Steve – not after Steve had made it clear who he would pick if forced to choose between Tommy and Robin – but he said anything he could get away with when Steve’s back was turned. Jason Carver looked disgusted with her presence. And several of the other boys were nice enough, decided that they found Robin funny when she wasn’t rambling. But now that she was the girl on King Steve’s arm, she was noticeable and a lot of the boys looked at her in ways they hadn’t when she’d been an invisible band geek. 
Most of them didn’t say anything lecherous to her face. They didn’t dare touch her or flirt with her, not when they saw her as belonging to Steve. 
But the attention made Robin uncomfortable anyway.
Part of her wondered if she should stage a breakup with Steve so she could go back to getting bullied the way she was used to instead of this new, confusing way. But now that she’d “dated” Steve, she didn’t think she’d go back to being invisible, even if they broke up. And the only thing worse than putting up with a bunch of horny, cruel jocks was still having their attention but without Steve’s protection. 
Robin hated that she needed Steve’s protection. She’d faced off against monsters from another dimension. She’d spat in a Russian soldier’s face. She’d done things that would make those jocks piss their pants in fear, and none of it mattered here. To them, she was just a girl, powerless and vulnerable except for the protection of her future prom king boyfriend. 
It sucked. 
The sound of metal jangling made Robin look up. 
“Eddie Munson,” she said, surprised. 
He looked younger than when she’d known him. His hair was shorter, just above his shoulders, and the battle jacket he’d thrown at Steve had a lot fewer patches. The chains on his jeans were probably what had gotten her attention. He looked shocked to see her. 
“Robin Buckley.”
She frowned. “You know who I am?”
In 1983 Eddie must be a senior, the first time around. Robin was a sophomore and they didn’t exactly run in the same circles. They both ran with music crowds, but Robin liked the band kids and Eddie ran with the crowd who thought they were too cool and alternative for the band kids. He had no reason to know who she was.
Eddie laughed. “Do I know the girl dating King Steve? You’re hard to miss, Buckley. You sent the whole school into a tizzy, wondering how you distracted The Hair from pursuing cheerleaders. Word on the street was he had his eye on Nancy Wheeler, who’s at least vaguely on the popularity radar, and then BAM! King Steve shows up with a band kid girlfriend and settles down for the first time ever. How did you do it?”
Robin fluttered, unsure of what to do with her hands. “Oh God. Everyone is gossiping about me, aren’t they?”
“Should’ve thought of that before dating King Steve,” Eddie said. “So how did you do it? Did you seduce him?”
Robin snorted. “No.”
“Trick him?”
“No.”
“Is this some kind of Prom King rebellion on his part? Is dating a band geek the jock equivalent of a teenage girl dating a bad boy?”
Robin scowled. “Maybe we just like each other.”
Yeah, she and Steve ran in radically different circles on different rungs of the social ladder. But Steve was her best fucking friend. She liked his unfailing love for shitty music and shitty mainstream movies. The snappy, annoyed persona that she and the kids were good at drawing out of him. The way he cared, always, about everyone, and showed it by giving them food, or his jacket when it was cold, or his ear if they needed someone to listen. 
She’d laughed with Steve until her abs hurt. She’d cried on his shoulder for more hours than she could count. She’d come out to him in a shitty mall bathroom and his support for her hadn’t wavered, not once, not even for a second. 
He’d let her make the unilateral decision to be his fake girlfriend and never complained, even though it was keeping him away from Nancy Wheeler. He’d trusted her with his fears about his brain and told her it wasn’t scary to be honest with her because she was Robin. 
Robin knew it was 1983 and Steve was only a few weeks separated from the height of his King Steve persona. But she hated that she was the only person who saw him as more than that. 
“Right,” Eddie said, sounding tentative. “Well, listen, as fun as it’s been  to talk to the Queen Consort, could you take your homework somewhere else?”
Robin stared at him. “I was here first.”
“And usually, I’m all for finders-keepers and solemnly respect the rule of dibs,” Eddie said. “But I need this table to do business, and you’re going to scare off the customers.”
Robin’s eyes dropped to the little metal lunchbox Eddie was holding. “Oh. Right. Sure.”
She slid her books — and Steve’s books, because she working on his math homework tonight — into her backpack. 
“Thank you, Your Highness,” Eddie said, dropping his things onto the table. 
Robin made a face at the nickname. “I’m just Robin.”
Eddie looked up at her with big, distrustful eyes. Like just her association with King Steve made her someone dangerous, someone who he couldn’t trust. “Not to the people at this school, you aren’t. Not anymore.”
Robin didn’t know what to say to that. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. She wanted to say that nothing about dating Steve (or pretending to date Steve) had changed her as a person and that she hated all the popular kids as much as Eddie did. That she was still a girl who talked too much, who missed too many social cues, who played trumpet in a polyester costume, and who liked to kiss other girls. That she understood what it was like to be an outsider in a small-minded town like Hawkins, Indiana. 
But she couldn’t say any of that. 
Instead Robin spun on her heels and walked away, anger and frustration and a strange sadness in her chest, like she was mourning the girl she’d been in the other timeline. The girl who had never met Steve until her first day working at Scoops Ahoy. 
Maybe she was beginning to understand how Steve felt when, for years after his downfall, everyone had still referred to him as King.
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agentnico · 2 years
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Elvis (2022) Review
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Don’t know what to make of this, but for some reason the go-to way of showing emotion in this film was to have characters stare through windows. The amount of window glaring shots in this movie was redonculous! 
Plot: From his rise to fame to his unprecedented superstardom, rock 'n' roll icon Elvis Presley maintains a complicated relationship with his enigmatic manager, Colonel Tom Parker, over the course of 20 years. Central to Presley's journey and happiness is one of the most influential people in his life - Priscilla.
Elvis Presley is arguably one of the most significant musical icons of the last century, and his songs have been played and enjoyed until this day and onward. Personally I didn’t grow up listening to Elvis. Instead being a Russian born kid, my family played the Soviet version of Elvis - this chap with the easy-to-pronounce name Muslim Magomaev who’s voice did resemble Elvis’ quite a bit. Worth a YouTube search if interested. Anyway, enough unnecessary Soviet promotion. Back on topic, seeing as music biopics have been made cool in recent years thanks to the successes of Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman respectively, now the King gets his due. This comes to us from director Baz Luhrmann for better or worse, as what we get is a visually popping motion picture that really captures the colourful flair of Elvis’ shows and costumes, however this is very much an example of style over substance. Especially the first half of the movie rushes through Elvis’ earlier life and plays out like a montage with quick cuts and transitions, so much so that in prior to hearing of Austin Butler’s incredible transformation into the role I felt like I was being deceived, as there were hardly any scenes that played fully and allowed the actors to freely show off their acting chops. Instead we were being treated to a best-of playlist of Elvis’ greatest hits (not complaining though, listening to those was great) and a bunch of intercut sequences that were ticking off points off of Elvis’ Wikipedia biography section, and it was difficult to get engaged in the proceedings. Well, minus Elvis’ first performance in front of an audience where I feel Baz Luhrmann got inspired by Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story where women began getting so horned up by the singer they began undressing themselves. Okay, that version was only in Walk Hard and what we get in Elvis is a PG version of that where women simply bit their lips and screamed in collective horniness over Elvis’ twitching leg dances. 
It is not only till the second half of the film however when we reach the Las Vegas stage (pardon the pun) of Elvis’ life that the movie pulls the brakes and actually finds a narrative purpose by unravelling the controlling relationship between the singer and his manager. During these points Austin Butler’s performance really does shine, as you see the pain and inner turmoil he feels from being a humongous success, but not having any real freedom or personal choice. He was simply used as a pawn on a chess board played by businessmen who wanted to export him for all his worth. And Butler also dabs well with the musical sequences, dancing and singing his way to Presley glory.
The main issue however with Elvis minus the lack of narrative direction and too much focus on the visuals over anything else, is that it does the questionable choice of being narrated and told from the perspective of the villain. Colonel Tom Parker, played here by Tom Hanks in a fat suit and a head-scratching accent, was the manager who exploited and used Elvis for his own gain. And the movie proves how despicable of a being he is, however with him narrating the story one has to question - why? Is the movie trying to redeem this persona? Cause the story told still paints him as the bad guy. It just seems like a directorial choice that doesn’t make much sense stylistically or narratively. Okay, put it simply, it doesn’t make any sense at all. 
Overall Elvis is an enjoyable and fascinating look at the life of the famous icon, with a solid performance from Austin Butler and a grandiose visual palette from Baz Luhrmann, but similar to the director’s previous works, he puts too much focus on the style and as such loses the focus or the narrative substance. Though this is redeemed in the second half. That being said, this makes me keen on seeing more biopics of popular music stars, as its always fascinating discovering the personal life of people we only see as celebrities. Maybe David Bowie? One for David Grohl and the Foo Fighters? Heck, my inner child is screaming for an ABBA biopic! Make it happen!! Then again there is that Madonna biopic coming out made by Madonna herself, which is one of the most obnoxious things I’ve ever heard, even from Madonna! 
Overall score: 6/10
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icemankazansky · 2 years
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I realize that this isn’t quite your area based on your archive fics for Top Gun, but do you have an opinion about Sarah? Honestly anyone who Iceman married sounds like a very interesting person. Iceman being Iceman he must have people lining up around the block, but to be the person he chose back? Damn.
Or if you prefer the sister/niece; what kind of brother/uncle do you think Iceman was? How much was Mav involved? He seemed to be close enough to hug Sarah at least.
I have many areas.
TG:M left us a lot of room on Sarah, which I like a lot, because I don't want there to just be one possible answer. Obviously, I am very much Team Icemav, and I believe that Iceman and Maverick had a lifelong partnership that was both romantic and sexual. They're true love. True, titanium, storybook, forever love.
My initial take on Sarah is that she and Ice have a platonic marriage. Ice wears a wedding ring in the movie, and there are multiple insinuations that he has children (on this point, they could definitely be nieces and nephews, but let's put a pin in that.) My first reaction when I started to process TG:M was that Sarah is aro-ace, and Ice is gay and in love with Maverick. Ice and Sarah love each other, but it's not romantic or sexual for either one of them. Ice would like to be with Maverick, obviously, but Maverick can't stay in one place for long, and he has flings, and maybe Ice wants something more stable. So he meets Sarah, and they become close, and they both want kids and they want a partner who will always be there—companionship—and they can give each other that without any other expectations. They have separate bedrooms. Sarah and the children know Maverick, and they love him; he comes home to Ice when he wants and is able, and Sarah doesn't mind sharing Ice with Maverick, because they want different things from him. And because she loves Maverick like a brother, and because he makes Ice happy.
I agree that Sarah would have to be a helluva woman to attract Ice's attention, and then to be able to handle him and Maverick. I have a headcanon that she's new in town and sees Ice following her, so she does some self-defense move on him and hurts him, or maces him or something, and while he's trying to recover he manages, "You dropped your keys," and holds them out to her.
"You should have announced yourself or something!"
"I did. I guess you didn't hear me. Do you have headphones on?"
She rips them off and stuffs them in her bag.
"No!" Then, gentler, "Do you need a doctor?"
It's the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Poor Sarah had no idea what she was in for lol
I also like the sister angle. It's a popular fanon that Ice has at least one sister, usually an older sister, and I'm very fond of it myself. (My version is Sasha, and she appears in several stories, notably the Wall Series.) It's hard to have a family as an LGBTQ person. It was harder in the '80s. It was almost impossible in the military. Whether Ice had a family of his own or not, I can see him being very close with his nieces and nephews. As we know, he has kind of an icy exterior, but a soft, gooey center. Definitely the cool uncle with the cool job who teaches you about good music, answers your sex ed questions honestly without telling on you, and plays Embarrassing Story tennis with your mother. Endlessly patient helping you do math and science homework when your parents plateau and tell you, "Call your uncle. He's good at this stuff."
Uncle Mav: Also the cool uncle with the cool job. Teaches you how to ride a motorcycle way before it's legal. Has a whole different genre of Embarrassing Stories about Uncle Tommy and your mother, and knows A LOT of hilarious, mostly harmless pranks. Taste in music: suspect, but he lets you taste your first beer—just a sip—when you're 16. You immediately spit it out, and Uncle Tommy laughs and says something in Russian about, "that American piss water." (that one is all @victimofthemusic and I think of it all the time)
When Uncle Tommy gets prescribed medical marijuana for his cancer, you and Uncle Mav teach him how to smoke it. (I also have this headcanon for Ice's kids in Sarah scenario #1.) Uncle Tommy lets Maverick charge $200 worth of Chinese food to his credit card before he remembers he can't eat any of it because of what the radiation has done to his throat. Before you and Mav obliterate $200 of Chinese takeout, Mav makes Uncle Tommy soup.
