#i just have to pass my final friday otherwise i wont be able to go

[imyourforeverbestfriendarmygurl]

QUARATINE DAY 24

I would've started Day 1 if only I remembered it right away or let's just say if I'm not that lazy to write lol this is Day 24 and I'm still stuck in the Philippines (no offense I like it here) but I'm supposed to go back March 28th but the government decided to shut down operations and no flight will resume until further notice so yeah I'm stuck here.. it was cool because I came back for a reason and that reason I can't share it with you lets just say for my heart only. I'm stuck and prolly would've been fired from work because it's been too long idk really but my heart is happy that's for sure, I got what I needed, I heard what I need to hear, I'm glad I went back, most people say otherwise but still who cares I'm happy, the 1st couple weeks I was here was Fantastic.. they're already like announcing lockdowns a lil bit so we had to do groceries real quick when He messaged me and said he wanted to come home he got stuck in his apartment close to work and theres no way they can go because public transportation stopped operations, I felt I had to do something, we have private car so we can actually fetch them, 1st thing is I don't drive here so I had to convince my brother to drive, I was so nerby because my brother and I won't get along sometimes so I'm scared to ask him, 2nd they're putting checkpoints already by city/provinces idt they're gonna allow us to go and get them.. my hearts pounding real loud I'm so nerby..ofcourse I wanted to get him out there, but the struggle is real, he messaged me again and said "I needed to stay here till friday.. if by anychance you can fetch me friday would be a good day" I ignored it since I don't have the courage to ask my brother yet, the next day I ask my sister in law (brothers wife) and she's cool with the idea so my brother said yes and we were off to get them :

We tried passing check points but the 1st one wouldn't allow us to go.. I was still messaging him and told him that checkpoints wont let us.. He said we need a certificate of some sort of proof that we are from the city so they would let us comeback so we had to go to "barangay hall" but "Municipal City Hall" is closer and higher authority so my brother decided to go there instead.. he then dropped me off and I had to speak to someone regarding travel pass :

I was really nervy and doesn't know what to do so I've waited for the person to talk to me..she din't even get my ID or anything she just right away told me they're not releasing travel pass unless your a business owner or relief operation so I went out back in the car.. I was losing hope to get him, I messaged him and told him that municipality din't gave us what we need but we ain't giving up.. we gone try "barangay hall" he's losing hope too and is very shy because I'm making my way to get him (things you do for love I guess joke) my brother said "do you want to try barangay hall and if they wont give us anything try again tomorrow? Are we cool?" I'm like okay sure.. so we went.. he dropped me off again and some "higher positioned" guy was already shouting in my face like he's mad because people aren't following rules another guy came to the rescue and ask me what I needed I said travel pass so he immediately took my ID and gave it to the girl processing stuff, the girl then asked us to fill up these :

So we did..I kind off feeling it already, like there's hope in all this.. we've waited for hours until the girl released these:

Such a relief at this point.. I messaged him again and he told me he and a friend went back home losing hope and thanking me for all the efforts of getting them.. Told him we've got it and that in 20 minutes or less we'll be there in their front yard, the road was so clear, no cars or anything so the travel was perfectly easy

Finally were able to get them and He stayed with us for a week (different post lol) the end.

[imaginesofeverykind]

I Miss You || Sam Drake x Reader ||

characters: Sam Drake x Reader

Fandom: Uncharted. 

Request: Yes! Thank you, this one was similar to the other one but I decided to do them separately [Could you do a sam drake x reader where they have break up because of a fight and the reader's now living with nate and elena and cassie and at the end (after drama) they made up? Mouahaha #dramaqueen]

Prompt: You find out Sam’s been lying to you about what he does as a profession, you two argue but you already made up your mind and leave him. Nate reaches out to you and offers you a place to stay while things mull over and after some time, Sam shows up. 

Tags: @rafeadderall @missdictatorme @dragonjedihobbit @shararogers

Word Count: 2,074

A/N: Lmaoo pretty sure I was dozing off when I wrote this so if this is bad I AM SORRy 

“I know.” The words left your lips were enough to drain the colour from Sam’s face. His mind stuttered, trying to think of an explanation as to why he lied to you. The two of you hit it off in a bar two years ago and had been together ever since. Sam however tried to keep his working life separate from his love life, telling you that he was an esteemed businessman and often went on business trips across america, but that wasn’t the case at all.

