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katiescinema · 8 months

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101 Dalmatians:

101 Dalmatians was released on January 25, 1961. Hamilton Luske, Clyde Geronimi, and Wolfgang Reitherman directed the movie and it was written by Bill Peet. The movie stars Rod Taylor, J. Pat O'Malley, Betty Lou Gerson and Martha Wentworth. 101 Dalmatians grossed $303 million in box office sales.

The 101 Dalmatians is about two dalmatian owners who fall in love and their dogs also fall in love. The dogs end up having 101 puppies. The antagonist of the story is Cruella de Vil and she kidnaps the puppies. The movie shows you have the puppies escape and what happens.

I first saw 101 Dalmatians when I was a kid because my cousins put it on for me. I loved 101 Dalmatians because it was a movie about dogs. As a kid I loved dogs and they were my favorite animal. I was scared of Cruella de Vil and I almost didn't like the movie because of her. I still like the movie to this day.

Ramona and Beezus:

Ramona and Beezus was released on July 23, 2010. It was directed by Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum. It was written by Laurie Craig, Nick Pustay, and Beverly Cleary. The movie stars Joey King, Selena Gomez, and Bridget Moynahan. In the box office this moves grossed $27.3 million in sales.

Ramona and Beezus is a movie about two sisters who never really get along but they must work together to try and save their childhood home.

I first saw Ramona and Beezus one day when I was scrolling through my TV looking for a random movie. I liked this movie because it was about two sisters and it reminded me of myself and my sister. I related to Beezus because she was the older sister just like me. I haven't watched this movie since I was younger but I would watch it again.

The Titanic:

The Titanic was released in the US on December 19, 1997. It was written and directed by James Cameron. The movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, and Kathy Bates. The Titanic generated $2.257 billion in box office sales.

The Titanic is about a luxurious ships that crashes into an iceberg. The main characters Jack and Rose meet on the ship and fall in love. The movie shows you how all the people on the ship are try to survive.

I first watched the Titanic when I was with my friends when we were younger. I liked the movie because it was based on a true story. I was upset when Jack died and I haven't been able to watch the movie since.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

The Conjuring was released on June 4, 2021. It was Written by David Leslie Johnson- McGoldrick, James Wan, amd Chad Hayes. It was directed by Michael Chaves. It stars Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Ruairi O'Connor, and Sarah Catherine Hook. The Conjuring generated $206.4 million in box office sales.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is about a man accused of murder. He seeks the help of Ed and Lorraine Warren who are paranormal investigators. The suspect claims he was under demonic possession and did not commit the murder in a normal state.

I watched the Conjuring for the first time about two weeks ago with my roommates. I liked the thrill of the horror and suspense. I felt bad for the character Debbie and sympathized for her. I would watch the movie again and I really liked it.

I asked my cousin Taylor what he thought my favorite movies were at these time periods in my life. From ages 8-9 he said my favorite movie was the 101 Dalmatians. I don't think the 101 Dalmatians is a super important movie but I think it is fun for kids to watch. This was correct and it's what I listed as my favorite movie. He said he remembers me watching it all the time and that I would always say how much I loved it. From 10-13 he said Jaws. Taylor said he though I liked Jaws because I was interested in marine life and ocean animals. I listed my movie as Ramona and Beezus. Ramona and Beezus was important to me because it was about a sister bond and my sister is a very special person to me. Ramona and Beezus and Jaws are very different movies. For 14-17 he said Hereditary. The movie I listed was the Titanic. I did not watch horror movies during these ages because I was scared of them and I just recently started liking them. From ages 19 up he said the Conjuring but he didn't specify which one. I do like all of the Conjuring movies but I specified the 3rd movie "The Devil Made Me Do It". I think the Conjuring 3 was important because it was educational about demonic possession.

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tabloidtoc · 3 years

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National Enquirer, April 5

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Meghan Markle's secret psych analysis

Page 2: Heather Locklear has put on a lot of weight since she got out of rehab last fall -- she looks to be carrying 170 pounds on her five-foot-five frame and she looks to have gained 35 pounds

Page 3: Miranda Lambert has taken another swipe at ex Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani by dissing their upcoming nuptials -- Miranda has been urging mutual friends to skip the wedding and she's got everyone in Nashville and beyond all riled up and either you're Team Miranda or you're Team Blake, and if you're with him you can forget about being friends with her and she's forcing people to choose sides and she'll have no qualms cutting off anyone who attends Blake's wedding

Page 4: Alex Rodriguez struck out with fiancee Jennifer Lopez after she discovered his hot-and-heavy direct messages to a long string of women -- their four-year romance went foul after Southern Charm's Madison LeCroy publicly admitted she'd been in touch with A-Rod and Jennifer found out he'd reached out to other beauties through social media and Jennifer had had enough

* Concerned mom Jennifer Garner is struggling to cement her relationship with daughter Violet now that the 15-year-old is barreling through the turbulent teens -- Jennifer said the heartbreak is just that she's growing up at all and it's heartbreaking for the mom and for the teenager, needing to have that kind of severing of this baby-mama tie

Page 5: Chris Brown's spacey social media posts about aliens have close pals concerned about the R&B crooner, including his once-battered ex Rihanna -- Chris is obsessed with conspiracy theories and all things supernatural

Page 6: Disgraced Felicity Huffman is fuming about scuffling for plum parts while rumors swirl fellow felon Lori Loughlin has already been invited back into her old TV series and Felicity can't understand why she is being forced to go through the whole audition process while Lori seems to be welcomed back with open arms -- though she hates to do it, Felicity feels the only way she can get attention is to do a tell-all interview about her humiliating part in the scandal -- Felicity has scored a part in the ABC pilot Sacramento River Cats, though there is no guarantee the project will make it onto the air, but insiders and fans of the hit Hallmark series When Calls the Heart have all been filling the internet with talk of Lori's rumored return -- Felicity believes the only way to get public sympathy is to spill her guts, even though all she wants is put the scandal far behind her

Page 8: Stressed Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon has been packing on the pounds as his talk show continues to battle with Stephen Colbert's Late Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live in the late-night ratings and Jimmy has been partying and pigging out to find any comfort he can as Tonight continues to trail the field in total viewers and Jimmy is over 200 pounds for the first time in his life and it's because he's overindulging to compensate for the show's struggles and Jimmy and the gym do not mix even though he had a full fitness center installed at his New York apartment years ago

* Debilitated diva Liza Minnelli's 75th birthday party turned into a disaster when her frail physical condition alarmed friends -- celebrity pals also joined a virtual bash for the legend, even though Liza insisted she didn't want a big fuss and Liza's manager threw the small dinner party on her birthday and about eight people, including Joan Collins, attended in person and several other friends, including Barbra Streisand, recorded video messages and performances for Liza but before the party, Liza was in such bad shape she told friends that she didn't want to participate or be seen on camera -- in the end, Liza, who's undergone multiple surgeries and struggled with substance abuse for years, agreed to join the gathering at the L.A. home of her longtime protege Michael Feinstein and Liza sang but she didn't look well and her voice is shot to pieces and she was propped up in a chair and barely moved from it because she can't walk well anymore and during a live chat during the party the hashtag #FreeLiza started to pop up and not everyone meant it as a joke and there's a feeling certain people have taken over her life and longtime friends have been frozen out and they fear she'll never appear in public again and they won't see her again before she dies -- when friends saw the videos the next day they were upset and very worried, saying Liza really appears to have declined

Page 9: Angelina Jolie has fired a shocking new salvo against ex Brad Pitt over custody of their five youngest children and her latest court documents allege domestic violence and even worse, some of the nearly dozen papers Angie just filed offer up a few of the kids to testify against their dad and Angie is now claiming she can offer proof and authority of domestic violence but Brad's lawyers are expected to respond with a vehement denial -- with the newest court filings, all of which are sealed, Angie is determined to get full custody of the kids and Angelina has fought tooth and nail to get what she wants in this divorce and when it comes to her kids she won't back down

Page 10: Hot Shots -- Farrah Abraham in a bikini, 50 Cent chased away his thirst with a drink at an Atlanta eatery, Natasha Lyonne of Russian Doll was on her game while playing chess on the NYC set, Selma Blair met up with a pal in Studio City, Reggie Bush showed he's still in fine form during a Mexican vacay

Page 11: Gwyneth Paltrow isn't above using a little goop to smooth out the age lines -- the lifestyle guru recently admitted to resorting to a teeny drop of Xeomin, which claims to be a uniquely purified choice for frown lines, to help her look less pissed off but she also admitted her history with fillers hasn't always been happy and she had a midlife crisis when she turned 40 and she went to see this doctor and it was a disaster and she was bruised and her forehead was completely frozen and she didn't look like herself at all -- she also admitted she believes there is still a lot of shame around surgery or injectables or fillers and it's like admitting a vulnerability -- she said she thinks aging is hard and when you see your face start to change, you don't necessarily feel your most beautiful, externally, but the irony is it's that time in your life when you actually really like yourself and love yourself

* Wendy Williams' handpicked hunk Mike Esterman has better buckle up because the daytime diva has already mapped out their future, and he's in for a wild ride -- Wendy boasted she chose her Maryland-based beau after receiving hundreds of submissions to her Date Wendy segment, but she's aiming to renovate the contractor and it's all about image, stylists and bodyguards for Wendy right now and she's already got a reality show in the works for them, a TV crew and photographers trailing them everywhere and his-and-her makeovers too -- she's gone from zero to 60 with this guy in a matter of days

Page 12: Straight Shuter gossip column -- Miley Cyrus is going country after her last two albums tanked -- Miley offended her core audience with her outrageous behavior and punk sound and she's signed with a new record label and the plan is to reintroduce her to the country audience that loved her dad, Billy Ray Cyrus, and once loved her -- Miley's behavior has overshadowed her talent for years and her new team will guide Miley back to her roots in the world of country and finding the right sound should be easy but can Miley find the right behavior

* Gayle King owes her glow on CBS This Morning to a new makeup artist and after being tended to by a fill-in makeup artist and told she looked better than ever, Gayle quietly dismissed her longtime makeup man but there's an unspoken code of ethics in the pro makeup world that if you're asked to replace a longtime client's makeup person, the appropriate answer is no

* The Sex and the City reboot isn't all cosmos and roses -- Sarah Jessica Parker was the show's executive producer, giving her much more power than her co-stars, but Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis will also executive produce the reboot and there's already tension -- sharing power is hard for anyone who's been the boss for years and it isn't one big happy family

* Rachel Brosnahan gets some puppy love on the set of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (picture)

Page 13: The knives are out for self-appointed queen bee of The Talk Sharon Osbourne after she was exposed as TV's meanest host -- the salty motormouth has been accused of a barrage of racist and anti-gay zingers, forcing the gabfest to go on hiatus while CBS investigates the claims -- former host Leah Remini claimed Sharon would frequently refer to then-co-host Julie Chen, who is Chinese American, as 'wonton' and 'slanty eyes' and Sharon also reportedly referred to her out lesbian co-host Sara Gilbert as 'p--sy licker' and 'fish eater' -- in a tweet, Holly Robinson Peete implied Sharon's racist comments led to her leaving the show -- Sharon also chased Marie Osmond on the show last fall and tried to take it over after Julie Chen quit in 2018 -- Sharon has denied all claims against her -- Sharon's big personality is central to The Talk, but some of these allegations, although none have yet been proven, are the kind of remarks that could be career-ending

Page 14: Crime

Page 16: Demi Lovato's shocking admission that she continues to puff pot and swill booze after multiple rehab stints and a near-fatal drug overdose has pals and addiction experts convinced the singer is courting disaster -- she dropped the bombshell in a recent interview and claimed indulging in those vices has helped her fend off more serious addictions and the chronic depression that has dogged her entire life -- Demi came very close to dying three years ago after she overdosed on opioids and it triggered three stokes and a heart attack, and a lot of people were terrified she would never recover and her friends are convinced she's put herself right back on the same self-destructive path -- Demi claimed she was sexually assaulted by her dealer on the day of her almost-fatal OD and when her assistant found her unconscious and surrounded by vomit following the wild binge, she was naked and she was blue and she was left for dead and she had unknowingly taken heroin that was laced with the powerful drug fentanyl