Wow, this went some places! Thank you for the question! I am working on what is turning out to be a longer than anticipated TG to TGM Icemav story that involves Sarah scenario #1, so keep an eye out for that if you're interested.
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youofsomesong · 1 year
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Friends Describing Starkid Characters (part 7)
part 6s girlfriend
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thats knock off troy bolton
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dobby and that one guy who ran the russian school in goblet of fire (i mean...correct fandom)
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timmy
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she gives stephanie energy (reminder, shes watched part of tgwdlm, idk how she didnt get emma. pete i get cause his name wasnt revealed yet in tgwdlm)
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dundee
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barb and sue
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pete (no. youve watched this. this was also as i was testing her bf, she did it the next day so she had a day to figure it out)
PAUL (she cheated by looking it up but ill give her half credit)
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sanka
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trixie matel before she got famous
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thats the akinator AI from like 2010
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thats the love child of hagrid and trelawney
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aribella
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oh thats jasmine and jafar
but like in a low budget live action (its the best version what do you mean??)
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rita skeeter after she grew out of the puke green phase (if only lauren played rita skeeter and i wouldve given her points for that)
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that is jack harkness but like extra closeted gay
i cut out the other image of ethan since when i told her bf that someone finally realized they were the same guy i didnt remember she was sat right next to him
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troy sivan
but like, before he came out (how do you forget hidgens?????)
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that is tyler oakley
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he looks like andrew garfield
but i shall name him steve (cant blame her for not knowing his name but how can you forget the loveable homeless guy?)
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why is farris bueler in this? (KJDSHFKASJH)
NERDY PRUDES MUST DIE SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT! CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
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hes from the disney original movie zombies
but like an unnamed background character
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thats luke and clarisse (can you tell im reading percy jackson lmao) (yeah, i can tell dfkjha)
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thats a britney if ive ever seen one
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thats cisco before his graphic tees phase (and here i go on a tangent about how carlos was in starkid before he was on the flash and went to college with the sks and how joey replaced who was playing the hot chocolate kid in tgwdlm. yeah i know im a nerd)
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thats stingy from lazy town
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jeffree star
when he has attempting to have a music career
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teenage strawberry shortcake
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calum hood in the dont stop music video
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andre
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is that not the tyler oakley guy again? (nope. but it is the same actor. same actor as paul too, howd you not catch that afsjhs /lh)
this one is phil
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zapsoda · 6 months
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Hey.
What is Postal? I find myself increasingly attracted to the Postal Dude and I would like to know.
Uh.
Everything I suppose.
hell yeah!! based! so postal is a video game franchise (and also movie). the games are typically first person or isometric shooters (although in some of the games you are presented with the option not to kill anyone).
the games typically revolve around this fuckin ginger (some version of him anyways) and his deal is that he just keeps wnding up in situations where everyone is trying to kill him.
if ur interested in getting into specific games ; postal 2 is the classic, its a banger, everyone likes that one. lil bit cringe and edgy and dated but its a lotta fun. the deal w this game is that you can kinda do whatever the fuck you want (main appeal). like it has tasks that you needa complete to progress the game. but you can do those at whatever pace or order you want and in the meantime just fuck around exploring the map. you can pick up cats in the game :33. you smoke crack to restore health. theres a piss button and a suicide button. lotta bangin dlc
the first game (postal 1), the april fools game (poostall royale), and the third game (postal 3) are all free 2 play. the first two are on steam theyre cute lil isometric shooters. the first one has a lot of appeal with the story going on. between each level theres these little bits of text like journal entries from the dude. i did not read these the first time i played it and thus i thought it was boring. (eheh). poostall royale has a girl version of the dude (huge win for bisexuals everywhere).
postal 3 is generally considered the worst game ever made by redditors and the creators themselves, so you can only play it if you pirate it (which is endorsed by the creators lol). i cant say much about this one my only experience with the game is a russian speedrun of it.
more recent games are postal 4: no regerts, and postal: brain damaged. i have heard mixed reviews of the former, but there is a drag outfit and you can pet animals so those are pretty enticing imo
the latter is GREAT. fucking gorgeous trippy silly game. the dialogue is unbelievably cringe. love this one. 10/10. been trying to 100% it. slowly.
the movie is on tubi its. unrecommendable. but. i have a soft spot for it, it was kinda funny sometimes to me... i hate what it did to zack wards place in my brain. its like. edgy 2003 type shit. Based 9/11 humor. take this as you will (maybe give it a try?)
on tumblr you may find many people referring to a version of the dude who is ripped and dressed in a blue and white striped tank top. this is shtopor he is from some russian version of postal 2 made by a different company. its called postal: corkscrew rules by many, but thats not the most accurate translation afaik. it never got an american release, however it did get a japanese release which was dubbed in english. game itself is utter shit from what i can tell but i have heard good things about the music (banger russian indie metal). i dont think i can mention this game without mentioning that the plot revolves around sexual reassignment surgery shenanigans. idk how to elaborate on this one its a lot. lmfao.
anyways. i focused mostly on the franchise itself rather than Him, i can elaborate on him more if u want. hope this was helpful nonetheless :-)))
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illiana-mystery · 2 years
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For the Unwritten Fic ask game: 4 & 12
Sorry this took so long, I really needed to ponder these questions. But now I think I have something sufficient to answer them.
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For this ask game, I'm referring to the unwritten Tadeusz Melnik fic, Covert Affairs
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4. Is there anything in the fic you're unsure about including?
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The biggest thing that I'm still unsure about is including his full canon backstory.
In A Very Polish Practice, he is well-educated and has a Doctorate in Philosophy but instead of pursuing academia, he went into more illegal business affairs which included working with "the Communists" as he put it. He was married at one time, but cheated on his wife with the wife of the main character of the movie when she was much younger. (That's a very, very simplified version of his backstory but you get the gist). At the end of the movie, he moves to Switzerland as he is on the run from the Polish authorities because someone ratted him out or something.
So with all that being said, I think I might tweak his backstory a bit.
In Covert Affairs, he moved to New Jersey since he was almost caught in Switzerland and is now working with the underground mob there. But you would also learn that the wife of the main character from the movie ran off with him instead of how it really ended. And she was killed during the sting that led him to move to New Jersey. (The person that ratted him out would be one of the Communists that he used to work with and would be the main antagonist of the fic.)
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12. How far have you planned ahead?
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I've planned out the premise and background of this story since I sat down and watched A Very Polish Practice for the second time. Although, I did know that I wanted to write a Tadeusz fic before then.
Personally, I think his character could be explored a lot more like Silas or Terry. I don't think they did enough with his character so I want to do that for them. 😉
I was actually told by one of my mutuals @sgt-petter that his last name sounds Belarusian or Ukrainian, so I might do like I did with Sergei (half Uzbek/half Russian) and make him half Polish/half Belarusian, which would be kinda cute since Kazia Jefferson, his love interest, is also half Polish (and half black).
And I think his Belarusian background would also lead him to be able to easily work with the Communists since he would know their culture and language from his father.
•••
As for Kazia, she's really into 80s fashion and music especially R&B and Soul. And I imagine her looking like Karyn White or Jody Watley back in the day. (The story takes place in 1995.)
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I even made a Spotify Playlist of songs that Kazia would be listening to on her Walkman on her way to her shift at the Starlight Diner where she works and ends up meeting Tadeusz.
So yeah, I've been planning this fic out. I hope to start working on writing it this month. 🤞🏾
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raitrolling · 1 year
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ok ok (belated) quadrants day gift time
Dismas bought Maidel a box of some really bitter dark chocolates (like his soul). inside the box of chocolates is also the first of many clues that will lead Maidel on a treasure hunt for the real prize, half a dozen sheep cupcakes. he will make jokes that they’re his evil familiars that he had to make so many sacrifices to summon, but we all know he bought them from a bakery
Callan bought Gerrel a decently fancy bag of dark chocolate roasted hazelnuts since he knows his moirail is not big on sweets, and also found a recipe online for him to make his own “cuz yknow you like all that cooking stuff. oh by the by i hear that milk chocolate and sprinkles make it taste way better when you’re making them for someone else. just a lil fun fact ;)”. He did not buy anything for Izuili, and instead attempted to break into his hive to steal his chocolates and probably ended up getting caught in a well-placed trap
Ashe found some really detailed white chocolates modelled to look like all the individual bones of a skeleton (scaled down and simplified obviously) to give to Cheran, but since he knows that his matesprit can’t really eat normal foods, he also bought a bouquet of flowers and a cute spider plushie that has a heart pattern on its abdomen
Velour received many gifts from his fans as per usual, so he decided to share them with Jamie. somehow the Implications flew over his head, because he was thinking about how much Jamie loves trashing his fans for the weird shit they send him so he thought he might find their choice in chocolates to be funny
Mikiel bought Thrixe a very expensive box of assorted artisanal truffles in all sorts of unusual flavours, so that he can try as many new flavours as possible. He bought the same box for Lyvere as well, tucked away just in case he receives a gift from him
Lusien made sea salt and chilli chocolates for Anirus. He still has not perfected the art of making sweets yet so they don’t look or taste perfect, but they’re still pretty decent and it’s the thought that counts. He also cooked them a nice dinner as well, since they cooked for him on 12th Perigees
Viltau made a dozen chocolate roses for Jikiro that are also decorated with shimmering golden swirls using edible ink, and also treated him to a multi-course candlelit dinner with all his favourite foods and matching alcoholic drinks. And, of course, a candlelit slow dance to some soft, romantic music. For Kitaer he made boxes of chocolates for every sweep they’ve been together that are a true Russian roulette of mostly awful flavours with a couple chocolates he’d actually like. Also he found a cold case in the files where only a partial skeleton of the victim was recovered, and decided to send him chocolate versions of all the missing bones as a joke
Glasya of course had to make all sorts of spicy chocolates and candies for Mikail and packaged them As Cheesily Cutesy And Stereotypically Quadrants Day As Possible to leave on his desk. Then they invited him over to their hive after work for drinks and movies
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3rdsday · 1 year
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📋 OSTs of media you like
Willow I LOVE you for asking this. Thank you for giving me permission to talk about this because holy shit.
S tier:
She-Ra. My god is that soundtrack just absolutely gorgeous. I could rant about how incredible it is just in terms of things like leitmotifs and thematic usage for hours but it's also just incredible to listen to in the first place.
How to Train your Dragon. Yeah it's probably not a surprise since everyone knows how good the soundtrack is, but the hype is well deserved.
Shrek, actually! There are some really beautiful pieces in the score (which was co-composed by the same person who did HTTYD) and people mostly just focus on the pop songs in the movie or the memes. Listen to Fairytale and feel emotions right now.
Doctor Who: Specifically the stuff done by Murray Gold. That man never failed to compose incredible music for the show and the fact that he left was a large part of why I struggled to keep watching starting at series 11.
A tier:
Sonic 06: That soundtrack is so pretty and is by far the best thing to come out of that game. Eggman's theme that was introduced in 06 was so recognizable and iconic that it was reused for every game following 06 (except Forces) and the fact that an instrumental version of All Hail Shadow was used as Shadow's theme was an incredible decision.
Minecraft: I'll be honest the only reason why this isn't getting an S is because I've just listened to it so many times. Aria Math is underrated btw.
Deltarune: Spamton's theme goes hard. I love basically every part of the soundtrack, and My Castle Town is such a fun tune that I just wanna stay in that part of the game to listen to it more.
Fullmetal Alchemist: (both versions) beautiful score to go with a beautiful anime. Not much else to say about it except Brothers (from the 03 version) being sung in Russian is so cool and unique.
Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2: Wow Marvel actually did something right for once! The fact that the themes and leitmotifs established in the first film were carried over and expanded upon for the second movie was such a treat.
B tier:
TMNT 2012: The score isn't officially released which upsets me. Some of the reused stuff can get repetitive, but there's also a lot of things that I wish I had an official version to listen to. Like the scene in season 3 when they're going back to NYC.
Stray: I recently played it and the music is so fucking cool. I think that the way it set the tone and atmosphere of the world was done incredibly well. Good music to write to.
Undertale: Not as good as Deltarune, which is to be expected since it came out first, but still iconic as always. I don't find myself listening to it frequently though.
The Adventure Zone: Started off a bit rough when the music was first introduced, but as Griffin became more confident and skilled in his composing abilities the music started going hard. Really started adding to the emotional beats of the story. Also the Amnesty theme is so good. I haven't listened to the podcast further than the end of Amnesty so I can't say anything about the more recent stuff though.
C tier:
Ironman 1 and 3: Both are decent and I listen to them sometimes, but not my favorites. I feel like if the themes established in the first movie had been used in subsequent films, for example, it would have made things a lot better.
Moon Knight: I think that the score is cool but can sometimes be repetitive. There are some moments that are really cool though.
D tier:
Sonic X English dub: enough said.