He even had his brother lie for him on several occasions to make sure you were kept in the dark on what he actually did for a living. Truth be told he only did it because he was afraid of what might of would happen to you if he pissed off the wrong people. He didn’t want to be responsible for causing your death or getting you hurt. 

“What... what do you know?” His breath was shaky, he stood just a few feet from you and he was hoping that you weren’t about to voice his biggest fear. “I know you’ve been lying to me this whole time, what did you think that I wouldn’t find out? Jesus christ, Sam!” You ran your hands through your hair, and sighed. 

Stepping forward, he reached out to you only for you to step back and shake your head. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I just thought-.” you cut him off with a glower, “you just thought what? You thought that you could continue lying to me this whole time? Sam what if you had gotten hurt or worse? Killed? You leave with little to no explanation and only call when it suits you. I-I can’t believe this.” 

You were long past upset, you were now just angry and frustrated. “I just wanted to keep you safe...” he admitted, his shoulders slouching and his head dropping down, he knew he screwed up, he should’ve told you sooner. But he always told himself ‘not today’ because he wanted to avoid the topic. 

“I can’t...I can’t.” You stammered and shook your head profusely, Sam’s eyes widened and he walked up to you, he knew exactly what was running through your mind, “oh, no, no baby, I’m sorry, please don’t leave.” Seeing the pain in his eyes is what started the waterworks, the tears spilling down your cheeks as you could see him desperately try to cling onto you. 

Your face contorted into anger and sadness, of course you didn’t want to leave him but how could you be with someone who was so willing to lie to you. Who knew what else he lied about to you. “You lied, Sam. I can’t be with someone who is content with lying to my face for two years.” You pushed him away lightly and walked past him, making a bee-line to your room.

Sam knew he screwed up big time, the feeling he felt was surreal to him, how calm this argument had been with minor outbursts. He slumped down on the couch his head in his hands and just exhaled deeply. You had always been stubborn, once you made your mind up that was that, it took incredible convincing for you to change your mind. 

Knowing that there was nothing he could possibly bring himself to say would be able to change your mind, and as much as it killed him hearing the front door close he could only sit in silence, reflecting on his thoughts. 

You weren’t exactly too sure where you wanted to go, you just knew that you had to leave and you had your reasons. You stood outside on the street for well over twenty minutes, just staring blankly, reflecting on your choice. Had you regretted it? Yeah, you sure a shit did, but you couldn’t stay with someone who lied to you for so long. 

Breaking from your intense dull stare, you hadn’t realised you were crying until the cool air dried out the wetness of your cheeks. Where you were going to next was on your mind, you had no family to turn too for support. You tried to pick up your mood slightly and decided to book a hotel room to stay the night so you could plan out your next movements. 

It was nothing too fancy, just a bed and a bathroom and quiet so you could think. Oh how you wish you could just get up and go back home, your chest ached and you yearned for Sam but the hurt was what stood in the way of you going back to him. 

At just around 9 P.M. your phone vibrated on the end of the bed, you didn’t spare it a glance at first knowing that if you saw who was calling you’d most definitely pick up without a second though. But after the fifth time it vibrated relentlessly you picked up, surprised that it was in fact the younger Drake brother trying to reach out to you.

“Hey.” Your voice came out as a squeak as you played with the frayed strands of your ripped jeans. There was a pause before Nate sighed on the other end of the phone, “I just heard what happened...” he trailed off making the tears start back up again. “I’m fine, Nate. You don’t need to worry.” You tried assuring him, but your words got caught in your throat and indicated otherwise. 

“No, you’re not Y/N... the least I can do for you is to offer you somewhere to stay, until this whole thing blows over...” His voice was calming and soothed you, “That’s the thing Nate, this wont blow over.” Your face contorted into hurt as more tears dropped. “Don’t say that, I know you, the both of you, whatever it is you two are fighting about, after you two get some space you’ll be back together in no time.” 