Page 17: Devastated Lisa Marie Presley is finding comfort in the arms of her first husband, Danny Keough, after their son Benjamin Keough's suicide -- Danny has given her a shoulder to cry on and he's the only one who can understand the despair she feels after losing Benjamin -- Lisa Marie has been inconsolable since Benjamin died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound and she's moved in with Danny in Woodland Hills, California and she's also struggled with substance abuse and the stress of an ongoing divorce battle from fourth husband Michael Lockwood -- although her marriage to Danny ended in 1994, he's remained close to the family, working as a driver and handyman for their actress daughter, Riley Keough and Riley couldn't be happier that her dad has been so helpful to her mother and it's taking a full team to keep Lisa Marie together and Danny was definitely proven he's still on her team

* The sudden death of Bobby Brown Jr. remains shrouded in mystery as the 28-year-old's autopsy report was placed on a security hold following a request from the LAPD -- the namesake son of Bobby Brown and his ex-girlfriend Kim Ward lived with his famous father in Encino, California, where the singer found him responsive -- Bobby Jr. has been doing drugs with pals and insiders suspected he was deliberately dosed with a fatal cocktail of booze, cocaine and painkillers

Page 18: American Life

Page 19: Tina Turner is using a new documentary about her life as a final farewell to fans after the R&B icon was rocked by a string of physical and mental health woes including the crippling effects of a 2013 stroke -- the eye-opening documentary Tina is a love letter to her millions of supporters and the punctuation mark to a life defined by startling professional success and heartbreaking personal catastrophes -- Tina admitted she's had an abusive life but at a certain stage forgiveness takes over -- in the documentary Tina confessed she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and has frightening flashbacks of being savagely beaten throughout her hellish 16-year marriage to the late Ike Turner and Tina's current husband, German music producer Erwin Bach, even compared his spouse to a shell-shocked soldier -- more recently, Tina has been battered by health crises after suffering a stroke in 2013 and being diagnosed with intestinal cancer three years later, mere months before her kidneys failed and Erwin donated one of his own to save her life -- Tina knows the end is near and this film is truly her last encore

Page 20: Match Game -- a round up of male and female celebs who look astonishingly similar, despite their opposite genders -- Sophie Turner and Boy George, Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber, Timothee Chalamet and Natalia Dyer, Tom Cruise and Tig Notaro

Page 21: Melissa McCarthy and Ricky Gervais, Eva Marcille and Terrence Howard, Bret Michaels and Fergie, Josh Hartnett and Clea DuVall

Page 22: Katy Perry sparked rumors she had finally taken the plunge with longtime love Orlando Bloom after she was seen sporting a suspicious gold band on her left ring finger while vacationing in Hawaii

* Scott Disick has confessed baby mama Kourtney Kardashian is the reason his relationships fail -- the reality TV slacker revealed his now ex-girlfriend Sofia Richie felt neglected because he spent more time with Kourtney and their three kids, saying it's definitely not easy that they see each other, work together and are friends but he's always been clear that his priority has been his kids and he even put it out there that taking care of Kourtney is one of his priorities

Page 26: Reality star fixer-uppers Jonathan and Drew Scott are sweating bullets over a lawsuit filed against their Property Brothers show by unhappy clients and the stress over the scandal is wreaking havoc with their personal lives -- Las Vegas couple Mindy and Paul King filed suit against Cineflix, the company that producers Property Brothers, and Villa Construction, a local contracting company, alleging they did a shoddy job repairing their home after the couple forked over $193,000 for renovations -- though the twin brothers aren't named in the lawsuit, they were concerned it could smear their reputations and upset their ladyloves -- Jonathan is close to marriage with actress Zooey Deschanel and Drew is wed to Linda Phan, who is the creative director for their company, Scott Brothers Entertainment -- they're both mortified by these allegations and they don't know what to tell Zooey and Linda, other than they will be cleared when the truth comes out but they're terrified that the bad press could derail the show -- Paul and Mindy answered a 2018 casting call and said they were assured all the work would be HGTV quality but Paul said that the place looks good from afar, but it's far from good and the Kings griped to the Nevada State Contractors Board, citing more than 90 complaints with the work ranging from unmatched baseboards to potential hazards -- as the case plays out, the brothers have been rattled by the controversy and they are stressed that this very public case is calling their work into question and there's a fear more people will come forward with similar charges

Page 28: Cover Story -- a top-secret psychological profile of Prince Harry's wife Meghan Markle paints the former actress as a mentally unstable ticking time bomb who couldn't cope with playing second fiddle to senior royals -- the explosive evaluation unmasks Meghan as a pathological liar and bipolar narcissist with histrionic personality disorder but the jaw-dropping findings about Meghan, who's pregnant with a sister for son Archie, don't surprise palace sources as Meghan's tears, tantrums and extreme mood swings had staffers terrified what she could do or say next and she was consumed with ambition and jealousy -- she married Harry expecting to be the royal superstar, but instead learned she'd always be second to his brother Prince William's wife, Duchess Kate and Meghan couldn't stand that she and Harry would always be in their shadow and wanted to destroy her in-laws but no one expected her to lob a nuclear grenade into her husband's family in a no-holds-barred TV special

Page 32: Health Watch

Page 34: Cara Delevingne confessed she used to be disgusted by same-sex relationships and was suicidal before coming to terms with her sexuality -- the model, who has dated actresses Michelle Rodriguez and Ashley Benson and singer St. Vincent, said she was trapped in a dark place and afraid before she publicly admitted to liking members of the same sex -- she said she grew up in an old-fashioned household and she didn't know anyone who was gay and she didn't know that was a thing and growing up she wasn't knowledgeable of the fact she was homophobic and she continued that the idea of being with same-sex partners, she was disgusted by that, in herself -- Cara, who identifies as pansexual, explained her sexual orientation is constantly changing and added she was so unhappy and she wasn't following her truth, that whole thing of having to fit into the box, she's an androgynous person

* Don McLean wants his decades-younger girlfriend to have the wedding of her dreams and he's set aside $1 million for the big day -- the American Pie singer has been dating model Paris Dylan for five years after an ugly divorce from second wife Patrisha Shnier -- Paris is totally unconcerned by the enormous age gap between the 75-year-old singer and 27-year-old model and wants to spend the rest of their lives together -- Don's going all out making sure she has the wedding that's fit for a princess and he's spending an absolute fortune, giving Paris the best of the best in terms of the venue and the food and the one-of-a-kind dress and Don's given her carte blanche to plan it however she wants, and people are expecting a seriously over-the-top affair

Page 36: Singer Andra Day turned to method acting to play jazz icon Billie Holiday, and it's paid off with an Oscar nomination -- Andra revealed she dropped 39 pounds and took up drinking and smoking to prep for the title role in the biopic The United States vs. Billie Holiday -- Andra doesn't recommend smoking and drinking, but she did it because she was just desperate for her first role -- Andra, famed for writing and performing the song Rise Up, also sings in the movie as Holiday, and changed her singing voice to reflect the music legend's pain

* Hollywood Hookups -- MTV reality stars Jenna Compono and Zach Nichols secretly tied the knot and their first child is due in August, Larsa Pippen is dating Myles Kronman, Ashley Jacobs and Mike Appel engaged

Page 38: Cindy Crawford said posing for Playboy was a snap compared to acting in movies -- Cindy said she really regrets starring in the 1995 bomb Fair Game, where she played a lawyer fighting a former KGB spy -- she said she never wanted to be an actor, but a producer begged her and he kept upping the price until she thought she'd be an idiot to say no, but she should have said no, or prepared herself better -- the experience taught her she's very comfortable in front of a camera, but only when she's being herself

* Former American Idol judge Randy Jackson is half the man he used to be and he couldn't be happier about it -- Randy has dropped a whopping 130 pounds to head off potentially deadly effects of his type 2 diabetes and did it in the healthiest ways -- he wrote in his book Body with Soul, it's a curse to be saddled with a disease that's life-threatening, but it's a blessing to get that huge wake-up call -- Randy admitted to crushing the scale at 358 pounds before getting gastric bypass in 2003 but now exercises and eats right and he's ditched sugar and gluten and he wants to be an example for other obese folks and show them they can get healthy and stay that way

Page 40: Tom Brady did an end run around fuming wife Gisele Bundchen by signing a four-year contract extension with his new Tampa Bay Buccaneers team after winning the Super Bowl -- the 43-year-old quarterback promised Gisele he would hang up his cleats after the upcoming season since winning last year's championship but changed his mind after snagging his record seventh NFL title with the Bucs -- Gisele is both angry and astonished because they had spoken about him finally settling down to be a full-time father and husband, but he can't stop chasing glory on the field and Gisele was stunned by his decision to re-up for another four years while the two were discussing expanding their brood and they had planned to have another child after buying their dream house on Indian Creek Island in Miami and they were even drawing plans for a nursery, and now that Tom's done a complete turnaround, everything is up in the air; it's caused some serious tension in their marriage

Page 42: Red Carpet -- Grammy Awards -- Billie Eilish, Megan Thee Stallion, Dua Lipa, Noah Cyrus, Lizzo, Taylor Swift

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mtvswatches · 4 years

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Underrated rom-coms that I absolutely adore *chef’s kiss*

In no particular order. Click the titles to see the trailers.

The Truth About Cats and Dog - Uma Thurman and Janeane Garofalo star in this 90s gem. Janeane’s a radio host and vet who falls for one of her callers after helping him deal with his dog. Uma is her neighbor and ends up impersonating Janeane by her request because she is very insecure about her appearance. Meanwhile, she maintains amazing phone conversations with the object of her affection. First female masturbation scene I ever saw in movies. Female friendship is strong in this one.

Sleeping with Other People - A kind of homage to When Harry Met Sally if it was set in the 2010s and was much raunchier. After a chance encounter at university, Alison Brie has sex for the first time with Jason Sudeikis. They only meet again many years later and strike up a friendship in which they both dispense relationship and sex advice to the other. Each of them has their own hangups, and time and again rely on each other to get through stuff. The story does develop in the way you’d expect, but both leads deliver great performances and you can’t help but fall for them as they fall for each other. There’s a scene in particular that gives me a lot of feels and made me swoon over Jason Sudeikis, which had never happened before. (Spoiler alert: this scene.)

While You Were Sleeping - Sandra Bullock in one of her earliest, breakout roles. This is one of those movies with a #problematic lead whose behavior is probably criminal, definitely creepy and if you really start dissecting it, you realize that the heroine is actually the villain (My Best Friend’s Wedding, I’m also looking at you.) Anywho, Sandra is a lonely, single woman who works in the booth at a train station or something and daydreams about one of the daily commuters, Peter Gallagher. She ends up rescuing him after he falls to the rails. He ends up in a coma, and because of a misunderstanding, his family believes her to be his fiance, and she enjoys so much living out this fantasy that she fails to correct them. But his brother, a very swoony Bill Pullman, is suspicious of her and in an attempt to figure out whether she’s lying or not, they end up spending a lot of time together and well, you can figure out what happens later.

A Lot Like Love - I guess this one was a more deliberate attempt to recreate and modernize When Harry Met Sally. Starring Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet, it tells the story of a boy and girl who meet at the airport and end up spending a day together and forming a unique bond. Throughout the years, they keep crossing each other’s paths, and each time they grow closer and more intimate, although the timing is never right. You can guess the rest. It’s a very sweet movie with an absolutely amazing soundtrack.

Definitely Maybe - Raise your hand if you’ve loved Ryan Reynolds and watched pretty much everything he was in since you saw him in 1996′s Sabrina The Teenage Witch with Melissa Joan Hart. Anyway, if you’re a fan of love stories that span years and How I Met Your Mother but hated the ending, you’ll love this one. Ryan’s character, now divorced, retells his three most important past relationships to his curious daughter after she asks him how he met her mom. While that relationship obviously didn’t have a happy ending, reminiscing about his past love life helps him figure out that there may still be a chance to hold on to the one who got away.