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xslythcrin · 5 months
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  ❝ magic  doesn’t  come  from  talent  or  power .  .  .  it  comes  from  pain  . ❞
𝑐𝘩𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑟⧸𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑒 : zaya riddle diggory   ››   half-blood   ››   danielle rose russell .
❛❛   aesthetic.  ❜❜   ⸻   ◜   ❏  . ⸻   piano  music  at  the  end  of  an  empty  hall , the  girl’s  like one  of  those  russian dolls; you  open  one  version  of  her; only  to  find  there’s  another  hidden  inside  her , bones knowing something wonderful about the darkness , a contradiction of her own rights: so gentle yet so deadly . ⸻
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⸻   ◜   ❏  . ⸻  ϟ.  danielle rose russell : gender-non conforming : she/they : art restorer / artist : paint it, black by ciara  ϟ  did you see zaya riddle diggory ? you know , the 27 year old half-blood who was formerly in slytherin . some say zaya can be quite fervent  but are known to be morally-questionable . they are aligned with the neutrals .  ⸻  tw : death , semi abuse
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full name : zaya riddle digorry .
age : 27 .
blood-status : half-blood.
date of birth : september 21st .
occupation : art restorer / artist .
language(s) spoken : english  ,  french  ,  latin  ,  german  ,  parseltongue .
hair color : brownish-red .
eye color : green .
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positive : fervent , adaptive .
negative : morally-questionable  , enigmatic .
moral alignment : chaotic neutral .
deadly sin : lust + sloth .
element : darkness + fire .
emotional stability : it’s somewhat there .
alcohol use : socially .
prone to violence? : when provoked .
drives / motivations : herself .
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🇫​🇦​🇻​🇴​🇷​🇮​🇹​🇪​🇸  ››
book : the complete tales and poems of Edgar Allan Poe .
movie : silent hill .
food : all things that are sweet .  she has a major sweet tooth .
flower : water hyacinths.
season : the in betweens .
animal : her black cat and her runespoor .
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father : tom marvolo riddle .
mother : unknown .
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CHAPTER I :
━  zaya was born in secret at the Malfoy Manor as the result of a liaison between her mother and Lord Voldemort a year before the fall of voldemort and her birth mother was sent to azkaban .
━  this left zaya without anyone to raise her . Rodolphus Lestrange,  before he was captured left her  at the diggory’s doorstep and used the False memory charm on him making him believe she belonged to a sister who had died and took her in . naming her zaya diggory .   
━  growing up with the diggory , she was loved to an extent and she never lacked anything. Amos gave it all to her , just as he gave all to his son . Although the rest of the family treated her as a black sheep . like something that didn’t quite belong .  but because of amos and cedric , zaya wasn’t one to care . 
CHAPTER II :
━   it was towards her first year of hogwarts and she was getting all that she needed . Amos surprising her getting her first pet . Going to the best pet store he could find in the wizarding world. It was there when he found out Zaya was born a Parselmouth , a rare trait and confusion as to how . Something nagging at him since then . His false memory charm slightly breaking . Still , something in him knew he cared too much to question. Telling her no one must know .
━   zaya fell in love with the snake that was in the back of the store. A  Runespoor. She wanted it and talked to the mother of it if she could take them. Along with a black cat that she also wanted. Amos got them both for her.
━   arriving at at the school she was easily sorted to:
                                                                   “ SLYTHERIN ! ”
CHAPTER III :
━  a shocking sorting considering the diggory’s were always sorted in to hufflepuff . still ,  Zaya excelled in many things, much like cedric did in her years throughout hogwarts . though kept mostly to herself at times, she still had some friends. During holidays she would always stay in Hogwarts unless her amos wanted her to come home for a social event .
━   because of the way she was, most regarded her as the princess of slytherin. Being in the slug club and becoming a prefect in her 3rd year, include herself in activities involving the house. Zaya wasn’t exactly a model student but in the eyes of many adults and those with authorities, she was .
━   in her free time, many would say you can find zaya painting or playing her violin and occasionally for fun doing ballet . The teachings in hogwarts came easy to her and it’s no surprise that she would become Head Girl when she goes into her 7th years in the future .  
━   having friends and she would include herself in activities involving the house.  Cheering Cedric despite it going against her house . When the games ended during her 4th year , Ceddric’s death took a affected on her . though she would never admit it and doesn’t show it . she was close to him after all . she tried to help amos , yet he now would often times reject her help . Zaya just left it at that . 
CHAPTER IV :
━  as the war started , zaya saw many take sides . It was only natural for people to assume she would side with the death eaters . Yet she did not . Many would assume her now to be with the order . No .  Zaya never took a side . She didn’t partake in this war she thought to be useless and pointless .
━  that is until the battle in hogwarts , zaya sided with the order yet she did not join them . a decision she didn’t regret yet she also did not care for when harry potter lost his life . the death eaters were winning . she simply knew how to preserve her life yet strangely enough none were attacking her . avoided in harming her . she didn’t really understand until 5 years ago when voldemort called her his heir . 
━  finding out about changed many things for zaya . yet one thing that remained the same was her neutrality . even if people now began to assume she took the side of her own father . zaya simply wishes to be left alone and do what she loves to do the most . at least she now knows where her temper comes from .  
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fabiansociety · 8 months
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We're so close to the end of this musicals list, and the last decade of films we've chosen is an… eclectic mix. From Stilyagi, a Russian period piece about a youth subculture of the 1950s (weird, gorgeously shot, depressingly optimistic considering what's happened to Russia between 2008 and now) to… Mamma Mia! (weird, mediocre but a lot of fun, also gorgeously shot, really depends a lot on how much you like ABBA)
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and then we've got Spike Lee's stage film Passing Strange, which looks interesting — something about very literal filmed versions of plays always reads as experimental to me, and it has to be better than his earlier Mo' Better Blues — then Scott Pilgrim vs. the World which cannot have held up well, then the Lebanese Where Do We Go Now?, Belle and Sebastian's God Help The Girl, Tokyo Tribe, the Polish mermaid horror musical The Lure, Beyoncé's Lemonade, the Bruce Springsteen jukebox musical Blinded by the Light, and finally John Chu's adapatation of In the Heights.
It's a weird list—it's been a weird list the whole time, really — and I'm still not sure how satisfied I am with what we put together. Some decades we did pretty well, some we didn't do well enough, and we're probably short on Disney-style musicals where folks burst spontaneously into song. We skipped most of the big Broadway adaptations of the last fifteen years, so no Les Miz, no Sweeney Todd, no Into the Woods, no Chicago, no Dear Evan Hansen. No Cats! We've both seen most of those films, and they're all mediocre at best; Cats at least is interestingly terrible, which is more than you can say for the dreadful cinematic versions of Les Miz or Into the Woods.
I don't know that I've learned what I wanted to learn from this list. There's been a lot of great stuff on here, a bunch of interesting movies I was glad to have watched, but I don't know that I feel any closer to understanding musicals than I did before. With the horror list, I knew there were broad swathes of movies that we were skipping over, but I still felt like I'd had a solid grounding in the historical development of the genre by the end. I don't feel like I've got that same grasp of the movie musical.
Though I will say the enduring strength of the process musical—that is, musicals where the musical numbers aren't just diagetic, they're the explicit result of onscreen rehearsals—is vastly underrated when people talk about the genre. Process is the basic framework of the format all the way from The Jazz Singer to Step Up, and works just as well with any style of music, and doesn't require any breaks from realism. (Not that I care about realism in my musicals, but a lot of folks sure seem to.)
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falsebooles123 · 2 years
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Diary of a Horror Buff 8.26.22
Ok so I did some car shopping and we've definetly clarified a few things so thats good so lets relax and watch a bunch of short films because we cool cool like that.
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Whistle and I'll Come To You (2010) dir. Andy de Emmony
Ok so this is probable one of my favorite adaptations so far. If you haven't ever whistle and I'll come to you then your in for a treat.
Also Please Read this Great adaptation if you want a taste.
the basic story is that a man goes to investigate some ruins and finds a strange whistle, he in jest blows in it but soon he is haunted
BY A SPECTER WHO COMES TO HARINGUE YOU FOR YOUR cRiMeS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
This version is a modern adaptation which is honestly kinda refreshing. In this one an old pensioner checks his catatonic wife into a nursing home and spend some time at a seaside hotel that they had previous spent time in in there youth. He finds a curious ring in the sand and the story plays out roughly the same with nightly visits by a mysterious specter.
I loved this because it touched a bit close to home. I have been a caretaker for both my mother and grandmother and caretaker horror if it can called that calls apon a very poignant level of emotion that goes into that dynamic.
Watching somebody you love slowly die before they ever truly stop breathing is the real horror. Being Trapped in a failing body and mind is the real horror. why should we care about life after death when we have to live with death during life.
Ok so thinking of this movie made me sad again so lets watch somebody saw there head off of something.
Midnight Story (2017) dir. Jinanavin Veerapatra, Chaloempong Balpala
Ok so I kinda love how her mother like look at all these scary pictures of you being scared by monsters under the bed lol.
oh god did that get fucked up real quickly.
so we go from a third person perspective to a first as the little girl creeps down the stairs. Her parents are fighting and that fighting becomes violent. The parents morph into hidious creatures and began fighting again until they see there daughter and start chasing her.
this is an absolutely amazingly shot film and it is terrifrying and fucked up thank you for that.
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Woman Who Stole Fingers (2010) dir. Saori Shiroki
CW: Body Horror, stealing peoples joints
ok so this is a animated short film about a women who steals a little boys fingers and toes and as you can imagine kinda fucks up his life cause he kinda needs those to balance and grab things.
I'm not really sure what this movie is about child abuse??? but it is definetly bizarre and uncanny.
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Be Your Own Dentist dir. Jon Sims
Oh god I think I might be sick.
CW: Teeth gore.
Ok so this is a 7 minute meditation track were Katya, the only high-class russian whore, teaches us how to pull out our own teeth with a surgical grade titanium pair of pliers.
It makes me gag it makes me choke and as someone who has had very bad teeth in my life hits way way way to close to home.
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100.000 Acres of Pine dir. Jennifer Alice Wright
so as a PNW Bitch you know I love a good spooky forest vibe.
In this one a ranger goes farther in the woods while struggling to understand the mysterious death of her brother.
Shenanigans, (eldritch forest locations), ensue.
I of course love everything about this, the PNW Forest Aestetic, The Sap Blood, the music, the Casette Tapes. This is everything I love in movies and they are serving it.
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Uncle Josh's Nightmare (1900) dir. Edwin S. Porter
OK I mean I kind had to look at that name.
So this is a pretty straightforward. Uncle Josh wakes up one night and Mephistopheles, (are favorite stock character), shows up to hang out. Uncle Josh aint much for wise guys so he trys to give old splitfoot here a pugilist potion. Mephi didn't care much for that so he pulls some Melies Jump Cuts to fuck with him and then reappears everything???
Honestly its not anything we haven't seen before to be honest. But not to be a bitch but its not like Edwin S. Porter has shown a large amount of originality in these shorts.
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Uncle Josh in a Spooky Hotel (1900) dir. Edwin S. Porter
This time its a sequel and this time it involves some ghosts and some slapstick. the more i watch these the more I'm convinced that Porter had a Gay Ass crush on George Melies and this was his way of getting his attention.
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The Pit and the Pendulum (1913) dir. Alice Guy-Blaché
Ok so another poe adaptation.
so the original story is pretty simple some dude gets inquistitioned and is casually tortured by the spanish catholic church by a giant axe blade on a pendulum that swings back and forth and gets ever slightly lower and lower. Oh and by the way this is told in first person.
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but no serious its pretty fucked up.
also this was hard to get into because it has a really fucking famous clasically piece playing over it which is a little weird cause this is a horror movie and this shit is very clearly Waltz of Flowers which is such a fucking bizarre choice like out of all the classical music out there your gonna play some shit called a waltz of flowers.
anyway in this one some dudes fight over some chick and one of them is a doctor or a monk or something. to be honest I have no Idea.
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Sredni Vashtar by Saki (1940) dir. David Bradley
ok so I was not famalier with this story which is a literally ironic giving the font of knowledge that I have been with these things. So Saki was basically a british dude and here is the synopsis from wikipedia.
"Conradin, a sickly 10-year old boy, lives in the care of his despised, overbearing and controlling cousin Mrs De Ropp. He relies on his vivid imagination not only to keep him strong enough to survive, but also to serve as his escape from the real world. Rebelling against Mrs De Ropp's oppressive care, Conradin secretly keeps two animals in an unused garden shed: a hen, which he adores, and a polecat-ferret, which he fears and keeps locked in a hutch. Gradually, Conradin begins to venerate the ferret as a god, naming it Sredni Vashtar. He worships it weekly, bringing offerings of flowers and berries, and stolen nutmeg for special occasions."
So yeah this is the story of a sad lonely boy who worships a ferret. honestly based.
