#31 Days of Oscar

[dweemeister]

97th Academy Awards reactions

*deep breath* Here goes...

First off, to my followers who couldn't care less... why do I care about the Oscars so damn much? Film, as an artform, is among the multidisciplinary of all. The Academy Awards are a reminder that yes, there are big-name actors and actresses who are spoiled and make big figures. But outnumbering them in the county north of where I live are craftspeople - cinematographers, editors, composers, production designers, makeup artists, hairstylists, sound editors and mixers, and more than make this artform complete. You don't know their names and you don't know their faces, as Conan O'Brien (great job btw!) reminded us all at the beginning of tonight's monologue. They are the ones for whom an Academy Award nomination mean so much for.

After my disappointment in Supporting Actor (Kieran Culkin is committing category fraud and plays the same role always), we went to both animated categories. For more than a decade, I've been advocating for animation beyond the major American studios and Hayao Miyazaki. I've had limited success in getting followers and friends to seek those films out. So when Gints Zilbalodis and his team from Flow won the Animated Feature Oscar tonight, I was overjoyed and very, very emotional. For little Latvia, with not much of a film history, they've circled around this unlikely movie. No dialogue, a meditation of our existence and how we can get along with another so unlike us, only a handful of animators spread out from Latvia, France, and Belgium? No movie like this should be anywhere near a category that has been the province of Disney, DreamWorks, Pixar, and maybe if Studio Ghibli has a film that year. But Flow did it. And I hope Gints and team have an easier time making their next film.

This is going to be a seminal moment for animated movies outside the major American and Japanese studios - I just know it. The standards at Disney, DreamWorks, and Pixar have slipped (Illumination never had standards) over the last 15 years. I blame the success of Shrek and Despicable Me for a lot of what has happened in major American studio animation for chasing the least common denominator. These American major animation studios need an ass-kicking. Flow's win is for all of those non-Miyazaki-directed features or smaller animated features that made it to the big stage but never had a chance (like Adam Elliot for Memoir of a Snail - the nomination was the win for Snail) or never even got a sniff from Academy members.

Then, for the first time in many years, my favorite Animated Short won. In the Shadow of the Cypress' filmmakers are from Iran, and they were having a lot of visa troubles trying to get to the U.S. It also didn't help that their nation gave them little to no support while making their film and afterwards. Having landed at LAX three hours before the ceremony, they seemed almost lost for words during their acceptance speech. Congratulations to Shirin Sohani and Hossein Molayemi!

My night peaked after BOTH of my animated favorites won. I could've just called it a night there, but there was much more ceremony to go...

OK. To the categories you folks actually care for. I like Anora, and I especially like Mikey Madison in it. But is it really the sort of film that can put Sean Baker equal to Walt Disney and Bong Joon-ho as the only individuals to have won four Academy Awards in a single night? I don't think so. Anora is not on Parasite's level. 5/6 seems a little overboard for me - especially in Director and Editing (good lord the middle act of the film really drags). It'll be interesting how this film will age. We will see in time.

My personal #1 would have gone to The Brutalist - a movie I admired deeply, but wouldn't call a personal favorite. After Adrien Brody won Actor, I pretty much knew that night was done. I'm glad Brody won his, but I wish more folks realized how crucial Guy Pearce is to the success of that film. I don't necessarily think it uses VistaVision all that well, so I call into question the Cinematography win.

And though I'm fine with The Brutalist's score, the only reason why this won was because of DUH DUH DUH DUHHHHH at the start of the film. Because AMPAS voters don't know what good music is, let alone a good film score, they just award it to anything that has a memorable riff for a few seconds. Sorry Kris Bowers and Wild Robot! Sorry to the un-nominated Amelia Warner and Young Woman and the Sea! Developing a motif is alien to AMPAS voters now!

I am also OK with Zoe Saldaña winning Supporting Actress in a movie I dislike in Emilia Pérez (the concerns about how Mexican culture are depicted are warranted, the depiction of a sex change as "morally purifying" is problematic to say the least, and the film utterly fails as a musical and did not deserve Original Song). She's the best part of that movie, aside from the cinematography (which deserves a better movie. I think that makes her the first person to portray a major bridge crew office in a Star Trek movie or TV series to win an Oscar (I am not counting Michelle Yeoh because that was a bit role, not a regular role, in Discovery). LLAP.