Great, you thought. Nate doesn’t even know. Despite being on the phone you shook your head, “Not this time.” your voice whispered so delicately Nate almost didn’t hear the words pass your lips. He sighed over the phone clearly in deep thought, “would you please put my mind at rest and just stay with us, for a few weeks at least until I know you’re okay.” 

You had no idea how much you meant to Nate up until this moment, in fact it didn’t really twig that you meant so much to both brothers, Elena and even little Cassie. Knowing you’d regret the decision you resisted saying yes, but finally caved in, promising that you’d be at his door by tomorrow.

When that time came you had calmed down quite a bit, you ran your tear ducts dry from the night before but it still didn’t make the hurt lessen, the ache in your chest was still as strong as it was the night before. Elena had greeted you at the door, she tried her hardest not to look at you with pity and sorrow. However out of everyone she was the one who understood what you were going through the most. 

“How are you holding up?” She smiled, wrapping her arms around you in a tight hug. “I’ve been better.” You admitted hugging her tightly back. “Come inside, Nate’s out shopping for groceries with Cassie... I thought we could have our own talk before they get back.” You cracked a small smile, “Nate’s grocery shopping? that’s unheard of.” 

Elena laughed and sat herself down at the dining room table where she had copious amounts of articles she had stacked beside her laptop, “I didn’t believe it at first either... Ah, look at that smile I can tell you’re already feeling better.” You had sat on the chair beside her and shrugged looking down. 

“Wanna tell me what happened?” Her eyes softened as you started to slowly tell her the events of yesterday, you tried not to let it get to you as you finished filling her in but it was hard to fight the tears now. Elena comforted you, put a supportive hand on your shoulder and smiled sympathetically at you, “you wanna know something?” Her voice was soft but managed to get your attention.

“What?” You wiped away your tears with the back of your hand. “I know what you’re going through, in fact those Drake brothers have a horrible habit of lying to their partners. I would know, I’ve married Nate twice now and came this close to divorcing him once upon a time.” She fiddled with the ring on her ring finger but instead of frowning and reminiscing on what could have been, a smile pulled on her lips as she thought of the present. 

You chuckled lightly but were surprised, you never knew this about Nate or Elena. “Look, I still think Sam should’ve said something to you at least. That’s another shitty drake trait, they don’t know that us women always find out the truth. But you have to ask yourself Y/N ‘is this really worth ending things over?’ it’s not like he’s done anything else bad to you before...”

Elena was so convincing with her words, in fact you felt so much better after talking to someone who understood exactly what was going on in your head. You still weren’t ready to face him. But you were most definitely ready to forgive him after a week spent in the other Drake Household. 

You kept yourself busy during the days, you cleaned around the house for them so much to the extent that they had to hide the broom and vacuum cleaner from you to stop you from cleaning, and they also banned you from the kitchen because you had a tendency to cook for a family of seventeen people not a family of three, well, four. 

A lot of the time you watched tv and bonded more with Cassie, she was only just about to turn eleven and yet she managed to provide the emotional support you needed to get through the lulls of the day.

Friday came, you had been gone roughly a week before Sam came knocking at his brothers door. You answered it, given that no one else was home. You weren’t sure who else you expected to see on the other side of the door, but you still acted surprised to see Sam standing on the other side of the door. “Hey.” He greeted weakly, you stepped aside and too greeted him with near silence, “hey.” the voice was barely above a whisper and it was a surprise he heard her. 

“I just...uh, came to see how you were doing?” Sam scratched the back of his neck nervously and stepped inside the cozy home. “Oh.. i’m--i’m good...” You trailed off awkwardly before shaking your head, “actually... I’m being honest with you, I think last night was the only night I didn’t cry myself to sleep.. Every time I think of you I feel sick and sad and -- I miss you...”

You tried to stay strong but seeing Sam just made a wave of emotions crash into you. He was stunned at what you said, he sure wasn’t expecting anything of the sort but hearing you say you missed him made his heart beat faster and that exceptional nausea in his stomach to flourish. 