David Bradley is a rather unknown figure to me but apparently he also directed THEY SAVED HITLERS BRAIN, which we all know is a wonderful and not problamatic film.
This was honestly a lovely little gothic story and I'm glad that old crone was a lovely sacrifice.
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Porky and Slyvester in Claws for Alarm (1954) dir. Chuck Jones
so this is a much later looney toon short. We've seen early porky pig and honestly the production is so much higher. we have full voice acting, its in color and while for me very little ever truly manages to match the whimsy of the fleischer shorts this one is alright.
Basically Porky and Slyvester find a mysterious hotel but instead of some spooky japes these ghosts are here for blood. like they little ar trying to hang, shoot, slit there throats. Like these ghosts don't fuck around there serving H.H.Holmes realness.
Also porky pig is kinda an asshole for no reason in this short. Slyvester keeps literally saving his life and hes like what are you a Schizo, (which is totes not chill just saying.)
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The Alphabet (1969) dir. David Lynch
Ok so it turns out that David Lynch has actually made quite a few fucked up short films goody for me.
Do I understand anything about this absolutely not but am I glad that it exists of course.
OK Whores thats everything that I have for today. thanks for watching with me.
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edgepunk · 2 years
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The Witcher Netflix Rant from your local frustrated Slav I cannot tell you how tired and frustrated I am by TWN and its treatment of Slavic people. An actual Polish man has pitched the show to Netflix, multiple other producers of Slavic descent have been alienated and felt like they didn't belong there because of how they have been treated, then ultimately left the production that has been handed over to a literal Karen that doesn't give a shit about it. The show has removed every instance of Slavic(mainly Polish)/other European (Germanic, Nordic) influences, cultural significance and turned it into an uninspired, boring, muddy fantasy. Hell, I have tons of criticisms about the games, but at least they kept the Central-Eastern European influences and, despite TW being a dark fantasy, weren't scared to make the games look bright and colorful. You'd think that Girlboss Lauren and her posse would put some effort into representing the cultural influences since the games pretty much got the series popular with the blend of different Central-Eastern European (mainly Polish, obviously) cultures and the usage of Slavic folk music thanks to Percival. A lot of the themes in the books draw from Poland's history, which also have been lost in the show (here is a post that's written by an actual Polish person and explains it better than I could since I'm not actually Polish, ya know). All of that has been lost, both the writing and aesthetics lack the cultural and historical significance that has influenced the world of The Witcher, because the showrunners are a bunch of Brits and USAmericans who aren't willing to put any effort into trying to understand the history and culture. They just want to make the next GoT, which,, huh? GoT ended up like it did, but to give them some credit, in the beginning the writers mostly stuck to the books instead of making a badly written Wattpad fanfiction from the get-go.
And it's possible for a western person to try to understand the circumstances, look at Craig Mazin, the man who directed HBO Chernobyl. Of course it's dramatized, of course they added some things that didn't actually happen and a few things were inconsistent. But you can clearly see in the production of the show that they put a lot of effort and interviewed people from Ukraine. Not sure if it's true, but I've seen somewhere (or was it a podcast?) that they gave the scripts to some Ukrainian people who were alive during the Soviet Union and asked them to correct the dialogues to make them sound more authentic, closer to how people adressed each other during the USSR (and how Eastern Slavs adress each other since it's a little different than western people do, including us Western Slavs, here is a nifty post explaining it if you're interested).
Can't speak for all Slavs, but the overall reaction has been positive from the people I talked to and my older family member. Note that a lot of "older" people here have been born pre '89 (that's when the USSR fell apart, the disaster happened in April '86), so the majority of them lived through the disaster. The biggest criticism people had that they turned Dyatlov into too much of a villain. when in reality he was way calmer during the night the disaster happened. Not to mention Mazin had it more difficult since he was adapting a story from real life that affected thousands upon thousands people. Mazin is a westener, he could've just shrugged it off and said "eh who cares about these filthy Eastern Euro people" but he and his team went out of their way to actually approach the victims, read several books written by people who actually lived through the disaster, that affected them and their families to make the story more authentic and respectful. Now, why can't Miss Lauren and her posse do it with a fantasy setting? Because they don't care. The only instance of "Slavic influence" (using that term very loosely) in the show is during the Striga episode when they mention a "vukodlak" which literally translates to "werewolf" so like,,, eh. It's still a werewolf, just a different version. I'm sure the writers were patting themselves on the back for including that word they found on the werewolf Wiki page. It would've been so nice to see a Slavic piece of media make it to Hollywood, but you see how that ended up. We barely get any recognition and if there is a Slavic character in a western production they're always: an assassin, gopnik, Seksi Female Spy that falls in love with the American, thief, mob boss, and I could go on. They never get the language right, because all Slavs speak botched Russian, right? All of us are named Anton, Ivan, Nikita, Natasha or Svetlana. And there are other mythical creatures besides Baba Yaga which Hollywood can't get right either. And it bleeds into the fandom too, all the modern AUs take place in the US or the UK. When other Slavic people criticize the show for its westernization they are told by westerners to shup up or they're "haters" (I do actually hate the show and the corpo bullshit Netflix is trying to pull here so,,, you can come at me all you want lol) tl;dr: The Witcher was the perfect opportunity for Slavs to have something positive in Hollywood, but it got doomed the moment it was handed to an USAmerican woman who doesn't understand the cultural influences and has zero interest in doing proper research. I probably would've forgiven her and her team if they actually tried, but they didn't. But seeing how other cultures that aren't USAmerican are being treated in movies and TV shows it shouldn't surprise me. Also I feel like I have to clarify - this has nothing to do with the actors, this is purely on the writers, the background and costume designers that put zero effort into researching the different cultures (not just Slavic, but I am Slavic so I wrote this from my perspective) that influenced The Witcher universe.
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redspiderling · 3 years
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MCU Breakdown: Black Widow, Part 1
I can’t believe this is happening 😭
First of all, congratulations to all of you who’ve been here all these years. We got it. We begged for years, and it’s finally here.
For once I wasn't dreading revisiting this film to write down what I got from it. I felt more like I might not do it justice. This film is so special to me, but here it is, the MCU Breakdown of Black Widow, part 1 (of who knows how many).
I remember back when I started running this blog and talking about a hypothetical Black Widow movie that had never been announced, always "yeah, we would be happy to do it, maybe, someday in the future", and arguing that it would be important for women and girls, no matter its content. I'm so glad we got it like this. So, so glad.
The rest under the cut.
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Let's start with some technical details. The film has a lot of setups and callbacks, nothing is done in chance. For example, I love how the light, and the sounds we hear when we first, and last, see Natasha in the film, are the same. We greet her in bright -birds cheeping- morning light, while she's riding her bike home, to her family
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and we leave her in bright -birds cheeping- morning light, while she's riding her bike home, to her family (I'm using the term family very liberally here in reference to the Avengers for the sake of the movie, bear with me, you know how I feel about those dudes).
It's signifying new beginnings, each time, not endings. Notice how, what we see is natural light, which makes this scene pop out, and look more real because the light is coming from the sun, and isn’t artificially made on VFX software. You will notice the stark differences in colours and lighting when the emotions and the atmosphere change in this film, because there is a visual language being employed here, the director has a story to say, and she uses all the tools she has to tell it. The light is exactly the same in those 2 scenes, because Cate wants us to make that connection, even if we make it unconsciously.
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Natasha is placed in such a positive way, both at the start and the end of the film. There's this discussion about how "real" their little family was, but it was the characters that muddled up that image. The reality of their lives in Ohio is presented in a happy way, that had deep rivers under the surface, for sure. This wasn't accidental, for a lot of reasons.
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First of all, if you take it the literal way, they were spies, and had to present themselves as normal. If you take it the allegorical way, any girl could fall victim to trafficking, and if you take it the character way, both Scarlett and Cate wanted to showcase that Natasha is human. They also wanted to give her something that wasn't always dripping with pain and sadness. They were both parts of her life, yes, but there was also joy, and light, and once upon a time she had been a kid, playing with her sister.
Also, and this has been mentioned before but it bears repeating: I love the actress they chose for young Natasha, and I love how they presented her character. She's allowed to be a young teenage girl. She's not sexualised. She's at that gangly stage between childhood and adulthood, and there's nothing sexual about it, no provocative clothing, no excessive makeup. She's a kid.
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Plus, I know Cate said the actress already had her hair dyed blue and they just decided to let her have it, but I think it works well for Natasha's character. That small act of defiance, even that early on, against the system that wanted to break her. Also, the film gives us such great character moments, because they let the camera roll and don't rush through scenes, look at Natasha looking at Melina comforting Yelena. We can see the pain, the fear, where she knows that this isn't going to last, and wonders about what will become of them once their lives begin to unravel.
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We also get to see the joy on her face, the wonder of discovering the world, how often do you get to see Marvel characters do this, just live in the moment?
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Bioluminescence: the production and emission of light by a living organism. Or how Natasha is a bright light, that shines from within. Not my words, Cate Shortland's words. I felt it when I was watching this scene, but it was lovely to have it verified in one of her interviews. I wish I could meet her, and tell her that everything she wanted to put on screen came through, incandescent and crystal clear. Fireflies are a symbol for Natasha, as a bright light that shines from within, and never dies.
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Small details that I love, the magnet on the fridge: Don't forget, above a picture of Natasha. LIKE WE EVER COULD, CATE.
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We have another setup here, where the family gathers up to have dinner together. Even the sitting arrangement is the same as later on in the film.
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Notice also how both young, and adult version of Natasha, communicate so well with Melina, just with their eyes. It doesn't necessary show a deep history between them, but it does show a bone deep level of understanding. Not just of their current circumstance, but of their future, and of what it will do to them. Melina knows what's coming and she's says it "I'm sorry", but they're both resigned to their fate, Melina because she doesn't see a way out, and Natasha because, well, here she's a kid, and therefore is powerless.
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The dynamics between Yelena and Alexei is so different. Yelena is young and doesn't understand, so they're speaking about completely different things. "I don't have my shoes" is what she says, and it's heartbreaking in its innocence, as Alexei is loading his gun and reading himself for battle. We can still see that he's not indifferent to her, telling her she can have "fruit loops in the car". He's not a monster, he just doesn't have a choice (or at least, he thinks he doesn't).
Also, notice how the camera angles are employed here: Natasha and Melina look each other eye to eye, Yelena looks up to Alexei, Alexei looks down on her, there is an imbalance of power and understanding in the second set of images, and the camera tells us that.
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Melina doesn't let Natasha take the photo album. For one thing, it's certain that Natasha wouldn't be able to keep it. For another, Melina wanted the memories, and probably didn't want anyone else to realise/think that they cared about their little family unit.
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There's just a lot of thought that's been put in the details of the script, to show us their bond, their attempts to hide it, to show the characters' personality in everything around them (notice the plants that are ever present in Melina's home, in Ohio and later in Saint Petersburg). She might seem cold, she has been through a lot, but she cares. And that care has brought her pain. And we have to see that pain, because we get the quiet moments like this one, where she stands alone in an empty home knowing that part of her life is over, never to return.
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The mission, is the last thing Melina asks about. The last thing Alexei mentions, the last thing either of them cares about. First, she refused to accept that they had completed the mission and were now hunted, then she accepted it and they loaded their family in the car, and then she asked about the leaked files.
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Also, notice how that shot is framed. Both images silhouetted by the light because it’s the moment and the prop smack down in the middle of the frame that’s important, now what they’re going through, emotionally, they’re not themselves in that moment, they’re nameless, tools of the trade, expendable in front of that tiny floppy disk.
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Yelena is singing while the rest are plunging in despair, but still humour her and play her song.
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I found this shot a bit... Jarring. I get it that for American audiences this would show that they're actually leaving "home" behind, but for the rest of us... Eeeh, I'll give it a pass because it is an American production and this is just something to be expected. I mean, Yelena's song was American Pie. We get it, you still love America, just because you're making a film about Russian spies doesn't mean you're a commie Marvel, it's ok.
But in any case, the setup for the action scene here was excellent. Happy, familiar music playing, car is on the main road, car goes off the main road familiar music gets toned down and eventually completely lost in the darkness.
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Yelena knows what to do, we see it, so that we know that this 6 year old girl who holds her stuffed animal and walks barefoot has practiced for this moment.
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By the way, Natasha did take another item with her along with the photobooth pictures (it also looks like a photo album with Disney princesses on it), it didn't survive the trip. We are informed of this for a very specific reason: Melina didn’t ask Natasha not to take the photo album out of malice, or just because she wanted to keep it for herself. She knew it wouldn’t survive the trip in Natasha’s hands. We also get a close shot of the image strip (and we get it again, during the credits), because it will be important, later on.
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Bet y'all also forgot you were watching a superhero movie until this happened? That wasn't accidental, they wanted us to see them as normal people, this is the moment when that ends.