And speaking of non-English language films... Walter Salles' excellent I'm Still Here with a performance by Fernanda Torres that would've had my Best Actress vote. Congratulation to Brazil on their first ever International Feature win (shame that Black Orpheus was considered France)! And I hope we see more Brazilian movies here in American theaters, too.

Conclave was trashy fun. And I'm glad it won for its screenplay (in another year, Fiennes might take Actor for me). It got my mom out to a rare trip to the movie theater, and was a rare moment I got to enjoy a movie with her in a theater (she's Buddhist, but she was there for all the religious drama and the costumes). This will age very well, and I already see the fandom sprouting on tumblr - watch out!

Wicked fans in my life were disappointed to see only two wins for the film. I'm a Wicked fan too, having loved the musical since my high school days. But I'm not the biggest fan of how it was adapted to the screen. There are a few problems here for Wicked's success this awards season. First, Wicked is a first part of two. AMPAS voters are disinclined to vote for a non-ending "part" if they know there are more parts coming. Second, the correlation between box office and likelihood of success at the Academy Awards ended decades ago. If we nominated highest-grossing films, the MCU would have won Best Picture across the 2010s. Good luck with the second part later this year... although, I will say Act II of Wicked is musically and dramatically less interesting than Act I. How much will Jon M. Chu pad the film?

Did the message of The Substance actually play out? A completely deserved Makeup and Hairstyling win, though!

Nickel Boys was my overall #2, never really had a chance at anything.... so I'm glad it made it here anyways.

And as someone who is no fan of Timothée Chalamet and who hated Dune the book, I am fine with Dune: Part Two's wins in Sound and VFX alone. And as someone who thought that A Complete Unknown was just an unremarkable concert film, I am fine with it being shut out.

I only saw No Other Land and Sugarcane in Documentary Feature. I cannot comment on their worthiness, having not seen the other nominees. But No Other Land - which I saw at the Art Theatre in Long Beach on Saturday morning - having no U.S. distributor (even at this stage) is shameful. The filmmakers should not have had to self-distribute their film. It is a good documentary that isn't nearly as harrowing as some other (worse) docs I've seen get distribution. In similar fashion, shame on Japanese studios for refusing to distribute fellow nominee Black Box Diaries in its native country.

The repulsively made A Lien (why is the title spelled like this? how the hell do you actually pronounce this?) lost in Live Action Short after sacrificing filmmaking craft for timeliness. The decidedly un-cinematic Incident - which shows no filmmaking prowess beyond some slick editing - lost in Documentary Short. Thank the fucking lord. That I Am Not a Robot and The Only Girl in the Orchestra won in their places, respectively, puzzles me a bit. You can find I Am Not a Robot on YouTube in most countries via The New Yorker. The Only Girl in the Orchestra is on Netflix.

It was a fun night, and we ended mostly in a timely fashion! And in one day, I can stop thinking about movies through an awards lens again for several months. Thanks to many of my followers and friends for the company this awards season! 31 Days of Oscar ends tomorrow.

[citizenscreen]

Starting with a bunch of Roberts at 11 am ET, today’s #31DaysOfOscar schedule on #TCM is fantastic. Through prime-time and beyond.

[dweemeister]

Thanks to @machpowervisions for the extra motivation to see the film!

DEMI MOORE as Elisabeth Sparkle — The Substance (2024) dir. Coralie Fargeat

[treasureplanetsheep]

Watching Penny Serenade with Cary Grant on TCM...tbh the title was really familiar and I don't think I've actually watched it before...

Welp. My mom just spoiled the movie for me 😭

[dweemeister]

Instant reactions to the 96th Academy Awards

A rough night for me. But there have been rougher ones before. I imagine most of my comments put me in a very lonely minority, as has been apparent the last few months.