“And, I get why you didn’t tell me the truth... its also reassuring knowing Nate’s done the exact same thing and if Elena and Nate made it work then we can.” You played with your fingers as he looked to you in awe, he had not expected his visit to end with such a high. “You really mean that?” He asked, waiting patiently for an answer. “I mean it.” You answered, a smile on your face faintly. 

“I’ll never lie to you again, baby. I promise.” He started to walk over to you, outstretching his arms for a hug, you put a hand on his chest to stop him, “Oh i know, because if you do it again I’ll be pissed.” You warned, he wasn’t sure whether you were joking or serious so he was stuck at which way he supposed to react to her words. “Just hug me goddammit.” Once in a tight warm embrace, each others heart ache had healed and they no longer felt sad and down. All was good again. 

[undeadpsycho13]

a cup of coffee to warm my icy heart

AHHHHHH GUYS LOOK IM SO SO SO SORRRRRRYYYYYY I SWEAR I HAD THIS FINISHED LAST FRIDAY I JUST FORGOT IM SORRRRYYYYY

i know this chapter is one week overdue, and i hope u guys can forgive me.  i swear i had it done ages ago, just forgot to post it. also, its more than twice the length of the first chapter, if that makes up for anything.

thank you to @puzzle-of-life-reason-for-death​ for the reminder, this chapter is for you!! :D

btw, some chinese swear words are involved, and the translations are at the bottom. if u dont like them, rlly sorry, i just thought it might be fun, cause you know, both baits and an speak chinese canon, and so do i, so why not?

tell me if u dont like it, i wont include them in the next chapter

otherwise, enjoy~~ ^_~

CHAPTER 2: JUST A TINY PART OF ME (FELL IN LOVE WITH YOU)

The second time was not so much of an accident, but oh well, not-accidents happen all the time, don’t they?

The annoying door ringing speaker thing once again announced Baitsakhan’s appearance at Endgame.  A very pissed Baitsakhan.  A very pissed Baitsakhan who had not had coffee in the last three days and was currently dying of lack of caffeine in his bloodstream.  Red Bull was a poor substitute; he needed freaking coffee.  The darker, the better.  The scene from last week flashed back in his face, and Baitsakhan cringed a little on the inside.  He was not willing to make a fool of himself again.

He had surprised both his sister and An by staying away from coffee for four days, and then couldn’t help but get some coffee from The Starbucks.  At least he had figured out the barista’s name.  Hilal Ibn Isa Al-Salt.  He was awful proud of his memory; who on earth had long-ass names like that?  For once, he was appreciative of his unique, surname-less name.

But the Al-Salt guy’s infuriating niceness had gotten the better of him, and he had once again scared Baitsakhan away with a honey-bee-pesticide-banning petition.  Who cares whether bees died?  Screw them.

The absence of a sufficient amount of caffeine, however, was not his only problem.  The Phone Guy (as baitsakhan had deemed him) had texted him back, albeit the dire-sounding warning, with a outrageous reply of, omg so sry got the wrong # D: rlly rlly sry :(.  And then, of all the emojis he could have typed, he chose the freaking <3.

Needless to say, Baitsakhan was pissed.  No one, no one the whole damn world, was allowed to send him a heart emoji (save Sarangerel and An’s incredibly sweet girlfriend Chiyoko, but that as different), and yet this complete stranger had taken it upon himself (or herself, he added as an afterthought) to send him one.  This was an outrage.  He would not dignify this text with an answer, he thought to himself.

So, naturally, he just had to go to that nice coffee shop to calm himself down.  Just had to.  And it had nothing to do with wanting to the hot barista.  Absolutely nothing.

Seating himself at the table closest to the window, he took out his phone, absent-mindedly scrolling through his playlist.  

An indefinite amount of time passes.  

And then, out of the blue, a hand suddenly tapped him shoulder, and, startled, he whipped around, teeth bared, hands out in front of him in an offensive position, ready to gouge the offenders eyeballs out ––

The cute barista (Maccabee, his mind supplied) is, apparently, said offender.

Great, there’s another person who thinks he’s a psychopathic weirdo (not that he isn’t, but still).