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Natasha saved her family, even though she was a terrified kid.
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I know that they did the huge titles thing to connect this film to Civil War but... Listen, Civil War needed the huge titles because that script and the way that movie was directed was a complete disaster. We needed to know where the characters were each time with huge ass title because there was NO OTHER WAY TO TELL. Between complete lack of a timeline, and the fact that you couldn't even tell what time of the day it was due to the horrible lighting, you definitely couldn't tell what the location was because it was irrelevant to the plot like, 90% of the time. Not to mention the title cards in Civil War were usually followed by dimly lit grey corridors so, yeah, give us a title so we know at least where they are, generally.
This film. Didn't Need That. For the most part anyway, there are 2 locations where the titles worked. First one was Ohio, the other I'll reveal later.
But here. Guys, they're Russian spies escaping from the US on a small plane... Where else would they go if not to Cuba?!?! This is the Black Widow movie paying for the sins of Civil War, in a small way in this instance.
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Yelena tells Melina that pain only makes you stronger, Natasha cries, and they setup my heartbreak for later.
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Natasha protecting Yelena, terrified, and staring men down the barrel of her gun anyway. Such a badass and heartbreaking callback.
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Notice how this scene makes us look at how men view this. There's an allegory here as well, but I'll address what's actually happening in the film:
Dreykov notices Natasha's natural instinct to protect herself and her sister, and all he sees is something he can use. A tool for violence, instead of sex, in this case. But the implication is there. Not a person, or a terrified girl, just an object to be used by men.
So glad that piece of shit got blown up and never mentioned again. Any man looking for exposition on Dreykov to feel the "loss" when the villain is gone: Fuck you. Go get some therapy.
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Moving on from that piece of shit, difference between Melina and Alexei: Melina apologised. Alexei lied, but he also tried to give them hope. We can see the devastation, because the soldiers never thought of them as girls like he did, and didn't blink before drugging them and taking them away.
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Yet another setup, of Natasha and Yelena, drugged and powerless as they are taken away. Because it wasn't enough that they were kids, they took away all their choices, and rendered them unconscious.
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What can I possibly say about this credits scene.
It's very real, probably the realest minutes in the entire MCU, and it's merciless. They don't try to sugar-coat what's happening, and there are no jokes to diffuse the drama. These are girls being trafficked from all over the world. I don't know about you but I felt the switch from true parallel to real life traffic victims like this shot that looks like footage from Interpol
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to Red Room victims as being a clear shift, and I was actually grateful for it. Because here I could put my back against the fact that the red room wasn't real, otherwise I would have broken down before the credit sequence even ended.
It was a stroke of genius to create an introduction to this entire world like that. We rarely see credit sequences anymore and it's a shame, because when they're well done they tell stories in and of themselves, and this is one of the best I've seen.
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Even the villain is set up here. He's pointing at girls and saying "that one, and her", like he's picking pigs for slaughter. How much more setup than that do you need, to want to murder that man dead? Not any more, that was enough.
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Nobody speak to me I’m crying.
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Subtle, but there. Trafficking (and traffickers) exists because it IS being tolerated by governments around the world.
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Unnecessary title aside, who else says Natasha looks at herself in the mirror hear and repeats "pain only makes you stronger", as she's being hunted away from yet another family.
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Then she's saying it again because it bears repeating and Natasha has been through A Lot these past few years. I love how unfiltered our first image of her is. After all she's been through, we basically see her stripped of all her tricks in a moment where she’s alone with herself and her thoughts(something we later learn she tries not to do much), and she's just a woman having a tiny breakdown in a semi-public bathroom. Again, human.
This is where I will leave you for this first part. Hey, I got through the intro, I count that as a win given just how long this breakdown has already been. If you’ve gotten this far, thank you for reading, come yell at me in my inbox whenever, see you for the next one xo
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emptymasks · 3 years
Note
Hello. I wanted to ask you whether you know if the Mozart l'Opera Rock 3D (2011) is available anywhere without Korean subtitles? I would love to find or buy a clean version but I can't seem to find it anywhere. ;-;
Sorry it took a while to get to this, had a lot of other stuff to deal with on this blog, but okay getting to it now.
I do love the 2011 over the 2009/10 production simply because of Salieri's ponytail, alright also because I think everyone's acting improved by the later production.
Sadly, you cannot purchase the 2011 production anywhere as it was never released for purchase. You can see it's listed on IMDB and Letterboxd, but that's because it was filmed professionally and streamed in cinemas, but never then released onto DVD or as a digital download. You can purchase the DVD of the original 2009/10 production, I got my copy of Ebay.
I don't know of any that have no subtitles, like the Korean ones that are on the copy on Youtube that also has English subtitles as well. If anyone knows of any copies of the 2011 proshot, whether that's to stream of if you want to trade for it, please shoot me a dm!!
Actually as I'm getting this together I just noticed the copy of the 2011 video that was on Youtube which was the only copy with English subtitles isn't there anymore.
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^ This version now shows as 'video unavailable'. The 2010 still is, but not the 2011 (well it is with Russian subs but not the English ones). There is a different copy now that has huge English subtitles on it, I don't know if they're the same subs but they take up much more of the screen than the old ones. You guys are lucky I save everything. I have the video and I also extracted the subtitles from the Youtube video so, I'm going to do what I just did with the copy of Mozart das musical with English subs that got taken off Youtube, and I'm going to put the 2011 with the English subtitles up on archive . org where it should hopefully stay archived. My account on archive is WennLi3b3.
EDIT: I've now uploaded the 2011 English subs that have been deleted/taken down off Youtube onto archive . org. You can stream it with the subtitles and also download it and the subtitles and I've put instructions in the description on how to play the subtitles if you download them.
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So, after realising that I'm turning this ask into a masterlist of all Mozart L'Opéra Rock videos (productions of the musical, concert versions, and solo and group concerts that the cast have done) that are online to stream/download:
(Slight problem, Tumblr won't let me post this if the links are clickable, so you'll have to copy and paste the links, apologies if you're on mobile)
*All concerts listed are concert productions of MOR unless stated otherwise (e.g. 'Beijing Concert' is a concert of MOR, 'Florent Mothe Beijin Concert' is a solo concert by Florent Mothe)
2004 French dub of the Phantom of the Opera movie adaption of the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical (Erik: Laurent Ban, Christine: Cecilia Cara, Raoul: Fabian Richard) https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Ks411N74z
2007 Mikelanglo Loconte Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1ut411q7wD https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1gs411173T
2009.10.15 Original Paris Production https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Jv41157uv?p=1 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMPGrRiz3i4DSrtjFv60APOl4Um-uNzWN
2009.12.13 Promo TV interview/gameshow?, Russian subtitles https://vk.com/video-15750382_170660914
2010 Original Paris Production Proshot/DVD rip, English subtitles (that you can turn off) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfdnnheqQcw
2010 Original Paris Production Proshot, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Kb411P7XV https://vk.com/video295457148_456239116 https://vk.com/video295457148_456239111 https://vk.com/video-76279204_456239030
2010 Original Paris Production Proshot, Russian subtitles https://vk.com/video260926392_456239343 https://vk.com/video-18597103_456241367
2010 Original Paris Production Proshot, Chinese + French Subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV12t411W739
2010 Original Paris Production Proshot, Chinese + French Subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV12t411W739
2010 Original Paris Production Proshot, Chinese + French Subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1At411a7yM
2010 Original Paris Production Proshot, Chinese + French Subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV14i4y177JG
2010 Original Paris Production Behind the Scenes, English subtitles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br2uelclS0A
2010.03.01 Original Paris Production, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1xv41147dD https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Xs41167mi
201.12.02 Original Paris Production, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1cZ4y1c76w?p=1 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMPGrRiz3i4CsHS8M7Z4GUvwGC-a7TLv6
2010/11 Behind the Scenes, non subtitles https://vk.com/video-16675597_157143094
2011 Paris Production Proshot with English subtitles (options), and Korean subtitles https://archive.org/details/mozart-lopera-rock-2011
2011 Paris Production Proshot (Incorrectly labeled as 2010) with English subtitles posted half-covering the Korean subtitles (also to me it looks like the audio is slightly out of sync?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8gpKfSVWAA https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1S64y1C7Bo
2011 Paris Production Proshot, Korean + Russian subtitles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCjhKPZoL_A https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1mX4y1P7SF
2011 Paris Production Proshot, Korean Subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV11t411Z7xo https://vk.com/video-23729576_456240825 (HD)
2011.01.09 Paris Production, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Ls411Q7nF
2011.05.06 Paris Production, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1WW411E7GG
2011.07.08 Paris Production, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1wq4y1J7Sz https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6Agtk5S5JzvWqz3V7lAYpTMVFceysnNx
2011.09.07 Paris Production, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1KQ4y197HT https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMPGrRiz3i4BxNOz3AKbv1JtNvrqBBZ4l
2011.10.07 Paris Production, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1YV411y7YJ https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMPGrRiz3i4A2vwmDl7Zs7oGwkmsowgy7
2013 Cast Interview https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1hx411H7Ye? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCMuloz3BlA
2013 Florent Mother Moscow Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV16s411r7eK?p=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzjNuWKbNNI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXOZJGWhKHk
2013.02.18 Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1qy4y1n7VV https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMPGrRiz3i4D-NRBvaB5fXdaxRZXBxpkN
2013.05.21 Merwan Rim Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1k7411c78x?p=1
2013.07.13 Florent Mothe Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1zW411W7bo https://www.youtube.com/user/Cedmusiclover/videos
2013.10.07 Mikelangelo Loconte Interview, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1nf4y1173b https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv52wpptTXE
2013.10.14 Odessa Concert, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Dx411W71Z
2013.10.16 Kiev Concert, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Kx411s7Hh
2013.11.09 Mikelangelo Loconte Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV17W411H7Aj https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV19s411y7GU?p=1
2014 Mikelangelo Loconte & Florent Mothe Fan Meeting + Performing MOR songs https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1KW411q744
2014.08.16 Concert au Festival de Carthage https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMPGrRiz3i4AHHG--xdndK71wNUoa4UJx https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1d5411P7KE
2014.09.28 Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1ni4y1c7Pu https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMPGrRiz3i4AiXA3Ja4E7piFBl5dH7H1h
2015.09.05 Mikelangelo Loconte Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1gs41117AR
2015.11.07 Fort Boyard ft. Florent Mothe (the most random on this list, but Fort Boyard is a reality competition show, think like Ninja Warrior or Survivor or Wipe-Out type shows and Florent ws a contestant on this episode) https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV19s411i7P9
2016 Dancing With The Stars Season 7, France, Florent Mothe clips https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1vs41147F9?p=1
2016.04.07 Asian Tour https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Tx411i7Sg?
2016.07.23 Florent Mothe Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1hs411173i?
2016.11.30 Florent Mothe Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1gW41147uz https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLuspyNrQ57MOzPhZqPktx6SrR1wPXkIg https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV15s411e7p7? (audio only)
2017 Gala of various French musicals, including performances from Roméo et Juliette, Notre-Dame de Paris, Mozart l'Opéra Rock, Starmania. Featuring Damien Sargue, Robert Marien, Laurent Ban, Mikelangelo Loconte, Hiba Tawaji(I'm currently dying from seeing Damien Sargue perform Belle from Notre-Dame de Paris) https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1mW411E78Y?