But here goes:

For all intents and purposes, yours truly was on the Killers of the Flower Moon train. An extraordinary crime epic from Scorsese, with astounding craftsmanship and fantastic performance from Lily Gladstone. More than what I previously believed possible, a major studio production went out of its way to make sure that its Indigenous American representation on-screen was as genuine as it could possibly be (still imperfect, as the film acknowledges, but what an effort). And yet, KOTFM goes 0/10. I've never had a favored Best Picture nominee be shut out in such a way before. And I'm not surprised at all by it. It was clear that non-American and non-Canadian audiences didn't get the context to the film (a criticism I understand, given the screenplay) and, in other quarters, folks thought it was too long (I admittedly have a higher tolerance for longer movies) and others have said something akin to the fact that they are getting tired over "racial guilt" movies from America. I'm not in the mood to respond to the last one. I think it deserved better tonight. I particularly think Lily Gladstone deserved better tonight.

Stat upheld: two non-white actresses have never won on the same night in Oscar history. History, in and of itself, was always against Gladstone.

Oppenheimer winning? Fine, I guess. It was my #4 choice of the ten Best Picture nominees. I guess Christopher Nolan was overdue, but I have always been a Nolan skeptic. The film certainly is his most humanistic, and I appreciate that. As for the narrative organization and editing trickery? It mostly serves to take me out of the movie. And I don't think Nolan truly understands what thematic film music can accomplish for his movies. I think RDJ should have had much more competition all season long, but he did not. Most people are gonna say this is the return of the Academy's favorite subgenre... the Great Man Biopic. But in composition and structure, Oppenheimer (and even Maestro) resembles very little of the past Great Man Biopics. It'll be interesting to see how history treats this movie.

I disliked Poor Things. I didn't care for its sense of humor, didn't agree with many folks' opinions that it was a magnum opus of female empowerment. I thought it was incredibly male gaze-y and troublingly sanitized its scenes of sex work. Jerskin Fendrix's score was unlistenable outside the context of the film and distracting within it. But it has four Academy Awards and people love this movie, so my opinion can go to heck?

Well done Da'Vine Joy Randolph for her win as Supporting Actress for The Holdovers. I truly hope this opens up a lot more new opportunities for her going for! Wonderful speech.

And speaking of wonderful speeches, both documentary winners got me very emotional. The Last Repair Shop is on YouTube for American and Canadian viewers, and it's simply wonderful. Perhaps the happiest I was all night long! And then came Mstyslav Chernov's speech after winning for 20 Days in Mariupol. Chernov had, arguably, the speech of the night. And I agree with him. I, too, wish he never had to make his film and that he never won this Oscar. But he did his job to document what happened in Mariupol. And for that he (and the Ukrainians suffering and dying in their war versus Russia) deserves our plaudits and support.

Once more, Hayao Miyazaki cannot be bothered to show up to an awards ceremony. It's hilarious! I would have voted Robot Dreams, but The Boy and the Heron is not a winner to sniff at. Spider-Verse will have one more shot.... whenever the third movie comes out?

Good lord, they selected the worst possible winner in Animated Short with War Is Over!. There's an unwritten rule that the Academy, among the fifteen nominated shorts, must select one which will piss me the hell off. And for the second straight year in Animated Short, they have done exactly that, choosing something akin to a soft drink commercial.

Billie Eilish and Finneas are now the youngest and second-youngest ever to win two Oscars, after Luise Rainer (Best Actress for 1936's The Great Ziegfeld and 1937's The Good Earth). That feels very, very weird. In both cases of this record.

The "I'm Just Ken" performance? Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Like Ken)??? Busby Berkeley choreography? What do the kids say? Inject that straight into my veins? It was wonderful.

And speaking of nods to cinema history, I'm so glad they led off the stunt performers tribute with Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd. :,)

And congratulations to Godzilla Minus One and its Best Visual Effects win! After seventy years, Godzilla is now an Oscar-winning franchise, and its win percentage is 100%! Simply wonderful!

I think the moral of the story is that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has been gradually internationalizing over the last decade. And the results of that were very clear tonight. Does that mean I'm too provincial in my tastes? I don't know. But wins such as Emma Stone's, Anatomy of a Fall, The Boy and the Heron, and Godzilla are demonstrative of that.