The Wedding Date - With a plot seemingly straight out of fan-fiction - single woman hires date to go to sister’s wedding in England where she’ll run into former fiance - this movie is extremely tropey and predictable. Yet, it kind of works for me. Dermot Mulroney is extremely dreamy, and the UST between his character and Debra Messing is palpable.

Before Sunrise (and Before Sunset and Before Midnight) If smart dialogue and beautiful backdrops are a huge turn-on for you, this is your movie and your saga. While the plot is virtually non-existent - two young adults meet on a train in Europe and end up spending a day together in Vienna - this is one of those movies that are brilliantly written and in which the dialogue is the plot. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy play wonderfully off each other and you almost feel you’re watching the events transpire in real-time. There is something wonderful about watching two people slowly fall in love with each other as they talk and get to know each other in a way that people rarely do. There’s also the charm of knowing there’s an expiration date to their encounter and the desperation of not wanting it to the end. I adore this movie, this couple, this saga, this director.

Reality Bites - Yes, I do have a thing for Ethan Hawke. Sue me. This is 90s Wynonna Ryder at her best and Hawke at his broodiest, bad-boy-est. This is the quintessential Generation X movie (that’s actually the title the movie was given in my country...) in which you see twenty-somethings struggling to become adults in a world that keeps changing the rules. It touches on many issues that are relatable to young adults while at the same time giving you an insight into this group of friends who try to navigate adulthood while remaining true to who they are. Wynonna and Ethan have insane chemistry, and their scenes together still give me butterflies.

High Fidelity - A heartbroken John Cusack, who owns a record store and is obsessed with making lists, decides to make the list of his top five breakups, hunt down his exes and have heart-to-hearts about why they think their relationship didn’t work. He views these relationships and breakups as formative experiences that led him to where he is today and ultimately affected his most recent relationship, which he thought was the one. Great soundtrack, great cameos in minor roles, and John Cusack, for fuck’s sake, what more could you ask for?

Chasing Amy - Granted, this one probably doesn’t hold up so well in this day and age. I mean, comic book writer Ben Affleck falls for lesbian Joey Lauren Adams and actively tries to have her switch teams? Hmmm. Even when I watched this back then that part definitely felt ... wrong. Yet... I’ve always felt the message of the movie about sexuality - and ultimately about love - was that it is complex and it fluctuates and that we are kind of doomed if we keep slapping labels on ourselves and holding ourselves to the standards of said labels. There are definitely homophobic lines, but it’s a very interesting movie to watch mostly because of Alyssa’s character and her journey in the movie. Give it a try and tell me what you think.

Just Friends - Another Ryan Reynolds flick, arguably more of a comedy than a rom-com but feels underrated either way. Former fatty Ryan has made a name for himself as a music producer or something after he escaped his hometown and the friend zone (I KNOW) he inhabited during his highschool years. Having to take care of pop star Anna Faris (who is absolutely hilarious in this movie), he ends up accidentally returning to his town and running into his high school crush and best friend again. Now exuding self-confidence because of his looks, he decides he will get her to sleep with him to fulfill his teenage fantasies. As he attempts to woo her, he slowly reverses to his high school appearance, which undermines his confidence and brings his issues to the surface. It’s a silly, fun movie that doesn’t pretend or aim to be anything else, and both Ryan’s and Anna’s comedic skills are brilliantly displayed in it. You’ll laugh a lot, is what I’m saying.

#movies #romantic comedies #rom coms #romance #films #mine #also let me know if you would like me to do other lists like this?

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whiskeykneat · 5 years

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One More Saturday Night [1]

Notes: trying something a little different since the ao3 link doesn't seem to be working for some people. I made a cut but if it doesn't work this is tagged #long post. // Summary: For everyone else, it's just one more Saturday night in 1964, but for Gale Hawthorne and Peeta Mellark, they’ve both received letters that will change the course of their lives forever. // Rating: this chapter is T, but some parts will be N*FW

I. Fortunate Son (1964)

CHAPTER ONE

It's eight o'clock on a sultry July night in Twelvetrees, West Virginia. Down at the carhop, Katniss Everdeen has just switched shifts with Joanna Mason, and as she leans against the freezer, stretching her sore calves, she's unaware that the boy who's just rolled up in the parking lot with his brothers, the one who carries fifty pound sacks of flour to the back door and gets tongue tied in her presence, would give her the world if he could.

While Joanna slicks red lipstick on her sultry mouth and clips on her garters under the flickering yellow light of the washroom, Peeta Mellark sits in the parking lot of the carhop and turns the words he'll say to Katniss Everdeen over and over again in his mouth, the official decision letter from the draft board burning a hole in his pocket.

He ain't needed here. Got some brothers. That son of yours has always been useless. Let the army straighten him out, Mr Mellark. His mother's words feel like they've been seared into his soul, deeper than the burns from his many years of tending the ovens in their family bakery.

[[MORE]]

"Peet! Cat got your tongue?" Delly giggles, elbowing Peeta in the side. Delly is like a sister to him, they grew up side by side in the garden between the shoe shop and the bakery, fast friends since the day she found him hiding from his mother under the rose bushes.

Unlike Peeta, Delly has always known what she'll do when she grows up, and that's marrying the boy with the easy, charming smile who sits even now with one arm slung over her shoulders -- Peeta's second eldest brother, Wheatley. Their lives are laid out before them like the instructions for a gingerbread house, all it takes it for the pieces to be iced together, like a fairy story, falling into place.

The letter crinkles in Peeta's shirt pocket when he pats it, and as if he knows what's on Peeta's mind, Wheatley nudges him unsubtly. "You gonna tell her?" Peeta has never been close to his older brothers, and this spirit of bonhomie at the eleventh hour feels like they've already picked out a plot at the VA cemetery for him.

Peeta shrugs, feeling a blush heat his cheeks as Katniss skates on by.

"My, I wish I could pull off those dungarees!" Delly chirps, pointing at Katniss.

"I think she looks..." Like a stone cold fox. "...Outta sight." And Katniss does. She's got her dark hair pinned up like old posters of Rosie the Riveter, with a plain scrubbed face and not a hint of makeup. Yet something about her is still so inexpressibly arresting that Peeta can't help but stare at her, lost in thought, as she skates between the cars, taking orders left and right.

She's a devil on skates: her form needs work, but she can serve five cars in under fifteen minutes, with nary a drop of root beer float spilled in a single lap. She never smiles, but Peeta knows any boy in town would love to take her to Lookout Point for some necking. The sexual revolution may not have made it this deep into the mountains yet, but when there's nothing else to do, people make their own fun.

Still, the line is drawn between the Seam and Town, Katniss is the girl from the wrong side of the tracks, and Peeta may not want to admit it to himself, but that's the real reason any town boy would take her out, to see if she'd go all the way, or if she'd keep her legs locked up tight.

As she passes by the finned Buick Electra, she looks up and meets Peeta's eye, and though she never breaks the flow, he sees her look back again, and he could swear she almost smiles.

•••

I don't know how you do it, Joanna had said earlier, with a tone in her voice that might have been a slap or a smile. You might just make something of yourself and get out of this town, kiddo. What she doesn't say is written on every silver scar that marks her flesh, but Katniss lets Joanna keep her secrets, and that's why they're friends.

When Joanna slams out the back door, Katniss hears a Caddy roar in the alley like a tiger, and there's the scream of her friend's high laughter before the only sound left in the waiting night is crickets and the catchy song trickling from the kitchen radio: Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do...

For a moment, Katniss is lost in the past, and she stares out the back door as the moths flutter at the neon lights, feeling every year of her eighteen summers and twenty more besides, as though she's faded to a pale reflection of herself before she's ever gotten her or Prim out of this place.

"You look like you're run off your feet, girl. Sit down and take a breather. Them Town kids can wait." Chaff plucks the order pad from Katniss's fingers and starts putting up the tickets as he steers her to a chair beside the fan. "'Sides, Mitch would kill me if you fainted on my watch." Chaff passes Katniss an ice cold bottle of pop, and she feels herself sag in relief.

Chaff once flew planes with Abernathy, back in the war with Germany, but beyond that she hardly knows him at all, for Chaff never talks about the city he left to come to their little town that sleeps as the rest of the modern world passes them by.

The bottle of pop sweats in her hands, and it makes her think of the way her pa would bring home one as a treat when she was little, to be shared sip by tiny sip with her baby sister, each fizzy bubble held in their mouths for as long as they could, to make the sweetness last.

"Shit, Miss Undersee was supposed to be here an hour ago." Chaff smacks a hand on the counter, but Katniss can tell he doesn't half care. "If she's late one more time, I'll fire her ass. I don't care who her daddy is."

Before Katniss can make up an excuse for Madge (the secret of how sick Madge's mama is lies on her tongue like a wedge of pitch, sticking her gums together), Chaff passes her a twist of greasy fries and a milkshake (strawberry, like the wild berries she used to sell door to door with her best friend Gale, before he went down the mine). She can't believe how ravenous she is, anyone would think she hadn't eaten since breakfast, and that's as close to the truth as she's willing to admit to herself.

Ever since the mine explosion that killed her father, back in '55, Katniss has had to shift for herself and her sister, keeping their small family afloat. The mine owner sent their mama to a sanitarium in Richmond to recuperate. When she returned, she seemed half the person she used to be, and had to return again and again to be put back together for something called hysteria.

But that's all water under the bridge now, and Katniss is no longer that frightened eleven year old girl, forced to survive on the kindness of strangers. Abernathy took pity on her and hired her as soon as she turned fifteen to work for him at the carhop, and she'll spend her life trying to repay a debt that can never be quantified.

Mr Abernathy passed out hours ago, he's almost as fond of white lightning as Katniss is of making extra tips, anything to get out of this town before it's too late. She's got a scholarship to the university, the same place Abernathy went to, even though she's no more likely to study physics than she is to sprout wings and fly away from the dust of this coal town.

At midnight, when the neon lights shut down, and all the moths in town flock to the lustrous glow the stars make over the quarry pond, she and Chaff will use all of their combined strength to roll Abernathy over and make sure he doesn't drown in his own vomit. That's part of her debt, and she'll be deep in it until she shuffles off this mortal coil.

So when Madge bursts through the door, not a single strand of blonde hair out of place, Katniss is too full of sugar and grease to protest when Madge insists she'll take the next orders out.

"Been pilin' up." Chaff nods to the tickets. "That little Cartwright gal came by and dropped 'em off while Katniss took a breather. By the sounds of it, they're gittin' liquored up out there." But he doesn't make a move to stop Madge from going out the door.

Madge blows a strand of golden hair off her forehead and adjusts her headband, her pale fingers flying over the laces in an intricate pattern as she re-ties her skates. They're pristine white, the kind that Katniss's little sister Primrose would give her eye teeth for, but nothing in the Seam stays white for long, not with the coal dust that gets onto everything, coating it like funerary ash.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she says to Katniss, biting her lip and looking away from her friend. Chaff makes a sound of deep disgust in his throat, and passes Madge the tray. Once she's skated from sight, he turns back to the fryer, and turns up the radio.

Come gather 'round friends and I'll tell you a tale / Of when the red iron pits ran a-plenty / But the cardboard-filled windows and old men on the benches / Tell you now that the whole town is empty (North Country Blues, Bob Dylan)

•••

Madge has skated eleven blocks to get here, refusing to take her daddy's car like some spoiled little debutante, although she might have a year ago, before she went to university, before everything began to fall apart. There's a run in her stockings that will have to be repaired soon, and a burning in her lungs that reminds her she's alive. Now that she's been to university and back, this town feels smaller than ever, but it's a good feeling, as if nothing bad could ever happen here, cocooned from the world outside.