2017 Radio Interview with Florent Mothe, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Ux411y7Lq
2017.02.15 RRM Music Live, French music concert featuring Florent Mothe https://www.facebook.com/31395019055/videos/10155788074034056 https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Yx41127sk
2017.03.13 Moscow Concert, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Zx411C7tL https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1mx411r7M2
2017.03.15 Saint-Petersburg Concert, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Kx411i7pM https://www.youtube.com/c/SanzouHoshiSama/videos
2017.07.02 Florent Mothe Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1gx411B7De https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVrE9zz-1mZiAmP4TvvI2Y7X1O-I9FkP6
2017.07.14 Florent Mothe Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Kx411i7Mk?p=1
2017.11.24 Florent Mothe Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1sW411778Q?p=1 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVrE9zz-1mZiAMca86nNT1iM2KGEKc6HH
2017 Mikelangelo Loconte & Florent Mothe Fan Q&A in Beijing, both are speaking in English, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1hx411b7si
2018 Mikelangelo Loconte & Florent Mothe Concert, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1FW411C78g
2018.03.11 Mikelangelo Loconte & Florent Mothe Concert, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1YW411s7fu https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1tW411s7sp https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1HW411s7yW https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1pW411s7HU
2018.04.30 Mikelangelo Loconte & Florent Mothe Concert, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1QW411372f
2018.05.01 Florent Mothe Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1YW41137qF
2018.05.10 Mikelangelo Loconte & Florent Mothe Interview, in English with Chinese subtitles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zglev8CcP7k https://www.bilibili.com/video/av23245495
2018.05.24 Laurant Ban Interview, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV16p411o7av
2018.07.14 Florent Mothe Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1qU4y1G7xS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dg3if0YS5U
2018.08.11 Laurent Ban Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Zs411K72e
2018.08.12 Laurent Ban Concert+ Fan Meet in Taiwan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqUM861EfmE
2018.08.18 Mikelangelo Loconte & Florent Mothe Beijing Concert, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1sW411k7Eq
2018.08.19 Mikelangelo Loconte & Florent Mothe Fan Meet Q&A & concert, no subtitles, they are both speaking English https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV17t411W7AX (fan meet) https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1rt411p7Sp (concert)
2018.08.21 Mikelangelo Loconte & Noémie Garcia Fan Meet in Taiwan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg53iMkVTd4
2018.10.23 Fan Meet & Songs https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1gt411d7AN?p=1
2018.10.25 Fan Meet (Mikelangelo Loconte, Laurent Ban, Noémie Garcia), speaking in English and French, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1gt41167RC
2018.10.27 Fan meet (Mikelangelo Loconte, Laurent Ban, Noémie Garcia), speaking in English and French, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1cb411w7rA
2019 Takarazuka Japanese Production, Chinese subtitles https://vk.com/video-20241239_456240740 https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV15z4y1X7Yo
2019 Florent Mothe Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV16J411s7Vz
2019 Florent Mothe Concert (major audio warning, the microphone of the camera/phone is right next to the speaker and the audio is very loud and clipping) https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1XJ411r7KD
2019 Mikelangelo Loconte Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1zt411A7HQ
2019.01.19 Asian Tour https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Kt411h7mD
2019.03.01 Asian Tour (audio only) https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1S4411H7r4
2019.06.29 Florent Mothe Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Ax41197RM https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1ht411A7NL
2019.07.06 Laurent Bán Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1j4411F7cE https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV174411w77V https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1tJ411A7fj
2019.07.07 Laurent Bán Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1T4411F7vJ
2019.07.08 Merwan Rim China Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1it411378T
2019.07.09 Laurent Ban & Merwan Rim Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Ht411576B?p=1
2019.07.13 Laurent Ban Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1pt411V7Xe?
2019.07.18 Mikelangelo Loconte Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Kt411n79C
2019.07.19 Mikelangelo Loconte Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1zt411E7mw https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1vt411n7h6? https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1bt411n7YL https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1tt411M789
2019.07.23 Mikelangelo Loconte Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Nt411j7BH? https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1St411L7fT (audio warning for screaming at the beginning)
2019.07.26 Mikelangelo Loconte Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1ut411P7LX
2019.12.14 Florent Mothe Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1CJ411Y7Pp https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1TJ41147GF
2019.12.15 Florent Mothe Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1TJ411r7ni
2019.12.17 Florent Mothe Beijing Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV16J411t7RX
2019.12.19 Florent Mothe Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1WJ411t7CZ
2019.12.20 Florent Mothe Concert https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1cJ41147Sc
2019.12.24 Florent Mothe Concert (audio only) https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1ZV411o7VY
2020.05.17 Mikelangelo Loconte Interview, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1bK411W7qs
2021.01.30 Mikelangelo Loconte Livestream Concert, no subtitles https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Kf4y1r7bH?
My playlist of odd small clips, interviews and other videos from Mozart L’Opéra Rock: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLBkeZOvj5B_YlWWASK-FMpsjsyN1kmFa
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babymetaldoll · 3 years
Text
The morning after (Spilling drinks on my settee part 2) Spencer Reid/Reader
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Requested: Yes! it’s my first request! thank you, anon!! 
Prompt: Hungover Spencer has to face Reader after she caught him drunk, puking outside her house. He also has to face Morgan’s teasing after he confessed he was in love with Reader.
Pairing: Spencer/Reader 
Warnings: none 
Category: Fluff
Word count: 1,9K 
Part one here
Masterlist 
.
If it had been up to Spencer, he would have never left his bed that day. As soon as he opened his eyes, the headache that hit him made him realize that was going to be a long day. A long and shitty day. 
He sat on his bed slowly ‘cos the whole room was spinning. He was still fully dressed, why? There was puke on his shoes and pants… and a Gatorade on his nightstand? He was confused, he didn’t leave that there, right? no… maybe? he didn’t really remember. Why was he still dressed? he didn’t remember. How did he get home? he didn’t remember
- “Shit!”
Until he did. 
There was a flash of embarrassment, guilt, and nausea on his face, suddenly it was all coming back. 
- “Shit!”
That was the only word Spencer could use. He had gotten drunk, confessed to Morgan he was in love with (Y/N), he had actually tried to…
- “Shit!”
Maybe alcohol had managed to unplug a part of Reid’s brain, ‘cos apparently, “shit” was the only thing he was able to pronounce, at least for a few minutes.  
All the embarrassing memories of the night before kept coming back to his mind, they were fragments of someone else’s life he was watching from outside. It was all too humiliating. (Y/N) saw him puking outside her house. He was outside her house ‘cos he wanted to know why she had been out on a date with a guy from a dating website. He had told Morgan he loved her, and nearly cried. 
Spencer Walter Reid was doomed, and he knew it. It was going to take a lot of courage, patience, and Gatorade to go through that day. 
His cellphone kept buzzing, but once he realized it wasn’t a case, but (Y/N) and Morgan trying to reach him, he ignored it the whole subway ride to work. He couldn’t even read, his brain wasn’t working, he couldn’t concentrate at all. He just wanted to disappear forever. What had he done? how could he ever face (Y/N) after what happened? And what if Morgan had already told everyone what happened? of course he had, Reid thought, and his red cheeks were now purple. 
Humiliation was written across his face and his stomach tightened as he set foot into the bullpen. He took a quick look around and sighed relieved. Apparently, there was no one else there yet, the whole place seemed empty, although there was a fresh cup of coffee with extra sugar on his desk, a grilled cheese sandwich, and a chocolate frosted donut with sprinkles. 
That could only mean one thing. 
- “Hey, how are you feeling this morning?”- Spencer froze in panic and turned around very, very slowly. His heart was beating so fast, he was sure (Y/N) could listen to it. She was waving at him with a shy smile on her face. She didn’t look mad, or uncomfortable. She looked… worried. 
- “H… he… hey, (Y/N)-” he stuttered and waved. He knew he had to say something- anything- but nothing seemed to come to mind. He was literally speechless. 
- “How are you feeling?”
- “G… g… good, I’m good, I’m ok”- Spencer wanted to slap himself. He was humiliated already, but his behavior wasn’t making it any better. He had to put his shit together somehow.
- “I’m glad”- she sighed relieved, rubbing his arm sweetly, and her touch made him shiver right away. He tried to smile at her, but he was left speechless again. It was a painful scene to see. 
- “I was worried sick, you didn’t pick up your phone earlier”- Reid just nodded and looked down.
- “I got you the best recipe to cure your hangover, coffee of course, and I filled half the cup with sugar, just the way you like it”- the way (Y/N) stuck out her tongue and giggled, hypnotized him.
- “I made you a grilled cheese sandwich, I don't know how many times you've woken up feeling like shit after a party, but I'm pretty sure I’ve got a lot more experience than you, and greasy food always helps me coming back to life.”
Spencer nodded, trying to follow the conversation, but his brain was still malfunctioning and his head was pounding sharp and heavy. 
- “And your favorite donut 'cos you need extra sugar”
- “Thanks”- his voice was a sweet whisper. (Y/N) looked at him worried and rubbed a hand on his arm gently again.
- “Are you gonna tell me what the fuck happened last night?”- the painful grimace on Spencer's face was enough.
- “I'm just worried something bad happened to you “
- “No, no, no”- he shook his head frenetically and regretted the movement immediately. His head was killing him- “I just couldn't handle my drinks, that's all.”
- “Are you sure?”- lying to profilers could be the hardest thing on earth.
- “Yeah, yeah”
- “Good, I was worried you were going to call in sick…”- there was a short silence between them, they just stared at each other and sighed. 
(Y/N) couldn’t stop thinking he had called her “Buttercup” and didn’t know how to ask him to do it again, and again, every day. And Reid had no idea what to do next. So he just said the first thing that came to mind.  
- “Did you know hangovers are estimated to cost $148 billion each year due to hangover individuals calling in sick to work or performing poorly on the job.”  
- “Pretty boy!!”
Derek’s voice walking over them made Spencer’s heart stop in fear, he just waved at his friend with his less expressive smile - the one (Y/N) called “frog face”- and just prayed to whatever god that might exist, that Morgan wouldn’t embarrass him more than he was already. 
- “How are you feeling today, kid?”
- “I’m ok, thanks” 
- “You are lucky there’s no case, yet”- Dr. Reid nodded and looked around, trying to find a way to run away from Morgan and (Y/N). 
- “Nice breakfast”
- “I thought he was going to need extra energy today”- the young woman smiled proudly- “And when are you going to explain to me what happened last night? why did you let him get that drunk?”
Morgan knew (Y/N) was going to be mad at him, so he just looked at Spencer and waited to see if he had made up any lie already 
- “I… I told you, I just couldn’t keep up with Derek”
- “Yeah”- his friend immediately supported his lie. Which wasn’t a complete lie- “I pushed Reid to drink at my pace, and I guess pretty boy ain’t ready to drink like a man.”
On a regular day, Spencer would have hated that last comment, ‘cos he was sick and tired of his friend treating him like a toddler. But under those circumstances, he just nodded and tried to stay calm. 
- “And why were you outside my house?” 
- “We were looking for a cab, started walking… and Reid remembered you live close to the bar”- Spencer’s eyes opened wide at those words- “And he wanted to stop by.”
- “No I didn’t”- Reid knew he would lose in a fight with Derek, but he was willing to give it a try and punch him if that successfully stopped him from talking.  
- “Kid, you were drunk, you don’t remember, but you wanted to stop by and see (Y/N)”- the girl looked at Reid and bit her lips
- “Is that so? you got drunk and started thinking of me?”
Spencer couldn’t speak. He felt his hands shaking, so he hid them in his pockets and tried to come up with anything, literally anything to say. But he had nothing.  
- “Yes, pretty boy wanted to see you…”- Morgan just smiled, tapped on Spencer’s back, and walked away chuckling. He knew Reid needed a push to open up to (Y/N). Maybe this was what he needed. 
- “Why did you think of me?”- (Y/N) was now intrigued and excited. Drunk Reid was a whole new side of her friend, and the fact he had dragged Derek to her house when he was intoxicated gave her a little hope. Maybe he liked her too, the way she was head over feet for him.
- “I…”- Spencer was chocking with words, he turned around, grabbed the coffee, and took a sip of it. 
- “You?”
- “I don’t remember”- disappointment was written all over (Y/N)’s face. They just stared. Spencer drank his coffee and the girl simply sighed. 
- “I see”- he could read there was something there, but he didn’t want to get his hopes high. He was sure (Y/N) could never feel the same way he did. Right?
- “Can I ask you something?”- he whispered- “Why didn’t you tell me about the dating website?”
Now (Y/N) was embarrassed. She couldn’t take her eyes from her friend’s as she kept thinking about what to say. How to lie? 
- “It wasn’t important, Prentiss forced me, I didn’t want to do it”- she simply confessed and smiled- “Why?” 
- “I don’t know, it was weird, I thought… well…”
- “You know I tell you everything important”- (Y/N) wanted to make sure Spencer understood that the date had meant nothing. 
- “And… are you planning to do it again?”
- “Never”- the smile on her lips was so honest, Spencer’s heart was relieved- “So, tomorrow’s Saturday, got any plan?”- those words, they were music for his ears. 
- “Actually, there is a Russian horror movie festival tomorrow night, they’ll be showing Solaris, Viy, and Lyumi”
- “Original Russian, I presume”
- “But this time I’m pretty sure there will be subtitles”- (Y/N) pouted disappointed.
- “Bummer, I like when you have to translate the whole movie for me”- and she meant it, having Reid whispering every word in her ear for two hours was the closest she had been to heaven in her entire life. The young doctor chuckled with a huge grin and turned to his desk again. 
- “Usually, translation doesn’t represent the intention behind the dialog…”- Reid was full of it and he knew it, but he had nothing to lose and lot to win- “So if you want, I can still whisper the English version for you”.
Those last words left his lips as quickly as possible, ‘cos he was embarrassed. 
- “Then it’s a date”- her smile was bigger than imagined when she turned around and started walking to her desk. 
Was it a date? why did she say that? Reid tried to stay cool and not overthink everything, but it was Reid, which meant it was hard, nearly impossible. Overthinking was his thing. 
He wanted to go out on a date with (Y/N), but… was that actually a date? what if he brought flowers for her and she didn’t mean “date” as a date but just as two friends going out together? that would be mortifying. 