I'm glad this season is over. I certainly hope that Killers of the Flower Moon will be looked upon more kindly by history and time, without the bells and whistles of awards campaigning and a fuller understanding of why it was made the way it was.

This month has been fun! But now it's time to see movies again without the lens of awards for a long, long while.

[citizenscreen]

The 30th #31DaysOfOscar returns to #TCM on February 9th.

[dweemeister]

For viewers in Canada, Puerto Rico, and the United States, the film is available here (needless to say, the film contains graphic war imagery not suitable for all audiences):

20 Days in Mariupol (Mstyslav Chernov, 2023)

"An emotionally devastating account of the inhumanity of war."

"Documentary film-making rarely gets more impactful and devastating than this personalised account of life inside the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol at the start of last year’s Russian invasion."

[f1archives]

Oscar Piastri in the paddock on media day - Brazil, 2024 (📷 Kym Illman)

[tkbrokkoli]

i thought arthur finally got a rly good night's sleep but turns out this was just the beginning of a nightmare full of The Horrors

[sasa-chan]

The Bourne Legacy (2012)

[dweemeister]

Thank you for joining me for yet another yearly edition of the "31 Days of Oscar" marathon!

Casablanca (1942) Directed by Michael Curtiz

[pucksandpower]

The Kinktober 2024 Masterlist

→ Formula 1 after dark 💋

Day 1 → Cockwarming 💋 Toto Wolff

Day 2 → Chastity 💋 Max Verstappen

Day 3 → Oral Fixation 💋 Charles Leclerc

Day 4 → Bruise Marking 💋 Lando Norris

Day 5 → Size Difference 💋 Oscar Piastri

Day 6 → Daddy Kink 💋 Carlos Sainz

Day 7 → Virginity Loss 💋 Toto Wolff

Day 8 → Breeding Kink 💋 Max Verstappen

Day 9 → Overstimulation 💋 Charles Leclerc

Day 10 → Exhibitionism 💋 Kimi Räikkönen

Day 11 → Sex Pollen 💋 Max Verstappen

Day 12 → Mirror Sex 💋 Oscar Piastri

Day 13 → Temperature Play 💋 Charles Leclerc

Day 14 → Innocence Play 💋 Lewis Hamilton

Day 15 → Thigh Riding 💋 Max Verstappen

Day 16 → Remote-Controlled Vibrator 💋 Jenson Button

Day 17 → Lactation Kink 💋 Lando Norris

Day 18 → Praise Kink 💋 Charles Leclerc

Day 19 → Spreader Bar 💋 Toto Wolff

Day 20 → Menthol Cream 💋 Oscar Piastri

Day 21 → Anal 💋 Lando Norris

Day 22 → Bedding Ceremony 💋 Charles Leclerc

Day 23 → Consensual Non-Consent 💋 Max Verstappen

Day 24 → Piercing 💋 Toto Wolff

Day 25 → Monsterfucking 💋 Carlos Sainz

Day 26 → Cum Marking 💋 Charles Leclerc

Day 27 → Hunter/Prey 💋 Max Verstappen

Day 28 → A/B/O 💋 Oscar Piastri

Day 29 → BDSM 💋 Toto Wolff

Day 30 → Innocence Kink 💋 Lando Norris

Day 31 → Mind Break 💋 Charles Leclerc

Tumblr won’t let me link the final five fics for some reason but they have been published!

[macrolit]

The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.

As voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.

NYT Article.

*************

Q: How many of the 100 have you read? Q: Which ones did you love/hate? Q: What's missing?

Here's the full list.

100. Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson 99. How to Be Both, Ali Smith 98. Bel Canto, Ann Patchett 97. Men We Reaped, Jesmyn Ward 96. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman 95. Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel 94. On Beauty, Zadie Smith 93. Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel 92. The Days of Abandonment, Elena Ferrante 91. The Human Stain, Philip Roth 90. The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen 89. The Return, Hisham Matar 88. The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis 87. Detransition, Baby, Torrey Peters 86. Frederick Douglass, David W. Blight 85. Pastoralia, George Saunders 84. The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee 83. When We Cease to Understand the World, Benjamin Labutat 82. Hurricane Season, Fernanda Melchor 81. Pulphead, John Jeremiah Sullivan 80. The Story of the Lost Child, Elena Ferrante 79. A Manual for Cleaning Women, Lucia Berlin 78. Septology, Jon Fosse 77. An American Marriage, Tayari Jones 76. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin 75. Exit West, Mohsin Hamid 74. Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout 73. The Passage of Power, Robert Caro 72. Secondhand Time, Svetlana Alexievich 71. The Copenhagen Trilogy, Tove Ditlevsen 70. All Aunt Hagar's Children, Edward P. Jones 69. The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander 68. The Friend, Sigrid Nunez 67. Far From the Tree, Andrew Solomon 66. We the Animals, Justin Torres 65. The Plot Against America, Philip Roth 64. The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai 63. Veronica, Mary Gaitskill 62. 10:04, Ben Lerner 61. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver 60. Heavy, Kiese Laymon 59. Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides 58. Stay True, Hua Hsu 57. Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich 56. The Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner 55. The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright 54. Tenth of December, George Saunders 53. Runaway, Alice Munro 52. Train Dreams, Denis Johnson 51. Life After Life, Kate Atkinson 50. Trust, Hernan Diaz 49. The Vegetarian, Han Kang 48. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi 47. A Mercy, Toni Morrison 46. The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt 45. The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson 44. The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin 43. Postwar, Tony Judt 42. A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James 41. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan 40. H Is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald 39. A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan 38. The Savage Detectives, Roberto Balano 37. The Years, Annie Ernaux 36. Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates 35. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel 34. Citizen, Claudia Rankine 33. Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward 32. The Lines of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst 31. White Teeth, Zadie Smith 30. Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward 29. The Last Samurai, Helen DeWitt 28. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell 27. Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 26. Atonement, Ian McEwan 25. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc 24. The Overstory, Richard Powers 23. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, Alice Munro 22. Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine Boo 21. Evicted, Matthew Desmond 20. Erasure, Percival Everett 19. Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe 18. Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders 17. The Sellout, Paul Beatty 16. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon 15. Pachinko, Min Jin Lee 14. Outline, Rachel Cusk 13. The Road, Cormac McCarthy 12. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion 11. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz 10. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson 9. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro 8. Austerlitz, W.G. Sebald 7. The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead 6. 2666, Roberto Bolano 5. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen 4. The Known World, Edward P. Jones 3. Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel 2. The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson 1. My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante

[tpwk-formula1]

2024 Kinktober Masterlist

I have decided to do Kinktober this year! This is something I have wanted to do for awhile but I'm finally starting earlier enough to get 31 fics done in 31 days!

Every fic will have a main kink it is focused on however I will be adding TW before each fic so there is no misunderstanding on the contents of each fic.

The goal is to have each fic be between 1,000-2,000 words however some of them will be longer than others.

Day 1 - Hickeys ft. Lando Norris

Day 2 - Overstimualtion ft. Charles Leclerc

Day 3 - Thigh Riding ft. Max Verstappen

Day 4 - Threesome - MxM ft. Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris

Day 5 - Corruption (age gap) ft. Lewis Hamilton

Day 6 - Brat ft. Carlos Sainz

Day 7 - Spanking ft. Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen

Day 8 - Face Sitting ft. George Russell

Day 9 - Orgasm Denial ft. Oscar Piastri

Day 10 - Creampie ft. Charles Leclerc

Day 11 - Shower Sex ft. Oscar Piastri

Day 12 - Virginity ft. Pierre Gasly, Charles Leclerc

Day 13 - Mile high club ft. Lewis Hamilton

Day 14 - Somonophilia ft. Lando Norris

Day 15 - Public Sex ft. Oscar Piastri

Day 16 - Breeding ft. George Russell

Day 17 - Dry Humping ft. Pierre Gasly

Day 18 - Spit roast ft. Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris

Day 19 - Rough/ Aftercare ft. Charles Leclerc

Day 20 - Biting/Spitting ft. Carlos Sainz

Day 21 - Cockwarming ft. Max Verstappen

Day 22 - Squirting ft. Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris 

Day 23 - Humping/ guided masturbation ft. Oscar Piastri

Day 24 - Sex Toys ft. Pierre Gasly

Day 25 - Size Kink ft. Lewis Hamilton, George Russell

Day 26 - Sir (age gap) ft. Fernando Alonso

Day 27 - Bondage ft. Lando Norris

Day 28 - Free Use ft. Carlos Sainz, Charles Leclerc

Day 29 - Forced Orgasm ft. Carlos Sainz

Day 30 - Skinny Dipping ft. Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris

Day 31 - Orgy ft. Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz

[dweemeister]

Good luck to tonight's nominees for the 97th Academy Awards. See you on the other side of the ceremony, everyone!

Gone with the Wind (1939), David O. Selznick

[lost-in-fandoms]

Winter Warmers Day 31: NYE countdown. Maxiel. About 1.5k words.

"Max, Maxy, Maximum, Maximus Prime!"

Max turns away from his conversation with Alex just in time to catch Daniel around the waist as he stumbles into him, the drink in his cup sloshing over his wrist.

"Hello, Daniel," Max says, unable to stop himself from smiling, readjusting his grip so that he can hold Daniel more comfortably.

From the corner of his eye he catches Alex moving away, probably deciding that their conversation is over now that Daniel has Max's attention. Which is a very fair assumption, given that in all the years they've been friends, Max has always dropped anyone and anything to focus on Daniel.

Some might call it pathetic, to still be in love with his best friend after so long, but Max doesn't really care about what other people think. He just cares about Daniel's warm weight in his arms, and the fact that when all the people at this party will have left their house, Daniel will still be there, probably moving stuff around to pretend he's helping with the clean up.

"Are you having fun, Daniel?" he asks, trying to maneuver them towards the kitchen, both to clean up Daniel's wrist before he complains about the stickiness and to not feel like every single person is staring at them.

Well, every single person other than Charles and Carlos, who seem to be trying to get acquainted with each other's tonsils.

"Yes," Daniel answers, letting himself be dragged away, stumbling unhelpfully on his own feet.

Once they're in the kitchen, occupied only by Logan and Oscar, heads bent over a phone, a half empty bottle of wine next to them, Max hoists Daniel on the counter, right next to the sink, swiping away a few empty paper plates.

"Stay still, please," he tells Daniel, grateful he doesn't have to shout as much over the music anymore. They should probably start lowering that actually, if they don't want the cops called on them again, but it's new year's eve, for sure old Meredith could let it slide this once.

He plucks Daniel's cup from his hand, something of not clear nature inside it, and wets a couple paper towels, gently wiping at his wrist and hand.

"Maxy," Daniel says, dropping his head forward to rest it on Max's shoulder. He's making Max's job harder like this, but Max is not going to complain. He just hums, showing Daniel he's listening.

"I have decided on my resolutions list," Daniel tells him, sounding slightly more sober than he did before.

Max drops the paper towels and grabs an empty cup, filling it with water from the sink and handing it to Daniel, coaxing him to raise his head to drink it.

Daniel had been talking about his resolutions list for more than a week. Max is not sure why he's so set on having new year's resolutions, since in the past eight years he's known him not once Daniel has been the kind of person who follows a plan, but he's been listening anyway every time he brought the topic up.

Max doesn't understand why he's having so much trouble creating the list either. Sure, Daniel does have his moments of perfectionism, but seeing him actually get stressed about this had been puzzling.

"Yeah? Can I know it?" he asks, dropping the now empty cup when Daniel hands it to him before opening his arms, letting Daniel comfortably slump into him again.

Somewhere on his left, Logan and Oscar leave the kitchen, closing the door behind them, cutting off a little more of the noises of the party, making Max feel like he's in his private Daniel bubble for the first time this evening.