When the lights turn down low, and the town sleeps, she'll lie in her bed and listen to the hum of the locusts in the sycamore tree, where the initials M+G are still scarred across the trunk, as if life followed a pattern, laid out like a children's jumping rhyme.

•••

It is quite propitious, as far as plans go, Miss Undersee. Seneca dabbed at his lips with his napkin. His mustache was damp with moisture, and she felt her stomach curdle at the way it gleamed wetly under the lights. She just hoped he got this whole breakup over with soon, because she was sure that one more minute of having to endure his rubbery lips and his mechanical groping on her knee would make her commit an entirely unladylike act.

As Madge fantasized about flipping Seneca the bird, he laid a clammy hand over hers and took a deep breath. With my money and your breeding, I think a marriage would suit the pair of us, don't you agree?

But my degree... I haven't finished it yet. Madge's smile froze in place, suddenly entirely too aware of the predatory gazes of the waitstaff, as though the entire moment had been orchestrated. She felt blindsided, and furious all at once. But good manners won out, and she smiled again, with a cheer she did not feel.

Seneca laughed, a touch of condescension creeping into his voice. I'm not marrying you for your mind, Margareta. Your father said you might be stubborn.

Madge reeled back in shock, stunned. Suddenly it all seemed too much: the soft candlelight felt as garish as the cheap lights of a carnival fanfare, the white wine in her glass tasted like rotgut mash. She tried to tug her hand back from Seneca's, but he held it fast. You talked to my daddy already? Her voice seemed to be coming from far away.

Why, of course I did, darling. Seneca squeezed her arm tight, a warning. Now, if you want to finish your university degree by mail, that's fine with me, but you won't need any of that when you're Mrs Seneca Crane, wife to the next senator of West Virginia. He continued his monologue, the room fading to a single pinprick of light until all Madge could see was that flashy diamond, all she could hear was the sound of champagne corks and applause, and all she could feel was the tightness closing in on her, as if Seneca's ring was around her neck instead of her finger.

#long post #gadge #gale/madge #gale x madge #everlark #historical au #hunger games #hunger games fic #underthorne #gale hawthorne #madge undersee #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark

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changji · 5 years

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Wow you really went off the other day but at least it was worth it 😪 I normally look at the scenery when I’m on a road trip, but then I get bored of it and decide to sleep bc there’s nothing else to do. Motion sickness must suck :(( do you take gravol or something to help with it? Coffee literally drains the life out of my funds it hurts me

Yes omg pls make me cookies I love them. Maybe you can even open a bakery with pastries and sell some good /cheap/ coffee. Ilyt my dear baker 🥺 ye I’m not the biggest fan of my bday either but gotta celebrate anyway!! One year closer to death woohoo 🎉🎉 your birthday is the most important day of the year!!! You can’t fight me on this I’m right

Pearls are so good. Like most places I go to don’t add anything to the pearls so it’s just bland squishy balls but the place I frequent adds I think honey to sweeten them. It gives the pearls life istg. It tastes so good 🤤 hollering is a funny word. For some reason I always associate it with yodelling which makes me laugh

Ksks you must be op if you can make a joke in the wall with a door slam. I can’t relate my arms are literally sticks and I have no strength in me. Chrome books are terrible in general. Add my schools terrible wifi and you get one big recipe for disaster. I’d never fight u either (unless it’s for your bday) ily too much for that 🥺🥺🥺

Hahah I think it’s me. I haven’t heard anyone say “go ham” except for the people who go to my school. I find it really funny tho so I try to incorporate it whenever I can LOL easily burnt? Can’t relate but apparently I easily tan. There’s this one diagonal stripe on my shoulder that separates pale me and tan me which ??? How did that happen and what was I wearing for that to happen??

It’s all fun and games until you go outside and see a mountain of snow waiting for you to be shovelled. But there are some good aspects to winter, like skating and skiing and all that fun stuff. Snow is so heavy?? Or maybe I’m just weak but after I finish shovelling I’m beat. Gardening is not my thing. There’s too many bugs involved flying around 🥴

Kind of? I always thought it was short for cappuccino but I could be wrong. They don’t taste like fraps tho, they’re sm better. I was always a frap hoe until I discovered lattes. My old elementary school was close to a Starbucks so whenever frappy hour was happening, my friends and I would go almost every day LOL

I heard that dunkin coffee is really good. Oof there’s so many things that the us have that Canada doesn’t. But apparently you guys don’t have ketchup chips?? How can one live without them? You know that’s what soulmates are, we’re stuck together forever and I don’t mind that. I’d never leave you 😌😌

YES OMG LATTES ARE SO EXPENSIVE. I pay around the same amount and my wallet cries every time. If you ever yeet yourself off a bridge I’d come visit u in hell and bring u iced coffee 💖 we really are soulmates wtf I get almond milk in my lattes as well!! I used to get normal milk and was like “I’m a bad bitch milk can’t hurt me” but that didn’t really work out. Sigh what we do for coffee 😔

Washing dishes is disgusting. I hate doing them but yk someone’s gotta do it and that someone is me 😤 I’m acc lazy when it comes to smoothies, I usually ask my mom to make them LMAO. Pancakes are pretty much made of flour if you think about it so technically when u eat one plain ur eating cooked flour,, how barbaric. Waffles are Built. Like. They have a 20 pack 😪😪

I love angst personally so pls go ham but not too ham I’d like to keep my heart. Honestly at this point my last brain cell has given up on me. But yes I love angst and I love torturing myself with heart wrenching angst that leaves me crying into my pillow at 3am (I’m talking about this one haikyuu fic that I forgot the name of. I was literally dying inside jalsjwo)

Pls do send me peet’s I’ll send you an iced capp in a cooler so it’ll be somewhat melted and probably spilt everywhere 🤪 tumblrs probably gonna block me again, I’m looking at how much I’ve typed rn and it’s a lot lmaoo. Yes I managed to save myself. I redid the whole last with less detail bc I was not Having It but it turned out better?? How is ur drawing now?

I start after labour day in September. But starting in 3 weeks?????? On a Thursday?? I could never wtf. When do you end? I’m so confused with these ap and honours thing, like there’s none offered in my school nor majority of the school district. Are they just advanced classes or something? It is 7 classes a semester or the whole year?

Stan talent i think you meant yourself??? Jsjsksk I am not only ur coffee soulmate I’m not #1 fan as well and I support u bc ily 🥺🥺 the read more tag had me laughing for a hot minute. Like we really could make an essay out of all of our replies. I don’t have any pets (besides fish does that count?) unfortunately bc my moms allergic to fur 🥺 hbu?? (I can’t believe tumblr blocked me again they can fight me)

i didn’t even pay LOL i freeloaded off my cousin 🤧 i like to look @ scenery sometimes but like i can’t bc my head hurts LOL and the scenery is always the same for me, mountains and fields with cows. i try to take dramamine but it makes me so drowsy that i’m just basically dead,,, i live off of my cousins money so i’m okay 🤪

tbh i use nestle toll house pre made cookie dough, like that shit actually slaps. it’s the best it’s so good omg, perfect for lazy hoes 🤧 death here we go ! the order is ur bday, then skz debut date, and then christmas i don’t make the rules sorry sis 😤

pearls are Dangerous, i once drank a smoothie and there were pearls in it and i couldn’t see them bc there were like. only 3 and they were Buried under the smoothie but i choked and almost died but i chewed one of them and it’s like. so weird. HOLLERING AND YODELING IM- i once went to some public yodeling class and left in 2 seconds bc it was a bunch of white boys dressed like the kid from walmart 😪

it’s not even strength i’m actually rly weak,, i always think the doors are closed but they’re not and so i like slam them open and the walls are thin so it’s just. a sad hole. terrible wifi,, my school has pretty good wifi tbh but we have like three connections, one for the chrome books only, one for the teachers & staff, and one for students and guests. like it works rly good but everyone has a VPN bc of stupid social media restrictions 😤 & ilyt 🥺 u would probably win in a fight tho LOL

go ham is so interesting. the first time i heard it i thought it meant go pig and i was so confused but ig,,, i live lathered in sun screen whenever i go somewhere with the sun. ppl are like “i smell sun screen” and im just there like 🙃 it’s me u got a problem u burnt chicken nugget ??? i wish i tanned easily, i have a tan friend and when i showed her when my legs got tan she was so confused. i thought i was tan tho? bc during marching band season my sock tan becomes So Bad i’m basically white. she said she was blinded when she saw me pull my sock down and i laughed so hard LOL & i hate those dumb random tan lines like. where u @ bro? where u come from??

snow is fun for like a day and then i get tired LOL i csn only handle wet socks and a red nose for so long 😔 i tried skiing one time and i did so bad that the instructor had to hold me down and walk with me down the slope. i fell so many times i think he hated me 😳 i’m also rly bad at skating? i went w my friends once and i held both of their hands and still managed to bring both of them down when i fell. a cute guy once helped me when i was struggling to walk so 🥴 not my brightest moment tbh,, trying to walk in skates while on ice. do u enjoy skiing/skating? also gardening is. gross. worms and dirt and the sun i’m not here for it.

u: cappuccinos! me: ...ice bergs,,, now that i think about it fraps kinda suck,,, i used to think i was So Cool for drinking starbucks but now i’m like. wow. i used to think there was coffee in a frap but it’s just. sugar and ice LOL also speaking of tmrw is bogo fraps here,, idk if it’s all over the world but myb u should check it out 😪

dunkins okay it depends on what you get, i once got an iced latte and it was good but my dad got an iced coffee and he like. hated it so we had to switch and it was so bad like. it was coffee crime. it was horrible and not strong it was basically milk 😤 also,, ketchup chip? i just googled what that was and. that’s literally so weird. fun fact i hate ketchup and all other condiments i can only eat bbq sauce and i tolerate steak sauce

UR LITERALLY SO CUTE OKAY UR MINE NOW HHHH

i mentioned this in the other ask but. we going broke bitches club 😪 when u come visit me it’ll be old town road the one w mason ramsey on a loop. nothing will top the og remix but no, i’ll be stuck listening to some 5 year old rap for all of eternity

I USED TO BE SUCH A GOOD KID AND DRINK MILK EVERY MORNING ever since i got to middle school i preferred sleep over waffles and milk and i hardly drink milk but when i do. my stomach does not have it.

my mom made me wash dishes today and she just stared at me when i put ziploc bags on my hands bc we didn’t have gloves but i just painted my nails and i’m not abt to put myself thru chipped nails. not yet 😤 waffles are so good like i love waffles and lattes only 🤧

well i’ll go very ham (am i doing it right LOL) 😤 the angst ending is a lot better than the open ended or happy ones LOL i’m so excited for it 🥺 i’m rly tryna get it out before the end of this month bc the edit says july and it’ll make me Mad if i don’t get it out before the end of this month

i wanna start in september 🤧 and i usually end in the first week of june. also on a wednesday LOL it’s gross. stupid. ap means advanced placement so it’s just. a college level class. lowkey mad bc i’m taking ap euro (as a sophomore 😒) and other schools take it in their senior years? apparently this is normal? and honors are just faster paced classes with more weighting so,, idrk oops 😬 some people take 7 classes in a semester but i took it for the whole year! this year i’m dropping orchestra i’m Not for that spit in the carpet life

the only talent in this house goes by ada and jisung. i don’t make the rules. i’m ur #1 fan 🥺 as soon as u post anything i automatically smash that rb button LOL also put a read more here bc like. we’re really out here writing a whole ass essay. i’ll look @ all our convos bet it’ll be like. a lot. i don’t wanna say smth and be off so i’ll just not. i have a dog! he’s the cutest in the world and i love him sm 🥺 tumblr can fight me first like. what’s this ask limit bull hhhhh

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everlarkficexchange · 6 years

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Thief of Hearts Part 3 - Say Something

Written by: @mega-aulover

Prompt 43: Prompt - a story based on the song “Say Something”, by Great Big World and Christina Aguilera… [submitted @xerxia31]

A/N: This song is so great and I couldn’t help but snatch it up for Thief of Hearts, but I wasn’t sure which scenario to post so I wrote three.