But instead of freaking out at his overreaction, the guy laughs.  Who even does that after a near-death experience? (Okay, maybe he’s exaggerating, but there’s no denying this guy was weird.)

“Chill dude, just here to take your order.”

Met with Baitsakhan’s blank look, the guy raises a perfectly arched eyebrow.

“Look, I love having you here, but if you don’t order something, like, right now, I’m going to have to kick you out, ’cause I just got this job and I really don’t want to lose it.  You know, you’ve been sitting here for like half an hour doing nothing.”

Holy hell, he’s been wasting thirty minutes doing nothing?!  Scrambling up (in a very dignified way, of course), he says, in a voice he hopes is impassive,

“Sure, I’ll have an espresso or something, like that thing you made last time.  If you don’t remember, I’ll just have the thing with the most caffeine.”

Maccabee (again, this is all his brain’s doing, there is no way Baitsakhan would consciously remember people’s names, even super hot guys) laughs at that, shaking his head.

“Of course I remember, who would be able to forget the order of the cutest guy we’ve had here since I started working?”

The blond is nice to enough not show any visible reaction to the way Baitsakhan’s face burns a deep red color at his comment, and instead smiles a bit lopsidedly and turns to go.  Suddenly he pauses, turns back to face the noirette, and before Baitsakhan can do anything the older teen quickly winks, so fast it was almost missed, and continues on towards the counter.

For the next five minutes, until Maccabee comes back with his drink, Baitsakhan just sits there, eyes wide, mouth gaping like a fish, shell-shocked.  Even then all he can do is close his mouth and nod his head politely.

A buzz from his phone catches his attention, finally rousing him from his stupor.  For a moment, he thinks that it’s the Phone Guy again, but when he see’s "Asian Hacker Lovebird”, he smiles to himself and swipes the screen sideways to reply.  Though he would never admit it, An crashing into his life nine years ago really made his life better a thousand-fold.  He remembered first arriving in North America, a bitter, parent-less seven year-old, small for his age but savage and aggressive, despite the language barrier.  Oh, he learned English in his due time, but back then, really all he could say were a few basic swear words that immediately earned him half a dozen enemies.  The one person he gravitated towards was a kid in the year above him, a Chinese boy who was all glares and rule-breaking and rebellious behaviour.  Looking at his slim frame and lanky form, people would be led to falsely believe that An was all bark and no bite.  

They couldn’t be more wrong.  

Professional in at least ten different types of martial arts and an expert at (illegal) poisons and (illegal) hacking, An was definitely a formidable opponent.  Baitsakhan’s type of guy.  They were the perfect pair, both cold and haughty at school and in public.  No one needed to know they played video games together well into the night and had weird movie marathons on a regular basis and smiled until their face’s hurt and laughed until they couldn’t breathe.

He was a good friend, cynical, with a dry sense of humor.

Right now, however, not so much.

asian hacker lovebird: where r u????

asian hacker lovebird: baits

asian hacker lovebird: answer me child

asian hacker lovebird: ANSWER ME CHILD

im-not-smol: Piss off.

asian hacker lovebird: THE CHILD IS HERE

im-not-smol: Don’t call me a child.

asian hacker lovebird: i repeat where r u

im-not-smol: A cafe.

asian hacker lovebird: specify

im-not-smol: Endgame Cafe.

asian hacker lovebird: U MEAN!!!

asian hacker lovebird: LIKE DA 1 W/ DA HOT BARISTA U RANT ABT 24/7??!!!!

asian hacker lovebird: OMG STAY RIGHT THERE DONT MOVE IMMA JOIN U

im-not-smol: Don’t you dare.

im-not-smol: 傻逼

asian hacker lovebird: oh no u did NOT just call me that

asian hacker lovebird: now i need 2 come 2 beat u up

asian hacker lovebird: it is a MUST

asian hacker lovebird: see ya in 2 min

im-not-smol: 王八蛋

asian hacker lovebird: SHUT UP JUST SHUT UP IMMA COME OVER RN 2 BEAT UP UR STUPID ASS

im-not-smol: You can try. ;)

asian hacker lovebird: challenge accepted ur goin DOWN boi

im-not-smol: We’ll see about that.