He's not ashamed of saying that he's a bit possessive, greedy about having his fair share of Daniel's time, but he's gotten better with the years. The last time Daniel had been in a relationship, Max hadn't even tried to scare them off, but they had gone anyway after a couple of months, leaving a very mopey Daniel behind. Max had keyed their car.

"First thing, I want to learn how to play the banjo," Daniel says, way too loud way too close to Max's ear.

It makes Max smile anyway, knowing this point will be abandoned in a few months at most, just like every other instrument Daniel had tried to learn, getting bored with each one of them.

"Good start," he encourages anyway, because he's nothing but disgustingly soft when it comes to Daniel, even worse when he's tipsy like tonight.

He gets rewarded by Daniel pulling back to beam at him, before going back to Max's shoulder.

Sometimes holding himself back from kissing him takes all of Max's strength.

"Then, I want to improve my handwriting."

Yep, just as Max had thought. Another task that will be abandoned, like all the other times Daniel had tried before.

"I can read your handwriting," Max tells him, because it's true. No matter the kind of drunken chicken scratch he finds on the grocery list, Max has learned to interpret it all. It's not that hard really, when you manage to recognise the subtle differences between the squiggles. Part of the game is actually learning what is supposed to be a word and what is a doodle.

"You can, because you're great," Daniel mumbles against his shirt, as Max tries to pretend he can't feel himself blushing, "but I am so tired of people complaining about it."

"People should just learn how to read," Max tells him, unhappy with someone making Daniel feel like he should change. Which is very stupid, because Daniel is perfect, chicken scratches included.

It makes Daniel laugh, waist moving under Max's hands, his wet bottom lip dragging against the exposed part of Max's shoulder.

"Do you have any more?" he rushes to ask, trying to distract himself from the feeling of it.

In the other room, the music gets lowered, and for a second Max thinks it's the cops again, until he hears someone scream two minutes!

They should probably rejoin their friends, celebrate midnight with them, but Max is quite comfortable where he is, and he doesn't want to see Daniel grab someone to kiss, even if just to laugh about it afterwards.

He had long learned his lesson, after one year he had tried to angle himself in Daniel's line of view, just for him to reach around him and grab Charles instead. Max had gotten way too drunk that night.

"One more," Daniel says, voice even lower now that the music is off and they're so close. He sounds more hesitant suddenly, nervous fingers fidgeting with the hem of Max's shirt.

"Do you want to tell me?" Max asks, just to be sure. Sometimes Daniel needs a little push before he opens up, but it's always a very thin line between getting an answer and being shut out with a joke instead. This time Daniel nods.

"I want to suck your dick."

Max chokes on his spit, trying to push back Daniel to be able to see his face, feeling his eyes go wide.

It wouldn't be the first time they joke about it, but Daniel doesn't sound like he's joking, and if this is a prank Max is going to get very drunk again and probably go cry in the bathroom, but...

But when he manages to push Daniel's head up, he's blushing and he's looking at Max from underneath his lashes, fear and determination mixing on his face.

"You mean it?" Max forces himself to ask, sounding breathless. His heart is beating too fast, so loud he's sure Daniel can hear it too.

Daniel nods, one corner of his mouth turning up in a shadow of his usual smile.

"My last resolution is to stop lying to myself about my feelings for you," he says.

It echoes around his brain, bouncing around and amplifying: feelings for you feelings for you feelings for you feelings for you.

In the other room someone starts the countdown, and Max reaches forward, cupping Daniel's jaw with his hands.

"Are you gonna buy me dinner first?" he asks, just to see Daniel smile properly.

"Can I do it next year?"

Max rolls his eyes, but he still chuckles, weak for Daniel always, even when it's his bad jokes.

Three, two, one...

On the other side of the door sound explodes, their friends cheering and screaming, but Max barely hears it as he presses his lips against Daniel's.

(George screams when he opens the door to come grab the champagne chilling in the fridge and finds them making out against the counter, Max's thigh between Daniel's. The new wave of cheers that follows it is so loud Max starts mentally preparing his apologies for old Meredith and the cops, even as he copies Daniel in flipping them all off.)