You get to choose your favorite scenario so please comment and tell me which one you want me to continue. Please vote in the comments not in the tags.

Rating: T (warning rocky times ahead)

Find Part 1 Part 2

***KP***

* Scenario One * Say Something-

“Say something, I’m giving up on you

I’ll be the one, if you want me to

Anywhere, I would’ve followed you.” - A Great Big World, Christina Aguilera

The apartment looked like a tornado had gone through it, the sofa was tossed, the coffee table was upside down, shards of a broken lamp littered the floor. Peeta heaved, allowing himself to feel every single turbulent emotion at the loss of Katniss. He drank deeply from the bottle, it’s amber liquid no longer burned down his throat but the blazing memory of his last moments with Katniss scorched his heart.

Four hours earlier:

“Who are you?”

He turned around to see Katniss standing there in his shirt, her lovely hair askew, her silver eyes wide upon her face, hurt written in their depths.

“Katniss,” he approached her, his mind spinning quickly formulating words.

“Who are you?” She backed away from him.

Her backing away was like being kicked in the nuts.

“You mentioned the purse,” Katniss shook her head, her hand extended in front of her. “I wasn’t going crazy that day, it was you.”

“Katniss, I told you that wasn’t me and I wasn’t speaking about that…I was talking about a job.”

“With her, with the blond. I saw you yesterday…I didn’t want to believe it…but…she’s real…you’re with HER when you come home late,” Katniss mumbled, her large eyes filled with tears. She gazed at him, her lips trembling, her arms wrapped around her middle protectively.

“Cashmere is,” Peeta’s mind raced to come up with a way to explain it all. “Katniss I haven’t cheated on you. I swear. I never took your purse, I love you.” It was true, Peeta Mellark was in love for the first time.

Katniss stared blankly at him.

“Say something?” He could see she was giving up on him. “Katniss please say something, don’t give up on me, on us? I’m the one for you if you allow it.”

It had been love at first sight, when he saw her on the street that day. He ran because he was so scared, but her face, her eyes, they haunted him. Then he began looking for her. That night in the bar was no coincidence. He walked up to her to tell her the truth, but her kiss, her kiss was better than Fourth of July fireworks.

He brought her home, the sex was incredible, and when she’d hit him with the pillow he’d never been more in love. Then the worry set in. The entire time they were together, he was scared that his private and personal worlds were going to collide and combust.

He was living his nightmare.

“What else have you lied to me about?”

“Katniss I grew up in a bakery, I swear. I even paint…” Peeta ran his hands through his hair, quickly thinking how to keep her here to convince her, but it was a losing battle.

Katniss took a vase and launched at him. Peeta dodged it. “YOU’RE A LOUSY CREEP!” she yelled, then she ran, and he’d almost lost her. When she tripped, his heart nearly stopped. He cradled her in his arms, unable to think of her demise, He needed to catch her and he did, he thought everything was going to be okay. But she slipped from his hands like fog.

Four hours later :

The door to the apartment opened. “Peeta?”

“She’s gone,” Peeta slurred, he drank deeply from the liquor bottle. He followed her, he would have followed her anywhere, he was so in love.

“Peeta.” Finnick approached him slowly. “I’ve never seen you this way.”

“She left me,” Peeta muttered standing up, “I have to find her Finn…I love her.” Peeta swayed.

“Peeta you need to get yourself together, we’re too close to the end. We’ve worked too hard to have you fall apart.”

Peeta shoved the bottle at Finnick’s chest. “I want out.”

“Peet,” Finnick said, taking the bottle from him.

“I want Katniss,” Peeta said, his eyes were wild, “I had her, had her and she left. She overheard me with Cashmere…she heard me and thought I was a thief, and a cheat.”

“Peeta you are a thief, you’re the best thief and conman around, and if you don’t do what we planned they’ll kill your nephew.”

Peeta stared at him. The only reason he’d gotten dragged back into this world is because of his five-year-old nephew, Toby. Peeta was only a kid himself when he and Rye began stealing things. The things they stole were priceless pieces of fine art, expensive and rare jewelry. Peeta was agile and quick, Rye was the planner but he was reckless.

They were getting ready to pull the biggest job of their life, stealing the Mockingjay Diamond, when their father died. Peeta left it all behind. Rye kept up with this world. His brother wanted to steal that diamond for nothing more than the glory of taking it.

Then nine months ago, Rye was murdered and so was his wife. The only survivor was Toby, and Cashmere was using him as leverage to drag Peeta back.

Peeta had gone to Finnick, the man who had helped him get out. Somehow, he had ended up here, lost and broken.

“Hey Peeta, say something?”

Hearing those words repeated to him, caused him to feel small and hopeless.

Finnick kneeled down and handed him a clear photo. “Cashmere has him, she has Toby.”

Peeta glanced up at Finnick.

“Say something?” Finnick questioned.

What was there to question? It was already decided.

***KP***

* Scenario Two * I’m Feeling So Small-

“And I am feeling so small, It was over my head

I know nothing at all, And I will stumble and fall

I’m still learning to love, Just starting to crawl” - A Great Big World, Christina Aguilera

“Sweetheart?”

“Hi, Haymitch,” Katniss whispered, standing outside of his cabin in the rain. She was cold and wet. Her lips trembled. This was the only place she could think of, the one place where no one could find her.

Haymitch had taken her in at the age of eleven when she had no one. When he found her, she’d been living in the forest, hiding from the man who’d caused the death of her family. Haymitch had brought her up and helped her hide from Brutus the man responsible. She’d testified but her life was in danger and the government wouldn’t help her.

Haymitch took it upon himself to help her cope with the daily fear that someone could be out there wanting to hurt her the way they’d hurt her family. She kept a low profile, only had a few friends. She paid for everything in cash, had a disposable phone.

“Come in,” Haymitch waved her in.

It was like going back in time. Nothing had changed, nothing at all since the moment she’d left here. Haymitch remained.

“You in trouble?” It was a rhetorical question, Haymitch knew everything about her. He made it his job to keep her safe.

Katniss shook her head, but the tears threatened to fall.

“Yeah, you are,” Haymitch said wiping his face, “Come on, you look like you can use a bath and a good meal. Go get dry, you smell like a wet dog.”

The mention of food caused her stomach to grumble. She hadn’t eaten anything since she’d found Peeta with that woman, over 48 hours ago.

Haymitch didn’t say anything more when he heard her stomach, he only nodded, his peppered hair was askew.

Dejectedly, she walked down the hallway to the room, drenched from the storm outside. Opening the door, she put her bag down and stared into the void. Water droplets splashed on the floor. Everything looked the same, down to the dust bunnies by the window sill.

She began crying. She was feeling so small, everything was over her head.

How had it all gone wrong, she wondered. She’d finally felt safe, with him. As much as Haymitch protected her, she never felt secure enough, there was always an outside chance danger would follow her. Tears mixed with the rain streaking down her face as she recalled how happy they were three months ago.

Three Months Ago:

They were moving in together. Katniss watched Peeta’s ass as he moved up the stairs, his broad shoulders and the muscles moved as he carried the heaviest boxes with ease. He was strong, and she marveled at his physique.

It was hot outside, her internal temperature, however, was hotter. She swallowed, she wasn’t as experienced as other women, she’d only had two boyfriends. Her first was a high school boy named Marvel, but he was only nice to her until the moment they did ‘it’. Afterwards, he turned mean and cruel.

Katniss was glad that he’d gone off to school and broke it off with her.

Her next partner had been Darius. He was safe, and the sex wasn’t great either. Maybe because she wasn’t emotionally involved with Darius, and it showed. They dated for nearly two years, and she was never comfortable with him touching her.

Peeta, on the other hand, she couldn’t wait to be with him, around him. She was amazed that someone who was hot like him wanted her. He was beautiful, exciting and she had finally found out what it was like to orgasm. Her nipples tightened at the thought of having him once more, her underwear became damp. She began imagining him stripping off her shorts and taking her roughly against the door.

“Are you okay?”

Katniss snapped out of her naughty daydream. She blinked and her cheeks bloomed pink. They had arrived at his floor and were in front of his door. “I need a bath,” she rushed out as she opened the door for him.

He put the boxes down. His eyes twinkled and he gave her that darned sexy grin of his, the one that made her knees week. “I can join you now, we’ve got a tub that’s big enough for two.”

Her eyes widened, she hadn’t considered doing it in the tub before.

Peeta chuckled, “You’re so pure.”

“I’m not,” Katniss shot back. He didn’t know of the things she’d done to survive, who she had become. If he knew, he would have a different idea about her.

He picked her up, surprised, she squealed.

“Yeah you are, but you’re perfect for me.” He put her down in the bathroom, his mouth quickly sought contact with hers. He backed her up to the sink, his kisses causing a rush of wetness that ruined her underwear. Katniss hands frantically sought purchase on his chest. She slid them down, toying with the hem of his t-shirt, as she pulled away from his dangerous kisses.

He stepped back slightly to remove his shirt, and she expelled the breath she had in her chest. She shyly ran her hands up his muscled abs. His hands were still at her waist, waiting for her signal to undress her. The one thing she learned about Peeta was that he was a gentleman, he didn’t take from her like others had, he always gave her pleasure first, always waited to see if she was ready, and he put her needs above his own. It was thrilling, to know she could dominate this beefy gentle giant.

His hand cupped her cheek, his lips were only a breath away. “You sure you’re okay with moving in with me?

He looked so vulnerable, his blue eyes were seeking assurance.

“I know it’s only been three months but I just can’t imagine not coming home to you.”

Katniss nodded, the action caused her lips to join with his. She wasn’t afraid of taking the leap, but then she’d never actually lived with a man, shared his bed, and allowed him into her inner sanctum. And two weeks into living with Peeta, Katniss had learned so much about herself. She was learning to love, and like an infant, she was starting to crawl.

Three Months Later:

Her hand went to her midsection. She’d been flying high until she’d seen him with that woman yesterday. Everything changed in a blink of an eye. Betrayed and broken, she gave up on him, on the dream of what they were. Katniss blinked as she took stock of her surroundings.

“Peeta Mellark,” Haymitch said coming into the room. He put a plate of food on her dresser. Took the towel he had draped over his shoulder and wrapped it around her.

Frowning, she registered that she was trembling. She rubbed her shoulders. She was numb from the inside out. “How bad is it?”

“Thought you would ask,” Haymitch reached into his back pocket and produced a file.

She took the file, her eyes trained on her mentor. Swallowing, Katniss was unsure if she wanted to know the truth. There was a lot at stake. Biting her bottom lip, she silently flipped through the information.

“What else are you hiding?”

His question stopped her from reading the file. Her hands trembled. She looked down a lonely tear streaked down her cheek.

“Say something?” Haymitch persisted.

Going to her wardrobe she collected her weapons. What was there to say? It was already decided.

***KP***

** Scenario Three ** And I will Swallow my Pride-

“Say something, I’m giving up on you, And I’m sorry that I couldn’t get to you

And anywhere, I would have followed you….And I will swallow my pride

You’re the one that I love, And I’m saying goodbye” - A Great Big World, Christina Aguilera

Peeta rounded the corner and saw her waiting in line to get on a bus. He realized this was one of those out of town buses, not a city bus. “Damn,” he muttered, jamming his hands through his hair.

He had woken up when he heard the soft click of the door. At first, he thought she was in the other room, but when he heard the front door shut close he knew she was leaving him.

Flying from the bed, he had quickly grabbed the pants that Katniss always instead he keep folded over a chair, and shirt. He hadn’t even bothered looking for his shoes. It was imperative that he get to her. He’d hurt her, and in turn, she’d walked out on him. Peeta couldn’t even blame her, he’d broken her trust by not telling her what was going on. He kept things from her for her own safety.

But that had backfired. Everything blew up in his face. He still recalled the heartbreak written on her face, her pain so great her hands trembled. Hands that had gripped him with want and need. But it was more than just desire, they needed each other.