asian hacker lovebird: ur “impecable grammar” rlly pisses me off

asian hacker lovebird: *imppecable

asian hacker lovebird: ugh

asian hacker lovebird: smthn watevr i kant spel

im-not-smol: It’s not my fault you turned autocorrect off.

asian hacker lovebird: when will u eva learn 2 txt like a normal person???

asian hacker lovebird: 好落后

asian hacker lovebird: just sayin

im-not-smol: Shut up.

asian hacker lovebird: look up

Baitsakhan raised his head, only to be met with the sight of a very distorted face right next to his head.  And of course he didn’t scream Jesus Christ and shriek like a little girl, what are you talking about?

The weird twisted face outside morphed into a wicked grin and the doorbell rang once again as another customer entered, tears of mirth still apparent in his eyes.  This new comer looked quite out of the ordinary, tall and dressed in nothing but black and silver, a face that was all harsh angles and sharp corners and pale skin.  A contrasting red teardrop tattoo stood out, leaking out of his right eye, and his strange hair style earned him quite a few looks from the other customers.

“You’re so stupid.”

“Shut up, you will speak of this to no one, understand?”

Most people would quake with fear at the aggressive tone, but An just rolls his eyes,

“Normal people don’t speak like ancient three-hundred year-old vampires, Baits.”

He drops down on the chair opposing Baitsakhan’s, leaning back and crossing his legs, stretching them out in front of him, a picture of complete ease.

“So, where’s the hot shot?” An says in a mock-whisper tone.  Baitsakhan glares at him before subtly motioning towards the counter, where Maccabee is leaning against it, his phone one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.  For a moment, An just stares, a small smirk on his face (not that the smirk ever disappears), whistling appreciatively.  And then, out of the blue, he shouts, so loud that he attracts probably the attention of everyone else in the mile radius,

“Hey there, aren’t employees not supposed to serve themselves?”

Startled, Maccabee looks up.  He sees An’s triumphant expression and Baitsakhan’s kill-me-now-please-just-shoot-me-and-save-me-from-the-torture one, and kind of gathers what happened.  A lazy smile slips onto his face.  He walks over, leisurely, still holding the half-finished drink.

“You’re right.  But… ”  He pauses for effect, and in that short amount of time An actually gets around to rolling his eyes again.  The boy really gets a lot of practice.

“I’m off duty.  Ais over there took over for me.”

He gestures at a red-headed girl who has somehow managed to escape their notice until then.  For a moment, a strange look flits across Baitsakhan’s face, but as quickly as it got materialises, it disappears.

An shrugs.

“Oh.  Good for you.”  He says awkwardly.

There’s an uncomfortable silence, like the type when someone ought to say something but nobody does, before Baitsakhan finally interjects,

“Thanks for the coffee, but I think my friend and I should get going.” Here he pointedly glares at An, who stares innocently at the ceiling.  

“How much is it again?”

Maccabee shrugs,

“Don’t worry about it, as long as you come again, it’s on the house.”

He winks suggestively.

Baitsakhan, of course, agrees.  After all, who could say no to a free cup of coffee, right?  And obviously, obviously it had no correlation to the fact that he actually wanted to come back to ogle the baristas.  Duh, no.

When he first visited the coffee shop, Baitsakhan never imagined he would meet someone like this who flirted blatantly and paid for his drinks.  When he first exited the coffee shop, he never thought he would come back again.  When he came back the second time, he never thought that this place would impact his previously non-existent love life.

Only when they are outside the door, Baitsakhan for the second time, An the first, and An is laughing at his lovestruck (Baitsakhan would deny this) expression that Baitsakhan realises that maybe, maybe a tiny part of him has fallen in love with Maccabee.

(Just a tiny part.)