(Y/N) didn’t know if Spencer had thought she wanted it to be a real date. She did, she just didn’t know if she was asking or if he had or… 
Yes, they were both excellent overthinkers. 
- “Hey, honey”- if she was already embarrassed and anxious about using the word “date”, she could always make it worst.
Spencer turned to look at her he took a bite of his sandwich. 
- “It was really sweet last night when you called me Buttercup”- Reid nearly choked. He had completely forgotten about it, and suddenly he felt the urge to run and hide. But he couldn’t even move. He couldn’t even swallow the food he was chewing 
- “You had never called me by a nickname before…”- she bit her lips and took a deep breath- “I loved it… in case you want to use it again.”
Spencer nodded and watched his best friend walk away to get herself a coffee. He could feel someone else’s eyes on him from across the office. Morgan winked at him and nodded. 
- “Nice, kid”
.
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becaeffinmitchell · 3 years
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Fic: what i have (is who i carry home) (1/1)
Summary: Chloe, as it turns out, loves Valentine's Day.
Of course she does. Beca can't say she's surprised in the least.
aka, five Valentine's Days Beca Mitchell's had.
Note: After ten thousand years, I’m free! Or, you know, after eight years, I’m finally posting my first Bechloe fic. Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone 🥰  Gif credit goes entirely to @evenstars​ (thank you so much again!)
Words: 4,954
Read below or on AO3!
--------
i. 2012, Freshman Year, Barden University
There are so many other things Beca would rather be doing.
Like go to the dentist. Actually show up for class. Spend time over dinner with her dad and the step-monster.
Okay, maybe not that last one. Nothing in the world would make her choose that.
But here she is, in that stupid red hoodie, holding that stupid bow and arrow, standing in front of people, refusing to sing that stupid song with Amy.
*
 Later, back at the auditorium where they have Bellas practice, Aubrey's voice is shrill and loud. (As always, Beca thinks.)
"Beca, you really need to be picking up the slack. We need every dollar that we can raise so that we have enough to cover our journey to the semi-finals, and you're dead last in our fundraiser right now."
Amy mutters something under her breath, soft enough for Beca to hear something about — the bus? The Trebles? She doesn't really know. Whatever it is, it's not something she wants to get in the middle of.
"Maybe we can think of something new to do." Beca's tone is dry, and she schools her expression into something neutral on her face, her head tilted slightly, knowing that Aubrey has to know she isn't just talking about the fundraising activity.
It's just — she can feel the potential of these girls, okay? And it's such a shame that they're stuck doing the same three songs, over and over. If she could at least try, show them her arrangements, maybe they'd have a fighting chance.
"I have the pitch pipe, and I say we do this exactly how we have been doing it."
Beca is about to say something snarky, something she knows is going to get under Aubrey's skin, when Chloe's voice rang out beside her.
"It's okay. I'll do it with Beca tomorrow."
She hasn't even noticed Chloe approaching them in the midst of this, so her head whips around so fast at the sound of her voice.
"Don't you have a class during that time, Chloe? That's the whole reason why we couldn't pair you up with Beca." There's something about Aubrey's clipped words that is super careful and controlled, like there's more that she wants to say but isn't.
Chloe shrugs, before turning to Beca with a beaming smile. "It's okay, skipping out on one Russian Lit lecture won't make a difference."
 *
 Chloe, as it turns out, loves Valentine's Day.
Of course she does. Beca can't say she's surprised in the least. She thinks she doesn't know anyone who's more enthusiastic about everything and anything.
There's something about Chloe that feels like embers starting at the base of Beca's dead, cold heart, warming it up and turning itself three sizes larger.
It's not a thing she wants to unpack right now; she's not the type to get attached to people, and especially not when she's going to go through with her plan, and leave at the end of the school year. It doesn't matter if her dad helps her or not.
"Do you have any plans for tomorrow?" Chloe's voice, melodic as it comes, breaks the silence as they walk towards the south quad. She looks ready to go through the entire residence hall, her angel wings bouncing behind them.
"It's a day corporations literally invented to convince everyone to buy cards and chocolates and flowers at jacked up prices, so..."
Chloe lets out a happy sigh. "Maybe so. But it's also a day to celebrate love! And love is so awesome. I love love. And I'm not just talking about romantic love, though that is nice. You can also celebrate the love from all relationships in your life. Like your best friends, or your parents, or your siblings."
Beca raises an eyebrow, because Chloe is just so goddamn earnest. She tugs at her hoodie. "Let me guess, you and shower guy have a date?"
"Who, Tom?"
"How many shower guys do you have?" There's a beat. "Actually, don't answer that."
 *
 So here she is, still in that stupid red hoodie, still holding that stupid bow and arrow, standing in front of people, and singing a duet with Chloe Beale.
 *
 The next morning, Kimmy unceremoniously drops a box at the foot of Beca's bed, a loud thud waking her up.
There's a sleeping mask, a whole clip of flash drives, two huge jars of peanut butter, and cans of Red Bull in the box. There's also a card, and her name is written carefully in the middle of an envelope.
Happy Valentine's Day, Beca!!!! I've said this before, and I'll say it forever: I'm SO glad that I met you. I LOVE that you love music like it's the one thing you can't live without. It's something that really resonates with me, too. You make us better. :) :)
xoxo,
Chloe!
 *
 Beca drifts off to sleep that night, the music still playing in her headphones. She's wearing that sleeping mask across her eyes.
 ------------
ii. 2014, Junior Year, Barden University
 The thing with Jesse is, he really loves these grand gestures of romance.
Sometimes Beca thinks that that's his favorite part. It's almost like he's in love with the idea of being in a relationship.
Worse still, in love with the idea of her, like she's this perfectly scripted character who exists for him.
Last year for Valentine's Day, Jesse had shown up at her dorm. Well, outside of her window actually, boombox on his shoulder. She'd tried not to wince, her lips pressed together into something resembling a smile (she hopes) to the strains of In Your Eyes, at the ungodly hour of dawn.
It isn't even that she had just gotten to sleep like, two hours before that. Or the very clear and enunciated "fuck off!" that her neighbor gave them, complete with a dramatic slamming of her window. At least she doesn't have to deal with that now, now that they've all moved into the Bellas house, newly renovated.
It was just a lot, right? And maybe she should have been a better girlfriend to anticipate it this year, or at least match some of that. Rise up to his level, or something. She just has a reservation to a fancy Italian restaurant in Midtown, and she made that way in advance. So maybe she gets points for that?
January rolls into February, and she dreads it. Every day is a countdown to The Fourteenth.
 *
 Here's the more pressing thing: Chloe seems sad. Not all the time, but Beca catches it occasionally.
She presumes she knows her best friend pretty well by this point, until she's doing things like failing a single class on purpose so that she doesn't graduate. For the second year in a row.
And Beca gets it, at least on an abstract level. If she starts thinking about what comes after graduation — and that's in a year and some — she gets nervous, too. But in no version of her reality does she get so paralyzed with fear, that she would opt to repeat her senior year like it’s groundhog year.
She wishes she could know why, for certain. She can't help if she doesn't know what's going on in Chloe's head, but for the first time, it's Chloe's turn to clam up and switch the subject.
So Beca doesn't push. She hopes it's enough to keep her afloat as she works through whatever it is. She doesn't really know what that entails, but music? Music she can do.
She pours her energy into putting together a really solid mix for Chloe; it's all the songs that remind Beca of her, and their friendship. She picks songs and arranges them and removes them before she puts them back in, because it has to sound right.
Beca feels like the world's biggest dork for giving it to her the morning of Valentine's Day.
Well, second biggest dork, because she intercepts Chloe leaving the gift boxes in the room, for her and Amy.
"Hey, uh. Happy Valentine's Day," she says, handing her the flash drive — one of the many that Chloe has gotten her over the years, like she's her supplier — and hoping she doesn't look as awkward as she feels. "It's not anything like your, like, super thoughtful gifts." She gestures in that general direction. "But you're my best friend, so... here."
She gets pulled into a hug, and Beca can't be sure, but it sounds like Chloe's 'thank you' is strained and she's about to cry.
Beca hopes it's enough.
 *
 "So, Jesse gave you just the one earring?"
Beca's back from the dinner. It was... nice? There was a string quartet and Jesse made them play John Legend's All Of Me, and Beca didn't actually die of embarrassment when he started singing along, so she'll chalk that up as a win.
"Yeah, it's like — symbolism, I guess. From the movie." Beca shrugs, chewing on the popcorn she's made that Chloe is currently stealing. She thinks about lightly smacking her hand away, but ends up shifting the bowl so that it's nearer to Chloe.
Does she regret putting Don't You (Forget About Me) in their setlist? Maybe.
Probably not, all things considered, because it worked well together with the other songs, and they did win the finals that year. But it elevated the movie to mythical and legendary status for Jesse, and if he does that arm raising motion one more time during squabbles he wants to get out of? Beca might lose it even harder.
"Is it symbolism or a metaphor? I could never tell the difference."
"I think it was a metaphor in the movie," Beca starts, a thoughtful expression on her face. "But more of a symbol for like, me and Jesse? Oh my god." She presses her free hand to her eyes. "You're such a nerd. Stop making me think deeper about this than I need or want to."
"I just think it's nice," she hears Chloe say.
Beca hums, tone neutral. "It's something, for sure. Wait." She whips her head to face her best friend. "You didn't go out tonight? Ms. 'I Love Love'?"
Chloe chuckles lowly, quietly. "I have all I need here in this house, anyway."
 *
 When Beca goes to the kitchen in the middle of the night for a glass of water, she thinks she hears the soft strains of her mix playing from Chloe's room.
   ------------
  iii. 2017, Brooklyn, NY
 It's apparently the warmest February in New York on record, but Beca is still fucking freezing.
The incessant chill envelops the air, and she pulls her coat closer to her. She's bundled under layers, but the radiator in their tiny little apartment is, as most things in it, almost completely busted.
Jesus Christ. It's cold.
 *
 Amy is convinced she's cold because she's moping, because she's sad about breaking up with Jesse.
Beca knows she isn't, and it's not just the long distance thing.
They'd given it a fair go, and it sucked that he got busier with classes and she tried to solve all of the music industry's problems as an associate producer, working hours trying to make tracks sound... sonically unrotten.
It's not just the long distance thing, because if Beca was honest with herself, it was probably a sign that when he told her that he was thinking of completing his studies in California, her immediate response was that of neutral indifference.
So, she is totally fine.
 *
 Beca hears Chloe singing softly before the door even opens, and she can hear it swing open too, and she knows Chloe is about to shrug her coat off —
"Don't bother, it's also cold in here," Beca says, from under the covers.
Then, her eyes track Chloe as she walks to the radiator —
"I checked, it's working. Supposedly."
"Aww." Chloe strides the distance — not that it's that long — and sits down on their shared bed. "You're so cute when you're grumpy."
"Aren't you freezing?" she chooses to deflect the comment, hugging herself petulantly. "Hey, how was your date with that guy at the clinic?"
Chloe hums noncommittally. "We went for coffee and he double-booked me with another girl."
"Dude. What a dick." Beca feels a flash of — annoyance? Chloe deserves the world. Chloe deserves everything she wants. "I'm sorry."
"I know. It's okay though." Chloe smiles at her. It's that smile that Beca catches that she thinks it's just for her, but she's also a logical person who knows that Chloe has that ability to make people feel like they're the most important person in the world. "I've got all I need right here."
Warmth pools at Beca's stomach, and honestly. It's a nice change from the freezing.
 *
 It's 2 AM, and they're cuddling, because of course they are; because Chloe is warm; because Chloe is an embrace personified; because... Chloe.
Beca stirs awake, and she feels Chloe's breath tickle at the base of her neck. She shifts, not uncomfortably. Then, Chloe's hand drifts sleepily, and lands somewhere on Beca's hip.
And then.
And then.
There is a sudden, startling clarity in Beca's mind, knocking the figurative breath out of her. Her eyes fly open.
She loves Chloe.
And not in the same way where she loves the rest of her found family in the other Bellas.
Oh no, a voice sounds in her mind.
Oh, this is very bad, she thinks.
She can't believe how still she is right now, feeling the entire weight of Chloe's body in contact against her. Feeling her slow, steady breathing against her back. She's not even cold anymore.
Okay. So she loves her best friend. Cool, cool, very cool. That's totally fine. She can handle this.
Chloe's been such a fixture in her life, at every turn; in every note in between the downbeat and upbeat that is her life. Music is in Beca's veins, her whole life, but music flows right through Chloe. She's tucked warmly in the melody, a motif throughout the entire song.
Holy shit, Beca thinks. She's been in love with Chloe for so long, she doesn't even know when it started.
 *
 Okay, so. There's a weird spot on the ceiling, right? And Beca just keeps staring at it, because if she closes her eyes, she will feel Chloe's presence so keenly, pressed next to her.