He yelled, “Katniss,” but someone honked the horn at the same time and she didn’t hear him.

He was still a block away from the stop where she stood. Peeta took a shortcut, running through an alley, but he was too late, the bus flew by. He saw her sitting inside the bus. “KATNISS!”

“STOP!” he yelled at the bus, waving his hands, hoping the bus driver saw him. It kept on going. Peeta took off after the bus on foot.

He panted as he ran full force chasing the bus, but the great machine rolled on. Not even his metal bionic leg helped him chase down the bus. He came to a stop but noticed his car was few feet away.

He would follow her to the ends of the earth, he wasn’t going to give up on her. Not now that he knew her secret, he wasn’t going to let her slip through his fingers. As quickly as he could, he took out his keys and before long he was driving after the bus.

He was willing to swallow his pride, he was willing to give up his lifestyle for her. Because he loved her. She was more precious to him than the Mockingjay Diamond Cashmere wanted him to steal. He shouldn’t have said yes to the job, but he needed the money.

During the two-hour car drive out of the city, he put on his shirt and discovered he had a pair of his non-lace up sneakers in the car. The bus drove into a smaller town. He followed it wondering where Katniss was going.

The bus came to a stop and several people got off, Katniss amongst them. He quickly scanned the area for a place to park. Peeta saw a spot to park and although there was someone waiting he cut them off and stole the spot. The guy behind the wheel was honking at him and yelling obscenities. Peeta didn’t bother responding.

He jumped out of the car and hopped around on his feet to put on his sneakers. The man shut up when he saw his metallic foot. With his sneakers in place, his eyes searched for Katniss. It wasn’t a busy town, it was quiet. There was an afternoon crowd, but nothing compared to the throngs of people who lived in the city.

He spotted her as she walked briskly.

His heart beat quickly when saw her cross the street. He thought he could reach her until he saw her head to a police station. He came up short when he saw a tall man dressed in a suit. This guy wasn’t a regular cop, this guy had government agency written all over him, from his polished black shoes to the dark navy blue tie.

He was a tall bronzed man with sea green eyes, and he was calling her name. “Katniss.”

She waved at him, indicating familiarity.

Had she betrayed him, he wondered. Then he shook his head, that couldn’t be he knew the truth about her.

One Month Ago:

He’d arrived early from his trip, he had anticipated surprising Katniss. Lately, she hadn’t been herself. Her eyes didn’t focus on him they strayed off to the side as if she was thinking of something other than him. She also avoided certain things, like tea, and just before he’d left he wanted to take her to a steakhouse and she declined.

She couldn’t stand the smell of his favorite tea. Plus she told him to take it easy on the cologne. Katniss always liked the way he smelled. The conference held nothing that could help his father’s bakery. He heard his phone go off, he was going to let it go, but it kept on ringing.

Frustrated he pushed back the shower door, as he was showering, soap got in his eyes. “Ah hell.”

He blindly searched for a towel as the ringing persisted.

“Hello,” he growled into the phone.

“Hello, Peeta.” Cashmere’s smooth voice caused Peeta to sigh angrily. The woman was dangerous, but she wanted something. She’d been trailing him for months now, it was one of her goons who had attacked Katniss, he’d seen him and tackled him to the ground.

“Cashmere.”’

“I heard you were in town again. How was the conference? Did it help you figure out a way to save the bakery?”

“I’m not interested, Cashmere.”

“Oh come on Peeta, be reasonable.” She sounded like she was pouting over the phone. “I need the best and you are the best thief. I will make it worth your while, there is a great cash reward, it will help your family.”

His father was ill, the bakery was being run by his mother and was failing. They’d let go of the staff, made changes, but the economic fallout had hurt them. Skyrocketing prices of ingredients combined with no one wanted to pay the higher prices affected the revenue.

“No.” Peeta shook his head. As a kid, his mother had beaten him, and Peeta found the streets to be an escape. He had been good at stealing good at morphing into a character in order to take what wasn’t his. Soon, he found himself stealthily getting into places no one else could. Then on one of his jobs, someone got shot. An innocent woman, It changed him seeing a human die. Peeta lost his drive all he could see was her face and he couldn’t steal anymore.

It helped him see what he would miss if he ever got caught. He had walked away, gone back to the bakery.

“I’ll give you one more hour,” Cashmere said before the line went dead.

He threw the phone back on the desk. There was no way in hell he was going to help her. They would be okay. Angrily, he rushed back to the bathroom, by now the water was no doubt tepid at best, but he had a head full of shampoo. In his haste, Peeta forgot the floor was wet and slipped. He grabbed the door handle of the shower but he kicked over the wastebasket.

The contents spilled on the floor. “Crap.”

Quickly, he picked up the scattered contents, then he stopped short when he pulled a toothbrush-like handle from behind the toilet bowl. Peeta fell on his butt when he realized what he was holding.

The pregnancy test stared up at him, its sign positive.

It all made sense; her lack of appetite for red meat, her turning green at his tea choice and her sensitive nose. His hands shook at the realization that Katniss was pregnant.

One Month Later:

The discovery of the test she’d carefully thrown out in the garbage propelled him to say yes to Cashmere, with the understanding that after that he was out. It was why he’d said yes to the job. He knew she was pregnant, and was waiting for her to say something to him. It’s why he couldn’t let her go, why he would follow her anywhere she went even if that meant turning himself in.

Peeta loved her, and he was going to be a father.

He watched her lower her head, she didn’t look at the man in the face, she stared at her feet as she spoke, he could tell she was distressed. The screeching sound of a car could be heard. Peeta watched from his vantage point as the car came barreling down towards her.

“KATNISS,” he screamed, running toward her.

Katniss turned around at the sound of his voice as if searching for him. Then she turned her attention to the man. She pushed him out of the way screaming his name, “FINNICK!”

Peeta watched, horrified, as the car hit her and then sped away.

“KATNISS.” Peeta ran to her. His hands shook as he held her. “Katniss, I love you.”

Around him, cops poured out of the station. An ambulance was called.

“Say something?” Peeta touched her skin, it was still warm, but she didn’t reply. It seemed as if she was saying goodbye.

But there was nothing to say, nothing he could do.

#mega-aulover #Springtime Edition 2018 #prompt 43 #submission

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hallmark-movie-fanatics · 4 years

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A Look at the slate of Countdown to Christmas Movies airing this year on the Hallmark Channel

Jingle Bell Bride Premieres: Oct. 24 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Julie Gonzalo, Ronnie Rowe Jr. Official synopsis: “Wedding planner Jessica Perez (Gonzalo) travels to a remote town in Alaska to find a rare flower for a celebrity client and is charmed by the small town during Christmas, as well as the handsome local (Rowe Jr.) helping her.

Chateau Christmas Premieres: Oct. 25 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Merritt Patterson, Luke Macfarlane Official synopsis: “Margot (Patterson), a world-renowned pianist, returns to Chateau Newhaus to spend the holidays with her family and is reunited with an ex (Macfarlane) who helps her rediscover her passion for music.”

Christmas With the Darlings Premieres: Oct. 31 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Katrina Law, Carlo Marks Official synopsis: “Just before the holidays Jessica Lew (Law) is ending her tenure as the assistant to her wealthy boss to use her recently earned law degree within his company, but offers to help his charming, younger brother (Marks) as he looks after his orphaned nieces and nephew over Christmas.”

One Royal Holiday Premieres: Nov. 1 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Laura Osnes, Aaron Tveit, Krystal Joy Brown, Victoria Clark, Tom McGowan Official synopsis: “When Anna (Osnes) offers a stranded mother (Clark) and son (Tveit) shelter in a blizzard, she learns that they are the Royal Family of Galwick. Anna shows the Prince how they do Christmas in her hometown, encouraging him to open his heart and be true to himself.”

Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Sweater Premieres: Nov. 7 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Ashley Williams, Niall Matter Official synopsis: “Single mom Maggie (Williams) is facing Christmas alone until Lucas (Matter) crashes into her life and becomes an unexpected houseguest. Together they overcome Christmas while finding comfort in their growing bond.”

On the 12th Date of Christmas Premieres: Nov. 8 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Mallory Jansen, Tyler Hynes Official synopsis: “Two seemingly incompatible game designers team up to create a romantic, city-wide scavenger hunt themed for The 12 Days of Christmas.”

Christmas in Vienna Premieres: Nov. 14 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Sarah Drew, Brennan Elliott Official synopsis: “Jess (Drew), a concert violinist whose heart just isn’t in it anymore, goes to Vienna for a performance. While there, she finds the inspiration she has been missing, and a new love.”

A Timeless Christmas Premieres: Nov. 15 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Ryan Paevey, Erin Cahill Official synopsis: “Charles Whitley (Paevey) travels from 1903 to 2020 where he meets Megan Turner (Cahill), a tour guide at his historic mansion, and experiences a 21st century Christmas.

A Nashville Christmas Carol Premieres: Nov. 21 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Jessy Schram, Wes Brown, Wynonna Judd, Sara Evans, RaeLynn, Kix Brooks, Kimberly Williams-Paisley Official synopsis: “Vivienne Wake (Schram), a workaholic television producer in charge of a country music Christmas special showcasing newcomer Alexis (Raelynn), never lets personal feelings get in the way of business. On the verge of accepting a job in L.A., and with the return of Gavin Chase (Brown) — her childhood sweetheart and manager to the special’s headliner, Belinda (Evans) — she receives a visit from the ghost of her recently deceased mentor, Marilyn (Judd). Her mentor warns her current path leads to a dark future and has recruited both the Spirit of Christmas Past (Brooks) and the Spirit of Christmas Present (Williams-Paisley) to help her get back on track. The Spirits’ time-jumping adventures force Vivienne to take hold of her life."

The Christmas House Premieres: Nov. 22 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Robert Buckley, Jonathan Bennett, Ana Ayora, Treat Williams, Sharon Lawrence, Brad Harder Official synopsis: “Working through some difficult decisions, Wade family matriarch Phylis (Lawrence) and patriarch Bill (Williams), have summoned their two grown sons — TV star Mike Wade (Buckley) and Brandon Wade (Bennett) — home for the holidays. It is their hope that bringing the family together to recreate the Christmas house will help them find resolution and make a memorable holiday for the entire family and community. As Brandon and his husband Jake (Harder) make the trip home, they are anxiously awaiting a call about the adoption of their first child. Meanwhile, Mike reconnects with Andi (Ayora), his high school sweetheart.”

New movie to be Announced Premieres: Nov. 23 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: TBD Official synopsis: TBD

A Christmas Tree Grows in Brooklyn Premieres: Nov. 24 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Rochelle Aytes, Mark Taylor Official synopsis: “Erin (Aytes) is planning the town’s Christmas celebration and must win over firefighter Kevin (Taylor) in order to obtain the beautiful spruce tree from his property for the celebration.”

A Bright and Merry Christmas Premieres: Nov. 25 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Alison Sweeney, Marc Blucas Official synopsis: “Two competing TV hosts (Sweeney and Blucas) are sent to a festive small town over Christmas. While pretending to get along for the sake of appearances, they discover that there’s more to each other than they thought.

Five Star Christmas (Working Title) Premieres: Nov. 26 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Bethany Joy Lenz, Victor Webster Official synopsis: “After moving back to her hometown, Lisa (Lenz) plots with her siblings and grandparents to help her father’s new bed and breakfast get a five-star review from an incognito travel critic (Webster), but ends up falling for him, not knowing he is the real critic.”

Christmas by Starlight (Working Title) Premieres: Nov. 27 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Kimberley Sustad, Paul Campbell Official synopsis: “Annie (Sustad), a lawyer, must help her loved ones this holiday season. Her family’s restaurant, the Starlight Café, is slated for demolition. The heir to the development firm responsible, William (Campbell), makes her an unlikely proposition: He’ll spare the café if Annie spends the week ‘appearing’ as the legal counsel his father is demanding he hire in the wake of some costly mistakes.”