CHAPTER INDEX (for your convenience)

1 | 2

so. how’d you guys like it?

here are the translations:

傻逼 = dumbass/idiot

王八蛋 = its like f    er (sry, i rlly dont like swearing in english in writing, i feel like ppl will track me down and yell at me)

好落后 = so behind (as in trends, like in the context of not caught up on the latest trends)

hope that cleared things up a bit, if not feel free to send me a quick message, and i’ll explain to you in detail.

anyways, any suggestions for the next chapter?? (i really need to change the texting usernames, any suggestions for the individual characters?? eventually all of the players are gonna get involved one way or another in the texting conversations)

[theconservativebrief]

Who among us can resist getting a little verklempt upon hearing the strains of some familiar Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood song? Hum with me:

It’s such a good feeling to know you’re alive It’s such a happy feeling, you’re growing inside And when you wake up ready to say, “I think I’ll make a snappy new day!”

Generations of American children now have grown up watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, in part because it runs on public television, something that Fred Rogers himself was instrumental in saving. Somewhere between a playmate, an affable uncle or grandpa, and a fairy godfather, Rogers’s slow and compassionate approach to children’s television ran counter to what we typically expect of TV shows for kids; there are no bright, flashy, fast-moving cartoons or slapstick humor in his neighborhood, just simple, direct conversation and storytelling. You got the feeling he cared.

Those same qualities might seem to disqualify Rogers from being a very good subject for a documentary, unless it’s the kind that “exposes” a public figure. But Morgan Neville’s documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor tackles him anyway, and comes to the benign conclusion that Fred Rogers was, in fact, the guy he appeared to be. It’s a gentle film that doesn’t take a lot of risks but doesn’t really need to. Fred Rogers was a kind and gentle man who saw children as important, his work as ministry, and kindness as essential to human existence.

So the main goal of Won’t You Be My Neighbor is to convince us that while kindness and empathy are in short supply today, it need not be that way. Through interviews with Rogers’s close collaborators and friends (his wife, several performers, and the head of the Fred Rogers Center), archival footage (some of it rare), and interstitial animated segments, the film builds out a portrait of a man who saw in the new technology of television an opportunity to communicate with a generation of children and tell them that they were special just the way they were.

And in 2018, that makes him a subversive figure.

The film opens with black-and-white footage of Fred Rogers in 1967, playing a piano and then using a musical metaphor to explain, in the familiar gentle cadence that somehow never comes off as patronizing, that one of his jobs is “to help children through the modulations of life.” What he means is helping children figure out how to express and regulate their emotions during exciting, scary, and confusing moments they encounter in life: dealing with bullies, experiencing parents’ divorce, feeling uncertain about the future, and going through frightening world events.

David Newell and Fred Rogers in Won’t You Be My Neighbor. Focus Features

That last one — the world events that children in the late 1960s and onward have had a greater awareness of, in part due to the very medium Rogers worked in — is a key part of Won’t You Be My Neighbor. Neville (Best of Enemies, 20 Feet from Stardom) is less interested in giving us a straightforward cradle-to-grave account of Rogers’s life than in making an argument around his subject. That argument is that Fred Rogers’s worldview, a kind of humanism that had roots in Rogers’s Christianity but expressed itself as a commitment to everyone’s dignity, is what helped many navigate the scariest events of childhood (RFK’s assassination, the Columbia shuttle explosion). And the power of that worldview, the film suggests, doesn’t stop when childhood ends.

The film is structured around those big world events. The first episodes of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood aired in 1968, amid heated political debates about borders and wars. On the show, King Friday (the stern monarch of the Land of Make-Believe) erected a border fence of his own around his castle, and was convinced to take it down only by messages of goodwill and peace that other characters (both puppet and human) floated over the fence.

The parallels are almost too obvious (a border wall in the first week, 50 years ago?), but this really was the way the show started, and the film carefully shows how Rogers went on to gently and subtly address other cultural battles. In one segment that aired during pitched battles about integration, he soaks his feet in a small wading pool outside his home, then invites the black mailman to cool his feet in the pool with him. Today, a shot of the two men’s feet in the same pool may register as little more than a nice image, but Won’t You Be My Neighbor splices the show’s footage together with images from that time of black children being chased out of a public pool. Rogers knew what he was doing.

Sections like this are the strongest in the movie, straightforwardly told with historical footage to contextualize the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood segments and to remind us what it was like, as children, to see an assassination or explosion on TV and wonder what it meant for the future. Rogers’s commitment to addressing these events is framed as stemming from two things: his Christian faith (he was an ordained Presbyterian minister, and many interviewees talk about how he saw the show as “ministry”) and his deep interest in child psychology. Those two things led him to believe that children’s emotions were important to address and talk through, and he spent his life doing just that.