She can't do anything with this knowledge. She can imagine it now, Chloe giving her a comforting hug but tells her, sorry Beca, I love you but not in that way.
It's five whole years of friendship, of Chloe by her side no matter what, and that is the one thing that she's got that she doesn't want to risk, just because she had this stupid revelation.
God. It's so stupid. It'll pass. Right?
 ------------
 iv. 2018, Los Angeles, CA
 What is really fucking weird, even in the grand scheme of things, is journalists asking her if she's doing anything for Valentine's Day.
Which, like. First of all, Beca's not stupid, she knows it's a way to suss out her personal-slash-love life.
She's kept that pretty close to her chest for now.
But also, there's literally nothing to tell. She's not being defensive because there's something to hide away. Beca is knee-deep in work all the time, and she goes home to an apartment that feels too big for just herself. It's a big change from the entirely too cramped apartment in Brooklyn.
Sometimes she finds herself missing that very specific part of her life. Not the struggling and being unhappy doing work with no integrity, obviously. But Chloe is now a message and three hours ahead, instead of being a daily fixture in her apartment, and it leaves Beca feeling off-kilter.
But maybe that distance is a good thing, after... you know. Revelations.
Anyway.
Her work ethic doesn't stop rumors. She's linked to every guy available — and some not — every single time one of them likes her Instagram posts. She's pretty sure she's had at least two full relationships, according to the National Enquirer.
Theo gleefully sends her screenshots. She tells him to fuck off.
 *
 Chloe Look out, super star! I'm going to be in LA for a good friend's wedding in February!! If you think we're not going to hang, you're sorely mistaken.
 Beca is busy, but she sure as hell isn't going to miss Chloe coming to LA.
 Beca You have good friends outside of the Bellas? I am shocked, Beale.
 Chloe Don't be jealous 😉
 She's not. Not because of that, she catches herself thinking, and frowns at herself. Not because of anything, she decides. It's also exactly how she decides she doesn't have feelings for Chloe anymore, because Chloe is happy with Chicago, and Beca has work, and honestly? Best outcome out of every outcome possible.
Still, Beca offers up her apartment for the long-ish weekend that Chloe would be in town. She's not a monster, and Chloe has like, a mountain of student debt.
It's the least she could do.
 *
 (Beca thinks back to that first performance at the Citadel, just under a year ago. Thinks of all the nerves she's never felt before, while she's walking to the microphone. She's always had the girls on stage with her, but not this time. Her family would be seated in the front row, supporting her no matter how far she goes.
She gets to bring them up on stage this time, of course, but it's also a temporary balm and she knows it. But that's fine, she can figure that part out.
It's the after that smarts a little.
After the performance, after the event, after she feels that pit, growing and clawing from her stomach when she sees Chloe lock lips with Chicago.
After she walks away with Theo, trying her level best to carry on a conversation as if she's not affected by what she'd just seen; trying not to think of all the what-ifs.
After, on the plane back home, when she directs a small smile at Chloe's direction. If she's happy then she's happy for her.
It's the least she could do.)
 *
 Chloe's flight reaches the airport at 7 in the evening, and Beca's right there at LAX, waiting for her to emerge. She can see a couple of people with the big paparazzi cameras, training their lenses at her, but she doesn't care.
There's a flash of red as she sees Chloe running to her, and thankfully she catches her.
"Oh, I've missed you," Chloe says, so earnest and sincere as always; always, and Beca can hear her own heartbeat. She's almost worried that Chloe can too, like a traitorous Tell-Tale Heart.
"Yeah, well, regular sight for sore eyes, that's me." That's good, right? She hits jocularity right in the bullseye with that, as if she can't feel the top of her ears growing hot.
Chloe just laughs; like another kind of warmth. She draws her in again, hand rubbing up and down Beca's back.
Beca thinks she's stupid, for feeling like she's home.
 *
 They get to Beca's place, Chloe appraising the place appreciatively as she wheels her luggage in.
"This is already at least fifty times nicer than our little shoebox in Brooklyn," she observes, and Beca shrugs, a little embarrassed.
"I mean, the label's paying for it, and it's like, it's — it's ridiculous." There's a voice at the back of Beca's head repeating, our little shoebox, and she wants it to shut up.
But it is ridiculous. She has so much space, and two rooms; she sleeps in one and the other one is where she works. She's pretty sure she spends more time in the latter than she does the former.
"Anyway, uh, so here's my sort-of office, it's a bit of a mess right now." She waves her hand around (god, why is she using her hands so much) at the room with her equipment and instruments, before stepping to her bedroom door. "And here's the bedroom, which, like. You should take the bed. My couch pulls out and it's really comfortable?"
"Don't be silly," Chloe tells her, looking back at the king-sized bed. "We've slept in way more crowded spaces. This will be perfect."
Beca swallows, hard. Perfect.
 *
 Falling back into a routine with Chloe is scarily easy.
She's been here for less than three hours, and Beca's already back to being attuned to her. They put on some music in the background, she listens to Chloe talk so passionately about school and all the stuff she's learning, and Beca is so proud.
She brushes her teeth and changes into her pajamas after Chloe does, exactly like how they used to, and climbs into her bed.
"Oh, shoot, I almost forgot," Chloe's saying, and Beca cocks her head curiously to see what she's forgotten. Her best friend comes back with a box, and hands it over to her.
"Happy Valentine's Day, Bec. Also, I don't think flash drives are in fashion now," she winks. "So your Google Drive storage has been renewed, for all the audio files you need to back up. Don't worry, I didn't look at anything else."
"Wh — oh. Oh, right, Valentine's Day, gifts and all," Beca says, and looks at the box in her hand. "Wait, is this —"
"Chocolate from your favorite place in New York? Yessss," Chloe says, a laugh coloring her tone. She settles back into bed. "Not that you have a shortage of chocolate places here, but Amy reminded me of the time she ate most of the last box after how you were saving your favorite pieces, so I thought I'd bring some here for you."
Beca's heart clenches.
"Thanks, Chlo." She's pretty proud of how unwavering her voice is. "I miss it."
"It's been tough for me too, not having you in my orbit," Chloe says, bumping their shoulders together.
"Yeah? Must be extra tough, because Chicago's not around either." Then she's scrambling. "Not that I'm like, comparing myself to your boyfriend in any way."
She sees Chloe's mouth twist to the side. Beca's eyebrows knit together.
"Chlo?"
"He's not my boyfriend anymore." Chloe's words are slow, measured. Like she's afraid of setting something off.
Beca pauses, as she takes it all in.
"Oh. I mean — Are you okay?"
"Yeah. It's been..." Beca sees Chloe's furrowed brows as she thinks. "Three months, almost. Just right before Christmas."
Beca thinks back to Christmas; to the group messages, the online gift cards and food deliveries made in each other's names. Nowhere in her memory exists this piece of information, and she's pretty sure she's not been that shitty of a friend to miss this.
It feels a little bit like being hurt, actually.
"Oookay," she says, licking her lips a little, letting the air out of her slowly. "Okay. Well. Good night, Chloe."
 *
 Beca can't fall asleep, and she's pretty sure she knows why. It's been an hour of staring at the ceiling, and she tries to will her stupid mind to shut down for the night.
She thinks Chloe must be asleep by now; her body clock must be three hours —
"Bec?"
Beca pauses for so long that she thinks Chloe might actually think she's asleep.
"Yeah."
She feels Chloe shift. "I want you to ask me."
Beca wants to be obtuse and frustrating; wants to pretend she doesn't know what she's talking about. Instead, the confusion and hurt win out.
She pushes herself up on her elbows, then into a sitting position. It doesn't feel like a conversation that they should have lying down. She waits for Chloe to do the same, before finding her voice and words.
"Why didn't you tell me that you and Chicago broke up?" Dimly lit by the street lights outside, Beca sees her shift in place, and she feels Chloe's hand reaching for hers. "I thought — well. You know. That we tell each other things."
Which is slightly rich, coming from her, she knows. But still.
Chloe sighs, just quietly. "Because I have feelings for someone else."
Beca blinks, taking that in. It's a weird feeling because she's simultaneously crushed and hopeful, and maybe it's the hour, or maybe it's Chloe's hand in hers, but as her eyes sweep across Chloe's face, Beca is emboldened.
She leans in, and time feels like it's slowing down as she closes the distance and presses her lips on Chloe's, roughly and then temperately.
Beca's not the most impulsive person. In the moments, though, when she is, they always leave her wondering if she'd done something stupid — like punching creepy middle-aged a cappella guys, like leaving in the middle of a fight, like pulling the girls up on stage during her solo set.
Like kissing Chloe Beale in her bed.
So she pulls back suddenly, as quickly as she had started it, an apology already stumbling out. "Fuck, I'm sorry, I just assumed, I'm so sor—"
Chloe makes a noise; something that sounds like no, her eyes so startlingly blue even in this light, and Beca freezes. She's sure her brain is working out some sort of rambling apology or excuse, maybe pass it off as a joke somehow?
But Chloe pulls her back in, both thumbs lightly touching Beca's cheekbones as she meets their lips again.
This second kiss is deeper, slower, more connected. It takes her breath away, as her hand curls at the back of Chloe's neck. Chloe tastes like mint and sweetness and sincerity, and a little like hopeless optimism on Beca's part.
A soft gasp escapes, and Chloe pulls away this time.
Beca has a tentative smile on her face, as she takes in a breath heavily; the questions written so plainly on her face.
Chloe's eyes shine.
"It's always been you, Beca."
 ------------
 v. 2020, Los Angeles, CA
 Having your anniversary on Valentine's Day is good. And bad.
Mostly good, because it means that Beca has that to help keep herself honest and not forget it, because it's impossible to.
Also, she won't forget, but, you know. Just in case.
Bad, especially last year, because it fell right around the Grammys weekend, and apparently when you're nominated and win pretty much... every single category you're in, that's kind of a big fucking deal.
(It started with Best New Artist, and by the time she's on that stage a fourth time, she literally had no other words and nothing but so much gratitude.)
But yeah, so last year's Valentine's Day-slash-anniversary was overwhelming. People contacting her from all corners, wanting to congratulate her and get some sound bites; the internet pouring both support, and scathing critique on her and her music.
Beca wishes she could say she rose above it, that she was as cool as her publicist thinks her to be.
Instead, Chloe had to deal with her, a stressful human ball of anxiety and nerves. Amazing, wonderful, sweet Chloe, just happy to be around her during these exciting and utterly vulnerable times.
 *
 This year, though. This year she's older and wiser.
Hopefully.
This year, the day falls on a Friday, but they've decided to celebrate it the next day and through the weekend instead, because Chloe has a seminar she needs to attend for school, and Theo had packed Beca's entire day with a long meeting.
Key word: had.
At 7 AM, as she wakes up groggily and checks her phone, the invite has disappeared from her calendar, presumably rescheduled for some other time. She vaguely notes the message from Theo about entire teams not being available, and Beca's not going to question the reason why, because she's immediately looking up flights to Ithaca and books the first one out.
 *
 (I'm not private jet rich, dude. Also, carbon footprint. Text to Amy, because of course.)
 *
 Here's her plan:
She'll make a beeline to Chloe's apartment (Beca's been here plenty of times, in the past couple of years; met her friends here in Cornell, hung out with them, appreciated that they're her support circle while she's here), and she'll say something incredibly dorky, and Chloe will kiss her, and then, they will properly celebrate.
God, the things Chloe can do with her mouth; the sounds Beca can get her to make.
Beca doesn’t even bother squirming in the plane seat.
 *
 Chloe I have a surprise!!!
Whereeee are you? 🥰🥰🥰
 *
 Here's what happens instead:
Beca has to fly back home — noun, the place where she lives; noun, Chloe — because while she was spending six hours flying east, Chloe had done the same in the opposite direction; her seminar being canceled (something about the professor being sick?).
She can't believe it.
Okay, she can maybe believe it.
God, the Bellas are going to have a field day with this.
 *
 In the group chat, Chloe's taken a selfie of herself in Beca’s apartment and captioned it: I flew here a day early to surprise Beca, but she flew to Cornell instead to surprise me too 😂
 Emily OMAG YOU GUYS that is SO CUTE!!!!!!
 Beca reads Emily's text, shaking her head, knowing that this is the younger girl's version of restraint.
 Flo One time I thought a guy was going to propose to his girlfriend on the plane, but turned out he was having a heart attack instead.
 Jessica&Ashley #justsoulmatethings
 *
 Rush hour in LA is so horrible, and it's nearly 8 PM when she finally gets back to her apartment. She jogs all the way from the Lyft to her door.
Beca never jogs.
Her own door flings open, and she sees the smiling face of the woman she loves.
"Flying cross country for me is so romantic."
"You did that too," Beca points out, a small smirk on her face.
"Yeah, but you did it twice." Chloe beams, and kisses her again, and again.
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