Christmas Waltz Premieres: Nov. 28 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Lacey Chabert, Will Kemp, JT Church Official synopsis: “After Avery’s (Chabert) storybook Christmas wedding is canceled unexpectedly, dance instructor Roman (Kemp) helps her rebuild her dreams.”

If I Only Had Christmas Premieres: Nov. 29 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Candace Cameron Bure, Warren Christie Official synopsis: “At Christmas, a cheerful publicist (Bure) teams up with a cynical business owner (Christie) and his team to help a charity in need.”

Christmas in Evergreen: Bells Are Ringing Premieres: Dec. 5 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Holly Robinson Peete, Colin Lawrence, Rukiya Bernard, Antonio Cayonne, Barbara Niven Official synopsis: “As Michelle’s (Peete) wedding approaches, Hannah (Bernard) steps up to help finish the launch of the new Evergreen museum while questioning her relationship and future with Elliot (Cayonne).”

Christmas She Wrote Premieres: Dec. 6 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Danica McKellar, Dylan Neal Official synopsis: “When Kayleigh (McKellar), a romance writer, has her column canceled right before Christmas, she heads home to reconnect with her family. Kayleigh gets an unexpected visit from the man (Neal) who canceled her column who fights not only to bring her back to the publisher but also for her heart.”

Cross Country Christmas Premieres: Dec. 12 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Rachael Leigh Cook, Greyston Holt Official synopsis: “Former classmates Lina (Cook) and Max (Holt) are traveling home for the holidays, until a storm hits and they have to work together to make it home in time, no matter the mode of transportation.”

Christmas Carnival Premieres: Dec. 13 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries Stars: Tamera Mowry-Housley, Antonio Cupo Official synopsis: “Emily (Mowry-Housley) is a top newscaster who has achieved her career dreams but still has regrets about the guy (Xavier) who got away five years earlier. When the Christmas carnival comes to town, a ride around the carousel takes her magically back in time to the carnival five years before... giving her a second chance at love before she must return to Christmas present.”

A Christmas Carousel Premieres: Dec. 19 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Rachel Boston, Neal Bledsoe Official synopsis: “When Lila (Boston) is hired by the Royal Family of Marcadia to repair a carousel, she must work with the Prince (Bledsoe) to complete it by Christmas.”

Love, Lights, Hanukkah! Premieres: Dec. 20 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Hallmark Channel Stars: Mia Kirshner, Ben Savage, Marilu Henner Official synopsis: “As Christina (Kirshner) prepares her restaurant for its busiest time of year, she gets back a DNA test revealing that she’s Jewish. The discovery leads her to a new family and an unlikely romance over eight nights.”

Info from the ew.com article, Link HERE

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ezatluba · 3 years

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‘Tiger King’ stars’ legal woes could transform cub-petting industry

Citing rotten food, separating young cubs from their mothers, missing animals, and fraud, court cases aim to end the most exploitive practices.

BY SHARON GUYNUP

APRIL 15, 2021

When Tim Stark fled Indiana in September, his life was crashing around him. The zoo owner, who appeared in the hit Netflix docuseries Tiger King, was losing his livelihood. His lions, tigers, bears, and dozens of other animals were being seized by authorities. He and his zoo owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for animal welfare violations. He faced an arrest warrant for allegedly concealing animals set to be confiscated. Stark’s zoo, Wildlife in Need, which raked in millions with its baby tiger “playtime” sessions, had collapsed.

On the run, Stark railed against judges, officials, and animal rights activists in an hour-long, profanity-laced Facebook Live rant. He claimed they’d conspired to deny him his right to own and breed exotic animals. Taunting law enforcement, he brandished what appeared to be a hand grenade. “I am willing to die for what I believe in,” he said.

Three weeks later, he was arrested at a bed-and-breakfast in upstate New York and extradited to Indiana, where he faced a contempt charge in one county and a felony charge of intimidating a law enforcement officer in another.

Stark isn’t the only big cat owner from Tiger King embroiled in legal trouble. Many of the largest breeders and cub-petting attractions in the United States are also facing lawsuits or criminal charges.

While it’s legal to breed and exhibit big cats in the U.S. with proper licenses, Tiger King shined a spotlight on questionable conditions in a lucrative and lightly regulated industry. Now, a spate of court cases is challenging the legality of some standard practices, including pulling newborn cubs from their mothers and allowing tourists to cuddle, bottle-feed, and snap selfies with them. Lawsuits and prosecutions cite unsafe, unclean housing; poor nutrition; little or no veterinary care; illegally buying, selling, and shipping endangered species nationwide; and soliciting donations that allegedly benefit for-profit businesses. (The U.S. tiger trade puts both people and animals at risk.)

These civil and criminal court cases have the potential to overhaul the industry, says Brittany Peet, deputy general counsel at the nonprofit advocacy group People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

Thousands of captive tigers live in the U.S., mostly in roadside zoos like Stark’s. Experts say there are probably more in captivity in the U.S. than the 3,900 estimated to live in the wild across Asia. Threats to the world’s tigers go beyond animal welfare in cub-petting facilities. Trafficking in tiger bones and other body parts from captive facilities in China, Vietnam, and elsewhere in Asia fuels a lucrative black-market trade that is pushing wild tigers toward extinction. In the U.S., lax regulation has enabled the exploitation, suffering, and illegal trade of thousands of endangered big cats. The recent tide of legal action may be changing that.

Tiger King stars in court

The strange drama portrayed in Tiger King put the tiger tourism industry on the radar, with 34 million viewers in the first 10 days after its release in March 2020. The series featured Joseph Maldonado-Passage—better known as Joe Exotic—and other big cat owners. Though they became eccentric cult figures to some viewers, others were shocked by what they saw: One clip showed a newborn tiger, still wet, dragged from its mother using a metal hook.

The Tiger King himself, who once ran the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma, is currently serving 22 years in prison. He was convicted in 2019 of attempted murder-for-hire of big cat sanctuary owner Carole Baskin; of killing five tigers that were poor breeders; and of charges related to animal trafficking.

In August 2020, Exotic’s former business partner, Jeff Lowe, had his license to exhibit wildlife suspended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for “grave” abuse and neglect. Then last November, the Department of Justice sued Lowe, his wife Lauren, and their businesses for allegedly violating animal welfare laws and the Endangered Species Act. In a text to National Geographic, Lowe called the charges “absolutely false...simply retribution.” In January this year, a judge ordered 14 of his tigers moved to a sanctuary because of “life-threatening conditions.”

Meanwhile, another zoo owner featured in Tiger King—Bhagavan “Doc” Antle, owner of Myrtle Beach Safari in South Carolina—was indicted last October on charges that include felony wildlife trafficking and misdemeanor animal cruelty. In an email last December, Antle denied “any act or conduct that could ever be considered ‘animal cruelty.’”

These and other court cases have exposed exploitation and abuse in the big cat cub petting industry, most of it hidden from visitors who pay to spend time with cubs. Big cats are subject to factory-like breeding to produce a constant supply of cubs, and few visitors realize that many of them die young. Those that survive are too big and dangerous to pet by the age of 12 weeks, USDA regulations say. Those cubs usually are then sold off to other facilities, dumped, or simply disappear.

Nothing left to lose

Court documents and inspection reports reveal how bad things were at Stark’s Wildlife in Need zoo for years before it was shut down. Stark sometimes blocked mandatory inspections, swearing at government officials. From 2012 to 2016, USDA inspectors cited more than 120 violations of the Animal Welfare Act.

Stark fed animals expired meat and roadkill, and left them with green water squirming with larvae, according to the USDA citations. The cats lived in small enclosures strewn with dangerous debris and their own feces, without shelter from sun or snow. Sick or injured animals went unexamined; many died. Stark testified that he “euthanized” a sick and injured young leopard with a baseball bat in 2012.

Animals regularly arrived and disappeared without legally required paperwork. During one inspection, officials discovered 43 previously undocumented animals on site; and couldn’t find another six that were supposed to be there.

Furthermore, inspectors found flimsy animal enclosures that they say posed “significant risk” to the public. During hands-on encounters, tiger cubs bit and scratched customers and ran uncontrolled. In 2013, a neighbor shot a leopard that was roaming free. Stark denied it was his.

Despite citing Wildlife in Need for numerous violations over the years, the USDA automatically renewed Stark’s license annually, per its standard policy. Finally, in February 2020, the department revoked it. A judge fined him $40,000 and Wildlife in Need $300,000.

Though the USDA took action in this case, the department has been under fire for years for weak enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act, which advocates say sets bare minimum care standards. Cathy Liss, president of the D.C.-based nonprofit Animal Welfare Institute, says enforcement got even weaker under the Trump administration: There was a 93 percent drop in fines and license suspensions, from 239 in 2016 to 17 in 2019.

It remains to be seen how aggressively the USDA under President Joe Biden will enforce the Animal Welfare Act. In an email, a spokesperson for Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who served in the same position in the Obama administration, said that “USDA will make full use of its enforcement authorities to ensure the humane care and treatment of animals...covered under the AWA.”

In court for animal abuse

Carney Anne Nasser, an attorney specializing in animal law, says that a high-profile PETA lawsuit filed against Stark in 2017 was what likely prompted the USDA to act. PETA alleged that Stark’s treatment of cubs violated the Endangered Species Act, which makes it illegal to harm or harass federally protected species, including tigers.

PETA has successfully sued several roadside zoos under the ESA, with judges explicitly acknowledging that the law applies to animals in captivity as well as in the wild.

It’s important for people to realize that these [attractions] can be fronts for profitable animal abuse industries.CURTIS HILLFORMER INDIANA ATTORNEY GENERAL

The group’s case against Dade City’s Wild Things was among its most significant wins against the cub-petting industry, Peet says. The Florida cub-petting venue mass-bred and traded tigers, and threw cubs into a chlorinated pool for $200 “swim with tigers” encounters. PETA won the case in March 2020 after the judge found that owner Kathy Stearns and her son Randall Stearns violated a court order not to move their cats: In 2017, they had shipped 19 cats to Joe Exotic in a cattle trailer without air conditioning or water in the July heat. A tigress gave birth during the 1,200-mile journey; all three cubs died. The Stearns family was banned permanently from owning tigers, and Kathy Stearns still faces criminal charges in Florida for allegedly siphoning nonprofit funds to pay personal expenses.

PETA’s case against Dade City’s Wild Things set an important precedent. “It was the first federal ruling that prematurely separating [tiger] cubs from mothers, using them in public encounters, and confining them in inadequate conditions violates the Endangered Species Act,” Peet says.

Several months later, another judge rendered the same opinion in PETA’s case against Stark, further strengthening the precedent and expanding it to include lions and lion-tiger hybrids. The judge wrote in his decision that these practices cause “serious harm, in many cases a deadly one.” He further ruled that declawing big cats, which involves amputating part of their paws, violates the Endangered Species Act.

Pseudosanctuaries

Owners of cub petting attractions are also under scrutiny for financial dealings.

While investigating Wildlife in Need’s finances, the state of Indiana said it identified “wire transfers totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars from [Wildlife in Need]’s bank accounts to known and/or suspected animal dealers,” according to a motion it filed last July.

On April 7, 2021, the judge in that case found that Stark illegally used donations to Wildlife in Need—a nonprofit founded in 1999 to “rescue, rehab and return indigenous species to the wild”—to buy animals and to pay for personal expenses such as meals, gas, utilities.

Contributors “were duped,” Indiana’s then-Attorney General Curtis Hill said last year. “It’s important for people to realize that these [attractions] can be fronts for profitable animal abuse industries.”

Stark was ordered to repay the money, and he is permanently barred from owning animals.

Many roadside zoos are registered as nonprofit “rescues” or “sanctuaries,” a status that confers tax breaks and allows them to solicit donations. But few meet the criteria, says Lisa Wathne, who oversees captive wildlife protection at the Humane Society of the United States, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.