“The space between the TV screen and whoever is watching is ‘very holy ground,’” Rogers says in archival footage at one point.

What’s so striking about Won’t You Be My Neighbor isn’t really onscreen, though. It’s the effect the film has on the audience, and what that reveals about us.

As a number of critics have noted, what’s so startling about the movie is the revelation that Mr. Rogers was, as far as anyone seems to be able to tell, basically the person he presented himself to be onscreen. And more importantly, that’s unexpected. Watching the film, it’s hard to believe it’s true. Even after seeing the film, it seems a bit suspect, as if a story of a hidden crime will eventually come to light if we just wait long enough.

That we expect this so keenly (and fear it just as sharply) tells you almost everything you need to know about the times we live in. And it’s reflective of a conversation that many women have been having during the era of #MeToo — making lists in private conversations of the men we know or respect whom we’d be shocked and genuinely devastated to discover were predators. They’re very short lists.

If as a nation we were to make one of those lists, Fred Rogers would almost certainly be on it. The man who told us through the TV every day when we were children about our own worth, about feeling our emotions and then learning to control them, about living in harmony with other people — we need that man.

Thankfully, what Won’t You Be My Neighbor turns up is just that man, and a crowd of people who loved him. That’s probably why just watching the trailer of the film can induce weeping: It’s jarring to realize how much his simple message still makes sense, and how little it is evident in our public life.

And maybe most uncomfortably, the film surfaces why. There’s a clip near the end of the film in which a talking head on Fox News decries Rogers and the “narcissistic society he gave birth to.” I briefly expected the audience at my screening to riot, because it was such a plainly stupid response to what we’d just seen.

Fred Rogers believed in radical kindness. Focus Features

But it’s also a good example of the confusion that marks public discourse today, in which kindness far too often is decried as weakness, courtesy as political correctness run amok, respect as pandering, and the belief in each individual’s dignity and worth as narcissism. These things can all go in toxic directions, of course. But it seems clear that ordinary, old-fashioned goodness has gone out of fashion.

Rogers, the film proposes, was interested in “making goodness attractive in this next millennium,” as he says in a PBS segment recorded late in his life. The idea that everyone has inherent dignity was obvious to him; if you say otherwise, for him, “you might as well go against the fundamentals of Christianity.”

After all, Jesus’s answer to someone who asked him “Who is my neighbor?” was to tell the story of the Good Samaritan, a parable in which the most “righteous” and powerful members of his own society passed by a man lying in a ditch on the side of the road. Who finally rescues him and cares for him? A Samaritan — the people whom Jesus’s listeners considered to be less worthy of dignity and respect than themselves. There’s no chance that Fred Rogers, an ordained Presbyterian minister, didn’t have this story in mind when he structured his entire show around the concept of neighbors.

And you can’t miss the parallels to today. Rogers was against the fast-paced children’s programming of his time that, as he saw it, found most of its humor in denigrating its characters’ dignity via pratfalls and cartoonish violence; it’s an easy line from that to the loud and shallow form that cable news uses to get its adult viewers addicted. Similarly, his slow, self-effacing, and deliberate way of speaking, with a gaze that made his audience certain he was paying attention only to them, is in stark contrast to all kinds of public figures today, not least the one leading our country.

So while Won’t You Be My Neighbor isn’t a particularly inventive film as a piece of cinema — its choices are expected, and we’re still left with questions about how Rogers’s work shaped his own life — that may in the end be for the best. The film succeeds on the radically subversive and obvious notions we learned when we were children: that being nice is not a weakness; that speaking with care is a thing we do simply because we believe the person we’re talking to is a human being with worth and dignity. What’s most startling about Won’t You Be My Neighbor, and what makes it feel almost elegiac, is how very jarring that message feels.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor opens in limited cities on June 8 and will expand over the following weeks.

Original Source -> The Fred Rogers documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor feels radically subversive

via The Conservative Brief