A true sanctuary never breeds, buys, sells, or trades animals, she says. It keeps them for life and provides proper food, housing, and veterinary care. Most in the U.S. are accredited by the Global Federation of Sanctuaries. Anything else is a “pseudosanctuary,” she says.

See maps of how tigers have been traded across the U.S.

Doc Antle straddles both worlds. At the for-profit Myrtle Beach Safari, visitors buy tour packages to interact with “animal ambassadors,” including tiger cubs and wolf pups. His nonprofit Rare Species Fund collects donations for, among other things, “education of the public about conservation issues through ambassador animals.” Over a period of five years, from 2014 through 2018, the nonprofit spent more than a million dollars in donations—a yearly average of $210,000—on animal food, care, and enclosures, according to an analysis of its federal tax forms. Those expenses account for more than two-thirds of its total spending. The other third, about $100,000 a year on average, was given away in grants to other organizations.

Antle did not respond to a request for comment about the nonprofit’s finances.

Nasser says that prosecuting financial fraud “will put a nail in the coffin for roadside zoos. With the cost of feeding a tiger up to $7,000 per year, many could not stay in business without fraudulently taking donations.”

Meanwhile, these captive cats have no conservation value—they’ll never be released into the wild or used to shore up wild populations. “If wild tigers became so scarce that we needed to use captive-bred stock, we would use animals from accredited captive breeding programs, not the inbred, hybrid, unhealthy cats from a roadside zoo,” says John Goodrich, tiger program director at Panthera, a New York-based conservation organization.

Confiscated animals

When Stark lost the PETA lawsuit in August 2020, the judge ordered him to surrender his remaining 22 tigers, lions, and tiger-lion hybrids, as well as four lion cubs he’d illegally sent to Jeff Lowe in 2019. The same month, the judge in Stark’s fraud case ordered that the rest of his animals be placed in temporary custody.

On September 11, under the protection of some 50 police and federal marshals, the Indianapolis Zoo began removing 161 animals. When 23 animals couldn’t be found, the state accused Stark of hiding them and a judge ordered his arrest. That’s when Stark went on the run.

Several days later, PETA removed the big cats. Some were so thin that every rib was visible, Peet says. One lion was unresponsive; another crippled. The cats went to two accredited sanctuaries, Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas and the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Colorado.

When Pat Craig, founder of the Wild Animal Sanctuary, drove to Oklahoma to pick up lion cubs Stark had sent Lowe, there were only three. One had died several weeks earlier, PETA learned. The others “were in horrific shape,” small and underweight, Craig says. Nala, a female, could only take a few steps without falling over. X-rays revealed multiple untreated leg fractures, a result of metabolic bone disease caused by poor diet. With proper feeding and veterinary care, Nala’s fractures have healed, Craig says, and she’s expected to survive.

The United States of America vs. the Lowes

The legal landscape for the cub-petting industry is changing, case by case, but the federal lawsuit filed in November against Jeff Lowe, his wife Lauren, and their businesses potentially carries the greatest weight.

The Department of Justice typically doesn’t litigate animal welfare cases. They took this one because Lowe publicly flaunted the law, says Jonathan Brightbill, the DOJ attorney arguing the case. He who called Lowe’s actions “a very aggressive form of evasion.”

After USDA suspended Lowe’s license to exhibit wildlife in August, Lowe surrendered it permanently to avoid government oversight, the DOJ says. Soon the Lowes began using their new “Tiger King Park” as a private film set. But “exhibiting” animals on TV and social media still requires a USDA license, says Delcianna Winders, an animal rights lawyer who directs Lewis & Clark Law School’s Animal Law Litigation Clinic in Portland, Oregon. (The Lowes’ new venture raises concerns about the future of “digital” animal exploitation.)

The DOJ’s complaint “includes 110 pages of evidence detailing some of the most extreme abuse and neglect of big cats and primates that I’ve ever seen documented,” Nasser says. “The case against the Lowes marks the most aggressive civil enforcement action against an animal exhibitor in the history of the Animal Welfare Act.”

Among the largest tiger breeders, the Lowes will no longer be able to own or exhibit endangered species if they lose the case.

The future of tiger cub selfies

The cases against the Tiger King’s cat owners have already affected the cub-petting industry. At his peak, Joe Exotic claimed to own more than 200 tigers. Hundreds of cats flowed through Tim Stark’s zoo. Both are shuttered. And Antle and Lowe’s fates will soon be decided in court.

Congress is also stepping in. The nation’s first federal bill regulating big cat ownership was reintroduced to Congress in January. The Big Cat Public Safety Act would prohibit private ownership of big cats as pets and ban cub-petting. Another bill, the Animal Welfare Enforcement Improvement Act, would tighten licensing rules and compel stronger enforcement of animal welfare laws. It would also allow citizens to sue exhibitors for abuse under the Animal Welfare Act. It has not been reintroduced in the current Congress.

The situation has changed dramatically from a decade ago when you could buy a cub for a pet or snap selfies with cubs at flea markets, county fairs, or malls, Winders says, and more changes are likely to be coming.

These legal actions against zoo owners “put the writing on the wall” for the industry, she says. “These cases have established that the cruelty inherent in cub petting operations is illegal.”

Wildlife Watch is an investigative reporting project between National Geographic Society and National Geographic Partners focusing on wildlife crime and exploitation. Read more Wildlife Watch stories here, and learn more about National Geographic Society’s nonprofit mission at natgeo.com/impact. Send tips, feedback, and story ideas to [email protected].

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blogfernsonthayassslove · 3 years

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Sharon Osbourne blames 'disgruntled ladies' for her ouster from 'The Talk'

ซื้อฟรีสปิน

After the March 10 episode, former "Talk" co-hosts Leah Remini and Holly Robinson Peete came forward with allegations that Osbourne used slurs and made other racist comments during her time on the show.

Osbourne described them to Maher as "disgruntled ladies" and denied Remini's claim that Osbourne made racist remarks about the Asian ethnicity of former "Talk" co-host Julie Chen Moonves."I never, ever said that," Osbourne said. "I don't even use those words; they're not in my vocabulary."Osbourne told Maher that she would be OK in the long run but she railed against what she described as "cancel culture" affecting the livelihoods of those who express contrary opinions.

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tabloidtoc · 4 years

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People, July 13

Cover: Murder in Paradise -- two husbands poisoned, what do the wives know?

Page 1: Chatter -- Sandra Oh on wanting to be on Scandal after reading the script, Chris Pratt on thinking wife Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt laughed a lot when they first met, Charlize Theron on her relationship with Sean Penn, Patti LaBelle on how she feels at 76, Zoe Kravitz on how former Catwoman Michelle Pfeiffer reacted to her taking on the role

Page 2: 5 Things We’re Talking About This Week -- Jennifer Aniston shows off her tat, Mary J. Blige releases her own wine, a golden retriever turns 20, NASA honors pioneer Mary Jackson, The Princess Bride gets a quarantine makeover

Page 5: Contents

Page 6: StarTracks -- The BET Awards -- Amanda Seales, Roddy Ricch and DaBaby, Beyonce, Michelle Obama

Page 7: Alicia Keys, John Legend, Chloe x Halle, Wayne Brady

Page 8: First Look-- Jennifer Hudson and Marlon Wayans and Forest Whitaker in the biopic Respect based on the life of Aretha Franklin

Page 9: Fun in the Sun -- pregnant Ciara in a pink bikini, Cindy Crawford in a hot tub, Britney Spears and Sam Asghari wearing masks oceanside, Colin Jost goes surfing in the Hamptons, the new Bachelor Matt James went wakeboarding with the old Bachelor Tyler Cameron

Page 10: Summer Lovin’ -- David Beckham and wife Victoria Beckham on an afternoon walk, Reese Witherspoon and husband Jim Toth hold hands on their way to an L.A. market, soon-to-be parents Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner masked up for a stroll, Kate Beckinsale and boyfriend Goody Grace wear masks for a grocery run

Page 11: Pregnant Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt stepped out with mom Maria Shriver, Miranda Lambert and new kitten Tequila that she rescued near a highway, Savannah Guthrie and Al Roker reunite for the first time in months, Cardi B and daughter Kulture in matching outfits, Padma Lakshmi with daughter Krishna after voting in New York’s primary election

Page 13: Scoop -- how Kelly Clarkson is staying strong

Page 14: Miley Cyrus reveals she’s 6 months sober

Page 16: Heart Monitor -- Nicole Young and Dr. Dre $800 million divorce, Ryan Seacrest and Shayna Taylor split again, Billie Lourd and Austen Rydell engaged, Timothee Chalamet and Eiza Gonzalez new flames

Page 17: Katy Perry on mental struggles: gratitude saved her life, Amanda Peet -- funny mom and killer role

Page 18: Open House -- Luann de Lessep’s retreat in Port Ewen, N.Y. is for sale, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s emotional visit to Homeboy Industries in L.A.

Page 20: For Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson producing the second season of his hit NBC athletic-competition series The Titan Games became a way of paying tribute to the country’s real-life heroes

Page 23: Passages, Why I Care -- Mayim Bialik raises awareness about mental illness and how to get help

Page 25: Stories to Make You Smile -- a man and his dog cruise country roads in a motorcycle built for two, a chorus of women are spreading cheer one sip at a time

Page 27: People Picks -- Hamilton (definitely watch it!)

Page 28: Stateless, Expecting Amy, Karma, One to Watch -- Sylvia De Fanti

Page 30: The Truth, The Baby-Sitters Club

Page 31: John Lewis: Good Trouble

Page 32: Books

Page 34: Cover Story -- two husbands poisoned in paradise: were they murdered? -- in December 2018, boyhood friends Casey MacPherson-Pomeroy and Caleb Guillory made plans to ring in the new year on Anguilla with their wives but instead they ended up dead and now the men’s families wants answers

Page 40: John Legend answers questions from readers -- musician and activist and the reigning Sexiest Man Alive talks to fans about his family life and his hopes for change in America

Page 44: Country singer Granger Smith moving forward from family tragedy -- a year after the darkest day of their lives the singer and his wife Amber are finding purpose following the drowning death of 3-year-old son River in a pool accident at their rural Texas home

Page 49: George Lopez -- my incredible life -- the comic gets candid about his difficult childhood, the ups and downs of his groundbreaking success and his blistering return to stand-up

Page 52: Reunited with their newborn after COVID-19 -- we finally have him in our arms -- a Spanish couple spend 6 anxious weeks waiting to meet their infant son born in Idaho after the global pandemic shut down travel to the U.S.

Page 58: Before They Were Famous -- roles of a lifetime -- Lifetime movies have been a rite of passage on the road to stardom for 30 years and counting -- Reese Witherspoon, Ben Affleck, Taraji P. Henson

Page 59: Zac Efron, Kristen Bell, Hilary Swank, Mark Ruffalo, Jason Momoa, Ellen Page

Page 60: A Teen Epidemic: Growing Up Anxious -- after a childhood steeped in anxiety and depression Kaylie Rosen found happiness away from school and then the pandemic sent her home

Page 65: Kevin Bacon -- what I know now -- after 40 years in Hollywood the actor now starring in You Should Have Left reflects on fame and fatherhood and finding lasting love

Page 68: Voices for Change -- as Americans grapple with issues of inequality and police violence and social justice these activists, artists and authors are helping to chart the path forward -- Rachel Cargle

Page 69: Ibram X. Kendi

Page 70: Brittany Packnett Cunningham

Page 71: Nikkolas Smith

Page 72: Johnetta Elzie

Page 74: David Foster -- me and my girls -- the 16-time Grammy winner and his daughters open up about family ties and how he found his happily ever after with wife Katharine McPhee

Page 79: Style -- summer sandals -- Mindy Kaling

Page 81: Beauty -- the best summer hair tips

Page 87: Second Look -- Match Game hosted by Alec Baldwin and featuring Thomas Lennon, Mary McCormack, Bob Saget and Padma Lakshmi

Page 88: One Last Thing -- Andy Samberg

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